D&D 4E Brainstorming a "Phil. of 4e 101" resource

[EzekielRaiden]

I mentioned a long-held desire to make some kind of "primer" or "philosophy intro" for 4e in the "4e Conversions of 5e" thread, and it was relatively well-received. So I thought, let's make it no longer long-held, let's take it one step closer to reality.

More or less, I feel like, just as the Old School movement has its method/technique/philosophical differences that don't obviously flow from the rules as presented, 4e has its share of non-obvious-but-fundamental stuff. Stuff that, if the way to grokking it were merely made a little easier, a little more obvious, people wouldn't think nearly as bad of it. Many might not change their preferences as a result, of course. But the chance to re-present things in a better light--and to provide solid guidance and wisdom to people who WANT to play/like 4e but are struggling--seems worth taking.

The biggest thing, though, about any project like this: I cannot, and will not, abide replicating the condescending tone and painfully one-sided (with a BS lampshade/handwave) examples from the actual "Old School Primer." It would be better not to make the document at all, than to make one that speaks ill of other gaming styles.

With that restriction in mind, here are the (initial) kinds of things I think we could gather together to help 4e fans of all stripes:
- Advice for encounter design (using terrain and traps, how to use minions, how to use solos, avoiding slog, etc.)
- Advice for monster design (solving 'big sack of HP' issues, suggestions for abilities, ways to use recharge, etc.)
- Troubleshooting for "character sheet entrapment" -- encouraging(/engaging in) improv, creatively using powers, the flexibility of skills
- Fully addressing Skill Challenges, the ups and downs, ways to make them more fluid/adaptive, getting the most out of them
- Leveraging story elements (companion NPCs, quests, backgrounds/themes/feats, PP and ED integration)
- Preventing or addressing combat drag, from both sides of the DM screen - Simple quality-of-life/play tips and tricks
- Advice for adventure conversions, adapting characters from other editions/games, dealing with ruleset differences

I doubt I've got an exhaustive list there, but that seems like plenty of seeds for discussion!

 

[Manbearcat]

I've thrown a million and one words at 4e over the last several years. I'll throw some into your thread in the coming weeks as I'm able. How about some top-down stuff.

The Organization of Play

The conversation of 4e should generate a play experience like that of a conflict-charged comic book; a storyboard. Literally. Closed action scenes with little sequential boxes that ultimately add up to a micro-story which in turn generate macro-story. These boxes zoom in on each character. The GM puts pressure on the player's character. The player of the character declares an action. The action is resolved. This continues until the closed scene is resolved, the table tallies the fallout (mechanical and fictional), and then we organically transition from that action scene to the next one. A Combat Turn or a Skill Challenge Turn is your little box. Make the most of it.

Quests generate your story. Themes, Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies generate Quests. The resolution of those Quests generate more Quests. Put it all together and you've got story.
​

Genre Conceits/Tropes

Heroic Tier: The fantasy equivalent of Indiana Jones and Die Hard.

Paragon Tier: The fantasy equivalent of X-Men.

Epic Tier: Greek myth, Diablo, and the highest order of comic book stuff (eg where Galactus, Thanos and Darkseid are antagonists).
​

 

[MoutonRustique]

For my money, the list you've created is pretty much exhaustive.

Sure, there's more to talk about - but this is meant as a primer; not the "be all and end all ultimate guide to all things 4e".

So, for my money - that initial list seems like an excellent starting goal. Of course, should other things crop-up as needed during the development of said guide, by all means. But these things crumble under their own weight 8.6 times out of 10 (that number was puled straight out of my "derrière" - but you get my meaning) better a lighter result than a heavier "one more for the dust bin".

My 2cp. (for now)
...
A third cp (that didn't take long!) perhaps the tone (usual phrasing) should be along the lines of :
- 4th edition is great for...
- you can use "mechanic X" to create a good "situation Y"
- skill challenges are best used in "kappa, beta, omega" fashion
- if you want to have type Z game, then these are good suggestions
- if you're looking for "hard to do in 4e-thing", these are possible options, but 4th edition might not be the best fit. In this instance, it's possible that "system alpha" would be a great fit.

Friendly, honest, self-aware and helpful. (i.e. as opposed to : prescriptive, reductive, aggrandizing or bigoted) - all things much, much easier said than done. But, always a good idea to remind ourselves once in a while (or, at least, it helps me!)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Genre Conceits/Tropes

Heroic Tier: The fantasy equivalent of Indiana Jones and Die Hard.

Paragon Tier: The fantasy equivalent of X-Men.

Epic Tier: Greek myth, Diablo, and the highest order of comic book stuff (eg where Galactus, Thanos and Darkseid are antagonists).
​

Great stuff, Manbearcat, but I wanted to expand a bit on these in particular. That is, I'm getting an idea of an "Appendix N: 4th Edition" here--various examples of context-appropriate media that illustrate the "progression" of the tiers, especially ones that provide different views on things. Another example:

Heroic: The Princess Bride
Paragon: Willow or Krull
Epic: The Wheel of Time

Been trying to come up with a good nautical example (including some Pirates of the Caribbean, of course) but not sure what others to pick--the first film is very Heroic, and the later films feel like a good match for Paragon, but I don't know anything good for Epic. I suppose Spelljammer wouldn't hurt...

There's also another thing: as long as each tier includes a meaningful scaling-up, you don't HAVE to follow the typical examples. That is, most people seem to think that Epic has to be Traversing The Multiverse, and Punching Whole Pantheons In The Unmentionables. But your progression could quite easily go:
Heroic - Fresh-faced adventurers solving problems one village/town at a time, until the local monarch takes notice.
Paragon - Regional politics, civil strife, and the looming threat of all-out war.
Epic - Zig-zagging the world, uniting nations, appeasing the spirits, saving the Four Crystals Of Light, and defeating the Ultimate Big Bad (...essentially every FF game, ever)

You can also have campaigns that work under entirely different premises. One INCREDIBLE-sounding example from RPG.net was inspired by Chrono Trigger: travelling back in time to progressively more ancient eras, when the threats were bigger, badder, and scarier. Starting off with going back to pre-collapse Nerath, and sequentially progressing backward through the Arkhosia-Bael Turath war, the War of Winter, etc. all the way back to the Dawn War in Epic.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Quests generate your story. Themes, Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies generate Quests. The resolution of those Quests generate more Quests. Put it all together and you've got story.

This sounds good, but I think I'd put it in more concrete terms.

Heroic Tier: The fantasy equivalent of Indiana Jones and Die Hard.

Paragon Tier: The fantasy equivalent of X-Men.

Epic Tier: Greek myth, Diablo, and the highest order of comic book stuff (eg where Galactus, Thanos and Darkseid are antagonists).

Definitely sounds about right for the tone/genre that 4e is reaching at.

I think I'd first talk about what the game is about. This is a game about story. 4e's purpose as a system is to generate a fun and interesting story about a bunch of remarkable characters. To explore their world, to tell the tale of great deeds, terrible dangers, to find out what happens next.

While this game provides rules for fighting battles, overcoming dangers, etc it isn't about a struggle. It isn't fundamentally a contest of survival. Its an exploration and exposition of the world and the characters. This is why much of the game's rules and material are about the characters. About what they do, how they do it, and how they change and grow over the course of a campaign. The question isn't really about whether the characters survive the next fight with some orcs, but about what happens when they discover that they have to save the world from the undead minions of the Demon Prince Orcus, and how they grow and change as they fight to preserve their little outpost in a dangerous world.

As such the rules are meant to define what the character's means are, how they accomplish things, and to present them with challenges to overcome which will help to shape their story. This story may be in part a struggle for survival, characters may perish and the dangers of the world aren't merely for show. However, characters hold their fates in their own hands. When Henrik the Dwarf was killed by ogres he gave his life buying his allies enough time to climb into the ore cart and escape.

 

[Manbearcat]

This sounds good, but I think I'd put it in more concrete terms.

I was hoping to get credit for being pithy given my knack for ostentatious TLDRisms!

I'll have more words to throw at this afterwhile.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I was hoping to get credit for being pithy given my knack for ostentatious TLDRisms!

I'll have more words to throw at this afterwhile.

I thought I was the champion of long drawn out posts!

 

[MoutonRustique]

Diablo actually works beautifully to explain tiers of play :

Act I = heroic (you're helping a village and venturing in "regular" environments)
Act II = high heroic to paragon (you're helping a major city and venturing in more magical and dangerous environments)
Act III = paragon to low epic (you're the main force in a siege against demons and eventually venture into hell itself)
Act IV = epic (storming the gates of heaven to battle the greatest lords of hell is pretty textbook epic)

Ok, so it's not perfect (being 3 divided in 4), but it's a pretty good starting spot - especially since Act 1 and Act 4 are so good examples. IMO.

My examples would probably go something along :

Heroic: Willow, the first hour of Record of Lodoss Wars, The Witcher novels, Robin Hood, Diablo III Act I, The Black Company-the Company itself

Paragon: books 4 to 10 of Wheel of Time, most of the Death Gate cycle, The Expendables for some reason, Diablo III Act III, LotR: Aragorn, Legolass and Gimli, the second half of Record of Lodoss Wars

Epic: the end parts of many high-fantasy novels, The Black Company-the Named sorcerers, Diablo III Act IV

... yeah, that list is bad. I'll ponder on it some more...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Honestly I don't think that many fantasy novels EVER venture into epic territory [MENTION=22362]MoutonRustique[/MENTION]. I'd say Moorcock is one of the primary exceptions, at the end of the various cycles. There are a few other things that reach that level of crazy, like some of Saberhagen's stuff maybe (Empire of the Atom with the crazy swords and whatnot).

There's some stuff in classic myths that could be epic as well, some of the labors of Hercules maybe? Chuculainn is another one that I'd call 'mythic', and you could consider some of the Finnish and Norse epics to have 'epic' elements.

I'd say most literary fantasy of whatever sorts is heroic/paragon in nature. Characters have definite fixed limits, they operate in a recognizable world with somewhat realistic limitations, etc. Often a character will be endowed with one single super fantastical aspect.

Truthfully though, RPGs and Super Hero comics are the main 'EPIC' genre.

 

[Manbearcat]

I thought I was the champion of long drawn out posts!

You can have the title! I always aim for pithy and focused but I fall down somewhere around 1000 word count!

I'll take a crack at encounter design if I can scrounge up some free time in the coming days. Pithy and focused encounter design advice that is!