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

[Crazy Jerome]

Other than that I think we can pretty much agree. There would be little point to making a level based game with a flat power curve.

We played a lot of Traveller but there were problems with the lack of ANY progression. I found that players really wanted it, and we just constructed our own advancement rules. Instead of having a career you could just spend points on different skills and whatnot. That worked well, players had a goal that would drive the story forward. Stock games went flat after a while. There was only so much you could do and almost no character could reasonably survive in the long term. Adding a few more skill points didn't do a LOT to keep you alive, but it didn't hurt and at least your journey to that stray bullet (or pulse laser) was more interesting.

I found something like Hero System or GURPS to be very good to handle that kind of Traveller. Start the characters off with a fairly generous point total (not insane, but generous), and sharply limit the amount of XP given. That translates to characters that are for the most part set, but get to change around the edges. With the right kind of "scaling" built in to your house rules, this even encourages those scarce points to be spent on favors, patrons, and the like. (The house rules in either system are not difficult, but are somewhat different.)

On the flip side, you can get a very nice D&D-ish effect in Fantasy Hero by simply assuming, say, 250-350 point characters (whatever is near the cap of your planned campaign), starting with only 40-60 of those points, but then giving out the rest like candy until they are all gained.

It's true that point-based systems have some drawbacks that can cause trouble. But setting the pace of advancement the way you want it, is not one of them.

 

[Balesir]

What I'm saying is some real world dictator can send armed thugs to deal with you. They are effectively PHYSICALLY more powerful than you are.

Only as long as he has the loyalty of his core "society" (the thugs), and only as long as I don't organise with others more numerous than his thugs. Like my own local police force.

A high level NPC can go do it PERSONALLY but he can't actually do more than what the dictator can, which is inflict some form of violence on you.

The NPC has two additional (and, I think, important) advantages: (1) he is more-or-less immune to (low level) thugs, and (2) he can coerce other people of all professions to do his bidding, based on the fact that he can trivially beat them in a fight. Except for other "heroes", of course.

Now, arguably there are levels of NPC/PC power in D&D where the character has capabilities or access to mechanisms that are beyond personal power (maybe if an NPC evil priest can call down the wrath of his god and make a drought or a plague that destroys the whole province or something). Still a 20th level evil thieve's guild master can only spread his personal ability to kick people's butts so far, he's really not materially much better off at that or more powerful than if he was 10th level. Nor is he really a lot better off than some real-world gang leader.

I think he is a lot better off, because of his immunity to any but higher-level threats and his ability to dominate any of lower level to get his bidding done.

Cerainly it makes sense that the D&D society is going to be controlled at the top by higher level figures to some extent. I just think that their EFFECT on society is going to be similar to powerful people anywhere. The biggest difference is that moving up will logically require XP and levels.

Leaving aside that this produces a very odd society ("inheritance" is by virtue of levels rather than political selection, birth or other "real world" mechanisms), it also mitigates against the assumptions of many RPG campaigns. It would make huge sense for rulers to 'license' levelled characters, for example. Once you are clearly 'experienced', you either demonstrate loyalty or are "dealt with". This is absolutely neccessary for any ruler - as a 'levelled' character you are the only real threat to his or her rule. Magic items would have to be handed to the 'government' by all 'loyal' subjects. Selected ones would be returned. No real "government" in the sense we usually think of it would be feasible. Equality of opportunity would not merely be frowned upon by society - it would be utterly impossible to achieve.

A world that works on these terms might possibly be constructed - but it would look nothing at all like a pseudo-medieval fantasy world as imagined in most FRP campaigns.

 

[eamon]

In the real world there are powerful people, for sure - but the source of their power is their links with the society itself. "Power" in the real world comes from close engagement with society and developing links (or 'strings' that can be pulled) within it, not by separation from it to draw power from some "Arcane", "Martial" or "Primal" (or even "Divine") source. As a result, those with power may only be challenged through the source of their power, and they have built in defences (their networks and 'position') in that field. With "levelled" RPGs, however, PCs have access to an independent source of power, against which non-levelled characters have no effective protection. When power becomes "how many mini-games you have won" instead of "how strong a network of friends you have", the resulting 'society' is not what we are acquainted with on this world.

What you're saying makes sense, but I think the link is far weaker than you're presenting it: weak enough to permit levelling and the default fantasy setting without altogether much trouble.

Firstly, although at some level it's true that powerful people must work "within" the system, given how large that system has become, that's an almost meaningless proposition. Somebody with 1000 times the resources of another has that "money" by virtue of social convention, but it's very hard to take away - and having those resources means he'll win many supposedly fair fights (just look at how court cases go).

One could also make the argument that even in today's society, most nefarious powerful people get away with it - and that doesn't blow up society itself. If a company skimps on safety, they might hurt many,many innocents, but unless clear personal blame can be shown, that just means some faceless company gets a bill, and the rich and powerful continue on their ways.

And, just like in D&D, there's almost always someone more powerful. Even the rich and powerful can't get away with everything, because others can still bring them down - particularly if they're united. Even the superrich may be jailed (even though they've got better chances) - and in D&D you might consider the deities and demigods or whatever other power - there's tons in lore - that may strike down others seemingly arbitrarily.

So long as your fantasy setting involves mostly harmless populace and just few rare powerful individuals, I think you can get away with levelling just fine - no it's not the most likely set up, but you can keep it reasonable and consistent. Those running large nations will need to benefit in some way from keeping the peace - but then that's easily imagined. And of course, D&D societies seem much smaller; which would be consistent with the idea that levelling isn't ideal for huge spread out societies.

And note that random acts of violence aren't really all that attractive to most. If there's any kind of society and ethics going on, you're risking at best vigilante justice - and even high levelled PC's aren't immune to "accidents". And you might disturb something or someone with power - so why take the risk unless there's some gain? And given the way magic items work, there's no real gain unless you've got a massive network of support; high level magic is simply too hard to achieve. And if having a massive network helps; it'll need to be protected by those powerful, with whom you'd rather not mess - even if usually you'd get away with it.

So while levelling and rural medieval society are somewhat at odds, I don't think they're mutually exclusive - at least, certainly not so flagrantly that you can't design a framework in which apparent contradictions can be explained away. And since we're in a designed fantasy world, that suffices.

 

[Balesir]

And, just like in D&D, there's almost always someone more powerful. Even the rich and powerful can't get away with everything, because others can still bring them down - particularly if they're united.

The common people, even united, can't do anything effective against very high level characters. The "government" will be taken over by the most powerful "party" - who will then have every incentive to eliminate all other "levelled" individuals.

And note that random acts of violence aren't really all that attractive to most. If there's any kind of society and ethics going on, you're risking at best vigilante justice - and even high levelled PC's aren't immune to "accidents".

But they are. High level characters can survive 100' falls and rockfalls.

And you might disturb something or someone with power - so why take the risk unless there's some gain?

But power does not come from the people - it comes from 'adventuring'. When power comes from the people, you need people, and you need to keep them "on side", to have power. If someone else comes along with charisma and a better offer for the people, they can switch sides - power literally evaporates from you and transfers to them (look at events in North Africa recently). But, if power comes instead from "adventuring", all you need to do if you are in power is prevent anyone but those you sanction from adventuring. The power is not a two-edged sword - your own levels cannot turn against you, whereas people can.

And given the way magic items work, there's no real gain unless you've got a massive network of support; high level magic is simply too hard to achieve. And if having a massive network helps; it'll need to be protected by those powerful, with whom you'd rather not mess - even if usually you'd get away with it.

I don't understand your point, here, sorry. High level magic is gained by "adventuring", just as with all other high level, I am assuming?

So while levelling and rural medieval society are somewhat at odds, I don't think they're mutually exclusive - at least, certainly not so flagrantly that you can't design a framework in which apparent contradictions can be explained away. And since we're in a designed fantasy world, that suffices.

Given enough design work you could doubtless design a world with "levels" that worked; but it would certainly look like no human society we have seen on Earth, unless you took away many of the key conceits of 'levelled' roleplaying (chiefly that 'levels' come from 'adventures' and give more 'hit points').

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The common people, even united, can't do anything effective against very high level characters. The "government" will be taken over by the most powerful "party" - who will then have every incentive to eliminate all other "levelled" individuals.

But they are. High level characters can survive 100' falls and rockfalls.

But power does not come from the people - it comes from 'adventuring'. When power comes from the people, you need people, and you need to keep them "on side", to have power. If someone else comes along with charisma and a better offer for the people, they can switch sides - power literally evaporates from you and transfers to them (look at events in North Africa recently). But, if power comes instead from "adventuring", all you need to do if you are in power is prevent anyone but those you sanction from adventuring. The power is not a two-edged sword - your own levels cannot turn against you, whereas people can.

I don't understand your point, here, sorry. High level magic is gained by "adventuring", just as with all other high level, I am assuming?

Given enough design work you could doubtless design a world with "levels" that worked; but it would certainly look like no human society we have seen on Earth, unless you took away many of the key conceits of 'levelled' roleplaying (chiefly that 'levels' come from 'adventures' and give more 'hit points').

First of all XP and level progression are a conceit of the game mechanics used to regulate PC power progression. While it makes sense that it isn't easy to become a high level NPC either nothing requires that NPCs are adventurers and gained their higher level status in the same way PCs do. An NPC evil wizard might simply spend 40 years in his tower studying and experimenting. Said evil wizard could be almost any level.

Secondly, don't underestimate the power of masses of lower level figures too much. 200 level 1 minions can pump out a LOT of damage in a round and that's kind of the extreme weak end of the range there. Even mid-paragon level figures are hardly immune to being dragged out in the street and killed by an angry mob. Nor does the game world require that such possibilities be strictly governed by mechanics designed for running PC encounters.

Nothing really indicates that the majority of people would WANT to be running things. Again, the evil wizard. His goals don't really require him to be in charge, though he might wield great influence and be able to get his way whenever he really desires it.

Really high level figures are also likely to be rare in most societies. Higher heroic tier figures are probably not unheard of in any given area, but paragon and epic power level NPCs who might wield enough clout to run around with no check on them probably are quite rare and don't exist in most mundane areas of the world.

Logically where one high level figure can arise so can others. Even if one is clearly stronger than the rest there will be some level of checks and balances. Get too out of line and a bunch of lesser figures may well join forces to put paid to your hypothetical high level tyrant.

Finally, even if a high level figure were in charge in the way you envision, how is he going to enforce all these rules against anyone else gaining a threatening level of power? He's got to have people working for him to do that, an organization. Creating and running such an organization implies a number of things. It implies inducing people to cooperate, sharing some degree of power and benefits from one's position, etc. This is much like the real world.

My vision of what it would really look like is you'd have in any given area a few personally powerful figures. They might be priests, warriors, and/or masters of the arcane. They would probably have defined roles in society, but they might well not be the top people. The King may well be a fairly trivial figure in terms of combat ability for instance, but well liked and with plenty of popular support. His champion might be a pretty tough figure, but not at all interested in unseating the king. Likely the king is reasonably secure because he has the support of most of the nobility, the loyalty of the people, etc. Same with your local powerful priests and wizards and whatnot, they have their places in society, their areas of authority, and their limitations stemming from social order, limits to what one person can do alone, etc.

The society in my current setting seems reasonable enough and it certainly isn't built on the concept that power goes strictly to higher level figures. Most authorities have their positions more because of mundane considerations and not personal adventuring sort of power. In fact the majority of higher level guys are higher level because they spend their time on their specialties and not on running things. The people who do run things rely on them as a resource and might not be able to strictly control them, but they aren't controlled BY them either, at least not explicitly and in all cases.

 

[LostSoul]

In the real world there are powerful people, for sure - but the source of their power is their links with the society itself.

What if you made a game where levels gave you more links within society?

 

[enpeze66]

The success of Pathfinder came with the virulent rejection of 4e by 3.5 fans. 4e did dramatically fix the balance problems with 3.5, very dramatically. I mean, when it leveled the playing field, it used the nuclear option to /level/ the playing field. People hated that. They now play Pathfinder. It's perfectly reasonable to assume that Pathfinder is a lot like 3.5, including having an un-nuked playing field.

After reading this, I think I get a little bit angry the more often I hear this pseudo argument. I think nothing had to be fixed because nothing was broken. The whole wizard-fighter thing was a trade-off. At the beginning the wizard was weak (Ever played a Wizard level 3 with random rolled 5 HP? ) and had to be protected, later he had alot more versatility and explosive power. Nonetheless he still had only a few hitpoints and could still easily killed by a close assaulting monster chicken.

But the fighter had durability, especially in games with alot of combat encounters per day, where he could still deal his usual sword damage turn after turn after dozens of combat turns while the mage was outpowered and had already used most its spells.

So the whole balancing discussion is a fake. IMO it always depended on the amount of combat encounters and combat turns per day if the wizard class was perceived as powerful or puny.

Only in gaming styles where there was a low number of combats per day there could be an imbalance and in gaming styles with a high number of combats its exactly opposite.

I consider player archetypes who put a focus on beeing first or having most damage, instead of correctly roleplaying their characters, as "bad players" and they usually dont last very long in my games. I even have no problem at all if the players have vastly different levels in my modules, if this suits to the story. I could imagine that such an approach is the nightmare to every youngster who thinks roleplaying is only about balanced options or character builts.

I think roleplaying is about portraying characters in a convincing and immersive way and not about focusing to abstract fashionable terms like "spotlight" or "balancing" or "dps".

So what his this to do with simulation? I think everything. Balancing is anti-simulation and anti-roleplaying. The quest of some for balancing is pure gamistic and metagaming. Unfortunately 4th edition put an emphasis on this anti-roleplaying concept so alot of younger players got spoiled. This unlucky DnD edition damaged the whole hobby genre for a long time.

 

[eamon]

Secondly, don't underestimate the power of masses of lower level figures too much. 200 level 1 minions can pump out a LOT of damage in a round and that's kind of the extreme weak end of the range there. Even mid-paragon level figures are hardly immune to being dragged out in the street and killed by an angry mob. Nor does the game world require that such possibilities be strictly governed by mechanics designed for running PC encounters.

To expand on this: ...or they could be burned, drowned, poisoned, buried alive, tricked into a fight with a higher level power, blackmailed by other ties (family ties or anything else of value)... etc.

And the whole thing assumes that the "high level rulers" are actually the most powerful thing about: but in a standard D&D setting you might well expect to encounter deities, demons and other alien beings that make their hold on power entirely less predictable - which would thus reasonable bend their attention away from controlling the generally harmless populace, and towards preventing a fatal encounter with some entirely more alien personality.

But what Balesir says makes some sense; obviously if the only danger to high-level creatures is their own underlings rising in power, then their focus should be preventing that (which as you say itself requires a considerable social network) - and that very idea is explored in Dark Sun.

Nothing really indicates that the majority of people would WANT to be running things. Again, the evil wizard. His goals don't really require him to be in charge, though he might wield great influence and be able to get his way whenever he really desires it.

yep.

Logically where one high level figure can arise so can others. Even if one is clearly stronger than the rest there will be some level of checks and balances. Get too out of line and a bunch of lesser figures may well join forces to put paid to your hypothetical high level tyrant.

Right, and you'd need a huge level gap to be entirely safe - and that's in normal PC encounter style, without considering some kind of subterfuge. Which you know, if the "rebels" really wanted to win, they'd probably use.

Finally, even if a high level figure were in charge in the way you envision, how is he going to enforce all these rules against anyone else gaining a threatening level of power? He's got to have people working for him to do that, an organization. Creating and running such an organization implies a number of things. It implies inducing people to cooperate, sharing some degree of power and benefits from one's position, etc. This is much like the real world.

Yep!

My vision of what it would really look like is you'd have in any given area a few personally powerful figures. They might be priests, warriors, and/or masters of the arcane. They would probably have defined roles in society, but they might well not be the top people. The King may well be a fairly trivial figure in terms of combat ability for instance, but well liked and with plenty of popular support. His champion might be a pretty tough figure, but not at all interested in unseating the king. Likely the king is reasonably secure because he has the support of most of the nobility, the loyalty of the people, etc. Same with your local powerful priests and wizards and whatnot, they have their places in society, their areas of authority, and their limitations stemming from social order, limits to what one person can do alone, etc.

Quite reasonable.


So yeah, you could have a really dark, chaotic setting in which merely the rule of the most powerful holds - but you can also imagine a more connected society.

 

[eamon]

After reading this, I think I get a little bit angry the more often I hear this pseudo argument. I think nothing had to be fixed because nothing was broken. The whole wizard-fighter thing was a trade-off. At the beginning the wizard was weak (Ever played a Wizard level 3 with random rolled 5 HP? ) and had to be protected, later he had alot more versatility and explosive power. Nonetheless he still had only a few hitpoints and could still easily killed by a close assaulting monster chicken.

But the fighter had durability, especially in games with alot of combat encounters per day, where he could still deal his usual sword damage turn after turn after dozens of combat turns while the mage was outpowered and had already used most its spells.

In practice - sure. I DM'd a long-running campaign until around level 16 in 3.5, and that included fighters+rangers alongside homebrew classes, druids, sorcerers and other casters - and that turned out surprisingly balanced. Of course, fighters had spell-like abilities too, by then, or items to compensate or whatever, and there were houserules for stuff like wildshape (we required the PHB2 variant) But that's in practice - if you just let anything go in 3.5, there were some crazy combo's, invariably with spells and spellcasting.

If you will, 3.5's mechanics needed some tender loving care to get working, and 4e mostly works out of the box.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

After reading this, I think I get a little bit angry the more often I hear this pseudo argument. I think nothing had to be fixed because nothing was broken. The whole wizard-fighter thing was a trade-off. At the beginning the wizard was weak (Ever played a Wizard level 3 with random rolled 5 HP? ) and had to be protected, later he had alot more versatility and explosive power. Nonetheless he still had only a few hitpoints and could still easily killed by a close assaulting monster chicken.

But the fighter had durability, especially in games with alot of combat encounters per day, where he could still deal his usual sword damage turn after turn after dozens of combat turns while the mage was outpowered and had already used most its spells.

So the whole balancing discussion is a fake. IMO it always depended on the amount of combat encounters and combat turns per day if the wizard class was perceived as powerful or puny.

Only in gaming styles where there was a low number of combats per day there could be an imbalance and in gaming styles with a high number of combats its exactly opposite.

I consider player archetypes who put a focus on beeing first or having most damage, instead of correctly roleplaying their characters, as "bad players" and they usually dont last very long in my games. I even have no problem at all if the players have vastly different levels in my modules, if this suits to the story. I could imagine that such an approach is the nightmare to every youngster who thinks roleplaying is only about balanced options or character builts.

I think roleplaying is about portraying characters in a convincing and immersive way and not about focusing to abstract fashionable terms like "spotlight" or "balancing" or "dps".

So what his this to do with simulation? I think everything. Balancing is anti-simulation and anti-roleplaying. The quest of some for balancing is pure gamistic and metagaming. Unfortunately 4th edition put an emphasis on this anti-roleplaying concept so alot of younger players got spoiled. This unlucky DnD edition damaged the whole hobby genre for a long time.

There's nothing anti-anything about some reasonable amount of balance between classes. Furthermore the fact that a wizard is puny (a claim I will address below) at level 1 and far outstrips the non-casters at anything past around 9th level simply means there is NO balance at any point except some very narrow range (usually acknowledged to be between around 3rd and 9th levels).

The truth is though that you're missing a very key aspect of the imbalance. It wasn't so much the imbalance in combat power which was the real issue, but the imbalance in PLOT power. The casters have reasonable responses to every eventuality in the plot. These come to them without any extra investment (possibly locating some spells, which is generally pretty trivial). The fighter OTOH at best will have to redirect a substantial amount of his skill points and feats from the effort to just remain combat-relevant to gain even scraps of plot power, which will still be hopelessly outshadowed by the ease with which the casters wield charms, detections, teleports, etc, easily being able to provide a response to most plot demands.

This is the main thing that 4e has mitigated. A fighter, using existing class resources, can achieve plot relevance similar to that of the wizard. He can access real useful game changing capabilities. He's on something close to a level playing field. Even then the wizard in particular is still blessed with more skills, built-in ritual casting, and a power selection which is still pretty flexible.

Meanwhile, RP is not really system-dependent and 4e provides plenty of scope for that. Nor is either game even remotely close to simulating anything accurately, so it is pointless to say that 4e is totally unrealistic when 3.5 was already totally unrealistic. Whatever their relative positions on that scale is, they are both vanishingly close to the same on that score.