So what's gold gonna be for?

[Lonely Tylenol]

That's an interesting point. With PCs never being below 80% resources the decision over whether to continue or stop becomes much trickier.

Well, we don't know that they'll never be below 80% resources. We haven't seen any indication that there is limitless healing, or that any class other than the wizard has 80% at-will and per-encounter abilities. But you get my point, which is that there are actually now strategic decisions in a place that before there were not. In 3.5, you hit a wall when the casters are out of spells. In 4E, you can keep going, but you don't know whether you're going to discover that you really, really need that per-day ability that you already used up.

The strategic decisions are different than 3rd edition's strategic decisions. But they are certainly still there.

 

[howandwhy99]

The old debate that there should be a roll to emulate high Cha characters was won before it began IMO. The game has had a Reaction Adjustment since the beginning. It was a simple 2d6 roll with a slight chance of your character having an ability modifier to it. (13-15 +1, 16-17 +2, 18 +4... and yeah, +4 was too much)

I prefer to give players an incentive to roleplay by letting them know what they do can affect that roll too. (just like any roll) Reaction Adjustment can even be dropped, if you want to roleplay without random consequences. Even then that's just applying the rules for PC vs. PC to NPCs. The game never expected players to have to change their minds because someone rolled better than they did when they talked to each other. They just wanted to roleplay and have fun. No one wanted a super smooth PC to force their PC into agreeing with them just because the dice said so.

When interacting with NPCs, I have no problem allowing roleplaying to decide results alone when those end results are in the PCs' favor. In such a case, I would still make a roll, but it'd be a roll with modifiers so high it could not fail. In the opposite case, where they failed horribly at roleplaying (like foully insulting the king), I'd try and think of some way for them to succeed and then apply a negative modifier on their roll that does not negate the possibility of success.

Do they need to know some rolls are automatic successes beforehand? No. But roleplaying is rewarded when it is the only significant means to modify the roll. Making characters with mechanical bonuses beyond what roleplay can alter, roleplaying is actually hindered. Roleplaying should always be the most important modifier to a roleplaying encounter's success.

Is it okay once in awhile for it not to be? Sure, but it shouldn't be the status quo according to the rules IMO. Roleplaying game rules should encourage and reward roleplaying rather than stifle it.

 

[pemerton]

What I have been trying to say consistently is that the CORE of D&D is killing things, taking their stuff, and powering up so that you can repeat the process. The challenges and the scenery change, but the core experience is the same. I have never said that that was the TOTALITY of the D&D experience.

Sure. I wasn't really responding to your particular claim, but to Reynard's analysis of 4e.

You could also redefine social interaction as combat without the blood, removing the need to engage in roleplaying and instead making sure the players' focus is on the numbers written down on his character sheet instead of the DM.

It's extremely contentious to say that, because a system has social conflict resolution mechanics, it is therefore combat-focused. Because if that were so, it would follow that The Dying Earth, and HeroWars/Quest, and (as Dr Awkward notes) Burning Wheel are all more combat-focused then any edition of D&D to date, and do less to encourage roleplaying as part of their play experience. And that conclusion is just too absurd for words.

 

[Reynard]

It's extremely contentious to say that, because a system has social conflict resolution mechanics, it is therefore combat-focused. Because if that were so, it would follow that The Dying Earth, and HeroWars/Quest, and (as Dr Awkward notes) Burning Wheel are all more combat-focused then any edition of D&D to date, and do less to encourage roleplaying as part of their play experience. And that conclusion is just too absurd for words.

It is "combat focus" in the sense that it requires a "build", it requires tactical game based decisions, and it draws the players attention to his character sheet instead of the game happening at the table.

 

[Reynard]

3rd edition wizard: Well, we've been adventuring for ten minutes, and now I'm out of spells. We need to rest for 8 hours.

This is a very tired argument. If the PCs are "done" at 10 AM, that is a playstyle problem, not a systemic one. Either the DM is chucking combat encounters at the PCs entirely to quickly, or the PCs are blowing their wads at the first sign of trouble, or some combination of the two. in either case, the game isn't designed that way. Hell, prior to 3E every fight was a minimum of 10 minutes of game time and it took hours, as it should, to work ones way through a labrynthine underground complex.

4th edition wizard: Okay, we've been adventuring for a couple of hours, and I'm all out of my big once per day effects.

I see what you did there. Very subtle, but ultimately bad form.

Or are you trying to say that resource attrition is going to be excised entirely from the new edition?

It look a lot like it to me. however, I concede that since we don't have a single bit of hard information yet aside from one monster's stat card dor DDM, I could be wrong. Most of my issues with 4E are based entirely on the presentation. Since the presentation at this stage is being directed at a very particular subset of gamer, it may not be an accurate indication of what the final game will look like. But I am not confident for exploratory dungeon crawl, resource management, save-or-die or sword-and-sworcery flavor at this point.

 

[hong]

You could also redefine social interaction as combat without the blood

Oxymorons are.

 

[hong]

This is a very tired argument. If the PCs are "done" at 10 AM, that is a playstyle problem, not a systemic one.

It is a systemic problem that encourages a playstyle problem.

Either the DM is chucking combat encounters at the PCs entirely to quickly,

No, the DM is chucking combat encounters at the PCs at the rate he wants to, and the system is unable to handle it.

or the PCs are blowing their wads at the first sign of trouble,

No, the PCs are using their abilities to engage in enjoyable destruction and mayhem the way they want to, and the system is unable to handle it.

in either case, the game isn't designed that way.

Because it's a bad system.

Hell, prior to 3E every fight was a minimum of 10 minutes of game time and it took hours, as it should,

No it shouldn't.

It look a lot like it to me.

In the context of per-encounter balancing, a 1/encounter ability is a resource to be managed. The ability of one to grok that context is another thing entirely.

But I am not confident for exploratory dungeon crawl, resource management, save-or-die or sword-and-sworcery flavor at this point.

That's better.

 

[Reynard]

It is a systemic problem that encourages a playstyle problem.



No, the DM is chucking combat encounters at the PCs at the rate he wants to, and the system is unable to handle it.



No, the PCs are using their abilities to engage in enjoyable destruction and mayhem the way they want to, and the system is unable to handle it.



Because it's a bad system.

No. If you try and use a shovel to put a nail in, it means you're using the wrong tool for the job. Same thing here. Systems support playstyles and discourage others. if the system is inherently incompatible with the playstyle, you're using the wrong system. It has nothing to do with whether the game is good or bad or well designed or not. What matters is that you are using the wrong tool and then blaming the tool.

No it shouldn't.

Yes it should.

There, see how much fun we are having discussing this?

In the context of per-encounter balancing, a 1/encounter ability is a resource to be managed. The ability of one to grok that context is another thing entirely.

It isn't a long term resource and therefore has nothing to do at all with what I am talking about. You know, in context.

That's better.

You're so very clever. Maybe one day, if you practive, you'll be able to boost your post count with responses longer than 10 words per.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

No. If you try and use a shovel to put a nail in, it means you're using the wrong tool for the job. Same thing here. Systems support playstyles and discourage others. if the system is inherently incompatible with the playstyle, you're using the wrong system. It has nothing to do with whether the game is good or bad or well designed or not. What matters is that you are using the wrong tool and then blaming the tool.

You're making his point for him. The tool is unsuitable for what its users want to do. The tool demands X encounters of level Y per day, and breaks if you stray too far from X or Y. Since different players have different ideal levels of X and Y, the tool fails for them, and so we redesign the tool to handle better variance in X and Y.

You have just pointed out that there is a problem with the tool. The designers noticed that too. So they changed it.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I see what you did there. Very subtle, but ultimately bad form.

I see what you think I did there. What I actually did was acknowledge that if you have both per-day and per-encounter resources, instead of only per-day resources, you will blow through your per-day resources more slowly since you can use per-encounter (and at-will) resources instead. So you get hours of adventuring rather than minutes.