Musings on the "I Win" Button

[Thasmodious]

Yes indeed. The whole automatic win and I can do everyone's job problem only happened with the release of 3E. Plentiful cheap scrolls and wands, and the extreme difficulty of disrupting a spell due to turn based initiative created these problems.

Rem's right that it was possible before, but it took some deliberate manipulation of the system, rather than it being part and parcel like it was in 3e. 3e was kind of the perfect storm for that - increased spell access and the ease of "minor" item creation in potions and scrolls, wands, etc., left casters walking around with exponentially more spell availability than in older editions. A wizard was supposed to carefully choose his spells, buy more, create potions and scrolls of all his utility spells cheaply - all the controls on utility older editions had were shot. Wizards could be all things at all times.

I don't think the IWB was much of a problem in older editions and its not much of a problem in 4e. I like, in general, the way that 4e handles things, with a lot of spell powers being much more personal or limited, while more party based results come from rituals (with their own inherent controls). Yet another example of why I think 3e was the aberrant edition to the D&D line rather than 4e.

 

[Raven Crowking]

And this bad guy rescue is supposedly not Deus Ex Machina for your plot?....

I don't prep adventures that require specific outcomes. Ergo, my "plot" doesn't exist in the sense you mean. What I refer to is that, in old-school play, spell use is often rationed because one doesn't know automatically what the biggest battle of the night will be. Using an "I Win" button that isn't needed is a dubious tactic, at best.


RC

 

[Garthanos]

Rem's right that it was possible before, but it took some deliberate manipulation of the system, rather than it being part and parcel like it was in 3e.

Note from a wargaming perspective... doing the 5 minute day to refuel your big guns... unless there is a "very very" real reason not to makes perfect sense and so wizards were being played like war game playing pieces. Nothing nefarious about it. Win and take a rest was playing smart... did dms make it too easy?

I am unconvinced... there were things in the system and desires of players and dms which in combination encouraged these things to happen (and it might have been largely accidental not people gaming the system) as both phenomena happened. I think people wanted to play brave heros... so healing potions to make battle less nasty.... I think low level wizards needed wands to even feel like a wizard... unless they had something that could be win then take a rest.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I don't prep adventures that require specific outcomes. Ergo, my "plot" doesn't exist in the sense you mean.

That's, of course, great for you.
I like stories. I like it when I have a story in mind and the players interact with it and see where it goes off track.

But you don't really need a "planned" story to get an anti-climax. All you could do is establish a powerful foe that is obviously a threat in the area that the PCs hear from a while and eventually decide to deal with. They have killed his minions, they have heard the rumors ("planted" by you as the sandbox DM to ensure that the players could make informed decisions whether to go there or not).
They eventually meet him, he fails his fortitude save vs death, and the fight is over. That is anti-climatic, even if you didn't have a plot written down where the PCs had to kill him or something. He was just a guy with his own motivations and goals, anything could have happened, but in the end something specific happened, creating a narrative that the players - consciously or unconsciously - experienced and the narrative ends with a non-exciting combat. The narrative feels off.

What I refer to is that, in old-school play, spell use is often rationed because one doesn't know automatically what the biggest battle of the night will be. Using an "I Win" button that isn't needed is a dubious tactic, at best.

Though if you have the time, every fight can be the biggest battle of the day. It's also the only on.

If you don't have the time, it becomes interesting and challenging.

 

[Raven Crowking]

That may be anti-climactic for you. (Shrug)

I find that the occasional surprisingly easy win works just fine. Of course, I'm not running a game where combats take 30+ minutes each, so I suspect that the metric is very different between your experience and mine.

 

[Stoat]

That may be anti-climactic for you. (Shrug)

I find that the occasional surprisingly easy win works just fine. Of course, I'm not running a game where combats take 30+ minutes each, so I suspect that the metric is very different between your experience and mine.

As I understand it, the complaint about the I Win Button is that it leads to frequently easy wins, not occasional suprisingly easy wins.

 

[Oni]

As I understand it, the complaint about the I Win Button is that it leads to frequently easy wins, not occasional suprisingly easy wins.

That depends though very much on how you are playing the game. As I was saying before I think rules that worked fine with the original conceptions of play style don't hold up as well when divorced from that play style. So you have rules that have changed over time to reduce annoyances (though it turns out that those annoyances were often balancing factors) to players, but at the same time have not strayed so far from their roots to have adapted to new play styles. In essence form no longer follows function.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I like the we win button and the narrative goal.

And I think 4e does a good job at doing this.

Both things can easily be modeled by rituals.

Improving the rogues skills: summon the magic picklock.

Killing the BBEG: finding his true name, getting a bit of his blood (Only bloody or crit him and then retreat.) Beginning the ritual and lure him into the trap. Done
Maybe use forced movement powers to bring him into the disguised circle of power. Done.

Rituals are a system not used enough to model the old Wizard of older editions. And actually it is a great system to allow real magic without stepping on the other characters toes.

(In older editions there were a lot of spells which are more rituals than powers. There are so many spells which take 1 round of actions (1 min before 3.5) One turn (10 min) or even hours to complete. And those had high component costs...

So we win. n.p.^^

 

[Cadfan]

If there's one argument I wish I could toss into the fires of mount doom, it would be the argument that something "imaginative" is occurring when a player selects a spell from a list and uses it in the intended manner.

 

[Hussar]

The White Raven Manuever style I Win Button is probably the best way to go.

Something that I really liked in the PHB2 (3.5e) ((Jeez, how long do these acronyms have to get?)) was the group tactics training. I'm not using the right name for it and I'm too lazy to look it up, but, essentially the group would spend some in game time training specific maneuvers based on the capabilities of the group. Things like group charging, setting watches, stuff like that.

I think that you could possibly use the same sort of thing in any edition. The party works together to come up with certain tactics and gain bonuses if they set up the encounter where they can use those tactics. Like White Raven's Charge in Bo9S, the more difficult it is to pull off the group tactic, the more damaging it becomes.

Although, I wonder if this is stepping too much on the controller's toes in 4e.