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

[MrMyth]

I'm not as hung up on balance and I don't consider clever solutions to be trivializing the challenge.

Seriously, creative and balanced are completely different elements of consideration.

Well, yes and no. For myself, having a good way to handle creative abilities in a balanced fashion is a more preferable style of play than needing to handle them entirely by DM fiat, and having to either reject them outright or risk having them trivialize other options.

But I readily get that this won't be everyone's view. I was just putting it forward as something that 4E does well, and as something that is a preference for some gamers.

Actually, Perm brought up the term as if it was an impediment. I simply commented on the irony of his using the term.

Fair enough! I had missed that. Of course, I don't think that the ability to knock enemies around has any real negative impact on the ability to enjoying creative or epic stories, but I do see the irony you were going for there.

Ok. You are not correct. I don't know if you have read comments I've made in the past regarding "pop quiz" gaming, but that, amongst many other issues have a lot more to do with the problem.

I'm not familiar with the specific reference, but yeah, my comments were based on misunderstanding your comment, so my apologies there.

I have also mentioned many many times that creative descriptions can easy be placed on top of the 4E mechanics, which is what you are doing here. But that does nothing to actually solve the problem.

This I'm not so sure about. What I did above wasn't putting a creative description on 4E mechanics - it was simply replacing one mechanical description with another, and wondering if that is part of the issue.

 

[BryonD]

Well, yes and no. For myself, having a good way to handle creative abilities in a balanced fashion is a more preferable style of play than needing to handle them entirely by DM fiat, and having to either reject them outright or risk having them trivialize other options.

But I readily get that this won't be everyone's view. I was just putting it forward as something that 4E does well, and as something that is a preference for some gamers.

I have frequently agreed that there are things 4E does well. And rigorous mathematically, reliable balance is one of those things.

I'm not familiar with the specific reference, but yeah, my comments were based on misunderstanding your comment, so my apologies there.

no problem.

This I'm not so sure about. What I did above wasn't putting a creative description on 4E mechanics - it was simply replacing one mechanical description with another, and wondering if that is part of the issue.

Ok, fair enough.

No. It has nothing to do with the issue.

 

[MrMyth]

I have frequently agreed that there are things 4E does well. And rigorous mathematically, reliable balance is one of those things.

Yeah, I think what I was mainly trying to say was that, at least in my case, I found that having reliable balance - and, specifically, balanced guidelines for the DM - are elements that themselves can encourage and support creative play. Rather than being completely divorced from such activity.

 

[BryonD]

I don't follow that. But I'm glad it works for you.

To me the creative part happens before you think about mechanics and then you just use the mechanics to model the idea. And I *might* consider specifically how to best make my idea fit a good challenge for the party. But if the "right" "cool" idea is too hard or too easy, then the party either gets an easy challenge or has to figure a way to avoid a situation because a natural story flow completely trumps "balance".

So even if I am going back to figure a balanced way to do something, it doesn't encourage or support creativity because the creative part is already done.

 

[pemerton]

Actually, Perm brought up the term as if it was an impediment. I simply commented on the irony of his using the term.

Fair enough! I had missed that. Of course, I don't think that the ability to knock enemies around has any real negative impact on the ability to enjoying creative or epic stories, but I do see the irony you were going for there.

I think you guys might be confusing me with nmns and Cu Roi, who were the ones who wre using the phrase "pushing figures around the battlemap".

Upthread, in response to some comments from Beginning of the End, I suggested that forced movement powers are part of the tools 4e offers for facilitating engaging play. Of course, for that to work, you have to think of them not just in mechanical terms but in terms of what is represented in the fiction (much like a natural 20 is exciting not just because of the mildly improbable outcome it represents, but because of the "perfect hit" that it signals in the fiction).

 

[BryonD]

I think you guys might be confusing me with nmns

eek

100% my bad.
Sorry about that.

 

[triqui]

Maybe I'm completelly wrong, but I see the recent events, and I have a supposition.

1) Wotc retreating of some books that were going to be published this year.

2) Mike Mearls asking for peace among edition's fan base

3) Mike Mearls advocating for change

4) Essentials running 4e in a different way

5) Mike Mearls shiny new weekly article that ends every single week with a poll about "what would you like your DD game will be"

6) Mearls talking about removing complexity, and some parts of the (4e) game he does not like or use (like the approach to cover that 3.5 and 4e have over 3e)

7) MINIATURES being not sold anymore

8) Polls about use of tactical grids

And my supposition is... 5th edition is coming. And I'm not talking about a 4.5, Essentials++ edition. A completelly new brand system, which probably get rid of miniatures and maybe battlegrids (or, more probably, move into virtual battlegrids)

It was prettey obvious that 4e lifespan was getting to it's end. 4 years is almost as long as it can get (3 had 4 years before 3.5 got out, and then they re-sold the basic game to everybody once again). Core books are the big premium sellers. Every other product sells quite less (and that includes de phb2, 3 and the "core options", as well as campaign settings). They sales are tanking (just ask your local store owner). They probably thought they could extend the lifespan a couple more years with Essentials (ala 3.5), but, as they cancelled some of the new Essentials books, probably they found they wont be able to.

Therefore, they'll probably haste up a little bit their plans, and build the 5th edition (or "New really advanced dungeons and dragons" or whatever).

 

[mxyzplk]

How dare you bring this thread back on topic!

And "all signs point to yes."

 

[CuRoi]

There's nothing very dramatic about it. I tend to just use notes that talk about who the different NPCs are and what their relationships are to one another, and what their history is. I've attached a diagram to this post which was actually drawn up my players in our last campaign...

Sort of lost track of this thread, but I mainly wanted to thank you for the example. My players have created a very similar relationship chart, but they did not include every NPC, just the major factions which they then linked back to the party using different colored lines to represent "firendly, neutral, enemy".

I think again that you show you are running a marvelously complex campaign with great detail and advanced story telling. I don't think it thas much to do with the edition and as I've mentioned, I still feel it is done so in spite of the edition, but again we aren't going to agree there so I won't debate it.

I do note, in your example, you chose to use an NPC from a module you liked which had an ability that sounded very much like speak with dead and the NPC would use this to get plot information necessary to the overall goal. I'm just still befuddled why PCs couldn't / shouldn't be allowed to do this as well or how its a "bad thing"? From my experience, it makes them more central to whatever quest they may be working on if they don't have to haul around the DM plot device. Now demons might seek to kidnap one of your players instead of the plot device which would create a very dynamic scenario. To me, thats what you lose when you take away those "I win DnD spells" whcih some people find useful to their stories and others find annoying.

I get the idea of "well if the PCs could do it then anyone can so I can't make a story with that schtick in the first place" - Speak with Dead is vague enough to come up with plenty of reasons why say the dead Queen would not speak to a Demon or its minions or why the dead Queen would only speak her true name to someone fulfilling the quest.

Also, from my experience, the PCs feel the game world has more life to it if the world revolves whether they are involved or not. If larger events transpire and they can either choose to get caught up in them, avoid them, or sometimes are mercilessly swept up in them, it gives the feeling that they are a part of something substantive which they can interact with but not necessarily control. So I'll keep a mix of ongoing timelines and player instigated plots and not limit myself to one or the other. But again, its whatever works for your group.

 

[CuRoi]

Remember that time in LotR when Gandalf teleported to Mount Doom, dropped the ring in, then teleported back? And the book was over in like three paragraphs?

No?

Heh, good one!

Ahh but you are forgetting the time Blasto tried this trick, rolled "similar location" trying to teleport into a place unseen and ended up in a place similar to a fiery caldera surrounded by evil.

Or the time Blasto tried this and he went precisely nowhere, which through research, divination, and further questing led him to discover the interior of the volcano was actually accessed through a demi-plane adjacent to the Elemental planes of Fire and Earth so just Teleporting wasn't an option.