Legends and Lore: Modular Madness

[catastrophic]

Here's sort of a brainstorm:

Skills Are Weapons.....or whatever.

Interesting idea, but can we trade off between subtypes without making restrictive conceptual assumptions?

I'l try this with social skills; bluff, diplomacy, and intimidate. And i'll try and keep the mechanics relatively simple, rather than assuming everything is social combat. . and athletic combat. . and academic combat, ect. Below, i'm just trying a simple premise and seeing how it fits.


INTIMIDATE: +3 power, -3 complexity. You can achieve simple persuasion goals very easily with intimidate, but it works less well when things get complex/or if there are multiple stages to a task. Intimidate is a way to convince people to do something simple, and immediate. Don't expect them to follow complex instructions.

BLUFF: -3 Power, +3 Treachery. Lies work best when they're out of the spotlight, but they can be effective at getting people to work against their own interests, or those of those who control them. You can scare a guard into giving you their key. . sure. . .or appeal to their better nature, but it's a lot easier to tell them you work for their boss, or that you forgot your key today. Bluff is a way to convince people to do things they would not do if they knew the truth.

DIPLOMACY: -3 Treachery, +3 Complexity. Diplomacy is about people working together, often on complex issues. You can't persuade people to damage themselves, but you can persuade them to help you, and in doing so, help themselves. And, unlike more dramatic or deceitful methods, you can manage complex issues that could easiily break down under the weight of intimidation or lies.

PERSUASION/BARGAINING: No modifiers. A flat method of getting your way, without any particular strengths or weaknesses.

 

[pemerton]

"Have feats and skills that don't do much so that we can squeeze them in to balance but still let people customize their characters in ways that don't do much ..." I'm not seeing how that is viable.

Could feats provide breadth but not depth by, for example, bringing new dimensions of the game into play? KM's post #20 is one way of thinking about this. A feat that let's you eg spend a HS, or an AP, or whatever, to jump a chasm without having to make a d20 roll is another.

 

[pemerton]

I believe also that it is a reference to the original Dark Sun setting where the characters started off more powerful to make up for the lethality of the setting.

I don't know if it is a good design idea but it is in keeping with the original version of the setting.

I don't think it's good design for 4e.

To make any sense, this sort of approach has to assume that the numbers on a character sheet, or in a monster's stat block, are some more-or-less objective measure of some quantity ("toughness") of the fictional beings in question. But 4e more-or-less takes for granted that this is not the case, and that the main function of PC bonuses, scaling etc is a metagame one rather than a modelling one.

 

[Sammael]

So again, we're back to the notion that all this arcahic, needlessly complex, almost impossible to balance stuff is going to get WOTC sales from some mighty all-spending demographic, and yet, not alienate the people who actually buy their books- people who like balance, like coherent systems, and if anything want 4e to be more streamlined, not less, and want content of the kind they like, such as themes.

Dude. It is entirely possible to devise a modern, streamlined, balanced D&D-like system that will not resemble 4e in any way. 4e is not the RPG to end all RPGs. In some ways, it's an improvement over 3.x; in others, it's a miserable failure. Likewise, Pathfinder has some merits, but it's still way too similar to 3.x to really fix any of its problems. If I were Mearls, I'd start from scratch, rather than using a flawed base.

Incidentally, can you explain what do Power, Complexity, and Treachery mean in your social skill example? I'd like to understand it a little better.

 

[catastrophic]

Dude. It is entirely possible to devise a modern, streamlined, balanced D&D-like system that will not resemble 4e in any way. 4e is not the RPG to end all RPGs. In some ways, it's an improvement over 3.x; in others, it's a miserable failure.

Actually, it was a huge improvement in every way, and most of the criticisms made against it by it's detractors are of dubious merit at best.

I'm highly critical of 4e, but I also understand it, and know that it serves well in those roles that the anit-4e-brigade claims it fails in.

Even failed systems like skill challenges stand head and shoulders above 3.x, which had no such systems.

Of course, you can talk about modules, you can even talk about art- but this is about design. Good art and modules don't cover the terrible design or reduce it's damage to actual play.

And to be frank, I don't think any edition of DnD comes ever close to being a 'modern RPG', apart from 4e.

Likewise, Pathfinder has some merits,

Why would you say 'likewise'? Also, why would you say 'merits'? In system terms, there is no comparison betwen the two- one is a solidly realised rpg built from the groun up, and the other are a set of glorified house rules for a game that never worked that well to begin with.

but it's still way too similar to 3.x to really fix any of its problems. If I were Mearls, I'd start from scratch, rather than using a flawed base.

4e isn't flawed. It's base is rock solid, and it has none of the 'abysamal failures' you claim, unless you're arguing outside of the design of the system itself. Certainly, no such failure is fundmetnal to it's design- 4e didn't make the WOTC modules into endless grinds, if anything, their module design habits from 3e did.

I might speculate about any number of systems, like one that dumped ability bonus and replaced it with ability value, as mister mearls suggested in an early colum- but the basic philosophy and design of 4e is a huge asset, and tossing it aside to please people will only result in inferior design.

Incidentally, can you explain what do Power, Complexity, and Treachery mean in your social skill example? I'd like to understand it a little better.

I just made them up for the example, but I could imagine them being stats given to any persuasion task, preferably in a system where more than one pc can roll into the same task and cover each other/play off each other a bit.

It could be as simple as them being three numbers to describe each persuasion task. They'd average out to a base target number, which would be the 'challenge rating' of the tasks, or whatever.

You roll once, add your base persuasion value, then take that value and apply it to each of the three stats- including the modifiers for your type of persuasion.

You would need to make successes equal to each of those stats- three intimidators will have no trouble hitting the power value of most tasks, but they are unlikely to hit the complexity value of complex tasks.

GMs, and modules could even add various outcomes basec on wether you say, talk your way past a gate guard but don't hit the treachery target (he might notify a superior), or persuade some dwaves to held defend a village, but fail the power target (they could do it, but only for an exorbirant fee).

This could also be used for other tasks. A travel task might have a high or low target in values like stealth, wayfinding, and movement. A knowlege task could have various subdomains. Some tasks could be balanced amongst a subset of skills liek the social ones above, while others like knowlege would be more a matter of wether you know the right kind of stuff or not- but still allowing you to roll any knowledge skill you have.

And of course, there's nothing stopping a pc from having more than one social or knowlege skill.

 

[delericho]

So again, we're back to the notion that all this arcahic, needlessly complex, almost impossible to balance stuff is going to get WOTC sales from some mighty all-spending demographic, and yet, not alienate the people who actually buy their books

Funny. Four years ago, people said the same about 4e - it was being designed in large part for the tastes of people who weren't buying the books. It turns out that the number of people not buying D&D is always higher than the number who are.

If WotC are already at the point where they feel they have to produce a new edition, it means 4e has failed utterly. If that is the case, then everything is up for grabs again - there's no point in giving particular weight to anything that 4e does.

(Of course, that's a mighty big 'if' in the paragraph above. Frankly, it's too soon for 5e, so I'm rather hoping we're not at that point.)

Actually, it was a huge improvement in every way, and most of the criticisms made against it by it's detractors are of dubious merit at best.

I'm highly critical of 4e, but I also understand it, and know that it serves well in those roles that the anit-4e-brigade claims it fails in.

Even failed systems like skill challenges stand head and shoulders above 3.x, which had no such systems.

Of course, you can talk about modules, you can even talk about art- but this is about design. Good art and modules don't cover the terrible design or reduce it's damage to actual play.

And to be frank, I don't think any edition of DnD comes ever close to being a 'modern RPG', apart from 4e.

Why would you say 'likewise'? Also, why would you say 'merits'? In system terms, there is no comparison betwen the two- one is a solidly realised rpg built from the groun up, and the other are a set of glorified house rules for a game that never worked that well to begin with.

4e isn't flawed. It's base is rock solid, and it has none of the 'abysamal failures' you claim, unless you're arguing outside of the design of the system itself. Certainly, no such failure is fundmetnal to it's design- 4e didn't make the WOTC modules into endless grinds, if anything, their module design habits from 3e did.

I might speculate about any number of systems, like one that dumped ability bonus and replaced it with ability value, as mister mearls suggested in an early colum- but the basic philosophy and design of 4e is a huge asset, and tossing it aside to please people will only result in inferior design.

Can someone cover me for XP? Because this is just hilarious.

Look, I'll readily admit to the flaws of 3e, and I'll gladly noted the improvements that 4e made.

But I can run most 3e encounters in a fraction of the time it takes in 4e. In many cases, I can run the 3e encounter in less time that it takes to set up the 4e encounter (because I can happily run 3e without minis; the same is not true of 4e). And even a simple combat of 1st level PCs vs run-of-the-mill kobolds takes at least 40 minutes in 4e (and playing under other DMs I've found that this is consistent). That is most certainly not an improvement, and if combat is right at the heart of the game, then it's a major problem.

And as for Pathfinder: you can be as dismissive as you like, but if 4e was as manifestly great as you say then there would be no niche for Pathfinder to even exist, never mind to thrive. And for it to even be considered as real competition for D&D should be laughable, and yet somehow is not.

 

[catastrophic]

Funny. Four years ago, people said the same about 4e - it was being designed in large part for the tastes of people who weren't buying the books. It turns out that the number of people not buying D&D is always higher than the number who are.

Actually, it turns out a wide cross-section of gamers- including people who were playing 3e but eager to trade up to a better game, and people who had long abandoned 3e because of how bad it was- found it a good system to buy. And yet, as we all know, a LOT of people did not make the move.

On the other hand, and this keeps happening in these debates- you're basically claiming the same thing can happen, only in reverse with none of the bad bits, and it simply doesn't work that way.

A 5e successfully aimed at fans of 3e will not retain fans of 4e. They will stay with 4e. You are not going to please a bigger tent. Too many people who have played 4e now know how terrible 3e is, and will never, ever go back to that kind of game.

If WotC are already at the point where they feel they have to produce a new edition, it means 4e has failed utterly. If that is the case, then everything is up for grabs again - there's no point in giving particular weight to anything that 4e does.
(Of course, that's a mighty big 'if' in the paragraph above. Frankly, it's too soon for 5e, so I'm rather hoping we're not at that point.)

So in other words, everything you just said is meaningless, and you're just feeding the myth that 4e is a terrible failure and 5e will make everything better by being terirbly designed like 3e.

Can someone cover me for XP? Because this is just hilarious.

I'm sorry that your point of view runs contrary to reality? There's no getting around the fact that most 4e-bashing is nonsence. It doesn't matter how many times people say "4e is a wow-like gamist antigygax which stops roleplaying and makes things feel less fun", it's stil not true in any real sense.

It's just people who made up their minds not to like 4e, no matter how often they protest to the contrary.

And contrary to popular myth, a designer cannot design a game that can overcome the mostly basless subjective viewpoints people project onto a game system, often without even playing it. Even people who do play it are colored a lot more by the endless online vendettas on the issue, than a genuine undeerstanding of the system.

Look, I'll readily admit to the flaws of 3e, and I'll gladly noted the improvements that 4e made.

But I can run most 3e encounters in a fraction of the time it takes in 4e.

No, actually, you can't. Firstly, you can't at higher levels, which is the only time they're comparable. Second, the rest of the time, you're not engaging in a comparable activity, any more than you can compare flipping a coin to playing Monopoly.

3e combat is a disfunctional imbalanced farce where concepts like Class and Challenge Rating fail far more often than they suceed. The extra utility added to 4e combat means that yes, 4e combats are long- but compare that to 3e combat and you have a mostly successful implementation, compared to a farce which people have grown used to, and treat with far too much tolerance.

Yes, it's a farce a lot of people have convinced themself works, if they put lots and lots of work into it. No, that's not a good excuse.

And how much time are you really putting into that encounter? How muchtime to DMs in 3e games put into trying to make that idiotic system work- only to have the party's FPspellcasters blow everything flat in a round and a half?

And what about the time they spend prebattle, buffing? What about the time NOT spent, on the players at the table who don't actually do anything meaningful in combat?

You can talk all you like, but there's no bigger waste of time in the history of D&D than third editon combat.

In many cases, I can run the 3e encounter in less time that it takes to set up the 4e encounter (because I can happily run 3e without minis; the same is not true of 4e).

Absolute rubbish. We all know how long it takes to set up 3e combat.

FOR THE DM!

For the DM, designing challenging and fun 3e combats takes hours- unless of course, you're running a combat which is meaningless, where you toss a few monsters out and they flail around for a few seconds before dying, in which case, why do it at all? Why not just handwave the combat?

On the other hand, 4e's system is robust enough that you really can throw together and encounter in minutes- certainly, monsters have improved over the lifetime of the system, but on day one they were already leaps and bounds more useful, and more meaningful and characterful than the mostly-pointless bags of hit points in 3e, despite their lack of a 'rope use' skill or full list of spells known.

Setting up the minis? Again, rubbish- 3e was just as reliant on minis as 4e is, it's just that 4e actually makes use of that feature. This is another example of a misrepresentation of the facts, used by people bashing 4e. If you can run 3e without minis, you can run 4e without minis. If you can't run 4e without minis, you can't run 3e without minis.

Both have concrete movement, spell area templates, rules for flanking and adjacent foes, variable movement speeds, terrain, and more. Both use a battlemap by default.

And even a simple combat of 1st level PCs vs run-of-the-mill kobolds takes at least 40 minutes in 4e (and playing under other DMs I've found that this is consistent). That is most certainly not an improvement, and if combat is right at the heart of the game, then it's a major problem.

Actually your wrong again, and bordering on dishonest once again. There's nothing stopping you from running a combat with a handful of minions, and that will take all of a few minutes. That is after all, comparable to the mostly-pointless kobold bash you're talking about running in 3e.

You're deliberatly misrepresenting the system, in order to further an argument that falls apart when faced with the facts. Many rational people have made legitimate arguments about the time 4e combat takes. You are not one of those people.

And as for Pathfinder: you can be as dismissive as you like, but if 4e was as manifestly great as you say then there would be no niche for Pathfinder to even exist, never mind to thrive.

People buy trash all the time. Trash sells well in all sorts of fields and markets.

Does it mean the people buying the trash have made an informed decision, that the trash them magically becomes a better product? If they were true, the american economy would still be riding high on the back of CDR's and subprime.

The 3e design is trash. It was ok when it came out, but 4e is leaps and bounds ahead of it. People's nostaligia and attachment to it doesn't change that. Paizo dressing it up with nice art and, admittedly nice support products, don't change the facts about the core system and how broken it truly is. Talking fantasy like 'it's really fast to set up!' doesn't change that.

And for it to even be considered as real competition for D&D should be laughable, and yet somehow is not.

And more americans believe in angels than believe in evolution. That is not the fault of the theory of evolution, nor a repudiation of it's merit.

Appeal to popularity. Spare me. If popularity was the measure of a game's merit, we'd all be playing world of warcraft.

Pathfinder is competition for 4e because a bunch of people were attached to 3e and didn't want to make the switch. On top of that, there was a huge, hysterical backlash that many 4e haters wallowed hip deep in it for years, permanently coloring their viewpoints and the broader comunity's viewpoints on the issue in a way that has nothing to do with legitimate analisis.

You can't lure those people back unless you give them another carbon copy of the garbage system they're comitted to inflicting on their friends- and even if you could, WOTC can't, because those same people have damned them forevermore, for the foul crime of having creative integrity and making a better game.

There may be a subset of more reasonable people who would buy Mearls's hypothetical fake big tent 5e without an aburd return to the bad old days,
but the closer you get to pleasing that hater demographic, the further away you get from the people with DDI subscriptions and book-cases full of 4e.

 

[Jhaelen]

(because I can happily run 3e without minis; the same is not true of 4e).

Why not?

To run 3e without minis you have to ignore part of the combat rules. Why can't you do the same in 4e?

Also, IIRC, some people _are_ playing 4e without minis. There's been several threads with reports that it works quite well!

 

[catastrophic]

If anything, 4e's battle map system is more coherent, and lends itself better to conversion like say, fred hick's idea to use fate-style zones for 4e combat.

 

[delericho]

A 5e successfully aimed at fans of 3e will not retain fans of 4e.

This is not necessarily true. A 5e that is simply a clone of 3e would certainly fail, yes. But it should be possible to build something new that attracts fans of 3e, fans of 4e, and new fans, in numbers. With the emphasis very much on the "should" of course - it's certainly not an easy task.

So in other words, everything you just said is meaningless, and you're just feeding the myth that 4e is a terrible failure and 5e will make everything better by being terirbly designed like 3e.

No, I'm merely acknowledging reality. As yet, WotC have not announced 5e. Mearls' articles may not be a precursor to 5e (although they definitely feel like it).

But if WotC announce 5e so soon, then that is a clear sign that 4e has failed.

No, actually, you can't. Firstly, you can't at higher levels, which is the only time they're comparable.

Odd. I'm sure I've been doing it for years.

Second, the rest of the time, you're not engaging in a comparable activity, any more than you can compare flipping a coin to playing Monopoly.

PCs, monsters, terrain. An encounter is an encounter, both in terms of risk and their place in the 'plot'. The mechanic representation may differ, but the concept is the same.

Absolute rubbish. We all know how long it takes to set up 3e combat.

By "set up", I meant "lay out the dungeon tiles, set up the monsters, roll and record initiative". Prep time is something different, and I'll agree 4e has the edge (by quite some way).

Setting up the minis? Again, rubbish- 3e was just as reliant on minis as 4e is, it's just that 4e actually makes use of that feature. This is another example of a misrepresentation of the facts, used by people bashing 4e. If you can run 3e without minis, you can run 4e without minis. If you can't run 4e without minis, you can't run 3e without minis.

You know, I'm pretty sure I ran a 3e session yesterday featuring multiple combats, and without minis. Likewise, I'm also sure that when I tried to run 4e there were so many minor movements and forced movements that it was impossible for me to run it without the minis.

I guess my memory must be faulty. Gosh, that's worrying.

(Or, just perhaps: you're flat wrong.)

Actually your wrong again, and bordering on dishonest once again. There's nothing stopping you from running a combat with a handful of minions, and that will take all of a few minutes. That is after all, comparable to the mostly-pointless kobold bash you're talking about running in 3e.

The adventures I compared were "Kobold Hall" and "The Burning Plague", the first ones I ran in 4e and 3e, respectively. Both published adventures, both for 1st level PCs, both featuring combats against kobolds armed with missile and melee weapons. In neither case was it a 'boss' encounter.

I'm not being dishonest; you're being wrong.

You're deliberatly misrepresenting the system, in order to further an argument that falls apart when faced with the facts. Many rational people have made legitimate arguments about the time 4e combat takes. You are not one of those people.

The combat grind in 4e is well known. It makes it impossible for me to tell the stories I want to tell when using that system (because combat takes so long it squeezes everything else out - and I can't tell stories if I can only progress through 3-4 scenes every two weeks).

Here's the other thing: you say I haven't made any "legitimate arguments about the time 4e combat takes". You, on the other hand, haven't made any legitimate arguments about how bad any aspect of 3e/Pathfinder is. You just keep labelling it "trash" and "garbage", and expect us to simply accept your assertions. Any time you actually want to contribute something substantive, feel free.