D&D 4E Are powers samey?

[Manbearcat]

I mentioned something similar in the other thread (I think it was that thread). Consider the following 4e encounter and "sameyness."

* 20 * 20 (squares) chamber that is 6 squares high

* South entrance/egress (3 SQ across), East entrance/egress (3 SQ across), and Northwest entrance/egress (3 SQ across - balcony)

* Balcony is far end of the room over the dais, 20 ft up, overhangs the chamber and is 10 * 10

* NPC (someone important to the PCs) is chained to a table on a stone dais at the far end of the room. They're hooked up to a machine with tubes/fluids/wires/electric current running from several beakers/nodes and they're undergoing a transformation when the combat begins. Of-level, Complexity 1 Skill Challenge (4 Success/v 3 rounds) w/ Move Action economy w/ 3 rounds being strapped to it as the loss condition. Success = NPC lives and is ok. Failure = it animates as an Elite Flesh Golem (Brute) and attacks to the death.

* 4 Lightning Pillars Hazards in the room. Opportunity Action if anyone comes within 5 SQ (Close Burst 5) to Attack Ref for of-level Lightning Damage. At the beginning of each round, they animate 1 Minion (Brute) Flesh Golem (immune to Lightning) at their base (which then acts immediately); Brute w/ Attack + Push 1. The Pillars can be shut-down with a Hard Arcana, Athletics, or Thievery check by an adjacent character (Standard Action). They're set up equidistant and cover a large area (20 % of the primary chamber) so Forced Movement into the Hazards' AoE should be a big thing.

* East entrance (3 SQ wide). Every odd round (1, 3, 5, 7), an Iron Golem (Standard Brute w/ a Standard Attack + Push 2 and a Minor Action Attack vs Fort; Fling - Slide 3 SQ) enters room until 4 golems have entered.

* Solo Mad Scientist can teleport from runed square on balcony to adjacent to any of the 4 (active - if destroyed he cannot) Lightning Pillars and the machine on the dais as a Move Action. He can Move back to balcony same way.

Minor Action to animate a Flesh Golem Minion when w/in the Lightning Pillar area.
Suite of Standard Attacks featuring:
Ranged 20 (so basically the whole room) vs Ref Lightning damage+ Slide 3 toward a Lightning Pillar.
Ranged 10 Area Burst 1 - Stun PCs (vs Will) + either heals an Iron Golem 1/4 HP or reanimates a destroyed Iron Golem in the AoE (reanimates w/ Bloodied HPs)
Aura 3 SQ difficult terrain due to waves of thunder (if you start your turn in Aura, Attack vs Will - Slide 3 and either attack adjacent Ally or Stunned; Miss is just Slide 3).
Action Recovery (get rid of negative status).

---

Just those battlefield dynamics alone will ensure:

a) The fight won't play out like anything approximating the same, even if you instantiated it 5 times with the same group.

b) Whether the fight features a Fighter/Bladesinger/Avenger/Warlord or Warden/Warlock/Invoker/Rogue...each PC is going to have extremely meaningful (impactful and interesting) decisions and a decision-tree that features a menu of (at least) 3-4 diverse approaches in each and every round. There won't be an obvious, optimal choice for anyone at the starting point of combat and there certainly won't be an obvious, optimal choice as the situation (dynamically) progresses.

I don't even need to get into the extreme build diversity possible between these two class set-ups to absolutely ensure that.

I guarantee, if I took any group of 4 ENWorlders, gave them premades, ran them through that combat...nothing would feel "samey" round by round for each character, round by round between each character, and certainly not from one fight to the next.

 

[BryonD]

Two replies:

1) The math would

2) RPGs are not played in one scenario. If you want to argue that 4E is a great tactical battle game, I think you will find a lot of people agreeing with you. And I don't doubt that I could play one isolated scenario and enjoy it as a cool battle game. But would not provide anything close to the "being the character in an on-going story" experience that I get from other RPGs. There was a ton of division over 4E from Day 1. (even before). But 4E started out well. It started out very popular. And it experienced a lot of burn out much faster than other big name RPGs. Playing a range of characters over a period of time is where the sameness grows more and more apparent with each event.

 

[Manbearcat]

Two replies:

1) The math would

Not sure what the math would (do?) here?

Are you saying that the drama, tension, and excitement of 4e isn't betrothed to the roll of the dice because the math isn't swingy?

If so, I agree with that. The drama, tension, and excitement come from other places (impactful and interesting thematic and tactical decision-points, high-stakes situations, highly capable adversaries/obstacles, the prospect of story losses snowballing into a trajectory that the players don't want).

2) RPGs are not played in one scenario. If you want to argue that 4E is a great tactical battle game, I think you will find a lot of people agreeing with you. And I don't doubt that I could play one isolated scenario and enjoy it as a cool battle game. But would not provide anything close to the "being the character in an on-going story" experience that I get from other RPGs. There was a ton of division over 4E from Day 1. (even before). But 4E started out well. It started out very popular. And it experienced a lot of burn out much faster than other big name RPGs. Playing a range of characters over a period of time is where the sameness grows more and more apparent with each event.

You go onto unrelated subjects as this paragraph hits its midpoint, so I'm just going to stick to the first 4 sentences.

What if its not just one scenario? What if its a continuous stream of interesting, high-stakes, character/fiction-shaping conflicts with little to no let-up?

Why does play have to suddenly suck after one interesting scenario? Why can't the Mad Scientist initiate a self-destruct sequence for his lair as he dies and suddenly things turn into an "ESCAPE FROM THE COLLAPSING MAD SCIENTIST LAIR" Skill Challenge with Indiana Jones shenanigans? What if that NPC was/is a famous healer and he and the Mad Scientist were the only folks capable of stopping a contagion that the Mad Scientist let loose upon the province? Now we have a complex Skill Challenge which is a mad dash to collect the rare items he needs to create a cure and then to get it to all of the provinces? What if a Doomsday Cult that wants a apocalypse-by-pestilence tries to assinate him while you escort him on the Skill Challenge? What if the Skill Challenge fails? What if he doesn't make it out of the lair (he gets turned into a Golem or he dies in the ESCAPE)?

There is no reason that crappy GMing or uninteresting consequences/complications or a series of stale, undynamic decision-points needs to be assumed.

 

[BryonD]

Not sure what the math would (do?) here?

I'm saying that the underlying math produces the same range of controlled, predictable, "balanced" results. And it shows.

Why does play have to suddenly suck after one interesting scenario?

In the specific case of 4E, because people at the table* will start seeing that no matter how different the scenarios may be, the mechanics repeat. Yes, a better DM running 4E is better than a bad DM running 4E. But nobody is arguing that 4E DMs suck or 4E DMs are samey.

This is about the mechanics of 4E.

* - Obviously there are people who love 4E and (yet again) I stress that not caring about the issues that I care about is absolutely valid. So if you are at the table and DON'T see it, the awesome. But you can't impose your priorities, perceptions, and subjectivities on others. If you want to wrap your brain around this topic, you must stop looking at it exclusively from your own point of view. Or, don't. Your really don't need to. Just move on and enjoy playing the game you love. Reply to this thread with a simple "I don't care what other people think. My 4E game is awesome and never samey to me. It is a shame other don't share my joy." And walk away.
But replies which reject a position and don't try to evaluate it fairly are just pointless.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I suppose explicitly stating this would help: Classes can play differently and still be samey

Yes, that does help, because I think many of us very strongly disagree with this statement. If they play differently, they aren’t samey.

 

[Manbearcat]

* - Obviously there are people who love 4E and (yet again) I stress that not caring about the issues that I care about is absolutely valid. So if you are at the table and DON'T see it, the awesome. But you can't impose your priorities, perceptions, and subjectivities on others. If you want to wrap your brain around this topic, you must stop looking at it exclusively from your own point of view. Or, don't. Your really don't need to. Just move on and enjoy playing the game you love. Reply to this thread with a simple "I don't care what other people think. My 4E game is awesome and never samey to me. It is a shame other don't share my joy." And walk away.
But replies which reject a position and don't try to evaluate it fairly are just pointless.

Your move here is "I'm trying to impose stuff" and "I'm not able to wrap my brain around stuff" and "I'm looking at things exclusively from my point of view?" That's your move? With no irony whatsoever?

I'm here to talk about games, same as I always am. I want to talk about the machinery of system and what it does and what it doesn't do. Insofar as "thing x" makes people derive a sense of "samieness", I'm here to talk about that. If you don't want to talk about that with me...then don't. But don't make that move above.

I'm saying that the underlying math produces the same range of controlled, predictable, "balanced" results. And it shows.

"Controlled, predictable, and balanced" here meaning/showing what?

At the singular instance of action resolution level it is showing what?

Zoomed out to the conflict level, it is showing what?

In the specific case of 4E, because people at the table* will start seeing that no matter how different the scenarios may be, the mechanics repeat. Yes, a better DM running 4E is better than a bad DM running 4E. But nobody is arguing that 4E DMs suck or 4E DMs are samey.

This is about the mechanics of 4E.

1) I don't know what it means to say "no matter how different the scenarios may be, the mechanics repeat?" I don't know what this means on 2 levels:

a) How does "the mechanics repeat" matter to saminess? The history of gaming is repetitive action declarations and repetitive mechanics (Fighters swinging swords with a basic or full attack, Mages casting Fireball, Thieves Sneak Attacking, etc)?

b) How is it possible that (a) can't be altered by dynamism in scenario design or dynamism in loss conditions? In the scenario I threw together above, you're going to have significantly different action declarations (individually and as a group) vs a follow-on conflict that is about ESCAPING THE COLLAPSING LAIR vs a follow-on conflict that is FIGHT YOUR WAY OUT OF THE COLLAPSING TUNNELS (both a combat and a Skill Challenge simultaneously where you're trying to continuously move down a collapsing corridor where the battlefield is constantly changing with new hazards, new enemies, etc)?

2) I know no one is arguing that 4e DMs suck or are samey. My posts above are engaging in the "how much samieness (at the decision-point level, at the conflict level, and at the session level) is due, I wonder, to crappy GMing?" You can certainly GM 4e crappily (and we've seen our share of anecdotes on these boards where conflicts are stale and uninteresting...static combats with no battlefield/terrain interactions or interesting opposition...Skill Challenges where the situation doesn't change after action resolution)

 

[Garthanos]

Yes, that does help, because I think many of us very strongly disagree with this statement. If they play differently, they aren’t samey.

Who here interacts with powers 99 percent in play, raise your hand?

 

[Garthanos]

I like the predictability that my player characters who die will be in a big conflict not dying because of a couple of minions offed us an hour after a big fight.
Anti-climax is not exactly a story feature sought after usually.

 

[BryonD]

I'm here to talk about games, same as I always am.

But you are talking about it in a way that presumes your point of view applies to everyone else and then questioning how other people can see it differently.

You are just going in circles with that here. I'm not going to keep making the same points just because you keep making the same claims in different ways.

I know no one is arguing that 4e DMs suck or are samey.

You said "There is no reason that crappy GMing or uninteresting consequences ...". And everything leading up to that was about depth of story and variety of narrative bits. Everything there is tied to the GM (not the mechanics) And you topped it off with a quip about crappy GMs.

But the thing is, everything you said about cool variety of narrative bits can be lifted out of this conversation and placed into a 5E conversation, or a GURPS conversation. You can't make a case for a mechanical system this way. It may be true that YOU find 4E delivers the best quality. But you have not given any reason for me to stop seeing the problems I see in 4E. You just keep repeating your own personal praise.

As I've said a few times now. Everything is relative. I think that there are other systems which run circles around 4E at delivering these scenarios. Clearly you disagree. Cool. But history, and the fact that this thread exists, suggest that there are a meaningful number of TTRPG fans who find some other game to be better than 4E.

Edit: and to this:

Your move here is "I'm trying to impose stuff"

.
There is a subtle different there. I didn't say you were "trying" to impose. I said that you are imposing it. And you are. Your examples presuppose the exclusivity of your point of view. This is NOT to say that you are attempting in impose on what happens at my table. But it does accurately describe what you are typing, which is all I have to infer what is happening within your head. And that appears to be restricted to presumptions that exclude "how can I understand this different opinion" in favor of "here is my point of view which must hold sway over all other points of view." In your reasonign you impose a boundary condition which is false. And thus you fail to reach a valid conclusion.

 

[BryonD]

I like the predictability that my player characters who die will be in a big conflict not dying because of a couple of minions offed us an hour after a big fight.
Anti-climax is not exactly a story feature sought after usually.

I see this as loaded terms and, as far as my games are concerned, misrepresentation.

You are also describing a concept I could get fully behind if I was in the mood for a tactical battle game.

In an RPG, it is to me all about the story. A situation in which normally inferior combatants get the drop on a party who is weakened could easily be an outstanding bit of tension and excitement. And knowing that choices matter is important also.

We could spin this already overly long and going in circles thread about how best to make this situation be done well. It can be fubared. But it can also be done with mastery. And I like that.

Consistent with other comments, I get that 4E is fine tuned to support the style of play of someone who would type those words. And you having a blast playing that way is nothing but awesome. But the fact that you defend 4E for aligning with those words fits perfectly with my lack of desire to play 4E.

 

[Minigiant]

Meh. It's all about personal preference which makes you see sameyness or not. Most games only have a few ways to do things if they have multiple methods at all. All players are using the same 1 or 2 systems all the time session after session.

It's all personal preference of mechanics, genre, tone, and style..

 

[Garthanos]

You are also describing a concept I could get fully behind if I was in the mood for a tactical battle game.

That has nothing to do with tactics everything to do with let down.

In an RPG, it is to me all about the story. A situation in which normally inferior combatant

Also known as mooks or nameless characters not under dogs nor the guys anyone is rooting for just schmucks that you will not remember later differentiated with a number behind their designation in most movies.

get the drop on a party who is weakened could easily be an outstanding bit of tension and excitement. And knowing that choices matter is important also.

Yes they should have made that choice to stay home or counted their torches and potions more or did some other bookkeeping work.

It is explicitly a drag "a disappointing end to an exciting or impressive series of events." Change definitions so that has anything to do with tactics and you are just projecting something.

The hero/protagonist of the story dies to a random hit and run car crash or mugging while walking home after saving the world, not sure exactly what its about honestly but that is just not heroic fiction or typical story fair in general.

Heck it seems pretty obvious it's far more about heroic tropes than tactics.

But the fact that you defend 4E for aligning with those words fits perfectly with my lack of desire to play 4E.

The fact that you think dying to a random faceless mook is "good story" and can present not wanting that as being about wanting a tactical game fits perfectly with me not even want to attend any of the same entertainment that you do let alone game at your table.

 

[Garthanos]

Gygax wrote about why he was against critical hits ... he brought up Conan declaring that there was no way Conan would be taken out by some random arrow from out the crowd. Not sure how he let that philosophy of heroic play live alongside a game with save or dies but... its a genre trope really.

 

[Manbearcat]

@BryonD

Can we please talk about games rather than talking about how to talk about games?

I gave you (well, everyone) a very detailed combat scenario above with an embedded non-combat conflict and a clear loss condition (the NPC dies due to being unable to free them from the machine before the beginning of round 4). Can you envision the likely decision-tree faced by any character archetype that you like (or pick a character out of the two groups of 4)? Talk about how that decision-tree, the actions taken, how you envision the combat evolving as a result of those actions taken, and how you see the subsequent decision-trees and actions taken working out such that the experience of it feels "samey" to you.

That would help me immensely understand what (exactly it is) you're feeling and why (the machinery) you're feeling it and why you don't feel it when you play other games.

I had a Magic The Gathering conversation in another thread and a poster helped me understand why he felt "sameyness" through the prism of Magic deck-building. That was helpful (for me at least).

 

[FrogReaver]

Yes, that does help, because I think many of us very strongly disagree with this statement. If they play differently, they aren’t samey.

I don't think you should disagree with that. It's possible to play similarly from one viewpoint and still play differently from another.

The difference is one of "focus" - which is why there are so many points that nearly all RPG's on some level are mostly the same - and those are valid points I might add. That's not the level I'm viewing 4e on though - because if it were then I'd agree that 4e and 5e are the same - which has been the most common refrain against my position.

Instead I'd like to suggest a different take to you - that 4e is actually samey from my viewpoint in ways that 5e is not - while form your viewpoint 5e is samey in ways 4e is not. I suggest both views are valid and that what we should instead be discussing are the ways in which 4e is samey and the ways in which 5e is samey and the ways in which they differ.

I think the most important difference is that whatever way 5e is samey it is samey in ways that most rpg fans have accepted (or that never bothered them in the first place).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't think you should disagree with that. It's possible to play similarly from one viewpoint and still play differently from another.

In general, don't try to tell people what they should agree or disagree with. It makes it much less likely that someone is going to give the least damn what you have to say after that.

I think the most important difference is that whatever way 5e is samey it is samey in ways that most rpg fans have accepted (or that never bothered them in the first place).

Why on earth would that be important, even if we agree that it indicated anything about the actual game, rather than about what the games look like at shallow glance, which I don't?

The only argument I've seen without scoffing for the supposed sameyness of 4e is that too many options packaged in the same format, in a system where you have to review several every round and every time you level up, and where reading a class involves reading dozens of them, cause many players' eyes to glaze over and stop actually reading what the powers do. In 5e, those players don't play casters, IME, and don't choose Battlemaster fighter, or if they do, the least fun part of the experience is choosing their limited-use packaged abilities (ie, their powers).

The thing is, that is a wholly separate and distinct thing from powers actually being samey. It's like if someone goes to a car lot, and they spend too much time reviewing 10 different models of sedan from the same group of years (ignoring the 2000's, in which the manufacturers managed to make dozens of sedans in name, but only about 4 in practice), and eventually feeling like they're all the same. ANyone who actually knows the vehicles knows that they each have different interiors, safety and luxury features, quality and cost of parts (ie how long they'll last and how much they cost to fix or replace), they accelerate differently, handle differently, etc, and that even the casual driver would know the difference if they just had 2 or 3 to choose from. They objectively aren't samey, insofar as samey can have a useful meaning.

But if "samey" can include "they drive very differently and owning own vs the other is a significantly different experience" then samey isn't a word with a coherent, sensible, usable, definition. At all. You might as well be saying 4e powers are floogerely.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

@BryonD

Can we please talk about games rather than talking about how to talk about games?

I gave you (well, everyone) a very detailed combat scenario above with an embedded non-combat conflict and a clear loss condition (the NPC dies due to being unable to free them from the machine before the beginning of round 4). Can you envision the likely decision-tree faced by any character archetype that you like (or pick a character out of the two groups of 4)? Talk about how that decision-tree, the actions taken, how you envision the combat evolving as a result of those actions taken, and how you see the subsequent decision-trees and actions taken working out such that the experience of it feels "samey" to you.

That would help me immensely understand what (exactly it is) you're feeling and why (the machinery) you're feeling it and why you don't feel it when you play other games.

I had a Magic The Gathering conversation in another thread and a poster helped me understand why he felt "sameyness" through the prism of Magic deck-building. That was helpful (for me at least).

Related to my other post, above, I think that magic the gathering feels "samey" for some people for exactly the same reason 4e does, even though there is an incredible amount of difference in what the things actually do while you are playing the game.

A person stares at the choices, and reads them all, and tries to understand them all, and the math that underpins them, and for many people doing this for a certain threshold of powers or cards leads to an "eyes glaze over and I don't care anymore" effect, where it might as well be all the same. Most people don't self-evaluate all that much, so might as well be and is aren't easily distinguished.

They experience "sameyness", even though the powers and cards are actually very, very, different from one another.

Give them 2-5 choices, or even a dozen choices that they'll only usually be considering half of at a time, and even if those choices are more similar, they can easily seem less similar, because the "overwhelmed by too many options that each require some review to understand" effect doesn't kick in. The rogue and fighter are vastly more different in 4e than in any other edition. Two rogues are more different from eachother in 4e than in any other edition. But that doesn't matter to someoen who has hit that wall. In 5e, they look at the rogue, they know that they get a handful of stuff early on, and they can choose between 3-12+ (depending on PHB only vs all sourcebooks) archetypes that will also give them a few things early on. It's...grokable, for people who don't thrive on huge numbers of options and in depth customization.

5e also puts it's depth of customization behind a screen, and walks you through a little maze where most times you make a choice the last choice and the next choice are both out of sight. You're very rarely choosing between dozens of things that fill the same category at once, unless you're choosing spells.

IME, people who experience sameyness in 4e, or MtG, or indeed in GURPS, don't love being told it's a perception of sameyness, not actual sameyness, but...it is. It's caused by the countertintuitive fact that many humans stop seeing distinctions between the options in front of them when there are too many options in front of them.

 

[Oofta]

Defining something as nebulous as "samey" is always going to come down to a personal definition. I gave a longer explanation back on the first page or so.

I would just say that nobody is right or wrong on this. I've used the term myself to describe 4E now and then because the decision points and design structure were the same for all classes. When running a PC the powers just kind of blurred together, the analysis I went through as a player during combat was the same.

With other editions of D&D I always felt like how I played a PC with different classes was more distinct.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Len]

I've used the term myself to describe 4E now and then because the decision points and design structure were the same for all classes.
...
With other editions of D&D I always felt like how I played a PC with different classes was more distinct.

That was exactly my feeling after playing a paladin and a wizard in two 4e campaigns.