D&D 5E My D&D Next Experience at DDXP

[lkj]

Whereas I don't think it's a coincidence . . .
So I don't think it's just me who is getting more from 4e than easy GMing.

I agree it's not just easy DM'ing, but I think it's worth noting that the easy DM'ing is related to the 'driftability' of 4e.

What made 4e work for me was the fact that it was freeing. It handled all the nitty gritty in a way that I (mostly) didn't have to worry about it. It gave me the freedom to focus on story and narrative that I felt I'd been losing.

As I mentioned in another thread, I came to 4e out of a high level 3.5 game-- a game I very much loved incidentally-- But that game was starting to stress me out. I spent all my time prepping the mechanical elements (big baddies and such) that I never had time to engage the story. When 4e came along, I felt free in a way I hadn't since 1e-- I built a whole raft of unique and fun 35th level solos over a few hours one evening. I had the ease of 1e with the mechanical balance and elegance of 4e. It was awesome.

So I embraced 4e wholesale-- because now I was back to being the story guy rather than the guy who was combing through all the supplements trying to make sure I could keep up with my players.

But, as I've said elsewhere, not all my players did. Some got hung up on the overt visibility of the mechanics (roles, power structure, finely tuned level advancment). They all came around eventually, after a lot of fun play. But I do understand why they hesitated. I do get what bothered them.

I have high hopes for D&DN partly because-- for me-- the details of how they implement the mechanics don't matter to me so long as they work smoothly. I'm fine, even excited, to see them bury those mechanics inside the story elements. I think that's a very achievable goal.

In a way, it's interesting for me to realize that the details of the mechs don't matter to me. I don't really care if there are healing surges or powers or the same action economy or roles or anything else. It just needs to work cohesively-- and elegantly-- as a whole. I'd even rather they made the mechanics a bit less overt (though I still want access to how they work . . . I'm funny that way).

By the way, Permerton, I think it might be cool if you explicitly defined what you mean by 'operational' play and its opposite. I think I get what you mean. And I think it's a very interesting way to look at the game. I'd be interested to have you spell it out. I think it might be useful for discussion, as I've not heard it described quite that way before (I'll admit to being a novice at game design talk).

AD

 

[pemerton]

By the way, Permerton, I think it might be cool if you explicitly defined what you mean by 'operational' play and its opposite. I think I get what you mean. And I think it's a very interesting way to look at the game. I'd be interested to have you spell it out. I think it might be useful for discussion, as I've not heard it described quite that way before (I'll admit to being a novice at game design talk).

I picked up the phrase from [MENTION=18280]Raven Crowking[/MENTION], who used to post on these boards but doesn't anymore. He defined the level of operational play as inbetween pure strategy, at one end, and pure tactics, at the other. I think the model he had in mind was (Advanced) Squad Leader - and that is not a surprise, given the prominence of that game among the wargamers who invented D&D!

I'm not quite sure what strategy means in an RPG, so I'll leave that to one side.

Tactics I think of as concerned with resolving an encounter (in the 4e sense - so a present challenge, combat or non-combat). You bring to bear your player resources (which may or may not also be PC resources - depending how metagamey the mechanics are) on the situation. So PC build rules - that give you those resources - meet up with action resolution rules - to work out what happens. For me, this is where the action in an RPG is, but not everyone agrees. (I think everyone agrees its important, but not so important relative to other things as I do.)

When I think of "operational" play, I think of stuff that lies outside the encounter, but still matters to PC build and action resolution. Buying the right gear. Remebering to iron spike the door so that you don't get mauled in your sleep. Packing, and then using, a 10' pole. Keeping close track of the passage of time (especially important to be fair to players with 10 min/lvl or 1 hr/lvl spells on their PCs). Basically, all the stuff that Gary Gygax in the 1st ed AD&D books tells you is really important to being a skilled player and a skilled GM!

Personally, I find all that stuff tedious, but I know some other people really like it.

What I think is the challenge for WotC in a unity edition is that to make operational play important - to make it a challenge to the skill of the players - you have to use techniques like wandering monsters, keeping track of time, putting spells into the game that depend upon keeping track of time, put options into the game that depend on making sensible decisions about risking wandering monsters, etc.

But once the mechanics that make those techniques important are put into the game, my own experience tells me they can be the death of an attempt to run a game where the encounter is the thing - because all those long durations, need to track ammunition and torches, etc, etc, make it hard to transition from encounter to encounter without either (i) the GM just fiating, which in my view is very close to cheating, or (ii) paying attention to all this detail that then suddenly drags the focus of your play from the encounters to operational matters.

Final comments:

(1) The fact that I don't like operational play doesn't mean that I will never pay attention if the PCs don't spike the door shut. It's just that - depending on what else is going on in the game - I might use that as the pretext to present a particular encounter - whereas if the PCs made some other choice, I'd present an encounter turning on that. But the players are no worse off either way. Either way they're going to get an encounter that reflects (in story terms) the choices they've made and builds upon those choices.

(2) The above paragraph doesn't mean that the players' choices don't matter to the challenges that they face. But it focuses those choices to choices made within the context of the encounter. The consequences that flow across encounters will be thematic or story consequences, not more-or-less-likely-to fail consequences. (4e has a little bit of the latter - daily powers, APs, healing surges - but far less than most mainstream fantasy RPGs, and very tightly constrained in the ways that they work.)