Falling off the 4ed bandwagon

[jgbrowning]

So I think that that was creativity in using resources at hand, rather than creating resources in advance that casters in older versions of D&D engaged in.

You only had the resource at hand because you had prepped it beforehand. IMO, there's no material difference between what you did and what you would have done had you used a scroll or cast a memorized spell in 3e. Had you not the ritual (prep) and the components (prep) you couldn't use the ritual. IMO, not much difference than 3e. However, in the 3e version you probably wouldn't have had to wait 10 minutes (just guessing, I don't have the book Shadow Bridge appears in... FR I think?)

joe b.

 

[Barastrondo]

Yes, it's a decent question, but to say that an unactualized potential means a lack of potential is greatly inaccurate. One is not more creative without something than one is with something - regardless if that creativity actualizes in an individual case - if for no other reason than that one gains increased creative potential by having that something which the person without that something can never have.

I think the perception of "less creativity" that you disagree with is predicated on results. If you see more homogeneity in results, things feel less creative. To shift the example, take flight in combat, or the scry-buff-teleport. These options are so efficient that they easily dominate unless players make a specific effort to avoid using the most efficient thing as often as it would work (not something human beings are noted for), or unless GMs work hard to make those options undesirable for various reasons. When all potential solutions are closer together in efficiency, more are tried. When one's a standout, it tends to dominate.

Hence the perception of "less creativity": it's not really about perception, but what happened over the course of the campaign. I think there's some serious merit to both sides of the argument.

I'd really disagree with this, so much so that I think, in fact, the opposite. I think 4e design shows a deliberate increase in potential specific solutions (the spread of "spells" to all classes - coupled with reduced variables in those "spells") in order to see a reduction in the variety of innovated solutions because innovated solutions are hard to "balance" and have the appearance of favoring some classes over other classes.

To my mind, the increased importance of skills has really made it too close to call as far as the variety of innovated selections go. In practice, it is insane the kinds of things you can simulate with a skill challenge. There's a really good example in Dungeon about how to use the skill challenge rules to run a Helm's Deep-style siege, for instance.

I also have to say that the appearance of favoring some classes over others than can't entirely be described as a misperception. I've seen groups where CoDzillas do indeed dominate, and some classes might as well not show up. The kicker is that they weren't really doing it wrong — they were just doing it differently than I prefer to.

I think the design decision that drove the creation of rituals is the need to have classes be combat equal (although with the skinning of difference) and composed of quantum skill packets, equalized in combat, reduced to damage/condition/movement and their respective opposites healing/condition removal/movement reduction.

I think you've got it mostly down, though I have to say that class differences make them very unequal in certain aspects, more than mere skinning. Things read very similarly, but the way that a fighter and a warden, for instance, handle in actual play is astounding. They're both defenders, but almost entirely different play experiences. There's some very cunning design in there, stuff that makes me obscenely jealous. I can't help but think equality was a major goal, but one of many, rather than the goal.

Removing almost everything that did not map to the above 3 areas is what caused the creation of rituals, IMO. Rituals are merely the remnants of prior editions, allowing the appearance of brand continuation in the face of obvious and significant gaming differences. Rituals were than "opened" up to anyone (although not really as you must have the right feat) to compensate for a loss of immediate utility by the appearance of overall utility. ie. you can't use it quickly, but you can use it more often.

I can't agree with the "merely," because rituals add a different play dynamic. It seems vestigial if it's not quite your thing, or if you really prefer other editions' versions, but ritual magic has become another neat and interesting subsystem in its own right. Of course, I like specific genre or theme emulation in my games, and making D&D do a lot of different things, so I naturally am drawn to the strong points of rituals. They catch the sword-and-sorcery dynamic, for instance, and I don't think that's accidental.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

CIHYS.

This is usually meant as a gibe.

I am being sincere on this subject; I am in the market of buying Adventurer's Vault and Adventurer's Vault 2. Private message me if you are inclined to selling these two books.



This has been my motto (for ANY RPG!) ever since I first read it.

DM: The NPC does 3 squares of Force Movement by attempting to push you off the cliff. Dustin, make a saving throwing to see if your character catches himself or fall over the edge.

Roll: 8

DM: Lets see, that is a 40-foot drop so...

Joe the Heroic: Wait! My character still has his Action Point and happens to be in an adjacent square next to Dustin's character. I would like to use up my Action Point by diving for my comrade's hand and hopefully saving him from certain doom.

DM: mmmm Just to make it clear then, your character will be prone, unable to move from their square and unable to attack until Dustin's character has either secured a handhold along the cliff or your character is able to pull him to safety if you roll a success. If you fail, Dustin's character still falls and your character would be prone.

Joe the Heroic: Agreed.

DM: Then roll to see if you succeed.

~rolled by to respond back to Mercurius question - reading rest of thread now~

I am not really going to comment on this entire thread. I have read a portion of 4E and found I was reading a completely different game than DnD. Instead I play Pathfinder.

I am going to say that its funny that you have to houserule to do something like this. Your character has an action left yet technically by the core rules you can only stand there and watch a fellow adventurer fall to his death. Little too rules tight for me.

To me pen and paper should never become a "Choose your own Adventure" paperback. The rules should never tell me all my choices. When that becomes the case then I really am playing a computer game where a 3 foot tall fence keeps my archmage at bay because the programmer did not include jumping or climbing.

 

[jgbrowning]

I think the perception of "less creativity" that you disagree with is predicated on results. If you see more homogeneity in results, things feel less creative. To shift the example, take flight in combat, or the scry-buff-teleport. These options are so efficient that they easily dominate unless players make a specific effort to avoid using the most efficient thing as often as it would work (not something human beings are noted for), or unless GMs work hard to make those options undesirable for various reasons. When all potential solutions are closer together in efficiency, more are tried. When one's a standout, it tends to dominate.

I never had any scry/buff/teleporting issues in my games. It worked when it worked for the PCs and didn't work when it didn't. It's a good tactic, but so common that anyone with any ability has thought of countermeasures.

To my mind, the increased importance of skills has really made it too close to call as far as the variety of innovated selections go. In practice, it is insane the kinds of things you can simulate with a skill challenge. There's a really good example in Dungeon about how to use the skill challenge rules to run a Helm's Deep-style siege, for instance.

I've never found skill challengess that interesting as they're something I think most GMs have been doing for decades. You'd say to your players, "What do you want to do?", ascribe a probability, and then move on to the next what do you want to do and probability.

I also have to say that the appearance of favoring some classes over others than can't entirely be described as a misperception. I've seen groups where CoDzillas do indeed dominate, and some classes might as well not show up. The kicker is that they weren't really doing it wrong — they were just doing it differently than I prefer to.

Which is one of the reasons I find wizard bashing rather funny. IMO, clerics and druids were almost always more powerful than wizards.

I think you've got it mostly down, though I have to say that class differences make them very unequal in certain aspects, more than mere skinning. Things read very similarly, but the way that a fighter and a warden, for instance, handle in actual play is astounding. They're both defenders, but almost entirely different play experiences. There's some very cunning design in there, stuff that makes me obscenely jealous. I can't help but think equality was a major goal, but one of many, rather than the goal.

Perhaps I should explain myself more concerning combat equality - the goal was to make things appear different because the mix of the three primary aspects are different for each class, but the aspects are all the same.

To simplify, if you want to do something other than damage/condition/push pull in combat, fuggeddiaboutit. The combat rules are designed as one would design a minis wargame and the roleplaying aspect is only icing upon it, IMO, with the flavor text existing only to minimize the brutal directness of the continual push/pull/damage/condition repetitiveness. Although you can do other things, they're almost always less optimal than what is provided via every class's spells, exploits or whichever word they use to skin the power.

I can't agree with the "merely," because rituals add a different play dynamic. It seems vestigial if it's not quite your thing, or if you really prefer other editions' versions, but ritual magic has become another neat and interesting subsystem in its own right. Of course, I like specific genre or theme emulation in my games, and making D&D do a lot of different things, so I naturally am drawn to the strong points of rituals. They catch the sword-and-sorcery dynamic, for instance, and I don't think that's accidental.

Perhaps my merely is a bit hyperbolic, but I do think the ritual system probably resulted as something like "Well, we have all this stuff left over that we took out of combat because we want to rigidly control combat actions, options, and balance, so now what do we do with it?" kinda thing.

joe b.

 

[Garmorn]

I am not really going to comment on this entire thread. I have read a portion of 4E and found I was reading a completely different game than DnD. Instead I play Pathfinder.

This I agree. Actually I think there are 4 distinct D&D games. Old/Basic D&D, 1/2e. 3.x and 4e.

I can't say any thing about the first. Never saw or played it. 1/2e was the commercial version of Gygax campaign. It was the first and the balance was designed after wargames. As a game designed with out any knowledge base is shows what the designer considered fun. (No disrespect, that was the only data he had.) It is a loose, moderately rules light system. It was designed for the DM to control the game and balance. You had to have a good DM for a long term campaing to even be possible.

3.x is just the opposite of 1/2e. It was designed to impower the players. Tight rules. Lots of options an attempt to power up all of the classes and some what improve the balance between classes. It ended up being amind at a different style of play the 1/2e best supported.

4e seems to be an attempt to create a new balance system that still allows the feel and stories of the older editions. There was an attempt for the first time to make things easy for the DM. This is did in spades when it comes to the mechnics but no system can make the world building part easy. It also ended up being best for different style then the others.

I am going to say that its funny that you have to houserule to do something like this. Your character has an action left yet technically by the core rules you can only stand there and watch a fellow adventurer fall to his death. Little too rules tight for me.

To do this in any version you would have to house rule. All of the initative systems say you only act on your turn or under some special conditions. Unless you are playing with out initative or have a set of rules that I have never seen this is not allowed in any verision of any game I have played. (But it is a common DM ruling to allow this type of reaction).

 

[jgbrowning]

I think you've got it mostly down, though I have to say that class differences make them very unequal in certain aspects, more than mere skinning. Things read very similarly, but the way that a fighter and a warden, for instance, handle in actual play is astounding. They're both defenders, but almost entirely different play experiences. There's some very cunning design in there, stuff that makes me obscenely jealous. I can't help but think equality was a major goal, but one of many, rather than the goal.

I just realized I should pull this out and expound a bit on my preference concerning gaming that may make my point of view a bit more understandable.

I'd never say that someone's combat design makes me obscenely jealous. I'm not that interested in combat. To me, combats have absolutely no meaning except in relation to why the combat is occuring. The why is what I find more interesting than the how do we fight question. I prefer games with quick combats and long roleplaying/exploration/looting sequences. Combats are what happens when there's no other choice or when you've done something wrong.

Others play because they like the combat. I find combat, in general, tedious. I like to roleplay, not roleplay fights.

joe b.

 

[Mark]

So perhaps we are looking at this in different ways - someone in a relaxed office enviroment may be free to be more blue sky creative than someone in the situation described by Mark, but the ones in Mark's office are going to have to be more creative to get any work done at all. Maybe look at it this way - if your box is small, then its more likely that you are going to have to think outside it to solve your problem. If it is large, then there are more solutions within the box, so you are less likely to need to think outside it.

Restricting what someone can do within the box doesn't change the size of the box.

 

[jgbrowning]

I think there's a difference in what people are seeing as creativity here. Personally, I'm with Barastrondo here. When I think creativity, I'm thinking the scene in Apollo 13 where mission control has to figure out how to attach two incompatible components together with only the very limited gear found on the damaged module - the "mailbox" described about halfway down here : Apollo 13 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

When I think creativity, I think how can I take the vast multitude of parts available to me and build the Apollo 13.

joe b.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Clearly, there are some folks on this board who believe that an Atari 64 is a better outlet for creativity than a Mac. After all, all those restrictions on the Atari's processing, graphics, and sound serve to make it a better computer!

4e's balance requires intentional restriction both of the existence of emergent properties, and the ways in the allowed emergent properties can be utilized. Creativity requires making use of emergent properties in unexpected ways. It shouldn't surprise anyone that, the greater the inherent balance, the less the inherent allowance for creativity.


RC

 

[Gimby]

Clearly, there are some folks on this board who believe that an Atari 64 is a better outlet for creativity than a Mac. After all, all those restrictions on the Atari's processing, graphics, and sound serve to make it a better computer!

Actually, I'm going to somewhat agree with this.

Lets take a couple of old 8bit computers, the Sinclair Spectrum and the Commodore 64. These had extreme limitations on memory, processing power and so on. However, over time the software written for them steadily increased in scope and power. How? Creative use of the resources available.

In the Spectrum for example, it was found that the system clock was run at two seperate locations for reliability, and you could squeeze out more performance by tricking the second location into running your code rather than the system clock.

For the C64, the graphics chip couldn't display the colour orange. Simply not possible. Until, in the dying days of its popularity a couple of coders worked out how you could display orange by leveraging a different bit of hardware.

Here the point is to eke out the maximum efficiency from limited tools. That takes creativity. Given Moore's law, there often isn't the same drive in some modern software (some, not all. Efficency is still a drive for many programmers, but not as much a neccesity) - won't run on the current hardware? Wait six months and run it on an upgraded machine.

Now, is an art package on a modern Mac a vastly better outlet for my creative urge than the crude one on my C64? Absolutely. Is the fact that I can get a drawing package working at all on my C64 a testament to the creativity of the programmers? Also true.

If the question is "Which provokes the more creativity", then the question of whether or not the Mac or the Atari 64 is overall the "better computer" is kind of moot. The Atari will demand that creativity in a way that the Mac won't, but the Mac will allow for the creativity in ways that the Atari won't.

As a side issue, there's also the issue of accesibility and expectation. When's the last time you wrote a game from scratch on your Mac?

So, different types of creativity.