D&D 4E Pemertonian Scene Framing and 4e DMing Restarted

[Nemesis Destiny]

Well... I think that's an edition-independent issue with Adventure Path type play. I ran into this playing Rise of the Runelords (the updated, Pathfinder version) recently. Basically we get told we have to do the set encounters in order to progress the plot. So our PCs have to be tough enough to win the encounters. So we have to focus on charbuild, on min-maxing for combat. We're not really allowed to go 'around' the encounters - and even if we were, we wouldn't get the XP, so future encounters would become impossible. It's an issue I'm facing converting Curse of the Crimson Throne to 4e; I don't want it to feel linear, I think there's a lot of potential there which can be brought out if I can avoid railroading the adventure. One thing I've done a lot of is think of alternate ways scenes might play out.
I think 4e adventures can suffer from this just as much as other editions, if 4e is better at all it's just that the fights are less swingy, so you don't need to min-max as much to win pretty reliably (pace Irontooth). My impression is that some of the Paizo AP boss fights run by an impartial GM will TPK all but the most min-maxed parties.

I don't think min-maxing stops players from 'adding colour' to their characters via roleplay, though; it doesn't necessitate pawn stance.

This might be veering a little off the main topic, but this caught my attention.

I had no idea that the Pathfinder APs were so deadly! I guess that can be an issue when writing an adventure for a system with such a wide range of variability in PC effectiveness - where is the "sweet spot" to design around?

You could make it such that almost any group of unoptimized characters could win out, but then the CharOp crowd is facerolling through, requiring the DM to work a lot harder to challenge them, or you could do the opposite, as they apparently have, and make it near-impossible to beat without a min-maxed group, similar to WotC's own Lair Assault series of Organized Play modules, but then everyone who doesn't care to optimize is left banging their heads into a wall.

I can see how it might be pretty satisfying to the CharOppers that want to be challenged, even moderate ones, but there should be some kind of guideline for adjusting the encounters for "weaker" parties, or even mixed ones as I imagine most are.

Getting a back to the subject at hand, I absolutely agree that min-maxing doesn't necessitate pawn-stance. I once thought it did, until I learned to open my mind a little more. I think that back when I subscribed to the Stormwind Fallacy, my experiences were coloured by those CharOp folk that I knew, who did not roleplay much and mostly took pawn stance all the time, and even exhibited other playstyles that I found undesirable at my table, such as "turtling" and generally rules-lawyering the DM to death.

 

[S'mon]

Getting a back to the subject at hand, I absolutely agree that min-maxing doesn't necessitate pawn-stance. I once thought it did, until I learned to open my mind a little more. I think that back when I subscribed to the Stormwind Fallacy, my experiences were coloured by those CharOp folk that I knew, who did not roleplay much and mostly took pawn stance all the time, and even exhibited other playstyles that I found undesirable at my table, such as "turtling" and generally rules-lawyering the DM to death.

Yeah, you do get the occasional player who does all those things. But I don't think linear/railroady play encourages pawn stance, so I think I disagree with pemerton there. Nor does it encourage turtling - it encourages min-maxing enough that you can beat the encounters, and a 'follow the dots' approach. A willingness to follow the dots is the opposite of turtling - you have to come out of your shell to follow the dots.
A player used to linear play can seem passive or overly reactive in more open play, but I don't think this amounts to the 'brain damage' Edwards was claiming in relation to '90s games especially.

 

[S'mon]

I had no idea that the Pathfinder APs were so deadly! I guess that can be an issue when writing an adventure for a system with such a wide range of variability in PC effectiveness - where is the "sweet spot" to design around?

My experience is that it seems more that the game is very swingy, and it's very easy to design a super-lethal encounter without trying. We were happily strolling through Burnt Offerings beating all the encounters easily, then we ran into Chief Ripnugget and his guards and got kerbstomped. Some kind GMing let our survivors flee under cover of our Druid's Obscuring Mist, carrying the bodies of our fallen, me included, and somehow nobody died. Then this happened again next session with Ripnugget's boss Nualia. At that point I was getting a bit tired of it.

 

[Storminator]

But I don't think linear/railroady play encourages pawn stance, so I think I disagree with pemerton there.

I think it's the multiple, quick deaths that encourages pawn stance.

PS

 

[pemerton]

I don't think linear/railroady play encourages pawn stance, so I think I disagree with pemerton there. Nor does it encourage turtling - it encourages min-maxing enough that you can beat the encounters, and a 'follow the dots' approach. A willingness to follow the dots is the opposite of turtling - you have to come out of your shell to follow the dots.

I keep forgetting how extreme "turtling" is in your usage/experience - I've still got the Edwards "won't do anything beyond follow basic cues" picture in mind.

On pawn stance, I'm sure [MENTION=305]Storminator[/MENTION] has identified one possible causal pathway. What I had in mind was something like this - a player in a game with strong GM force won't tend build a PC who is open to and engaged with the gameworld, because that space has been crowded out by, and is dictated by, the GM. So instead you get PCs whose character is all about colour - their style in boots, their quips, their obsession with haggling with shopkeepers, etc - rather than about situation and action; or you get PCs where that stuff is irrelevant because the player works on the mechanical stuff that the GM can't control.

When I write it down like that it's not quite pawn stance - at least the first of the two approaches I describe isn't pawn stance - but it's something short of full-blooded play, at least in my view. It's not a player using their PC to seize the ingame situation by the horns, which is what I tend to think of RPGs as being about.

I realise I'm generalising a lot here, and probably drawing too heavily on my own personal combination of experiences (especially in the 90s) and subsequent use of The Forge to analyse and interpret those experiences (which prior to The Forge were for me just "bad GMs" and "irritating players", with little understanding or analysis). But I'm going to compound that anyway and draw another tenuous link: I find it quite common to read (on these boards, and in other RPG commentary) about player-initiated (or sometimes framed as PC-initiated) "side quests", in which the PC's personal story gets told against the backdrop of the "real" story, which is the campaign story. And I think that way of thinking is linked to the same sort of GM force, non-full-blooded playing outlook.

Whereas I much prefer a game where the campaign story is the PCs' personal story. This is what I see a scene-framing approach helping with. I also think it fits with [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION]'s remarks on the earlier thread that scene-framing is first and foremost about character, with the time-management aspect being a secondary technique deployed in pursuit of that character-oriented play. And it also reminds me of a conversation on some other thread in the past 6 months or so beteen [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] and me, where I mentioned Marvel-style team superhero comics - and especially Claremon'ts X-Men - as an influence on my GMing approach. Because what is gonzo fantasy scene-framing RPGing, but a team of superheroes whose personal stories get told as part and parcel of telling the story of the fate of the very omniverse!

 

[Hussar]

On pawn stance, I'm sure @Storminator has identified one possible causal pathway. What I had in mind was something like this - a player in a game with strong GM force won't tend build a PC who is open to and engaged with the gameworld, because that space has been crowded out by, and is dictated by, the GM. So instead you get PCs whose character is all about colour - their style in boots, their quips, their obsession with haggling with shopkeepers, etc - rather than about situation and action; or you get PCs where that stuff is irrelevant because the player works on the mechanical stuff that the GM can't control.

I think this is a big, big part of things. Particularly the bolded part. This is something I've seen as a player fairly often. And, you see it crop up in discussions about things like Character creation. Some people talk about how the DM's word should be law during chargen and it's the DM's "vision" of the campaign that should trump all other considerations.

Put that into this context where player creativity gets pushed to the curbside because the DM has already created the game space. The player has to conform to the DM's ideas in order to play. And, IME, that often results in players going into pawn stance (if I'm using that term correctly) because they know that if they try to do anything else, the DM will just veto it. The DM has shown that he won't veto mechanical stuff, so, that's where the players focus their attention.

IOW, what's the point of coming up with this cool character if it's never going to come up in game?

Now, to be fair, I do go the other way as well. If you want your cool backstory to matter in the game, it's your responsibility to make it a thing in the game. If you want to rescue your kidnapped gerbil, then you better be talking about that gerbil in character from time to time. You better be trying to find it when opportunities present itself. That sort of thing. Otherwise, it's just some fanfic on a piece of paper and I don't care.

So, IMO, there has to be some give and take.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I think it's important to at least try to distinguish between three categories of player.

First are those who are actively disruptive, either by refusing all calls to leave their safe zone and engage with the game (like the disruptive Turtle mentioned above), or by engaging with it only in a destructive manner (the Chaotic Stupid type). Whether these players are genuinely enjoying themselves, or they're acting out because of past bad experiences in-game or problems out-of-game, doesn't really matter. They're hurting the fun of everyone at the table and trying to "cure" them is a sucker's game. My only caveat is that when young, usually teenage, players do this, sometimes they grow out of it. If an adult did I'd tell her to leave my table without hesitation.

Second are those who have had bad gaming experiences that shaped their playstyle into something they aren't genuinely enjoying, but who come out of it merely passive rather than disruptive. I personally don't mind having these players, or understand those who do, and sometimes they come out of their shells from watching other people have a good time with a more active style. Whether or not it's worth trying to draw them out or not is up to the individual group, of course.

I think a third category is being excluded, though: people who genuinely enjoy a different style of play. For purposes of this discussion, that includes both passive (casual) players and pawn stance players. If somebody just wants to hang with friends and roll some dice once in a while, or just wants to engage with the game as either a strategic or tactical exercise, that doesn't mean they're wrong or even missing out. They may be getting exactly what they want from the game, even if it doesn't look it to somebody with a different agenda, and casual players in particular can get what they want out of almost any game.

As far as scene framing is concerned, I think the best way to deal with a non-disruptive passive player is to frame scenes around the active players' PCs, and occasionally make an offer to the passive player. If it's declined? No worries. They are apparently enjoying being along for the ride, either because their friends are there or because they get to engage with the game tactically and watch other people's cut scenes. At least for me, that's okay.

(There are also people - raises hand - who from time to time legitimately enjoy turtle play, but that requires a very different kind of game, one where the goal is generally known, the assets in the entire play area are predetermined, and the game is essentially, intentionally, player vs. GM.)

 

[S'mon]

I keep forgetting how extreme "turtling" is in your usage/experience - I've still got the Edwards "won't do anything beyond follow basic cues" picture in mind.

Does Edwards actually use 'turtle' to describe his supposedly 'brain damaged' players, though? Willingness to follow linear path is the opposite of turtling to me - by defitintion a turtle stays in its shell and refuses to interact. You can get mini-turtling where the player refuses to 'step on up' and interact with a scene, in my game with the mega-turtle player I also had a generally fine player who absolutely refused to have his dwarf prince PC interact with a dwarven court at the dwarf king's banquet. I guess Edwards might have been thinking of something like that. But in general using 'turtle' to describe passive/reactive play is a misuse of language and unneccessarily derogatory to passive/reactive players.

 

[S'mon]

Now, to be fair, I do go the other way as well. If you want your cool backstory to matter in the game, it's your responsibility to make it a thing in the game. If you want to rescue your kidnapped gerbil, then you better be talking about that gerbil in character from time to time. You better be trying to find it when opportunities present itself. That sort of thing. Otherwise, it's just some fanfic on a piece of paper and I don't care.

Heh heh. That's my approach too - I definitely want to accommodate player initiated action, but 'action' requires more than some fanfic in your backstory, or "I want a pony". If you want a pony, tell me how/when you go looking for one, and we can make it happen.

I'm also great with player initiated action being the whole or heart of the campaign, or it revolving around the PCs' personal stories, like some of the new superhero soap-opera comics Pemerton seems to describe. OTOH if I have a highly variable group of players then some overarching non-PC-dependent plots are necessary too. No point building everything around PCs when the players don't turn up.

 

[S'mon]

. And it also reminds me of a conversation on some other thread in the past 6 months or so beteen [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] and me, where I mentioned Marvel-style team superhero comics - and especially Claremon'ts X-Men - as an influence on my GMing approach. Because what is gonzo fantasy scene-framing RPGing, but a team of superheroes whose personal stories get told as part and parcel of telling the story of the fate of the very omniverse!

I definitely think the superhero team is a good model for 4e, and I've noticed my Loudwater campaign developing in that direction. A lot of the 4e PC design stuff seems intended to evoke superhero style tropes, and of course 4e boils in team play that's reminiscent of Fantastic Four, X-Men et al (do the X-Men have a Defender, though? They seem to be all Strikers & Controllers!) I seem to recall 'fantasy superheroes' was used as an attack on 4e, but I think it's pretty accurate, and brings out one way that 4e design differs from pre-4e, and how Ze Game Iz Not Ze Same; you wouldn't use X-Men rules to run Tour of Duty without a high likelihood of disappointment. So I've learned to use 4e for what it's good at, and other versions of D&D like 1e AD&D, Labyrinth Lord, and Pathfinder (esp Beginner Box) for the different sorts of games that they are good at.

Of course not all superhero comics focus on the personal stories of the heroes; more commonly that is just one element - see my proactive NPC factions thread for another possibility. Personally I fear that too much emphasis on characters' personal story can be detrimental to action and adventure. You can risk ending up with something like the modern feminised SyFy Channel tv shows, where basically soap opera storytelling has been given an sf or fantasy patina, but it's no longer really an action show, it's a soap with action trappings.