D&D 5E "But Wizards Can Fly, Teleport and Turn People Into Frogs!"

[timASW]

What you see as "defense" I see as talking about D&D with people on a D&D message board. I'm discussing D&D, not valiantly standing between 4e and all attackers. I have a right to disagree with peoples' opinions about 4e just as much as you or anyone else has a right to disagree with me about 3e.


Right, and I absolutely get it, and held similar opinions back in (especially) my 2e days; you should see some of the nonsense campaign settings I assembled back in those days with stuff like Wizards who were immune to weapons. (Not making this up.) I just disagree with it now - for me the "game" part of an RPG is half the reason we're all sitting around the table every Wednesday exploring the catacombs beneath the Blue Shrine. The narrative and story are the other half, and both are (IMO) equal; I want the gameplay to be fun in and of itself in addition to the adventure part. It's one of the reasons I like Savage Worlds so much.

I just don't think it's particularly good game design to have this kind of power disparity, and I don't like what it does to the game from my own history with 3.x in particular. (Remember, like quite a lot of other current 4e players, I ran 3.x for its entire 8-year run before the game was retired, taking more regular breaks as my problems with the edition wore on. I have many fewer problems with it in 1e and RC, because of other balancing factors, and I generally think both are much better-designed at their cores, though every edition has issues.)

I understand and know that other people disagree, but just like you (and others with similar views) have no problems engaging me on the issue, I'll engage as well.

-O

This really gets to the heart of it for me. I dont want D&D to be a game.Anytime when we're all sitting there and something reminds me that this is a game, rather then being in the story its a problem.

For me the story trumps all, the immersion trumps all. I play warhammer battles, i like tactical games. But I have a great one for that. Its really great and I dont need to replace it for that.

When I sit down to play a Table top RPG my absolute, total goal is to go away from the real world, go away from playing a game, and tell a story for a few hours.

Every single thing that comes up in play that pulls me away from "we're in this story" and to "we're all playing this game" is a huge negative for me. Thats probably why i like the storyteller system and the FFG warhammer system better for TTRPG's but 3e and 2e have fewer immersion breaking points.

Too much makes it a game, rather then a story in actual play. And its getting really annoying hearing people saying I just dont understand it and thats why I dont like it. I Do understand it, I just dont like that kind of game.

And it would honestly make my damn day for just one 4e warrior to acknowledge that thats okay. Its not that uber game, its not perfect, and my not liking it is not a function of my deficiency as a gamer.

 

[Siberys]

Neither are most D&D wizards. Classes aren't just for PCs.

There are games where classes are just for PCs, though. :/ 4e is definitely one of them, and I'll be honest - though I lack experience with them, I was sure 1e and 2e were too.

Even if you leave the wizard quasi-deities out of the equation, to me it's pretty clear that Aragorn was better than Frodo ever is (mechanically) when he was the equivalent of 1st level. I don't get the sense that any amount of training would get the hobbits to the point of being as good at adventuring as a human.

When who was 1st level? It looks like you could be referring to Aragorn there, but that 'he' is unclear. If the 'he' referred to Frodo, you can ignore the next paragraph.

If you were referring to Aragorn, well, I just flat-out disagree - we never see a level one Aragorn per my estimation of the story, so comparing him to the hobbits on that point is kinda pointless - apples to oranges, as it were.

Hmm. That one I still don't get.

I think the CR/EL system is terrible, and I don't use it at all. I find that I have no trouble eyeballing a monster and getting an interesting and challenging battle. I wonder sometimes if people using that system (or the adventures that rely on it) creates problems I don't have.

Whether I eyeball the system or use the built-in CR system, I felt that PF's lack of combat balance worked against me. By contrast, 4e's so tight I can usually just toss something out there, and if it's within a pretty wide range it'll work precisely the way I want.

Anecdotal and a little off topic; In that PF game I ran, I ended up multiplying everything's hp by 2.5 just to get fights to last as long as I wanted. They were still at roughly the same threat level, but things weren't going down so fast. I felt bad doing it, though, because I a) felt I was undercutting player's mechanical choices, and b) felt I was completely ignoring a facet of the pseudo-sim veneer that PF has that I knew some of my players enjoyed. The lack of combat balance resulted in a pure lose-lose on my side; either I suffered with brutally short, unsatisfying, pointless-seeming combats, or I felt I was invalidating my player's choices.

Otherwise, excellent post, [MENTION=17106]Ahnehnois[/MENTION].

 

[Sunseeker]

This really gets to the heart of it for me. I dont want D&D to be a game.Anytime when we're all sitting there and something reminds me that this is a game, rather then being in the story its a problem.

For me the story trumps all, the immersion trumps all. I play warhammer battles, i like tactical games. But I have a great one for that. Its really great and I dont need to replace it for that.

When I sit down to play a Table top RPG my absolute, total goal is to go away from the real world, go away from playing a game, and tell a story for a few hours.

Every single thing that comes up in play that pulls me away from "we're in this story" and to "we're all playing this game" is a huge negative for me. Thats probably why i like the storyteller system and the FFG warhammer system better for TTRPG's but 3e and 2e have fewer immersion breaking points.

Too much makes it a game, rather then a story in actual play. And its getting really annoying hearing people saying I just dont understand it and thats why I dont like it. I Do understand it, I just dont like that kind of game.

And it would honestly make my damn day for just one 4e warrior to acknowledge that thats okay. Its not that uber game, its not perfect, and my not liking it is not a function of my deficiency as a gamer.

But you don't really need a set of rules for that.

Lets just say you all make up some characters(no dice, no skills, no nothing), Bob's and elf, Randy's a human fighter raised by wolves, Tim is the beautiful magic-using maiden, and Sue is the grumpy, over-muscled she-hulk-of-a-barbarian.

You really don't need rules for them to fight things, things appear and based on how well any one of them describes what they're doing, they may succeed or fail. Heck, they may all tell their own version of how they each fought the Multi-Bear.

Collectivly you all tell the story of how you rescued the prince from the evil witch, how Tim seduced him in order to get pregnant with his illegitimate child and claim half the now-king's riches. While Bob went on to unite the roaming clans of elves to wage war on the now corrupt queen of Kingdomville and save the ensorceled barbarian Sue from the clutches of the evil Queen and her twisted son. All the while Randy serves as Tim's first knight, secretly pining away his love for her and hoping that one day she'll return the sweet young woman he once knew!

------

You don't really need rules or maps or skills or even dice for that! I mean it might serve some purpose, but if collectively you all share at least as much story-telling blood as that little vignette I wrote out above, I think you'd do fine without a coded set of rules.

Really there's nothing wrong with using D&D to tell a story, but with a pre-coded ruleset these things often get railroady. Maybe Tim didn't want to become evil, but because he encountered the dreaded Jabberclock he was driven mad and his mind corrupted by an evil forest!...because why? Because the "story" built on the rules led there.

 

[Siberys]

[MENTION=6698787]timASW[/MENTION];

This is where people like me have a disconnect with your position. Just like you, I don't want to be reminded it's a game. But the stuff that reminds me it's a game is the very same stuff that you say helps you immerse. I love abstract, gamey rules, because they're designed to do their job and get out of my way. Too often, for me, systems you cite as being more immersive force me into dealing with subsystems or granular, sim-motivated rules. And at that point, I'm not thinking about the story, I'm thinking about the sim engine. The abstract, 'disconnected' nature of 4e rules (and of SW and FATE, other systems that look like they'll mesh well with my playstyle) ensures that when I'm adjudicating the rules, I'm forced into thinking about the story too - frex, I tripped an ooze. That doesn't make sense. How can I make it work... now I'm thinking about the story! The stuff that keeps you immersed just ends up sounding to me like 'begin combat subroutine 5b - grapple rules - provoking an attack of opportunity... attack of opportunity resolved...' :/

(note: using grappling and trip dissociation as an example there. I'm not sure if that's the sort of thing you were getting at, but it's my go-to example for why gamey play keeps me immersed when process-sim stuff just shunts me out of the zone.)

Let me make your day - 4e isn't perfect. I'm constantly reading the rules to other systems precisely for that reason. If you don't like it, that's fine. But it's just as fine if I like it, and I have plenty of /very/ good reasons to - some of which are precisely the reasons you don't like it!

 

[Obryn]

When I sit down to play a Table top RPG my absolute, total goal is to go away from the real world, go away from playing a game, and tell a story for a few hours.

...

And it would honestly make my damn day for just one 4e warrior to acknowledge that thats okay. Its not that uber game, its not perfect, and my not liking it is not a function of my deficiency as a gamer.

Okay. In order... I want a great story, too, but not at the expense of the game part. I can make a story sitting and writing, or playing free from improv. That's not all I want in D&D - or any RPG.

Second, can we can it with the "4e warrior" nonsense? My goodness; everyone here is an RPGer and everyone here plays D&D. We all waste time on message boards arguing about our favorite ways to pretend to be elves. Can you stop with the labeling? I don't call the folks who tell me I'm wrong about 3e "warriors" and I'd like the same courtesy. If you just group everyone who likes 4e (and has the temerity to say so) on a message board together, you're no longer considering me an individual, and it's no wonder you've accused me of crazy things like hating 1e.

Third, of course it's not a deficiency. You still don't seem to believe it, but I don't care what games other people play. I know and accept that even fellow 4e players value different things in gaming. 4e is not perfect and has never been perfect, but for me and my table it does a damn fine job. I've said this a lot.

But when my opinions differ I'm going to state them, because that's why I'm here rather than on a blog. I am not superior because I like 4e, and I'm damn well not inferior either, and I expect both to confront and be confronted.

-O

 

[Bluenose]

For me wizards are magical. They absolutely should be able to do all sorts of crazy stuff that can not be matched in non-magical ways. And I dont care one bit if at high levels that makes them more powerful then other classes. Not only am i absolutely okay with that but I consider it a positive on the game, the fluff, settings, pretty much everything from top to bottom.

For me Warriors are skillful. They absolutely should be able to do all sorts of perfectly feasible stuff that just isn't possible for classes that lack that same sort fo skill. If that means the fighter has to be given an instant kill move to represent their ability to put a sword/arrow through the monsters' heart, so be it. They're just that skilled. If that means I get to shoot an arrow out of the sky with another arrow, well I am the best archer for miles around. If that means that my senses are so good that invisibility is hardly any protection, that's because I've trained them that way. If I get to swim across teh Danube in armour, it's because I've dedicated time and effort to being good at swimming. And if the wizard thinks it's supernatural and dislikes that I can do it, that's tough for him. Because I'm not going to accept a game where wizards get superpowers beyond those of fictional wizards and warriors don't even get to match up to real life abilities, let alone match their fictional and mythical counterparts. Not any more. 3e showed me how unacceptable that was, and Next will have failed at uniting the D&D fanbase if it attracts the people who like that play-style.

 

[Hussar]

I'm probably going to regret this, but, TimASW, when you say:

When I sit down to play a Table top RPG my absolute, total goal is to go away from the real world, go away from playing a game, and tell a story for a few hours.

Why on earth would you play D&D in any form? Because, AFAIC, D&D has always been far, far too much of a game to ever come even close to approaching what you claim you want. I mean, virtually every single element is in service to the game.

 

[Manbearcat]

And it would honestly make my damn day for just one 4e warrior to acknowledge that thats okay. Its not that uber game, its not perfect, and my not liking it is not a function of my deficiency as a gamer.

That's all you're looking for? That is what this is about? You interpreted advocating for or breaking down (as in the scene-framing thread) a game as some sort of screed against other gamers? Well:

Its not that uber game, its not perfect, and your not liking it is not a function of your deficiency as a gamer.

You've gotten a few of these now. So from now on, maybe when folks comment on/break down 4e or attempt to correct some wobbly cultural meme, you'll know that they're not saying "Its that uber game, its perfect, and your not liking it is a function of your deficiency as a gamer." A vigorous defense (if only they were truly vigorous) is not a personal attack on you. They're not some sort of xenophobic tribe (is it possible to be a xenophobic gamer?) that hates other systems or other D&D iterations. Most (all?) of us have enjoyed plenty of other systems and have spent many-a-year GMing and playing every iteration of D&D. We're all kin from the same dorky tribe.

 

[pemerton]

And it would honestly make my damn day for just one 4e warrior to acknowledge that thats okay. Its not that uber game, its not perfect, and my not liking it is not a function of my deficiency as a gamer.

Last time we had an extended exchange on these boards, you were explaining to me (whom you've never met) that my players (whom you've never met) were munchkins for playing a drow and a tiefling! With a side-helping of implying that my game is a shallow Monty Haul fest. (I linked you to actual play threads from my game, but if you read them you never posted on them.)

And now you're wilting because someone else is explaining what they take to be strengths of 4e?

 

[pemerton]

But if PF's success is any indication, I'm not some freak outlier either.

OK, but neither are those who play and enjoy 4e. It's hardly an unpopular game!

Classes aren't just for PCs.

This is not an uncontroversial claim.

In 4e, for instance, classes are predominantly for PCs. In AD&D, NPCs are often built using classes, but with many differences from PCs (eg different stat requirements, or an inability to progress in level, etc).

Some people see classes predominanty as a metagame tool for building PCs to serve players as their vehicles in the game, rather than models of ingame learning and lifepaths.

Most of my players don't like playing casters, perhaps because of the bookwork involved but also because they don't like having to worry about running out of stuff.

How do they handle their fighters running out of hit points - a pretty serious resource constraint!

To expand on the principles of "balance" and "sameness", here's my example of a magic system: The GR Psychic's Handbook.

<snip>

It's a feat and skill system. You create effects by using skills.

ICE's Spacemaster: Privateer uses a similar system for psionics. AD&D 2nd ed also had a skill-based psionic system. And there are others too.

They have their strengths (flexibiity) but also notorious weaknesses (easy to break).