D&D 4E Ron Edwards on D&D 4e

[EzekielRaiden]

That was all kind of meta to their discussion of 4e (and Gamma World, oddly enough—I hadn't even known there was an edition of GW based of D&D 4e!).

That's correct, yes. Gamma World 7th edition is 4e-based. It's more or less a heavily streamlined, slimmed-down version that only runs 10 levels. It uses a sort of...hybrid array/random-stat approach, where you roll all of your stats in order, but get an 18 in your first origin's main stat, and a 16 in your second origin's main stat, replacing whatever you had naturally rolled for those. (If the two happen to be the same, you get a 20 in that single stat: you're hyper-specialized, for good and for ill.)

 

[pemerton]

I don't know how to read this bit from him a few posts into the thread explaining the original brain damage remark.

X can have its origins in (inter alia) Y without Y being an instance of X. I'm pretty sure that Ron Edwards was not a fan of 2nd ed AD&D. But it was not the target of his concerns at the Forge. His target was Vampire and its cousins (eg L5R, as per his interaction with John Wick on the Forge thread that's been linked in this thread).

 

[pemerton]

I don't really see why Justin Alexander describing RPGers as "abused" by their exposure to and participation in certain processes of play is in a wildly different category from Edwards describing them as "brain damaged" via the same sorts of causes. Both imply significant suffering. What am I missing?

 

[pemerton]

Eh, I’m not so sure about the Forges influence. I think it’s more that some folks who have influenced game design hung out there. It may be a subtle difference but I think it’s an important one.

One of the most influential RPG frameworks at present is PbtA. That was written by Vincent Baker. If you read the acknowledgements in the rulebook, you will see this (on p 287-88):

IMMEDIATE GAME INFLUENCES​

3:16, Gregor Hutton​

Ars Magica, Lion Rampant​

Bacchanal, Paul Czege​

The Burning Wheel, Luke Crane​

The Mountain Witch, Timothy Kleinert​

Mouse Guard, Luke Crane​

Primetime Adventures, Matt Wilson​

Shadow of Yesterday, Clinton R. Nixon​

Sorcerer; Sorcerer’s Soul; Sex & Sorcery, Ron Edwards​

Spione, Ron Edwards​

Talislanta, Bard Games​

Trollbabe, Ron Edwards​

XXXXtreme Street Luge, Ben Lehman​

​

Character moves are based on secrets in The Shadow of Yesterday, by Clinton R. Nixon. Highlighted stats work very​

much like keys in the same.​

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Highlighted stats also follow fan mail in Primetime Adventures, by Matt Wilson.​

​

Hx is based on trust in The Mountain Witch, by Timothy Kleinart.​

​

Stakes questions are based on stakes in Trollbabe, by Ron Edwards.​

​

Threat countdowns are based on bangs in Sorcerer, by Ron Edwards.​

​

Holding creation (et al) is based on covenant creation in Ars Magica (2nd Edition), by Lion Rampant.​

​

The character sex moves were inspired by Sex & Sorcerer, by Ron Edwards.​

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The character playbooks were inspired by XXXXtreme Street Luge, by Ben Lehman.​

​

“Tell them the possible consequences and ask” and “offer an opportunity, with or without a cost” are based partly on “Taxi Service on Al Amarja” by Jonathan Tweet.​

​

The entire game design follows from “Narrativism: Story Now” by Ron Edwards.​

I think the Forge has been extremely influential in RPG design.

 

[Cadence]

I don't really see why Justin Alexander describing RPGers as "abused" by their exposure to and participation in certain processes of play is in a wildly different category from Edwards describing them as "brain damaged" via the same sorts of causes. Both imply significant suffering. What am I missing?

Claiming someone went through something "abusive" and someone is "brain damaged" seem pretty different to me.

That Alexandrian didn't coin the abused gamer phrase seems small, but adds to the overall feeling of a difference.

I think the tone around it and whether it is pretty easy to overcome make a bigger difference.

 

[Cadence]

One of the most influential RPG frameworks at present is PbtA.

Where do the PbtA games rank in terms of how many people play them vs. other things? (Does the degree to which something is judged as influential in a field depend on how much of that field is influenced by it? And now I'm thinking about music and I guess it's common to disregard all of pop music in such discussions.... so going by that point I guess my question is irrelevant... feel free to ignore it.)

 

[Cadence]

-- those popular RPGs advertised one thing but swapped it for essentially railroaded play and taught a generation of players that this was how you roleplayed great stories.

I'm wondering if the railroadiness of particular gaming groups depended more on whether the DMs used pre-made adventures (or modeled their own after them) than it did on the core game books. The WoD games I played in back when felt less railroady than a lot of the D&D ones. (Go go sample size of 2).

 

[Charlaquin]

Wow, I’m sorry I started this whole derail. I honestly just wanted to double-check that Ron Edwards was who I thought he was, I had no intention of making a big stink about stuff he’s said that I found distasteful, let alone bring Justin Alexander into the discussion. Though on that subject, I’ll have to have a look back at the dissociative mechanics essay. I read it when it first came out (not knowing at the time who Justin Alexander was) and hated it, but that was the height of the edition war and I was poised defensively at the time. I might at least find some value in it now with a cooler head and the benefit of hindsight, even if I don’t expect I’ll agree with him.

Anyway, I’ll probably step out of this thread. I don’t think I’ll have anything constructive to contribute. Sorry again for setting the discussion down this path.

EDIT: Nope, the article is just as terrible as I remember. It contains one interesting observation about how some game mechanics require the player to make decisions separately from their character’s decision-making process, and then the rest is a poorly-disguised anti-4e tirade. That’s disappointing.

 

[pemerton]

FWIW, I have found Justin Alexander's thoughts on scenario design to be really helpful, but I understand that he doesn't like 4e at all, and people here who like 4e in turn do not like him. But, for 4e fans, I would be curious for your thoughts. For example, I find his article on dissociated mechanics to be very clarifying and a useful way of thinking about how mechanics relates to the fiction (and incidentally one that (seems to) fit within the "gameist" critique of 4e)

There is a long discussion of so-called "dissociated mechanics" here: In Defense of the Theory of Dissociated Mechanics

I've got many posts in that thread, but the most important I think is 498. (And @TwoSix may recall responding to it, rather insightfully, at 501.)

Anyway, the short version of it is that I think there is nothing of use in The Alexandrian's essay; and that everything that might be said about the controversy around 4e's use of metagame mechanics was identified by Ron Edwards in an essay he wrote in 2003 (here, a bit more than half-way down, introduced by "if Simulationist-facilitating design is not involved, then the whole picture changes . . . Gamist and Narrativist play often share the following things").

My opinion of the "dissociated mechanics" essay may have coloured my reading of some of his other works, but my view is that his stuff on "node-based design" and the "3 clue rule" provide a useful handbook for railroading but nothing beyond that. I haven't read his more recent writings.

 

[Rob Kuntz]

Apparently some of you are under the impression that I care about how you react, in terms of emotions. I don't.

Some of you also apparently think that I have some desire, or am under some obligation (!) to make myself liked, to make myself understood to the maximum possible audience, or to represent some sort of community or generalized interest. None of these are the case.

What about my goals in posting this? To "save gamers?" To "make people change?" Hardly. Guessing about my goals and then responding to your own guesses is waste of time. All you can do is make whatever you will out of what I've posted, if anything, somewhere else. Don't expect my goals to be explained or defended; if they're not obvious to you from my personal history of posting, site management, and publication, so be it.

Some of you apparently never learned the primary lesson of dealing with me and my posts - which is, bluntly, I could be mad as a hatter. You are perfectly free, at all times, to say, "That guy is a mad old man mumbling in a corner. There is paper litter stuck to his clothes by substances that I do not want to identify." Letting me know that this is your assessment is futile. Announcing it to others is your prerogative - but you can do it somewhere naughty word else. People who fit this description are not predictable in their actions and I can assure you, that if it applies to me, that I will be intractable to any such announcement. In this forum, I don't obey Forge rules. Instead, my rules, and I make them up.

THIS is why I have always agreed with Noam Chomsky about postmodern (written) expression. Combine it with histrionics, and viola! the word-run lurking above...