D&D 4E Got to play 4E today

[malraux]

I never understand how people could think that there's any lack of role-playing focus in 4E. Roleplaying is something you DO or DON'T DO. The system has very little to do with it.

That and why people expect a system mechanics demo to include lots of RP.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

What concerns me most about 4e is not whether the system will support role-playing, but a (perhaps irrational) fear that it might actually interfere with such. In fact, during the demo we were not given the opportunity to role-play the chase out of town (again, in their defense, this was probably due to time limitations).

With all respect, sounds pretty irrational to me.

It's because of reading reactions like this that I have been very careful to point out to players when I've demo'd 4E that we only have time for a mechanical demo and that role-playing will get "glossed over" a bit. Though we've still found time for some good RP moments...

Certain things in 4E like Fey Step just cry out for lovely RPing.

Fitz

 

[smathis]

Hi Joe:
Thanks for the review and for keeping an open mind about 4e -- despite what sounded like a couple of glitches.

One thing I noticed about the demo I played compared to many others in this forum is that the demo DMs never seem to do the Skill Challenge the same. I mean, what you described and how it was resolved was 110% different from what I played in.

And we played the same mod. (Escape from Sembia)

That sets off some warning lights in that I don't think the Skill Challenges were properly explained to these DMs. Heck, ours even out-and-out said he was having to fudge them because he didn't have that much to go on in the demo materials.

I have high hopes for the mechanic but I wouldn't write it off just yet.

The one point I disagree with you on is the need for a mapgrid. I think it will be easier to do 4e without a mapgrid than 3e. I might be optimistic. But having played it, I don't see it being any more difficult than 3e. Just the change in how AoOs and "the 5-foot step" work simplifies the matter greatly.

YMMV.

And in contrast to a number of other contributors to this thread, I gotta say that I don't think a mapgrid reduces arguments at the table at all.

I think it just shifts those arguments to other areas.

If you're playing with a group that's going to argue for 30 minutes about whether or not they were far enough away to avoid being caught in a fireball, then it's my experience that those kinds of players will argue about AoOs, 5-foot steps, diagonal movement, tumbling, etc. etc. all day as well. Despite having a mapgrid right in front of them.

It may be just my personal experience running for and playing in some of these groups. But an argument about a fireball or whether or not a PC was here or there happened a few times in an evening when we played without a mat. But an argument over who provoked an AoO, who got to take one, who meant to take a 5-foot step, who didn't count a diagonal as two squares... that stuff happened every combat -- sometimes multiple times.

Others may have different experiences. It's really down to group preference in either case.

But there are really a couple of myths I'd like to debunk here. First, that you can't play 4e without a grid. And second, that playing with a grid is preferable because people don't get into rules arguments.

I think playing with a grid is preferable if the group prefers playing with a grid. A good group could make nearly any method of playing a great experience. And a bad one could probably wreck a completely immersive, virtual simulation programmed to perfectly mimic the physics of the game world.

But some people do prefer a grid. And trying to take that away from them is pretty bad mojo. I've found it's like a security blanket or something.

I don't think that makes gridless play any less fun or optimal. It's just different.

 

[Fifth Element]

This is the sort of comment that makes this board less than a fun place to hang out. The man has an opinion based on his experience, so let's not crack down on him for saying it, Herr Element.

If you think my post was inappropriate, please report it.

And does that very subtle jab invoke Godwin I wonder?

 

[BlindOgre]

I never understand how people could think that there's any lack of role-playing focus in 4E. Roleplaying is something you DO or DON'T DO. The system has very little to do with it.

As far as I can tell, the 4E designers have at least made an effort to teach bad roleplayers some tricks. I expect you will see a lot of this in the DMG. But even if there WEREN'T... how would that stop you from role-playing?

Fitz

In a private game, it would not. Where such things become significant is in public games, particularly in tournament play where the design of the adventure has not adequately accounted for the variations produced by creative role-play... I speak from experience specific to this very point.

I was the RPGA judge at GenCon South in Jacksonville, FL in 1984. The adventure was the The Lost Island of Castanamir the Mad (later published as module C3 - The Lost Island of Castanamir). This particular adventure involved almost NO combat. It was all about problem solving and role-playing, with points awarded for particularly clever play and (most importantly) role-playing. This adventure was designed specifically as a fishing expedition to develop consistent and specific rules (or at least guidelines) for rewarding role-play in a fashion that was equitable along side rewards for slaying monsters and gathering treasure. What came out of it was "encounter experience" (long used by many DMs anyway), with guidelines for the calculation and awarding thereof.

In addition, tournament guidelines for "coloring outside the lines" were developed to reward, rather than penalize role-playing even when such took the adventure off the beaten path.

What is most important is that the new rules do not impose upon sanctioned play a mechanism that does not adequately support or reward role-play in favor of rewarding miniatures strategy.

For private games, role-playing is of course entirely up to the DM and players, and the system used to settle arguments can be as simple as rock-paper-scissors. My main concern is how the official rules affect role-playing aspects when taken quite "by the book".

 

[Ycore Rixle]

Joe, thanks for posting. I found your review thoughtful and informative. Also - I miss Ubercon!

Personally, I'm looking forward to skill challenges. The DMG will illuminate them, I'm sure, and they bring a real player-creativity element to the game (as far as I can tell). But they're going to take some getting used to for a lot of people, including my own group here in Buffalo. We're going to start playing with them next session, in a 3.8e type of game. I think they're going to work out superbly, but part of that is because we've discussed them beforehand. We're all on the same page, so to speak, about what we expect from them. If everyone was new, including the DM, to skill challenges, I can see how they would be sticky to begin with.

And about the fluff text that someone was mentioning earlier in Bo9S: don't be too quick to blame Mearls (and Rich Baker was the principal designer, by the way) for what I might have written. I do like me some fluff text.

 

[Sashi]

Exactly my point. Why do I need "priestly shield" to have a special power when you can have the same effect by saying "priests can attack with X bonus". It almost seems like they're actively discouraging "mundane" weapon-play.

Because 4E is working through an Exception-Based rules system, instead of an Inclusion-Based system.

In 3E especially players were encouraged to have a single tool and pile as many special abilities on top of that tool as possible, a wizard was encouraged to boost his spell save DC's as far as possible, because you had a single ability (provoke a save with your spell) that was modified incrementally by inclusive effects (take a feat to boost your DC, boost your int to increase your DC, etc). Nowhere is this more apparent than the mounted combat character, who pours all of his feats, abilities, and equipment into having as high of a charge bonus as possible, and then applies that trick to all his attacks whenever possible. The same thing is present in Rogues who boost their SA dice, and on and on.

Each ability in 4E is doing is saying "here is an ability, it works, here is another ability, it works too. But you're not allowed to blend those two abilities with a third and create something broken" So a Fighter does not get a class ability of "add 3 damage to the fighters melee attacks" and then a Daily ability of "once per day the fighter may deal 3x damage with a melee attack" because those would be inclusive abilities. The fighter spends all his resources to boost his basic melee attack as high as possible, and then sometimes triples that damage. Instead he gets an at-will ability of "make a melee attack, add 3 damage to it" and a Daily ability of "Make a melee attack, deal 3x damage with it".

The reasoning behind this method is pretty simple, really. It's incredibly difficult to balance inclusion-based rules systems (possibly impossible, because there's almost always SOME number of abilities that, when combined, grant geometric power growth). This is why we have Weapon Specialization, which is nice for a 2W fighter where it can give him +20 damage if he hits with 5 of his 7 attacks for the round, and totally OMG broken when it gives that optimized pouncing charge fighter build an extra 100 damage because he hits 5 times for x10 damage in a round. If instead you make a TWF ability tree that slowly increases the damage bonus for each attack made from +1 to eventually +4 that will work out well for him. And then you make a charge abilty tree that grants bonus charge damage from +10 to +40, and you're assured that the player won't grab 10 different splatbooks, pile them all on top of each other, and fuse them, voltron-like, into a single ability that deals 10,000 damage and provokes four different save-or-die effects.

 

[Korgoth]

If you think my post was inappropriate, please report it.

I'm not calling you out personally. I'm just saying that if somebody thinks that 4E is like WoW, that's as valid as saying that they don't think it's like WoW. Especially if they have actually played it.

Having played several months of WoW after it came out, but not having played 4E, I think it sounds like they borrowed a lot from WoW. Be that as it may, I'm still contemplating trying it out. I'm sure it won't supercede OD&D or Classic as my primary D&D interests, but then again I'd play 1E or 2E even though they're not my favorites. Maybe I'll actually like 4E, or maybe I'll hate it. But some of the stuff sounds like WoW. It's just an observation.

No one needs to take it on himself to browbeat those who dare to criticize 4E. Even if it's the best version of D&D ever it will still probably not be perfect, and so even it's greatest superfan might have occasion to observe one or two slight inadequacies or questionable elements.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

In a private game, it would not. For private games, role-playing is of course entirely up to the DM and players, and the system used to settle arguments can be as simple as rock-paper-scissors. My main concern is how the official rules affect role-playing aspects when taken quite "by the book".

I'm sorry, it may be the flu talking, but I'm not really sure what your point is.

Are you concerned that 4E won't provide XP as an incentive to role-play? Because it clearly does.

Are you worried that it won't provide RP related tools? Because AFAIK there's at least one chapter devoted to it in the DMG.

I'm just not sure what about "the book" could negatively effect a RP experience.

Fitz

 

[Teemu]

Having played several months of WoW after it came out, but not having played 4E, I think it sounds like they borrowed a lot from WoW. Be that as it may, I'm still contemplating trying it out.

Would it be bad if 4e was WoW-like? I find WoW's combat much more fun mechanically than D&D's, especially classes like paladin, rogue, and fighter/warrior.