The Impasse

[xechnao]

Show me this with actual game mechanics that were "imported". Show me the euqivalent of your literary examples in game design of 4E. Show me the specific example.

I only have counter-examples to your claim.

Fictional Example:
- Guilds. Can you translate them from WoW to D&D?
Not in the sense of a guild made of dozens or hundreds of player characters. You can translate the general idea, that players belong to a specific faction or create their own. A game mechanical representation might allow you to use the Guild to acquire resources (magical items, henchman or allies).

Actual Examples:
- Roles. A concept found in many MMOs, with various implementations. A concept also found in "classic" D&D, but more as an emergent principle than as a design guideline (incidentally, it seems the same is true for many MMOs. I remember comments on how people use different class builds in World of Warcraft to achieve a role of "DPS", "Debuffer", or "Tank" or "Healer"). In D&D, Cleric typically had a Healer role, Fighter typically had a Tank or a DPS role, and a Rogue tended towards DPS, and finally the Wizard always did a lot of area stuff and other things that shaped the battlefied (like just removing enemies from the combat via save or die.) But other classes had less defined focuses, and some complained about that, because they didn't work well in combat (lacking any specific role and designed with conflicting roles. The Monk was very fast, but could only use his attack/damage abilities well if he stood still, for example - and than lacked the AC and HP to survive long in combat).
So, 4E decided to pick out these "emergent" concepts of roles and make them explicit, designing classes to fulfill these roles. Was that fundamentally wrong? Or is that not even something _really_ taken from online games and just something that was always somehow present in the game but never fully realized?

- Monster "Weights" - Minions, Elites and Solos:
A common concept in many adventures if the final confrontation with the BBEG. After having brought down the defenses of the Dragons Lair, the adventurers finally confront the dragon. That's something found in CRPGs, MMOs and Tabletop/pen & paper RPGs.
How to handle this? Just give the monster more hit points, higher defenses? That's what was often done in D&D, as it seems. (Just pick a higher CR in 3E). Many computer games do it differently - these "boss monsters" don't just have a boatload of hit points, they have special attacks, area effects and all that. 4E adapted this idea with its Elite and Solo Monster denominations, trying to adress problems inherent with merely using increased defenses and hit points - the action economy issue.
Another simple concept found in many media (not just RPGs and MMOs) are weaker enemies, that the heroes encounter in big numbers but take down quick and dirty. A simple approach is just reducing the number of hit points of the monster, making it faster to kill. That alone might work, but there is still some unresolved issue - the processing power of the DMs brain required to keep track of more monsters. Just reducing hit points doesn't change this effort much, since you still keep track of conditions and hit point totals. So 4E went and removed most of the tracking process - monsters with just one hit point usually die and don't have time to suffer from conditions (most of the time.) I think this is a very clever adaption from other media and working in the specialities of online games. Not just looking at what is "simulated" with the rule, but also how it makes managing it easier!

In my POV your examples do not answer the medium problematic. Tabletop versus online. Of course communication and calculations are involved in both mediums but because the mediums are different they work in a different way. In tabletop rpgs the factor of direct human communication is a mechanic of the game - in-game. In MMOs this is not the case. So if you build for tabletops you have to expand on this mechanic. OTOH in MMOs you have to build feedback challenges by a pcomputer program. Then you compete and/or value performance of people on these challenges. This is very different than human communication experiences which is something inherent to the way we value reality.

Having said that, you see that guilds in MMO serve a vastly different purpose than your parallelism of inserting guilds in the storytelling or narrative instance of tabletop rpgs. Regarding roles: you assume that in tabletop D&D they are a principle. I can accept this. But I cant accept that in tabletop they have to remain stable as a principle. As a guideline, perhaps yes, this is true. But each player each moment serves a different, his own purpose or role. These roles or purposes are not permanently stable. So they are more casual we could say. OTOH in MMOs roles are mechanicaly stable because things are limited by the fact of the artifical program. Now, instead of caring to limit things I would try to build and expand on the actual strengths of the tabletop medium to make players happy, to enhance their enjoyment and "fun" with the tabletop game. I would alter the way combat works in my D&D regarding character creation and the actual combat mechanics to suit the tabletop's strengths -I would rather build it like a dynamic programm that can reprogram itself with each player's input -rather than building a system that has to conform things the other way around.But this is just a thought. Regarding monsters and threats I would try to expand this more dynamically. Rather than focusing on one kind of goal (fight monsters) I would introduce mechanics for how permanent strategic goals are formed or modeled (love relationships, honor-duty, revenge, stuff like that) aside from casual action. You are talking about other media but isnt't it what I describe here more akeen to the storytelling we find in them?

Anyway, I hope even if you do not agree that I managed to explain myself in a way that you can see my POV.

 

[Kzach]

It was an example of what I hope is a way to discuss editions without causing an edition war, in the line of what Rel pointed at as an excellent example of discussing edition preferences.

Your hostile reaction shows that either my post was not as suited to that goal, or that you cannot take any disagreement with your edition choice, and would want me (and probably anyone else not playing your game) gone from these boards.

You take questions as hostility? 0.o

All I did was ask why you bother arguing a point that has been made ad nauseam on these boards for almost a year now. If you consider that hostile, then that's really a problem on your part, not mine.

I don't care if you disagree with my edition preference. I really don't. You like what you like, I like what I like. What I'm trying to point out is that there's really no need to tell anybody the why's and wherefore's because it serves no purpose other than to perpetuate the antagonism between factions.

I also don't care if you keep posting or don't. I would, however, prefer if all the edition preference arguments went the way of the dinosaur and got wiped out of existence.

 

[Fenes]

If you only have one combat per game evening, it wouldn't matter if the combat abilities of the characters are daily, encounter or at will, as they're still going to be only once a game evening, which will encompass several days up to several months.

I am sorry to disagree, but this is not true. First, any combat ability of my game - we are using Tome of Battle mechanics - is rechargeable. Generally, those abilities are used several times during a combat. Second, a game session doesn't often cover several days in our game. Third, many abilities have uses outside combat as well - raging to break down a door, for example. Fourth, my main problem with those is that I don't see why whirlwind attack could not be used much more often than 1/encounter or 1/day, not without a lot of mental gymnastics that detract from my immersion (as in, I can create explanations, but I feel it's tiring to do so)

And of course, there are already daily non-magical abilities in 3rd edition. Be it "Defensive Roll" or "Barbarian Rage" (having several is useless if you only have one combat encounter per day because of your spellcasters needing to rest again after unleashing their arcane and divine spells), if people don't have problems with it in prior editions, they can't have problems with it in 4th, 5th or 22th edition, whenever these will be (unless a totally new system is devised, which I would hope).

Again, I do have conceptual problems with many of the daily and encounter powers of 4E. Please do not tell me what I can't and can have.

 

[DandD]

Rather than focusing on one kind of goal (fight monsters) I would introduce mechanics for how permanent strategic goals are formed or modeled (love relationships, honor-duty, revenge, stuff like that) aside from casual action. You are talking about other media but isnt't it what I describe here more akeen to the storytelling we find in them?

Why would you bring in rules for roleplaying stuff outside of combat? Isn't this the one thing which all edition players, be it old, first, second, third or fourth loathe?

 

[Fenes]

You take questions as hostility? 0.o

I take your tone as hostility. A neutral question is not worded like your posts.

 

[Fenes]

Why would you bring in rules for roleplaying stuff outside of combat? Isn't this the one thing which all edition players, be it old, first, second, third or fourth loathe?

Not at all. Good mechanical rules for non-combat roleplaying actions are wanted by many. A way to handle bluffing or conning someone that does not rely on player oratory skills, for example, or a good way to handle verbal duels would be appreciated.

 

[DandD]

Not at all. Good mechanical rules for non-combat roleplaying actions are wanted by many. A way to handle bluffing or conning someone that does not rely on player oratory skills, for example, or a good way to handle verbal duels would be appreciated.

That would reduce the game to roll-playing (which should only be a small part of the game), especially the things that xechnao mentioned, which I would adamantly oppose as being necessary or improving any game, if you really need to have rules to hate a character ingame, or need to love somebody, and other things...

 

[xechnao]

Why would you bring in rules for roleplaying stuff outside of combat? Isn't this the one thing which all edition players, be it old, first, second, third or fourth loathe?

Can you give me a specific example of what they loathe? Something you know how it works in practice?
And perhaps we can work it out from there.
But try to not generalize. What I am talking about here does not have to be the way you know you may loathe it to be. I see this "rules" you say here as a vast generalization that fails to describe any practical implementation so we know what we are talking about.

 

[DandD]

See above for stuff that shouldn't have rules.

Also, these things you mentioned already have been done in *gasp* video games like Dating sims, and Romance-of-the-three-kingdom-games on SNES and other consoles (and certainly computer).

If D&D 4th edition can't be accused, it's being too video-gamey, when such things haven't been incorporated (for now, I dread the day when something like that will find its way into core rulebooks, which will happen for sure, one way or another).

 

[xechnao]

See above for stuff that shouldn't have rules.

Also, these things you mentioned already have been done in *gasp* video games like Dating sims, and Romance-of-the-three-kingdom-games on SNES and other consoles (and certainly computer).

If D&D 4th edition can't be accused, it's being too video-gamey, when such things haven't been incorporated (for now, I dread the day when something like that will find its way into core rulebooks, which will happen for sure, one way or another).

Unfortunately I am not aware of the games you are talking about. Do you know about "the sims"? But even if you do not you should certainly know of turn-based strategy games like "total war" or "jagged alliance". Do you lathe them? I am asking because I could very well draw a comparison on one's strategic position in these games with the permanent life (social?) goals I was talking about.