The Guards at the Gate Quote

[The Shaman]

[MENTION=37277]Mercutio01[/MENTION] , your argument comes across as, 'Who ya gonna believe, me, or your lyin' eyes?!'

I think most people understand that Mr Wyatt wanted to get across the notion of 'focus on fun things, not on not-fun things.' However, whatever his intent, he called out the encounter with the guards at the gate as explicitly not-fun. For a whole bunch of reasons that have already been offered in this thread, that's poor advice.

 

[Mercutio01]

And I'm in agreement with The Auld Grump here. I won't deign to answer the obvious strawman bullcrap being spouted by The Shaman.

 

[the Jester]

I'll ask this as a neutral question, do you think in that one sentence Wyatt was telling you to skip all roleplaying opportunities to get to the combat?

No, but the attitude I get is "gloss over anything that isn't an encounter. If you roleplay it out, there ought to be a point to the scene."

Which is fine, except that a lot of gamers like to roleplay for its own sake. Sometimes the point of the scene is as simple as "talking to guards at the gate".

It's not the specific advice that rubs people so wrong imho, it's the dismissal of certain playstyles as badwrongfun.

 

[Mercutio01]

No, but the attitude I get is "gloss over anything that isn't an encounter. If you roleplay it out, there ought to be a point to the scene."

Which is fine, except that a lot of gamers like to roleplay for its own sake. Sometimes the point of the scene is as simple as "talking to guards at the gate".

The attitude you describe is exactly what I think he was saying, too. I think you and I are in agreement with what he's saying. I don't happen to think that's bad advice, especially when trying to introduce D&D to new gamers, and that's still who I think the target audience was.

 

[the Jester]

C) I'm fully willing to admit that I might be alone in this but I dont read reference books cover to cover. Nor do I commit everything that I read to memory. I do remember things that stand out to me when I'm reading. That quote, despite the fact that the DM's Guide is probably my favorite of the 4E books (and remember I dont care for 4E all that much) stood out and annoyed me as I think it was really bad advice.

I'll add to this- I did read the 4e DMG from cover to cover, and 4e is my current primary game. Check the 24 or so threads full of monsters by level that I've converted to 4e if you doubt my genuine love of the system. But that quote stuck out for me, too, as appallingly bad advice for my group, because we sometimes do like the meaningless, no-action, no-dice, no-real-consequence, pointless except for the joy of roleplaying encounters. My wizard player loves to rp with the local alchemist. The barbarian's player loves roleplaying in depth every chance he gets so that he can Conan out his attitude. The warden's player would be happy roleplaying his interaction with kids playing tag (and even rolling dice for it!). None of those encounters "means" a thing, or has any action, but they are all tons of fun for my group.

I'm not h4ting. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with a group that prefers to skip all that. I'm just saying it is terrible advice for some groups, terrible advice that stuck out as a blemish in the 4e DMG, which I found to otherwise be a pretty good read (thought the DMG2 is far better! ).

Consider this, too: one of the big criticisms many people level at 4e is that it encourages a minimal-rp, encounter-focused game. My campaign is pretty darn far from minimal-rp and it runs fine in 4e. But even I, loving 4th Edition as I do, can plainly see that it does promote a certain playstyle as optimal. Tiles and preprinted battlemaps, measurements in squares, the (awful) Delve format, etc etc etc... there are a lot of ways in which it pushes a very tactical combat game style. But my campaign is evidence that it works fine with other playstyles too.

The conclusion I'm getting at here is that 4e doesn't have to run as a skirmish-style game, but it actively encourages it. It's just fine as a framework for all that other "guards at the gates and fairy rings" stuff too.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I think most people understand that Mr Wyatt wanted to get across the notion of 'focus on fun things, not on not-fun things.'

I have a friend in my gaming group that fits this attitude. You admit that most people understand his intent, but here we are still arguing about that intent 19 (edit: 20 or 286 posts for those viewing differently) pages later?!



Must be why I like ENWorld...reminds me of sitting around the table with friends.

 

[the Jester]

I think that is reading into the statement something that isn't there. I think it's your perceptions coloring how you read it. Not to minimize the idea, because after a few years of playing 4E, I've come to a similar conclusion, at least among the gamers I've played 4E with. But I definitely don't think that is either implied or meant to be implied in his words.

If you look at the formatting of WotC adventures, they are pretty much presented as a line of encounters, sometimes without any real choice as to what order they occur in. (Pyramid of Shadows or the trek across the Abyss in the E modules, anyone?)

If it wasn't intentional, the 4e designers sure didn't think through a lot of the way they present the game and (especially) adventures.

 

[Halivar]

Must be why I like ENWorld...reminds me of sitting around the table with friends.

Except I can't throw food at you.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Except I can't throw food at you.

Neither can my friends...either out of respect for or fear of my wife.

 

[Mercutio01]

If you look at the formatting of WotC adventures, they are pretty much presented as a line of encounters, sometimes without any real choice as to what order they occur in.

I only have KotS as I tend to game without modules. That hasn't always been true, and adventure modules from more than a few other editions were fairly similar, including classics like White Plume Mountain and, my favorite, Night Below.