Celebrim said:
Goonalan: D&D over the years had done a very good job of not really establishing what its core gameplay was. To some people, this was a horrendous sin. But in practice, what it meant was that gamers of all different stripes could share a table together. It meant that whether you were 100% tactician or 0% tactician, 100% method actor or 0% method actor, you could play D&D. It was probably noones perfect game, but it was often many groups perfect game because you could take some friends with different ideas of what fun was and find something for all of them.
4e is NOT like that as far as I can tell. It's a game that decides how you should play and makes the game fit that. If you don't play that way or don't want to play that way, then tough.
I've played with groups that would find the tactics no challenge whatsoever. I've player with individuals that would eat that stuff up. I've also played with other groups that find combat boring and combat where you have to do alot of thinking doubly so.
I don't think I'd have much problem with the tactics. I've been a RBDM known for his cunning and ruthlessness for about 20 years now. But I do think that I would be bored by the relentless invasion of tactical gaming into combat. Much as I enjoy strategy games, I don't want to be playing chess in the middle of my RPG.
Like I said months ago, I can accept 4e as a minatures combat game, but I have a hard time accepting it as an RPG. It doesn't care about my job as a narrator at all. It doesn't care about emersiveness at all. I can play it and I might can enjoy it, but only by not caring about the things that make RPG a special joy.
That's my initial diagnosis also- Ludology vs. Narratology, I want stories recalled years afterwards, and yes they teetered on the brink of a dice roll, however the lead up involved a large amount of "aimless" roleplay (including inter-party backbiting and name-calling) with recourse to the tumbling dice as the set encounter interrupts the narrative flow.
That said my players are not method actors, they are however concerned that they have to relearn a game they've played (well) for quite some time only to end up counting squares, or rather miscounting squares.
The players that suffered the TPK are less precious about their characters than my Sunday mob, they get very quickly attached to pregens even. If they last a session there'll be backstories, clues to long standing family feuds, a sketch of the Dwarfs grotto home, lists of Elven swear words used to defame Kobolds, etc.
In other words a story, narrative, call it what you will, fighting sometimes interrupts the flow- a massively mechanical (and clunky) system of combat that can only be dramatised using scale maps et al, even hand drawn and passed around the table, takes time which could be better spent doing something else, which brings us back to the narrative.
None of them play D&D because of the game mechanics, I'll say that again- none of them play D&D because of the game mechanics. The D&D universe best represents our shared narrative setting (LOTR meets Pratchett et al). Therefore the mechanic that works against fun is gone, which according to the TPK mob is just about everything 4e they've seen.
Having said all that I may just be over-reacting (not a first, it comes with age and a delight in the status quo), I just need to see a quicker way through the combat system.
To recap-
4e so far (one game- yes wrong to judge, patience needed etc.) 3 Hours of play 66% combat (2 combats), 1 hour roleplay- don't mind the percentages, unhappy about only 2 combats, and note the first combat took only twenty minutes, the players soon realised how to play the game- their characters capabilities.
3e Homebrew campaign (last Sundays session) 5.5 Hours play in Castle Whiterock-
Combat encounter with Troglodyte hoard (20 mins), the players just win through, against the odds, they're 3rd level in a 4th level scenario but shhh.
Negotiations and threats to female and young Troglodytes (20 mins).
Finding their way back out of the level, with another combat encounter, lots of Piercers (20 mins)- broken and bleeding and fleeing for their lives. DMs gold.
Back up to the level above for further negotiations with remaining Orcs there (20 mins), and nearly the last of the healing.
Back up to the surface through two levels with another comabt encounter (20 mins), Zombie Orcs as I remember- back to broken and bleeding again and now with no healing. Players getting fractious- tut tut.
On the surface, yet another minor combat encounter (10 mins), players want to go home now- isn't it good that a Combat Encounter doesn't have to be hard, it just needs to be the one they didn't want to happen, when there's no healing left and their on their way to the pawn shop rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of "Daddies new Full Plate".
Back to Cillamar, sell all loot, visit patrons, laugh at each others characters, advertise for women for the Half-Orc (don't ask) and spend three days or so shopping and replacing lost/broken/eaten adventuring implements (40 mins).
Bury fallen comrade, with ceremony (10 mins), get dragged into conversation with grave digger about some cut up bodies coming his way (20 mins).
Develop leads for the cut-up-bodies adventure with patrons, experts, passers-by, et al (20 mins).
Hunt the Killer, actually The Ripper (Goodman Games scenario) resulting in- bar room brawl (10 mins), swiftly followed by falling in love with bar owner (10 mins), and attempting to move in with her (and thereby become co-own of said bar).
Half-Orc going for a fumble with lady of the night- attempted mugging (10 mins), toilet humour and sexual innuendo- attack of opportunity, backstabbing etc.
Discover another victims body, there follows a mini-episode of CSI Cillamar (20 mins).
Discovering yet another body, this time being eaten by a pair of Ghasts- combat encounter (20 mins), which gets complicated when Paralysing Rot Grubs explode from the carcass (5 mins).
Discovering door into abandoned home and exploring 15ft by 15ft hovel, complete with terrifying noises, spectral rats (not really), bloody stains and floating heads (30 mins- yep 30 mins being spooked in a tiny room with not one weapon drawn).
Eventually finding the secret door and heading into a long abandoned Inn (10 minutes), including combat encounter with a bunch of rats.
Character that won the heart (and home) of the barkeep in previous encounter settling on name for his chain of Theme pubs- he's laid claim to this Inn as well (ongoing, alas).
Total- 9 Combat encounters (2 hours 5 minutes)- at least a quarter of this was spent on the move between encounters.
And 9 Roleplaying encounters (3 hours 10 minutes)- at least a quarter of this was players bickering and making up unfunny and derogatory remarks about each other, which also gets experience points.
Yes we referred to the rules once or twice, then again some of us also drank more than we should, no maths was involved, nobody counted anything- the fighting involved tactics (we have a tactician on board, thankfully he's also a rules-lawyer- phew). I got very angry with one of the players for a while, there was shouting and swearing- but he's my brother, so that doesn't count. After the game one of the players made a poster which he's getting printed up (not really) in Cillamar to try and find sex slaves for the Half-Orc, once again don't ask. Next week there'll be a good natured row about this.
Ask them about what they did a week later and no one will mention combat except to say- "was it Trogs or... I had a lot of cider, do you remember when Cestode went on about how Dwarf-Human love could be beautiful, and then talked his way into owning a bar?"
Whereas the combat encounter would be- "then the corpse expoded littering the street with foul crawling maggots? We managed to battle through though."
"How?"
"Grungarak stamped on them."
As I say, ahem heroic.
Anyway- too many opinions, is there a way through this- to make combat twenty minutes tops, less mechanical? More of a... story?
Answers on a postcard.
