Is it time for 5E?

[pemerton]

4e makes your fighter really nifty, but it doesn't make you care about your fighter.

<snip>

Now I love 4e, but this is a real problem. The descriptions and supporting fiction, even the format of power writeups need to satisfy the need to situate them in fiction.

I largely agree with this. Paragon paths and epic destinies could help with this, but (i) they come too late in the PC's development, and (ii) there is very little advice to either players or GMs about how to integrate these aspects of the PC into the unfolding events of play.

More generally, there is a tendency - certainly in the fanbase, at least as I read them on ENworld, but also in the way that rulebooks and adventures for 4e are written - to assume that because a certain outcome for a PC is guaranteed at the metagame level, it is unnecessary or redundant to address it in the fiction. Thus, to give one example: because every PC who gets to 21st level is guaranteed an epic destiny, it is often said or implied that being epic has no meaning in the gameworld. Whereas what a good rulebook would do would be to give the players and GM the advice they need to construct and run adventures from which PCs becoming epci is the natural outcome.

Skill challenges raise a similar issue in relation to action resolution - how to order and narrate ingame events such that the outcome that the structure will deliver can be made to feel like a natural emergence from the ingame reality. But as far as I'm aware, the only bit of 4e rulestext that comes close to addressing this is the example of play for a skill challenge in the Rules Compendium - and because it is an example of play without any sophisticated commentary, you have to learn the lesson by osmosis. For example, we see the GM deciding that a failed Streetwise check attempting to identify building A, which also makes the 3rd failure for the challenge overall, leads to thugs who earlier had been Intimidated away coming out of building B to beat up the PCs. This is an example where there is a complete severing of the nexus between ingame causation and metagame causation, but the example doesn't even point this out - yet unless a GM becomes familiar with and skilled at this sort of ingame/metagame distinction, successful skill challenges can't be run.

The contrast with the rules for a game like HeroQuest, which tackles all of this sort of stuff head on from the start, is pretty marked.

In earlier editions, you just might be a local boy done good -- y'know, that thing fantasy novels do -- or a general, pulpy badass -- that thing *other* fantasy novels do -- but not here.

This I don't agree with quite as much. Nothing in earlier D&D editions obliged you do do this sort of thing, and I remember GMing plenty of nameless, faceless Basic fighters (or not nameless, but with names like Kill 'Em Dead Quick).

I think there is a difference, though, in that in earlier editions if you didn't work out this sort of stuff about your PC then your PC had no depth at all, whereas in 4e (and perhaps 3E - I'm not experienced enough to make a confident call) the inherent mechanical depth of a PC can act as a sort of substitute for fictional depth.

Anyway, thanks for the interesting post. I'm a big fan of 4e, but over the past couple of months posts like this one have given me a better handle on why some people see it as mostly a skirmish game/dice rolling exercise.

 

[rounser]

They tried it that way, and here we are: four editions in a decade. The whole game vs. novel argument is a false dichotomy. Obviously you don't say D&D is definitely in a single world, but you don't provide a half-assed default setting, either.

I disagree. Gygax pushed Greyhawk in AD&D. Mentzer was built assuming Mystara. 3E and 4E came with built in gods. And 2E had some nice stuff like the Campaign & Catacomb Guide or Villains Handbook, but not much built into the core, plus a setting deluge spearheaded by the Forgotten Realms.

D&D's saving grace as a construction kit was a baseline implied setting that drew on enough mythology, pulp fantasy and Tolkien to have done enough foundation work to support most people's idea of what swords & sorcery was, even if a few anomalies did creep in (e.g. clerics, oriental monks). From that baseline, innumerable frustrated fantasy enthusiasts found a departure point for creating their own worlds and playing their own adventures.

No D&D takes players by the hand and goes something like, "this is an elf. You might want to build these subraces for your world", with the result being Johnny's purple, jungle-dwelling Feral Elves and Johnny thoroughly invested in the game, because it's not Gygax's Greyhawk or Mearl's Nerath, but Johnny's World of Magerizing. Or something like that, I don't know the details because it hasn't really been done. The most support given to homebrewing is stuff about town demographics and wandering monster tables by climate, that sort of thing. Not exactly riveting stuff compared to the apple the designers themselves bite into.

But it's a core appeal of D&D. If you want someone else's world, there are CRPGs, comics, novels, movies and MMORPGs aplenty to service you. D&D appeals to an audience of creators, at least in the DM's seat, and the players wouldn't be there save for the passion of that person for what they've made.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I don't buy this idea that 4e characters of one class are all the same. If anything, they're far more distinct then they've ever been.

What's the difference between Bob the Fighting Man and Joe the Fighting Man? Nothing! Nothing at all! If they are the same level then there is nothing differentiating between the two.

Oh wait, Bob rolled 4 HP and Joe rolled 2. Character development!

Meanwhile, Bob the 4e warrior is a classic sword and shield fighter with several defensive maneuvers and a wide array of abilities to push enemies back away. Joe the 4e warrior is a brawler and doesn't use a weapon at all - he walks up to the enemy and grabs them, beating the tar out of them face to face. Sue the 4e warrior - who isn't penalized due to hilariously terrible misogyny built into the system this time - uses a polearm, hitting the enemy from reach, dragging the enemy away - or towards! - where she thinks best.

But it's not just mechanical. It effects how you play.

A fight breaks out! Joe and Bob in 1e are...well, they act the same. They don't really have any different tactics. Joe has a shield so I guess his AC is higher.

Meanwhile, Bob in 4e stands in front of his party, taking the hits from the monsters and keeping his friends and allies safe. Sue acts with cold precision, dividing the baddies and maneuvering them right into the open blades of the others. Joe...Joe is a brawler. He just finds the biggest, baddest son of a gun, charges it, and tries to throw it into a headlock.

See, the farther back you go, the fewer choices there are. Just from the choices of weapon and powers alone - not even going into skills or backgrounds! - the three fighters are all characterized differently. Bob is upfront and selfless, taking the hits of others, wanting to defend the others more then anything else. Sue is practical and tactical, dividing and conquering. Bob has a wild gleam in his eye and will punch anyone in the face who challenges him.

1e didn't let you make a viking or a pirate or a knight or a good ol' farm boy. It let you make a fighting man who had high hit die and a better to hit table. That's it. That's all the game gave you. Nothing more. Now, you could still make a viking or a pirate or a knight or a farm boy, but it was entirely on what you brought to the game. 4e doesn't kill that. You can still make a viking or a pirate or a good ol' farm boy. The only difference is, now you can actually make it in the game on top of acting like one.

The difference in early D&D between Joe the viking and Bob the knight is that Joe called himself a viking and bob called himself a knight. In 4e, Bob stands before the foe and delivers his challenge valiantly, while Joe throws himself uncaringly at the enemy to rip off some heads, and it's represented.

 

[rounser]

A fight breaks out! Joe and Bob in 1e are...well, they act the same. They don't really have any different tactics. Joe has a shield so I guess his AC is higher.

The extent to which that matters is the extent to which My Precious Encounter (TM) is the focus of the game. In a campaign where combat is incidental to getting on with the campaign arc and exploring the dungeon or wilderness, the fact that Joe and Bob only differ in dual wielding versus use of a shield may not matter, just roll the d20s and get on with the campaign. I think quirks and flaws do a better job of defining character than kewl manoovers anyways.

 

[Bluenose]

The extent to which that matters is the extent to which My Precious Encounter (TM) is the focus of the game. In a campaign where combat is incidental to getting on with the campaign arc and exploring the dungeon or wilderness, the fact that Joe and Bob only differ in dual wielding versus use of a shield may not matter, just roll the d20s and get on with the campaign. I think quirks and flaws do a better job of defining character than kewl manoovers anyways.

Are there rules for quirks and flaws in any PHB?

Is it impossible to give them to 4e characters?

YMMV

 

[rounser]

Hackmaster 4E has quirks and flaws, and crits and fumbles. Proves that the 4E WOTC&D way is just one possible direction among many.

 

[Bluenose]

And Fate puts Aspects to good use, and Pendragon has had Passions and Traits since the 1980s, and I've played in a Heroquest where someone's grandmother shamed a berserker into surrendering. Yet somehow D&D has been the most popular game on the market pretty consistently for over thirty years while lacking anything really like them.

 

[avin]

The extent to which that matters is the extent to which My Precious Encounter (TM) is the focus of the game. In a campaign where combat is incidental to getting on with the campaign arc and exploring the dungeon or wilderness, the fact that Joe and Bob only differ in dual wielding versus use of a shield may not matter, just roll the d20s and get on with the campaign. I think quirks and flaws do a better job of defining character than kewl manoovers anyways.

In a roleplaying game I like my RP choices met my mechanic character choices as well.

I don't like "my precious encounters" as well, and many things can be said against 4E, but not that all characters are all the same.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

The extent to which that matters is the extent to which My Precious Encounter (TM) is the focus of the game. In a campaign where combat is incidental to getting on with the campaign arc and exploring the dungeon or wilderness, the fact that Joe and Bob only differ in dual wielding versus use of a shield may not matter, just roll the d20s and get on with the campaign. I think quirks and flaws do a better job of defining character than kewl manoovers anyways.

It's a good thing 4e has skills and feats and backgrounds and rituals and utility powers then!

You know, like older editions had...

Had...

Um.

Huh.

 

[LeStryfe79]

I always liked character kits: lots of fluff and a little crunch. They should have been more balanced, but they gave a lot of novice roleplayers a good sense of direction. I tend to place a little more importance on fluff in my pnp, but maybe that's just me.