Pff. Die Hard is way too talky to be anything like 4E.
That xkcd always makes me think of "The Chase", the 90 minute all-car-chase movie: The Chase (1994)
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Pff. Die Hard is way too talky to be anything like 4E.
Maybe we should just bite the bullet and rename the game "Die Hard d20" (given all the John McClane this, John McClane that, that seems like the primary justification for 4E rules changes, good grief).
/snip
So, in the end you will still have a 4E like game play effect, but the mechanics map closer to the fictional game world. But here I say: WHY? Why go a more complicated route to achieve exactly the same igameplay effect? Where is the real benefit at the game table? Players have to juggle more numbers and effects and still play the game mostly the same way?
Is it really harder to play-pretend and guesstimate or schrödinger your wounds (together with pretending to be an elf or pretending to fight a dragon, only armed with a sword and a shield), then to do each step of the more "advanced" system to get a closer model of the game-world? And be honest - you go through the numbers every attack, every hit, every round of a combat. But the "play-pretend" - you do that only occassionally, when it feels meaningful, like when you drop a foe, bloody him (4E D&D only), or when you make a critical hit, whenever something special happens.
Maybe we should just bite the bullet and rename the game "Die Hard d20" (given all the John McClane this, John McClane that, that seems like the primary justification for 4E rules changes, good grief).
Just dropped into read the last post and noticed this little error. In an RPG, there are no rules for the Players to remember (and therefore slow down play). It's all just description of the world. Sometimes abstract, but still just description. A 5-year-old can play an RPG. They just need to know how to role-play. There is never a need to know rules from a Player POV. Rules are for the DM/Referee to help operate the world. They are the ones who use as few or as many rules as necessary.Bingo! This is exactly the point I was trying to make. Thank you for saying it better than I've been able to. In a "game first" model, look at the results, rather than the method. Since the results are the same, why use a more complicated system?
Just dropped into read the last post and noticed this little error. In an RPG, there are no rules for the Players to remember (and therefore slow down play). It's all just description of the world. Sometimes abstract, but still just description. A 5-year-old can play an RPG. They just need to know how to role-play. There is never a need to know rules from a Player POV. Rules are for the DM/Referee to help operate the world. They are the ones who use as few or as many rules as necessary.
And, stories as well. People have pointed to various narratives where the hero needs extended rest to come back. But, what works in stories doesn't work in the game...
Examples of the responses of six different types of monsters follow. The situation will be the same in each example: The "party" (whose composition and levels are unimportant for the example and would obviously vary in each situation anyway) will be attacking the monsters in the examples in two situations. SITUATION 1 (S1) is where encounter occurs for the first time, and while the party inflicts casualties upon the monsters, victory is denied; the party then leaves with its wounded, regroups, and returns one full week later to finish the job. SITUATION 2 (S2) is where the party, rested, healed, and ready for action, has now re-encountered the monsters in question. In both situations the response of the monsters concerned will be detailed so you can use the examples in handling actual play.
Just dropped into read the last post and noticed this little error. In an RPG, there are no rules for the Players to remember (and therefore slow down play). It's all just description of the world. Sometimes abstract, but still just description. A 5-year-old can play an RPG. They just need to know how to role-play. There is never a need to know rules from a Player POV. Rules are for the DM/Referee to help operate the world. They are the ones who use as few or as many rules as necessary.
Oh, please. In the 1E DMG under "Monsters and Organization", the base assumption was that a party would attack once, and then retreat and regroup for one full week before attacking again. 2 pages and 6 examples were devoted to helping the DM decide what the monsters might do in the meantime.
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THIS actually is one of the reasons why I think both 3e and 4e are definitely better designed games. They actually consider what happens at the table and not just "how it should be"....
The result though of this rule? Either the downtime was handwaved away thus not giving the players any sense of time being spent OR the more likely fact that almost every party HAD to have a cleric thus actually forcing a player to take a class (or having the DM to provide one) just for the game to function...
And that's why I think 3E and 4E are, in that regard, much worse designed games. They don't take into account what happens in the game world, and believe that game world and at-table experiences should be unrelated.
Look, in OD&D/ Basic clerics had no spells at first level. From OD&D -> 2E, clerics had no healing spells in the 2nd or 3rd level slots. The breakdown you describe is one of the backfiring results of 3E not thinking through its implications.
If you believe that earlier editions had similar problems, then my solution would be to not exacerbate the breakdown or capitulate to it, but step back further to OD&D-level healing levels. Or even back to the Chainmail milieu where there were no clerics at all! (As I did in my DimD20 rules.)