Fiddly Bits, Power Cards, and Imagination

[Ariosto]

There's some selection pressure in terms of who is likely to be playing -- or Game Mastering! -- a given rules set in the first place. If the GM won't let you do toot except what's stereotyped, then fairly sensible folks might give up after a few tries.

"This is a combat encounter" and "this is a skill challenge" or "a test of X on your character sheet" -- so just quit exploring the imagined situation and roll the dice already -- is a pretty definite attitude in some quarters. It should come as no big surprise that it's more common with texts written to encourage that, nor that those texts exist because a good many people happen to consider such an approach better.

 

[Ariosto]

As to getting fancy in fight scenes, maybe it's hard to avoid a bit of "getting real".

Gun - target - aim - shoot. That's all there usually is, my friends -- no bank shots with bullets, no Wushu Feng Shui Drunken Silkworm Style.

Fists are for bashing, points for stabbing, blades for cutting. "Get stuck in and stick it to 'em" is the essential modus operandi of Clobbering Time. With video-game gadgetry in real time, it can be pretty cool to get into specifics of fancy footwork and fencing. With paper and pencil, that tends not to be so engaging in the long run -- and in the short run, not so easy to envision and implement in fast action.

Zoom in too much and the focus goes all blurry. Slow-mo that's too slow makes it too easy to lose sight of context, of direction.

It's a tabletop game, not a movie, so it's harder to deal with that two-shot stuff. It's easier, though, to deal with larger issues -- such as what more commonly is called tactics in the real world.

When people can't get a grip on things in other ways, naturally they're going to reach for the abstract-game-mechanical handles. The problem arises when those are actually less abstract than other available description.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

DISCLAIMER: I'm going to do my best to keep this edition neutral and I urge everyone else to do the same.

Does anyone else find systems with highly defined powers and options to limit creativity? It could be that it's just the people I game with, but that's why I'm here to ask if anyone else sees the same thing.

When I play 4e, my fellow gamers make good (often brilliant) use of their powers and make excellent tactical decisions. But it never even occurs to them to do anything else. When I wanted to temporarily blind a creature with my cloak -- the classic "throw a cloak over it's head to distract it for a few seconds" -- my fellow gamers looked at me as if I had sprouted a new head!

It's *not* the system's fault -- The DMG even has notes on players trying things not covered by their powers, advising DMs on how to handle these actions and making suggestions as to how to adjudicate them. After all, no system will EVER cover every single thing a player can come up with.

But simply by strictly defining their powers, it seems like the game put blinders on (at least some) gamers -- they don't think beyond that list. If they don't have a card for it, the action simply doesn't occur to them.

---------------------------------------------

It's by no means limited to 4e -- it's just a recent example -- but it seems like the more a system defines options, the less players try to think of anything ELSE.

A player might try to use the environment against a foe, but typically only if the DM highlights an area (pit traps, environmental hazards, that kind of thing). When's the last time a player threw sand in someone's eyes? Or carried flour in case of invisible foes? Used chalk to mark a maze? Researched a unique spell for a specific circumstance? (Just to name a few classics.)

I've slowly moved more and more towards "freeform" and "rules lite" systems. (In quotes because no two gamers ever completely agree on those terms... ) I was doing this long before 4e was even announced, so it's not a new phenomenon for me.

Is this a factor of the group / gamers I play with? Or does anyone else find that the better-defined a character's powers, the less the players are willing to experiment outside of those boundaries?

If only that were true! Then all i had to do to cure my creativity-impaired players would be to switch my game to, say, Wushu, and KIERBLAM, the awesome would roll out.

Alas, all that changes is that they stare at blank space instead of their power cards.

In other words: if you discover something works for your group, chances are high that the internet will tell you that, no, this isn´t a universal law for all roleplaying groups.

 

[lutecius]

I don't have a problem with codified actions as such but I do find them limiting when combined with other restrictions:

_Encounter/daily limits and class exclusivity: as I understand it, stunts cannot replicate existing powers, regardless of circumstances, no matter how generic they seem mechanically or thematically.

_the expansion model: "no system will ever cover everything…" but the current trend is to make sure a system doesn't. Some are incomplete by design. Obvious options are held back for supplements. Highly defined actions serve this purpose a little too well.

_Physical limits: glossy action cards may be handy but also severely reduce the number of options even in expensive boxed sets like wfrp3 (far fewer classes than wfrp2, far fewer "powers" than 4e phb1)

 

[FireLance]

Does anyone else find systems with highly defined powers and options to limit creativity?

I think that such systems make creativity less necessary. They don't actually limit creativity, but when players already have defined powers that are effective in most circumstances, they will be less inclined to come up with new things to do on the fly, especially if the difference in effectiveness (however the player chooses to define "effectiveness") is marginal.

If a DM wants to encourage creativity from the players, he has to ensure that the players' creativity makes a significant difference, or the players are simply not going to bother. This is true regardless of system, by the way - if the players' creative actions are not rewarded in Basic D&D, they are not going to go beyond the in-game task resolution mechanisms: combat could very well be round after round of "I attack." "I attack." "I cast magic missile/throw a dagger."

There is a fine balancing act, though. If creativity is rewarded too much, the creative solution becomes the next highly defined and codified standard option. If throwing a cloak at an opponent blinds him until he makes a saving throw, pretty soon everyone in the party will be carrying a cloak to throw at tough opponents. This is a balance that every individual DM will have to find for himself.

 

[Plane Sailing]

DISCLAIMER: I'm going to do my best to keep this edition neutral and I urge everyone else to do the same.

Does anyone else find systems with highly defined powers and options to limit creativity? It could be that it's just the people I game with, but that's why I'm here to ask if anyone else sees the same thing.

It is true by my observation.

The more highly defined powers and options are, the more likely players are to stick to them and be less creative. From my experience one end of the continuum is OD&D and the other end is 4e.

I'm not telling anyone that one way is good and one way is bad, just observing that in my long experience the more codified powers and options are, the less creative people end up being for one reason or another.

Cheers

 

[CapnZapp]

Agreed, but note that there can be a too large burden on the player's creativity too.

The only thing remaining is to discuss where on the sliding scale things work out the best for you.

Where this thread is useful, is to show the fallacy of believing page 42 of the DMG transforms 4E. For most people, it simply does not. For most people, you simply can't point to that page to argue 4E is a creative loosely defined game, because for most people using it would negate the very point they bought the game for: i.e. taking advantage of its powers and their balance.

 

[Nebulous]

i've found that in 4e, my players are confined by their powers and rarely - if ever - try anything outside of their power cards. 4e is a great game and we're really enjoying it, but it does form a sort of box. Sure, you can get out of the box, but my players either don't bother or don't KNOW they can get out. Or don't want to, they like their limited options and creativity takes a backseat.

Which does make me really want to run a simpler game at some point.

 

[AllisterH]

The more highly defined powers and options are, the more likely players are to stick to them and be less creative. From my experience one end of the continuum is OD&D and the other end is 4e.

But how often are people creative though?

For example, 2e I think is the edition of D&D that has the least amount of reference to the grid and has pretty fast combat, but I didn't find my players trying stuff in that system since there's only so many times in combat you can do "creative" stuff.

For example, at the start of the fight, they might tip the table but after that, IME, they would then stop doing anything creative and then just follof the system.

Basically, my players were creative once a fight AT MOST and many times, they weren't creative at all. In my 4e games, they are at the same level of creativity in combat.

 

[AllisterH]

There's also the issue of creativity itself.

Is tipping the table in practically every brawl in a tavern REALLY a creative move in combat? Furthermore, if they do it EVERY TIME, does it stop being creative?