Jason Bulmahn Speaks about DDXP(His take on the system)

[Zinegata]

I think a lot of the reviewers seem a wee bit disappointed. Some of their gripes are complaints about stuff that has always been a 'problem', just in a different way. So what if you only have 3 things to do as a fighter? It's better than 1 thing isn't it? Or maybe a few options will make you feel more restrained than no options? Strange, the human psyche.

Not really. I think the problem he pointed out is the Law of Darwinian Game Option Selection - No matter how many options there are in the game, there are always a few, clearly superior options that will always be chosen by players who are driven to succeed.

(Okay, I made that term up, but what I described is rather Darwinian.)

Which is a bit disappointing since that's really not much different from 3.X. Some choices are still better than others.

 

[Zinegata]

I think some of his points are well taken, but I will say this. I'm getting tired of people mentioning combats being repetitive when its 1st level!!!

I mean a 1st level wizard throws a couple of magic missiles and then is shooting a crossbow (often badly) for the rest of the day. Then fact that character can do 2 or 3 things well I consider a HUGE improvement.

I dunno. I've done plenty of creative stuff with level 1 characters. People just have to know to use all of their character abilities - such as Cantrips which are typically ignored by other players.

 

[fafhrd]

Which is a bit disappointing since that's really not much different from 3.X. Some choices are still better than others.

I'm afraid that it's a basic tenet of life.

 

[Zinegata]

I can't believe he said that and expected anyone to take him seriously. Yes, when the DM rolls well and you roll poorly, you have a hard time.

There are ways to mitigate the effect of good or bad rolling though. Some people choose to make powerful builds. Others employ various methods (i.e. maneuvering) to get some sort of combat advantage (i.e. flanking), although in 3E this kind of bonus is so small that it's generally relevant only at low levels.

Some other game systems require players to roll a heck of a lot of dice - which is one way to smooth out good or bad rolling by simply making sure everyone rolls more.

What the reviewer is likely saying is that these safeguards weren't present, at least during the demo. Decisive dice rolls are few in number so good or bad luck doesn't "smoothen out". In-built character bonuses and bonuses gained by battlefield gymnastics don't seem to yield a lot of dividends either. And that's why it's a cause for concern.

 

[Jason Bulmahn]

I can't believe he said that and expected anyone to take him seriously. Yes, when the DM rolls well and you roll poorly, you have a hard time.

Yeah, I can see where that might seem a bit obvious. What I was trying to get across is this. The balancing mechanism for the encounter powers of monsters is a random rechange mechanic. If your DM has a string of lucky rolls in this regard, the fight is going to be much harder than it would be if he rolled an average amount. It would be like the DM rolling 1 for a 3.5 dragon's breath weapon recharge a number of rounds in a row. While this only has a 25% chance of happening each round, some of the monsters I saw had a recharge % greater than this. I am not 100% sure this is a huge problem, but it struck me as a bit odd.

Meh...

Jason Bulmahn
Gamer/Game Designer

 

[Zinegata]

I'm afraid that it's a basic tenet of life.

Very true, but with just 3 or so at-will choices per character, I was kinda expecting all to be equally useful in most situations. As it stands, I could see one clear "optimal" at-will choice for each character. The others are simply too conditional to be used on a regular basis.

And it's worth noting that in 3.X, the game was replete with highly conditional feats and abilities that saw little use. I was kinda hoping they didn't repeat that in 4E.

 

[Kishin]

Which is a bit disappointing since that's really not much different from 3.X. Some choices are still better than others.

Welcome to tactics, and for that matter, any situation with multiple options.

 

[Jason Bulmahn]

I think some of his points are well taken, but I will say this. I'm getting tired of people mentioning combats being repetitive when its 1st level!!!

I mean a 1st level wizard throws a couple of magic missiles and then is shooting a crossbow (often badly) for the rest of the day. Then fact that character can do 2 or 3 things well I consider a HUGE improvement.

I do agree with this to some extent. The wizard actually doing magic every round is an improvement over trying to shoot a crossbow poorly. From a purely mechanical perspective, however, if you strip away what the actual action is, you are still taking the same one over and over again. Once again, I am not 100% sure this is a huge problem. It was 1st level and all. It was just a thought I was having.

Jason Bulmahn
Gamer/Game Designer

 

[Jason Bulmahn]

Welcome to tactics, and for that matter, any situation with multiple options.

I was expecting that, truth be told. I was hoping it would not be so clear cut. If I had more than 1 enemy within a small area, the fire blast ability was the best choice. If not, magic missile was the way to go. There were some mitigating factors some of the time I guess. Hmm... I need to ruminate on this a bit more.

Jason

Edit: Ach.. Zinegata beat me to the same point.....

 

[Zinegata]

Yeah, I can see where that might seem a bit obvious. What I was trying to get across is this. The balancing mechanism for the encounter powers of monsters is a random rechange mechanic. If your DM has a string of lucky rolls in this regard, the fight is going to be much harder than it would be if he rolled an average amount. It would be like the DM rolling 1 for a 3.5 dragon's breath weapon recharge a number of rounds in a row. While this only has a 25% chance of happening each round, some of the monsters I saw had a recharge % greater than this. I am not 100% sure this is a huge problem, but it struck me as a bit odd.

Meh...

Jason Bulmahn
Gamer/Game Designer

Actually, I think your instincts were correct in this regard.

It's generally not good to have the game change decisively because of a few dice rolls. You generally want a lot of dice rolls to "smoothen" out the chance that a player will get too lucky. That's why many games such as Risk, A&A, and Heroscape uses tons of dice rolls.

In contrast, letting the game boil down to one roll is generally too swingy and can be highly unbalancing. For instance, in Warhammer 40K, melee is generally considered superior to shooting. This is because in melee, an entire unit can be wiped out by a single bad die roll (a morale check), and destroying a unit entirely nets a huge amount of victory points. By contrast, wiping out an enemy unit by shooting requires a good die roll with each and every shot.

Still, some games thrive on having few die rolls. But if balance was an important game objective (and it seems to be, given all of the emphasis on getting the math right), I'm not entirely sure this was the right move.