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Supposing D&D is gamist, what does that mean?
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<blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8634908" data-attributes="member: 6696971"><p>I think your case is really, really difficult (and by difficult I mean impossible) to make considering everything we know. And Mearls cribbing the conflict resolution mechanics of several other indie games (and being heavily involved in The Forge that was using exactly those scene resolution mechanics...and player-authored kickers - quests) doesn't help the idea that 4e was an iteration of 3.5! So a giant pile of thoughts that push back against your conception of the 2 systems' relationship. Heinsoo himself in interviews called out/spoke about:</p><p></p><p>* 4e "rebuilding" (D&D) rather than "iterating" or "building upon."</p><p></p><p>* 4e's conception and design as an answer to a myriad of 3.x features/bugs:</p><p></p><p>- Building the maths from the ground up rather than inheriting them from legacy.</p><p></p><p>- Extending the sweet spot from 1-30 rather than the tiny sweet spot of 3.x; 1-6.</p><p></p><p>- Removing the save or die effect paradigm of 3.x and legacy.</p><p></p><p>- Making characters robust at 1st level rather than absurdly vulnerable. Also, making characters have beefy self-sustain.</p><p></p><p>- Acknowledging that roles are a fundamental lynchpin of play (and always have been), encoding them (and transparently so), diversifying the archetypes within the roles...the combination of which makes it so if the Cleric or Wizard or Bard w/ Cure Wand doesn't show up this week you don't have to play something else (or GMPC them). For instance, my last 1-30 4e game was a Swarm Druid, a Bladesinger, and a Duelist Rogue along with an assemblage of Companion Characters (a Bear, a Sentient Sword, 5 Minion Ghosts).</p><p></p><p>- Focusing on simplicity of GMing via robustness of tools and ease of monster/obstacle design so GMs aren't spending egregious cognitive overhead and handling time on dealing with monsters (god help you with a buff or debuff at 11+ level with high HD creatures...especially en masse).</p><p></p><p>- Getting rid of massive-amplifying and math-intensive buffs and debuffs (see above).</p><p></p><p>- Removing the deep, default simulationist (he actually used this word) orientation of mechanics and play and focusing on the game-playability and evocativeness of mechanics and generating wondrousness and mystery in its magic (rather than doing math forever and analyzing whether or not this economy is legit due to the fallout of Fabricate etc) and focusing on story side of the mechanics (his comments here could come directly from various Forge conversations...Heinsoo, Tweet, Mearls were all very much into the indie game scene).</p><p></p><p>- Having uniformity of cool stuff you get, regardless of class, every time you level (vs the 3.x disparity).</p><p></p><p>- Mechanics that encouraged and demanded extreme and dynamic battlefield mobility, particularly for martial character vs what happened in 3.x (find optimal square and deploy Full Attack...maybe move here and there).</p><p></p><p>- Make decisions beefy, interesting, and consequential on every player's turn.</p><p></p><p>- Build a Points of Light setting with wondrous mythology and a lot of deep cosmological conflicts that provoked focused conflict and required immediate and constant action to save a world/cosmos in peril. But at the same time you're making it thematically provocative and ensconced in conflict/on-fire, do it in broad strokes and let individual tables fill out their worlds and stories as they play. Keep details dramatically relatively loose compared to 2e and 3.x settings.</p><p></p><p>- Get rid of the (simulationist and PC-build-components eating) Crafting and all of the stuff devoted to it. The system just isn't handling it. If you're going to craft something, use the Quest system and handle it like an epic journey with Skill Challenges and the like.</p><p></p><p>- Move the powerful, game-overwhelming spells to Rituals, power them down dramatically, and make these available to everyone.</p><p></p><p>- Create an easy to use stunting and terrain system and encourage stunts and dynamic terrain/battlefield interaction.</p><p></p><p>- Exception-based design.</p><p></p><p>- Balance achieved through unified resource scheduling and refresh.</p><p></p><p>[HR][/HR]</p><p></p><p>Outside of what Heinsoo et al said about 4e's goals and design, here is my own pile that I'm going to try to not have overlap with the above:</p><p></p><p>* Noncombat Conflict Resolution (the Skill Challenge) which features indie game/Burning Wheel intent and stakes be established and requires deft use of Fail Forward and Change the Situation by the GM.</p><p></p><p>* Subjective DCs/maths (for everything from Skill Challenges, to Obstacles, to Hazards/Traps/Terrain, to Monster Math) that were anchored to Tier and the level of the PCs rather than a giant pile of task resolution, objective DCs that were to be deployed whenever. The goal of play was to create an endless torrent of conflict and action (Skil the gate guards and get to the fun!). That meant challenge math had to be anchored to PCs and appropriate fiction tied to those Tiers. Play was not about the "experiential quality of being there" and "setting tourism" and conflict-neutral exploration. It was about high-octane action-adventure stuff all the time.</p><p></p><p>* Codified Tiers of play with Themes and Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies and fiction (including the integration of all of the obstacles) that evokes, provokes, and focuses play.</p><p></p><p>* The Quest engine (in particular, the Player Authored Quest system) being an integral part/incentive structure play to propel the trajectory of play/character advancement.</p><p></p><p>* Complete change in the Magic Item system and effectively being a pseudo-player-kicker (Wishlists as part of PC build).</p><p></p><p>* Keyword tech (like MtG and so many indie games) dominating the game engine stem to stern.</p><p></p><p>* Moving away from purple prose navigation to get to consequential mechanics (these things were entirely separated and the prose was pithy and chunky).</p><p></p><p>* MEGA aggressive statements like "Skip the gate guards and get to the fun (Cut to the action...at every moment, drive play toward conflict" and "Come and Get It" and "Martial Control Suites (Defender packages)" and "Warlord Inspirational Healing" and "Martial Damage on a Miss" and "Fail Forward."</p><p></p><p>* Milestone mechanics (along with pretty much auto Short Rests and deep resource reserves for every PC to encourage pressing on rather than trying to get a Long Rest.</p><p></p><p>* The complete paradigm shift of handling mook/mass combats with Minion and Swarm mechanics and Auras.</p><p></p><p>* Modular design with the serious and debilitating story and/or attrition effects onto the Disease Track.</p><p></p><p>[HR][/HR]</p><p></p><p>Anyway, they're just different beasts entirely. "ZE GAME (did not) REMAINS ZE SAME."</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Manbearcat, post: 8634908, member: 6696971"] I think your case is really, really difficult (and by difficult I mean impossible) to make considering everything we know. And Mearls cribbing the conflict resolution mechanics of several other indie games (and being heavily involved in The Forge that was using exactly those scene resolution mechanics...and player-authored kickers - quests) doesn't help the idea that 4e was an iteration of 3.5! So a giant pile of thoughts that push back against your conception of the 2 systems' relationship. Heinsoo himself in interviews called out/spoke about: * 4e "rebuilding" (D&D) rather than "iterating" or "building upon." * 4e's conception and design as an answer to a myriad of 3.x features/bugs: - Building the maths from the ground up rather than inheriting them from legacy. - Extending the sweet spot from 1-30 rather than the tiny sweet spot of 3.x; 1-6. - Removing the save or die effect paradigm of 3.x and legacy. - Making characters robust at 1st level rather than absurdly vulnerable. Also, making characters have beefy self-sustain. - Acknowledging that roles are a fundamental lynchpin of play (and always have been), encoding them (and transparently so), diversifying the archetypes within the roles...the combination of which makes it so if the Cleric or Wizard or Bard w/ Cure Wand doesn't show up this week you don't have to play something else (or GMPC them). For instance, my last 1-30 4e game was a Swarm Druid, a Bladesinger, and a Duelist Rogue along with an assemblage of Companion Characters (a Bear, a Sentient Sword, 5 Minion Ghosts). - Focusing on simplicity of GMing via robustness of tools and ease of monster/obstacle design so GMs aren't spending egregious cognitive overhead and handling time on dealing with monsters (god help you with a buff or debuff at 11+ level with high HD creatures...especially en masse). - Getting rid of massive-amplifying and math-intensive buffs and debuffs (see above). - Removing the deep, default simulationist (he actually used this word) orientation of mechanics and play and focusing on the game-playability and evocativeness of mechanics and generating wondrousness and mystery in its magic (rather than doing math forever and analyzing whether or not this economy is legit due to the fallout of Fabricate etc) and focusing on story side of the mechanics (his comments here could come directly from various Forge conversations...Heinsoo, Tweet, Mearls were all very much into the indie game scene). - Having uniformity of cool stuff you get, regardless of class, every time you level (vs the 3.x disparity). - Mechanics that encouraged and demanded extreme and dynamic battlefield mobility, particularly for martial character vs what happened in 3.x (find optimal square and deploy Full Attack...maybe move here and there). - Make decisions beefy, interesting, and consequential on every player's turn. - Build a Points of Light setting with wondrous mythology and a lot of deep cosmological conflicts that provoked focused conflict and required immediate and constant action to save a world/cosmos in peril. But at the same time you're making it thematically provocative and ensconced in conflict/on-fire, do it in broad strokes and let individual tables fill out their worlds and stories as they play. Keep details dramatically relatively loose compared to 2e and 3.x settings. - Get rid of the (simulationist and PC-build-components eating) Crafting and all of the stuff devoted to it. The system just isn't handling it. If you're going to craft something, use the Quest system and handle it like an epic journey with Skill Challenges and the like. - Move the powerful, game-overwhelming spells to Rituals, power them down dramatically, and make these available to everyone. - Create an easy to use stunting and terrain system and encourage stunts and dynamic terrain/battlefield interaction. - Exception-based design. - Balance achieved through unified resource scheduling and refresh. [HR][/HR] Outside of what Heinsoo et al said about 4e's goals and design, here is my own pile that I'm going to try to not have overlap with the above: * Noncombat Conflict Resolution (the Skill Challenge) which features indie game/Burning Wheel intent and stakes be established and requires deft use of Fail Forward and Change the Situation by the GM. * Subjective DCs/maths (for everything from Skill Challenges, to Obstacles, to Hazards/Traps/Terrain, to Monster Math) that were anchored to Tier and the level of the PCs rather than a giant pile of task resolution, objective DCs that were to be deployed whenever. The goal of play was to create an endless torrent of conflict and action (Skil the gate guards and get to the fun!). That meant challenge math had to be anchored to PCs and appropriate fiction tied to those Tiers. Play was not about the "experiential quality of being there" and "setting tourism" and conflict-neutral exploration. It was about high-octane action-adventure stuff all the time. * Codified Tiers of play with Themes and Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies and fiction (including the integration of all of the obstacles) that evokes, provokes, and focuses play. * The Quest engine (in particular, the Player Authored Quest system) being an integral part/incentive structure play to propel the trajectory of play/character advancement. * Complete change in the Magic Item system and effectively being a pseudo-player-kicker (Wishlists as part of PC build). * Keyword tech (like MtG and so many indie games) dominating the game engine stem to stern. * Moving away from purple prose navigation to get to consequential mechanics (these things were entirely separated and the prose was pithy and chunky). * MEGA aggressive statements like "Skip the gate guards and get to the fun (Cut to the action...at every moment, drive play toward conflict" and "Come and Get It" and "Martial Control Suites (Defender packages)" and "Warlord Inspirational Healing" and "Martial Damage on a Miss" and "Fail Forward." * Milestone mechanics (along with pretty much auto Short Rests and deep resource reserves for every PC to encourage pressing on rather than trying to get a Long Rest. * The complete paradigm shift of handling mook/mass combats with Minion and Swarm mechanics and Auras. * Modular design with the serious and debilitating story and/or attrition effects onto the Disease Track. [HR][/HR] Anyway, they're just different beasts entirely. "ZE GAME (did not) REMAINS ZE SAME." [/QUOTE]
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