I call bull on this... the number of player generated hooks is in no way dictated or facilitated any better in 4e than in any other edition.
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The metagame in 4e is gamist/tactical in nature though, based more off correct numbers and math than any type of narrative concerns
Well, obviously you're entitled to your opinion. But I don't agree.
The metagame in 4e isn't especially gamist at all. XP rewards arise on a more-or-less "per real time unit of play" basis. XP, even for indidivual accomplishments, accrues to the whole party. The GM is encouraged, by the encounter-buildig guidelines, to build encounters (both combat and non-combat) that enable the players to engage, via their PCs, in an interesting fashion. Treasure is also accrued on a more-or-less proportionate basis to XP (at so many parcels per leve).
This doesn't look all that gamist to me. Where's the competition? Where's the Step On Up?
On the other hand, look at paragon paths compared to prestige classes: expressly in the hands of the player rather than the GM. Same for epic destinies (as I've been saying). Look at the retraining rules. Look at the way that skill challenges are built, to open up the space for players to engage with the situation presented by the GM. Look at how combat powers work, with the range of control features to permit players to engage with the situation presented by the GM (this is less true for some classes than others - there's a reason the 4e archer-ranger is considered the "fighter" of this edition, the class you would give a newbie to play because it doesn't enagage the full and complex mechanical spectrum of the game). Look at page 42, which not only enjoins the GM to "say yes" but goes some way to giving the mechanical tools to do so.
There's a non-simulationist trend here, and in my view it's not especially about gamism. It's about players leading the game rather than the GM providing a prepared world and/or story for the players to explore. (And to link this back to the OP - that's
why the default setting takes the "vibe and atmosphere" form that it does.)
Of course again, the number of mechanical indicators does not in fact correlate to the number of PC generated hooks and whether or not the DM sees fit to place them in his campaign.
In 3E, when I build an elf PC, it's entirely at the discretion of the GM whether or not my elvishness comes into play.
In 4e, when I build an eladrin PC, the Feywild is
already in play, due to this choice that
I, the player, made. Not only do I have an encounter power that is a Feywild-based teleport, but there is all this backstory in the PHB about the relationship between eladrin, the world and the Feywild which my PC brings into the game. And I can amp this up further, if I want, when I choose my paragon path. Or when I choose to be a Fey Pact Warlock. Or any other of a range of choices that a player can make that shape the gameworld and bring aspects of into play.
Now if you choose to ignore all these features of the rulebooks, and to play the game with the same relationship between GM, players and gameworld as is envisaged by the AD&D rulebooks, there's nothing stopping you. But that doesn't tell us anything about the sort of play that the rulebooks are actually written to support.
Now I can understand if you enjoy gamist vs. simulationist mechanics better but claiming they objectively do this type of play better than simulationism and are on par with purposefully narrative rules, like HQ, seems quite a stretch.
I regard it as pretty obvious that 4e
has purposefully narrativist rules. That's why it has skill challenge rules that are pretty close, in overall resolution structure and impact on pacing, to HQ's extended contest rules. That's why it gives the players access to character build options that bring the gameworld into play, just as do HQ's character build rules (even the fact that the players choose of a list isn't radically different from a HQ Glorantha game, where a lot of the relationship and other keywords might be chosen off a pre-published list).
To me, this impression is only reinforced by
Rob Heinsoo' express comments about the resemblance of 4e to indie game design.
I also don't see how their chooice of what skill to use (which is something they have the power to decide in almost any edition of D&D) makes 4e better than any other edition at hero-questing.
Because hero-questing, if it is to be an interesting part of the game, as opposed to just a high-level romp, requires the players to be able to engage the myth in a way that speaks to them, in order to transform the gameworld in a way that speaks to their realword thematic concerns. This mechanical feature of 4e is one of the ways that it facilitates this moreso than more simulationist games.
you're judging the whole of Planescape by one module.
OK. Give me an example, from Planescape, of a myth which (i) explains a contemporary feature of the gameworld that is thematically powerful, and (ii) which the players might engage and transform, via having their PCs heroquesting.
I'll give two examples from 4e - one from The Plane Above, on from Underdark.
[sblock]The Plane Above describes Erathis's game of making: the Dawn War between gods and primordials thwarted the creation of the Lattice of Heaven. This is then one important cause of the disarray and imperfection of the contemporary world. Erathis hopes to rebuild the Lattice, but this requires fully realising the ideal of creation, by making everything that can be made - even things that (by the lights of commonsense) might be better off not being made.
This presents a situation that the players can engage either in the present of the gameworld, or by heroquesting back to the Dawn War. What's at stake are values like order, innovation, perfection, trade-offs of short-term suffering for long-term gain, etc etc.
The Underdark describes Lolth's entrappment of Tharizdun, and rescue of the universe from his threat, by binding creation back together with her webs. Attacking Lolth therefore, apparently, risks loosing Tharizdun and his entropy. But leaving her alone risks the drow increasing in power and spreading more suffering. What should the PCs do? Can they, by heroquesting back into these mythical events, find a way of stopping Tharizdun without giving this power and status to Lolth? Again, there are clear and thematically compelling values at stake here.[/sblock]
For both these scenrios I've presented,
the game designers and the mechanics don't present a right answer. They don't present an optimal solution. It is up to the players to engage. An by engaging, they have the capacity to have their PCs transform the gameworld in a way that speaks to the players' real world thematic concerns. This is the essence of narrativist RPGing, in my book.
Nor should they. It's not the player's job to decide if they succeed. It's the rules and the GM's job. Otherwise why are we playing D&D or whatever instead of Baron Munchausin or just sitting around the table BSing?
Well, for those who want to play more traditional D&D, 4e isn't the ruleset for them. I've been asserting that for at least a couple of years now.
saying there's no myth or history seems a little disingenuous. Unless you're doing the typical Forge thing and redefining those terms.
Planescape has myth or history in the form of metaplot. And also in the form of backstory. But where is the myth and history that the players are intended to enage in order to transform the gameworld (which is what heroquesting is about)?
I'm starting to think that pemerton has set up a sort of fallacy where narrativist play means that the game must not define certain things concerning the particular theme being explored... However...I do not believe this is actually a requirement for narrativist play (or even good for it
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I believe narrativist play is about exploring a theme through the beliefs and choices a character (not player) makes in game and the ramifications and consequences those choices have within the context of the setting.
I am using narrativist play in the Forge sense. What you have just described here is what the Forge calls high-concept simulationism. I agree that Planescape strogly supports the latter. But it's not what I personally am looking for in a game.
The key is that, in high-concept play, the play is about exploring a theme through the beliefs and choices of the characters (as you say). Good high-concept play is in fact metagame-light, because too much metagame will get in the way of the immersion into the setting and the PCs.
But the essence of narrativist play (in the Forge sense) is precsely engaging a them through the beliefs and choices of the players. It is (comparatively) metagame heavy. And this is what 4e, in my view, supports more strongly than earlier editions of 3E.
However there is no requirement in it that pre-supposes the character or player decides what the ramifications are or is in some way capable of deciding the parameters (setting) in which the thematic play takes place...thus certain things such as alignment, the dark side or a werewolf's rage don't hinder narrative play at all, as it is specifically about the consequences and ramifications of one's actions within the context of the setting and these things are accepted as part of the setting.
Consider the following
quote from Ron Edwards, on one difference between narrativist and high-concept play:
Consider the behavioral parameters of a samurai player-character in Sorcerer and in GURPS. On paper the sheets look pretty similar: bushido all over the place, honorable, blah blah. But what does this mean in terms of player decisions and events during play? I suggest that in Sorcerer (Narrativist), the expectation is that the character will encounter functional limits of his or her behavioral profile, and eventually, will necessarily break one or more of the formal tenets as an expression of who he or she "is," or suffer for failing to do so. No one knows how, or which one, or in relation to which other characters; that's what play is for. I suggest that in GURPS (Simulationist), the expectation is that the behavioral profile sets the parameters within which the character reliably acts, especially in the crunch - in other words, it formalizes the role the character will play in the upcoming events. Breaking that role in a Sorcerer-esque fashion would, in this case, constitute something very like a breach of contract. . .
a character in Narrativist play is by definition a thematic time-bomb, whereas, for a character in Simulationist play, the bomb is either absent (the GURPS samurai), present in a state of near-constant detonation (the Pendragon knight, using Passions), or its detonation is integrated into the in-game behavioral resolution system in a "tracked" fashion (the Pendragon knight, using the dichotomous traits). Therefore, when you-as-player get proactive about an emotional thematic issue, poof, you're out of Sim. Whereas enjoying the in-game system activity of a thematic issue is perfectly do-able in Sim, without that proactivity being necessary.
The sort of heroquesting I'm interested in is about discovering, through play, what values (expressed in the myths) can be upheld and what must be abandoned. It's like Edwards' example of bushido in a narrativist game: it's not an ideal that imposes a constraint on the play of the character, it's about the thematic time bomb exploding and the players doing their best (via their PCs) to pick up the pieces.
