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

[Crazy Jerome]

The truth is, the fiction should have more impact on action resolution and vice-versa. Otherwise, we're drifting away from roleplaying and more toward board-gamey, and that's not good for the game as a whole imo.

I'm quoting this, but using it also as an indirect answer to Raven Crowking's post below that quote. And I don't entirely agree with Forge-speak, but I'll use it here for lack of something better to make the point. Let's just say for the sake of argument in this reply that Gamism, Narrativism, and Simulation have some kind of meaning, and that they can be distinguished from one another (in a rough and ready, flawed manner).

The quote above is technically correct, but the implication is false. The implication is that if you do not have the fiction and action resolution affect one another via simulation, you will move away from roleplaying and towards something board-gamey. That is, you'll leach the simulation out and replace it with nothing but gamism.

The implication is false because simulation is not the only way to produce roleplaying while interacting with mechanics. First, you can get a certain amount of roleplaying via the gamism itself. Not everyone does so, but when people are hamming up the combats, you can get that. But that has always existed in every version of D&D, and is an acquired taste anyway. So it is a tangent.

Second, you can also get roleplaying from Narrativism. In fact, if you want to take an ultra hard-core, early Forge-speak slanted to its logical conclusion, you might say that you only get "real" roleplaying from Narrativism--(aka addressing premise). I don't buy that, which is a big reason why I frequently specify little "n" narrativism as a substitute.

Without writing a thesis and making this any longer than it already is, my claim is that there is this thing, "narrativism" where mechanics interact with the roleplaying without being directly tied in an obvious casual fashion from the emulated world to the mechanic and back again. Metagaming mechanics are a huge part of how this is usually done or thought of (but not all). For our purpose, they will do.

For example, OOC decision making. Saturday, in our 4E session, we were running short on time, and people were getting tired. I ask the players if they wanted to play out the rest of the adventure up to the final confrontation, collapse the rest of it into a big skill challenge, or simply roleplay through (sans mechanics except DM fiat). I didn't care which one they picked, and explained it was merely a question of how much the adventure was holding their interest--we could keep on our slower pace or pick it up.

No matter which one they picked, the fiction still occurs to their characters. If we play it out, it is mostly a gamist/pseudo-simulation mix (that part being exploring a dungeon). If we go to a skill challenge, we have dropped the simulation for a more narrativist construct, but kept the imaged happenings very similar. Likewise, if we go with DM fiat in a storytelling mode, I can predict roughly how it would play out. Details will vary, of course, but some kind of fiction still happens

4E did not drop simulation leaving only gamism. Rather, it largely replaced simulation with narrative tools and advice, and also discarded some fluff that claimed simulation that did not, in fact, exist in the mechanics. If you engage those new mechanics, then you have fiction that interacts with the mechanics and vice versa. If you ignore those mechanics, then you do have something approaching a board game. This is the players' choice, the same way that when my high school friend and I would idle away an afternoon taking characters through the 1st ed. DMG random dungeon generator, we were largely ignoring the simulation and roleplaying aspects to play a board game.

And while I am on the subject, this is a big reason why that "dissociated" crap has put a few people on my permanent ignore list. 4E can only be dissociated if you ignore the roleplaying options that it provides, and probably not even then. Dissociated is a psychological term for when a person's parent, adult, and child states are not in harmony (or worse), and as such is veering dangerously close to the Ron Edwards "brain damage" crap about "disfunctional gaming groups." Edwards seemed to think there that people couldn't do two things at once without disfunction, but "dissociated" implies that anyone claiming "not a boardgame, I'm roleplaying darn it!" with 4E is in danger of the roleplaying equivalent of developing multiple personalities.

The truth is that people have been storytelling since there were people and language to do it with. There are lots of ways to skin that particular cat.

Edit: I've read the big model. I thought it was fairly apparent from the above that I see it as a useful thought exercise, but ultimately a dead-end in game theory. The "narrativism" that I value is not found in GNS or the Big Model. Simply to clarify after some of the comments below.

 

[pemerton]

I admit that I am a bit confused.

I have been told by many since 4e came out that, in order to grok 4e, one had to accept that the rules weren't meant to simulate what occurs in the game universe.

<snip>

Now, in this thread, where that idea is being questioned, I keep hearing the opposite. And I could be wrong, but it seems as though I am hearing the opposite from some of the same individuals.

Which is it?

Should the RAW take precence over the fiction (i.e., the fiction must be shaped to explain the outcomes by RAW) or should the fiction take precedence over the RAW (i.e., the RAW is only applied as makes a priori sense from the fictional world)?

I'm not sure whether or not I'm one of the individuals you have in mind, and so don't know if I need to make my view any clearer.

I don't think my view has changed. It is that (i) the 4e rules should be seen primarily (although not exclusively) as a set of rules to distribute narrative authority among those at the table, (ii) that any such narration must preserve the internal consistency and logic of the gameworld, but (iii) because the gameworld is a D&D one, it can tolerate a fairly high degree of gonzo.

Elaborating (i): as I've been talking about on a number of recent threads, different 4e rules have a more or less intimate link to the ingame logic. Come and Get It is one of the most abstracted, operating almost entirely at the metagame level as far as the process whereby the movement in question takes place. Many wizard powers, on the other hand, determine not only the endstate of the gameworld process but also something about its character - mostly in virtue of effect keywords. So, for example, Twist of Space (a 7th level wizard encouner power) has the teleportation keywords, which means that when it is used we know how the movement takes places - namely, by magical teleportation. And this difference effects improvised use of Twist of Space and Come and Get It (as was discussed at some length on this thread about fighting a water weird.

Elaborating (ii): when something happens in the gameworld, I want to know what has happened. An example came up in the thread I linked to in the previous paragraph: if a player wants to make an Intimidation role as part of a skill challenge, s/he has to explain how the intimidation is taking place (in the example, the PC in question expended Spark Form, a level 7 sorcerer encounter power which turns the charcter into a shower of sparks, to wreathe himself and his implements in lightning).

I think (iii) speaks for itself.

So when you say "the fiction must be shaped to fit the rules" that is true - but it must be a coherent fiction. (Coherent once (iii) is allowed for.) I haven't had the jumping example come up, but if it did I'd want a story to be told. It could be a gonzo story (eg a wall could be bounced off, or the wizard might use Thunderwave to push the jumping fighter back in the opposite direction). And if my players were having a slow day I might be happy to help shape a plausible story (I'm not an especially punitive GM). But one would be needed.

 

[pemerton]

I'm quoting this, but using it also as an indirect answer to Raven Crowking's post below that quote.

<snip>

The implication is false because simulation is not the only way to produce roleplaying while interacting with mechanics.

<snip>

Without writing a thesis and making this any longer than it already is, my claim is that there is this thing, "narrativism" where mechanics interact with the roleplaying without being directly tied in an obvious casual fashion from the emulated world to the mechanic and back again. Metagaming mechanics are a huge part of how this is usually done or thought of (but not all).

<snip actual play example>

And while I am on the subject, this is a big reason why that "dissociated" crap has put a few people on my permanent ignore list. 4E can only be dissociated if you ignore the roleplaying options that it provides, and probably not even then.

Another great post, and good actual play example. Still can't XP you though!

 

[LostSoul]

I have been told by many since 4e came out that, in order to grok 4e, one had to accept that the rules weren't meant to simulate what occurs in the game universe. That the rules should work as written (so as to not negate or nerf carefully balanced characters).

Now, in this thread, where that idea is being questioned, I keep hearing the opposite. And I could be wrong, but it seems as though I am hearing the opposite from some of the same individuals.

Which is it?

Should the RAW take precence over the fiction (i.e., the fiction must be shaped to explain the outcomes by RAW) or should the fiction take precedence over the RAW (i.e., the RAW is only applied as makes a priori sense from the fictional world)?

I may be one of those individuals. I'm probably focused on the latter choice (fiction over rules) these days, but I've been focused on writing my own hack of 4E. I'm not sure what I would do in a regular 4E game; I'd want little details to matter (+/- 2 on checks and interacting with the terrain in creative ways, for example), but I'm not sure how I'd deal with something like Come and Get It. I might want valid targets to be set by the DM based on a description of the action - which could include the player describing NPC actions and motivations.

 

[eriktheguy]

Imagine Come and Get It as a wizard power. Suddenly much less 'cheating' is needed to explain how it pulls monsters. One of the effects of inventing fluff to support rules is that fighters don't loose a ton of their actions in situations when the wizard would just say 'It's magic!'.

 

[pemerton]

Just adding to what eriktheguy said:

At my table, Come and Get It causes no practical problems. The trickiest situation was when a group of goblin archers who were on a verandah around a hall had gone down some stairs at the back of said verandah. The PC fighter used Mighty Sprint (an encounter skill power) to barrel across the hall and up onto the verandah to where the goblins had gone downstairs, and then used Come and Get It to pull all the goblins to which he had line of effect back up the stairs so he could chop them. (He then spent an action point and followed up with Sweeping Blow (? - the 3rd level fighter close burst from the PHB) - all-in-all a bad round for the goblins.)

I can't remember now exactly how we narrated the pull - it may have been along the lines of the pulled goblins thinking they had a chance to hold up the dwarf while their fellows (those outside line of effect) tried to escape. I think there was also something about the dwarf performing a feint of some sort, so it looked as if he was off-balance at the end of his sprint and hence vulnerable to the goblins - as it turned out, a rather successful feint!

Anyway, the bottom line is that there is nothing absurd about a fantasy world in which (i) some archers are escaping down a narrow staircase and tunnel, but (ii) an enemy warrior arrives at the top of that staircase quicker than they had anticipated, and hence (iii) some of the archers turn around to try and stop the warrior while the rest keep running, and (iv) as it turns out the warrior far outclasses the archers and cuts them all down quick smart before going after the fleeing remainder.

To map the mechanics onto this narrative, I think that two anti-simulationist manoeuvres are required.

First, Come and Get It has to be understood as something like a token that the player of the fighter can play, which reads "Your enemies within 3 squares to which you have LoE make a tactically unwise decision, and/or fall victim to your deft feinting and manouevring". That is, it's a type of Unluck or Anti-fate point played by the player of the fighter against the GM's NPCs. What, exactly, the tactically unwise decision is, and/or what the PC's deftness consists in, has to be determined based on the overall context of the fiction at the time of playing the token. Because there are few limits to human (and goblin) unwisdom, and because the fighter PC in my game is a polearm fighter who specialises in melee control using other forced movement powers as well, in practice my table has generally not found it hard to come up with a story that combines enemy unwisdom and PC deftness in appropriate measure.

I suppose were the fighter in question a dagger specialist, who had no other forced movement or similar control abilities, the narration might become more challenging - but is this a real problem for anyone, or only a hypothetical possibility?

The second anti-simulationist manoeuvre required is this: everyone at the table has to be happy to accept that movement rules and rates, and rules for using standard actions to attack, do not represent or model the causal framework of the gameworld, but rather are a method of distributing narrative control among the participants in the game in a manner that respects the action economy of the game. The reason that this is important is that, without it, we cannot narrate pulling the goblins as the goblins closing in to try to hold of the fighter while their friends escape. This is because, were the action rules interpreted in a simulationist fashion, then (i) the goblins would have no movement left, and so couldn't close under their own steam - something else (such as a magical teleport) would have to supply the energy to move them - and (ii) the goblins would know that they had no attacks left, and so would have no practical way of holding off the fighter other than by interposing their (rather small) bodies.

Of these two anti-simulationist manoeuvres, I think that 4e is the first version of D&D to invovle the first manoeuvre on any sort of widespread scale. I think the second sort of manoeuvre - a non-simulationist reading of the games turn structure and action economy - was probably present to some extent in AD&D (although the approach in actual play probably varied tremendously from table to table) but seems to have been largely absent in 3E play (even though, I suspect, there is text in the 3E PHB about the action and turn structure being abstract).

Just to finish: once we recognise that the movement part of the action economy is also somewhat abstract and part of the rationing of narrative control, the diagonal issue becomes much less pressing (not that, in my view, it ever was). That a PC can move further when going diagonally across the map is no different from the fact that the PC can move further when some power is used that let's him or her shift or move out of turn, or when some enemy uses a power like Come and Get It that gets narrated as the PC moving under his or her own steam.

 

[Barastrondo]

I admit that I am a bit confused.

I have been told by many since 4e came out that, in order to grok 4e, one had to accept that the rules weren't meant to simulate what occurs in the game universe. That the rules should work as written (so as to not negate or nerf carefully balanced characters).

Now, in this thread, where that idea is being questioned, I keep hearing the opposite. And I could be wrong, but it seems as though I am hearing the opposite from some of the same individuals.

Which is it?

Is it really a binary question? I don't think it is. I think it's rooted right in people's expectations of what "simulate what occurs in the game universe" are. You can have totally reasonable and completely conflicting expectations. For instance, you can expect that when a PC tries to cut a chandelier down onto a bunch of the King's Guard, that the logical result would be that it's highly likely to work because the game rules are simulating swashbuckler-style high action media. But you can also expect that it shouldn't work because the tensile strength of the metal chain holding the chandelier in place shouldn't be easily severed by a sword blow, because the game is simulating a less fantastic sort of reality.

So if a game allows you to cut that chain easily, the question of "does the game create the appropriate result?" can be answered both yes and no. It's the nature of what you want simulated that determines the response. And I really think there is no way to get an objective result outside of that context.

Either one is okay, although it will obviously colour your view of the game based upon what you want. But to imagine that the game doesn't do simulation whenever the question comes up why X is a poor simulation of Y, and then to imagine that the game has simulation in spades when the question comes up why it doesn't do simulation well, seems to me more than a little wonky.

Think of it as this way: When the question comes up why X is a poor simulation of Y, "the game doesn't do simulation" is actually not a very good answer. "The game doesn't simulate Y" is a far better one. And when the comment is made that "the game has simulation in spades," that doesn't necessarily mean "the game simulates all kinds of things, including Y."

Disagreements generally tend to boil up because people have variable levels of Y-sensitivity. People will say "Yeah, it doesn't do Y" in that kind of dismissive tone that indicates Y isn't a make-or-break issue. And for other people, it is a make-or-break. But usually Y is only just one part of the picture.

IMHO, and certainly based on my reading both of the designer blogs and on this board, 4e doesn't attempt to simulate outside of combat (where it attempts to simulate a specific type of combat), but rather attempts to facilitate collaborative storytelling between combats, where the mechanics spur creative narration (rather than arrising from and arbitrating the outcome of narration).

That's a fair reading, I'd say. It falls squarely into the classic mold of arbitration of results from either skill checks, skill challenges, or just plain roleplay, depending on what each group's preferred mix is. Simulation (or probably more accurately, emulation) is a function of the group and what they're interested in.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Basically what I would say is that pemerton (as well as others too numerous to mention, though they have expressed it in various ways) has it right. I would just put it a bit differently. The rules of the game, especially 4e, aren't about modeling reality. They are about giving each player a controlled amount of narrative license.

So for example when the warlord shifts the other PCs around it is not that he's actually moving his friends like chess pieces. Instead he's constantly yelling tactical advice at them "No Abelard, go around him to the left! That's it, dodge behind him on the backswing!" etc. In pemerton's example of the goblins I would have used a retcon. The dwarf lept up to the veranda with a mighty shout! 2-3 of the goblins turned in fear and while their comrades scuttled down the stairs they stood paralyzed with terror and astonishment. Sure, MECHANICALLY they went down the stairs and got pulled back up. This kind of narrative flexibility is rarely a problem.

Finally I simply don't see anything in the 4e rules where it says you have to adjudicate every mechanical effect without reference to the integrity of the narrative (which might involve being more realistic, though I hesitate to call that 'simulating' anything). Sure, CaGI provides the the player of the fighter with a defined narrative 'coupon' and as a general policy the DM wants to allow the players to expend that in keeping with the rules. That doesn't mean utter consistency needs to be adhered to at all times. If you feel like a use of a power etc in a certain way isn't going to convey the situation effectively then the DM has a responsibility to decide if changing it will be more fun than letting it slide. This is situational and group dependent and in many groups can be delegated to the players (my players for instance instinctively do this most of the time and I don't even have to think about it). If nobody can come up with a good explanation of WHY the super clever enemy would run up to the fighter and the player doesn't have a good explanation, then have the power do something slightly different or just have the player use a different power and give them something extra for doing that, whatever.

Fundamentally there's really no room for complaining on this entire point. People choose to play how they like. If a player comes to a 4e game and is bent about how his CaGI seems silly in application is that really the game's fault? It never says ANYWHERE in the rules that there is a guarantee things will just always work a certain way without regard to the conditions in the game world. There's no such rule. I don't even recall such a thing as a suggestion. There IS a rule that says the DM gets to decide how EVERYTHING works. That's actually there. The other thing is a canard, and one that doesn't fly at that.

As for jumping in a non-straight-line... WTF? Anyone who expects ANY RPG to spell out the ordinary laws of nature which are presupposed will be sorely disappointed. There's no law of gravity spelled out in 4e either. Game designers have always and will always expect the rules of an RPG to be interpreted within the boundaries of the sensibility of the genre in which it is played. That usually means you can only jump in a straight line, barring magic, or parkour, or whatever. If those things are going to come into play the player is going to need to invoke them into the narrative. He may have to pay a price for that (make a skill check for instance).

 

[Raven Crowking]

Thanks for the replies, folks!

 

[Barastrondo]

Imagine Come and Get It as a wizard power. Suddenly much less 'cheating' is needed to explain how it pulls monsters. One of the effects of inventing fluff to support rules is that fighters don't loose a ton of their actions in situations when the wizard would just say 'It's magic!'.

The clockwork fighter in my game fires out a mass of hooks and chains from his shoulders that wrap around opponents and pull them towards him, then wham, it's hammer time. Similarly, his power which I forget the name of, that allows him to attack everyone within melee 1, is demonstrated by him popping the catches on his waist-swivel and spinning his torso around while his legs remain stationary.

Why yes, my group quite enjoys the soft approach to power effects and the genial generosity of reskinning.