Confirm or Deny: D&D4e would be going strong had it not been titled D&D

[Manbearcat]

Don't have a ton of time, so just a slight bit of commentary.

Seriously, if 4e had these things changed:

[*]Healing surges changed to a "hero pool."

I think in one of your later posts you lamented the naming of Healing Surges. In 13th Age, Heinsoo and Tweet call them "Recoveries." Personally, they could call them grape jam and it wouldn't bother me so much. However, if they would have called them "Heroic Surges" or "Heroic Mettle" or "Get up you sonuvabitch!...cause Mickey loves ya..." I suppose that may have been better for conveying genre in the presentation of the rulebooks. Extrapolating from the rulebooks' explanations/definitions of hit points to healing to healing surges to second wind would seem to be enough to me. If not, playing it hard as it is meant to be played should certainly do the trick!

But yes, the legacy incoherencies of D&D and continuing with some of that jargon (while dropping others) may explain some of the dissonance we see between various advocates and detractors takeaways from reading the books.

[*]When used as "healing," a "hero pool" point acts as damage prevention, rather than post-factum healing.

I think what may be happening here is what happens to folks who have a certain threshold/litmus with respect to some kind of coupling of process and outcome. They need things to be process-based to n degree. Obviously 4e is not that system. It is outcome-based. Outcome-based systems with broad or open descriptors are always going to be difficult for folks who want/need that (constraining...but that is the point I suppose) coupling of process > outcome.

You take someone like me and it basically works like this:

A) You take damage which is the loss of hit points which in turn represent your heroes diminished physical endurance, skill, luck, and resolve. In the fiction, this may look like a scratch, a bruise, a heaving chest gasping for air...or something more innocuous such as a pained look of sorrow, consternation, anguish...or perhaps observable at all. Whatever it is, unto itself, it afflicts no condition that would impede you in any discernible way. Hence "mojo."

B) Your buddy spends his martial keyword to rouse your spirit/moralize you, provide you with a moment's worth of insight born of veteran savvy, et al.

C) You spend a healing surge (+ whatever modifier from buddy in B), your latent available reserves of "staying power/mojo", and your hit points (see A above on what those are) are restored. Your situation improves. In the fiction, maybe your mental anguish, consternation is relieved. Maybe you get your second wind (real life term for a physical event). Maybe your skill is improved by the presence of your ally (this all the time in real life athletics...hence the meme "he makes everyone around him better").

That works just fine from a genre credibility standpoint and, what's more, it certainly passes the smell test for what happens in real life. The effect of demoralization and moralization on athletic endeavors cannot possibly be overstated. The body follows the mind.

But, again, if you need a constrained process > outcome so things are good in your head (because one definition or another of various jargon is problematic), then I can see where "soak" resource suites and resolution would fit the bill. 4e has these with various Temp HPs, active DRs, reactive DRs in immediation actions. It just also allows for the inspirational/dig-down-deep mundane restoration of non-meat HP loss via accessing your latent mojo (healing surges).

[*]Martial daily powers removed and turned into encounter powers.

Essentials and 13th Age Fighter.

[*]Having a fortune-based recharge for encounter powers mid-combat, or alternatively "hero pool" expenditure to recharge mid-combat.

I think the 4e NPC Recharge 5, 6 mechanic or the 13th Age recharge mechanic (14 +, 15 +, etc) would fit the bill here. 13th Age allows for subsequent "Second Winds" after the first on a successful saving throw.

[*]Revision of some of the problematic powers for better fictional association.

Alternatively, you could just avoid those that are problematic for your table. There are approximately 90 kajillion powers at each level.

However, the author (and in some cases director) stance capability of martial PCs is "4e to the core" and certainly one of the many reasons that advocates appreciate the ruleset!

That.....actually sounds like a really interesting game. Like.....I might actually be excited to play a game like that, especially if it involved fun tactical combat.

But then......we run afoul of the original premise, then don't we? Would D&D 4e have been successful if it had been called something other than D&D?

I don't think my suggested changes make it any more like "D&D."

I'm not terribly into the "what is the heart of D&D" that people seem so on about (especially edition warriors that have been fighting for that heart and soul for as long as I can remember). I've been running this game since 1984. It has been a lot of things to me. Its been a murderhobo, disposable PC, pawn stance game of strategic puzzle (dungeon or wilderness) solving game like a fantasy genre TTRPG version of the CRPG Portal. Its been a not-really-working-that-well-but-I'm-extremely-good-at-making-up-for-it's-deficiencies open world sandbox game with kinda-sorta process-sim.

It very much WANTED to be something like the foreword of Moldvay but couldn't fit the bill (unless you were GM forcing your way through AD&D 2e's incoherency....which a lot of people were...and covertly...hence illusionism...hence secretly eroding player agency) until 4e came along. Then it actualized all the cool stuff I wanted it to be from my youth. You had dynamically mobile/swashbuckling combat with heroic rallies all over the place and noncombat conflict resolution with varying stakes that endeavored to fill your game with a variety of genre tropes that could actually be resolved through deft GMing, players advocating hard for their PCs (making action declarations and deploying resources), and the consultation of the (transparent and coherent) resolution mechanics. And you had a game focused thematically by PC build resources and player Quests. It was/is a beautiful thing and couldn't be more D&D to me.

 

[Manbearcat]

No, not to the PC, to the PLAYER.

Death means that you have to stop playing the game with a given character -- i.e. stop playing the game the way you've been playing for hours or weeks or months or even years.

So it's a genuine (not imagined) loss for the player. It's basically saying, "start over from zero if you mess this up). Like when Super Mario dies on world 8-3. It's about what the player has to go through.

That is why it is a great stake for players and exciting for people who (unlike Ezekiel) find that exciting.

Threatening things the characters find interesting makes the story interesting, no doubt. That is an established fact of storytelling. But we're talking about a game, which has a story AND players who are playing.

And players may or may not share their PCs concerns, but they are much more likely to care whether they have the PC at all.

Your point is certainly understood, but Bluenose's still stands despite it.

The player's emotional investment to a character can probably aptly be compared to a reader's emotional investment in a character in a novel or a serial TV drama. They are invested in the behavioral portfolio of the respective individual they appreciate/advocate for. Perhaps it is their moral bank account (eg they stand up for what that person personally believes in and they make more deposits than they make withdraws). Perhaps it is one very specific virtue that they portray with unrelenting observation, homage, action; the commitment to duty and law, and respect for those who uphold it, of Stannis Baratheon for example.

You typically find when those virtues are betrayed/unraveled/upturned in the fiction (by authors or in the course of play fallout within a TTRPG), those who were endeared to those characters will have that endearment diminished...often they even wish that character's fate would have been death rather than diminished virtue. That goes for the player of player characters who are endeared/emotionally attached to the moral portfolio that the character has earnestly cultivated within the fiction.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Your point is certainly understood, but Bluenose's still stands despite it.

The player's emotional investment to a character can probably aptly be compared to a reader's emotional investment in a character in a novel or a serial TV drama. They are invested in the behavioral portfolio of the respective individual they appreciate/advocate for. Perhaps it is their moral bank account (eg they stand up for what that person personally believes in and they make more deposits than they make withdraws). Perhaps it is one very specific virtue that they portray with unrelenting observation, homage, action; the commitment to duty and law, and respect for those who uphold it, of Stannis Baratheon for example.

You typically find when those virtues are betrayed/unraveled/upturned in the fiction (by authors or in the legitimate course of play fallout within a TTRPG), those who were endeared to those characters will have that endearment diminished...often they even wish that character's fate would have been death rather than diminished virtue. That goes for the player of player characters who are endeared/emotionally attached to the moral portfolio that the character has earnestly cultivated within the fiction.

Using game of thrones as an example, I would still say death is ultimate the bigger stake. Personally the massacre at the wedding had a much bigger impact on me than characters who gained or lost revenue in the "moral bank account". One of the reasons Game of Thrones and Walking Dead are so big I think is because they've reminded people of the value of death as a stake. These are series (and books and comic books) that are famous for killing off major characters. Do I care if Rick loses his hand? To a degree I care. Do I care care if he loses his edge or does something that crosses a moral line? Sure. But I care more about whether he gets smashed in the back of the head by Lucile. The loss of the character is a much bigger stake to me than the character's perceived value diminishing because of things that happen to him or because of choices he makes.

But it can also be highly misleading to draw too many comparisons from fiction. The difference is these are stories, written by an author and the reader is at the mercy of the narrative. D&D is a game where you don't know what the outcome will be and have a hand in shaping that outcome. I'm constantly dealing with different stakes as a PC. Sometimes stakes are not about physical threats to my character. But the most significant stake I face is the possibility of not being able to play my character because he or she has died.

 

[Zak S]

Your point is certainly understood, but Bluenose's still stands despite it.

The player's emotional investment to a character can probably aptly be compared to a reader's emotional investment in a character in a novel or a serial TV drama. They are invested in the behavioral portfolio of the respective individual they appreciate/advocate for. Perhaps it is their moral bank account (eg they stand up for what that person personally believes in and they make more deposits than they make withdraws). Perhaps it is one very specific virtue that they portray with unrelenting observation, homage, action; the commitment to duty and law, and respect for those who uphold it, of Stannis Baratheon for example.

You typically find when those virtues are betrayed/unraveled/upturned in the fiction (by authors or in the course of play fallout within a TTRPG), those who were endeared to those characters will have that endearment diminished...often they even wish that character's fate would have been death rather than diminished virtue. That goes for the player of player characters who are endeared/emotionally attached to the moral portfolio that the character has earnestly cultivated within the fiction.

I think if a character does something or has something attached to them that the PLAYER feels is worse than death ("You're a worm forever now""You eat orphans to live now and always will""Your PC's face looks like a butt"") then you've rendered the character unplayable which is, essentially, like death and creates all the problems for GMs and players that death would.

1. So a consequence that the CHARACTER doesn't want but the PLAYER thinks is interesting isn't scary.

2. A consequence that the CHARACTER doesn't want but the PLAYER thinks is uninteresting is a wonderful stake, even though it's a terrible result.

The people who say "I can think of many things that are more interesting than death" --well, so can everyone. The question is does the player consider that consequence so severe as a stake that they are forced to stop playing make a new PC (death) or they want to stop playing and make a new PC (the humiliations or defeats you describe).

If they aren't, then they're just problems that keep the game interesting (like any ogre or evil mage). If they are, then you've incurred all the problems (for GM and player) killing a character creates.

There are exceptions--certain styles of play have "Play the character until you're bored" as an explicit goal. But then the PC's death or abandonment in the face of untenable change or humiliation is NOT a good stake, because it's not an outcome the player's invested in avoiding.

TL;DR:

Unless a stake is severe in a way that makes play less fun should it come to pass (and therefore provoke or require abandonment of the PC), it won't provoke as much true fear as death. And true fear is what many players want.

 

[tomBitonti]

Reading through the above, I'm finding that the potential for player death has a value, but, it must be handled carefully.

A capricious too random death would be anti-climactic. Having a trap be a pit filled with green slime, placed randomly in a dungeon, would be an example. In a quick and dirty crawl with quick character replacement, this might be OK. In a long story driven campaign, it's jarring and pointless.

A story driven sacrifice, with the player engaged in the stakes, including opportunities to negotiate a value for their sacrifice, is quite different.

Thx!

TomB

 

[Bedrockgames]

Reading through the above, I'm finding that the potential for player death has a value, but, it must be handled carefully.

A capricious too random death would be anti-climactic. Having a trap be a pit filled with green slime, placed randomly in a dungeon, would be an example. In a quick and dirty crawl with quick character replacement, this might be OK. In a long story driven campaign, it's jarring and pointless.

A story driven sacrifice, with the player engaged in the stakes, including opportunities to negotiate a value for their sacrifice, is quite different.

Thx!

TomB

I think again this boils down to point of view and play style. Personally i don't mind death that happens seemingly out of nowhere (the stray arrow from the orc that takes out the mighty hero). That doesn't bother me, because story isn't really my goal. I'm also not playing it as a quick and dirty crawl either. There is room for another approach where you allow events and developments to unfold naturally over time, without worrying about some kind of overarching story. Your character may become important, you may play your character for months or years, but your character can still die at anytime. I don't worry about pacing or things being anti-climactic for example.

Now you may read that and think "he's just into a grind mill" or "characters are easily replaceable in his games". But nothing could be further from the truth. I allow the players to be the heroes, but their futures are completely uncertain. We take a let the dice roll in the open and fall where they may approach. Sometimes that means characters are killed at unexpected moments. Their deaths might be anticlimactic but they are still significant. The party has to regroup and decide what to do going forward.

Again, I worry about comparisons with books and movies sometimes but look at Game of Thrones or Walking Dead, the premises are strong enough for things to keep going even when crucial characters die (sometimes when a person who appears to be the main character dies). Things continue to expand and move.

 

[tomBitonti]

Both Game of Thrones and the Walking Dead are curious examples.

Both have large casts, and are quite gritty. One expects, in an extended post-zombie-holocaust story, for there to be many deaths, some quite random. I'd say there is a need for enough random misfortune, or the story wouldn't work, or wouldn't come off as fitting the defined scope.

In other stories, a major character death could be quite a problem.

A problem with there being many deaths is that you can end up with complete replacements of the party. Even in GoT and WD, there are characters remaining from the beginning of the story. I've found that players have a hard time of keeping with a story when they have cycled through all characters. The new characters gradually migrate away from the initial story, if there was one.

In WD, at least, there is no danger of walking away from the primary plot, which is surviving zombies and the current theme of non-zombie danger (often just as bad).

Thx!

TomB

 

[Zak S]

Reading through the above, I'm finding that the potential for player death has a value, but, it must be handled carefully.

A capricious too random death would be anti-climactic. Having a trap be a pit filled with green slime, placed randomly in a dungeon, would be an example. In a quick and dirty crawl with quick character replacement, this might be OK. In a long story driven campaign, it's jarring and pointless.

A story driven sacrifice, with the player engaged in the stakes, including opportunities to negotiate a value for their sacrifice, is quite different.

Thx!

TomB

My way around this is: there is no such thing as a low-stakes fight, a low-stakes hallway, a low-stakes door-opening in my campaign.

(The way my players have gotten around it is: they've gotten really good at playing this way and avoiding death.)
Everyone who has been playing since the beginning has lost characters, but the ones who survived are
up to like 13-17th level.

It is, in that sense, a horror movie. If someone is walking down a hall, whether they are first level or fourteenth, the scary music has started. The caution has started, the stakes are high. They would not be having a session in that place unless it were both dangerous and important. Every session should be as intense as the first session.

Either there is no "meaningless" death there or they are all equally meaningful. I makes sure death always hinges on something the player could've achieved the same result and avoided, and occurs in a situation the players know is dangerous (i.e. any combat or exploration situation).

If you do like heroic sacrifice only, I recommend Keith Baker's Phoenix Command kickstarter--Keith has rigged the game so you get, I think, 6 lives, and you only level up by dying.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Both Game of Thrones and the Walking Dead are curious examples.

I merely used them because Manbearcat brought up GoT. Walking Dead seemed an apt pairing.

Both have large casts, and are quite gritty. One expects, in an extended post-zombie-holocaust story, for there to be many deaths, some quite random. I'd say there is a need for enough random misfortune, or the story wouldn't work, or wouldn't come off as fitting the defined scope.

In other stories, a major character death could be quite a problem.

A problem with there being many deaths is that you can end up with complete replacements of the party. Even in GoT and WD, there are characters remaining from the beginning of the story. I've found that players have a hard time of keeping with a story when they have cycled through all characters. The new characters gradually migrate away from the initial story, if there was one.

Again, preference and play style. Maybe if you are focused on a story arc, that is the case. If you are focused on creating something more like a character driven campaign, an exploration based campaign or a situational adventure (or just a campaign with a really strong core premise) this won't really be a problem. The great thing about character driven campaigns is the developments are largely driven by PC motivation and choice (whoever they happen to be). You could certainly have newer character who migrate away from the goal of the original party if there is heavy replacement, but why is that a problem?

Say the party iswiped out save for one man. The next leg of the campaign might be shaped by a party who attach themselves to that great hero burdened by the loss of his friends. The world keeps moving, things keep happening. People keep living. As long as you have characters with motivations and goals, things will happen. If you need a strong conceit to keep everyone on track even if the party is wiped out, that is easy enough to do as well (though it will obviously be setting specific). I just haven't encountered any issues with this. Typically what happens is from time to time, a PC dies and the party continues. Every once in a blue moon you have a TPK. These are rare but they can happen and when they do, if people have bought into the idea that death is on the table, they tend to become legendary moments in a campaign. Obviously if the whole party dies, you need to roll up a new one and decide whether they can fit into what was going on where you left off or if you need to embark in a new direction. At the very least, the TPK may provide some interesting backstory for the new party. Campaigns shifting course or focus isn't the end of the world.

I think this really comes down to what you are focused on.

 

[innerdude]

My way around this is: there is no such thing as a low-stakes fight, a low-stakes hallway, a low-stakes door-opening in my campaign.

I completely appreciate this, and I love Savage Worlds for it. While I can't always scene frame exploration perfectly, Savage Worlds makes it easy to avoid low-stakes fights, for the simple reason that there is always, ALWAYS the chance a PC will die. It's not very high most of the time, especially when the player has all of their bennies remaining. But it's there.

Beyond a fight where the PCs have an obvious, nearly overwhelming advantage in numbers or tactics, the players tend to engage fights with more caution.

In my mind "low stakes exploration" is generally a function of the type of game or playstyle (a lot of gamist / Gygaxian skilled play elements), or the PCs are bunch of "rootless vagabonds" / murderhobos.