The importance of non combat rules in a RPG.

[FireLance]

My point is that it overemphasized features that aren't unique to D&D, as a selling point for D&D.

Out of curiousity, which features would you say these are?

I recall publicity materials emphasizing simpler rules and better balance between characters at all levels of play, but I would hardly call complex rules and unbalanced characters and gameplay to be selling points, even if they might arguably be unique to D&D!

 

[Chrono22]

So my Lvl+0 encounters don't come close to killing my party member? My player character quite often run out of healing surges and healing in combat (The party include a paladin and a Cleric.) The average combat sees at least one character drop. This is low risk?

Do you have system mastery? I do. Making strategically stupid decisions does not have a consequence due to the length of battles in 4e. Good strategy maybe equates to a lucky critical hit in the grand scheme of a battle.

Reread you own statements about fanboys.

I never said anything about fanboys before you accused me of calling you one. Feel free to reread my previous posts, if you aren't sure.

4e supports my role heavy campaign there far your opinion is not a fact. 4e only assumes that all characters at a set level should be equal in combat. It give the same traditional weight to combat as the previous 3 editions.

Whatever. I tried presenting my position in a clear fashion, with support and clear examples, but if all you're going to do is trot out the "your opinion is not fact" fallacy as a means of discrediting what I say... fine. You win. Go kill some orcs.

I hadn't seen this response when I made the post above.

Could you elaborate on how 4E fails to support any of the above as a function of the rules, and not based on how the players and DMs choose to approach the game? For example, a DM could choose to run a higher-risk game by pitting the PCs against challenges that are 3 or more levels higher than they are.

4e doesn't work when the DM does this. Such combats aren't really a high risk, so much as incredibly long and boring wars of attrition. The PCs miss so often, and their attacks do so little damage as a proportion of the enemies' hitpoints that it does not capture the feeling of danger. Not fun at all.
In the same fashion, skill challenges reduce the chance of failure and sense of risk.
As for the other things- healing surges make combat as a whole less dangerous for PCs.
4e's approach to roleplaying is mostly hands-free (or perhaps don't ask don't tell would be a better analogy). But I wouldn't call that a strength or feature of the system, since it puts all of the work in the DM's and Players' laps. And then, even when it does address roleplaying, it's almost always framed in the context of combat.

 

[Chrono22]

Out of curiousity, which features would you say these are?

I recall publicity materials emphasizing simpler rules and better balance between characters at all levels of play, but I would hardly call complex rules and unbalanced characters and gameplay to be selling points, even if they might arguably be unique to D&D!

Awesome combat, balanced combat.
Killing monsters, being a hero.

These things are par for the course. They hardly make D&D stick out as a brand. Becoming more generic hurt D&D's brand recognition.
The other things I've been talking about- the assumptions of play for example- are a bit more subtle, and aren't obviously apparent when it comes to marketing.

 

[Teemu]

You can easily create very challenging combats in 4e without using high level creatures -- you just use more equal level monsters.

 

[Chrono22]

Risk does not necessarily correspond to a challenge or vice versa.
It could be challenging to pick up a penny off the ground if you don't have long fingernails. But the risk is mitigated by the fact that there is no consequence for failure.
In 4e, the consequences of failure are mitigated by the length of the combats. Even if the players don't have action advantage, such as in your scenario, they can retreat. The number of healing surges available mean that they have ample warning that they can't win against a group of enemies.
An overland chase skill challenge and a few nature rolls later, and the party is safe in town, healing up and preparing for the next excursion into enemy territory.

... much as I'd like to continue this conversation, I think I'm drawing this thread off topic, so I'm going to drop this line of discussion. If you'd like to continue it privately, feel free to PM me.

 

[Ariosto]

The Chivalry & Sorcery Sourcebook (1978) included, as part of presentation of the Forester class, rules for catching fish. First considered was the use of a noose of willow. Then came the rules for "tickling":

Basic Encounter Percentages
Fish [Size] Encounter
Approach %
Trout Rise %/Tench Rise %
Trout Pull %/Tench Pull %
Dexterity factors

"The Tench Rise percentages are used only when the weather is sunny. When it is overcast, use Trout Rise percentages for Tench as well."

Weather, the hunt, medicine, plague, agriculture, mining, and maritime trade make up most of the Sourcebook. Among other items are rules for "the ever popular outdoor sport known as 'Drop the Rock'. This game is played whenever a group of the boys from the neighboring manor chances to call for a sociable month or two with their siege train."

C&S is perhaps the archetypal game of particular, detailed rules for a wide variety of things other than combat. Fantasy Games Unlimited went on to publish such other notable examples of general rules-heaviness as Space Opera, Aftermath, and (the second edition of) Bushido.

Along with Gygax's eclectic Dungeon Masters Guide -- and Hargrave's 'gonzo' The Arduin Grimoire -- those reflect a 1970s gaming milieu very much informed by the wargame ethos of the time. "Play" in that latter context was very often synonymous with "study". Simulation-toys could get remarkably complex, considering how much they depended on human brains for processing power. Actually, part of the appeal in some sectors was the opportunity to get into the process; the computerized models coming out of beltway think tanks were so obscurely complicated as to be "black boxes".

Campaign for North Africa was quite explicitly complicated. IIRC, three playtest groups burned out before completion, overwhelmed by such minutia as an Italian unit's water consumption for cooking pasta.

GDW's Europa series got some way along in depicting the entire European and African theaters of WW2 with a piece for each division.

One person's sheer madness is another's better use for a two-car garage.

On that principle, The Dragon printed articles on all sorts of subjects. I reckon one might find a lot of non-combat systems in 2e and 3e supplements as well.

 

[Teemu]

Eh, it doesn't take that much to kill the leader and watch the party go down. Lots of monsters are quicker than PCs and can prevent escape. Also, you don't start all fights with a day's worth of surges available.

 

[bardolph]

One person's sheer madness is another's better use for a two-car garage.

^^^
This.

 

[FireLance]

Awesome combat, balanced combat.
Killing monsters, being a hero.

These things are par for the course. They hardly make D&D stick out as a brand. Becoming more generic hurt D&D's brand recognition.

I can see where you're coming from. I'd really like to see a series of advertisements for D&D based around the idea of: "You can't do THIS in an MMO!"

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I can see where you're coming from. I'd really like to see a series of advertisements for D&D based around the idea of: "You can't do THIS in an MMO!"

The answer is not "needlepoint."

D&D loses to MMOs because people aren't willing to invest the time required of a game with hundreds of pages of rules and a commitment to gathering face to face on a regular basis. It's not a mystery and it has nothing to do with content or unscratched itches.

Switching to a demonstrably less popular and less compelling focus like race car driving, courtroom drama, or sewing, in lieu of the simple mindless pleasure of plundering dungeons, is SO not the "solution."