Convincing 4th Edition players to consider 5th Edition

[Ahnehnois]

Yikes.

 

[Steely_Dan]

Well, rules can't replace good DMing, but they should help people become better DMs, rather than force people to become good DMs despite bad rules

What constitutes "bad rules" in a game?

I see bad rules all over this planet...

 

[TwinBahamut]

What constitutes "bad rules" in a game?

I see bad rules all over this planet...

I don't know what you mean by that second line or how it is relevant, but as for your question...

Any rule that leads to people not having fun, or worse having a bad time, is a bad rule for a game. There are no qualifiers or mitigating factors for this, which means that a rule that is fine for 75% of players but bad for 25% of players is a bad rule, and so is a rule that adds a lot of fun but has some unfortunate side-effects. This is a bit broad, and will include a LOT of D&D rules from every edition, but I think it's important to cast such a wide net.

 

[Steely_Dan]

1) I don't know what you mean by that second line or how it is relevant

2) Any rule that leads to people not having fun, or worse having a bad time, is a bad rule for a game.

1) Ooh, of course you do *ellipses*

2) So D&D is a great game, been providing me and mine with fun since 1986.

 

[Ahnehnois]

So D&D is a great game, been providing me and mine with fun since 1986.

That's really the point here. D&D is good. No need to reinvent the wheel.

 

[Steely_Dan]

That's really the point here. D&D is good. No need to reinvent the wheel.

Yet some people are determined to stuff that round peg in that square hole (we all knew that kid).

I'm all for improvement/refinement etc, but change completely does not do justice to a game...make another "game".

Or find another with your preferences.

 

[pemerton]

4e encounters are almost never throw aways. You can DO that, but it is going to be a trivial encounter in that there will be no real danger (or at most does anyone have to spend a surge afterwards) if you make it say 5 minion orcs. The game just isn't designed around that sort of thing. You can stick 5 regular orcs in a room and 4e will handle it, and you'll have a boring 30 minutes of hacking.

What you really want is something more. In fact what you NEED is something more. Some goal, some purpose that exists within the plot of whatever the adventure is beyond "get past this room". At LEAST you need the encounter itself to be an interesting story in a self-contained fashion (IE with some sort of terrain and/or whatever). The focus on the overall story should always be there, or some drama or interest inherent in the situation that drives things and makes it truly interesting.

Agreed. What I would add is that 4e - between its default cosmology, its monsters, its terrain rules, etc - makes it easy to build these encounters and engage the players in them.

It is my contention that WotC has very little understanding of 4e, ironically.

Agreed also.

[I think and an opener system will often feel more real than a more explicit system.

<snip>

One of the funniest moment for one of my characters was when I persuaded, bluffed and initimidated a bunch of orcs to just leave the cave complex instead of fighting us, leaving their dark master for us to take care of. It was deeply a deeply satisfying experience, but not something that was really covered in the rules. An open system with guidelines to handle such situations are to me much more interesting than a system where I have a 4e like power that does the same thing.

In 4e that sort of thing would be resolved as a skill challenge.

As to "realism", I think that is about fictional positioning, not about the "open" or "explicit" nature of the system. In 4e that is achieved especially via keywords.

It is not part of the 4e rules that a power can do no more than what is express in its text. Page 42 and the DMG2 on skill challenges make this clear. For example, in Heroes of the Feywild there is a 15th level daily wizard power that (i) dominates the target, and (ii) removes the caster from play while that domination lasts. In the fiction, what happens is that the caster turns into smoke or mist and possesses the target. The wizard player in my game used this power to possess an NPC and then try and read his mind for a password - I resolved this as an Arcana check within the framework of a skill challenge.

The constraints that 4e imposes, to stop this sort of thing being broken, is (i) the participants' shared logic of genre and story, and (ii) the skill challenge DCs and success/failure structure.

I want the players in my game to have explicit aims! I want them to be active and not passive!

<snip>

the game is about creativity.

I agree with this. The creativity I'm especially interested in is story/narrative creativity, and then the use of particular powers and abilities - singly or in combination - to produce these.

Sure, but not in metagame terms, I hope. A game that sets up a spiked chain trip fighter who is virtually unbeatable in melee encourages players to either cheese out or play "suboptimally". This is not good. Take that away, and the player's goal can simply be "I want to win X gladiator tournament" or "I want to be the best fighter I can", more meaningful and open-ended goals.

I'm quite happy for my players to have metagame goals (ie author-level conceptions of what their PCs will be) as well as ingame goals for their PCs.

As for "spiked chain trip fighters who are virtually unbeatable", I don't see how that relates to goals in any special way, although if it can be achieved in a way that doesn't relate to the fiction of the game it would seem to reflect poor mechanical game design. But I am happy for one of my players to have as his goal that his fighter-cleric become an Eternal Defender (epic destiny). And part of the conception of an Eternal Defender is that "[Y]ou stand in the forefront in times of danger, no matter how dire the foe... Ever more will you be the supreme standard for those on the front line of any battle." That is a goal of being a fighter who is virtually unbeatable. But in 4e, this is tightly integrated with the story elements of the game, and their progression via play.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Yet some people are determined to stuff that round peg in that square hole (we all knew that kid).

I'm all for improvement/refinement etc, but change completely does not do justice to a game...make another "game".

Or find another with your preferences.

And back around to the actual thread topic, the answer is this. Take D&D, and revise it, test it, and make it better. Any fan that wants to come on board is welcome, anyone that wants something else can play something else (preferably something with square holes).

 

[TwinBahamut]

1) Ooh, of course you do *ellipses*

This makes so little sense that I need to ask if you've been drinking lately.

2) So D&D is a great game, been providing me and mine with fun since 1986.

Actually, according to that definition D&D has contained bad rules in every iteration so far, from OD&D right up through 4E. The sentences you didn't quote establish this point.

Also, I didn't really give any definition that states what a good or bad game might be.

That's really the point here. D&D is good. No need to reinvent the wheel.

I thought the point was just the opposite of that... D&D isn't good, or at least, it isn't sufficiently good. There is a reason D&D is, in the grander scheme of things, an unsuccessful and unpopular game.

 

[Steely_Dan]

Any fan that wants to come on board is welcome, anyone that wants something else can play something else (preferably something with square holes).

What's wrong with round ones?!