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View Full Version : My experiences with 4th edition (so far)



Marshall
2008-09-10, 10:38 AM
I started a 4th edition D&D campaign a few weeks ago, and the group is now well into their 2nd adventure, and I thought I'd share some thoughts on the subject.

First, my background: I started playing D&D in 1979, basic set, while in grade school. I started playing 1st Ed AD&D in 1983, and our group made the transitions from 1st edition/1st edition with Unearthed Arcana and the survival guides/2nd edition quite easily.

I skipped playing 3rd edition, despite buying the books, as I felt that the multiclassing, feat min/maxxing, and tactical-focused combat was not the D&D I'd grown up on. (I find this amusing, considering the debates going on now.)

I played a variety of other games in this time... Rolemaster, MERP, Palladium Fantasy, Shadowrun, Traveller, Bushido, TMNT, Rifts, Vampire, Werewolf, Cyberpunk, etc. I also got heavily into miniature wargaming, Magic the Gathering, and eventually German style board games. Prior to running this 4e campaign, I'd not actually sat down and played D&D since 1996. I'd read the books, made some characters under 3.5, but no actual playing.

Well, between Penny Arcade, PvP, and a general interest in keeping my finger on the pulse of D&D, i bought the 4th edition core set. the first thing I noticed was that the game was a lot simpler and more forgiving. None of this complex construct of classes, multi classes, prestige classes, feat selections, and a long 'upgrade path' so that your 10th level character would suddenly be an unstoppable machine. You'd just play a class, and have fun. I liked that.

My second thought was that powers were exceptionally cool. Pure casters get to actually do things at first level other than 'I cast sleep... let me know when we're done for the day', or the cleric 'heal monkey'. They lost out on some of the flexibility and power that comes at high level, but they had a much more even power curve. More importantly, the non-casters were actually cool. No more 'I hit it with my longsword' from the fighter for every round of every encounter for all time. There was a reason in my old campaigns everyone multi-classed or dual-classed or otherwise ignored fighter... double specialization in the longsword was cool, but it didn't change the fact that you still always said 'I hit it with my longsword'.

I got over the lack of druid, bard, monk, barbarian, etc... I came from a D&D background where bard was a prestige class, monks were useless until high level, and druids were gimped and barbarians didn't exist until UA came out, so I can get over those omissions in a core set, and wait for the proper book to come out and do them correctly.

I didn't much care for tiefling, eldarin, and dragonborn. I prefer the more 'standard' races. However, it's far superior to 3rd edition's 'play any race you want' format (for me).

After buying the books, my wife, a couple of friends, and my son all wanted to play. I grabbed the quick-start characters from wizards, and ran them through the kobold hall adventure in the back of the book. I gave everyone back stories as to why they were in fallcrest (the halfling rogue and dwarf fighter were coming in a caravan, the fighter as a guard, the rogue was a tagger-on), the half-elf cleric was a pilgrim who'd been in the town for a while, and the human wizard was a native, who was a student under the High Septarch.

As hooks, I had the caravans going into and out of Fallcrest being harried by kobold attacks, and also used the 'recover the dragonhide' and 'learn about the kobolds' hooks. We actually played for about an hour and a half talking to people... the merchants, the High Septarch, the caravan masters, the farrier, etc, learning where the kobolds attacked from, what they targeted, where they went.

After this they learned enough to have an idea, and the High Septarch teleported them to the area. I used this as an opportunity to do some exploring, and eventually they found the entrance to the kobold lair.

At this point, we got into mostly tactical combat, since the module in the back of the book isn't very varied once you're actually inside. We played a couple of encounters and then called it.

The next session, we had a new player. I brought her in as a prisoner of the kobolds, and had an impromptu encounter using basic kobold stats. There were other prisoners and the looted goods, and the party spent some time getting the prisoners settled, and determining how to handle them.

We then finished the encounters, they even defeated the dragon. I had already decided to run Rescue at Rivenroar as the next adventure, so I added hooks here... the Kobold Wyrmpriest had a letter from Sinruth that had to be translated.

The party then spent some adventuring time hiring a group to come and salvage the weapons, armor, and dragon carcass, which I decided was worth a fair amount of gold for magical components and curiosities. They also researched the letter, translating it, and then studied up on the red hand and the area...

This ended the adventure, and the next adventure had them teleported outside Brindol. Rather than throwing them in to the bar fight, they had some 'advance warning' due to the letter, and spent a while exploring the town, talking to the guards, the caravan master, the council, and visiting the museum. They failed to make anyone believe the hobgoblins were a serious threat, and had decided to go out on their own the next day... that's when I threw the bar fight and ogre at them.

After that, they had negotiations with both the Councillor Troyas (lol, Counselor Troi), and the prisoner. I handle skill checks a bit differently... basically, I don't say it's a skill challenge, instead we just talk and roleplay and depending on the roleplay I'll give them a skill check to make and determine the DC on what they say. They aren't really skill challenges, but they are more than just talking... I let the results determine the response from the NPC, based on their tactics more than the rolls. That works for me.

That's where we are now, after a few sessions. I really like that the players always seem to have 'cool' things to do. Combat is never static, no one stands there doing basic attacks toe-to-toe, as everyone is working to get angles, flanks, and etc.

Combat also is nicely paceable... If combat was too easy, the next encounter happens during the 5-minute rest, so that powers don't regen. I've been able to have multiple combats were second winds were used, healing words were gone, and things were getting edgy and people were worried. I like that I have a fair amount of control over that.

I threw out the concept that monsters would fight until dead. My monsters flee (not always towards reinforcements). I also make sure that if fleeing monsters go for reinforcements, the situation is such that if the party is drained, the monsters either 'lie in wait' allowing a 5-minute rest, or the party has a chance to retreat to a safe area.

Part of me is worried that there isn't enough variety in the classes/powers... but I don't have to worry yet. The party is a Cleric, Wizard, Rogue, Fighter, and Warlock, so there's no overlap. By the time we make 'new' characters for another game, I'm sure there will be plenty of supplements out there to solve that issue.

The game is fast, simple, supports as much roleplaying as you're willing to put into it (hasn't that always been the case?), and combat is clean and a lot more fun than combat ever was in basic/1st/2nd. Class balance seems decent. I've already got a swath of house rules, especially regarding skill challenges and treasure parcels, but those are just because of my personal foibles.

I'm a huge fan of the new HP/healing surge system. I've always abstracted HP down to 'scrapes, bruises, and exhaustion... until you're to single digits'. No one gets 'cut' by a weapon until they're nearly dead in my versions of HP... so bloodied means just that... the wound that bloodies you is the first one that actually drew blood, prior to that all HP damage was exhaustion and being pushed around. I never liked the idea of a level 10 fighter being able to be stabbed 25 times before keeling over, and the new system encourages you to abstract things out the way I always have, so yay.

Overall, I think it's a great system for playing high fantasy games. I'm unsure if I could play a low fantasy game with it without major tweaks, but then again... if I wanted low fantasy, I don't think I'd turn to D&D to begin with.

Kudos to WotC for getting me back into D&D after a 12-year hiatus.

Matthew
2008-09-10, 11:21 AM
Sounds like 4e is just the game for you!

However, "I hit it with my long sword", "Heal Bot Clerics" and "One Shot Magicians" are possibly the most perpetuated myths about AD&D...

Marshall
2008-09-10, 11:43 AM
Sounds like 4e is just the game for you!

However, "I hit it with my long sword", "Heal Bot Clerics" and "One Shot Magicians" are possibly the most perpetuated myths about AD&D...

They aren't myths.

1st edition AD&D, magic-users had a single spell at first level. It was Sleep. They'd wait to cast it in the encounter that let them sleep more than one monster. Other than that, they threw daggers/darts. With 4-6HP (if they had a 16 con, that is), if they did anything other than hide in the back, they'd be killed nearly instantly... especially when they had at best a 6 AC (with 18 dex)

Clerics had more spells, because of bonus spells due to wisdom. However, all 4-5 off those spells were Cure Light Wounds, because there was no other way to heal. Since the Thief, Cleric, Magic-user, Druid, Monk, and Illusionist could be knocked to negative HP with 1-2 hits from a first level monster, you never took the other spells.

Fighters could do two things in 1st edition. They could hit things with their longsword, or they could shoot things with their longbow. There really were no other options.

Until 5th level in 1st edition, that was pretty much the way things worked. At 5th level, the threat of instant death was replaced with the threat of being overrun. Sleep stopped working around this time, but mages got fireball and lightning bolt. Clerics were still heal bots, only now they also neutralized poison and removed curses. Clerics didn't get good offensive spells until level 9, really, and even then they were still healbots that had flamestrike.

And a single-class fighter, regardless of level, *never* stopped 'I hit it with my longsword'. Rangers and Paladins would occasionally do something else, but not fighters.

2nd edition did very little to stop these myths from being perpetuated, as well. The rules for grappling made it slightly more likely that a fighter would have an option in combat, but generally it was still 'I hit it with my longsword'.

The only thing 2nd really brought to the table were the skills (which were just a cleanup of the Wilderness/Dungeoneer's survival guide skills) and more specializations. Early levels had the same problems, and every party needed a healbot unless you houseruled around it.

I'm not sure why you think they were myths. I played 1st/2nd edition AD&D practically weekly for 6 years, in many campaigns, with dozens of different people, in multiple cities. If those were myths, they were well represented among widely disparate groups.

Tengu_temp
2008-09-10, 11:47 AM
Marshall - would you accept the Man Who Doesn't Let Nostalgia Cloud His Judgement award?

Matthew
2008-09-10, 11:49 AM
They aren't myths.

1st edition AD&D, magic-users had a single spell at first level. It was Sleep. they'd wait to cast it in the encounter that let them sleep more than one monster. Other than that, they threw daggers/darts. With 4-6HP (if they had a 16 con, that is), if they did anything other than hide in the back, they'd be killed nearly instantly... especially when they had at best a 6 AC (with 18 dex)

Clerics had more spells, because of bonus spells due to wisdom. However, all 4-5 off those spells were Cure Light Wounds, because there was no other way to heal. Since the Thief, Cleric, Magic-user, Druid, Monk, and Illusionist could be knocked to negative HP with 1-2 hits from a first level monster, you never took the other spells.

Fighters could do two things in 1st edition. They could hit things with their longsword, or they could shoot things with their longbow. There really were no other options.

Until 5th level in 1st edition, that was pretty much the way things worked. At 5th level, the threat of instant death was replaced with the threat of being overrun. Sleep stopped working around this time, but mages got fireball and lightning bolt. Clerics were still heal bots, only now they also neutralized poison and removed curses. Clerics didn't get good offensive spells until level 9, really, and even then they were still healbots that had flamestrike.

And a single-class fighter, regardless of level, *never* stopped 'I hit it with my longsword'. Rangers and Paladins would occasionally do something else, but not fighters.

2nd edition did very little to stop these myths from being perpetuated, as well. The rules for grappling made it slightly more likely that a fighter would have an option in combat, but generally it was still 'I hit it with my longsword'.

The only thing 2nd really brought to the table were the skills (which were just a cleanup of the Wilderness/Dungeoneer's survival guide skills) and more specializations. Early levels had the same problems, and every party needed a healbot unless you houseruled around it.

I'm not sure why you think they were myths. I played 1st/2nd edition AD&D practically weekly for 6 years, in many campaigns, with dozens of different people, in multiple cities. If those were myths, they were well represented among widely disparate groups.

*Sigh*

Wish I had time to go into it, but it's all myths to me. Been playing AD&D since the early nineties, can't say I have ever run into these issues, though I read about them all the time on the internet.

Marshall
2008-09-10, 12:03 PM
*Sigh*

Wish I had time to go into it, but it's all myths to me. Been playing AD&D since the early nineties, can't say I have ever run into these issues, though I read about them all the time on the internet.

When you have time, please do. By the early 90s, 2nd edition was no longer in it's infancy and had had a lot of time to mature. I think it was 1994 or 1995 that you started to get the 'complete' expansion books, which actually did a lot to try to fix the one-shot mages, healbot clerics, and hit-with-longsword fighters.

However, I'm looking at D&D from the timespan of 1979-1996, and in that 17 year period, low-level D&D was exactly like I described it. We never played with the 'revised 2nd' rules or the mass of supplements that came from it... if that's your background, then that might explain our differences of opinion.

I'd love to know, back when you started playing, what a 1st level magic-user, cleric, or fighter did that wasn't what I described, though. If you have time.

Matthew
2008-09-10, 12:13 PM
When you have time, please do. By the early 90s, 2nd edition was no longer in it's infancy and had had a lot of time to mature. I think it was 1994 or 1995 that you started to get the 'complete' expansion books, which actually did a lot to try to fix the one-shot mages, healbot clerics, and hit-with-longsword fighters.

No, all the initial CHBs came out in 1989-1990. You may be thinking of the Player's Option series.



However, I'm looking at D&D from the timespan of 1979-1996, and in that 17 year period, low-level D&D was exactly like I described it. We never played with the 'revised 2nd' rules or the mass of supplements that came from it... if that's your background, then that might explain our differences of opinion.

Sadly, a lot of folks do seem to have played it in the manner you describe. I started with Red Box BD&D after coming from WHFRP, played AD&D from around 1991 using second edition PHB, dug up first edition around about 2000; took a good look through the Player's Option and Revised second edition booksat around the same time. Became acquainted with D20/3e around about 2004-ish, read through the 4e books this summer.



I'd love to know, back when you started playing, what a 1st level magic-user, cleric, or fighter did that wasn't what I described, though. If you have time.

Sure, but do you really want to discuss it in this thread? Seems like a massive derailment. I'll start another in a bit, but most of what I will likely say you can dig up with a search for "second edition/2e" here.

nagora
2008-09-10, 12:18 PM
*Sigh*

Wish I had time to go into it, but it's all myths to me. Been playing AD&D since the early nineties, can't say I have ever run into these issues, though I read about them all the time on the internet.

I have to agree with the man, they're not myths, in exactly the same way that munchkins and powergamers and rules lawyers are not myths.

Many people did play that way, because 1e does very little to tell you how else to play. Once you break through the "the rules tell me everything I need to know about playing this game" barrier then you start to realise that, yes, your fighter can jump on a table, crack a tankard on someone's head and leap about while shouting sexual insults in Gnomish. For that matter the DM is free to say "Longsword? Here? The blacksmith looks at you with bemusement and points to the military fork hanging at the back of his worshop. '3gp' he says".

Clerics, likewise could be played much more subtly and, as I've said before, some clerics could be banned by the deity from healing non-believers or even from healing those dying of wounds suffered in heroic combat. But the rules don't tell people to play that way, and many didn't. They saw heal spells on the cleric list and not on the MU list and thought "Oh, that's what clerics do" and never went beyond it.

The one-shot MU at 1st level is, of course, absolutely true pre-cantrips. At least, it was true if the DM didn't let the players regain spells during the day, which was a btb rule many missed. And being able to use scrolls was another way to aid the Lv 1 MU. Also, sleep wasn't the single useful spell magic users started with. But it's hard to deny that a 1st level magic user is the most limited adventuring role, especially if the regaining of spells during the day rule is missed.

1e didn't hold your hand and it doesn't limit your actions anything like as tightly as 3e or 4e, but the flip side of that is that the lack of a menu of allowed options meant a LOT of players and DMs were at a loss about what to do next a lot of the time. As a result, their default actions tended towards "what does it say I can do on my character sheet?" which in 1e tended to be the dull repetition that Marshall describes rather than the free-wheeling adventure roustabout that you or I think of as 1e.

As a result, 1e is either the best edition so far (my vote) or it is an unconnected mess of unrelated charts and tables that give you no hint as to how to actually do anything with your character (some other peoples' vote).

Marshall
2008-09-10, 12:35 PM
I can agree with Nagora that 1st edition was an amazing ruleset, especially for its time. But anything outside the voluminous charts and tables was entirely up to the DM.

I played in campaigns where 'hit with longsword' was the only option. And ones where 'I jump up on the table, swing out on the chandelier, and kick him into the fire' would be met with:

1: You can't do that.

2: Make a dex check to jump on the table. Make a dex check to grab the chandelier. Make an unarmed attack against AC to kick him. You do 1d2 unarmed damage. He makes a dex check to avoid being knocked into the fire. He fails. He takes 1d4 fire damage. Why didn't you just hit it with your longsword? Your THAC0 would be 5 better since you're specialized, and you'd do 1d8+9 damage. Geez.

3: You jump on the table! the monster tries to grab for you, but you grab the chandelier and kick off, making the table slam into his knees, buckling him to the ground! The thief gets a free shot since he's stunned (roll lots of damage!), and then you try to kick him into the flames! You hit! He's on fire, and screaming... the other orcs start to panic (rolls morale). Wow, aren't you glad you didn't hit him with your longsword?

Unfortunately, the vast majority of DMs aren't interested in option 3. The ones that are are the campaigns that I remember today, but in my personal experience, those DMs were found in Palladium and Rolemaster. But I'm sure there were D&D DMs that played that way, because Rolemaster and Palladium certainly didn't give explicit rules for that type of play either.

So, I'll happily grant that D&D didn't force the type of play I described, but will say that it was by far the most common.

Tormsskull
2008-09-10, 12:41 PM
So, I'll happily grant that D&D didn't force the type of play I described, but will say that it was by far the most common.

Well, I think a lot of times we like to make generalizations (I catch myself doing it a lot), but to really say "by far the most common" is quite a stretch. Even if you played 1e with 100 people in your day, you have to realize that was a such a small representative amount of 1e gamers.

Its good that you like 4e, and it sounds like it should serve as a great way to get your family playing. I think a lot of gamers look forward to the day when they can pass the hobby on down to the next generation.

nagora
2008-09-10, 12:42 PM
Unfortunately, the vast majority of DMs aren't interested in option 3. The ones that are are the campaigns that I remember today, but in my personal experience, those DMs were found in Palladium and Rolemaster. But I'm sure there were D&D DMs that played that way, because Rolemaster and Palladium certainly didn't give explicit rules for that type of play either.
Yes, I think AD&D was a victim of its own success here. With so many players (I'd guess there were 10-20 groups in my school) things tended to grind down to the common denominator a lot of the time, especially when the prospect of DMing that way (ie, #3) was not really pushed at you from the books. And were were all naturally less experienced as DMs and player anyway.


So, I'll happily grant that D&D didn't force the type of play I described, but will say that it was by far the most common.

Also, of course, those of us using the weapon speeds and armour types know that the longsword is not the best option even in the "hit it with my xxxx" field a lot of the time :smallwink:

TwystidMynd
2008-09-10, 12:47 PM
1st Edition:
The airplane lands in Paris; this is your first trip to Europe. You have a credit card for $50000 in credit, and 2000 francs in your wallet. What do you do?
You spot a tiny little cafe named "La Chemise" and decide to stop in for a baguette.


4th Edition:
The airplane lands in Paris; this is your first trip to Europe. You have a credit card for $50000 in credit, and 2000 francs in your wallet. You meet your tour guide, who takes you on to view le Tour d'Eiffel, l'Arc de Triumph, La Louvre, and a bunch of other interesting things before parting ways. You now have an interesting list of things you can do, which do you choose?
You spot a tiny little cafe named "La Chemise" and decide to stop in for a baguette.

Some people forget that you can still stop for lunch, even though your tour guide didn't show you the cafe.

Matthew
2008-09-10, 12:51 PM
I have to agree with the man, they're not myths, in exactly the same way that munchkins and powergamers and rules lawyers are not myths.

They may not be myths in the sense that "nobody played that way" (clearly they did), but they are myths in the sense that those are not limitations of the system that need to be solved by restructuring the rules so you can do "cool things". First edition is a lot less clear about this, second edition goes on about it all the time. From the core books through to First Quest and up until the "revision" the message was "never say no, bend the rules if necessary, and get on with it." A lot of DMs never seem to have read the 2e DMG version of the combat chapter (and its not surprising, because it was pretty repetitive stuff), but even if they read only the first two pages it should have been clear that the "I hit, I miss" paradigm was actively discouraged.

More importantly, the concentration on combat as the only measure by which to judge what a character class can do is missing the point of an adventure game. Cast a spell, hit an enemy, heal a comrade...



So, I'll happily grant that D&D didn't force the type of play I described, but will say that it was by far the most common.

That is all I was saying.

nagora
2008-09-10, 12:59 PM
Some people forget that you can still stop for lunch, even though your tour guide didn't show you the cafe.

Absolutely. The problem for me with rule-heavy editions is that it makes a prison of the rules for many people. It's really the cause as that we're talking about with 1e: a lot of people look to the rules to be told how to play. For them, it's good to have a lot of rules, but they can develop a "learnt helplessness" when the DM wants to go beyond the rules.

On the other hand, in 1e there's less resistance from players to going beyond the rules because they're used to there not being many, but a new DM can feel their own sense of helplessness at the lack of "fallback" positions.


They may not be myths in the sense that "nobody played that way" (clearly they did), but they are myths in the sense that those are not limitations of the system that need to be solved by restructuring the rules so you can do "cool things".
Exactly my point.


First edition is a lot less clear about this, second edition goes on about it all the time.
Does it actually give examples of play that show it, though? I feel that a lack in the 1e DMG is examples of more fluid situations than just "melee in a corridor". 1e is pretty clear by implication that rulings are to be made up to fit the situation, but not so hot on examples of how it's done in practise, IMO.

TwystidMynd
2008-09-10, 01:07 PM
Absolutely. The problem for me with rule-heavy editions is that it makes a prison of the rules for many people. It's really the cause as that we're talking about with 1e: a lot of people look to the rules to be told how to play. For them, it's good to have a lot of rules, but they can develop a "learnt helplessness" when the DM wants to go beyond the rules.

I think I get where you're coming from, because I agree that the rules do form a sort of prison. There does seem to be a sort of timidity from people to go beyond the prison doors - to break the rules.

I feel, though, that every iteration of D&D has built that prison to be just a little bit bigger - the rules encompassed more things you could do while still in your personal little cell.

I have trouble understanding, though, why one would be willing to "break out" of their prison and go outside the rules in earlier editions, but might feel that timid about "breaking out" in later editions with bigger cells. To me, if I can break out of a single prison, I feel like I could probably do it to any prison. Metaphorically speaking, of course =P I'm not a rogue, I just RP one!

Sorry about the metaphors... I guess I'm just in that kind of mood today.

Matthew
2008-09-10, 01:13 PM
Does it actually give examples of play that show it, though? I feel that a lack in the 1e DMG is examples of more fluid situations than just "melee in a corridor". 1e is pretty clear by implication that rulings are to be made up to fit the situation, but not so hot on examples of how it's done in practise, IMO.

Yeah, 2e is not very different in that respect. There are more examples, but clearly not enough. The editing is awful, and if you are not familiar with the 1e DMG there are some disconcerting gaps.



I feel, though, that every iteration of D&D has built that prison to be just a little bit bigger - the rules encompassed more things you could do while still in your personal little cell.

I have trouble understanding, though, why one would be willing to "break out" of their prison and go outside the rules in earlier editions, but might feel that timid about "breaking out" in later editions with bigger cells. To me, if I can break out of a single prison, I feel like I could probably do it to any prison.

You certainly can, but the more comfortable you make the prison, the less inclined the prisoners are to go outside (and the more of them seem to think that living inside the prison is the only fair way to live).

nagora
2008-09-10, 01:16 PM
I have trouble understanding, though, why one would be willing to "break out" of their prison and go outside the rules in earlier editions, but might feel that timid about "breaking out" in later editions with bigger cells.
That's because you see later editions as bigger prisons (or "looser" perhaps), whereas I see each new rule as an extra bar on the windows, so the later editions become more and more difficult to break out of. 4e is a step back in the right direction, though.

Every rule is a default position, and the more rules there are then the more a DM has to work to carry off their own houserules because the inertia of the players' expectations are that much greater. Don't want to use skills in 3e? Prepare for a riot! In 1e, adding skills is something a reasonable number of people have done but mostly it's not an issue - we don't use skills so the DM is free to replace them however s/he likes. Which is scary for an inexperienced DM, but wonderful for an old git like me who's sick to death of being burdened down with skill systems in other, newer games.

TwystidMynd
2008-09-10, 01:23 PM
I kinda wanna start my next 4e adventure with the PCs in a prison, which they have to break out of by using outside-the-box thinking, now... just to kind of impress upon them the fact that the rules don't encompass everything a character can possibly do. And, of course, because of the metaphor and stuff.

It has layers. Layers!

Keld Denar
2008-09-10, 01:44 PM
I kinda wanna start my next 4e adventure with the PCs in a prison, which they have to break out of by using outside-the-box thinking, now... just to kind of impress upon them the fact that the rules don't encompass everything a character can possibly do. And, of course, because of the metaphor and stuff.

It has layers. Layers!

Kudo's if the guards nickname the prison "The Onion".

Bonus XP if your PCs figure out why!

Marshall
2008-09-10, 01:45 PM
While I'll say that 1st edition/2nd edition didn't *have* to put a straight jacket on combat options, the lack of options sets up a trap.

fighters can attack with Longsword (or, if you're really playing by the book, fighters have 4 weapons, one for each proficiency, to hit the high notes of weapon speed and weapon type vs AC). Outside of 'attack with longsword' every thing you do is governed by DM fiat.

Different DMs have wildly different rulings on 'jump on the table'. And if you were playing in RPGA events, the DMs were (back in the dark ages) not encouraged to ad lib much, because of how that would reflect on party success in a competitive environment. As such, the game pushes you towards a lack of options, especially if you play in multiple groups... you devolve to a lowest common denominator of what is efffective.

4th edition, however, opens up the fact that everyone has options, and more so than 1st and 2nd edition, gives more DM guidance towards 'Say yes!'. I think that on the one hand, a set of 5-6 'things to do' will cause some players to never look outside that set of abilities. However, for other players, it makes them realize 'if I can do these things, why can't I also do this?'. The basic adventure in the back of the DMG capitalizes on this by making the encounters full of positional goodness and things to do other than just stand/n/whack.

So, while I can't compare to 3rd edition intelligently, having not studied it, I can say that out of the box, 4th edition gives you more things to do, explicitly, and encourages even more things, implicitly, than 1st/2nd ever did.

My players are knocking people into pits, tricking people onto traps, flipping over tables for cover, breaking out windows, setting up ambushes, etc, not as 'a high point to break the drudgery of this drawn out toe-to-toe slugfest, but as common actions.

Of course, you could do all of that in 1st/2nd... but those games never made those actions attractive. Maybe a lot of it is me... a mid-30s player with decades of gaming experience is going to be a better DM than 18 year old me... but a lot of it is that 4th actively encourages this type of play throughout the rules, while 1st and 2nd barely mentioned it.

I'd like 4th to have less focus on the purely tactical (because the rules are very tactical-focused), but all things considered, for me, I appreciate the very nice tactical rules, because all the rest (setting, deities, campaign concepts, roleplaying opportunities, etc) are the things I want to focus on, and the things I really don't need rules for.

Tengu_temp
2008-09-10, 02:49 PM
Many people did play that way, because 1e does very little to tell you how else to play. Once you break through the "the rules tell me everything I need to know about playing this game" barrier then you start to realise that, yes, your fighter can jump on a table, crack a tankard on someone's head and leap about while shouting sexual insults in Gnomish. For that matter the DM is free to say "Longsword? Here? The blacksmith looks at you with bemusement and points to the military fork hanging at the back of his worshop. '3gp' he says".


Because you clearly can do such things only in old DND.

Thinking out of the box does not depend of the system. And whether or not the players and the DM perform actions that rules don't cover, it doesn't change the fact that the ruleset itself offers little options, and their numbers are not increased just because of your gaming style. It's not a part of the rules.

Matthew
2008-09-10, 03:05 PM
Of course, you could do all of that in 1st/2nd... but those games never made those actions attractive. Maybe a lot of it is me... a mid-30s player with decades of gaming experience is going to be a better DM than 18 year old me... but a lot of it is that 4th actively encourages this type of play throughout the rules, while 1st and 2nd barely mentioned it.

It is always about the people. How you use the rules you are given, the dynamics of the group you play with, and how you interpret the guidence in the rulebooks will inform the way that you play the game. There is little question that 4e and 3e have rules that explicitly govern more situations than AD&D (either edition), but they are only necessary insofar as you think they are (and the RPGA was notorious for producing bad experiences of the game).

The 1e DMG had a very simple response to actions not governed by the rules (and this appears also in First Quest, but was unfortunately left out of the 2e DMG), and that is to assign a probability and roll the dice. Very little has changed in the interim except the explicit formula by which you derive the probability.

Certainly, the quality of the game is entirely at the mercy of the skill of the game master, but that remains largely true even with the D20 iterations. The game is more standardised now, which promotes a certain sort of gamesmanship and purports to protect players from poor game masters, but if that is necessary then it probably speaks to a more significant problem in the group dynamic.

To put it another way, as I said, 4e sounds like it's just the game for you, but the idea of AD&D being characterised by "heal bot clerics", "one shot magicians", and "I hit it with my long sword" rubs me entirely the wrong way, as it is a playstyle that people adopt, not a limitation of the system.



Because you clearly can do such things only in old DND.

Thinking out of the box does not depend of the system. And whether or not the players and the DM perform actions that rules don't cover, it doesn't change the fact that the ruleset itself offers little options, and their numbers are not increased just because of your gaming style. It's not a part of the rules.

Nagora doesn't appear to be saying that the above is specific to AD&D. He's pretty much saying exactly what you are, that the system is an aid to play, not the extent of what is possible in play. Whether you prefer a rules light or heavy approach (or somewhere between) only comes down to preference.

DeathQuaker
2008-09-10, 03:52 PM
While I'll say that 1st edition/2nd edition didn't *have* to put a straight jacket on combat options, the lack of options sets up a trap.

fighters can attack with Longsword (or, if you're really playing by the book, fighters have 4 weapons, one for each proficiency, to hit the high notes of weapon speed and weapon type vs AC). Outside of 'attack with longsword' every thing you do is governed by DM fiat.


Thanks for saying concisely what I've often had trouble expressing about older versions of D&D. Totally agree about DM fiat, and IMHO that's not a hallmark of good game design.

To get back to the original topic, thanks also for a clear and detailed review of 4E. I am not a big fan of 4E (I don't hate it, either) but I've been interested in hearing from people who like it who can make some specific illustrations of why they do, and your post was very enlightening.

I only have one question about this:



I didn't much care for tiefling, eldarin, and dragonborn. I prefer the more 'standard' races. However, it's far superior to 3rd edition's 'play any race you want' format (for me).

I didn't understand this statement at all. The choice of races in 3.x and what you do with them is one of the few things that isn't much different from most other versions of (A)D&D. Could you please elaborate? :smallsmile:

Matthew
2008-09-10, 03:55 PM
Thanks for saying concisely what I've often had trouble expressing about older versions of D&D. Totally agree about DM fiat, and IMHO that's not a hallmark of good game design.

Heh, heh. Surely this is exactly what all of these debates turn on, though? It is hardly the first time this sentiment has been expressed (or even the most concisely). Good and bad game design are subjective quantities that rely on the perceptions and preferences of the observer.

I really enjoy Zombies!, Munchkin, and Settlers of Catan, but I know forums where such games are considered to be the height of bad game design (too random to be "good", apparently).

nagora
2008-09-10, 03:59 PM
Heh, heh. Surely this is exactly what all of these debates turn on, though? It is hardly the first time this sentiment has been expressed (or even the most concisely). Good and bad game design are subjective quantities that rely on the perceptions and preferences of the observer.
On that note, I shall withdraw from this hijack while we're all still being civil!

Marshall
2008-09-10, 04:28 PM
I didn't understand this statement at all. The choice of races in 3.x and what you do with them is one of the few things that isn't much different from most other versions of (A)D&D. Could you please elaborate? :smallsmile:

Ehn. Maybe I've got a flawed understanding.

Outside if 1st ed Unearthed Arcana, which was just plain broken, D&D has always been 'Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Half-Elf, Gnome, Half-orc'. Of those, no one actually played gnomes, half-orcs, or half-elves. (Ok, I say 'no one', but I mean 'very, very few people')

Call it Tolkien-ism, but I like the protagonists to be the 'standard' fantasy races. In 3.5 you could basically be any race you wanted. Tieflings, Genasi, Githyanki, Kobolds, etc... obviously it was dependent on the DM, but the rules allowed for nearly any race.

Combine that with multiclassing/prestige classes. In 1st/2nd edition, humans were almost entirely single-class, very rarely dual-classed. Most demi-humans were multi-class, with your dwarf cleric/fighter and fighter/thief, and elven 'everything/everything', but only *two* things. The really awesome classes were limited to single-class humans, as well.

3rd edition turned character creation (in my opinion) into something that was a mass of 'pick race, pick set of classes, pick set of feats, combine into voltron!' Which while neat, in a way, also meant that unless everyone had the same skills in voltron-creation, you generally ended up in a party where one person sucked, or one person outshined everyone, or some such...

Again, this is second hand experience, watching my friends play 3rd. maybe other 3rd groups were different, but the primary reason I never played 3rd was because of the huge amount of planning that was going on to create 'uber' characters. It was almost like Magic the Gathering deck building, except instead of playing your crazy stompy character as soon as you made it, you had to go through the motions of picking rather non-sensical class/feat choices until suddenly POW you had your death dealer.

While I understand the attraction to that, I prefer to do that sort of gaming in a more directly competive format, rather than a cooperative one. It's a nightmare to DM parties with wildly varied power levels, and honestly the job of the DM is to make a challenging, fun campaign *regardless of power level*. It's harder to make things fun when not everyone is on the same page, power wise.

Hence, I prefer 'simpler' character creation, with less fantastic character races and classes... it makes my job easier to present interesting challenges to the players, and it just 'feels better' for me. I like the fact that races are basic, you pick one class and stick with it. But I fully understand where some people prefer the ultra-customizable 3rd, where you can do crazy things.

Erk
2008-09-10, 04:38 PM
marshall, you've just stated a sentiment I have had for some time, and done it better than I've been able to, even vocalising stuff I didn't realise was at the core of why I like 4e so much better. Kudos.

I think the return to rarer dualiclassing, no multiclassing, and human prevalence (almost all my players play human because of the versatility and Extra Fun of having more at-wills and such) is part of why I feel like 4e is more of a spiritual sequel to 2e than to 3e.

TheThan
2008-09-10, 05:17 PM
*snipped for space*

That’s just it.

Just because the rules allow for it, doesn’t mean it’s always available in the game.
That’s one of 3.X’s advantages, its shear versatility. The problem is that a lot of DMs allow for just about anything. And that’s where you have those balance problems. If you’re going to run a 3.x game, then put some stipulations on what is and isn’t allowed.

nagora
2008-09-10, 05:24 PM
That’s just it.

Just because the rules allow for it, doesn’t mean it’s always available in the game.
That’s one of 3.X’s advantages, its shear versatility. The problem is that a lot of DMs allow for just about anything. And that’s where you have those balance problems. If you’re going to run a 3.x game, then put some stipulations on what is and isn’t allowed.

(Oh, all right, just one more waffer-thin post)
Interesting point: I think 3e tries the "Here's everything you could ever want, just select the stuff that suits you" approach, while 1e's is "Here's some tools; build what you need". In both cases, trouble arises when people limit themselves to just exactly what's in the box - no more and no less. As I said, I think 4e is a step in the right direction but not nearly enough for me.

In all four editions a good DM will find a way to have fun; but that's true of almost any RPG. The question is which gives you the least work to get at the most of what you call "fun". All other arguments are really people debating what that word means. Which is how wars start :smallmad:

wumpus
2008-09-10, 05:59 PM
First level 1e magic users should have known more (but not memorized, of course) than one spell. I couldn't find it in the Player's Handbook, and couldn't dig up my DMG, but all magic users learn read magic "otherwise they are useless as an apprentice". I seem to remember advice on handing out up to 5 spells, where one is read magic, three are random, and one is chosen (sleep, of course). This way you don't have to memorize sleep for "zombies ate my baby", but might get stuck with unseen servant.

I'd also have to ask how much different 4e at wills are than 1e's default "I swing my sword power". I think that describes the typical melee at will.

Lastly, while 4e might do a few things to break "the cage" for characters in a dungeon crawl, it seems to put a much bigger cage around the DM for world construction. I was shocked by the fact that there seemed to be less stuff not directly for "kill them and take their stuff" in 3/3.5e than in 1e (maybe not, but as the game grew, the ratio approached zero). It seems that in 4e, anything that isn't designed for the dungeon crawl is streamlined out, and that DM's have to rebel in removing the skills challenge to even have a pretence of bringing the world back.

Matthew
2008-09-10, 06:03 PM
First level 1e magic users should have known more (but not memorized, of course) than one spell. I couldn't find it in the Player's Handbook, and couldn't dig up my DMG, but all magic users learn read magic "otherwise they are useless as an apprentice". I seem to remember advice on handing out up to 5 spells, where one is read magic, three are random, and one is chosen (sleep, of course). This way you don't have to memorize sleep for "zombies ate my baby", but might get stuck with unseen servant.

You can find words to that effect in the first edition DMG, p. 39.

Beleriphon
2008-09-10, 06:22 PM
I'd also have to ask how much different 4e at wills are than 1e's default "I swing my sword power". I think that describes the typical melee at will.

Because they do things in additon to direct damage that makes combat more interesting than the previous editions stand there and swing process. Force moves, causing fear, any of a number of effects in addition to damage.


Lastly, while 4e might do a few things to break "the cage" for characters in a dungeon crawl, it seems to put a much bigger cage around the DM for world construction. I was shocked by the fact that there seemed to be less stuff not directly for "kill them and take their stuff" in 3/3.5e than in 1e (maybe not, but as the game grew, the ratio approached zero). It seems that in 4e, anything that isn't designed for the dungeon crawl is streamlined out, and that DM's have to rebel in removing the skills challenge to even have a pretence of bringing the world back.

The reason is because world building doesn't require specific rules in the DMG, PH or the MM. Skills challenges work just fine, if you design them in advance. Ad hoc skill challenges are hard to implement, but can be done. I still fail to see the pretense of you complaint though, since the world in game has nothing to do with the rules for hitting stuff in combat.

Jalor
2008-09-10, 06:22 PM
There's no less non-combat fluff in 4e than in other editions. People just overlook it because it's the first time combat has been fun.

wumpus
2008-09-10, 07:31 PM
There's no less non-combat fluff in 4e than in other editions. People just overlook it because it's the first time combat has been fun.

I tend to doubt that. It would be hard to tell, of course, since the other editions had so little non-combat crunch or fluff. The other point is what would you do with such rules anyway? The whole "outside the dungeon" experience seems to be "railroad them to the dungeon".

The catch here is that old fogeys (my difference with original poster is I haven't played 4e yet...) seem much more likely to say that 4e is really D&D. I'd go so far as to say it is even more D&Dier than any so far. Unfortunately I feel that it makes the bad parts of D&D overshadow the good, but that's just me.

Kurald Galain
2008-09-11, 04:53 AM
The catch here is that old fogeys (my difference with original poster is I haven't played 4e yet...) seem much more likely to say that 4e is really D&D.

I disagree. 100% of new fogeys will say that 4E "is" D&D, simply because they can't compare it to anything else. Not 100% of old fogeys will say that 4E is "really" D&D, because, well, I don't really know why but I've seen some people on this forum claim that it's not. But hey, the game still has dragons and dungeons, doesn't it?

Tormsskull
2008-09-11, 06:02 AM
The other point is what would you do with such rules anyway? The whole "outside the dungeon" experience seems to be "railroad them to the dungeon".


With a newer DM, this is basically true. But after a DM has some experience under their belt, its amazing how many non "follow the yellow brick railroad" things that can be introduced.

For example, my players like to gamble. So I added a prestigious tavern in one of the major cities in my campaign world where very wealthy NPCs show up to gamble in cards, dice, and other games of chance. They bring large sums of gold, jewelry, even magic items sometimes.

I also created a sport that was pretty popular in one area of the country. The PCs from my other group thought the sport was a lot of fun and when not pressed with time-dependent quests and such would try to get into a game of it.



The catch here is that old fogeys (my difference with original poster is I haven't played 4e yet...) seem much more likely to say that 4e is really D&D. I'd go so far as to say it is even more D&Dier than any so far.

4e is more focused on combat, so I would say it is easier to do hack n slash in 4e than in 3e, but a large part of D&D since the beginning has been about resource management, which 4e really nerfed. So I wouldn't say it is more true to the core concepts of D&D, I would say it took what most groups spent a lot of time on (battles), and created a ruleset that would make battles flashy and fun.

In addition, it would get rid of a lot of that pesky stuff between battles that was just slowing the group down from getting to the next battle. And as we have seen on the forums some groups really like this.

I think 4e really lends its self to a light-hearted gamestyle, and is an excellent rule set for teaching new players. If you start to try to get into depth into non-combat areas, you're probably going to see that they weren't given as much polish.

Tengu_temp
2008-09-11, 06:51 AM
Since when the amount of railroading, combat/non-combat ratio and roleplaying depends on the system?

Kurald Galain
2008-09-11, 07:07 AM
Since when the amount of railroading, combat/non-combat ratio and roleplaying depends on the system?

Since the very moment that two roleplaying systems existed, of course.

Whether due to what the ruleset focuses on, or to the kind of audience a game attracts, it is blatantly obvious that (on average) games within a certain system are more focused on certain areas (e.g. combat) than games within a certain other system. Each game was "meant" to be played in certain ways, and while there are always exceptions where people intentionally do it differently, it nevertheless shows that such games tend in most cases to be played in those ways.

For instance, the amount of player-vs-player combat within Paranoia is notably higher than in most other RPGs because the ruleset actively encourages that. The amount of political backstabbing within Vampire: the Masquerade is likewise notably higher than in most other RPGs. The amount of combat in (non-d20) Call of Ctulhu is notably lower than in many other RPGs, because of its extreme lethality.

And so forth. You can easily see in any RPG rulebook what (rough) percentage of the pages are about combat rules. In 4E D&D, that happens to be significantly higher than in other RPGs I could mention. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, it's just a matter of taste.

Charity
2008-09-11, 07:17 AM
The number of pages devoted to it in the rules has nothing to do with it, all that measures is how much text is needed to explain the concept.

It is not 'blatently obvious', many folk do not see it at all, (I for one).
I believe the system has little or no effect on the amount of roleplaying/combat focus/DM ability/railroading/whatever, it is all to do with the Personnel.

In Paranoia you are confusing rules for genre, it is not the rules of the game that encourage you to shoot one another it is the setting that does that.
Vampire again has no rule that creates an atmosphere of political wrangling it is the Setting that does that.

Matt, for example has had a very different experiance with AD&D to the original poster, is that because they played two different versions of AD&D? No it is becuase they played with different people.

Now you may believe that it is the system, but I can see no evidence for your assertion, in either logic or personal experiance.

DeathQuaker
2008-09-11, 07:20 AM
Call it Tolkien-ism, but I like the protagonists to be the 'standard' fantasy races. In 3.5 you could basically be any race you wanted. Tieflings, Genasi, Githyanki, Kobolds, etc... obviously it was dependent on the DM, but the rules allowed for nearly any race.

Ah...... no. Core 3.x races were same as AD&D races: human, elf, half-elf, dwarf, gnome, halfling, half-orc. Those were the core, intended player races.

Sure, you could add more races based on supplementary rulebooks... EXACTLY as you could do in AD&D (Planescape campaign, anybody?), and I'm sure EXACTLY as you will be able to do when more splatbooks come out for 4E.

In all cases, the extra races came from optional, supplementary materials (or the DM allowing use of Monster Manual races, with emphasis on the DM allowing part). WotC wasn't holding you upside down by the toenails forcing you to use 3.x splatbooks any more than TSR forced you to use their "Complete Elf" books or what-have-you.

Hell, in my 3.5 games, I saw a lot more core-only and core race games than in 2nd Ed, where we always seemed to have tieflings and half-drow and full-drow and half-ogres and whatnot running around in our parties.


Again, this is second hand experience, watching my friends play 3rd. maybe other 3rd groups were different, but the primary reason I never played 3rd was because of the huge amount of planning that was going on to create 'uber' characters.

I'm very sorry to hear that was your experience w/ 3rd. I hear about all this uberbuild nonsense on the message boards all the time and usually assumed it was just theoretical builders crunching numbers for fun, but I guess some people do play like that. :smallconfused: Only on rare occasions in my actual "real" life did I see someone doing that kind of thing for 3.x, and it was the same player that when we played AD&D was begging to let his half-demon character dual class so he could max out his THAC0..... (the moral of this story is: no game system can prevent twinkage).

That said, sure, 3.x has a lot of modularity in its character building--it's certainly a complex game, and I can totally see what that'd turn people off (when I don't want a game like that, I go somewhere completely non-d20 altogether, myself). But I guess as AD&D makes it necessary for the GM to make up useful rules and provide interesting game options, 3.x in the other direction expects the GM to be the one to say "no" to possible additional options and creative rules interpretation that make the build process more crazy than fun.

And my one fear about 4E is this: as it is now, largely CORE only with only a few options at hand, it's a very nice, simple way to build characters while still providing flexibility and choice. But what happens when ITS splatbooks start coming out? We've already been promised new classes (druids, bards, etc.).... what about new races? Would not then your complaints about "any race you want" apply? How many umpteen gazillion Powers are going to end up being listed in upcoming splats? Will we one day be complaining about "too many build choices" in 4E the way people now complain about 3.x?

Eh.... in either case, I guess I'd offer the same advice for 4E as for 3.x: stick mostly to core, and it's hard to go wrong. If you ever do get an opportunity to play 3.x (maybe a Pathfinder game) try to get a GM who actually doesn't allow a lot of splats and you may find it's not as overwhelming as you think it is. That said, sticking to 4E works just fine too. :smallsmile:

Tengu_temp
2008-09-11, 07:22 AM
Just because the game is meant to be played in some way doesn't mean that's the only way you can play it - virtually nothing prohibits you from playing a Call of Cthulhu hack'n'slash or a Vampire comedy campaign. However, if we concentrate on how various systems are meant to be played by their creators... all DND editions are meant to be primarily HNS games with lots of dungeon crawling and few out of combat encounters. A game that encourages roleplaying looks like Exalted or Legend of the Five Rings.

Charity
2008-09-11, 07:25 AM
In fairness DQ it is pretty widely accepted that 3e was unbalanced at core.
Heck even Monty [my least favourite person] Cook agrees and he helped make it with that intention [if you are willing to believe his retroactive excuses].

Kurald Galain
2008-09-11, 07:48 AM
In Paranoia you are confusing rules for genre, it is not the rules of the game that encourage you to shoot one another it is the setting that does that.
You are making a rather arbitrary distinction between rules and setting/genre that I had not made at all in my post. For most RPGs, setting and rules are conveniently found intermingled in the same book - rules reflect on the setting and setting reflects on the rules. Note that I already said in my previous post that these styles was not necessarily due to the rules.


Just because the game is meant to be played in some way doesn't mean that's the only way you can play it
Precisely. Note that I already said that, too, in my previous post.


all DND editions are meant to be primarily HNS games with lots of dungeon crawling and few out of combat encounters. A game that encourages roleplaying looks like Exalted or Legend of the Five Rings.
Yes.

nagora
2008-09-11, 07:48 AM
Just because the game is meant to be played in some way doesn't mean that's the only way you can play it - virtually nothing prohibits you from playing a Call of Cthulhu hack'n'slash or a Vampire comedy campaign. However, if we concentrate on how various systems are meant to be played by their creators... all DND editions are meant to be primarily HNS games with lots of dungeon crawling and few out of combat encounters.
I don't really agree with that. Right from the off, D&D included the idea of talking to monsters - that's one reason they have Int and alignment. There is combat and dungeon crawling aplenty, but neither require or even imply the HNS style. HNS AD&D campaigns were unusual enough that people mentioned it when they found one. Many, many AD&D campaigns are set in cities and have a much lower amount of combat than any hack 'n slash player would ever be bothered with.

AD&D is primarily about exploration and development, if it's "about" anything, I think.


A game that encourages roleplaying looks like Exalted or Legend of the Five Rings.
I'm struggling to see what the essential difference between Exalted and 1e AD&D is. There are mechanical differences of course, but perhaps I'm not familiar enough to see what there is about those differences that supports roleplaying more in Exalted than 1e. I would say Exalted's mechanics (chose an ability and roll based on it) resembles 1e AD&D more than 4e does (or than 4e resembles Exalted), albeit with demigods instead of normal people.

Again, l5R seems to have more of a 1e feel about it than 4e. However, I've onlt talked to people who play it and some have confused the issue by denying it is a roleplaying game at all, just a storytelling game.

What are you seeing as the distictive features that set these games apart, because they both look very typically early-80's to me.

Tengu_temp
2008-09-11, 08:16 AM
Exalted is a game that gives you bonuses for describing your actions in cool and interesting ways. L5R practically requires you to roleplay in order to gain Honor and Glory, in order to gain a Rank you need to write a letter where you ask your daimyo for permission, and the various nuances of the strict and hierarchic Japanese Rokugan society are covered by mechanics.

Show me a single element in DND that encourages roleplaying, apart from generic "exp for RP" that all games have, and that not all DMs decide to give.

Lolth
2008-09-11, 08:17 AM
I am learning SO much about other peoples' experiences with 4th Edition reading this thread!

/tease.

Actually I'm looking forward to more on-topic posts because 4th is new to me, and since I'm helping to run a big online game of it, I need all the help I can get catching up/getting perspective.

Starsinger
2008-09-11, 08:34 AM
In fairness DQ it is pretty widely accepted that 3e was unbalanced at core.
Heck even Monty [my least favourite person] Cook agrees and he helped make it with that intention [if you are willing to believe his retroactive excuses].

Well.. the fact that Arcana Unearthed is vastly more balanced lends a bit of credence to this, I think.

DeathQuaker
2008-09-11, 08:41 AM
In fairness DQ it is pretty widely accepted that 3e was unbalanced at core.


In fairness, Charity, I said nothing about game balance. :smalltongue:

I was discussing the complexity of character creation, particularly as pertaining to my and Marshall's conversation about available player races, and how it's easier to handle if you don't work all the splats into it.

If you MUST bring the albatross of game balance into the picture, I have to say personally I've had few problems with game balance in 3.x core (and oddly, the one problem I ever did have with game balance had to do with Mounted Combat, which seems to bother no one else but me... :smallannoyed:), but I am blessed with sane players who don't twist the rules into nonsense and sane GMs who know when to reasonably say no or "I'm sorry, it doesn't work like that." :smallsmile: But I am sure with as many options as 3.x can provide especially when splatted to the nines, that is not the case with everyone who plays the game. It's the blessing and curse of the game.

Tormsskull
2008-09-11, 08:52 AM
[...]but I am blessed with sane players who don't twist the rules into nonsense and sane GMs who know when to reasonably say no or "I'm sorry, it doesn't work like that." :smallsmile:

Oh, you've done it now. I'd run for the hills wearing fire-proof clothing. :smalltongue:

Charity
2008-09-11, 09:00 AM
You are making a rather arbitrary distinction between rules and setting/genre that I had not made at all in my post. For most RPGs, setting and rules are conveniently found intermingled in the same book - rules reflect on the setting and setting reflects on the rules. Note that I already said in my previous post that these styles was not necessarily due to the rules.

Given that the discussion was about various editions of D&D and that D&D's genre has not altered in any meaningful way, I don't think it can fairly be said that I was 'arbitarily dividing rules and setting' more nessisarily dividing rules and setting as the setting is a constant, however.

You were stating that it was obvious that the rules of a game influenced how a game was played, and using Paranoia as an illustrative example.

Of course the Genre/setting of a game can influence things like interparty conflict, if you are all agents of opposing powers in an oppressive state (paranoia) then you will not get along as well as if you all bosom buddies united against a common foe (star trek). But that is not what was being said.
There is a distinction between affecting how the characters interact in game and whether the game can effect whether the characters interact.

Paranoia's system and setting do not effect how much in character role playing a player displays. It cannot force the DM to introduce railroad plots. It doesn't even require the game to be combat heavy the game is not in control.


In fairness, Charity, I said nothing about game balance. :smalltongue:

True dat, I let my imagination run away with me... sorry missus.



If you MUST bring the albatross of game balance into the picture, I have to say personally I've had few problems with game balance in 3.x core (and oddly, the one problem I ever did have with game balance had to do with Mounted Combat, which seems to bother no one else but me... :smallannoyed:), but I am blessed with sane players who don't twist the rules into nonsense and sane GMs who know when to reasonably say no or "I'm sorry, it doesn't work like that." :smallsmile: But I am sure with as many options as 3.x can provide especially when splatted to the nines, that is not the case with everyone who plays the game. It's the blessing and curse of the game.

I dunno, it has been the elephant in the room for a while in my game, in fact the party are almost exclusively melee now, just to avoid the issue, but even then there are issues. Well as I keep saying we are all different, and it's the personnel that matters, so I can't help but agree.

Anyway I managed to kill them and good last week, so this Friday is the final showdown for 3e and then it's all 4e gravy (I'm playing w00t) from then on.

DeathQuaker
2008-09-11, 09:01 AM
Oh, you've done it now. I'd run for the hills wearing fire-proof clothing. :smalltongue:

*points to avvie* Why do you think I'm armed with a supersoaker? :smallbiggrin:

((In seriousness, I was not meaning to imply that anyone here is insane. Well, not in a bad way.... :smallbiggrin:))

The Valiant Turtle
2008-09-11, 09:04 AM
I think the fully fleshed out social combat aspects of Exalted also encourages Storytellers to include more social situations, which should encourage more role-playing. I believe the setting encourages role-play more than any of the standard D&D settings as well.

Starbuck_II
2008-09-11, 09:36 AM
*points to avvie* Why do you think I'm armed with a supersoaker? :smallbiggrin:

((In seriousness, I was not meaning to imply that anyone here is insane. Well, not in a bad way.... :smallbiggrin:))

I thought that was a photon detonator... a supersoaker confuses me.

I wondere if a hack/slash Call of Cthulhu would be fun. I mean, the Demo adventure has that magic dagger (you do need magic weaponry to hurt those demons and all).

Hmm, that sounds fun... if I only had a group.

Anyhoo, back on topic.
I found 4th good both in roleplay and combat just like 3rd. Heck, my mom understood the rules better than 3rd (she liked both but than again she is a 6 year old at heart).

Since we didn't have enough characters: they (my bro and Mom) brung out stuffed animals. So they basically had two characers each; except it wasn't really them twice but their stuffed animals and them.

I didn't mind. I would play more than 4 sessions, but school. But I excepot to pick up where we left off during school breaks (like Thanksgiving maybe or Christmas).

Matthew
2008-09-11, 09:55 AM
Just because the game is meant to be played in some way doesn't mean that's the only way you can play it - virtually nothing prohibits you from playing a Call of Cthulhu hack'n'slash or a Vampire comedy campaign. However, if we concentrate on how various systems are meant to be played by their creators... all DND editions are meant to be primarily HNS games with lots of dungeon crawling and few out of combat encounters. A game that encourages roleplaying looks like Exalted or Legend of the Five Rings.

Tengu, correct me if I am wrong, but you have never actually read any AD&D rulebooks, have you? I'm not trying to be smarmy here, but seriously, the 2e rulebooks actually directly say "combat is a small part of the game, that's why we don't have tons of rules for it." Whether the author's intent is then manifest in the rules is another matter, but AD&D 2e was never intended to be a "primarily HNS games with lots of dungeon crawling and few out of combat encounters." It seems to me that this is a box you have created for D&D in order to have a foil to contrast other games against.

That said, I am largely with Charity here that it's mainly the people playing the games that dictates the playstyle. A game can encourage people to play one way or another and it can fail or succeed to introduce them to new ideas that they might not otherwise have had by themselves, but the rules of the game do not really dictate playstyle at all (though they can facilitate play styles).

To go back to board and card game analogies. Sometimes Risk is heaps of fun, and sometimes it sucks. Largely it depends on the enthusiasm of the other participants, and how they handle "winning and losing" or dealing with very random die results ("God damn it, how did one army beat forty!?"). A less random game, such as Chess, is only really as much fun as the skill level of the participants (unless you just love stomping on your foes). I played and got beat by my uncle about a hundred times. Possibly boring for him, but a lot of fun for me, as I learned how to play better. At the opposite end of the extreme Snakes & Ladders is a simple test of luck, there are no player choices involved. I think it sucks, but it's an enduring game.

nagora
2008-09-11, 10:09 AM
Exalted is a game that gives you bonuses for describing your actions in cool and interesting ways. L5R practically requires you to roleplay in order to gain Honor and Glory, in order to gain a Rank you need to write a letter where you ask your daimyo for permission, and the various nuances of the strict and hierarchic Japanese Rokugan society are covered by mechanics.

Show me a single element in DND that encourages roleplaying, apart from generic "exp for RP" that all games have, and that not all DMs decide to give.
I guess you see "encourages" as "forces". I don't really see what you're saying about Exaulted and L5R's mechanics as anything particularly special, nor would I think that sort of play unusual in 1e AD&D. Indeed, even when 1e OA added the sort of stuff you mention for L5R we found that it actually made life harder for those of us who were interested in a Japanese setting. A good sourcebook is far more use in encouraging roleplaying than any number of rules about woodcraft or calligraphy - a lession I first learnt from Tekumel, whose two primary sourcebooks contained no rules whatsoever and were nonetheless the two best RP books I've ever used.

Marshall
2008-09-11, 10:24 AM
I'm going to threadjack my thread around for a bit, back to my original topic.

Teaching new players the 4th edition rules...

When we first started, I just grabbed the wizards pre-gens... I have shado's character sheet, but honestly didn't want to bother with character creation with a new group, especially since some of the players were complete newbies and no one had played in ages.

These had the advantage of not acting like a character sheet, they just told you exactly what to do. After the first adventure, I went off-line with everyone, and we tweaked the characters, rebuilding them from the actual PHB. We had some race changes, power changes, weapon changes, but most everything stayed about the same.

I also went with the Magic Set Editor for powers and magic item cards, and I made a point to fill them all out for the characters... so everyone has all of their core abilities on a card (I went so far as to create cards for Second Wind, and a small card that included grappling, bull rushes, etc, and a sheet of common actions).

In combat, people can play cards. It's a good replacement for the old 'THAC0' box on 2nd edition sheets... I was worrried about them at first, but honestly back in 1st/2nd edition, the casters kept 'spellbooks' of index cards with all the details of common spells in them, so that we weren't flipping through the PHB for casting times and components.

In combat, I have a combat sheet that I keep... it has every character, their HP/Current/Temp, healing surge value, healing surges, and initiative. It also has a spot to track monster init/hp. I alsways keep personal track of character resources (HP and surges, daily powers) so that I can at a glance see how much the party can 'take'. It allows me to on the fly change the lethality of the game to mesh up with where I want their resources to be... again, if a fight is too easy, I add reinforcements, or let them finish the fight but interrupt the rest. I like to keep the players on their toes.

I also am enjoying the 'miniature game' aspect of combat. I've played a lot of miniature combat games, from skirmish level to Epic, and D&D combat has just enough 'heroic skirmish' feel to it that I'm enjoying it. I'm playing on a battlemat, but I try to only draw out the static pieces. In the DMG adventure, there ae all those 10' platforms, well I actually made those out of styrofoam and painted them up. I also bought a bag of balsa wood scraps and bits from Michael's and made up dozens of tables, beds, benches, book cases, and even a throne... i've found that the physical objects, to scale on the board encourage the players to manipulate them. A table drawn on the mat is static. A physical table that the miniature can stand on, or push over and then hide behind? it really gets the players into the scene and makes people more likely to do 'cool' things.

Outside of combat... one thing that I'm having a bit of an issue with is magical treasure. I'm following the guidelines, and it seems to be coming pretty fast and furious, especially with the caveat that items be 'tuned' to the players. In the current adventure, I'll be giving out enough items that everyone will have a couple nice pieces... I think at that point I'll move away from 'this item is clearly for the halfling' and focus more on general-use wondrous items, consumables, and etc... my general tack is that I'd prefer magical items to be rare, with people getting 'exceptional' normal items instead... but 4e out of the box is item-heavy, and I didn't want to buck too many trends when I plan on running modules for the first few levels anyhow. Once I'm familiar enough with the system, then I can buck trends and go my own way (by way of war, cataclysm, or some other DM sweeping change) and get the magic level where I want it to be. Then again, I might be happy with it once we've played for a while, as well.

Reading this thread (and others), I'm tempted to go back and read old manuals to see how they deal with non-combat situations. Honestly, in 2nd, the non-combat skills and proficiencies were, in my mund at least, merely ways to have a ruleset over things that were always handled by DM style... I never recalled the 1st/2nd edition books explaining rules on how to do the things 'outside' of combat, really.

I like the concepts, in 4e of skill challenges, diplomacy, bluff, insight, etc... but I think that skill challenges are best suited for physical endeavors and research... inter-personal endeavors (diplomacy, intimidation, questioning, trickery) are role-playing opportunities, where the dice rolling should be limited... a dice roll in these cases should be once the roleplay starts to falter, or to determine how an NPC reacts to a certain tactic with an opposed roll.

We've got the next bit of Rescue at Rivenroar coming up this weekend... they'll actually make it into the castle. I've spent a lot of time working on the interactions with the prisoners, since I want to focus on that (the module, as written, glosses over that a little too much... I guess the prisoners, as you rescue them, are supposed to disappear like V's familiar... I want them to be a burden on the PCs, getting in the way, becoming endangered in the encounters, used as hostages, etc.)

I'll give a report in this thread on Monday about how it went.

Tengu_temp
2008-09-11, 10:34 AM
Tengu, correct me if I am wrong, but you have never actually read any AD&D rulebooks, have you? I'm not trying to be smarmy here, but seriously, the 2e rulebooks actually directly say "combat is a small part of the game, that's why we don't have tons of rules for it." Whether the author's intent is then manifest in the rules is another matter, but AD&D 2e was never intended to be a "primarily HNS games with lots of dungeon crawling and few out of combat encounters." It seems to me that this is a box you have created for D&D in order to have a foil to contrast other games against.


Okay, then. AD&D doesn't have a lot of rules for combat, nor are they interesting, because combat is not its main focus. However, it doesn't have a lot of rules for out of combat situations neither, nor are they interesting. So what is its focus exactly? Is it a purposely rules-light indy game? Seeing that it created a generation of RPG players and became the default, generic system, somehow I doubt it.


I guess you see "encourages" as "forces". I don't really see what you're saying about Exaulted and L5R's mechanics as anything particularly special, nor would I think that sort of play unusual in 1e AD&D. Indeed, even when 1e OA added the sort of stuff you mention for L5R we found that it actually made life harder for those of us who were interested in a Japanese setting. A good sourcebook is far more use in encouraging roleplaying than any number of rules about woodcraft or calligraphy - a lession I first learnt from Tekumel, whose two primary sourcebooks contained no rules whatsoever and were nonetheless the two best RP books I've ever used.

1. You misspell "Exalted".
2. Guess what? Both Exalted and L5R have a lot of good fluff too, both in the main books and splats. On top of the rules.
3. Exalted doesn't force anyone to roleplay. It just gives additional awards to people who roleplay. If that's not encouraging, what is? And if someone wants to play standard L5R without the intention of roleplaying, it's not the game for him anyway.

If a game gives benefits to a player who roleplays, that's encouraging roleplaying. If a player who describes his cunning and cool-looking attack sees that it has the same effect as the other guy's "I hit him with my sword", the game is not encouraging roleplaying. Which category DND belongs to?

PS. Since I don't want to hijack the thread anymore, I won't talk about this topic more here. If anyone wants to continue, let's start another thread.

Charity
2008-09-11, 10:37 AM
I'm going to threadjack my thread around for a bit, back to my original topic.

Whistles innocently...


I like the concepts, in 4e of skill challenges, diplomacy, bluff, insight, etc... but I think that skill challenges are best suited for physical endeavors and research... inter-personal endeavors (diplomacy, intimidation, questioning, trickery) are role-playing opportunities, where the dice rolling should be limited... a dice roll in these cases should be once the roleplay starts to falter, or to determine how an NPC reacts to a certain tactic with an opposed roll.

I agree here, I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that I'm not fond of social skills as anything but a guideline to the outcome of social interraction.


We've got the next bit of Rescue at Rivenroar coming up this weekend... they'll actually make it into the castle. I've spent a lot of time working on the interactions with the prisoners, since I want to focus on that (the module, as written, glosses over that a little too much... I guess the prisoners, as you rescue them, are supposed to disappear like V's familiar... I want them to be a burden on the PCs, getting in the way, becoming endangered in the encounters, used as hostages, etc.)

I'll give a report in this thread on Monday about how it went.


I look forward to derailing reading it.

Matthew
2008-09-11, 10:53 AM
Okay, then. AD&D doesn't have a lot of rules for combat, nor are they interesting, because combat is not its main focus. However, it doesn't have a lot of rules for out of combat situations neither, nor are they interesting. So what is its focus exactly?

Good question! Exactly what I wondered when I read that part of the DMG. My answer is that adventure and exploration is the focus of BD&D/AD&D. Venturing into ruined cities in search of the unknown, jumping on board a spelljammer and sailing off into the expansive multiverse. Wandering around the streets of Sigil and wondering what on earth is going on. Also accumulation of treasure and personal power, with the aim of building a fief.

Another way of putting it is that AD&D 2e doesn't really have a focus, which is probably why it floundered and gravitated towards combat in the late nineties.



Is it a purposely rules-light indy game? Seeing that it created a generation of RPG players and became the default, generic system, somehow I doubt it.

Is it purposefully "rules light"? I would say not. The basic 2e system is very light (and very robust), and this was definitely intentional, but it was built as a skeleton onto which to sell more product (which meant more rules). The TSR staff were apparently baffled back in the early 80s as to why folk kept asking for "official rulings", but by 1989 they were harnessing this to make money (and WotC continue to do so).

It is also worth recalling that indie games weren't a response to AD&D. they were a response to rules heavy games in general, which were increasingly popular in the eighties. More rules meant better at that time, or such seems to have been the mainstream thinking.



I look forward to derailing reading it.

Indeed. I shall try my best to read and not derail (sorry 'bout that).



In combat, people can play cards. It's a good replacement for the old 'THAC0' box on 2nd edition sheets... I was worrried about them at first, but honestly back in 1st/2nd edition, the casters kept 'spellbooks' of index cards with all the details of common spells in them, so that we weren't flipping through the PHB for casting times and components.

I have always rather liked the idea of cards to portray equipment, magic itemsa and such, but I have never been able to implement it without feeling that I might as well have just wrote it down. With powers and spells, there is a more clear advantage to having them. I think I like them as pictorial aids more than anything else, but then you run the risk of inhibiting player imagination... rambling.



In combat, I have a combat sheet that I keep... it has every character, their HP/Current/Temp, healing surge value, healing surges, and initiative. It also has a spot to track monster init/hp. I alsways keep personal track of character resources (HP and surges, daily powers) so that I can at a glance see how much the party can 'take'. It allows me to on the fly change the lethality of the game to mesh up with where I want their resources to be... again, if a fight is too easy, I add reinforcements, or let them finish the fight but interrupt the rest. I like to keep the players on their toes.

Yes, I like to keep track of this stuff. I agree it is very helpful for keeping track of the party's capabilities.



I also am enjoying the 'miniature game' aspect of combat. I've played a lot of miniature combat games, from skirmish level to Epic, and D&D combat has just enough 'heroic skirmish' feel to it that I'm enjoying it. I'm playing on a battlemat, but I try to only draw out the static pieces. In the DMG adventure, there ae all those 10' platforms, well I actually made those out of styrofoam and painted them up. I also bought a bag of balsa wood scraps and bits from Michael's and made up dozens of tables, beds, benches, book cases, and even a throne... i've found that the physical objects, to scale on the board encourage the players to manipulate them. A table drawn on the mat is static. A physical table that the miniature can stand on, or push over and then hide behind? it really gets the players into the scene and makes people more likely to do 'cool' things.

This appears to be one of the big turning points on the good/bad divide. There is no denying that miniature play can be fun, and producing scenary to represent the environment is almost always rewarding.



Outside of combat... one thing that I'm having a bit of an issue with is magical treasure. I'm following the guidelines, and it seems to be coming pretty fast and furious, especially with the caveat that items be 'tuned' to the players. In the current adventure, I'll be giving out enough items that everyone will have a couple nice pieces... I think at that point I'll move away from 'this item is clearly for the halfling' and focus more on general-use wondrous items, consumables, and etc... my general tack is that I'd prefer magical items to be rare, with people getting 'exceptional' normal items instead... but 4e out of the box is item-heavy, and I didn't want to buck too many trends when I plan on running modules for the first few levels anyhow. Once I'm familiar enough with the system, then I can buck trends and go my own way (by way of war, cataclysm, or some other DM sweeping change) and get the magic level where I want it to be. Then again, I might be happy with it once we've played for a while, as well.

Yeah, this was a major change over in D20, where "lots of magic" became the explicit default. I hear that 4e runs well with a lower magic curve, though, so i will be interested to read how it works out for you.



Reading this thread (and others), I'm tempted to go back and read old manuals to see how they deal with non-combat situations. Honestly, in 2nd, the non-combat skills and proficiencies were, in my mund at least, merely ways to have a ruleset over things that were always handled by DM style... I never recalled the 1st/2nd edition books explaining rules on how to do the things 'outside' of combat, really.

There won't be much. I think Nagora alluded to the fact that the D&D core books have never really been too strong on explaining "how to play". Dragon and the various supplements contain more guidence, but the nature of such works is that they don't always agree.



I like the concepts, in 4e of skill challenges, diplomacy, bluff, insight, etc... but I think that skill challenges are best suited for physical endeavors and research... inter-personal endeavors (diplomacy, intimidation, questioning, trickery) are role-playing opportunities, where the dice rolling should be limited... a dice roll in these cases should be once the roleplay starts to falter, or to determine how an NPC reacts to a certain tactic with an opposed roll.

Like Charity, my feeling is that these have been introduced in too formal a way; and they are a formalisation of what a lot of D20 game masters were doing in a more ad hoc manner. Having recently read through the Quick Start Rules for A Song of Ice and Fire, I see "social combat" as a bit of a gamist trend. They work best when used informally.

Tormsskull
2008-09-11, 11:10 AM
If a game gives benefits to a player who roleplays, that's encouraging roleplaying. If a player who describes his cunning and cool-looking attack sees that it has the same effect as the other guy's "I hit him with my sword", the game is not encouraging roleplaying. Which category DND belongs to?


I'm assuming you mean mechanical benefits? I.e. you gave a colorful description of your attack so now you do +5 damage?

This scenario kind of reminds me of the old MUDs that I use to play. On MUDconnector, when you were listing your MUD, you could label it as "Roleplaying Encouraged" or "Roleplaying Enforced" (Hack n slash and PVP were categories too IIRC).

Roleplaying Encouraged meant just that, the game admins would like you to roleplay, and they were going to build in some small perks and such for those that roleplayed, but in the end, if you choose not to roleplay, no big deal.

Roleplaying Enforced meant that you were required to roleplay. The entire game was built around the fact that players were going to roleplay. Those that did not were penalized (and eventually banned in severe circumstances).

Each has it incentives, and I'd even agree that you're more likely to find more people on the Roleplaying Encouraged games than the Enforced ones, because let's face it, roleplaying is not for everyone. Some people would much rather just kill monsters, gain levels, and get loot.

But the advantage of the RP Enforced games is pretty considerable as well. Several really good MUDs were built on this premise, and it fostered an exceptional roleplaying environment.

I think that's how I see it with older editions of D&D versus newer editions of D&D versus other TT RPGS. Some encourage roleplay, some enforce roleplay. If a game is built on the premise that all players will roleplay (enforced) but no one does, then the game/rules/balance/etc falls apart really quickly.

ColdSepp
2008-09-11, 11:19 AM
First off, really enjoying this thread, and your recounts. Sounds like you're a great DM with a good group.



Outside of combat... one thing that I'm having a bit of an issue with is magical treasure. I'm following the guidelines, and it seems to be coming pretty fast and furious, especially with the caveat that items be 'tuned' to the players.

If you have an issue with this in 4E, it's good you never played 3.X Treasure is needed in 3.E, just to keep up. 4E requires much less, and in the DMG has simple rules rules for tuning the monsters if the PCs have no treasure. I believe it's in the monster creation section, though I am not sure. (I don't DM)



I like the concepts, in 4e of skill challenges, diplomacy, bluff, insight, etc... but I think that skill challenges are best suited for physical endeavors and research... inter-personal endeavors (diplomacy, intimidation, questioning, trickery) are role-playing opportunities, where the dice rolling should be limited... a dice roll in these cases should be once the roleplay starts to falter, or to determine how an NPC reacts to a certain tactic with an opposed roll.

Skill challenges as part of combat can be awesome. In our last adventure..
(Spoiler because it was an RPGA adventure)

The Paladin was making diplomacy checks to get a orc NPC to stop helping his allies, while helping the Fighter, Rogue, and Warlord fight off the other orks. Meanwhile, the Cleric and Wizard are trying save a womans life, who was giving birth. It was extremely fun and memorable.

Diplomacy ones can be less fun, but generally our group gets quite a bit of RP out of them, and the rolls are modified by it. It really depends on the group and DM, though.



I'll give a report in this thread on Monday about how it went.

Look forward to it.

nagora
2008-09-11, 12:08 PM
There won't be much. I think Nagora alluded to the fact that the D&D core books have never really been too strong on explaining "how to play". Dragon and the various supplements contain more guidence, but the nature of such works is that they don't always agree.
Reflecting on it, I think most of the explicit guidance on how to play probably was in the modules that were published. There was also word-of-mouth as the exploits of good DMs were passed around school/clubs and people realised how it could be done.

The best players of 1e, IME, have always been non-gamers who didn't know what they couldn't do. Since AD&D didn't disallow much, such players generally had a riot compared to players who were wanted to look up up a list of options, skills, or rules in a book. That's one reason I like to keep rulebooks to a minimum at the table; they frequently inhibit imagination.

And with a leap, he was back to the prison analogy!

DM Raven
2008-09-11, 01:14 PM
Yes, I think AD&D was a victim of its own success here. With so many players (I'd guess there were 10-20 groups in my school) things tended to grind down to the common denominator a lot of the time, especially when the prospect of DMing that way (ie, #3) was not really pushed at you from the books. And were were all naturally less experienced as DMs and player anyway.



Also, of course, those of us using the weapon speeds and armour types know that the longsword is not the best option even in the "hit it with my xxxx" field a lot of the time :smallwink:

A good DM will excel in most rule environment, but the 4e rules boast a more stable system where your melee characters actually have options to pull off neat powers beyond the "I hit with my longsword." In addition, you can still do the "I swing across the room and kick the guy into the fire" move and now it's much easier for your DM to make happen. "Acrobats check to swing and hit the guy with my tide of iron to knock him back one square into the fire." This type of creativity has nothing to do with rule edition, it's all about how creative your DM allows you to be.

As for weapon speed factors and armor types, those rules were clunky as hell, possibly one of the worst optional rules for combat.

Matthew
2008-09-11, 01:31 PM
A good DM will excel in most rule environment...

I don't really agree with this. The rules system can help and hinder the game master, and part of the skill of being a good one is knowing when to "chuck" a rule. However, quite "when" is dependent on the dynamics of the group, so that one man's "good" rule is another man's "bad".



but the 4e rules boast a more stable system where your melee characters actually have options to pull off neat powers beyond the "I hit with my longsword." In addition, you can still do the "I swing across the room and kick the guy into the fire" move and now it's much easier for your DM to make happen. "Acrobats check to swing and hit the guy with my tide of iron to knock him back one square into the fire." This type of creativity has nothing to do with rule edition, it's all about how creative your DM allows you to be.

As for weapon speed factors and armor types, those rules were clunky as hell, possibly one of the worst optional rules for combat.

...and this is a great example of what I am talking about. For some game masters and players "neat powers" (much like skill systems, hyper realistic combat, proficiencies, etcetera ad nauseum) are desirable and the 4e method of handling unusual maneouvres is useful. For others, it is a totally uneeded addition, and even an encumbrance to gameplay.

Having explicit rules for something creates the expectation that those rules will be used. This is good if you like the rules and bad if you don't. From my perspective, I see nothing easier about the 4e method for ""I swing across the room and kick the guy into the fire". Indeed, I find it a potential hindrance to how I want the game to play.

Yakk
2008-09-11, 01:34 PM
A good DM will excel in most rule environment, but the 4e rules boast a more stable system where your melee characters actually have options to pull off neat powers beyond the "I hit with my longsword." In addition, you can still do the "I swing across the room and kick the guy into the fire" move and now it's much easier for your DM to make happen. "Acrobats check to swing and hit the guy with my tide of iron to knock him back one square into the fire." This type of creativity has nothing to do with rule edition, it's all about how creative your DM allows you to be.

and, there is page 42.

Sadly, 4e has a mechanical problem with skill bonus vs to-hit roll balance. But that's neither here nor there (if the balance existed, then page-42ish stuff becomes easier).

Matthew
2008-09-11, 01:39 PM
and, there is page 42.

Sadly, 4e has a mechanical problem with skill bonus vs to-hit roll balance. But that's neither here nor there (if the balance existed, then page-42ish stuff becomes easier).

I was just going to mention page 42, but I think it's probably a subject for another thread.

Starsinger
2008-09-11, 01:41 PM
"I swing across the room and kick the guy into the fire" move and now it's much easier for your DM to make happen. "Acrobats check to swing and hit the guy with my tide of iron to knock him back one square into the fire." This type of creativity has nothing to do with rule edition, it's all about how creative your DM allows you to be.

My players played 3.X and don't seem to grasp that they can do interesting things, since there's no "You may do interesting thing X" feat for them to take.

I was tempted to train them to have fun, but whatever, I'm only DMing in our RL group for another week, then it's someone else's turn for a bit.

Matthew
2008-09-11, 01:53 PM
My players played 3.X and don't seem to grasp that they can do interesting things, since there's no "You may do interesting thing X" feat for them to take.

What a great idea for a feat. :smallbiggrin:

Starsinger
2008-09-11, 01:57 PM
What a great idea for a feat. :smallbiggrin:

Heh. Well, like despite the name being "Improved X" some of my players have it in their head that in 3.5 you can't say, Disarm without Improved Disarm.

Yakk
2008-09-11, 02:01 PM
Heh. Well, like despite the name being "Improved X" some of my players have it in their head that in 3.5 you can't say, Disarm without Improved Disarm.

To be fair, in 3.5, disarming without improved disarm is not that tactically smart. Provoke an OA at full BaB, and if that OA hits, your action is wasted. Then you get about an even chance of disarming the target, and on failure they get an even chance of disarming you.

With a 50% chance that the OA hits (which is low, as in 3e full-BaB hits are more likely than 50-50 to hit), that's a 25% chance you disarm them and a 12.5% chance you are disarmed and a 50% chance you take an extra attack...

Sort of sucks?

DM Raven
2008-09-11, 03:14 PM
I don't really agree with this. The rules system can help and hinder the game master, and part of the skill of being a good one is knowing when to "chuck" a rule. However, quite "when" is dependent on the dynamics of the group, so that one man's "good" rule is another man's "bad".


...and this is a great example of what I am talking about. For some game masters and players "neat powers" (much like skill systems, hyper realistic combat, proficiencies, etcetera ad nauseum) are desirable and the 4e method of handling unusual maneouvres is useful. For others, it is a totally uneeded addition, and even an encumbrance to gameplay.

Having explicit rules for something creates the expectation that those rules will be used. This is good if you like the rules and bad if you don't. From my perspective, I see nothing easier about the 4e method for ""I swing across the room and kick the guy into the fire". Indeed, I find it a potential hindrance to how I want the game to play.

Here is the thing, if you argue that too many rules are a hinderance, then who decides when there are too many or too few rules? By that argument, the perfect game is a group of people sitting around telling a story while the DM decides what actually happens and what doesn't (and this is not necessarily a bad thing). But this would leave you with a story...not a game.

D&D is a great game because it has a clause that says "The DM has final say in all matters." This gives the DM freedom to craft a game/story/world as he or she sees fit. The only thing that stands in your way is the players getting frustrated and leaving your table because they don't like what you're trying to do. But if you're creative and fair, you can create an amazing game/story that people will probably remeber for the rest of their lives.

Fourth edition introduces more rules, but it frames all those rules into one system with very few sub systems to contain other rules. In other words, most rules are variations to the, "I make a check, I win or lose depending on how hard the check is." Most of the 4e rules revolve around this and for each rule/power/attack they slightly modify the rule.

D&D is a game first and foremost. Each DM chooses if he wants to play this game more story heavy or more rule-mechanic heavy. For me, the rules of D&D are a tool I use to craft a fun and interactive game/story that my players will both enjoy the challenge of playing a game and the entertainment that comes from hearing a story.

If you like more system variations in a caster dominated rule system then 3.5 is probably a better system for you. If you like more rule variations and less with less variation on the overall system then 4.0 is more your speed. Both editions are great, and choosing either is fine. But 3.5 will probably fade away much like 1.0 and 2.0 did before it. Not happy about it, but that is the reality of things.

DeathQuaker
2008-09-11, 03:50 PM
OT:


I thought that was a photon detonator... a supersoaker confuses me.

No, but the other thing in "my" hand is a flashlight. Which is sort of like a photon detonator, only with more photons and fewer detonations.

What's confusing about a supersoaker? You pump it, pull the trigger, and it goes sploosh! Fun! :smallsmile:



I'm going to threadjack my thread around for a bit, back to my original topic.

I will try and probably fail to help....



In combat, I have a combat sheet that I keep... it has every character, their HP/Current/Temp, healing surge value, healing surges, and initiative.

Is this something you do, or is it a sheet provided by the game (xeroxable in the back of the DMG sorta thing)? If the latter, neat.


In the DMG adventure, there ae all those 10' platforms, well I actually made those out of styrofoam and painted them up. I also bought a bag of balsa wood scraps and bits from Michael's and made up dozens of tables, beds, benches, book cases, and even a throne...

Totally tangential, but were you able to find 1 inch square balsa squares? I've been trying to find some and Michael's doesn't have that size, and I want to make decorated terrain squares for fairly cheap...



Outside of combat... one thing that I'm having a bit of an issue with is magical treasure. I'm following the guidelines, and it seems to be coming pretty fast and furious, especially with the caveat that items be 'tuned' to the players.

Does this boost the challenge you have to put against the party a lot? (I.e., you need to throw tougher monsters at them because they have better gear?) How much is a lot of treasure? (I don't have the 4E rulebook... played it a little but don't have the book myself) What level are they and how many magic items to they have?

Matthew
2008-09-11, 03:52 PM
Here is the thing, if you argue that too many rules are a hinderance, then who decides when there are too many or too few rules? By that argument, the perfect game is a group of people sitting around telling a story while the DM decides what actually happens and what doesn't (and this is not necessarily a bad thing). But this would leave you with a story...not a game.

D&D is a great game because it has a clause that says "The DM has final say in all matters." This gives the DM freedom to craft a game/story/world as he or she sees fit. The only thing that stands in your way is the players getting frustrated and leaving your table because they don't like what you're trying to do. But if you're creative and fair, you can create an amazing game/story that people will probably remeber for the rest of their lives.

Fourth edition introduces more rules, but it frames all those rules into one system with very few sub systems to contain other rules. In other words, most rules are variations to the, "I make a check, I win or lose depending on how hard the check is." Most of the 4e rules revolve around this and for each rule/power/attack they slightly modify the rule.

D&D is a game first and foremost. Each DM chooses if he wants to play this game more story heavy or more rule-mechanic heavy. For me, the rules of D&D are a tool I use to craft a fun and interactive game/story that my players will both enjoy the challenge of playing a game and the entertainment that comes from hearing a story.

If you like more system variations in a caster dominated rule system then 3.5 is probably a better system for you. If you like more rule variations and less with less variation on the overall system then 4.0 is more your speed. Both editions are great, and choosing either is fine. But 3.5 will probably fade away much like 1.0 and 2.0 did before it. Not happy about it, but that is the reality of things.

Pop over to the other thread I started: Actions the Rules Don't Cover (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4899594). I don't want to derail Marshall's thread more than I have already. I'll respond to this there in a while. Limited time, and I just sunk a chunk of it into that thread. :smallfrown:

Marshall
2008-09-11, 04:56 PM
Is this something you do, or is it a sheet provided by the game (xeroxable in the back of the DMG sorta thing)? If the latter, neat.



I make them in Excel. I've made them on my computer since about 1985, for whatever game I'm running, customized for what I need. I'd attach a file if I knew how.




Totally tangential, but were you able to find 1 inch square balsa squares? I've been trying to find some and Michael's doesn't have that size, and I want to make decorated terrain squares for fairly cheap...


I was not particularly looking for those, however you might be interested in these: http://www.shoplet.com/office/db/LRNLER0203.html

at $20 for 400, that's not a bad price, and in plastic they'll hold up to a lot more use than balsa.




Does this boost the challenge you have to put against the party a lot? (I.e., you need to throw tougher monsters at them because they have better gear?) How much is a lot of treasure? (I don't have the 4E rulebook... played it a little but don't have the book myself) What level are they and how many magic items to they have?

Well, they are 2nd level, and all of them have at least one item that is magical... a holy symbol for the cleric, hammer for the dwarf, amulet of protection for the rogue, war staff for the wizard, and a wand for the warlock. At the end of the current adventure, they'll all have at least one more item each, possibly two, and be closing in on 3rd level if not there already.

As to monsters, I've always found that you end up tweaking the power level of encounters on the fly, regardless, as the exact situations never play out in reality how they did in your head :)

wumpus
2008-09-13, 09:48 AM
My players played 3.X and don't seem to grasp that they can do interesting things, since there's no "You may do interesting thing X" feat for them to take.

I was tempted to train them to have fun, but whatever, I'm only DMing in our RL group for another week, then it's someone else's turn for a bit.

3.5 (with a few splat books) is worse than that. It quickly becomes apparent that you need *feat X* in order to do X. You can expect that somewhere, in all those books, there is a "*feat X*: With this feat you can do X. Normal: you can't do X".

I decided I would never play anything like that during a class&level geekery discussion of the Order of the Stick PC's feats. Someone pointed out that Halley couldn't slice the whip of a slave driver without the ranged sunder feat. Also since pushing NPCs is so central to 4e, I'm sure you would have a specific pushing power to "push someone into the fire", regardless of your initial speed.

Just to agree with "best players don't read the books" argument, I would have to point out that my best experience as a player was in Villians&Vigilantes (long, long, ago). I never even looked in the book, and was using everything from my official powers to molotov cocktails. Second best experience was with Bushido (knew the books as well as the GM), where my samurai had to go through the court system if he wanted to make his blood feud official with an uppity merchant who doublecrossed him.

ColdSepp
2008-09-13, 10:29 AM
I decided I would never play anything like that during a class&level geekery discussion of the Order of the Stick PC's feats. Someone pointed out that Halley couldn't slice the whip of a slave driver without the ranged sunder feat. Also since pushing NPCs is so central to 4e, I'm sure you would have a specific pushing power to "push someone into the fire", regardless of your initial speed.

All PCs can force movement via a Bull Rush, which is a standard action.

Erk
2008-09-13, 01:17 PM
Also, in defense of 3e, I'd say a lot of the "need featX to do X" stuff came out post-core. In core, despite the rule that sunder can't be used at range, I'd have ruled an archer could attempt a sunder at an all-leather weapon or similar easily-sheared item simply because (a) it's logical and (b) there was no existing rule/feat/etc that the archer could have opted to take to gain that ability. That's why playing a lot of these games with core-only can sometimes be a more flexible experience than with splatbooks.

I'm not denying, of course, that extra source material is incredibly fun to play with. I like it as much as the next guy. It just tends to add rules by general creep, and focusing on all the rules presented can make it seem like every single action in the game has a defined rule for what feats etc. you have to take to do it.

Marshall
2008-09-18, 02:04 PM
It took a while to get back to this thread...

Well, the adventure started with the first physical skill challenge, that of tracking the hobgoblins and making it through the wilderness.

I liked this one a lot more than the social skill challenges, and the 'cost of failure' (loss of time, healing surges, and an otherwise missed encounter) were reasonable. The party failed to complete the challenge and fought a cave bear. After the hard fought battle and several hours of mis-steps, they decided to camp in the cave bear's cave, under the assumption that anything even moderately aware of the surroundings would stay away.

They then made it to the castle. I'd drawn up a map of the exterior, and the party spent time exploring the walls and towers before going in to the catacombs. They beat the first couple of encounters, and then went to the portal room where they hung around long enough to draw out the ochre jelly. The party realized how close the area was to the pits, and decided to lure the jelly to the pit. This worked very well, but I determined that the jelly refused to fall into the pit via tremor sense. They did however lock it in the hallway between the two pits and leave it there.

Combat between the magma claws and gnome skulks was their most dangerous combat sense the white dragon in the DMG adventure. The gnomes having the ability to turn invisible, strike from hiding etc caused a lot of issues. They found the first prisoner and we spent the rest of the evening playing out that interaction.

A couple of times in combat over the evening (we had 4 combat encounters), they started to drag. Unfortunately, the end of the combat is where actual resources are starting to get burned, so you can't gloss over them too much. As the players learn their abilities, they're getting less shy about spending encounter powers early, though, and that is helping to 'front load' the damage and speed things up.

If I've got a complaint, it's that every combat has the potential to drag out if dice rolls aren't cooperating. Once I'm more familiar with the system, I'll be able to tweak this better, but already I'm adjusting monster defenses (dropping them a couple points) and attacks (generally boosting them a tad), just to speed things up a bit. Three turns of missing isn't fun for anyone even if it isn't a toe-to-toe fight.