D&D 4E Where was 4e headed before it was canned?

[Garthanos]

Or do you really think it's an accident that almost all of the 5e class have spells?

Its not even a mistake that even an advocate ends up making a level 1 spell effect into an epic achievement.

 

[Hussar]

See, and, yes, that becomes the problem. If a Level 1 spell is required to jump exceptional distances, and that's maaaagic, then no amount of skills is going to replicate that. I mean, what's the skill check for attacking every target within a 20 foot radius with your sword? Oh, right, that's impossible. Unless, of course, you're a 5th level wizard and you drop a fireball.

This has always been my beef with 5e. It's very, very high magic. And it's not easy to turn that dial down. Every problem is approached with a magic solution. I'd point out that I'm not the only one to think this way. @lowkey13 was just complaining in the Unearthed Arcana Barbarian thread about the same thing. So, I'm not sure why it's suddenly not a problem here.

 

[Imaro]

Except, in this, it is incomplete. This has been noted several times already, and each time it has been ignored: 5e allows us to have a basic idea of how to succeed.

But, 5e does not give us an idea of what the success means, in terms of impact either in terms of the game rules, or the fiction. A player cannot make a well-informed decision on actions to take without knowing both what is required to succeed, and what success actually means.

DM sets DC (Knowing what is required to succeed)
Player states goal or intent (what success means)

This is where Garthanos' complaints come in, and folks seem to ignore the point - as a player of a non-magical character, he doesn't have much idea of what feats of derring-do he can pull off. Nowhere in the rules are we given decent guidelines for it. Folks seem to try to claim that's a feature ('Cuz that means it if freeform!), but really, what it means is that the player is in the dark, and that's not a good thing.

This is where a discussion of genre, appropriate tropes, houserules and expectations should happen, preferably in a session zero. Make sure the group is on the same page.

So, we come down to this - 5e may seem freeform when compared to, say, 3e. But that's a low bar. Compared to a game actually designed for freeform play, 5e looks more like a pretty strict system, with some space for GMs to figure it out where there's a gap.

Could you give an example of the type of freeform system you are speaking too?

 

[pemerton]

Regarding "freeform"

IME. It works, but I think it requires things like a countdown mechanic to work with or things like Fate's aspects that can be created as needed, and be used in a well-defined fashion. (By which I mean, avoiding the "simulative" aspects of typical D&D/rpgs. Lacking that kind of structure (as D&D usually has) just leaves everything hanging in the wind.

I'm not 100% sure what "freeform" means in this thread; and I've never played Fate.

The "lightest" system I've ever played is Cthulhu Dark. PC gen is choose a name and an occupation for your PC and then give a description. "Occupation" here doesn't mean character class but means job. We've had a stevedore, a couple of investigative reporters, a legal secretary, and a butler.

Resolution involves rolling a pool of d6s (1 to 3, depending on whether the attempted action is humanly possible, is one that your job helps with, and/or you are risking your sanity to succeed). The basic rule is "your highest die shows how well you do. On a 1, you barely succeed. On a 6, you do brilliantly." There is also a rule for introducing the possibility of failure in virtue of an opposed check.

There are no aspects and no clocks (there is an escalating sanity die, but it's not a clock in the resolution context, only in the scenario failure context), but I find it works pretty well. As a GM I apply some fairly simple principles from other systems: intent and task action declaration; no retries. The fiction unfolds pretty quickly and fairly unpredictably. The main function of success and failure is to change the fiction, not to introduce mechanical burdens or constraints on subsequent checks.

Compared to this system, I wouldn't see 5e as being very freeform. Nor 4e, but the latter does have some of the rationing devices you point to ("clocks", in the form of skill challenges; resources to spend in the context of resolution like encounter or daily powers and action points and healing surges) which mean that actions can be framed and then resolved purely procedurally without having to make calls about what the difficulty should be, whether the outcome is balanced with a spell or magic item, etc. I assume it's these sorts of features which @Garthanos has in mind in saying that 4e is better than 5e for freeform.

 

[Imaro]

No. It's better to limit free-forming (as in totally off the cuff, ad hoc rulings) to what someone who is designing the game can build in guidelines for. As in Page 42 in 4e. IOW, relying on "snap judgement" and "common sense" results in garbage games more often than not since very, very few DM's actually can do the math to make "outside the box" thinking worth it.

Funnily enough I'm not seeing this in my own game or the various streams I've watched of D&D 5e. Granted anecdotal and all but when you start talking about "more often than not..." I would expect something to back that claim up unless it's stand in for... in the games I've played...

I don't think one has to have an understanding of the math in order to avoid garbage games if the group has a strong understanding of the genre and tropes they are trying to emulate in their games. Actions that buy into and emulate these will be possible/easier... actions that don't will be harder/impossible.

Like I said, I've seen it over the past several decades. Players have all their creativity and "outside the box" thinking beaten out of them pretty quickly once they realize that that only way they can actually do anything "outside the box" is play a spell caster.

Yeah I haven't really witnessed this phenomenon (though I'm sure it happens just not sure it's as common as you seem to want to portray it as)... However I have witnessed the phenomenon where a player totally disregards or isn't knowledgeable of the inspirations, tropes and genres being drawn on and he's trying to play Goku or Vegeta in a LotR-esque or Sword and Sorcery-esque setting and thus his "creativity" which is clashing violently with what everyone else at the table has bought into is being squashed.

Or do you really think it's an accident that almost all of the 5e class have spells?

I think people like the idea of magic... that's why almost all of the 5e classes have spells. Two of the most influential fantasy media in recent years LotR and Harry Potter feature tons of magic (both subtle and flashy) and even GoT has it's fair share (again both subtle and flashy) interspersed across it's seasons. When I've introduced D&D to new people (irregardless of edition) more tend to want some kind of magic than to be totally mundane, IMO the designers recognized this and gave the majority of people and new gamers what they wanted... it's pretty simple.

 

[Imaro]

I'm not 100% sure what "freeform" means in this thread; and I've never played Fate.

The "lightest" system I've ever played is Cthulhu Dark. PC gen is choose a name and an occupation for your PC and then give a description. "Occupation" here doesn't mean character class but means job. We've had a stevedore, a couple of investigative reporters, a legal secretary, and a butler.

Resolution involves rolling a pool of d6s (1 to 3, depending on whether the attempted action is humanly possible, is one that your job helps with, and/or you are risking your sanity to succeed). The basic rule is "your highest die shows how well you do. On a 1, you barely succeed. On a 6, you do brilliantly." There is also a rule for introducing the possibility of failure in virtue of an opposed check.

There are no aspects and no clocks (there is an escalating sanity die, but it's not a clock in the resolution context, only in the scenario failure context), but I find it works pretty well. As a GM I apply some fairly simple principles from other systems: intent and task action declaration; no retries. The fiction unfolds pretty quickly and fairly unpredictably. The main function of success and failure is to change the fiction, not to introduce mechanical burdens or constraints on subsequent checks.

Compared to this system, I wouldn't see 5e as being very freeform. Nor 4e, but the latter does have some of the rationing devices you point to ("clocks", in the form of skill challenges; resources to spend in the context of resolution like encounter or daily powers and action points and healing surges) which mean that actions can be framed and then resolved purely procedurally without having to make calls about what the difficulty should be, whether the outcome is balanced with a spell or magic item, etc. I assume it's these sorts of features which @Garthanos has in mind in saying that 4e is better than 5e for freeform.

I'd be curious to know how the difficulty for tasks without active opposition set?

 

[pemerton]

I'd be curious to know how the difficulty for tasks without active opposition set?

Do you mean in Cthulhu Dark?

I posted the resolution rules: the highest roll in the pool shows how well you succeed. If someone thinks failure is a possibility (when we play the GM is given that job) then they roll an opposing die, so you have to beat that to succeed.

There is no connection between rolling a die to set a threshold to avoid failure, and whether or not there is "active opposition" in the scene. In that respect the system resembles PbtA.

 

[Umbran]

The point is, people are playing the game free-form: it's free-form in practice, theory aside.

As a generalization? No - that generalization would be a vast overstatement. That'd be like saying my soda having an ice cube in it makes it overall a "frozen drink."

Do some people come up with table practice ("house rules" effectively) in which they make major use of those gaps? Sure. Does the game, as written, give much support or advice for doing so? No.

So, is the game freeform overall? No.

And that, in essence, is the point - the game does not give adequate support for this kind of play to say that the game, overall, is this way. Individual tables may produce such support, but that should be attributed to the table, not the game.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*