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Author Topic: 4e: Roleplaying wrong is still roleplaying  (Read 4900 times)

TonyLB

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4e: Roleplaying wrong is still roleplaying
« on: May 16, 2008, 09:09:31 AM »
I remember OD&D.  I remember AD&D.  I played so much that the patterns of the game are branded on my neurons.

I remember, for instance, treasure tables which exactingly spelled out (using percentile dice) what treasure a given monster would have ... often in complete defiance of reason.  "Yes, the mermaid's underwater lair contains (clatter, clatter) a bolt of fine silk and several casks of dried spices."

And, y'know what?  You could play the game exactly that way, without a touch of irony (if you either weren't too smart or weren't too concerned with realism) and it was a fine, fun game.  Lots of kids played it, precisely because it was a good game.  The stories that they told were broken to the point of idiocy, but nobody cared because they weren't aiming at telling stories, they were aiming at playing an imagination game.

And then a fair number of those kids started looking for something a bit more in line with the stories they were reading, and set aside the treasure tables (and other immersion-shattering rules) and used the toolset they were hugely familiar with to do something new.

I watch all these discussions about how 4e is wrong in X, Y or Z ways and I can't help thinking "So what?  Aiming at being a fun game first, and a storytelling toolkit second would just mean a return to the finest tradition of the early game."

So, those who believe that the sky is falling, please help me understand ... why is that so wrong?
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Kyle Aaron

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4e: Roleplaying wrong is still roleplaying
« Reply #1 on: May 16, 2008, 09:16:29 AM »
How can it be a fun game with no tables?!
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JamesV

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4e: Roleplaying wrong is still roleplaying
« Reply #2 on: May 16, 2008, 09:21:23 AM »
Well, to come to the defence of the 4e nay-sayers from the old schoolers the biggest issue is the amount of regulation in the game, and is happily IMO a matter of taste for them. They don't see the need for all of the rules that 4e provides and the randomness of older versions was, as you infer yourself, a lot of fun. They want to find dried spices underwater, they don't mind rolling on the wandering monsters table and finding out a gang of trolls is going after their 2nd level party. The randomness is a source of thrills and wonder and 4e so far is not very random.
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4e: Roleplaying wrong is still roleplaying
« Reply #3 on: May 16, 2008, 09:43:42 AM »
Quote from: Kyle Aaron
How can it be a fun game with no tables?!


On a much more serious note I have never used a random table. Ever.

Dwight

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4e: Roleplaying wrong is still roleplaying
« Reply #4 on: May 16, 2008, 10:00:05 AM »
Quote from: Kyle Aaron
How can it be a fun game with no tables?!

Maybe that's what Merle thought when he threw in non-combat encounter tables.  :D
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Herr Arnulfe

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4e: Roleplaying wrong is still roleplaying
« Reply #5 on: May 16, 2008, 10:08:49 AM »
On the few occasions when I've experimented with returning to the "simpler times" of my gaming youth, I've been frustrated. Where did the magic go? Have I lost my imagination?

Then I have to remind myself that those "simpler times" were when I was 12, and my tastes have changed since then.
 

David R

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4e: Roleplaying wrong is still roleplaying
« Reply #6 on: May 16, 2008, 10:16:40 AM »
Quote from: Herr Arnulfe

Then I have to remind myself that those "simpler times" were when I was 12, and my tastes have changed since then.


Exactly.

I have found new ways to have fun with old games, though.

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Engine

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4e: Roleplaying wrong is still roleplaying
« Reply #7 on: May 16, 2008, 10:21:31 AM »
I've been thinking a lot in the last couple of weeks that many of the objections raised to 4e can be similarly raised for various previous editions of the game. I don't know if familiarity has blinded some people, or if they've forgotten the rules they ignore in 3.x exist, or what, but I do find it all heartily amusing.
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estar

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4e: Roleplaying wrong is still roleplaying
« Reply #8 on: May 16, 2008, 10:21:46 AM »
Quote from: Herr Arnulfe
On the few occasions when I've experimented with returning to the "simpler times" of my gaming youth, I've been frustrated. Where did the magic go? Have I lost my imagination?


The problem with Old School Games is that if you approach them from a standpoint of Rules cover X then it will degenerate in to a mind numbing series of (I roll, miss, you roll, hit, I roll, hit, you roll hit, I roll hit, You roll miss, etc)

The key trick is to remember to allow PCs to do thing thing AS IF THEY WERE THERE. For example hiding. The PC are in a warehouse and guards are coming. They duck behind a bunch of barrels. In most system there will be some type of "Hide" roll but in OD&D the player's will succeed unless their stated choices is obviously lacking in someway. In combat there nothing to stop a character from trying to knock down an opponent, knocks some crates onto a troll, throw sand in their face, and so on.

The key is not to let the lack of rules constrain what people can do. As a wargame OD&D is a pretty simple set of rules compared to like GURPS, 3.X and so on. However the point of D&D is not to be just a wargame. D&D breaks the tyranny of the scenario by bringing in the judgment of the referee. Not just to act as a voice for the NPCs and to play the monsters, but also for the physics of the gameworld.

Herr Arnulfe

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4e: Roleplaying wrong is still roleplaying
« Reply #9 on: May 16, 2008, 10:50:10 AM »
Quote from: estar
The key is not to let the lack of rules constrain what people can do. As a wargame OD&D is a pretty simple set of rules compared to like GURPS, 3.X and so on. However the point of D&D is not to be just a wargame. D&D breaks the tyranny of the scenario by bringing in the judgment of the referee. Not just to act as a voice for the NPCs and to play the monsters, but also for the physics of the gameworld.

OD&D is a fine game, don't get me wrong, but my adult brain expects a greater degree of setting coherence than my 12-year-old brain did (note the difference between coherence and realism). Concealment rules aside, D&D requires more effort to rationalize than other settings because the default mechanics assume players won't ask questions like "why does a mermaid have dried spices?"

Quote from: David R
I have found new ways to have fun with old games, though.

Absolutely, though nowadays I prefer games where setting coherence was taken into account in the design process.
 

David R

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4e: Roleplaying wrong is still roleplaying
« Reply #10 on: May 16, 2008, 10:53:13 AM »
Quote from: Herr Arnulfe

Absolutely, though nowadays I prefer games where setting coherence was taken into account in the design process.


Good point. It's one of the aspects I have to take into consideration when revisiting "old" games.

Regards,
David R

KenHR

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4e: Roleplaying wrong is still roleplaying
« Reply #11 on: May 16, 2008, 11:07:34 AM »
Quote from: Herr Arnulfe
OD&D is a fine game, don't get me wrong, but my adult brain expects a greater degree of setting coherence than my 12-year-old brain did (note the difference between coherence and realism). Concealment rules aside, D&D requires more effort to rationalize than other settings because the default mechanics assume players won't ask questions like "why does a mermaid have dried spices?"


C'mon, seriously, use a real example.  Dried spices don't show up on the treasure tables. :)

And again, just about every edition of D&D warned DMs not to lean on the treasure tables for everything and to use some common sense.

In the end, though, if you do resort to random tables (and I do quite often!), that effort at rationalization can lead you down some pleasantly surprising pathways in your imagination.  And seriously, the effort required is not much effort at all...5 seconds tops if the question comes up in the middle of a game?
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wulfgar

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4e: Roleplaying wrong is still roleplaying
« Reply #12 on: May 16, 2008, 11:16:55 AM »
I don't find it a stretch at all that a mermaid has dried spices.  The spices are in a bottle that is sealed.  If it's opened by the mermaid, the pcs or anyone else while still under water then the spices will get all wet and probably ruined.
 

Engine

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4e: Roleplaying wrong is still roleplaying
« Reply #13 on: May 16, 2008, 11:22:05 AM »
But the mer-water will be pleasantly spiced.
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Tavis

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4e: Roleplaying wrong is still roleplaying
« Reply #14 on: May 16, 2008, 11:22:51 AM »
Quote from: Engine
I've been thinking a lot in the last couple of weeks that many of the objections raised to 4e can be similarly raised for various previous editions of the game. I don't know if familiarity has blinded some people, or if they've forgotten the rules they ignore in 3.x exist, or what, but I do find it all heartily amusing.

4E carries to an extreme a number of trends in the development of D&D that can be seen happening even in the transition from OD&D's little brown books to AD&D. (I've cribbed this analysis from folks that can see them happening even in the OD&D supplements, which is beyond my own powers).

- Increased power levels of characters. In OD&D you went into the dungeon with as many henchmen as you could, because any given figure on the battlefield could be taken out pretty easily, and even a hireling could contribute the same d6 for damage as the Fighting Man you'd carefully leveled up. Power creep happens within the history of any given edition, as well as steadily ramping up between iterations of the rules.

- Increased mechanical options for characters. AD&D gives you more spells and classes to choose from, mechanically differentiates different weapons to create options, provides rules for two-weapon fighting, etc. My personal opinion is that this, more than simply power levels, is what Gygax meant when he sniffed at 3E as a game of superheroes. The old Rogue's Gallery makes it clear that Gygax's campaign had plenty of statistically-unlikely 18/00 bad-asses; with Erol Otus drawing them, many even wore capes and could find Captain America's shield in a treasure hoard! But these uber-PCs were still built from the essence of "race, class, and level," not the micro-managed selection of abilities and gadgets that has been the hallmark of superhero RPGs. That approach starts making inroads into D&D beginning with later 2nd edition kits, and has taken over 4E to the extent that it's no longer possible to make "just a fighter"; the selection of powers is now as mandatory as it was in Villains & Vigilantes, without even a random table to make it easy for folks who just want to start playing right away.

- Increased mechanics in general. AD&D provides rules for about a zillion more things than OD&D. The emphasis on which things need rules has changed over time (weapon speed factors -> concealment), but the general trend is always towards pinning down all the elements that are considered core to the D&D mission. This goes hand in hand with...

- Decreased role of DM adjucation. OD&D very explicitly suggests that the DM is going to need to be the arbiter of everything interesting you can do with the game. With AD&D, Gygax started talking about standardization - a "Hoyle's rules" that could be played in tournaments by any DM and still be comparable. 3E pushes this further with things like CR, making explicit mechanics out of the guidelines that were present in other iterations (like the RC). Gygax's vision of cross-DM-compatible campaigns is taken to the max in 3E RPGA, which creates weird demands & expectations among a player base that has an inordinately close feedback relationship with WotC. 4E is the result - almost everything interesting you can do requires no arbitration at all, or even consulting a rulebook, since all the mechanics you need are printed on the PC's or monster's paragraphs-long power cards. With the limited exception of rituals and skill challenges, the DM has no input into 4E at the mechanical level, quite unlike OD&D where the DM's judgement is the single most important game mechanic.

- Increasing self-referentiality. The OD&D rules are clearly designed to emulate a kitchen-sink worth of literary precedents, from Middle Earth to Barsoom. In the AD&D days, the reverse becomes true as RPG settings like Dragonlance spin off novel series that become best-sellers in part because playing D&D, rather than reading SF (everything you could get your hands on) and sword & sorcery (harder to find and much of which is still SF at heart), has become the initial experience of heroic fantasy for millions of people. In 4E, the tail entirely wags the dog to the point where changes in the design of roleplaying game rules can force sweeping changes in the substantial novel lines built around them (which is puzzling since the novels probably generate orders of magnitude more revenue).
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