D&D 4E will 4e be "gamisticly correct" ?

[Aloïsius]

There are many things I like with what I we know about 4e. (streamlined system, no more feat nor XP to create magic item, new magic system, racial talents...).
But there are things I fear (I won't say dislike because we don't know enough), and most of them are due to excess :
1) balance above all. This is the D&D religion since 3e : everything should be balanced, no class nor race should be more powerful than another. The problem is that this is somewhat impossible : as long as there is choice, some of them will be better. This cause an endless pattern of revision/errata, nerf or boost, with the end result of fudging with the fluff and consistency of the story lived by the PC.

Meanwhile, no amount of errata or playtesting will stop powergamers from breaking the game. Only the DM could stop them. So, I hope we won't see strange things like what happened with the polymorph ability, but I fear we will have some sillyness, in the name of game balance. Utility spells (like alter self, fly...) are most often the N°1 victims of those, because they can be used in combat.

2) fun above all. What should the rules do ? Help you describe a world and the lives and adventures of your characters, or allow you to play some abstract tactic game ? I would say both, but the first part is more important. What is the worst : a game where you can lose a fight with one save, or a game where Circea the sorceress is unable to polymorph her victims into pigs, because, well, beeing pigised is "not fun" ?

What about coup de grâce ? A dagger in your throat while you were sleeping is not a fun way to die.... We know there won't be death from massive damage (not fun ! beeing bite by a dire T-rex and dying because of a single missed fort save is not fun, you should survivre to three or four bites...), what about coup de grâce ?

Poisons were already neutered in 3e (there should be lethal poison. As in "no save, you have only a few hours to live unless someone find the antidote"), I don't think that will change in 4 (a penalty on the condition track is somewhat abstract...and not very frightening).


I fear that WotC takes those two "dogmas" too seriously. I hope there will be room for realism and drama in 4e, and that those two element won't be squizzed to death by fun and balance.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Poisons were already neutered in 3e (there should be lethal poison. As in "no save, you have only a few hours to live unless someone find the antidote")

This isn't poison. This is what they call a "plot device". Plot devices are under the purview of the DM.

 

[Aloïsius]

This isn't poison. This is what they call a "plot device". Plot devices are under the purview of the DM.

Try to use one like this... I have many players, and most of them wil groan because "the rules say so..."

It's a plot device that is a poison. I think the more powerful aspects of the game (high level spells, artifact, super-poison and big bad disease) should be both "plot device" and fully stated. With guidelines to allow the DM to design his owns.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Try to use one like this... I have many players, and most of them wil groan because "the rules say so..."

Your players are monkeywrenching your plot devices? You have my sympathies. My players understand that in a roleplaying game there is a certain amount of leeway that the GM must have in order to make things happen, so that they can have fun and exciting adventures. If one of those adventures is finding a cure for a unique and deadly poison, they don't try to kick the legs out of it, because they know that their fun will be ruined if they do.

If my players complained that "the rules say...", I'd say, "I wrote some new rules. Now the rules say what I want them to say."

It's a plot device that is a poison. I think the more powerful aspects of the game (high level spells, artifact, super-poison and big bad disease) should be both "plot device" and fully stated. With guidelines to allow the DM to design his owns.

So stat it up. If having something written down is that important to you, write it down. The guidelines are given under "rule zero," and the gist is this: if it works for you, it's balanced.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I disagree about the idea of balance being impossible to achieve. Certainly, there will always be suboptimal or broken builds, and there will be people who try to build new Pun-Puns, but that doesn't negate the idea of balance. As long as the most common builds are balanced against each other, it should be fine. As long as a whole group of new players can just start the game by only choosing simple and easy builds, and still be a well-balanced party, then there is balance.

Also, there is no indication at all that the people at WotC are trying to remove things like being "pigesed", or are trying to remove each and every challenge or potential set-back in the game. After all, overcoming stuff like that is part of the fun of the game, and only a fool would get rid of that sort of thing. What isn't fun is when Circe can "pigese" a character with 100% success rate due to bad balancing, and the character can't do anything about it at all, or if Circe has a 0% success rate due to unforseen balance issues, and the challenge is only an illusion.

 

[Melan]

I agree with the OP, especially in the "tyranny of fun" as a design goal area. Both of these directions serve to take out edge, colour and danger from the game, transforming it into a less visceral and ultimately less satisfactory experience. Victory is sweeter if there are strong loss conditions, and stories more heroic if they are achieved through peril.

 

[Korgoth]

I agree with the OP, especially in the "tyranny of fun" as a design goal area. Both of these directions serve to take out edge, colour and danger from the game, transforming it into a less visceral and ultimately less satisfactory experience. Victory is sweeter if there are strong loss conditions, and stories more heroic if they are achieved through peril.

I'm getting that impression from the "don't roll randomly" threads as well.

To me, things get more fun when you "raise the stakes". Unlike Chess, "my D&D" is something where careful play is statistically rewarded, but randomness always introduces a big X factor. When you combine the unknown with the life-or-death, that really ramps up the excitement.

 

[Celebrim]

I so agree with your #2 Aloïsius. Sooner or later I'm going to get mod slapped over this but, I have to say it.

Failure sucks.

No, really, no one likes to fail. Failure is the incarnation of 'not fun'. Winning is always more fun than failing.

It certainly would seem like the best way to ensure fun would be to remove all the possibilities of failure. No more death from massive damage, no more coup de grace, no more energy drain, no more 'one shots', no more save or die, no more poison, no more disease, no more mutilation, no more rust monsters destroying your equipment, no more equipment loss period, no more running out of spells, no more running out of food, no more running out of ammunition, no more running out of resources period, no more tracking encumbrance, no more tracking game time, and I can't even begin to list all the possible points of failure that people have brought up as 'not fun' especially since 4E. And I have to agree. They aren't fun. Damage isn't fun. Death isn't fun. Losing a fight isn't fun. Getting paralyzed isn't fun. Getting turned to stone isn't fun. Getting the soul sucked out of you is not fun. None of those things fun. Heck, I don't even like it when it doesn't happen to me. DM's think it sucks when it happens to a player too.

But its a fool's errand to try to get rid of them, and anyone advocating that these things be done away with is ruinning not only thier own enjoyment of the game but the fun of everyone else that ends up playing thier namby pampy effortless monte haul game.

To paraphrase a recent movie, "if everyone is a winner then no one is". If success is assured or all but assured, then it isn't success and it isn't worth celebrating. It's illusionism of the worst sort when the possibilities of failure have been removed, and it proves nothing when you have the illusion of success under such conditions. If on the other hand, winning is hard, when you win, it means something. I'm far prouder of beating NetHack than I am of Diablo or Diablo II. It's pretty darn hard to lose at either Diablo. The game is designed to be easy and remain easy at every level. You are along for the ride, and if you die its generally out of boredom solely because things were so easy there for so long you forgot to do anything to protect yourself. NetHack, it will probably take you 100 tries just to get down to the bottom of the Gnome Mines, and it will probably take you 20 just to figure out how to not starve to death. Frustrating? Sure. Unfun? Quite often. But put aside that need to go running for a spoiler for a while and just enjoy the freaking challenge of the game. Failure has a way of proving to be fun in the long run in a way that instant success just isn't.

I sick and tired of all the *snip* going on on the boards about things that are 'not fun'. *snip* It's gotten bloody everywhere. You can hardly open a page on the boards without stumbling over 12 'please please pretty please ban this from the game'. What the??? It's not like D&D is a game were even death is permenent people. Losing a level is worse than death??? *snip* (I wish I knew a less crude way to say it, but well, there is a reason that DI's use forceful professional language when they want to express themselves. Somethings just can't be done in a 'nice' way.)

*snip*

It would be a better world if we could report borish posts the way we could report rude ones. One doesn't have to be insulting to be freakishly irritating. Being directly insulting to me is often far less irratating than just being *snip*. Emotions pass more quickly than ignorance.

Ok, mods. Do your duty. At least I said it.

 

[telquessir]

I've never

I've never seen rules as much of a hindrance (unless they were awfully bad), but more of a tool to tell an interactive story.

Knowing them gives you more freedom to do things within them a little bit elegantly. Your example of poison could be done by only bending a few rules. You could change the timing, the penalty of the poison, and then have the antidote give a very high bonus to the save DC. You could make it a magical poison that is unable to be removed by the typical spells used for curing poisons. I don't quite understand your players questioning or complaining that the rules don't agree.

Rules are more there so that there exists a common expectation and understanding of certain events as well as to make characters aware what their options are. To keep everyone on the "same page" if you will. If specific rules are hindering your game, I'd argue you're using them improperly (which in some cases is using a specific rule at all)

If I want an RPG that is to every single one of my ideal specifications for the game I want to play, I'll write it. In the meantime, I'll just use another set of rules that are good for the most part, and change what I don't like.

 

[FireLance]

I'd actually posted this elsewhere, but since both chess and randomness have been brought up...

I don't mind a little randomness in my games, even if it means that I get a bad roll every once in a while. However, I want to be able to react and respond to the bad luck, and to overcome it with good thinking and tactics. Dropping dead on a single bad roll robs me of that opportunity.

Consider the following variants of chess (normally a game of pure skill and tactics):

1. Whenever one player captures a piece, roll 1d20. On a roll of 1, his opponent automatically loses the game.

2. Whenever one player captures a piece, roll 1d6. On a roll of 1, his opponent loses another piece (his opponent gets to choose which piece).

I would much rather play variant #2 than variant #1. In variant #2, losing an extra piece is a setback, but it is something that I can overcome if I am skilled enough, or if I get a lucky break myself. In variant #1, there is no chance of recovery once the 1 is rolled, even if it happens on the first P x P exchange. Regardless of whether I won or lost that game, I wouldn't find it very satisfying.

No doubt, some of you will prefer variant #1 because the stakes are higher. But a preference for lower stakes does not mean a preference for no risk whatsoever. Those of us who prefer variant #2 are still betting and enjoying the gamble; we just play with smaller stakes so that a single loss doesn't wipe us out, and we can keep playing longer.