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

[Hussar]

As much as I appreciate being the reference of an appeal to authority, it doesn't really map the same.

Of course it doesn't. That's the point really, isn't it?

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the conversation. It's been enlightening.

*gets smart and goes back to lurk mode.*

 

[BryonD]

Cool. So we agree that there is no reason to "lambast" pawsplay.

 

[Imaro]

But, I'm also slowly realizing that this conversation is largely untenable. If we discuss 4e and don't absolutely follow the letter of the rule, then we're accused of intellectual dishonesty. But, if we apply the same discussion rules to other editions, we're accused of being poor DM's and not playing the game right. It's a no win situation.

Wow, IMO this is a totally disingenuous comment. You were shown with examples and logic that the rules of 3.x/PF hadn't been broken, and that you were in fact wrong in certain assumptions... but instead of admitting you were wrong and moving forward... you're playing the victim role... really?

 

[Raven Crowking]

Wow, IMO this is a totally disingenuous comment. You were shown with examples and logic that the rules of 3.x/PF hadn't been broken, and that you were in fact wrong in certain assumptions... but instead of admitting you were wrong and moving forward... you're playing the victim role... really?

Welcome to the Internet.

 

[Umbran]

The contention arose because it was claimed that ths 4e rules are objectively better for running a narrativist game than the editions before it. I disagreed that it was "objectively better". Now please, because I asked this upthread... could you clarify exactly what your stance is, because right now it doesn't seem like you are participating in the same conversation as the rest of us.

I don't have an stance here*. Stances are for attack and defense. I'm not doing either.

I mean, really - it isn't like anyone's ever come up with an objective measure of "gamism", "narrativism" or "simulationism", right? You can't hold up your gamometer to the 4e PHB, or drop GURPS into the narra-chromatograph, and have it ping a number back at you. Of course the thing is subjective.

It then follows that there's no particular reason to agree, no proof that could be offered. After a short while, you'd expect folk to agree to disagree. When you look at several pages of two sides staunchly defending positions and never budging, it starts looking somewhat like an ideological conflict, an ego conflict, or a thinly disguised edition war, none of which are of any real use to anybody.

Pardon me if I thought stepping away from ideology, and back to practical matters might prove more interesting, and less aggravating.


*This is not exactly true - I've already revealed that I think GNS theory is weak sauce. I tend to think that entrenching sides over it is wasted energy.

 

[pawsplay]

Considering the lambasting I got from BryonD for making this sort of claim about 3e, I wonder if you will take a similar level of criticism from the same sources?

Yes, if you use a system without any input from the DM, that system will suck. Totally agree there.

IMO, 4e gives a great deal more guidance to the DM for how and where that input would be most effective, but, obviously there's some disagreement there.

I would also point out something. While I might ciriticise 3e for this or that, I most certainly would not characterize my 3e experiences as negative. I had a barrel of fun with 3e. I just find myself having more fun with 4e.

Then again, it could easily be "the new shiney" effect. I played 3e for almost ten years, weekly and sometimes twice weekly, so, I logged the hell out of a lot of hours in 3e. To the point where relatively minor issues can be magnified beyond their actual importance. Add to that, an almost weekly (and sometimes daily) discussion about 3e, and I'm pretty burned out on the system.

But, I'm also slowly realizing that this conversation is largely untenable. If we discuss 4e and don't absolutely follow the letter of the rule, then we're accused of intellectual dishonesty. But, if we apply the same discussion rules to other editions, we're accused of being poor DM's and not playing the game right. It's a no win situation.

I was not criticizing 4e's playability in my post. I simply made the observation that a 4e Skill Challenge has potential interest as a challenge in storytelling, but almost none as a challenge of statistical or tactical skill. You can't "win" a SC except through luck, or by successfully engaging the imaginary elements and figuring out what sort of resolution is appealing, particularly to the GM. That may very well be the best of all possible game designs, I can't say. But it is what it is.

While I respect that you feel wronged in some respect, I can't discern how I have any ability to salve that wound. It is certainly not my intention to apply a double standard to any game system, or any group of players. Truthfully, I am much more interested in what I would consider points of intellectual worth, than in advancing any particular agenda. Games come and go.

I don't know why you chose to use my post as a jumping-off point to complain about intellectual fairness. I thought the point was making was both minor and non-deragotory.

 

[Hussar]

Pawsplay - your post is just one in a host of posts really, and hardly the most egregious. I mean, it's not like you're claiming that it's the combination of unwritten rules and and assumptions that go beyond what's included in the 3e ruleset that makes 3e great. It's not you who's making drinking games out of things either.

Sure, if we take a bunch of completely unprovable claims (what the unwritten intent of 3e is) and combine it with a lazer focused examination of ONLY what 4e claims and then try to compare editions, it's ultimately impossible.

Sorry, I don't play BryonD&D. I kinda wish I did, because it sounds interesting. But, when I post exact rules quotes, none of which have been refuted beyond, "Well, a good DM just won't use those rules, why aren't you a good DM", and, if I stray a single syllable beyond the RAW of 4e I get monkey piled, why would I think that there is anything of value going to come from this conversation?

 

[Raven Crowking]

Sure, if we take a bunch of completely unprovable claims (what the unwritten intent of 3e is) and combine it with a lazer focused examination of ONLY what 4e claims and then try to compare editions, it's ultimately impossible.

Thankfully, AFAICT, no one is engaged in that. Indeed, the "drinking game" you mentioned was about the quality of the argument used to demonstrate that 4e was superior for "narrativist play" rather than the quality of the game. And, as it quoted examples of contradictions in the argument presented, it was useful from the standpoint of anyone actually following the argument who plays neither 3e nor 4e, and thus has no duck in the quackery.

However, when you look at any game closely, it has some very funny features. Like 1e thieves losing their ability to wear a chain shirt in core 1e. I don't think that is ever completely avoidable; no designer will think of everything.

I note that Pawsplay's description ("I simply made the observation that a 4e Skill Challenge has potential interest as a challenge in storytelling, but almost none as a challenge of statistical or tactical skill. You can't "win" a SC except through luck, or by successfully engaging the imaginary elements and figuring out what sort of resolution is appealing, particularly to the GM.") sounds similar to what you tend to call "Mother May I?" gaming, where you are trying to guess what the GM is thinking.

I have seen better examples of skill challenges here on EN World, but that is the impression I got from the books, too. (Shrug) But then, I'm no expert on the system, nor ever will be, and later books might be better.

It does seem to me, from examining several WotC 4e adventures, though, that their lame skill challenges are also tied into the needs of the Delve format, whereas the interesting skill challenges I've heard about on EN World seem far more organic.....really nothing more than a means to organize the DM's notes. I also note that the DMs with interesting skill challenges seem monolithic (or nearly so) in their willingness to drop X/Y if it seems appropriate, rather than forcing the SC to grind on.


RC

 

[pemerton]

But I think the difference is that he really is putting something in that the 4E designers left out by design.

I don't think this particular claim is true, and I'm not sure what you have in mind - the Andy Collins quote about game elements?

World and Monsters, which talks about how to us the fictional game elements to run an engaging RPG, seems to me to talk exactly about how the 4e fiction incorporates thematic material.

Not if you chose that game piece for its effect in the game world (power choice and role).

In that case, you'd wonder why the DM was picking on you and making you work for your powers and not the player playing a fighter and why the player with the Cleric isn't being pressured into kowtowing to a particular set of proscribed dogma.

And even if the player wants the pact and the flavour to be more centre stage, the DM has to want to bother focusing on a very personal part of character that with focus, could easily render that character impotent or dead. Sometimes, the Dm doesn't not want that type of campaign.

I took it to be a shared assumption between LostSoul's post and my reply that we're talking about narrativist play where the warlock is part of it. If that assumption isn't true, then the sort of approach I talked about would be less appropriate.

And when you consider lines like "a devil-touched hunter using infernal spells to eliminate evil", what is one to make of a pact? My feeling is that Warlocks were designed to be Wolverine-type characters - growly and nasty but they are heroes and support the group when it matters. Obviously this is where we differ.

GMing intragroup conflict in a mainstream party playstyle is tricky. As I've experienced it, it relies on a range of techniques and understandings - mostly informal and developed via familiarity among the players at the table. Done well, it lets "supporting the group" be consistent with "conflicting with the group" (eg via "the enemy of my enemy", or obligations of honour or loyalty that override the lack of friendship).

Yeah, that's true. And it's also true that the Warlock spells - especially the Utility ones - carry a great deal of flavour that facilitates thematic play. I don't think it's quite enough, though. I don't think 4E goes far enough in either the reward cycles or DM/player advice to make thematic play the assumed mode.

I compare Warlocks to Sorcerers in Sorcerer*. The same kind of colour, but there's a huge difference in the amount of thematic material in play and - most importantly, in my opinion - how addressing that thematic play is reinforced by the mechanics and advice in the game.

* - I lifted some things from Sorcerer & Sword for Warlocks in my hack. Great game.

I know of Sorcerer, but don't know it. I find what you say easy to believe.

I was talking to my play group this afternoon before our actual gaming started, and making the point that to try and explain on the internet how we play 4e I have to draw comparisons to games (and GMing techniques, like my favourite quote from Paul Czege) that are the avant garde of RPGing, if it makes sense to talk about RPGing having an avant garde. Whereas our game is in most respects pretty mainstream fantasy.

(Incidentally - on the reward side I use minor quest XPs fairly regularly to make sure that thematic play doesn't cost in terms of the pacing of PC advancement, and it also gets the non-mechanical reward of engaging the table.)

 

[pemerton]

Given the scaling nature of skill challenges, SCs are not only boring from a gamist standpoint, but without GM intervention, entirely arbitrary, barely more evolved than the rolepaying game equivalent of pachinko. In the end, you roll the die and see if you can beat a 7 or higher three times before you don't make it twice, or whatever. It's a crapshoot, almost literally.

So insofar as they are not futile and trivial, SCs operate on a narrativist level. The GM jukes the table in approbation of actions they consider appropriate, the players try to juke the table based on dramatically plausible answers to the problem. The only room for simulation is in the retroactive fluffing of the SC elements to match the DCs you specify and the pairing of ability to skill check.

I simply made the observation that a 4e Skill Challenge has potential interest as a challenge in storytelling, but almost none as a challenge of statistical or tactical skill. You can't "win" a SC except through luck, or by successfully engaging the imaginary elements and figuring out what sort of resolution is appealing, particularly to the GM.

I probably wouldn't put it in quite these terms - I follow your reply to Hussar, but I can see why he found the language a bit harsh! - but I basically agree.

The one point I disagree on is about "appealing to the GM". This is important to an extent, I agree, but I think not as much as you suggest. If you appeal to other players, they will pick up on what you're doing and drive it in a way that a responsive GM will follow (which might still count as appeal, but it's a type of meta-appeal). And the GM, to make the skill challenge work, also has to find ways to appeal to the players.