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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 3994612" data-attributes="member: 2067">There's a few different tricks that make sure this never gets old.[sblock]For one, you're not always saving the world at 3rd level. Like I said, getting the McGuffin or rescuing Podunk or beating up the town bully. This isn't a grind, but it isn't an epic confrontation, either. It's a small, localized story, that's important to the PC's and the town, but maybe not to much outside of it. At third level, you kill the "goblin king" who lurks just ouside of town, or free the village from the opression of the Ogre Brothers. It's still saving the day, it's just on a smaller scale.For two, you might be working for a much more long-term goal. If, eventually,  you will need to confront the Empire of the Necromancer-King, at low levels you skirmish his skeletons and zombies, weakening his forces, hitting him in an achilles heel that he doesn't know he has. You achieve minor, temporary victories that give you the XP you need to level up and, eventually, have major, permenant victories.For three, there's never just one world to save. If I have a setting where the PC's can beat up the BBEG at third level, that's fine. Next week, we make new characters in a new setting and have a new BBEG at, perhaps, 25th level. For four, the world is never saved forever. Each success craetes new problems, and each victory makes the next failure all the more painful. Fast forward a few years, a decade, a generation, a century....something else is going to threaten the safety and sanity of the lands you love. [/sblock]Whatever trick you use, you are never playing "dungeon survival," where success depends on luck and hyper-caution, failure is only a matter of time, and the rewards are buckets of gold and magic (and bragging rights!). Even low-level characters are still heroic beings who fit in a narrative. They aren't cookie-cutter dungeon-delvers who are lucky to make it to 5th level intact. Now, this has definately been a focus shift throughout editions, and I'm not knocking dungeon survival (which can be loads of fun with the right system). 4e just seems to be taking many steps closer to the heroic adventure model, which, in many ways, means it's less suited for gritty dungeon survival.That means that the fun that people expect out of 4e involves being heroes, saving NPC's, beating up bad guys, and getting to know the characters and the world. The OP mentioned a poingiant moment where the death of a family member needed to be reported; I don't see 4e stepping away from this at all. It might not be a mechanical focus (which, I agree, is something of a missed opportunity), but the designers do seem to be interested in this kind of fun.Dungeon Survival is an entirley different 'genre' of gameplay, one that people expecting heroic fantasy won't have much fun with, in the same way that people expecting Mad Max when they go to read The Road won't have much fun with it. People expecting to save the village from the Ogre Brothers won't much enjoy spending four hours checking for traps and moving forward silently and having random encounters with things that they are expected to run away from at least as often as they are expected to fight them....that's not heroic, so it doesn't mesh with people's expectations, so it's not very entertaining.And I'm using 'fun' and 'entertainment' synonymously here, because I think it *is* meant that way when even Mearls is talking about it. I don't think this is accurate. Every episode of, say, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, was a dramatic climax. They all reached a seasonal dramatic climax about once per year where they saved the world (again). The seasons even had nested dramatic climaxes accross them (the Angel story, the Spike story, etc.).To make a more ancient analogue, think about Homer's epics. Each island or hazard Odyseus encountered was a dramatic peak, and accross them all, he had the building climax of his reunion with his family (which turned out to be ANOTHER dramatic climax). Heroic adventure thrives in this episodic narrative format, where the peaks build on each other, like waves lapping the shore, building themselves bigger and bigger only to crash and start all over again. The concept is broad enough to embrace little successes, big successes, and many continuums in between, and the thrust is compelling enough (modeling story structure that is largely unchanged in human experience) that it's rewarding, over and over again.Pretty much, yeah. That certain kinds of fun are mutually exclusive (you can't feel very heroic in a typical dungeon survival game because it's specifically about living to see tomorrow; and you can't get too gritty in a typical heroic adventure game because it's specifically about ignoring the daily needs and focusing on the story structure), and 4e has apparently chosen the needs of heroic adventure over dungeon survival. That doesn't mean that entertainment can't be had from poingiant moments, sad stories, and tragic arcs (indeed, this is a game of chance -- the PC's might fail to save the town, the country, or the world), not all the fun has to be WAHOO fun, and I don't think the designers are purely interested in WAHOO fun. I do think they're interested in heroic adventure, though, which means that some elements of dungeon survival that the game has (deadly traps, searching for hours, random encounters, quick low-level death) are probably going by the wayside, no matter how fun they are in the dungeon survival mode. You will still have heartrending moments of tragedy in a game with a good DM. You won't have a constant fear of a quick and merciless death so much, I think (which, again, can be a lot of fun in the right game). Right on all counts. If they spend, say, levels 1-15 hunting down Bargle and kill him, finally, at 15th level, then something has to change. It could change in a lot of ways. Peace could reign for 30 years or so. Bargle could have just been a vessel for a greater evil. We switch to a brand new world with a brand new challenge. One of Bargle's sidekicks picks up where he left off. Bargle had a clone somewhere. Whatever. But with regards to the WAHOO fun, I don't think the designers are focused on it exclusively, and the traps article points out that they're definately thinking of D&D in terms as a heroic adventure game, not a dungeon survival game. You can still have tragedy and suffering and low points that are plenty of fun in a heroic adventure game (I mean, think about the classic tale of Gilgamesh, where the guy FAILS MISERABLY, think about how Achilles dies, think about how Paradise Lost is all about something tragic happening to humanity), but what is harder to mesh is the 'grind.' They're getting rid of the grind, by and large, I suspect, because it doesn't mesh well with heroic adventure. There will still be dungeons, but the traps will be obstacle courses, the monsters will be scheming plotters with agendas, and the treasure will be incidental, rather than the massive focus. Less about killing things and taking their stuff, more about confronting bad guys and saving the day.This will remove some of the 'dungeon survival' fun from the game. Mostly because characters will survive more things and are expected to last in the long-term. Also because characters won't become super-powerful and able to negate most dangers with a flick of a wand (which is about being able to 'beat' a dungeon more than about saving the day). Traps won't be as instantly deadly (rust monsters won't eat everything all at once, no Ear Seekers, etc.). Characters will live longer, because they're heroes, not survivalists.</blockquote>

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