"Ducks in the Quackery" has just become the title of my Toon/Call of Cthulhu fusion.
Mearls' Legends and Lore (or, "All Roads Lead to Rome, Redux")
- Thread starter Mercurius
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"Ducks in the Quackery" has just become the title of my Toon/Call of Cthulhu fusion.
BryonD
Hero
I think so. It is funny because I really wasn't thinking about the things you brought up and they could be presented as points against my claim. To me they are not really, but in the general sense, I guess they are.
I don't even use XP any more.
I do like the idea of alignment as an absolute and real force such that one can *be* "good" or "evil". I also like to get away from the whole idea, but in D&D it just works for me.
In 3E you could easily write "good" on your character sheet and then do whatever you want and still be treated mechanically as "good". But I think that is where the idea of it really has no safety net and allows you to play badly if you don't bring your own good play in with it.
But I definitely agree that focusing on flavor the characters is the key. The mechanics themselves, in a perfect world, should be as invisible as they are not just to someone reading The Return of the King, but even as invisible as they are to Frodo.
So I'm not talking about advancement. It isn't the destination, it isn't even the road, it is every moment you are in, at that moment. But, certainly the mechanics become visible in non-perfect world games, such as 3E. And the points you make fit that just fine.
I agree. Thank you
I said that I think I disagree - "think" is a weaker claim than "know".
I also didn't say that I don't know what you're talking about. I said I'm not sure what you have in mind. That is a slightly more polite form of words for "I don't what your evidence is, and am myself inclined to doubt that there is such evidence."
The reason I doubt that there is such evidence is because I've read a lot of what the 4e designers have said, and I don't recall anything that I take as evidence for your claim. I was inviting you to adduce your evidence, and/or to confirm my hypothesis that it's the Andy Collins quote.
I don't see why "game piece" and "theme" are at odds. One thing a game piece can do is bring with it thematic content. This is basically what Worlds and Monsters is about - it is the only D&D book I know that talks about the fictional elements of D&D as game pieces, that is, as elements to be used by the GM in constructing a game with a particular "vibe and atmosphere" (to borrow a phrase from Mercurius). (One exception: the 4e DMG has this sort of discussion in its Languages section.)
Here is the quote from Andy Collins, as per your previous post:
Collins says that a game piece (or game element):
(i) should have a hook that makes it compelling to play;
(ii) should have a story, which is important;
(iii) should have compelling mechanics.
He doesn't deny that (ii) is an instance of (i). He doesn't deny that (iii) can be achieved, in part, because of its relation to or integration with (ii). And if you look at Worlds and Monsters, you in fact see a discussion of exactly how (i), (ii) and (iii) were intended to be integrated in 4e. Monsters (and, in my view, also classes) are intended mechanics that are tactically interesting and support the story/thematic role of that game element.
Has this been achieved perfectly? No - with respect to classes, the archer-ranger is in my view a rather boring class which brings very little to the table in thematic terms, and with respect to monsters I would say that skeletons, for example, don't really bring much either.
But the failures don't exhaust the system, and in my view aren't typical of it.
I think that there are two difficulties that this sort of approach faces, though. I wouldn't say that they're insuperable, but I don't think they're trivial either.
First, the GM gets to arbitrate what it is that will cost you your paladinhood. I think that this is a big issue. At least in my experience, PC "falling" scenarios work when the player takes the lead in judging their PC. This issue can be ameliroated by a more collaborative relationship between player and GM over the meaning of Lawful Good alignment, and the paladin's code. But this will then raise other issues about what alignment is meant to be, and how it is integrated into the game.
Second, once your paladin falls you don't get to play the PC that you built. In D&D, where mechanical build is a big part of the game, this is a pretty big hosing. I can see how it could be the climax of a game, but it would be quite challenging, I think, to carry on with that PC.
I didn't say this. In fact I said something closer to the opposite (and which you quoted), namely, "Every time an infernal warlock uses a power, for example, s/he is drawing on the power of the Nine Hells." Given that using a power is an event in the game that engages the action resolution mechanics of the game, this is a very high degree of mechanical support for the introduction of conflict.
What I did say is that the Warlock is not mechanically tested. The testing of the warlock happens primarily in the fiction. That's not to say that the consequences of that testing don't play out mechanically - for example, they might inform a skill challenge, or in an episode of exploration that deploys the action resolution mechanics, or they might inform a combat encounter (either it's design or it's resolution).
An actual example from play, although pertaining to a chaos sorcerer rather than a warlock. After returning from their travels to the past in a type of trance-state (as described in more detail in this actual play post), the PCs slept while the witches who had sent them into the past placed new enchantments on the PCs items.
During their sleep, each of the PCs had a dream pertaining to various past and future events in the campaign. The chaos sorcerer (who is a renegade drow and a member of a secret cult of Corellon) dreamed of a powerful being appearing on a strange world and crushing Lolth like a spider beneath its foot. When he awoke, a strange rune was inscribed both on his demonskin (which he has been cutting from defeated demons as part of his preparation to become a Demonskin Adept) and also on the inside of his eyelids, so that he sees it whenever he blinks.
Now the initial reasoning behind my deciding on the eyelids thing was that part of the Demonskin Adept paragon path is that a successful crit blinds both the PC and the target of the attack scoring the crit. So this was primarily anticipatory of how the PC will be developing. But in the very same session it came into play in ways that I hadn't thought about when I initially introduced it - for example, as relevant to resolving some social interactions with the witches, and then in a a combat encounter with a quasit.
A system that takes a less simulationist approach both to the injection of complication into a situation, and to the fictional interpretation of mechanical resolutions of those complications, in my view makes it easier to incorporate this sort of material.
Is the absence of mechanical alignment a mechanical feature of the game? I don't know - is there more at stake in that question than mere semantics?
Upthread I talked about race design and description, and you criticised me for departing from a discussion about "rules". Now you're talking about "mechanics" as if it's a narrow and self-evident category. You're the one who introduced notions of rules and mechanics as pivotal notions in the discussion. (BryonD has also talked about "role playing "on top" of the system".)
My claim was about 4e - and I've articulated that claim with reference to character build rules (including racial and class descriptive text), action resolution mechanics (including the way in which these affect and require engagement with the fiction, and also page 42), encounter building guidelines, the XP and treasure system, the GMing advice in Worlds and Monsters, the monster building rules (including minion as a metagame status), etc. I don't make any particular claim as to which of these is rules or mechanics or system and what is something else. But this is what was in the books I bought, and this is what I use to run my game.
The two alleged contradictions, I think, were in relation to the "minionising" Arcana check, and in relation to the Athletics rules.
I pointed out that 4e has two modes of action resolution - with distinct headings calling them out both in the PHB and the DMG - namely, skill challenges and tactical/combat encounters (there's also a third mode, namely, exploration, but that doesn't seem to have been in issue in this thread). The tactical rules under Athletics are clearly only for the tactical/combat encounters.
Is this claim controversial? Does 3E also have mutliple modes of action resolution, and hence multiple modes of skill use, that I missed in my PHB?
I won't repeat my discussion of "minionising" and page 42, and its close resemblance to a published example of using social skills to do damage. But how is using page 42 ignoring the rules? And does 3E have some equivalent to page 42, and/or metagame minion mechanics, and/or using social skills to inflict hit point loss, that I'm not familiar with?
Is the claim, then, that 4e doesn't suit simulationist gaming one about what some people find better, based upon their style? Or an objective claim? What about the claim that 3E supports serious RPGing better than 4e?
I also don't actually agree that no one would be arguing with me if I confined my claims in the fashion you suggest. At least some posters here are telling me that 3E does everything worthwhile that 4e does, only better, and hence strongly implying (in fact sometimes actually asserting) that I'm confused about both systems, what their capabilities are, and what sort of game that they support.
As I've said - apparently everyone agrees that 4e is different from 3E, except nearly everyone who doesn't like 4e also agrees that 4e does nothing that 3E can't do better. So that, apparently, 4e is different from 3E only in having fewer and weaker capabilities as an RPG. From which it apparently follows that anyone who prefers 4e to 3E is confused about what each system can do, and/or doesn't know the rules, and/or doesn't follow the rules, and/or has never had the good fortune to play in a decent 3E game, and/or is a railroading GM, and/or . . . well, maybe that's about it, although I'm sure there're a few other imputed failings that I've forgotten to list.
EDIT: RC, that looks like a rant against you and in fact it's not - I'm sure your suggestion is well intentioned, but for the reasons I've given I don't believe that it would actually make any significant difference to the tone or content of this thread.
What I would like to see, instead of being told that I'm wrong about what 4e does and can do, are some acutal examples of how 3E has been used by posters here to play in a narrativist (in the Forge sense) fashion.
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pawsplay
Hero
Who says that? That would be crazy talk.
EDIT: Look, here's me in 2008, talking about how to get 3e to do somethings more like 4e does them:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/blogs/pawsplay/1102-what-3e-gamer-can-learn-4e.html
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BryonD
Hero
If you are spinning everything else the same way you are spinning this quote, then of course you would not see it.
He is specifically contrasting 4E to the design approach of prior editions. And since he didn't work on editions prior to 3E, it is easy to narrow his point down.
Yes, he is saying they have a "hook" and "story", but the POINT he is making is that those were there before and the 4e innovation is rebalancing those issue to make room for a new focus on "game pieces" functionally comparable to other game pieces. The existing hooks and stories are making room for this and in the full quote he actually makes examples of monks saying you don't need someone who jumps when a wizard can fly.
Can you understand that for many of us the concept of the fantasy monk is the concept of the fantasy monk. Whether or not wizards can fly has no input to that concept. And if you start making it have input you are doing harm.
But in the end, most importantly, I am not pointing at Andy's quote as evidence that this is a problem for 4E. I knew it was a problem long before I ever heard Andy's quote. I can point at the 4E PHB as my proof. I point at Andy's comment as proof that they knew it and did it intentionally.
BryonD
Hero
Is ANYONE other than you hung up on the Forge red herring?
The problem has been well defined with no need to muddy the waters with Forge ambiguities.
Imaro
Legend
No one in this entire thread has posted anything resembling this. Hyperbole doesn't make your argument stronger.
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