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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aberzanzorax" data-source="post: 5520701" data-attributes="member: 64209">I've read most of the thread, but it's become somewhat derailed, so I'll just respond to the OP...  Exellent point about the roleplaying versus combat number model. Long combats are not a problem when they are a culmination (our final combat in Age of Worms lasted about 8 hours and it was thrilling and a fun experience) of events, including story and roleplaying.  Heck, had that combat lasted only one hour, I think our group might have felt cheated. I do think that a bunch of better/good adventures for 3e and a few better/good adventures for 4e do what you suggest...that is, to only place combats where story oriented, where fighting is a major plot element rather than merely a lazy way of filling pages/adventuring time. The adventure is a story, it has plot points, characters, etc.  However, I think that long combats can be a problem in dungeon crawls, where apart from traps and exploring (unless its a REALLY well done dungeon crawl) there is minimal roleplaying. I DO like dungeon crawls, and I LOVE dungeon crawls that also have roleplaying components.  What makes me sad is when an adventure is built as a series of combats. We've seen that a lot recently, and even the review style has changed to fit this paradigm shift in adventure writing. When I read this official review, I thought to myself "Ok, but what's the story?" <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/en-world-official-reviews/303724-review-hunting-deathcloud-sneak-attack-press.html" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/forum/en-world-official-reviews/303724-review-hunting-deathcloud-sneak-attack-press.html</a> (Note, I'm commenting on the review...the adventure could be great or it could be a series of encounters along with a skill challenge, I simply can't tell from the review.)  I think that a part of the problem is that it's much easier to write a series of encounters with a "sprinkling of plot" linking them together than it is to come up with vibrant characters, motivations, ideals, plot elements, tension, etc. I also think that many WotC adventures (of both 3e and 4e) are intentionally "generic" so as to be acceptable to larger audiences (like how Budweiser is an inoffensive beer, and a #1 seller, but it lacks the quality and character of microbrews).  Two problems for 4e regarding this phenomenon are: 1. the way it is written and 2. it is increasingly tactical.  The way it is written, it mentally pulls for tactics moreso than story (with the roles -leader, controller- being named, the names and categories of powers etc). It appears to a casual reader that it is a system developed specifically for combats, rather than both combats and story. Were they to have written the exact same rules with less of a "gamey/tactical" oriented feel to the wording, I think that it would mentally pull for less of a combat, combat, combat style of writing and/or playing. Here, I want to point out that this is a personal dislike of 4e, but it is not a dislike of the system...more a dislike of the way the system is presented, but also of the (perhaps unintentional) way that it may evoke play for some or many groups. Pemerton's posts here on ENworld on how his group plays make it very clear to me that if you can see beyond this, then, as I said,  there is nothing about the system that requires combat, combat, combat and little plot. 4e is increasingly tactical. While hairs can be split as to how much more, and how tactical it is, I believe that the use of the battlemat, the integration of powers (both inter and intra-character), the way monster powers work, etc. make it so. This, in and of itself is neither an improvement nor a flaw. However, the fact that it is more tactical can draw writers to want to utilize opportunities for those tactics more. All I'm basically saying here is that the designers aimed to make combat more fun in 4e. Hence, writers seem drawn to add more combats to 4e adventures than prior editions. I think, though, as the OP mentions, that there can be too much of a good thing.   But I'm not attempting to criticize 4e here. I don't think that the system itself causes the problem of combat, combat, combat...as I hope I made clear above. I think that combat could potentially be more fun, and is more of a focus in the development of the 4e system, but there is no need to make it more of a focus in actual adventuring (whether the adventures are homemade or are modules). I do think that WotC, in both 3e and 4e tends to make "dungeon crawls" whether they're in the forest, underground, or on another plane. Too often, I feel, when playing their adventures, that our group will get to the BBEG and won't know much more about him than his name and that he's up to bad stuff (if we even know his name). The lack of 3pp adventures (or good adventures, moreso...but I gave up on WotC for good adventures apart from a few anomolies a while ago) has been a major factor in our group not switching to 4e. Apart from the WotBS adventure path conversion and a few Open Design projects, I can't think of a 4e adventure I want to buy. That's not the system, but it is a darn shame.</blockquote>

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