Scott Rouse blog - Rogue ability

[Grog]

It was over 13 years ago, I don't know what color the box was.

It refers to the series of games. Curse of the Azure Bonds was one of them.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

It refers to the series of games. Curse of the Azure Bonds was one of them.

That was the one then. The magic missile I cast missed. Any rate, I still don't think an ancient PC game is indicative of the combat system of, or how 1E was played.

 

[MerricB]

That was the one then. The magic missile I cast missed. Any rate, I still don't think an ancient PC game is indicative of the combat system of, or how 1E was played.

Hmm. In all of the Gold Box games - and I've played them several times - the only time a magic missile would "miss" was because of Magic Resistance.

Cheers!

 

[Prince of Happiness]

Hmm. In all of the Gold Box games - and I've played them several times - the only time a magic missile would "miss" was because of Magic Resistance.

Cheers!

"Here Lies Prince of Happiness, 1978 - 20XX:

IT MISSED! I SAW IT F***ING MISS! I SAW THE TEXT! IT SAID 'MISS!' M-I-S-S. MISS!"

 

[PeterWeller]

OTOH, it should be said that the scripted, pre-plotted nature of adventure paths didn't seem to stop a lot of people feeling satisfaction at kicking Dragotha's ass....

You make a good point, but I think the obvious difference is that DMs don't have to rigidly and specifically follow the plot and script in a module or adventure path, whereas the computer must. This severely limits the range of options and actions in an MMO compared to a PnP game.

 

[pemerton]

If you're a rogue and the prospect of a beatdown frightens you, stay out of melee. Same goes for wizards. Combat is the forte of the Fighter class (including Paladins, Barbarians, Rangers, etc.).

The problem with this advice (as others have also noted) is that combat takes up a lot of time at the D&D table. So staying out of combat means not playing the game.

My only experience with 1st edition D&D is the Curse of the Azure Bonds CRPG. I played PnP RPGs at the same time but not D&D. My impressions was that it had fun combats if you played all characters at the same time. This was due to the following:

<snip discussion of class roles and multi-classsing>


I don't think I'm the only one like that; I think many players can be won over from RPGs where everyone contributes to combats all the time (like Runequest). To win these people over a very good start is to make everyone being able to do something in all combats.

I've never played a computer game, but I have played quite a bit of 1st ed AD&D. And this post rung true for me, with one exception: at high levels UA fighters were capable of doing serious damage, with their 5/2 attacks and +3/+3 from double specialisation.

It seems that 4D&D is being built on the premise of tactical combat being hardwired into the game especially the balance of class utility to a degree even greater than that of 3e.

Yes, just as The Dying Earth is build hardwiring repartee into the game. The hardwiring in of combat is no great departure from earlier versions of D&D - it was a huge part of AD&D (to the extent that the 1st ed MM contains little more than combat details for monsters) and Moldvay/Cook Basic/Expert. The balance of class utility is more recent.

This is not good, in my opinion.

I don't really understand your reason for this opinion. Why should the game not offer all players a roughly equal likelihood of enjoyment during combat, the most frequent and time-consuming of challenges that PCs face in D&D?

The problem isn't that MMOs and the like aren't fun, it is that they are not at all like RPGs and bringing their influence into table top gaming promises, in my view, to make the game less fun for everyone involved, much for the reasons you cite -- mostly the issues regarding combat balance. making sure every character class is equally viable in all situations, considering combat balance as the only kind worth working toward, hardwiring distinct combat roles into every character and creature, and removing elements from the game that pose the risk of having a player "lose" his turn are all lessons "learned" from MMOs. And every one of them detracts from the table-top play experience as it has been for 30 years. You can't reduce uncertainty and risk without also reducing tension; you can't ensure parity without increasing blandness; you can't enforce tactical roles without restricting choice.

It is simply not true, in my experience, that parity leads to blandness. Just as one example: a melee fighter who specialises in multiple attacks can be balanced (on a par) with one who specialises in single attacks dealing large amounts of damage. But the two will play very differently, and have a very different feel at the table. I know this because, in the RM game I GM, there are four fighters: a multi-attack specialist, a difficult-terrain and defender specialists, a single-target pounder with self-healing buffs, and a single-target pounder with flight and other enhancement buffs. All are able to contribute meaningfully in melee. And there is no blandness.

As for the issue of choice: choice is displaced from the action resolution mechanics back into the character build mechanics. (Although per-encounter abilities, if well-designed, will also give rise to an interesting range of choices of action within an encounter.)

What's more is that building the game around encounters reduces the value of adventures which reduces the value of the campaign. Constant, incremental levelling is not necessary to engage the players and keep them coming back in a table top RPG like it is in an MMO, and in fact puts a focus on levelling and those incremental advances where it should be on play and the ongoing game.

As someone else said, encounters are the constituents of adventures and campaigns. But, and more pertinently, levelling and incremental advances are essential if choice is located at the character build end as much as (if not moreso than) at the action resolution end.

In the end, as far as I can tell your complaint is that character build mechanics are becoming as important as action resolution mechanics, and thus the proportionate importance to the play experience of "play and the ongoing game" is reduced. This is as true of 3E, relative to earlier editions, as it will be of 4e relative to 3E - perhaps even moreso. Just as it didn't appear to hurt 3E, so I doubt it will hurt 4e.

It has to do with the shift between the resource management element to the instant gratification element.

I don't get this. Why should playing a game not be gratifying? Isn't that the point of playing a game? The real question, AFAICT, is whether or not resource management is a sufficient source of gratification for sufficiently many RPGers to make it worth including in D&D. And on this point I assume that WoTC has done its market research.

 

[pemerton]

D&D was always and will ever be a tactical game, to some degree. But the direction they are going seems to be as much for dramatic flair as strategy, you can do cool things and they have a special mechanical effect, but it won't be like playing as some kind of a chess piece. I have some concerns of the functions of the classes being railroaded to some degree, but as long as there are a good breadth of options that won't be a problem.

As long as there is a good range of character build options, and for each build a well-designed suite of abilities, I don't think that "railroading" will be a problem, anymore than at present a Barbarian is "railroaded" into raging or an Evoker into bolting and blasting.

The question is, what kind of choice do I enjoy more when playing a game? Do I prefer to pretend being a swashbuckler and describing my attacks as daring moves and attacks missing me due to my superior reflexes, or do I prefer expressing this character by game mechanics? What should a game support?

D&D isn't just role-playing, and it is not just some random type of game, it is a Role Playing Game. Therefore, the rules of the game should relate to the role you play.

<snip>

When expressing your character in game terms, you will also hope that you get to use your character in the game. If a major time of the game is devoted to combat, this requires the game to ensure that all characters can take part in combat, and all are equally interesting in this combat.

QFT.

 

[Exen Trik]

As long as there is a good range of character build options, and for each build a well-designed suite of abilities, I don't think that "railroading" will be a problem, anymore than at present a Barbarian is "railroaded" into raging or an Evoker into bolting and blasting.

My concern was more along the lines of classes being too hamstrung outside of their intended roles, or for class options being too narrow flavor-wise. I honestly don't think it will be much of a problem though. But even if it were, that would only last as long as until the next expansion or good house rule came along.

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

It is simply not true, in my experience, that parity leads to blandness. Just as one example: a melee fighter who specialises in multiple attacks can be balanced (on a par) with one who specialises in single attacks dealing large amounts of damage. But the two will play very differently, and have a very different feel at the table. I know this because, in the RM game I GM, there are four fighters: a multi-attack specialist, a difficult-terrain and defender specialists, a single-target pounder with self-healing buffs, and a single-target pounder with flight and other enhancement buffs. All are able to contribute meaningfully in melee. And there is no blandness.

Agreed. And I haven't found this to be the case in most video games, either. People love to beat the MMO-parallels into the ground, but balanced class-based games aren't even restricted to RPGs -- Team Fortress 2 is a good (nay, spectacular) example of creating 9 classes that contribute to the battle in distinct, unique ways while being useful both on their own and while coordinating with others. And interestingly enough, the medic is one of the most entertaining classes to play.

It's a spectacular game built on spectacular design principles. It doesn't need to be even remotely from the same genre as D&D to have ideas worth drawing from.