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

[billd91]

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.

Yeah, and if you'll read to the end of my post you'll see equipment's not the totality of what I mean.

 

[FireLance]

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.

You know, I'm starting to think that the fundamental difference in spirit between the older and the newer editions is that older editions were more like gambling, with stakes that could be won or lost, whereas newer editions are more like a lucky draw; the results are still random, but the downsides are mitigated: most of the time, the worst that could happen is that you get a booby prize.

Given the psychological and behavioral principles of risk aversion and loss aversion, it is perhaps unsurprising that the newer editions have developed along those lines.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

The way I see it, its about kicking ass.

In early editions(the AD&D years, 1E and 2E) the capabilities of low level characters didn't exactly invoke the concept of 'kicking ass'. A couple of bad rolls and even the sorriest creature could kill you, and as other people have said the entire world was a dangerous place filled with sharp pointy objects ready to kill you. In that sort of world, making sure you have enough food or a 10ft pole to poke at things from a safe difference is interesting, or at least interesting compared to picking a fight and praying the dice gods like you and you survive. Once you got some decent gear and a few levels(lets say level 5), you were strong enough that you weren't scared of the dark anymore, and mundane everday life wasn't interesting anymore and life became focused on kicking ass.

For whatever reason in 3E, whether 3E did low levels worse than AD&D or 3E players didn't have the inclination to play low levels, a large amount of people(possibly a majority) skipped ahead and began the game at levels 3-5(or even higher), and there was less mundane everyday life in the game. When 4E came out, they rearranged the game so that starting out at level 1 felt like playing earlier editions at level 5, complete with the ass kicking. Mundane everyday life can't compete with ass-kicking, and when you can kick ass you don't really care so much whats in your backpack.

 

[xechnao]

The second question is going to be a matter of taste. If my D&D consists of an adventuring party who are professional dungeoneers who try to get maximal loot for minimal risk, then resource management is important and part of the game. If my D&D is primarily concerned with accomplishing non-resource quest objectives (uncover the evil biship, escape Gates Pass, kill Orcus, etc...), then mandatory resource management can get in the way of what (for that party at least) is the point of the game.

-KS

Bingo. This is exactly what I wanted to ask.

Eventually, it seems to me, that 4e seems to be more suited for storytelling aka structured story paths or quests while previous editions where more focused on player characters regarding what they could AND would want to do on negotiations with the the rest (other PCs along DM=setting/world).

Now, if you can see this, (and even if you cannot) what do you think is more fun aka suited for a tabletop game like D&D? Both approaches could be interesting and fun and both can be present at the same time but which do you think is the most important to feel - which may first describe the source of your positive feelings- regarding the game while you experience it.

 

[dragonlordofpoondari]

@Odhanan:

Nice avatar! Looks strangely familiar ...

Nice insights, too.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I agree that some of the strategic, resource management aspects of the game have been lost, in favor of emphasizing other kinds of play. But they aren't completely gone. You can still track torches and rations if you like. And nothing's been done to negate the importance of things like intelligence gathering or simple prudence. Smart play, as well as foolish, still exists (and they're both still extraordinarily subjective, but there's nothing to be done about that. D&D will never be chess).


This is spot-on. What's interesting to me, however, is how this new focus matches with a great deal of D&D's source material. Swords-and-sorcery protagonists were all about the 'tactics of the now'. They survived deadly scrapes using their swords and wits, not their detail-oriented management skills. Many classic S&S stories feature heroes thrown into situations where careful planning was impossible --I'm thinking now of the 2nd John Carter novel. These characters were all about using their environment to their advantage, but rarely did they kit up like members of an IMF (that's Impossible Mission Force, not International Monetary Fund) team.

The careful, strategic, planning-heavy mode of D&D play always struck me as being at odds with much of the fiction that inspired the game. 4e in particular, does a much better job emulating pulp S&S stories, due in large part to it's focus on immediate tactics over long-term strategic planning.

Have given you too much xp, but I must say - I agree wholeheartedly.

3.x at higher levels is so much about planning. Last session we probably planned for 2 hours before going in. If that had been 4e, the planning phase would have lasted max 30 minutes.

 

[AllisterH]

I see it more akin to the differences between Constructed and Limited (to use M:TG terminology).

The former, easily 75% of your success is due entirely to the PRE-game planning (a.k.a the deck construction). Build a good deck and it will play itself (indeed, many of the banned cards in M:TG are combo cards/mana acceleration to prevent this type of game).

Whereas Limited is more 50/50 in that half of your success is due to ACTUAL play and half due to Pre-game deck construction.

 

[Odhanan]

[duplicate - disregard]

 

[Odhanan]

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).

Sure. Which are smarts applied to game mechanics. Which I particularly adressed by posting:

We could be speaking of lethality, resource management, whether talking of equipment, spells, food, henchmen and hirelings wounded or lost... risk-taking was a greater part of the game in earlier days, and was multi-dimensional in nature. It wasn't just about game mechanics, not just about whether you had just spent your Daily power or Healing surges or not.

(...)

Further, some of these types of resource management, namely things like light sources, food, hirelings and henchmen, help me better immerse myself in the game world. They are about the character connecting, interacting with, and managing his adventuring environment, and not the numbers on the character sheet.

It's great the you appreciate applying your smarts to the game system. I certainly didn't mean to say that playing 4e (or whatever other similar game or edition) doesn't require any wits or smarts. It does. That's just not the particular or exclusive way I prefer to emphasize them at my game table.

 

[MichaelSomething]

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.

Anyone can Die, perhaps?