D&D 4E How did 4e take simulation away from D&D?

[eamon]

Ironically, IMHO, the biggest critics of 4e seem to be people that from my perspective are way too caught up in the mechanics. We tell stories. We use the rules to help us tell those stories. Good solid rules that work for most situations and give all the players a reasonably even amount of plot power seem to work best for us.

You may have hit on something here. But then my point is that 4e's mechanics-heavy design has some responsibility for that. If the mechanics had less of a "fluff is optional" tinge to them, then this group of people (i.e. me) would not have any problems. So perhaps it's not a meaningful flaw to you - but it is to me.

Honestly, why are effects, areas of effect, ranges, etc standardized? Because these things get these details OUT OF THE WAY. Instead of play being about the game it can be much more about the story. I don't need a 'fiction first' version of the rules for instance. I just don't know what else could ever possibly be first before the story. Sure, I can imagine a group of people playing tactical skimish game, but honestly 4e isn't even close to the best set of rules for that in and of itself.

In principle that's nice, and standardization to some degree is a good thing. They don't get these details out of the way, however - combat takes long in 4e because even though the durations may be conceptually simple, they make for complex gameplay. The difference between start of your turn and end of your turn may be small in principle, but tactically it matters. 4e to me is a tactical skirmish game, with bits of roleplaying in between. Combat's long and generally fun, most rules concern themselves with combat, most powers+feats concern themselves with combat - really, outside of combat there's fairly minimal structure - the difference between 4e outside of combat and freeform RP isn't very large.

I don't want complicated powers with open-ended (and IMHO usually not well conceived) ramifications. I can handle players doing oddball stuff. As page 42 says "You make it possible for the players to try anything they can imagine."

Isn't that contradictory? If you can handle players doing oddball stuff, why not oddball uses of character abilities?

I've seen plenty of dry-as-dust mechanics focused play in every version of the game, and conversely plenty of highly descriptive imaginative play, again in all different versions of the game. I don't think the game system is the driver for this, it is the people at the table.

My experience is the opposite. The same groups spend more time in combat (which is more interesting), and have less interesting interactions with their (out-of-combat) environment in 4e than in 3e - and I don't think 3e was really good at that either, and no it's not a huge difference. But it is there. And in any case, if the system doesn't matter to you, why not fix it for those that do care?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

You may have hit on something here. But then my point is that 4e's mechanics-heavy design has some responsibility for that. If the mechanics had less of a "fluff is optional" tinge to them, then this group of people (i.e. me) would not have any problems. So perhaps it's not a meaningful flaw to you - but it is to me.

I don't think the intent was 'fluff is option'. I think the intent was to give you minimal fluff that doesn't imply all sorts of additional unspoken or undefined mechanics. A good example is the old AD&D version of Spider Climb. The fluff insisted on telling you HOW it made it possible to climb a wall (by making your hands sticky). This was first of all silly because it didn't explain anything (I don't care how sticky your hands are, you're still not traversing a ceiling). Next it implied all sorts of off-label uses for the spell which caused endless annoyances. 2e had to make the description of the spell 4x longer so they could try to catalog them all and explain all the secondary ramifications of the spell. 4e Spider Climb works perfectly well and has none of those problems. Beyond that it can be cooler because I could for instance describe my character's arms and legs turning into spider legs or something funky like that. The AD&D version? Nah, your hands get sticky.

In principle that's nice, and standardization to some degree is a good thing. They don't get these details out of the way, however - combat takes long in 4e because even though the durations may be conceptually simple, they make for complex gameplay. The difference between start of your turn and end of your turn may be small in principle, but tactically it matters. 4e to me is a tactical skirmish game, with bits of roleplaying in between. Combat's long and generally fun, most rules concern themselves with combat, most powers+feats concern themselves with combat - really, outside of combat there's fairly minimal structure - the difference between 4e outside of combat and freeform RP isn't very large.

Well, I think 4e overdid things. It isn't an issue with the core rules design. There are just too many powers that create too many ongoing effects. I am all onboard with the conceptual design of 4e, that doesn't mean I think all the details of individual game elements are perfect, either individually or collectively.

As for freeform, first I honestly think this is a bit of an exaggeration. There are a pretty good chunk of rules for out of combat situations. 4e does a lot more for out of combat stuff than AD&D ever did, and I'm not really seeing the complaints about this aspect of AD&D. There are LESS MECHANICS than previous editions here, but that is far more the result of having one consistent mechanic that works in 100's of situations vs having 100's of individual mechanics (and I freely admit that 3.x went a good ways in this direction already).

Where it IS a BIT more freeform is in terms of defining things like what non-adventuring stuff your character is good at, how to do things that are really setting related (encounter tables, building a castle, hiring henchmen, running a business, etc). Really I personally like that, the players and DM are more free to make these things work in accordance with the way they want to play. It is cool that UA is covering some of this stuff too, no reason not to have some usable rules there for common situations.

Isn't that contradictory? If you can handle players doing oddball stuff, why not oddball uses of character abilities?

Because they aren't oddball when the rules provide them? They are just messy and not well defined. If I as the DM can decide what non-standard uses of things will work that's cool. Having to argue with players who want to insist that some unclear word or phrase in the description of 'Contingency' or 'Phantasmal Forces' means they are supposed to be able to do X? Meh. Notice too, ONLY CASTERS got this benefit in previous editions. The fighter? Nah, he just swings his sword. He could try some cool combat maneuver, but he hasn't lost that in 4e, AND he has some explicit ones he can always pull off, AND a more solid resolution system for the stunts.

My experience is the opposite. The same groups spend more time in combat (which is more interesting), and have less interesting interactions with their (out-of-combat) environment in 4e than in 3e - and I don't think 3e was really good at that either, and no it's not a huge difference. But it is there. And in any case, if the system doesn't matter to you, why not fix it for those that do care?

I guess my feeling is if you want less combat then do less combat. 4e will do ALL the other stuff that you could do in the earlier editions out of combat with little difference except cleanup of rules. If the players are LIKING the combats, then I guess I'm not sure what the problem is... If what you mean by 'less interesting interactions with their environment' that the casters don't just have a spell for it then I sadly have little sympathy because I require that the fighter also get to have that interesting interaction. Which brings me to why I don't want to change things. I'm sure there are changes I'd be fine with. I won't be fine with wizards running the show again and I won't be happy with subverting 4e into that game again. I have 2e, I can play it any time I want (and I have plenty of players for it too). Why do people want 4e to be 2e?

 

[eamon]

I don't think the intent was 'fluff is option'. I think the intent was to give you minimal fluff that doesn't imply all sorts of additional unspoken or undefined mechanics. A good example is the old AD&D version of Spider Climb. The fluff insisted on telling you HOW it made it possible to climb a wall (by making your hands sticky). This was first of all silly because it didn't explain anything (I don't care how sticky your hands are, you're still not traversing a ceiling). Next it implied all sorts of off-label uses for the spell which caused endless annoyances. 2e had to make the description of the spell 4x longer so they could try to catalog them all and explain all the secondary ramifications of the spell. 4e Spider Climb works perfectly well and has none of those problems. Beyond that it can be cooler because I could for instance describe my character's arms and legs turning into spider legs or something funky like that. The AD&D version? Nah, your hands get sticky.

Fair enough. I kindof like off-label use; but 4e spider climb is nice enough as it is - it's naturally flexible and easily used creatively.

If I as the DM can decide what non-standard uses of things will work that's cool. Having to argue with players who want to insist that some unclear word or phrase in the description of 'Contingency' or 'Phantasmal Forces' means they are supposed to be able to do X? Meh. Notice too, ONLY CASTERS got this benefit in previous editions. The fighter? Nah, he just swings his sword. He could try some cool combat maneuver, but he hasn't lost that in 4e, AND he has some explicit ones he can always pull off, AND a more solid resolution system for the stunts.

Yeah, a return to 3e classes isn't a good idea. But why shouldn't a fighter have some unique abilities too? E.g. a 3e fighter was almost by definition mundane and that imposed limitations - but really, why? Barring the lacking explanation, something "weird" like Come and Get It is perfectly cool - I just wish there's be some consistent fluff that might inspire other fitting things such a fighter might be able to do.

A little more risky would be a set up that encourages teamwork; e.g. spells permitting stunts are enablers, but require physical skills and simply another set of hands to pull off - kind of like rituals, but then in which someone else does the skill check (and without the cost and casting time problems). Say, a leap of the storms trick that lets an ally roll twice on a jump check, double it, and then drag along others in his wake (say, close blast 3).

I guess my feeling is if you want less combat then do less combat. 4e will do ALL the other stuff that you could do in the earlier editions out of combat with little difference except cleanup of rules. If the players are LIKING the combats, then I guess I'm not sure what the problem is...

There is no "problem". It's a just a different game. You can't do as many crazy things out of combat - but then combat is much more complex, so you spend more time doing that. And of course NPC interactions and that kind of "personality" roleplaying hasn't really changed at all. The question of this thread (to me, anyhow) was whether and how 4e damaged "simulationism" - and I feel that it has. Some people hate that, but they're probably not playing 4e anymore. Others like that (I'm guessing such as yourself). I like the wordbuilding everything-makes-sense kind of simulationism, and the "problem" - or rather challenge - is whether that loss was a necessary loss to achieve 4e's plot-balance and tactical combat, and I think it would be possible to construct a more thought out in-game explanation for powers without actually taking away the balance.

If what you mean by 'less interesting interactions with their environment' that the casters don't just have a spell for it then I sadly have little sympathy because I require that the fighter also get to have that interesting interaction. Which brings me to why I don't want to change things. I'm sure there are changes I'd be fine with. I won't be fine with wizards running the show again and I won't be happy with subverting 4e into that game again. I have 2e, I can play it any time I want (and I have plenty of players for it too). Why do people want 4e to be 2e?

I don't want casters running the show either. And have a spell simply "solve" a problem is boring and stealing others' show (I think rituals like knock still do that, incidentally - though the noise fortunately leaves at least some limitation). But having a spell be a part of the solution - I'm OK with that - and if that means others also get superhuman tricks to use creatively to maintain balance, sure! E.g., I fondly remember a 3e monk whose trick was jumping over, oh, small villages. It was useful only once, but it was fun. And monks in 3e (including this guy) weren't serious competition to casters, but that's only part of the story. Or, when a fire-deity (and resisting) worshipper grappled a too-powerful dragon with a necklace of fireballs round his neck, screaming for the sorcerer to target him... It's just fun to work around a plot obstacle in a ludicrously fantastic way. The trick would be to find spells and abilities that aren't one-push "I win" buttons, but usable to partially tackle problems in their own unique way nevertheless.

I mean, some 3e stuff was just borked (wild shape), or too annoying (scry+teleport meant every BBEG needed some kind of suppression, the details of which got way to intricate), and I could go on for ages (oh, say divine meta-magic and persist spell, or stat-boosters in general, etc...), but many of those problematic things were also rather boring - pure combat or 1 push button "I win" things - no loss there!

Looking back at what I just wrote - I think 4e turned the dial towards mundane one notch too far for me. And there's nothing fundamentally hard about adding that stuff to 4e - most of this stuff hardly impacts combat, and in any case, combat in 4e isn't mundane at all anyhow...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Looking back at what I just wrote - I think 4e turned the dial towards mundane one notch too far for me. And there's nothing fundamentally hard about adding that stuff to 4e - most of this stuff hardly impacts combat, and in any case, combat in 4e isn't mundane at all anyhow...

I think things could be pumped up, yes. Wouldn't really hurt my feelings at all. I tend to do this for myself, but it is fine if it is built into the game (though obviously some people might instead like a more mundane and gritty style, but chances are nothing will please everyone).

I'm still in the camp of not really thinking that 4e limited the possibilities or lacks the basic mechanics needed to do a lot of really creative stuff, in or out of combat. There can be some more powerful/interesting items, some ways to perhaps broaden the possibilities with ritual magic (making potions as KD wants for instance seemed reasonable for at least some of them, and making some more pizzazz type rituals would be fine). Another option would be more mundane equipment. This is an area I find odd about 4e. Previous editions had long lists of mundane equipment. 4e OTOH seems to have only the most incredibly basic selection. Certainly at low levels odd bits of equipment are pretty useful and can be put to all sorts of clever uses.

Anyway, I think 4e did miss a bit in a couple different ways. Some of them are just presentation. Oddly everyone talks about things like Come and Get It simply always working and the DM (or players) don't get to say "wait a minute...". The odd part is, the rules say no such thing. They don't even hint at it. This is a presentation issue, and there are others. I think over the years the presentation of D&D had been honed down, 4e changed things enough that the older presentation concepts don't always apply and new ones are less polished or it wasn't understood which things needed to be said explicitly.

 

[LostSoul]

I don't think the intent was 'fluff is option'. I think the intent was to give you minimal fluff that doesn't imply all sorts of additional unspoken or undefined mechanics.

I think that, if you remove fluff from having an influence on action resolution, players will naturally start to ignore the fluff. It doesn't make a difference in how the game plays, so why pay any attention to it?

If you do want to pay attention to it, why not make it have an influence on how the game plays?

4e Spider Climb works perfectly well and has none of those problems. Beyond that it can be cooler because I could for instance describe my character's arms and legs turning into spider legs or something funky like that.

For example, let's say you're in a prison cell and the keys are hanging on a peg well out of reach. You've already skinned your Spider Climb as turning your character's arms and legs into those of a spider; now you can reach out and grab the keys, something you couldn't have done before.

Having to argue with players who want to insist that some unclear word or phrase in the description of 'Contingency' or 'Phantasmal Forces' means they are supposed to be able to do X? Meh.

Yeah, that sucks. I don't think the only way to remove arguing from the game is to make sure that fluff doesn't influence action resolution. I think you can do this by saying, "DM, these are your responsibilities; break them and you're cheating." Do the same for the players. Of course people will still break those rules and argue, but it's more likely those will be the douchebag players instead of the regular ones and you can't design for douchebags.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think that, if you remove fluff from having an influence on action resolution, players will naturally start to ignore the fluff. It doesn't make a difference in how the game plays, so why pay any attention to it?

If you do want to pay attention to it, why not make it have an influence on how the game plays?

The fluff IS the story, the mechanics are only there to explain what happens. There's no story without fluff. Nor was for instance AD&D immune to being played in a purely mechanistic fashion.

Also, personally, I'm not arguing against story driving mechanics. Again, I would ask for someone to point out to me the section of the 4e rules where it is stated that mechanics are independent of fluff. No such statement exists AFAIK. This seems to be a meme that arose after the fact. What I am really arguing is that once you have decided that the mechanics of say a given power, Spider Climb, is fully defined in a bounded fashion then you don't NEED specific fluff. You can use any consistent fluff, and the interaction of the fluff with the rest of the game world can define what happens, except unlike the AD&D Spider Climb my fluff is not constrained to be able to produce exactly the same effects all the time (IE a 2e AD&D caster can't cast spells requiring material components while affected by Spider Climb). My 4e version is more constrained in its actions on the world, but LESS constrained as a story element.

For example, let's say you're in a prison cell and the keys are hanging on a peg well out of reach. You've already skinned your Spider Climb as turning your character's arms and legs into those of a spider; now you can reach out and grab the keys, something you couldn't have done before.

But that would be a matter of interpretation, and if one of the rules fluffing is that you can't generally extend the mechanics in arbitrary ways then it isn't an issue. At least I CAN explain my spider climbing that way, the 2e wizard can't because the mechanics and fluff are now contradictory. Obviously there's a continuum here, a 2e MM can be described however you want, just like a 4e one can. Maybe someone can invent new fluff for 2e Spider Climb that ARE consistent, but it is much much harder and notice that it didn't actually add anything to the spell's avowed function.

Yeah, that sucks. I don't think the only way to remove arguing from the game is to make sure that fluff doesn't influence action resolution. I think you can do this by saying, "DM, these are your responsibilities; break them and you're cheating." Do the same for the players. Of course people will still break those rules and argue, but it's more likely those will be the douchebag players instead of the regular ones and you can't design for douchebags.

Well, I think one way is to make the fluff nominal and operate under the convention that the player's don't get to modify it in ways that allow them to do extra stuff without some kind of check. Thus for instance my wizard player wanted to exterminate jermlaine infesting vent shafts. Making a Stinking Cloud that would sink into the shafts was her solution. This required an Arcana check and several minutes of time. You get the cool creative uses of player resources. There can obviously be pitfalls still (player who browbeats the DM to allow egregious reworking of powers, magic is easier to rework than non-magic, etc). At least the DM is in the loop and not being cast into the role of naysayer (where in the old days it was mostly "no, the way I read this spell you can't do that").

 

[LostSoul]

I think that mechanics are there to provide meaning to the choices the players make. I agree that fluff is the story, and that there's no story without fluff.

Also, personally, I'm not arguing against story driving mechanics. Again, I would ask for someone to point out to me the section of the 4e rules where it is stated that mechanics are independent of fluff. No such statement exists AFAIK. This seems to be a meme that arose after the fact.

I can't because one doesn't exist!

I don't think our viewpoints are too far apart. I think the only point of contention between us is how much influence the rules have on the players when it comes to describing fluff - I think it's easy to let that slip away, and I believe that you don't agree.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I can't because one doesn't exist!

Right, so the puzzle is where did this come from. Do the rules imply it? Or is it something that arose in the community or did some dev make some comment or what? What got that ball rolling? I've pointed out 100's of times in different forums that the 4e books definitely don't say it outright, yet I think the only response I've ever gotten up to now was "yes, it does, somewhere it does, I know!" lol. Mostly I just find it curious. It is sort of like the "sugar makes kids hyper" meme. Everyone KNOWS it is true (except of course it isn't...).

I don't think our viewpoints are too far apart. I think the only point of contention between us is how much influence the rules have on the players when it comes to describing fluff - I think it's easy to let that slip away, and I believe that you don't agree.

Yeah, I don't think there are really very large differences in actual practice between most fairly successful experienced DMs. They use different techniques, but mostly games work pretty close to the same everywhere.

I've certainly found that players have a tendency to let slip the fluff of dogs. Seems to be pretty much independent of system though IME. It probably correlates most closely to the sheer complexity of the rules. I don't think the form matters.

 

[Tony Vargas]

PH1, p54-55 under 'Flavor text.' Specificaly, on p55 "You can alter this description as you like, to fit your own idea of what your power looks like" and "When you need to know the exact effect, look at the rules text that follows."

That's in the section on Powers, where 'fluff' and mechanics are clearly separated and labeled as such. It's presumably been generalized into a 'meme,' as you put it, from there.


Now, IMX, once you point this out, the other guy comes back with 'well, it only applies to powers then!' Well, sure, if you want to be a RAW purist, you can argue that... but if you want to argue fluff > rules, you're probably not a RAW purist....

I think the resistance to the idea is mostly just rooted in the familiar way flavor and rules texts were intermingled in prior eds. A stylistic thing.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Right, the interesting meme to me is the 'mechanics trump anything else' one. Certainly players aren't free to invent different mechanics for their powers arbitrarily like they can fluff. OTOH nothing says that powers MUST always work 100% of the time in exactly the same way regardless of the situation. That one seems to be considered canon, yet nothing actually even suggests it is an intended property of the game. Inarguably the rules several times state outright that the DM should apply modifiers for situations not explicitly covered by the rules, this presumably can only refer to 'fluff' (circumstances with no defined mechanical impact are not free of mechanical significance). Admittedly the rules don't either say "change the way powers work to reflect circumstance", but if this is assumed to be the way it works in all previous editions what would lead one to believe it isn't so in 4e?

Balance and players being able to count on their powers is one thing, but I don't see where either of those necessarily requires every use of Come and Get It to work exactly the same way regardless of the player not being able to explain any plausible narrative to attach to that. Again, you run the risk of disfavoring martial characters, but I don't think that's a serious issue for any DM on this thread...