Does 4e limit the scope of campaigns?

[D'karr]

Seriously, wotc really thinks that they need to explain to their players that challenges should tend to be level appropriate??!!?? That is a real shame.

Well, obviously they didn't do a good job of that, or more than half the "arguments" on this thread alone would be invalid.

Some people understood that the table shows DCs for what an Easy, Moderate, and Hard challenge should be at each level. Then there were some others that understood it to be that the a specific task that had a DC 5 at level 1 should now be DC 19 at level 25. The second group is left scratching their heads.

So it obviously should have been better explained. However, arguing that WotC is saying that the same task becomes harder as you go up in level completely misses the point of the guidelines.

As for providing a table with every single type of "lock", I disagree. They have already provided a table that can be used to create that table many times over.

With the table on page 42, I can easily ascertain on the fly what type of "CHALLENGE" would be appropriate for the characters and I have 3 different difficulty settings (Easy, Moderate, or Hard).

So if my players are level 1 and they are sneaking into the Sewers of Despair (a level 1 dungeon) and they find a lock all I have to do is decide if opening the lock (the challenge) is going to be Easy, Moderate, or Hard. I decide that this particular lock is easy, so the DC is 5. A trained character can do it with his eyes closed.

On their second foray into the Sewers of Despair, opening that lock will still be a DC 5. If they return to the Sewers of Despair (A level 1 dungeon) when they are level 10, the lock should still be a DC 5 lock, but by that point it is not even a challenge, even the untrained guys do not need to roll to open it.

However, when the 10th level party goes into the Sewers of Insanity (a 10th level dungeon) the challenges should most probably be designed for their level. If I design using the same methodology it allows me to still challenge them at that level, just not with the same trappings. I could have described the "cheap lock" in the level 1 adventure as being so thin that a sharp tug simply opened it. Now the party is faced with a "cheap lock" that though slightly tougher still easily opens for those trained in the skill.

As someone mentioned, the table on page 42 does not give you "6" locks. It gives the DM the potential to create 30 different locks each with a different level of difficulty. By not "defining" each iteration, the designers did not "confine" the DM to just their predetermined table with 6 locks.

In addition, with the encounter design philosophy that 4e adopts, you could have a really tough challenging "lock" included as part of an encounter. What if that door that you are trying to get through to escape the host of troglodytes that just surrounded you, is not an easy, level appropriate challenge but a hard one and to top it off is 4 levels higher than your current level? All of a sudden that DC went from 5 to 19. Add some circumstance modifiers, like rain or low-visibility and all of a sudden the trained rogue might need a 14 or 15 on his roll to open that lock. That is what the table on page 42 enables. Personally I prefer that to a static DC of X on a table of 6 locks.

Could it have been explained better? Yes. But are the tools provided inadequate? No, not by a long shot.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

First, as I cited with the difficulty plus 1/2 character level rule... I'm still not convinced that the levels were intended to represent the level of the challenge as opposed to the PC's level... but let's say they do...

We're pretending it was intended. I don't think that the writer (or editor) "worried" about whether it should be party level or challenge level.

Why do you care whether it then becomes the holy grail for me?

1) Me =f4nboi. Everyone has to like my choices.
2) Rhetorical exaggeration. What I am really interested how "fundamental" the disagreement with the system is. While I wish it was as easy as changing a word in a table heading, I don't think it is. But if we keep discussing about these "small" things, we might never get the big picture. Though maybe the big picture is just all the small things that could have been done a tiny little better?

I can say, and I'm not sure if you remember... this was a major contention for me in the artificial/boardgamey/whatever feel of the game... but answering whether I would like a game more or less if something had been different originally is futile, first impressions are exactly that and hard to rectify if done badly. I honestly can't answer whether it would have become "Holy Grail of Gaming" to me or not... I can say I would have been more favorably inclined towards 4e in the beginning. In fact in a more general statement, if the designers had spent more time tightening up the skill system in general I think I would have enjoyed 4e alot more than I did when I first played it.


I do think it's strange to defend something as "good" or "easily grasped" when so many, pro and anti alike had all kinds of different interpretations of how this particular system in the game works. To me that clearly shows it wasn't intuitive or well explained.

People believe a lot of things, but only in discussions do we learn we might be wrong on some things - for example how easy it is to grasp things. The party level => challenge level became obvious to me the moment someone complained about "internal consistency" or world building. Before, I hadn't worried about it...

EDIT: I think the skill challenge system was a big part of what really soured me on 4e. I am not a fan of tactical combat for it's own sake, I could have taken or left the more tactical nature of 4e but I was intrigued by the designers so called "revolutionary" mechanics for skills. The thing is the skill challenges were the biggest dissapointment for me...they were wonky, frustrating and seemed to detract from the fun of the game. Never really explained well and now that Mearls is revisiting them... well you have to pay for DDI to get the articles.

I can't help you here, I am afraid. I was told I could use Unearthed Arcana or 3rd party supplement to fix some issues I might have had with 3E, and I am sure to have a "complete" Fantasy game for GURPS, I might need some more then the core rulebooks. It's a sad fact of life that not only don't core rules contain _everything_ possible in a game system, even the stuff they can contain might need some work. It is still a disappointment when it happens with something you were interested in.
I don't think it would help you that I have had some succesful skill challenges (made myself or by others), and that I also have read some nice examples in DDI or supplements.

 

[D'karr]

4E has conciously rejected one of those ways and as you rightly state, is simply meant to offer the at-table enjoyment.

I'm sorry but I strongly disagree with the notion that 4e has rejected the "world-building" aspects of the game. If anything the tools that 4e has provided reinforce the DM's role in world-building.

The difference is that instead of giving the DM "a fish", the have given the DM the tools "to fish."

I'm doing as much world-building now as I was 30 years ago. However, now I have more tools to help make that relevant to the players. If the players decide to go seek level 10 dragons at level 1 they are going to get stomped just as much as they were before. 4e does not do away with that. But it does give the DM better tools to gauge how to effectively challenge the characters, and that is not a bad thing. It is a wonderful thing, and it does not get in the way of world-building at all.

 

[Obryn]

I agree with you, but only to an extent.

For the past 30 years my enjoyment of RPGs at the table has been very real. But my enjoyment of RPGs as a creative exercise has been equally real. And I'd readily wager that the total time I have spent greatly enjoying myself using the building kit aspect of RPGs is double or more the amount of time spent at tables with groups.

And I am certain that games I have enjoyed were meant to be enjoyed BOTH ways. 4E has conciously rejected one of those ways and as you rightly state, is simply meant to offer the at-table enjoyment.

IMO the presumption of an audience that only cares about at-table activty and the presumption of an audience that needs the concept of level appropriate challenges hard wired onto the mechanics dove tail cleanly.

So, explain this for me. I run 4e. Are you saying that I can't or don't...

(1) World-build
(2) Enjoy world-building
(3) Have the ability to create and enjoy a self-consistent game world
(4) Create new creatures with the tools provided
(5) Enjoy creating characters
(6) Create a setting or adventure that is independent of the adventurers' levels.
(7) Use the tools and advice provided in the 4e DMG to do any or all of the above.

-O

 

[RodneyThompson]

Section on realism??... a paragraph or two on one page of the DMG is hardly a section on realism and I stand by my assertion it could have been more clearly conveyed and stated... especially in the actual section dealing with DC's (both in the PHB and in the DMG). In fact all this paragraph says is that if two doors look similar they should have similar DC's...or the DM should come up with a reason for why they don't.

It says, concisely, that things need to make logical sense in your game, and it's up to you, as the DM, to convey that logic through description. I won't argue that such a concept could be expanded upon, but it is there.

Please name me another roelplaying game with a skill system where determining the difficulty for said skills is done in two different (arbitrary) ways. I can't think of any off hand. It's confusing and unnecessary.

D6 Star Wars describes skill targets both with a word description (Hard, Moderate, etc.) and with numerical values.

And again all of this could have been more clearly and better stated. I'm not exactly sure what you are arguing, that they did a great job conveying this... because with so much initial confusion I would say no they didn't ... or that ranking DC's by descriptors in some skills and then by "tiers" in others is intuitive, consistent, and coherent? Again I would say it's not.

I'm not actually arguing anything, I don't think. Instead, I feel like I've been trying to explain how the rules can be used to create internal consistency in the campaign world, and show how that was the intent of the design. I'm likewise hoping to understand why some people didn't feel this was communicated well, and use what I learn here to inform any future writing I might do on the subject.

Now, by frequenting forums, messageboards, etc. I understand how it all relates... but how many gamers don't frequent messageboards?

I think that's an excellent point, and part of the reason I'm continuing to participate in this thread is to find out what needs to be better communicated. However, rather than taking everything at face value, I do want to dig deeper into the real reasons behind the confusion, so I can understand it better.

 

[La Bete]

I'm sorry but I strongly disagree with the notion that 4e has rejected the "world-building" aspects of the game. If anything the tools that 4e has provided reinforce the DM's role in world-building.

The difference is that instead of giving the DM "a fish", the have given the DM the tools "to fish."

I'm doing as much world-building now as I was 30 years ago. However, now I have more tools to help make that relevant to the players. If the players decide to go seek level 10 dragons at level 1 they are going to get stomped just as much as they were before. 4e does not do away with that. But it does give the DM better tools to gauge how to effectively challenge the characters, and that is not a bad thing. It is a wonderful thing, and it does not get in the way of world-building at all.

Speaking as a 4e fan, to a certain degree I feel 4e emphasises "at the table play" over "worldbuilding". The sections on roleplaying, on how to work with you players, etc. seem pretty prominent compared to the classic worldbuilding sections.

That said I'm happy with that - and I don't feel that worldbuilding has been totally deemphasised (as others do).

 

[Mallus]

But my enjoyment of RPGs as a creative exercise has been equally real. And I'd readily wager that the total time I have spent greatly enjoying myself using the building kit aspect of RPGs is double or more the amount of time spent at tables with groups.

And I am certain that games I have enjoyed were meant to be enjoyed BOTH ways. 4E has conciously rejected one of those ways and as you rightly state, is simply meant to offer the at-table enjoyment.

My group and I built a setting specifically for our 4e campaign. We don't feel 4e 'rejected' anything vis a vis worldbuilding.

The 2nd link in my sig. leads to thread detailing the creation of the setting. Check it out. It's good.

4e might not be the right tool for you, but saying that it's somehow an antithetical to world-building is a gross exaggeration/generalization.

 

[LostSoul]

Off-topic:

D6 Star Wars describes skill targets both with a word description (Hard, Moderate, etc.) and with numerical values.

After years of playing that game, I started to assign things dice values instead of difficulties. Just to increase the "I don't know what's going to happen" effect. It had a nice side-effect of allowing us to roll out for all sorts of different things.

"I want to get to the rebel base before the Imperial Strike Team does."
"Okay, let's roll our Astrogation + Hyperspace Dice. Whoever wins gets there first. We'll use the damage chart to determine how much time you have."

 

[Imaro]

It says, concisely, that things need to make logical sense in your game, and it's up to you, as the DM, to convey that logic through description. I won't argue that such a concept could be expanded upon, but it is there.

And perhaps this is why you're having a hard time understanding one of the reasons it wasn't clear. Technically it was there, some 20 pages before the improv DC's are introduced, never brought up again in the actual sections on determining DC's.

D6 Star Wars describes skill targets both with a word description (Hard, Moderate, etc.) and with numerical values.

I'm sorry but I'm not understanding this... are you saying some skills in Star Wars D6 have a difficulty of Hard while other skills have a difficulty of 2? Because that would be akin to the D&D 4e skill descriptions in the PHB. Or are you saying they have a descriptor and a mechanical value that relates to that descriptor...like most rpg's I've played.

I'm not actually arguing anything, I don't think. Instead, I feel like I've been trying to explain how the rules can be used to create internal consistency in the campaign world, and show how that was the intent of the design. I'm likewise hoping to understand why some people didn't feel this was communicated well, and use what I learn here to inform any future writing I might do on the subject.

Yes, I understand that, I just get the impression that when a poster says well X is one of the reasons... you're aren't really trying to say... well yes I could see how that might have been misunderstood. Perhaps I am taking your comments the wrong way, if so I apologize.

I think that's an excellent point, and part of the reason I'm continuing to participate in this thread is to find out what needs to be better communicated. However, rather than taking everything at face value, I do want to dig deeper into the real reasons behind the confusion, so I can understand it better.

Well i feel like I've stated this before but here are a few reasons I see....

1. Arbitrary way of describing the difficulty of skills...a wall is DC 30 because it's slippery and slick, a lock is DC 30 because it's listed as paragon-tier...

2. Books that are hard to read straight through combined with putting the single reference to realism almost 20 pages before the skill section plus never actually referencing it in the actual skill section.

3. Never clearly and concisely stating challenges should be created based on the level of the challenge you wish to create not on the level of the PC's... (I could be wrong, but I don't think in 3.5 level was used except in reference to characters. The "level" of a challenge was very specifically referenced as EL or Encounter Level)

I mean these are just some of the reasons I think it may have not been all that clear.

Hey Rodney, just wanted to say that while I'm not currently a huge fan of D&D 4e... I am enjoying the whole line of SWSE and am waiting for my Clone Wars book to be delivered, you guys do great work and please keep it up.

 

[TwoSix]

1. Arbitrary way of describing the difficulty of skills...a wall is DC 30 because it's slippery and slick, a lock is DC 30 because it's listed as paragon-tier...

I don't think it's arbitrary, so much as some sections have more detail than others.

In general, the DCs of the challenges are listed as sort on an "A=B, and B=C, so therefore A=C" thing, but they aren't in a nice, neat table.

Ideally, the wall table would be 3 columns, with Tier and Type of challenge in column A (Heroic, hard challenge), DC in column B (20), and type of wall in column C (rough marble wall).

The table could also have types of conditions which increase or decrease DC, allowing the DM to have multiple types of description available (if designing the challenge in a gamist fashion) or be aware of how difficult the challenge will be for the players (if designing the encounter in a simulationist manner).