The Impasse

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

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EDIT: To make it more clear: one in a web like model could manage his resources to gain some leverage from diplomacy to gain a better position in combat -if he has such a resource and wants to resort to that resource: to what resource one resorts has to do with his position on the web. And here is where the game takes place (it is a game where positioning matters so I would call it a game of strategic positioning )

Don't you think this system might be a little too ... abstract?

I would say you can implement parts of this in 4E, combining skill challenges and Quests and encounter design. Your in-game resource is not described by a position on the web, but basically by XP.

For example, if the PCs run a succesful skill challenge with a potential ally, they get XP for that challenge -at the same time, this XP is deducted from the XP from an encounter where they use this ally as an asset. He is using his own power to divert some of the enemy forces from combat, or he is directly accompanying the PCs to aid them, or he is giving them advice how to avoid some enemy troops.

And the other way around, a combat might help the PCs to satisfy a quest ("Get back my daughter out of the Kobold Lair") to gain the new ally (or the opportunity for a skill challenge to make this man even more thankful than just giving you some GP and a magical trinket).

Your "web" approach is interesting, and seeing an actual implementation might be even more so. But I am still not convinced that it "works" to facilitate a good role-playing game experience, and doesn't just introduce the general problem of mechanics for non-combat - replacing verbal interactions between players and DMs with dice rolls.

 

[xechnao]

I think I understand some of where you come from, but in what other edition of D&D were there mechanics to allow for the creative things you mentioned above? I think that 4e was the first to actually have a set of usable rules for improvised stunts or maneuvers.

And, FWIW, many of the "great" adventures of the P&P era could be boiled down to: 1. fight mobs and avoid traps, 2. Kill the sub-leaders and get treasure, then 3. attack the "king" and plunder the lair.

In D&D of old times you could do stat checks and you would either succeed or fail in what was the consensus of the common sense of the DM and player of what it could be achieved. There were also the "climb walls" ability of thieves that I believe it was used for cases like that.
But I agree with you that mechanically we are long way for something solid towards this matter. I think one needs a system that is build around directly using relativistic values than absolute standard values.

 

[Fenes]

I think I understand some of where you come from, but in what other edition of D&D were there mechanics to allow for the creative things you mentioned above? I think that 4e was the first to actually have a set of usable rules for improvised stunts or maneuvers.

And, FWIW, many of the "great" adventures of the P&P era could be boiled down to: 1. fight mobs and avoid traps, 2. Kill the sub-leaders and get treasure, then 3. attack the "king" and plunder the lair.

I never thought they were great adventures at all. Rules for stunts are not really helpful if they do not produce combat effects that are better than powers - not many will do a stunt if it's more effective to use a power.

 

[xechnao]

Don't you think this system might be a little too ... abstract?

Well systems are abstarct. When you are trying to evolve a well experienced system towards a certain direction that you have spotted due to your experience (and this can happen in open ended systems fairly easily) your POV becomes less abstract and more substantial. But if your approach is not focused like this, then to someone with the focused mind set you will sound too abstract -of course system design is about making substantial theoretic and abstact qualities so what it is missing here is a designer to design the system I am talking about in something more substantial.

Your "web" approach is interesting, and seeing an actual implementation might be even more so. But I am still not convinced that it "works" to facilitate a good role-playing game experience, and doesn't just introduce the general problem of mechanics for non-combat - replacing verbal interactions between players and DMs with dice rolls.

It is good you are not convinced because neither am I. In fact this is what I was trying to say to you with my disclaimer (the first sentence) on my post above. The verbal interaction problematic is a different one. Even an implementation of this web of sorts could be designed in an incompatible way with the tabletop social possibilities I am advocating for.

 

[Shazman]

Yes, they of course continued to sell 3.5 products past the announcement of 4e. Did you expect them to stop? Just - you know - cease all production of their existing product line and turn the revenue dial all the way down to zero?

How well do you think this would have worked if the waiting period was a few years rather than just a few months?

Again, I am not talking about sales turning to zero. I am talking about a shrinking market. Yes, Paizo is doing fairly well right now - but in a very real sense, they are the 3e market. How many other 3pp's are publishing non-PDF 3e D&D material? Paizo is the biggest fish in a now-smaller pond, and they have already eaten the competition.

As far as I can see, you're not looking at this situation rationally.

-O

You seem to keep saying that I think that they should have publicly announced 4th edition the instant they started working on it. I never said such a thing. I also never said that they should have announced 4E when they were asked about it. All I am saying is a simple "We are not going to discuss rumors about 4th edition." or something to that effect would have been better than using deception to strongly imply that they weren't even considering working on 4th edition when they, in fact, had already been working on it for approximately two years. Your insistance on twisting my words to say something I did not say seems far more irrational, than anything I have said.

 

[catsclaw227]

I never thought they were great adventures at all.

OK. Fine. I was simply stating that the things you said you would rather do in an MMO weren't invented by them. They were deeply ingrained staples of early edition D&D. And implying that they were bad mmo tropes is a strawman.

Rules for stunts are not really helpful if they do not produce combat effects that are better than powers - not many will do a stunt if it's more effective to use a power.

But all of the things you mentioned:

Throwing a cloak over the enemies eyes. Dropping a chandelier on enemies. Making a wall crumble, hack down a door and use it as a battering ram. Using and changing the enviroment, the entire battlefield.

Can be achieved through this codified system. I am not saying it's perfect, but you were claiming that these are the things you want from a system, not the mmo-isms that you dislike. And its exactly these kinds of things that were intended when the mechanics for improvised maneuvers were created. They weren't intended to be replacements for powers, just as throwing a cloak over your enemies eyes was intended to replace your swashbuckler's rapier attack.

You make it possible for the players to try anything they can imagine. That means it’s your job to resolve unusual actions when the players try them.

Example: Shiera the 8th-level rogue wants to try the classic swashbuckling move of swinging on a chandelier and kicking an ogre in the chest on her way down to the ground, hoping to push the ogre into the brazier of burning coals behind it.

Aren't these the kinds of things you are talking about?

 

[Fenes]

Yes, and those kind of stunts should do more than powers. The brazier stunt should do more than the best daily a character has. Otherwise players are discouraged from using stunts - a lesson we learned in MMOGs.

Which is what I stated: The focus should have been not on dozens of very limited powers, but on dozens of examples of stunts that foster creativity and use the freedom P&P offers to the fullest.

 

[Sadrik]

You need to look no further than the reward mechanics for a game to determine what type of game it is intended to be.

D&D reward mechanics are: loot, XP for killing monsters, renewed action points after killing monsters twice, and some XP thrown in after killing a series of monsters.

D&D is a combat game if anyone is trying to claim otherwise is not playing it as it was intended to be played.

My gripe is, minor things aside, that combat is mixed into the game at higher level of actual game time resolution than I would prefer.

If I game for 4 hours I don't want half of that to be one encounter.

This whole MMO thing is a misnomer because fantasy MMOs took a very blatant page from D&D. Additionally, D&D is a turn based game and MMOs are real time, so how they play is completely different. They don't cross pollinate much on mechanics.

 

[Rel]

Yes, and those kind of stunts should do more than powers. The brazier stunt should do more than the best daily a character has. Otherwise players are discouraged from using stunts - a lesson we learned in MMOGs.

Which is what I stated: The focus should have been not on dozens of very limited powers, but on dozens of examples of stunts that foster creativity and use the freedom P&P offers to the fullest.

I disagree. Certainly with the right group of players and GM this can work well. And it is in fact the basis of many RPG's out there.

But this kind of "stunting on the fly" requires a lot more adjudication from the GM and a lot more creativity from the players. Not all GMs are skilled or comfortable with that amount of adjudication and not all players are that creative. Especially if you require this level of adjudication and creativity in every single battle.

I think that the structure of 4e is such that you've got the powers as the "bread and butter" of the combat system while still allowing for stunts for those special creative moments.

 

[garyh]

Yes, and those kind of stunts should do more than powers. The brazier stunt should do more than the best daily a character has. Otherwise players are discouraged from using stunts - a lesson we learned in MMOGs.

Which is what I stated: The focus should have been not on dozens of very limited powers, but on dozens of examples of stunts that foster creativity and use the freedom P&P offers to the fullest.

See, you want to be able to make things up that basically eclipse the system. At that point, why have the system? What stunting can and should do is give options that are useful in the situation without always trumping regular powers. If you can always just make up some wacky attack that does more than your best daily, how does the DM prevent that from happening every round?

Here's an example of stunting I DM'ed:

The party triggers a whirling blade trap just as an ooze attacks them. The rogue asks if he can stick his dagger in the wheels of the trap to immobilize it. I looked at the powers, decided a reasonable equivalent that'd do immobilize (Attack -2 vs AC, no damage, immobilized, save ends). It worked, and they party ended up with several rounds where they could focus on the ooze as the trap was unable to move. The rogue got what he wanted, and the party benefited.

Is this not exactly like the stunts you're looking for? And I was encouraged by the design of 4e and the ability to estimate how such a trick should work based on existing powers.