Dungeon 191: Adapting "The Lich-Queen's Beloved"

[DEFCON 1]

4E does make running big/dramatic/dynamic encounters easier then 3E. But, if thats all that happens, players can actually get bored with it, and then you start to look bad as a DM again. I think RTs point about pacing is key.

And I don't think 4E makes life that much easier for the DM in other ways. Skill challenges and the skill system, rituals...not hard, but not really easy either. The DMG and other advice that has come out of WotC, while mostly good, has actually been pretty aspirational. It implies a level of effort that I am not really willing to put in. (and of course, it encourages improvisation, which is good).

People were able to mix things up in past editions. The whole point is that this is not really novel. The best way to give guidance is in adventures, and have elements of exploration, role-playing and small fights mixed in with the big set pieces. Past adventures were good with the exploration and wider range of fights (roleplaying, more of a mixed bag). WotC 4E adventures have a bit of this, but it is mostly about encounter after encounter after encounter.

I don't disagree with you on what you're saying about how things could get varied up and have been in the past... but I also think that method produces a much wider range of success/failure. The kind of things you are talking about can produce absolutely wonderful experiences so long as the DM has the ability to work them... but the bad or new DM can also completely ruin it.

But 4E seems to me to have been built to be very middle-of-the-road. You won't have the highest of highs in RPG experience necessarily, but you also won't have horrendous times either. At the very least, the combat encounter part of the game will always be "fair to good"... because the system was built to cover the ass of the new or incompetent DM. And that seemed to be a conscious decision on WotC's part, in order to make the game more "idiot proof" in an effort to produce a game that once you tried it, it very more likely good enough to possibly bring you back to play it again.

Sure, over time players might determine the game to be repetitive or monotonous... but that would only occur far enough down the line after WotC had already gotten you to play the game.

 

[Riastlin]

But 4E seems to me to have been built to be very middle-of-the-road. You won't have the highest of highs in RPG experience necessarily, but you also won't have horrendous times either. At the very least, the combat encounter part of the game will always be "fair to good"... because the system was built to cover the ass of the new or incompetent DM. And that seemed to be a conscious decision on WotC's part, in order to make the game more "idiot proof" in an effort to produce a game that once you tried it, it very more likely good enough to possibly bring you back to play it again.

Sure, over time players might determine the game to be repetitive or monotonous... but that would only occur far enough down the line after WotC had already gotten you to play the game.

I think you are on to something here (though I don't entirely agree -- that's just my opinion of course). I certainly agree that in some ways it takes a little more work to set yourself apart as a DM in 4ed, and I also think its also a lot more difficult to just do an abyssmal job it (railroading not included of course). Where I think that 4ed can lead to a sense of not having the "highest of highs" is that its certainly pretty easy for a DM to forget about working on the story aspects and just keep plugging away with combats. In earlier editions, it was almost a requirement to think about story because it took so much more work to create interesting combats (IMHO).

I know that there were times for instance, where I intentionally designed pure roleplay encounters/elements as a means of buying myself time in a session. It took me a lot of time to come up with interesting and dynamic encounters (as it frequently required giving Class levels to a monster or something similar) whereas a roleplay encounter could be as simple as "there's a group of kobolds in the sewers who are not too bright but are trying to lay claim to them and charge for passage". That line bought me close to an hour of session time as I had these kobolds (who were standard kobolds for the most part) trying to extort a 5 gp toll from the level 8 party of PCs. My players loved it and we were all rolling with laughter as these kobolds were at first threatening and then later offering up information to, the party.

With 4ed though, its pretty easy, as you say, to come up with a fun dynamic fight and in some respects its almost easier than designing a roleplay encounter -- especially if one or more players suspect they've stumbled upon a skill challenge as they often revert to what I call "combat mode"; i.e. "I roll diplomacy" as opposed to actually saying what they are saying, etc.

This is where I think this article scores a lot of points in my book. It shows that you can still have that more "old school" experience in 4ed.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Exactly. It's only now over its lifetime that 4E (and its authors) have begun to open up what the game is capable of. That's why the first PH had all the classes run pretty much the same way, but PHII made some subtle differences (like the Barbarian rage mechanic and the druid Wild Shape), and PHIII went even further. As time has gone on and we've become more experienced with the system, things can broaden.

It's the same thing that's happened with WotC's modules. Their most recent adventures like Orcs of Stonefang Pass and Reavers of Harkenwold are much better than Keep on the Shadowfell and Pyramid of Shadows, because they've had three years of learning what works best within the context of 4E, plus they aren't meant to be as much of "teaching lessons" to the game as the H-P-E series was.

As we progress through Years 4-5-6 of 4E's lifetime... I think we're going to see things expand/adapt/broaden even more than we've already seen. And things that would never have been published back in '08/'09 because it would have muddy the 4E waters and just confused the heck out of all the new players trying to figure out what this 4E game was... can now be released and understood/appreciated in a whole new way.