Why is it so important?

[Jackelope King]

I was waiting for JK to fork a thread on this topic.

The short form is that I feel that a game like M&M doesn't require the same type of versimilitude as a game emulating classic adventure fiction and fantasy. Of course, if you don't want D&D to emulate classic adventure fiction and fantasy, the point quickly becomes moot.


RC

I did create the promised thread.

 

[helium3]

I have purchased and played SW saga ed. and I was just exspressing concerns which I ran into in that game as Iplayed it more. No it was not apparent in a read of the game, but in actual play I ran into this.

It's a long thread and I've got limited time. Could you please clarify what it was that you ran into when you played SW Saga? It sounds like it had something to do with resource management and how it affected player choices? And no, I'm not being snarky.

 

[gizmo33]

Contrary to popular belief, hit points are not the sum total of resources. Not to mention that hit points are a specific resource that will not refresh per encounter in 4E.

There are no hitpoints in novels. I just said tired because there is a correlation between the tired concept in novels and the hitpoints concept in DnD. The example that RC gives from the Mars books IMO is a pretty good example of what DnD means by the concept of hitpoints.

Remember, this conversation started with a claim by a poster that blinked in and said that heroes being able to fight all day without rest or consideration for resources was common in novels and movies.

To be precise, you get tired to an arbitrary degree based on being hurt to another arbitrary degree, based on the author's judgement of when it is appropriate for it to happen. Said judgement may or may not correspond to the hard limit imposed by a 4-encounters-per-day paradigm, even adjusted for easier or harder fights than normal.

This is an example of why I said that the "4 encounters per day" thing was misleading. In order to translate that into novel/movie terms, you'd have to know something about the APL and CRs you're dealing with. In the one example we talked about, I could suggest rough values for Gimli vs. the orcs. But as far as finding exactly 4 per day - first of all that doesn't happen in DnD because of the variables. Secondly, it would be hard to seek it out in a novel because of the uncertainty of translation between the two systems.

But that uncertainty also makes it possible that the number of orcs that Gimli and Legolas killed during a battle was *exactly* equal to 4 encounters of APL=EL. And it wouldn't have to anyway because the 4 encounters thing does not take into account APL <> EL or how lucky your dice rolls are.

50% of D&D gamers have never heard of Vance. 75% of non-D&D gamers out there have never heard of Vance. 90% of non-gamers out there have never heard of Vance. The only reason Vance has the profile he does is because of D&D, so pointing to him is effectively an admission that D&D only models itself.

It's sufficient to show existence - the example was not chosen for popularity.

On the subject of popularity: We've analyzed the subject of "magic in novels" before. There are relatively few instances where stories attempt to present the "magic system" of their world in any degree of detail that would be suitable for a roleplaying game. Remember, the magic system is something that players have to understand well enough to make meaningful decisions in. Or, at least IMO, you can't have a magic system that runs off of DM fiat.

"After slaying the company of orcs, you can see no other enemies around. Your band of heroes camps for the night."

"After the sixth guard post is destroyed, your group can see the exit from the cave. You leave and camp for the night."

"You've killed the lich and taken his stuff. You're feeling rather tired, so you camp for the night."

Simple, isn't it?

Yea, this is a story teller style. I don't run my games this way. My players are the ones that decide what they do. My job is to come up with reasonable consequences. "You feel tired." is not something I say without some basis in the rules. In all of your examples the DM is forcing important strategic choices on to the players (which may be an acceptable part of that gaming style).

Artificial restrictions that, more often than not, have nothing to do with the source material, and furthermore distort the functionality of the ruleset in other ways.

What source material? Helm's Deep? I don't know what "distort the functionality of the ruleset" means.

Or, with fewer syllables: and this is a bad thing, why?

The "answer of few syllables" to this is "read 90% of the posts by me, RC, and Imaro". I think it comes down to the intersection of our preferred gaming style and other things. In my case, I just don't see my "source material" (like the Battle of Maldon or even Helm's Deep) justifying the "all per-encounter resources" model.

And he had to conserve precious daily resources... where?

The novels aren't going to use game terminology so it's a matter of imprecise translation. In any case, I was starting off answering a rather hyperbolic attack of "ludicrous" to my burden of explanation wasn't that high. If you want me to now make the case that there is an interpretation of a bulk of fantasy literature that *mandates* a resource system like the one that 3E uses, that's tougher.

In this particular case, the fact that Gimli is dealing with daily resources is implicit in the decisions being made. It's implicit in the fact that the army at Helm's Deep doesn't simply march on to Gondor two minutes after their fight ends. Resource management is not typically of interest to readers of a fantasy narrative, but I think it's existence is implied by the way the character's act.

 

[gizmo33]

Gotta conserve that bat guano, you know.

The example is sufficient to show a case in literature where the limitations of the heroes ability to continue with an adventure are coming in to play. Here the hero is clearly going to have to rest, even though his "player" might prefer to carry on with adventure, killing Darth Vader, Sauron, and Thulsa Doom before breaking for lunch (then again food is one of those annoying resource details that 4E could probably dispense with).

 

[Raven Crowking]

Gotta conserve that bat guano, you know.

How I wish you felt that were true....

 

[IanArgent]

The change is being made so that all classes are going to have a mix of at-will, per-encounter, and per-day abilities. Thsi is being done so that playing a wizard is going to allow you to do something "wizardly" in every combat. That's what I out of the new rules, and it sounds like something we will be getting.

I'm firmly convinced from my own experience that limited resource management is not at all required to run fun games, incidentally.

 

[gizmo33]

The change is being made so that all classes are going to have a mix of at-will, per-encounter, and per-day abilities.

My statements were less about what is actually going to be in 4E than what the effects of the various possibilities would be. I don't have much to dispute about what I've seen 4E's rules are going to be - it matches what you're saying above and I think it will make a good game. I wasn't so happy about what I was seeing from Wyatt in terms of design goals and justification for the change, but subsequent comments by him, combined with some more specifics on the design itself, has pretty much convinced me that I have little to worry about.

I'm firmly convinced from my own experience that limited resource management is not at all required to run fun games, incidentally.

Dragons aren't required either. The question (not relevant to actual 4E, as you point out) might be whether or not any purpose is really served by removing a dimension of the game. Some folks feel that the resource management issue actually gets in the way of other aspects of the game that they enjoy. Some don't. I think this is basically what the debate has revolved around.

 

[gizmo33]

How I wish you felt that were true....

IMO his recent posts have been relatively cogent and non-argumentative, more of a "miniature platinum sword" spell component.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Wherever the DM or adventure writer wants to.

"After slaying the company of orcs, you can see no other enemies around. Your band of heroes camps for the night."

"After the sixth guard post is destroyed, your group can see the exit from the cave. You leave and camp for the night."

"You've killed the lich and taken his stuff. You're feeling rather tired, so you camp for the night."

Simple, isn't it?

Yeah, this is pretty much my point. In the current system, when the PCs rest is determined by when they run low on resources.

In most literature when the heroes rest is based on when it is appropriate for the story. Sure, there's all sorts of reasons for it: "We are tired and need to rest now", "I'm hungry and we need to stop and look for some shelter before it becomes dark", "My backpack broke and I need to sew it up so that I can continue, we might as well stop here for the night", "After many long battles we finally managed to beat the Lich King and stop his evil plot, we can finally rest", "This is the last safe haven before a 12 hour trek filled with danger through those mountains. Let's stop and get a chance to eat and regain our strength before we attempt it."

However, I've never seen anyone use the excuse "We're out of fireballs for the day" or "I can't use healing magic again until tomorrow" as excuses. It's normally some variation on "We're tired". Which, of course, only happens when it is dramatically appropriate. Being heroes, it is assumed that should it be necessary they could fight 20 battles in a day and just barely survive them. However, they don't NEED to fight 20 battles in this day and they are tired, so they rest. There are any number of heroic stories that show that despite being injured and tired that the heroes pushed on against impossible odds and succeeded because they HAD to, people were counting on them. That's what makes them heroes.

I see this type of play modeled well with a per encounter system. Players rest when there is a break in the action rather than when the numbers on their character sheet run low.

 

[gizmo33]

It's normally some variation on "We're tired". Which, of course, only happens when it is dramatically appropriate.

*Everything* in a novel happens when it's dramatically appropriate though, doesn't it? Even a rather mundane description of someone getting ready for work has the purpose of establishing the tone of the story. A novel is fundamentally a contrived set of events, a game can be something fundamentally different (or not). What you describe is a different gaming style, one oriented to story telling. Versimilitude will always interfere with the story at various times - the critical hit rule could very well fell a PC at a moment otherwise unsuited to the narrative. There's nothing wrong with that as long as the expectations are made explicit. Though I'm not sure why, according to your expressed priorities, you would bother to use dice at all to resolve events since they would potentially interfere with the story if the numbers were too wacky. I suppose if the dice were used to choose an event from a list of "story-appropriate" events, then that would work.