Falling off the 4ed bandwagon

[Nikosandros]

Giving me a better grasp of principals makes me feel a lot more free to improvise and feel confident about it.

In my opinion, P. 42 fits right in with the old adage, "Give a man to fish, feed him for a Day; teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime."

My main issue with P. 42 is one that has already been discussed at length, but not in this thread. There are absolutely no indications on conditions... just tables for damage. IMO, typical improvised actions are far more useful for conditions, such as blinded, restrained, etc... in this regard, the terrain powers from DG2 are probably more inspiring.

 

[BryonD]

same question - what about the fact that the 3e wizard could easily make them (especially scrolls)?

I was in a game where magic items of any kind were exceedingly rare to find, and there were certainly no magic item shops. This made my mage's (actually fighter/mage but leaning more on mage as levels went up) ability to scribe scrolls much more powerful not less so.

I have never found it to be a problem in my game.

Scrolls are certainly valuable. And self-made scrolls have been useful on many occasions. But only in ways that added to the fun for both players and DM.
Low level utility scrolls in particular are very nice. A cheap CL1 scroll of Comprehend Languages, for example.

But scrolls still take some time and resources. And it has always worked out decently for me.

 

[BryonD]

I'm not sure what you are suggesting here... that the DMG shouldn't waste space with stuff that is useless to people who are experienced enough that they don't need the DMG?

No, I'm following on to the comment I already made an you replied to.

But for me the idea that one page of rules is going to solve the problems is the opposite of a solution. One size does not fit all.

Not really, because otherwise it's all a matter of what actions *you* think should have been explicitly defined, which is completely different than what other players think should be defined. What comes up and is useful varies greatly from group to group, and it's impossible to accommodate for everything people want to do, and so they offer some very good guiding principals.

Thats pretty much a non sequitur there. You seem to have forgotten that we are only talking about situations not covered by the rules wherein the DM must make a call. So the idea that this calls for something for every possible action is already out of contact with the point. But then beyond that, for your statement to hold one must presume that every DM ruling is suddenly unique. Disagreeing with your defense of one page of text being a one sizes fits all solutions in no way claims that there is no consistency in the rulings. It was a total red herring.

No, which is why I've stated many times in this thread that just because some people really dislike some design choices doesn't mean that there aren't legitimate reasons for them and that others don't believe they are an improvement.

Exactly, which is why I don't like trying to say that the answers are on one page. Thanks for agreeing.

It's also a good reason to help teach DM's some guiding principals to start with, so that they can then decide what works best for them and their group and adapt it as needed. The DMG does not discourage DM's from making the game their own, quite the opposite.

Absolutely, but uninformed and poor GM calls can really ruin the fun too. Again, the DMG offers a lot of suggestions, advice, and guidelines. I wouldn't consider P. 42 (or most other parts of the DMG) to be hard rules, but rather helping DM's get a feel for the art of DM'ing and learning to make their own calls by giving examples of generally balanced resolutions.

Again, if you constrain yourself to DMs that need help, I've got no dispute. But either the DM learns and thus comes over to my side of the debate, no longer needing help and no longer seeing one page of solution as the way to go, or the DM doesn't learn. The latter case speaks for itself.

Now this is a question that is completely subjective, because it hinges on personal preference.

REALLY? So you can say that a terrible game is good just because it is run by a good DM? I'm not talking about a good DM making a fun experience with a terrible system. I'm talking about declaring the mechanics themselves to be of high quality.

I personally think that having a bunch of confusing subsystems that have I (personally) would frequently have to reference and re-reference when they occur to not really be a huge advantage to a game system where I am not really trying to run a simulationist style game, but rather just want to focus on story, drama, characters, fun and action.

But you are wrong because your game makes puppies cry.

Come on, that wasn't even a response you offered there.

So you think a bunch of confusing subsystems that you have to keep going back to is a bad thing and story and action is fun? Gee.

I think that teaching guiding principals of how to resolve the vast majority of things is a better approach than how to resolve a small number of things hand picked by the designers, which may or may not apply to your particular game.

Over time, these resolutions will likely tend to become increasingly more consistent and solid as a GM learns from experience and learns to apply resolutions from the past to new unexpected actions in the future.

Giving me a better grasp of principals makes me feel a lot more free to improvise and feel confident about it.

In my opinion, P. 42 fits right in with the old adage, "Give a man to fish, feed him for a Day; teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime."

And once that man knows how to fish, he will stop going back to page 42 and agree with me. Or, he might just keep going back to pg 42 for the free fish and never really learn. Either way my way looks vasty better to me.

 

[Goonalan]

Just wanted to add my 10 cents worth-

I too have fallen in and out of love (or whatever the emotion is with 4e)except I went the other way, hated it for a good long while- then, slowly at first, learned to love it. Oh, I'm a DM- and haven't played D&D (as a player) since 1985- see below for reasons.

Your points

Treasure- yep, so I chenged it, or rather when I needed to change things I did- port over whatever it is thats needed form any other edition, or game, re-write powers, add a bit of flavour. So Farkill is wielding his +2 Chainsaw of Moradin, he's actually not in Moradin's goodbooks at the moment, so part of his character arc is to worm his way back in- which will, he thinks, get his chainsaw a few extra powers and the Dwarven Lords blessing. The chainsaw has freakishly good powers, and some not so good powers that are triggered on critical failures- why because I felt like it. The chainsaw will probably be Farkills holy weapon from when he found it (level 6-ish) to... the end- he's fast approaching level 11 now and he's still in love with the weapon, even after it slipped from his arms in the midst of a battle with a giant undead centipede and almost severed his own arm- crit on self. The rule is- and my players know this, send hints as to what you want, the kind of thing, and together we'll sort something out- I tend to only use the D&D companion as a guide these days, change the name of the thing, the powers, the flavour- or else just make things up. I know it make my stuff less portable (to other games) but... I'm the DM- I rule. Oh and on a crit, for certain of the chainsaw's powers- it removes a random limb- and has done so twice in game so far.

In a few sessions, actually probably next session, one of the characters is going to discover his mother's head in a sort of snow globe- which is going to turn out to a mad artefact of sorts, with all manner of strange powers, and of course quirks, including berating said player for his tardiness, failure to enquire as to her well-being every five minutes or so, and will generally become the bane of his life.

Rock, our Dwarven Fighter has had his Everful Boot of Stout since, well first level- as soon as the Diplomacy and Bluff checks are needed, he's got his arm around the guards shoulder, easing off the boot, and then offering it up to said guard with a wink and a mumbled- 'get a taste of this!'

How about this for magic items- Rock above, has now found out that he is not flesh and blood (probably) and is in fact a Dwarforged- I kind of android/replicant style 7 of 9 thing- he discovered a place called the Creation Forge and details of Project R0, initiated by Creator Klum- or R0CK for short. He then discovered project R1CK- the player didn't know I was going to do this, I just thought- well it doesn't have to be true... let's run with it a while.

Actually I could go on for an age about the Magic Items the players have found- from the toasted sandwhich maker- which was initially thought to be some sort of fiery shield, to the inflatable rubber ring with ducks head that caused Farkill to float off into the air.

Once you let go of the rules, or else the stuff that's written in the book, then the world's your bivalve mollusc (oyster).

My point Magic Items- make them anyway you want.

Miniatures- if it wasn't for Maptool then I'd not have a game. The gaming group here in Grimsby (there's only one) don't play 4e- they just don't, it's dirty. Therefore maptools it is- which is ace, and that's that.

Although I've played 4e without maptools- using paper, and a pen. Or a whiteboard and magic markers, or with cans of sprite in place of the Water Elemental. At one point I would give my Mrs. a list of all the monsters I thought would be in the next session and she'd go out and buy sweets that some how fit the bill- huge jelly snakes, chocolate mice, ferrero roche flameskulls etc. Yeah the paper thing is a bind but- meh. Pen, squared paper and a rubber- that's all you need really. Oh and with the sweet enemies to the victor the spoils.

Character Builder- to be honest I haven't used it in over a year. My players still use it all the time, and have no problem making changes, mainly due to the fact that we play in maptools and all the tokens have macros which do everything for us- include alter all the PCs stats as and when effects take place- that mark enemies automatically etc. I am still peeved that Wizards have dropped the Gaming Table but maptools is ace- see my thread below for the tails of our group- later on with groovy pictures.

Powers- use them and abuse them, as long as I think it's going to work, every action gets a ruling from me, the limit is the limit of your imagination. Sure I balance things, that's obvious. But Rock wants a power that does X then he'd better send me some suggestions, we tinker with it a while and hey presto. It sounds like your stuck in the Power box still- reading the text and doing that everytime. If there's something missing then either make it up, or else bend an existing power to meet your need- a couple of sessions ago Farkill was ridding a Visejaw Crocodile through the sewer, with his chainsaw buried in the creatures brain- steering it via the chainsaw and using it as a sort of battering ram. Rock regularly drops his weapon and takes to doing non-power stuff- the other week he leapt over a water filled chasm, grabbed a Firebat from the air- mid descent, and then held the thing down- underwater now, until its flames went out (for good), he also invented the jaccuzi. Cathal, another Fighter, has in the past picked enemies up and used them as weapons. Rock once grabbed a Feygrove Choker and spun it about his head- like stretch armstrong the creatures limb getting longer and longer until... boing- and off it went, landing some forty feet away. Eruan, our Wizard, regularly dances into combat with the bad guys and then steps straight back out again- provoking AoO, and giving the Rock or Cathal, who have marked the creature the opportunity to AoO first- it's a patented move now.

Maybe we haven't been playing the game long enough- 1 game/week (usually), 54 sessions in with my latest campaign, but my players don't go encounter- see if it needs a daily- then at-will. They tend to look at the situation in hand, and say- 'I'd like to run, leap on the cart, leap from the cart onto the roof of the building and then grab the rooftop archer, hopefull tripping him and using him as a sled to slide back down the roof and over the edge- landing on the cobbles below using said rooftop archer as a cushion. What do I roll?'

Which makes some people giggle, it takes a minute or two more, but if it works- then everybody's trying it, or something like it some time soon after. And when it doesn't work, when the character ends up instead tripping over and going face first into the building having misjudged his leap, then the damage isn't too bad- not enough to discourage him from trying something similar again. And it still gets a laugh.

Last session my players fought their way through the tainted town of Fallcrest- the entire city balnketed in a black cloak, full of bloodmist, and strange veins that were insubstantial in places, fungi that were dissolving the unconscious bodies of the citizens of the city- all trapped in some sort of coma-like trance, oh we do the high spec9ish) fantasy elements, it's just that we also mix it up a little.

The final encounter the PCs were surprised, and then charged, by a gang of necrotic Slugs- none of the Slugs got anywhere near to the PCs in the charge round- double move 4 squares. The players were in stitches- it was an end of the night thing I'd set up- 4e is good like that, you can swap encounters in (same for all variations of D&D actually). The slugs have some very odd powers, which I've invented of course.

My point is- what do you want from the game, the powers, the magic items?

Find someone that shares your dream/ideas, or rather some people- then do that.

I found my players either here on ENworld, by advertising, or on other similar websites- I didn't particularly ask them what they wanted from the game- I just said anything goes, and send me any ideas you have. Someone bent the rules a little, someone else invented a ritual that was very similar to a spell from 3e, and then it snowballed.

I hope you get what you want/need from the game- everything in maptools takes time to do- whether it's inputting the powers as they stand in the book, or else making up brand new stuff- I can live with that if it gets me the game I want to play, and my players don't seem to mind either.

Cheers Paul

 

[jgbrowning]

You're right, they would vastly increase the utility, versatility, and *power* of ritual casters. What some consider "creative spell casting", some consider cheesing or breaking an encounter. It's obviously an intentional choice to make many effects less broken and take spells that they believed *should* be utility spells and take them out of combat.

It's true that a party will no longer be able to run from a monster, shut the door and arcane lock it and suddenly be safe, though it can still help make camping in a dungeon safer.

It's true that you can no longer use rope trick to just jump out of countless sticky situations and lay low until things cool down, however it still can be used to get a much needed rest or even to hide out to ambush targets later.

It's true you can no longer cheese a combat with a caster by silencing them right off the bat.

The vast majority of Rituals that one would *want* to use in combat are those that really do break or cheese an encounter. It often has the result of the caster overshadowing the skills and abilities of the other classes.

It can also be more of a pain for the DM who has to take into account ways that his challenges can be circumvented, ways to prevent that, and ways the players will circumvent his ways of preventing it, etc.

Designing a system to deliberately minimize creativity in response to challenges (because of the desires to see the challenge go as the creator of the challenge conceives) is poor design. Having encounters that don't "play out as planned" because of player creativity is a good thing.

The thought behind saying "breaking an encounter" is deeply rooted in the CRPG environment - wherein challenges have a pre-determined methodology of success because designers are working within a limited paradigm. An rpg encounter can never be "broken" or "cheesed" because that means that the creator of the encounter considers certain ways of solving the problem "the right way" and other ways of solving the problem as "the wrong way". Designers in rpgs do not have a limited paradigm as the players are not reliant upon an interface to determine reality. How a problem is solved isn't the DM's or the designers responsibility in rpgs - that's one of the challenges of the G in RPG for the players.

It does not matter how a problem is solved. Hell, it doesn't even matter if a problem is not solved at all. The game's not about a series of challenges that are overcome. The game is about a series of challenges. The results of the challenges are entirely in the player's hands.

Let's also not forget the advantage of not having to memorize rituals. In 3E, if you needed one of these abilities as part of your plan, and if you didn't have a bunch of utility spells prepared on scrolls already, you often had to stop, camp for the night, and prepare new spells for your plan to work.

And there's a problem with that? There's nothing wrong with facing a challenge that cannot be overcome immediately. That not "not fun." Having such encounters adds another data point in the Player's thinking - another mobile piece in the rpg game. They have to plan and account for the possibility that they may need something they don't have and have to wait longer than they would like to gain the ability.

Rituals may take more time to cast, but you have every ritual you know and have ingredients for at your fingertips ready to *begin* casting at any time, without taking a full rest. I think that's and underrated feature.

Also, it allows players to broaden their character concept and allow nontraditional character classes to dabble in some magic without actually multi-classing in order to fit their character's theme.

It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's a very legitimate design with some good reasons behind it, that at least some people do agree with.

Those are the benefits of the ritual system.

joe b.

 

[Barastrondo]

Designing a system to deliberately minimize creativity in response to challenges (because of the desires to see the challenge go as the creator of the challenge conceives) is poor design. Having encounters that don't "play out as planned" because of player creativity is a good thing.

Agree, albeit with one caveat.

The thought behind saying "breaking an encounter" is deeply rooted in the CRPG environment - wherein challenges have a pre-determined methodology of success because designers are working within a limited paradigm. An rpg encounter can never be "broken" or "cheesed" because that means that the creator of the encounter considers certain ways of solving the problem "the right way" and other ways of solving the problem as "the wrong way". Designers in rpgs do not have a limited paradigm as the players are not reliant upon an interface to determine reality. How a problem is solved isn't the DM's or the designers responsibility in rpgs - that's one of the challenges of the G in RPG for the players.

I don't agree that CRPGs are the things that have encouraged a shift toward reducing the ways to handily (recognizing that every group has a different definition of "handily") overcome an encounter. Maybe they've played a part, but I think it has a lot to do with the amount of effort needed to stat out an encounter in the first place, which is loosely related to the graying of the RPG population. When a game system requires a fair amount of time to stat out an encounter "adequately" and the encounter is then overcome in five minutes with a clever application of a spell or magic item or skill, the GM winds up considering whether running a solid ongoing game is worth the investment in time. If you can only game one night every two weeks? It's an all the more serious consideration.

Game designers should dread the idea that many people want to play their games, but not many people want to run them. I really don't mean to undercut the players, but by and large GMs are the biggest evangelists a game has, the best way to grow a community. Several of the decisions I've see regarding D&D seem to take that thought very seriously. They go too far for many people's tastes, which certainly proves that it is a razor-thin edge to walk, but much of what I see seems designed with the explicit intention of giving the DM less work required to make a good encounter, and making sure that encounter justifies the work in at-table play.

 

[fuzzlewump]

Designing a system to deliberately minimize creativity in response to challenges (because of the desires to see the challenge go as the creator of the challenge conceives) is poor design. Having encounters that don't "play out as planned" because of player creativity is a good thing.

Separate 3E casting and player creativity and I'm right on board. There's nothing inherently creative about spellcasting. You can cast spells creatively, just like you can do any action creatively; that's the greatness of having a DM. If it's otherworldy effects you want in order to be creative with, see rituals.

And there's a problem with that? There's nothing wrong with facing a challenge that cannot be overcome immediately. That not "not fun." Having such encounters adds another data point in the Player's thinking - another mobile piece in the rpg game. They have to plan and account for the possibility that they may need something they don't have and have to wait longer than they would like to gain the ability.

Your quote from a couple pages back:

IMO, the main problem with rituals is that they take at least 5 minutes (typically longer) to perform. They cannot be done in the heat of action and thusly have greatly reduced interest, utility, and versatility.

So, waiting 10 minutes is bad, but waiting a whole day is good?

 

[fuzzlewump]

It does not matter how a problem is solved. Hell, it doesn't even matter if a problem is not solved at all. The game's not about a series of challenges that are overcome. The game is about a series of challenges. The results of the challenges are entirely in the player's hands.

Keep in mind the word challenge. Is it okay to cast a single spell and the combat is essentially over? Is that still a challenge? Two spells? What if it's the same spell every encounter? Does it matter that non-casters are left entirely out of the equation, or in other words, does it matter to have a challenge for everyone vs. just for the casters?

 

[jgbrowning]

I don't agree that CRPGs are the things that have encouraged a shift toward reducing the ways to handily (recognizing that every group has a different definition of "handily") overcome an encounter. Maybe they've played a part, but I think it has a lot to do with the amount of effort needed to stat out an encounter in the first place, which is loosely related to the graying of the RPG population. When a game system requires a fair amount of time to stat out an encounter "adequately" and the encounter is then overcome in five minutes with a clever application of a spell or magic item or skill, the GM winds up considering whether running a solid ongoing game is worth the investment in time. If you can only game one night every two weeks? It's an all the more serious consideration.

That's very possible. I've always been a fly by the pants DM who does very little prep, so that may be a facet I'm downplaying.

Game designers should dread the idea that many people want to play their games, but not many people want to run them.

I utterly agree.

Several of the decisions I've see regarding D&D seem to take that thought very seriously. They go too far for many people's tastes, which certainly proves that it is a razor-thin edge to walk, but much of what I see seems designed with the explicit intention of giving the DM less work required to make a good encounter, and making sure that encounter justifies the work in at-table play.

I think that such is a factor in the design, but such goals are almost always in opposition to providing enough fiddly bits to keep the players happy. The more wiz-bang the players can do, generally the more work the GM has to do.

joe b.

 

[jgbrowning]

Separate 3E casting and player creativity and I'm right on board. There's nothing inherently creative about spellcasting. You can cast spells creatively, just like you can do any action creatively; that's the greatness of having a DM. If it's otherworldy effects you want in order to be creative with, see rituals.

I don't think one can separate creativity from spell casting because creativity exists with any tool. If spell casting contains no otherworldly effects, I'd argue it was spell casting in name only.

Your quote from a couple pages back:
So, waiting 10 minutes is bad, but waiting a whole day is good?

Yes. Waiting 10 minutes reduces the interest, utility, and versatility of rituals. Waiting a day (or the possibility that such may occur) to gain resources increases the number of environmental variables players have to game with.

joe b.