D&D General New Interview with Rob Heinsoo About 4E

[TiQuinn]

It looks like great presentation to me. I'm not looking for flowery language when I'm trying to resolve an action; I want to resolve the action and get on with play.

Or put another way, I want to be immersed in my play, not in the text of the rulebook.

And I’m 100% the opposite.

 

[Undrave]

More importantly, the monster does not exist to be killed by the PCs.

Yes it does, don't kid yourself.

It exists as a creature within its own world,

It doesn't actually. There is no world, just the DM's imagination. You can get immersed in that world all you want, it doesn't change the reality you are essentially directing a play and the freedom that entails.

with needs and, if intelligent, wants, plans, aspirations and abilities that can have an impact in his social sphere. Even in its activities that are on the offensive side, the monster can have spells or qualities that work better out of combat, like reanimating the dead or spreading diseases. I think in an highly magic and supernatural game like D&D, this should be reflected by special abilities on the monster's part.

Yeah and all of these can happen off screen and the PC only need to deal with the consequence. If an action isn't taken in front of the PCs it doesn't matter how it happens, only the consequences do. A monster with stats for activity that doesn't involve the PC is a waste of space on a page. You're the DM, just make them reanimate the dead or spread a disease in town if its something one can do in your world. The particulars don't need to be in the stat block because they don't matter. No matter how good the Orc is at playing the banjo, I don't need to know his Performance skill score because it won't come up. I can just say 'As you approach the Orc, you can hear him playing the banjo beautifully'.

Every published adventure tells you to run it that way. And the examples in the core books to create your own are woefully inadequate and terribly explained. The issue of terribly explaining them to DMs is exacerbated because DMs are also not given the tools to explain them to the players.

Skill challenges feel artificial - like a dice rolling exercise laid over a Choose Your Own Adventure flowchart. My group simply cannot grasp them.

My players don't care enough about their tokens to create a magic item wishlist or player quests. Their characters might as well be the thimble from Monopoly or the green car from the Game of Life.

I think, ideally, players shouldn't realize they're doing a skill challenge at all. You just present them with obstacles, let them propose solutions and you narrate the resolution while keeping track of their success.

 

[Undrave]

Is that's one encounter in 4e or 5e?

In both. The 4e Short Rest is 5 minutes, the 5e short rest is one hour. Both games have the same round length. No ambiguity. 4e calls them 'Encounter Power' but it's the same damn thing as a Short Rest power because they recharge on a Short Rest, only that a 4e Short Rest is ACTUALLY short. An 'encounter' only ends when you take a short rest. This is all spelled out in the rules and there is no ambiguity like you think there is.

 

[Gimby]

Ironically enough, 3.5 Barbarian rage actually does have this ambiguity, as it references "the current encounter" to determine fatigue duration and when it can be activated, this is something that 4e actually cleared up and made less gamey

 

[Retreater]

I think, ideally, players shouldn't realize they're doing a skill challenge at all. You just present them with obstacles, let them propose solutions and you narrate the resolution while keeping track of their success.

But without knowing the framework - and the costs associated with failure - that can instantly pull them out of the game as well.

"I failed a Diplomacy check - why did I lose a Healing Surge?"
"Why can't we just have the barbarian with the highest Endurance check make 4 successes?"
"My highest check is Stealth. I want to use Stealth during the Diplomatic negotiations challenge - why not?"
"Okay, if Riley needs a 12 Perception to succeed, do I also need a 12 Streetwise? What's the difference?"
"Can't we just fight our way through this instead?"

 

[jayoungr]

Whatever you think of 4E, Nentir Vale was a great setting. The points of light idea is solid and still incredibly useful.

I'm pretty neutral on 4E, and I agree that Nentir Vale is cool. I kinda wish they'd make a 5E version of it--I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work for 5E.

 

[Kaiyanwang]

Yes it does, don't kid yourself.

It doesn't actually. There is no world, just the DM's imagination. You can get immersed in that world all you want, it doesn't change the reality you are essentially directing a play and the freedom that entails.

Yeah and all of these can happen off screen and the PC only need to deal with the consequence. If an action isn't taken in front of the PCs it doesn't matter how it happens, only the consequences do. A monster with stats for activity that doesn't involve the PC is a waste of space on a page. You're the DM, just make them reanimate the dead or spread a disease in town if its something one can do in your world. The particulars don't need to be in the stat block because they don't matter. No matter how good the Orc is at playing the banjo, I don't need to know his Performance skill score because it won't come up. I can just say 'As you approach the Orc, you can hear him playing the banjo beautifully'.

I think, ideally, players shouldn't realize they're doing a skill challenge at all. You just present them with obstacles, let them propose solutions and you narrate the resolution while keeping track of their success.

"Don't kid yourself" is not an answer about levels. I gave you a clear in-universe example.

Monsters:
No I am sorry. This is wrong on so many levels and dismissing it is part of what caused the initial negative reaction to 4e. We are repeating the same cycle here.
If I am doing world-building, I also need inspiration on what a monster can do, and the appropriate power level. If I pay a designer to build an Efreeti, I want to know how to handle its wish granting because I guarantee you, that Efreeti will grant wishes.
On top of that, many of those activities WILL involve the PC, just pre-combat or completely out of combat. Disregarding the fact that some NPC could become a cohort or companion or whatever and will be partially handled by the players.
To me, this sounds like a very narrow view of the gameplay. Which is fine as a style as any other - but then if anyone that is not into it bails, please don't be surprised. And don't accuse the people that bail to "not getting 4e" btw.

In both. The 4e Short Rest is 5 minutes, the 5e short rest is one hour. Both games have the same round length. No ambiguity. 4e calls them 'Encounter Power' but it's the same damn thing as a Short Rest power because they recharge on a Short Rest, only that a 4e Short Rest is ACTUALLY short. An 'encounter' only ends when you take a short rest. This is all spelled out in the rules and there is no ambiguity like you think there is.

Fantastic. Thanks. Now stretch the interval to see what I mean.

 

[jayoungr]

"Why can't we just have the barbarian with the highest Endurance check make 4 successes?"

This was the biggest reason why my players (who go back to AD&D) never took to skill challenges.

Well, that and they wanted to just short-circuit the whole thing. I was running an adventure from Scales of War that had a skill challenge to find their way through a forest. They wanted to just tie a rope to the ankle of a person who could fly and have that person direct them.

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

This was the biggest reason why my players (who go back to AD&D) never took to skill challenges.

Well, that and they wanted to just short-circuit the whole thing. I was running an adventure from Scales of War that had a skill challenge to find their way through a forest. They wanted to just tie a rope to the ankle of a person who could fly and have that person direct them.

I am fairly sure that the 4E rules said something about it being possible to bypass the skill challenge if it could be easily circumvented though as I said earlier, it's been a long time since I read the 4E books.

 

[Kaiyanwang]

Ironically enough, 3.5 Barbarian rage actually does have this ambiguity, as it references "the current encounter" to determine fatigue duration and when it can be activated, this is something that 4e actually cleared up and made less gamey

True, but that was a limit of the time, with a novel type of mechanic, and they still bound it to the gameworld with the fatigue mechanic.