Lessons from Game Day [Spoiler Free]

[Roger]

So I DM'ed the Game Day adventure, and learned some useful things about 4E in the process.


1. The players should definitely be making a Monster Knowledge Check when entering an encounter.

There's basically 4 ways to figure out what a monster will do when you enter combat with it:

A. "Oh, it's another kobold. We know what kobolds can do." This approach will kill you dead in 4E.

B. "My encyclopedic knowledge of the MM allows me, the player, to recall that this monster can do these things..." I think a number of players were able to do this with earlier editions, and may be able to do it with 4E in time. Still, I can't really recommend it.

C. "Ouch, that guy just smacked me with his crazy power and now I'm unconscious." I saw a lot of people defaulting to this in the Game Day, and it definitely led to TPKs.

D. "I make a knowledge check!" This is the one I recommend. I recommend the DMs really encourage players to do this if they forget, at least to begin with and for learning purposes.

So, that's my advice. Monster Knowledge Checks. Make them, use them, love them.


2. 4E really is a lot more about saying yes than earlier editions. If you throw a puzzle at the players, keep a close eye on them and listen hard. If they try something that sounds pretty clever or feasible or plausible, let it work. If they all get bored senseless after a few minutes, move on. Don't just stare at them for half an hour.

Also, in combat, let them try that crazy cinematic stuff. You can almost run the entire game using just the DMG pg 42 chart. Have your monsters do crazy cinematic stuff too.


3. Get to the fun already. Especially in a demo game, but even in general, it makes sense to be spending most of your time in encounters. They might be combat, or skill challenges, or roleplaying encounters, but they're where you want to be. Try to squeeze down those gaps between encounters to the minimum amount of time required.


4. Not advice, but just a personal anecdotal observation: As far as I could tell from our local Game Day crowd, the hobby is in fine shape. I'd say something like 75% of the turnout was teen-aged or younger.


Anyway, the day was a lot of fun, the players had fun, the swag was pretty sweet, and all in all I'd do it again in a minute.


Cheers,
Roger

 

[Thunderfoot]

Great stuff - now for a player's perspective:
1. Read your character sheet and now what you can and cannot do. And if you don't know, ask.

2. Listen carefully to what the DM says, he will ALWAYS drop a clue if the adventure/encounter is correctly written - it won't necessarily be obvious but it will be there.

3. Don't split the party! While this has always been sort of a convention in earlier editions its a down right unwritten rule in 4e. Splitting the party (even by a few feet) can lead to certain doom or more importantly a TPK. Encounter powers don't work if there is no rest between encounters and setting off two at once is a sure ticket to death.

4. Use your abilities. Basic anything, attacks, skills, etc is a waste. They give you this neat list of powers, use then, that's what they are there for.

5. Pay close attention to what happens when another player does something because it may affect you via bonuses or other extras (such as moves, attacks, etc.) /This BTW is the one really GOOD thing about this edition, it does award team work through cooperation and not through shoehorning. You don't have to work together, but the benefits are immediately obvious./

6. Always do something, If you are delaying, make sure its for a reason other than because you think you can't act, chances are, you can, you just haven't figured out a decent plan of action.

 

[Wisdom Penalty]

Nothing pleases me more than this:

...just a personal anecdotal observation: As far as I could tell from our local Game Day crowd, the hobby is in fine shape. I'd say something like 75% of the turnout was teen-aged or younger.

Cheers,
The Old Fart

 

[Sigg]

Going to be starting our first 4e campaign in less than 2 weeks, so I appreciate this advice

 

[malraux]

D. "I make a knowledge check!" This is the one I recommend. I recommend the DMs really encourage players to do this if they forget, at least to begin with and for learning purposes.

So, that's my advice. Monster Knowledge Checks. Make them, use them, love them.

One of the elements that I hope 4e helps with is that you can get/give basic info about creatures without just giving away abilities. So you can know that all kobolds are shifty, but that doesn't mean you'll know what the kobold with the net in background can do.

 

[CoryWhiteland]

Thanks for the tips, yo. Gonna start running a game (squee!) on the 13th. Aside: Is there a better day to start a DnD game than Friday the 13th? I think not!

As silly as this may sound, I'm very glad to hear that there's good stuff about running encounters in the DMG. I was able to get a PH before the other two books (damn you, Super-Saver Shipping!) and, as much as I love it what I've seen so far, I'm longing for some direction as to how to run a 4e game. I'm sure after a few sessions I'll have my feet back under me, but it's been a few years since I ran a game, and this is a new ruleset, so I'm looking forward to some good advice.

Anyone else have more pearls of wisdom to cast before my porcine snout?

 

[Rechan]

Our DM (who was bad; I've had him before, I'll just say flat out he was bad) would actually read us the stat block after we made the knowledge checks. Not the AC/REF/etc, but he told us all the abilities a monster had.

I felt that was a little... much.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

Our DM (who was bad; I've had him before, I'll just say flat out he was bad) would actually read us the stat block after we made the knowledge checks. Not the AC/REF/etc, but he told us all the abilities a monster had.

I felt that was a little... much.

That's probably an OK thing to do for a intro to the system game day like this one. I didn't read out the stats, but I did tell the players a lot more than I normally would, so that they could see how the system worked. I did this without invoking any knowledge checks.

That being said, a bad DM can ruin a good idea.

My lessons for the day were this:

1. There is way more that you can do to go with the flow of player ideas. This is really an expansion of Roger's point 2. If a player has a neat or cool idea, you can always reward that player with a skill challenge. Especially with magical effects, the Arcana skill can go a long way, and even longer if you let it.

2. Replacing monsters with traps and traps with monsters really does work. In the second session I ran, I replaced two fire traps in the adventure with giant scorpions hidden in sarcophagi. The "trap" aspect worked almost the same, but with the scorpion tail attack as the default and then the PCs had to fight the scorpions rather than avoid the fire from the trap. It made for a really neat encounter, one I'll use again.

3. PCs can use traps, too. Things turned ugly for the monsters in this adventure when the PCs learned to use certain traps against the monsters. It might have made the encounter a little easier, but the PCs had a blast.

4. The "kill or unconscious" choice when knocking an opponent down to zero rule went over well. I didn't hear any griping about it. (The only griping about it that I heard was from one guy who said he was going to keep playing 3.5 because now a rogue could sneak attack a statue.)

5. Everyone loves the cleric, when they are hurt. The cleric is still pretty in demand when people are hurt. Still the cleric has a number of interesting, party-ingratiating powers early in an encounter. The bonuses to hit were really good.

6. The adventure has places for the wizard to shine in combat, but really only at the end. Much of the time, the wizard was limited to magic missile. Still, that's a pretty decent spell and out of combat the wizard has the best skill checks for getting info in the adventure and for dealing with a certain trap. DMs should be careful when designing adventures to ensure that there are encounters where the area attacks of the wizard can shine.

7. Players need to be told, or learn some other way, that they should move around. There was a great moment where the cleric risked some nasty opportunity attacks so he could be well-placed for a turning attempt. However, I got the sense that players are not too sure about the value of moving into position.

 

[RodneyThompson]

Our DM (who was bad; I've had him before, I'll just say flat out he was bad) would actually read us the stat block after we made the knowledge checks. Not the AC/REF/etc, but he told us all the abilities a monster had.

I felt that was a little... much.

So, Jonathan Tweet mentioned on his blog on Employee Game Day that he liked using transparency when teaching people the game, so I tried doing the same all day yesterday, and I think it works out fantastic for teaching the game. Rather than just reading the stat block, though, I just made sure that, when I used a monster ability, I explained it in detail. So, for example, when the white dragon got its bloodied breath, I stopped the game and explained it in detail, and then said, "OK, now, Durgen, this is a +6 against your Reflex Defense" before I rolled, etc.

In the course of a campaign, though, I wouldn't do that necessarily. However, it's a wonderful teaching tool, and really helps you highlight, "Yes, this system works on its own, without the need for me as the DM to completely alter it in order for us to have a good time." (Note that I'm not implying other games do require GM fudging to be fun, just pointing out that without transparency new player don't really have a chance to see the working system in action.)

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

So, Jonathan Tweet mentioned on his blog on Employee Game Day that he liked using transparency when teaching people the game, so I tried doing the same all day yesterday, and I think it works out fantastic for teaching the game. Rather than just reading the stat block, though, I just made sure that, when I used a monster ability, I explained it in detail. So, for example, when the white dragon got its bloodied breath, I stopped the game and explained it in detail, and then said, "OK, now, Durgen, this is a +6 against your Reflex Defense" before I rolled, etc.

Yes, that's basically how I was doing my initial playtest in our group in the DDXP. Explain a few issues in more details when they come. In my group, basically everyone will eventually run a 4E game (the 3.5 & Pathfinder campaigns will slowly come to an end, or might be converted - non 3.x campaigns will probably continue as long as the DM has adventures ready), so a "sense of wonders" on the mechanics is impossible to hold anyway. And we like understanding the rules we use.