Something that 4e's designers overlooked? -aka is KM correct?

[billd91]

If I might ask: How is ANY of this important to the fanbase, since Original, Advanced, Basic, 3E and 4E D&D are not wargames, aren't supposed to be wargames, and tried for the first five or six years of its existance to distance itself from being "just another wargame?"

I think you're sticking too much to the objectives of strategy in wargames rather than the objectives of strategy for an RPG. Strategic concerns enhance role playing games by tying episodic encounters into the continuity of the character's life, to use somewhat pretentious language. Without much strategic emphasis, encounters become disjointed tactical exercises best suited for a skirmish miniatures game, perhaps interspersed with a few cut scenes of character interaction or role-playing.

The more strategic linkages between the characters and the environment, the more you actually get a continuous story, the spending of strategic assets affects the ability to spend them down the timeline, linking events and encounters together. Plus, you get the players to make choices that may have some pretty interesting ramifications. Do they press on despite the depletion of strategic resources, relying more on chance, because they have a greater probability of keeping their enemies disrupted and unable to mount an effective counter or do they pull back to refit/recuperate risking the enemy reforming in a formidable way? In such an environment, the use of a strong resource with limited uses early may significantly affect encounters down the road. And I'm not just talking about combat encounters either, but other resources that may apply outside of the environment of a fight (like a lot of gold spread around to bribe officials in a town, calling in a favor from a friendly noble, or even leaving rope tied up at the top of a cliff you had to climb down).

 

[Mark]

If I might ask: How is ANY of this important to the fanbase, (. . .)

I think everyone bothering to post here considers themself part of the "fanbase" in every fair sense of the word, and therefore by posting are expressing their sense of what is important.

(. . .) since Original, Advanced, Basic, 3E and 4E D&D are not wargames, aren't supposed to be wargames, and tried for the first five or six years of its existance to distance itself from being "just another wargame?".

Using strategy, yes -- I can see the value of that as being important to quite a few different kinds of games; however, trying to use elements that emulate wargames kind of defeats the purpose of what the original designers were trying to do in the first place -- using wargaming-rooted rules to emulate a certain type of genre. Conan, Fafhrd, and Elric couldn't on their own fly like birds, cause earthquakes, raise the dead, and transform into dragons - yet AD&D characters could, quite regularly, and use buff-scry-teleport tricks that would give Robert Howard or Fritz Leiber pause had they ever seen them. (Well, Fritz might have seen them later in the 70's, but I'm reasonably sure he didn't have buff-scry-teleport in mind when he was writing Mouser and Fafhrd stories.)

Well, . . . leading armies, rising to the level of kings and generals and high priests and guild leaders, consolidating power, forging an empire, defending it against hordes of evil . . . these all require elements of strategic planning that the legacy of wargaming made possible. Some of the best S&S authors certainly had these in mind and if some RPGs have trouble handling such elements perhaps they were overlooked by the designers.

 

[Scribble]

1st level fourth edition characters are buffed compared to former editions.

what has been lost, in my opinion, is the ability to narrate the path leading to a hero... with the POL philosophy if you are level one you are already a hero.

i don't like it... (but I can deal with this and play it anyway).

Well- I wouldn't say it's "the ability" so much as maybe your own ability. (But you kind of say that I guess by qualifying it as an opinion.)

If you want to say it's no longer possible to play a game in which the player goes from virtually ineffective, to nigh unstoppable, then sure, I agree. 4e characters are relatively effective from the start.

In my opinion, however, the narration is separate from the game play.

Narration is all in the.. well narrating. I started the events in my last 4e game off with relative nobodies. The trick was in how things were described, and having everyone on board with how those descriptions worked.

Take a look at any action oriented story that has the characters starting as "nobodies." The author will almost definitely put them in situations that seem unsurvivable were they still somehow manage to survive (otherwise the story is boring.)

The author simply find some trick to help them survive. The bad guy slips... They get a lucky shot off... The wind picks up at just the right moment causing the arrow about to impale them to be blown slightly off course... etc.

These types of situations can still be (and I still do) narrated within the context of 4e rules. Failing to hit a PC's AC doesn't HAVE to be narrated as the PC being too hard to hit. You can pull out any of the "exciting farmboy fight survival" narrative elements and use that instead. Same is true for the PC hitting the bad guy's AC. You don't HAVE to narrate it as the PC being skilled with his weapon. You can narrate it as the enemy being momentarily clumsy, or the old lucky shot...

I find is slightly easier now to narrate these situations in fact.

Previously the game was built in such a way that the player would either need to run away, or survive on real life luck to see things through.

Maybe you're luckier then I am... but my luck in real life is rarely as good as those in the books I read,, and movies I watch... So it was more a string of failed farmboys, as opposed to the tales of the farmboy turned hero.

As far as gameplay, I agree there is some fun to a game that starts you off virtually ineffective, and forces you to build your way up in power. It can be exciting for the player to know he managed to survive at low odds.

But the problem is how much will this joy be overcome by annoyance when I don't survive?

Earlier editions of D&D I find akin to games like Spy Hunter. Put your quarter in, and you get a car driving down the road. You blast cars, while trying not to crash into stuff and blow up. As you go you get power ups, and avoiding being blown up gets a little easier... If/when you DO blow up, it's not such a big deal, you get another car, and just start doing it again. It's a quick and painless process.

The Same thing is true in my opinion with earlier forms of D&D. When your dude blows up, rolling up a new dude is relatively painless. Not too many hard decision points in there...

Bob The Fighter II - Revenge of Bob the Fighter jumps back into the game in a matter of moments.

But start adding things like, feats, and skills, and powers into the mix... Now you have a lot more to think about when building a dude, and the annoyance at dying begins to overtake the thrill of surviving.

So I guess you pick your poison.

I like both- I like the newer style where I can put a good amount of thought strategy into my character, and not have to worry so much about inevitable death, and the work of creating Bob II...

But sometimes I like a good old game of see how many PCs die tonight... And for that I use systems with characters that roll up pretty quickly.

Neither style though has a definitive way it needs to be narrated though. (At least in my own oppinion.)

 

[Raven Crowking]

Take a look at any action oriented story that has the characters starting as "nobodies." The author will almost definitely put them in situations that seem unsurvivable were they still somehow manage to survive (otherwise the story is boring.)

There are some great stories where the protagonist doesn't survive. I was specifically thinking of Robert E. Howard, but the fact is that REH is not alone in this.

Heck, one of the things that was so exciting about Lost when it started was that you never knew who would bite the bullet.

TNG killed Tasha Yar to demonstrate that major characters could die. Too bad it wasn't Wesley Crusher......


RC

 

[Doug McCrae]

And Samuel L Jackson's character died unexpectedly in Deep Blue Sea. I bet there is a name for this on TVTropes, but I'm too lazy to look.

 

[Stormonu]

I've read both pages and I'm not sure I understand the discussion.

Is this basically boiling down to, "How much jeopardy will you and your group risk?"

Overall, I'm not seeing anything that's really changed from edition to edition if all that's being asked is how deadly the game is. A single encounter still can kill just about any character in any edition, especially if the dice sour - despite any and all planning or luck.

 

[Scribble]

There are some great stories where the protagonist doesn't survive. I was specifically thinking of Robert E. Howard, but the fact is that REH is not alone in this.

Heck, one of the things that was so exciting about Lost when it started was that you never knew who would bite the bullet.

TNG killed Tasha Yar to demonstrate that major characters could die. Too bad it wasn't Wesley Crusher......


RC

Oh I'm not in any way saying they can't die- Just as I'm also not advocating removing death entirely from the game.

I only agree with removing it from being the default result of 90% of any action other then run away (and sometimes even that too) taken in the first few levels of the game.

 

[Henry]

Overall, I'm not seeing anything that's really changed from edition to edition if all that's being asked is how deadly the game is. A single encounter still can kill just about any character in any edition, especially if the dice sour - despite any and all planning or luck.

This is my feeling, too. Thing is, the whole focus based on several responses seems to be about how much D&D has moved away from the kind of strategy play in wargames and other games with resource management, yet D&D still has risk-based strategy elements, they just aren't based as much on "do I commit my forces in Africa when the Americas are ramping up production in late-game?" or its D&D equivalent "Do I use my sleep spell now or save it for something more threatening later?" It still has it, just not to the detriment it is in earlier versions.

A lot of that kind of advice is still valid -- the "Be Aware, Take Care" style of advice is still worthy to note. It just doesn't push all your poker chips into the pot leaving you with absolutely nothing like it used to if you went for broke and misjudged the timing of the endgame.

 

[pemerton]

Smart player (not character) tactics as to how to approach potential threats, and not just confronting them head on, is critical for survival. This is an aspect that is just no longer there in the most recent iteration of the game.

I don't know how much experience you have playing 4e, as the basis for making this claim.

But in my experiene this is simply not true. 4e clearly requires smart tactics - an encounter can change from being a cakewalk to a virtual TPK depending on how the players handle it (in terms of movement, decisions about when to use encounter powers, about when and whether to use dailies and action points, etc).

 

[pemerton]

The more strategic linkages between the characters and the environment, the more you actually get a continuous story

In my own GMing experience, continuous story is the result mainly of relationships among the PCs, and of the PCs to NPCs and other significant elements of the gameworld, rather than from the careful counting of ammunition, torches and iron rations.