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

[Garthanos]

Silence plus knock. Done. Strategically place the silence spell to block the sound. And, oh look, Silence is a ritual.

Spell caster starts singing the elf ditty about anything you can do I can do better!!!!

And to be honest not actually better but very much more flexible (caster gets the tool to undo elements of its limits ... trading one cost perhaps for another while martial type is stuck with a singular function because you know magic is interesting)

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Imaro]

I did have to thank you @Imaro for introducing me to the new phrase "gonzo realism". Now THAT'S some seriously interesting semantic twisting. But, no, you cannot go outside the box because the DM defines the box, and your answer to my "outside the box" was a flat "no". You can justify it all you like, "keeping genre" for example, but, again, that's 100% YOUR interpretation of the genre. The player has zero say in the matter. But my 1st level wizard can do exactly what I wanted him to do - jump up the wall - any time he wants. True, he can't do it many times. But, again, how often is "many times I want to speed up a wall" actually going to come up? The whole "all day long" red herring falls apart when you realize that the majority of skill checks are one and done and you don't really need to do it again.

Well claiming that parcour is "realistic" and thus should be easily and commonly done in a GoT inspired game is some serious genre and trope twisting so I guess twists all around.

And you're mistaken, my answer to your question was actually... Yes, but you need specific training to pull it off. Now I'm still waiting for you to tell me why you believe common and easily available parcour is genre appropriate to a GoT inspired game...or is this not so much about justifying what you are (in good faith??) claiming should be in the game but trying to get me to say no, by selecting and using a genre inappropriate trope with a flimsy excuse... "It's realistic" (so is breakdancing... should characters all know and be able to breakdance in a GoT inspired game??) and then hollering gotcha when I don't 100% agree with said flimsy excuse?

 

[Campbell]

What particular features of Fifth Edition make it a big tent game in a way that other games are not?

Is there something in particular that makes it more amenable to house ruling than say games like Apocalypse World or Blades in the Dark? Both of those games include sections on how to modify the game and have spawned innumerable hacks - games that utilize their mechanics for completely different purposes.

Here's my take: Fifth Edition is a well designed game that is tuned very well for challenge oriented play and light mechanical engagement with reward systems and player side tools that encourage that. Character classes are tuned so they are very good at the things they are supposed to be good at and not good at the things they are not supposed to be good at. I do not see in any way that it is meaningfully less focused than any indie game. Only differently focused and it is focused on something that is more broadly popular.

Some of this feels like magical thinking to me. Fifth Edition is a strong game that excels at delivering a particular experience. Why would you want to deny that?

 

[pemerton]

1. Please do not make demands of me unless you choose to answer and engage with my points. Given the amount of time I have spent and wasted previously looking up things you have referenced, including but not limited to Cthulhu Dark (and you don't play the published version, because of course not), and the Dying Earth RPG, it would be nice if you would engage with MY CLAIMS before demanding I research other peoples' claims and defend them?

Again, this is because you choose not to accept the reported experiences of people who play the system. It's like the punchline of innumerable jokes, "Yes, that works very well in practice, but how does it work in theory?"

The invocation of niche, barely-played, single-purpose games does not illuminate a larger point about big-tent games like 5e, which are not just based in flexible rules, but also on the accumulated knowledge and norms of the people playing it. An exceptionally large player base that approaches the game in a multitude of ways, and to which there is an expectation for many that there will be significant deviations from the RAW.

It's as if someone kept saying, "I don't understand how someone can say it is ToTM AND Gridded combat. A game cannot possibly support both styles of play, or it will fail!"

So just as you have trouble understanding the claims of people that are actually playing 5e, I trust you understand why people that play 5e have trouble understanding someone saying, "But this is how it works in Prince Valiant, so I don't see how it could possible work that way in a different game that I don't want to engage with."

Or, as I noted before, there are those that keep invoking system and theory, and those that reject the approach. shrug

You claim that I am not listening to posters who play 5e. I am. And I'm not failing to understand them.

One of those posters - one who liked your longer post I've quoted just above - posted the following:

I do not claim that 5E is a radically free-form game such as Fate, but rather on the free-form side of the scale of historical Dungeons & Dragons systems in particular: a sliding scale with OD&D on one end, and 3.5 on the other, with 5E and 4E being in the middle just over the side from center facing each other.

Skill resolutions are one of the lightest and free-form parts of 5E, though, allowing for creativity and table-specific rulings to determine action resolution without constraints from outside influences. Spell-casting and combat (aside from Skill stunting) are more buttoned down.

I'm confident that I understand that post. It seems to more-or-less agree with me about the comparative freeform character of 5e and some of the other non-D&D games that have come up in this thread. Do you disagree?

That post also references some of the same things that I did in my earlier reply to you. And that poster has already (multiple times) referenced the importance of mechanical resources (eg spell slots) in 5e play. This has been given as a reason why doing X by way of a skill check should be harder than doing it by way of a spell. To the extent that that constitutes a freeform RPG resolution structure, it is one that is highly bounded by lists of game elements (especially spells) and the need to keep track of and appreciate the significance of mechanical resources.

You seem to think it's an attack upon 5e D&D to doubt that it is a freeform system. I don't know why.

You also seem to think it is very important to point out that some of the more freeform games that are out there are not widely played. I don't know what you think that proves about their freeform character.

One of my favourite RPGs is Burning Wheel. It's not freeform. (Nor is it all that widely played.) Another is Classic Traveller. It's not freeform either. (It was once very widely played. It is no longer all that widely played.) I say this about both games despite the fact that, from time to time, they rely on the GM to set difficulties and adjudicate consequences. That doesn't make either a worse RPG than Prince Valiant. Being freeform is a feature of some RPGs, but I don't see that it is especially a virtue. (Or a flaw.)

And I reiterate that the claim that a game which has hundreds of pages of stat blocks, rule elements like spells and items, definitions for dozens of classes and sub-classes, etc should nevertheless be considered a primarily freeform RPG is one that I find hard to credit.

 

[Parmandur]

You claim that I am not listening to posters who play 5e. I am. And I'm not failing to understand them.

One of those posters - one who liked your longer post I've quoted just above - posted the following:

​

I'm confident that I understand that post. It seems to more-or-less agree with me about the comparative freeform character of 5e and some of the other non-D&D games that have come up in this thread. Do you disagree?

That post also references some of the same things that I did in my earlier reply to you. And that poster has already (multiple times) referenced the importance of mechanical resources (eg spell slots) in 5e play. This has been given as a reason why doing X by way of a skill check should be harder than doing it by way of a spell. To the extent that that constitutes a freeform RPG resolution structure, it is one that is highly bounded by lists of game elements (especially spells) and the need to keep track of and appreciate the significance of mechanical resources.

You seem to think it's an attack upon 5e D&D to doubt that it is a freeform system. I don't know why.

You also seem to think it is very important to point out that some of the more freeform games that are out there are not widely played. I don't know what you think that proves about their freeform character.

One of my favourite RPGs is Burning Wheel. It's not freeform. (Nor is it all that widely played.) Another is Classic Traveller. It's not freeform either. (It was once very widely played. It is no longer all that widely played.) I say this about both games despite the fact that, from time to time, they rely on the GM to set difficulties and adjudicate consequences. That doesn't make either a worse RPG than Prince Valiant. Being freeform is a feature of some RPGs, but I don't see that it is especially a virtue. (Or a flaw.)

And I reiterate that the claim that a game which has hundreds of pages of stat blocks, rule elements like spells and items, definitions for dozens of classes and sub-classes, etc should nevertheless be considered a primarily freeform RPG is one that I find hard to credit.

Beyond leaving the original topic in the dust (which is fine in my book, since that was pretty well complete by page 4-5), this seems to be a bit of drift from the digression: the point was not really about comparing D&D to alternative systems, but about the relative ability of players to take the skill systems if 4E & 5E and improvise actions and resolve them. Clearly, this is possible in both systems because we have all done just that: but, relative to 4E, 5E's Skill system is more free-form, as it is less determined by rule specifics and more by DM judgement call.

 

[pemerton]

What particular features of Fifth Edition make it a big tent game in a way that other games are not?

Is there something in particular that makes it more amenable to house ruling than say games like Apocalypse World or Blades in the Dark? Both of those games include sections on how to modify the game and have spawned innumerable hacks - games that utilize their mechanics for completely different purposes.

<snip>

Character classes are tuned so they are very good at the things they are supposed to be good at and not good at the things they are not supposed to be good at. I do not see in any way that it is meaningfully less focused than any indie game. Only differently focused and it is focused on something that is more broadly popular.

Very much this. I'll pick up especially on the second para that I've quoted.

Burning Wheel is - in theme/tropes - fairly generic fantasy. In my group the feel leans towards S&S although with Tolkienesque elves and orcs. (These features of the system is reinforced in our group by using Greyhawk as the setting.) Events have occurred in my BW game that would not easily occur in 5e (or 4e) D&D. (Mutatis mutandis from my 4e D&D game.)

Just to give one example: 5e provides no support for treating the result of a failure to move quickly through the catacombs as being the rousing from stupour of someone who was earlier fed a sleeping draught. Whereas BW does support this, and it mattered a great deal in one episode of play.

Prince Valiant is - in themes/tropes - Arthurian knights with elements of magic and even fantasy but primarily on the GM side. Events have occurred in my Prince Valiant game that I think would never occur in a D&D game because D&D lacks the system framework to support them. (And of course the vice versa is also true - you can't play Keep on the Borderland using Prince Valiant.)

Again, just to give one example: 5e provides no support for the player of a knight cashing in a metagame resource (in Prince Valiant known as a Storyteller Certificate) to guarantee the death of an opponent in combat. In our Prince Valiant game this was how a newly-knighted and not terribly strong PC knight defeated the legendary Sir Lionheart in a joust (in the fiction, as narrated by the PC's player, the PC's lance shattered and a splinter went through Sir Lionheart's visor, killing him).

The notion that 5e D&D has some unique or distinctive flexibility simply isn't borne out by the accounts of actual play that I read or hear about.

 

[pemerton]

relative to 4E, 5E's Skill system is more free-form, as it is less determined by rule specifics and more by DM judgement call.

My view is that 4e's skill system is more freeform as (i) it is less determined by the GM solely and more amenable to player judgement call, and (ii) provides the GM a clearer framework within which to adjudicate those player calls.

This view of mine is grounded in a broader view, that being freeform is about the player-side experience of the system.

 

[Parmandur]

My view is that 4e's skill system is more freeform as (i) it is less determined by the GM solely and more amenable to player judgement call, and (ii) provides the GM a clearer framework within which to adjudicate those player calls.

This view of mine is grounded in a broader view, that being freeform is about the player-side experience of the system.

The framework in 5E is quite clear, and fits on a small corner of the DM screen. Judge difficulty level, assign number, roll for success, assign results. The process is thus free in a formal sense, not bound by forces outside the refereeing at the table.

I think it is fairly obvious that is equivocation on the word "free-form" here: by free-form, I mean rules that can be applied freely without formal restrictions, and will still work.

Your Burning Wheel example is actually exactly how I have seen Matt Mercer choose to narrate failed checks, in fact: the DM takes the situation into account, and produces a narrative for the result.