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

[xechnao]

A distinct element of previous editions was who or what you were going to risk in a given encounter if things went awry. What risks were you going to take would ultimately influence your further progress within the dungeon or adventure. There were more answers to this question than just one and each player had to figure out how the others react and so to provoke his desired course of action. Now, with 4e's respected encounter roles it seems this active negotiation has been lost somehow.

Do you think this is correct? If so, do you think this is important and how?

 

[TerraDave]

Hmm. I think we had 3 or so discussions along these lines in the last 4E session I ran.

In 3E, if you knew you could get XP for the encounter, and probably find treasure, what was the undue risk?

In 1E, if you knew you could find treasure, what was the undue risk?

4E still has daily resources, expendable resources, and strategic rewards in the RAW (story awards and treasure which is not to be distributed evenly). A DM who downplays the latter will reduce those strategic elements and risk. If you put more emphasis on them, then strategy comes back.

You can even have encounters that are too dangerous and should be avoided, though 4E players are pretty tough.

Of course, my experience is, PCs always act like they are tough, no matter what edition.

 

[Odhanan]

You can even have encounters that are too dangerous and should be avoided, though 4E players are pretty tough.

Of course, my experience is, PCs always act like they are tough, no matter what edition.

The difference, of course, is that if players act like they're tough with first level PCs, they die. Period. Slash. Roll a new character.

Risks in a dungeon are managed differently with each edition. The basic, gross assumption is that the greater the risks (and thus greater the probabilities of terminal failure for bad play), the older the edition of the game.

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.

I personally appreciate older styles of resource management and risk taking precisely because of the different approaches offered in actual play, because smart play is rewarded, stupid play punished by failure and death, and the evolution of a rough character concept into a fully fledged out persona means that you've done something right in actual play, not that you came up with a cool concept prior to the game.

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.

So yes, I firmly believe that something has been lost in this regard as editions of the game came out, one after the other. Now it's about the tactical management of the "now", with broader management being incidental, a detail compared to encounter management, at best. It's about playing super-heroes fighting villains and their henchmen, with the possibility of some kryptonite coming into play somehow, somewhere. Not about adventurers trying to make it through a world that is literally and actively threatening to them.

There's nothing wrong with this later feel if you and your buddies happen to like it. I just personally like it a lot less than what the game once was, and still is, to me at least.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

I´m somewhat surprised that, after all these threads which start with "it seems X is lacking in 4e" and continue with "did you know, old chap, that older editions had X", there is anything left of 4e at all.

 

[Mallus]

So yes, I firmly believe that something has been lost in this regard as editions of the game came out, one after the other.

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).

Now it's about the tactical management of the "now", with broader management being incidental, a detail compared to encounter management, at best.

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.

 

[Obryn]

A distinct element of previous editions was who or what you were going to risk in a given encounter if things went awry. What risks were you going to take would ultimately influence your further progress within the dungeon or adventure. There were more answers to this question than just one and each player had to figure out how the others react and so to provoke his desired course of action. Now, with 4e's respected encounter roles it seems this active negotiation has been lost somehow.

Do you think this is correct? If so, do you think this is important and how?

Sorry to be Mr. Specific again, but could you make this a little more concrete for me? This is all very vague. I mean, there's still risks of death, failure, etc - that hasn't changed. There's a risk you'll waste resources uselessly. There's a risk of NPCs dying. You can still try to overcome impossible odds for great rewards.

I take it you're not talking about any of these, since all of these are pretty obvious points. So what are you talking about? What's a "respected encounter role"? I'm seeing a lot of head-nodding and agreement, but I have no idea what the agreement is with, if you catch my meaning.

-O

 

[Doug McCrae]

In S&S the heroes are jocks. In D&D the heroes are nerds.

 

[Bluenose]

I personally appreciate older styles of resource management and risk taking precisely because of the different approaches offered in actual play, because smart play is rewarded, stupid play punished by failure and death, and the evolution of a rough character concept into a fully fledged out persona means that you've done something right in actual play, not that you came up with a cool concept prior to the game.

What's so smart about careful resource management? Why is taking a chance with limited resources stupid? If your suggestion is that carefully making sure you always have the resources you need to win a fight is the only way to be smart, I'm certain you're wrong. Using the resources you have to win a fight which it looks like you should lose is equally clever. I don't want want most fights to be where my clever use of resources makes them foregone conclusions - I want fights where I don't have the resources that make it easy but I still have to find a way to use the resources I have available to win.

 

[Mark]

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.

It was wargames that were as much the source material for D&D as fiction and since D&D is a game, not a linear narrative, it stands to reason that both the strategic and tactical elements of games that were its predecessors and progenitors would be present.

 

[Odhanan]

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).

Sure. You still can. It's not as much an assumption on the game's part as it's once was, however (see Underworld and Wilderness Adventures, vol. 3 of OD&D, 1974, and the First Edition Dungeon Master's Guide, in this regard).

Moreover, you sure still have smart and foolish play, but the consequences for smart or foolish play are different, as well as the expectations behind them. In earlier editions, particularly at lower levels, foolish play means someone dies. It's not "save or suck", it's "save or DIE". 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.

Its fans see it as a good thing. Good for them. Being happy with the present iteration of the game doesn't mean this aspect hasn't changed, however. It confirms it.

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.

Well, there is the wargaming aspect of the game that was one major part of its flavor early on. So strategic planning was/is a sine qua non condition for success.

As much as D&D was originally inspired by the pulp Fantasy fiction surrounding its creators at the time (Grey Mouser, Elric, LOTR, etc etc), they were all distilled through the lense of the wargaming hobby, and came into play as such through Chainmail's Fantasy Supplement and later, OD&D (1974).

The term oft tossed around of "cinematic" is interesting in this regard, in that the present game play tries to emulate a fiction, including its narrative emphasis and various stylistic elements, whereas the earlier versions of the game didn't have such concerns, or at least, considered them from a different point of view. It was about the actuality of the game and an emulation of the essence, not form, of its sources of inspiration.