D&D 4E Non-combat 4e stuff

[Dragonblade]

QFT

And could someone please elaborate how previous versions of D&D supported "Deep-Immersion Storytelling" mechanically?

Agreed. No prior edition of D&D ever mechanically supported deep immersion role-playing.

4e is being held to a "standard" that no prior edition of D&D ever met, except through the rosy lens of nostalgia.

 

[I'm A Banana]

We've seen a small glimpse of the combat system. We've gotten some reports on the skills contest system. We know that there will be rituals to facilitate 'peace time' fantasy features. Everything else has always resided in the head space of the players. What are you hoping to see?

and

Please someone explain to me how having a solid combat system has anything to do with every other part of the game ... Where you don't need rules. Or how having rules, where you need them - some how means that they don't care/want you do play the parts where .... again, you don't need rules.

Remember, I want rules when I play a game, and "Make Stuff Up" sucks as a rule. Leaving it all up to my head without any true effect in the game isn't satisfying to me.

So examples of what I'm looking for:

#1: How do I run an adventure where the PC's search for clues about a noble's murder?

#2: What rules help me achieve an atmosphere of "gothic horror" without save-or-flee or save-or-die or level-drain effects?

#3: Can magic items grow with a PC? What is the "market" like for magic items if a PC wants to get rid of them?

#4: In order to stop an evil vizier, a PC wants to run in a general election against him. How do I adjudicate this?

#5: How do I run an adventure where the PC's are stranded in a desert or adrift at sea, slowly starving to death, and fighting each other's competing ideas?

#6: How does PC crafting work? Wizards making magic items, priests making healing potions?

#7: How do I mechanically represent a Tiefling's struggle with his fiendish nature so that the PC doesn't loose control, but it feels like the character does?

#8: Villain design guidelines? How do I threaten the world with an apocalypse?

#9: Adventure pacing. What are the points that PC's should be allowed to have, what should be in between these points of rest?

#10: When a trickster-character's greatest goal is to rob the central bank of my campaign setting, how do I lead him up to that without letting him try it and get killed right away, leading to only a frustrated player?

#11: How can I use planned encounters to complement a theme without making the encounters feel too similar?

Some of these work better with a general system, some of these are guidelines-related issues, some won't be addressed in the PHB1, some are very basic. "Figure it out yourself!" is possible, but it would be tremendous weak sauce in 4e, because "Make Stuff Up" sucks as a rule.

And, for the umpteenth time: Other editions have nothing to do with it.

 

[Andur]

I think most of your answers will be found around June 6th of this year...

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think most of your answers will be found around June 6th of this year...

Well, yeah, but that's my point: I said that it'd be nice to know how the rest of the game works, and we only have the basic idea of the skill system from the D&DXP (which is still a pretty nifty tool).

 

[scholz]

Didn't I read somewhere that 4E will have more elaborate system of interpersonal skills? So you could mechanically determine the result of a battle of wills and the like. Maybe I was dreaming.

 

[MerakSpielman]

Yeah, "deep-immersion storytelling" is a good term for what I'm looking for.

And the previous versions supported it mainly by having lots of out-of-combat uses for skills right there in the rule book, lots of "utility" spells that have little to no direct combat usage, but are still pretty neat (like Mount, Magic Aura, Helping Hand, Commune, Detect Scrying, Control Water, etc., etc.) and useful for specific occasions, magic items that are virtually all "flavor" and creativity (like the all-powerful Immovable Rod. Gods do the players get creative with that one...), and so on.

Are there rules for building a campaign world (like the number and level of people of particular classes in settlements of particular sizes), availability of magic, ability to make money during downtime, crafting skills, and so on and so on.

And it does matter - you can't create a living and vibrant campaign world just using crunchy combat mechanics - for example, you can't have a very good "deep storytelling" world based entirely on the Miniatures Handbook. There's just not enough there for that kind of campaign.

I'm assuming it's all there. After all, I've pre-ordered the books, and I'm already working through ideas in my head based on some of the stuff I've seen (like the "points of light" concept, which is one of the few non-crunch tidbits I've seen).

But like I said in the initial post, I don't follow the leaks and releases closely, so I thought I'd pop in and see if there was anything I've missed. Apparently they've only showcased the mechanics so far. I'll just have to wait to see the other stuff.

 

[Li Shenron]

I don't get that at all, see - Me, and my group never needed rules to role-play, you don't need charts or rolls.. or wtf ever else it is you guys seems to think you need to have "deep immersion"

You don't need rule to tell you how to act in-character.

But you need rules to determine the outcome of out-of-combat tasks.

Without such rules, the outcome of out-of-combat situations is totally at DM's discretion, which means most of the time that the DM will make the players "win/lose" depending on whether she likes how they acted in-character or what they make their characters say. This has a couple of potential problems for groups that don't have a really high trust in the DMs:

- charismatic players trump non-charismatic players more if there aren't out-of-combat rules, which can be unfun for the latter

- player's charisma make the PC's charisma irrelevant in those situations: it means it's hard to even simulate a charismatic character if you're not charismatic yourself

- most often than not, the DM is faced with the dilemma on making the decision based on her taste: did the character tell a good lie to the guards? If the DM makes the PC lose too often, the players starts seeing the DM as unfair; if the DM makes them win too often, it's boring. The average DM will just make it "political" and make them win 2/3 of the times, "whatever... you get past the guard".

Having rules out-of-combat is not a restriction, it's a HELP.

It helps the DM make the final decision: the DM still gives some bonus/penalty to rolls to represent his own adjudication, but if there are rules (and rolls), the players will not complain that the DM is "unfair" if they fail often (they may complain about excessive use of penalties, but not about the actual results).

It helps the players make their character design meaningful: the player may be shy, but a high PC's charisma will compensate on the rolls.

 

[FireLance]

This is one reason why I like the new skill system. The "multiple successes required" abstraction creates more granularity when it comes to overcoming a challenge, and allows for player ability to affect the outcome without making character ability useless. For example, certain actions by the players might result in automatic successes, lowering the number of successes that the characters have to roll for. A simple puzzle might require three successful checks, for example, but if the players are able to solve the puzzle within 2 minutes real time, it might count as two successes, while a partial solution might count as one. The characters ought to be required to roll at least one success, though, so that character ability is still necessary.