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

[Parmandur]

The flipside of this: a system in which all crafting, carousing etc is "downtime" rather than action scenes doesn't seem to me a terribly big tent.

It doesn't involve murdering anything, so yes, it doesn't involve combat rules.

 

[pemerton]

I would be interested in someone explaining to me how they think my approach to non-combat action resolution in 4e D&D differs in any significant way from the 5e approach. I personally can't see one, eg in terms of flexibility or freeform-ness.

 

[Garthanos]

It doesn't involve murdering anything, so yes, it doesn't involve combat rules.

blink blink, conflict isnt all murder...

 

[Garthanos]

4e had hardly gotten away from that paradigm, either, but there was a transparency to its design that made it easy to envision severing that fixed timescale dependence.

Climactic Powers -- restore every 4 encounters.
Scene Powers -- Encounter powers well the language is there already

 

[Parmandur]

blink blink, conflict isnt all murder...

No, but all combat resolution is combat related. Crafting isn't combat, so uses other rules, termed "downtime" in D&D. There are other Skill resolution systems, such as chases, but downtime activities that don't involve fighting are not resolved as fights.

 

[Garthanos]

No, but all combat resolution is combat related. Crafting isn't combat, so uses other rules, termed "downtime" in D&D. There are other Skill resolution systems, such as chases, but downtime activities that don't involve fighting are not resolved as fights.

To me Downtime means largely off camera.
Most constructing stuff I agree is not an on camera event. The exceptions can be very exciting. I had a case that also resolved as a Skill challenge with fight mingled in they were using an unfamiliar magic forge basically as called for in the recipe to create a new item. Allies did many things to help including pumping their own energy into it and the martial types who used athletics at one point to move something into place and also actively fought off elementals that kept popping off the walls (that was a sub component) and the total very much a man vs machine conflict. It turned out later that the forge was producing the elementals so you would have extra energy to perform your task and once you knew what you were doing it was actually like being able to forge faster than normal.

 

[Parmandur]

To me Downtime means largely off camera.
Most constructing stuff I agree is not an on camera event. The exceptions can be very exciting. I had a case that also resolved as a Skill challenge with fight mingled in they were using an unfamiliar magic forge basically as called for in the recipe to create a new item. Allies did many things to help including pumping their own energy into it and the martial types who used athletics at one point to move something into place and also actively fought off elementals that kept popping off the walls (that was a sub component) and the total very much a man vs machine conflict. It turned out later that the forge was producing the elementals so you would have extra energy to perform your task and once you knew what you were doing it was actually like being able to forge faster than normal.

I can see your point of view, but in 5E downtime is time that is down from action-packed adventuring, so the combat expectations and resource management are not in play and violence is not expected. The game has rules for resolving this at the table, particularly with all of the random charts in Xanathar's Guide to Everything to come up with quick stories about time not adventuring.

 

[Campbell]

Downtime does not need to mean less important or off camera. It is not as zoomed in, but it can be just as impacting as anything that happens on the encounter level. This is particularly true in a game like Blades in the Dark where downtime activities can include things like reducing heat, building alliances, researching new rituals, performing rituals that will impact future scores, and securing assets.

In Blades downtime is where we get a chance to play strategically and thanks to a free form long term project system it can be used for all sorts of aims. Often this is where we get to see characters pursuing individual goals (for the good of the crew) and get to see who they really are. Often you spend as much time playing out downtime as you do on scores.

 

[Campbell]

So one of the features of 4e play that does make its noncombat resolution systems more freeform is that skill challenges are time agnostic. A skill challenge could resolve something that happens over a matter of seconds, but it also could be used for something that happens over the course of days or even years.

These days I prefer something less free form in terms of determining consequences largely because I prefer more strategic play, but it is hard to argue that something with specific subsystems to handle things like crafting, chases, and social encounters is more meaningfully free form.

Here's the thing : More structured play is not inherently inferior to less structured play. Adding structure to play can help create an environment where players have a better understanding of the fiction and can more meaningfully reflect the differences between a social encounter and a combat encounter. It can help us think about things like what exploration really entails. It also allows for more strategic decision making, In Pathfinder 2 a Rogue might have to decide between Avoiding Notice and Searching and that decision will have an impact.

 

[Parmandur]

So one of the features of 4e play that does make its noncombat resolution systems more freeform is that skill challenges are time agnostic. A skill challenge could resolve something that happens over a matter of seconds, but it also could be used for something that happens over the course of days or even years.

These days I prefer something less free form in terms of determining consequences largely because I prefer more strategic play, but it is hard to argue that something with specific subsystems to handle things like crafting, chases, and social encounters is more meaningfully free form.

Here's the thing : More structured play is not inherently inferior to less structured play. Adding structure to play can help create an environment where players have a better understanding of the fiction and can more meaningfully reflect the differences between a social encounter and a combat encounter. It can help us think about things like what exploration really entails. It also allows for more strategic decision making, In Pathfinder 2 a Rogue might have to decide between Avoiding Notice and Searching and that decision will have an impact.

Structure is not inherently bad, but formally it is not as free as loose suggestions: the latter is more free-form because it is not restricted in formal terms, even if there are suggested ways to resolve something.

These structures might help some people, but fast and loose processes help others.