the Jester
Legend
Has someone actually argued this in this thread? If so, I've missed it.
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The Guards at the Gate Quote
- Thread starter GSHamster
- Start date
Has someone actually argued this in this thread? If so, I've missed it.
A couple of people upthread said it was new for D&D rulebooks to be prescriptive in their approach to playstyle. Reynard, in particular (post 236), said it was offensive and not D&D to do so.
This sort of stuff is in the 4e DMG, which at pp 6-13 talks about player preferences (storytelling, powergaming, etc), game "mood" (gritty, humourous, etc), and the like. Naming conventions are discussed on p 14.
4e is not prescriptive as to this sort of stuff - except perhpas a certain interpretation of "Deep-Immersion Storytelling", namely, exploration-focused immersive play.
Well, that's a tricky question, isn't it. Were I to run such an encounter, for whatever reason, then I would endeavour to make it entertaining for my players. But if the question is - Do I tend not to run such encounters, on account of finding them boring, then the answer is that I do not tend to run such encounters, because I find them boring.
The last time that I remember actually framing and engaging in an encounter with gate guards was several years ago - probably about 2005 or 2006. The PCs (a group of high-level samurai plus entourage) were trying to establish control over a pirate city. The NPC captain of a group of soldiers at one of the city ward gate houses challenged one of the PCs when he tried to enter the ward. A duel was fought and the PC won. This contributed to the PCs' endeavours.
More recently - about six months ago or so - the PCs were pursuing an enemy and followed her to a city. As per the module I was using (Night's Dark Terror) I had notes on what they might learn from talking to the gate guards, but no such talking took place. I think the exchange with the guards was limited to a "who goes there" from the guards, and a "Lord Derrik, warpriest of Moradin - make way for him and his entourage" in reply from the PCs self-appointed herald. The PCs had just reached paragon tier, and it was an opportunity to flag this with a bit of colour.
Do you think this is an instance of "telling the players they get through the gate without much trouble" (as per Wyatt, p 105) or not? I do, but am happy to be contradicted.
The time before that when the PCs entered a city - with many refugees from goblin-ravaged villages and homesteads - I don't remember if gates were even mentioned. I do recall that the whole town episode - arranging with temples to care for the refugees, shopping and inventory matters, talking to the baron of the town and getting horses, etc - was confined to two hours or so of play, which I was very pleased with given past experiences of such things blowing out.
You mean by reading in a "usually" or "typically" (as appears in the following sentence)? Or a more dramatic reading in? Am {I allowed to read it in the contex of PHB p 9, "Whenever you decide that your character wants to talk to a person or monster, it's a noncombat encounter"?
To me, this is illustrative of the inadequacies of the guidelines in the 4e rulebooks. The DMG, and most of the PHB, is written under the apparent assumption that while either the GM or the players set quests, the GM sets the encounters that feed into those quests (in Forge terminology, the books seem to assume that the GM has situational authority). But page 9, in saying that whenever a player decides to have his/her PC talk to an NPC it is an encounter, seems to be giving the players a degree of situational authority.
There are ways of sorting this out. Here are three, each of which I sometimes use:
*the extreme metagame approach, of telling the players "move on, there's nothing to see here";
*the traditional ingame approach, of making it very clear fvia interaction with a quest-irrelevant NPC that the NPC has nothing useful to offer (there are variants here, too, like requiring Insight checks and the like, or feeding the players the relevant signals without requiring such checks);
*the "no myth" approach of changing the backstory behind the scenes so that the NPC the players are interested in suddenly gets dealt into things, sending the game off in a new direction.
*the traditional ingame approach, of making it very clear fvia interaction with a quest-irrelevant NPC that the NPC has nothing useful to offer (there are variants here, too, like requiring Insight checks and the like, or feeding the players the relevant signals without requiring such checks);
*the "no myth" approach of changing the backstory behind the scenes so that the NPC the players are interested in suddenly gets dealt into things, sending the game off in a new direction.
But the 4e books don't even canvass these sorts of options, let alone advise which ones the designers envisaged the players of their game actually using.
Of course. Because this quote speaks to 4e's character as a non-exploration-focused game. Which is what, it seems, many dislike about 4e. S'mon put it like this, and I agree:
JamesonCourage
Adventurer
That's good. It should be in the DMG. Wyatt's quote in the OP shouldn't be, at least not in the form it's in.
Keep in mind, though, that I was replying to your statement that you didn't remember 3e being pluralistic in its text. I was reminding you, like you asked for.
I'm also kinda noting that you didn't reply to the rest of my post. Do you understand the difference between what you're defending (situation-focused play being explicitly supported), and what's being attacked (Wyatt calling people's fun "not fun")? And, do you really feel like you need to defend that style when it's not being called "terrible"? As always, play what you like
I don't mind the sort of metagaming you describe. In fact, these days I almost actively encourage it! I find it helps he game run more smoothly.
It depends a bit on the game system coping with metagaming. 4e's low-scrying, low-buff set of PC abilities works better for this - when the bridge comes out, for example, the players anticipate a fight but there's nothing in particular their PCs can do that provides a mechanical benefit from the metagaming. (Not that I use minis or terrain, just paper maps and boardgame tokens - but when I pull out "a map that I prepared earlier", my players start warming up their dice!).
I find real life does this adequately - between non-play stuff like food and toilet breaks, wrangling kids, shuffling through papers, etc, and also the record-keeping aspects of play like rests, equipping, the players comparing notes on whose PC has the highest skill bonus, etc, I don't feel much need to play through fictional down time as well.
For me, this just highlights the difference between real, lived life, and the ficitonal life of the PCs. I'm sure the PCs, in their imaginary world, enjoy some down with their up. But my players, in our real world, come to the game for a bit of up. They don't need to play through their PCs' down.
Once upon a time, as a GM, I used to keep my best or most dramatic in reserve. I've since formed the view that that was a mistake. I think my game has improved since I've done my best to maximise the dramatic (within my own limits as a creator of dramatic situations).
Personally I don't do too much of this stuff. I try to move through empty rooms pretty quickly. And I don't do a lot of verbal description of the sort you mention - I'm not a particularly skilled narrator, and I tend to find it gets lost on the players - if I want to convey this sort of stuff, I try to pick it up and make it matter in the context of action resolution.
In my session yesterday, the PCs finished exploring "The Tower of Mystery", a slighly-modified version of the last section of H2 Thunderspire Labyrinth (modified to 14th level, to fit a change in Paldemar's motivation from the slightly boring module backstory, and because I made a mapping error in drawing up my battle maps).
There were five empty rooms. One was an empty bedroom. Because the PCs went into it first, it created a nice contrast with the other bedroom which had enemy mages in it - in an earlier encounter one of the players had worked out that there were mages firing spells through magical pillars, and once the PCs had examined the empty bedroom this player worked out that the other unexplored door must lead to the room with the mages. He was right, and it made for an interesting little encounter.
It was only good fortune, though, that the PCs went to the empty room first. In retrospect, I should have been prepared to run it so that, whichever door the PCs went to, the empty room was behind that (in order to create the build up to the mage enconter).
One empty room was a storeroom. It was in there just for verisimilitude, and took probably two minutes of play to resolve. Another was a straw-filled holding pen. The module writer hadn't put anything useful in there, so I ad-libbed that it smelled still of Thunderhawk (the tower is floating in the Elemental Chaos). Now the wild mage PC wants to track down and tame that Thunderhawk. This took probably about five minutes of play to resolve.
The other two empty rooms were a library and a laboratory. Both of these were really noncombat encounters - the library being a source of information, but with the puzzle of bypassing the secret page on the books, and the challenge of phsycially getting all the books out of the tower and back to the PCs home base; and the laboratory containing a Fluxx Slaad head floating in a vat of acid with various mechanical, chemical and arcane processes going on, which again was a source of information and puzzles (and speculation, also, as to whether it could be moved out of the tower and back to home base).
My own view is that 4e doesn't do exploratory play as well as other games, because it doesn't give the mechanical support for such play in its action resolution mechanics, but I think my opinion on this may be a minority one.
I don't think it's terrible to call "not fun" a type of play that some find fun. Just as I don't thin it's terrible to call "good" a film that some - including respected film critics like David Stratton - find "not good" (I'm thinking here of Melancholia).
To elaborate. The audience for Wyatt's comment can be split into two parts: those who already play RPGs, and those who don't. Those who do can interpret, adjust or ignore his advice based on their own prior experience. It seems unlikely they will be led astray by it. Those who are new to RPGs presumably will follow his advice in running their games. And given that it is good advice for a highly playable form of RPGing, they can expect to get highly playable games. This doesn't seem terrible to me.
If I've understood it rightly, your concern is that some who are new to RPGs, and who take his advice, might not find their way to a playstyle that, it turns out, they would actually prefer. My view is that is a risk in any activity whose purpose is primarily aesthetic. It's not terrible, in my view, for an author or critic to express a view. Particularly, in the case of 4e, when the playstyle that he describes as fun is the playstyle that the ruleset is aimed at supporting.
JamesonCourage
Adventurer
I think there's a marked difference between saying "this is a good thing" in regards to your opinion, and "this isn't fun, this is bad thing, don't do it" when showing someone how to do something when it's known that many people find that particular action fun.
I'm saying that if his advice actively hurts fun for players, it's terrible advice. And his advice would certainly do that for my group (at least in regards to gate guards, and not skipping the unfun stuff).
New players need guidance (preferably from people that already play the game and can show them). The DMG should provide them with fun ways to play. That should include nods to different styles (which the 4e DMG does, which is good), and it should not include ruling out what might be fun for people (which the DMG does, which is terrible advice).
The advice most certainly will lead many people to play a very enjoyable gaming experience that the system supports. There's no justifiable reason, however, to say "you're having fun wrong" while trying to talk about a style the game mechanics support. Absolutely none. Say, "the game wasn't made to support this style" if you want to, or "we didn't intend the game to support this style" if that's more accurate. Saying "this style isn't fun, don't do it", however, is just plain inexcusable.
I guess you disagree, but I feel like you keep making comparisons that aren't lined up at all, and keep defending a point that's not being attacked. That makes it hard to tell what you think on this, honestly. As always, play what you like
Aberzanzorax
Hero
Before I say anything else, I wanna say this:
I kinda, sorta, consider you my 4e mentor.
I think you "get" 4e in the way I need to "get it" and have yet to find it. Every single time I read a post of yours, it benefits me in understanding something akin to a foreign language.
I've only ever played 4e, and never DMed it for reasons of not feeling comfortable as well as reasons of taste.
Here, now, is the something else:
While I think you understand gaming as well as (in fact better than) I do, I don't think you'd do well in meeting the needs of myself and my gaming group unless you were to adjust your style.
I appreciate your candor with the inclusion of (and importance of) the empty room.
The real difference between our gaming styles is one that our players would never notice on game one, or game two....but certainly by game 20.
I strongly disagree with intentionally putting the empty room earlier as pacing in order for players to potentially benefit later. I think it is excellent in a gaming/storytelling/cinematic movie style, and don't begrudge that.
I would allow for the potentiality of stumbling on an awesome clue, having an ability to get that awesome clue (e.g. find secret doors, dwarven stone sense, good thief roll, total dumb luck, whatever).
I find my games more exciting and fun when players feel as though they've discovered something as PLAYERS (see also the charasmatic player thread et al) rather than as story pacing for their characters.
It's even better for them when this discovery is enhanced by their character roles, personalities, and attributes (i.e. Dr. Radiana Jonessa discovers a clue because of her abilities rather than because of pacing dictating it).
I'm not saying pacing is BAD...but I'm saying it's a part of a different gaming style.
Thing is, all games deserve good pacing, but the heavy or light handedness of it, and the degree to which it impacts the "game" versus the "story" is a variable.
Pemerton, I always assume the best about your games, because, frankly....I have no reason not to, and because it always seems like your games are grounded in a lot of good creativitiy, theory, and fact.
I'll just argue against the importance of placing the "clue room" ahead of the "real room" every time, as a part of my own style.
I think it is more rewarding for players when they find a clue room if it's a bit less (forgive me here) spoon fed to them.
That's very generous. (And so is the rest of your post.)
I only came into this thread because you mentioned me in an earlier post.
That could well be true. I think it's very hard to judge these things on a messageboard, and I swing back and forth.
Sometimes I think that these discussions about playstyle exaggerate differences that may not be so apparent in the real world of playing a game at a table. But then I read posts (although I haven't got any particular posts in mind at present) that make me think that some people really do have different ways of playing.
The main difference for me, between the way I GM 4e and the way I've GMed more "mainstream" (simulationist, exploration-focused) RPGs in the past, is that in 4e I have to exercise less discretion as a GM in toggling the mechanics on and off in the interests of pacing/structure. In all sorts of ways (the rest rules are just one example, the skill challenge rules another) it facilitates the "closing" of scenes without them dragging on with no natural, mechanically-delivered stopping point. (And I don't like the GM-override aspect of just suspending the rules. It also tends to produce the metagaming issues your model bridge example discussed.)
This is what I was hoping for from 4e when the preview conversations were happening, and as far as I'm concerned the game has delivered. And so it was with these sorts of hopes and expectations in mind that I read Wyatt's DMG, and it is with the confirmation of experience that I reread it. And one thing I see him saying - and, for me, the most important thing - is that not everything that happens to the PCs is part of play. Not everything engages the action resolution mechanics. Some things are just colour, and the GM should cheerfully (and quickly) free-narrate through them. The implication - cashed out in other parts of the rules - is that this will not disempower but empower players, because they will get to make the choices where the real action is - and those choices will contribute colour, but not only colour.
(There is the incoherence I mentioned in response to BryonD about who has authority over framing situations. I don't think I've ever said that the game as presented is perfect!)
No worries. I'm always happy to talk about my play experiences. (Naturally, I try to present them in a favourable light! - in particular, I edit out most of the kid-wrangling, which can spoil all structure and pacing. Of course, Wyatt's DMG tells me to hire a babysitter, but having the kids with me has become integral to my RPG experience - for me and two other players, taking the kids with us is part of the quid quo pro for the "RPG widowhood" of our partners.)
For my group, game 20 is a year later, and in that time there will have been enough variation in encounter/scenario structure, tropes etc that any recognised resemblence will serve the purposes of nostalgia rather than repetition.
I agree with all this except for the first paragraph. It makes me revise my earlier comment - given that one of the players had worked out there were hidden mages behind one of the two unexplored doors, I should not have left it to chance that the doors be inspected in the suspense-building order.
The discovery was made by the player - who paid attention to how the spell-channelling pillars worked in the earlier encounter. And it was part of that player's PC's role/character - he is the scholar-mage who is the weakest PC in combat but their out-of-combat go-to-guy for all things mysterious and magical.
All of this, as you say, contributed to the nice way in which the sequence played out. If it had been different - no anticipation, or anticipation due to a different player working out, the pacing considerations would have been different (and, on the whole, less urgent, because less would have been at stake for just the reasons you give).
I think what I'm saying - that the Wyatt quote is not terrible advice, and not outrageous.
As I posted a little bit above, I agree with BryonD that the quote captures what many don't like about 4e. But that is because of what 4e is. It's not anything specially objectionable about the quote.
JamesonCourage
Adventurer
In my opinion, there's something obviously wrong with giving objective advice on Fun that would actively hurt enjoyment for many players. If that doesn't affect your view at all, then I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. Which is fine, of course. As always, play what you like
I guess I don't feel that it's objective advice in any objectionable fashion. Most recommendations as to fun/pleasure are, in some sense, relative or otherwise open to reasonable disagreement. (Recommendations as to quality may be a different matter, though I'm not 100% sure. This is why I personally find the Gygax material, which talks about quality - "skill" - rather than pleasure - "fun" - stronger in their claims.)
I'm probably also a bit more doubtful about the amount of "hurting enjoyment" that is going to follow, because (i) I think most of those whose enjoyment might be hurt will ignore it either from the get go, or in short order as they work their way through the game, and (ii) I suspect the amount of new players who follow the advice slavishly, and would prefer exploratory to situation-focused play to a signficiant extent, is not particularly large. Perhaps this intuition is just projection from my own case, however.
I'm probably also a bit more doubtful about the amount of "hurting enjoyment" that is going to follow, because (i) I think most of those whose enjoyment might be hurt will ignore it either from the get go, or in short order as they work their way through the game, and (ii) I suspect the amount of new players who follow the advice slavishly, and would prefer exploratory to situation-focused play to a signficiant extent, is not particularly large. Perhaps this intuition is just projection from my own case, however.
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