Mearls' Legends and Lore (or, "All Roads Lead to Rome, Redux")

[Umbran]

But, seriously, would these four encounters go over an hour for you? Or eat up your entire session (assuming it is over an hour)? Even in 3e, I wouldn't expect this series of encounters to run too long.....and I found 3e combats to be snail-paced.

Oh, I could push them through in less time, sure. My point is more that at the faster pace, I don't see as they are making the session more interesting for the players, so I question the wisdom of using such a construction to resolve getting through the swamp.

I suppose it comes down to a bit of design philosophy - to me, the half an hour is too long to use to cover something that's supposed to be light detail, but too short to be something that's covered in full detail. It feels to me like it should be 5-10 minutes, or an hour or more.

And certainly, YMMV.

 

[Imaro]

Oh, I could push them through in less time, sure. My point is more that at the faster pace, I don't see as they are making the session more interesting for the players, so I question the wisdom of using such a construction to resolve getting through the swamp.

I suppose it comes down to a bit of design philosophy - to me, the half an hour is too long to use to cover something that's supposed to be light detail, but too short to be something that's covered in full detail. It feels to me like it should be 5-10 minutes, or an hour or more.

And certainly, YMMV.

This touches on one of the reasons I don't think 4e is any better at narrative pacing and thematic play than PF (which was the original point), and may be even worse due to what I consider... rigid design in the SC's basic structure. For those who enjoy it's particualr artificial pacing it's great... but one size doesn't fit all... and that's where I feel alot of it's pacing falls flat for many. As an example this is probably why some people feel 4e's combat drags and is full of fidly record keeping that's worse than 3.x/PF... while others feel it's just the right length and easier to manage than 3.x/PF. That drag and fidliness is about pacing (amongst other things) and 4e's particular structure concerning it. However I've yet to see anything in the actual mechanics that make it objectively better than 3.x/PF for narrative and thematic play.

What I see are some who find it's gamist mechanics suited to their particular desires as far as pacing goes... the thematic thing I just don't see period, it seems to be based in fluff and since fluff is in every edition I don't buy 4e does that objectively better either.

As another example, I could just as easily do the 5-10 min thing in 3.X if I wanted too by simply describing the scene and using a simple skill check by each player at each stage (which would roughly give you the same length of time as SC's in 4e)... However I would rather let the particular table choose the length and level of detail they want in a particular scene, and thus set the pacing that best fits their group.

 

[pemerton]

pemerton keeps claiming that this mechanically-controlled pacing has something to do with "character- and situation-focused narrativist play (...) in which the players build rich and compelling thematic material into their PCs (...) and the GM frames and resolves situations which engage with this thematic material".

You have yet to explain what that dynamic has to do with the topic at hand. If you want this conversation to continue, prove that you have the ability to participate in good faith by explaining that connection.

The 4e combat rules are such that, early in a combat, the monsters will tend to win, wheras somewhere about halfway through the PCs, through drawing on their deeper but more conditional resources (action points, daily powers, healing surges, greater battlefield control, etc) will come back and (typically) win. If the encounter is more than a level or so above the party level, it is likely that in the course of the combat at least one PC will drop unconscious and have to be revived as part of the PCs' come back.

This dynamic of pacing is a deliberate feature of 4e's design. It is achieved by features such as giving PCs but not monsters (other than solos and elites) action points, and powers at the level of daily powers. It is achieved by giving monsters more hit points, but PCs healing surges and greater access to temporary hit points, which access is conditional in various ways, requiring skillful manipulation of the game's action economy. It is achieved by giving PCs better capabilities in movement and control, but which again are often able to be accessed only conditionally (eg movement as an immediate action in resopnse to an attack) and again which require skillful manipulation of the action economy, as well as sound judgement in relation to battlefield positioning and terrain.

<snip>

This is dramatic. It's exciting. And because it requires the players to engage a life-or-death situation using their PCs as vehicles to turn the tide, it opens the door wide to the expression by the players of thematic ideas as part of their resolution of the combat.

That is the explanation. The combat dynamic of 4e unfolds as it does by creating the need for the players to deploy the deeper resources to which they have access, if the PCs are to succeed. And the choices made by players in the course of that deployment are expressive of thematic content/commitments. Unlike (for example) planning for a telepot-ambush in mid-to-high level 3E or RM, they are decisions that are made in the course of resolving a dramatic conflict, under constraints of adversity and antagonism established by that situation. This is what makes them well-suited to expressing those thematic concerns. (As I noted upthread, the contrast here between 3E and 4e reminds me of the similar contrast between RQ and RM.)

I'll let pemerton cover this.

Our main point of disagreement re: 4E is that I don't think 4E provides much support for narrativist play; I think it's a good example of play with a pre-determined theme or dramatic flow. Combat pacing is a good example: combat encounters follow a pre-determined script, PCs coming in apparently weaker than their foes, get knocked down a couple of times, but draw on their superior healing and staying power to come back and defeat the monsters in the end.

I agree about the predetermined flow, but not the predetermined theme. The flow forces the players to choose action - but the variety of action chosen is not prescripted. Even in a party with one of each role, there are different choices to be made that are in part determined by character build (which, as I've post upthread, is one factor in the way players use the 4e game elements to address theme) and in part determined actually in the course of play.

Even as simple a choice as to whether a leader or paladin heals him/herself or heals another PC can be expressive of theme. And because of the robustness of the 4e mechanics over a wide range of PC builds and player choices, it is rare (at least in my experience) for the situation in a combat to foreclose the range of these sorts of choices such that there is only one rational choice if the combat is to be won.

To me, this is a difference from some other mainstream fantasy games, which make it hard to play in a narrativist fashion because they force a trade-off between expressing theme and fighting effecively. At least in my experience to date, 4e doesn't force these trade-offs.

mechanically-enforced pacing seems to run completely contrary to the idea of GM-controlled framing. To take a simple example: Without ignoring the actual rules (which appears to be what both pemerton and Hussar advocate), you can't cut away from scenes in the way that Czege and Edwards argue for when framing scenes.

Mechanically enforced pacing is on some occasions at least orthogonal to scene framing. In the example of 4e combat, for example, the scene framing consists in establishing the terrain and the NPCs/monsters. The pacing then unfolds in the way described above, forcing the players to make the theme-addressing choices.

As I said upthread, unlike Czege (and Edwards) I mostly play in a traditional party fashion, so cut aways don't come up. But there is no reason why a skill challenge (for example) couldn't be resolved with the PCs at different locations, with the resolution of one skill check by PC A at place X then affecting (whether via ingame causal mediatio or at the metagame level) the next skill check by PC B at place Y. In this situation, the mechanical resolution would shape the framing of these scenes - as the first (sub-)situation comes to its climax and is resolved (by making the skill check and determining its consequences), the next (sub-)situation would open up.

Some of the examples of skill challenges in DMG2 are suggestive of this sort of possibility (I'm thinking of the one where the PCs take different sides in negotiation over strategy).

 

[pemerton]

The landscape is swampy river country... thus swamp land, a river crossing or two and any monsters/NPC's who inhabit this environment would be the main obstacles I have at my disposal to create this part of my adventure.

<snip>

So let's look at some of the mechanical conditions we could use to simulate this...

<snip conditions>

I think 3 non-combat challenges and one combat challenge will round this out nicely

<snip>

1st encounter: “Across the Swamp Lands.”: The purpose of this encounter is to simulate travel across the first half of the PC’s journey. The scenario is described for the PC’s with the conflict being a landscape of that they must cross. The PC’s roll for initiative and are then asked, in order, to describe what action or actions concerning this part of the journey their PC’s will make to cross here. The consequences of failure, for any particular PC’s actions, will be tied to one of the above conditions (based on the circumstances) of their particular failure.

How are DCs set? How does a player who is playing a ranger wilderness guide use his/her PC to help the other players? How do I work out the relevant circumstances that determine the relevant consequnces without knowing the terrain and map in detail?

The difference I'm seeing here from a skill challenge is (i) 4e gives very strong support for DC setting, (ii) a skill challenge permits the player of a ranger to take the lead here ("heroic protagonism") and (iii) it doesn't require the detail.

2nd encounter: “The River”: This encounter is centered on crossing a strong running river at the halfway point between the beginning of the swamps and the end of the PC’s journey. Again, the scenario is described and the PC’s are asked how they will go about crossing the river. Failure to cross the river results in the PC’s being soaked and suffering the fatigued condition (or the exhausted condition if they are already fatigued) on top of whatever condition they may have gained from the previous encounter (rising crescendo!!).

How do I resolve the river crossing without needing to know (eg) how wide and deep the river is? Or without having to engage in detail with the PCs' equipment lists?

3rd encounter: “The Hermit’s Hut”: This encounter is a chance for the PC’s to rest and recuperate from the previous encounters. They come upon a small hut inhabited by a slightly eccentric hermit. The hut would provide a warm and dry place to rest but the PC’s must convince, bully, or cajole the hermit into letting them stay. There are also natural materials here that can be used to construct a makeshift shelter if sought out by a PC. If the PC’s do not get adequate rest they suffer the consequences (no healing/no removal of conditons). This is either a comeback for the heroes (removal of conditions), or it highlights the dangers they must face (they must preservere through the adversity)... of course I could shape it either way with a little fudging to portray appropriate themes and narrative structure.

I know how 3E resolves the dealilngs with the hermit (Diplomacy and/or Charm Person). How does it resolve building the hut?

4th encounter: “Bandit Attack”: As the PC’s near their destination, unless they are cautious and aware they are set upon by a pack of bandits who prey upon those emerging from the swamps.

How is caution and awareness resolved? Perception and Steath check? How many? At what DCs?

The questions I'm asking aren't meant to be rhetorical, or pointless niggling. In practice, if I was to run your scenario, they are questions I would have to answer. The skill challenge structure provides answers to them.

In playing a game with a detailed map in which the players engage with the minutiae of the terrain, I also know how to get answers (eg there will be rules for making stealth checks while moving through shrubbery of a certain density, or for throwing a rope and grapple across a river of a certain width).

But I don't have a clear sense of how to answer them if I want to resolve a situation without the degree of minutiae described in the previous paragraph, and without the sort of structure provided by a mechanic like a skill challenge or a HeroQuest extended contest.

My whole point was that player and DM interest will actually determine length devoted to each scene...thus each "scene" will be as long or as short as those at the table want it to be.

How do you achieve this? For example, with crossing the river - you describe how wide and deep it is, the players start looking over their character sheets to see how much rope they have, who has the best STR/DEX for throwing a rope across, etc. You set DCs, rolls are made. It seems to me that this is going to take a certain amount of time to play out regardless of how much time those at the table want to spend on it. Of course the GM could just handwave it - but in my view this is not very conducive to the players driving the resolution of the situatoion ("heroic protagonism").

Depends. What's the actual action that we're resolving?

The easiest solution, of course, would be: "Make a Survival check."

Everyone? Just the player of the ranger? At what DC? These are the questions that I need to answer to resolve the situation. The skill challenge mechanic answers them.

And a Survival check - either by one player, or by every player - doesn't seem to me to achieve the same pacing, and the same dramatic relationship between the activities of particular players and their PCs, and the final outcome, as does the skill challenge I described above.

 

[Imaro]

How are DCs set? How does a player who is playing a ranger wilderness guide use his/her PC to help the other players? How do I work out the relevant circumstances that determine the relevant consequnces without knowing the terrain and map in detail?

The difference I'm seeing here from a skill challenge is (i) 4e gives very strong support for DC setting, (ii) a skill challenge permits the player of a ranger to take the lead here ("heroic protagonism") and (iii) it doesn't require the detail.

This "detail" is only necessary because you are choosing to use it, it's a tool like everything else in 3.x/PF. The skill descriptions make the setting of DC's trivially easy in 3e... especially since their function or the obstacle is what sets them... thus the only thing I need the DC for is the actual obstacle, any other DC's will be determined by the manner in which the PC wants to use the particular skill he chooses.

How do I resolve the river crossing without needing to know (eg) how wide and deep the river is? Or without having to engage in detail with the PCs' equipment lists?

First the +2/-2 rule in Pathfinder is your friend... you want to stay relatively detail free... any equipment that can help adds a +2 (that doesn't stack) and anything that hinders crossing is a -2.

Next we know that a succesful swimming check allows you to move half your movement, since again we are keeping this short and sweet we set the width in the range of one succesful roll for the majority of characters... 15' and since the description of the river is a strong current... the DC=15 to swim... that took me every bit of 10 secs to figure out. Now the thing is if I want this to be a more detailed encounter/scene I can tweak the DC to swim the length of the river when I create it... sorta like adjusting the level, complexity, advantages, etc. in 4e. In other words 4e can get just as complex if you use all the rules.

I know how 3E resolves the dealilngs with the hermit (Diplomacy and/or Charm Person). How does it resolve building the hut?

Who said anything about building a hut... I said makeshift shelter, and thus survival would be the most appropriate skill with a DC of 15.

How is caution and awareness resolved? Perception and Steath check? How many? At what DCs?

You would resolve them vs. the Bandit with the highest perception score. One roll for him and everyone who tries to sneak past would roll vs. that. Perception vs. Bandit with highest Stealth score.

The questions I'm asking aren't meant to be rhetorical, or pointless niggling. In practice, if I was to run your scenario, they are questions I would have to answer. The skill challenge structure provides answers to them.

So do the skill rules in 3.x/Pathfinder... you just refuse to admit it.

In playing a game with a detailed map in which the players engage with the minutiae of the terrain, I also know how to get answers (eg there will be rules for making stealth checks while moving through shrubbery of a certain density, or for throwing a rope and grapple across a river of a certain width).

But I don't have a clear sense of how to answer them if I want to resolve a situation without the degree of minutiae described in the previous paragraph, and without the sort of structure provided by a mechanic like a skill challenge or a HeroQuest extended contest.

Yet I just did... and at a certain point all games including 4e and Heroquest require DM fiat for situations and actions that are unexpected. You will never be able to prepare in advance for every situation... that's what improv is about. IMO, you may prefer a system but once one chooses their system and becomes familiar with either 3.x/PF or 4e it becomes easy to improv with. I honestly get the impression you aren't that familiar with 3.x/PF... am I right?

How do you achieve this? For example, with crossing the river - you describe how wide and deep it is, the players start looking over their character sheets to see how much rope they have, who has the best STR/DEX for throwing a rope across, etc. You set DCs, rolls are made. It seems to me that this is going to take a certain amount of time to play out regardless of how much time those at the table want to spend on it. Of course the GM could just handwave it - but in my view this is not very conducive to the players driving the resolution of the situatoion ("heroic protagonism").

Wait a minute here... I've had the same thing happen in 4e and I think you are being disingenuous if you say it doesn't. My PC's look at who has the best skills... how those skills can be maximized, who can aid who, and so on, to ensure success... it just takes place moreso on the meta-game level than in-game... but it still happens. That said...

Now you're setting up a situation that was not what we were talking about. First you are assuming a DM must have every situation prepared for...not true. in every edition DM calls are necessary. Secondly, you as DM are allowing a quick overland journey to be bogged down in minutae when in fact you don't have to. My initial setup was to have each PC state what they are doing and roll... plain and simple, but now you're changing the parameters of the encounter I set up as DM (RULE 0)... players should know how their skills work so that's not on you as a DM, and I've shown you above how easy it is to set up DC's for obstacles.

What I do find interesting is that you seem to be saying that in 4e having pre-set DC's based on level (as opposed to ther world or even the choices the hero makes)... somehow empowers "heroic protagonism"... and I find that hard to believe. Is this what you are claiming?

Everyone? Just the player of the ranger? At what DC? These are the questions that I need to answer to resolve the situation. The skill challenge mechanic answers them.

These same questions have to be answered in 4e since characters can have the same skills and anyone can choose to act or not to act in a SC... not seeing your point?? I will say the survival skill in PF has a certain number of other people who can benefit from your check that is determined by how high you roll.

And a Survival check - either by one player, or by every player - doesn't seem to me to achieve the same pacing, and the same dramatic relationship between the activities of particular players and their PCs, and the final outcome, as does the skill challenge I described above.

Yet tons of 4e skill challenges have every PC make an endurance check during travel... and tons of players only have the person with the best skill make a check to avoid failures... what's the difference? Basically you're taking how Permeton's particular skill challenges (which I'm not sure are exactly by the book) are designed and how his players appproach them and claiming that bothy of these are because of 4e's skill challenge rules... and they aren't. You're slapping your own coat of narrativist play over a predominately gamist system.

 

[Hussar]

I'm going to disagree... now note, before I continue I never said it gives you mechanically appropriate DC's for the level of your PC's... but 4e's mechanics for deriving DC's most certainly give you an "appropriate" range of DC's for a particular level of challenge. You can use anything however you want, but the actual mechanics support this.

As far as a success counting as multiple or single... it doesn't change the fact that there is a set number of successes or failures you can reach that invalidate the rest of a SC... is this right or wrong?

Correct me if I'm wrong but you seem to be saying if you modify a SC on the fly to make sure it creates the correct pacing... you can control the pacing... well yeah, you can fudge anything in any rpg to control "paciing".

I also keep seeing refrences to play bogging down... IMO, this should be controlled by the players and DM not by the rules of the game, since the rules of the game can't tell you what parts of a game your players will be interested in or want to approach with more detail and what parts they will want to gloss through.

Answering this before I read the next couple of pages (mostly I'm afraid of hitting walls of text that make my eyes glaze over ((Unfortunately, I'm about to make my own wall)) ).

Let's compare between editions.

Situation: The party is traveling across country from A to B. The party does not have any other means of traveling other than mundane (horses, on foot, whatever, no teleport or fly) and the trip will take about four game days, give or take. There is no road, its wilderness trekking.

Pre-4e D&D. To do this, requires a number of checks. There would be some sort of check to determine if the party gets lost (usually made each day) with failure meaning that the trip will be extended. Additionally, there will be periodic checks of random wilderness encounters, with each encounter obviously slowing down the pace of the scenario.

So, we have a situation which might be resolved in a few minutes (PC's don't get lost, no random encounters) or in a much longer time (PC's get lost multiple times, the Dice Gods hate the PC's this day and multiple random encounters occur).

In other words, the DM has zero control over the pacing here. The dice determine pacing. How long or short this scenario is is out of the hands of a (non-fudging) DM.

Now, let's do this from a 4e perspective.

It's a skill challenge. The DM has already decided that at the end of the challenge, the PC's will arrive at their destination. The SC is not meant to determine if they arrive or not, but rather in what condition they will arrive in. It could be lightning fast - each failure costs a healing surge or it could be slower - each failure triggers a different event, with three failures leading to a Lost in the Woods skill challenge where the PC's have to perform a nested skill challenge which wipes out their previous failures and then continue on from the point where they left the main skill challenge.

In other words, pacing is 100% under the control of the DM.

 

[Hussar]

First the +2/-2 rule in Pathfinder is your friend... you want to stay relatively detail free... any equipment that can help adds a +2 (that doesn't stack) and anything that hinders crossing is a -2.

Next we know that a succesful swimming check allows you to move half your movement, since again we are keeping this short and sweet we set the width in the range of one succesful roll for the majority of characters... 15' and since the description of the river is a strong current... the DC=15 to swim... that took me every bit of 10 secs to figure out. Now the thing is if I want this to be a more detailed encounter/scene I can tweak the DC to swim the length of the river when I create it... sorta like adjusting the level, complexity, advantages, etc. in 4e. In other words 4e can get just as complex if you use all the rules.

Sorry, just pulling this one out. I know, context and all that, but, this one speaks to me.

Think about it for a second. In 3e, you tell the players they have to cross a swift moving river and that entails a swim check. Which in turn requires them to take off their armor or start breaking out the spells.

I can see this bogging way down in micro-managing analysis paralysis for many, many groups. "Do we take off our armor?" "Oh, this has to be a trap." "Ok, start searching the surrounding area for ambushes (roll roll roll)" "Detect spells on the river to see if anything's hiding beneath the surface"... on and on and on.

4e's design philosophy is much more up front about it. You don't have a specific river to cross, so, there's no analysis of the river and how to cross it. You simply make your checks and each failure carries some sort of penalty.

And, let's not forget this from the DM's perspective. In 3e you have to stat out combat with the bandits, which takes not an inconsiderable amount of time. Running that combat is going to take the better part of an hour in 3e as well.

This skill challenge, even with the bandits included (Failure number 3 - the party is ambushed by bandits, lose 2 healing surges) could easily be resolved in a few minutes and requires about 10 minutes to set up by the DM.

 

[LostSoul]

It's interesting, Imaro, that you are choosing to ignore certain aspects of 3.5. You're not calling for "Getting Lost" checks (which seem to require a map of some sort; perhaps not) or making random encounter rolls. In addition, your handling of getting a good night's rest and the bandit ambush is to my liking, though not by the rules as far as I can tell.

Maybe you can answer my question about 3.x: When do you call for a skill check? It seems to me that any time you attempt any action that's listed in any of the skill descriptions you must make a check (or Take 10/20). If that's the case, you can see how that would affect the pacing of a game.

What I do find interesting is that you seem to be saying that in 4e having pre-set DC's based on level (as opposed to ther world or even the choices the hero makes)... somehow empowers "heroic protagonism"... and I find that hard to believe. Is this what you are claiming?

There's a reason why this works. Because you don't have to worry about making poor decisions - for the most part, you know what DCs you will be facing - you are free to take thematic actions.

 

[Nagol]

<snip>


4e's design philosophy is much more up front about it. You don't have a specific river to cross, so, there's no analysis of the river and how to cross it. You simply make your checks and each failure carries some sort of penalty.

This seems patently incorrect. As has been expressed in example SCs -- including Jester's sodden ghoul SC upthread, the SC can evolve and include sudden (or hidden) enemy combatants. Thre is nothing that prevents a SC from containing a non-obvious threat such as a Dragon Turtle lurking in the river that is awakened with the first failure.

What you *presented would be true if the SC were run in an 'open' environment where the players understood the scenario presented and made tactical decisions based upon that situation. Others have suggested that SCs are rarely run that way and are more often run 'blind'.

 

[Nagol]

It's interesting, Imaro, that you are choosing to ignore certain aspects of 3.5. You're not calling for "Getting Lost" checks (which seem to require a map of some sort; perhaps not) or making random encounter rolls. In addition, your handling of getting a good night's rest and the bandit ambush is to my liking, though not by the rules as far as I can tell.

Maybe you can answer my question about 3.x: When do you call for a skill check? It seems to me that any time you attempt any action that's listed in any of the skill descriptions you must make a check (or Take 10/20). If that's the case, you can see how that would affect the pacing of a game.



There's a reason why this works. Because you don't have to worry about making poor decisions - for the most part, you know what DCs you will be facing - you are free to take thematic actions.

A question -- how do you know the DCs? Additionally, do you know the ramifications of failure?