[WotC's recent insanity] I think I've Figured It Out

[Mallus]

If the player must "talk out" the social scenario, then he's really using his own charisma/skills and not the character's.

Yes. Much like when players uses their own intelligence, or lack thereof, to formulate a plan, or solve a riddle, or decide on battle-tactics. Role-playing is always a mixture of player abilities and character abilities, unless you run a campaign where player skill plays not part in deciding outcomes.

Also, I didn't say anything about forcing players to talk out social encounters. I wrote the opposite: I left it up to the individual whether or not to roll for it.

Personally, I like when players choose to talk it out. The game is much funnier that way.

If my character has an 18 charisma and my DM thinks I'm an idiot, odds are disproportionately against my character ever being successful if I try to talk it out rather than skill-check it.

In that case, you'd be wanting a chap like me as DM. I'd give you a choice; all talk, all skill-check, or a combination of the two.

 

[MrMyth]

Simply saying in passing that adventuring is important is not the same as actually making it important in the game's rules.

The passage you quoted is like saying "yes, honey, talking is very important" and then skipping past it.

This is the section on the fundamental elements that the game consists of, and it gives exploration the most overall detail in those pages. How is that skipping past it or saying it in passing?

Again, feel free to show me some quotes from the rules. But I'm not seeing them in there.

Excuse me for using the word summarize to summarize what the text was suggesting.

Whoa, that wasn't the part of the quote I was critiquing. You said the rules suggest to "simply summarize what happens between the encounters." It is that last part which isn't in there. Instead, it tells us to describe what happens between encounters, let the players choose what they want to do and how they want to do it, and then the DM figures out what that involves or how to resolve their plans.

Again, there is nothing in the 4E rules which suggests that the DM should fast-forward past events between encounters. We have direct quotes which suggest otherwise.

Here's where you and 4E just don't get what we're trying to say. By skipping over what seems unimportant, and rushing to the scenario that is important, you give players advanced notice that "hey, this particular clearing is an event." The players don't discover it, they don't have a chance to miss it due to negligence. There's just no adventuring element to the game when you do it that way.

Again, I think you are misreading the text. It doesn't recommend just sticking to the important parts. It simply recommends not obsessing over the mundane. Do you really not see the difference?

Look, I enjoy games that don't feature non-stop combat. Players unravelling a mystery in town, chatting over clues by the campfire, trying not to piss off townsfolk, discovering ancient ruins in the wild - all those are interesting things which don't have to involve a single dice roll.

Having someone spend 30 minutes describing how they cook dinner? Spending that long having the DM describe how uneventful things are throughout the night? That isn't my idea of an especially entertaining scenario.

Maybe it is for others, maybe not. But you are suggesting that the only options we have are either that level of obsession over detail or we don't bother with 'exploration' or 'adventure' and just fast-forward to all the combat. And that is absurd. There is a vast spectrum of styles of play between those two levels, many of which involve all sorts of rich and rewarding roleplaying.

The only style that 4E advices against is one of the absolute extremes, and even then, says you can indulge in it if the group enjoys that approach.

That kind of structure just robs the thrill of not knowing what's around the next bend...because you do know. Everytime you're not skipping, you're at the encounter.

I would find a game very boring that just teleported me from fight to fight to fight, with no thrill of the unknown, no sense of discovery. What the DMG describes looks to me like an abridged form of DnD.

But whatever. To each their own.

Again, you are reading stuff into the text that isn't there. It never suggests to skip from one encounter to the next. All it suggests is to bypass specific mundane details.

I'm not arguing that "teleporting from fight to fight" is an excellent style of play. I'm sure some like it, and some don't. What I'm saying, and you seem unwilling to consider, is that the 4E rules don't ever suggest anything remotely like that anywhere in the rules.

You say the DMG described "an abridged form of DnD" - then, by all means, show me where it does so. Because I don't see it and I've shown you several references that directly indicate otherwise

 

[Umbran]

If you have nothing better to post than personal attacks, don't post at all.

Ladies and gents, Neonchameleon won't be joining you for the remainder of this conversation.

Fumetti, you're new around here so I'd not expect you to know - while politely asking others to keep to the Rules of EN World is usually okay, generally we don't look kindly on folks outright telling others when and where and how they can post, or otherwise giving orders. Aside from meeting rudeness with more rudeness, you don't have any authority to back it up with, so it turns things into an ego-contest that generally doesn't end well.

If you do have a problem with another user, feel free to report the problematic post - there's a little exclamation point in a triangle icon on the bottom-left of every post for the purpose).

And, as others have mentioned, red and orange text is usually reserved for moderators - we use those when we're speaking in official capacity that we don't want folks to miss, and having others use those colors causes confusion.

Welcome to EN World! I hope you have fun!

 

[MrMyth]

Nah. That stuff needs to be there if the scene is critical to the story and the characters have to go through it.

But a lot of adventuring--as I've known it--could be skipped over 4E-style and the players rushed to just the crucial encounters. To me, all the activity that is not crucial to the story is just as important to the overall roleplaying experience.

On the way to the kill the troll, I might stumble onto an evil warrior who I now have to kill to get past. Not part of the story at all. But just out of dumb luck (and some unfortunate wandering monster rolls) my job just got harder. But I might luck out and score some magical items I can use later.

Of course, with 4E rules it's hard as heck to create random encounters to flavor the adventure. It would take a fair bit of work just to throw together an evil NPC.

I'm not sure where you got that idea. I've found one of the strengths of 4E has been the ease of which you can put together a random encounter. Via easy formulas to quickly generate stats, or by taking some monsters and giving them a new description, or using the skill challenge system to resolve a complicated scenario that you didn't expect the PCs to wander into.

In what way does the existence of a skill challenge limit your ability to have a random evil warrior pop up on the way to a troll?

I mean, there definitely are issues with skill challenges, even with all the advice for them. But I don't think they have any connection whatsoever with "tunnel vision" or discouragement of a sandbox style game.

 

[pemerton]

If the DM sets up a skill challenge, then it's a predetermined encounter that the party must get past. It is not organic. It is not chosen by the players, or the effect of players' choices. This restricts the "sandbox" nature of RPGs. It in effect becomes yet another tunnel-vision game.

Why, if I prep a skill challenge, must the party get past it? That's like saying that if I prep a room, the party must explore it.

Like most GMs of the past and present, I do my best to prep only what I think will be used. I use my ability to predict my players' interests to help me with this. But if (for whatever reason) they don't encounter an encounter, they don't encounter that encounter.

Given that prepping a skill challenge actually takes about 5 minutes, it's not that big a deal.

You might also find this actual play report interesting.

The 4E core rulebooks, as well as the Essential paperbacks thus far, read as if they are specifically designed for the Encounters program and not a traditional long-term campaign.

Other than the rules for playing characters through 3 tiers of development, and the guidance in DMG, DMG2, the DM's Kit, The Plane Below and The Plane Above on designing and running multi-tier campaign arcs.

 

[pemerton]

Simply saying in passing that adventuring is important is not the same as actually making it important in the game's rules.

<snip>

I would find a game very boring that just teleported me from fight to fight to fight, with no thrill of the unknown, no sense of discovery.

Well, the most canonical way to run interesting adventuring in 4e is via a skill challenge -which is the action resolution vehicle for moving, as you put it, "from fight to fight".

I mostly use skill challenges now for all overland travel where there is anything at stake (in terms of time, or health at the end of it, or possible encounters en route). If you like random encounters, you can stick them as as consequences for failures.

But the post in my previous response linked to a game that I ran which was focused more on classic exploration - and because there was nothing clear at stake in that exploration per se, I didn't use a skill challenge. (But I did use skill challenges at various stages of it.)

And even if you gloss over travel altogether, it nedn't be "fight to fight" - in my game, the encounter that resulted from success in the most recent travel skill challenge was a social one (with some witches), not a fight.

But the structure of Wizard spells, that still screams combat, combat, combat.

Other than rituals, which are all about non-combat. And the wizard PC in my game uses them all the time (especially information-gathering ones) and has done so since 1st level.

 

[Hussar]

On the idea of skill challenges.

I'm trying to build a system here that allows the players to announce a skill challenge to scout out large sections of a very large dungeon.

There's absolutely nothing preventing players from initiating skill challenges. In my first 4e experience, I initiated a skill challenge to go around town, impersonating various people, spreading the fame of my character and singing his praises so that when I finally met up with the rest of my party again, the townspeople would be singing my praises, giving me free drinks and whatnot and completely ignoring the rest of them.

I was playing a doppleganger rogue at the time with a serious trickster bent. It worked like a charm and, because the rest of the group actually didn't know what I'd done, was funny as all get out.

 

[billd91]

Why, if I prep a skill challenge, must the party get past it? That's like saying that if I prep a room, the party must explore it.

Like most GMs of the past and present, I do my best to prep only what I think will be used. I use my ability to predict my players' interests to help me with this. But if (for whatever reason) they don't encounter an encounter, they don't encounter that encounter.

I can see what you're saying, but it kind of depends on how the DM is using the skill challenge system. If he's the type who builds skill challenges on the fly, such as using the skill challenge rules to adjudicate the PCs choosing to cross a desert or extract information from the Krogan mercenary company at the arms dealers trade show, then the PCs really can't avoid the skill challenge. But since it's based on what the PCs are choosing to do, I'm not sure it really matters much.

 

[pemerton]

BillD, I do use skill challenges in the way you describe - but complaining that the players can't avoid those is like complaining that when they start a fight with a group of bandits they can't avoid the combat mechanics - skill challenges are the mechanical method for resolving desert-crossing and information extraction in 4e (well, almost - sometimes a single skill roll will do - like in HeroQuest, the choice of whether to go simple - single roll - or extended - skill challenge - is up to the GM, but the GM should be having regard to what the players care about, as well as pacing issues, etc etc).