What makes an RPG 'Video Gamey'?

[Telok]

There are plenty of death spells in fiction, such as Avada Kadavra. If you label a spell "finger of death" and it doesn't cause death, then you should have called it something else, regardless of what any other edition did with it.

"Finger of Ten Goblins Throwing One Pound Rocks" doesn't have quite the same ring to it, no. At least Power Word Kill is still semi-respectable, even if it's mostly an npc spell these days.

[gbaji]

Also a given person may find mechanics associated/dissociated. Martial dailies/encounters is a perfect example. That maps reasonably closely, to me, to actually doing athletic things. I've heard high level athletes say the same thing. It's not a perfect match, for sure, but it's better than a lot of things in D&D.

Yup. And I think these can also be somewhat on a scale too though. I'd still put that in as an abstraction, but not disassociated. It's an abstraction of the idea that high stress phyiscal moves take a toll on the body and require some recovery time before attempting again. And sure. We could abstract in a more detailed way and instead of having "X/day", say something like "requires X hours of rest to recover from this move" (and perhaps even some healing spells/potions that could speed this up even). But those are just details of abstraction. It's still a reasonable abstraction IMO.

And yeah, we always have to be aware of the need of game balance versus realism as well. But you can lean more towards the disassociated side the more you are weighting "game balance" over "realism" though.

And I think that's really what triggers people more than anything else - things not working the way that they expect them to. That might be the mechanics, or the process, or any number of a different things. Even the layout - I think a lot of the complaints come from the fact that 4e nixed the 'mixed mechanics and fluff' presentation model in exchange of the more M:tG-esque "mechanics are mechanics, and the fluff is separate" model.

Things not being the way people expect them to be causes this kind of dissonance and strong emotional reaction.

Uncanny valley, more or less. Or just "broken expectations". Though sometimes, I just think it's a matter of competing assumptions about terminology as well. Which could be resolved with better definitions in game.

My big issue is with names that don't actually fit. 5e's dispel magic is a key example--it doesn't dispel magic generally, it dispels some spell effects. It doesn't affect magic items, creatures created by magic (ie skeletons) unless they say it does (the Animated Armor being one of the few that does), doesn't do anything about the copious amounts of magical-but-not-spell effects out there, etc. Or at least requires DM interpolation to do anything. Same with antimagic field's description, which, if taken seriously, would be super bad. Because one of the founding principles of 5e's magic system (such as they are) is that background magic is a fundamental part of everything. So cutting stuff off from that means Bad Things Happen (of the "regular stuff stops working, physics breaks down" variety). Heck, it doesn't even stop a dragon's breath, despite that being explicitly small-m magical. Which requires a whole Sage Advice chunk about it to make any kind of sense.

I agree with the point you're making, but not sure I agree with the example. This falls into the "competing assumptions about terminology". And what's funny is that I've seen this exact conflict come up many times (even in this forum about this comic). Folks thinking that an AMF would somehow deactivate Xykon, for example. But this depends on a misunderstanding/confusion over what most games (and certainly D&D) mean when they say "magic", specifically within the context of what you are dispelling.

To me, magic is "what is making/sustaining a change in the world right now". Once the change is made/complete/permanent, it's now "reality", and not magic. And sure, this gets confusing when you consider that things created via magic may themselves show up under detect magic (cause they are magical in origin). But they aren't actively (magically) making changes to reality. A dominate spell on someone is actively/magically affecting them, so you can dispell that. A mage armor spell is actively/magically generating a protective shield around someone, so you can dispell that. Seems pretty straightforward to me. And since the spell affects active magic at that moment it's cast, you can't use it to prevent spells from being cast and taking effect Again. Seems pretty clear. If I've created a magic item, the "magic" used in the creation of the item has already passed. The item now "is". There's nothing to dispell. The item isn't changing, nor does it only exist for the duration of some other effect that is sustaining its existence.

I guess we could also point to this as a balance thing, where "stuff that you had to spend exp points to create can't just be waved away with a spell that doesn't cost exp to cast". The whole "stuff with a duration can be dispelled" is a pretty easy distinction to make IMO and "fits" thematically. I get that there can be confusion over the name, I guess. But to me, this has alwasy been quite clear, and I've often been surprised at people not understanding why AMF can't deactivate undead (for example).

[Jakinbandw]

Thinking about it, my system's biggest disassociated mechanic comes at the start of combat. The GM marks down the starting zones for the PCs and their opposition, and then each player adds a zone to the map that the GM can veto. I wrote this mechanic in, because I wanted GMs to be free to have fights start anywhere, and I noticed that players often seemed kinda bored while waiting for the GM to think up, than draw out the zones to make proper battle map. It was a way to keep players involved, rather than leave them sitting bored for too long. In practice, I also found it made map design easier on the GM, as it required less in the moment creativity to make more interesting maps.

It's completely disassociated, because it doesn't represent anything the character could interact with. I'm not sure if it's something I'll keep. It's another thing that players have to be taught, and while in my tests it's been useful, I worry that the benefits aren't worth the extra effort, and disassociation.

I'm actually curious on what the people here think. I have a rough idea of what rules light, or people coming from more narrative focused games would think, but I'm not sure how more traditional gamers would see this.

[KorvinStarmast]

Non-indicative nomenclature is the bane of all fields that accumulate jargon. D&D has it bad for variety of topics, and D&D hobbyists occasionally manage to double down on it even when there's no need.

Tell me about it. When writing (or revising) doctrinal material in the military, the core guidance is "say what you mean and mean what you say" but the unique and contextual meaning of some terms (words and phrases) usually requires a glossary. And we don't always get one, although the DICNAVAB (Dictionary of Naval Abbreviations) was sometimes helpful.

[ComicSansSeraph]

When it does something I personally dislike but I already used "immersion-breaking".

[kyoryu]

Thinking about it, my system's biggest disassociated mechanic comes at the start of combat. The GM marks down the starting zones for the PCs and their opposition, and then each player adds a zone to the map that the GM can veto. I wrote this mechanic in, because I wanted GMs to be free to have fights start anywhere, and I noticed that players often seemed kinda bored while waiting for the GM to think up, than draw out the zones to make proper battle map. It was a way to keep players involved, rather than leave them sitting bored for too long. In practice, I also found it made map design easier on the GM, as it required less in the moment creativity to make more interesting maps.

It's completely disassociated, because it doesn't represent anything the character could interact with. I'm not sure if it's something I'll keep. It's another thing that players have to be taught, and while in my tests it's been useful, I worry that the benefits aren't worth the extra effort, and disassociation.

I'm actually curious on what the people here think. I have a rough idea of what rules light, or people coming from more narrative focused games would think, but I'm not sure how more traditional gamers would see this.

If you're concerned about it being disassociative, do something like this:

1. Start with a/several zones for PCs to start with, as you do now.
2. Let each player propose a new zone to start with, along with a description of how they/the party could get there
3. Based on what that would take, come up with a difficulty and appropriate skill to get there.
4. If they fail, they must start in the regular zone (something got in their way and they had to retreat to the party).

[Aquillion]

For 4e in particular, it's important to point out that the fact that it felt like a videogame was by design. WotC intentionally designed it with videogame-like mechanics that were difficult to play via tabletop because they wanted to push D&D Insider, especially the VTT it was intended to get, which they hoped would eventually become a D&D MMORPG.

For complicated reasons, the 4e team had to convince Hasbro that they were going to make a lot more money than tabletop games (even D&D) normally do, and making the end-goal "produce a MMO" (or something effectively similar to one, since Hasbro didn't have the rights to make a D&D MMO at the time) was the only way they could accomplish that. Hence, everything about 4e was built with that in mind.

Then the VTT fell through and the whole thing fell apart, leaving us with a game that was intentionally designed to be painful to play without a VTT component that didn't even exist...

[Silly Name]

Yup. And I think these can also be somewhat on a scale too though. I'd still put that in as an abstraction, but not disassociated. It's an abstraction of the idea that high stress phyiscal moves take a toll on the body and require some recovery time before attempting again. And sure. We could abstract in a more detailed way and instead of having "X/day", say something like "requires X hours of rest to recover from this move" (and perhaps even some healing spells/potions that could speed this up even). But those are just details of abstraction. It's still a reasonable abstraction IMO.

I think the dissociation comes from treating athletic feats as discrete and separate things a character can do. A professional weight-lifter will be exhausted by partecipating in a competition, and I know they can't lift up as much weight as they theoretically can an infinite number of times per day, as they have to recuperate... But that also means they're exhausted, and aren't going to run a 200m sprint after lifting 150Kg.

But if I can do that in a game, it feels weird - I'm too tired to deadlift again until I rest, but I'm also still capable of doing other physically exerting things... why? How? Those mechanics cease to map onto reality if we abstract them too much instead of, I don't know, tying them to a stamina system of sorts.

[KorvinStarmast]

For 4e in particular, it's important to point out that the fact that it felt like a videogame was by design. WotC intentionally designed it with videogame-like mechanics that were difficult to play via tabletop because they wanted to push D&D Insider, especially the VTT it was intended to get, which they hoped would eventually become a D&D MMORPG.

For complicated reasons, the 4e team had to convince Hasbro that they were going to make a lot more money than tabletop games (even D&D) normally do, and making the end-goal "produce a MMO" (or something effectively similar to one, since Hasbro didn't have the rights to make a D&D MMO at the time) was the only way they could accomplish that. Hence, everything about 4e was built with that in mind.

It appears that they are trying to do that again, with the D&Done thing they are looking to release in 2024, purchase of DDB, and their VTT of the future being something coming "soon" ...

[False God]

For 4e in particular, it's important to point out that the fact that it felt like a videogame was by design. WotC intentionally designed it with videogame-like mechanics that were difficult to play via tabletop because they wanted to push D&D Insider, especially the VTT it was intended to get, which they hoped would eventually become a D&D MMORPG.

For complicated reasons, the 4e team had to convince Hasbro that they were going to make a lot more money than tabletop games (even D&D) normally do, and making the end-goal "produce a MMO" (or something effectively similar to one, since Hasbro didn't have the rights to make a D&D MMO at the time) was the only way they could accomplish that. Hence, everything about 4e was built with that in mind.

Then the VTT fell through and the whole thing fell apart, leaving us with a game that was intentionally designed to be painful to play without a VTT component that didn't even exist...

Your talk of it being "difficult" and "painful" to play without a VTT is hyperbole not even supported by your article.

I've heard a lot of complaints about 4E, but this is the first time I've ever heard someone say its mechanics were hard to play at the table.

[Kish]

I find it real unlikely that 4ed D&D, with its daily powers, had "everything about it" built for a medium that universally doesn't track days that way.

(When they finally made a 4ed D&D based MMORPG, Neverwinter, the daily powers were so obviously inappropriate for the medium that they changed them to limit break powers, just with a name that didn't make any sense.)

[Aquillion]

Your talk of it being "difficult" and "painful" to play without a VTT is hyperbole not even supported by your article.

I've heard a lot of complaints about 4E, but this is the first time I've ever heard someone say its mechanics were hard to play at the table.

That's what the DDI pitch was that the 4th Edition would be designed so that it would work best when played with DDI. means. 4e was designed to work best with a VTT; hence why people had trouble with it otherwise. It's corporate-speak for "the design will prod people towards behaving like this", ie. doing it the other way will be awkward and painful.

And the complaint that it had a ton of stuff to track (and otherwise had a lot of mechanics that were a better fit for an DDI or a computer game) is a pretty common complaint. You just don't see it as often on forums like this one because extremely experienced players (which tend to be more of the audience here) have more tolerance for tracking a bunch of stuff at once.

(It's a long video, but worth watching to summarize the complaints someone who started with 4e had about it. And I feel like it's especially informative to read it in light of the post I linked above with an eye towards "which of these problems were caused by the focus on getting players to use the VTT" - to me, it feels like the answer is "nearly all of them.")

I find it real unlikely that 4ed D&D, with its daily powers, had "everything about it" built for a medium that universally doesn't track days that way.

(When they finally made a 4ed D&D based MMORPG, Neverwinter, the daily powers were so obviously inappropriate for the medium that they changed them to limit break powers, just with a name that didn't make any sense.)

The author of that post was VP of Wizards of the Coast and Brand Manager for Dungeons & Dragons, so I'd assume he knows what he's talking about and is / was in communication with many people working there. These are as close to the core facts about why 4e was the way it was that we have available; and one of those facts was that, yes, it was designed to be a game that players would want to use a VTT for, which led to its strictly-defined feel (what people colloquially call its "MMORPG feel".)

The separation between daily and encounter powers, and their overall unified structure across all classes, seems extremely video-gamey to me, and feels like something designed for a VTT (remember, the MMO was a step removed from all this.) Daily powers are something that can be ported easily to a MMORPG as well, since you just have to replace the method used to reset them - it's essentially just "short cooldown" and "long cooldown" powers adapted to tabletop. Limit breaks are a common way to do long-cooldown powers, after all?

"Hey, this feels like it was designed to be a videogame" was an extremely common observation the moment 4e released, and someone who was deeply in the know about D&D's inner workings later said that, yes, it was specifically designed with that in mind.

[kyoryu]

I never found D&D4e hard to play without a VTT. I don't know where that assertion comes from.

As an actual MMO designer, the 4e mechanics are horrible to try to implement into an MMO. It is entirely the wrong design. (3e-style "every n minutes" works much better in an MMO than "encounter/daily" does)

The actual design is far more reminiscent of M:tG than any reasonable MMO design. I mean, the original release they even released power cards! I don't know why "they wanted Organized Play, and so took a lot of inspiration from the lessons they learned about OP from M:tG" is such a controversial opinion.

That doesn't mean that they didn't pay attention to video games on some level. Of course they did. Anybody aiming anywhere near the space they're aiming at should, as there's a lot of info, and the crossover in audiences is so huge that understanding expectations and borrowing ideas should be the standard.

[Telok]

I've heard a lot of complaints about 4E, but this is the first time I've ever heard someone say its mechanics were hard to play at the table.

Tracking statuses and saves was a right bitch for our GM. Two different marks and three area effect 'save ends' powers on 6-8 enemies (half hit by any one power) plus prone and a couple other status effects. He loved that he could wing a fight by adding up xp to a limit and it worked. We all hated the 3-4 hour fights that resulted. Plus mounted & vehicle combat was totally screwball that the GM kept trying to house rule into something fun without just chucking it and going 100% homebrew.

I heard they fixed stuff by rewriting the monsters hp & damage later, but by then we'd already bailed on 4e. Part was apparently that PC damage output had spikes & plateaus while monster bits scaled more smoothly, but we seem to have gotten fed up with it about level 11.

[Talakeal]

I think the dissociation comes from treating athletic feats as discrete and separate things a character can do. A professional weight-lifter will be exhausted by partecipating in a competition, and I know they can't lift up as much weight as they theoretically can an infinite number of times per day, as they have to recuperate... But that also means they're exhausted, and aren't going to run a 200m sprint after lifting 150Kg.

But if I can do that in a game, it feels weird - I'm too tired to deadlift again until I rest, but I'm also still capable of doing other physically exerting things... why? How? Those mechanics cease to map onto reality if we abstract them too much instead of, I don't know, tying them to a stamina system of sorts.

I can stomach that level of abstraction, the things I don't like are the ones the require me to "memorize" certain martial powers and then forget how to perform all of my other martial tricks.

[False God]

That's what the DDI pitch was that the 4th Edition would be designed so that it would work best when played with DDI. means. 4e was designed to work best with a VTT; hence why people had trouble with it otherwise. It's corporate-speak for "the design will prod people towards behaving like this", ie. doing it the other way will be awkward and painful.

No. Your words are still hyperbole, you speak like someone who's never actually used the system.
"My car works best on the road" does not mean it will be "awkward and painful" offroad. It just means I'll see the best performance on the road. Performance offroad, even if capable, will be lessened. It will not necessarily be "awkward and painful". Thats you exaggerating for effect, aka: hyperbole.

And the complaint that it had a ton of stuff to track (and otherwise had a lot of mechanics that were a better fit for an DDI or a computer game) is a pretty common complaint. You just don't see it as often on forums like this one because extremely experienced players (which tend to be more of the audience here) have more tolerance for tracking a bunch of stuff at once.

This forum bitches about 4E like it were still in production. I see it plenty.

As someone who cut their teeth on 4E and video games before playing other editions, it regularly pisses me off.

(It's a long video, but worth watching to summarize the complaints someone who started with 4e had about it. And I feel like it's especially informative to read it in light of the post I linked above with an eye towards "which of these problems were caused by the focus on getting players to use the VTT" - to me, it feels like the answer is "nearly all of them.")

I have no interest in hearing the same tired points repeated about a system that hasn't been on the market for over a decade.

"Hey, this feels like it was designed to be a videogame" was an extremely common observation the moment 4e released, and someone who was deeply in the know about D&D's inner workings later said that, yes, it was specifically designed with that in mind.

I'm not arguing it's not video gamey. I'm arguing that it's easy to run.

Tracking statuses and saves was a right bitch for our GM. Two different marks and three area effect 'save ends' powers on 6-8 enemies (half hit by any one power) plus prone and a couple other status effects. He loved that he could wing a fight by adding up xp to a limit and it worked. We all hated the 3-4 hour fights that resulted. Plus mounted & vehicle combat was totally screwball that the GM kept trying to house rule into something fun without just chucking it and going 100% homebrew.

I heard they fixed stuff by rewriting the monsters hp & damage later, but by then we'd already bailed on 4e. Part was apparently that PC damage output had spikes & plateaus while monster bits scaled more smoothly, but we seem to have gotten fed up with it about level 11.

A rule I took from my first DM to being a DM: "If you caused it, YOU track it." Makes it super easy to track because now every player has a vested interest in ensuring their effect remains accounted for and the DM doesn't have to do more work because the player wants to be a summoner or effects guy.

Yes, 4E combats were slow as hell, no argument. They weren't hard IME. I'm not going to say you didn't find them hard, I certainly believe you if you say you did. But this is quite honestly the first time I've ever heard the complaint.

[Telok]

A rule I took from my first DM to being a DM: "If you caused it, YOU track it." Makes it super easy to track because now every player has a vested interest in ensuring their effect remains accounted for and the DM doesn't have to do more work because the player wants to be a summoner or effects guy.

Yes, 4E combats were slow as hell, no argument. They weren't hard IME. I'm not going to say you didn't find them hard, I certainly believe you if you say you did. But this is quite honestly the first time I've ever heard the complaint.

Ug, that wouldn't have worked with our group. Not because of interest, but simply ability and constant interrupting. Some just wouldn't have been able to keep up or keep track. We all chipped in, trying to keep stuff straight, but we could never keep track of all of the effects and stuff.

I wouldn't say 4e combat was hard either, at least not in a math or decision making process. But it (for us) got tedious pretty fast and was a chore tracking all the bits.

I do know one guy for whom 4e combat was hard, but he never got to good range estimation and had to keep counting moves & squares to find out if different powers would reach stuff. Also chronically can't take notes or remember durations/effects outside his own character. Most forms of D&D are hard for that guy, the 5e vtts & online character sheets tracking stuff for him has been a godsend to him.

[False God]

Ug, that wouldn't have worked with our group. Not because of interest, but simply ability and constant interrupting. Some just wouldn't have been able to keep up or keep track. We all chipped in, trying to keep stuff straight, but we could never keep track of all of the effects and stuff.

I wouldn't say 4e combat was hard either, at least not in a math or decision making process. But it (for us) got tedious pretty fast and was a chore tracking all the bits.

Mostly the DM would ask "Okay, Goblin #3 is attacking, any effects? *players respond* Okay here he goes!" If someone forgot or interrupted later the DM would just say "Sorry, make a note of it for next time." and keep going. It's the same response I give to 3.5 summoner builds. If you forget one of your creatures, I'm not holding up the game; play a simpler build or remember them all next time.

I think "it was a chore to run" is a fine description of 4E out of the box. I made excessive use of minions and average damage when DMing to speed things up. Of course I find most combats to be tedious exercises in banality and run relatively low-combat, high-social/RP systems these days, and no edition of D&D is an exception to the "I find combat tedious and boring." feeling.

[gbaji]

Thinking about it, my system's biggest disassociated mechanic comes at the start of combat. The GM marks down the starting zones for the PCs and their opposition, and then each player adds a zone to the map that the GM can veto. I wrote this mechanic in, because I wanted GMs to be free to have fights start anywhere, and I noticed that players often seemed kinda bored while waiting for the GM to think up, than draw out the zones to make proper battle map. It was a way to keep players involved, rather than leave them sitting bored for too long. In practice, I also found it made map design easier on the GM, as it required less in the moment creativity to make more interesting maps.

I actually never really thought about this. I tend to do the following process:

1. Who gets there first?
2. Draw a map of the area, including all access/entrance points. Let the people who are there first position themselves (which could be me setting up my bad guys).
3. Have whomever gets there next arrive. Actually move them in via the access/entrance points, and allow those already positioned to react/respond/attack/whatever.

If two groups arrive at the same time, I still draw out a map, and then just by melee rounds have people move into the area, and encounter the other "side".

That method works in every game I've ever played and it contains no dissassociation at all. It's literally how you encounter people. And yeah, you make adjustments based on who knows that the other side is there/approaching, thus how much time they have to prep and/or whether they can stealthily sneak up and surprise the other side.

I just use the actual movement rules of the game to determine where and when folks encounter each other. Is there something special about this particular game that makes this more complicated?

I think the dissociation comes from treating athletic feats as discrete and separate things a character can do. A professional weight-lifter will be exhausted by partecipating in a competition, and I know they can't lift up as much weight as they theoretically can an infinite number of times per day, as they have to recuperate... But that also means they're exhausted, and aren't going to run a 200m sprint after lifting 150Kg.

But if I can do that in a game, it feels weird - I'm too tired to deadlift again until I rest, but I'm also still capable of doing other physically exerting things... why? How? Those mechanics cease to map onto reality if we abstract them too much instead of, I don't know, tying them to a stamina system of sorts.

Yeah. That's the problem with wedging Vancian methodologies into physical actions. I'm not a fan of Vancian spell rules, and less of a fan when they're expanded into physical feats/actions. For the physical stuff, at least, while still an abstraction, using some kind of pool of "exertion points" (or whatever you want to call them), would seem to work well (or, "better" at least). The idea being that you can exert yourself beyond the normal only so much each day. Additional fun ways to manage this is to have specific amounts of recovery for these points (which may be quite a bit less per day than the total pool of points). So it's entirely possible to over exert yourself one day, and take several days to fully recover. Something that the X/day mechanic just doesn't allow for.

I also tend to prefer using similar concepts of "magic pools" for spells as well. I think I mentiond earlier (probably in this thread), that I knew a guy who basically converted 1e D&D magic to use spell points instead of spell slots. So you had X spells in your book, Y spells memorized, and Z total spell points (basically add up the numberxlevel for all spell slots IIRC). You just spend them based on the level of the spell you are casting. Obviously, this becomes problematic with later editions where there were methods (and costs) for substituting higher level spells for lower level ones (which you could basically do "on the fly" using this guys system). But for 1e? it actually worked really really well. He may have had some deduction in the total points (to simulate the idea that no one perfectly selects and casts all their spell slots every day), but I honestly can't remember (it has been like 40+ years after all)


I'll also comment that I agree with the general concept that status effects, in general, are a pain in the butt to manage. Always the most likely things to be forgotten in the midst of any decent sized combat.

[Kish]

"Hey, this feels like it was designed to be a videogame" was an extremely common observation the moment 4e released, and someone who was deeply in the know about D&D's inner workings later said that, yes, it was specifically designed with that in mind.

Yes, but you didn't say videogame. You said everything about it was built with an MMO in mind specifically, and limit breaks are not about time, no: not in the JRPG that actually uses that name for them, not in Neverwinter. Are you backing off that claim to "CRPG" now, or do you just have such contempt for all computer games that the distinction between a CRPG and an MMORPG seems meaningless to you?

("This was designed for computer games"=true. "This was designed for MMORPGs"=false. "4ed is like a computer game"=true. "4ed is World of Warcraft"=a common declaration when 4ed was the current edition of D&D which expressed disdain, not factual correctness.)

[Telok]

I think "it was a chore to run" is a fine description of 4E out of the box.

I would put it as "a chore to play for some, hard to play for others", but not so much to run. Our GM loved running it; picking stuff for the fights was easy, running the hp blobs in combat was easy, magic treasure was meaningless and therefore easy, rituals were barely anything and easy to ignore. Easy, easy, easy. It was the guy who had to count all the squares and consult all his powers each round that found it hard. For me, who had a super simple flow chart and didn't even need to look at the board between turns, it was tedium.

[lesser_minion]

There is no edition of D&D that can be adapted that pedantically into an MMO and end up looking something like World of Warcraft.

That said, plenty of MMOs do implement encounter powers ("if you use this, it won't be back up for the rest of this fight") and daily powers ("if you use this, it won't be back up for the rest of this fight or for the next one") one way or another. The easiest way is just encounter = 60-90s cooldown; daily = 150-420s cooldown.

Also, plenty of MMOs also don't look much like World of Warcraft. Most don't, in fact, especially if you lump in similar games from before the "MMORPG" term was coined.

[Jakinbandw]

I actually never really thought about this. I tend to do the following process:

1. Who gets there first?
2. Draw a map of the area, including all access/entrance points. Let the people who are there first position themselves (which could be me setting up my bad guys).
3. Have whomever gets there next arrive. Actually move them in via the access/entrance points, and allow those already positioned to react/respond/attack/whatever.

If two groups arrive at the same time, I still draw out a map, and then just by melee rounds have people move into the area, and encounter the other "side".

That method works in every game I've ever played and it contains no dissassociation at all. It's literally how you encounter people. And yeah, you make adjustments based on who knows that the other side is there/approaching, thus how much time they have to prep and/or whether they can stealthily sneak up and surprise the other side.

I just use the actual movement rules of the game to determine where and when folks encounter each other. Is there something special about this particular game that makes this more complicated?

It's the 'Draw a Map of the area' step. Positioning characters isn't an issue, that's all normal. My system is zone based, and does better with more interesting zones. Drawing a map takes 5-10 minutes. As I said, just to keep the players involved, I have them each able to add a zone to the map. It's not necessary to give players the power to help when drawing the map, but it makes for better maps, puts less strain on the GM, and keeps players engaged. Is it worth throwing away all those benefits to keep the system simpler for players, and cut out a disassociated mechanic?

I'm still deciding.

[Talakeal]

"4ed is World of Warcraft"=a common declaration when 4ed was the current edition of D&D which expressed disdain, not factual correctness.)

IIRC there are quotes from the 4E developers stating that making the game more like WoW was a goal.

I am someone who has played a ton of WoW, probably more than D&D, so I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing.

Giving each class a clearly defined party role, having short term tactical decisions matter more than long term strategic decisions, having game rules trump narrative fiction, and having a unified cool-down based system of powers are all very much more like WoW than they are like previous editions of D&D (even if other MMOs do the same) and are not necessarily bad things.

IMO 4E had way bigger problems than its similarity to WoW.

[Kurald Galain]

For 4e in particular, it's important to point out that the fact that it felt like a videogame was by design. WotC intentionally designed it with videogame-like mechanics that were difficult to play via tabletop because they wanted to push D&D Insider, especially the VTT it was intended to get, which they hoped would eventually become a D&D MMORPG.

I understand that the 4E devteam basically promised Hasbro the moon and all the stars beyond, but let's be real, their small team would never have been able to write anything resembling a MMORPG. The amount of manpower required is nowhere near in the same ballpark.

[Tanarii]

I wouldn't say 4e combat was hard either, at least not in a math or decision making process. But it (for us) got tedious pretty fast and was a chore tracking all the bits.

As someone who loved 4e at the time, this was definitely true. Combat involved a lot of chore stuff, and by the end of the 4th hour-long combat encounter of the night everyone, DM and players, were burned out. (I'll note this happens after a session of Gloomhaven/Frosthaven as well, for pretty much the same reasons.)

As maligned as skill challenges were online (and still is), and as much as everyone loved the upsides of 4e combat (and there are tons!), everyone I played with was ecstatic when one was mixed into the middle of the session in place of a combat encounter.

[KorvinStarmast]

The first time I ran into cool downs in a game was in Warcraft III. But I think there was a kind of cool down thing in Warcraft II where it took a while to restore enough mana to do "certain things" and then I remember that in Starcraft, certain things restored slowly over a long time ... but the cool down (where you saw the ability more or less count down the clock) I first remember from Warcraft III.

[Aquillion]

I understand that the 4E devteam basically promised Hasbro the moon and all the stars beyond, but let's be real, their small team would never have been able to write anything resembling a MMORPG. The amount of manpower required is nowhere near in the same ballpark.

They didn't even have the rights to make an MMO at the time, so that was a distant goal. The idea was that they would release a VTT alongside 4e, push more and more users to pay for it, grow rapidly based on the popularity of 4e and the income of its VTT, and eventually use this as the base to launch an MMO. Obviously, that plan did not work for a bunch of reasons, but based on every source with any actual knowledge of their internal discussions and plans, that's more-or-less why 4e is the way it is.

This is what we would now consider akin to a F2P model (even if the people who buy the books are paying money for it, they're not paying the monthly fee WotC needed to hit Hasbro's income goals.) You have a cheap version of your game with no monthly fee; then you have a premium version with a monthly fee. And you deliberately introduce pain points to try and get people to switch from one to the other - that was how 4e as designed.

And of course WoW was the big reference point. This was ~2008. WoW was on an absolutely massive growth streak and if you were making a fantasy *anything* and you wanted to convince a company like Hasbro that you could make $100 million/year, you would mention WoW as many times per sentence as you can manage. The people they had to convince barely knew anything about tabletop roleplaying games, but they had heard of WoW, as "something that is currently making all the money." Actually making an MMO was a massive long-term project, but they needed to convince Hasbro they could reach that point *eventually*.

People are also forgetting how much of what we currently consider an MMO, in 2008, was still comparatively new and comes directly from WoW.

I mean, obviously not everyone finds the same things painful, and not everyone has the same experiences with games or feels the same things about them are important; so it's reasonable that some people will be like "well, I didn't find 4e painful" or "well, I didn't notice the similarities with WoW" or whatever (after all, the goal was never to make people *notice* those similarities - they existed more in order to make the argument to Hasbro that D&D eventually had a path to pulling down WoW levels of money. And if the similarities are things you consider unimportant then it wouldn't leap out to you.) Not every free user can be converted; if you enjoy the sort of tracking that 4e required then you probably weren't one of the users they envisioned prodding into their VTT. They didn't intend to force *everyone* there; the model generally assumes this pool of free users who will be converted into paying users or even whales.

But it does seem like that was the overarching plan.

[Pauly]

It's the 'Draw a Map of the area' step. Positioning characters isn't an issue, that's all normal. My system is zone based, and does better with more interesting zones. Drawing a map takes 5-10 minutes. As I said, just to keep the players involved, I have them each able to add a zone to the map. It's not necessary to give players the power to help when drawing the map, but it makes for better maps, puts less strain on the GM, and keeps players engaged. Is it worth throwing away all those benefits to keep the system simpler for players, and cut out a disassociated mechanic?

I'm still deciding.

I wouldn’t say it’s a disassociated mechanic. Many wargames use something similar, on the basis that given a choice units will travel as close as possible to zones that are advantageous to them. In an RPG it’s abstracting how the characters choose their path through the environment. The arthritic sniper will lean more to open areas with long lines of sight and the acrobatic knife fighter will choose areas more suitable for themselves.
It’s faster, simpler and easier than having the entire environment mapped out in great detail and making the players choose a specific path.

[Anymage]

This is what we would now consider akin to a F2P model (even if the people who buy the books are paying money for it, they're not paying the monthly fee WotC needed to hit Hasbro's income goals.) You have a cheap version of your game with no monthly fee; then you have a premium version with a monthly fee. And you deliberately introduce pain points to try and get people to switch from one to the other - that was how 4e as designed.

Out of curiosity, what pain points? I'm not going to deny the WoW inspired design or the fact that it was clearly a minis game that had aspirations to be a VTT game, but I'm hard pressed to think of pain points that were intentional as opposed to clearly bad math. (e.g: monster HP turning battles into extended slogs, or the many revisions of skill challenges.) The main things a computer would help with are tracking conditions and resources, where I don't see tracking those in 4e being meaningfully different than tracking them in 3.5 or 5e.