Actual play examples - balance between fiction and mechanics

[Raven Crowking]

The concept of the 4E skill challenge allows for both types of play.

No one is claiming otherwise.

I can (and have) used a hammer and nail to create a hole for a screw when I didn't have a drill handy. It doesn't mean that the drill isn't a better tool for that job, or that it isn't easier to use. I've also used the back of a hatchet as a hammer to drive in tent pegs.

But the skill challenge isn't the only predominantely rules-first construct in 4e. Having a large number of mildly- to strongly-rules-first constructs in a game tends to give it a rules-first feel. It certainly indicates an intention on the designer's part to create a rules-first ruleset.

And for some playstyles, rules-first is clearly superior to fiction-first. Narrative playstyles in particular, IMHO, benefit from a rules-first framework.



RC

 

[Mallus]

(Also, wouldn't the dagger full of lightning trick make Cesar Milan "the Dog Crisper"?)

It makes Cesar Milan into Michael Vick!

Ahem...

Here's an example of actual play from a recent session, which I think illustrates how not only the presence, but absence of certain mechanics in 4e influence play. If it fails to that, at least it'll serve as a shining example of a traditionally crackpot D&D-style plan.

The problem: a scroll containing an ancient magical ritual the party needs lies buried under several meters of Avernal glass, an ultra-hard form of obsidian which covers the Infernal Isle of Avernus.

The party knows the general location of the scroll. A draconic guardian angel ally of the party tried to unearth it and failed before being captured by demons. But it marked the spot clearly with a large pit it clawed out of the ground.

The pre-4e solution: would have almost certainly been a magic spell or item. Dig, Disintegrate, Rock to Mud, maybe Passwall, or a Spade of Mighty Excavation -- which I might be making up, I can't recall. Anyway, you who have played previous editions of D&D know the drill.

The problem, part II: except we're playing 4e and that kind of player-controlled magic isn't supported.

The 4e approach: the PC's look for a solution elsewhere ie, in the wider fictional world the game takes place in, and not just in their spell lists. Let's call these thing "plot-assets", as opposed to strictly mechanical character assets.

Information is sought by the streetwise types (skill checks are made). Eventually the PC's find a concubine artist who knows the secret of an elixir which renders Avernal glass soft and workable, but only when applied to living flesh. Inadvisable deals are cut by optimistic, over-promising paladins (no checks are made, purely in-character RP'ing).

The 4e solution: combine various plot-assets into a workable plan. These include: two ancient Dragonborn cannons from a friendly sea Captain whose vessel we saved, the concubine's elixir, a length thin, unbreakable chain, and the goblin henchman of party's dwarven Communist revolutionary.

The 4e solution in detail: The cannons are airlifted to he pit site via a PC's flight ritual. The goblin henchman, "General" Poggsley by name, is stripped naked. One end of the chain is attached to his waist, the other to projectile in the first cannon. Poggsley is then fortified with several potions (X-ray vision, temp HP, water-breathing -- note standard magical assets are still part of the solution). Finally, he is slathered with the elixir, which only lasts a minute, at most, loaded into the second cannon, and fired into the glassy earth.

45 seconds are counted out. The first cannon is fired, yanking the goblin out of the Avernal glass with precisely the velocity at which he entered. Notice the clever use of Science!

Rolls were made: to hit the ritual, duration of the elixir, etc. We rolled high! I can't explain exactly why we thought this was a good plan. I do recall a lot of laughter during the planning phase. I suppose my character would say something like "We didn't need reason! We had faith!", which, seeing as he's a paladin, is a suitable explanation.

This wasn't a formal Skill Challenge, though skill checks were made throughout; to get information, to find the potions in time, to borrow the cannons, etc. The target number for the final roll to-hit was, I'm sure, made up on the spot. Now I'm not trying to suggest this sort of thing didn't happen in pre-4e play; crackpot plans are a D&D staple. I merely wanted to show --at length -- how the absence of certain mechanics can have a positive effect on the game w/r/t player engagement with the fiction.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Mallus, from previous discussions I am sure you know that I think WotC would be wise to adopt your campaign setup as an (if not the) official world for 4e.

That said, I am not at all certain what made your narrative a "4e solution". As you note, it didn't use the 4e mechanics. It seems more "The Mallus' game solution" to me!


RC

 

[TheFindus]

That said, I am not at all certain what made your narrative a "4e solution". As you note, it didn't use the 4e mechanics. It seems more "The Mallus' game solution" to me!

I agree. Thing is, though, that it also could have been done with the regular skill challenge system.
The way I see it, there are a lot of people who can not deal with a situation like this without a rule guideline.
The skill challenge provides that guideline. It is an option that for some is not necessary. For a lot of DMs, it is good to have.

By the way, aren't you glad that the solution to finding that scroll in the ground was not a simple spell in a spellbook? It made the whole adventure much more fun. The solution was way out there, but fun.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Actually, the Jester provided a kick-ass example of a skill challenge in another thread that has the twin benefits of (1) actually making great, atmospheric, use of the mechanics, and (2) being directly portable to my game of choice.

Win-win all around.


RC

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I guess what I meant was, the appearance was such that while every character did use a different approach, they were all able to accomplish the same task. In earlier editions, if you have an angry bear, the Druid and/or Ranger is the "go to guy". Now it sounds like with the fact that everyone has some training in every skill and, as long as the player can rationalize the power use, they can apply their class powers to any given scenario. Keep in mind though, I gave 4e several tries around release and subsequently stopped playing, so I am no expert on the system.

At any rate, it just seemed odd to me that with 4e they try very hard to define combat roles, but as far as the outside of combat roles, they leave it wide open. Not saying whether its a good or bad approach, just saying its different than how I think of things. I'm perfectly ok with the old method of spotlighting players for things they want to be good at and making sure everyone gets their chance to shine apart from the party. As opposed to trying hard to make sure everyone is always involved. While "fair" it seems to dilute character development a bit too much IMO.

I think this is one of those deals where there very much no right answer, not even for a given group, or even a given session. Sometimes, you have a 3E game, for example, and you get that "perfect chemistry" going where everyone has their niche, and gets to spend about as much time shining in that niche as the player wants. (This is not always equal time, either, since some people are picking niches in order to not bother with this part of play very much.) And then three months later, same players, same campaign--the chemistry thing develops a major leak and start taking on water. And it isn't even necessarily that anything in the game itself has changed. It might merely be that the druid is tired of dealing with animals and wants to go be the talker at the bar.

4E "solves" this problem by saying that everyone can participate. It then adds a new but related problem by heavily framing things such that everyone is strongly encouraged to participate equally. (They've backed away from this since launch, however.) Which is really rather funny, when you consider that the player types discussed in the initial rules go out of their way to emphasize how some people will not be terribly into certain parts of the game.

I'm not sure about pemerton's motivations, but I know some of the things that I do which resemble his approach are largely in order to make the game fit what the players want to do anyway--and very conciously with letting it flow and adapt as the players change their priorities over time.

 

[The Shaman]

The question becomes: how to we determine what makes sense in a given situation? Especially when the given situation is something that is, frequently, outside our practical areas of expertise, if not altogether impossible, or absurd, or insane, or all three at once, kinda like a Neapolitan made of irrealism.

That's a really great question, Mallus, and the answer for me is to choose a rules system that creates a plausible physics engine for the game-world which produces results which make intuitive sense.

Flashing Blades works for me as a swashbuckling simulator because the combat rules mimic the back-and-forth of fencing without requiring me to know the difference between a froissement and a coulé, and choosing to parry and counter, or sidestepping a lunge versus ducking under a slash, statisfies my intuitive sense of how such a battle should play out. The application of resistance rolls for resolving the use of interpersonal skills also makes intuitive sense - it's satisfying in that the rules create a reasonable structure for using an adventurer's skills and abilities tempered by the complementary abilities of a non-player character. (As an aside, I think the one-sided nature of Diplomacy in d20 games fails this test, which is the underlying reason why this skill stretches plausability for some gamers.)

I don't need to be a polymath to make this system work in such a way that it produces those intuitive results. (As another aside, the earliest creators of D&D were well-read, which I think influenced their approach to making-stuff-up - they were comfortable coming up with something plausible to fit the sorts of situations which arose in their games.)

Everything I know about skill challenges in 4e comes from reading posts on gaming forums - one of these days I'll sit down with a copy of 4e at Borders . . . uh, I mean Barnes and Noble . . . and read how these things are supposed to work for myself - but from the examples I've seen, in this thread and elsewhere, it seems like many of the objections come from the idea that while skill challenges are no more abstract than hit points or armor class in modeling the physics of the D&D game-world, the results may be intuitively unsatisfying, even for situations which are outside a given player's "practical areas of expertise."

WIth respect to pemerton's examples in this thread, I was a park ranger who worked on backcountry bear management in the Sierra Nevada and encountered wild bears on a regular basis, and I taught marine biology in an aquarium where I worked with the animal care staff who trained sea lions; as a ranger I built weirs and puncheons in and around streams and wet meadows as well. Not too surprisingly, both examples snap my suspenders of disbelief pretty hard. But putting aside the fact that I bring an uncommon collection of skills and experiences to the table relative to these examples, neither result satisfies me on an intuitive level - it all comes across as haphazardly post hoc in a way that other rule abstractions don't.

Like quite a few gamers, D&D hit points used to bug me. I wanted a hit to be a hit, not a blow narrowly dodged - I mean, 'hit' is right there in the name, for heaven's sake! After a while I got comfortable with the abstraction they represented, and I even came to see them as a pretty elegant solution for what they are intended to simulate, even if I found the terminology a bit wonky. The relationship between the physics of the game-world and the actions of the players tracks - you drop into a pit and end up with just a sore hip after a fall that might kill most men, you take a massive blow on your shield that leaves your arm numb and your shoulder aching, and then *WHAM!* you find yourself bleeding on the floor when a stone block falls from the ceiling. The attrition of hit points, and the result when there burned up, is intuitively satisfying.

If I understand what I've read, I think skill challenges can be used to achieve similar results if, as was noted in this thread, the dungeon master is willing to say no to some of the more off-the-wall suggestons (*coughcoughComeAndGetItcoughcough*), provided that intutive sense of 'rightness' (what is usually called 'verisimilitude') is in any way important to the experience everyone at the table. Frex, I think making a successful Knowledge skill check to remember something about bears or masonry useful to the task at hand is a great way to fold the adventurer's abilities into the final solution of the task, but while rationalizing whatever random the players come up with is fine for gonzo fantasy, I don't think it works very well in many games.

Your distance traveled over fuel consumed may vary.

 

[pemerton]

I guess what I meant was, the appearance was such that while every character did use a different approach, they were all able to accomplish the same task. In earlier editions, if you have an angry bear, the Druid and/or Ranger is the "go to guy". Now it sounds like with the fact that everyone has some training in every skill and, as long as the player can rationalize the power use, they can apply their class powers to any given scenario.

OK, I see what you meant.

I agree this is a trend in 4e. For quick tasks - like opening a door, or reading a strange inscription - the party will still tend to have a specialist (strong fighter, clever mage, etc). But for challenges, whether combat or non-combat, that are going to take some significant time at the table, I try to set them up in such a way that all the PCs can engage. And the DMGs encourage this.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

If I understand what I've read, I think skill challenges can be used to achieve similar results if, as was noted in this thread, the dungeon master is willing to say no to some of the more off-the-wall suggestons (*coughcoughComeAndGetItcoughcough*), provided that intutive sense of 'rightness' (what is usually called 'verisimilitude') is in any way important to the experience everyone at the table...

I'd give you XP, but I can' t yet.

It is certainly true that one of the reasons that 4E works for us is that while we have no polymaths at the table, we are all fairly well-read. And, I'm certainly no polymath, but definitely the most well-read at the table, when it comes to the kind of things that a fantasy GM might be expected to rule upon. (For example, in high school I did a research paper on ancient and medieval mining. This wasn't assigned as a project. I wanted to be able to rule effectively on certain situations which commonly occur underground.)

OTOH, we don't enjoy most modern games for precisely the reasons you list. We've got a lawyer, and FBI agent, a vet, a nuclear technician, and a guy with a lot of practical expertise in electronics. I can't run a modern game for 15 minutes without stepping on a mine somewhere.

But mainly, verisimilitude is a moving target. I don't have to hit "rightness". I just have to hit close enough, while avoiding hitting "wrongness," and everything works.

Oh, and I fence, as does my son who is in our games. Most "fencing simulation" mechanics bug us immensely because they don't feel right, but Come and Get It fits right in with what we have personally experienced on the strip. It's all what you bring to that particular table.

 

[pemerton]

A question for you: the fighter was able to use Come and Get It because it is effectively a narrative/metagame instrument in your eyes.

Assume a wizard had the exact same power as a Vancian daily defined as the literal shifting of creatures to the Wizard, but with the same game text.

Would he have been allowed to use in the same way as the fighter?

If yes, how would the narrative justify its use and if not, how do you justify to the players that the fighter player can do extra cool stuff and the wizard player can't with identiacal powers? In other words, how much of an advantage is gained at your table for is shifting from explicit in-game resolution to a narrative/meta-game resolution?

I actually said something about this upthread:

As a side comment on 4e: it's often said that all the classes have same-ish powers. Leaving aside the fact that, from the tactical point of view, there's a big difference even beteen wizard and sorcerer powers, let alone wizard and archer-ranger powers, this encounter drove home another point of difference. Magic-using classes don't have many metagame powers. Fighters have quite a few. That's a real difference, with implications for play (as this encounter showed).

To date, I haven't felt any balance concerns in respect of this. Because magic is magic, I've found in practice that it's versatility tends to compensate for the lack of metagame powers.