D&D 4E The Best Thing from 4E

[Bluenose]

Fair enough. I'll assume that the in-game reality corresponding to "can't make opportunity attacks" is sufficiently distinct from the in-game reality corresponding to "dazed" or "-2 on attacks" that it would make sense that the fighter can attempt specific maneuvers to inflict such conditions.

Yes. Of course on the gross scale that D&D (nearly all RPGs, I suppose) work at, there's not really any way to categorise all the different "conditions" that real combat includes. Nor, I would suggest, is there any particular need to include a massive amount, my preferred systems do not do so. However, if you're going to include Dazed and Stunned and Bleeding and Distracted and Blinded and a host of other effects, then you might as well include them properly rather than making them purely an artifact of a bloated magic system while insisting all other combat needs to be entirely abstract.

 

[innerdude]

I've tried Savage Worlds. It's, well, fine as far as it goes. Very rules lite.

I didn't notice it being as free of balance, abstraction, and playability as the process sim/verisimilitude/DS crowd typically seem to demand, though.

Well, see, it's funny, because I'll be the first to admit that Savage Worlds has gamist / metagame mechanics poking out in a number of spots. For instance, it still bothers me sometimes how "metagamed" and "dissociated" the wound soaking system is in Savage Worlds, because on a certain level it plays against SW's ability to draw reasonably plausible, "verisimilitudinous" resolutions for nearly everything else.

But even then, I don't mind its gamist/metagame proud nails nearly as much as I do D&D's. Why? Because the core mechanic, though less granular than other "toolbox," skill-based systems, manages to abstract basic determination of human competency in a surprisingly elegant way. And for me, this is the level of resolution I care about. I don't really care how well Savage Worlds models dragons, and liches, and balors (oh my!); I care how well it models "grounded human" capacity---which it does very well, if you're willing to approach it from a more casual, streamlined standpoint. I like the elegant "nods to realism" in Savage; the overly prescriptive "realism" of GURPS leaves me cold. But for someone who likes stuff like GURPS, HERO, or Runequest, Savage Worlds will be inadequate.

So too, if the "high fantasy," intricately interlocking tactical combat of 4e is your bag, SW will not scratch that itch fully.

Savage sits in an odd design space---it's not "gamist" enough for the hardcore battle tacticians, it's not "narrativist" enough for people who dig Fate, Cortex+, etc., and it's not "simulationist" enough for the people that are drawn to stuff like Runequest, GURPS, and EABA. What it does provide is a gameplay experience that gives nods to all three, while keeping the core resolution mechanic fast, and with enough "nods to realism" to give it its widely-acclaimed flexibility and fun.

(Interestingly, though, take away the concept of bennies and "soaking" wounds, and make the skill system slightly more rigorous, and Savage Worlds can hit a fairly high threshold of "simulationism." It will be a more casual form of simulationism, but in most cases the "process sim" side of Savage Worlds works very well. And once again it does all this without without the legacy strictures and detritus of D&D [classes & levels, Vancian casting, hit points, armor class] that I've grown to dislike.)

In terms of balance, I'm guessing you just haven't had enough experience with the system to see that it's one of the most balanced systems out there, at least in terms of allowing a wide variety of realized character concepts to make meaningful contributions in all phases of the game. Is it perfectly balanced? No. There are some moderately more optimal, and some moderately more sub-optimal build choices. But in play, every character I've seen has meaningfully contributed both in and out of combat. And I certainly can't say that about ANY D&D campaign I've played. As a GM I never, ever feel like I have to "tailor" an adventure to one character's strengths or weaknesses. I could if I wanted to, but I don't need to. I never worry if a player is going to be left out, because it just doesn't happen in Savage Worlds.

 

[pemerton]

the initial 4e release was a botched, over-hyped rush job. Why in the world did it take three--THREE!!!!!!--monster manuals (the Essentials Monster Vault being the final result) to get the encounter math right?

The maths is correct in MM3, which predates the MM.

But you can run heroic monsters from the MM and MM2 without needing to change - I did - and have a fine time.

To this day, can anyone but die-hard 4e GMs point out what the "real" or "correct" math is for skill challenges?

Yes. It's in the RC and the Essentials DM kit.

Though again, at lower levels the errata-ed DMG numbers will do fine.

 

[pemerton]

I'm going to propose that there is a binary at play in all RPGs: an exploration of conflict and an exploration of color. (Have to Americanize it, sorry [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]!)

The exploration of conflict is primarily about the avatar(s) progressing through the narrative, and overcoming narrative conflicts to achieve their progression within the greater fictional world

<snip>

Exploration of color, then, is the gameplay where conflict, risk, and stakes are not present or fairly low-key. It's talking to the city guards to find out what's going on in the city

<snip>

How does that tie to 4e? Both games (the change from 3e->4e and from early WoW to WoW with multiple expansions) emphasized a change in focus from stake-less play to play with larger goals, a change from a focus on color to a focus on conflict.

<snip>

I believe that's why the loss of wizards and Vancian magic ultimately led to the rejection of 4e by so many. For those of us who love conflict play, we understood that wizards were the most powerful class because they had an incomparable ability to render conflict moot. A well played wizard is the ultimate tool for color focused play. A wizard epitomizes the triumph of logistics and planning (a hallmark of color based play) over plot challenges.

This is an interesting post, but I think it contains a contradiction, or at least a degree of tension.

You begin by characterising "colour"-focused play as stake-less, but then conclude by pointing to the wizard's ability to triumph via planning as colour-oriented. But when a wizard stops the invading army by flooding the plain, or by collapsing the general's tower using Transmute Rock to Mud, that is not stakeless in the fiction. It's only stakeless in the mechanics, because of the way the D&D spell system works (auto-win).

So it's not about "colour" vs "conflict" - it's about resolution systems: wizards, in D&D, have what Jonathan Tweet calls "karma" resolution. That is, their players don't have to roll dice and get lucky, but can just declare auto-success.

I agree that some wizard abilities aren't about stake and conficts - teleport is the classic one, which allows scene-reframing at will, and some divination abilities also play like this.

If the player of a wizard wanted to have his/her PC teleport around the world casting Detect Magic spells so as to create an atlas of magical effects, I agree that that would be "colour" rather than conflict play. And 4e really would push against it a bit. But I find it hard to believe that anything but a small minority of 3E or PF tables were playing that sort of game - it's heyday was 2nd ed AD&D (especially some Planescape play, I think) but even then I think it was a minority approach.

But the player of a wizard who want to save the village by casting Rock to Mud so as to drown the attacking goblins in quicksand isn't favouring colour over conflict. S/he just wants auto-win buttons in conflict resolution, which shift the real gameplay to different areas (a good knowledge of the spell system, and effective spell selection).

4e pushes against that too, but not because it favours conflict over colour. Rather, it favours clever play within the scene rather than logicstical planning, via spell-memorisation, before the scene. It very significantly redefines what counts as system mastery for D&D.

 

[pemerton]

since being able to play an instrument doesn't add any specific capability to a character that the character doesn't already have, in game mechanical terms, there's no need for it to be a controlled player resource that has to be be paid for or rationed.

<snip>

As for "how well you play an instrument" there's two answers to that. Answer one is "well enough to succeed" and answer two is "who cares?" I mean really, who cares how well you play? Narrate it as good or bad playing, its not relevant.

In my game, the sorcerer PC has multi-classed into bard a couple of times: once fairy early on (around 6th level) and then again around epic. He is still a bard now, and will remain one through to 30th (too big a mechanical commitment now to contempate retraining!).

So that character has always been able to sing. Mostly he sits around singing lays of the olden times, before the drow were sundered from the elves and driven below ground. From memory, his music has mattered once in a situation of genuine conflict resolution: the PCs were entering a Fey apple grove haunted by a demon, and the demon was screaming (which had the potential to drive away intruders, and in mechanical terms to inflict psychic damage), and the sorcerer/bard sang a song of apples blossoming in the summer to help bolster his own courage and that of his team-mates (mechanically, a Diplomacy check that was opened up by spending his Rhythm of Disorientation encounter power).

A non-musical example that I think is similar to what you have in mind involves the paladin in my game. From the earliest sessions the player expained that his paladin of the Raven Queen sleeps standing up (because only the dead lie prostrate). This came up once in a situation of conflict, when the PCs were sleeping as hobgoblins attacked the village they were staying in. The paladin got an extra move action compared to the other PCs because he didn't have to stand from prone!

These are really about colour and developing the persona of a PC. As you say, they're not abilities that need to be rationed. If they confer a minor mechanical benefit once or twice over 30 levels of play, that's hardly going to break the game!

 

[Imaro]

In my game, the sorcerer PC has multi-classed into bard a couple of times: once fairy early on (around 6th level) and then again around epic. He is still a bard now, and will remain one through to 30th (too big a mechanical commitment now to contempate retraining!).

So that character has always been able to sing. Mostly he sits around singing lays of the olden times, before the drow were sundered from the elves and driven below ground. From memory, his music has mattered once in a situation of genuine conflict resolution: the PCs were entering a Fey apple grove haunted by a demon, and the demon was screaming (which had the potential to drive away intruders, and in mechanical terms to inflict psychic damage), and the sorcerer/bard sang a song of apples blossoming in the summer to help bolster his own courage and that of his team-mates (mechanically, a Diplomacy check that was opened up by spending his Rhythm of Disorientation encounter power).

A non-musical example that I think is similar to what you have in mind involves the paladin in my game. From the earliest sessions the player expained that his paladin of the Raven Queen sleeps standing up (because only the dead lie prostrate). This came up once in a situation of conflict, when the PCs were sleeping as hobgoblins attacked the village they were staying in. The paladin got an extra move action compared to the other PCs because he didn't have to stand from prone!

These are really about colour and developing the persona of a PC. As you say, they're not abilities that need to be rationed. If they confer a minor mechanical benefit once or twice over 30 levels of play, that's hardly going to break the game!

Again though... isn't this campaign dependent as opposed to objectively so? The fact that it came up once for you shows that it can in fact arise... but the frequency is totally dependent on the style of campaign and playstyle of the group (just as the preference to handle this under one's aptitude to play music vs. a DM determined tangentially related skill). IMO 4e would have benefited from some type of perform skill... this is one of those areas where something as little as that would have opened it up more to other styles and since you pick your skills anyone who didn't want it wouldn't have had to take it.

As for 5e I'm still not seeing how having tool proficiencies (bascically skilll for which the specific tool is necessary) is incoherent... I didn't know incoherent is equivalent to "rarely used in my game."

 

[TwoSix]

Does it count as fighting if you snipe them from the other side of the river? In essence, combat in this game mode becomes a kind of a puzzle - how to defeat the monsters without engaging them in combat.

If the monster can jump across the river or teleport or shoot fire at you, or something else you didn't account for, then fighting it out is your penalty for failing to defeat the monster outright.

While I'm sure some players do, I feel it lacks the immediacy that wading in, rolling some initiative, and watching the hit points drop brings. I've played in enough games of strategic maneuvering and spellcasting combos to know that its my least favorite play mode.

 

[pemerton]

Long Reply to Saelorn

Narrating combat powers

Since the game actually does give a description for each Power, it should actually give a description, instead of sometimes giving a description and otherwise relying on you to make it up.

You don't need the narrative description to figure out the mechanical resolution. You need the narrative description to figure out the narrative resolution.

There's a narrative description, which leads to a mechanical effect, which gives a mechanical resolution, which converts back to a narrative resolution. In order for it to make any sort of sense, you need all of those steps to be in place.

The fiction is read off the mechanics. You don't need a translation manual - or, at least, I don't.

For instance, if your power has the keyword "fear" and pushes targets, using it will show you what is happening in the fiction: your enemies recoil in horror!

The fighter PC in my game has a power that dazes. It was used a couple of times in our last session. What does it represent? In his case, hitting things hard with his hammer! How can we tell? Because (i) it does quite a bit of damage (from memory, 6d8 or even 8d8 + 20-something before buffs), and (ii) how else would a hammer-wielding fighter be dazing Lolth?

When one attack does "[W] +2 damage, and the target is stunned for a round", and another attack does "[W] +4 damage, and the target can't make opportunity attacks until your next turn", then you need significantly more detail to explain how you got there.

I don't understand this. Sometimes when you hit with a sword, you roll a 1 for damage. Sometimes you roll a 6. Sometimes the damage roll of 1 is a fatal blow. Sometimes the roll of 6 is not.

There is no "detail" which explains how you got there. There is no rule in D&D that tells you what a fata 1 means, compared to a non-fatal 1 or for that matter a non-fatal 6.

In the case of the two powers you mention, one inflicts a full stun the other a condition that is a strict sub-set of the effects of stun. Clearly the first is (temporarily) disabling the enemy more seriously than the second.

What the actual maneouvre looks like is left as an exercise for the players, much like the difference in damage rolls.

Those don't really describe how your attack is any different, so much as how the enemy responds to your attack. I get that the first one is like "you swing really hard" and the second is like "you swing to try an unbalance", but then why does the second attack deal more damage?

I don't know - you're the author of those powers, so you tell me!

Do you have actual examples from the rules that you're concerned about?


Time as a factor in framing and resolution

The DM has almost surely come up with a really nifty scenario where the PCs, if they arrive at the nick of time, will encounter much drama and fun. So naturally the DM is highly motivated to have lunch take exactly the right amount of time.

Why would the DM contrive such a thing? Why would the DM want to contrive such a thing?

These questions seem to be rhetorical.

If they are not, here is the answer: because it's fun.

An early guidebook I read (in 1984) was the (non-TSR-endorsed) paperback "What is Dungeons & Dragons?" In it's discussion of dungeon design, it talked about "freeze-frame" vs static rooms. In a freeze-frame room, the GM's description has the PCs entering in the midst of some interesting event (the prisoner about to be tortured or sacrificed was an example in the book; the dinner scene in G1 is an example [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] gave upthread).

Why would it be "fun" for the PCs to encounter such a contrived scenario?

Because it is fun for the PCs to resolve heroic confrontations.

a robust time management system must be able to handle all sorts of different tasks, and their countless variations, without failure. And the DM can do that. Easily. It's one of the great strengths of having a real-time natural-language user-friendly determination engine.

If you mean that the GM can make things up, sure. But that's not the sort of robustness I was talking about.

Dungeon time-management, in Gygax's AD&D or Moldvay Basic, does not rely upon the GM making things up. There are rules that allocate movement, exploration and combat to turns, and that lead to wandering monster checks every so many turns.

You can't have a codified system for eating lunch, because there are many variables which would need to go into it

Of course you can. Just like Gygax and Moldvay have codified systems for moving, for searching, and for fighting.

The fact that the determination is made my an intelligent machine, rather than an abstract table, does not demote the passage of time to "mere colour".

I gave a range of options beyond "mere colour". It might be the players gambling aginst the GM's secret timeline, or the players gambling against the GM's roll of the dice to see how much time is taken.


GM "neutrality" and introducing new content into the fiction

The determination is neutral as long as it does not incorporate bias on the part of the DM.

You have not responded to my repeated comments about this.

If the players ask how long the queue is at the bread shop, or the potion shop, or whatever, what is the "neutral" answer? Different answers have potentially huge implications for the dynamics of play (eg if the timeline is 1 hour, and the queue is half-an-hour long, then the players are probably going to have to skip the acquisition of bread, or of potions).

How does the GM decide? Saying "without bias" does not describe a method for making a decision. Saying "by extrapolation from what is known about the gameworld" leads to the questions (i) who decided the prior state of the gameworld, and how, and (ii) how is the gameworld description possibly rich enough to support such extrapolation?

There is no incentive for the DM to contrive anything that is not in his or her honest interpretation of what should be there. The party probably won't get stuck in the market unless there's a festival going on.

<snip>

They probably won't bump into an old acquaintance in the next hour, given the relatively narrow window of opportunity for such an event, unless there's a good reason that there would be an increased likelihood that a particular acquaintance might actually be there.

To me, this gives rise to so many questions.

First, how do you now that the PCs probably won't get stuck unless there's a festival on?

Second, how do you resolve the "probably"? In my life many improbable things happen. The world is made up of improbable events.

Third, how do you know there is a festival going on?

Fourth, if the GM answers question 3 (eg by looking at a calendar for the gameworld) then how was it decided that the cultists would strike on this particular day?

These decisions have a big impact on the resolution of the action, and as far as I can see the GM has to make all of them, with little or no mechanical support. Hence my remarks upthread about the impact of GM-fiat on resolution.

And what sort of world is it where you never bump into old acquaintances by chance, because that is never a likely thing to occur? My answer - it is a Spartan world of the sort that I have described upthread.

You could frame lunch as a Skill Challenge where you negotiate through the market, diplomacize your way through the line, and stuff your face with the goal of spending as little time as possible on the task. The time spent depends on how well you do on the Skill Challenge. (And conceivably, since it matters, it's worth XP and someone could gain a level from this.)

Or the DM could describe the relative busy-ness of various market stalls, and the different foods available, so that the time required is a reflection of the circumstances and player choice rather than the result of some number of skill checks. The fastest option is always to just eat trail rations, but how often are you going to have access to fresh food at the market? and do you really want to miss out on this while you're here? Granted, it's all through the lens of what the DM thinks is reasonable, but that's true of everything in D&D, and the DM is a neutral arbiter in all things.

As I've remarked, then notion of "neutral arbiter" really has no work to do here, for all the reasons I've given.

A further question is, Why would the PCs want fresh food? Does your game have a scurvy table? If trail rations are enough to avoid fatigue penalties, then just eat them! (Another victory for the Spartan world!)


Setting DCs and calling for checks

Is a boat as complex as an iron pot? Or is it like a bell? Mechanically, it's probably between a bell and a lock

Are you really telling me that you can't see how that is just making stuff up? After all, boats were invented, and made by people, thousands of years before locks and bells ever were!

The only vagary that I might not know is the exact DC for the check, in which case my best guess will still be pretty close.

Who is "I" in this sentence. If "I" is a player, how do you know your best guess is pretty close? What if your GM takes the view that making a boat is actually much easier than casting a bell or engineering a lock?

Or what if the player believes, with a degree of plausibility, that making a boat is easier than casting a bell, but the GM doesn't agree?

Part of the issue here is that what counts as 'complex' is dependent upon knowledge, tools available etc. Because I am educated and literate and am trained in the use of Arabic numerals, doing simple arithmetic causes me no trouble. For illiterate mediaevals the story was very different. The GM, in deciding whether something is easier or harder than casting a bell, has to determine what it is that makes casting a bell hard or easy in his/her gameworld.

The player need only convince the DM that the solution should work, based on the established actions and natural laws, and the knowledge of known and unknown variables.

For me, that does not produce a better play experience then the GM setting a DC from a table.

Real-world verisimilitude isn't all that important. The important thing is that the player and the DM are on roughly the same page

But real-world verisimilitude is exactly what you relied upon - you guestimated the complexity of a boat compared to a bell.

And how do the GM and player end up on the same page? What methods do you use to achieve this?

The system in place for that is fairly well-codified. You know what type of check you need to make, and roughly the DC.

How so? How do I know if you're going to set the DC above or below a bell?

I just want to build a boat. I have no further motive in this action. There's nothing in the narrative which impels me to build a boat, though I might foresee that I would want one in the future. There is zero narrative weight associated with this action.

My first question, then, is why are we wasting time on this at the table?

My next question is, why can't the GM just say yes? Let the player's PC have his/her boat!

If we think it's important to the game that the PC have a chance of just not getting a boat, why can't we assign a chance of failure (say, on a 1 on a d6 you can't build a floating boat no matter how hard you try)?

Obviously there are other mechanical approaches to resolving boat building, but there's nothing inherently wrong with either of the two that I mentioned.

I'm all for transparency, but I fail to see how 4E achieves that in any meaningful way, compared to something like 3.5 or Pathfinder. As I was saying before, I have no idea what sort of check or Challenge would be required to complete any given task

To me, that suggests that you're not familiar with the system.

I mean, I don't know how to achieve tasks in PF, but that's because I've not read the book very closely.

The one area where everyone seems to hail the transparency of the mechanics is in the monster creation rules, which will quickly and reliably give the DM stats that allow an NPC to perform its given role within the story, but is that even really transparent? Not to the players, I would argue. After all, as a player, I can't see combat roles or enemy levels.

You don't "see" combat roles. You experience them. (Or make a monster knowledge check and learn the powers.)

As for level, that's no different from any version of D&D - how can you tell, just from the GM's description, what level some NPC that you encounter is?

In play I use a range of devices to communicate the relevant information to my players. My default is to tell them the level of the opponent.

let's pretend that I have some good reason for why I would care about building a boat right now. Would any other DM agree with your choices? As to how many successes, of what difficulty, with which relevant skills, before how many failures?

Suppose the answer to that question is No. Why does it matter?

I mean, in my game Zeus might have 400 hit points, and in your game 200. In my game lances might do d8 damage, in your game d10.

In my game Greyhawk might be 100 miles from Verbobonc, in your game it might be 50 miles.

What is the perceived importance of uniformity here?


Skill check outcomes and skill challenges

There should be no limitations, based on the system, which are not a reflection of the fiction.

<snip>

It's massively dis-empowering to players, knowing that they can never have the kind of success they plan, because the outcome of any action is constrained by what the system thinks is "balanced".

<snip>

clever ideas will not be tolerated.

There are at least two ways in which I find this confusing.

First, D&D has always had a core resolution system in which the fiction has to be read off the mechanical outcomes, namely, combat. No matter how brilliant a player's plan to kill the dragon in one blow, this isn't possible - you can't drop an 88 hp red dragon to 0 hp with a single blow of a longsword. (In AD&D even a dragon-slaying sword only does 3d12 damage.)

Second, a skill challenge cannot be resolved any other way than clever ideas. How do you think players get to make skill checks, other than describing the clever things their PCs are doing?

It seemed like the number and sequence of checks would be determined by the DM, after you decide that you want to try it anyway.

<snip>

because it's framed as a Skill Challenge, it might catch me entirely off-guard, like maybe a thief has stolen my tools and I need some detective or social-type skills in order to get them back. But I'm playing a hermit druid type character, and I have no social skills, so my whole endeavor is derailed because I fail all of those checks

I'm not sure how you are envisaging the game being run. Is it that the player says "I try and build a boat", then the GM says "Ha ha! That's a complexity 5 challenge, all on Nature (in which the PC is untrained), and No TAKEBACKS!"

When you run combat encounters, do you tell the players how many hit points the enemies have? Do you tell them if the bar patron their PCs are picking a fight with is a 1st level thief or a 10th level fighter? Framing a skill challenge is no different - in that different GM's use different techniques on different occasions - but if you've solved the problem of transparency for combat challenges in your game, then I don't see why you think you can't solve it for skill challenges?

And why would the GM frame the hermit druid PC into an urban chase scene with tool-stealing thieves? (How would that even happen, if you're making the boat on the shore of your wilderness lake? How does the action shift from the lake-side to the town?)

As I said, I'm really having trouble working out what sort of play experience you are describing or imagining.

And which exact skills would be tested? The feeling I got - and remember, I only did a few Skill Challenges before we gave up on them altogether - is that the players would suggest which skills they wanted to use, and the DM was expected to agree whenever it would be reasonable.

The player explains what his/her PC is doing to help resolve the situation, and the GM (typically with input from the player) determines what skill is to be checked.

one of those checks in your example was an Athletics check for some of the physical crafting, but I honestly would have expected an Endurance check based on the sheer volume of work required. As a player, I just don't know what you're going to ask for.

First, how is this different from your lunch example? If it's OK for the GM to determine, via reasonable inference from the known state of the gameworld, how crowded the market is, then why isn't it reasonable for the GM to determine which skill is tested by a particular sort of activity. (Question: do lumberjacks normally look more like weightlifters, or more like mountain-climbers? In my admittedly limited experience more like weightlifters, so I'd be inclined to go with Athletics over Endurance.)

In other words, I don't understand why you are outraged by the possible use of a technique that you yourself seem to endorse.

But second - and this goes back to the point about clever ideas - the player is expected to declare actions that leverage his/her PC's strengths. So if your player is strong in Endurance but not Athletics, then declare actions that rely upon Endurance (eg you roam around the woods collecting fallen timber and taking it back to your base; as opposed to declaring actions to cut down trees); or, if your PC is a druid, then declare Nature checks and/or use your magic to get some beavers to help you cut down trees; etc.

even though I succeed on every check that's actually related to the crafting. Again, though, that's not based on first-hand experience. If you could tell me that I'm wrong on that point, and that the DM isn't expected to make narrative complications in a Skill Challenge just for the sake of drama, then I would welcome that news.

What do you mean by "related to the crafting"? If you have to chop wood to build your boat, that's related to the crafting.

Again, I'm really not following your conception of how the challenge is being run. It might help if you related your questions and concerns to actual play reports of skill challenge framing and resolution. Here is a handful.

Anyway, one point of "for the sake of drama" is that this is how the game becomes interesting. Another is that this is how the game becomes non-Spartan.

the DM might decide that 6 successes are necessary, and then starts allocating those among the various sub-tasks that come up.

No. The players declare actions (for their PCs) that are relevant to resolving the situation. Checks are made and resolved. Progress is made and/or failures incurred.

Again, I think it would help if you enaged with actual play examples of skill challenges.

From my own experience and what I've gathered here, entering a Skill Challenge isn't something that the players have control over. It's imposed by the DM, in response to the PCs trying to accomplish a task

To me, this makes as much sense as saying that, in 3E, a Craft check isn't something the players have control over, but rather is imposed by the DM in response to the PCs trying to accompish a task.

In other words, it's kind-of true, but mostly misleading, because not addressing any of the actual play that is involved in action declarations and action resolution.

the DM wants to make things complicated.
<snip>

Declaring a Skill Challenge is a purely antagonistic move by the DM, against the players

Why did you, as GM, decide that the cultists would capture the prisoners? Or decide that today is a festival day? Or decide that the queue at the potion shop is long or short?

Why did Gygax decide that the orcs in the lower level of the Hill Giant steading are in revolt?

GMing involves making decisions. One important element of decision-making is to introduce dynamic elements into the game, with which the players can then (via their PCs) engage.

If the players don't want their PCs to encounter traps, don't enter dungeons. If they don't want their PCs to meet monsters, don't leave home. If they don't want to have to resolve skill challenges, don't get into any situations that involve drama, or tension, or the prospect of meaningful failure.


The overall point of fantasy RPGing

PCs are routinely tasked with solving problems like "save the princess" or "stop the opposing army". Being clever, in this sort of situation, generally involves finding a solution that is less than obvious. Instead of navigating through the spooky woods and sneaking past the army to confront the Big Bad, the clever player might go in the opposite direction to seek the aid of a powerful water spirit, to flood the plains and drown the army. Or convert the stone under 70% of the general's tower to mud, such that it collapses under its own weight.

I don't see why that is clever at all.

If my PC is Conan, then how will I get the water spirit to give me aid? Or turn the stone to mud? I think I'll take my chances at sneaking and confronting, thanks very much!

Also, these things you describe are entirely elements of the mechanical system. In D&D, as traditionally presented, magic has no chance of failure. So of course, if I can kill the general by casting an auto-win spell rather than fighting him/her, why wouldn't I? But as soon as you change the spell system - say, spell-casting has a chance of failure which will kill the caster, or conjuring and dealing with spirits creates a risk that they'll carry you off to be a slave on their other-dimensional homeland, then maybe sneaking and fighting become the better bet. (This relates to my reply to [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION] upthread.)

In 4e, there's no general mechanical reason to favour seeking the aid of the spirit, or turning the stone to mud, rather than sneaking and fighting. (Indvidual PCs might have mechanical strengths that point one way rather than another.) These choices become choices about story, flavour, and what sort of people the PCs are, rather than about expedient manipulation of the spell-casting system. To me that is a major strength of 4e.

I didn't say that conflict was unavoidable. I said that it should be avoided.

An idealized game of Dungeons & Dragons might involve four individuals-of-disparate-skill-set wandering into an abandoned ruin, where they analyze the clues at hand, prevent traps from going off, and run away before monsters spot them. Alternatively, they might leave their own traps for the monsters to encounter, or set up an ambush where they can kill the monsters without fear of repercussion.

Where conflict exists, it should be minimized.

here might be some element of gambling here, but the risk should generally be much lower than what would be faced with the straightforward solution.

For me, personally, the main point of playing RPGs is not to apply the system so as to minimise risk.

As [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION] stated upthread, the game you describe has basically no appeal to me.

It is the Spartan world generalised to the whole of play: not only a Spartan world but Spartan characters (who, when the rubber hits the road, have no motivation but risk minimisation) who, if they encounter a non-Spartan situation, do their utmost to render it into a Spartan one.

the difficulty of a task depends not only on quantifiable details like the bonus on your check, but also the DM's perception of how difficult something should be, both in an absolute sense, but also relative to your power level.

I don't understand. You can look up the DC-by-level chart. You can look at the skill challenge rules, which include guidelines to the GM on setting difficulties.

But I also think you are approaching the question in a very different way from how 4e is oriented. (And this related to [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION]'s post upthread, and my reply not far above this post.)

You are wanting guarantees, in advance, that things will work out a certain way. The focus of 4e play is not on planning. It is on the resolution of the scene in virtue of things done during the scene.

So it's all about jumping in feet first, responding to and pushing the narrative, and relying on the system design, and the many player resources that it provides, to make sure that you can meet the DCs that come your way.

Outcomes are often not transparent, in the sense of predictable in advance. That's intended to be a virtue of the system. For instance, alluding to my earlier play example posted upthread (and elaborated here), who would have thought that an assault upon Lolth would end up in a fight with Pazuzu? This is the non-Spartan world!

The point is that the process of resolution is transparent, in the sense that the players can know what their options are, and can see how their choices are producing outcomes in the fiction. Pazuzu turned up because a player had his PC call upon that demon lord. That happened because the player was looking through his PC sheet trying to think of a way to stop Lolth discorporating, knowing that he needed to do something at free-action speed - and decided to call upon Pazuzu to help him externaise rather than internalise the life-saving power of his Ring of Tenacious Will.

The player may not have though to ask Pazuzu for help if I hadn't reminded him of how he got the ring (which was a couple of years ago in the real world). Poking players, to encourage them to make bold choices, is (for me) a very important part of my job as GM.

It's still pure Illusionism, though. No matter what the player tries to do, it's going to require a level-appropriate check in order to resolve. Between four and twelve of them, in fact. The conflict must progress in a way that is challenging. That's just how the system is set up.

Where is the illusion?

The players know the game rules. They can see what the GM is doing, and why. There's no trickery or deception involved!

 

[pemerton]

I am very doubtful a rule set can remove illusionism without having bare-bones mechanisms that are jarring and make it a borderline boardgame.

Absolutely a ruleset can remove illusionism. Have the GM roll dice in the open. Have rules about when/how the GM can introduce content into the fiction. Have rules that relate the before and the after of action resolution (eg if the check succeeds then the outcome is, and is always, what the player stated in his/her action declaration).

The examples that I have in mind - based on personal experience - are Burning Wheel and Marvel Heroic RP. Neither is remotely boardgame-like. And I'm sure there are many many others for which this is true.

 

[pemerton]

Again though... isn't this campaign dependent as opposed to objectively so? The fact that it came up once for you shows that it can in fact arise... but the frequency is totally dependent on the style of campaign and playstyle of the group (just as the preference to handle this under one's aptitude to play music vs. a DM determined tangentially related skill).

What are you saying is campaign-dependent?

Whether or not a bard can sing, or a paladin of the Raven Queen sleep standing up - absolutely that is going to vary from table to table. A bit like how, in Gygax's AD&D, there were no rules for whether a ranger knew how to light a campfire.

Extrapolating these sorts of things about our PCs is part and parcel of playing a RPG, I think.

IMO 4e would have benefited from some type of perform skill... this is one of those areas where something as little as that would have opened it up more to other styles and since you pick your skills anyone who didn't want it wouldn't have had to take it.

That wouldn't have improved my game! All it would have meant was that I never had a PC sing a song to deal with the demon of the Red Grove.

The game already has three skills for determining social outcomes: Bluff, Diplomacy and Intimidate. What would introducing a Perform skill do, except reduce what can be done with those existing skills?

As for 5e I'm still not seeing how having tool proficiencies (bascically skilll for which the specific tool is necessary) is incoherent... I didn't know incoherent is equivalent to "rarely used in my game."

I'm not sure why you're asking me about this - I've not said anything in the whole thread about tool proficiencies.

That said, if what [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] described upthread is correct - that there is a Perform skill that is separate from Instrument proficiencies - then I find that confusing. If I want to play my guitar nicely, which one do I use?