Dragon Editorial: Fearless

[Spatula]

Chris Youngs (though still credited as Chris Thomasson) wrote an article on how the math of 4e has affected his playing style:

http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dred/20080220a

More silly 4e-good-3e-bad promotional fluff. Yes, the removal of save-or-die effects is a good thing. That has nothing to do with racing mine carts, which (as noted by Kraydak upthread) is an example of DM fiat, not game system design. 4th level characters aren't supposed to engage in exciting & trecherous chases before 4e, because they might break their necks? Tell that to the Eberron adventure writers (just to pick an easy example). Or any DM who has run a game with a cinematic flair.

I'm also disturbed by the implication that 4e will have no obviously subpar character choices ("If you've ever selected the Travel domain with your cleric..."). Really? I find that hard to believe. Game designers have a very poor track record in predicting this sort of thing once actual players get their hands on the rules.

 

[Campbell]

More silly 4e-good-3e-bad promotional fluff. Yes, the removal of save-or-die effects is a good thing. That has nothing to do with racing mine carts, which (as noted by Kraydak upthread) is an example of DM fiat, not game system design. 4th level characters aren't supposed to engage in exciting & trecherous chases before 4e, because they might break their necks? Tell that to the Eberron adventure writers (just to pick an easy example). Or any DM who has run a game with a cinematic flair.

I've come to the conclusion that the tone isn't really driven by marketing. I think the designers are a little overzealous about their new baby since you know they designed it. I've noted that most of the 4e development staff is a little more evenhanded in their analysis than the designers are.

I'm also disturbed by the implication that 4e will have no obviously subpar character choices ("If you've ever selected the Travel domain with your cleric..."). Really? I find that hard to believe. Game designers have a very poor track record in predicting this sort of thing once actual players get their hands on the rules.

I'm sure that there will be some choice that are better than other choices, but the trick is this time it won't be by design. Some mechanical elements in 3e were deliberately designed to suck - the much vaunted system mastery. I'm glad that's no longer part of the agenda at Wizards - at least in the RPG department...

 

[MaelStorm]

I'm not disappointed either about the cinematic style.
Like hong said isn't D&D an illusion?

I suspect Heroic-, and Paragon-tier will be high and fast-paced cinematic action, and Epic-Tier will be champion (or exalted), not semi-godly but way out crazy action.

Of course the sense verisimilitude is not entirely gone. But past 10th-level will be hard to maintain. So verisimilitude fan will obviously be somehow disappointed. But that's what happen when you crank things up a bit. If D&D was a set of meta-rule like most point-based system (GURPS, Hero System, Fuzion) you could tone it down to a more realistic style, but I suspect the DMG won't offer this type of tool. Either you adjust to the new tone, or play another edition of D&D or play other games out there. This is my feeling of what the new edition is shaping up to be.

 

[Scott_Rouse]

I'm going to be polite and just say that there should be real risks to the characters.

The risks are there.

Two examples:

Level 1 mini encounter

Our Warlord fell into a pit trap and was bitten by a swarm of rats. He bled out five pts of damage for several turns as he failed to stop the bleeding each turn. Meanwhile we are fending off a few goblins. My rogue took a javelin to the chest and was instantly bloodied. This low level fairly easy encounter almost resulted in a TPK.

Level 2 side encounter

Yesterday we went into a graveyard and were mobbed by about 8 zombie minions, 4 tougher zombies and a nasty elf. I went to swing on one of the tough zombies and did about 17 pts of dmg, it was barely hurt. Next turn I did another 16 pts of dmg on the toughie, still barely hurt. I realized this guy was too tough and decided to get away but my options were limited. I could try to climb a tree but risk falling and taking fall damage (I think 1d10) or use an ability to get close to my Dragonborn Paladin without drawing an AOO. I used the ability but it did not get far enough away and I got mobbed. I was attacked by the zombies, pinned against a mausoleum. I went from 29 Hp to -6 in 3 turns due to attacks and recurring necrotic dmg. I was convinced I was dead. This tough zombie guys was a bad mofos and could take a boatload of dmg. Our cleric got me back to positive and then my NPC goblin buddy made a longshot first aid check and allowed my to try and shake of the necrotic damage, it worked but I was very lucky. The cleric and warlock hooked me up big time, otherwise I would have been rolling a new character.

I did recover and managed to get enough HP back to exact a grudge hit on the bad elf (she ignored me in the tavern and my giving her some flowers)

 

[Ipissimus]

Moderately paranoid? Players, in my experience, aren't moderately paranoid. They should be put in straight jackets and locked in padded cells.

Examples I've had to deal with:

1. DM (Me): You come to a 20'x20' room. There's a door at the other end.
[prerequsite blank stare at character sheets for 30 second]
DM: Come on, guys, what are you doing?
Player1: How high is the cieling and what sort of stone is the room made out of?
DM: Uh... it's sandstone. The cieling's 10' high. It's a sort of mottled brown.
Player1: How mottled?
DM: Ordinarily mottled.
Player1: I don't like the sound of that, guys, it's too normal.
[Rogue checks the walls, floor and cieling for traps; Mage casts Detect Magic; Paladin Detects Evil. Nothing is detected.]
Player2: I don't trust this. What does the door look like...
[10 minutes later]
Player 1: Ok, I guess I step into the room. I've got the rope tied around me and the fighter's holding the other end to pull me back just in case...

Or my other favourite

2. DM: A barmaid walks up to your table...
Player1: I Detect Magic on her.
Player2: I Detect Evil.
Player3: I Detect Lies.
Player4: I Sense Motive on anything she says.
DM: Uh... she just wants to know what you want to drink.
Player1: We order a round of ale, and I Detect Poison on it when it arrives.

Now, these were two separate groups and, as far as I am concerned, ANYTHING that can be done to discourage this type of boring gameplay should be applied. Before anyone asks, no the party had never been poisoned by any barmaid before and no, they'd never wandered into an empty room that was trapped.

Oh, yet another example. I once had a room where they had to cross a bridge over lava. pretty standard stuff. Would they use the bridge? Nooooo, that might be too easy or exciting or something. Generally something OTHER than boring. So they teleported 20ft. over the flow. That debacle stopped play for a half hour even after I told them that the bridge wouldn't collapse underneath them.

None of them wants to take the slightest ammount of risk. Now, I agree that nobody wants a guy in the party that plays a CN half-orc barbarian that does a stripsease on top of the altar of the Dark One. On the other hand, alot of players need to harden up and take a chance.

 

[MaelStorm]

LOL, I know what you mean, it must be boring to DM with folks like this.

I stopped playing AD&D 2E because there was an Assassin character backstabbin the other PCs in their sleep, and the DM was giving the Assassin XP for it!!! [I guess it was the teenage factor]

When I found another group of players they were playing another RPG, so I switched and never came back to D&D, until now.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

The risks are there.

Two examples:

Level 1 mini encounter

Our Warlord fell into a pit trap and was bitten by a swarm of rats. He bled out five pts of damage for several turns as he failed to stop the bleeding each turn. Meanwhile we are fending off a few goblins. My rogue took a javelin to the chest and was instantly bloodied. This low level fairly easy encounter almost resulted in a TPK.

Level 2 side encounter

Yesterday we went into a graveyard and were mobbed by about 8 zombie minions, 4 tougher zombies and a nasty elf. I went to swing on one of the tough zombies and did about 17 pts of dmg, it was barely hurt. Next turn I did another 16 pts of dmg on the toughie, still barely hurt. I realized this guy was too tough and decided to get away but my options were limited. I could try to climb a tree but risk falling and taking fall damage (I think 1d10) or use an ability to get close to my Dragonborn Paladin without drawing an AOO. I used the ability but it did not get far enough away and I got mobbed. I was attacked by the zombies, pinned against a mausoleum. I went from 29 Hp to -6 in 3 turns due to attacks and recurring necrotic dmg. I was convinced I was dead. This tough zombie guys was a bad mofos and could take a boatload of dmg. Our cleric got me back to positive and then my NPC goblin buddy made a longshot first aid check and allowed my to try and shake of the necrotic damage, it worked but I was very lucky. The cleric and warlock hooked me up big time, otherwise I would have been rolling a new character.

I did recover and managed to get enough HP back to exact a grudge hit on the bad elf (she ignored me in the tavern and my giving her some flowers)

Hey Scott, one concern I have is that all the "perilous" examples people bring up are from combat encounters with a bunch of enemies.

I think part of the issue is the move to per-encounter powers. In 3e, a lone trap that only did 10 damage still had an effect on the party, because it forced them to expend limited healing resources. But if healing is per-encounter 4e, nothing BUT a dead character has consequences outside the context of a larger encounter. No insta-death traps + "free" healing (outside of combat) = why not just stumble through and trigger them all?

I'm worried that my character will basically be invincible until I roll initiative. Can you give any examples where screwing up a standalone trap has proved to be a Very Bad Thing?

 

[TwinBahamut]

Easy is not fun for me. YMMV

You have obviously never played a Nintendo Hard game.

There is a huge difference between "easy" and "not Nintendo Hard". The two aren't even comparable. Difficulty is when the game presents a reasonable and interesting challenge that has a significant chance of failure if you do not approach it with skill or intelligence. Nintendo Hard is an exercise in playing the brainchild of sadistic videogame designers porting over game concepts inspired by quarter-eating arcade games and making them even more difficult through arbitrary and random mechanic changes.

To put it differently...

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn is a Wii game. It is not Nintendo Hard, because it is fair. If you approach it intelligently, you will win most of the time, but it is widely accepted as being quite difficult because it does take a lot of effort, planning, creativity, and preparation in order to succeed.

Suoer Ghosts and Goblins is a Nintendo Hard game. You pretty much need to memorize the layout of every stage, avoid being hit more than once every five minutes or so, dodge countless enemies flying at you from every direction at once, make difficult jumps over bottomless instant-death pits without error, and go through the entire game twice in order to complete it.

I would much rather play an honestly difficult game than a Nintendo Hard game. 4E really is shaking off the same kind of elements that create a Nintendo Hard-style of game, and I think it will do so without making things "easy". I think this is an absolute improvement.

 

[EvolutionKB]

Rouse, while I appreciate your comments, there is one thing that has me afraid...How could some level four adventurers kill a level 11 solo monster without DM intervention/story type encounters?

 

[FireLance]

You have obviously never played a Nintendo Hard game.

See also Fake Difficulty. Some examples which D&D players may find familiar are:

• Making things depend far too much on luck, often to the point of removing skill as a factor.
• Allowing the players to make very few mistakes and punishing them severely for making too many.
• Failing to distinguish between valid map and instant-kill areas.
• Making monsters or hazards look like beneficial items.
• Enemies that seem to be there only to frustrate the player.