Mearls' "Stop, Thief!" Article

[mudlock]

I think Mearls highlights an essential contradiction at the heart of any roleplaying game: it is simultaneously strengthened and weakened by rules which define a PC's options.

THAT truth, and how it has informed the evolution of D&D, would be an interesting topic for an L&L article. But it was not the topic of yesterday's L&L article.

I hope that's what's in Mearls' head, but it certainly didn't come out through his fingers.

 

[Dausuul]

If you have powers and abilities, that are useful in a vacuum, you stop paying attention to what is around you.

This is a point worth giving some thought. One of the things that bugs me about the design of classic 4E is that it has very little room for powers that are situationally useful. Classes are balanced on the premise that your at-will powers will produce X damage, your encounter powers will produce Y, and your daily powers will produce Z. If you have an encounter power that's only useful in 25% of combats, it's going to throw those numbers off.

Contrast my current favorite 4E class, the Executioner. The Executioner is a solid combatant capable of holding its own with the rest of them. But its most devastating powers are not usable in combat at all! The Executioner has the ability to do things like "Target creature is dazed for the entire encounter, no save." But to use that ability, you have to figure out a way to poison the target's food or drink, and there's no rule that tells you when the target will have dinner. It's a situational power that encourages players to find creative ways to produce the desired situation--and in the process requires them to think outside the rules.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

What I read is this:

"Hey, look at what these rules inspired me to do! I really enjoyed that."

I can't see how anyone would see those as bad rules.

*

In my opinion, good rules will inspire you to do things that you wouldn't normally do. If you would normally do such a thing, you don't need rules for it. Rules are there to guide you along a certain path, with the expectation of greater rewards than not having rules.

Meh, I'm going to have to say I disagree, at least in the context of this particular topic about Mearls' reflections on the thief.

Lets illustrate with an example of 3 systems, core OD&D (pre greyhawk, so no thief at all), 1e AD&D, and 4e D&D. The rules in question (stuff rogues can do) is roughly as follows:

OD&D - there are no rules for these things except possibly ability checks.
1e AD&D - there are crappy rules for these things which actually make it hard to run them and make rogues pretty worthless in most situations.
4e AD&D - there are generalized rules for these things, plus page 42.

In OD&D the situation was perfectly acceptable. You could climb, hide, sneak, etc. It was up to the DM to decide exactly how it worked, but these activities WERE "thinking beyond the rules" inherently.

In 1e AD&D things got worse. Climbing, hiding, and sneaking were no longer outside the rules, they were just lame rules that made it so you were totally discouraged from doing these things. Mike's "enjoyment of thinking outside the box" is thus essentially no different than it would have been in OD&D, except the things he'd have been doing in that game actually made the most sense and he only didn't do them in 1e because the rules took them away.

In 4e AD&D you have a sort of in-between situation. Sneaking, climbing, or hiding is no longer "outside the box" as it is covered by the rules. However it is covered in a reasonable way that lets any character try it and makes it a viable option. You can still think outside the box, just as Mike did in 1e with his thief, but again it makes more sense because you're doing it when the situation warrants, not when your sad chance of success forces you to even if logically just sneaking would be more intelligent.

Which is the better set of rules? Depending on your taste and theory of gaming it could be OD&D or it could be 4e D&D, but it will NEVER be the way 1e AD&D did it. That was the WORST OF ALL WORLDS, and illustrates why it really was a fairly poor game design in many respects (and the thief was actually one of the real butt-ends of AD&D). 2e made a bit of progress in this area, but not much.

So, I basically respond to your comment with "If a more minimalist design can be better, then go all the way. Half measures are the worst of all worlds."

 

[Tony Vargas]

This is a point worth giving some thought. One of the things that bugs me about the design of classic 4E is that it has very little room for powers that are situationally useful. Classes are balanced on the premise that your at-will powers will produce X damage, your encounter powers will produce Y, and your daily powers will produce Z. If you have an encounter power that's only useful in 25% of combats, it's going to throw those numbers off.

It's not just about damage, but, yes, 4e used an underlying structure to maintain a never-before-achieved-in-D&D class balance. There were a few highly-situational sacred cows that made it through, like Turn Undead, and some Wizard powers, but in general, the design tended towards making powers and actions in general broadly useful and balanced with eachother.

Highly situational abilities compensated with radical power are inherently imbalancing, since there's no telling how often the situation may come up. In theory, if you fought undead in every encounter for a whole campaign, Turn Undead would have been wildly overpowered (aparently, that's the assumption they're going with, now). I played a Cleric from 1-16 in a campaign that featured Undead in a total of perhaps 8 encounters - most of them at the end of the campaign (yes, I took Healer's Mercy). In 3.5, I played a rogue in a campaign that featured nothing but undead and constructs through 4 full levels of play (I spent a lot of money on Holy Undead Bane arrows and an andamantine construct-bane sword).

4e tried to be balanced and succeeded. It's clear from the change in direction that some people - like the ones making design decisions at WotC at the moment - hated the imposition of game balance on D&D. Game balance is a hard thing to build into a system, very hard to impose on an imbalanced system in play, and it's very easy to blow away with a few house rule. Those who hate balance can break a game easily enough.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I really like the in-combat balance. But I really liked rituals that are actually able to produce damaging effects, if you are able to pull it of in 5 min. I like the poison, Dausul mentions.
And I like the design of the executioner´s at-wills. More powers you vould theoretically do all the time, but limited by beeing in a good situation.

It is not that i despise the encounter powers, that allow the player to influence the narrative, but i really do despise powers that you usually use without paying attention to the action.
Some encounter powers or at-wills look so superior to everything if you don´t look at it in a vacuum. The ranger actually has other at-will powers that are worth looking at. Just none of them having that high damage potential.

Terrain powers are a concept, i am really fond of. Those powers reward clever use of terrain. You really should just say yes, if the thief tries to flambee the troll, setting up the damage high enough to make it worth using in this situation. Or better making it supplement the rogues ability to deal damage, by making it a minor action and dealing one or two ongoing fire damage (save ends)...

it is the DM who makes improvisation work. And it is the rule set that helps inexperienced, lazy or uncreative DM´s (like me).
3e was really helpful, by giving rules for disarming or tripping but those powers were usually too restrictive (just like 1st edition thief skills chances were too low). The concept of encounter powers with prerequisites like combat advantage and actually giving a realistic chance is a definitely better design approach than allowing it all the time but making it useless if you not invest a lot in feats...

(bull rush and grab of 4e are not goof enough later on too...)

 

[Dausuul]

4e tried to be balanced and succeeded. It's clear from the change in direction that some people - like the ones making design decisions at WotC at the moment - hated the imposition of game balance on D&D. Game balance is a hard thing to build into a system, very hard to impose on an imbalanced system in play, and it's very easy to blow away with a few house rule. Those who hate balance can break a game easily enough.

And you obviously want D&D reduced to a board game. Or perhaps World of Warcraft. Can we dispense with the hyperbolic accusations now?

There's a difference between "hates the imposition of game balance" and "thinks the overwhelming focus on game balance has led to sacrificing other important concerns." I'm not advocating a return to the time when the party lived or died on the basis of whether the wizard had prepared the right spell that day, and I doubt Mearls is, either. But there is a place for situational powers within the framework of 4E.

True, the results cannot be perfectly balanced because different DMs will have different priorities; but that's going to be the case regardless. My very first 4E session, I killed the fighter and nearly TPK-ed the party with what should have been a moderate-difficulty encounter, because I sent a bunch of swarms in a tight space at a party without a controller. Such is life.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I really like the in-combat balance. But I really liked rituals that are actually able to produce damaging effects, if you are able to pull it of in 5 min. I like the poison, Dausul mentions.
And I like the design of the executioner´s at-wills. More powers you vould theoretically do all the time, but limited by beeing in a good situation.

I think that WAS the genius of rituals (and other similar things) is that they don't count against any limited slot. So you can for instance make up an Alchemical poison formula for a poison that works in food and it is purely to the good. More of that kind of thing could exist. The great thing about it is that the option CAN be pretty powerful, but since you didn't trade your general utility for it you can just give every class some of that kind of option.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I however believe, the addition of rare components would make alchemy and rituals great. I would totally buy a ritual book that gives guidelines, how to substitute rare items for bland general components (allowing the speeding up or reucing the price)
I would even suggest, that such things get incorporated into a monster manual kind of book...
This would be treasure i am most happy to give out.

 

[Herschel]

They just locked the L&L thread over on the Wizard's site. Looks like the devs just run, lock all their doors, and hide. Happens when people point out mistakes and others fail to acknowledge them and admit it.

Or maybe after several pages of brain-dead troll rantings they decided enough was enough as it didn't serve a purpose any more.

 

[Herschel]

The Thread!

This is also ignoring the fact that every thread regarding the Templar is still open, so if the devs are hiding, they're doing an awful job of it.

-O

Great, now Mike Mearls ruined hiding. Flashlight tag and hide & seek have been stolen from the repertoire of fun for children everywhere. Is there no end to the madness?