pemerton said:
I don't accept that per-encounter resources make player choice inconsequential. As an example, sustainable Adrenal Moves in RM (per RMC IV) and HARP are a roughly per-encounter resource, and the player choice as to when to enter the move, and when to come out of it, is highly consequential. It's just that the consequence unfolds within the encounter itself.
I also do not accept the notion that because resources reset after an encounter, "whatever happens outside of combat has no relevance to combat." Suppose that, outside of combat, the PCs attempt to recruit an ally and fail. That has relevance to combat. Suppose that, outside of combat, the PCs fail to persuade the guards to let them pass. That has relevance to combat (perhaps being a cause of it).
The magic part of the game, the spells, when used outside of combat are consequential to future combats that day. It means resources for combat are related to their use outside of it. So that the magical aspect of the game is not split between in or out.
I've already brought this up over at the WotC boards about how monsters without many S-Ls limit what they can do out of combat as well as in. That diversity played to strategy and NPC plot design.
But you're right. I'm overstating again.
I also agree that per encounter mechanics do have relevance to the game. Like fatigue. I'm cautious about what 4e means by per encounter though. I'm guessing it means powers that really can't be made universal out of combat without implying a specific world design, namely very high magic.
Not all interesting strategies flourish in a per-day system, because the need to conserve resources can get in the way. This will particularly be the case if implementing the strategy would (in 3E terms) require succeeding at more than 4 EL=PL encounters in a row. Of course it is possible for the GM to create a gameworld in which this is not the case. But it's not obvious to me that the players' or GM's creative desires are the things that should have to give here.
You may not like this as I mentioned before, but daily encounters will be limited in 4e regardless if powers are /day or /encounter. What this mechanic is, however, we do not yet know. Again, I can only hope it makes sense in game. Maybe it will be DM adjustable for individual worlds? That would serve everyone nicely. Of course, spells can just be multiplied or divided in number in 3e too as each is balanced per combat turn.
I don't really follow what you mean by "skill" and "roleplay". For example, winning a high-level combat in 3E tests the following skill: how well do you know the mechanics, and especially the character build mechanics (so you have a decent character), the combat mechanics, and the spell mechanics.
Succeeding at Tomb of Horrors tests a completely different skill: how well can you conceive of, and plan, a grinding expedition into hostile territory. From memory, Tomb of Horrors has about 4 combats - and the final one barely follows the standard combat rules in any event. Someone could play a PC in Tomb of Horrors, and do very well, without having the least grasp of the (sparse) action resolution rules of AD&D.
Operational play tends to test the second sort of skill (under its more pejorative description, it is therefore described as "reading the mind of the GM").
The sort of mechanical play that per-encounter abilities (such as sustained Adrenal Moves) give rise to tests the first sort of skill.
Well, I prefer in character play vs. rule play. "Skill" has no reference to the players gaming the rules. Their skill is in thinking in character like you or I in thinking about the real world. The rules are the sim, not perfect, but okay. The imagined world is the important part for players. "Gaming the system" can be done without reference to the world at all. It's like testing one's ability to make brush strokes and never bothering with the what the painting is supposed to represent. In the style I am advocating, the brush strokes are invisible to the players. All that is seen is the image.
The success of 3E, which has bucketloads of mechanics but downplays the operational side, suggests that some players at least want to use the second sort of skill.
IMO, players never signed up for that when they came back to D&D. They played "operational play" (is that your term?) and were served up "ruleplay" (the derogative of gaming the system). And so they left. Numbers went down again. And old school play became popular.
RM, RQ and HARP aspire to what you describe as "mechanical illusionism." 3E seems to come very close to it. Whether it makes for a good or bad game I will leave for others to judge, but I don't think it is fair to say that RPGs are an exception to it.
Undoubtedly, AD&D and other early versions of D&D are exceptions. 4e may be a limited exception (given the mooted absence of craft and profession from the character build rules). But given that they are working on social challenge mechanics and environmental challenge mechanics and trap encounter mechanics, I don't think it will be an exception in any of the domains of activity that PCs typically engage in.
I agree with your breakdown of Rolemaster and d20 being similar and pre-d20 D&D being different from them. IMO, rules inherently limit thinking. They appear to extend choices by extending rules, but that is the job of the DM: to expand the rules when the players leave what they account for. Thinking only within a ruleset cannot help but limit creativity to within those rules alone.
Turning to roleplay, this can mean all sorts of things, but probably at a minimum it requires treating ones PC as a character in a world (this is a matter of degree, of course, but it marks the difference between an RPG and a wargame). The extent to which mechanics interact with roleplay, in this sense, varies a great deal from system to system. In AD&D, because of the sparsity of the character build mechanics, most of the roleplaying is independent of the mechanics. In 3E (which is in this respect closer to RQ or RM) the ruleset purports to give a total description of the character, and so roleplay is closely tied to the character build and action resolution mechanics. 4e on the whole will continue this trend, I think (though not entirely, if craft and profession skills are no longer part of the character build rules).
Same as above, Player descriptions of their PCs non-mechanically created are more expansive, less restrictive. Do you believe 4e will be closer to Rolemaster than to 3rd edition? I know Hong used to post on "the creeping HEROization of D&D".
For many players, what encourages roleplay both within and out is that they want to play out a PC's intereactions with the gameworld - perhaps because they want to develop a certain plot, or explore a certain theme, or have fun blowing things up.
I don't see that resource management particular encourages roleplaying. It does encourage the player to set goals and plan around them, but on its own this is no different from playing a wargame campaign.
Plot (plan), theme, and fun are all up to the Players to create via their PCs. Resource management encourages roleplay because it is part of everything we do when deciding our lives. We judge based on what we can do and what we have on hand. This RMgt will always exist in RPGs. Arrows, expendable magic items, breakable swords, etc. The whole of the what makes life, life is that very few things are unlimited in quantity. As RMgt represents this with magic, it's most engaging part, it is the near the heart of what makes D&D, D&D.
By "plot" I mean something like "sequence of events in a narrative" - in the context of an RPG, I mean basically the stuff that happens to the PCs.
I consider Plots NPC plans. There is not plot until it happens. That's basically PC- vs. DM-driven.
Why should players not know the rules? If they are to exercise their skill with the rules they must know them. And I don't really follow your objection to metagame mechanics - basically, these are devices for allowing the players to determine certain aspects of the in-game reality. I assume you don't object to character-build mechanics which (outside of RQ and Traveller, where it's just about rolling dice that simulate in-game processes) are essentially metagame mechanics that allow the players to shape a certain aspect of the gameworld - namely, their PC. Hero Points are just metagame mechanics on the action resolution, rather than the character build, side of things. If such mechanics (as is typically the case) are designed in such a way that players are able to exercise such control only when developing or resolving certain plots or themes that they have chosen to explore through their character, then such mechanics can contribute significantly to roleplaying.
I would also have thought that Hero Points fit very much with your "players are responsible for their own fun" philosophy.
Players don't know the rules so they can imagine the world, not the mechanics. They don't exercise their skill with the mechanics, because these are not the game.
As mentioned above by Mallus above in Forge language: Hero Points give "Narrative Control" to the Players. By this they don't mean control via the PCs, but via the DM's character, the world. That's removal from PC POV and inherently obstructive to being-in-character (roleplay).
I know that if my players wanted to battle single kobolds all day long they could not, as I do not have any adventures involving kobolds written up. In practice, I think most RPG groups come to the table with a broad understanding of what sort of activity the players want their PCs to engage in, and the way in which the GM will provide those opportunities.
Perhaps after Session 1 of a campaign what you say is true. As Players will often talk about their plans in front of the DM so he can prepare for them.
Discrete situation play is more for tournaments and one-shots. They aren't what is meant by "campaign".
This might be good advice for a group who have no time limit on their playing, who are happy to spend many hours having their PCs killed as they discover the way the world works, and who are prepared to devote days or years of play to learning how their GM's mind works.
For many groups of players and GMs, none of the above conditions hold, let alone all of them.
I'm not saying everyone needs to play how the game was designed to be played. Only that whatever 4e does bring that it doesn't negate the possibility of playing based upon how it was originally built. (see my thread
here.) (and see my response to Mallus and "Reading the DM's Mind" above)
PCs may or not treat a battle as their "first encounter of the day" depending on what in-game knowledge they have about the way the day is likely to unfold.
In a system of per-day resoruces, players will treat a battle as the "first encounter of the day" when they are hoping, or expecting, to play out more battles at the game table without their PCs recovering per-day resources. In a system of per-encounter resources, players will treat a battle as the "first encounter of the day" when they are hoping, or expecting, to make choices which lead to the result in-game that their PCs engage in more battles. The resource-management constraint on player decision-making will be absent. For some play styles this may be a bad thing, for others a desirable thing.
I agree. As the OP says: give the option. Just fair warning as I've said: RMgt constraint will never go away. Per Day will always need rest, food, etc. This is the basic rationale for why most magic was /day and not /week, month, year, etc.
Finally, some miscellanea:
I don't know about the "at will" abilities for fighters or mages. The per-encounter abilities, however, I suspect will not be easily treated as weapons as far as flavour-text goes.
That's why I didn't mention them. But I do hope the in-game descriptions are both sensible and flexible enough to be changed for different GMs' worlds.
I don't see how this device can't equally well be used to explain any other PC ability that is acquired despite its acquisition not being explained by the in-game events actually played out at the table.
Well, yeah. They do. I use them for feats and such in my 3.5 game. I was responding to the assumed "automatic combat skill improvement" could make sense in games that used your defined first approach of play - basically play without combat. Actually, given as pre-d20 D&D didn't increase out of combat abilities, leveling isn't even necessary.
