Pramas on 4E and New Gamers

[I'm A Banana]

Anyone find the amusing irony in the fact that 4e gets some grief for being too complicated, and then gets some grief (often from the same folks) for being too simple?

I haven't noticed it being the same folks. Simplicity, as far as I am concerned, is a pretty good thing, and 4e is in many respects a simpler game. It might not go too far enough, though, for the newbies.

I think it's kind of perversely hilarious that if it DID go this direction, the outcry would be even greater.

I think that would be a huge mistake. Over the years, as I've dealt with a lot of new players, the one thing they all seem to latch onto first is the combat system. Things like actually talking in character, roleplaying out encounters, stuff like that makes people very self-conscious and often nervous the first time they do it and they really need something else to bring them into the game.

Maybe I should have worded it better.

Combat will always be (and should always be) an important part of D&D. D&D had its roots in wargaming, and has always had wargame elements: tactical positioning, number-cunching bonuses, blah blah blah.

Maybe a region where 4e could have broadened the appeal would have been in cutting some of this wargaming out, thereby killing one of D&D's sacred cows.

I mean, why do you need so many powers? Because there are so many different things to do in a fight. All those different things you can do blow up complexity to a huge level, and can get overwhelming quite fast. There's a lot of "moving parts." The great quantity of powers and bonuses that you get to various different things in combat just increase the complexity of these "moving parts."

If combat was streamlined, simplified, modified to be a quick few die rolls or something, it could maintain the appeal (combat is a vital part of the game, after all) without getting bogged down in the shifting pushing pulling morale insight feat power electricity acid poison ongoing recharge opportunity attack battlemat miniatures minor action BLARGH that...well, honestly, every edition has probably suffered from to varying degrees.

Keep combat.

Get rid of the complexity of combat.

That's the sacred cow that could make the game instantly easier to grok right off the bat.

Add a "miniatures handbook" or something for a more detailed combat system later down the line.

Keep the core system neat and elegant and quick and easy with a minimum of "moving parts." They should be interesting, but limited in quantity.

I'm just spitballing, here, but I think it might be a promising idea.

Combat is concrete and more like a boardgame and just generally easier to understand what the goals are. I'd say with 95% of the new players I've dealt with over the years, combat is the main fun thing for them at least at first, whereas the roleplaying part stays intimidating for quite a while.

Right, which is why I probably slightly mis-spoke. Definitely keep combat. Slay the sacred cow of "wargaming roots" that the game has to make combat easy to resolve quickly and without a lot of fiddly bits.

This cuts down on your need for powers (reducing the Chapter 4 Wall), and cuts down on your need for things that affect those powers (reducing the number of game-specific terms), making it more approachable to newbies, because they can quickly understand the moving parts there are, because there aren't that many of them.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I think Pramas has valid points, though as it's been pointed out, they are mostly more issues of organization and presentation than criticisms of the game mechanics themselves -- which, frankly, appears to be how he intended the post. Comments:

Newb class: I think the idea of a newb class insults new gamers. Having introduced a new gamer to 3.5 who decided to join an ongoing campaign at 8th level by playing a druid, I think it's better to cater to the character a new player wants to play than to give them something they don't like but that you think is easier to grok.

The Great Wall. Amen. My eyes glaze over if I try to flip through it. My first few read throughs I just read the basic class descrptions, then when I got to the powers listings I flipped to the next class. Admittedly, I do this with spell and magic item sections in 3E books too. It wasn't until I actually decided to roll up a character that I went back to study the particular power selections. I've now gone in detail through 3 or 4 classes ... but still haven't bothered to read cleric, paladin, or warlord powers at all. They'll be there when I want them.

Organization: Yeah, it could definitely use more examples ... not a criticism soley of the PHB, either. The DMG needs more as well. And a few pages need easy ways to locate them ... like the big advancement table. The core books need to be thought of as textbooks, and need to be cross-indexed appropriately.

Whoever suggested including a character creator was spot on. I learned more about how the various mechanics interact by building an Excel-based optimizer (and looking at other folks' auto-calculating character sheets) than by reading the book.

Just reinforces my opnion that a section or two (like magic items ...) should have been booted to the DMG to improve the PHB presentation, and add value to the DMG in the process.

 

[Rechan]

Off-topic:

Kamikaze, I understand what you mean about "taking the complexity out of combat", but then, everyone might feel like a Fighter. The "I hit, I do damage", just with all the PCs.

However, one of the things about Exalted I really liked was that, while there were definite combat powers (and everybody could get any power), at least half the powers were non-combat based.

There were powers that let you charm people, find out what about an individual it would take to bribe them, and be the life of the party. There were bureaucracy powers, letting you speed up or slow down an organization's activity, or motivate them for a single cause. There were Investigation-based powers, allowing you to find clues or detect lies. There were craft-based powers, allowing you to double your efforts, find the weaknesses in other creations (in order to sunder them). There were Presence and Performance based powers, allowing you (among other things) to intimidate people with your mere existence, entrance people with your voice, or to train soldiers into elite fighting forces in x3 the time.

In other words, you could play an entire game as courtiers and socialites, using your social powers to become manipulators in the court. You could play generals who created and led armies, but didn't have to fight. You could be Mother Theresa/Ghandi, an utter pacifist, if you pleased, and you feel as though you have the potency in the game to get things done just like the asskicker beside you.

However, in systems like D&D, the non-combat stuff usually came down to one roll or two. Even tricking out your bluff or diplomacy to a fat +20, it was still just a single roll, or a series of rolls, and that's it. Now, imagine if there was a way to have non-combat abilities that played off your skills. The same way Bluff allows you to feint in combat for sneak attack, you could use Bluff to catch your opponent off guard long enough to cause him to hesitate and sputter after a good verbal reparte. Or a diplomacy ability that allowed you to undermine the other person's argument along with rolling high.

Along with skill challenges, there's the notion of 'skill combat'; Spirit of the Century, and (soon to be released) Dresden Files RPG have the notion of combat in three tiers: Physical, Mental, and Social combat. They work on the same rules, with skill x versus skill y rolls, but failure during the "rounds" can cause penalties, with lasting effects - loss of prestige, embarassment, fatigue/confusion, and so on.

 

[Mistwell]

I think history will show Chris is wrong on this one.

Don't get me wrong, I think Chris is a great guy and a solid game designer. But I wouldn't call him a great prognosticator. Indeed, given he thinks you can judge how well a game will do by how well it's rules read, rather than looking at what's going on outside those rules, shows he's a game designer, not a marketing expert (and this is a marketing topic, not a rules topic).

I think, based on the sales numbers I am seeing and the massive seeping into popular culture where it wasn't reaching before, that 4e already recruited a ton of people (either back to the game after having left it years ago, or new to the game entirely).

Two people who I didn't know were even people contemplating gaming contacted me independently and asked me if I heard about a new edition of D&D coming out, asked if I played D&D and, when they found out I did asked if they could join a game.

My friggen dad even heard on the news that there was a new edition of D&D. If you knew him, you'd be as stunned as I am about that.

Maybe it was the death of Gary Gygax, and maybe it's just a change in the media and distribution of pop culture information, and maybe something else or a combination of things, but 4e seems to have really extended out into the public in a way I've never seen before for D&D.

Which means it will result in a lot of new players - regardless of how the rules "read". Most new players learn by doing, not reading. Reading usually comes after they get hooked, and usually they won't be reading until they've already bought the book.

 

[Najo]

Now suppose you're the DM running from a published adventure and you've got a bunch of NPCs to manage and find their powers easily, some with multiclass characters.
An index of powers would be very helpful to that scenario.

Except monsters and npcs in modules and adventures are written up using the new monster layout and don't need anything looked up, its all there in front of the DM. If its done right that is.

 

[Voadam]

Anyone find the amusing irony in the fact that 4e gets some grief for being too complicated, and then gets some grief (often from the same folks) for being too simple?

Yep, yep - I knew you did.

Wis

What have been the complaints about 4e being too simple?

I have seen plenty of complaints about it being too limited (lack of previous core races/classes/monsters), about it being changed (or lacking) fluff, about it being videogamey, of it being too gamist (once a day martial powers), and that it is complex tactically (teamwork synergies, everybody tracking daily powers).

Some of the benefits were supposed to be the simplicity of tracking things (no massive vancian lists, durations by save, less buffs and conditional modifiers), creating monsters or NPCs, DM prep, on the Fly DMing, and creating characters.

 

[Roland55]

I find one thing particularly interesting about this Thread.

Nobody jumped on Mr. Pramas for daring to point out a potential flaw in 4E. Instead, the commentary here has been sober, generally on point, and quite interesting.

Of course, this isn't the other forum ... but I'm quite proud of everyone, anyway.

Maybe we're finally getting past the pain...?

 

[BryonD]

Thing is, I feel the game is less complicated then it's been in a while.

For the simple fact thatt hings are standardized.

I think the very fact that there isn't an "intro" character is part of this.

All characters work the same, so once you get the basic understanding of how the systems work, you can start on how to best use them.

Before, you had to learn the system, and then which sub system a given class had to use, and then finally how to use them to best effect.

I'm not disputing this at all.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Kamikaze, I understand what you mean about "taking the complexity out of combat", but then, everyone might feel like a Fighter. The "I hit, I do damage", just with all the PCs

Dude, there is a middle ground between 100 Powers Per Class and Everyone Is A BD&D Fighter.

Let's even try something this:
At 1st level, every character can Basic Attack and Basic Power at-will. These are spelled out for every class.
You get 1 Power Per Level. That's it. They are all Encounter powers. They are all useful from levels 1-30, there is no "upgrade" that makes a previous power useless. Feats modify how these powers work.

30 powers is less than 90, and having, say, two feats per power means that you have diverse options while flowing naturally from your previous choices.

However, in systems like D&D, the non-combat stuff usually came down to one roll or two.

Depending on how far you wanted to go with it, something similar to the Skill Challenge for combat might not be a bad idea...hurm hurm hurm...

he thinks you can judge how well a game will do by how well it's rules read

He doesn't think that, though. He thinks that you can judge how attractive a rulebook is to newbies based on how well it's rules read (and that reading the D&D PH is going to be a lot of people's first step into any sort of table-top RPG experience). I think he has a point, there.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I wonder which option people would perfer?

A) D&D is a hardcore game for hardcore gamers! For those who would like an intro into roleplaying games; try Mircolite D20 or some other intro game.

B) D&D is a intro game for new gamers. For those who would like a hardcore game, play Hackmaster, or some other cool indie game.