D&D 4E Is there a "Cliffs Notes" summary of the entire 4E experience?

[BryonD]

Yes and no. 3e mechanically is a very large departure from adnd. They are very different games. So, in that sense 3e wasn't trying to sell me stuff I already bought.

But the boatload of 3e offerings which were basically warmed over material from earlier editions certainly was. How many "Return To" modules did we get? There were so many "update" products that I got very turned off from wotc. Otoh there were lots of 3pp that were more interesting to me.

OK. To me the system is the mechanics. I can take a module and move it to another system.

I think it's telling that the only 3.5 wotc books I bought were Tome of Magic and Bo9S, both lead in products for 4e.

Well, 3E being a departure from 1E/2E is one thing. WotC producing a fair amount of crap for it is another.

Agree with you re: Bo9S. Of course, if you go back and look at all the debates over that book before anyone ever said "4E", you can see a microcosm of the 4E story. It is easy for me to claim 20/20 hindsight here, but it is a shame WotC didn't get a better read on that.

 

[Imaro]

Well, that is what the rules are trying to do - page 42 of the DMG says as much.

Actually a whole page of the DMG is devoted to this, suggesting appropriate DCs and damage ranges. When it comes to imposing conditions, WotC initially left this up to GM intuition, but later published a web column on the topic (authored by @wrecan).

Emphasis mine... You tend to gloss over this alot in other discussions about page 42... but I think it's a pretty important factor in why the argument that you could use table 42 to replicate powers doesn't fly with many people. They arguably left out the most important part of replicating a power, the conditions it imposes... so as of DMG 1 you were left without a way to properly balance an effect if a player wanted to achieve it. You then go on to state that this gaping hole was later filled by a magazine article... but I have to ask, for those without a DDI subscription, do these rules ever appear in any actual rule book? If not I think it's stretching a bit to claim the original intention of the rules, especially with such a large omission on the part of the designers that was never officially corrected, was to allow DM's and players to replicate powers.

EDIT: The other possibility I have pondered is that these rules were purposefully left out of the DMG to hamper the creation of powers, since once you are able to do that it greatly diminishes the need to buy further sourcebooks for new powers. Either way I would argue you couldn't replicate a power with the rules given in DMG 1 and the article you speak of was released 3 years later.

 

[Hussar]

OK. To me the system is the mechanics. I can take a module and move it to another system.


Well, 3E being a departure from 1E/2E is one thing. WotC producing a fair amount of crap for it is another.

Agree with you re: Bo9S. Of course, if you go back and look at all the debates over that book before anyone ever said "4E", you can see a microcosm of the 4E story. It is easy for me to claim 20/20 hindsight here, but it is a shame WotC didn't get a better read on that.

Y'know, that's a good point. Bo9S was a very polarizing book. Lots of people loved or hated it. So, yeah I do think that there may have been a lesson to be learned there.

 

[I'm A Banana]

These are empirical psychological conjectures. My own experience leads me to believe that they are, in general, false. Perhaps there are individuals for whom they are true; perhaps you are one of them; but they are not universally true.

I don't think you understand.

It is empirically and universally true that our desires do not change the makeup or organization of the world around us.

It is also true that a character's desires change the makeup of the world of 4e in that they desire an item, and find it in a treasure hoard.

This not given an explanation or a justification. It is simply how the game mechanic works. Thus, this is a mechanic that is largely impossible to play in-character, because the character cannot control that aspect of the world, because people do not control that aspect of their world, and there is no reason stated that your character could control this aspect of their world.

(I suppose it's possible to posit a narrativistic universe a la Pratchett where narrative needs do define physical reality, but that's certainly not the explicitly stated reality in 4e, and is kind of a joke in Discworld, so...; and, come to think of it, it sounds like something the Signers in Planescape would be fans of, even capable of, but that's also a specific setting's tropes.)

This isn't a statement of ability or intuition, of qualities or competencies, merely of fact: wanting something doesn't normally create it, so your character's wants cannot normally create an item, yet your character's wants habitually make items appear with the wishlist mechanic. It breaks with reality without explanation.

For some people, this kind of thing will be counter to the experience they're looking for. For others, it will not -- it may even be in line with it (it is narrativistically appropriate, since protagonists do tend to find what they're looking for right at the right moment). For others, it might be, but they're fine with it for little bits like this. For others, combined with other things, it will be enough to break the experience.

Under typical circumstances, you cannot conceive of this mechanic in-character, because people can't do that. It doesn't matter how "good" at this you are, it's not something that is possible in-character because it is not something that is able to be done in-character.

Early 4e leaned perhaps a little too hard on mechanics like this, and the totality of them certainly scared away many people that it didn't have to.

 

[Kraztur]

I mean, you can write the words "a cleric's ability to communicate with the gods is a result of training", but the words are empty until you give me some account of what, in the gameworld, that means. What has the cleric learned - prayers? Prayers that take mere seconds to utter? So why can't the pious fighter memorise and use them? The real answer is that, for reasons of game balance, we ration: a player can play a character who is beloved of the gods, or who is a skilled fighter, but not both. That is a metagame constraint - there's no reason in the gameworld that a skilled fighter couldn't also be beloved of the gods (that might be Aragorn, or from a slightly different angle Elric).

Metagame is one reason. The fantasy trope is the other reason.

5E, for example, describes Clerics as "conduits for [divine] power, manifesting it as miraculous effects". Personally, I like that. The fiction stands out in the foreground for me, and the gamist roots feel hidden in the background, and I like that very much.

And I think it's as simple as that, and doesn't need to be over-rationalized to others.

You can argue if you want that the "real answer" is metagame constraints. I don't know what a "real answer" is for something like this. To me, the "real answer" is what people think when they game. You are rationalizing how prevalent the metagame is, and therefore should be... what?... prioritized more? acknowledged more? appreciated more? I posit that this rationalization isn't productive.

Alternatively, perhaps you have high standards for fiction that obscures the metagame? Perhaps you need to read a satisfying full-page treatise on why only certain people in a fantasy world are conduits for divine power, and since that's lacking for you in D&D, you can't help but see the metagame constraints? In which case, why rationalize to others that their "real answer" is metagame constraint when you have uncommonly high standards for that sort of suspension of disbelief?

 

[Nagol]

I don't think you understand.

It is empirically and universally true that our desires do not change the makeup or organization of the world around us.

It is also true that a character's desires change the makeup of the world of 4e in that they desire an item, and find it in a treasure hoard.

This not given an explanation or a justification. It is simply how the game mechanic works. Thus, this is a mechanic that is largely impossible to play in-character, because the character cannot control that aspect of the world, because people do not control that aspect of their world, and there is no reason stated that your character could control this aspect of their world.

(I suppose it's possible to posit a narrativistic universe a la Pratchett where narrative needs do define physical reality, but that's certainly not the explicitly stated reality in 4e, and is kind of a joke in Discworld, so...; and, come to think of it, it sounds like something the Signers in Planescape would be fans of, even capable of, but that's also a specific setting's tropes.)

This isn't a statement of ability or intuition, of qualities or competencies, merely of fact: wanting something doesn't normally create it, so your character's wants cannot normally create an item, yet your character's wants habitually make items appear with the wishlist mechanic. It breaks with reality without explanation.

For some people, this kind of thing will be counter to the experience they're looking for. For others, it will not -- it may even be in line with it (it is narrativistically appropriate, since protagonists do tend to find what they're looking for right at the right moment). For others, it might be, but they're fine with it for little bits like this. For others, combined with other things, it will be enough to break the experience.

Under typical circumstances, you cannot conceive of this mechanic in-character, because people can't do that. It doesn't matter how "good" at this you are, it's not something that is possible in-character because it is not something that is able to be done in-character.

Early 4e leaned perhaps a little too hard on mechanics like this, and the totality of them certainly scared away many people that it didn't have to.

Although I substantively agree with your point and conclusion I'd like to draw your attention to a counter-factual example: The blockbuster sales of the "self-help" book The Gift Secret which posits visualisation techniques affect the reality around one (in a nutshell). Such magical thinking still pervades humans today.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It is also true that a character's desires change the makeup of the world of 4e in that they desire an item, and find it in a treasure hoard.

Nope.

That's a really giant post to base on something that isn't actually the case.

4E does not say "IF U WRITE IT ON A SHEET THA DM MUST GIVE IT 2 U".

There is merely the suggestion that, maybe, you should find out what magic items the players would like for their PC by getting them to write a list. It isn't a rule. It isn't a mechanic in any conventional sense. It's a way of doing things, that is optional, that is suggested, but isn't actually forced on you.

You then say:

Early 4e leaned perhaps a little too hard on mechanics like this, and the totality of them certainly scared away many people that it didn't have to.

A lot of people also pretended stuff was "mechanics" when it was actually merely approaches, or ways of doing things, which didn't actually have to follow. This is a great example of that. Your entire argument here is based on the ridiculous position that if the players wrote what magic items they wanted for their PCs down, the DM was somehow forced to grant it.

Certainly people pretended that was the case - but it isn't. It wasn't. The same is true of treasure packages and encounter building and so on. We've seen countless people claim 4E's encounter building somehow "prevented" them from running hard encounter or the like. But it's straightforwardly untrue. Didn't stop people saying it over and over, claiming the mechanics were "suffocating their game" or similar stuff, though. Same with treasure packages. It's fine to bemoan them as a lame suggestion or whatever - I sure did, but all they are is a suggested way of handing out treasure that you can use. You can also ignore them!

So let's be real, magic item lists, treasure packages, encounter building - these are NOT mechanics which are FORCING you to do something. That's simply not true. They're suggestions. They're ways of doing things.

I accept that they scared people off, but your "they were mechanics the game made you use" argument was nonsense then and it's nonsense now.

 

[BryonD]

Nope.

That's a really giant post to base on something that isn't actually the case.

4E does not say "IF U WRITE IT ON A SHEET THA DM MUST GIVE IT 2 U".

I agree with you. And I won't for a second put words in Perm's mouth.

BUT

A debate I had several times with Perm was that he saw 4E putting a lot of narrative control in the hands of the players. We specifically debated the difference between being in a character and being in the role of author.

Tolkien can say if there is a handy fist sized rock behind the tree stump. Gimli might want a handy fist sized rock, but Gimli has no power to make it be true. If you are roleplaying Gimli then you have no powers that Gimli does not have. Perm stated (my words here) that 4E created a shared story-telling opportunity and it allowed and encouraged the players to create the reality around the characters.

I said that, to me, this is shared story writing and not roleplaying. I make no claim that one is the slightest bit better than the other. But they are distinctly different things.

And as he firmly defended on more than one occasion, in 4E as he expressed it, the player DOES have this kind of power.

Obviously this doesn't apply to you. (hurray) But stepping in to a conversation with Perm, your statement doesn't stand quite the same.

 

[Manbearcat]

You shouldn't be trying to inject your understanding of our reality into a gonzo game like D&D

The rules are clear. My way uses them cleanly. Your way uses a improvisational system that achieves the same result if it works, but probably has a lower chance of success. Both are outcome-based as opposed to the process-focus above which really has no place in this game engine.



Or you know, use the abstract rules as they exist and let the player break the object that's well within their capacity to break.

What you're trying to do is not the correct application of the rules in this system. They just aren't. I'm going to try one last go at this then I'm going to leave it be as I don't think we can get any more mileage out of this. Here is it how it works out in the system and the reasoning for this uniformity of resolution:
1) Burning Hands has no Effect associated with it. This is key. What it does is cause damage (keyword Fire - ignite/melt things - you'll use this primarily for building new powers and for coherency in stunting when interacting with the environment) in an area (Blast 5 I think) in front of the caster.

2) The keyword "Destroyed" is key here as well. When you damage an object commensurate to put it at 0 HP, it is rendered inert. It is not keyword "Transformed" or "Transmuted."

3) What the wizard would be diong in this situation is akin to "Creating an Asset" in MHRP. This doesn't happen as a collateral knock-on effect of just damaging an enemy (let's say, throwing him into a building). It happens by using an Effect Die from your pool (possibly your only one unless you spend a PP) to actually "Transform" or "Transmute" that building rubble from the attack into an actual Asset that you or your companions can use in subsequent dice pools. This is for the gamist concerns of (A) balance and (B) miimizing table handling time/mental overhead as you aren't consulting different tables/2nd order system interactions (which may bring the math of the system down - and it does in your scenario) for various things.

4) 4e handles the situation the same as MHRP does in (3) above for the same reasons (A) and (B) above. If you have a power that is established as "Damage" and "No Effect (or at least no relevant effect to what you're trying to accomplish)", then all it does is cause damage commensurate to render a combatant "Dead/Unconscious" or an object "Destroyed/Inert". If you want to "Transform" or "Transmute" and object in order to "Create an Asset" in MHRP or achieve an "Effect" (that is not intrinsic to the power's basic fundamentals) in 4e, you use the appropriate method. You use your Effect Die in MHRP. You consult p42 in 4e. Successful resolution (which isn't much more difficult than roll attack - probably ~ 5 - 10 % less chance generally...in some cases it may be the same as you auto-pass the DC with your high check and the object's Fort is less than standard.) will net you an exception to Burning Hands; instead of damage, you get the desired effect - Door Is Impassable (save ends).

So, while you may not like the unified and outcome-based resolution method of 4e stunting, it works in play swimmingly in that it provides (A) and (B) above while also expanding player options in precisely the way the system intends; delivering player-desired, exception-based outcomes by interacting with the environment (NPCs or the world) in a genre-relevant way and rewarding out of the box thinking.

 

[Nagol]

What you're trying to do is not the correct application of the rules in this system. They just aren't. I'm going to try one last go at this then I'm going to leave it be as I don't think we can get any more mileage out of this. Here is it how it works out in the system and the reasoning for this uniformity of resolution:
1) Burning Hands has no Effect associated with it. This is key. What it does is cause damage (keyword Fire - ignite/melt things - you'll use this primarily for building new powers and for coherency in stunting when interacting with the environment) in an area (Blast 5 I think) in front of the caster.

2) The keyword "Destroyed" is key here as well. When you damage an object commensurate to put it at 0 HP, it is rendered inert. It is not keyword "Transformed" or "Transmuted."

3) What the wizard would be diong in this situation is akin to "Creating an Asset" in MHRP. This doesn't happen as a collateral knock-on effect of just damaging an enemy (let's say, throwing him into a building). It happens by using an Effect Die from your pool (possibly your only one unless you spend a PP) to actually "Transform" or "Transmute" that building rubble from the attack into an actual Asset that you or your companions can use in subsequent dice pools. This is for the gamist concerns of (A) balance and (B) miimizing table handling time/mental overhead as you aren't consulting different tables/2nd order system interactions (which may bring the math of the system down - and it does in your scenario) for various things.

This is not MHRP. I agree I wouldn't try to use this ruling there or in FATE or in any game system that doesn't have specific rules with specific hp total for objects. This game does. That means in this game, objects can be affected and the environment changed through the application of these rules. That means an object like say a hinge can be destroyed with commensurate effect on the environment.

4) 4e handles the situation the same as MHRP does in (3) above for the same reasons (A) and (B) above. If you have a power that is established as "Damage" and "No Effect (or at least no relevant effect to what you're trying to accomplish)", then all it does is cause damage commensurate to render a combatant "Dead/Unconscious" or an object "Destroyed/Inert". If you want to "Transform" or "Transmute" and object in order to "Create an Asset" in MHRP or achieve an "Effect" (that is not intrinsic to the power's basic fundamentals) in 4e, you use the appropriate method. You use your Effect Die in MHRP. You consult p42 in 4e. Successful resolution (which isn't much more difficult than roll attack - probably ~ 5 - 10 % less chance generally...in some cases it may be the same as you auto-pass the DC with your high check and the object's Fort is less than standard.) will net you an exception to Burning Hands; instead of damage, you get the desired effect - Door Is Impassable (save ends).

No it doesn't. There are no game resources assigned to players for narrative control the equivalent of the Effect Die or FATE Aspect. The character has a power that causes damage. Objects in this game can take damage. Objects have hit point totals indicating how hard they are to destroy. Objects have explicit resistance/immunity to some damage types, but not the type being wielded by the character. You consult pg. 42 when the character is trying something "off the page". So far as I can see this is directly on the page. A damage power is being directed at something that takes damage. Roll the total and let's see if the effect is enough. Do I think the RAW are entirely in line with my pre-conceptions as to how hard I would expect the manoeuvre to be? No, but I don't let that get in the way when I've agreed to use a game engine -- I've agreed to use the designer's expectations.

edit
If this game engine treated objects like 3.X -- high hardness score, lots of hp, 1/2 damage from fire, i.e. no way the base effect can actually affect the object, I'd use the stunt system as well.
/edit

So, while you may not like the unified and outcome-based resolution method of 4e stunting, it works in play swimmingly in that it provides (A) and (B) above while also expanding player options in precisely the way the system intends; delivering player-desired, exception-based outcomes by interacting with the environment (NPCs or the world) in a genre-relevant way and rewarding out of the box thinking.

I have no issue with unified outcome mechanics - I enjoy running FATE. So while you may not like that 4e has provided clear and specific rules to handle the situation, they exist in the DMG1.