New Staff Blog: Run Away!

[RangerWickett]

El Madhi, I really don't see any sort of bashing, insult, or even judgement in the blog's statement. Unless one thinks that "focusing fire" is a morally righteous thing, and that Schwalb insulted previous editions by claiming they were less righteous, I cannot understand how you're interpreting what he said as being negative.

It's as if he had said, "4th edition encouraged people to put 18s in their primary stat." Yes, the statement is true. And yes, it neglects that in other editions people also wanted to have 18s in their primary stat. But it's neither a criticism nor a compliment. It's just a statement.

Could you explain what it is about his post that you find potentially inflammatory?

 

[Stoat]

I generally prefer to make decisions about how NPC's respond during combat myself rather than deferring to the dice.

Moreover, my recollection of the 2E Morale rules is that they were entirely too fiddly. Not only did each monster/NPC have its own morale score, there was a table of situational modifies to apply to that score, and a table detailing the circumstances under which the DM should check morale. I didn't like it in 1990, and I wouldn't like it now.

 

[El Mahdi]

El Madhi, I really don't see any sort of bashing, insult, or even judgement in the blog's statement. Unless one thinks that "focusing fire" is a morally righteous thing, and that Schwalb insulted previous editions by claiming they were less righteous, I cannot understand how you're interpreting what he said as being negative.

It's as if he had said, "4th edition encouraged people to put 18s in their primary stat." Yes, the statement is true. And yes, it neglects that in other editions people also wanted to have 18s in their primary stat. But it's neither a criticism nor a compliment. It's just a statement.

Could you explain what it is about his post that you find potentially inflammatory?

He does portray the need for focus fire as a negative, and says that 4E is the edition that taught it's necessity to the fan base. Boiled down, that's saying: Focus Fire is bad, and 4E is responsible for it.

That may not what he intended to say, and that may not be what he meant, but it is how it reads to some...and not just because they are biased towards 4E (as I am not). If I picked up on it, you can be certain that a good number of 4E fans picked up on it. And that spells a problem for WotC.

Such communication with the fans, communications with this kind of tone, is what turned off a lot of people to 4E even before it came out. It was one of the contributing factors to the extreme devisiveness that WotC is trying to rectify with 5E. Avoiding even the appearance of such things is paramount in communication with the fan base because of those past problems. That may not seem fair, but it is simply a fact of life for WotC now.

That blog entry came dangerously close to the type of things that caused problems in the run-up to 4E, and needs to be avoided as if one is walking through a mine field (which in essence, those on the design team are doing just that). Forgetting those lessons, and not remaining vigilant about avoiding those problems could be catastrophic to 5E's chances.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Dammit! It was, wasn't it...?!?

Just after I recently challenged anyone to show examples of 4E bashing in WotC's statements, and none were able to do so because there just hasn't been any...Evil_Reverend comes along and serves up a big old steaming meatball of bashing!!!

Stupid!

That post really smacked of the same tone as the releases leading up to 4E. Evil_Reverend is walking a very dangerous line, one that can do no good service for 5E. Just phenomonally Stupid!

They need to be very, very, very careful...and Evil_Reverend needs to seriously dial it back.

Is this supposed to be some parody making fun of angry 4E fans? Weren't you arguing with me the other day that I wasn't giving 5E a fair shake and getting angry over nothing?

 

[Thaumaturge]

I'd also like to know how commenting on something that was explicitly spelled out in the article is "off-topic," while we are cleaning up any misunderstandings.

I didn't mean it as an attack. If it came off that way, I apologize. I was more commenting on how we, collectively, seem to go pretty quickly from discussing the main point of these blog posts or articles (morale rules) to discussing an implication of those articles.

Your comment, and ensuing discussion, aren't off-topic like discussing reading baboons is off-topic, obviously. It's just a small piece of the greater whole.

I've probably just spent too much time reading threads debating DM fiat instead of discussing design goals.

Carry on.
Thaumaturge.

 

[El Mahdi]

As to the actual subject: a Morale Mechanic...I'll say the same thing here that I said at the WotC site.

I don't particularly care for a Morale Mechanic, but I can see the attractiveness to those that do. I think it would make a good add-on, and should be present as one. I may even find myself occasionally using it. But if it wasn't there, I probably wouldn't notice it's absence.

 

[Thaumaturge]

The thing I like about morale rules is it helps resolve a combat (in any edition) that is becoming long and boring. Yes, I can just say, 'ok. Y'all win.' and I have. But like I mentioned before, it's nice to have a designer give me a quick indication as to which NPCs are likely to break first. Or likely to break at all.

I think it's been discussed elsewhere, that the best way to teach players that it's ok to flee a tough combat is to have NPCs do it first. Morale rules can aide the DM in that.

I also disagree with the idea that just because it is a mechanical reality for NPCs, that it should be a mechanical reality for PCs as well. No edition of D&D has forced the DM to track xp for NPCs, like recurring villains, to ensure they level at the same rate as PCs. Some rules are DM facing, and some are PC facing. While we may disagree on how many rules should split like that, surely we can agree at least some always have been.

Thaumaturge.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I don't think having good rules for morale would be that bad of a thing, especially since we've never had good rules for it.

Mostly I just have the monsters flee when appropriate when I DM.

 

[Gryph]

I never played older editions with morale checks, so how did they decrease the necessity of focus-fire tactics? Seems to me that you would still want to focus fire. In the Total War RTS series, one of the first tips the game always gives you is to concentrate fire on a single unit so that it flees, reducing the morale of nearby units and beginning a cascade of retreat.

The largest intersection was the modifiers for number of wounded targets on a side. The morale rules had some reinforcement that wounding a significant portion of the enemy was as good as killing one or two.

They certainly never stopped any of the groups I played with from focus firing, but we tended to use it more strategically. For instance, taking out high value targets like healers or chiefs because losing them had a higher impact on the fight (and the morale roll).

 

[Gryph]

4E does not "teach" anyone to use focus fire. I dare you to find even one quote, or one section, describing focus fire as a tactic and how to use it in a 4E rule book. (And if you do, I'd bet you can find similar advice in every other D&D edition.)

The mechanics of the game may make it useful to use as a tactic, but it's definitely not the first edition for which this is true, nor does 4E explicitly promote it, describe it, or "teach" it...at least not any more than any other edition.

Come on, Man!

The Players Strategy Guide (is that the right name?), the book with the illo by Gabe from PA, had a prominent section on the effectiveness of Focus Fire. A section I had my son point out to the rest of his fellow players who needed to be told about it.