"Fun"

[Imaro]

1. Flexible victory conditions whereby everyone can "win" (very important)

2. More scope to advance your character (powerups)

3. Wider range of encounters, both combat and noncombat

4. Greater personal identification with a single character as opposed to a group

5. A cooperative rather than competitive activity

... or was that a rhetorical question?

One Word: Descent

 

[CleverNickName]

No, the book reads well. Only if you search for each tiny word that is missing or too much it might become bad. But that's not the way I read (unless I've trouble understanding a sentence.)

But it really doesn't. Take the paragraph that the OP offered, for instance:

Fun is one element you shouldn’t vary. Every encounter in an adventure should be fun. As much as possible, fast-forward through the parts of an adventure that aren’t fun. An encounter with two guards at the city gate isn’t fun. Tell the players they get through the gate without much trouble and move on to the fun. Niggling details of food supplies and encumbrance usually aren’t fun, so don’t sweat them, and let the players get to the adventure and on to the fun. Long treks through endless corridors in the ancient dwarven stronghold beneath the mountains aren’t fun. Move the PCs quickly from encounter to encounter, and on to the fun!

Now a paragraph in a technical document (as opposed to a paragraph in a short story or novel) should consist of a unifying main point, followed by supporting details that build on each other to advance the idea, then conclude with a summary that echoes the main point.

This paragraph starts with a clear idea ("Fun is one element you shouldn't vary"), but the body of the paragraph does not support that idea...instead, it lists various things that are/are not fun. These are subjective ideals, not facts. There is no summary in conclusion either; the closing statement is a forceful command instead ("Do this," complete with an exclaimation point.)

The problem isn't a missing or overused word; the whole paragraph needs to be revised to be more focused, less opinionated, and to the point.

Just sayin.'

 

[helium3]

*sigh*

Double Post.

 

[pr1]

I'm not going to read the whole 10 pages of this threat (so sue me), so if this has been said already, so be it.

I don't think the OP is right that this invalidates the perspective of previous editions at all. I think the difference between a mature game and one where the DM has no idea of scope is one in which going to a medieval/fantasy city becomes a bureaucratic nightmare in which I have to talk to the guards, then pass some message along from the innkeeper to the gnomish whatever guild, then play through a bunch of other BS encounters in town. (I've actually played in games like that! I suspect a lot of folks who've played for a long time have, as well.) Older modules just box-texted through most of the non-dungeon crawling stuff. To be fair, they weren't necessarily restricting you to only play them that way, but the game was a lot more about intricate dungeon crawls than how many half-dragons you can talk to in an inn.

I think some ideas here are right in theory:

1. WoTC certainly isn't the ultimate arbiter of fun. You can play the game however you like.
2. Blowing through roleplaying in town shouldn't be the default of the game (with the caveat that neither should hitting players over the head with worthless tedium like talking to the guards for 30 minutes just to get into town).

But a lot of that is like debating how much "story" a D&D game should have. Interactions and "story" are fluff that everyone in theory agrees are a good idea. But most DMs who just think about the theory, and focus on that, end up railroading the party and wasting time when the players just want to kill, find treasure, and have fun. I'm quite sure that sample market testing confirmed this for the game designers, and even though I don't want to play 4th edition, I understand that they're not idiots and probably have played a game or two in their lives. While they could have maybe addressed the issue diplomatically, so as not to alienate the DM who actually has relevant or interesting encounters in town, they should make you feel guilty for wasting 2 hours in a night procuring a bed and talking to your NPCs.

 

[hong]

One Word: Descent

See 1, 2, 3 and 5.

 

[Cadfan]

Now a paragraph in a technical document (as opposed to a paragraph in a short story or novel) should consist of a unifying main point, followed by supporting details that build on each other to advance the idea, then conclude with a summary that echoes the main point.

If this section of the DMG were functioning as a technical document, you might have a point.

I could also quibble about whether a single paragraph needs to have all of those details, and the all-too-common stylistic mistake of packing too much into a single paragraph when multiple paragraphs would be appropriate, but as that's irrelevant you can all just pretend that I said it.

 

[WayneLigon]

This is stuff straight out of the pre-release hype machine that badwrongfun'd pretty much everything about earlier editions. This is stuff that says that Mearls and Co. know fun, and your ain't it. This is stuff that just plane pisses me off. To some people, some of those listed things are, in fact, fun. For a few, all of those things are fun. I think those 100 words or so would have been better spent reiterating the point of the first quote, that there is no right (or more importantly in this case, wrong) definition of fun and what matters is that the group as a whole shares a similar definition.

Instead, we've got badwrongfunism forever enshrined in the DMG, and thus, if goal are met, a whole generation of D&D players that don't waste time on unfun stuff like talking to guards, exploring dungeon coorridors or managing "real" resources.

What it means is to lighten up and get to the meat of the matter. The guards at the gate ARE important when they serve a function, be that versimlitude or even the actual imparting of information. They're not important all of the time, in every case. You have a lot of GMs, especially novice GMs, who look at the rules as hard-and-fast lock-step recipies (heh) that they have to follow in some bizarre induced OCD-like state or everything goes to hell. They just to be point-blank told it's OK to loosen up and make sure things move along at a pace that's comfortable for everyone. No-one should have time to sit there and build dice-towers because Bob isn't done loading his mule.

I think the passage speaks more to the bean-counting GM's I've known in the past, especially under 1E, that felt you HAD to roleplay out every. stinking. encounter. even with the fishwife they rolled as a random encounter and of course you had to roll every x rounds because the DMG said so. The ones that made me sit down and add up the weight every damn piton and bag of salt before we could start gaming for the evening because God forbid I might be over .10 pound and thus reduced to a slower move catagory. The ones that made us map every stinking inch of a mostly empty dungeon with tons of long, doorless corridors because that was 'realistic'.

If that exercise in thumb-twidling boredom IS someone's idea of fun, I'll go ahead and I'll call it bad and wrong.

 

[Imaro]

1. Flexible victory conditions whereby everyone can "win" (very important)

2. More scope to advance your character (powerups)

3. Wider range of encounters, both combat and noncombat

4. Greater personal identification with a single character as opposed to a group

5. A cooperative rather than competitive activity

... or was that a rhetorical question?

See 1, 2, 3 and 5.

If 1. means everyone enjoying a game then Descent covers this, otherwise how does a DM "win".

2. Uhm, you realize Descent now has rules for campign play over numerous games right? http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13845.phtml

3.Ok, Descent has expansions as well.

5. If different players take turns being the Overlord how is this not cooperative?

In other words, in all seriousness what do you feel differentiates this from what you want out of D&D? I'm not being snarky, just curious.

 

[hong]

If 1. means everyone enjoying a game then Descent covers this, otherwise how does a DM "win".

I realise that you have to be told everything at least 2 times, but there is more to being a non-adversarial DM than ensuring everyone enjoys the game.

2. Uhm, you realize Descent now has rules for campign play over numerous games right? http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13845.phtml

There is more to heaven and earth, Horatio, than a dungeon.

3.Ok, Descent has expansions as well.

Psst. Noncombat as well as combat.

5. If different players take turns being the Overlord how is this not cooperative?

... you can't be serious.

In other words, in all seriousness what do you feel differentiates this from what you want out of D&D? I'm not being snarky, just curious.

So. Why don't you play Dogs in the Vineyard?

 

[Henry]

There's one point I'd like to make that I haven't seen yet:

"Encounter" does not equal "Fight", though some people are making that assumption.

In the way the 4e DMG uses it, "encounter" means "important scene that moves the plot or action of the game." That's why the DMG focuses on cutting out stuff not important to the "encounter". If the example gate guards serve no purpose to the adventure, if it doesn't matter whether the PCs pass the guards now or 2 hours from now, then what the DMG is saying is not to dwell on that interaction too much. If on the other hand, the guards stand between the party and the prince who's gonna get murdered in the next hour, then it's an important scene or "encounter", and worth using a skill check/challenge on, or an encounter or daily utility power, or, at the bottom end of the rung, FIGHT past the guards and try to save the prince with the CITY GUARD on your tail.