I've come to a conclusion about the 4ed vs roleplaying argument. . .

[Thrud]

And it is that those of us who dislike 4ed have it backwards. 4ed punishes those of us who are good roleplayers, and panders to those who don't know how to roleplay.

Now before anyone bites my head off, that is not an attack. I am not saying that if you like 4th ed you don't know how to roleplay. Before anyone tries to accuse me of that, please read the rest of my post.

So, here is the fundamental disconnect that appears to be happening. There was one simple thing in 3ed that prevented people from min/maxing and destroying game balance. It was called roleplaying. And THAT is why those of us who dislike 4th ed say that it inhibits roleplaying. It is because in order to play 3rd ed without it devolving into a group of power mad gamers all trying to grab the largest piece of the game world for themselves the group needed to be able to roleplay.

In 4th ed you no longer need roleplaying as a balance, at the expense of losing much of the versatility that those of us who could roleplay enjoyed. I hear over and over again about how unbalanced games were in 3rd ed because of the wizard, and spells, etc, etc, etc. And I have continually stated that that has never been the case in one of my games. To which people have stated to me that my player are obviously not playing the wizard correctly. And that point right there is where the problem lies. Because that is how a powergamer thinks. If that is your fundamental belief, then at your heart you are a powergamer, and you need the structure that 4ed provides. My players have never felt that way. And when I talk to them about online discussions I have had they are simply confused.

Perhaps it is because we also play a lot of White Wolf games, and a lot of Champions (storyteller and hero system respectively). Both of those games have holes in them that you could drive a truck though. But rather than grab a crowbar to shove into every crack in the rules and lever them wide open, we ignore them and keep on playing.

I don't think anyone can actually really say that 4ed is more versatile than 3ed whilst keeping a straight face. It is obvious it isn't, if for no other reason than the fact that there are no splatbooks out yet. But even without splatbooks I will say it is more versatile because of multiclassing. But we all know multiclassing is also a mechanic that can be broken. And the problem is simply this. If you look at a class and think 'I can multiclass into that to gain this power, so that I can head into this class, and get that power' then you are applying the crowbar. If you think 'My character has been through a lot, and it is all undead related, and we have had to deal with a major uprising of the undead, so I think my next level will be a prestige class that is based on killing undead', then you are not applying the crowbar, and everything will work out fine. Likewise with the wizard, and likewise with anthing else you can think of in the rules.

So in the end, does 4th ed prevent roleplaying? No. Does it give the versatility that 3rd ed did, as an AID to roleplaying? No to that too.

I feel that the problem here is an experiental one. If you have never had problems with powergamers in your group, then you probably will not like 4ed because it takes away your options. Or you are yourself a powergamer who is annoyed that you can no longer ply your twisted trade. If, however, you have had problems with powergamers in your group, then you will embrace 4ed with open arms because it will solve your problems, and, yes, it is a roleplaying game, and yes, you can roleplay with it perfectly well.

And before anyone attacks me and says 'that is not my experience' please believe me, I am not trying to make any personal digs here, or make any statement that this must be a universal truth. This is just something I have been pondering with my players and some of my older customers over the last couple of days. And one of my good friends, a long time roleplaying buddy, crystallized the through processes going on in my mind today. So I felt that I should try to get it out in a thread.

Because of this fundamental disconnect, I do not believe that one side or the other will ever be able to make their point. Though I for one was a philosophy/religion major in college so I certainly like arguing about it.

:smallbiggrin:

[Solo]

To which people have stated to me that my player are obviously not playing the wizard correctly.
I thought it would be because the players weren't being flaming asshats.

[marjan]

So, here is the fundamental disconnect that appears to be happening. There was one simple thing in 3ed that prevented people from min/maxing and destroying game balance.

This makes sense as much as saying that anarchy promotes good behavior since it's the only thing that prevents you from breaking the law.

I don't really understand why people persist in claiming that one or the other is better for role-playing.

[Thrud]

I thought it would be because the players weren't being flaming asshats.

Yeah, that too.

Oh master of the edit button andbattlecry stealer. Don't think I didn't see that.

:smallbiggrin:

[Thrud]

This makes sense as much as saying that anarchy promotes good behavior since it's the only thing that prevents you from breaking the law.

I don't really understand why people persist in claiming that one or the other is better for role-playing.

I didn't. I said it takes away complexity, which I enjoyed, and which added to my game experience, due to others being BAD roleplayers.

Not really the same thing at all.

edit- oops, missed the first half of that.

Regarding the first half of your statement:

And that is what I am saying about the fundamental difference here. I have NEVER (not seldom, not rarely) had a player persist in powergaming at my table, and thus I have NEVER (once again, not ever) had that problem. So obviously it DOES work if everyone behaves themselves, and this is the chasm that cannot be crossed here. Because at a fendamental level you don't seem to be able to believe me when I say that 3ed never caused me problems, and that I therefore liked the complexity of the game due to the possibilities that complexity gave us.

[Solo]

Yeah, that too.

Oh master of the edit button andbattlecry stealer. Don't think I didn't see that.

:smallbiggrin:

Obviously you didn't see that, otherwise you wouldn't have stolen my battlecry.

It's ok, I accept your apology. Now let us put this incident behind us and move on.

[RTGoodman]

I don't really understand why people persist in claiming that one or the other is better for role-playing.

Me neither. It doesn't matter what system you're playing, some people will be good and/or active role-players, some will refuse to roleplay at all, and most will fall somewhere in between.


Also, your assumption (or so it seems) that powergamers can't also be roleplayers is incorrect. I'm not up on the hip new "fallacy" lingo, but I think that's the Stormwind Fallacy or something like that. (That is, that role-playing and powergaming/"roll-playing" are mutually exclusive).

[Thrud]

Also, your assumption (or so it seems) that powergamers can't also be roleplayers is incorrect. I'm not up on the hip new "fallacy" lingo, but I think that's the Stormwind Fallacy or something like that. (That is, that role-playing and powergaming/"roll-playing" are mutually exclusive).

Again, this is not what I said. I said that powergamers were apparently unable to prevent themselves from exploiting every crack and crevice (or grand canyon, whatever, there are some pretty big holes there) and thus ruining the game. And 4ed solves that problem, and THEY ARE STILL ABLE TO ROLEPLAY. They can just now do it in a fashion where they can't ruin everyone's fun.

I never said anything about it being bad if that is what you needed. I said that is the reason for why some of us don't like 4ed.

[LurkerInPlayground]

And it is that those of us who dislike 4ed have it backwards. 4ed punishes those of us who are good roleplayers, and panders to those who don't know how to roleplay.

Now before anyone bites my head off, that is not an attack. I am not saying that if you like 4th ed you don't know how to roleplay. Before anyone tries to accuse me of that, please read the rest of my post.
Nah, I'm good where I'm at.

Good job on the "this is not an attack." If I came in expecting a rational argument about anything involving a comparison between 4e and 3e, I'm sadly mistaken.

[marjan]

And that is what I am saying about the fundamental difference here. I have NEVER (not seldom, not rarely) had a player persist in powergaming at my table, and thus I have NEVER (once again, not ever) had that problem. So obviously it DOES work if everyone behaves themselves, and this is the chasm that cannot be crossed here. Because at a fendamental level you don't seem to be able to believe me when I say that 3ed never caused me problems, and that I therefore liked the complexity of the game due to the possibilities that complexity gave us.

I didn't say that it is impossible to get good group for a 3e game (you obviously got one). The problem I have with it is that you assume that you got that group is thanks to the flaw of the system. If you really want to experiment, try playing some other system (4e for example) with your group and you'll see that nothing bu the rules has changed.

Problem is that it is possible to ruin the game and it can happen even if you don't plan to do it, usually due to the lack of knowledge of the system.

[Thrud]

Nah, I'm good where I'm at.

Good job on the "this is not an attack." If I came in expecting a rational argument about anything involving a comparison between 4e and 3e, I'm sadly mistaken.

*Sigh*

It is not an attack because I clearly stated that this is not the case in every situation. That means that it might not apply to you. I was making sweeping generalizations, and thus covered myself by pretty clearly expressing the fact that they were generalizations.

I didn't even say that it is necessarily the powergamers themselves that have the problem. I stated that it is people who have been BURNED by powergamers who are going to like the system. In fact, I even stated that the powergamers themselves are probably also on the side of those who dislike 4ed. If you feel attacked by the statement I am sorry but I ask that you please read my post again.

[Gralamin]

And it is that those of us who dislike 4ed have it backwards. 4ed punishes those of us who are good roleplayers, and panders to those who don't know how to roleplay.
Interesting position.


Now before anyone bites my head off, that is not an attack. I am not saying that if you like 4th ed you don't know how to roleplay. Before anyone tries to accuse me of that, please read the rest of my post.
If you start off your argument with something you acknowledge could be perceived as an attack, you are not starting off the argument well.


So, here is the fundamental disconnect that appears to be happening. There was one simple thing in 3ed that prevented people from min/maxing and destroying game balance. It was called roleplaying. And THAT is why those of us who dislike 4th ed say that it inhibits roleplaying. It is because in order to play 3rd ed without it devolving into a group of power mad gamers all trying to grab the largest piece of the game world for themselves the group needed to be able to roleplay.
No, players choosing not to act like that is all that stopped it. Roleplaying your character correctly may very well have you do that, especially if your character had high intelligence or wisdom.


In 4th ed you no longer need roleplaying as a balance, at the expense of losing much of the versatility that those of us who could roleplay enjoyed.
Roleplaying never was a balance. In 3.X, Versatility = power. From a game creation perspective, making something less versatile will of course make it easier to keep at the same power level.


I hear over and over again about how unbalanced games were in 3rd ed because of the wizard, and spells, etc, etc, etc. And I have continually stated that that has never been the case in one of my games. To which people have stated to me that my player are obviously not playing the wizard correctly.
All that is you or your players choosing not to outshine the group, and to play at the same power level. That is not roleplaying, that is metagaming.


And that point right there is where the problem lies. Because that is how a powergamer thinks. If that is your fundamental belief, then at your heart you are a powergamer, and you need the structure that 4ed provides. My players have never felt that way. And when I talk to them about online discussions I have had they are simply confused.

This part could be perceived as a personal attack, but I personally am what 4E calls a thinker. I could be overpowered in 3.X but I don't see a point in it. I like 4E, but that does not make me a powergamer as your argument suggests. (If that is not your meaning, please elaborate)


Perhaps it is because we also play a lot of White Wolf games, and a lot of Champions (storyteller and hero system respectively). Both of those games have holes in them that you could drive a truck though. But rather than grab a crowbar to shove into every crack in the rules and lever them wide open, we ignore them and keep on playing.

I rarely play anything else but D&D because its what my group enjoys. I have access to Mage, BESM, nWoD, D20 Modern, and a few other systems, none of which I would of chosen to be over powered. Again this choice is mine as a player, not my characters. For a character not to choose the most efficient means of completing their goals when they have high mental stats is actually not truly playing my character. This is a sacrifice I as a player make for the group.


I don't think anyone can actually really say that 4ed is more versatile than 3ed whilst keeping a straight face. It is obvious it isn't, if for no other reason than the fact that there are no splatbooks out yet.

4ed is just as versatile as 3.X core, but not necessarily in the same way. If I want something else, I simply homebrew it until it comes out officially. It is not all that difficult. Currently I'm working on a few races, 4 classes, 12 paragon paths, an epic destiny, and 13 artifacts. Doing this is as easy or in some cases easier then making things for 3.X. I am simply sacrificing my time to get what I want.


But even without splatbooks I will say it is more versatile because of multiclassing. But we all know multiclassing is also a mechanic that can be broken.
More versatile per character, but less versatile per group. In 4E the team is really greater then the sum of their parts, something only few builds in 3.X could say.


And the problem is simply this. If you look at a class and think 'I can multiclass into that to gain this power, so that I can head into this class, and get that power' then you are applying the crowbar. If you think 'My character has been through a lot, and it is all undead related, and we have had to deal with a major uprising of the undead, so I think my next level will be a prestige class that is based on killing undead', then you are not applying the crowbar, and everything will work out fine.
Now what if I think that my character could take one level in marshal because he is a very good commander of troops and the party face? I take one level of a very bad class for the one of the few benefits it gives. I shouldn't have to stay in there, I should be allowed to take other classes to fit my character concept in a mechanically efficient manner that is not above the common power level of my group.


Likewise with the wizard, and likewise with anthing else you can think of in the rules.

So in the end, does 4th ed prevent roleplaying? No. Does it give the versatility that 3rd ed did, as an AID to roleplaying? No to that too.
I'm sorry, I don't see anywhere where you showed that 3.X aided roleplaying through versatility. If you mean the sentence above about the undead, I'd simply say in 4E:
"You know, we've been fighting a lot of undead. I'll pick up some powers that do radiant damage if I can, or any type of power that isn't Poison or Necrotic."


I feel that the problem here is an experiental one. If you have never had problems with powergamers in your group, then you probably will not like 4ed because it takes away your options. Or you are yourself a powergamer who is annoyed that you can no longer ply your twisted trade.
So you are saying: "If You are not a powergamer you probably don't like 4E, or if you are a powergamer you don't like 4E." I honestly don't see you giving 4E much of a chance here.


If, however, you have had problems with powergamers in your group, then you will embrace 4ed with open arms because it will solve your problems, and, yes, it is a roleplaying game, and yes, you can roleplay with it perfectly well.
Saying that I can roleplay in 4E completely well is opposite of your position. You claim it hurts roleplay. These two statements seem to suggest that your opinion conflicts itself. Or am I misunderstanding?


And before anyone attacks me and says 'that is not my experience' please believe me, I am not trying to make any personal digs here, or make any statement that this must be a universal truth. This is just something I have been pondering with my players and some of my older customers over the last couple of days. And one of my good friends, a long time roleplaying buddy, crystallized the through processes going on in my mind today. So I felt that I should try to get it out in a thread.

Hopefully you don't see my arguing as an attack :smallbiggrin:


Because of this fundamental disconnect, I do not believe that one side or the other will ever be able to make their point. Though I for one was a philosophy/religion major in college so I certainly like arguing about it.

:smallbiggrin:

A pretty good argument. However I hope I've given you somethings to think about. If I came off as appearing to try and force you to play 4E, then I apologize as that was not my intention. My intention is simply to bring facts to light, just as you are trying to do.

[Paragon Badger]

A pretty good argument. However I hope I've given you somethings to think about. If I came off as appearing to try and force you to play 4E, then I apologize as that was not my intention. My intention is simply to bring facts to light, just as you are trying to do.

Facts? That's a dangerous word to wave around in a thread about opinions. :smallwink:

Everyone has an opinion on 4E, and it's just that; an opinion.

I'm not saying its pointless to argue your case; just that you are sorely mistaken if you consider anything regarding the subject to be objective truth. :smalltongue:

Made it rather frustrating for those of us who had to wait awhile to get the books (or those still waiting); since no one seemed willing to put their views in a different persepctive. :smallannoyed:

Edit: Not that I accuse you of that. You were rather concise, it's just a trend I've noticed lately and the word 'facts' reminded me. :smallwink:

[Eldritch_Ent]

Read your post. Still seems like an attack to me.

Roleplaying =/= Balance, all roleplaying will do is make your character fit a concept with his abilities, and nothing more. It is no guarentee that your character won't go out and conquer the world with his +20 rod of awesome at the earliest convenience just because he's roleplaying.

[Learnedguy]

Personally I think arguments about roleplaying is like arguments about homebrewing.

They are bloody stupid:smallannoyed:

[Gralamin]

Facts? That's a dangerous word to wave around in a thread about opinions. :smallwink:

Everyone has an opinion on 4E, and it's just that; an opinion.

I'm not saying its pointless to argue your case; just that you are sorely mistaken if you consider anything regarding the subject to be objective truth. :smalltongue:

Made it rather frustrating for those of us who had to wait awhile to get the books (or those still waiting); since no one seemed willing to put their views in a different persepctive. :smallannoyed:

Edit: Not that I accuse you of that. You were rather concise, it's just a trend I've noticed lately and the word 'facts' reminded me. :smallwink:

No problem. I guess Facts wasn't the best term to use :smallwink:

[Daracaex]

This makes sense as much as saying that anarchy promotes good behavior since it's the only thing that prevents you from breaking the law.

If it is impossible for anarchy to lead to good behavior, then how were the first laws created? If there is a need, humans will find a way to fulfill it. His group probably saw the potential brokenness and agreed, either out load or unspoken, to limit themselves to what makes sense for their characters. Though it is hard to see how something can lead to the exact opposite, it is possible.

[Muyten]

I can only partly agree with the OP.

I have played 3.x and 2nd edition before that and in our group power-gamers haven't been a problem either. You are indeed right that as long as people care more about roleplaying then the game doesn't become broken and unbalanced at least not in the same way.

So I'm sticking with 3.x as well?
Well no because I think 4E brings more to the table than balance.
First off since my group likes to RP a lot of them dislikes book-keeping since that hurts their RP-time...the 9th level druid in my current campaign is especialy complaining about that. 4E has less book-keeping (at least for spell-caster classes).
Second all the versatility you are talking about was seldom used by my players (or me for that matter)..Most of their chars are single-class or single-class with a dip into another class or prestige-class.
Third the melee-chars mostly had nothing better to do than charge or full-attack which got a little boring at times.

It is true that some chars are no longer viable in 4th edition (at least not at present) but there are also character concepts available that were not available in 3.x core. Is this hurting RP? Well slightly but as more options become available via splatbooks and such this should be remedied.

I don't think D&D in any of its incarnations are that good for RP...
3.x catered more to power-gamers but you could still RP in it just fine.
4E caters more to casual gamers who just like fool around and kill orcs but you can still RP just fine.

I'm sure for some groups 3.X is better but for me at least 4E solves a lot of problems and my group roleplay just fine thank you very much.

[Solo]

Everyone has an opinion on 4E, and it's just that; an opinion.


Ahem. Really? (http://www.shortpacked.com/d/20070502.html)

[Thrud]

Interesting position.

Woo hoo, an actual reasoned argument!

:smallbiggrin:



If you start off your argument with something you acknowledge could be perceived as an attack, you are not starting off the argument well.

Actually, I like to think of it as a way to attempt to preemptively stop flames. There is a lot or nerdy emotion tied up here (yep, we're all nerds arguing passionately about an effing RPG), so I am just trying to tone it down a bit right at the beginning.



No, players choosing not to act like that is all that stopped it. Roleplaying your character correctly may very well have you do that, especially if your character had high intelligence or wisdom.

Fair enough, but I would like to point out that this actually helps the argument about how 3ed allowed greater leeway for RPing, as this is now something that you cannot do in 4ed. But on the whole I have always felt that D&D is about a team working against the bad guy/monster/thing. And this seems to be born out by the fact that 4ed goes in the team over all direction for character building. If everyone wants to play a power-hungry meglomaniac bent on world destruction, it gets pretty old as players never actually accomplis anything because they fight against each other all the time. These are kinda fun in beer and pretzel games, but not for long serious campaigns. But the fact remains that that is a viable option in 3ed, and not in 4ed, where the team is everything. Which means that right there you have pointed out an instance where there is more RPing potential in 3ed than 4ed.


]Roleplaying never was a balance. In 3.X, Versatility = power. From a game creation perspective, making something less versatile will of course make it easier to keep at the same power level.

No, versatility equals versatility. I am perfectly able to make totally unhelpful class decisions that do not in any way increase my power. I CAN make decisions that increase my abilities dramatically, but I don't have to. I had a player who ended a game as a ftr2, sor2, thief2, bard4. Are you going to tell me that that is in any way an optomized build? But it was right for the storyline, and the way the character was RPed. Crap as a PC, but excellent for RPing. Once again this is where I think the fundamental disconnect I was talking about comes in. Just because I mentioned the versatility of multiclassing, you immediately jump to picking optimum builds.



All that is you or your players choosing not to outshine the group, and to play at the same power level. That is not roleplaying, that is metagaming.

Possibly, but I have also arranged games (in a beer and pretzel way) where everyone was evil and fought against each other, whilst being forced to work together, somewhat. Again, that is not really possible in 4ed. But they were great fun as one off or short run campaigns.


This part could be perceived as a personal attack, but I personally am what 4E calls a thinker. I could be overpowered in 3.X but I don't see a point in it. I like 4E, but that does not make me a powergamer as your argument suggests. (If that is not your meaning, please elaborate)

This in turn should not be construed as an attack. (:smallbiggrin: heh, we do that a lot. Can we just assume from now on that we are two guys who like to argue a lot and stop being so afraid of stepping on toes.) You may not be a powergamer, but when you look at rules you immediately seem to be able to immediately see how they could be used to burn the campaign and thus shy away from the idea. As I kinda pointed out above in my non-optimum build argument. Thus you at some level are always worried about how you have to make a character who can 'compete' to be a part of the campaign. And thus you like the fact that in 4ed you don't have to worry about it. Once again, disconnect. The potential for misuse has never worried me.


I rarely play anything else but D&D because its what my group enjoys. I have access to Mage, BESM, nWoD, D20 Modern, and a few other systems, none of which I would of chosen to be over powered. Again this choice is mine as a player, not my characters. For a character not to choose the most efficient means of completing their goals when they have high mental stats is actually not truly playing my character. This is a sacrifice I as a player make for the group.

But once again this is not a true comparison. Because you as a player may well know everything about the gaming system, and where the flaws are. But your character does not. Just because the potential is there, does not mean that anyone in the world must necessarily know how to do it. This is the essence of the hardest aspect of roleplaying, player vs character knowledge separation. Every player of D&D who has a lot of experience with the game is in effect an omniscient being. Characters are not. And that is oftentimes the hardest thing to keep in mind.


4ed is just as versatile as 3.X core, but not necessarily in the same way. If I want something else, I simply homebrew it until it comes out officially. It is not all that difficult. Currently I'm working on a few races, 4 classes, 12 paragon paths, an epic destiny, and 13 artifacts. Doing this is as easy or in some cases easier then making things for 3.X. I am simply sacrificing my time to get what I want.

Saying that versatility is there in the game system, and then saying you will have to homebrew it, is not a valid argument. You are in essence saying that the system is too simple, and you need to add complexity to it. Thus proving my point about versatility. The fact is that 3ed is TOO versatile, and you have to homebrew it to take out some of the versatility thus the games have opposite problems. But the fact remains that 3ed is more versatile than 4ed to begin with, which you just proved.


More versatile per character, but less versatile per group. In 4E the team is really greater then the sum of their parts, something only few builds in 3.X could say.

Yes, and this is the very best part of 4ed. The interactions of powers are very interesting, and make for detailed combats, I am sure. But that is the very least important part of my game. I really couldn't care less about the combat. We rarely even use pieces or a gaming mat. But almost the entirety of the new game focuses on how you move your piece around on the battlefield. Something that my players and I rarely even do.


Now what if I think that my character could take one level in marshal because he is a very good commander of troops and the party face? I take one level of a very bad class for the one of the few benefits it gives. I shouldn't have to stay in there, I should be allowed to take other classes to fit my character concept in a mechanically efficient manner that is not above the common power level of my group.

Exactly my point. There you are doing exactly what I said a good player should do. You are thinking of what is right for the character. However, this brings us back to the core problem of player knowledge vs character knowledge. Have you ever come accross a marshal? Do you actually know anything about how to command troops? If you had been playing in the game, came accross a marshall directing troops, and spent time at his side learning, then took a level of marshall, then great. But if you just turn to the DM and say 'I want a level of Marshall because I want to command troops well' then that is bad. Because it had nothing to do with roleplaying the situation.


I'm sorry, I don't see anywhere where you showed that 3.X aided roleplaying through versatility. If you mean the sentence above about the undead, I'd simply say in 4E:
"You know, we've been fighting a lot of undead. I'll pick up some powers that do radiant damage if I can, or any type of power that isn't Poison or Necrotic."

Yep, and that would be good roleplaying, and make perfect sense. Once again I didn't say that you can't roleplay in 4ed. You can. And taking the powers as you said there is excellent roleplaying. And you don't have to keep player knowledge vs char knowledge separate, because there is less complexity to the game. That is easier to roleplay.


So you are saying: "If You are not a powergamer you probably don't like 4E, or if you are a powergamer you don't like 4E." I honestly don't see you giving 4E much of a chance here.

Nope, I said if you are a powergamer you won't like 4ed because you can't powergame any more. And if you have been burned by being in a party with powergamers who hogged all the fun to themselves you will love 4ed, because they can't do that any more. Only if you have never been burned by powergamers will you not like/ see the need for/ 4ed.


Saying that I can roleplay in 4E completely well is opposite of your position. You claim it hurts roleplay. These two statements seem to suggest that your opinion conflicts itself. Or am I misunderstanding?

Hopefully I have ironed out the misunderstandings. If not, I'll give it another try later. After all, I am here to have an argument.

:smallbiggrin:



Hopefully you don't see my arguing as an attack :smallbiggrin:

:smallbiggrin:


A pretty good argument. However I hope I've given you somethings to think about. If I came off as appearing to try and force you to play 4E, then I apologize as that was not my intention. My intention is simply to bring facts to light, just as you are trying to do.

likewise.

Unfortunately I must now go to bed. Might have a little time before work tomorrow to see if you have a response, but may be a couple days. As it is I have been online WAY more recently than I am normally able to.

This goes for anyone who posted after Gralamin too. I will try to read your stuff tomorrow, if there is anyone.

[Daracaex]

Ahem. Really? (http://www.shortpacked.com/d/20070502.html)

That's not the same thing. :smallannoyed:

[Swordguy]

That's not the same thing. :smallannoyed:

No, but it's funny.



Read your post. Still seems like an attack to me.

I think that any time someone pro-4e sees something that criticizes 4e in any way, it's an "attack". Largely because they're looking for an attack so they can claim "persecuted" status in the argument, which implies the moral high ground.

I also think that any time someone anti-4e sees something that supports 4e in any way, it's an "attack". Largely because they're looking for an attack so they can claim "persecuted" status in the argument, which implies the moral high ground.

Both sides are right.

Both sides are wrong.

Neither side is ever going to win, so both sides should bloody well drop it until it's no longer raw enough that it can be discussed with a semblance of civility.

But I'll not hold my breath for it.

[Serpentine]

...Huh. This is exactly what I've been thinking, and just now said in another thread, only more articulate... In my game, the players are trying to create a character, not trying to beat every encounter to a pulp. This has, in my current game, resulted in 3.5 potential overpowering problems:
1. The Rogue is nigh-unhittable due to selection of feats, for purely roleplaying reasons.
2. The spell Glass-strike, given to the Witch for his Mirrors Dabble - chosen for roleplaying reasons. I may have to alter it slightly, so it takes a few rounds to work or something, because it's a real anticlimax-maker. Makes for some really disturbing creativity, though...
3. The spell... Icestorm maybe, something like that, that obliterated the little minions and seriously hurt the Little Bad Evil Guy - mostly my own fault, because they were all bunched up together.
.5. Natural Spell. The Druid's gone now anyway, but I was keeping an eye on it in case it became problematic enough for me to ask her to swap it for a different feat. Other than that - and that one use of that spell - the Druid was fine.
#1 is the only one that I might have trouble fixing, because all those feats work so well with his character. However, that player is keenly aware of his potential to overshadow others, and goes to some pains to avoid it - on his own initiative, not on DM orders.
Thus, the balancing aspects of 4e aren't necessary in my game, and so for me aren't a mark in its favour. For people with other experiences, it would be. Obviously this is only one aspect/difference in 4e, but I think it could be a pretty important one.

[namo]

I wrote a post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4493140&postcount=191) on a similar topic just 1h ago. Let me reiterate the relevant parts: I agree largely with Thrud about 3E being more interesting (for now ! This could change in the future) when you play with reasonable people.

I disagree on one point: in my experience, reasonable powergamers are actually the ones who will have an easiest time playing 3E. Let's face it: some overpowered abilities are easy to stumble upon even for the unsuspecting player. I remember when I played my first wizard in 3.0 finding the Polymorph Self spell extremely cool: I started to look into the MM for cool shapes. I probably didn't pick the best ones, but I still ended up with a significant power boost - and I was only after coolness ! (my group was all beginners)

Now I know most of 3.5E in and out, so that I can actually evaluate the power level of my character pretty well. Then I make sure that it is similar to the other characters' level. The relevant adjustments are justified after-the-fact by solid (I hope) roleplaying. You can call it metagaming, but it is only for the sake of the group and it's supported by roleplaying.

Like Thrud, I fully appreciate that many just want to avoid this kind of headache. I'm not even opposed to 4E - I'm starting a long-term campaign next week.

[marjan]

If it is impossible for anarchy to lead to good behavior, then how were the first laws created? If there is a need, humans will find a way to fulfill it. His group probably saw the potential brokenness and agreed, either out load or unspoken, to limit themselves to what makes sense for their characters. Though it is hard to see how something can lead to the exact opposite, it is possible.

You're confusing possible and necessary.

[nagora]

Though I for one was a philosophy/religion major in college so I certainly like arguing about it.
Religious person: God exists.
Philosopher: I'm not sure YOU exist.
Theologist: That's all right, so long as God thinks we exist.
Gygax: Shut up and roll initiative!

[Dan_Hemmens]

Thrud. Do not take this as an attack, but I have come to the conclusion, from reading your post, that you do not know how to roleplay.

Now, is there any part of you that finds that sentence even a little bit confrontational?

What if I were to add that if your fundamental belief is that you need the option to create overpowered characters in order to feel that you are "roleplaying" then you are, at heart, a powergamer?

Saying "don't take this as an attack" before attacking somebody doesn't stop it being, in fact, an attack.

Your argument is that "not doing things your characters are perfectly capable of doing, and have a legitimate in-character reason to do, in order to preserve game balance" is somehow "good roleplaying". It isn't, it's just compensating for the inadequacy of the system.

I, as a roleplayer, as somebody who does, in fact, know how to roleplay, find that it damages my suspension of disbelief when I have to wilfully restrain my in-character capabilities in order to preserve game balance.

This does not mean that I always want to use every single resource available to me for maximum in-character benefit. I played a BESM character once who sank all of her points into the ability to transform into a 250 foot wide flock of birds which could destroy everything in her path, but she never used it because she'd been raised to believe that the use of such powers was evil. The point is I want to make decisions like "do I prepare Finger of Death today" or "do I teleport into this building" for reasons of character. If I'm playing a necromancer, I damned well want to take Finger of Death because dude, necromancer. If I am then placed in a position where I need to kill somebody, I will use it, and if that makes an anticlimax out of an otherwise exciting fight scene I will be pissed off, because I was being put in the situation of having to wreck the scene, or wreck my character. Taking the "game preserving" option here is not "good roleplaying" it is an unnecessary compromise.

The reason I like 4th Edition is because there are no direct, system mandated ways to just shortcut things - at least until quite high level. That doesn't mean players can't shortcut things if they don't want to, just that they have to come up with an actual plan, instead of using a power that straight out mandates it.

[Roderick_BR]

I've come to a conclusion about the 4ed vs roleplaying argument. . .

And it is that those of us who dislike 4ed have it backwards. 4ed punishes those of us who are good roleplayers, and panders to those who don't know how to roleplay.
Wait, what? I read it 3 times, and still, it doesn't make sense... You said that people that dislike 4E is doing it backwards... then you say the exact same thing that people that dislike 4E is already saying. I mean, people that doesn't like 4E already said that. How is it "backwards"? But I digress.

So, can you explain why 4E punishes those that roleplay, and 3E "puts it under control"? I don't get it. Please, explain why. I didn't see an explaination other than a one-sided view on how 3E and 4E works.


'I can multiclass into that to gain this power, so that I can head into this class, and get that power' then you are applying the crowbar."
No, I'm just using the "versatility" that you said is lacking in 4E. How different is it from going in 3E and say "I'll get 2 levels in this class, 3 in that other, 2 in this prestige class, and the rest I'll fill with this other prestige class". There's nothing in 3E that keeps you from doing it. Nor does 4E. Or any game.
Using your own example: I'm playing a fighter. The past 2 or 3 levels, we started to face a lot of undead. I find my fighter having to face them all the time, and having to rely on the paladin or cleric to help me. Then when I level up, I decide to use a feat to multiclass into paladin or cleric. If we continue fighting zombies (maybe the BBeG is necromancer), so I decide to get more abilities from paladin/cleric powers. I'm doing the 'I can multiclass into that to gain this power, so that I can head into this class, and get that power' AND I'm roleplaying.

In ANY game, it's a matter of the DM asking "why your character is getting that?" and the player working up a reason for it, within his character's history. Doesn't matter which system. Heck, I've seen people playing very overpowered and broken characters in Vampire: The Maskerade games, that is supposed to be all about roleplaying. And in my D&D games, my group tend to roleplay a lot, min/maxing or not (my group had both a druid and a TWF fighter). So, it's up to the group, not the system, if a game can be roleplayed or not, AND if it can be played as an overpowered system or not.
The system just shows how many of said holes are available. And 4E, in theory, have even less than 3E (thus far).

I still don't see the disconnection you are talking about.

[Tormsskull]

So, here is the fundamental disconnect that appears to be happening. There was one simple thing in 3ed that prevented people from min/maxing and destroying game balance. It was called roleplaying.


Not really. The only thing that stops a person from min/maxing when they are out of hand is the DM.

I've actually come to the conclusion from reading different people's posts that the way I understand roleplaying is vastly different from most (current) gamers.

Back in the day (a wednesday IIRC), roleplaying was the POINT of playing D&D (in my group). Cool new powers, awesome magical items, fantastic creatures, etc, these were all additions to the element of roleplaying.

When I earned my B.A. in DMing, one of the fundamentals was making sure that everyone was roleplaying, and those who weren't were gently guided back to doing so.

And those powergamers? Those were the scourge of the D&D table. When they first showed their heads they were firmly slapped with a "Would your character really do that?" And if that didn't solve the problem, we started tacking on experience penalties, curses on the character, really, whatever it would take to get the player to realise that the POINT of this game is roleplaying, not accumulation of imaginary power.

I think 3e was more of a powergamer's playground, as it basically turned (or went more in the way of) system mastery = character power. If you knew all the tricks and secrets of character creation, you could make a real powerhouse.

4e seems to be less apt to fall to this model, which is why I believe some players do not like it, but I think once more coresplat books hit the shelves, this will likely change.

But in the end, after all my experience with D&D, the one thing I learned is that it is ok for anyone to play D&D the way want. It doesn't make anyone a bad person if they want to powergame or optimize or whatever. The game is different to different people.

At my table, my rules apply, and I will always make sure the roleplaying is the cornerstone of games. If I travel to other people's tables, their rules apply, and like a good guest, I will abide by them.

[Oslecamo]

Religious person: God exists.
Philosopher: I'm not sure YOU exist.
Theologist: That's all right, so long as God thinks we exist.
Gygax: Shut up and roll initiative!

4e development team: No, no, god may exist, he's neutral, comes in minion, normal, elite, or solo versions depending on what you want, and he's just the right CR of the party.

[Prophaniti]

Good post, OP. Well written and thought out.

I would agree with most of it. I, too, have informed my group of such things as the Batman Wizard, only to have them (especially the guy who's been playing since 1e) look at me like I'm a raving lunatic. One of them even said it straight out, "Why would you want to do that?". Ditto when I informed them of CoDzilla, though that one was a little easier for them to understand. They still give me evil glares when I want to play a Warpriest, despite the fact that we've never lost a party member (that wouldn't have died anyway) due to my lack of healing, and despite the fact that, as many of you know, this is far from the most cheesy cleric melee build.

For the group I play with, 4E's balance, which was never a concern for us anyway, is vastly outweighed by the removal of the cornacopia of interesting options in 3.5, options which allow us to express on paper who and what our character is, rather than having to abstract qualities that no longer have game mechanic equivalents in 4E. Whether you're a good roleplayer or not, it can only help to have the character on your sheet more closely match the one your trying to roleplay.

Though one of us did buy the books and we may try it out, it is obvious we'll be sticking with 3.5 for the foreseeable future.

[Indon]

Thrum, I think this is more a thing with the style of your group's games, rather than the overall structure of either 3'rd of 4'th editions.

My group never encountered the 'unbalanced' aspects of 3.x, at all, in any way, during the course of our play. We used things like Natural Spell and Frenzied Berserking and they never became a problem (Nor were we ever particularly high-powered as a group: We played characters like multiclass rogue/ranger/scouts and blaster sorcerors with shape spell). Neither did my group before that (despite having a quite blatant munchkin) - the thing I'd seen last used to break a game was AD&D Psionics.

[SamTheCleric]

Choosing NOT to use the broken combos does not equal roleplaying. That's a player decision or a group decision at your game... that doesn't mean that you're roleplaying...

To roleplay it... hmm

You could be a wizard that has all of the "batman" spells in his spellbook, but chooses not to use them, knowing they are the most common spells in the wizarding world, hoping to be different.

Or maybe he chooses not to use them even though he has access to them out of fear of their power.

That would be roleplaying decisions, which are not in any facilitated better in either 3e or 4e. You are not being "punished" for roleplaying.

[Thrud]

Religious person: God exists.
Philosopher: I'm not sure YOU exist.
Theologist: That's all right, so long as God thinks we exist.
Gygax: Shut up and roll initiative!

Hehehe

:smallbiggrin:


Thrud. Do not take this as an attack, but I have come to the conclusion, from reading your post, that you do not know how to roleplay. Now, is there any part of you that finds that sentence even a little bit confrontational?

Yes, that is, but since I never said that in any way shape or form in my thread, I was NOT confrontational. Once again, my post did not say that people who like 4ed cannot roleplay. Not even slightly. My post said that people who like 4ed the most (once again, in broadly sweeping generalizations) will be the ones who have been mostly badly burned by having bad powergamers in their groups. And that those of us who don't suffer from that problem will not like/understand the need for 4ed. That is why I made a single statement at the beginning and asked everyone to actually read the whole post before jumping to conclusions about its content.


What if I were to add that if your fundamental belief is that you need the option to create overpowered characters in order to feel that you are "roleplaying" then you are, at heart, a powergamer?

And this comes to the heart of the disconnect I was talking about because, as another poster put in their thread, whenever we talk about the whole concept of the batman wizard, etc, in my games the players just look at me blankly wondering why the hell anyone would want to do that.


Saying "don't take this as an attack" before attacking somebody doesn't stop it being, in fact, an attack.

Once again I would ask you to actually read my post, and not jump to conclusions. If anything, most of my post was an attack on powergamers in 3ed. If that is not you, then there is no need to be defensive.


Your argument is that "not doing things your characters are perfectly capable of doing, and have a legitimate in-character reason to do, in order to preserve game balance" is somehow "good roleplaying". It isn't, it's just compensating for the inadequacy of the system.

Then I would suggest that you never play the Hero system, or any of the WW games, shadowrun, or a myriad of other RPGs out there that use the same method of compensating. The fact remains that if you can play well with others, the 4ed structure is just not necessary. Does that mean that you won't like 4ed? Absolutely not. You can have fun playing any RPG, no matter how badly designed it is. It is all about attitude when you play it. But if every time you play a game, all you can do is look for the flaws to exploit, then maybe you need 4ed's structure.


I, as a roleplayer, as somebody who does, in fact, know how to roleplay, find that it damages my suspension of disbelief when I have to wilfully restrain my in-character capabilities in order to preserve game balance.

And I don't. Thus back to the fundamental disconnect I was talking about. The heart of the difference between MOST (please notice, once again sweeping generalization) of the people in the 2 groups.


This does not mean that I always want to use every single resource available to me for maximum in-character benefit. I played a BESM character once who sank all of her points into the ability to transform into a 250 foot wide flock of birds which could destroy everything in her path, but she never used it because she'd been raised to believe that the use of such powers was evil. The point is I want to make decisions like "do I prepare Finger of Death today" or "do I teleport into this building" for reasons of character. If I'm playing a necromancer, I damned well want to take Finger of Death because dude, necromancer. If I am then placed in a position where I need to kill somebody, I will use it, and if that makes an anticlimax out of an otherwise exciting fight scene I will be pissed off, because I was being put in the situation of having to wreck the scene, or wreck my character. Taking the "game preserving" option here is not "good roleplaying" it is an unnecessary compromise.

Never said finger of death was a bad spell. It isn't. Great spell. I have no problem with anyone trying to use it. If you kill the bad guy with it, that is great. It is in that place up to the DM to keep the stoy interesting and moving onwards. Maybe that wasn't actually the real big bad guy. maybe he had a contingency spell ready that whisked his dead body away to be rezed by a minion. There are endless possibilities there, and for them not to happen is now a failure of the DM, not the game system.


The reason I like 4th Edition is because there are no direct, system mandated ways to just shortcut things - at least until quite high level. That doesn't mean players can't shortcut things if they don't want to, just that they have to come up with an actual plan, instead of using a power that straight out mandates it.

Fine, if that is good for you then go for it. I also never said there was anything bad about playing 4ed other than it takes away versatility. Obviously you have had many bad experiences that are a combination of bad DMing and powergamers in the group. That sucks, and I have come across it at cons before so I know how you feel. And I agree entirely that 4ed is great creating a level field for all the players. At the expense of versatility.


Not really. The only thing that stops a person from min/maxing when they are out of hand is the DM.

True. I should have said that at the beginning, and your point is well taken. It is a combination of good DMing and RPing. Thank you for pointing that out.


But in the end, after all my experience with D&D, the one thing I learned is that it is ok for anyone to play D&D the way want. It doesn't make anyone a bad person if they want to powergame or optimize or whatever. The game is different to different people.

Also very true. I am not trying to make value judgements. Just find the core of the arguments on either side.



So, can you explain why 4E punishes those that roleplay, and 3E "puts it under control"? I don't get it. Please, explain why. I didn't see an explaination other than a one-sided view on how 3E and 4E works.

Umm, actually I didn't say that. I said the only thing that puts 3ed under control is roleplaying. And I said that 4ed has less versatility, because they needed to simplify everything in order to prevent powergaming. I never made value statements here. I never said one was better than the other. I just said why one was necessary in some cases. If all you saw was a one sided view of how 3ed and 4ed works, then you should actually read the post again. I was trying to get at the core of the disagreement behind people who like 3ed and people who like 4ed. I was trying to get one step removed from the 'my game is better than your game' arguments by finding out why there is such a disconnect between the groups.

Unfortunately all anyone ever seemed to see was an argument against 4ed which I didn't want to make. Hopefully my answers in this post have cleared up some misconceptions.


I would agree with most of it. I, too, have informed my group of such things as the Batman Wizard, only to have them (especially the guy who's been playing since 1e) look at me like I'm a raving lunatic. One of them even said it straight out, "Why would you want to do that?". Ditto when I informed them of CoDzilla, though that one was a little easier for them to understand. They still give me evil glares when I want to play a Warpriest, despite the fact that we've never lost a party member (that wouldn't have died anyway) due to my lack of healing, and despite the fact that, as many of you know, this is far from the most cheesy cleric melee build.

Thank you, I was beginning to feel like I was the only one out there who never had the sorts of problems that so many people assume have to happen in 3ed. I knew there were more out there, but it is gratifying to hear from someone anyway. I paraphrased your response up above, because it kinda highlights some conversations I too have had with my players.


My group never encountered the 'unbalanced' aspects of 3.x, at all, in any way, during the course of our play. We used things like Natural Spell and Frenzied Berserking and they never became a problem (Nor were we ever particularly high-powered as a group: We played characters like multiclass rogue/ranger/scouts and blaster sorcerors with shape spell). Neither did my group before that (despite having a quite blatant munchkin) - the thing I'd seen last used to break a game was AD&D Psionics.

Heh, yeah, AD&D psionics was just a bad idea. But it is good to hear from another person with the same experience.


Choosing NOT to use the broken combos does not equal roleplaying. That's a player decision or a group decision at your game... that doesn't mean that you're roleplaying...

To roleplay it... hmm

You could be a wizard that has all of the "batman" spells in his spellbook, but chooses not to use them, knowing they are the most common spells in the wizarding world, hoping to be different.

Or maybe he chooses not to use them even though he has access to them out of fear of their power.

That would be roleplaying decisions, which are not in any facilitated better in either 3e or 4e. You are not being "punished" for roleplaying.

I actually kinda covered this in an earlier point by point response, but I will put it here again. In a game of D&D any experienced player, is, in effect, omniscient. You know the ins and outs of every rule in the game. YOu know all about the monsters, how to beat them, what their secrets are. And if you do some work you can create optimum character builds. But the fact remains that your character is NOT omniscient, and DOESN'T know everything, or all about all the world's prestige classes. Nor does he know about every spell in existence, or what the best ones will be. They have to just muddle along in their poor limited existences. So as a player you have to do the hardest thing that D&D calls upon anyone to do, and keep Player knowledge separate from Character knowledge. So whilst it is certainly possible to work out an optimum build for a character, why would you start jumping from prestige class to prestige class IF YOU DON'T KNOW THEY EXIST IN THE FIRST PLACE. The simple fact of the matter is that characters are never even going to know about most prestige classes, let alone know they can become one. And this is where the DM has to step in. The specialized abilities that prestige classes provide should not be able to just appear out of thin air. A character has to have some reason to want to go looking for those sorts of powers, like having seen someone use them. Or at the very least have read about some hero who could do such things.

So as I said in an earlier post, if you see an NPC acting a certain way, and realized that you wish you could emulate that, then that is great. But if you just decide out of the blue to have some kind of power that you have never even heard of before, then that is bad RPing and bad DMing to allow it.

Once again, the check and balance here is RPing (and Dming, thank you Tormsskull)

[SamTheCleric]

So as I said in an earlier post, if you see an NPC acting a certain way, and realized that you wish you could emulate that, then that is great. But if you just decide out of the blue to have some kind of power that you have never even heard of before, then that is bad RPing and bad DMing to allow it.

Once again, the check and balance here is RPing (and Dming, thank you Tormsskull)

This does not mean that 3e facilitates or punishes RP at all, it just means that you, as a player/DM play the game a certain way. 4e is no different and is not punishing you for roleplaying.

[Thrud]

This does not mean that 3e facilitates or punishes RP at all, it just means that you, as a player/DM play the game a certain way. 4e is no different and is not punishing you for roleplaying.

Once again, my post didn't say that 4ed hindered RPing or that 3ed facilitated it. I said that 3ed had more versatility which COULD facilitate rping. The gist of my argument was that good RPing is what keeps a 3ed game playable. And that the reason that 4ed was a good idea to so many was that it punished those who were BAD RPers by taking away all their shiny min/maxing toys.

That is why I have repeatedly said that my comments are not an attack on anyone. They are trying to get to the core reasons behind the disagreement.

O.K. must go to work now.

[SamTheCleric]

Once again, my post didn't say that 4ed hindered RPing or that 3ed facilitated it. I said that 3ed had more versatility which COULD facilitate rping. The gist of my argument was that good RPing is what keeps a 3ed game playable. And that the reason that 4ed was a good idea to so many was that it punished those who were BAD RPers by taking away all their shiny min/maxing toys.

Here's what you said in the original post and why I take issue with this thread.


4ed punishes those of us who are good roleplayers, and panders to those who don't know how to roleplay.

Even if you say "don't take this as an attack" that doesn't make it right. Neither third nor fourth edition hinders role playing in any way. 4e may hinder certain mechanical choices and 3e may limit too many things within the constraints of rules... but neither "punishes good roleplayers"

[Dan_Hemmens]

Yes, that is, but since I never said that in any way shape or form in my thread, I was NOT confrontational. Once again, my post did not say that people who like 4ed cannot roleplay. Not even slightly. My post said that people who like 4ed the most (once again, in broadly sweeping generalizations) will be the ones who have been mostly badly burned by having bad powergamers in their groups. And that those of us who don't suffer from that problem will not like/understand the need for 4ed. That is why I made a single statement at the beginning and asked everyone to actually read the whole post before jumping to conclusions about its content.

You said: "4ed punishes those of us who are good roleplayers, and panders to those who don't know how to roleplay."

Since I do not feel punished by 4E, and since I feel that 4E "panders" to my needs, this strongly implies that, by your reckoning, I am not a good roleplayer, and don't know how to roleplay.


And this comes to the heart of the disconnect I was talking about because, as another poster put in their thread, whenever we talk about the whole concept of the batman wizard, etc, in my games the players just look at me blankly wondering why the hell anyone would want to do that.

Whereas my groups look at the concept of the batman wizard etc and say "yeah, Wizards do kind of work like that, that's why we don't play D&D".


Once again I would ask you to actually read my post, and not jump to conclusions. If anything, most of my post was an attack on powergamers in 3ed. If that is not you, then there is no need to be defensive.

Your post characterized those of us who don't like 3.X as people who either don't know how to roleplay, or as people whose groups consist primarily of people who don't know how to roleplay. You're either insulting me, or all of my friends.


Then I would suggest that you never play the Hero system, or any of the WW games, shadowrun, or a myriad of other RPGs out there that use the same method of compensating. The fact remains that if you can play well with others, the 4ed structure is just not necessary. Does that mean that you won't like 4ed? Absolutely not. You can have fun playing any RPG, no matter how badly designed it is. It is all about attitude when you play it. But if every time you play a game, all you can do is look for the flaws to exploit, then maybe you need 4ed's structure.

No, other games do not use that method of compensating. Hero I can't comment on, but I *thought* it had a 4E-style "everything is basically mechanically identical" system going on. Vampire and most other WW games use "the PCs are basically specks of dirt" (except Exalted which uses "everybody is awesome") and Shadowrun uses the fact that no matter how good you get you aren't bulletproof.

Also, most of the games you describe are classless, skills-based game systems, they're a completely different animal to the class-and-level based D&D. They use rule systems which are simulation focused, general rather than specific, and by default subject to GM interpretation. Further, they do not at any point contain the assumption that people are going to be facing "challenges" they don't assume that the PCs are a party of "adventurers" going out and facing down increasingly powerful monsters and gaining wealth and power by so doing.


And I don't. Thus back to the fundamental disconnect I was talking about. The heart of the difference between MOST (please notice, once again sweeping generalization) of the people in the 2 groups.

It is what you, incorrectly, perceive to be the heart of the difference between most of the people in the two groups. Like a few days ago you seemed to believe that the only people who were pro-4E were under 25.


Never said finger of death was a bad spell. It isn't. Great spell. I have no problem with anyone trying to use it. If you kill the bad guy with it, that is great. It is in that place up to the DM to keep the stoy interesting and moving onwards. Maybe that wasn't actually the real big bad guy. maybe he had a contingency spell ready that whisked his dead body away to be rezed by a minion. There are endless possibilities there, and for them not to happen is now a failure of the DM, not the game system.

Endless possibilities there may well be, but I find it interesting that the two you pick up on are basically "railroad the players back into the plot".

I have no problem with my players being able to insta-kill NPCs. In most games I run they can do it by means of a little thing called a "gun". What I object to is a system which specifically includes an abstract mechanism to protect powerful characters from dying as the result of (say) single sword-thrusts or arrow shots, but then allows magic to circumvent that.


Fine, if that is good for you then go for it. I also never said there was anything bad about playing 4ed other than it takes away versatility. Obviously you have had many bad experiences that are a combination of bad DMing and powergamers in the group. That sucks, and I have come across it at cons before so I know how you feel. And I agree entirely that 4ed is great creating a level field for all the players. At the expense of versatility.

Again, you insult me and everybody I have ever played in an RPG with, as well as anybody else who happens to think that the flaws in 3.X are actually flaws in the game, not in their personal ability to roleplay.

I do not want to play a game which requires me to get into an arms race with my players. I do not want to have to worry about whether my villain is sufficiently protected against Death effects, or how to stop the players Teleporting directly into his stronghold. I am not interested in playing a game in which that kind of bland, flavourless utility magic is trivially accessible. I do not need a better group, I need a better game. Fortunately there are approximately five hundred and thirty better games out there, and those are the ones I tend to play (although I usually go homebrew for fantasy).

[Prophaniti]

Your post characterized those of us who don't like 3.X as people who either don't know how to roleplay, or as people whose groups consist primarily of people who don't know how to roleplay. You're either insulting me, or all of my friends.
*snip*
Again, you insult me and everybody I have ever played in an RPG with, as well as anybody else who happens to think that the flaws in 3.X are actually flaws in the game, not in their personal ability to roleplay.
You should probably take a step back here and calm down. He's gone out of his way to present his personal perceptions and opinions as politely as possible. He hasn't made any personal attacks and has prefaced (and addendum-ed) nearly everything with a 'this is my opinion, not to be taken as an all-encompassing truth' statement. I really don't think he deserves your rancor, regardless of how very much you obviously disagree with him.

[Dan_Hemmens]

You should probably take a step back here and calm down. He's gone out of his way to present his personal perceptions and opinions as politely as possible. He hasn't made any personal attacks and has prefaced (and addendum-ed) nearly everything with a 'this is my opinion, not to be taken as an all-encompassing truth' statement. I really don't think he deserves your rancor, regardless of how very much you obviously disagree with him.

The point is that saying "this isn't an attack" doesn't stop something being an attack and the moment you start using phrases like "don't know how to roleplay" in a discussion about roleplaying games you are attacking people.

There's a reason that the Code of Conduct for this forum counts "mea culpa" infractions ("I know this sounds like a flame, but..." or "I would tell you what I think of you but...") as worse than regular infractions. If you're going to say something offensive, you can't make it less offensive by saying "I don't want to offend anybody". In fact, it arguably makes it worse, because it implies that his "observations" about how 4E "punishes good roleplayers" are somehow grounded in empirical truth.

I'm not actually personally wounded, people insult me on the internet all the time, but I think it's important to acknowledge things like this for the insults they are, intentional or otherwise.

[Tormsskull]

The point is that saying "this isn't an attack" doesn't stop something being an attack and the moment you start using phrases like "don't know how to roleplay" in a discussion about roleplaying games you are attacking people.


I second Prophaniti. You seem to be throwing yourself in front of the bus so that you can complain about getting hit by the bus.

If you think Thrud's post breaks the forum rules, report his post.

[Dan_Hemmens]

I second Prophaniti. You seem to be throwing yourself in front of the bus so that you can complain about getting hit by the bus.

If you think Thrud's post breaks the forum rules, report his post.

I don't think it breaks the forum rules, because it insults a style of play, which is perfectly legitimate in an internet discussion about playstyles (it's not against Forum rules to say that railroading is bad).

Thrud's statement that 4E "punishes good roleplayers and panders to people who do not know how to roleplay" is insulting to people who like the system. It carries the direct implication that if you feel your style of roleplaying is better supported by 4E than 3.X then you do not know how to roleplay.

If I were to say "D&D, in all its incarnations, is a game which appeals primarily to idiots" people would naturally be insulted by that, despite the fact that the phrase "D&D appeals primarily to idiots" in no way implies that any individual D&D player is an idiot, or even that liking D&D is a sign of idiocy.

You can't assert a strong correlation between two phenomena (like liking 4E and not knowing how to roleplay) and then say "but it's okay, because I didn't say that they were necessarily causally related".

[nagora]

If I were to say "D&D, in all its incarnations, is a game which appeals primarily to idiots" people would naturally be insulted by that, despite the fact that the phrase "D&D appeals primarily to idiots" in no way implies that any individual D&D player is an idiot, or even that liking D&D is a sign of idiocy.
I think the correct response would be "no, it isn't" rather than "are you calling me an idiot?". Unless, of course, you thought that the comment was in fact aimed at you but was being hidden behind a veneer of generalisation. In that case you should give 'em a punch on the nose.:smallfurious:

[Dan_Hemmens]

I think the correct response would be "no, it isn't" rather than "are you calling me an idiot?". Unless, of course, you thought that the comment was in fact aimed at you but was being hidden behind a veneer of generalisation. In that case you should give 'em a punch on the nose.:smallfurious:

But if you say "no it's not" I play the "opinions" card. "That's just my opinion, I think D&D appeals to idiots. I think it's designed to appeal to idiots. I think most people who play D&D are idiots. I think D&D is an idiot system for idiots" this is not an attack on D&D or its players.

Something doesn't have to be personal to be insulting.

[Indon]

Heh, yeah, AD&D psionics was just a bad idea. But it is good to hear from another person with the same experience.

Well, that's just it - it's not the same experience. It led to similar results, but that's a result of my group's style.

[Prophaniti]

Ok, well, I'm not gonna argue that. Whether you find something insulting can often be a matter of opinion, too, so...

Serious question though. How does your style of roleplaying require a system with such absolute combat balance, even though it sacrifices mechanical versatility for it? Not a dig at you, I really want to know. I've always found that the closer I can get the info on my sheet to match the character he's supposed to be, the easier it is to roleplay them. Of course I could still do it with only a name and a description, but if I'm gonna do that why do I need a system in the first place? How combat-heavy are your campaigns that customization options with tangible in-game effects are less important that balance on the battle-grid?

This is the basic issue I have with 4E, and the main thing I don't really get about the really vocal pro 4E crowd.

[Dan_Hemmens]

Ok, well, I'm not gonna argue that. Whether you find something insulting can often be a matter of opinion, too, so...

Serious question though. How does your style of roleplaying require a system with such absolute combat balance, even though it sacrifices mechanical versatility for it? Not a dig at you, I really want to know. I've always found that the closer I can get the info on my sheet to match the character he's supposed to be, the easier it is to roleplay them. Of course I could still do it with only a name and a description, but if I'm gonna do that why do I need a system in the first place? How combat-heavy are your campaigns that customization options with tangible in-game effects are less important that balance on the battle-grid?

This is the basic issue I have with 4E, and the main thing I don't really get about the really vocal pro 4E crowd.

There's really two parts to this answer (and I'm going to bed soon, so I might only get to answer one of them). Why I like the idea of balance between the classes, and why I don't mind a loss of mechanical versatility.

Basically I don't mind a loss of mechanical versatility because I play a lot of different systems. If I can't stat up a particular character in 4E, then I'll just assume that it isn't a decent 4E character, and I'll pick something else instead. I'm not relying on D&D to be my only way to play these characters, so I don't mind if I can't play them in D&D. Plus I think that the strength of a class-based system is that it presents you with clear, easily identifiable character archetypes.

Put simply, if I'm playing D&D, I basically want to play a Fighter, a Thief, a Mage or a Cleric (not necessarily those exact classes - I'm totally into the Warlock in the new edition). I'm not going to come to a D&D game and say "well I'd like to play the son of a noble house, a bit of a swordsman, but dabbles in magic." I'll save those sorts of concepts for skills-based games.

That's why I never got on with 3.X. Sure, it was more flexible than D&D used to be, but still nowhere near as flexible as a skills based (or better still, Trait based) system would be. But the flexibility made the archetypes less clear and less viable. An off-the-peg Fighter is just plain less good than an off-the-peg Wizard. Sure I could customize the hell out of my fighter, I could give him a widget of teleportation and a mcguffin of fireballs to make him more tactically flexible, and I could give him a dip into a ToB class to make him more effective, but that's not what I want from a class-based system. What I want from a class-based system is to be able to look at the straight-up classes in the core book and say "yup, I want to play one of those" and have the character work alongside another character created by another player who did roughly the same thing.

The utility of being able to customize your PC doesn't get me anything, because if I have a character concept that doesn't immediately fit what's in front of me, I'll save it for a more suitable game. Balance, on the other hand, is important to my enjoyment of the game. I don't want to find that my Longsword-and-shield fighter is getting out-damaged by the theif, out-maneuvered by the Ranger, and out-everythinged by the wizard. I'll feel like dead weight.

To put it another way, as both a player and as a GM, I want a class-based system to play out of the box. I want to pick a race and a class and a couple of abilities and just get going. I don't want to have to worry about my build, or how best to represent whatever concept with whichever combination of classes. As a DM I certainly don't want to have to worry about making sure that my villains are sufficiently resistant to the appropriate types of magic. I just want to pick the game up and play it.

That make any sense?

[Gralamin]

After a brief hiatus from the forums, I have returned.

Woo hoo, an actual reasoned argument!

:smallbiggrin:
:smallbiggrin:


Actually, I like to think of it as a way to attempt to preemptively stop flames. There is a lot or nerdy emotion tied up here (yep, we're all nerds arguing passionately about an effing RPG), so I am just trying to tone it down a bit right at the beginning.
Fair enough.


Fair enough, but I would like to point out that this actually helps the argument about how 3ed allowed greater leeway for RPing, as this is now something that you cannot do in 4ed. But on the whole I have always felt that D&D is about a team working against the bad guy/monster/thing. And this seems to be born out by the fact that 4ed goes in the team over all direction for character building. If everyone wants to play a power-hungry meglomaniac bent on world destruction, it gets pretty old as players never actually accomplis anything because they fight against each other all the time. These are kinda fun in beer and pretzel games, but not for long serious campaigns. But the fact remains that that is a viable option in 3ed, and not in 4ed, where the team is everything. Which means that right there you have pointed out an instance where there is more RPing potential in 3ed than 4ed.
Not quite. You are still the scariest guys about (in the core setting), and very few people can stop you. If you want to play as an evil megalomaniac you still can in 4E, you just don't need to spend the hours making your character strong enough to. You can still.


No, versatility equals versatility.
Versatility is the key to power in 3.X. Versatility is more apparent in the spellcasting section of the 3.X then any other section. Spellcasting is also the most powerful.


I am perfectly able to make totally unhelpful class decisions that do not in any way increase my power. I CAN make decisions that increase my abilities dramatically, but I don't have to.
Yes, but as soon as you take even a single level in a spellcasting class, you can now use staffs and wands without a problem. You can now use scrolls as long as you meet the prerequisites. You have gained a huge amount of power. If however you go into say... Fighter, your not increasing your versatility at all. You gain an extra feat, a few extra hit points, and +1 BAB. That doesn't make you very much more versatile now does it?


I had a player who ended a game as a ftr2, sor2, thief2, bard4. Are you going to tell me that that is in any way an optomized build? But it was right for the storyline, and the way the character was RPed. Crap as a PC, but excellent for RPing.
You can build a character as a mechanically good build with the same RP. Fluff is malleable. Suggesting you have to take classes based on a few of your abilities is a rather poor way to make a character. As for how optimized the above is? Not very, but that is because it isn't all that versatile. It would be completely fine if it used huge amounts of wands and staffs, but otherwise the class choices of limited the amount of abilities it has, not increased them.


Once again this is where I think the fundamental disconnect I was talking about comes in. Just because I mentioned the versatility of multiclassing, you immediately jump to picking optimum builds.

Perhaps there is a disconnect here. We may need to work on seeing from each others perspective to eliminate it.


Possibly, but I have also arranged games (in a beer and pretzel way) where everyone was evil and fought against each other, whilst being forced to work together, somewhat. Again, that is not really possible in 4ed. But they were great fun as one off or short run campaigns.
I fail to see how this is not possible in 4ed, unless by beer and pretzel way you mean "over the top". You can do this, it may just take some time to homebrew it.


This in turn should not be construed as an attack. (:smallbiggrin: heh, we do that a lot. Can we just assume from now on that we are two guys who like to argue a lot and stop being so afraid of stepping on toes.)
I will choice to follow your assumption :smallbiggrin:


You may not be a powergamer, but when you look at rules you immediately seem to be able to immediately see how they could be used to burn the campaign and thus shy away from the idea. As I kinda pointed out above in my non-optimum build argument.
Yes, I shy away from the idea because of the way I think. That doesn't mean I will make a badly made character (such as the ftr2/sorc2/rogue2/bard4 you talked about). I may very well take the overpowered path to the same thing, but not necessarily use its full power.


Thus you at some level are always worried about how you have to make a character who can 'compete' to be a part of the campaign. And thus you like the fact that in 4ed you don't have to worry about it. Once again, disconnect. The potential for misuse has never worried me.
I actually haven't worried all that much about that. One of my favorite characters was an Archivist. Could of been totally broken, and had everything he needed to be broken, but never used it. What does this show? I naturally came up with a solution: Make a powerful character, but do not use its full power unless its necessary to compete. Because I choose to act like this, no-one I've played with blinks an eye when I bring a build that could be really overpowered to the table.


But once again this is not a true comparison. Because you as a player may well know everything about the gaming system, and where the flaws are. But your character does not. Just because the potential is there, does not mean that anyone in the world must necessarily know how to do it. This is the essence of the hardest aspect of roleplaying, player vs character knowledge separation. Every player of D&D who has a lot of experience with the game is in effect an omniscient being. Characters are not. And that is oftentimes the hardest thing to keep in mind.

A very interesting point, one I have not thought of. However, I can also know that if my character has say 19 intelligence, that he would naturally attempt to find the most efficient manner to achieve his goals. If the DM does not say a spell is banned, that means any wizard can pick it up when they level, which suggests from an in-character perspective that it is not that difficult to acquire that spell. So, for my character not to take it suggests that I, as a player, am choosing to ignore some internal consistency to make the game better. Thus Metagaming.


Saying that versatility is there in the game system, and then saying you will have to homebrew it, is not a valid argument. You are in essence saying that the system is too simple, and you need to add complexity to it. Thus proving my point about versatility. The fact is that 3ed is TOO versatile, and you have to homebrew it to take out some of the versatility thus the games have opposite problems. But the fact remains that 3ed is more versatile than 4ed to begin with, which you just proved.

I see you didn't really understand what I meant, so I will try again. I choose to homebrew in items that appear outside of core in 3.X, or are missing in 4E core. Since these items do not exist, I have to add them in. However, 4E has a large amount of material already inside it, much of which 3.X core does not have.

If I was to compare the two systems as a whole, as they are now, it would not really be a fair comparison.


Yes, and this is the very best part of 4ed. The interactions of powers are very interesting, and make for detailed combats, I am sure. But that is the very least important part of my game. I really couldn't care less about the combat. We rarely even use pieces or a gaming mat. But almost the entirety of the new game focuses on how you move your piece around on the battlefield. Something that my players and I rarely even do.

Perhaps that is true for your group. However you may want to look at or steal skill challenges, as they are a better way of doing say... negotiations then how 3.X worked. Instead of either a) Ignoring the entirety of the diplomacy skill, or b) changing how it works for your campaign, the 3.x diplomacy skill would completely negate the need for it. Skill challenges are one thing you could do that would give the skill some use, without having to worry about its exact mechanical effect.


Exactly my point. There you are doing exactly what I said a good player should do. You are thinking of what is right for the character. However, this brings us back to the core problem of player knowledge vs character knowledge.
I am choosing one path that my character can take that gives a tangible benefit while following the same fluff. I could instead go into bard, and refluff some of the abilities so they are more of a commander flavor.


Have you ever come accross a marshal? Do you actually know anything about how to command troops? If you had been playing in the game, came accross a marshall directing troops, and spent time at his side learning, then took a level of marshall, then great. But if you just turn to the DM and say 'I want a level of Marshall because I want to command troops well' then that is bad. Because it had nothing to do with roleplaying the situation.
If however I turn to the DM and say: "I want to take a level of marshal, but reflavor it so that my character seems to have an aura of charisma. He would of gained this ability because of the situations he has been in. This is better then what you are suggesting, as It leaves me as a mechanically good character in most cases, and lets me gain abilities based on how I roleplay. Fluff is malleable.


Yep, and that would be good roleplaying, and make perfect sense. Once again I didn't say that you can't roleplay in 4ed. You can. And taking the powers as you said there is excellent roleplaying.
An interesting way of looking at it. However, If I looked at the options and frankly all the options that undead weren't immune to sucked for whatever reason, then I see no problem with asking the DM If we can change the damage type of a few powers. It has the same solution while being mechanically viable.


And you don't have to keep player knowledge vs char knowledge separate, because there is less complexity to the game. That is easier to roleplay.
Except if I was say a ranger, and took cascade of blades. Any player knows that without anything to make it weaker, it is frankly overpowered. However that is just the same as being a wizard and picking up celerity, or timestop, or even craft contingent spell in 3.X. If the DM does not say its not allowed, then it is assumed to be learn-able, which means I as a player have to step in and choose not to take it.


Nope, I said if you are a powergamer you won't like 4ed because you can't powergame any more. And if you have been burned by being in a party with powergamers who hogged all the fun to themselves you will love 4ed, because they can't do that any more. Only if you have never been burned by powergamers will you not like/ see the need for/ 4ed.
Need? The need is the overcomplexity. 4ed should be seen as a different product then 3.X, just as 2ed is seen as a different product then 3.X. If the game is to complex, then a new edition is a simple way of changing everything. 4E is good for somethings, 2E is good for somethings, 3.X is good for others. Roleplaying is not one of these things.


Hopefully I have ironed out the misunderstandings. If not, I'll give it another try later. After all, I am here to have an argument.

:smallbiggrin:
I still do not see how it panders to those who do not know how to roleplay. It more or less panders to those who do not know how to metagame properly.

[Prophaniti]

Makes sense, mostly. I have always enjoyed skills-based systems more. Problem is, everyone I play with plays 3.5, and I've had a hard time getting them to break out of it. In the past 4-5 years (god, that long?) the systems we've played have been: D&D 3.5, D20 Modern, and Dark Heresy, the last only since a few months after it came out (obviously). So, yeah, hard to try a skills based system with them, not least because none of us have easy access to the rule books for any of them.

So, basically what your saying is that when you pick up a D&D campaign, you prefer to play archetypes, rather than more unique characters? I get that, where sometimes I just want to play a straight up, perfectly predictable Barbarian or something. It'd really bug me if I felt like the system was forcing me to play an achetype, though. Which is why, for me, even if I did play primarily GURPS or something like it, I think I'd still prefer 3.5 to 4e. I like to have the options, even if once in a while I don't take them.

[Jerthanis]

So, basically what your saying is that when you pick up a D&D campaign, you prefer to play archetypes, rather than more unique characters? I get that, where sometimes I just want to play a straight up, perfectly predictable Barbarian or something. It'd really bug me if I felt like the system was forcing me to play an achetype, though. Which is why, for me, even if I did play primarily GURPS or something like it, I think I'd still prefer 3.5 to 4e. I like to have the options, even if once in a while I don't take them.

Saying that someone who prefers to play archetypes as opposed to unique characters in a game set up to model archetypal characters seems like a false dichotomy to me, and a rather odd one at that. Archetype doesn't in any way imply the character isn't unique. Your mother is an archetype, yet she's a unique individual. Similarly, a knight in shining armor is an archetype, yet Lancelot is very different from Galahad. Similarly, my 4th edition fighter is very different from the 3rd edition fighter I played a couple years back, even though they are both straight-classed fighters using the same weapons... and I'm not talking about their abilities in combat when I say they are very different.

If you want options and an organic, character-modeling based creation system, why are you defending a system that actively punishes you for doing so? Because that's what 3rd edition does to careless multiclassers and those who choose the class that suits them best over what's actually mechanically effective. Meanwhile, it rewards those who care nothing for their character's concept and motivation to scramble around choosing the best options for individual character power. The sole arbitrator being the DM when it comes to this sort of thing. A DM who has just as much power in 4th edition.

I'm sorry, I lost track of why this thread was about how much better roleplaying is in 3rd edition.

[Hyooz]

This whole discussion just reeks of the Stormwind Fallacy, and believe you me, I hate bringing that up, because I hate it when other people bring it up, but here... it just fits.

See, 3.x and 4e both provide the exact same options for roleplaying in that no where does it dictate how to play a character. Nowhere in either PHB will you see "Wizards must be snarky and jerks," or "When you kill a humanoid, make a will save to not break down into a depressed stupor." Sure, you'll see occasional blurbs about "How to play a Dragonfire Adept" but those are all only ideas. Suggestions.

All 3.x and 4e provide are mechanics. If you feel limited by either of them, you're the one who is lacking in roleplaying ability. The fact that its harder to make powerful builds in 4e doesn't mean that it's harder to role play.

Choosing not to use power that exists is not roleplaying. Purposefully building an underpowered character is not roleplaying. That's all metagaming. Your character, unless a very unique case, will want to be as powerful as he can be, to live and function in the world, to be all he can be. Why wouldn't Wizard A want to be the versatile Batman type? Why wouldn't he want to be a great and powerful wizard?

Roleplaying isn't the what's. It's not what your character can and can't do. It's why he does or does not do those things. Neither edition dictates the 'whys' any more or less than any other.

[Serpentine]

Thrud, shall I rephrase what I think you were trying to say?

Hardcore Pun-Pun building powergamers aside, people in this issue can, I think, be more or less divided into the following:
People who come up with a character concept and figure out how to make it, regardless of effectiveness.
People who come up with a character concept and figure out how to make it as effective as possible.

There is nothing really wrong with either of these. In a system in which there is a vast power difference between "optimally optimised" and "subpar construction" (i.e. 3.5), different characters can vary substantially in contribution, especially if a group is a mixture of the two types of people above. Thus, for the second group of people, a system in which the range of power levels is mechanically limited is neccessary/desirable to keep different characters within a similar power level. Thrud and I and probably many other people have only come across the former lot of people. In this case, suboptimal builds may be the norm, and uber-combinations more likely to be incidental. For us, the idea of Pun-Pun or CoDzilla or Batman Wizard is... not even ridiculous, it just wouldn't come up. For us, 4e is if anything merely confining, and the internal potential for abuse in 3.5 isn't an issue.

[Thrud]

Not quite. You are still the scariest guys about (in the core setting), and very few people can stop you. If you want to play as an evil megalomaniac you still can in 4E, you just don't need to spend the hours making your character strong enough to. You can still.

Except that you can't really do it alone in 4ed. You need a whole party to be effective. (Oh god, I can't belive I am about to make the following statement since I LOATHE this type of player, but this is an exercise in logic, and not actually reality, so here we go. . .) In 3ed it is possible to make those stand alone loner types. (You know, the player who wants to be a misunderstood, loner type who travels around and does good deeds. Thus fullfilling the eternal teen angst cry of 'I want to be different, just like everyone else'. :smallbiggrin:) I hate that character. But I don't really see him working in a 4ed environment. And for those of you who seem to be fixated on the fact that you believe that I am saying 3ed is better at RPing than 4ed, I think that is a TERRIBLE example of RPing. But it is possible. Ugh. I can't belive I went there. I feel dirty now.



Versatility is the key to power in 3.X. Versatility is more apparent in the spellcasting section of the 3.X then any other section. Spellcasting is also the most powerful.

Yep, probably. It is also the easiest to fix. And this is how I have done it since all the way back in AD&D times. If you go with the concept that not every wizard knows everything about magic, then most of the spells that characters learn are going to be things that they have either read about or had used against them. Either way they have to figure it out for themselves. If you assume that the enemy's spellbooks are pretty much out of reach (one of the few things I actually agree with from the batman wizard concept. Spellbooks should either explode, or teleport to safety, or something else similar, when anyone other than the owner opens them) 3ed had the best technique I saw for that. You get to learn 2 spells per level. I took away the ability to copy scrolls into spell books all the way back in ad&d times. And just like that wizards are not gods, because they don't have access to every spell ever put down on paper by WotC.


Yes, but as soon as you take even a single level in a spellcasting class, you can now use staffs and wands without a problem. You can now use scrolls as long as you meet the prerequisites. You have gained a huge amount of power. If however you go into say... Fighter, your not increasing your versatility at all. You gain an extra feat, a few extra hit points, and +1 BAB. That doesn't make you very much more versatile now does it?

This is a possibility. But again, something that I frown upon. First of all in most of my games, the ability to cast spells is an inborn gift. If you don't have it, you will never be able to learn it. I didn't actually put that in to limit spellcasters, it has to do with the background of my world. Still, it is possible for someone to put into their background that they have the 'gift' and didn't train it, so never became a wizard. So once again, I have to look at this as part of the non-separation of player vs character knowledge. Even if you take away the restrictions I have placed in my world, and anyone can pick up a level of wizard at any time, I have to ask what possible roleplaying reason would the character have? 'Because I can then use all wizard items' is not a roleplaying reason. It is a rules based reason. It is certainly possible to come up with a good roleplaying reason for it to happen, but if you are doing it just so you can get the added power of using all those items, then you are really powergaming, and not playing with the intent of the game. Because I do not believe that the intent of the game is to let eveyone minmax their way to being gods. If you follow the intent, then it is pretty simple to play the game as an epic heroic fantasy that is an interactive tale told between players and DM, not a way for the players to 1up the DM.


You can build a character as a mechanically good build with the same RP. Fluff is malleable. Suggesting you have to take classes based on a few of your abilities is a rather poor way to make a character. As for how optimized the above is? Not very, but that is because it isn't all that versatile. It would be completely fine if it used huge amounts of wands and staffs, but otherwise the class choices of limited the amount of abilities it has, not increased them.

And that is kinda my point. It didn't matter that the character wasn't versatile, he was one of the most influential characters in the game because of good roleplaying. And the reason he was so good was because of the skills he was able to take through all these class changes.

Hmm, as I am typing this I think I just figured out why I dislike the 4ed skill system as much as I do. Sorry, this is a bit of an aside, but it just occurred to me. In my games I use skills as an aid to roleplaying, because they give concrete guidelines that can separate player knowledge from character knowledge. Just because I have worked at a little blacksmithing, and shoed a few horses, doesn't mean that a character I play will know anything about it. But it also doesn't mean that he won't. And the way to define that deliniation is with skills. But you can't do that any more. In 4ed every player knows something about everything. And that makes it much harder to separate player knowledge from character knowledge. Huh. That actually does mean that it is harder to RP in 4ed than it was in 3ed, something I hadn't actually felt before this. Hmm, I have to ponder that a little more, maybe I will go back to the idea later.


Perhaps there is a disconnect here. We may need to work on seeing from each others perspective to eliminate it.

Yeah, it is tricky. Because I honestly have never thought that way about D&D rules. I have never looked for the holes in the rules.


I fail to see how this is not possible in 4ed, unless by beer and pretzel way you mean "over the top". You can do this, it may just take some time to homebrew it.

Yeah, but it would take a lot of homebrewing. What if the party wants to get to some treasure that they are unable to get to alone, but they also don't want to share. And they are all evil. That is a concept that really doesn't work with the team build mentality in 4ed where everyone works as cogs in a wheel. I think it would take a lot of homebrewing. And once again this seems to support my argument about lack of versatility built into core 4ed, because it is something that you can do very easily in core 3ed.


I will choice to follow your assumption :smallbiggrin:
So you put down your sword and I will put down my rock, and we can kill each other like civilized people? Heh, may be about time to put a Princess Bride quote into my sig.


Yes, I shy away from the idea because of the way I think. That doesn't mean I will make a badly made character (such as the ftr2/sorc2/rogue2/bard4 you talked about). I may very well take the overpowered path to the same thing, but not necessarily use its full power.

And that is probably due to differences in DMing style. If your DM doesn't reward anything other than combat efficiency, then you kinda have to have that to fall back on. Thank you Tormsskull for pointing that out to me.


I actually haven't worried all that much about that. One of my favorite characters was an Archivist. Could of been totally broken, and had everything he needed to be broken, but never used it. What does this show? I naturally came up with a solution: Make a powerful character, but do not use its full power unless its necessary to compete. Because I choose to act like this, no-one I've played with blinks an eye when I bring a build that could be really overpowered to the table.

Which I think proves my point. If everyone behaves themselves, then it doesn't matter if there are holes that can be exploited. I think that supports my argument about 3ed having to rely on RPing as the check and balance, instead of enforcing it through restrictive rules.


A very interesting point, one I have not thought of. However, I can also know that if my character has say 19 intelligence, that he would naturally attempt to find the most efficient manner to achieve his goals. If the DM does not say a spell is banned, that means any wizard can pick it up when they level, which suggests from an in-character perspective that it is not that difficult to acquire that spell. So, for my character not to take it suggests that I, as a player, am choosing to ignore some internal consistency to make the game better. Thus Metagaming.

But again I have to ask WHY would a wizard pick up a given spell without some reason to? There are plenty of people in this world who are very very smart. That does not mean that when they apply their intelligence to their chosen field that they know everything about it. Even if you are the foremost expert in something, there are going to be gaps in your knowledge. And a first level character is more a high school graduate than a world renowned expert. And now he no longer has a school to go to, and has to learn everything on his own. If you really think about it, that should limit his options a hell of a lot.


I see you didn't really understand what I meant, so I will try again. I choose to homebrew in items that appear outside of core in 3.X, or are missing in 4E core. Since these items do not exist, I have to add them in. However, 4E has a large amount of material already inside it, much of which 3.X core does not have.

O.K. I see what you are driving at. But simply from the space taken up by magic items and powers, even allowing for the 4ed lack of spells, there is much less room in the PHB in 4ed than there was in 3ed. Thus it seems pretty unlikely that there are actually many things in 4ed that are not in 3ed. This is why I tend to think 4ed has less versatility than 3ed. And as I just was able to figure out in my mind with my skills analysis, every time you take away a mechanic and put control of it into the hands of the player, the separation of player vs character becomes harder to sustain.


If I was to compare the two systems as a whole, as they are now, it would not really be a fair comparison.

This I fully agree with. Comparing 4ed to the entirety of 3ed if a totally unfair comparison. But I don't use much of 3ed beyond PHB, DMG, MM, and every now and then stuff from the class volumes (I play 3.0, so I am talking sword and fist, etc). I don't really like expansions to core rules all that much. I think they are pretty much universally asking for trouble.


Perhaps that is true for your group. However you may want to look at or steal skill challenges, as they are a better way of doing say... negotiations then how 3.X worked. Instead of either a) Ignoring the entirety of the diplomacy skill, or b) changing how it works for your campaign, the 3.x diplomacy skill would completely negate the need for it. Skill challenges are one thing you could do that would give the skill some use, without having to worry about its exact mechanical effect.

Actually I play a lot of WoD games, so I have long had something similar to the skill challenge in my games. This is because I love skill based games, and I have the most fun with them. This is why I liked 3ed so much. It was the first skill based D&D game. In WoD games you have a given set of skills that can define your character, and whenever you are having a problem trying to figure out whether or not your character can know or do something, it is easy to figure out because you have the skill right there, giving you an basis from which to work. And when you make your skill roll, you have an idea of how much on this particular aspect of the skill your character knows.

Example from last weeks game. Players are investigating a murder in the Duke's household for the Duke, because due to events in the previous weeks game, they are the only ones the Duke can absolutely trust not to be involved. So, they investigate the body. Fighter looks at the weapon left with the body, and asks if he recognizes it. He is a weaponsmith, makes his roll, succeeds at a DC 20 check, and realizes that it is a type of dagger used by a barbarian tribe far to the north (a member of which, a big gruff chieftan, is currently visiting). He then asks if he recognizes the workmanship at all. He fails his DC20 check, so he doesn't realize a key fact, that it was not actually made by those people. Then the cleric steps up and asks to examine the body. After a heal check of DC25, he realizes that the weapon here is not exactly the same as the weapon that caused the injuries. Wizard steps up asks about any magical residue left, finds a faint hint of illusion magic lingering by using detect magic and a spellcraft check(success). Fighter asks if there is anything else unusual about knife, and I ask him to make a blacksmith roll, and he realizes that the metals in the knife are really weird, not in the correct ratios at all(success). Chieftan is a very prickly sort, and has many a time made threats that might be construed as intending to harm others. Bard makes a check on sense motive(success) to realize that most of this is bluster, and makes a bardic knowledge check (success) to realize that this is expected behaviour for chieftans in his tribe. At which point they realize that the whole thing is pretty hinky. Because of this feeling I tell the Fighter that he might have missed something, and that the party as a whole doesn't feel like the barbarian chieftan did this. End of skill challenge. It is not exact, as I give a little more guidance on what skills should be used, but I had it set in my mind that it was going to take a minimum of 6 success on appropriate skills to figure out the frame up. Then there is another skill challenge set up for them to figure out that the chieftan is there to broker an agreement to allow the duke to mine for the diamonds that have just been found on the land. Then another set to find out that the neighboring dukedom has found out about it at the same time, and wants to take the diamonds for themselves. So, not exactly the same, but pretty close.


I am choosing one path that my character can take that gives a tangible benefit while following the same fluff. I could instead go into bard, and refluff some of the abilities so they are more of a commander flavor.

Yes, you could. The system is very versatile that way.

:smallbiggrin:


If however I turn to the DM and say: "I want to take a level of marshal, but reflavor it so that my character seems to have an aura of charisma. He would of gained this ability because of the situations he has been in. This is better then what you are suggesting, as It leaves me as a mechanically good character in most cases, and lets me gain abilities based on how I roleplay. Fluff is malleable.

Yep, and I probably would have a problem with it in that situation. Once again, good roleplaying is the key.


An interesting way of looking at it. However, If I looked at the options and frankly all the options that undead weren't immune to sucked for whatever reason, then I see no problem with asking the DM If we can change the damage type of a few powers. It has the same solution while being mechanically viable.

Yep, once again, I agree entirely. I never wonder about consequences of changes to classes and such if the players are RPing responsibly.


Except if I was say a ranger, and took cascade of blades. Any player knows that without anything to make it weaker, it is frankly overpowered. However that is just the same as being a wizard and picking up celerity, or timestop, or even craft contingent spell in 3.X. If the DM does not say its not allowed, then it is assumed to be learn-able, which means I as a player have to step in and choose not to take it.

But if an ability is overpowered in that fasion, I also won't use it against the party. And thus they will never learn of its existence. And thus never learn it, because of the separation of character and player knowledge.


Need? The need is the overcomplexity. 4ed should be seen as a different product then 3.X, just as 2ed is seen as a different product then 3.X. If the game is to complex, then a new edition is a simple way of changing everything. 4E is good for somethings, 2E is good for somethings, 3.X is good for others. Roleplaying is not one of these things.

Yeah, 4ed and 3ed are both good for RPing. 3ed requires greater RPing than 4ed in order to keep it running.


I still do not see how it panders to those who do not know how to roleplay. It more or less panders to those who do not know how to metagame properly.

It panders to them in the sense that if there weren't bad RPers out there, it wouldn't be necessary. I think I understand now where your confusion is. It was my bad way of making the original statement. 4ed is a direct response to crappy rping in 3ed. I have never tried to make a value judgement between ability to RP in one game or the other, until I had my minor epiphany about one of the elements that annoyed me with 4ed. My point has always been that the argument was always backwards that 4ed hindered roleplaying. It should be that 3ed requires greater RPing. There, is that a better way to put it? One of the problems with typing is that things seem so clear in your head, then when you type them out you can't fully explain yourself.

Hopefully I did a better job this time.

Phew. And now off to bed.

[Thrud]

Thrud, shall I rephrase what I think you were trying to say?

Hardcore Pun-Pun building powergamers aside, people in this issue can, I think, be more or less divided into the following:
People who come up with a character concept and figure out how to make it, regardless of effectiveness.
People who come up with a character concept and figure out how to make it as effective as possible.

There is nothing really wrong with either of these. In a system in which there is a vast power difference between "optimally optimised" and "subpar construction" (i.e. 3.5), different characters can vary substantially in contribution, especially if a group is a mixture of the two types of people above. Thus, for the second group of people, a system in which the range of power levels is mechanically limited is neccessary/desirable to keep different characters within a similar power level. Thrud and I and probably many other people have only come across the former lot of people. In this case, suboptimal builds may be the norm, and uber-combinations more likely to be incidental. For us, the idea of Pun-Pun or CoDzilla or Batman Wizard is... not even ridiculous, it just wouldn't come up. For us, 4e is if anything merely confining, and the internal potential for abuse in 3.5 isn't an issue.

Yeah, what she said. And, err, watch out for those ants. Hate those little buggers. Giant termites, on the other hand. Quite tasty.

:smallbiggrin:

Ahem, and to Hyooz and Dan_Hemmens I didn't ignore you. Sorry, I meant to put this into the previous post. Check out the very end of my discussion with Gralamin. Hopefully that will clarify what I have been trying to say all along. Very badly, apparently. Because I still reiterate, no attack in intended. I am doing my best not to make value judgements here, but rather get to the core of the difference of opinion.

[Dan_Hemmens]

Makes sense, mostly. I have always enjoyed skills-based systems more. Problem is, everyone I play with plays 3.5, and I've had a hard time getting them to break out of it. In the past 4-5 years (god, that long?) the systems we've played have been: D&D 3.5, D20 Modern, and Dark Heresy, the last only since a few months after it came out (obviously). So, yeah, hard to try a skills based system with them, not least because none of us have easy access to the rule books for any of them.

In which case I can see why you prefer 3.X. 'Round my way we have a large roleplaying community, and people will play pretty much anything.


So, basically what your saying is that when you pick up a D&D campaign, you prefer to play archetypes, rather than more unique characters? I get that, where sometimes I just want to play a straight up, perfectly predictable Barbarian or something. It'd really bug me if I felt like the system was forcing me to play an achetype, though. Which is why, for me, even if I did play primarily GURPS or something like it, I think I'd still prefer 3.5 to 4e. I like to have the options, even if once in a while I don't take them.

As Jerthanis points out, I'd shy away from the phrase "rather than more unique characters". Han Solo is pure archetype that doesn't stop him being a unique character.

Basically I would rather have a small number of well supported options than a large number of badly supported options. It's very easy to create a character in 3.X who is unplayably bad (take one level of each of the PHB classes, for example) or who is catastrophically powerful, simply by making the wrong character building choices. In 4E the choices are all much much closer to each other.

Incidentally, another point I failed to address earlier: you asked "how much combat is there in your games that you'd willingly trade versatility for balance on the battle grid". The thing is it's not actually combat power that bugs me, it's out of combat power (although I do feel, aesthetically, that it's annoying for other classes to fight better than the Fighter). It's little things, like the Ranger's ability to hunt for food being rendered obsolete by the Cleric's ability to Create Food and Water.

One of the things I like about 4E is that, outside combat, class doesn't actually mean that much, so whether your character can disarm traps or forage for berries or cast rituals is up to you, not up to your Class.

[tumble check]

Basically I don't mind a loss of mechanical versatility because I play a lot of different systems. If I can't stat up a particular character in 4E, then I'll just assume that it isn't a decent 4E character, and I'll pick something else instead. I'm not relying on D&D to be my only way to play these characters, so I don't mind if I can't play them in D&D. Plus I think that the strength of a class-based system is that it presents you with clear, easily identifiable character archetypes.

Put simply, if I'm playing D&D, I basically want to play a Fighter, a Thief, a Mage or a Cleric (not necessarily those exact classes - I'm totally into the Warlock in the new edition). I'm not going to come to a D&D game and say "well I'd like to play the son of a noble house, a bit of a swordsman, but dabbles in magic." I'll save those sorts of concepts for skills-based games.

That's why I never got on with 3.X. Sure, it was more flexible than D&D used to be, but still nowhere near as flexible as a skills based (or better still, Trait based) system would be. But the flexibility made the archetypes less clear and less viable. An off-the-peg Fighter is just plain less good than an off-the-peg Wizard. Sure I could customize the hell out of my fighter, I could give him a widget of teleportation and a mcguffin of fireballs to make him more tactically flexible, and I could give him a dip into a ToB class to make him more effective, but that's not what I want from a class-based system. What I want from a class-based system is to be able to look at the straight-up classes in the core book and say "yup, I want to play one of those" and have the character work alongside another character created by another player who did roughly the same thing.

The utility of being able to customize your PC doesn't get me anything, because if I have a character concept that doesn't immediately fit what's in front of me, I'll save it for a more suitable game. Balance, on the other hand, is important to my enjoyment of the game. I don't want to find that my Longsword-and-shield fighter is getting out-damaged by the theif, out-maneuvered by the Ranger, and out-everythinged by the wizard. I'll feel like dead weight.

To put it another way, as both a player and as a GM, I want a class-based system to play out of the box. I want to pick a race and a class and a couple of abilities and just get going. I don't want to have to worry about my build, or how best to represent whatever concept with whichever combination of classes. As a DM I certainly don't want to have to worry about making sure that my villains are sufficiently resistant to the appropriate types of magic. I just want to pick the game up and play it.

That make any sense?



Finally, Dan, I understand where you're coming from. I wish you had put so explicitly these thoughts before I read your posts in countless threads, although I realize no one had asked you until now.

I get it. You feel that it's OK if one of your lovers(3.5e) isn't able to do that position anymore, because you have a bunch of other lovers that can satisfy you. (Pardon this awful metaphor.)

But what about us monogamists?

I'm not in college anymore, I don't have much time on my hands. I work a full time job, and even then, I don't have nearly enough time to do all the crap I wanna do each day.

So, not only do I not want to spend time learning a bunch of new RPGs that may scratch my creative itch, but I also don't need to tell you how much money I would need to spend to do that.

I'm certainly more than a casual RPGamer, but I'm not completely hardcore. I didn't start playing when I was 10. I've never played anything else than D&D. And luckily for me, 3.5e satisfied me completely (a few crappy rules aside) as someone who wanted enough freedom to create some really creative characters, but also enough of the traditional archetypes and whatnot to support the game's mechanics.

If you indeed like 4e for the fact that it ushers D&D back to its structured archetypal existence, then that fact is most certainly something on which we can agree.

But I hate archetypes. The 3.5e classes that were not carried-over into 4e were the ones I played the most. And when I did play a fighter/cleric/rogue/wizard, I made them as unorthodox as possible. I love character customization, and hate rigid archetypes, and that's why I dislike the direction of 4e.

However, at the end of this, I don't think you can use the statement "Well if you don't like 4e then go play 3.5e or some other RPG that's more to your liking" as a simple rebuttal. D&D shouldn't have to be one of the many RPGs on my shelf that may, from time to time, provide a certain visceral satiation. D&D 4e should have been yet another evolutionary step in its ability to satisfy everyone holding the dice, however they wish to play, or whoever they wish to be.

And for the record to everyone who has mentioned it so far, I do not consider "RPing" a solution to all the slashing of character options that 4e has undergone.

[Dan_Hemmens]

Finally, Dan, I understand where you're coming from. I wish you had put so explicitly these thoughts before I read your posts in countless threads, although I realize no one had asked you until now.

I get it. You feel that it's OK if one of your lovers(3.5e) isn't able to do that position anymore, because you have a bunch of other lovers that can satisfy you. (Pardon this awful metaphor.)

But what about us monogamists?

At the risk of stretching the metaphor too far, you can do one of two things. You can stick with your wife. Sure, she's just lost her job, so she won't be getting any new pretty dresses for a while, but she's still the woman you married, and she's got plenty of friends who are willing to help her out, and her elder sisters did fine.

Alternatively, you can try to go out and meet somebody else.


I'm not in college anymore, I don't have much time on my hands. I work a full time job, and even then, I don't have nearly enough time to do all the crap I wanna do each day.

So, not only do I not want to spend time learning a bunch of new RPGs that may scratch my creative itch, but I also don't need to tell you how much money I would need to spend to do that.

I can see that. Ironically, that's pretty much why I never got into 3.X: I already had plenty of RPGs, and didn't want to spent time learning a new system (particularly not one with so much *stuff* in it - I'd been introduced to Over the Edge by that point) and I certainly didn't want to lay out £20 a pop for a game which (inexplicably) required three hardcover books to run.


I'm certainly more than a casual RPGamer, but I'm not completely hardcore. I didn't start playing when I was 10. I've never played anything else than D&D. And luckily for me, 3.5e satisfied me completely (a few crappy rules aside) as someone who wanted enough freedom to create some really creative characters, but also enough of the traditional archetypes and whatnot to support the game's mechanics.

If you indeed like 4e for the fact that it ushers D&D back to its structured archetypal existence, then that fact is most certainly something on which we can agree.

Cool, much as I like a good old internet headbanging, it's nice to actually see where people are coming from occasionally.

[quite]But I hate archetypes. The 3.5e classes that were not carried-over into 4e were the ones I played the most. And when I did play a fighter/cleric/rogue/wizard, I made them as unorthodox as possible. I love character customization, and hate rigid archetypes, and that's why I dislike the direction of 4e.[/quote]

That's fair.

[quite]However, at the end of this, I don't think you can use the statement "Well if you don't like 4e then go play 3.5e or some other RPG that's more to your liking" as a simple rebuttal. D&D shouldn't have to be one of the many RPGs on my shelf that may, from time to time, provide a certain visceral satiation. D&D 4e should have been yet another evolutionary step in its ability to satisfy everyone holding the dice, however they wish to play, or whoever they wish to be.[/quote]

Thing is, it's never going to be that, and if it tries to be it's going to wind up just annoying everybody. The thing is, D&D 3.X was about as flexible as a class-based system can get, the only way to make it more flexible would be to ditch classes and possibly even Levels, and once you've done that you've basically transformed "D&D" into "Just another Fantasy RPG".

I'd also point out that the "evolution" from 2nd Edition to 3.X already effectively alienated a lot of people - the new system with its emphasis on character customization and rules for every darn possibility sounded to a lot of old-schoolers like a min-maxer's paradise. That, in fact, is the problem with the phrase "evolution". People assume it means "getting better" when it actually just means "getting more able to succeed".


And for the record to everyone who has mentioned it so far, I do not consider "RPing" a solution to all the slashing of character options that 4e has undergone.

That's fair, I think it depends on what you think's missing and what you're claiming about it. Several people have claimed, for example, that they don't like the Bard being taken out because they liked the idea of playing "somebody who adventured and did horribly dangerous things because of the sheer sense of wonder" (or something similar). That, of course, you can play in any RPG you care to name.

[Starsinger]

Except that you can't really do it alone in 4ed. You need a whole party to be effective. (Oh god, I can't belive I am about to make the following statement since I LOATHE this type of player, but this is an exercise in logic, and not actually reality, so here we go. . .) In 3ed it is possible to make those stand alone loner types. (You know, the player who wants to be a misunderstood, loner type who travels around and does good deeds. Thus fullfilling the eternal teen angst cry of 'I want to be different, just like everyone else'. :smallbiggrin:) I hate that character. But I don't really see him working in a 4ed environment. And for those of you who seem to be fixated on the fact that you believe that I am saying 3ed is better at RPing than 4ed, I think that is a TERRIBLE example of RPing. But it is possible. Ugh. I can't belive I went there. I feel dirty now.

Not exactly related to RPing, although it is sort of, but this flies directly in the face of people who state that 4e characters are super heroes compared to 3.5 since in 4e it is hard if not impossible to be a solo beast against the world. Which makes sense, if you're going out into the wilderness to fight monsters, you want to work with the people traveling with you, as opposed to being a loner with them which doesn't make sense from an RP perspective anyways. If your character is the lone wolf, why are you in a party?

But I suppose the answer is your lone wolf who's a member of the team uses good role playing, which you can't do in fourth anyways :smalltongue:

So in response to the death of the Lone Wolf in the Party type you mentioned, I say good! That character type had no business in a role playing game based on adventuring as a group anyways.

[tumble check]

Thing is, it's never going to be that, and if it tries to be it's going to wind up just annoying everybody. The thing is, D&D 3.X was about as flexible as a class-based system can get, the only way to make it more flexible would be to ditch classes and possibly even Levels, and once you've done that you've basically transformed "D&D" into "Just another Fantasy RPG".



I definitely understand what you mean.


However, another huge issue is how WotC marketed 4e as an improvement to the crappy rules of 3.5. (To me, as based off of what they leaked to the public, was the elimination of full attacks, balancing the classes, all "saves" becoming like AC, etc). However, the word "improvement" to me represents something that is based on its predecessor. Windows 98, for example, was an improvement of Windows 95.

To be honest, I wish WotC instead had said this: "Look guys, we think that D&D3.5e tried to be too many things at once. We think that the roots from which D&D had originally sprung have been watered down and spread too thin. We are making a new edition of D&D that will be partially based on 3.5e, but we are taking D&D back to its roots. 4e will be a big change, but we think it's what's best for the franchise. We hope you like it."

If they had originally said that, I would be fine with 4e. My expectations would have been different. I would have mentally prepared myself to stick with 3.5e, and perhaps work a little harder to fix its own problems. Instead, I ate WotC's drivel as 4e being the fix to 3.5, and it's not. It's a fine game, but it's in a different direction.

I'm whining at this point, but I hope you see what I mean, and how it indeed does tie in a little to what you said above.

[Tormsskull]

I would have mentally prepared myself to stick with 3.5e, and perhaps work a little harder to fix its own problems.

Which is exactly why they didn't do what you wished for.

[Hyooz]

It panders to them in the sense that if there weren't bad RPers out there, it wouldn't be necessary. I think I understand now where your confusion is. It was my bad way of making the original statement. 4ed is a direct response to crappy rping in 3ed. I have never tried to make a value judgement between ability to RP in one game or the other, until I had my minor epiphany about one of the elements that annoyed me with 4ed. My point has always been that the argument was always backwards that 4ed hindered roleplaying. It should be that 3ed requires greater RPing. There, is that a better way to put it? One of the problems with typing is that things seem so clear in your head, then when you type them out you can't fully explain yourself.

Hopefully I did a better job this time.

Phew. And now off to bed.

4e is a direct response to 3.x splat books only pushing the power creep forward faster and faster, and a general desire to revamp the system to make the mechanics more accessible to the general populace, as well as balancing out the classes and giving more melee-focused types more options.

It is in NO way a response to bad roleplaying.

Your entire argument is basically the Stormwind Fallacy word for word. You say 3.x requires greater roleplaying because power levels can be higher. But, you don't seem to realize that choosing not to be overpowered is not roleplaying. Making a Rogue2/Sorceror2/Bard3/PsiWar2 does not make you a good roleplayer. You could be a good roleplayer and make something like that, but it just shows that you don't really understand the system.

If anything, the absurd levels of power in 3.x hinder roleplay versatility, because someone who wants to make a straight fighter (for roleplay reasons) is going to be put-off of playing that character by the fact that he simply won't be able to participate as well as if he had rolled up a wizard. This guy can take either the fighter or the wizard and make an engaging, deep character out of them, but he's going to lean toward the wizard because the fighter just is less fun to play.

Suddenly, in 4e, the classes are more balanced. This guy can play the fighter he's had in mind, and be an active, important part of the combat as well. Crazy, in'nit?

Your whole idea that ignoring power = roleplay is, quite frankly, silly. A cleric of X deity would JUMP on the power offered by Divine Metamagic given half the chance, because more power for him means he can more ably further his god's will, and be a more impressive avatar.

NOT choosing power is, usually, a meta-play decision. You dont' want to be too overpowered compared to the other players, so you tone it down. Sometimes you'll come up with a roleplay reason your character is avoiding such power, and that's fine and dandy. But saying that having more power to ignore = requires better roleplaying is, quite frankly, untrue.

Neither edition lends itself more to roleplaying.

No system of mechanics can possibly effect roleplaying one way or the other. (Unless, of course, said mechanics specifically dictate character actions i.e. A will save built into the mechanics to prevent your character from breaking down into tears, weeping over the hobgoblins you've just slain.)

[Kletian999]

Not exactly related to RPing, although it is sort of, but this flies directly in the face of people who state that 4e characters are super heroes compared to 3.5 since in 4e it is hard if not impossible to be a solo beast against the world. Which makes sense, if you're going out into the wilderness to fight monsters, you want to work with the people traveling with you, as opposed to being a loner with them which doesn't make sense from an RP perspective anyways. If your character is the lone wolf, why are you in a party?

But I suppose the answer is your lone wolf who's a member of the team uses good role playing, which you can't do in fourth anyways :smalltongue:

So in response to the death of the Lone Wolf in the Party type you mentioned, I say good! That character type had no business in a role playing game based on adventuring as a group anyways.


Defenders and Leader roles have decent soloing capability, if the DM agrees to your request he can balance encounters to let the lone wolf do his thing in battle. If the lone wolf is "just" a personality trait then have him make brief gruff remarks during conversations and volunteer to step away from the party often for foraging or staying up for night watch. It's still possible if it really means that much to you.

[Thrawn183]

Hey, Dan, what is Han Solo's archetyp? I'm curious, I've never been able to peg him into just one.

Anyways, I gotta agree with Dan about the whole insult in disguise thing. I could easily say, "With all due respect, I think your writing is pathetic." Clearly that would not be true, you put effort into making your argument proceed in a logical fashion where one point facilitates the next. More importantly, it would also be exactly the same thing as saying that I'm a bad roleplayer because I think 4e is better than 3rd (see what I did there?)

As for the actually guts of the discussion: I have found that the players of full casters are generally not as good at roleplaying as the other players in my 3.5 games. I don't know if this is because they have to spend so much time going over spell lists and trying to decide which spells to use and when to use them or if its just my group.

I definitely think there might be an element where the player of the fighter roleplays just because he has nothing else he can do. Unfortunately I have also found that this roleplaying usually doesn't affect the story very much and they could have probably just role played with themselves in the corner.

The only person I, personally, know against 4e played a caster so broken it made me quit DM'ing. His rationale for why 3rd isn't broken? Because you don't have to optimize to the point of breaking the game. Wow, what irony. Hopefully you'll excuse me for taking a dump on the whole idea that its a DM's responsibility to balance the game. It should come that way (Oops, I did it again, probably going to have to find a munchkin to wipe off my hands).

Edit: Actually, Hyooz responded better than I ever could have. Nice Hyooz.

[Talya]

on the OP:

Really good post, and I think 100% correct on all fronts.

[nagora]

Hey, Dan, what is Han Solo's archetyp? I'm curious, I've never been able to peg him into just one.
Oh, come on! "Dashing Rogue!"

[cybosage]

4e is a direct response to 3.x splat books only pushing the power creep forward faster and faster, and a general desire to revamp the system to make the mechanics more accessible to the general populace, as well as balancing out the classes and giving more melee-focused types more options.

It is in NO way a response to bad roleplaying.

Your entire argument is basically the Stormwind Fallacy word for word. You say 3.x requires greater roleplaying because power levels can be higher. But, you don't seem to realize that choosing not to be overpowered is not roleplaying. Making a Rogue2/Sorceror2/Bard3/PsiWar2 does not make you a good roleplayer. You could be a good roleplayer and make something like that, but it just shows that you don't really understand the system.

If anything, the absurd levels of power in 3.x hinder roleplay versatility, because someone who wants to make a straight fighter (for roleplay reasons) is going to be put-off of playing that character by the fact that he simply won't be able to participate as well as if he had rolled up a wizard. This guy can take either the fighter or the wizard and make an engaging, deep character out of them, but he's going to lean toward the wizard because the fighter just is less fun to play.

Suddenly, in 4e, the classes are more balanced. This guy can play the fighter he's had in mind, and be an active, important part of the combat as well. Crazy, in'nit?

Your whole idea that ignoring power = roleplay is, quite frankly, silly. A cleric of X deity would JUMP on the power offered by Divine Metamagic given half the chance, because more power for him means he can more ably further his god's will, and be a more impressive avatar.

NOT choosing power is, usually, a meta-play decision. You dont' want to be too overpowered compared to the other players, so you tone it down. Sometimes you'll come up with a roleplay reason your character is avoiding such power, and that's fine and dandy. But saying that having more power to ignore = requires better roleplaying is, quite frankly, untrue.

Neither edition lends itself more to roleplaying.

No system of mechanics can possibly effect roleplaying one way or the other. (Unless, of course, said mechanics specifically dictate character actions i.e. A will save built into the mechanics to prevent your character from breaking down into tears, weeping over the hobgoblins you've just slain.)

As they say in France;

Booyah.

Exactly.

[Indon]

Your entire argument is basically the Stormwind Fallacy word for word.
Or, not. Powergaming for more powerful characters would not break the game if everyone did it, it would just increase the power level of the game. So you could roleplay, powergame, and not break the game at the same time.


You could be a good roleplayer and make something like that, but it just shows that you don't really understand the system.
Or maybe that your characters aren't all superrational homo economicus interested only in accruing more adventuring powers?


If anything, the absurd levels of power in 3.x hinder roleplay versatility, because someone who wants to make a straight fighter (for roleplay reasons) is going to be put-off of playing that character by the fact that he simply won't be able to participate as well as if he had rolled up a wizard.
What about the system makes the Fighter less interesting to play? Only the party can do that, by selecting classes of such a higher power level that they trivialize the Fighter's role.


Your whole idea that ignoring power = roleplay is, quite frankly, silly.
Why not? Not all characters are supernaturally aware of all possible options that have ever been developed as a part of their profession. Why would a Cleric who has never seen a Nightstick even know they exist?


NOT choosing power is, usually, a meta-play decision.
No. Human beings do not function that way. We are not optimized. People have pride, fear, outright hatred, and many other things all contributing to them not taking the best, logical path at any given time. It is in no way better roleplaying to always select the best option for something unless you're roleplaying a psychologically aberrant individual (which, for some classes, would arguably make sense more often than not).


No system of mechanics can possibly effect roleplaying one way or the other.
Then what distinguishes a roleplaying game from a non-roleplaying game?

I don't actually agree with the OP, but that doesn't make your arguments good.

[Tormsskull]

The aforementioned fallacy (which I refuse to call by that name because the 'creator' is a huge dbag) is silly. It is used to reinforce 1 type of playstyle, namely "Just because I try to accrue the most character power possible does not mean I do not know how to roleplay".

I've argued this a million times. Unless you define roleplaying radically different than what it was in Basic D&D, 1e, 2e, etc, there will ALWAYS (aside from pure hack n slash campaigns) be situations that will present themselves that come down to a choice of gaining more character power versus playing your role as you have defined it.

When that critical decision comes up, there will always be some players who prefer to take the character power over portraying their role. To them character power > than their character's role.

And that is completely fine. But to people who proscribe to the character role > character power, they are going to think that the players who take the character power are not roleplaying correctly. And under their way of playing, they are right.




No. Human beings do not function that way. We are not optimized. People have pride, fear, outright hatred, and many other things all contributing to them not taking the best, logical path at any given time. It is in no way better roleplaying to always select the best option for something unless you're roleplaying a psychologically aberrant individual (which, for some classes, would arguably make sense more often than not).


Very good paragraph.

[Aahz]

I think that it makes good sense for WotC to focus primarily on balancing combat at the expense of more roleplaying-oriented stuff like skills and utility powers, because a) combat is the bulk of D&D play and b) roleplaying-oriented abilities are much easier for a DM to balance on his/her own (and frequently have to be balanced anyway).

As a DM, I would like to be reasonably sure that the combat system will hold up, and when I throw a certain combat challenge at the players that it won't be much too easy or much too hard. Furthermore, combat actually CAN be balanced (for the most part) since it's somewhat deterministic and math-based. For the most part in combat, actions and outcomes are pretty easily resolvable using a rulebook (always deferring to DM's judgment, of course).

On the other hand, how can WotC be expected to balance problem solving and roleplaying challenges? That's just a different side of the game, and one where the DM is going to have to exercise more judgment. It's certainly not less important than combat, but it's one that by nature has to rely on the people involved instead of the rules involved. It's quite likely that when solving some problem or puzzle that players will do something very unexpected which the rules simply don't (and shouldn't be expected to) cover.

I'm happy if D&D 4e makes it easy for players to be useful, have fun, and do interesting things during the combat phases of a session, and gives some basic framework (skills, utility spells, etc) for the DM to resolve problem and puzzle solving out of combat.

[PnP Fan]

And it is that those of us who dislike 4ed have it backwards. 4ed punishes those of us who are good roleplayers, and panders to those who don't know how to roleplay.

You've set up a Us vs. Them mentality, and then identified Us as "good roleplayers". You follow by asserting that 4ed "panders" to "bad roleplayers". Is it a direct attack against me? No. Does it imply that those who like 4th ed don't know how to roleplay? Yes, because a system that "panders" to "bad roleplayers" must be enjoyed by "bad roleplayers".


Now before anyone bites my head off, that is not an attack.
Too late. . .


I am not saying that if you like 4th ed you don't know how to roleplay. Before anyone tries to accuse me of that, please read the rest of my post.

But. . . you kinda are. Or at least you're not helping your point with some poor wording up front. If that's all it is, I think we can all accept that, and forgive. But don't keep insisting that you're not attacking, when you sure sound like it.
Okay, on to the rest of the post. . .



So, here is the fundamental disconnect that appears to be happening. There was one simple thing in 3ed that prevented people from min/maxing and destroying game balance. It was called roleplaying. And THAT is why those of us who dislike 4th ed say that it inhibits roleplaying. It is because in order to play 3rd ed without it devolving into a group of power mad gamers all trying to grab the largest piece of the game world for themselves the group needed to be able to roleplay.

In some sense that has been true of every game ever published. Roleplaying *can*(but not by *necessity*) prohibits powergaming. As has been said before, and referenced in that Stormwind Fallacy thing, there is no *necessary* relationship between Roleplaying and Powergaming. After all, if I'm playing a powerhungry nutjob with the desire to take over the world, I'm well within my "concept" to take the best spells/abilities etc. . . Though, I have to admit, in my own personal *annecdotal* experience, there seems to be an inverse *correlation* between Powergaming and Roleplaying. But the two are *not necessarily* a function of one another.



In 4th ed you no longer need roleplaying as a balance, at the expense of losing much of the versatility that those of us who could roleplay enjoyed. I hear over and over again about how unbalanced games were in 3rd ed because of the wizard, and spells, etc, etc, etc. And I have continually stated that that has never been the case in one of my games.

I'm glad for you, I really am. No sarcasm, I've played with powergamers, and it can be a real pain to balance encounters for a group with some powergamers and some non-powergamers (*all* of them decent or good roleplayers, btw.)



To which people have stated to me that my player are obviously not playing the wizard correctly.

Um. .. I would say the predominant opinion (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong) is that you play your character however you darn well please, but there is a particularly effective use of the wizard that can amplify the tactical aspect of the game. I've never read anyone say "your playing it wrong" without receiving a horde of responses about play style and things like BADWRONGFUN. (except in jest occasionally). If your experience is otherwise, I'm sorry.



And that point right there is where the problem lies. Because that is how a powergamer thinks. If that is your fundamental belief, then at your heart you are a powergamer, and you need the structure that 4ed provides. My players have never felt that way. And when I talk to them about online discussions I have had they are simply confused.

Sure, people who are interested in the tactical aspect of the game tend to look at the math, and the probability. Heck, I'm not really a powergamer (but I am an engineer/math geek) and I tend to look at that stuff too. But once again, I give good thought to my roleplaying as well. I think what you are seeing is not so much that you have "good roleplayers" (though you probably do. . ), so much as you have players that aren't that interested in the tactical aspects of the game. Nothing wrong with that.
Also, are your players confused because they don't understand the mechanic, or because they don't get why anyone would play that way. I've known a few gamers who are terrible at math, and they just don't understand why some things don't work. They generally don't powergame because they can't distinguish good options from bad, but they're still fun to play with. Not picking on your group, I'm just curious if that's the case or not.



Perhaps it is because we also play a lot of White Wolf games, and a lot of Champions (storyteller and hero system respectively). Both of those games have holes in them that you could drive a truck though. But rather than grab a crowbar to shove into every crack in the rules and lever them wide open, we ignore them and keep on playing.

Again, what you are describing exist in most games. I'm sure we'll find it in 4ed eventually. Not necessarily an attribute of "good roleplay" so much as the ability to "play nice with others". A virtue, to be sure, but not the virtue you are claiming.



I don't think anyone can actually really say that 4ed is more versatile than 3ed whilst keeping a straight face. It is obvious it isn't, if for no other reason than the fact that there are no splatbooks out yet.


okay, fair enough, but most folks have added the caviate to that argument that they should only compare Core books for versatility, and not the entirety of the systems.

[/QUOTE]
But even without splatbooks I will say it is more versatile because of multiclassing. But we all know multiclassing is also a mechanic that can be broken. And the problem is simply this. If you look at a class and think 'I can multiclass into that to gain this power, so that I can head into this class, and get that power' then you are applying the crowbar. If you think 'My character has been through a lot, and it is all undead related, and we have had to deal with a major uprising of the undead, so I think my next level will be a prestige class that is based on killing undead', then you are not applying the crowbar, and everything will work out fine. Likewise with the wizard, and likewise with anthing else you can think of in the rules.[/QUOTE]

Umm. . . you do realize that those are both the same logic paths. The only difference is that in the first example the character is striving for power of an unspecified nature. In the other he is striving for power because the campaign happens to have a primary villain type. Either way. .. it's still powergaming. In one case, you assume that the character doesn't have a reason for gaining "general" power and that's an unacceptable play style. In the other, the drive for power comes from a named source, and that somehowe makes it acceptable. I'd say that pretty much any adventurer has a reasonable excuse to make wise career decisions, and thus could choose to seek "general" power, because his encounters aren't as specific as the guy in the undead game.



So in the end, does 4th ed prevent roleplaying? No. Does it give the versatility that 3rd ed did, as an AID to roleplaying? No to that too.


I really fail to understand how a book prevents me from portraying a character. Writers, actors, politicians ;-) portray personalities other than their own, also known a "playing a role", the only rules they have to play by are the definition of the character they are portraying. There is no reason why a roleplayer/powergamer/3.x player/4ed player couldn't do the same, independant of the game system.

Now, if you're trying to say that a different set of rules makes it harder to portray aspects of your character in a mechanical way. Fine, I agree with you. I'm a fan of having the paper reflect the character background as much as possible. But don't mistake that for roleplaying. That's just paperwork.



I feel that the problem here is an experiental one. If you have never had problems with powergamers in your group, then you probably will not like 4ed because it takes away your options. Or you are yourself a powergamer who is annoyed that you can no longer ply your twisted trade.

Yeah yeah, not attacking, sure. I'm sure none of the folks who RP while Powergaming took offense at that remark.



If, however, you have had problems with powergamers in your group, then you will embrace 4ed with open arms because it will solve your problems, and, yes, it is a roleplaying game, and yes, you can roleplay with it perfectly well.

I'm glad we agree on at least something. . . though I'm sure someone will find a game breaking combo before the first splatbook. But yes, you can roleplay with 4ed.



And before anyone attacks me and says 'that is not my experience' please believe me, I am not trying to make any personal digs here, or make any statement that this must be a universal truth. This is just something I have been pondering with my players and some of my older customers over the last couple of days. And one of my good friends, a long time roleplaying buddy, crystallized the through processes going on in my mind today. So I felt that I should try to get it out in a thread.

Fair enough, it's been an interesting discussion/read.

[/QUOTE]
Because of this fundamental disconnect, I do not believe that one side or the other will ever be able to make their point.[/QUOTE]

hmmm. . . I think they'll make their point on both sides. I don't think many on the other side will listen.



Though I for one was a philosophy/religion major in college so I certainly like arguing about it.

Fair enough, I enjoyed the handful of philosophy / religion classes I took while getting on my engineering degree. They were stimulating and enjoyable.

:smallbiggrin:[/QUOTE]

[Hyooz]

Or, not. Powergaming for more powerful characters would not break the game if everyone did it, it would just increase the power level of the game. So you could roleplay, powergame, and not break the game at the same time.

Thank you for agreeing with me? I'm not sure where your point of contention is here. Yes, it's possible to roleplay and have powerful characters. That was... pretty much what I was saying.


Or maybe that your characters aren't all superrational homo economicus interested only in accruing more adventuring powers?

Then that's fine. But they will be interested in getting better at whatever it is they do do.



What about the system makes the Fighter less interesting to play? Only the party can do that, by selecting classes of such a higher power level that they trivialize the Fighter's role.

I never said the system made the fighter less interesting to play. Just less of an ideal choice as far as contributing to combat AND character interaction. This is why the ToB classes were so well received; they took the martial classes and gave them the ability to keep up with the magical classes power-wise.



Why not? Not all characters are supernaturally aware of all possible options that have ever been developed as a part of their profession. Why would a Cleric who has never seen a Nightstick even know they exist?


Ok, so they haven't heard of nightsticks. They will still try to push to be the best they can be with what they have to work with.



No. Human beings do not function that way. We are not optimized. People have pride, fear, outright hatred, and many other things all contributing to them not taking the best, logical path at any given time. It is in no way better roleplaying to always select the best option for something unless you're roleplaying a psychologically aberrant individual (which, for some classes, would arguably make sense more often than not).


So, you're saying that given the option between, say, two careers, both of which were similar work, in the same location, with the same responsibilities and benefits, you would not pick the one that paid more?

No, people won't always take the ideal path. But, in general, over time, they will tend toward choices that benefit them the most. Yes, under some circumstances, they will make choices that don't make logical sense, or work against them in the long run, but the kind of choices being talked about here (class, mostly, I guess) are not the kind made at the spur of the moment. Even in our world, the kind of person who studies economics for three years but then jumps to biomed suddenly will raise eyebrows.

In general, yes, a person will make choices that, as far as they can tell, will bring them the most benefit. Whether that be power, money, whatever. Under specific cirucumstances, where the person is influenced by the emotions you mention, yeah, they'll make rash choices.



Then what distinguishes a roleplaying game from a non-roleplaying game?

I don't actually agree with the OP, but that doesn't make your arguments good.

In general, a game that encourage you to create a character, and play through him using the personality you invented is a role playing game.

But really, anything can be roleplaying if you want it to be badly enough. Checkers can become an epic struggle if you consider each of your little pieces to be an individual, give them a story, and suddenly they're at war with the others

Man, that'd be intense. I need to find a guy to roleplay some checkers with me.

[Indon]

Thank you for agreeing with me? I'm not sure where your point of contention is here. Yes, it's possible to roleplay and have powerful characters. That was... pretty much what I was saying.
No, it's not. You're saying he's equating not roleplaying to being powerful, and that's not the case.

He's equating not roleplaying to breaking the game, which is different from playing powerful characters.


Then that's fine. But they will be interested in getting better at whatever it is they do do.
Maybe - and even in that case, that's called getting XP.


Ok, so they haven't heard of nightsticks. They will still try to push to be the best they can be with what they have to work with.
No, they might not. A cleric of Helm, for instance, could concievably wish to avoid even using spells, because he fears that relying on the power of his own God could mark him as weak in Helm's eyes.


So, you're saying that given the option between, say, two careers, both of which were similar work, in the same location, with the same responsibilities and benefits, you would not pick the one that paid more?
That's what pushes players to pick the best option every time - because things like classes and powers are just words on a sheet. They have no emotional content except through roleplaying - but a character looks at things emotionally.

Don't you know the story about the person whose parents wanted him to become a doctor or lawyer, because it would be 'best for them', and that person defied their parents to go pursue their dream? That's what this is about. That person ain't optimized, and ain't ever going to be - they're emotional beings, and that makes for a good story.


But really, anything can be roleplaying if you want it to be badly enough. Checkers can become an epic struggle if you consider each of your little pieces to be an individual, give them a story, and suddenly they're at war with the others

Man, that'd be intense. I need to find a guy to roleplay some checkers with me.

Yeah, this is what's been bugging me lately. If every game is equally a roleplaying game, why even use the term 'roleplaying game'? You're just playing a game.

I'd say the term 'roleplaying game' exists because you can have a game which facilitates roleplaying, and games can be better or worse than this versus other games.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Man, that'd be intense. I need to find a guy to roleplay some checkers with me.

"Pyton the warrior, formerly no more than a pawn of the gods in this epic battle, crosses into the Holy Land, moving past the bodies of his fallen foes. He takes a knee before the Sacred Threshold and awaits his god's presence."

"A shining bolt of light descends from the heavens, surrounding Pyton in a nimbus of divine glory. A booming voice echoes down from the heavens:"

"Pyton, you have done well by My Plan. Rise now, and do my bidding as a King, sacred unto Me and noble amongst your fellow warriors. Go forth and do battle!"


:amused:

[marjan]

I've argued this a million times. Unless you define roleplaying radically different than what it was in Basic D&D, 1e, 2e, etc, there will ALWAYS (aside from pure hack n slash campaigns) be situations that will present themselves that come down to a choice of gaining more character power versus playing your role as you have defined it.


That would be powergaming. Optimization would be choosing most powerful option between options that would satisfy your character needs.

[SamTheCleric]

Checkers breaks versimilitude because you can't retreat until you are king and the squares are an abstraction of distance. Chess has slightly better verismilitude making you a better roleplayer just by existing.

[AKA_Bait]

Checkers breaks versimilitude because you can't retreat until you are king and the squares are an abstraction of distance. Chess has slightly better verismilitude making you a better roleplayer just by existing.

Well duh. Chess is better than checkers.

[SmartAlec]

Maybe - and even in that case, that's called getting XP.

No it's not. Have you forgotten what XP means? It means experience; training, on-the-job practice, reflection on one's skills and place in life, observations made while in the thick of battle and instances that serve to toughen a character up physically and mentally - everything that prepares and drives you towards being better.

The 'getting better' part is what you do with that XP, when you level up. What feats do you take? What powers? Those are the fruits of your 'experience'. The lessons you learn are pointless unless you apply what you have been taught.


You're just playing a game.

It IS a game. It's a roleplaying game, and roleplaying is involved. For those that prefer the roleplaying side of things, I'm puzzled why a system that tries not to kick you in the nadgers at class selection time is given such scorn. Do bear in mind, this is a game - you are playing as part of a group. Doesn't matter how excellent your roleplaying is, eventually - in this system, anyway - you're going to need to roll a dice and play the game side of things.

In 4th Ed, you don't have to fret. Chances are, when dice time comes, you're gonna do your bit for the group just fine, both IC and OOC. It's not something you need to worry about much. I would have thought this is a good thing.

Of course, if you want to play as a 'sub-optimal' character... nothing stopping you just not using any powers. But at least this system doesn't make it necessary to martyr oneself and not be a team player to be considered a hardcore roleplayer.

[Tormsskull]

That would be powergaming. Optimization would be choosing most powerful option between options that would satisfy your character needs.

Yup yup. I think I even suggested that (or a very similiar) definition to the Terms thread.

[PnP Fan]

I'd say the term 'roleplaying game' exists because you can have a game which facilitates roleplaying, and games can be better or worse than this versus other games.

I'd counter argue that a roleplaying game is one that specifically sets the participants in position to play the role of a character. And that's probably the end of it. Games like checkers or chess, by their "RAW" <snicker> don't include that aspect of character portrayal in the game. If you try hard, you can do some RP inside a game of chess, but that isn't the purpose for which chess was created.

As for the *quality* of a good rpg, or at least one that facilitates RP? I think we'd all have to agree on what good RP is first, and I"m guessing that won't happen any time soon. <shrug>

[Oracle_Hunter]

Well duh. Chess is better than checkers.

Go - the GURPS of boardgames. :smalltongue:

[nagora]

Well duh. Chess is better than checkers.

I see your Chess and raise you Shogi.

[Artanis]

And it is that those of us who dislike 4ed have it backwards. 4ed punishes those of us who are good roleplayers, and panders to those who don't know how to roleplay.

Now before anyone bites my head off, that is not an attack. I am not saying that if you like 4th ed you don't know how to roleplay. Before anyone tries to accuse me of that, please read the rest of my post.
Let's see...

You start your post with a claim that those who like 4e are bad roleplayers because if 4e players were good roleplayers, they'd be being punished. That is a personal attack against anybody who does not actively loathe 4e, period.

Then you say, "oh, but that isn't an attack, and saying it isn't an attack makes it OK to attack people who disagree with me however I want."

So your first two paragraphs include a personal attack and a bald-faced lie. What possible reason would I have to slog through the rest of your wall of text?

[Woot Spitum]

Why does having a lot of choices as far as character classes and skills go make you a better roleplayer? Wouldn't it be the other way around, where having fewer mechanical choices ultimately can make you a better roleplayer as it forces you to focus more a creating a unique personality for your character in order to stand out rather than simply spending all your time figuring out your character's prefered method for killing monsters and taking their stuff? 3.x offers a plethora of options for the latter while leaving the former primarily up to the player. Thus, in 3.x you can create a perfectly unique character without spending an ounce of time on personality. I don't understand how that allows for better roleplaying.

Good roleplayers will have no trouble creating unique, memorable characters regardless of the system they use. Munchkins will find ways to break the system in half regardless of the system they use. Mechanics shouldn't matter.

[marjan]

What possible reason would I have to slog through the rest of your wall of text?

Curiosity?

[Tengu]

I see your Chess and raise you Shogi.

Go, I choose you!
"Go! Go!"
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/08/Go-Equipment-Narrow-Black.png

[Artanis]

Curiosity?
Curiosity ain't enough to slog through that monstrosity.

[Breaw]

So I am reasonably sick and tired of the attacks on both fronts about 4th ed and 3rd ed. While I do admit that the language chosen in some of the OPs arguments was certainly biased towards his perspective, I found his argument not to be the attack on 4th ed that many people are reacting to. Allow me to filter what I read him as saying through a diplomacy roll:

In 4th ed many of the options that were available in 3rd ed (just comparing core books to core books) are no longer available. They dealt with aspect of reality that are simply no longer present in 4th ed. There is no way in game mechanics to represent that my character is an underwater basket weaver who spent his youth being taught martial arts by a priest of Heilan. These mechanics simply do not exist.

The reason for this simplification is rather obvious, WotC aimed to produce a balanced game. By balanced I mean that all members of the party have an effective way to contribute in almost all situations and are really able to shine in a few to make them feel good about their chosen character. It is no longer the players responsibility to make a character that will keep up with his comrads, any character made with even moderately reasonable decisions made should more or less keep up with any else.

In my experience, there was no need for this 'balance' if you have a group of people all interested in playing unique characters that contribute somewhat equally to the adventure. In such an instance (which has been my only personal experience) there was no need for rules to carefully consider rules and abilities to make sure that no obvious exploits were available, the players prevent this by simply not seeking out such exploits.

For those of us who do not need rules specifically designed to make sure that everyone has a good time, the loss of many of the often inconsequential game mechanics is a loss deeply felt. The myriad of options available to us is something that we truly enjoy, and will likely keep us playing older versions of DnD for some time.

Hows that? Less offensive?

[Indon]

I'd counter argue that a roleplaying game is one that specifically sets the participants in position to play the role of a character. And that's probably the end of it.
This categorization treats "Cowboys and Indians", World of Warcraft, Oblivion, and Call of Cthulhu as the same kind of game, while excluding games like Battletech and Icewind Dale, because in those you can play more than one character (like in Chess).


As for the *quality* of a good rpg, or at least one that facilitates RP? I think we'd all have to agree on what good RP is first, and I"m guessing that won't happen any time soon. <shrug>

Ha! A fair point.

[Artanis]

So I am reasonably sick and tired of the attacks on both fronts about 4th ed and 3rd ed. While I do admit that the language chosen in some of the OPs arguments was certainly biased towards his perspective, I found his argument not to be the attack on 4th ed that many people are reacting to. Allow me to filter what I read him as saying through a diplomacy roll:

*snip*

Less offensive?
When you remove the personal attacks that form the entire introduction of a post, yes, yes it is less offensive. That doesn't make the post in question any more worthwhile.

[Kyeudo]

I haven't read the entirity of this thread, but scanning through the last page, but it seems the arguments haven't changed much since the first page.

First, I take offense at the OP's use of powergamer. He seems to have confused the definition with that of munchkin. A powergamer simply wants to have an effective character and so makes choices to enhance his characters power. A munchkin seeks power for his character to such an extreme that it prevents others from having fun. All munchkins can be called powergamers or wannabe powergamers, but not all powergamers are munchkins. Get it right. :smallannoyed:

Second, if the OP thinks that there is any force under the sun that can restrain powergamers from finding strong options in any system that has the least amount of customization, he is sadly mistaken. 4th edition changes the paradigm slightly by making a characters ability to work as a team his major source of strength, but that just changes the goal and not the method.

Third, Roleplaying does not have any impact on powergaming. I am a powergamer to the bone. My RL friends have me design their characters because I know how to make the system do backflips, but when we game together I am the only one to actualy try to get in character. My friends can't powergame to save their lives, but that does not have any impact on their ability to roleplay.

Is the loss of possible options in 4th regrettable? Yes, but then it's a brand new system. 3.5 had 4 years worth of splatbooks plus all of the 3.0 material that was converted over to work with. Options will accumulate fairly quickly once WotC gets rolling.

3rd was actualy mechanicaly restrictive of roleplaying when you come down to it. If anyone other than the party face talked to any important NPC, it could require bluff, diplomacy, sense motive, and other social skills that most other party members probably didnt waste skill points on. In other words, anyone but the face doing the talking could screw everything up. Everything I've heard about 4th makes it so that even the most socialy backward character can contribute something to the scene without it being remarkably stupid.

Now, before someone calls me a 4th edition lover, I don't even own the system, let alone have played it. I have only glanced through the books so far. I'm still playing 3rd edition. I like my Bone Knights, my Tomb Spiders, and all the other fun stuff that 3.5 has managed to implement and I don't intend to switch anytime soon.

[Thrud]

4e is a direct response to 3.x splat books only pushing the power creep forward faster and faster, and a general desire to revamp the system to make the mechanics more accessible to the general populace, as well as balancing out the classes and giving more melee-focused types more options.

It is in NO way a response to bad roleplaying.

Your entire argument is basically the Stormwind Fallacy word for word. You say 3.x requires greater roleplaying because power levels can be higher. But, you don't seem to realize that choosing not to be overpowered is not roleplaying. Making a Rogue2/Sorceror2/Bard3/PsiWar2 does not make you a good roleplayer. You could be a good roleplayer and make something like that, but it just shows that you don't really understand the system.

If anything, the absurd levels of power in 3.x hinder roleplay versatility, because someone who wants to make a straight fighter (for roleplay reasons) is going to be put-off of playing that character by the fact that he simply won't be able to participate as well as if he had rolled up a wizard. This guy can take either the fighter or the wizard and make an engaging, deep character out of them, but he's going to lean toward the wizard because the fighter just is less fun to play.

Suddenly, in 4e, the classes are more balanced. This guy can play the fighter he's had in mind, and be an active, important part of the combat as well. Crazy, in'nit?

Your whole idea that ignoring power = roleplay is, quite frankly, silly. A cleric of X deity would JUMP on the power offered by Divine Metamagic given half the chance, because more power for him means he can more ably further his god's will, and be a more impressive avatar.

NOT choosing power is, usually, a meta-play decision. You dont' want to be too overpowered compared to the other players, so you tone it down. Sometimes you'll come up with a roleplay reason your character is avoiding such power, and that's fine and dandy. But saying that having more power to ignore = requires better roleplaying is, quite frankly, untrue.

Neither edition lends itself more to roleplaying.

No system of mechanics can possibly effect roleplaying one way or the other. (Unless, of course, said mechanics specifically dictate character actions i.e. A will save built into the mechanics to prevent your character from breaking down into tears, weeping over the hobgoblins you've just slain.)

Umm, did you read the part about how every player in the game is an Omniscient being, and every character is not? The whole point of my thread, is that keeping player knowledge separate from character knowledge is HARD. And if done correctly it stops all the problems you are worrying about. And that IS a roleplaying technique.

Let me give you an example. I had a guy transfer into my game at one point, just as the oriental adventures supplement came out. I had been waiting for that, as my world has an oriental component, added all the way back in AD&D. So at that point I mentioned that anyone who lost a character could now make an oriental adventures character as a replacement, if they wanted, so that I could test out the new rules. The new guy, however, decided that if Oriental Adventures had been added, then his Ftr/Rogue should be able to start taking OA feats with the goal in mind of picking up levels in one of the OA prestige classes. And he couldn't seem to understand why I wouldn't let him. Even though I set up the introduction of the OA characters as being a single ship that was blown WAY off course by a freak storm and made landfall in my main continent. He seemed to suffer from the same problem you do. In what possible RPing explanation can you come up with a reason for a guy who knows NOTHING about OA to pick an OA feat or prestige class? And the answer is that there is no reasonable RPing explanation. There is a reasonable rules mechanic explanation. But not an RPing explanation.

And every time someone picks up a prestige class that they have no reason to even know about, they are committing the same mistake. It is just easier to see in the OA problem I mentioned above.

[Thrud]

Let's see...

You start your post with a claim that those who like 4e are bad roleplayers because if 4e players were good roleplayers, they'd be being punished. That is a personal attack against anybody who does not actively loathe 4e, period.

Then you say, "oh, but that isn't an attack, and saying it isn't an attack makes it OK to attack people who disagree with me however I want."

So your first two paragraphs include a personal attack and a bald-faced lie. What possible reason would I have to slog through the rest of your wall of text?

Yeah, after rereading I can see how it seems that that is my opinion. But actually, the Bad RPers that 4ed is a response to are NOT the ones playing 4ed. I tried repleatedly to get that idea across in my post, but everyone seems to want to read the beginning of the post, and not read the rest of it, and assume that they know the meat of the post. So, as I have repeatedly defended myself to individual posters here, if you read my whole thread, you will see that I AM NOT ATTACKING 4ED PLAYERS!

GAHHHH! Why wont ANYONE read THIS:


If you have never had problems with powergamers in your group, then you probably will not like 4ed because it takes away your options. Or you are yourself a powergamer who is annoyed that you can no longer ply your twisted trade. If, however, you have had problems with powergamers in your group, then you will embrace 4ed with open arms because it will solve your problems, and, yes, it is a roleplaying game, and yes, you can roleplay with it perfectly well.

What about that paragraph makes it seem that 4ed players are the problem? It is people who cling to 3ed so that they can POWERGAME that are the problem. Once again, please read the entirety of the post. Notice how I SEPARATE powergamer/bad RPers FROM THOSE WHO ARE PLAYING 4ed!

[Oracle_Hunter]

Yeah, after rereading I can see how it seems that that is my opinion. But actually, the Bad RPers that 4ed is a response to are NOT the ones playing 4ed. I tried repleatedly to get that idea across in my post, but everyone seems to want to read the beginning of the post, and not read the rest of it, and assume that they know the meat of the post. So, as I have repeatedly defended myself to individual posters here, if you read my whole thread, you will see that I AM NOT ATTACKING 4ED PLAYERS!

It's OK man, we all roll 1's on Diplomacy sometimes :smalltongue:

[Solo]

It's OK man, we all roll 1's on Diplomacy sometimes :smalltongue:

And then there are those of us who deliberately fail the check just so we can sit back and watch the chaos.

[Jerthanis]

And then there are those of us who deliberately fail the check just so we can sit back and watch the chaos.

If that's not the definition of trolling, I don't know what is.

[Hyooz]

Umm, did you read the part about how every player in the game is an Omniscient being, and every character is not? The whole point of my thread, is that keeping player knowledge separate from character knowledge is HARD. And if done correctly it stops all the problems you are worrying about. And that IS a roleplaying technique.

Let me give you an example. I had a guy transfer into my game at one point, just as the oriental adventures supplement came out. I had been waiting for that, as my world has an oriental component, added all the way back in AD&D. So at that point I mentioned that anyone who lost a character could now make an oriental adventures character as a replacement, if they wanted, so that I could test out the new rules. The new guy, however, decided that if Oriental Adventures had been added, then his Ftr/Rogue should be able to start taking OA feats with the goal in mind of picking up levels in one of the OA prestige classes. And he couldn't seem to understand why I wouldn't let him. Even though I set up the introduction of the OA characters as being a single ship that was blown WAY off course by a freak storm and made landfall in my main continent. He seemed to suffer from the same problem you do. In what possible RPing explanation can you come up with a reason for a guy who knows NOTHING about OA to pick an OA feat or prestige class? And the answer is that there is no reasonable RPing explanation. There is a reasonable rules mechanic explanation. But not an RPing explanation.

And every time someone picks up a prestige class that they have no reason to even know about, they are committing the same mistake. It is just easier to see in the OA problem I mentioned above.

Hey, congratulations for coming up with fairly specific anecdotal evidence to support a point someone else made that does not relate to your original point at all!

And heck, you want a roleplay reason to take an OA feat? How about this, give me a roleplay reason not to take one. A lot of those feats don't require a certain settings. Yeah, some do, like the ancestor ones, but there's no reason not to allow the 'technique' ones in a setting where monks exist already. Sure, most of the prestige classes would be campaign specific, but is there a reason one of the OA characters couldn't tell them about warriors from their land, and your rogue could start emulating the stories? There's plenty of RP reasons to allow a prestige class from a new setting.

But really, you've strayed a long way form your original point.

[Thrud]

And heck, you want a roleplay reason to take an OA feat? How about this, give me a roleplay reason not to take one. A lot of those feats don't require a certain settings. Yeah, some do, like the ancestor ones, but there's no reason not to allow the 'technique' ones in a setting where monks exist already. Sure, most of the prestige classes would be campaign specific, but is there a reason one of the OA characters couldn't tell them about warriors from their land, and your rogue could start emulating the stories?

Are you really saying that keeping player knowledge and character knowledge separate is not an RPing issue? Because it is just about the most cental aspect of RPing that I have ever come across. And as I said in the rest of my post, the one specific example I gave was an extreme example, that could be expanded to lesser examples. All of which highlight the problem that you actually just used as an explanation. Just because a rule mechanic states that you can do something, it does not mean that your character should. Because it is quite probable that your character will have absolutely no knowledge of the abilities and training involved.

THAT is an RPing reason. Saying that he can take it because there is nothing that says he can't is a rule mechanic reason.

And yes, it does get to the core of my argument that says that RPing is what keeps 3ed in check, and that RPing is not needed in 4ed. I didn't say that you can't RPin 4ed. Just that it is no longer necessary as a check and balance. I didn't even say that was a good or bad thing, other than saying that for those of us who like the versatility of 3ed and keep games balanced with RPing, 4ed seems too restrictive. I never made a value judgement. And if you check out the response I made to the guy after you, you will see that I am lumping all the very worst RPers in with those who are still playing 3ed. Which you would have noticed if you had read the whole thread.

But never mind. If you want to assume that my original post was an attack when I have repeatedly said it wasn't, and actually tried to offer reasons for why it isn't, then that is fine. But that is not what I intended.

[darkzucchini]

It IS a game. It's a roleplaying game, and roleplaying is involved. For those that prefer the roleplaying side of things, I'm puzzled why a system that tries not to kick you in the nadgers at class selection time is given such scorn. Do bear in mind, this is a game - you are playing as part of a group. Doesn't matter how excellent your roleplaying is, eventually - in this system, anyway - you're going to need to roll a dice and play the game side of things.

In 4th Ed, you don't have to fret. Chances are, when dice time comes, you're gonna do your bit for the group just fine, both IC and OOC. It's not something you need to worry about much. I would have thought this is a good thing.

Of course, if you want to play as a 'sub-optimal' character... nothing stopping you just not using any powers. But at least this system doesn't make it necessary to martyr oneself and not be a team player to be considered a hardcore roleplayer.

Speaking for myself, I personally have a problem with the lack of disparity between power levels. In the worlds that I run, I like my magic rare and powerful, with a high level mage able to bend the fabrics of space and time. Now thats something that you can't really balance well with your sword wielding shmuck, no matter how experienced he is.

4e lost that feeling for me, when a 30th level Wizard can get the crap beaten out of him by a couple of 20th level fighters, it just doesn't feel all that epic (Demi-god my ass).

But have a power disparity between the PCs in my game never really bothered them all that much because they knew that when they had to face that final boss, none of them were going to be powerful enough to take it down by themselves.

Now I agree that 3.x was not a perfect system, I've put a lot of time into it trying to fix some of the problems that I see, but it did have the versatility and feel that I wanted in a fantasy game, partly coming from how unbalanced it was.

I wouldn't necessarily say that 4e has restricted my ability to roleplay, but it has restricted my ability to make some of the characters that I would like to have in my games. No longer can the archnemesis wizard cast Time Stop, Teleport into the King's chamber, place a Delayed Blast Fireball at the feet of the King, and Teleport out again, leaving the DBF to explode a few seconds after time resumes and kill the King in front of the PCs without leaving any trace of the killer, spells of such power no longer exist, at least not that can be cast quickly. Longer can I have a dwarven assassin who sneaks up on people and buries a hatchet in their skull because apparently now you can only assassinate someone with a Light Blade, Hand Crossbow, or Sling. These aren't exactly roleplaying restrictions but they are restricts on the diversity of a system that inhibits what we are able to do with our imagination in the name of balance.

[Woot Spitum]

Umm, did you read the part about how every player in the game is an Omniscient being, and every character is not? The whole point of my thread, is that keeping player knowledge separate from character knowledge is HARD. And if done correctly it stops all the problems you are worrying about. And that IS a roleplaying technique.

Let me give you an example. I had a guy transfer into my game at one point, just as the oriental adventures supplement came out. I had been waiting for that, as my world has an oriental component, added all the way back in AD&D. So at that point I mentioned that anyone who lost a character could now make an oriental adventures character as a replacement, if they wanted, so that I could test out the new rules. The new guy, however, decided that if Oriental Adventures had been added, then his Ftr/Rogue should be able to start taking OA feats with the goal in mind of picking up levels in one of the OA prestige classes. And he couldn't seem to understand why I wouldn't let him. Even though I set up the introduction of the OA characters as being a single ship that was blown WAY off course by a freak storm and made landfall in my main continent. He seemed to suffer from the same problem you do. In what possible RPing explanation can you come up with a reason for a guy who knows NOTHING about OA to pick an OA feat or prestige class? And the answer is that there is no reasonable RPing explanation. There is a reasonable rules mechanic explanation. But not an RPing explanation.

And every time someone picks up a prestige class that they have no reason to even know about, they are committing the same mistake. It is just easier to see in the OA problem I mentioned above.
While this does take care of bizarre choices mid-campaign, it doesn't get rid of weird builds made during character creation. Especially if the player in question writes up several pages of background on why their character is, or is traing to become some obscure prestige class combination (Sharkul the rogue's mother was a shadowdancer and his father was a ghost-faced killer, naturally he wanted to follow in the footsteps of both his parents, who had already taught him much about their ways). In this case the character has no reason not to know about the adorementioned prestige classes.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Speaking for myself, I personally have a problem with the lack of disparity between power levels. In the worlds that I run, I like my magic rare and powerful, with a high level mage able to bend the fabrics of space and time. Now thats something that you can't really balance well with your sword wielding shmuck, no matter how experienced he is.

You don't want D&D, you want Ars Magica (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars_Magica).

D&D has never done well on the "magic poor" setting (seeing as monster wracked up weapon immunities pretty quick in 1e and 2e!), and 3e and 4e were designed to try and allow the adventurers to work more as a party, and less as a SpecOps team. That means making it a little easier for the weapony types to participate in adventures that would challenge the magicy ones. I suppose you could run all-spellcaster parties, though, if you started at a high enough level in 3e...

[Starsinger]

Let me give you an example. I had a guy transfer into my game at one point, just as the oriental adventures supplement came out. I had been waiting for that, as my world has an oriental component, added all the way back in AD&D. So at that point I mentioned that anyone who lost a character could now make an oriental adventures character as a replacement, if they wanted, so that I could test out the new rules. The new guy, however, decided that if Oriental Adventures had been added, then his Ftr/Rogue should be able to start taking OA feats with the goal in mind of picking up levels in one of the OA prestige classes. And he couldn't seem to understand why I wouldn't let him. Even though I set up the introduction of the OA characters as being a single ship that was blown WAY off course by a freak storm and made landfall in my main continent. He seemed to suffer from the same problem you do. In what possible RPing explanation can you come up with a reason for a guy who knows NOTHING about OA to pick an OA feat or prestige class? And the answer is that there is no reasonable RPing explanation. There is a reasonable rules mechanic explanation. But not an RPing explanation.

Well, for fun, let's look through OA feats, ignoring Ancestor feats, despite the fact that most of their mechanical benefit is in no way tied explicitly to Oriental Adventures, and you'll notice a whole lot of them have nothing exactly to do with Oriental Adventures, and easily could be adapted by any fighting style.

As for prestige classes, not all of them are inexplicably tied to Oriental Adventures either. For example, OA's Kensai is about fighting better with a signature weapon. Therefor, your anecdote fails. Had the feats and/or prestige class he wanted been published in a Complete book instead of OA you would not be having these issues. Had he decided to role play the effect of say, Earth's Embrace, and your decision was solely, "It comes from OA, therefore your character must be 'oriental' in order to do so or you're a terrible roleplayer who's really a power gaming munchkin!" Then the problem isn't good role play or bad role play, it's your inability to separate fluff from crunch when the fluff is unnecessarily holding someone back. The book says Complete Divine, does that mean if my arcane caster finds something he likes and meets the requirements for, I can't do it without a level of cleric? That's not good role playing, that's bad DMing.

tl;dr version: I suspect the problem with the OA guy was you, and not necessarily him.

[Thrud]

Well, for fun, let's look through OA feats, ignoring Ancestor feats, despite the fact that most of their mechanical benefit is in no way tied explicitly to Oriental Adventures, and you'll notice a whole lot of them have nothing exactly to do with Oriental Adventures, and easily could be adapted by any fighting style.

As for prestige classes, not all of them are inexplicably tied to Oriental Adventures either. For example, OA's Kensai is about fighting better with a signature weapon. Therefor, your anecdote fails. Had the feats and/or prestige class he wanted been published in a Complete book instead of OA you would not be having these issues. Had he decided to role play the effect of say, Earth's Embrace, and your decision was solely, "It comes from OA, therefore your character must be 'oriental' in order to do so or you're a terrible roleplayer who's really a power gaming munchkin!" Then the problem isn't good role play or bad role play, it's your inability to separate fluff from crunch when the fluff is unnecessarily holding someone back. The book says Complete Divine, does that mean if my arcane caster finds something he likes and meets the requirements for, I can't do it without a level of cleric? That's not good role playing, that's bad DMing.

tl;dr version: I suspect the problem with the OA guy was you, and not necessarily him.

You're still missing my point. This is the key sentence here.


The new guy, however, decided that if Oriental Adventures had been added, then his Ftr/Rogue should be able to start taking OA feats with the goal in mind of picking up levels in one of the OA prestige classes

He wants to start picking feats right now to take him somewhere that he has no idea even exists. Do you not see the problem here? The feats themselves are meaningless. The fact that from now on his character build is going to be directed specifically towards taking a prestige class from a land that is totally alien to him and the only contact from them has been (at this point) a single ship blown off course.

That is quite simply bad RPing. This is an attempt at touting rule mechanics as a way to try to break the intent of the game.

Once again, because the player has specific knowledge, he was trying to pass that knowledge on to the character. This is not the intent of the game, but it is something that gets lost because there are so many 'cool' possibilities out there that you get lost in all the possibilities and fail to keep what you know separate from what your character has a chance of knowing.

[Kiara LeSabre]

I read the original post and then in all honesty skipped straight to the end to reply just to it:

You're confused. The game system has nothing to do with roleplay. Whether your system for combat is rock, paper, scissors (or freeform -- no system at all!) or an incomprehensibly complex modeling system that attempts to map out real-world physics down to the tiniest detail, using enough books to fill three libraries, the process of roleplaying occurs entirely separately from that.

[Woot Spitum]

But have a power disparity between the PCs in my game never really bothered them all that much because they knew that when they had to face that final boss, none of them were going to be powerful enough to take it down by themselves.Perhaps, but the inbalances of 3.x ensure that the PCs will have an easier time if they simply go with all spellcasters, say 2 wizards, a cleric, and a druid.


I wouldn't necessarily say that 4e has restricted my ability to roleplay, but it has restricted my ability to make some of the characters that I would like to have in my games. No longer can the archnemesis wizard cast Time Stop, Teleport into the King's chamber, place a Delayed Blast Fireball at the feet of the King, and Teleport out again, leaving the DBF to explode a few seconds after time resumes and kill the King in front of the PCs without leaving any trace of the killer, spells of such power no longer exist, at least not that can be cast quickly.The problem with this tactic is that there is nothing to stop the PCs from doing it, which makes the game signifcantly less challenging. In any event, if the BBEG kills the king in front of the PCs without leaving a trace, you are under no obligation to explain to the PCs how it was done, seeing that they have no way of knowing in-character.


Longer can I have a dwarven assassin who sneaks up on people and buries a hatchet in their skull because apparently now you can only assassinate someone with a Light Blade, Hand Crossbow, or Sling. These aren't exactly roleplaying restrictions but they are restricts on the diversity of a system that inhibits what we are able to do with our imagination in the name of balance.3.5 won't allow me to have a monk who wears enchanted gauntlets treat his attacks with said gauntlets as unarmed strikes, even if it really makes sense for the character I envision. You could come up with plenty of examples of character concepts that aren't explorable in any system. At that point you have three options: houserule, homebrew, or come up with another character. But ultimately, shouldn't your characters personality matter a lot more than whether he wields a sword or an axe?

[Thrud]

I read the original post and then in all honesty skipped straight to the end to reply just to it:

You're confused. The game system has nothing to do with roleplay. Whether your system for combat is rock, paper, scissors (or freeform -- no system at all!) or an incomprehensibly complex modeling system that attempts to map out real-world physics down to the tiniest detail, using enough books to fill three libraries, the process of roleplaying occurs entirely separately from that.

Actually, my point is kinda the reverse. It is that roleplay has everything to do with keeping a game system playable. It is roleplaying that keeps 3.x playable, and it is the NECESSITY of roleplaying to keep it playable that has been removed from 4.0. Not that you can't RP, or anything similar. It was that if you DIDN'T RP in 3.0 your game would become horrifically bogged down with powergaming, and that in 4.0 that is no longer a problem.

As for your point earlier, I actually agreed with you until in one of my discussions with Gralamin I came to a conclusion about 3.x skills. To my mind the only purpose for skills in a game is to keep player knowledge vs character knowledge separate. It is not simply the things that we have total mastery over that define us a people, but also the things we know little facts about. And now that is harder to simulate because in 4ed everyone knows a little about everything. As I said in the post to Gralamin I need to think about that a little more, but it currently disturbs me. I'm sure there is some kind of fix, but at the moment I don't like it.

[Fhaolan]

You don't want D&D, you want Ars Magica (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars_Magica).

D&D has never done well on the "magic poor" setting (seeing as monster wracked up weapon immunities pretty quick in 1e and 2e!), and 3e and 4e were designed to try and allow the adventurers to work more as a party, and less as a SpecOps team. That means making it a little easier for the weapony types to participate in adventures that would challenge the magicy ones. I suppose you could run all-spellcaster parties, though, if you started at a high enough level in 3e...

Very true, although you can sorta fake it by keeping the characters is the 1-5 level range. But that's not very satisfying in a long run campaign.

I've not actually played Ars Magica... What's it like?

[Oracle_Hunter]

Very true, although you can sorta fake it by keeping the characters is the 1-5 level range. But that's not very satisfying in a long run campaign.

I've not actually played Ars Magica... What's it like?

Well, if you've played Mage (pre-reboot) then you've played the Ars Magica mechanic. I've had some friends who swear by the setting, but I've always dug that pre-apocalyptic vibe that old-WW had.

Anyhoo, it's a much more story-based system (not quite like the Indie RPGs we have today, but a distant ancestor) and everyone is a wizard with reality-shaping powers. I mean, you could be normal, but you'd suck.

Aside from that, it's what it says on the box: mythic Middle Ages with a bunch of semi-secret wizards running around.

[Starsinger]

He wants to start picking feats right now to take him somewhere that he has no idea even exists. Do you not see the problem here? The feats themselves are meaningless. The fact that from now on his character build is going to be directed specifically towards taking a prestige class from a land that is totally alien to him and the only contact from them has been (at this point) a single ship blown off course.

And you are missing my point. What prestige class? There are very few prestige classes that cannot be divorced from fluff need be if it fits the character's style. Maybe he wants to fight exactly like Prestige Class X (Iron Llama Blade Master) does, but he is not say, a member of the Iron Llama Brigade, however, the fighting style evoked by the classes abilities, required feats, and such are perfect for how he envisions his character fighting.

Your stance seems to be, that it is better role playing to pretend that your character fights like an Iron Llama Blade Master, since the book says that you have to be an Iron Llama Brigadier to take the PrC. My point, rather, was that depending on the circumstance, this is not true, and it is better role playing to allow him to take the PrC that matches his character concept regardless of faction, because then the mechanics match what is happening.

Now, if his intention was, "I want to be just like the people from Rokugan (to use a particular OA setting)!" Then I say, go for it. Of course, there's always also the option, since he's new, to let him be from said little boat. Because that would also be good role playing. Since part of the game is to enjoy your character, as DM you should try your hardest to let that happen as long as it doesn't hurt anything. And honestly, if allowing him to use OA stuff "hurts" your game, I stand by my preconceived notion that the problem is you.

Edit: Or perhaps, a long time ago, one of his ancestors was from OA-Land, and now that OA-Land is making contact with the rest of the world, his ancestor's spirit has been subtly guiding him to self-develop the ancestral fighting style of his people. And maybe the people from the OA boat recognize this fighting style as being similar to one still taught in OA-Land, which can lead to good role playing. If you are that concerned with an in character reason for everything, maybe you should work with your player to develop a satisfactory in character reason that makes both of you happy, as opposed to arbitrarily saying no.

[darkzucchini]

You don't want D&D, you want Ars Magica (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars_Magica).

D&D has never done well on the "magic poor" setting (seeing as monster wracked up weapon immunities pretty quick in 1e and 2e!), and 3e and 4e were designed to try and allow the adventurers to work more as a party, and less as a SpecOps team. That means making it a little easier for the weapony types to participate in adventures that would challenge the magicy ones. I suppose you could run all-spellcaster parties, though, if you started at a high enough level in 3e...

Haven't played any Ars Magica but I did dabble in a bit of Mage during one of my groups White Wolf faze.

My poor magic setting isn't one without magic items or without magic wielding PCs, but one in which magical items are very rare (the PCs will still get ahold of a bunch) and often times partially cursed, and where magic user are feared or possibly even not believed in by the normal populous. The PCs will still have their magic weapons and their nifty spells, and they will all be able to contribute to the game, both in and out of combat.

I've never really had a problem with casters horribly outshining everyone else, for one, most of the great Wizard spells are about battlefield control and aiding the more melee oriented characters in winning the fight, and secondly, the PCs are rarely ever fully prepared for what I throw at them.


The problem with this tactic is that there is nothing to stop the PCs from doing it, which makes the game signifcantly less challenging. In any event, if the BBEG kills the king in front of the PCs without leaving a trace, you are under no obligation to explain to the PCs how it was done, seeing that they have no way of knowing in-character.

Nothing to stop them other having to at least be 17th level, and seeing as only the mage can do it, if he tries to pull such a trick on a powerful encounter he is more than likely to be making his way out in a dust pan.

Besides, if the PCs can think up something like that I would rather reward them. Even if only one of them is in on the action, they will all enjoy the scene and remember it for many days to come, but hey, thats just my group.

As for not explaining how the assassination was pulled off to my players, I have no problem not telling them right away, but one of the cool things about a mystery is that there is an answer out there that the PCs can discover. If I tell them months later that the mage had a special, NPC only spell that I homebrewed, they will be like "Oh, how the hell were we supposed to guess that?"


3.5 won't allow me to have a monk who wears enchanted gauntlets treat his attacks with said gauntlets as unarmed strikes, even if it really makes sense for the character I envision. You could come up with plenty of examples of character concepts that aren't explorable in any system. At that point you have three options: houserule, homebrew, or come up with another character. But ultimately, shouldn't your characters personality matter a lot more than whether he wields a sword or an axe?

I don't believe that there is anything that allows you to do that in Core 3.5, but I'm pretty sure there is in splat. And as you say, if there isn't, you can easily homebrew or houserule it in. However, homebrewing Time Stop for 4e or Rogue skills to be used with any weapon breaks the balance that 4e carefully tries to maintain. I agree that personality of a character is their most important and memorable aspect, but I also feel that what a character can do is important to defining them as well. An epic mage who can only really do maybe 4 times as much damage as a 1st level mage doesn't feel very epic. And an axe wielding assassin can be refreshing if you have been constantly attacked by dagger toting hitmen.

[marjan]

and it is the NECESSITY of roleplaying to keep it playable

Meta-gaming will suffice (and does the job much better). Now, let's assume that stuff in 3e doesn't have contradictory fluff. This will inevitably lead us to a situation where someone chooses to use feat/class/PrC/item/whatever that suits his character, but is broken (like let's say DMM(Persistent)). How exactly are you going to achieve balance using only RPing?

[JaxGaret]

Replace every instance of "roleplay" in the OP with "metagame", and I'll agree with it.

roleplaying =! metagaming

EDIT: I haven't even read the thread yet, but now that I've started, I see that this nuance has already been picked up on.

[Kiara LeSabre]

Actually, my point is kinda the reverse. It is that roleplay has everything to do with keeping a game system playable. It is roleplaying that keeps 3.x playable, and it is the NECESSITY of roleplaying to keep it playable that has been removed from 4.0. Not that you can't RP, or anything similar. It was that if you DIDN'T RP in 3.0 your game would become horrifically bogged down with powergaming, and that in 4.0 that is no longer a problem.

But that's not what roleplaying is. You're describing self-limiting, which is something a poor gaming system will force players to do. Yes, in 3.x, you had to severely self-limit to keep the game playable. You could, if you chose, roleplay to the hilt while not self-limiting! As you played your CoDzilla or your Batman wizard, you would ask yourself very seriously what it's like to be a person who can do anything, anytime, anywhere, under absolutely any circumstances, to the point of being essentially a god among mortals. You would perhaps have a detailed background story detailing how you strove to develop your talents or what drove you to study so hard or ... just whatever. Your character might simply bubble over with personality and be, in fact, very interesting and well-played!

But you're still so powerful, the game is essentially unplayable for anyone who isn't like you. You're roleplaying, but you didn't self-limit.

... but you shouldn't have to. That's the job of the gaming system, really one of the only jobs of any gaming system, and a job 3.x fails to accomplish. Miserably.

[Starsinger]

But that's not what roleplaying is. You're describing self-limiting, which is something a poor gaming system will force players to do. Yes, in 3.x, you had to severely self-limit to keep the game playable. You could, if you chose, roleplay to the hilt while not self-limiting! As you played your CoDzilla or your Batman wizard, you would ask yourself very seriously what it's like to be a person who can do anything, anytime, anywhere, under absolutely any circumstances, to the point of being essentially a god among mortals. You would perhaps have a detailed background story detailing how you strove to develop your talents or what drove you to study so hard or ... just whatever. Your character might simply bubble over with personality and be, in fact, very interesting and well-played!

But you're still so powerful, the game is essentially unplayable for anyone who isn't like you. You're roleplaying, but you didn't self-limit.

... but you shouldn't have to. That's the job of the gaming system, really one of the only jobs of any gaming system, and a job 3.x fails to accomplish. Miserably.

Mmm.. this was very articulate and tasty.

[nagora]

D&D has never done well on the "magic poor" setting (seeing as monster wracked up weapon immunities pretty quick in 1e and 2e!), and 3e and 4e were designed to try and allow the adventurers to work more as a party, and less as a SpecOps team.
I'm not sure what you're talking about here: what were/are the weapon immunities that monsters racked up quickly in 1e, and what about 1e play encouraged SpecOps play (and what do you even mean by that)?

[Timeras]

About keeping player knowledge seperate from character knowledge:

Actually, a character would often know even more than a player. A character who grew up in a world full of magic would be familiar it. He has spent his life there an talked to people. And the more powerfull a spell or item is, the more those who have seen it will talk about it, just because it impressed (or scared) them. I do not know every single spell in the PHB, but a character who grew up in this world an spent years studying magic to become a wizard would at least have heard about most of them. So it could be called poor role playing if he decided not to try getting his hands on a powerfull spell although he knows it might one day save his life.
The same is true with prestige classes. Although my character has never met a member of a certain class he would probably haver heard about it. (Classes from a specific setting are the exception, so this OA thing wasn´t a good example.)
So he might have decided early in his life that he will try to become a member of that class.

[Oracle_Hunter]

I'm not sure what you're talking about here: what were/are the weapon immunities that monsters racked up quickly in 1e, and what about 1e play encouraged SpecOps play (and what do you even mean by that)?

On weapon immunities
those +1, +2, +3, and so on restrictions? Unless you went through a lot of Dragon magazine fixes, you quickly reached the point that unless you had a wizard, you just weren't going to be harming a lot of level-appropriate monsters without having the magical weapons to penetrate the hide. Since it was awful hard to customize monsters back then, you kind of had to either trust in your homebrewing abilities (back to those "oops, TPK" moments) or stick with what the MM gave you. In a truly magic-poor world, any sword of +3 or higher would be nigh-legendary, and even +1 swords probably were owned by famous heroes. If you've armed your PCs with all +1 weapons, then I hope they had to work their asses off for them.

Now, since I'm familiar with you by now, Nagora, I'm going to bet that you never had these problems. Maybe you only used high-level monsters which had arcane metal weaknesses as well, or maybe your "magic poor" setting meant only that the PCs had tons of magical gear, but nobody else did. Or, heck, you ruled that massive damage was enough to kill the buggers.

In any case, I, at least, noticed a fair amount of monsters in the MM which had these resistances, particularly at the mid-to-high levels of play.

On SpecOps
SpecOps is shorthand for "Special Operations" - a team of specialists who move surgically into an area and are each specifically trained to handle a portion of the problem. You see this a lot in Shadowrun - the Rigger to get you past the patrols, the Decker to get you inside, the Mage to watch out for magical security, and the Street Sam to kill everything else.

In 1e D&D, this sort of circumstance was rampant. If there were traps, you waited for the Thief to clear them. If there was magic, let the Wizard take care of it. If someone gets hurt, the Cleric has to heal them. Minions? The Fighter is there to chop them up. Sure, most people could do some killing, but the Fighter really got to shine here, since the Wizard usually held back on their powers for the Big Bad at the end, or was loaded up with utility spells like Passwall or Levitate. The Thief really exemplified this sort of mentality the best, since he had a wide variety of unique talents, but was practically worthless in a fight (unless you got real creative with the Backstab rules).

Monks and Assassins were nice mixtures, with tons of useful powers. That's why they were fazed out in 2e - they were too good; the Batman Wizards of their day.

Again, I expect rampant correction from Nagora on the previous statements, but rest assured, they did happen to some of us. Hell, this type of role segregation was practically in the DNA of D&D from the get go.

Now, why is this a problem? Because it meant that if, for some reason, your Cleric walked into a trap, or the Wizard got ambushed, they were both pretty screwed. Heaven help the Fighter if he ended up facing a magic user without the Wizard's support, and god save the Thief if he was ambushed while scouting. Any character that had to act outside of its role (or in someone else's role) was at a terrible disadvantage, which could break many an adventure by accident.

Yes, you could go back and fix it, and if you were lucky you could escape your almost certain doom - but everyone knew that, outside of their set role, they were pretty screwed. This doesn't facilitate "teamwork" so much as "division of labor," which is not quite as fun. It was no more fun waiting for the Thief to deal with the traps than it was for the Decker to suppress all the Black Ice around the security node.

How 4e fixed these things
The magic immunities have almost been completely done away with in favor of resistances. Now it can be awful hard to damage some creatures unless you use certain attacks, but you can still hurt them if you hit hard enough. This allows everyone to at least make an attempt at taking down a bad guy, even if some people in the party are lacking +1 weapons. Mainly, this keeps people involved and not sitting on their hands.

SpecOps play is bad because it requires people to sit around waiting for their particular challenge to appear before they can participate and it can result in "oops, TPK" moments if the wrong role faces a given challenge. With the new skill system and more generalized combat powers, anyone is able to at least take a swing at a monster, or notice a trap. They may not be very good at it, but they usually can at least help, which keeps everyone involved and reduces the chances of "oops, TPKs."

Additionally, the Skill Training system makes it easier for people to play what they want. You no longer have to say "Okay, who's the Cleric? Who's the Thief? What, you're a Ranger? No, we need someone who can take damage, not look pretty - be a Fighter." Yes, that's an exaggeration, but now the Rogue is not merely defined by their ability to pick locks and find traps - they're a finesse fighter with tons of tricks. Maybe the Tiefling Warlock picks pockets in her spare time, but she's not going to be able to be as good as a Rogue at doing so, though she can pinch-hit for a full Rogue if need be.

Leaving recovery in the hands of the PCs, and not the Cleric, gives the Cleric (if you have one) more free time to do their own thing and it means that parties which have their cleric get conked out aren't totally screwed. These are a few examples which allow for greater party diversity and more teamwork and less division-of-labor

So, I hope that explains what I'm talking about. I eagerly await hearing how 1e isn't like that at all :smallwink:

[SmartAlec]

In the worlds that I run, I like my magic rare and powerful, with a high level mage able to bend the fabrics of space and time.

It's never gonna be that rare in your gaming sessions with a PC wizard on the team, surely. Wouldn't it then be 'something we see fairly often'?

As for the power levels, well; the sword-swingers are heroes too for a reason, and it's easy to imagine that while magic is an awesomely powerful force, the wizard is a long way from absolute mastery of it. A little like nuclear energy, each atom contains a gigantic amount of energy but modern science can only gather 1% of that energy because we can't figure out how to get more out.

Moving on, the idea of only being able to take prestige classes your character has personally heard about is more of a restriction than anything 4th Ed's contains, and is - I think - another example of how some believe you have to martyr your own personal game to be considered a good roleplayer.

[nagora]

On weapon immunities
those +1, +2, +3, and so on restrictions?
They tended to be other-planar creatures (elementals, shadows, demons etc) who are typically said, in myth, to be immune to normal weapons, and of course lycanthropes. In many cases they could in fact be struct by certain non-magical weapons (silver-plated swords or cold iron for example), again pretty-well as-per legend. But even so, there's very very few monsters which are immune to +2 and I can't think of any that were immune to +3 or better weapons - not even the archdukes of hell - in the original MM.


Since it was awful hard to customise monsters back then,
Uh? I've never seen an easier system: you just wrote the change down on the scenario key and adjusted the xp as per DMG. How much easier could it possibly be?!


you kind of had to either trust in your homebrewing abilities (back to those "oops, TPK" moments)
You're suggesting that making monsters easier might lead to a TPK?

And making them harder wasn't really the hit-or-miss experience you are suggesting. Why should it be so hard?


or stick with what the MM gave you. In a truly magic-poor world, any sword of +3 or higher would be nigh-legendary, and even +1 swords probably were owned by famous heroes. If you've armed your PCs with all +1 weapons, then I hope they had to work their assess off for them.
Sure, after all they're going to be famous heroes if they survive.


Now, since I'm familiar with you by now, Nagora, I'm going to bet that you never had these problems.
Given just how few "+2 or better to hit" monsters there were, and the fact that there were no "+3 or better" monsters, no I didn't.


Maybe you only used high-level monsters which had arcane metal weaknesses as well, or maybe your "magic poor" setting meant only that the PCs had tons of magical gear, but nobody else did. Or, heck, you ruled that massive damage was enough to kill the buggers.
None of those were really needed; you're misremembering how common weapon immunity is in 1e.


On SpecOps
In 1e D&D, this sort of circumstance was rampant. If there were traps, you waited for the Thief to clear them.
Okay.

If there was magic, let the Wizard take care of it.
Ah, not with you there. It depends on what you mean by "magic".


If someone gets hurt, the Cleric has to heal them.
Couldn't abide clerics; never brought them after about 3rd-4th level.


Minions? The Fighter is there to chop them up. Sure, most people could do some killing, but the Fighter really got to shine here, since the Wizard usually held back on their powers for the Big Bad at the end, or was loaded up with utility spells like Passwall or Levitate. The Thief really exemplified this sort of mentality the best, since he had a wide variety of unique talents, but was practically worthless in a fight (unless you got real creative with the Backstab rules).
Fighters were seriously overshadowed at high level my magic users, which is part of why the specialisation rules were brought in. Thieves really didn't beling in dungeons or slogs of any sort. Their natural environment was the town or city, and there they shone.


Monks and Assassins were nice mixtures, with tons of useful powers. That's why they were fazed out in 2e - they were too good; the Batman Wizards of their day.
It is to laugh! Monks were too good?! No, not at all.

Assassins were phased out for political reasons.


Again, I expect rampant correction from Nagora on the previous statements, but rest assured, they did happen to some of us. Hell, this type of role segregation was practically in the DNA of D&D from the get go.
Well, the idea of a balanced party was an important one, but I'm not sure in what way you're arguing against it.


Now, why is this a problem? Because it meant that if, for some reason, your Cleric walked into a trap, or the Wizard got ambushed, they were both pretty screwed. Heaven help the Fighter if he ended up facing a magic user without the Wizard's support, and god save the Thief if he was ambushed while scouting.
The fighter was reasonably equipped to survive most things, and clerics were quite tough too. I do agree that magic users were very vulnerable to physical attack from ambush, but then a simple Magic Mouth spell could almost totally negate that possibility in many situations.

But, a collage professor is vulnerable on a battlefield and a marine is probably not what you want teaching an ikebana class. People do specialise in order to be good at things. Generalists tend to be weaker in any particular area. That seems fair enough, doesn't it?


Any character that had to act outside of its role (or in someone else's role) was at a terrible disadvantage, which could break many an adventure by accident.
Roleplaying helped a lot. If you relied on mechanics...well, you couldn't, frankly.


Yes, you could go back and fix it, and if you were lucky you could escape your almost certain doom - but everyone knew that, outside of their set role, they were pretty screwed. This doesn't facilitate "teamwork" so much as "division of labour," which is not quite as fun.
I think most players were able to contribute more outside of their field than you are giving them credit for, but there is some truth in it, especially for a group of player that don't know each other well.


How 4e fixed these things
The magic immunities have almost been completely done away with in favour of resistances. Now it can be awful hard to damage some creatures unless you use certain attacks, but you can still hurt them if you hit hard enough.
Needless complication and contradicts both AC and hit points.


SpecOps play is bad because it requires people to sit around waiting for their particular challenge to appear before they can participate and it can result in "oops, TPK" moments if the wrong role faces a given challenge.
Criticising badly designed scenarios is not the same as criticising the system.


With the new skill system and more generalised combat powers, anyone is able to at least take a swing at a monster, or notice a trap. They may not be very good at it, but they usually can at least help,
But that was true in 1e, where working out traps was often a team effort and combat did have a role for almost everyone.


Additionally, the Skill Training system makes it easier for people to play what they want. You no longer have to say "Okay, who's the Cleric? Who's the Thief? What, you're a Ranger? No, we need someone who can take damage, not look pretty - be a Fighter."
Yes, and the result is endless bland characters defined entirely as numbers and selections off menus. The terrible 3ed multiclassing rules are the nadir of this sort of munchkin play.


Leaving recovery in the hands of the PCs, and not the Cleric, gives the Cleric (if you have one) more free time to do their own thing and it means that parties which have their cleric get conked out aren't totally screwed. These are a few examples which allow for greater party diversity and more teamwork and less division-of-labour

So, I hope that explains what I'm talking about. I eagerly await hearing how 1e isn't like that at all :smallwink:
It was like that, but also unlike it with experienced players who realised how much the system allowed them to do as individuals. Played as a very mechanical system, then everything you've said was true some of the time for most if not all groups.

Played with the characters to the fore and the mechanics pushed back it was radically different. One reason I've just recently stopped using all numerical skill-based systems was the realisation that over the last 10-15 years or so, despite ostensibly using skills in most games, it had become rare to roll any dice in an enitre night's gaming. Ironically, we as a group (a fairly extended group covering two actual but overlapping groups of players in two towns) had ended up playing in the style of 1e AD&D.

If you think only of what your character sheet permits, then AD&D suffers from all of the criticisms you made, but so do other games: it's just that more complex mechanics diguise the problem better. If you think of your character sheet as only your limitations then the sparcity of the 1e mechanics becomes liberating.

[Oracle_Hunter]

It was like that, but also unlike it with experienced players who realised how much the system allowed them to do as individuals. Played as a very mechanical system, then everything you've said was true some of the time for most if not all groups.

Played with the characters to the fore and the mechanics pushed back it was radically different. One reason I've just recently stopped using all numerical skill-based systems was the realisation that over the last 10-15 years or so, despite ostensibly using skills in most games, it had become rare to roll any dice in an enitre night's gaming. Ironically, we as a group (a fairly extended group covering two actual but overlapping groups of players in two towns) had ended up playing in the style of 1e AD&D.

If you think only of what your character sheet permits, then AD&D suffers from all of the criticisms you made, but so do other games: it's just that more complex mechanics diguise the problem better. If you think of your character sheet as only your limitations then the sparcity of the 1e mechanics becomes liberating.

Well, I'm not disappointed by the corrections, but this here is the crux of your argument. Basically, you didn't use the mechanics of the 1e system as presented, if you could avoid it. That's all well and good, but it begs the question as to why you even bothered using it in the first place.

Yes, back when it came out, there weren't really a lot of alternatives (and the alternatives were all kind of the same level of broken), but nowadays there are excellent systems that allow novice RPers a framework to use. Everyone was a novice once, and if you're going to use a system at all, why not use one that works well?

Now, in your case, you have a very nice homebrew 1e system working for you. You know exactly how to make it work in the way that makes you happy - that's good. However, that doesn't mean that the changes in the system have been all to the bad. They allow PCs to use the rules as listed to play a game - and not just have a vague reference sheet to use from time to time. Is this a departure from the out-of-the-box 1e philosophy? I'm not so sure.

Nonetheless, it really sounds like you might be happier with a storyteller system of some sort. Have you tried any of them, just for variety? I really think Mountain Witch might be a nice change of pace for you, if you've not tried it.

[Talya]

It's OK man, we all roll 1's on Diplomacy sometimes :smalltongue:

Don't need to. 4e players are all {Scrubbed}

[Oracle_Hunter]

Don't need to. 4e players are all hostile to anyone who doesn't believe 4e is absolutely perfect in every way, and are immune to diplomacy, enchantment and mind affecting spells or magics, and logic.

As a proponent of 4e, your slur wounds me :smallfrown:

However, as is true of most Internet Arguments, hyperbole and personal attacks are high for both sides. :smallwink:

That said, I do rather enjoy finding out why various 3e folks claim to despise 4e - though often it does seem to boil down to They Changed It Now It Sucks (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheyChangedItNowItSucks). I vaguely recall hearing your stance on the issue awhile ago; care to refresh my memory :smalltongue:

EDIT: Needs moar emoticons :smallbiggrin:

[Starsinger]

Don't need to. 4e players are all hostile to anyone who doesn't believe 4e is absolutely perfect in every way, and are immune to diplomacy, enchantment and mind affecting spells or magics, and logic.

http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n90/Starsinger17/mfln130l.jpg

[Oracle_Hunter]

http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n90/Starsinger17/mfln130l.jpg

Oooo, image macro burn! Now we've got a serious thread going on :smallamused:

[Heliomance]

I didn't say that it is impossible to get good group for a 3e game (you obviously got one). The problem I have with it is that you assume that you got that group is thanks to the flaw of the system. If you really want to experiment, try playing some other system (4e for example) with your group and you'll see that nothing bu the rules has changed.

Problem is that it is possible to ruin the game and it can happen even if you don't plan to do it, usually due to the lack of knowledge of the system.

Actually, no. I've played 3.5, and I've played 4ed. Both of them, I had the same DM - a very good DM, who encourages RP a lot. The 4ed game was noticeably less fun than the 3.5 campaign we're in - even, dare I say it, boring. It really didn't encourage RP in the same way, as all the rules for social interactions have been removed.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Actually, no. I've played 3.5, and I've played 4ed. Both of them, I had the same DM - a very good DM, who encourages RP a lot. The 4ed game was noticeably less fun than the 3.5 campaign we're in - even, dare I say it, boring. It really didn't encourage RP in the same way, as all the rules for social interactions have been removed.


:confused:

Removed? What about the big honkin' section on diplomatic Skill Challenges? Heck, we still have all the same social skills in 4e as we did in 3e - what was removed?

[Roog]

He wants to start picking feats right now to take him somewhere that he has no idea even exists. Do you not see the problem here? The feats themselves are meaningless. The fact that from now on his character build is going to be directed specifically towards taking a prestige class from a land that is totally alien to him and the only contact from them has been (at this point) a single ship blown off course.

That is quite simply bad RPing. This is an attempt at touting rule mechanics as a way to try to break the intent of the game.

Once again, because the player has specific knowledge, he was trying to pass that knowledge on to the character. This is not the intent of the game, but it is something that gets lost because there are so many 'cool' possibilities out there that you get lost in all the possibilities and fail to keep what you know separate from what your character has a chance of knowing.

How does the character know which book the feat he took was from? (If he even knows what a feat is.)

What does any character know about feats, classes, or prestige classes?

What concepts within the game world do these game-rule concepts corespond to?

If I decide to play a two-weapon Rogue rather than a two-weapon Fighter/Expert, then unless I only used in-character knowledge to create the character, am I just a bad RPer?

How does a character know that he can take a prestige class when he qualifies for it? Does he even know if he has a prestige class?

Why is it OK for a player to aim to develop characters with some very specific sets of abilites (e.g. Monk 20), but not OK to aim for other specific sets of abilities (e.g. whatever the player you described was aiming for)?

[Starsinger]

:confused:

Removed? What about the big honkin' section on diplomatic Skill Challenges? Heck, we still have all the same social skills in 4e as we did in 3e - what was removed?

Apparently, by rules for social interaction, what he meant was "We actually had to try and not just roll a 2 or better on our diplomancy check."

[Oracle_Hunter]

Apparently, by rules for social interaction, what he meant was "We actually had to try and not just roll a 2 or better on our diplomancy check."

No, seriously, I want to hear what he thinks. I keep hearing people talk about how such-and-such doesn't exist in 4e, and then I flip open by book and point out where it is.

I don't know if it's a case of rushed gaming (people only skim the new books before running a game) or if maybe they mean something different from what it sounds like they mean. I, at least, like to know what the hell is going on.

Also, what's next after Bugbear? It occurs to me I may be spending more time on the Internet than is healthy right now :smalltongue:

[PnP Fan]

This categorization treats "Cowboys and Indians", World of Warcraft, Oblivion, and Call of Cthulhu as the same kind of game, while excluding games like Battletech and Icewind Dale, because in those you can play more than one character (like in Chess).



Ha! A fair point.

Interesting observation. .. in the old WoD books (1st? 2nd? edition? don't remember) Cowboys and Indians *is* listed as an example of an RPG. Though it's not my personal experience, WoW is set up so that you can RP, in fact I think they have servers dedicated for RP (where there is less focus on the strictly tactical side of the game, and everyone speaks archaicly). Don't know what Oblivion is. And CoC was published as an RPG, so that's no surprise.
The original Battletech game (or the miniatures game marketed these days) was never marketed or intended to be used as an RPG (nothing in the original books delineated characters or character development). It was the follow-on supplement (MechWarrior, I think) that was the RPG. Icewind Dale had very little interaction, and character choice had little to do with the results of the game, so I"m inclined to throw it in the tactical video game pile also (but not it's cousin, Baldur's Gate), but it's been awhile since I've played so my memory might be a little fuzzy.

However, I'm not sure that having "multiple characters" automatically disqualifies something as an RPG. After all, there's nothing preventing you from playing multiple characters in D&D, other than the complexity of the paperwork. After all, the DM does it all the time. Similarly, an actor can play more than one part in a play, it doesn't mean he's not acting the role, though again, it is a more complex job, especially if he's playing more than one main character in the play/movie.

[PnP Fan]

[QUOTE=Thrud;4501370]

The new guy, however, decided that if Oriental Adventures had been added, then his Ftr/Rogue should be able to start taking OA feats with the goal in mind of picking up levels in one of the OA prestige classes. And he couldn't seem to understand why I wouldn't let him. Even though I set up the introduction of the OA characters as being a single ship that was blown WAY off course by a freak storm and made landfall in my main continent. He seemed to suffer from the same problem you do. In what possible RPing explanation can you come up with a reason for a guy who knows NOTHING about OA to pick an OA feat or prestige class? And the answer is that there is no reasonable RPing explanation. There is a reasonable rules mechanic explanation. But not an RPing explanation.
QUOTE]


How about "I go and talk to some of the shipwrecked oriental fellows and talk shop with their fighter/spellcaster/relgious/etc. types, and see if I can't pick up some tricks." Did you bother to give him an RP *reason* why he can't learn some of the material? I'm a martial arts instructor, and I'll tell you this, people love to talk shop about the stuff, and share technique. Unless there's some hardline reason why somebody wouldn't take a student (which is viable in some traditions, though OA has always been a mishmash of Japanese and Chinese cultures.) there's no reason why he *couldn't* learn the material.

[nagora]

Well, I'm not disappointed by the corrections, but this here is the crux of your argument. Basically, you didn't use the mechanics of the 1e system as presented,
Yes, we did/do. We just understood that no RPG system can be complete - that way lies 3e and madness.

Going beyond the rules, rather than changing them, is not "homebrewing", it's just playing the characters with a decent DM. You clearly did not read what I typed very closely - the point is that if the players have the mentality that "Only someone with Find/Remove Traps can find or remove traps" then all the problems you outlined with 1e happen - just as they do with 3e and will with 4e and its terrible skill challenge system.

If on the other hand, your players are the sort that understand that any character can find a trap or remove a trap if they can work it out for themselves, and the thief has extra abilities then you're still playing BtB and most of the issues you raised melt away. I'm actually a very strict BtB DM for 1e, it's just that the rules are nothing like the style of 3e or 4e, where the designers have tried to pretend that there are good generalised rules for roleplaying games - there aren't, and making a mass of rules to try never works because it can't work.

All you need is a basic framework that supports the genre and faith in the DM. Everything else is the designer suffering from the over-inflated ego virus (Or Willimoustweetitia.Cookus to give it its Latin name). 1e does that, mainly by giving specific rules for specific cases as an aid rather than over-generalisations which fail in more situations than they work in. It may do it in a way that needs a good re-edit and some crufty corners knocked off (and Monk's need a boost) but the style is much closer to what actually works well than 3e, while 4e has taken one step forward and two back, IMO.


Nonetheless, it really sounds like you might be happier with a storyteller system of some sort.
I prefer roleplaying, myself.

[marjan]

Actually, no. I've played 3.5, and I've played 4ed. Both of them, I had the same DM - a very good DM, who encourages RP a lot. The 4ed game was noticeably less fun than the 3.5 campaign we're in - even, dare I say it, boring. It really didn't encourage RP in the same way, as all the rules for social interactions have been removed.

How exactly are those rules any different than they were in 3e?

[Talya]

Oooo, image macro burn! Now we've got a serious thread going on :smallamused:

It's also utterly false.

I've made many criticisms of my favorite system.

I've made positive comments about 4e, which overall I can't stand, but has some admittedly excellent innovations.

However, the slightest criticism of 4e requires wearing flame-retardent suits. (My biggest complaint against 3.5 only requires putting on Sir Giacomo repellent.)

[SamTheCleric]

However, the slightest criticism of 4e requires wearing flame-retardent suits.

In general, the slightest STATEMENT concerning 4e requires the flame-retardant suits. You can't be for or against the system here or SOMEONE is going to get on your case.

[PnP Fan]

Are you really saying that keeping player knowledge and character knowledge separate is not an RPing issue?
. . .
Just because a rule mechanic states that you can do something, it does not mean that your character should. Because it is quite probable that your character will have absolutely no knowledge of the abilities and training involved.
So by that logic, my 20th level fighter, who shouldn't have innate knowledge of the PHB, will basically have his starting feats from 1st level, and never gain anything new. The same goes for my wizard/sorcerer, who don't innately have knowledge of every spell in the world (but for some whacky reason get 2 spells per level. . .). How about "I spend time with a teacher" for an RP reason? seriously.



And yes, it does get to the core of my argument that says that RPing is what keeps 3ed in check, and that RPing is not needed in 4ed.

Agreed. If you control your players so tightly by RP that their characters can't learn something unless they've been directly exposed to it, sure, you can definitely keep them under control. That's when I say things like "My character is innovative, and tries new things in sparing practice with my adventuring buddies (or wizard's lab)" Is that enough of an RP reason to learn something?



But never mind. If you want to assume that my original post was an attack when I have repeatedly said it wasn't, and actually tried to offer reasons for why it isn't, then that is fine. But that is not what I intended.

Okay, I freely admit, I'm not a mind reader. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it wasn't your intent to attack, but I can't tell that from your words. Thrud, I'm going to say this much, I'm sure you're a pretty nice guy, and I'd probably have fun in your games. But I think you just need to be a touch more careful about your writing. You make several inflamatory statements in your OP, and seem to think that waving a "I'm not attacking you" flag makes that okay. It doesn't. When you refer to powergamers as "plying their twisted trade" you *are* making a value judgement, no matter how much you recant after the fact. Your choices at this point are
1) Stop reading the thread, and walk away hoping that the thread dies a natural death. (and I hope you don't do this. . )
2) Apologize for an honest mistake.
3) Hold to your position till the bitter end, in hopes that this doesn't break down into a flame war and get killed by the mods. (not a path I would recommend, but I'd give you hero points for going down with the ship ;-)

Oh, and for the record, I think 4ed looks like it could be fun, but haven't played it yet. So I've no vested interest in the 3.5/4.0 argument. I just think some of your assertions are arguable.

[Oracle_Hunter]

I prefer roleplaying, myself.

Whoops! You must not be familiar with the modern "storyteller system."

I didn't mean the WW "Storytelling System" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storytelling_System) (so that's what they call it these days :smalltongue:) but rather a system like Mountain Witch (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12162.phtml). In these, the DM and characters have strong narrative powers in shaping the story - character is essential, and the sort of inventiveness you talk about in your 1e games is key to keep the game running. Typically the system provides a narrative framework, a system for resolving conflicts, and some rules for your character "stats." The link will give you a full detailing of this particular system, but I'll give a brief description below.

(Mountain Witch)
Characters: each character is a Ronin who has been hired as a group to kill the Mountain Witch, a mysterious creature atop Mt. Fuji. Your character sheet includes
1) Your name, and a brief physical description
2) Why you became a Ronin
3) Why you need the money badly enough to accept this potential suicide mission
4) Three "powers" which cannot be strictly game-mechanical (i.e. "I win all combat challenges") but can be anything else, from "I can cut through stone" to "I can disarm any foe." If one of these powers come into play, you can invoke them without a roll, limited by the DM's discretion.

Additionally, you are given a Dark Fate which will provide conflict in the story and opportunity for narration. These are secret from the other players and the DM... for now.

Gameplay: The DM loosely constructs a series of encounters as you advance up the mountain (attacked by wolves, lost in a snowstorm, mysterious hermits, etc.) which you can defeat by making an opposed d6 roll against the DM. The winner gets to describe the outcome of the particular action (such as "I slice up the wolves") within the guidelines provided by the degree-of-success of that roll. Generally, these are straight d6 rolls, though a mechanic known as "Trust Points" can be used to aid or hinder a given character's roll by the other players.

The game is divided up into "Acts" with each Act only closing after each player has revealed a bit of their Dark Fate. This is done by a player seizing the narration from the DM and adding new story elements.

For example, the "Past Alliances" Dark Fate means that the player has a connection to some third party that is either allied with the Witch, or may be plotting against her. In any case, the player with Past Alliances will end up with divided loyalty between their party and this force - and one way to introduce a given alliance may be for the party to discover tracks or signals left by these people. Once a story element is introduced, it becomes the domain of the DM to control and shape these elements, though the player may add new, non-contradictory elements as they go along.

At the end of each Act the players are allowed to re-allocate Trust Points amongst their fellow players. Each player gives a certain number of points to the others, and those points may only be used to help or hinder the giver.

Endgame: Ultimately, the PCs will schism. Some members may join the Mountain Witch, others may band against another faction which seeks to use the Witch to their own end, and some PCs go completely rogue. In the end, each PC finishes their own story arc, which is developed through the course of play, and heavily influenced by the actions and reactions of other players.

The point of the game is not to kill the Mountain Witch, but to tell a satisfying story of your character, as you develop and RP them.

In my mind, these kinds of systems are the ultimate in RP; stats, numbers and levels don't matter at all - the only thing that's important is your character. Few numbers tie you down, and fewer rules. Is this not roleplaying for you? If not, then what is?

[marjan]

My biggest complaint against 3.5 only requires putting on Sir Giacomo repellent.

Dare I ask, what 3e has to offer to compensate for this?

[nagora]

Whoops! You must not be familiar with the modern "storyteller system."

I didn't mean the WW "Storytelling System" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storytelling_System) (so that's what they call it these days :smalltongue:) but rather a system like Mountain Witch (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12162.phtml).
Yes, I essentially view most such games as pointless, with no real room to roleplay. Mountain Witch is not the worst of the bunch, but it is still just a normal boardgame with some pretentious bumf tacked on about telling a story post-facto.

If you want to write a story, write a story. If you want to play a role, then do so.

Roleplaying games write the story as an incidental; once that becomes the actual goal you're into something else, much more old-fashioned to my mind and which misses the spark of genius that made roleplaying games the breakthrough that they were.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Roleplaying games write the story as an incidental; once that becomes the actual goal you're into something else, much more old-fashioned to my mind and which misses the spark of genius that made roleplaying games the breakthrough that they were.

Curious.

So, what does "playing the role" entail? Is it like a game of improv, where you start with a bare framework of a character and develop it as the narrator moves the story along, or is it more like being an actor in a fully-fleshed out role, but the director (the DM) reveals the script only bit by bit? Or perhaps something else entirely?

Color me intrigued.

[Talya]

Dare I ask, what 3e has to offer to compensate for this?

I don't understand the question. My point is, I'm a 3.5 fan, but the monk is utterly unusable in 3.5. Anytime I suggest fixes for the monk, I get Sir Giacomo declaring they'd overpower the monk.


4e "fixes" it by not having monks, which isn't my ideal solution. :)

[Oracle_Hunter]

4e "fixes" it by not having monks, which isn't my ideal solution. :)

Give it time. Soon WotC will come out with their Asian Ki Power Source book with the monk and all your pals. Hey, I wonder if the Samurai won't suck this time around :smalltongue:

[Roog]

Yes, I essentially view most such games as pointless, with no real room to roleplay. Mountain Witch is not the worst of the bunch, but it is still just a normal boardgame with some pretentious bumf tacked on about telling a story post-facto.

If you want to write a story, write a story. If you want to play a role, then do so.

Roleplaying games write the story as an incidental; once that becomes the actual goal you're into something else, much more old-fashioned to my mind and which misses the spark of genius that made roleplaying games the breakthrough that they were.

You can role-play just fine in a system like this. You do, however, need to replace standard meta-game goals/priorities with a set appropriate to the different style; and I can see that that change can lead to a game which is not what many people want.

[Oracle_Hunter]

You can role-play just fine in a system like this. You do, however, need to replace standard meta-game goals/priorities with a set appropriate to the different style; and I can see that that change can lead to a game which is not what many people want.

No, no, Nagora here has a unique (or at least, exotic) definition of roleplay I haven't encountered yet. Most everyone I've talked to agrees that roleplaying is assuming a character and acting out its persona - and storyteller systems like these exist solely to explore the persona of the characters. With no mechanical goals like "leveling" or "stat improvement" the only rewards are persona-based. Heck, many people consider these the "purest" roleplaying systems, though many also don't think they are "games" so much as elaborate improv exercises.

But Nagora argues the exact opposite! I must know why.

[nagora]

Curious.

So, what does "playing the role" entail? Is it like a game of improv, where you start with a bare framework of a character and develop it as the narrator moves the story along, or is it more like being an actor in a fully-fleshed out role, but the director (the DM) reveals the script only bit by bit? Or perhaps something else entirely?

Color me intrigued.
It's fairly straight-forward, so I'll complicate it with an analogy!:

The DM takes the part of the author of a story who has reached a certain point in the narrative. S/he then picks some of the characters and frees them from the narrative (where "narrative" means that they act in accordance with the needs of a pre-ordained story set by the author). Those characters are given to the players and play starts from that point with the author still in control of the NPCs, who still have their goals and drives defined at that point by the pre-start narrative, but now with the lose cannons of the PCs walking about deciding on their own fate, which in turn causes the NPCs to react in new ways and perhaps change their goals and ideas. After a few sessions or a few months of play, the original narrative structure will probably be completely changed in ways the author did not expect, which is one of the joys of DMing.

This is the key concept, to me, of roleplaying: what if some of the characters in this story were able to choose to do something other than fulfil the author's will? Specifically: what if I was that character; what would I do? Would I walk to Mount Doom? Would I shoot first? Would I run away from the three-headed knight? What would characters in stories do if they didn't have to make the author's story "work"?

Narrative which aims at fulfilling a particular story is just what authors have been doing for centuries. Even interactive improv theatre doesn't normally quite get the freedom that a good roleplay does.

[Roog]

But Nagora argues the exact opposite! I must know why.

I'm also interested.

I would guess that he is taking a strong stance based on the idea that roleplay is different to story. I.e. Story can be retold in various forms while retaining its essence, while role-play (like real-life) can be used to create story, but can't be the retelling of a story.

#Edit - Ninjad? (sp?)

[Oracle_Hunter]

This is the key concept, to me, of roleplaying: what if some of the characters in this story were able to choose to do something other than fulfil the author's will? Specifically: what if I was that character; what would I do? Would I walk to Mount Doom? Would I shoot first? Would I run away from the three-headed knight? What would characters in stories do if they didn't have to make the author's story "work"?

Fascinating.

So this is a DM-centric view of RP; the DM is the author and he releases his characters to "choose their own adventure," so to speak, within his particular world.

But how does that make a world where the DM has less control one which is less about roleplaying. Specifically, in Mountain Witch the central narrative is set by the game, and the direction of the story is heavy molded by the DM - but many of the elements are introduced by PCs, and the PCs are allowed to very clearly define their own persona. Is it because the DM hasn't planned out the ending in advance that this is inferior RPing? Or something else?

If not, then is a world where the DM has more control more conducive to a RPing?

[Talya]

Those are all valid choices for characters. However, most of the time the DM will want to keep the party headed in some direction that lets the campaign function. Most of the time, the players will enjoy it more if she does. But you can't make the player's choices for them, so you use the carrot/stick method. There are consequences that the character-motivations will abhor if X happens, and rewards they will adore if Y happens. Therefore, they will generally try to make Y happen, and prevent X from happening.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Those are all valid choices for characters. However, most of the time the DM will want to keep the party headed in some direction that lets the campaign function. Most of the time, the players will enjoy it more if she does. But you can't make the player's choices for them, so you use the carrot/stick method. There are consequences that the character-motivations will abhor if X happens, and rewards they will adore if Y happens. Therefore, they will generally try to make Y happen, and prevent X from happening.

Yes, this is fairly standard "hidden hand" DM control.

What's interesting here is that Nagora maintains that, outside of a DM-centric narrative, you cannot be roleplaying. I'm curious what the boundaries of this view are - whether if you give the PCs too much freedom they cease roleplaying, and whether tighter DM control can in fact enhance roleplaying.

[Winterwind]

In addition to what Oracle_Hunter already posted, what about systems where there is no pregenerated story imposed upon the group, yet which still focus entirely on giving narrative power to the players? While we're at it, what about freeform roleplaying (which I would consider as culmination of the storyteller-approach)?

I just don't see how giving players more freedom to fill out their role and co-operate with the gamemaster in "writing" the story could diminuish roleplaying; to the contrary.

[nagora]

Fascinating.

So this is a DM-centric view of RP; the DM is the author and he releases his characters to "choose their own adventure," so to speak, within his particular world.

But how does that make a world where the DM has less control one which is less about roleplaying. Specifically, in Mountain Witch the central narrative is set by the game, and the direction of the story is heavy molded by the DM - but many of the elements are introduced by PCs, and the PCs are allowed to very clearly define their own persona. Is it because the DM hasn't planned out the ending in advance that this is inferior RPing? Or something else?
No, to me the issue is having a fixed end point which is artificially defined as the goal of the story. It's not about DM control - it's about control in general. If the player characters are not free to do what they want then their roles are constrained and so is the roleplaying.

Replacing the DM's control with a game-system's control is neither here nor there, really.


If not, then is a world where the DM has more control more conducive to a RPing?
No - the issue is Character freedom, not DM control. In some storytelling systems the players control the narrative, but this is still just moving the control about from place to place, I think to play a role as a rounded character then control has to be reduced overall. Look at what I was saying in the author example: the DM loses control of some characters, but their fates are still not simply decided by the players, they just get to say what they want to do; they can still fail, which is where the game system comes in. If the players decide what happens next with total surity then the choices are as fake as if the DM was railroading every action.

The antitheses of roleplaying, to me, is players having knowledge of what is going to happen - whether that knowledge comes from the DM having too much control, the system limiting them to certain outcomes, or they themselves having too much say in events. Having "a story" in mind at the start of play is a real turn-off for me and I struggle to see the difference between that and Monopoly.

Roleplaying's origins and essence is about characters throwing off pre-destination, not recreating it in a different form.

[Roog]

This is the key concept, to me, of roleplaying: what if some of the characters in this story were able to choose to do something other than fulfil the author's will? Specifically: what if I was that character; what would I do? Would I walk to Mount Doom? Would I shoot first? Would I run away from the three-headed knight? What would characters in stories do if they didn't have to make the author's story "work"?

The player needs to have some consideration of what will make the group's game "work", rather than author's story "work". In the classic D&D game the player needs to create a character whose natural choices will fit within the game/party framework, in a game like Mountain Witch the player needs to create a character whose natural choices will fit within the narative framework. Some people will see that as more restrictive - but for those who don't, your definition of roleplay should still fit.

By the way, I'm one of those people who see the question of "if I was that character; what would I do?" as a semi-meaningless question. If I was that character I would not be me; so I would not do what I would do, if I was in the character's situation. For me the kind of roleplaying you are talking about is expressed as "What would it feel like to be that character?", an attempt to simulate qualia. As opposed to simulation of situation, which allows me to answer the question "What would I (aim to) do, if I was in the character's situation?", which provides me with oppotunities for stratergy rather than immersion.

[Fhaolan]

If not, then is a world where the DM has more control more conducive to a RPing?

Just as a note, I'm finding this sub-discussion far more interesting than pretty much all the topics on the forum at the moment. I have nothing to add to it, mind you, I'm just letting you know that others are watching with interest.

[Oracle_Hunter]

The antitheses of roleplaying, to me, is players having knowledge of what is going to happen - whether that knowledge comes from the DM having too much control, the system limiting them to certain outcomes, or they themselves having too much say in events. Having "a story" in mind at the start of play is a real turn-off for me and I struggle to see the difference between that and Monopoly.

Oh ho, a misconception then! The players no more know how a storyteller game is going to turn out than they know how a D&D game is going to. Not only are there dice involved, but in a storyteller game, there are multiple parties vying for narrative control. The framework is set (ex: find the Mountain Witch) but no character knows their destiny - they can only strive towards what they desire, same as D&D.

I could argue that the story in a Storyteller System is, in fact, less knowable by the PC than in D&D; in D&D the PC may know their DM and may be able to predict the general course of the narrative. In a Storyteller System, no one narrator has complete control, and so, like a roll of the dice, any may influence a particular portion.

This, of course, is different from pure freeform RPGs. In those, there are few (if any) rules for determining the outcomes of events, and few systems to structure the flow of the story. But in a more "standard" Storyteller System, the game system itself gives some direction as to the path of the narrative.

Thoughts?

EDIT:

Just as a note, I'm finding this sub-discussion far more interesting than pretty much all the topics on the forum at the moment. I have nothing to add to it, mind you, I'm just letting you know that others are watching with interest.

Well, I appreciate the vote of confidence, and I'm glad I'm not boring everyone with my incessant posting :smallbiggrin:

[nagora]

Oh ho, a misconception then! The players no more know how a storyteller game is going to turn out than they know how a D&D game is going to. Not only are there dice involved, but in a storyteller game, there are multiple parties vying for narrative control. The framework is set (ex: find the Mountain Witch) but no character knows their destiny - they can only strive towards what they desire, same as D&D.


I agree that dice change the situation, and MtW is better than some I've seen. It could certainly be argued that it is no different from a standard AD&D scenario where the PCs have a goal and there are other groups and interests trying to achieve their goals too, possibly at cross or opposed purposes.

But, as a complete RPG game it seems very limited - perhaps Kill Doctor Lucky would be a better comparison than Monopoly. The game still starts and ends at specific pre-defined points, which I think is a bit like looking at one facet of a gem: it's true that you have some flavour of the gem, but only in a restricted way.

Must go and eat now...

[Oracle_Hunter]

I agree that dice change the situation, and MtW is better than some I've seen. It could certainly be argued that it is no different from a standard AD&D scenario where the PCs have a goal and there are other groups and interests trying to achieve their goals too, possibly at cross or opposed purposes.

But, as a complete RPG game it seems very limited - perhaps Kill Doctor Lucky would be a better comparison than Monopoly. The game still starts and ends at specific pre-defined points, which I think is a bit like looking at one facet of a gem: it's true that you have some flavour of the gem, but only in a restricted way.

Must go and eat now...

Eating? Awwww :smalltongue:

But I see... you want a game which is open ended? How open ended do you want? Even D&D runs out of levels at some point.

If the one adventure is too short, how about Bliss Stage (http://swingpad.com/dustyboots/wordpress/?page_id=229) which has a definite end (every time a character dies, you move one step closer :smallbiggrin:) but it cannot be reached for a long time (unless things go horribly wrong!).

Very interesting, all the same.

[Talya]

But I see... you want a game which is open ended? How open ended do you want? Even D&D runs out of levels at some point.


No it doesn't! Epic is forever!

(Of course, epic 3.x sucks.)

[Winterwind]

No matter whether there are dice involved for some random element outside of all the players' control, or whether the game is entirely freeform, the players still don't know what is going to happen. Sure, they may exert some kind of control over the immediate consequences of their characters actions or attempts at those (though even in the freeform groups I participated in there usually were ways for other players, especially the gamemaster, to override this control), but the fact they don't know how the other players are going to act and what the gamemaster has in mind alone suffices for everything that happens to be a complete surprise for all players in question.

This aside, I still fail to see the connection between this and the players' ability to play their character's role. How does the amount of control given to players alter to what degree they can create a unique personality, immerse into said personality and demonstrate it to the rest of the people at the table? Or do you use some entirely different definition of roleplaying which I missed?

(also, I agree with Fhaolan - the subdiscussions about styles of roleplaying drew me much more into the thread then the 3e/4e-debate, which does not concern me in the least)

[Oracle_Hunter]

This aside, I still fail to see the connection between this and the players' ability to play their character's role. How does the amount of control given to players alter to what degree they can create a unique personality, immerse into said personality and demonstrate it to the rest of the people at the table? Or do you use some entirely different definition of roleplaying which I missed?

So, what I've gotten fron Nagora (while he's eating) is that he believes that RPing requires:
1) That the PC not be in complete control of their destiny (so, not single-player storytelling)
2) That the game's structure not provide firm ending conditions (the probable response from my last question, but we'll see)
3) That in addition to the PCs not controlling their own destiny, some random force should intervene (this may be less than Necessary, but certainly favored).

So there are some very basic constraints on the individual players in how much they can determine on their own - I predict he would object to the "I hit him because I said so" style of game as much as a "solo-storytelling" aspect. He also wants constraints on the DM to allow the players some freedom of action, though I predict that players using pregens could still be considered "roleplaying."

Anyhow, my insights here. If I'm correct, then Nagora actually has little to object to in regards to most modern Storyteller RPGs.

[Winterwind]

So, what I've gotten fron Nagora (while he's eating) is that he believes that RPing requires:Not really fair on my part to answer this, since it's not your own opinion, but... I'll do so nevertheless. :smalltongue:


1) That the PC not be in complete control of their destiny (so, not single-player storytelling)Which, as I tried to outline in my previous post, is pretty much given as soon as there is more than one person at the gaming table.


2) That the game's structure not provide firm ending conditions (the probable response from my last question, but we'll see)Which, by the sound of it, is a problem unique to the Mountain Witch, but not an issue for most systems.


3) That in addition to the PCs not controlling their own destiny, some random force should intervene (this may be less than Necessary, but certainly favored)....okay, that would preclude total freeform. Though I don't see how not knowing what is going to happen due to the random movement of a cubic object is different to not knowing what is going to happen due to the chaotic interaction of several people - at the end of the day, you still have no clue what awaits you.


So there are some very basic constraints on the individual players in how much they can determine on their own - I predict he would object to the "I hit him because I said so" style of game as much as a "solo-storytelling" aspect. He also wants constraints on the DM to allow the players some freedom of action, though I predict that players using pregens could still be considered "roleplaying."Seems so, but I still don't see what freedom and degree of control have to do with the ability to act out a character, which to me would be the definition of roleplaying. And I'm really curious about this supposed connection.


Anyhow, my insights here. If I'm correct, then Nagora actually has little to object to in regards to most modern Storyteller RPGs.I concur.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Which, by the sound of it, is a problem unique to the Mountain Witch, but not an issue for most systems.

Actually, many of the Storyteller Systems I've seen have some sort of "ending condition." Maybe I'm looking mainly at the smaller press things, but they usually include a way to close a particular session.

In Mountain Witch, the game is set like a Japanese Samurai Film, where everyone is dead or otherwise altered by the end - think Seven Samurai. But in Bliss Stage, every time a character "dies" they get to narrate a chosen "big goal" selected at the beginning of the game; and there are n-1 big goals, so the last one standing gets to narrate the epilogue. Since Bliss Stage is mostly about fighting aliens (it's Evangeleon, the RPG, really) these things can be stuff like "discover a super-weapon" or "contact other allies" or "establish communication with the aliens" so the end of the story is not pre-determined, but the elements that play into it are.

I think the explicit ending condition helps keep the focus of the players, personally. When you're not leveling things up, your mind can start to wander as to what your ultimate goal is (particularly if there isn't one!). When you have a more stat-based RPG, "leveling up" can be an intermediary goal to tide you through periods where you've lost track of your character's motivations.

I suppose this is neither here nor there, but it is an interesting distinction I see between these "indie" RPGs and their more mainstream counterparts.

[Winterwind]

Actually, many of the Storyteller Systems I've seen have some sort of "ending condition." Maybe I'm looking mainly at the smaller press things, but they usually include a way to close a particular session. Hmm... I have to admit that most of my experience with the storytelling approach stems from the freeform groups I have played in (wherein we played lots of perfectly normal "systems", except we obviously only took the world and left the mechanics aside: oWoD, ShadowRun, Fading Suns, Kult...); my knowledge about systems designed for storytelling from the ground up is rather limited to skimming through their rulebooks, forum and real-life discussions and hear-say.


I think the explicit ending condition helps keep the focus of the players, personally. When you're not leveling things up, your mind can start to wander as to what your ultimate goal is (particularly if there isn't one!). When you have a more stat-based RPG, "leveling up" can be an intermediary goal to tide you through periods where you've lost track of your character's motivations.

I suppose this is neither here nor there, but it is an interesting distinction I see between these "indie" RPGs and their more mainstream counterparts.Mhh, I am not sure about that - when lacking stats, the story as a whole and the life of your character are what becomes the goal and reward. Who is behind the murder? How do we escape this mess alife? What the hell is going on here? We need to find out, or we are all done for/or we will never be able to live with ourselves/for it is our duty/money! And, after all is said and done, the characters walk off that much richer (or poorer), wisened up, changed by the experience, having won new insight (or, possibly, being another step closer to the edge :smalleek:), and knowing that things will never be just as they were before... while the next chapter looms at the horizon with the promise of another story about to unfold.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Mhh, I am not sure about that - when lacking stats, the story as a whole and the life of your character are what becomes the goal and reward. Who is behind the murder? How do we escape this mess alife? What the hell is going on here? We need to find out, or we are all done for/or we will never be able to live with ourselves/for it is our duty/money! And, after all is said and done, the characters walk off that much richer (or poorer), wisened up, changed by the experience, having won new insight (or, possibly, being another step closer to the edge :smalleek:), and knowing that things will never be just as they were before... while the next chapter looms at the horizon with the promise of another story about to unfold.

Possible, but that kind of focus can be hard to maintain for the average gamer over the course of several sessions. Heck, my casual PCs rarely recall what the heck happened in the last game if more than a week has passed!

That said, I've had little experience with "freeform" games. I've got to say I'm wary about 'em too (do-anything systems often become do-nothing games, in my personal experience) though if all my "indie" gamers hadn't moved to California I might give it a shot.

I am this close to starting a thread ruminating on the essence of the RPG, rather than continuing to mega-hijack this particular thread. :smallbiggrin:

[nagora]

Eating? Awwww :smalltongue:

But I see... you want a game which is open ended? How open ended do you want? Even D&D runs out of levels at some point.


Yes, but my character has children; 1st level children (actually, grandchildren: the children are all about 7th-9th level now). They will play their lives in a world where the consequences of their parent are still being felt. They may amplify those effects, or try to mitigate them, or just let them roll on and carve out totally separate stories for themselves (of course, that you can never truely be free from your parents' story, but you can distance yourself). Thus, the game does not have to end, at least until the druids finally find what they're looking for (forget I said that).


1) That the PC not be in complete control of their destiny (so, not single-player storytelling)
Yes, that's the basic requirement or you're just storytelling.

2) That the game's structure not provide firm ending conditions (the probable response from my last question, but we'll see)
In the general case, yes. The answer to the question "how do you win?" should be "that's up to me to decide". I don't deny that roleplaying may be done in a limited form where the goals are set beforehand, but as I say that's a restriction on the character and as such the role has to be curtailed to some degree.

3) That in addition to the PCs not controlling their own destiny, some random force should intervene (this may be less than Necessary, but certainly favored).
Some force which is neutral to all concerned is desirable in order to prevent railroading. Dice are useful because even the best DMs can slip up.

The idea that the chaotic interactions of multiple players is a reasonable point but for me there has to be more than that: in short s**t happens. Accidents happen. People fail. People screw up. People for whom none of that applies are not real people, really. There's no part of playing that sort of person that seem to me to be close enough to reality to really be called a role.

When I get up in the morning, I decide what to do (PC assigning self-determined goals). Other people decide what to do (NPCs, in other words, with goals assigned by the DM). When we interact sometimes it is clear what will happen (DM fiat), other times it is not clear cut and somedays I get my way and sometimes they do (dice roll, in extreme cases combat!). Sometimes I will do things that I know lots about (Class abilities), other times I might know what to do because of my background (DM fiat) or I might be able to make a stab at it due to my high Dex or Int, but if it's a Str issue I'm in trouble (ability check). I don't think I'm particularly unusual in this and I think any roleplaying game needs to allow a similar approach to the character one is playing or it's a cardboard cutout of one kind or another.

Some of these details can not be placed under the complete control of any player and still have something that resembles a real person, although it may well resembe a character in a play, book or film - but that's what I'm trying to get away from.

A particular issue I've had with a lot of storytelling systems is that they often use meta-gaming mechanisms to take some of this over. Assigning fate or dice from pools or other sorts of systems for deciding which one of competing stories take priority. I just don't see how such systems relate in any way to how people live their lives - they're not even abstractions. As such, I don't see how they can be called roleplaying games.

I'm not being very clear here as a computer in work has sprung a virus; I'm going to have to go fix it.

[Winterwind]

Possible, but that kind of focus can be hard to maintain for the average gamer over the course of several sessions. Heck, my casual PCs rarely recall what the heck happened in the last game if more than a week has passed!

That said, I've had little experience with "freeform" games. I've got to say I'm wary about 'em too (do-anything systems often become do-nothing games, in my personal experience) though if all my "indie" gamers hadn't moved to California I might give it a shot.To both of your points: That's why, in my experience, freeform requires an excellent gamemaster. One who is able to come up with a fantastic base plot that draws in all of the players. One who can make bad things happen or deny the players their actions in a way that still seems fair to the players. And then, freeform does have its advantages. Combat, for instance, becomes a truly exciting thing that is beautiful to behold, like out of a good action movie, with the players desperately trying to come up with actions that make them survive the next couple of seconds. It would never work this way with mechanics involved; they would just bog it down.
I have met only two people so far who were good enough to be freeform gamemasters.


I am this close to starting a thread ruminating on the essence of the RPG, rather than continuing to mega-hijack this particular thread. :smallbiggrin:Oh, heavens - I intended to do some other things this evening, too! :smalleek:

[Oracle_Hunter]

To both of your points: That's why, in my experience, freeform requires an excellent gamemaster. One who is able to come up with a fantastic base plot that draws in all of the players. One who can make bad things happen or deny the players their actions in a way that still seems fair to the players. And then, freeform does have its advantages. Combat, for instance, becomes a truly exciting thing that is beautiful to behold, like out of a good action movie, with the players desperately trying to come up with actions that make them survive the next couple of seconds. It would never work this way with mechanics involved; they would just bog it down.
I have met only two people so far who were good enough to be freeform gamemasters.

Heh, this is the hazard with freeform - it's really, really easy to screw up. For us mere mortals who occasionally even makes mistakes DMing D&D, it helps to have a more "forgiving" system which will not waste an evening because the DM lost it for a few minutes. This is one reason I like 4e - so easy to DM, and easy to fix mistakes on the fly!


A particular issue I've had with a lot of storytelling systems is that they often use meta-gaming mechanisms to take some of this over. Assigning fate or dice from pools or other sorts of systems for deciding which one of competing stories take priority. I just don't see how such systems relate in any way to how people live their lives - they're not even abstractions. As such, I don't see how they can be called roleplaying games.

No no, this is quite clear. I, for one, found this discussion quite interesting, but here is the indelible line between Nagora's RP and, well, let's call it Winterwind's RP.

- Nagora requires a system, somehow based off of reality, to deal with conflicts.
- Winterwind is happy to allow a DM to arbitrarily make these decisions in all cases.

Furthermore, no storyteller system is going to have a "gritty" decision tree - the point of a storyteller system is to forgo attempts to "model" reality when they could instead be narrating that reality. Conflict resolution is simple at best, and arbitrary at worst (from Nagora's viewpoint).

How's that for a summary? Did I make any mistakes? :smalltongue:

[Winterwind]

The idea that the chaotic interactions of multiple players is a reasonable point but for me there has to be more than that: in short s**t happens. Accidents happen. People fail. People screw up. People for whom none of that applies are not real people, really. There's no part of playing that sort of person that seem to me to be close enough to reality to really be called a role. Hmm... people fail and screw up in our freeform games all the time. Sometimes because the player in question decides it would be fitting for the character to screw up at that point. Sometimes because the player doesn't know something about the situation and therefore chooses the wrong course of action. Sometimes because the gamemaster simply decides that, well, s**t happens (though I admit, in these cases, we sometimes do roll a die - 1-3 good, 4-6 bad, or so). At any rate, a storytelling approach does not mean that the player characters are superhumans who succeed at everything suddenly.


When I get up in the morning, I decide what to do (PC assigning self-determined goals). Other people decide what to do (NPCs, in other words, with goals assigned by the DM). When we interact sometimes it is clear what will happen (DM fiat), other times it is not clear cut and somedays I get my way and sometimes they do (dice roll, in extreme cases combat!). Sometimes I will do things that I know lots about (Class abilities), other times I might know what to do because of my background (DM fiat) or I might be able to make a stab at it due to my high Dex or Int, but if it's a Str issue I'm in trouble (ability check). I don't think I'm particularly unusual in this and I think any roleplaying game needs to allow a similar approach to the character one is playing or it's a cardboard cutout of one kind or another.How about the player - who knows the background of her/his character best, after all - decides whether the character has the required knowledge? Knowledge is, after all, also part of a persona, and hence the decision that the character does or does not know the answer could very well be considered a part of the characterisation process.


Some of these details can not be placed under the complete control of any player and still have something that resembles a real person, although it may well resembe a character in a play, book or film - but that's what I'm trying to get away from. While I fail to see how playing a character from a piece of fiction would not be playing a role (or what the exact difference between a character from fiction and a real person would be, for that matter), my main question here is: Why? Why couldn't a player conceivably have that amount of control and still portray a real person?
You seem to assume the player would choose selfishly, always trying to make his character come out on top of everything, instead of making the choices most benefitial to the character's portrayal. In my experience, this is not the normal case at all.


A particular issue I've had with a lot of storytelling systems is that they often use meta-gaming mechanisms to take some of this over. Assigning fate or dice from pools or other sorts of systems for deciding which one of competing stories take priority. I just don't see how such systems relate in any way to how people live their lives - they're not even abstractions. As such, I don't see how they can be called roleplaying games.I... am not quite sure if I understand. What about portraying a person in a world with unforeseeable stuff happening all around could not be called roleplaying?


Heh, this is the hazard with freeform - it's really, really easy to screw up. For us mere mortals who occasionally even makes mistakes DMing D&D, it helps to have a more "forgiving" system which will not waste an evening because the DM lost it for a few minutes. This is one reason I like 4e - so easy to DM, and easy to fix mistakes on the fly!Can't say anything about 4e (I had waited for so long to start posting in this thread because I was not sure whether, as not-D&D-player, I was qualified to do so), but personally, I like simple and rules-light systems best - they combine the "forgiving" aspect of mechanical systems with as much of the freedom and spontaneity of freeform as is possible when mechanics are involved.


- Winterwind is happy to allow a DM to arbitrarily make these decisions in all cases. As long as the DM decides well. :smalltongue:


How's that for a summary? Did I make any mistakes? :smalltongue:Sounds about right to me.

EDIT: With the exception that it needn't necessarily be the DM who made the ultimate decisions in all situations; it's one possibility, and one that is usually more convenient than most, but in some or even many situations it could also be the players who decide.
I haven't given it a try yet, but I have heard about people roleplaying without a designated gamemaster, even, and I can easily see this working just fine (I can also easily see this failing horribly, but that's beside the point :smalltongue:)

[Talya]

That said, I do rather enjoy finding out why various 3e folks claim to despise 4e - though often it does seem to boil down to They Changed It Now It Sucks (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheyChangedItNowItSucks). I vaguely recall hearing your stance on the issue awhile ago; care to refresh my memory :smalltongue:



I missed this. I'll refresh it for you. (and hopefully prod this thread back on track.)

First of all, 4e rules are very mechanically balanced. I can understand the appeal from a tactical combat perspective. I think I'd like to play them as a computer game.

Which comes to the problem: I don't care about tactical combat. And I don't care about balance. The DM can deal with that. The stuff I care about, is what's gone. I like unbound character creation and multiclassing options. I like to have a thousand differences in "fluff" and "style" represented by unique game mechanics. I like complexity. I like magic being able to do anything at all. I hate pigeonholing a character into a "role" (of striker, or defender, or controller, etc.). Admittedly, some of this could be solved through releasing 8 gigabytes worth of sourcebooks like they have for 3.5. Some of it can't, however. By design, 4e leans toward balance over flexibility. They are, as the OP said, intent on removing player's ability to "optimize" to the point of having a huge advantage over someone who does not, and they are intent on keeping it "simple."

I have other issues, but those do boil down to "They changed it, now it sucks." To me, the fluff of the setting and the mechanics used to represent it are one and the same, so the fact that they changed the fluff drives me mad. The change to available races is infuriating. The utter contempt for the beautiful symetry between good, evil, chaos and law in earlier editions is intolerable. I'm sure I could homebrew enough to change 4e's fluff back to 3.5s, but I don't get the books for the mechanics alone. The fluff is a huge part of them, and I don't separate the crunch from the fluff. I shouldn't have to do that.

[nagora]

No no, this is quite clear. I, for one, found this discussion quite interesting, but here is the indelible line between Nagora's RP and, well, let's call it Winterwind's RP.

- Nagora requires a system, somehow based off of reality, to deal with conflicts.
- Winterwind is happy to allow a DM to arbitrarily make these decisions in all cases.

Furthermore, no storyteller system is going to have a "gritty" decision tree - the point of a storyteller system is to forgo attempts to "model" reality when they could instead be narrating that reality. Conflict resolution is simple at best, and arbitrary at worst (from Nagora's viewpoint).

How's that for a summary? Did I make any mistakes? :smalltongue:

Pretty good I think. I don't think it's possible for a DM to make all decisions, and many situations are genuinely random (albeit with a bias towards one or other outcome) anyway, so dice are a useful tool in that respect.

As to my desire to base it of reality, I'd stress that the reality I'm really interested in is "a real person", not a realistic gameworld. I want that too, but in that case realistic means "consistant with the genre being played, and with itself". I don't mind characters with 100hp in a heroic fantasy game, but I think I might struggle with it in a game set in World War One.


How about the player - who knows the background of her/his character best, after all - decides whether the character has the required knowledge? Knowledge is, after all, also part of a persona, and hence the decision that the character does or does not know the answer could very well be considered a part of the characterisation process.
Of course. I assume that a player will play the character's weaknesses as well as their strengths.


Sometimes because the player in question decides it would be fitting for the character to screw up at that point
I question is: can the player also decide when to not screw up? If so, then you're a puppet master controlling a puppet, not assuming a role.


While I fail to see how playing a character from a piece of fiction would not be playing a role (or what the exact difference between a character from fiction and a real person would be, for that matter), my main question here is: Why? Why couldn't a player conceivably have that amount of control and still portray a real person?
Do you know of any real people with that level of control over their lives?

The difference between a real person and a character in a work of fiction is simply that the latter does things, fails at things, succeeds as things, lives or dies, all in service of the plot. In a roleplaying game, the plot flexes and develops in response to the characters - the normal fictional convention is reversed.

[Oracle_Hunter]

I missed this. I'll refresh it for you. (and hopefully prod this thread back on track.)

Heh, this thread is so derailed that we're riding it all the way to Tijuana :smallamused:

Still, I understand your complaints. 3e was almost unplayable except as a tactical game, but 4e certainly is. As part of making it a "team game" rather than a "division of labor" or "solo" game, they made hard divisions between the classes. I think they solved this elegantly, though, by not leaving any class "out in the cold;" that is, where they'll only be useful in certain situations, or are completely overshadowed in their "specialty" by another class.

I don't know what to say, except keep playing 3e or switch to a more magic based system - old Mage or Ars Magica are my two suggestions. WotC isn't likely to let the 'casters cut loose again so soon after they tried to bind 'em.

Also: the alignment "simplification" is an abomination, but an easy one to fix :smallbiggrin:

[Tsadrin]

But I see... you want a game which is open ended? How open ended do you want? Even D&D runs out of levels at some point.


Perhaps I play a different style of D&D than you do. The 'game' rarely ends. Characters may die, a party may wipe, or players may semi-retire those characters that they've played for years but the world doesn't stop for those reasons.

I, as a GM, create a world. I then open my sandbox to all of my players. What they do has influence on that world and can influence what other players find.

Of course I don't 'do' the BBEG that seems to be popular in today's gaming culture. There are of course big bads in the world but rarely is it the driving goal of the players to defeat them and then rest on their laurels.

A player is in full control of what they do in this sandbox. I suspect I run games, and expect games I play in to be run in this manner, due to being a full fledged gamer before the plot-soaked Dragonlance corrupted role-playing games.

[Oracle_Hunter]

I, as a GM, create a world. I then open my sandbox to all of my players. What they do has influence on that world and can influence what other players find.

Of course I don't 'do' the BBEG that seems to be popular in today's gaming culture. There are of course big bads in the world but rarely is it the driving goal of the players to defeat them and then rest on their laurels.

A player is in full control of what they do in this sandbox. I suspect I run games, and expect games I play in to be run in this manner, due to being a full fledged gamer before the plot-soaked Dragonlance corrupted role-playing games.

Hey, good for you. I'm sure you keep your "Elder Gamer" cane well polished to shake at those youngin's with their Dragonborn and their Will Savs :smalltongue:

Seriously though, sandbox or not, even back in 2e (I'd say 1e too, but then Nagora will snap my neck :smallwink:) the game said "when you reach level 20, you can use this high level expansion book, but you really should think about retiring." 30 I think was the highest supported level in 2e. In that sense, the game "stops," which is what I was getting at. No matter, that ship has sailed.

[Winterwind]

I question is: can the player also decide when to not screw up? If so, then you're a puppet master controlling a puppet, not assuming a role.

Do you know of any real people with that level of control over their lives?Ah. Thank you, this was rather insightful. I think I begin to understand the difference in our definition of 'roleplaying' - for me, all that matters is that the character in question has a unique personality and abilities and acts and behaves accordingly - only the in-game result counts. If the character becomes alive in the game-world, says what this person would say, acts, succeeds and fails in ways that person would - that's all I need. The metagaming structure surrounding this, what lead to the character becoming a realistic person in the gameworld, is of no importance - whether it was all founded upon the player's decisions or whether there were dice rolls involved.
It doesn't matter that I, as player, have more control than my character does, as long as, at the end of the day, I managed to present the character in a fashion that makes the other players say, "Aye, that was good ol' Varilyd, no doubt about it!".

Whereas you, in addition to all of the above, also desire the additional immersion gained by the fact that you, as player, do not possess any more control over what is happening than your character does.

Does that sound about correct?


The difference between a real person and a character in a work of fiction is simply that the latter does things, fails at things, succeeds as things, lives or dies, all in service of the plot. In a roleplaying game, the plot flexes and develops in response to the characters - the normal fictional convention is reversed.Well, but that's the case in a storytelling system too (unless the entirety of the plot is pregenerated, but I don't even see how that would be possible, considering the chaotic element of PC' behaviour in there). The actions of the players, unpredictable to anyone but themselves, will always twist the plot in new directions, no matter whether it was them who made the decisions whether some particular actions fail or succeed, the gamemaster or dice.

[Talya]

Also: the alignment "simplification" is an abomination, but an easy one to fix :smallbiggrin:

I agree, but I was referring to more by symetry. I was referring to CE Demons, NE Yugoloths, LE Devils, LN Inevitables, LG Archons, NG Guardinals, CG Eladrin, and CN Slaad. I like metallic dragons being good, chromatic dragons being evil.

I like the worlds that have developed based on 1e AD&D, 2e AD&D, and 3.x D&D.

That said, my favorite game system may soon change to Exalted. I'm not sure. I really like it. That will be as much or more due to the world and fluff they've written as the ruleset.

[Tsadrin]

Hey, good for you. I'm sure you keep your "Elder Gamer" cane well polished to shake at those youngin's with their Dragonborn and their Will Savs :smalltongue:

I like D&D 4th though. It's an interesting system, and I can actually recreate a lot of what I like in FRPGs by ignoring encounter limits much easier than I could in D&D 3.x.


Seriously though, sandbox or not, even back in 2e (I'd say 1e too, but then Nagora will snap my neck :smallwink:) the game said "when you reach level 20, you can use this high level expansion book, but you really should think about retiring." 30 I think was the highest supported level in 2e. In that sense, the game "stops," which is what I was getting at. No matter, that ship has sailed.

I always found that interesting that the rules had to point out that the player should retire. Most of the players I gamed with though the years would just recognize a point that they'd shelve their character. They'd then pick up playing a said character's child, or henchman, or start a new 1st level character.

This usually is when some self-imposed goal had been reached. (Founding a fief, building a tower to study the mysteries of the cosmos, i.e. typical name-level material.) This seems to be what nagora is discussing. The player, not the GM, should be the sole source of goals. Otherwise you're railroading your players. The GM just puts the toys in the sandbox and lets the players go. If they kill themselves choking on one of those blocks it is not the place of the GM to do anything but observe.

[Talya]

I always found that interesting that the rules had to point out that the player should retire. Most of the players I gamed with though the years would just recognize a point that they'd shelve their character. They'd then pick up playing a said character's child, or henchman, or start a new 1st level character.

This usually is when some self-imposed goal had been reached. (Founding a fief, building a tower to study the mysteries of the cosmos, i.e. typical name-level material.) This seems to be what nagora is discussing. The player, not the GM, should be the sole source of goals. Otherwise you're railroading your players. The GM just puts the toys in the sandbox and lets the players go. If they kill themselves choking on one of those blocks it is not the place of the GM to do anything but observe.

This is an excellent point. However, I'd say that at the point you reach some self-imposed goal, you could keep playing, and the game changes dramatically for you.

There's a sourcebook for Forgotten Realms called "Power of Faerun" that deals with handling players who run kingdoms, megacorporations, churches, etc, and ideas how to both mechanically and stylisticly handle the unique challenges that those situations create for the players.

I'm on the verge of requiring my DM to use that book, as my character in our ongoing FR campaign is founding a mega-temple of Sune in Calimshan, and the plan is working very well.

[Tistur]

Thanks for the fascinating read, everyone.


Whereas you, in addition to all of the above, also desire the additional immersion gained by the fact that you, as player, do not possess any more control over what is happening than your character does.

Does that sound about correct?


That's how I feel, at least partially. It would feel wrong to be in complete control, and I think I would miss out on a lot of interesting circumstances that resulted when something happens to my character I would not have decided on. (Note, please, that I am not speaking of always acting in my character's best interests, or of metagaming my way out of a situation, merely chance leading to interesting situations within I then had to RP my way around.)


In any case, the player with Past Alliances will end up with divided loyalty between their party and this force - and one way to introduce a given alliance may be for the party to discover tracks or signals left by these people. Once a story element is introduced, it becomes the domain of the DM to control and shape these elements, though the player may add new, non-contradictory elements as they go along.


I've seen something like the above in other places, and I don't like it at all. I want to play my character (or, in one case, an entire family), and interact with the world. I don't think it should my responsibility to have the world interact with me, as well.

I'm playing in one game right now that's been meeting about every 2 weeks since March. (Incidently, we have had a single combat encounter during that time, but our dice are rolling all the time.) I crafted an interesting backstory, with my DM's help, and he has brought people from it into the game in ways I wouldn't have imagined. Furthermore, in the context of the world and their place in it, their actions make sense. Yes, the DM could have retconned it (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RetCon), and perhaps in some games this would play very smoothly. It would probably still strain my disbelief (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief).

I guess I'm saying that I see it as the DM's job to play the NPCs, and the player's job to play the PC[s], both confined by some sort of simulation of reality (dice).

I have written stories using some RP, and it was a lot of fun, but I approached it as a fun way to write a story, not as an RPG.

[Winterwind]

That's how I feel, at least partially. It would feel wrong to be in complete control, and I think I would miss out on a lot of interesting circumstances that resulted when something happens to my character I would not have decided on. (Note, please, that I am not speaking of always acting in my character's best interests, or of metagaming my way out of a situation, merely chance leading to interesting situations within I then had to RP my way around.) Since I have, apparently, gotten the role of the freeform/storytelling defendant in this thread, I feel it's my duty to stress, however, that stuff you did not decide upon yourself happens to your character all the time as soon as you are not the only person at the table. The actions and decisions of the other players influence you too, after all, not to mention the gamemaster.

[tumble check]

There's a sourcebook for Forgotten Realms called "Power of Faerun" that deals with handling players who run kingdoms, megacorporations, churches, etc, and ideas how to both mechanically and stylisticly handle the unique challenges that those situations create for the players.



This is a good way to put 4e into perspective.

I, for example, could not imagine a book like that coming out in 4e.

And if anyone's response is "who cares?", then clearly 4e is for you.

[Jerthanis]

This is a good way to put 4e into perspective.

I, for example, could not imagine a book like that coming out in 4e.

And if anyone's response is "who cares?", then clearly 4e is for you.

Why couldn't such a book come out in 4th edition? 4th edition presents a ruleset that can model realistic economies much better than 3rd, where assuming there was even a single high level wizard in the setting, instantaneous transportation of goods and people from place to place would be a matter of course, there would be no such thing as a shortage of Iron, every structure would be built of hewn stone, and entire cultures would live without doing an ounce of work because they ate and drank food and water granted by their gods. In 4th edition you can do all of these things with magic... but 99% of the time it's less expensive (though often more time consuming) to do the work in a mundane way.

So there's a D&D 3rd edition setting called Kingdoms of Kalamar, where one of the primary issues of recent history is that a good king was assassinated, and a more morally questionable ruler took his place. We played in this campaign setting for some time before noticing there was a good aligned church with an 18th level cleric on hand. One True Ressurection later, half the problems of that part of the setting would have been fixed.

I'm about to play in a game called Dragonmech, a setting where the moon is falling to earth, and is going to destroy the planet and such. It's a very depressing setting, and everyone knows it's just a matter of time... but there's a level 19 wizard in the setting who could just make a permanent portal to another plane of existence and evacuate the entire plane. When there are magical fixes to such extreme problems as these, to play in settings with these problems you have to assume there are no high level NPCs to fix it, or that they just don't care to fix them.

[JaxGaret]

I, for example, could not imagine a book like that coming out in 4e.

Why can't you imagine that?


And if anyone's response is "who cares?", then clearly 4e is for you.

Clearly, people who play 4e are detestable to you. Thanks for the insult.

[Woot Spitum]

This is a good way to put 4e into perspective.

I, for example, could not imagine a book like that coming out in 4e.

And if anyone's response is "who cares?", then clearly 4e is for you.Actually, since 4th edition prevents you from making characters that can single-handedly conquer the world, I do believe such a book would be more useful in 4th edition, where conquering the world now requires a good deal of help.

[tumble check]

Why couldn't such a book come out in 4th edition? 4th edition presents a ruleset that can model realistic economies much better than 3rd,

I don't disagree.



Why can't you imagine that?

Clearly, people who play 4e are detestable to you. Thanks for the insult.


Definitely not. I don't detest people who play 4e(which includes myself), and I certainly didn't mean to insult.

What I meant is that, as far as I can see right now, the direction of 4e is much more about visceral adventuring than it is about macro-economic by-rules. By the huge change from 3e to 4e, I'm not sure that WotC plans to release such far-reaching and all-encompassing rulesets.

And for people who ask the question "who cares?" about if some of that content is not released, I am proposing that perhaps said person is a fan of the more combat-oriented 4e ruleset, and perhaps they were of the ilk that thought that 3.5e dabbled too far in the simulationist aspect.

4e is a back-to-basics, raw game, and it is my opinion that WotC plans to keep it that way.

[Gralamin]

Sorry, I've been busy these last few days. I'm just going to respond to Thrud's comments, hopefully giving him more to think about.


Except that you can't really do it alone in 4ed. You need a whole party to be effective. (Oh god, I can't belive I am about to make the following statement since I LOATHE this type of player, but this is an exercise in logic, and not actually reality, so here we go. . .) In 3ed it is possible to make those stand alone loner types. (You know, the player who wants to be a misunderstood, loner type who travels around and does good deeds. Thus fullfilling the eternal teen angst cry of 'I want to be different, just like everyone else'. :smallbiggrin:) I hate that character. But I don't really see him working in a 4ed environment. And for those of you who seem to be fixated on the fact that you believe that I am saying 3ed is better at RPing than 4ed, I think that is a TERRIBLE example of RPing. But it is possible. Ugh. I can't belive I went there. I feel dirty now.

You can do it alone in 4ed, but it requires a DM to throw appropriate encounters at you, just as it did in 3.X. Perhaps you could argue it was easier for a player to do this in 3.X, but the capability isn't really gone, now is it?
Also, you should feel dirty :smallbiggrin:.


Yep, probably. It is also the easiest to fix. And this is how I have done it since all the way back in AD&D times. If you go with the concept that not every wizard knows everything about magic, then most of the spells that characters learn are going to be things that they have either read about or had used against them. Either way they have to figure it out for themselves. If you assume that the enemy's spellbooks are pretty much out of reach (one of the few things I actually agree with from the batman wizard concept. Spellbooks should either explode, or teleport to safety, or something else similar, when anyone other than the owner opens them) 3ed had the best technique I saw for that. You get to learn 2 spells per level. I took away the ability to copy scrolls into spell books all the way back in ad&d times. And just like that wizards are not gods, because they don't have access to every spell ever put down on paper by WotC.

That would be an easier way to limit their power, but still leave them quite powerful. Good idea though.


This is a possibility. But again, something that I frown upon. First of all in most of my games, the ability to cast spells is an inborn gift. If you don't have it, you will never be able to learn it. I didn't actually put that in to limit spellcasters, it has to do with the background of my world. Still, it is possible for someone to put into their background that they have the 'gift' and didn't train it, so never became a wizard. So once again, I have to look at this as part of the non-separation of player vs character knowledge. Even if you take away the restrictions I have placed in my world, and anyone can pick up a level of wizard at any time, I have to ask what possible roleplaying reason would the character have? 'Because I can then use all wizard items' is not a roleplaying reason. It is a rules based reason. It is certainly possible to come up with a good roleplaying reason for it to happen, but if you are doing it just so you can get the added power of using all those items, then you are really powergaming, and not playing with the intent of the game. Because I do not believe that the intent of the game is to let eveyone minmax their way to being gods. If you follow the intent, then it is pretty simple to play the game as an epic heroic fantasy that is an interactive tale told between players and DM, not a way for the players to 1up the DM.

While true, that was just an example over the power disparity, and a way to lead to my point that players were metagaming, not roleplaying.


And that is kinda my point. It didn't matter that the character wasn't versatile, he was one of the most influential characters in the game because of good roleplaying. And the reason he was so good was because of the skills he was able to take through all these class changes.

There are quite a few ways of getting high skills without massive amounts of multiclassing. Perhaps being a factotum instead would of been good for the character. I dunno. But there is no reason why a character shouldn't be built for both combat and out of combat when they are adventurers.


Hmm, as I am typing this I think I just figured out why I dislike the 4ed skill system as much as I do. Sorry, this is a bit of an aside, but it just occurred to me. In my games I use skills as an aid to roleplaying, because they give concrete guidelines that can separate player knowledge from character knowledge. Just because I have worked at a little blacksmithing, and shoed a few horses, doesn't mean that a character I play will know anything about it. But it also doesn't mean that he won't. And the way to define that deliniation is with skills. But you can't do that any more. In 4ed every player knows something about everything. And that makes it much harder to separate player knowledge from character knowledge. Huh. That actually does mean that it is harder to RP in 4ed than it was in 3ed, something I hadn't actually felt before this. Hmm, I have to ponder that a little more, maybe I will go back to the idea later.

No, what it means is over the course of the game, the character would start to learn knowledge they would not have. There is little reason to beleive that just because you don't know at level 1 doesn't mean your character will learn something about it at level 20. It makes sense to me characters would start picking up tricks as they get higher and higher. This maybe another of our disconnects though.


Yeah, it is tricky. Because I honestly have never thought that way about D&D rules. I have never looked for the holes in the rules.

Perhaps you should attempt to then. It may give you a better idea of the game as a whole.


Yeah, but it would take a lot of homebrewing. What if the party wants to get to some treasure that they are unable to get to alone, but they also don't want to share. And they are all evil. That is a concept that really doesn't work with the team build mentality in 4ed where everyone works as cogs in a wheel. I think it would take a lot of homebrewing. And once again this seems to support my argument about lack of versatility built into core 4ed, because it is something that you can do very easily in core 3ed.

To be fair, 3.X was really bad at the whole team thing in the first place. What reason past the first few levels did the team really need each other? Each of them would have a way past most challenges.


So you put down your sword and I will put down my rock, and we can kill each other like civilized people? Heh, may be about time to put a Princess Bride quote into my sig.

Exactly.


And that is probably due to differences in DMing style. If your DM doesn't reward anything other than combat efficiency, then you kinda have to have that to fall back on. Thank you Tormsskull for pointing that out to me.

Some DMs that I play with do, some don't. But I honestly I don't know this until I've played with a DM. Therefore it makes sense to try and cover my bases.


Which I think proves my point. If everyone behaves themselves, then it doesn't matter if there are holes that can be exploited. I think that supports my argument about 3ed having to rely on RPing as the check and balance, instead of enforcing it through restrictive rules.

But my main point is this is not really RP, as it is not the character acting. It is the Player choosing to act in a way that makes the game work for the whole.


But again I have to ask WHY would a wizard pick up a given spell without some reason to? There are plenty of people in this world who are very very smart. That does not mean that when they apply their intelligence to their chosen field that they know everything about it. Even if you are the foremost expert in something, there are going to be gaps in your knowledge. And a first level character is more a high school graduate than a world renowned expert. And now he no longer has a school to go to, and has to learn everything on his own. If you really think about it, that should limit his options a hell of a lot.

Okay, however, if your intelligent you rarely pick up important things by choice. Say you were to buy a car for example, wouldn't you do research and find the best car for your needs, including price wise? Now consider, the knowledge that the only thing that may keep you from being killed is the car. Wouldn't you want to make sure it was the best car out there, so you could survive longer? Same with spells.


O.K. I see what you are driving at. But simply from the space taken up by magic items and powers, even allowing for the 4ed lack of spells, there is much less room in the PHB in 4ed than there was in 3ed. Thus it seems pretty unlikely that there are actually many things in 4ed that are not in 3ed. This is why I tend to think 4ed has less versatility than 3ed. And as I just was able to figure out in my mind with my skills analysis, every time you take away a mechanic and put control of it into the hands of the player, the separation of player vs character becomes harder to sustain.

Your choice to take out the powers is taking away the versatility, Every class except the spellcasters have gained huge amounts of powers and versatility. Since each and every class has a comparable amount of options I feel I have to argue there is more versatility.


This I fully agree with. Comparing 4ed to the entirety of 3ed if a totally unfair comparison. But I don't use much of 3ed beyond PHB, DMG, MM, and every now and then stuff from the class volumes (I play 3.0, so I am talking sword and fist, etc). I don't really like expansions to core rules all that much. I think they are pretty much universally asking for trouble.

So we see eye-to-eye here.


Actually I play a lot of WoD games, so I have long had something similar to the skill challenge in my games. This is because I love skill based games, and I have the most fun with them. This is why I liked 3ed so much. It was the first skill based D&D game. In WoD games you have a given set of skills that can define your character, and whenever you are having a problem trying to figure out whether or not your character can know or do something, it is easy to figure out because you have the skill right there, giving you an basis from which to work. And when you make your skill roll, you have an idea of how much on this particular aspect of the skill your character knows.

Very true.


Example from last weeks game. Players are investigating a murder in the Duke's household for the Duke, because due to events in the previous weeks game, they are the only ones the Duke can absolutely trust not to be involved. So, they investigate the body. Fighter looks at the weapon left with the body, and asks if he recognizes it. He is a weaponsmith, makes his roll, succeeds at a DC 20 check, and realizes that it is a type of dagger used by a barbarian tribe far to the north (a member of which, a big gruff chieftan, is currently visiting). He then asks if he recognizes the workmanship at all. He fails his DC20 check, so he doesn't realize a key fact, that it was not actually made by those people. Then the cleric steps up and asks to examine the body. After a heal check of DC25, he realizes that the weapon here is not exactly the same as the weapon that caused the injuries. Wizard steps up asks about any magical residue left, finds a faint hint of illusion magic lingering by using detect magic and a spellcraft check(success). Fighter asks if there is anything else unusual about knife, and I ask him to make a blacksmith roll, and he realizes that the metals in the knife are really weird, not in the correct ratios at all(success). Chieftan is a very prickly sort, and has many a time made threats that might be construed as intending to harm others. Bard makes a check on sense motive(success) to realize that most of this is bluster, and makes a bardic knowledge check (success) to realize that this is expected behaviour for chieftans in his tribe. At which point they realize that the whole thing is pretty hinky. Because of this feeling I tell the Fighter that he might have missed something, and that the party as a whole doesn't feel like the barbarian chieftan did this. End of skill challenge. It is not exact, as I give a little more guidance on what skills should be used, but I had it set in my mind that it was going to take a minimum of 6 success on appropriate skills to figure out the frame up. Then there is another skill challenge set up for them to figure out that the chieftan is there to broker an agreement to allow the duke to mine for the diamonds that have just been found on the land. Then another set to find out that the neighboring dukedom has found out about it at the same time, and wants to take the diamonds for themselves. So, not exactly the same, but pretty close.

Very close to skill challenges indeed. I tip my hat to you, as you are obviously a good DM.


Yes, you could. The system is very versatile that way.

:smallbiggrin:



Yep, and I probably would have a problem with it in that situation. Once again, good roleplaying is the key.



Yep, once again, I agree entirely. I never wonder about consequences of changes to classes and such if the players are RPing responsibly.

We seem to agree an awful lot :smallbiggrin:


But if an ability is overpowered in that fasion, I also won't use it against the party. And thus they will never learn of its existence. And thus never learn it, because of the separation of character and player knowledge.

However, since the player could in theory take it, the character in theory could find information on it and learn it, correct?


Yeah, 4ed and 3ed are both good for RPing. 3ed requires greater RPing than 4ed in order to keep it running.

I continue to argue that it is not RP as it is player not character action :smalltongue:


It panders to them in the sense that if there weren't bad RPers out there, it wouldn't be necessary. I think I understand now where your confusion is. It was my bad way of making the original statement. 4ed is a direct response to crappy rping in 3ed. I have never tried to make a value judgement between ability to RP in one game or the other, until I had my minor epiphany about one of the elements that annoyed me with 4ed. My point has always been that the argument was always backwards that 4ed hindered roleplaying. It should be that 3ed requires greater RPing. There, is that a better way to put it? One of the problems with typing is that things seem so clear in your head, then when you type them out you can't fully explain yourself.

Hopefully I did a better job this time.

Phew. And now off to bed.

I see how you look at it, however It may be that you still misunderstand me. I'll attempt to make sure we both see each others perspectives :smallbiggrin:.

It would be roleplaying if the players had to make the characters make the choice not to because it is too powerful. However since in the world this would not have foreseeable down side (as the power would just cause them to live longer), the player must step in, and make the choice that the character does not take it. This may very well be against roleplaying the character, but will be necessary for game balance. I think of this as metagaming, or you could even think of it as maturity. It is however not roleplaying.

Hopefully we understand each other now.

[Jerthanis]

What I meant is that, as far as I can see right now, the direction of 4e is much more about visceral adventuring than it is about macro-economic by-rules. By the huge change from 3e to 4e, I'm not sure that WotC plans to release such far-reaching and all-encompassing rulesets.

Ah, that does make sense. It just seemed like you were saying "WotC can't put out a book about economics and power structures in 4th because 4th edition is an icky-bad."

Which you clearly weren't. Carry on then.

[Dan_Hemmens]

This is a good way to put 4e into perspective.

I, for example, could not imagine a book like that coming out in 4e.

And if anyone's response is "who cares?", then clearly 4e is for you.

Interestingly, one of the 4E developers was talking about developing a system for running trade routes using the Skill Check system...

[Indon]

Why couldn't such a book come out in 4th edition?
Because economics would be exploitable to the advantage of a character, I should think.

Not to say they might not still make it, but to do so would be contrary to their stated design intent for the system, being mechanical balance between PC's.

[JaxGaret]

Definitely not. I don't detest people who play 4e(which includes myself), and I certainly didn't mean to insult.

What I meant is that, as far as I can see right now, the direction of 4e is much more about visceral adventuring than it is about macro-economic by-rules. By the huge change from 3e to 4e, I'm not sure that WotC plans to release such far-reaching and all-encompassing rulesets.

And for people who ask the question "who cares?" about if some of that content is not released, I am proposing that perhaps said person is a fan of the more combat-oriented 4e ruleset, and perhaps they were of the ilk that thought that 3.5e dabbled too far in the simulationist aspect.

4e is a back-to-basics, raw game, and it is my opinion that WotC plans to keep it that way.

Okay then. Carry on! :smallsmile:

[Kiara LeSabre]

Mmm.. this was very articulate and tasty.

Thank you. :smallredface:

And I know much more has been said on this, but I just feel I have to touch on it myself:


Actually, no. I've played 3.5, and I've played 4ed. Both of them, I had the same DM - a very good DM, who encourages RP a lot. The 4ed game was noticeably less fun than the 3.5 campaign we're in - even, dare I say it, boring. It really didn't encourage RP in the same way, as all the rules for social interactions have been removed.

Putting aside the fact that 4e has the same rules for social interaction that 3.5e did (Bluff is there, Diplomacy is there, Intimidate is there, Insight = Sense Motive and is there), you ... I ...

You're ... actually saying you need a separate rule set to know how to proceed with social interactions in a game? :smalleek:

You know, in the good old days, we didn't have social skills at all, or even a skills system period! We didn't have anything but our class features and those newfangled things they called "non-weapon proficiencies." That's right, we took Mountaineering and Pottery and liked it! Social interactions? We made up all of those on the spot using a special method we called "roleplaying." :smallyuk:

[Jerthanis]

Because economics would be exploitable to the advantage of a character, I should think.

Not to say they might not still make it, but to do so would be contrary to their stated design intent for the system, being mechanical balance between PC's.

What it sounds like, is that the book would be useful for a DM to plot out an adventure surrounding an economic holding owned jointly by the PCs. If only one PC owns the business and doesn't let the other PCs in on it, but still drives the plots and adventures toward that direction, he's being a bad player.

[Indon]

What it sounds like, is that the book would be useful for a DM to plot out an adventure surrounding an economic holding owned jointly by the PCs. If only one PC owns the business and doesn't let the other PCs in on it, but still drives the plots and adventures toward that direction, he's being a bad player.

Even if owned jointly, that's still violating the game's "wealth by level" system. While it's not as big a deal as in 3'rd edition, it is an assumption of the carefully-balanced system's math.

[Dan_Hemmens]

Even if owned jointly, that's still violating the game's "wealth by level" system. While it's not as big a deal as in 3'rd edition, it is an assumption of the carefully-balanced system's math.

You're perpetrating a bit of a fallacy here (or perpetuating a bit of a myth).

4E is designed to be "balanced" in the sense of characters not having vast differences in power based purely on decisions made at character creation. It was never designed to stop people doing interesting things within the setting.

[Jerthanis]

Even if owned jointly, that's still violating the game's "wealth by level" system. While it's not as big a deal as in 3'rd edition, it is an assumption of the carefully-balanced system's math.

I'm confused, if such a book existed in 3.5, and WBL was a bigger deal in 3.5 than it seems to be in 4th... and the concept behind the book involves violation of wealth by level rules... how is this evidence that supports the idea that such a book is less likely to come out in 4th edition?

[Tyrrell]

Well, if you've played Mage (pre-reboot) then you've played the Ars Magica mechanic.

This is not true at all. While Ars Magica and Mage both do have systems to have characers create appropriate spells on the fly the actual mechanics are vastly different.

Mage has a much less detailed system allowing for greater leway. It uses a die pool success system with a floating target number.

Ars Magica is a more detailed system that gives a clearer picture of what is possible for a character and has more of the magical flavor in the rules giving less of a burden on the players to add in flavor with creativity but also constraining them more than Mage in their ability to do whatever the story needs. It uses a single die target number system that is at its base nearly identical to d20 (but the implementation is naturally quite different).

D&D 3.5 and Paladium fantasy are more similar (not to say anything bad about either game just to give you an idea of disparate the mechanics are).

[Roderick_BR]

This is a good way to put 4e into perspective.

I, for example, could not imagine a book like that coming out in 4e.

And if anyone's response is "who cares?", then clearly 4e is for you.
Why not? I can see a 4E character running a kingdom. Just remember that no one does it alone. Even in 3.5, your typical king will usually have only a bunch of NPC class levels anyway. He'll probably have some PC class levels if he's a retired adventurer, but even then, he'll have many henchmen working for him. In 4E, he'll just be harder to kill in one round.
I would actually like a book like that. My group actually built a fort in the land they received as a reward from the king the last time we played in 3.5, filled it with soldiers, got all the details on logistic put down, and ended up as the kingdom's elite troops. If 4E can add more to that, it would be awesome.

[tumble check]

Why not? I can see a 4E character running a kingdom. Just remember that no one does it alone. Even in 3.5, your typical king will usually have only a bunch of NPC class levels anyway. He'll probably have some PC class levels if he's a retired adventurer, but even then, he'll have many henchmen working for him. In 4E, he'll just be harder to kill in one round.
I would actually like a book like that. My group actually built a fort in the land they received as a reward from the king the last time we played in 3.5, filled it with soldiers, got all the details on logistic put down, and ended up as the kingdom's elite troops. If 4E can add more to that, it would be awesome.

Read some of my above responses.

It is my opinion that such over-arching rulesets are outside of the scope of what 4e will ever be.

[Talya]

Read some of my above responses.

It is my opinion that such over-arching rulesets are outside of the scope of what 4e will ever be.

I agree.

Power of Faerûn is about taking the high level game out of combat for the most part; it's eschewing dungeon crawls and dragon-slayings for politics, intrigue, and finance. I don't think it fits 4e stylisticly.

[nagora]

it's eschewing dungeon crawls and dragon-slayings for politics, intrigue, and finance. I don't think it fits 4e stylisticly.

If that's the case it's a big mark in favour of the "4e isn't for roleplayers" argument that started this thread off, isn't it?

[Dan_Hemmens]

Read some of my above responses.

It is my opinion that such over-arching rulesets are outside of the scope of what 4e will ever be.

I can see why you might think that, but I think you're misunderstanding 4E's design goals. 4E isn't designed to be "all combat all the time".

3.X was designed around the principle of "a rule for everything": you have rules for tradeskills, rules for playing the lute, rules for buying and selling trade goods which lead to horrible economic problems when you realize that many items are worth less than their components.

4E was designed around the principle of "a rule for everything". That is to say, one rule covers everything you need to do. Want to forge a new sword? Skill Challenge. Want to found a trading empire? Skill Challenge (or rather, lots of little skill challenges). Want to seduce the governor's daughter? Skill challenge.

Rules for PCs governing their own lands is not beyond the scope of 4E, it's just that if the rules do come out they'll use the existing core system, instead of a new subsystem.

[Indon]

I'm confused, if such a book existed in 3.5, and WBL was a bigger deal in 3.5 than it seems to be in 4th... and the concept behind the book involves violation of wealth by level rules... how is this evidence that supports the idea that such a book is less likely to come out in 4th edition?

Because balance was not a significant design objective for 3'rd edition.

Also, the math of 3'rd edition was not built so that PC's were expected to have X magic item bonuses at Y level - wealth by level was not remotely that precise.

[tumble check]

If that's the case it's a big mark in favour of the "4e isn't for roleplayers" argument that started this thread off, isn't it?

Ehhhh, maybe not?

As many people have trumpeted in the past few weeks, all of that kind of stuff CAN BE roleplayed. So having things like politics and more societal structures in 4e is fine.

However, the difference that we're pointing out with 3.5e is that it provided yet more rules for it, if one ever wanted to take it further than RPing it.

[Jerthanis]

Because balance was not a significant design objective for 3'rd edition.

Also, the math of 3'rd edition was not built so that PC's were expected to have X magic item bonuses at Y level - wealth by level was not remotely that precise.

...That's what Wealth by Level meant! It meant you needed X value of magic item by level Y or you would be unable to reasonably fight monsters of your CR. That is what it represented, boldface. Money was a parallel advancement pool, similar to experience points in 3.5. In 4th edition I'd argue that having unlimited funds would only boost the party in small ways, since you can only make magic items of your level and lower, and the best magic items of your party will tend to be several levels higher than your party's average level.

And 4e's focus on balance is a focus on balance between PCs, so having a jointly owned corporation to make extra money doesn't necessarily mean one person is getting more than any other.

And remember, this discussion is about turning management of a religion, corporation, guild, organization or whatever into the adventure. If the DM is DMing, they will make the rewards suit the risk, and it'll be just like adventuring. "I make a corporation making and selling widgets" shouldn't lead to limitless wealth any easier more than "I search the room" should.

[Indon]

...That's what Wealth by Level meant! It meant you needed X value of magic item by level Y or you would be unable to reasonably fight monsters of your CR. That is what it represented, boldface. Money was a parallel advancement pool, similar to experience points in 3.5.
Wealth by Level wasn't remotely that sophisticated. It was simply a way to control the proliferation of magical items that could potentially occur in an AD&D game - it probably contributed more to breaking 3'rd edition's CR system than it did to bolstering it as a result of that.


In 4th edition I'd argue that having unlimited funds would only boost the party in small ways, since you can only make magic items of your level and lower, and the best magic items of your party will tend to be several levels higher than your party's average level.
This is a relatively good point, because magic items are difficult to purchase.


And 4e's focus on balance is a focus on balance between PCs, so having a jointly owned corporation to make extra money doesn't necessarily mean one person is getting more than any other.
This is only one aspect of 4'th edition's balance. Balance in and out of combat is definitely one objective, but the game was totally revamped in order to streamline the skill and CR structure in order to produce a more general game balance with aspects such as encounter challenge by level - and this is the aspect of the game that breaking wealth by level could potentially violate.

While with only the three existing books, this is a minor problem, as there is no magical item creation system and not much variety to magical items, but future expansions of the system are likely to increase the impact of having higher wealth, if only by allowing for a greater variety of minor magical items.


And remember, this discussion is about turning management of a religion, corporation, guild, organization or whatever into the adventure. If the DM is DMing, they will make the rewards suit the risk, and it'll be just like adventuring. "I make a corporation making and selling widgets" shouldn't lead to limitless wealth any easier more than "I search the room" should.

"I make a corporation making and selling widgets" should lead to about as much wealth as "I kill a bunch of dragons and take their hordes" would.

Though given the 4'th edition system, you don't really need rules for that - just have a really long series of skill (well, more like 'page 42 table ability check') challenges and give the players XP and loot accordingly.

[Jerthanis]

"I make a corporation making and selling widgets" should lead to about as much wealth as "I kill a bunch of dragons and take their hordes" would.

Though given the 4'th edition system, you don't really need rules for that - just have a really long series of skill (well, more like 'page 42 table ability check') challenges and give the players XP and loot accordingly.

Exactly. Making a corporation to make and sell widgets should be as profitable as killing dragons. It should, however, be just as difficult and require just as much effort and attention. If you can make this corporation function easily, and make gobs of money at it, it's no different than if you were to kill a single orc and get 10,000 gold as a reward. It's Monty Haul either way.

This hypothetical book we're talking about whether would be made or not, would be an aid to the DM to make the management of a world power dangerous and exciting. The DMG has always included a lot of advice on how to make interesting locales, NPCs, and events to engage the PCs, and this hypothetical book could easily be a sort of DMG with a specialization in a certain type of locale, NPC or event.

[Talya]

This hypothetical book we're talking about whether would be made or not, would be an aid to the DM to make the management of a world power dangerous and exciting. The DMG has always included a lot of advice on how to make interesting locales, NPCs, and events to engage the PCs, and this hypothetical book could easily be a sort of DMG with a specialization in a certain type of locale, NPC or event.

Power of Faerûn was certainly not written for the players, so you're right in this regard. Also, while the examples it gives are setting specific, the ideas, rules, and other elements in it work fine in any setting. A lot of it would be entirely valid in 4e already, aside from the many mechanics that revolve around the "Leadership" feat.

[Woot Spitum]

I agree.

Power of Faerûn is about taking the high level game out of combat for the most part; it's eschewing dungeon crawls and dragon-slayings for politics, intrigue, and finance. I don't think it fits 4e stylisticly.I'm not sure if an adventure of politics, intrigue, and finance fits any edition of D&D stylistically. The game is designed, after all, to be about eclectic groups of three to six individuals going into large underground complexes to slay approximately four creatures or groups of creatures per day and proceeding to take said creatures belongings which either serve to enhance the aforementioned adventurers' strength or are sold in order to obtain the funds required to purchase items that will enhance the adventurers' strength. In addition, the act of slaying creatures in and of itself also increases the strength of the adventurers. These increases in strength allow adventurers to venture into larger underground complexes where they will slay more powerful creatures who posess better and more valuable belongings which allow the adventurers' strength to increase even further. The process is then repeated as long as necessary.

This is not to say that with the right DM and group that the game cannot become something more. The fact remains however that this is what, at its heart, D&D has always been, and if the designers of the new edition strayed to far from this formula the game would cease to be D&D and would become something else. After all, D&D stands for Dungeons and Dragons, not Diplomats and Dossiers.

[nagora]

I'm not sure if an adventure of politics, intrigue, and finance fits any edition of D&D stylistically. The game is designed, after all, to be about eclectic groups of three to six individuals going into large underground complexes to slay approximately four creatures or groups of creatures per day and proceeding to take said creatures belongings which either serve to enhance the aforementioned adventurers' strength or are sold in order to obtain the funds required to purchase items that will enhance the adventurers' strength.
Firstly, that's the current design, not the original (edit: well, all right, the original was very like that but AD&D 1e expanded the options greatly as regards politics), and secondly: Conan kept having interesting adventures after he became king. Thirdly: the second RPG was Empire of the Petal Throne which mostly used D&D rules and was centred on political intrigue as well as including adventuring in the underworld. Look it up some time.


if the designers of the new edition strayed to far from this formula the game would cease to be D&D and would become something else.
Quite correct, that's pretty well exactly what happened, but they paid to use the name.

[Woot Spitum]

Firstly, that's the current design, not the original (edit: well, all right, the original was very like that but AD&D 1e expanded the options greatly as regards politics)But that is the entire point, the original rules were about dungeoncrawling and dragonslaying, it would be the later, supplemental, and entirely optional rulebooks that brought in options for more intrigue based campaigns. Furthermore, I just have a hard time believing that a majority of First Edition D&D groups spent nearly all their time worring about the diplomatic implications of Lord Franzibald's ill-advised comments on dwarven immigration in between anxious rolls to see if the price of silk in Clifftown doesn't dip to low. A few, certainly. But most? I could be wrong, but I just don't see it.
Secondly: Conan kept having interesting adventures after he became king.If memory serves me correctly, even after becoming king, Conan solved most of his problems in as violent a manner as possible.
Thirdly: the second RPG was Empire of the Petal Throne which mostly used D&D rules and was centred on political intrigue as well as including adventuring in the underworld. Look it up some time.Now I'm confused, are you using an entirely seperate RPG system that simply borrowed many rules from D&D as evidence that Gary Gygax's original vision of D&D was of a game of diplomatic intrigue in which words, not swords, were the weapon of choice? (I did look it up. The Empire of the Petal Throne sounds like an interesting setting, but does not appear to me to be an integral part of core First Edition D&D any more than D20 Star Wars is to 3.0).



Quite correct, that's pretty well exactly what happened, but they paid to use the name.32 years after the original boxed set came out, we are still exploring dungeons and slaying dragons. The fact that some other methods of play that were added later are not yet supported in the latest editon does not mean that the game has betrayed all it ever stood for.