[Ari Marmell's blog] To House Rule or Not to House Rule

[xechnao]

Example: Skill Challenges.

You cant really be saying that. Skill challenges are... ermm...a total failure of game design and by such they do not worth anyone's time and money that just do not want to give them away towards Wotc due to reasons other than skill challenges. There are many internet threads on the failure of skill challenges that if you insist I could quote them here or on another thread.

But your quote over here helped me to see that perhaps l need to clarify what I was saying there in case I wasn't clear. If that be the case, I am really sorry.
So, I wasn't talking about things other than 4e's encounters and their tactically intended gameplay. I was talking exactly about that. I was trying to say that you could rather optimize gameplay for group combat-encounter tactics in more functional and comprehensive ways than designing for a battlemap. This is what 4e is trying to achieve, right- -combat tactics on balanced roles regarding their need for contribution-?

 

[Klaus]

IMO, this is the crux of the thing:



It's a tragedy.

It's like someone who studied English because they loved stories no longer being able to just friggin' tell a story.

It's like someone who studied Film because they loved movies no longer being able to just go to a friggin' movie.

As so often in life, I find the words of Kurt Vonnegut to be transcendentally liberating on the general topic:



Cross out "literature" and replace "rules," (or, really, any other creative process -- it works for 'em all!) and you have one of the big maxims by which I create.

Ari Marmell is a very good D&D designer. The fact that he can't surrender all his learned over-thinking about balance and caution in order to spice up his own bleedin' home game, like there's Balance Police in his own brain, is a testament to the ability of intellectualization to absolutely crush innate, productive creativity. The creativity of those high school years, of D&D's target audience, of wildly unbalanced fun.

I think it's really sad that his home games are barren of the rich, verdant fields of off-the-cuff ruling and tweaking that are the hallmark of any great D&D campaign, the thing that makes D&D yours, and not someone else's, whatever balance quirks or fudging blah or unintended consequences happen.

Seems like he's come to a similar conclusion, since that post ends with a sort of longing for innocence ripe for a dorky version of William Blake.

This is the tension between cold, sterile, keen, efficient logic and rampant, wild, destructive, creative chaos. I think it's sad that Ari's home games have lost, for the moment at least, the dangerous wilderness.

This is D&D. We're D&D players. The dangerous wilderness should be what we seek out.

And when there's no more dangerous wilderness, it's usually time to retire, at least for a time, to that keep you liberated so long ago.

It's part and parcel of being a creator.

If you're a film director, you'll never see a movie without thinking of pacing, camera placement, etc.

If you work in Advertising, you'll never look at an ad without thinking if the message is getting across clearly, if the font is adequate, etc.

If you work as a game designer, you learn to spot broken rules. By "broken" I don't just mean "overpowered", but also rules that will be a pain to keep track of at the table, or that have unclear definitons, etc.

 

[Klaus]

You cant really be saying that. Skill challenges are... ermm...a total failure of game design and by such they do not worth anyone's time and money that just do not want to give them away towards Wotc due to reasons other than skill challenges. There are many internet threads on the failure of skill challenges that if you insist I could quote them here or on another thread.

But your quote over here helped me to see that perhaps l need to clarify what I was saying there in case I wasn't clear. If that be the case, I am really sorry.
So, I wasn't talking about things other than 4e's encounters and their tactically intended gameplay. I was talking exactly about that. I was trying to say that you could rather optimize gameplay for group combat-encounter tactics in more functional and comprehensive ways than designing for a battlemap. This is what 4e is trying to achieve, right- -combat tactics on balanced roles regarding their need for contribution-?

If you think Skill Challenges are a failure, you need to read Mearl's Ruling Skill Challenge series in Dungeon. He sets up several kickass SC, including one that is an adventure all by itself.

Dungeon adventures like "Remains of the Empire" and "Dead by Dawn" have some of the best SC yet, and I'm told HS1: Slaying Stone also has that.

 

[firesnakearies]

Hey, I have an idea. How about we not turn this into an edition war thread?

This bears repeating, I think.

 

[Lanefan]

Well, to get it vaguely back onto house-rules, slowing the rate of xp acquisition is a house-rule that we toyed with from time to time, for exactly the reasons you're mentioning here. A campaign that takes characters from farmboys to godslayers in mere months of game-time has a certain appeal, but at the same time we found it strained belief. If you want to have a game that allows characters to grow into greatness over the course of their lives, while still adventuring regularly, you need to do something about how they acquire xp. Pathfinder has a "slow xp" option, something that has been used in the past. There's also the angle that you can do away with xp entirely and just level the PCs when you want them to level. This kind of thing, imho, goes right to the heart of the discussion, in that you're abandoning balance and doing it "by the book" in order to craft a specific feel for your game. You could take it to the point of not even giving balanced xp awards to the PCs at all, but just levelling them as and when you see fit.

There's various other ways to achieve the same thing; of slowing down the level advance speed with respect to time in the game world.

The simplest, for lower-level parties, is travel time. Don't have one adventure waiting right around the corner from the next. Separate them by enough distance that it's going to take a few months or more to get from one to the next. "Isle of Dread" is a good example: if you set it up such that it takes a 3-month boat trip to get there (and of course another 3 months to get back) then the party has only gained a level or two in half a year...or longer, if you manage to throw some delays in their way. Best thing is, this doesn't even need any house rules to achieve!

Next-easiest is enforced down-time between adventures. There's three obvious ways of achieving this:

1. Training. This requires house rules post 1e.
2. Treasury division. If it's made difficult to divide treasure (e.g. need to travel to get items identified, find buyers/sellers, etc.) that can eat up time. Needs house rules mostly in terms of campaign flavour.
3. Rest and recovery. Requires house rules; but make it that someone needs a certain amount of stress-reduced 'downtime' between adventures in order to remain sane, functional, etc.

And last but not least there's slowing the advancement rate, either by reducing the amount of ExP given out or increasing the distance between bump points on the advancement table(s). (or in 1e removing ExP for g.p.) This becomes a houserule in every version except - from what I'm reading here - Pathfinder, where I'm led to believe it's an official option (and good on 'em for it, if true). Be warned that over time this has a very significant knock-on effect, particularly in 3-4e where such things matter more: unless you really Grinch the treasure (which is no fun for anybody) the characters become too rich.

In our 1e games this last is what we've done, character wealth be damned; and it's taken the overall advancement rate down to about a level or two per in-game year. Some individual characters go faster, others slower, depending on a host of things, but the average is surprisingly consistent over multiple campaigns with different DMs. And while we have training requirements, there's sometimes very little downtime between adventures - that said, sometimes they can spend half a game-year completing an adventure anyway, so it all works out.

Lan-"10 levels in about 12 game years and 26 real years - slow but sure"-efan

 

[xechnao]

If you think Skill Challenges are a failure, you need to read Mearl's Ruling Skill Challenge series in Dungeon. He sets up several kickass SC, including one that is an adventure all by itself.

Dungeon adventures like "Remains of the Empire" and "Dead by Dawn" have some of the best SC yet, and I'm told HS1: Slaying Stone also has that.

While this deserves its own thread Mearls contribution has nothing to do with a solid skill challenge mechanic that any DM could just use and pull off what Mearls did. A GM and players can pull off themselves a full fledged combat encounter by just using only the provided rules of the game and understanding how they work. And they can do this in theory for many different encounters -the aspect in the design for achieving this sort of thing does exist- even if implementation sometimes leaves a lot to be desired.

 

[Mark Hope]

Great ideas Lanefan. I used travel time back in the days of 1e more than now, but it's a factor in my current PF game. Training times, item creation times - these also pay into the slowing of advancement. There are ways to deal with the treasure issue as well. I think that 4e does something about having non-treasure rewards (don't know as I don't play it). We use a system of bonus feats (inspired by Conan d20's favoured class rules) to offset the effects of less treasure. We're also playing in a pseudo-bronze age setting, so getting an iron or fine steel sword is a Big Deal, never mind magic (6th level and still no magic weapons, heh). All good houseruley fun .

 

[xechnao]

wtf, when people have something to criticize on 4e it must be about edition wars.

Sure some of it could not be directly replying on the topic of the thread at hand but couldn't it be that 4e's design itself is responsible for many debatable matters such as possibilities of gaming and game-mastering?

By invoking "edition wars" and calling people on that you simply destroy this sort of discussion.

 

[D'karr]

Actually aren't you talking mythology as opposed to swords & sorcery?

Nope, I meant exactly what I said. I'm running a Swords & Sorcery themed campaign using Ancient Greek mythology as a backdrop. The minotaur, Medusa, the Oracle of Delphi, all integrated into the setting. Yes of course it has mythology included, and all kinds of weird interventions by the gods in the affairs of men.

One of the things I find that kills S&S gaming for me with 4e (besides a non-gritty feel to the mechanics)... is the underlying focus on team-based tactics. S&S vary rarely, if at all, features a party of diverse characters who must work together to overcome challenges. S&S is the genre of heroes, who may choose to work together, but are fully capable of handling a multitude of challenges on their own... I don't find this at all to be the type of style 4e encourages and sometimes it feels as if it even forces an oposite style on the group. I guess this is one of the reasons I found 3.x/Pathfinder to be a better engine for S&S as far as this aspect was concerned. YMMV and all that of course.

Sorry but I have 7 players, if I wanted lone wolves and catering to them, I'd drastically decrease the size of the player pool. Yes, some Sword and Sorcery STORIES have a single protagonist. It doesn't mean that you can't have more of an ensemble. Self-limiting because of that aspect seems silly to me. I find no problem with using 4e to play a Sword & Sorcery themed game as I said. Oh, and I have no problem implementing House Rules for that game either. I have a few, but they are minimal. When I played 1e, I didn't necessarily have many House Rules either. YMMV.

 

[mach1.9pants]

wtf, when people have something to criticize on 4e it must be about edition wars.

Sure some of it could not be directly replying on the topic of the thread at hand but couldn't it be that 4e's design itself is responsible for many debatable matters such as possibilities of gaming and game-mastering?

By invoking "edition wars" and calling people on that you simply destroy this sort of discussion.

Look you said that all 4E gameplay is based on the battlemat. When I pointed out that was incorrect, with jut one example, instead of saying 'oh you are right' you just slagged SCs. That is not discussion, saying that I should seriously not consider a major (1 of every 3 'encounters' in my 4E campaign) as an example because you and the internet can provide negative press about it is not discussion. That is abuse which leads to hurt feelings.

SC's are an integral part to 4E and they do not need a battlemat.