Blog post on the feel of D&D (marmell, reynolds et all)

[billd91]

It took me a long time to realize what was wrong with that way of DMing, though I knew I disliked it. Then, while I was DMing, I started DMing for new players and their expectations revealed the answer. Invarably, every newbie I've played with has this 'cool idea' moment. Their hero leaps off a wall, does a backflip, and stabs the bad guy in the eye. Ok, roll to hit... oh, you got a two, that's a miss, next player. Every single time, the light of creativity flickering in their eyes DIES. That was the worst thing in DMing 1E, 2E for me.

When I started seeing this happening, I wanted ways to deliver the reward such creativity and encourage it rather than kill it with failure. Feats did that a little in 3E, Action Points did it more and what I've seen of 4E action points and Powers does it even better, since they're a renewable resource. And I can balance player creativity with a suitable cost for the innovation while each character comes with in-built cool stuff to do every day.

I'm not really seeing how 4E action points and powers remove the possibility of failure. Unless you're going to hand wave the die roll because of cool narration or the interesting idea, you still have to face the non-zero probability that the manuever will still fail. And given the scaling defenses along with attack bonuses of 4e, presumably fail pretty often against level appropriate encounters.

So my question to you is: is it really failure of the maneuver to achieve a "hit" that's the problem, failing to come up with a reasonable method of adjudicating the maneuver, or failure to describe how even a failure to hit can nevertheless come from a cool move and make for an interesting encounter?

 

[JeDiWiker]

It took me a long time to realize what was wrong with that way of DMing, though I knew I disliked it. Then, while I was DMing, I started DMing for new players and their expectations revealed the answer. Invarably, every newbie I've played with has this 'cool idea' moment. Their hero leaps off a wall, does a backflip, and stabs the bad guy in the eye. Ok, roll to hit... oh, you got a two, that's a miss, next player. Every single time, the light of creativity flickering in their eyes DIES. That was the worst thing in DMing 1E, 2E for me.

This post actually inspired me to discuss the idea of competence, heroics, and heroic competence on my blog today.

Similarly, capturaing that old school feel of 1E and 2E adventures I think has more to do with the adventures that have been published than the rules.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think that the lack of D&D "feel" to what I've seen of 4E actually lies in the subsystems and naming conventions. Again, I'm talking about how it feels to ME--your mileage may vary:

• "Once per encounter" powers feel like TCG mechanics (I believe the notion of "power cards" that can be tapped to show when they've been exhausted has been discussed somewhere here on ENWorld, in fact)
• The naming conventions of the powers feel like an MMORPG
• The naming conventions of the monsters ("kobold skirmisher," "hobgoblin warcaster," "deathjump spider," etc.) feels like Wizards' minis games to me

So, in essence, the more of a TCG, MMO, or CMG feel the game has, the less of a D&D feel it's likely to have. Now, it's arguable that the feel is in the adventure, or the DM, or the players, or whatever--but I well remember playtesters complaining that d20 Star Wars felt like "D&D in space" because it used D&D rules mechanics, so at least some of that "look and feel" issue is in the mechanics. For that matter, if I tried to design a new version of, say, the Warhammer FRP, and I used playing cards instead of dice (a la Deadlands), had the spells work like Magic: the Gathering, and renamed all of the careers to "Blaster," "Controller," "Tanker," "Scrapper," and "Defender," (as in City of Heroes), even if all of those changes made it a better game in the long run, there would be at least a few people out there who would say "It doesn't seem like Warhammer anymore."

4th Edition may be the best edition of D&D yet, but I, personally, find the derivative features a bit off-putting. When I sit down to play D&D, I don't want to be reminded of TCGs, MMOs, or CMGs, because those aren't D&D to me any more than Rainbow Six: Vegas is.

JD

[EDITED TO FIX SOME TYPOS]

 

[Puggins]

• "Once per encounter" powers feel like TCG mechanics (I believe the notion of "power cards" that can be tapped to show when they've been exhausted has been discussed somewhere here on ENWorld, in fact)

How is this different from the Barbarian's Rage description in 3e? He fatigued "until the end of the current combat." There is no practical differentiation. Similarly, every spell-like ability in the game was 1/day, 3/day, so on and so forth. Since "day" rather than "encounter" was the metric used in most of 3e, we once again have no real difference.

• The naming conventions of the powers feel like an MMORPG
• The naming conventions of the monsters ("kobold skirmisher," "hobgoblin warcaster," "deathjump spider," etc.) feels like Wizards' minis games to me

Of course, 1e had its own particular naming quirks. "The Quivering Palm," "Enervating Touch," "Evard's Black Tentacles" and "Mordenkainen's Disjunction" are all perfectly valid CCG names. They just happen to be names that you're used to, rather than fairly new names like "warcaster." Reverse the order that you encounter them (the deathjumper was in the 1e MM), and I suspect you'd think that Blink Dogs, Umber Hulks and Displacer Beasts are a tad too videogamey.

 

[drjones]

Having not DMd since 2nd edition the only things that did not feel like dnd when I ran oakhurst for some buddies were:

1. The art. Some of it has grown on me but other bits are too far from what I am expecting. I have played DDM for a while and used to read Dungeon so I was pretty used to the old (but recent) style. Fortunately this has little impact on what anyone at the table is imagining while we play.

2. Knowing what to do. It might be the simplicity of the rules we have available at the moment but I did not feel the same sense of 'You are the DM, you fill in all the blanks' that kinda paralyzed me as a kid. It's hard to describe, it just seemed easier to make fun stuff happen without a lot of looking stuff up.

3. It seemed possible to get my girl playing. Not super likely, but about 1000% more possible that with the older rulesets I played. She is much more on board with 'you are playing a choose your own adventure but the book is a million pages long' vs. 'you are doing a math quiz that you never got a chance to study for'

But mebbe when I have a bunch of books and such I will feel differently about it.

 

[billd91]

Of course, 1e had its own particular naming quirks. "The Quivering Palm," "Enervating Touch," "Evard's Black Tentacles" and "Mordenkainen's Disjunction" are all perfectly valid CCG names. They just happen to be names that you're used to, rather than fairly new names like "warcaster." Reverse the order that you encounter them (the deathjumper was in the 1e MM), and I suspect you'd think that Blink Dogs, Umber Hulks and Displacer Beasts are a tad too videogamey.

Yes, they're also relatively descriptive names too. Contrast Evard's Black Tentacles (which summons black tentacles) with "On Pain of Death", "Tide of Iron", "Fox's Cunning", and "Curse of the Dark Dream". Granted, there's some learning curve when it comes to names and sometimes the language can be challenging, but the sample characters had powers ranging in descriptiveness from "Ray of Frost" to the ones listed above. Clearly, some are more descriptive than others and are far more suggestive of their powers than others. Tide of Iron and Curse of the Dark Dream probably come closest to suggesting what they do of the 4 I listed but they're not as suggestive as Enervating Touch or, in 4e, Holy Strike and Shielding Smite.

 

[med stud]

Yes, they're also relatively descriptive names too. Contrast Evard's Black Tentacles (which summons black tentacles) with "On Pain of Death", "Tide of Iron", "Fox's Cunning", and "Curse of the Dark Dream". Granted, there's some learning curve when it comes to names and sometimes the language can be challenging, but the sample characters had powers ranging in descriptiveness from "Ray of Frost" to the ones listed above. Clearly, some are more descriptive than others and are far more suggestive of their powers than others. Tide of Iron and Curse of the Dark Dream probably come closest to suggesting what they do of the 4 I listed but they're not as suggestive as Enervating Touch or, in 4e, Holy Strike and Shielding Smite.

Well, to be fair, Evard's Black Tentacles doesn't say more about the spells than that it deals with tentacles, and the tentacles are black. Quivering Palm really doesn't suggest anything about what it does, especially if you aren't into kung fu- movies.

I liked many of the old spell names, I like the new ones but from a practical POV, none of them really give away what the spell does in the game. Even fireball doesn't say much; it is a ball of fire, that much is clear from the name, but no more than that..

 

[Lacyon]

Yes, they're also relatively descriptive names too. Contrast Evard's Black Tentacles (which summons black tentacles) with "On Pain of Death", "Tide of Iron", "Fox's Cunning", and "Curse of the Dark Dream". Granted, there's some learning curve when it comes to names and sometimes the language can be challenging, but the sample characters had powers ranging in descriptiveness from "Ray of Frost" to the ones listed above. Clearly, some are more descriptive than others and are far more suggestive of their powers than others. Tide of Iron and Curse of the Dark Dream probably come closest to suggesting what they do of the 4 I listed but they're not as suggestive as Enervating Touch or, in 4e, Holy Strike and Shielding Smite.

I'm not sure Enervating Touch or Black Tentacles are all that useful as far as names go. Does the touch make people tired? What do the tentacles do if there are no Japanese schoolchildren in range?

 

[Puggins]

Yes, they're also relatively descriptive names too.

... as opposed to Diamond Body, Abundant Step, Quivering Palm, Tongue of the Sun and Moon, Indomitable Will, A Thousand Faces, Mordenkainen's Lugubrious Lucubration, Eyebite, Entropic Shield, Rary's Mnemonic Enhancer, Sepia Snake Sigil, Storm of Vengeance, Simbul's Spell Matrix, Simbul's synostodweomer...

I could keep going all day.

Familiarty with these odd names and phrases and the correspondent unfamiliarity with the 4e terms is probably one reason why Synostodweomer (!?!) is old school, but Tide of Iron doesn't feel like D&D.

 

[JeDiWiker]

How is this different from the Barbarian's Rage description in 3e? He fatigued "until the end of the current combat." There is no practical differentiation. Similarly, every spell-like ability in the game was 1/day, 3/day, so on and so forth. Since "day" rather than "encounter" was the metric used in most of 3e, we once again have no real difference.

A duration of "until end of encounter" and a "cooldown" of "at end of encounter" are very different mechanics. The former provides you with its benefit for the duration; the latter is a benefit that applies once, then can't be used again until you've "untapped," to borrow a CCG term.

And spell-like abilities are more common for monsters than PCs, making them really "1/lifetime," "3/lifetime," etc. The DM uses the power and marks it off, and, in most cases, doesn't need to worry about when the monster can use it again. Not that I'm defending that mechanic, mind you; it's fairly pointless. I just don't believe that the only workable solution is a mechanic that effectively says "You can't use this power again until you've had your next 'coffee break.'"

Of course, 1e had its own particular naming quirks. "The Quivering Palm," "Enervating Touch," "Evard's Black Tentacles" and "Mordenkainen's Disjunction" are all perfectly valid CCG names. They just happen to be names that you're used to, rather than fairly new names like "warcaster." Reverse the order that you encounter them (the deathjumper was in the 1e MM), and I suspect you'd think that Blink Dogs, Umber Hulks and Displacer Beasts are a tad too videogamey.

I'm not so used to those names that I can't live without them. But my point is that the *conventions* of the names I've seen are a bit too reminiscent of the D&D Miniatures Game, which suggests (to me, anyway) that the similarity is *intended* to bring the look and feel of D&D and the D&D CMG closer together, thematically. Again, in my opinion, an off-putting design decision.

JD

 

[hong]

Partly. It's the trade off between time and money. Same reason some of us buy modules, use about half of it, and modify some of the rest. The designers are getting paid for their time designing an adventure or rule set but I'm not. I'd rather contribute to that payment, even if I get more than I want, to save me unpaid time, that then must compete with family time, sleep, and so on. Cutting out a rule I don't want to use is generally faster and easier than coming up with and balancing a new one.

That is the most common collector's rationalisation, yes.