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<blockquote data-quote="Chris_Nightwing" data-source="post: 6033903" data-attributes="member: 882"><p>There are many times I wish this editing box stretched across the width of the page..</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>As you say, I won't take you up on this. I've read posts (almost exclusively by yourself and pemerton) in various threads on these matters. I say this sincerely, but your explanations come across very obtusely, mostly through the use of jargon to get your point across. I've come to the conclusion that there's something you both see in 4E that isn't there because of the game, but because of you and your groups.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I think the connect comes down to how high-level (not in the game sense <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite7" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue :p" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":p" />) you see the narrative: whether your characters are destined to heroics or trying their best to achieve them. whether an individual action has an immediate linear effect, or causes great motion in the, ahem, actor-director thingy that manbearcat mentioned.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Again, I think that you are a rare gem in that you make both of these work for you. I know plenty of players who treat any edition of D&D like a dungeon crawl challenge, and I know others that will never play it because there's no roleplaying involvement. A good friend loves Burning Wheel and views D&D with complete disdain - I know that 4th edition would not change his mind.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Intensity and investment in a situation don't come from optimising your attack bonuses and powers though. They come from taking specific risks, and from giving something up in order to achieve something else, prioritising. Whipping out a utility power to give you +2 AC for the round is about as far from intensity as it gets: it's mundane, it's economic, it's housekeeping. A storytelling version of D&D, a version that had even more fiction investment that 4E does for you, would surely eschew highly specific combat for something more akin to skill challenges?</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Whilst the mathematics were flaky, I don't see how giving dragons some arbitrary AC is any different in 3E from 4E. In each case they wanted to make them appropriate threats for the level they were designed to be faced at.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Well actually, my complaint there is highly specific to the in game rules: character classes get weapon attack bonuses, presumably to represent their proficiency with such things. Monsters do not - in fact their to hit bonuses are completely abstract. The metagame desire for drama can be reflected with equally applicable rules to both PC and monster, they just haven't got the numbers right.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>If the players know the rules the DM has to follow, they abuse them, plain and simple. If you've just had a series of encounters that awarded above-level XP in 4E, you knew the rest of the level would be a cakewalk, because the DM was following the metagame rules.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You don't like the stop-motion nature of combat, but you do enjoy tracking everyone's specific position and distance. I don't understand. Surely theatre of the mind combat would make better sense to you? Surely simultaeneous actions (declared together than acted together) would make better sense to you? Interrupts break the stepped flow, as you say, but specific positioning, movement, ranges and areas of effect make the game about accounting, not fiction.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, exactly the same really. 3E offers XP for combat and other challenges same as 4E. It's just pacing. 2E wanted to (optionally) reward in-class behaviour (but was terrible). The number of people who ignore XP is significant anyway. Again, your fiction would be better driven by ignoring XP altogether - the characters improve at appropriate dramatic points (ie: upon quest completion).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Yes, as they should be. It seems pretty clear that if you want the challenges to be the same relative difficulty as the characters attain higher levels, you use more difficult challenges in-game. You're asking for a table that is trivial to calculate and will probably be included in the final rules. What they're not doing is saying 'you should use this DC for characters of this level' - partly because of bounded accuracy, partly because many people didn't like that.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>If the awesome comes from how you do something, and not what you do, why the heck do I have to keep track of so many fiddly little numbers to figure out what I do? If I say my primal spirits allow me to channel great force into my attacks, so that I'll be able to knock people around the battlefield with my hammer, that's awesome. When it comes to the actual reality though, it just amounts to more damage, and picking my precise position to knock them precisely into a pit/fire unless they save, the chances of which I have almost no ways to influence.</p><p></p><p>I have played many, many boardgames of the type you describe, and even if the goal is as mundane as connecting trainlines, believe me, there is a shared fiction involved. At least when I'm with friends and we all know how to play we deliberately generate our own fiction, especially in games with good themes - Twilight Imperium is great for this, because there's a ton of theme to work with, but nothing in the game forces a metagame fiction onto us, we do it ourselves.</p><p></p><p>In the playtest so far, I've seen some great narratives emerge, even with some quite plain abilities and combat. The same was true in 3E. You don't need to enforce a metagame for narratives to emerge - it seems that you find it harder to do so without that.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Chris_Nightwing, post: 6033903, member: 882"] There are many times I wish this editing box stretched across the width of the page.. As you say, I won't take you up on this. I've read posts (almost exclusively by yourself and pemerton) in various threads on these matters. I say this sincerely, but your explanations come across very obtusely, mostly through the use of jargon to get your point across. I've come to the conclusion that there's something you both see in 4E that isn't there because of the game, but because of you and your groups. I think the connect comes down to how high-level (not in the game sense :p) you see the narrative: whether your characters are destined to heroics or trying their best to achieve them. whether an individual action has an immediate linear effect, or causes great motion in the, ahem, actor-director thingy that manbearcat mentioned. Again, I think that you are a rare gem in that you make both of these work for you. I know plenty of players who treat any edition of D&D like a dungeon crawl challenge, and I know others that will never play it because there's no roleplaying involvement. A good friend loves Burning Wheel and views D&D with complete disdain - I know that 4th edition would not change his mind. Intensity and investment in a situation don't come from optimising your attack bonuses and powers though. They come from taking specific risks, and from giving something up in order to achieve something else, prioritising. Whipping out a utility power to give you +2 AC for the round is about as far from intensity as it gets: it's mundane, it's economic, it's housekeeping. A storytelling version of D&D, a version that had even more fiction investment that 4E does for you, would surely eschew highly specific combat for something more akin to skill challenges? Whilst the mathematics were flaky, I don't see how giving dragons some arbitrary AC is any different in 3E from 4E. In each case they wanted to make them appropriate threats for the level they were designed to be faced at. Well actually, my complaint there is highly specific to the in game rules: character classes get weapon attack bonuses, presumably to represent their proficiency with such things. Monsters do not - in fact their to hit bonuses are completely abstract. The metagame desire for drama can be reflected with equally applicable rules to both PC and monster, they just haven't got the numbers right. If the players know the rules the DM has to follow, they abuse them, plain and simple. If you've just had a series of encounters that awarded above-level XP in 4E, you knew the rest of the level would be a cakewalk, because the DM was following the metagame rules. You don't like the stop-motion nature of combat, but you do enjoy tracking everyone's specific position and distance. I don't understand. Surely theatre of the mind combat would make better sense to you? Surely simultaeneous actions (declared together than acted together) would make better sense to you? Interrupts break the stepped flow, as you say, but specific positioning, movement, ranges and areas of effect make the game about accounting, not fiction. Well, exactly the same really. 3E offers XP for combat and other challenges same as 4E. It's just pacing. 2E wanted to (optionally) reward in-class behaviour (but was terrible). The number of people who ignore XP is significant anyway. Again, your fiction would be better driven by ignoring XP altogether - the characters improve at appropriate dramatic points (ie: upon quest completion). Yes, as they should be. It seems pretty clear that if you want the challenges to be the same relative difficulty as the characters attain higher levels, you use more difficult challenges in-game. You're asking for a table that is trivial to calculate and will probably be included in the final rules. What they're not doing is saying 'you should use this DC for characters of this level' - partly because of bounded accuracy, partly because many people didn't like that. If the awesome comes from how you do something, and not what you do, why the heck do I have to keep track of so many fiddly little numbers to figure out what I do? If I say my primal spirits allow me to channel great force into my attacks, so that I'll be able to knock people around the battlefield with my hammer, that's awesome. When it comes to the actual reality though, it just amounts to more damage, and picking my precise position to knock them precisely into a pit/fire unless they save, the chances of which I have almost no ways to influence. I have played many, many boardgames of the type you describe, and even if the goal is as mundane as connecting trainlines, believe me, there is a shared fiction involved. At least when I'm with friends and we all know how to play we deliberately generate our own fiction, especially in games with good themes - Twilight Imperium is great for this, because there's a ton of theme to work with, but nothing in the game forces a metagame fiction onto us, we do it ourselves. In the playtest so far, I've seen some great narratives emerge, even with some quite plain abilities and combat. The same was true in 3E. You don't need to enforce a metagame for narratives to emerge - it seems that you find it harder to do so without that. [/QUOTE]
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