Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
April 3rd, Rule of 3
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5892823" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>Your characterisation of 4e is, in my view, not entirely accurate. As I've posted numerous times in other threads, 4e's keywords matter here. They make an important mechanical contribution to fictional positioning in 4e. (For example, the reason that Fireball but not Icy Terrain can set a building on fire is that one, but not the other has the [Fire] keyword. Mutatis mutandis for freezing a stream so that you can walk across it.)</p><p></p><p>Your characterisation of pre-4e is, in my view, also not entirely accurate. In pre-3E D&D, saving throws generate an effect for which a cause within the fiction must then be posited (Gygax, in his DMG, gives the example of a fighter chained to a rock surviving a dragon's breath because at the last minute he found a niche in the rock, or the chains broke).</p><p></p><p>And in both classic D&D and 3E, the ingame character of hit point loss cannot be narrated until after the effect (in particular - was it fatal or not?) is known. (And given that a high-level fighter might survive that dragon's breath even with a failed save, presumably hit point narration can go beyond ducking and grazing to finding niches in rockfaces or breaking chains.)</p><p></p><p>That is not to deny that there are differences. For example, 4e follows 3E - and thereby departs from classic D&D - in its treatment of Fort, Ref and Will saves (renamed defences). And 4e departs from 3E and classic D&D in taking the fortune-in-the-middle style of hit points and saving throws and making them part of the "active" as well as the "passive" side of action resolution (so players can spend metagame resources not only to have their PCs survive the actions of others, but to have their PCs perform actions against those others).</p><p></p><p>I personally don't see why the absence of metagame mechanics on the "active" side is so great, but its presence on the "passive side" (via hit points) is untroubling.</p><p></p><p>To put it more bluntly: as I've noted in the past, given your apparent preferences I don't really understand why you're not playing either Runequest, or (if you think the absence of metagame plot protection for PCs would be too gritty) HARP. In HARP, Fate Points can be spent either "actively" or "passively", but in virtue of being a Fate Point mechanic rather than a more "embedded" mechanic like hit points, classic D&D saves, or (some) 4e martial powers, it makes the fiction/metagame distinction crystal clear.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 5892823, member: 42582"] Your characterisation of 4e is, in my view, not entirely accurate. As I've posted numerous times in other threads, 4e's keywords matter here. They make an important mechanical contribution to fictional positioning in 4e. (For example, the reason that Fireball but not Icy Terrain can set a building on fire is that one, but not the other has the [Fire] keyword. Mutatis mutandis for freezing a stream so that you can walk across it.) Your characterisation of pre-4e is, in my view, also not entirely accurate. In pre-3E D&D, saving throws generate an effect for which a cause within the fiction must then be posited (Gygax, in his DMG, gives the example of a fighter chained to a rock surviving a dragon's breath because at the last minute he found a niche in the rock, or the chains broke). And in both classic D&D and 3E, the ingame character of hit point loss cannot be narrated until after the effect (in particular - was it fatal or not?) is known. (And given that a high-level fighter might survive that dragon's breath even with a failed save, presumably hit point narration can go beyond ducking and grazing to finding niches in rockfaces or breaking chains.) That is not to deny that there are differences. For example, 4e follows 3E - and thereby departs from classic D&D - in its treatment of Fort, Ref and Will saves (renamed defences). And 4e departs from 3E and classic D&D in taking the fortune-in-the-middle style of hit points and saving throws and making them part of the "active" as well as the "passive" side of action resolution (so players can spend metagame resources not only to have their PCs survive the actions of others, but to have their PCs perform actions against those others). I personally don't see why the absence of metagame mechanics on the "active" side is so great, but its presence on the "passive side" (via hit points) is untroubling. To put it more bluntly: as I've noted in the past, given your apparent preferences I don't really understand why you're not playing either Runequest, or (if you think the absence of metagame plot protection for PCs would be too gritty) HARP. In HARP, Fate Points can be spent either "actively" or "passively", but in virtue of being a Fate Point mechanic rather than a more "embedded" mechanic like hit points, classic D&D saves, or (some) 4e martial powers, it makes the fiction/metagame distinction crystal clear. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
April 3rd, Rule of 3
Top