D&D 4E The Best Thing from 4E

[Balesir]

CaGi - was this a one-trick, yes or no?

One of the characters in the game I run has had CaGi (or the higher-level replacement, Warrior's Urging) since level 7 (when it became available).It has not been used in every encounter and it has been used in a very varied selection of circumstances; sometimes it is useful, sometimes less so. What is critical is, as an Estate Agent might say, "situation, situation and situation."

This actually brings up an issue that I find important regarding 4E; the "creativity" thing. I have found 4E to have a real sweet spot in terms of being hugely creative with the set powers. Blagging the GM for what you can persuade them to let you get away with is all very well, but taking written powers and making them really leverage the specific situation is something I find genuinely creative. And the players I GM for seem to pull it off run after run after run. Different every time - as I said, situation, situation, situation...

From bull-rushing, to tripping, to disarming, to hindering, to tumbling and attacking, to lunging and pinning oneself onto the beast with ones weapons, dodging, shield rushing, feinting, swinging and attacking, distracting, intimidating, sacrifice accuracy for damage and vice versa...etc

All of which were pure GM fiat in any but 3.x, in which they were only really useful if you had the feat and even then were often suboptimal...

In 4E most of them are powers and the rest can be deduced from Page 42.

As I have said upthread - DMs of that generation have more experience now, or are you saying the system makes the DM solely?

I don't know what generation you are talking about, but I started GMing sometime around 1978 and this is my considered view in the light of experience with lots of games since then:

"The system makes the DM" is reversed; the GM makes the system. Either they make it up on the fly (which seems to be largely what you are talking about) or they specify in writing what the system will be (including published rules or not, as they see fit) so that the players may know the rules and get a model in their heads concerning how the game world works that is not completely subject to the GM's kybosh.

If I do not choose to run 4E (or one of the other systems I currently favour), I could use 4E-ish methods and mechanisms, absolutely. But why would I want to do that without leveraging the rules that the 4E designers have written down for me? I strongly disagree with making up "rulings" (= ad hoc system made up as we play) unless absolutely neccessary precisely because the players have no model of the game world that way.

The idea that a kludge of GM wish fulfillment, heuristics, misunderstandings and biases form a good basis for a "system" I'm afraid I simply don't buy into.

True, yet you also cannot dismiss the creative number of uses spells have had in the various versions of D&D.

There were two forms of such "creativity":

1) Using the clear and unambiguous effect of the spells in clever ways. This is very, very similar to the use of 4E powers I describe above, and just as laudable. The difference with 4E is that you don't need to be a spellcaster to do it.

2) Leveraging ambiguous, sloppily worded or vaguely defined spells to mean something that you can manage to persuade the GM it means in order to get a powerful effect. I put this in the same basket as the rest of the "blag the GM to get whatever you can get away with", except that it tends IME to be even easier and more extreme because "it's magic and magic can break the rules of reality, because it's magic..."

It's not even so much that I find the second one bad - I just find it boring these days. I see the man behind the curtain.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I guess it depends on your definition of "suffer".

If you're going with the shared-narrative strong-DM model, from 2E and the like, then everyone must agree with (or at least tolerate) everything that exists in the game. Maybe I'm playing the Cleric, but I don't want to play in a game where the Fighter has that power because it hurts my immersion too badly. I can't choose to imagine it differently from how the DM narrates it, or else I've violated (what I understand to be) the premise of the whole game.

Or maybe I'm playing the Fighter, and I resent that I'm forced to choose between being effective at my game role and maintaining my role as player rather than narrator.

Edit: Of course, the above mindset is entirely the wrong way to approach a game like 4E. Trying to impose that mindset on that game is unlikely to end up well, so this example demonstrates failure of the player rather than of the system.

There are all sorts of reasons why the mere existence of a power would bother someone who doesn't even take it. It's all a matter of priorities, and what's important to you in a game.

Yeah, if you are bound and determined to not enjoy something, then surely the smallest nit isn't too small to pick I guess.

The truth is though, I have played 4e for its entire run, and I've never yet had a player even USE CAGI, nobody ever bothered to take it (for whatever reason, I never asked). Even if they had its unlikely it would have been used in a way that would bother your sense of verisimilitude more than what, once in a whole campaign? Yeah, you're nitpicking. You're picking at molecules basically. This is why I have never believed that the reasons people state for their preferences are the real underlying reasons, and why I continue to maintain that the constant bashing on 4e for the SURFACE reasons has produced such a dissatisfying result, because the real issues were never aired and addressed.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Even if they had its unlikely it would have been used in a way that would bother your sense of verisimilitude more than what, once in a whole campaign?

Eh, the standard usage bothered me plenty, because I couldn't buy into the idea that the Fighter could force anyone to close distance. Controlling the NPCs is something that the DM does, or else it's done by magic and there's a save to negate.

But that's just one sign, among many, that this edition wasn't for me. If I'd otherwise been inclined to enjoy the game, then I don't think this one thing would sway me.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

One of the characters in the game I run has had CaGi (or the higher-level replacement, Warrior's Urging) since level 7 (when it became available).It has not been used in every encounter and it has been used in a very varied selection of circumstances; sometimes it is useful, sometimes less so. What is critical is, as an Estate Agent might say, "situation, situation and situation."

Another awesome power that is very similar in many respects and found extensive and amusing use in our last but one campaign was Bat Aside, a level 5 rogue daily that lets you push and knock prone the target and then also knock of their allies prone whom they land next to. The narrative is clear, you just slapped the guy clear across the room and he sent his buddies tumbling. Of course we made many amusing interpretations of this power, sending people flying into stacks of barrels, etc. The character was a halfling, so it was always fun to come up with crazy and hilarious ways that he could send ogres and such sailing across the battlefield. These included pinching an ogre's nose, swinging on some ropes on a ship, jumping on a plank and causing it to spring up and slap the target in the face, etc.

Now, I admit that this particular player was very much of a goof and the tone of the whole campaign had a fair amount of goof in it, at times, but it was vastly fun. Without Bat Aside none of this would have come to be in all probability, and at best it would have had only the more general support of page 42.

Not all powers manage to provide such a gold mine of inspiration, but even some pretty mundane and boring looking powers managed to do it now and then. It was a feature of a lot of our games. Overall I personally thought that the game was more creative in many respects than my 2e game. Realistically though, the 2e games weren't exactly entirely boring either, but it was many of the same players back then too, and I think that's always far more important than the particular details of the rule set in a lot of ways.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Eh, the standard usage bothered me plenty, because I couldn't buy into the idea that the Fighter could force anyone to close distance. Controlling the NPCs is something that the DM does, or else it's done by magic and there's a save to negate.

But that's just one sign, among many, that this edition wasn't for me. If I'd otherwise been inclined to enjoy the game, then I don't think this one thing would sway me.

Its not narrated as force, and if the DM wanted to say "no, that NPC doesn't slide" he COULD. I mean it would literally 'fix' the power if it stated 'the DM slides the NPC, blah blah blah'? Your sensibilities IMHO just seem so fragile. Its like there's only one specific alchemy of circumstance that produces a game you can tolerate. Its a wonder you get to play at all.

 

[Balesir]

I can't choose to imagine it differently from how the DM narrates it, or else I've violated (what I understand to be) the premise of the whole game.

Huh?!?! You can't choose to ignore the rules or pretend it operates in mechanical terms any different than the way it does, but how you imagine it happening is none of the GM's damn business! Players use their imagination to picture what is going on in the game world - that is what I understand to be "the premise of the whole game".

Or maybe I'm playing the Fighter, and I resent that I'm forced to choose between being effective at my game role and maintaining my role as player rather than narrator.

There are two Fighters in the party I GM for. One has had CaGi (or Warrior's Urging) right the way through. The other dipped into CaGi but smartly swapped out of it because the player's concept of his character called for other powers. Deciding which of the two is "more effective" would be like Mission Impossible. They are vastly different - one is defender-y to the max and the other is often described as "the battlecruiser" (mounting 18" guns, it sometimes seems!) - but to say "CaGi is needed to be effective" just isn't borne out at all.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Huh?!?! You can't choose to ignore the rules or pretend it operates in mechanical terms any different than the way it does, but how you imagine it happening is none of the GM's damn business! Players use their imagination to picture what is going on in the game world - that is what I understand to be "the premise of the whole game".

In the example I gave, the player was operating under the old model where the DM states the one true narrative of the game world, and everyone else tries to follow along with what's happening - if the DM narrates that arrow as sticking in the orc's back, then that's what happens in the story and anyone who claims otherwise is factually incorrect.

I admitted that this model is a poor fit for 4E, and is one of the major sources of conflict.

 

[Balesir]

In the example I gave, the player was operating under the old model where the DM states the one true narrative of the game world, and everyone else tries to follow along with what's happening - if the DM narrates that arrow as sticking in the orc's back, then that's what happens in the story and anyone who claims otherwise is factually incorrect.

Oh, right - sorry! I didn't realise you were speaking "in character"

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Its not narrated as force, and if the DM wanted to say "no, that NPC doesn't slide" he COULD.

Eh? I was under the impression that powers just worked, and generally weren't subject to DM intervention. I thought that was kind of the point of having codified powers rather than relying on improvisation for everything.

I mean, even a slime can be knocked prone, right?

 

[JamesonCourage]

Aaaaaaand we've reached a CAGI discussion. GG, folks.

I think its better for narrative malleability and table handling time in action resolution (leading to a faster-paced game). I know @JamesonCourage disagrees here (I think because it doesn't pass his minimal threshold for process-sim and this dovetails with his sense of player empowerment?)

I don't think The Incredible Hulk necessarily passes my minimum threshold for process-sim -if it's used for superheroes and not fantasy. Because that's my preference. I used to run Mutants and Mastermind one-shots, and have since swapped to simpler system (a 4-page RPG I made myself). Though even that system explicitly puts tons of power in the hands of the players (and has rules for "stunting").

As far as player-empowerment, you're pretty much dead-on. Anytime the rules start to fade away and GM whim begins to take over, that starts to put too much work on the GM and takes away too much power from the players. That truly begins to become a game of Mother May I, which is something I think I see in 4e play reports at higher levels (but I don't know if this thread should get into that).

It's by no means exclusive to 4e; I want to be clear on that. But all the same, the more useless the rules become and the more GM-dependent becomes when it comes to determining what just happened in-game, the less power the players have. And that bugs me for a couple of reasons (discussed many pages back).