Why is it so important?

[med stud]

That's the best counter to Celebrim's posts thus far.

OTOH, I know very few people who play chess as often as fights occur in D&D, and chess is an adversarial game....if one followed the analogy, then the DM would be trying to "beat" the player's tactics using a preset "allowable monster limit" (effectively, a board limit to the DM's pieces so that they couldn't automatically overwhelm the players' pieces).

I am not sure that people would continue to play non-adversarial chess.

RC

I think people don't play chess as much as they fight in D&D because chess takes lots of time and is really taxing mentally. My point wasn't to compare chess and D&D combats, it was to counter the point that per encounter powers somehow would make the game have less tactics.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I think people don't play chess as much as they fight in D&D because chess takes lots of time and is really taxing mentally. My point wasn't to compare chess and D&D combats, it was to counter the point that per encounter powers somehow would make the game have less tactics.

And, as I said, that was the best point (IMHO) raised in that regard so far.

However, I would say that chess is tactically interesting only because both sides are trying to win. Playing chess against someone who has no chance of beating you is boring; playing chess against someone who you have no chance of beating is equally boring (though perhaps more instructional). In order to be interesting, each chess game must be an all-or-nothing affair where the outcome cannot be predicted in advance.

This jibes, IMHO, exactly with the problem Celebrim and Gizmo33 are describing with the "per encounter" model.


RC


EDIT: Also, it should be noted that if the game has "per encounter" tactics (as all rpgs must) and also has operational tactics, perforce it must have more tactics than a game that just has "per encounter" tactics, unless there is a significant difference in the level of the "per encounter" tactics between the two games.

Using the chess example, if you played a series of three games of chess, and each pawn that you lost in the first two games was not replenished, but you needed to win the game to move on, the loss of pawns in those games would be more serious, and would perforce require more tactical considerations than three unrelated games of chess in a row.

Even in the case of Yahoo! Games, where winning at chess affects your ranking (so that ranking becomes a sort of metagame for some), it is easy to witness how the operational level affects tactics at the "per encounter" level -- some people abandon boards to attempt to force the other player to quit (thus winning), some people refuse to play against anyone who has a chance of winning, etc. These are not generally things that happen when there are only "per encounter" rules in place.

The purpose of ranking (so that you can find someone close to your level in play) instead became a metagame reward system that effectively subverts the original purpose. It is my fear that 4e, like 3e, will have these same sorts of problems.


RC

 

[Mallus]

I tend to think that the attrition model allows for an aggregate effect, where bad things can happen to the PCs without the DM being adversarial; whereas the "per encounter" model almost mandates adversarial DMing (within whatever limits the game describes as being "fair") in order to keep it interesting.

Huh?

 

[Doug McCrae]

Apparently, based on the latest podcast, there will be action points in 4e, which is another area of resource management.

 

[Imaro]

Why is this more likely? If you look at chess, you have the same "powers" in the start of each "encounter" but lots of people still like to play chess all the time. That's one objection I have against thinking that per-encounter powers will be a detriment to tactics. My other objection is that if you keep the opposition different or just change the scenery a little the tactics for the encounter will change. Your fight encounter of the day may be against three ogres, a straight up fight with much tumbling and exploiting the ogres' lack of intelligence. You only use per encounter powers, go further down the dungeon (if you are into playing those) and in a dark hall with lots of pillars you are ambushed by shadow ninjas, which demand another approach.

There are tactics in both of those situations and even if all powers are per encounter (which I senserily doubt) you can still have all the tactics you want, every encounter.

This all depends on how you look at the game of chess and an encounter. In an actual game you are steadily dealing with depleting resources over extended time(IMHO this is way different from the avg fight that lasts 3-5 rnds, though I might be mistaken). It all depends on how you view the game, but unless you gain a piece by moving a pawn to the last square, or are playing against someone way below your skill level, you will never have the resources you had in the opening move. IMHO each move is an "encounter" as it sets up a different dynamic that isn't the same as before that move. The game can still be won by a clever, or more skilled opponent even with less resources, and I enjoy this aspect of chess as well. You look at the entire game as one encounter, I look at the entire game as the same as an entire game session of D&D. My analogy of chess and per-encounter abilities is more similar to every time you take a piece...you get most of yours back, YMMV.

I'm not saying tactics won't exsist...but I can easily see players falling into a sort of routine with their per-encounter & at-will abilities, while saving the per-day for the big or last encounter that night. All the time? No, but I could see it happening alot, even with varied scenery etc. I find it hard to believe that after a few sessions PC's won't find optimized combo's either within their own abilities or working in tangent and while they may not be practical in every situation, winning a combat in D&D boils down to two main factors; deal more propotional damage to opponents and take less proportional damage from opponents. The designer's could totally surprise me and make every ability either so original it can be used in only a few singular situations(thus promoting outside the box thinking) or so applicable all can be used in any situation(they're really all equal so it's now a style thing, which doesn't really promote tactics). But my first instinct is there will be abilities that are just better than others...only time will tell.

IMHO the per-day depletion forces you to consider more variables when taking an action and I like that, it's long-term strategy and thought. I mean in the end it really is a style thing.

 

[Celebrim]

Why is this more likely? If you look at chess, you have the same "powers" in the start of each "encounter" but lots of people still like to play chess all the time.

So you are saying that chess makes a good analogy for RPGs? Do you think RPGs are competitive games like chess? Do you think chess is as popular as RPGs (for example, do you think that as many people play chess for as long of a period as play WoW)? The tenth time you played chess, did your queen acquire the power to jump peices, and your king get an armor upgrade?

That's one objection I have against thinking that per-encounter powers will be a detriment to tactics.

I have never claimed that per-encounter powers will be a detriment to tactics. If you are talking tactics, then you've missed my point.

 

[gizmo33]

A very interesting thread. In my view, all the 4e design threads reinforce the obvious conclusion that 4e will not support a 1st ed style of play.

You might be right. I think you're summary of the thread thus far was interesting and it did a good job of capturing my thoughts, at least.

The world does not "carry on" in the background, oozing verisimilitude. Rather, it is a bundle of "game elements" for the GM to use in order to build challenges.

That's a shame. The reason I don't play monopoly, chess, or WoW is because I prefer the sense of versimilitude. If it devolves into a series of superficial encounters I'm not sure what RPGs would have to offer.

As Monte explains in his column, this was not part of the design goals even of 3E.

Someone on this board told me recently (and emphatically) that the "status quo" style of adventure was discussed in the 3E DMG and discussed an adventure that was designed according to what I've been calling versimilitude. Why would that be there if it was Monte's design goal to exclude it. Do you have a link where he's quoted on this topic?

In real life, people have all sorts of reasons for acting "irrationally" from the point of view of resource management: impetuousness, anger, a taste for the dramatic, a love of risk, etc. And much genre narrative presents stories where these sorts of motivations, rather than rational resource management, drive the adventure.

I have two problems with this. One is that IMO it's not actually true of people trained to handle dangerous situations. Experience adventurers who have survived numerous conflict are probably no longer operating at a level of impetuousness as does a noob.

The second problem is that people in stories have feelings, but their actions are infrequently irrational. A novel is able to capture the thoughts and subtleties, but the game happens at a higher level. The way we play, people don't sit around and talk about how their character feels about stuff, it's usually just a series of actions, and ultimately you can gain insight into how the character feels by what they try to accomplish goal-wise. The suggestion (and I've seen it several times from folks advocating this 4E style) is that somehow players put aside rationality and start acting according to extreme personality stereotypes. This would be an uncomfortable thing for me to do in my games because my players know that an adventure could kill them. Honestly, I'm not sure that really applies to a good percentage of other people's games.

In the Gary Gygax 1st Ed DMG sense, it will no longer reward good play. But then, good play will no longer be defined in those terms.

Possibly. Gygax was a wargamer. War has a tendency to be treated as a science by folks (Sun Tzu and all of that). Most field manuals on war don't advise you to tap into your "heroic passions" for anything. Ultimately I guess this is a cultural thing.

Agreed. The game will support a different sort of open-ended adventure - one in which the climax is known in advance, at least in general terms (unlike the games in which a delay can mean the NPCs preempt the PCs), and is guaranteed to be climactic, but in which the path to it is not predetermined.

This, literally, is the opposite of open-ended. Perhaps the expression is unfamiliar.

But hand-waving, while easy for experience GMs, is very hard for inexperienced ones. And it seems that 4e, like 3E before it, is aimed mostly at supporting inexperienced GMs. Thus it will expressly abandon the "operational considerations" approach to play. Whether or not this is a misjudgement of the market only time will tell. My own feeling is that it is not, and that Hong is correct with respect to the zeitgesit.

I think popular music is a close analogy. Genre's evolve over time because the herd of folks generally unfamiliar and uninterested in music will listen to a watered-down, refined version of music that was developed in a more creative mode by folks with taste. Sure, the numbers and sales figures will tell you you're being successful when the huge herd is in to what you're doing. But the strange thing is that the herd tends to follow the experienced people, and when you lose the experienced people (which happens every decade or so), you're not going to keep the herd for long.

a good part of the fun of play is meant to be derived from the experience of "my guy" cutting down hordes of mooks before blowing up the dragon.

Why is it interesting? Part of the assumption that the 4E style of play makes is that adversity=un-fun. Given that the outcomes are pre-determined, and there's a shrinking list of strategically interesting options for the game, it's just a matter of time IMO before players realize their on a story-telling treadmill. IMO this is only successful in the short-run because story-telling games rely on a spirit of the game established by wargamers - the only reason people think they can die in such games is because they read something about Gygax's game which described someone dying. Sooner or later they'll catch on, and the story-telling game will have to sink or swim on it's own merits and not because it diguises itself as the type of game with variable outcomes.

For example, the monster design rules look like they will be much closer to Tunnels and Trolls, than to 3E's simulationist nightmare.

Hey! That's a 30 year long nightmare called "Dungeons and Dragons" AFAICT.

 

[Merlion]

I think popular music is a close analogy. Genre's evolve over time because the herd of folks generally unfamiliar and uninterested in music will listen to a watered-down, refined version of music that was developed in a more creative mode by folks with taste

You realize how elitist this sounds, right? Not that thats anything new here.

Someone on this board told me recently (and emphatically) that the "status quo" style of adventure was discussed in the 3E DMG and discussed an adventure that was designed according to what I've been calling versimilitude. Why would that be there if it was Monte's design goal to exclude it. Do you have a link where he's quoted on this topic?

I believe this was talking more about the whole deal of Wizards basically being useful every now and then but spending the rest of their time standing around and similar issues, not status quo adventuring.

I have two problems with this. One is that IMO it's not actually true of people trained to handle dangerous situations. Experience adventurers who have survived numerous conflict are probably no longer operating at a level of impetuousness as does a noob.

There are a great many characters in fiction who are highly skilled and experienced, but still make decisions based on things other than rationality and/or good resource management.

And I'm sure theres probably even a few in real life.

That's a shame. The reason I don't play monopoly, chess, or WoW is because I prefer the sense of versimilitude. If it devolves into a series of superficial encounters I'm not sure what RPGs would have to offer.

You seem to have a tendency to go a bit overboard. This thread is discussing one aspect of the game. Even if the "versimililtude" of the per-encounter model is less for you, it doesnt affect necessarily all the other aspects of the game. It doesnt even mean that it will "devolve into superficial encounters" anymoreso than it already has. It might even be the oposite...remember, we still know next to nothing about how its all actually going to work.

I am quite sure RPGs will still have plenty to offer, certainly to people in general, and even to you.

and there's a shrinking list of strategically interesting options for the game

So far I see no reason whatever to believe this to be true. At least not in a general way. And again realizing that we have very little actual information and details.

 

[WhimsyTheFae]

After about 12-pages, I'm still trying to wrap my brain around how this will cause a major impact to my games. I just don't see it.

I suppose that there are a couple reasons for this:

1. I don't play resource depletion games because either my players aren't interested in that sort of game. I'm not going to force my players to play in a strict resource management game if they don't want to, since the object is to have fun.

2. I can already think of multiple ways to increase the challenge without making every fight "all or nothing". Of course, since I don't run a very resource-intensive game now, I'm already doing these sorts of things.

3. My players enjoy the occasional "boring" encounter that they can walk over. It makes them feel like they are experienced adventurers.

4. There are other resources that still can be taxed IF NECESSARY. Ammo, food and water are the obvious things (as well as Hit Points and Action Points). Lost, stolen, broken or degraded equipment (I don't figure that the core rules will require you to degrade equipment or prevent it, so if the game calls for it, go for it).

I suppose that I am more the "target audience" (or if not me, then some of my players) for WotC than some others...perhaps. I know that I am excited about most of the changes and am looking forward to at least giving 4e a spin around the block.

 

[Merlion]

One of the reasons that I like what little we know about this so far, at least as regards wizards, runs thus:

One of, if not the main reason I dislike Vancian magic is because it does not fit well with most depictions of how magic works. Having the practice of magic consist entirely of specific spells, that must be "prepared" and once used are gone, meaning you must "prepare" multiple copies to achieve the same effect twice etc, just doesnt work for me, conceptually.

Often in fiction, it seems to me that mage-types are capable of performing basic "magical actions" most or all of the time. Things like a very basic "magic ray" type attack, moving objects without touching them, creating light etc. Then they have their actual "spells", which often require more time and effort, may require materials and/or rituals of some kind etc, and usually have more powerful effects. They also require more specific conditions, and are often more taxing and can be done less frequently.

Now I realize that most fictional magic also has a fatigue element, either spiritual, physical or both, but you relatively rarely see that incorporated into RPGs for various reasons beyond the scope of what I am saying here. Although it does add another oddity to the Vancian system that a Wizard can run completely out of magic...but it doesnt adversly affect him in any other way.

I see this new system as being more in line with what I described above, and more like how magic is usually depicted than the Vancian system. Also it sounds as if it will solve the issue of Wizards often finding themselves unable to be very Wizardy pretty quickly, especially at low levels.