Is 4E coherent, incoherent or abashed? (RPG theory stuff inside)

[pemerton]

First of all, you seem to be describing a 3e game with AD&D alignments.

I know that the offical doctrine of 3E is that alignment is descriptive, not prescriptive. Nevertheless 3E alignments are also prescriptive GM-empowerers, for a couple of reasons:

*Many classes (6 of 11 in core 3E) need to satisfy alignment requirements if they are to keep their abilities.

*Many GMs disallow evil characters (and the PHB encourages this by describing an evilly-aligned person as an adversary rather than a protagonist) or even non-good ones.

Second in the old AD&D game, you still decided your alignment and dealt with the consequences. The "hard" restrictions on alignment behavior should be interpreted as system limits on your character, not surrendering authorship. Alignment is very much part of the game world "physics" and there is little vague about it.

I don't particulary see how it helps things to describe prescriptive alignment as a system limit on my character. The AD&D prohibition on monks using flaming oil is a system limitation on the character. The all-editions prohibition on paladins using poison is a system limitation on the character. The AD&D suggestion that the use of poison is a non-good act is not a system limitation on the character, it's an invitation to player/GM conflict, especially given that a good number of potions that come up on the random treasure table are in fact poisons.

Let's suppose we agree with the reasons that Gary Gygax puts forward in the PHB for not wanting to encourage poison use: it's mechanically unhappy, it introduces unwanted complexity into combat, it's a bit icky. Then why not just be upfront about it and state that this game proceeds on the assumption that heroes don't use poisons. And take the poison potions of the treasure tables.

Instead we get the pseudo-mechanical attempt to achieve the same outcome via the alignment text. How is the incoherence here helping rather than hindering?

In cases where alignment questions are hard to settle, I think the DM and players can agree they are hard to settle.

But in fact neither AD&D nor 3E states this. Nor does either give any advice on how to handle such issues. Contrast (for example) the very upfront discussion in the Dying Earth rulebook about how to handle the fact that losing a Persuasion contest means that a PC has to act contrary to the player's preferences. Again, how is the incoherence here helping rather than hindering?

 

[buzz]

2) Incoherent games are better than coherent ones, this has been demonstrated by WotC's market research. All players look for a multiplicity of elements in the rpg play experience including challenge (G), roleplaying (S) and story (N).

That research pre-dates GNS theory. The "strategic/combat/tactical/story focused" terminology it uses doesn't map to the GNS agendas. Honestly, I don't even see anything resembling N represented at all.

Just sayin'.

 

[pemerton]

PHP p.8 : When you play your D&D character, you put yourself into your character’s shoes and make decisions as if you were that character.

Skeptic, I've now been getting a chance to read my books, and I have to say that you are needlessly concerned by this sentence. After the sentence you have quoted, the paragraph continues "You decide which door your character opens next. You decide whether to attack a monster, to negotiate with a villain, or to attempt a dangerous quest. You can make these decisions based on your character's personality, motivations and goals, and you can even speak or act in character if you like. You have almost limitless control over what your character can do and say in the game."

This is not incoherent advocacy of actor stance. It flags actor stance as one possibility, but mostly it is explaining the notion that the PC is the principal vehicle whereby the player engages with the gameworld.

Speaking of which, in the DMG there is a sidebar in which James Wyatt gives an example of his son adopting director's stance in a game, deciding that when his PC explores the statue he'll get hit by a trap and find a treasure.

I haven't finished my reading yet, but so far I get the sense that the rulebooks are quite aware of the variety of playstyles possible, and are not advancing an incoherent play agenda.

When I compare these to (for example) the 1991 Dark Sun books, which I've been reading recently after someone gave them to me, 4e seems to be an unparalleled attempt to present the D&D rules as rules for playing a game, rather than as a mechanical representation of the gameworld.

 

[Logos7]

I really feel that the game is a lot more coherant in the sense that it "chases the fun" (it presents itself clearly as a tactical wargame rpg, and goes after that goal with gusto)

I'm not going to say anything about GNS because I've yet to see good definitions of any of the three in relation to the others.

 

[pawsplay]

Instead we get the pseudo-mechanical attempt to achieve the same outcome via the alignment text. How is the incoherence here helping rather than hindering?

That was a bad rule.

EDIT: But the problem wasn't that there was a rule (although that's not a style of play I find all that appealing). The problem is that poison is, in fact, not any more evil than stabbing someone.

But in fact neither AD&D nor 3E states this. Nor does either give any advice on how to handle such issues. Contrast (for example) the very upfront discussion in the Dying Earth rulebook about how to handle the fact that losing a Persuasion contest means that a PC has to act contrary to the player's preferences. Again, how is the incoherence here helping rather than hindering?

I don't see it as a problem. In general, I would expect that GMs and players would just try to be accomodating and reasonable, and that in any case a GM wouldn't screw someone over a genuine dilemma that someone makes a good attempt to resolve within their alignment. I know that's not always justified, but so what? Unreasonable attitudes can break any game wide open. You can have the same argument over what spheres a rote should belong to or whether Tybalt is a good "dwarf name."

 

[pemerton]

But the problem wasn't that there was a rule (although that's not a style of play I find all that appealing). The problem is that poison is, in fact, not any more evil than stabbing someone.

That is not the problem. The problem is the poorly-implemented attempt to use mechanics to reinforce social contract.

Another example: judging from letters to the Forum in Dragon magazine from the mid-80s, a singificant role for alignment was to try and stop players from having their PCs kill innocent villagers, disregard local rulers and town guards, etc.

These things are (plausibly) more evil than stabbing someone in self-defence or the defence of others. But I think that the best way to get a game in which players don't have their PCs do these things is to be frank about it at the social contract level. This is what the 4e PHB does, by giving upfront reasons as to why a player may not want to play an evil PC or have a cleric or paladin serve an evil god.

Trying to do this sort of stuff via the alignment system is silly. And the ludicrous numbers of ultimately futile alignment debates that are as old as the game itself (futile because they are not useful contributions to moral philosophy, but rather pointless attempts to show that, by the rules of the game, player A does/does not have the right moral judgement to be permitted to play a paladin in GM B's game) .

Unreasonable attitudes can break any game wide open. You can have the same argument over what spheres a rote should belong to or whether Tybalt is a good "dwarf name."

Alignment has a number of features that differentiate it from other game-mechanical domains in which disagreement might arise: it is an attempt to enforce social contract via mechanics; and (partially as a consequence of this) it not only invites the players at the table to express opinions about one another's moral character, but it requires that a definitive moral assessment be given before play can take place.

I don't see it as a problem. In general, I would expect that GMs and players would just try to be accomodating and reasonable, and that in any case a GM wouldn't screw someone over a genuine dilemma that someone makes a good attempt to resolve within their alignment.

Nowhere that I can recall does a 1st ed D&D text discuss this issue. Nor does the otherwise quite user-friendly Moldvay Basic rulebook, to the best of my recollection. Roger Moore did have an article discussing it in relation to Paladins, which was reproduced in Best of Dragon 3. I'll note that the contrast with 4e is marked - it is very upfront about this sort of thing.

But even if we are charitable - earlier rulebooks can be expected to be less well-written in certain respects, afterall - we are still left with the clunky attempt to enforce social contract via mechanics which are a standing invitation to coercive GMing, and which leave the player without control over one of the mechanically highly significant features of his or her character.