D&D 5E Changes in Interpretation

[D'karr]

My first 4e campaign was an exploratory, you-are-there 'Simulationist' campaign - Vault of Larin Karr. I ran it for I think around 20 sessions, over 2 years, I think mid 2009 to early 2011. I just don't think it worked very well. I can't even say why, exactly. The 4e mechanics didn't *stop* me running this style of play. But I know my subsequent, much more Narrativist & Dramatist, Southlands and Loudwater 4e campaigns seemed to fit the 4e game engine far, far better. I never got the 'something's wrong with this game' feeling from them (about the rules - I was not entirely happy about the lack of engagement by some of the Southlands players, so I ended it after Heroic Tier, but that wasn't a mechanical issue).

I have several groups that I run/play with. There are only 2 players from the entirety of those groups that are even remotely interested in the "Sim Exploratory Play".

I can see why an adventure such as Vault of Larin Karr would be uninteresting to most of my players, save possibly those 2. I could run that adventure with Moldvay basic, 1e, or 3.x, and they still would not enjoy it. At that point it has nothing to do with the game system and everything to do with the players expectations/wants.



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[S'mon]

I don't think so.

Not uniquely unsuited. But not the vehicle I personally would choose.

Yeah, nobody here is saying you can't do exploration-sim based play with 4e. It's just (IME) not the best tool for the job. Why should I use 4e for something I've found through play-experience it's not great at, when I can use it for stuff it IS great at, and use other games, that I find do exploration-sim better, for exploration-sim? I don't need 4e to be both a floor wax and a dessert topping.

 

[S'mon]

"exploratory or appalachian trail attrition play"

'Appalachian Trail Attrition Play' sounds like a Gamist, resource management challenge-based, approach to play. It doesn't sound like something I'd enjoy. When I talk about exploration, I'm not talking about "see how far you can get without dying", ADOM* style. I'm talking about the immersive sense of being a person inhabiting a living fantasy world, interacting with and exploring that world. No challenge is necessary for this sense of immersion.

*A popular Roguelike computer game, m'lud.

 

[Manbearcat]

@S'mon

Gotcha. I think you and pemerton have done more than an adequate job in explaining yourselves. I understand. Thanks for your thoughtful responses.

 

[Emerikol]

Understood. I won't try to convince you otherwise. We were discussing a pretty narrow issue - does 4e support "exploratory play"? I contend that it does and I contend that the same game I've run from Basic onward is what I run with 4e (only it is better supported). That game is not a heroic action movie game nor is it a tactical skirmish game. I would say that my game actually has a large swath of diversity of playstyle and "mood/tone/feel." Given that I can play all of the various ways that I always have (including "Exploratory Play" and "Appalachian Trail Attrition" - and I feel that these are extremely well supported by the Skill Challenge and Disease/Condition Track mechancs) and now my Narrative/Meta-game and Gamist preferences are more supported than ever, empirically, I cannot logically state anything other than I feel the game is more inclusionary than ever.

Good points. Personally I don't specifically see exploratory play or any other play is that hard in 4e given you can accept the mechanical approach. I ran Monte Cook's dungeonaday.com for a while using 4e and didn't have a problem. I restat'd the monsters of course to fit my group.

For me the major issues with 4e, many of which you listed quite eloquently and fairly, are game level issues. Perhaps the only aspect of 4e beyond the immersion issues you mentioned is combat speed. The fights took up most of the session time in 4e whereas they took far less for me in previous editions. This was double true at lower levels. And to be fair I only used the early monster manuals that didn't have the fixes.

I mean how do the rules actually affect the exploration part of the game? The skill set? While I thought 4e was a tad short I could work with it while in the dungeon. I felt it suffered outside the dungeon. Are we even talking dungeon here when we talk exploration?

 

[Manbearcat]

@pemerton

<snip>

Are you and S'mon referring to either;

1) Standard 1e gamist dungeon crawling (enter room, search for traps/secret doors, sort out puzzle/complex trap or door, slay monsters, collect spoils, rinse repeat)?

or

2) You are in a potentially benign environment (wilderness, trade route, back alley). No stakes have brought you there and nothing is imminent. You are just there. Sandbox-ey stuff.

If it is either 1 or 2 then I would agree. There is no antagonist, there are no stakes, there are no conflicts to resolve. "You are there. What do you do?" That is pretty standard fair, mechanics-neutral sandbox-ey "exploratory play" (to use you guys' jargon so we're on the same page). Play on.

Are we on the same page?

Yes, that seems right - more (2).

<snip>

I think this is roughly right.

<snip>

It's your (1), not (2), because the environment is obviously not benign. But it's not mechanics-neutral.

<snip>

I mean how do the rules actually affect the exploration part of the game? The skill set? While I thought 4e was a tad short I could work with it while in the dungeon. I felt it suffered outside the dungeon. Are we even talking dungeon here when we talk exploration?

In my initial outlined parameters (top quote);

S'mon is referring to 2 - benign environment, no antagonist, mechanics-neutral simulatory exploration of environment - "You are here. What do you do?" Not specifically supported to any greater or lesser sense in any of the D&D iterations. S'mon's preference is a "feel" thing. This may stem from the same issues that you have and your (shared with many) sense that 4e is adversarial to simulation play due to 4e's outcome-based simulation rather than process-based simulation.

pemerton is referring to 1 - benign or malignant environment (but not antagonistic specifically toward you if malignant) indicative of WPM/ToH, 1e gamist D&D dungeon crawling. Not mechanics-neutral, but not specifically unsupported by 4e nor is 4e adversarial to this type of play. However, aspects of the nature of 4e's resource siloing (away from long term into encounter based M.O.) create an experience that some may find dissonant with what they have come to expect with regards to classic 1e, gamist dungeon crawling (primarily due to the Standard Operating Procedure of leveraging open-ended, long-term duration magical support).


That's my take on this conversation and the respective positions.

 

[Emerikol]

In my initial outlined parameters (top quote);

S'mon is referring to 2 - benign environment, no antagonist, mechanics-neutral simulatory exploration of environment - "You are here. What do you do?" Not specifically supported to any greater or lesser sense in any of the D&D iterations. S'mon's preference is a "feel" thing. This may stem from the same issues that you have and your (shared with many) sense that 4e is adversarial to simulation play due to 4e's outcome-based simulation rather than process-based simulation.

pemerton is referring to 1 - benign or malignant environment (but not antagonistic specifically toward you if malignant) indicative of WPM/ToH, 1e gamist D&D dungeon crawling. Not mechanics-neutral, but not specifically unsupported by 4e nor is 4e adversarial to this type of play. However, aspects of the nature of 4e's resource siloing (away from long term into encounter based M.O.) create an experience that some may find dissonant with what they have come to expect with regards to classic 1e, gamist dungeon crawling (primarily due to the Standard Operating Procedure of leveraging open-ended, long-term duration magical support).


That's my take on this conversation and the respective positions.

Okay. Sorry if I was a bit slow to get into this conversation.

Here's my take on 4e
1. Process sim - fails. It's outcome intentionally I think.
2. Exploration in a dungeon. Room to room. Seems ok to me.
3. Sandbox. What do you want to do? Seems ok to me.

I mean something can be functional but not to my taste. I think the AEDU system is functional but not to my taste. Whereas as a process sim, it is not functional. Meaning I can't play those style of games without a major rewrite.

 

[Manbearcat]

@Emerikol

Can't xp you but that looks good. Agree on everything you wrote there. 1 is probably S'mon's issue and likely a bit of what Ratskinner was referring to as well.

I think we're all pretty close to agreement kinda/sorta...or at least mutual understanding. Break out the champagne and close down the internet!

 

[Hussar]

Honestly, I think the reason that 4e doesn't work particularly well for the sort of "setting interaction/exploration" play that S'mon and Pemerton are talking about (and I agree with their opinion) is that it's the combat engine getting in the way. Comments about grind aside, it generally does take about an hour to resolve a 4e combat. By and large. Which means, in a 4 hour session, if you have 3 combats, there isn't a whole lot of time for exploration.

IME, it tends to work like FIGHT... explore... FIGHT... [size=]explore[/size] ... FIGHT ... explore. And the exploration stuff tends to take a back seat to the fight stuff because there's just so much fight stuff.

I mean, there's only so many things you can do with a statue. And once you've done most of them, the next statue isn't really all that different. But, the fight mechanics are so complex that every fight can be very attention grabbing. Or at least it should be.

I dunno. I might be way off base here. But, it's something I've noticed in my 4e play. I get really into the game when there's stuff to kill but the between killing stuff is becoming less and less engaging for me.

I want out of combat stuff that is every bit as engaging as the combat stuff. Trying to convince someone to do something should be every bit as mechanically robust as trying to stick a sword in him.

 

[pemerton]

I can't XP anyone here at the moment, but I want to add my voice to the "productive discussion", "mutual understanding apparently reached" chorus.

I want out of combat stuff that is every bit as engaging as the combat stuff. Trying to convince someone to do something should be every bit as mechanically robust as trying to stick a sword in him.

Ah, now here is a point of difference. I didn't have social encounters in mind when talking about "exploration" above (neither WPM nor ToH, my two primary exhibits, has social aspects to them). I'm from the school that find skill challenges are a very robust mechanism for handling social encounters.

I've always had a reasonably rich interaction element in my games (at least, it seems that way to me), and 4e has supported this well by reducing the amount of GM fiat and increasing the capacity of the players to leverage the mechanics in the interests of their own protagonism.