www.play-board-games.com blogs about How DnD 4th Edition is like a board game

[LostSoul]

Before I get to the examples, let me say that I agree with this, but that's also why in my earlier post I raised the issue of what actually counts as "fully playing the game"? If you take page 42 of the DMG seriously, and also the text for the Acrobatics skill in the PHB (to which I first had my attention drawn by your suggestion that a Rogue dive into the maw of a purple worm to rescue a swallowed magic-user - great stuff!), then playing the game requires having regard to the fictional context. Play which has regard only to the stat block, and which therefore disregards p 42, and which privileges Athletics over Acrobatics as a skill (because the Athletics rules have stats in them), can ignore the fiction, I agree.

Maybe the game is to some extent incoherent in its rules - presenting such tight stat blocks that they create a strong reason no to depart from them (hence your desire to rewrite parts of the game to expressly create the lacuna for GM input), but also presenting open-ended fiction-first rules like p 42 and Acrobatics.

That's the way I first looked at the game - the fictional content does trump everything else, because there are simple and quick rules for the DM to adjudicate any sort of action the PCs want to try. I looked at the action economy and figured that, if you can reduce an opponent's resources (HP) with a Standard Action, how you decide to do that should depend on the fiction; you shouldn't have to use an attack power. The Standard Action was the important thing, not the modifier being used.

Thus Intimidate checks to deal HP damage.

Playing the game, though, even with this mindset, the people I played with fell too often into the trap of only looking at their powers as their only options. "Power fixation." I have come to believe that this is because the powers don't require you to stop and think about the fictional situation beyond the grid/conditions/HP level.

The simplest way would be to have the DM say "No" to powers based on the fictional situation, but that's not the general tone of DM advice for 4E.

Does the game foster "incoherent" play, in the Forge sense? Possibly. The DM advice suggests that the PCs are heroes, the rules reduce some consequences, but the game is hard-edged and can make player skill the sole factor in victory. What's more, Quests and the loose way that colour ties to the mechanics can enable a heavily Premise-based game.

The advice leans towards a "Right to Dream" experience, I think (scaling everything to PC level without enough emphasis on "problematic features of human existence"), but those playing through the WotC modules will likely see that quashed when they come face-to-axe with Irontooth.

This is an interesting one. The rules for Oozes describe them as "amorphous", and the flavour text for Ochre Jellies says that they can slip under doors and pour through narrow cracks, and that they can't climb steps, but none of this is reflected in the stat block - whereas other stat blocks do give special squeezing powers (like Larva mages). And while the PHB rules for squeezing give the GM a lot of discretion for Medium or smaller creatures, this is not the case for Large creatures like Jellies and Puddings.

On balance, this seems to me to be a case of poorly written stats, where the stats don't give full effect to the desingers' intentions. Alternatively, it could be that the keyword "ooze", in describing oozes as amorphous and giving them special squeezing privileges, hasn't quite said everything that it should have about oozes going under doors and the like. Either way, I'd have no problem letting a black pudding - "like a massive pool of tar" - slide under a door. And I don't think my players could really accuse me of breaking the rules in doing so.

I don't think so either. My question is, because the rules say it can't, does that mean the DM should rule that it can't, or should the DM rule on some other principle? I'm not sure which way the advice leans. Personally I don't think there needs to be a rule or power that says that oozes can slip under doors (gelatinous cubes excepted); the DM can make a judgement call. I think the "rule for everything" approach takes away from that human element.

I'm mostly in the latter camp - monsters are colour, and I adjust levels if I have to. However, part of the colour I am looking for in my campaign is "the story of D&D", and that puts limits on how far you can vary levels - eg once you're paragon you're not really meant to be dealing with orcs anymore, unless they're from Gruumsh's plane!

I think that's a great way to handle the game. The monster creation/alteration rules make it easy to tell the kind of story you want.

I should say that I'm not talking about a pre-plotted story; just that the DM can provide an appropriate level of adversity that's independent of colour, which means that the DM can pick and choose the appropriate colour for the theme of the story. This does have other effects, like making long-term strategic planning more difficult for players. That's the kind of thing I mean when different 4E techniques can be used to address different metagame goals.

On all these issues I've been too influenced by your posts back in the early 4e days to have an independent view! I don't think I've yet had a PC use Intimidate to do psychic damage, but I've had a PC use Religion to get combat advantage against a Wight. I haven't thought about using Diplomacy to heal, but that's a very interesting idea - I think the relationship should matter, affecting the DC (moderate vs hard). The action would have to be a standard one, to preserve action economy balance. To balance it against healing powers, I think that the PC using diplomacy might have to take some psychic damage if the attempt fails - they are gutted as they realise the relationship doesn't mean the same thing to the other person, or at least doesn't have the same power to drive them, as it does the would-be healing PC.

"Annakin, you're breaking my heart!"

That quote jumps to mind - it's as though Annakin failed in an Intimidate check and therefore dealt psychic HP damage to Amidala.

I'm not sure the game is balanced for this kind of play - you might need to apply some modifiers to defences - but I don't think it would be hard to achieve.

In my view the biggest gap in the 4e rules is advice on how to use p 42, and the skill challenge rules more generally, to achieve various play goals in various contexts - and in particular, how these parts of the game are meant to interact with the combat mechanics. It's the absence of that sort of material that (for me, at least) gives the biggest feeling of incoherence of the sort I talked about above.

Yep. I think there's a lot of space for discussion on how different techniques can enhance or subtract from specific metagame goals. (My problems with narrative control/authorial "power points" being one of them.)

 

[LostSoul]

That's good IMO as it reduces metagame nonsense and keeps them on their toes more. I absolutely HATE metagaming with a passion and the less PCs assume based on the fact something is an ogre the better. That's one thing I love about monsters, that troll might have a lot of different powers and abilities. You can't tell until you face the enemy and with how easy it is to customise monsters, it means assuming things gets you killed while a bit of caution is more rewarded.

The problem with this is that it means that it's hard for players to know what they are facing, even if they're only encountering everything in the world through the eyes of their PCs. That means it's hard for them to make appropriate risk assessments - are the ogres going to be our level, our level -4, or our level +10? No idea. So should we take them on or not? No idea.

However, if the group is playing with the metagame goal of "The PCs are heroes; what can heroes accomplish in the points-of-light world of D&D?", then they should expect a level-appropriate encounter. The problem ("incoherency") arises when the DM thinks, "Okay, the ogres are MM ogres" and the PCs think, "Okay, we're the heroes, even though we're level 3 we can rescue the princess from the ogres."

The reason I went to all the trouble of statting up monster lairs for my hack was so that players could make appropriate risk assessments, knowing that I would remain an impartial referee of the game world (as much as that's humanly possible). That's to enable the metagame goal of challenging the players and their wits and guile.

And again, knowledge checks are a free action and can tell you about a creatures resistances, general defenses and the kinds of powers it may have. There isn't any reason not to do this!

Yep, knowledge checks are a good way to mitigate this. Even a failure can tell you a lot!

 

[Scribble]

One point of my "fiction first" hack was to put in space where the DM had to make judgement calls. Ignoring, for the moment, the DM advice I put in there (which has more to do with other aspects of the game), that space is supposed to introduce the human element - to allow each group to put their own spin on the game.

Does it make sense to you that you could disarm a foe in this situation? How about this one? Does it make sense to you that a black pudding could slip through cracks? What about a gelatinous cube?

You could even go other places - Does it make sense that you can heal someone with a kind word? Does the relationship matter?

Each DM can answer those questions in their own way. How you answer those questions can reinforce your metagame goals; in my case I wanted more attention to the fiction, but since that space has been opened up (not that it wasn't there before, but I tried to make it explicit), it could be to reinforce the fact that the PCs are heroes, or to focus more on exploration, or tactical exploitation of the battlefield, or any other goal.

Well, having never read your "hack" I can't really comment on it, but I think we have a similar idea, but maybe we approach it differently?

The problem with this is that it means that it's hard for players to know what they are facing, even if they're only encountering everything in the world through the eyes of their PCs. That means it's hard for them to make appropriate risk assessments - are the ogres going to be our level, our level -4, or our level +10? No idea. So should we take them on or not? No idea.

Yep, knowledge checks are a good way to mitigate this. Even a failure can tell you a lot!

(Forgive me please for re-arranging your quote a bit here, but I think they relate...)

I think this is a VERY good thing for the game. Players can't rely on meta-knowledge for info. They have the fully rely on all input being filtered through their character.

Does their character know anything about these monsters? Maybe they seem stronger or weaker looking then what they've heard or encountered before.

Which also brings back the idea that maybe rushing into a fight with EVERYTHING isn't such a good idea. Maybe they should stop and get more info before proceeding.

That said:

However, if the group is playing with the metagame goal of "The PCs are heroes; what can heroes accomplish in the points-of-light world of D&D?", then they should expect a level-appropriate encounter. The problem ("incoherency") arises when the DM thinks, "Okay, the ogres are MM ogres" and the PCs think, "Okay, we're the heroes, even though we're level 3 we can rescue the princess from the ogres."

None of this works if the DM and the players aren't on the same page at the start of the campaign.

If the players think they're playing a game where all encounters are tailored to their own level, and the DM thinks otherwise... There will be problems.

 

[Aegeri]

The problem with this is that it means that it's hard for players to know what they are facing, even if they're only encountering everything in the world through the eyes of their PCs. That means it's hard for them to make appropriate risk assessments - are the ogres going to be our level, our level -4, or our level +10? No idea. So should we take them on or not? No idea.

First, it's taken me a couple of posts to realize what you're actually getting at here and now I'm with you I can certainly understand your dilemma. In fact, I run into this problem even now in my current 4E games in numerous ways. I have to be very careful when I use the same token art for two monsters in my games. If my players recognize the creature, they will assume certain things about it that get them into trouble.

The best example was when I used the same canoloth art for a minion version and a regular version. The confusion that resulted almost would have seen a PC throw a daily power at a bunch of minions (not a worthwhile usage). As creatures don't have fixed levels, but can have multiple types like a canoloth tracker being a minion and a canoloth bloodhound is a pretty powerful brute that can cause issues.

I found two things here helped:

1) Description of creatures always ensured the PCs knew it was different. Trackers I've described as being lean, less armoured and generally not as vicious. Bloodhounds are much bigger, have black iron plates with spikes on them and have even longer more ichor covered tongues than trackers.

2) Making sure that I used a different token art for each monster. When PCs see something that looks different as well as my description of it being different, they assume it's a new monster they haven't seen before.

Varying levels aren't really the problem: the problem is being consistent with what creatures you use. If you're consistent then PCs will recognize that and adapt their expectations accordingly. If you make every single ogre exactly the same description and recycle the same art/minis or whatever, then your PCs are going to get very frustrated very fast when what they thought was X was Y.

This is also why I like demons and devils. There are so many variations on the art of these monsters that I can easily have more than six variations of one demon and yet be able to clearly present and describe them as being different to my players.

 

[Herschel]

I don't think so either. My question is, because the rules say it can't, does that mean the DM should rule that it can't, or should the DM rule on some other principle? I'm not sure which way the advice leans. Personally I don't think there needs to be a rule or power that says that oozes can slip under doors (gelatinous cubes excepted); the DM can make a judgement call. I think the "rule for everything" approach takes away from that human element.

I think there need sot be a distinction between "says that it can't" vs. "doesn't say that it can". Otherwise, I agree with your interpretatiuon listed here of adjudication.

 

[Celisasu]

I can see where the board game comparison comes from. If you play with a group that is very board game focused, D&D4E can indeed feel more like a board game than RPG. Our group plays lots of board games. We have two players who are primarily board gamers, one player who's primarily a P&P RPGer, one player who(before joining our group anyways) was primarily a casual player with almost no exposure to either, and one player who's been deeply involved in both(myself). One of our board gamers looked at D&D4E and really liked the way it looked so asked if he could run a game. It was all of our first time experiencing 4E(I'd played lots of 2E D&D and White Wolf stuff with a tiny bit of 3/3.5E, Rolemaster, and Call of Cthulhu, our other P&P RPGer was likewise familiar with primarily 3.5E and White Wolf stuff). Anyways the game runs a lot like a board game for us and we're having a lot of fun with it. The RPer adds some well....RP to the mix, but the board gamers and casual gamer are far more focused on efficient handling of combat and the GM handles that a lot better than the RP encounters too as it's something he's more comfortable with(4E has for all intents and purposes replaced Descent for us, honestly since we focus less on RP and more on the gaming elements it really does feel like Descent on steroids). Now another group might downplay the combat stuff and deal with more things like puddings coming under doors or talking to the noble without using a skill challenge and that's just as well, but 4E naturally lends itself to a gaming style that ignores the RP part of RPG completely and our group at least has been perfectly happy with that(not counting an encounter where one of our players rolled all 1's, 2's, and 3's aside of course....yuck, thank goodness that 4E dropped the critical failure stuff that so many P&P RPGs have, he'd have slaughtered our side that game).

 

[pemerton]

Playing the game, though, even with this mindset, the people I played with fell too often into the trap of only looking at their powers as their only options. "Power fixation." I have come to believe that this is because the powers don't require you to stop and think about the fictional situation beyond the grid/conditions/HP level.

Interesting diagnosis.

I remember you once posted that you'd like to see a page 42 "stunt" at least once per round of combat. My game is nowhere near that. I don't know if I want it to get there - I find it hard enough, as GM, to run the monsters and rule for the PCs as statted, let alone with p 42 adjudication as well. But I would like the players to be ready to look to p 42 when the fictional situation requires p 42 as the metagame response - for example, if a PC was disarmed. Maybe I need to try an experiment with a dominating monster and see what happens . . .

The simplest way would be to have the DM say "No" to powers based on the fictional situation, but that's not the general tone of DM advice for 4E.

I agree that's not the tone at all, and I think my players would object - and, given the way the game plays at our table, I think their objections would be reasonsable.

What I'd rather do is set up a situation where a power won't work to full effect unless there is a little something else attempted. Years ago in a Rolemaster game I remember an elf archer PC with very good acrobatic skills. In one fight on a ship the PCs were below the deck and some of the NPCs up on deck. Each round the archer would do a jump check to leap up through the hatchway, and then (using his acrobatics to permit a mid-air shot) release an arrow before dropping back down into cover. This is the thing I'd like to see a bit more of in my D&d game (and similar sort of stuff involving Religion, Arcana etc for the non-martial PCs). One player is keen on it - the one who used Religion to help him fight a wight - and another player is getting a bit more into it, using his Athletics a bit more adventurously in a few recent fights, to bring his abilities into play in circumstances where otherwise he wouldn't be able to use them.

I think that's a great way to handle the game. The monster creation/alteration rules make it easy to tell the kind of story you want.

I should say that I'm not talking about a pre-plotted story; just that the DM can provide an appropriate level of adversity that's independent of colour, which means that the DM can pick and choose the appropriate colour for the theme of the story. This does have other effects, like making long-term strategic planning more difficult for players. That's the kind of thing I mean when different 4E techniques can be used to address different metagame goals.

In my game, the long term planning is more plot/thematic - "Which group of slaves do we rescue first?" - than mechanical/strategic - "What order should we tackle these challenges so we get the right mix of difficulty to XPs?". My players implicilty assume that I'll balance the encounters so that they're winnable, at least in principle.

Interestingly, balanced encounters that the players know are balanced can still produce pretty satisfying tactical play (based on my experience with other RPGs as well as 4e). The challenge isn't so much in achieving the win, as optimising it in various ways - minimal damage taken, prisoners taken, reputations established, etc - and in some encounters, a degree of tactical optimisation might be a necessary condition of the win. (A poor analogy - there can be a pleasure in doing a crossword even though it doesn't actually expand your vocabulary.)

I think this sort of tactical play fits well with an approach to play that has fairly straightforward fantasy RPG themes - the players are free to focus on the thematic stuff without having to second-guess the level of every giant or dragon they hear rumours of, and the tactical situations can be set up to give the players a chance to engage with their thematic concerns. (I emphasise straightforward themes because otherwise it wouldn't make sense to engage them via the medium of heroes fighting monsters!)