TheUltramark
First Post
there is still more to the game than combat, even in 4e....isn't there???
Why is it a bad thing to optimise?
- Thread starter Kzach
- Start date
there is still more to the game than combat, even in 4e....isn't there???
This seems like a hardcore 'Illusionist' approach. In my games the players "perceive that they have the ability to fail, thus increasing story and game tension", because they have the ability to fail. I'm pretty sure that's the standard approach, even if I'm a bit more of a killer DM than most.
I don't want to bash 4e. I've only played 1 encounters worth that a friend was demoing, and I certainly never read any of its materials. As such, what I think is based on poorly informed opinion.
pre-launch 4e hype advocated a lot of ideas I agreed with. Including making sure everybody had fun stuff to do in combat.
Once it shipped, it seems every class had a combat orientation, with less emphasis on other aspects. As on friend lamented from a 3x all-rogue one weekend-long one shot, he didn't think they could have pulled that off in 4e.
However, the Stormwind fallacy probably applies. Just because you all kick butt in combat does not mean you can't role-play or be social or steally, sneaky, etc.
Thats just my impression, which has no basis in direct experience, and in no way denegrates 4e. People have fun with it, and people play a variety of campaign styles with it. Therefore, as a game system, that's alright.
I think the OP could have the same problems in 3e, so I don't see this thread as needing an Edition debate. Yes, the terms and numbers freak me out. But that's because I'm not familiar with that ruleset. But the gist is, Kzach can make some pretty powerful PCs, and his fellow players apparently can't.
Thats not a new problem.
Personally I dislike this approach, I don't think the DM should be designing around the precise abilities of my PC. As DM I prefer *not* to know what individual PCs are capable of. If I tailor, it's to a general encounter level, not to individual PCs. I find the game a lot more satisfying that way - the world feels more real, the challenge feels more genuine.
Players only have to spot your Illusionism once in umpteen adventures (or read you writing this on a message board), and trust is gone.
Perhaps. This is how it really went down.
Long story short the person known as player one eventually left the table and we got a new person in the chair. It resulted in a better vibe for the group overall. People who have absolute views about what they must have in a gaming group often times don't do well as players and are better off running their own games.
Last, anyone who's ever been in my group knows I love them to death, even those who are no longer active. I just shoot straight and that engenders trust even if I do not necessarily let my player groups TPK for the sake of being random and simulationist. (If any of us wanted that, we don't need to be role-playing at all.)
Pentius
First Post
This was touched on, but I'm doing it anyway. When the Dm places the arch, he should be knowledgeable of roughly how likely the party is to be able to read it(he sets the DC and has access to their sheets), which is a bit off from A. And if B, the party fails to read it, and the DM knows that could happen, since he decided how difficult the arch was to read, he should at least have considered the idea that the PCs might not give up on ever knowing what was written there.
I get you now. We're kinda on the same page, then. If the Thief goes nova on round 1, plenty is left to do on round 2. That was my point. Shoot me a PM when the time comes.
Of course. Many of the rules(any edition) deal with combat, but there is still more than combat. 4e gets flak for this, imo, because the designers took a lean toward "rules are for combat resolution" and thus cut a lot of rules that weren't closely tied to conflict resolution. Combat is a primary means of combat resolution, so there are still lots of combat rules.
Always interesting to hear your style, S'mon. As DM, I have a strictly kept rule that I must always have access to an up to date version of every PC's sheet(easy, with CB). Started it after a really bad campaign in 3.5 where this rule would've cleared things up quick.
Eric Tolle
First Post
Isn't that the question that's been repeatedly asked about every edition of D&D for the last 30 years?
For what it's worth, over the last two years of the 4E game I've been in, we've done a lot of non-combat activity, from exploration, to negotiating a truce between elves and hobgoblins.
We've basically done as much, if not more non-combat roleplaying as any other D&D campaign I've been in. Anecdotal information true, but that's still enough to disprove an absolute.
I'd say it definitely applies, because the game gives more support for non-combat activity than AD&D, and about the same level as 3.x.
I think what throws people off is the fact that the powers are strongly combat oriented (though even there there's quite a few utility powers that are useful for non-combat situations). But that's only part of the situation; there are skills, and there are feats, both of which have combat applications.
Granted, 4E doesn't give as much support tip purely non-combat games as say, GURPS or FATE, but then again, no D&D does. I'd say that 4E gives enough support for non-combat activities, except for problematic ones such as crafting.
While I see what you are saying about not tailoring everything to a player's precise ability, I do want to point out you can't just ignore their abilities. I think that is what is at the heart of the OP issues.
The players are the protagonists of our story (well, usually) and they need to feel that they are the ones empowered to make the most significant changes to the story. If you don't create spotlight moments for them based on their specialized abilities, they simply become pawns to those in the game world that can advance the story. And that may be what this all boils down to - a DM not providing the "non-optimizers" a means to shine and get involved in the story at the same level.
As for the OP - I find that players who are really focused on optimizing tend to get bored with story centric games and vice versa so this is often a problem that resolves itself.
I have managed to run a middle of the road sort of game that has supported RPers and powergamers alike. I definitely have had trouble balancing encounters before when a player shows up with a "more optimized" build, but I control the source material enough that it has never been bad enough to break a game or draw complaints. I've never asked a player to neuter a build, though I have altered rules before based on feeling they were a bit broken with the group's play style (both for the benefit of the PCs and their detriment and always with their input.) I've also never seen a perfect optimized character with zero weakness. Usually when someone sits down at my table with a "perfect" PC it is highly focused and something of a one-trick pony. The player usually gets bored with it and moves on.
Well, I don't run a game with a pre-written story, it's up to the players to create a story - but really "story" is never something I think about at all as a GM, so "they simply become pawns to those in the game world that can advance the story" doesn't really make a lot of sense to me in terms of how I see the game.
That said, as GM if I notice a particular PC is significantly underperforming in combat relative to the others I may well offer to help rebuild them to get up to speed. I won't normally ban/nerf uber PCs per se, but I'm happy to ban/nerf certain powers - those that trivialise encounters *without* ending them, like Moment of Glory and pre-errata Visions of Avarice, because IMO they are no fun for anyone. And I now (in 4e) limit sources, which greatly helps to limit power disparity between PCs; munchkin builds almost always rely on a wide variety of sources and synergies unforeseen by the designers; while regularly optimised/powergamed builds typically require cherry-picking sources in 4e - in 3.5e it was more about caster vs non-caster.
