TheAuldGrump
First Post
I am the guard at the gate - you will stop to talk to me!
The Auld Grump
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The Guards at the Gate Quote
- Thread starter GSHamster
- Start date
I am the guard at the gate - you will stop to talk to me!
The Auld Grump
TheAuldGrump
First Post
Pull my finger.
*EDIT* Oh ye gods, now I actually want to have a guard to that with a halfling....
The Auld Grump
Nahat Anoj
First Post
Only *you* can prevent forest fires.
Aberzanzorax
Hero
It's easy to take the unreasonable things he wrote, figure that "hey that's unreasonable" and put a spin on it "he MUST have meant something more reasonable".
But the words on the page are the words on the page. And, to paraphrase ya, Auld, they're repeated...repeatedly.
I find it funny that there are leaps to defend what he said as not what he meant....but none of those leaps have ever been from him.
I also want to make something clear, as someone who think the messages he has sent with this quote and the faerie rings quote are problematic:
I do have an issue with the quotes, and I think they're telling about what Wyatt envisioned for 4e (and maybe prior editions of the game as well). But I DON'T think that 4e must be all about combat encounters. I DON'T think his quotes are true of 4e (guard encounters, dungeon crawls, and traipsing through faerie rings can ALL be fun in 4e).
I wonder if people defending the quotes are defending 4e, rather than what is written on the page. Let me concede that the system of 4e doesn't need the defense.
Some of the writing in the first 4e DMG, and some of the presentations of 4e (especially Keep on the Shadowfell) ARE guilty of this perspective (that of "get to the fun = encounter"). In a sense, there is a vulnerability of 4e because that's some of the spin it was given.
So, while some of the designers of 4e tell us the game is more about encounters than some of us have come to know the game in prior editions, it is my belief that those designers probably viewed the game that way in prior editions as well.
I actually believed these quotes about 4e for a time. I'm grateful to @pemerton for pointing out that it's not the system that is flawed (by focusing on encounters only), it's some of the advice about the system that is. (At least that's the message I took away from him. He's certainly free to correct me, and I don't want to put words in his mouth).
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I think Wyatt is giving advice on pacing for a situation (encounter, challenge) focused game. He is saying, in effect - If your game is about situations (and 4e is such a game) then don't faff around on other stuff.
As the OP said, if the guards at the gate are a situation, then you don't gloss over it. You run a skill challenge, or a combat, or whatever.
The spirit of the quote, and of 4e (as I read the books) is, no exploration for exploration's sake.
My personal view is that the sort of exploration Wyatt is poo-pooing in his quote is exploration which is used by players to add colour to a game in which they otherwise have little capacity to affect the content of the game. (There may also be some players who really enjoy exploration for exploration's sake. My own hypothesis is that they are a minority - I think most want to engage the game in a more meaty fashion than that. Admittedly, in making this judgement I can only draw on my own experience.)
In a game in which players have the capacity to add not just colour but plot - in virtue of the way their PCs engage the situations with which the GM confronts them - then the sort of "colour scene" that Wyatt is criticising becomes redundant.
I think there is some weak advice in the 4e rulebooks - the advice on running skill challenges, for example, pales in comparison to that in mechanically comparable systems like Maelstrom Storytelling and HeroWars/Quest. And the best advice on how to use story elements in encounters if found in the pre-release Worlds and Monsters - the DMG talks only about tactical elements, not story elements. But Wyatt's advice I don't consider weak advice. In my view it's pretty solid advice on how to run a situation-focused, non-exploratory RPG. Don't faff around. Don't make your players faff around. Cut to the chase.
Here is similar advice from one of the Burning Wheel designers, in the context of using Burning Wheel to run classic D&D modules:
I don't think this is very controversial advice on how to run a tight game for Burning Wheel, and as I said recently on another thread (I can't remember which one) I'm surprised that the essentially identical advice from Wyatt still causes such outrage.
EDIT: It was here and here on the recent WotC layoffs thread.
As the OP said, if the guards at the gate are a situation, then you don't gloss over it. You run a skill challenge, or a combat, or whatever.
The spirit of the quote, and of 4e (as I read the books) is, no exploration for exploration's sake.
My personal view is that the sort of exploration Wyatt is poo-pooing in his quote is exploration which is used by players to add colour to a game in which they otherwise have little capacity to affect the content of the game. (There may also be some players who really enjoy exploration for exploration's sake. My own hypothesis is that they are a minority - I think most want to engage the game in a more meaty fashion than that. Admittedly, in making this judgement I can only draw on my own experience.)
In a game in which players have the capacity to add not just colour but plot - in virtue of the way their PCs engage the situations with which the GM confronts them - then the sort of "colour scene" that Wyatt is criticising becomes redundant.
I think there is some weak advice in the 4e rulebooks - the advice on running skill challenges, for example, pales in comparison to that in mechanically comparable systems like Maelstrom Storytelling and HeroWars/Quest. And the best advice on how to use story elements in encounters if found in the pre-release Worlds and Monsters - the DMG talks only about tactical elements, not story elements. But Wyatt's advice I don't consider weak advice. In my view it's pretty solid advice on how to run a situation-focused, non-exploratory RPG. Don't faff around. Don't make your players faff around. Cut to the chase.
Here is similar advice from one of the Burning Wheel designers, in the context of using Burning Wheel to run classic D&D modules:
Pushing Conflict Early
Also, it seems that every module I pick up has the structural integrity of mushy peas. You'll have to take it into your own hands. Front load conflict. The first module I ran . . . had the players join up with a caravan in a town and described days of journey before it got to the point that something happened (other than random encounters, natch). We're talking potentially hours of play before something significant happens. . .
If your module starts with pages of journey and exposition before anything happens, give the players a few sentences of synopsis and fast forward to the good stuff.
At the same time, use this opportunity to foreshadow the big stuff that will be coming down the road at them later.
Ignore Filler
A lot of obstacles and opposition in modules is filler. It's there to take up time, to provide a reason for the niche skills of one type of character, or to make the experience seem "real." It's ok to leave a few of these in for old time's sake, but mostly, unless
it's something your players will really get a kick out of, just go ahead and invoke the Say Yes or Roll Dice rule. Give maybe a sentence describing how the characters overcame the obstacle and move on.
Also, it seems that every module I pick up has the structural integrity of mushy peas. You'll have to take it into your own hands. Front load conflict. The first module I ran . . . had the players join up with a caravan in a town and described days of journey before it got to the point that something happened (other than random encounters, natch). We're talking potentially hours of play before something significant happens. . .
If your module starts with pages of journey and exposition before anything happens, give the players a few sentences of synopsis and fast forward to the good stuff.
At the same time, use this opportunity to foreshadow the big stuff that will be coming down the road at them later.
Ignore Filler
A lot of obstacles and opposition in modules is filler. It's there to take up time, to provide a reason for the niche skills of one type of character, or to make the experience seem "real." It's ok to leave a few of these in for old time's sake, but mostly, unless
it's something your players will really get a kick out of, just go ahead and invoke the Say Yes or Roll Dice rule. Give maybe a sentence describing how the characters overcame the obstacle and move on.
I don't think this is very controversial advice on how to run a tight game for Burning Wheel, and as I said recently on another thread (I can't remember which one) I'm surprised that the essentially identical advice from Wyatt still causes such outrage.
EDIT: It was here and here on the recent WotC layoffs thread.
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ShinHakkaider
Adventurer
That may be a great way to run Burning Wheel, (another game admittedly I'm not a huge fan of) but for D&D? Is the implication now, with you bringing that quote in to bolster your argument) that ALL RPG's be run in this manner of skip EVERYTHING that isn't pertinent to kicking someone's teeth in (i.e THE GOOD STUFF)?
Can both sides just agree that Wyatt and (I'm assuming here) Luke Crane's (correction - it's Thor Olavsrud) play styles are very different from some of our own? and as such the expression of that play style as "THIS IS HOW THE GAME SHOULD BE PLAYED!" was (and still is) a bit of a turn off for some of us?
I'm not a fan of hardcoding RP into game rules. Elements of the game that encourage or leave room for possible PRing I'm fine with. anything more than that pushes me away. At that point it stops becoming actual RPing and becomes just another game mechanic. It's one of the reasons that even as someone who's not a fan of 4E, I've never expressed the fact that it's not conducive to RPing because that's left up to the individuals at the table and their GM.
And in this case both Wyatt and Crane are saying that my particular play style is WRONG. They're not saying that if you and your players enjoy the set up of meeting and interacting with people in the caravan you should do that, but if you and your players dont find that sort of thing fun then keep it moving. They're saying flat out that it's not fun. It's not better than any of the posters here getting on a fellow poster for the way they play the game saying it's BADWRONGFUN.
There's no disputing about what was actually said either (I know that's not what youre doing, but there are others here who are...). It's right there in the text.
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