D&D 4E Who's still playing 4E

[AbdulAlhazred]

I guess that's the queue for 'fail forward.' Or just not giving something vital a chance of failure in the first place.
Or speed things up, depending on what the SC was about. How you'd narrate it really depends on the SC, early failures could leave the scene in a skin-of-their-teeth mode the rest of the way.

Right, I think what is awkward about it is just how the GM doesn't KNOW and it can suddenly change. Now, some SCs that's fine, its easy to understand how a situation can take a radical turn. OTOH other situations its a bit harder. Fail forward is of course always a good idea. Its just sometimes I'd like to be able to build up to the failure a little more.

Lets imagine a huge battle scene that plays out as an SC. You can always narrate a back and forth going on, but its hard to simply present all the elements on the field at the start and not pull new ones out of your hat to explain how things go back and forth. Not all GMs were really prepared for that I think. I don't think that the descriptions of SCs and their general formatting as it was laid out in the DMG, or even DMG2 really, quite fully expostulated the way in which an SC like this would, by how the checks went, create new game elements. I mean suppose the PCs kick butt, and they get 5 successes in a row. The evil army is ON THE ROPES! Then all of a sudden things start going wrong! 1 failure, 2 failures! All of a sudden things took a big turn! Well, its quite easy to narrate some completely new and utterly novel bad guys showing up to turn the tide, and that's exactly the sort of thing I'd advocate (as I suspect so would you [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], etc). Its just never called out in any 4e material, and its not always how every GM wants to handle it. I suspect a lot of frustration with SCs came down to this, even if it wasn't well-articulated very often.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I've never tried Obsidian. I remember reading it (or maybe some progenitor of it?) back in the day, but not being especially inspired to try it.

I agree with your comment about pacing awkwardness (though being a "glass half full" guy, I'd describe it as a "challenge" rather than a flaw!). I think I tend to handle it more by intuition rather than consscious prep, but reflecting on my approach I think what I try and do is have two "strands" or dynamics in the fiction: one running the PCs' way, or that they are building up to help them (eg they're befriending the baron); and one running against them, that is trying to undo them (eg the evil vizier); and then by trading off one against the other - even in a "sudden death" way, if necessary - it's a bit easier to modulate the pacing around the sort of issue you describe.

That's not foolproof. But it's an attempt to avoid having just one "strand" or "track" in the situation, which can certainly lead to weird U-turns or speeding/slowing if the rolls unfold in the way you've described.

Right, I've always talked about 'framing' (somewhat different from your scene-framing concepts) the SC by incorporating the right elements of conflict into it, or excluding the wrong ones. Also about insuring that there's a genuine plot to an SC, which generally implies stakes and an antagonist. If you have those, then you pretty much aught to have something like what you're talking about. The Grand Vizier is a perfect example, as that was exactly what I recall identifying as the missing element from the archetypal 'convince the Duke' example challenge.

 

[Manbearcat]

I'm very intrigued by Strike! and I'll have to give it a go, I think. Sounds like lots of fun.

I recommend buying it. You like to tinker. Buy it for no other reason then poaching ideas and porting directly to your 4e play.

The game is extremely coherent, elegant, and intuitive (especially for someone with a love for 4e). Compared to 4e, the PC build mechanics are more open-ended and layered, there is more "player fiat" (hat tip [MENTION=11821]Obryn[/MENTION] ), there are more feedback loops, and combat and noncombat are more functionally integrated. The engine and play advice are fantastically transparent and up front. GM-wise, you're basically running with the same agenda and principles as you would with 4e (and Dungeon World). The vehicles mod and dogfighting conflict mechanics are really great (which is why I'm running it with Star Wars...along with the game specifically supporting Star Wars play).

That may sound like a I prefer it to 4e. I wouldn't say that. The thing that 4e has over it is how profoundly focused the baked-in thematics are of all of the characters, and how well integrated they are into the setting's conflicts (and how intuitively that propels play). Some people see that as a weakness because they want a bunch of smaller, more vanilla lego pieces to build to archetype (rather than having a lot of that heavy lifting done for you...and hence would mark this area as a strength Strike! has over 4e). Personally, I love premise focus in games and 4e is glorious in that realm (along with all of its other great qualities). Strike! is fairly trivially focused premise-wise as well, you're just going to have to make sure the premise is well understood and agreed upon (because the system doesn't do that heavy lifting for you).

They put an enormous amount of work into it and made a beautiful homage to 4e so throw some $ at it just in the name of rewarding industry and inspiration, thereby making the world a better place!

 

[Manbearcat]

Right, I think what is awkward about it is just how the GM doesn't KNOW and it can suddenly change. Now, some SCs that's fine, its easy to understand how a situation can take a radical turn. OTOH other situations its a bit harder. Fail forward is of course always a good idea. Its just sometimes I'd like to be able to build up to the failure a little more.

Lets imagine a huge battle scene that plays out as an SC. You can always narrate a back and forth going on, but its hard to simply present all the elements on the field at the start and not pull new ones out of your hat to explain how things go back and forth. Not all GMs were really prepared for that I think. I don't think that the descriptions of SCs and their general formatting as it was laid out in the DMG, or even DMG2 really, quite fully expostulated the way in which an SC like this would, by how the checks went, create new game elements. I mean suppose the PCs kick butt, and they get 5 successes in a row. The evil army is ON THE ROPES! Then all of a sudden things start going wrong! 1 failure, 2 failures! All of a sudden things took a big turn! Well, its quite easy to narrate some completely new and utterly novel bad guys showing up to turn the tide, and that's exactly the sort of thing I'd advocate (as I suspect so would you [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], etc). Its just never called out in any 4e material, and its not always how every GM wants to handle it. I suspect a lot of frustration with SCs came down to this, even if it wasn't well-articulated very often.

It would have been lovely if DMG1 was more like some other Story Now systems that more clearly convey the principles and techniques that underwrite conflict-charged noncombat scene resolution; high stakes and dramatic pacing (how GMs are supposed to frame the initial situation and dynamically change the adversity as the scene evolves), intent & task in action declaration, genre coherency, and tallying up the fallout when all is said and done. But it certainly wasn't anything nearing bad, and definitely not terrible (and in some ways was rather good).

Nonetheless, for those that didn't initially grok noncombat scene resolution in 4e, the system (resolution mechanics, advice, etc) matured and coalesced absolutely beautifully during its run (starting only 9 months after release). Its too bad that plenty of fair-minded folks (even folks who love 4e to this day) were turned off enough to eject early coupled with the brutally unfortunate reality that there were so many barbarians at the gate intent on burning the whole thing to the ground.

Oh well. I'm not so worried. I've got a closet full of katanas for any WotC ninjas that may come for my books (and my brain)!

 

[Campbell]

Wow. That's a good insight. And it's sad.

Also, I just want to say that you're definitely an MVP on this site. I rarely poke my head in these days, but I always enjoy seeing your posts.

I somewhat misspoke when I made my original claim. Rigorous mechanical design with extensive targeted playtesting is still happening in some areas of the market. Blades in the Dark is a recent example. What we are not seeing is rigorous design coupled with tactically rich games with well developed subsystems and exception based powers. The glacial pace of development we see for a game like Exalted 3e (which while not having as much rigor as I would like is substantially more rigorous than 5e) that attempting that feat with the level of staffing RPG companies who are not Wizards of the Coast before 5e are capable of is damn near impossible.

Also, I wanted to thank you for the kind words. Your posts were always level headed and often brought me out of my bubble. I miss seeing you around these parts.