Monster Post. Will Sort.
"Player Powers" and "Disconnected Mechanics"
It took myself a while to get around how to interpret these abilities, when I realised that these were not character powers, but player powers.
Something you generally see in rules-lite systems, and something that tends to make me not want to play the game.
Martial dailies/encounter powers are just abstractions of the chance that the a certain set of circumstances occur...the design team ... gave the player the narrative control to say when they would occur.
And giving giving narrative control over the environment to the player is the sort of thing that "breaks verisimilitude for me" "disconnects me from immersion" or however else you'd like to phrase it.
Some of my DM narrative control has been given to them to use when they will, still subject to Rule 0.
My rule 0 tends toward: "A player has control over the choices and actions of their character(s). That is all."
If I'm giving up more than that, I'm not GMing, I'm moving to a shared narrative game where everyone is both player and GM, and rolling is less about what happens, and more about "who has narrative control in this situation". Then I can play while drinking, or something. Ant thats not the sort of game I'd like to play every week, but instead, one night in several months.
You can't have this discussion usefully if you think that "disassociated mechanics" is an argument clincher. That's just a more indirect way of saying, "I want more verisimilitude"--in bad jargon, with a bad history tied to it. If you start with the "different verisimilitude" version, it's, "this mechanic causes me to be disassociated from the fiction" which is potentially offensive only because of the prior nonsense "associated" with the phrase "disassociated mechanics"--but technically, there is nothing wrong with that formulation, because it is a simple statement of experience being reported instead of a claim that the mechanic is somehow inherently the only thing at issue.
Alright: "In the kind of verisimilitude I want out of an ongoing RPG, is one with neither mechanics disassociated from the fiction, nor removed from the game worlld making them /Player Powers/ instead of /Character Powers/."
Both of those things grate on me, and the more of them there are, and the more blatantly they do so, the less likely I will enjoy the RPG. Additionally, I'm not a fan of "Narratively describe it however you want, without limits." Which I feel leads to alot of "Ugh. Please make it stop. Lets just not describe any actions, so I dont have to listen to this."
Now, on the second issue above that players make decisions from the point of view of characters. Take something like trip, now triping people that are expecting it is not that easy. In a fight it is not even something that one would try every attack. It would be bad tactics, it is realy only something that can work when you and the opponent are lined up the right way.
Agreed.
How does one best model this?
4e does it by giving the player as the player (not in the person of their character) a token in the form of a power that can be used in a limited way to say that the character is now in a position to try the trip.
How do you think it should be done?
Random Chance, Set situations where the power is plausible (when flanking, when standing on sand, when standing on stone, etc), When the opponent isn't expecting that maneuver (trip/disarm DC should go up after you fail).
Ideally not by giving the narrative control over the setting to the player.
So would 4e have worked better for you if all encounter and daily power had a preamble that in effect use of these powers represented a moment where the player (not the character) was invoking that an occasion would now occur where his character could do some cool signature move?
Not for me it wouldn't, no.
The problem is that there's no underlying simulation for that; it's purely meta-game. So the players are choosing their tactics and strategies based on how they should allocate their signature-move resources.
This is a big reason why I'm against giving the player narrative control of "outside their character."
Characters in D&D Don't influence what eachother learn.
The basic one that though guy, sneaky guy, magic guy and holy guy go traipsing about in haunted ruins and abandoned places fighting monsters that make 20 year veterens wet themselves but in all that time, tough guy never learns much about magic, magic guy never learns new sword tricks and nobody learns hightly useful tricks from sneaky guy. Also despite daily miracles from holy guy nobody ever converts to the worship of holy guy's god.
That might be a pretty cool optional subsystem. You could work in a mechanic where you pick up a small number of abilities possessed by your teammates, to cover you picking up a couple tricks from the other characters.
Multiclassing
I agree about not being locked into a class. However, I think that there needs to be limits. I don't see verisimilitude if anyone can just take a new class without a trainer, time to train, and the equipment.
I don't want someone gaining enough experience and just taking a level in fighter. Learning to be proficient in all those weapons takes a lot of time and practice.
I also don't want someone taking a level in wizard and casting first level spells and scribing scrolls without having to first spending time having to learn cantrips and then first level spells
I don't want someone taking a level in monk without having to spend the time with someone that can teach them unarmed combat techniques, meditation, chi, etc.
You get the idea
Hmm. Many RPGs (particularly classless ones) don't let you advance something you haven't been using.
In D&D, I've been doing it the same way. If you're a fighter, and you want to take a level of barbarian, I'd want to see the fighter start acting barbariany (easy requirement). If he wants to take a level of rogue, start using stealth skills or acrobatics skills. If he wants a level of wizard, make a point of reading stuff.
Likewise, if they talk to the party member of that class about how they do what they do, that will help.
And of course getting a trainer is the third option. (Getting a trainer is mandatory in Shadowrun - that's where all your money tends to go.)
If a player says: "I'm taking a level in monk" that needs to be justified by things that happened in game. I will make the player explain to me in narrative terms why he should have a level in monk next. *OR* it may be obvious by how he's been acting and what he's been doing, in which case I'm likely to just allow it.
I wouldn't mind seeing it as an official rule for D&D though.
