D&D 4E The "We Can't Roleplay" in 4E Argument

[wedgeski]

Why not? It is precisely the skill that is in question: can you out-fiddle the Devil in Georgia? Can you outplay Satan's chosen guitarist? Or from other mythologies, can you sing a song or recite a poem so sad that your beloved is returned to the living? Can you tell a story entertaining enough or a joke funny enough to save your life?

That IS performance.

If such a moment in the game was represented by one or a serious of Perform checks, I would consider it a dramatic failure. It is *precisely* the addition of Skill Challenges in 4E (and to some extent the influence of other games with complex challenges) that has made me re-consider the difference between playing for a few copper in a tavern and literally playing for your life.

No it's not: there is no referent SKILL upon which to base a challenge. And the Bard is no more proficient than anyone else with similar stats: Vicious Mockery does not make you an insult comic, it's a spell, not a skill. Often, such contests have rules about that kind of thing...and cheating=forfeit and thus, loss.

You're doing more to strip down the tools available to the DM than the removal of a few skills ever has.

 

[Imaro]

I am going to jump in here with a suggestion, don't know if you will find it helpful or not but I view defender marks as badassery. You have been intimidated and rattled somewhat by the defenders attack and it you attack another then you are not fully committed because you are looking over the shoulder to see what that that badass dude is upto.
If you attack the defender directly then there is no distraction unless there is another badass dude present.

Thanks ardoughter, but I'm not really looking for a solution to this... I just wanted to discuss it because it was something I noticed concerning powers that kinda snagged and pulled every so often at my suspension of disbelief. I also don't remember having this problem when I played 3.5... in fact I'm trying to think of an instance where meta-game knowledge is bestowed upon a creature as actual in-game knowledge and I honestly can't.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Just out of curiosity, how DOES one handle things like artistic performances, craftsmanship and the like in 4Ed? Most of my PCs had some kind of non-combat aspect to them, usually something artistic like playing an instrument (and in systems other than D&D, as well).

The absence of codification of such things- IME, present in most RPG systems- presented me with a quandary: how do I know how good a musician (or woodcarver or cook, etc.) my PC is? ...

For some people (as the Devo song goes), freedom from choice is what they need. The options presented are numerous enough that they cannot decide what to do. For others, the options, while numerous, may not be sufficient in number for them to realize the concepts in their heads, and may jump from PC to PC in an effort to find the combination of elements that most closely mirrors what they envision. Despite the large & growing number, none is quite what they're looking for.

From a game design perspective, I think my position on this is a little different than most 4E fans. I invoke the Yoda principle: There is no try. Only do or do not.

I'm ok with 3E having craft skills. Or not having them. I am not ok with 3E having crappy craft skills, because they "tried" and it didn't add much to the game. Same way with 4E. I'm ok with them not having them. The reason doesn't matter. Could be they actively don't want them. Could be they don't have a good idea for how to do them. Could be a preliminary "try" wasn't working out and they ran out of time. But if someone has a "doable" idea for fully integrated 4E craft skills (or perform, et. al.), then I'm all for it.

They didn't ask me in 4E, and probably won't ask me in 5E. But the way I'd do it is to completely remove all combat and direct conflict advantages out of the feat system entirely. Feats would be things like "linguist" and then "musician" - pick an instrument in which you are proficient. That is, every mechanical effect that is not already outside the skill system entirely (e.g. linguist) is highly conditional. If you are proficient with the fiddle, you can challenge the devil, using the normal skill challenge rules and whatever diplomacy, insight, etc. the group can bring to bear. If you aren't, maybe you'd better pick a different contest. (This would also have the secondary but not inconsiderable benefit of taking feats almost out of the character balance realm entirely, and thus making "feat taxes" and other such issues mechanically unlikely.)

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I understand the decoupling of mechanics from the narrative and what it entails. I just don't like it very much. The inexperienced players in my group have a particularly hard time with it. They expect that they will describe to me what their character is doing and then I tell them what happens as a result. Sometimes these actions need to have rules applied to them and the effects described in terms of game mechanics, and sometimes they don't. The powers in 4E generally require players to think in terms of what mechanical effect they wish to put into play and then describe how this was accomplished in terms of the narrative.

That's counter-intuitive to me, and my casual players find it even more so.

Either way, the player does have an end result in mind, but the "traditional" way leans towards determining the game mechanics effect from the narrative context, while the 4E way leans more towards determining the narrative context from the game mechanics effect.

Listen to your intuition here, but don't make it determinant.

Seriously, you intutition is onto something here, but your options are not so limited as you portrayed. 4E (and any system built this way, for that matter) will work far better for many people if you make yourself play in the imagined space first, then apply mechanics. This is not terribly hard to learn, but it is a consciously learned skill. It might even slow down the game for a few sessions, but soon it will switch to produce the opposite effect.

Might I also suggest, as both a training tool and fun in its own right, that you try applying the roleplaying after the roll. That is, you want each player to do something like this:

1. Declare what they are doing, as much as possible totally in the fiction. If necessary to keep this clear, don't even state the power used.

2. Mechanically resolve the stated action in the best way possible. For awhile, make this an overt, group discussion, even at the expense of taking everyone out of the action. It will get faster and less intrusive with practice. Page 42 will now be used naturally, instead of fighting the flow.

3. Narrate the results, including failures: "Geoff slips as he charges, going down on one knee, and missing the orc by a hair." Don't get picky about applying mechanical effects here (i.e. don't argue about "going down on one knee" being "prone"), but do impose some consistent group limits (i.e. you might decide that you can't be prone on the ground without also being "prone".)

BTW, this is the way we played Fantasy Hero and 3E/Arcana Evolved, too. It's just a lot easier in 4E, because of that same narrative flexibility that trips some people up. It will not produce the exact same results as playing a more traditional game, but it will get people to stop looking at their character sheets all the time and imaging the action again. It is a different kind of fun, but fully capable of being just as vivid as the older method.

 

[Imaro]

RP in 4e is far more open and easier than it was in previous editions because the skills now are so broad and your either trained or not trained. Where one of the problem lies is that the 4e system is heavily tipped to balanced and tactical fighting for both the players and the GM that they forget that an RPG should have RP in it.

I'm going to disagree here, I have always subscribed to the idea that the choices one makes in character design should inform the DM on where you want the game to go... including roleplaying wise. If the skills are too broad they don't really give direction or allow players to direct. All IMO of course.

One of the other problems with 4e is also its broad skills. Since you no longer have things like perform or profession people forget to root themselves in the game world. Players have to make it a point to do so and GM's need to encourage it. Otherwise, the game really will degrade into endless combats and the PC's will essentially be marauding looters.

Continuing with the idea above, I think, for some DM's the fact that the skills are so braod gives them no direction into what it is their players are interested in... outside of combat. The player can be as rooted in the game world as he wants, but with reduced means to direct the DM towards what parts of the world a player is interested in... it becomes much harder for being rooted in the gameworld to mean anything.

What I see as one of the last and biggest problems is the sheer number of classes and options for each class and they ALL can do some really interesting stuff. So many players want to jump around from one character to the next so they can taste all the proverbial buffet has to offer. This makes it very hard for the player and the GM to root a character into the game world but also makes finding a class that suites the player, in some cases, easier.

I think moreso what the abundance of classes and options (which until recently were mostly built around combat) does is send a message to the DM that the fun and most interesting part of the game is combat, since this is where the detail is and one can most differentiate their character thus giving the DM the necessary cues as to what one is interested in, at least as far as combat goes. The problem is that when dealing with the gameworld as a whole, combat is only a small part of it.

If no one ever tries nothing will ever happen.

That's true but also just as true is that the DM is not a mind reader and without his facilitation it's hard to root oneself in anything concerning the gameworld.

 

[Imaro]

I'm ok with 3E having craft skills. Or not having them. I am not ok with 3E having crappy craft skills, because they "tried" and it didn't add much to the game. Same way with 4E. I'm ok with them not having them. The reason doesn't matter. Could be they actively don't want them. Could be they don't have a good idea for how to do them. Could be a preliminary "try" wasn't working out and they ran out of time. But if someone has a "doable" idea for fully integrated 4E craft skills (or perform, et. al.), then I'm all for it.

I'm curious, what defines a crappy craft skill. As I said in an earlier post I do believe skills are a means for players to communicate to their DM what they are interested in... so I don't know if I buy the idea of "crappy" skills. When you say they don't add much to the game are you saying for your group they didn't? Because I can understand that.

What I don't get is that no craft skill was required for anyone to take so if you thought a skill sucked nothing in the game forced you to take it, on the other hand the skills you consider crappy may have been a player in another groups gateway to letting the DM know that he was interested in exploring the aspects of the gameworld that the skill correlated to.

 

[P1NBACK]

Hogwash. You can roleplay 4E.

Hell, DMG page 42 alone confirms this.

 

[MrMyth]

I think you are confusing conditions with effects... an effect can contain a condition but doesn't have to... Now back to your regularly scheduled discussion...

This is actually one of the trickier areas of the rules. If a power gives you +2 AC against a specific foe, is that a condition you've applied to him, or one that is tied to you? The answer is - it could be either, depending on how the power is worded. In this case, Riposte Strike sets up a condition that gives the rogue a free attack - as opposed, say, to applying a condition on the opponent that makes them provoke when they attack.

Or, for a better comparison - if a Paladin marks an opponent, they know that they suffer a -2 penalty to hit and will take radiant damage if they violate the mark, since all of that is built into the Divine Challenge power. If a Fighter marks an opponent, they know they will suffer a -2 penalty to hit other people. They don't know the fighter will get a free attack against them, since that is intrinsic to his class features.

But all that is just going by the absolute RAW. Again, I think 'knows the conditions upon them' is there to prevent abuse, but that the expectation of the game, and the way I've seen it typically run, is that these are areas where the DM navigates via common sense. If battling against trained soldiers, who've probably seen fighters in action before, they may well know to be extra wary if marked by a warrior in scale mail! A student of the arcane might be able to identify how a swordmage operates! Etc.

It's all similar to the way that the rules might say how some enemies often fight to the death, and others might flee when the battle turns against them. In either case, they are just suggestions and guidelines - the rules cannot account for every individual battle, and they don't even attempt to try - the DM will run things as appropriate.

And that includes both when opponents flee, how much tactical skill they exhibit in battle, how much understanding they have of their opponent's skills, and how they react to powers used against them and conditions placed upon them.

 

[MrMyth]

Dannager, we then run smack back into the problem that I have with every creature knowing what the effect of powers are on them... how do you know this if you've never encountered a swordmage before, or never had magic cast on you?

Well, the rules tell us that a creature knows when it is marked. That tells us that marking must be obvious in some way - the common idea is that it represents a fighter being in your face, and distracting you from other combatants.

But, as you note, it becomes harder to conceive for those who might mark from a distance, or through non-martial means. But if divine or arcane magics are in play, its reasonable to assume they can impart that same sense appropriately.

The wolf who is caged in by divine light from the paladin doesn't know what a divine challenge is, of course. But it recognizes that if it starts moving towards the wizard, the light gets brighter and starts to burn, while if it starts moving towards the paladin, the light leaves it alone.

The orc who knows nothing about magic but is marked by a swordmage doesn't know that there is an aegis of shielding upon it. But an arcane link has been forged between the two combatants. It probably feels itself drawn - but not forced - towards the swordmage, and feels magically uncomfortable when facing other foes. This hardly seems an extreme assumption for what a magical ward is capable of doing.

Now, I am confident that there are times and places where knowing the condition placed upon you doesn't make any easy sense. Where one can, perhaps, come up with a reason, but it requires a lot of stretching to do so.

But... I'm also confident those situations are few and far between. Are the above examples really that strange? The idea that the swordmage places a magical ward upon an enemy, hindering its attacks against others, and that it can sense these magics in play? Sure, you can flavor it up however you like, but that's what the rules say happens at its base, and nothing seems immersion-breaking about it.

And on those handful of occasions where the rule doesn't quite make sense... its relatively easy to ignore it. I know, I know, claiming that one can fix a problem shouldn't be given as evidence of there being no problem in the first place - I myself argue that all the time.

But for a situation that comes up so rarely, due to a rule that the rest of the time only helps run the game, I don't see it as a particular issue.

 

[MrMyth]

Just out of curiosity, how DOES one handle things like artistic performances, craftsmanship and the like in 4Ed? Most of my PCs had some kind of non-combat aspect to them, usually something artistic like playing an instrument (and in systems other than D&D, as well).

There are quite a few different approaches possible.

First off, an explanation of my own position - I'm of the view that having such secondary skills competing for skill points with primary adventuring skills was a bad thing. I think that the 4E solution - to remove those skills entirely - was not my ideal solution by any means, but was still an improvement overall.

There are two primary approaches suggested by 4E. The one some have mentioned earlier - use other skills appropriate to the situation. If playing a tune to impress a crowd, roll Diplomacy. If engaged in a grueling fiddling contest to see who can play the longest, roll Endurance.

It somewhat works in theory, but I'm not a big fan of it in practice. I tend to prefer the other approach, which relies on several elements that aren't used as often these days - ability checks, and circumstance bonuses.

Instead of a Perform skill based on Charisma, why not just have the bard make a Charisma check - and give him a circumstance bonus if it is something his character should be good at. This is the advice some designers have given - let the players have their appropriate background skills. Don't codify them as actual skill checks, but simply give out appropriate bonuses when those skills are relevant.

For the most, I think it works, but can venture a bit farther into the realm of DM fiat than some are comfortable with.

Myself, I'm taking it a step further in my next campaign - each character will get a few minor background benefits based on their backstory. These might take them form of additional languages...or could be secondary skills.

I'm not going to write up a list of every craft and profession skill before the game. But if a character sends me a backstory discussing how they were taught woodworking by elves, I'll tell them that they have the Woodworking skill - a Wisdom based skill in which they are trained (and thus get a +5 bonus if it comes up).

I've seen some other systems that have completely standardized access to this, letting the PCs pick and choose it as they go, and even as they level; I'm opting for a less formal approach to try it out. But I think that is my hope for whenever 5th edition comes along - having both adventuring skills and background skills in the game, but as seperate elements, rather than in competition for the same resource.