Xris Robin
First Post
Seriously? No offense, but you might want to try reading the article the quote came from before you try talk about it. The quote in question is NOT ABOUT 4E.
As I pointed out ALREADY, back on like page seven.
GM Prep Time - Cognitive Dissonance in Encounter Design?
- Thread starter innerdude
- Start date
Seriously? No offense, but you might want to try reading the article the quote came from before you try talk about it. The quote in question is NOT ABOUT 4E.
As I pointed out ALREADY, back on like page seven.
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him) 🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️⚧️
True, it's not about 4e, per se. It's about WotC's monster design philosophy which they developed over the course of 3e and have pretty clearly used in 4e. So really it's about a foundational philosophy of 4e.
Xris Robin
First Post
So the fact the quote is misattributed and out of context just doesn't matter as long as you can stretch it to argue about something? Because I see very little discussion about what was actually said in the article, in relation to 4E or otherwise.
Yes, well, then Mr. Crowking is arguing somewhat to the side of my point. I was being pretty darned specific, talking about a very specific approach to adventure design.
Is Paizo using that system? I don't expect so.
Is Paizo publishing adventures for 4e? No.
We should compare apples to apples.
Every ruleset has its strengths and weaknesses. Paizo is working with a ruleset that has a strength in that much of the multiple-approach comes for free when you fully stat out a monster or NPC. It has the weakness that this means you have to fully stat out the baddie - a process that can take a whole lot of time and effort, and makes quick reference not so quick.
WotC is working with a ruleset that gives you much less for free when you stat out a monster or NPC. That's a weakness. The strength is that quick reference really is quick, and a DM can fully stat things himself lickety split.
So, what we are asking of WotC is not so much to create adventures that are approach-agnostic, but to create adventures that avoid the systems inherent weaknesses for us, without losing the strengths.
So, to be fair - can Paizo create an adventure that overcomes its system's weaknesses, without losing the strengths? That'd be an adventure that maintains its approach-agnosticism, but has the speed and ease of use of 4e, even at high level.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
For clarity, while I presented what is being called the "four-times approach" in its most labour-intensive form (actually writing the module four times) I really don't expect any writers to do it that way...though props to 'em if they do. But I sure as shootin' expect them to *think* that way and to have that thinking reflected in the finished product.
But you're quite right that it still needs to be easy to read and understand.
And, please don't get into an idea of the four-times writing idea producing four different paths through a module. The intent is to merely account for four (or more) ways a group might logically try to play through it, rather than just one. The best of modules would see the most successful groups use all kinds of different modes of play during the adventure, at those points where each made sense.
Scribble, please prepare for my players not to like you very much...
Lan-"but does it give back change?"-efan
This might be a non-issue, depending how the writer gets paid. Page count can stay the same, just with more words, less pictures and white space, and less slavish adherence to the delve format...no extra cost there. I don't know how writers get paid, but if the writer's on contract to produce a module the pay will be the same no matter what gets written as long as it passes inspection; so no extra cost there either.
No idea of the mechanics involved, but page counts divisible by 8 seem to be the norm. That said, you can increase the page count by one or two or three provided the extras are on loose sheets (cough *maps* cough) and not increase the cost very much.
The paths do *not* have to be the same difficulty!!! Why not have a module where there's an easy way to solve it, a hard way to solve it, and a way that won't solve it at all? And the pacing is entirely up to the DM and group at the table and probably won't ever be the same twice.
But you're quite right that it still needs to be easy to read and understand.
Good.
And, please don't get into an idea of the four-times writing idea producing four different paths through a module. The intent is to merely account for four (or more) ways a group might logically try to play through it, rather than just one. The best of modules would see the most successful groups use all kinds of different modes of play during the adventure, at those points where each made sense.
The concept of a monster vendomatic is giving me all kinds of evil ideas right now.Scribble said:
Scribble, please prepare for my players not to like you very much...
Lan-"but does it give back change?"-efan
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I don't think this captures my view, or that of some of the others who are trying to explain their experiences with 4e.
In 4e I don't need a stat block to help me with non-combat encounters, because (to the extent that these are handled mechanically) these are resolved via skill challenges, with DCs set in accordance with the rules in the DMG and DMG2.
What I want is a stat block that will work for combat, plus information about an NPC's motivation/personality/social context etc that will help me frame any skill challenges that are necessary, plus a suggestion for the complexity and DCs of some of the obvious skill challenges that might arise (eg persuading a monster to give over its treasure as a ransom for its life).
Is this based on actual play experience with 4e? It certainly doesn't fit with my own 4e play experience. My game has featured encounters with many, probably dozens, of goblin warriors and sharpshooters, but has not suffered from tactical inflexibility. Because each encounter has a different combination of goblins, with or without non-goblin allies, different terrain, and a different entry-point for the PCs into that terrain, there has been a wide degree of variety even though each individual goblin warrior or sharpshooter has the same (fairly straightforward) statblock.
In short, tactical flexibility and variety is not just a function of a monster's statblock. It's also a function of something closer to the ordinary meaning of "tactics" - combination of forces, terrain etc.
And combat in my 4e game has not suffered to date from any grind issues. I think that it might have, if I had used WotC encounters as written - they tend to feature smaller numbers of higher level foes, whereas I have been building and running encounters with larger numbers of lower level foes and minions. I find that not only does a larger number of foes lead to a more dynamic fight - it also tends to increase the importance of terrain, simply because the PCs have to move about to try to engage all their enemies.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
To raise a bigger question: why does any of this need to be edition-specific? Good adventures in one edition tend to translate pretty well into other editions (says he from experience, and the reverse is also true); so shouldn't we be looking for an edition-neutral or edition-combining solution here by taking what works in each and starting from there?
And yes, I know WotC is only going to write to the current edition they are producing, and that's fair enough; but the rest of us are not so constrained and *can* go edition-neutral if we want.
Lanefan
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
I think this is a false dichotomy.
If you take Noonan's quote to the critique of WotC adventures, you get that context is part of how the monster is used at the table.
That, functionally, during game play, it is more satisfying to have a villain built up, to have a world breathe, and to have moments of "down time" to explore the environment.
Think of it like a rest in a song or simple colorspace in a painting or paragraphs of description in a fantasy novel. They increase tension. They set the stage. They provide contrast. They provoke anticipation. By projecting high-octane thrilling encounters against a background like this, the encounters have the effect you want to achieve at the table (that is, the players are into them, and not bored by them). They shouldn't be hard to build into the writing for an adventure: rooms without monsters, forex.
The idea that fluff is only for the DM and worldbuilding is a naive idea. There is certainly such a thing as useless and overabundant and unnecessarily limiting fluff, but that is not all fluff. That is just the badly designed fluff. Well-designed fluff has an impact, even if that impact is "catch your breath as I describe this harmless room with the grand waterfall and the fish and the quiet, because in the next three rooms, you are going to be hit in the face several times."
Games, like many creative works, are about maintaining and resolving tension. A game that is all smash all the time is like a horror movie that becomes numbing with all the startles and BOO-scares. Good horror movies -- and good creative works in general, including D&D adventures -- master pacing to deliver time to breathe, time for thought, time to speculate on the broader significance of what's going on. In a horror movie, this eventually builds a sense of dread. In a D&D game, this should build a sense of heroism and adventure. And you don't achieve that simply by rolling dice over and over again. You achieve that with context.
That's important. At the table.
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him) 🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️⚧️
It's not a stretch at all. Unless you don't believe that their design philosophy at Point A (late 3e MM) affected concurrent designs and designs at Point B (4e) very shortly thereafter. That strikes me as a very extraordinary position to hold, particularly since the results of 4e monster design align so well with it.
Hussar
Legend
On a side note about grindiness. We have several hours of play on record with both the Robot Chicken and the two Penny Arcade podcasts. Yet, none of those grind.
I mean, in the Robot Chicken podcast, with at least one player who had never gamed anything before, never mind never gaming D&D, you had a 4 hour session, the first combat doesn't come up until after an hour of role play (listen to the DM commentaries about Chris Perkin's opinion of claims that 4e has no role playing ). In the next three hours, they go through five encounters - the trap room with the fire ballista, the bat lurker thing in the cave, the zombies that come out of the walls, the elemental thingie, and finally a bunch of spiders at the end.
And there's a fair bit of role play time in that three hours as well.
So, in 180 minutes, they get through five encounters. That's not a bad run in ANY edition. And certainly not a grind.
I'm not saying that grind never exists or anything like that. But, the idea that the game ALWAYS grinds and there's nothing you can do about it doesn't really fly in the face of pretty clear evidence. Three podcasts, two different groups, both containing complete newbies, all capable of getting through several encounters in a four hour span.
I mean, in the Robot Chicken podcast, with at least one player who had never gamed anything before, never mind never gaming D&D, you had a 4 hour session, the first combat doesn't come up until after an hour of role play (listen to the DM commentaries about Chris Perkin's opinion of claims that 4e has no role playing
). In the next three hours, they go through five encounters - the trap room with the fire ballista, the bat lurker thing in the cave, the zombies that come out of the walls, the elemental thingie, and finally a bunch of spiders at the end.And there's a fair bit of role play time in that three hours as well.
So, in 180 minutes, they get through five encounters. That's not a bad run in ANY edition. And certainly not a grind.
I'm not saying that grind never exists or anything like that. But, the idea that the game ALWAYS grinds and there's nothing you can do about it doesn't really fly in the face of pretty clear evidence. Three podcasts, two different groups, both containing complete newbies, all capable of getting through several encounters in a four hour span.
