Man, teh st00pid just keeps on comin'.

Both OD&D and D&D4e are rpgs. However, both of them have been played with the absolute minimum of roleplaying by the participants. Sometimes players are stupid and boring, and prefer to treat it as a pure tactical game.

Quote from: Haffrung;318527The key issue here isn't whether minions are a good thing or a bad thing. The issue is whether players should base their decisions on metagame knowledge. Should they be told right away which of their opponents are 'minions' in game terms, and which are tougher opponents, when the PCs themselves have no way of immediately knowing, or even recognizing the difference between minions and more serious foes.

Except the quoted text in the OP, the DM explicitly describes them as "faceless mooks". In other words, the player characters had perceived them as inferior opponents. Metagame knowledge didn't enter the picture at all.

Also, the PCs we're discussing are adventurers aka people likely to be trained in martial and monstrous lore. While it makes no sense for Bob the Lawyer to discern who's a threat and who's not a threat, it's entirely reasonable for Bob the Fighting Man to know who's his superior, who's his equal, and who's his inferior. Bob the Fighting Man fights people for livelihood and, unless his opponents are all masters at disguising thier level of competence (and that would stretch believability), he should be able to pick up on these things because not being able to do so could cost him his life.

QuoteIf you're playing D&D primarily as a tactical wargame, then it's only fair to tell the players what they're up against so they can make the best analytical game decisions. If you're playing D&D as an immersive roleplaying game, then the players should only know what their PCs know, and act accordingly.

No, it's also fair to be able to perceive this if I'm an adventurer and I stab people for a living and a million other reasons which do not touch on analytical game decisions at all.

QuoteThat's only valid if the game is defined by its mechanics. However, early D&D assumed that anything involving PCs relating with NPCs and other non-combat situations should be governed not by rules, but by a player explaining exactly what his PC says and does, and the DM adjudicating the response of the NPCs or the environment to those actions. In other words, the assumption is that an intelligent person at the table is a better judge of the success or failure of social situations involving roleplaying than any hard mechanics.

You want to talk your way into the city gates after dark? Okay, start talking. I (the DM) will decide if you're persuasive or not. That's roleplaying.

What you're harping is "ROLEplay, not ROLLplay" and that's bad advice given that even intelligent people are not immune to make stupid judgement calls (no matter how much competence they put behind them) and sometimes rules are better arbiters of what occurs in a given situation.

Quote from: DeadUematsu;318535Except the quoted text in the OP, the DM explicitly describes them as "faceless mooks". In other words, the player characters had perceived them as inferior opponents. Metagame knowledge didn't enter the picture at all.

How do you perceive a foe as an inferior opponent before you've started fighting? I mean, do they literally not have faces? Are there other visual cues that guarantee to the PCs that they're weaklings? Aren't there master swordsmen who look mundane, or flamboyant enemies who act fearsome but are all bluster?

QuoteWhat you're harping is "ROLEplay, not ROLLplay" and that's bad advice given that even intelligent people are not immune to make stupid judgement calls (no matter how much competence they put behind them) and sometimes rules are better arbiters of what occurs in a given situation.

Sometimes. But with a good DM, not often enough to outweight the pleasure of matching your own wits against a sound and flexible mind, instead of rolling some dice.

Quote from: DeadUematsu;318535. . . [T]hat's bad advice given that even intelligent people are not immune to make stupid judgement calls (no matter how much competence they put behind them) and sometimes rules are better arbiters of what occurs in a given situation.

And rules can make no sense whatsoever in the context of a given situation, requiring the exercise of actual human judgement.

And around and around the carousel spins . . .

Quote from: BenoistYes, but can't a save in 4e fulfill the same role as a morale check in OD&D?

Generic mechanic being used to fill a gap that was once filled by a specific mechanic back in the day... I know that sounds like I'm splitting hairs, but that's significant.

Alternatively, I could argue that this usage of a save for morale purposes is not in the RAW, and thus should not be included in any reasonable discussion - once we start talking about ways we could modify a game, we're no longer really talking about the game itself.

QuoteWhat about Bluff and Diplomacy skills? Insight?

Well, now we're getting into another thing, and that's 4e's skill system. Personally I find the ever-increasing skill bonuses to be ridiculous; an example of the "tyranny of fun," to bring this conversation back to the thread's original topic.

Because of the ever-increasing skill bonuses, anything about who your character is or what he has done (aside from killing things to gain levels) is irrelevant, because you will auto-win at skill checks against "normal" folk eventually at any task, even something which the character should - by all rights - completely suck at. That isn't really roleplaying, I don't think.

QuoteI don't know, I just disagree with the notion that mechanical elements of the rulebook have to define and/or support role-playing at the table for the game to be considered a "RPG". Rules aren't the be-all end-all of RPGs, IMO.

Then what is?

Take a look at the video game world, and what is considered an RPG therein. Is Final Fantasy an RPG, in the sense that you understand it? Is it not? Why is that?

I would argue that FF is not an RPG. It lacks sufficient player interaction for anything other than combat (or perhaps seldom-used narrative devices that enable multiple story paths; but those are unusual in the RPG world, even today).

However, if you broaden the definition of what an RPG is, you wind up with strange results. Is Metroid Prime an RPG, by what you would define one as?

Quote from: The ShamanA lot of roleplaying gamers would be very surprised to hear that.

I'm a bit surprised by my willingness to come out and argue that point, and to try to make it sound reasonable. So fair enough.

QuoteI tend to think the act of creating and playing a character is really the necessary element of roleplaying, and the actual mechanics for that can be as simple as...

I think what we'd need to do is examine this idea from the opposite end - take a game or activity or similar, normally completely devoid of RP, and see where it stops being whatever type of game it is and becomes an RPG.

QuoteI find mechanics more complex than that tend to become more of a hindrance than a help.

Well, I enjoy my crunch. But level of mechanical detail shouldn't be much of a factor, hence why I am insisting that if there is at least a framework of some kind in place, then it could reasonably be called an RPG.

Quote from: paris80Then your definition is wrong.

If it is, then it will require more than simple statements such as this to convince me of such. I am willing to admit that it might be, but you will have to show me how with reasonable argumentation.

QuoteThis tells me that "roleplaying mechanics" are not a prerequisite for the occurrence of "roleplaying" during a campaign.

That is not the point, though. The point is that, without the framework in place, there is no reason for you to RP, as per the RAW. You are adding the roleplaying as an overlay to the system. It is not intrinsically a part of it.

You could do the same thing with chess.

QuoteOh fercrissake. Fourth edition D&D is a RPG. If you don't like it, fine. I don't either, I'll just mention in passing. But to deny that it is what it in fact is... that's just silly.

No, I don't think it's silly. My personal feelings for it aside, I am not entirely certain that it is appropriate to call it an RPG. This view is stemming from how I define an RPG, and 4e failing to fall into those parameters.

QuoteAnd besides, 4e even has social mechanics - why then deny it entry into your RPG club?

See earlier in this post; someone else mentioned that, and I believe I addressed that sufficiently to explain why.

Quote from: HaffrungThat's only valid if the game is defined by its mechanics.

Which is a stance I agree with.

QuoteIn other words, the assumption is that an intelligent person at the table is a better judge of the success or failure of social situations involving roleplaying than any hard mechanics.

I would find that to be in error. Fiat DMing is not good for the game, in any situation, ever (IMO, etc).

QuoteYou want to talk your way into the city gates after dark? Okay, start talking. I (the DM) will decide if you're persuasive or not. That's roleplaying.

I would actually argue that this is the direct antithesis of roleplaying. This is fiat DMing, which is just as bad for social encounters as it is for combat.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;318529Man, teh st00pid just keeps on comin'.

Eh, take the ad hominem and shove off. You might have something useful to contribute. Please do so in a reasonable and charitable manner, rather than assuming I'm an imbecile.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;318543Eh, take the ad hominem and shove off. You might have something useful to contribute. Please do so in a reasonable and charitable manner, rather than assuming I'm an imbecile.

If you think that OD&D and/or D&D4e are not rpgs, then you are an imbecile. Or as I prefer to put it, a cocksmock.

My useful contribution was noting that in both games as in most others, people can if they wish do the absolute minimum of roleplaying and treat it as a pure tactical wargame, but that those people are boring to game with, and generally stupid and unimaginative.

That is simply my old observation about a roleplaying game session that the most important determinant of its success or failure is the effort of its participants. People matter more than rules or setting.

And if you think people don't matter, then you're a cocksmock.

Quote from: Haffrung;318539How do you perceive a foe as an inferior opponent before you've started fighting? I mean, do they literally not have faces? Are there other visual cues that guarantee to the PCs that they're weaklings? Aren't there master swordsmen who look mundane, or flamboyant enemies who act fearsome but are all bluster?

First, let's not coy about the words the DM chose. It's obvious shorthand. Not everyone wants to be verbose. Second, there are many in-game explantations of how adventurers could perceive this. They could learn how to analyze thier opponents through practice and study. They could have a sensitized gut instinct. Maybe culturally people of X power wear color Y and wearing color X when you're Y power causes you to lose face or, during a fight, maybe everyone emits energy corresponding to their strength, etc. etc. and master swordsmen who look mundane and flamboyant enemies who act fearsome should obviously be exceptions. Otherwise, strategy becomes an impossibility and no one pays to go to military school (which pretty much devolves to "hit things hard and be able to take a hard hit" academy).

QuoteSometimes. But with a good DM, not often enough to outweight the pleasure of matching your own wits against a sound and flexible mind, instead of rolling some dice.

Matching wits, you say? That sounds dangerously like a situation with involved analytical decision-making. Almost as if you were describing a game. Ah yes, Chess. No dice rolling guaranteed!

Quote from: Haffrung;318527You want to talk your way into the city gates after dark? Okay, start talking. I (the DM) will decide if you're persuasive or not. That's roleplaying.

Here's the problem for me. Let's say this gaurd is an established NPC. They have a chance to learn that he was a weakness for redheads and, due to his brothers legal problems, is short on cash. Okay, so now both players and Gm have something they can work with and roleplay about.

But more likely than not, this guard isn't an established NPC. He probably doesn't even have a name and just uses generic stats. Sure as hell he has no background the players can leverage. So with nothing to work what  "being persuasive" actually means is entertianing the GM.

You end up with a situation in which what on the surface is called roleplaying is not about interacting with a simulated world it is really just player giving the GM what he wants (insert generic smooth talk) to get a cookie at the end. As a player you just learn what the GM likes and perform it on demand to succeed.

This is horribly destructive. And worse of all I think a lot of GMs, who perhaps don't spend enough time as regualr players, don't even notice.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;318544That is simply my old observation about a roleplaying game session that the most important determinant of its success or failure is the effort of its participants. People matter more than rules or setting.

This and only this. It goes for the "what is an RPG" argument as well as the minion argument. It's all about the people.

You could define "RPG" narrowly enough to exclude OD&D and 4E, but most people don't use the term that way, so you're just going to be confusing. Most people play OD&D and 4E as RPGs. My 4E sessions involve a lot of role-playing.

Quote from: Soylent Green;318555But more likely than not, this guard isn't an established NPC. He probably doesn't even have a name and just uses generic stats. Sure as hell he has no background the players can leverage. So with nothing to work what  "being persuasive" actually means is entertianing the GM.

Sure. But is this what you're saying: "If you don't roleplay every situation in the game, it's not roleplaying?" That's what I'm inferring. Is that right?

There's nothing stopping the DM from having many important NPCs, including a city guard. Any interaction with them can be pure roleplay. But the game system also provides a way to resolve situations without roleplaying them fully. Just because you don't roleplay every conversation in character, doesn't mean you're not roleplaying.

Or maybe I'm misunderstanding you.

Quote from: StormBringer;318492So, as I have mentioned elsewhere:  You like minions?  Great.  You want to prattle on about how cool it is to dispatch crowds of them at a time? Great, but you would see me rolling my eyes if you were on this side of my screen.  You want to carry on endlessly about how horrible D&D was before your personal deity delivered the game into your hands and anyone who doesn't like minions is a fatbeard that 'just doesn't get it'?  Ok, but I am going to have to have something to say about that.  It gets worse if said party wants to make some kind of argument about objective improvements to the ruleset, or how it makes it more 'cinematic' (as though this is also an obvious good) without really looking at the extremely narrow definition of 'cinematic' they are employing.

You seem a bit defensive here. More than a bit, really. D&D was awesome before 4E. It remains awesome.

Minions are not objectively better than non-minions. (I might argue that having the option to use minions is objectively better than lacking that option, since you can use them if they improve your game, and ignore them if they don't without hurting your game).

Your repeated comments similar to "I would like minions...if I were still a whimpering child" (paraphrasing) don't help your case any. You may not get moderated for ad hominem attacks on boards like this, but you'll still lead people to believe you're a dick. And if people think you're a dick, they're not going to listen to any cogent argument you might set forth.

Quote from: Fifth Element;318572D&D was awesome before 4E. It remains awesome.

Truer words have seldom been spoken. D&D was indeed awesome and remains so to this this day.

It a shame however that 4E doesn't have even a fraction of the awesomeness of D&D.

Quote from: Edsan;318580Truer words have seldom been spoken. D&D was indeed awesome and remains so to this this day.

It a shame however that 4E doesn't have even a fraction of the awesomeness of D&D.

If you consider 1/1 a fraction, I'll have to disagree with you.

All editions of D&D are awesome!

Quote from: Fifth Element;318572Your repeated comments similar to "I would like minions...if I were still a whimpering child" (paraphrasing) don't help your case any. You may not get moderated for ad hominem attacks on boards like this, but you'll still lead people to believe you're a dick. And if people think you're a dick, they're not going to listen to any cogent argument you might set forth.

You aren't quite getting the gist of what I am saying.  I am saying that if you like minions, great; if you like to talk about minions, ok, but not my cuppa; if you want to talk about how great minions are and how much better the game is now because of them (among other things) because you don't have to start out as a weakling and can cut through dozens of minions like a real 'badass' like John McClane and that is how you want to play...

Well, that's fine too, but expect some counter-points.

My response to the original post, if that is what you are looking for is:  Meh, could be.  I think minions could be a facet, but not as strong of an effect as the relentless character balancing and rigorous encounter balancing.

So, I'm not particularly defensive about it.  Look to the folks who are pulling out all the stops to demonstrate the minions are the best 'improvement' to combat since the advent of ten sided dice if you are looking for defensive.

Quote from: Fifth Element;318583If you consider 1/1 a fraction, I'll have to disagree with you.

All editions of D&D are awesome!

Oh wonderful, slogans from other boards.