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

[Campbell]

Fifth Edition has a formal resolution system. Players describe what their characters do and DM decides what happens is a formal resolution system. It is even broken up into steps in the very first part of the Player's Handbook. This has all sorts of implications on play.

First and foremost it means that we are at no point playing to find out what happens. It means that the DM must decide what happens and if something bad happens to a character it is because the DM decided it should. If a character triumphs it is because the DM decided they should. You can use checks and other rules to guide your decisions, but ultimately it is your decision to make. Meaningfully being a fan of the player characters and providing honest antagonism become difficult in an environment where you are responsible for determining outcomes.

Honestly this is not even the case for games like B/X Dungeons and Dragons that embrace rulings over rules. The implication of rulings over rules is that the rules apply except in cases where the demands of the fiction override it. You are supposed to take note of your rulings and apply them again whenever similar circumstances come up. Moldvay is emphatic that you must carefully consider your rulings and carefully annotate them.

One of the strengths of the sorts of loose formal resolution systems found in games like Blades in the Dark is that they provide a lingua franca to talk about the fiction in a way that can help us communicate and negotiate about the fiction. It helps us to come to a common understanding. In Blades when I tell a player what they are about to do is desperate with a minor effect they can use that as a jumping off point to find a way to make it less desperate or increase the effectiveness. It lets them know what kind of fictional positioning they have and lets them revise what they were going to do or make a case that it should not be desperate. This sort of active negotiation about the fiction is central to free form play in my experience of it. Stuff like countdown clocks also serve to keep the fictional consequences firmly in a player's mind.

 

[Tony Vargas]

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.

I'm sure you're afflicted with unacceptable levels of mechanical functionality, game balance, and player agency.
You may not realize how constraining that is compared to the DM-omnipotence of True D&D, though.

Ok, that was tounge-in-cheek, but there's a core of truth, there, when the system needs the DM to step up, the DM can make the game as flexible and free-form as he is willing to take responsibility for.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Garthanos]

First and foremost it means that we are at no point playing to find out what happens. It means that the DM must decide what happens and if something bad happens to a character it is because the DM decided it should. If a character triumphs it is because the DM decided they should. You can use checks and other rules to guide your decisions, but ultimately it is your decision to make. Meaningfully being a fan of the player characters and providing honest antagonism become difficult in an environment where you are responsible for determining outcomes.

To be fair that is a window on character actions which are outside tightly defined combat actions and if you arent casting a spell .... it's not everything.

 

[Garthanos]

I don't know- sometimes, I think people are so wrapped up in the combat, they don't even read what other people are writing. "What, he said D&D is big tent? How dare he say 5e is big tent????"

5e made claims of being "big tent" which was in many 4e fans opinion poorly or inadequately implemented on... that misunderstanding is fall out of that, you hit a buzzword.

 

[lowkey13]

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[lowkey13]

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[Campbell]

I'm not going to comment on this, just pointing out that this might be the most dismissive (and incorrect) things I have seen written in a while.

I am not trying to score points here. I am sharing an earnest opinion based on direct experience of the game and frustrations I have had with it in play from both sides of the screen. I had a very frustrating initial experience running it until I embraced its GMing ethos. Due to features of system design, differences in the expectations for players and GMs, and the game's culture of play I cannot meaningfully get an experience where there is shared tension over what might happen because as the GM I am not meaningfully bound by anything.

The group wide flexibility of something like Blades in the Dark is dependent on a shared expectation of how the GM will approach the game. This is what allows meaningful negotiation over the content of the fiction. This is what allows us to discuss how to apply the rules of a game as a group. This is what allows the GM to approach the players as creative peers. You cannot meaningfully get these things in a game where players are not allowed to have meaningful expectations about GM behavior.

I still enjoy running 5th Edition, but it is difficult for me to bear so much of the responsibility for the game. I generally do not like having to make judgement calls all the time. I do not feel like I can meaningfully play the game with the other players. In many ways I feel like I am the game. It is pretty much the only version of the game that makes me feel this way.

Consistent application of GMing principles and meaningful expectations of how the game will play out result in an experience you cannot easily mimic under a set of incredibly different GMing principles and set of expectations. This is something not easily seen if you have always played games that operated under a particular set of principles.

You might not think about running the game in terms of principles and expectations. For you the way 5th Edition is meant to be run with its attendant responsibilities and expectations for player and GM behavior might just be the way someone is supposed to GM. This is exactly how John Harper felt about Apocalypse World when it first come out.

I have direct experience of running 5th Edition and of running games like Moldvay B/X, Apocalypse World, Blades in the Dark, and others. I do not feel more constrained when running other games. I do not feel less constrained either. The constraints are simply different ones.

What you find constraining will not necessarily be the same as what I find constraining. I am glad that you feel free when running 5th Edition in a way I do not. This is sincere. I enjoy it from time to time, but it does not feel natural or freeing to me. That is also sincere.

 

[lowkey13]

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[pemerton]

Yes, exactly. It can be handled the way you did, or the way @lowkey13 would do it, or a million ways in between. The form is free from one restricted path.

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.

I'm not sure why you're talking about combat or fights. I didn't post an example of a fight; I posted an example of reforging a dwarven artefact.

I'm also not sure whether you are asserting or denying that 5e has a crafting resolution system.