# Player Control, OR "How the game has changed over the years, and why I don't like it"



## Wik (Apr 23, 2011)

We played our first session of Epic-level 4th edition the other day, and I was definitely nonplussed.  It was a bizarre little game, where the Players felt almost paralyzed and powerless in some situations, and yet had the ability to basically dictate the course of the game in others.

For example, there was a tower, two hundred feet high.  They couldn't figure out a way to ascend it.  Even though, if they made a climb check, they'd only fail on a natural 1.  After half an hour of them making plans and scratching them, I just had to snap and say "Geez.  You guys are $@^#ing epic!"  

And then, in a fight, they had powers that would stun monsters before they could act, that would guarantee monster movement, and interrupt powers that basically said "no, Wik, you can't do that".

And that's when I had an epiphany.

My beef with 4e has been growing for awhile.  And it's not really about the rules.  Or the power system.  Or feat bloat.  Or CrazyStupid MonsterName.  

It's about the fact that my players now have the ability to say to me "No.  I am doing this, and you have to adjust".

It's about the fact that, no matter what, our fighter can blow Come and Get it, and dictate the movement of my monsters.  It's about the fact that, in a big fight, my players can basically stun-lock my big bad monsters, and if I say "no, that doesn't happen" I am breaking the rules and depriving them of their core strengths.  It's about the fact that, if I want to do something, my players feel they have the right to say "no, this doesn't happen."

I compare this to other games (not necessarily D&D), where that was never the case.  It was instead a case of me saying "the bad guy does this" and the players TRYING to prevent that from happening... not from saying, outright, that because of power X, Y happens.

Or, in other words, in other games, the players would try something and run the risk of failure, or the GM having the potential to say "no, that doesn't happen".  Now, it's a matter of "Well, I missed on the attack, so he's only stunned until the end of my next turn.   Now, everyone, Coup de gras him!".  

Essentially, my problem is that I feel the DM has less power than he used to at the actual table, and it makes me feel like my role is somehow less important.  DMing 4e is, in my experience, less fun than DMing in other games, because it feels like less of an art, and more like a trade.   If that makes any sense at all.

Am I the only one who thinks like this?  Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix it?  Preferably BEFORE I storm out on my players in abject disgust and declare "From now on, we're only playing Call of Cthulu!  Everyone dies!"


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## Wik (Apr 23, 2011)

Oh, and please no edition warring.  I'm not trying to do that.  I'm seeing a fault with a current game, and can't figure out a way to fix it.  I'm just wondering if other people have seen that fault... not whether or not that fault existed in 3e and other editions and how 4e actually improved yadda yadda yadda.

For what it's worth, once we finish up this 4e campaign, we're running an E6 Dark Sun campaign, because pretty much every player except one is basically sick and tired of 4E.  Probably due to the fact that I have had very little fun running it, with a few major exceptions (and, to be perfectly honest, those exceptions probably would have been fun regardless of system).


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## TheUltramark (Apr 23, 2011)

i can't help ya - we're only 3rd level

one thing I do make the guys do is say everything that is going to happen BEFORE they do it.  I hate the ... "oh, wait, I rolled a 1, but this ___ happens"

there is a vid on youtube that maybe everyone has seen of Chris Perkins DMing for Acquisitions INc. in a live session during a convention.  During the fight, a zombie rotter (yes a minion) knocks a hydra prone with a smash...I tell you this, NO CHANCE I let that go down at my table...I don't care how pretty and colorful your little sheet with your powers on it is, and i don't care what it says I say what happens, and that just don't.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rM7xJ84LMA0&feature=related]YouTube - PAX Celebrity Game, Part 9[/ame]


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## Lanefan (Apr 23, 2011)

Wik said:


> Essentially, my problem is that I feel the DM has less power than he used to at the actual table, and it makes me feel like my role is somehow less important.  DMing 4e is, in my experience, less fun than DMing in other games, because it feels like less of an art, and more like a trade.   If that makes any sense at all.



Of course it does.  Taken to its ultimate end in such systems, the role of DM becomes that of a CPU; processing player input and giving out result according to a predetemined program.  This is a direction the game should be trying to move away from, but its designers keep pushing it toward instead.

Lan-"my DMing processor about equates to an 8088"-efan


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## Ringlerun (Apr 23, 2011)

After watching that vid i felt a little ashamed at being a gamer.


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## (Psi)SeveredHead (Apr 23, 2011)

I think you just need to adjust. That'll take time, probably a few sessions.

The XP budget is just a guideline, for starters. You don't need to tell your players what the budget is, what level monsters are, etc.

If PCs can control your monsters, use more monsters (without adding to XP necessarily, at least until after the encounter, and only if they were able to contribute), and the occasional well-designed solo that can deal with stun locking. (A really good example would be any dragon in the Monster Vault. They each get an additional attack that they "sacrifice" in order to remove a daze, dominate or stun effect.)

I've never played epic, but I hear this complaint all the time. Which classes can keep doing this? Is it just wizards, or can the barbarian dominate enemies? (I actually read that once on this forum.)

Epic-level monsters should be rare anyway, which means you'll be designing plenty of your own monsters. Be sure to use the DMG2 damage guidelines, and toss in some controller monsters who can either stun lock PCs or, even better, use monsters with _Esuna_-like effects to reverse stun locking. (This is better than giving lots of monsters immunity to stun, as the PCs can spend a few rounds ganking the leader-type and _then_ use their stun locking abilities, but that gives your other monsters a few rounds to strut their stuff.) An example of the latter; an NPC cleric-flavored leader with the Sacred Flame ability. That's granting a saving throw _at-will_, and could be done by a _1st-level NPC_.

If you have a super-assassin who always surprises and ganks a monster in the first round, add an extra monster, preferably an attractive target (like a spellcaster) to draw their attention. They feel special, and you didn't include that monster in the budget. Or sometimes toss in a monster with tremorsense, so their tactic isn't 100% successful.

Naturally the XP "cheating" should diminish once you've got a handle on your players' tactics and can design encounters better suited to them.

Come and Get It has been errata'd, on the ground that fighters aren't capable of mind control.



> I compare this to other games (not necessarily D&D), where that was never the case. It was instead a case of me saying "the bad guy does this" and the players TRYING to prevent that from happening... not from saying, outright, that because of power X, Y happens.




That happened even in 2e DnD. You could try to prevent an NPC from doing something by grappling him or casting a spell like Sleep or Power Word Stun. And I say "try" because the NPC could still make their save (or in 4e, your PC could miss with their attack).



> Or, in other words, in other games, the players would try something and run the risk of failure, or the GM having the potential to say "no, that doesn't happen". Now, it's a matter of "Well, I missed on the attack, so he's only stunned until the end of my next turn. Now, everyone, Coup de gras him!".




If they have powers that can stun on a miss, they're using a broken power. Are you sure that's what the power says? Maybe you've run into the "psionics problem" -- the player knows more about the game or subsystem than the DM does, and takes advantage of you that way. Or maybe 4e epic is unalterably broken, if tons of powers like that actually exist.


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## chaochou (Apr 23, 2011)

I've not played 4e at Epic level, so I don't know the specifics of how ridiculous PCs can get by that point, but I think this is a really interesting topic.

First page of the 4e DMG says the DMs role is not to be an adversary of the PCs, but to be a fan of the PCs who provides them with a challenge. When I read that, I thought 'Okay. So what is a player's role?'

Because I think a lot of players' natural instincts are to try and minimise the challenge, to minimise the risk and danger, and in doing so they are short-changing themselves.

Taken to an extreme, if I give a character Armour of Invulnerability to Everything Ever and a Sword of Instant Slaying of Everything Ever, my guess is the fun is going to wear thin in minutes. Want to kill Orcus - okay he dies. Tiamat - okay, dead. Asmodeus - yep, dead. The Tarrasque, yep that dies too. I mean, what's the point?

So I think there's an implicit contradiction if I, as a player, try and max my character and then complain about a lack of challenge, when a lack of challenge is exactly what I've attempted to engineer. If I'm uber-ing a character then a lack of challenge might be considered a roaring success. 

And I think that's a pretty selfish way to look at things. I think of my primary role as a player as: *To have fun, without stomping on anyone else's fun*. Which includes the GM. So if my carefully maxed character is battering everything the GM throws at me, and the GM isn't enjoying it, then I wouldn't be calling that good or successful play. For me, that would suck.

So I can empathise with the OP, and the only answer I see is that it's not the sole responsibility of the 4E GM to provide the challenge and the fun. Players have a shared responsibility.


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## IronWolf (Apr 23, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> NO CHANCE I let that go down at my table...I don't care how pretty and colorful your little sheet with your powers on it is, and i don't care what it says I say what happens, and that just don't.




I watched the video, why would you veto this?  It seems like a legit use of powers and some luck.  Let the players be heroes when it happens.  It is fun!


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## wayne62682 (Apr 23, 2011)

I understand your points but I can't agree.  IMO the worst thing of the old versions of D&D *was* this whole "The DM is God" nonsense, that the DM could dictate to the players anything he wanted, that the players had NO control over anything, often not even their own characters.  That mentality fostered entire generations of, to be frank, asshat DMs that run "their" game with an iron fist, and we are only now trying to get away from that mentality with a joint game where both sides can do things, instead of one side having all the power and the other being thrown a bone to give the illusion of free will.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 23, 2011)

> My beef with 4e has been growing for awhile. And it's not really about the rules. Or the power system. Or feat bloat. Or CrazyStupid MonsterName.
> 
> It's about the fact that my players now have the ability to say to me "No. I am doing this, and you have to adjust".




Interesting. Maybe it's partially playstyle, but I usually love it when that happens. Outside of combat at least, I love it when a player takes control of the narrative and all I need to do is describe the painful fallout from their actions. 

In combat....eh....I've had plenty of issues I struggle with in 4e combat, so this doesn't really stand out at me, but I think I can see what you're saying from my own experience.

The thing is that this "DM control" helps a party feel that there is a risk in the game, that _anything could happen_. When the players get more control, there is less perceived risk, so it takes some of the bite out of big encounters. 

The combat minigame is heavily weighted in favor of the PC's in 4e, and it can take a DM a lot of advanced prep and work to make sure the party actually feels like they're being challenged, that there is risk. 4e generally doesn't want the PC's to fail, which can make the game feel very much like everything is a speedbump, just there to get you to roll dice in between inevitable plot points. 

I don't have a problem with player control per se -- the situations you mentioned seemed to have design problems aside from "player control" (Solos not being able to throw off statuses, size not affecting forced-move powers, stun being a surprisingly harsh status effect, etc.). You might want to take a look at this article (it's free to all!) to see a pretty good example of some specific guidelines for solos, especially epic-level solos, and try to match up your enemies with monsters from the MM3 and MVs, not the earlier models (the design keeps getting better!). 

Something you might want to consider doing is, instead of having your players roll for attacks, you get to roll for your monsters' defenses. This brings back the old "saving throw" dynamic, and uses a defense to say "No!" rather than attack roll that the player gets to say "Do it!" on. There's still dailies and encounter powers with powerful effects or miss lines that'll make stuff happen anyway, but that's part of 4e's "never shall you totally suck" philosophy. Which I don't think is going away, really.


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## Mort (Apr 23, 2011)

4e has, for better or worse, given *a lot* more narrative control to each individual player, at least in the context of combat.

One method, which Wik seems to look on in disfavor, is to provide quite a few immediate interrupt/reaction powers - If x happens then my character can do y (and in the case of interrupts often actually negate x). This allows for players to play the "oh no you don't" card which is quite jarring for DMs that are not used to it (at least it was for me). I think this is essentially a personal taste thing, some DMs will adjust and like it, some will never like the large change in flow.

Another is to give players larger guns when they need them. The fighter need to do more damage? Blow an encounter. Even more damage? Use a daily. I personally have no problem with this mechanic as I see it as just another exercise of narrative control - a limited scope of the player to dictate how much damage his character is capable of doing (or to do an effect like knock prone near automatically as opposed to relying on p. 42 or DM fiat), just like fate chips etc. in other games (after all, most non-mage powers are just extensions of what the character can do anyway, like split the tree (juiced twin strike)). Again though, it's quite an adjustment, and not necessarily for everyone.

As for the stun, lockdown an encounter (particularly a solo) into near uselessness: that is a result of the designers not properly taking into account economy of actions in their early monster (particularly solo) design. The monster has massive hitpoints and a big attack? Means nothing if the swordmage marks him (to reduce damage significantly) and the strikers then flank him and beat into submission etc. Even excluding this, early solo monsters tend to be quite static and boring. Designers have recognized this in later monster design (as mentioned up thread), MM3 apparently has particularly good solo monster design.

All that said, it's never a bad idea to change things up and do a different game (or 2 or three) when the current one is getting stale - for whatever reason. 

Too bad about moving to darksun without the 4e though, it's actually the best implementation of dark sun I've seen yet (certainly mechanically, and even good conceptually). Though, E6 also seems like the perfect system to capture the grittiness, yet heroic nature, of Dark Sun (hope you post how that goes; I'm quite curious).


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## Diamond Cross (Apr 23, 2011)

So why should the players be able to dictate things to the DM?

That's too much like a player trying to dictate how the referee should rule in their favor.

And that's the reason why EGG wrote about the "Illusion of control".

The game should be collaborative, not combative. But neither should the DM have to give in to every single whim of the players either. The final decision should always go to the referee. 

Some players simply want every single advantage they can get and will use every single dishonest means they have at their disposal to get it.

Good players use strategy to fight monsters, they don't bully the DM into submission.


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## nedjer (Apr 23, 2011)

Basically my players fixed this for me. Along the lines of 'we know you can translate but don't bother. We're here for the improvisation, the action and the psychology. Not fresh grind and wtf? skill challenges'.

A short chat about the merits of Traveler and BECMI followed and they agreed on the system that's run ever since. I thank them every session by tormenting, teasing and, occasionally, maiming their PCs 

I could do this with 4e, but, in D&D terms, it's a snap with BECMI.


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## wingsandsword (Apr 23, 2011)

Wik, I'd XP you but it says I have to spread some around.

I don't like CrazyStupid MonsterNames, or many, many things about 4e, but I'll say that the powers that let players dictate to the DM what monsters do is way up there in terms of what sucks the fun out of running D&D.


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## Croesus (Apr 23, 2011)

Wik said:


> It's about the fact that my players now have the ability to say to me "No.  I am doing this, and you have to adjust"...
> 
> Essentially, my problem is that I feel the DM has less power than he used to at the actual table, and it makes me feel like my role is somehow less important.  DMing 4e is, in my experience, less fun than DMing in other games, because it feels like less of an art, and more like a trade.   If that makes any sense at all.




Wik, your post reminded of something I haven't thought of in some time:

When I first began playing RPG's in the 70's, I remember thinking that the main difference between RPG's and boardgames was the (in)flexibility of the rules. If we were playing a boardgame, we all played by the same rules. We all knew (or should have known...) the rules. The only surprises were which strategies we would use and how the dice fell. We were all players, even if we had different roles, depending on the specific game.

RPG's, on the other hand, had rules, but they could be, and often were, overruled by the GM. If the GM wanted something to happen and not be dispelled by the characters, then the effect was simply immune to dispels. If he wanted a creature to be immune to certain attacks, it simply was. In the hands of good GM, this could improve the game. In the hands of a lousy GM...ouch. But fundamentally, the GM was not a player - he had a very different role, with a very different set of rules than everyone else.

This basic difference led to two very different experiences in playing the two. I enjoyed boardgames because I knew the rules and didn't have to deal with whether or not one player (aka, the GM) agreed that my action was legal. I could stop worrying about such things and just focus on strategies. Playing RPG's, on the other hand, could be frustrating, what with all the arguments about what we could or couldn't do, and the all too often arbitrary rulings of the GM, but also had great flexibility and frankly, was usually a heck of a lot of fun.

Both were enjoyable, but different. The post from the OP suggests that his game has reached the point that it's more of a boardgame than an old style RPG. That even the GM is essentially just another player, bound by the same rules as everyone else. That can have many advantages, but if it's not the style of game he wants to play, he may need to find a system that more easily supports what he wants. 

And it's something I'll keep in mind before my group starts another campaign, to make sure we're playing the kind of game we want to play. Thanks for the post Wik.


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## rkwoodard (Apr 23, 2011)

This reminds me of a post in a Crappy DM thread here a few years back.  A player was complaining because the DM was just doing crazy things and shooting down the players.  In particular, I remember said player complaining because his Wizard was levitate very high in the air but was being hit by wolves that were jumping 20-30 feet to bite him. 

I am now leaning toward old school basic systems, and the players can trust me or not.  I think I am at least average at DMing and pretty fair (or maybe a bit easy toward the players).

I have had your problem with both 3x and 4th.  Mostly where I did not have all the powers/skills/feats of the players memorized.  

I don't know the answer except that regardless of system, it comes down to the players and DM being on the same page.

Regards,


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## Wik (Apr 23, 2011)

I'm going to respond to a few different points.  I'd love to respond to all of them, but I just don't have the time!



			
				(Psi)SeveredHead said:
			
		

> I think you just need to adjust. That'll take time, probably a few sessions.
> 
> The XP budget is just a guideline, for starters. You don't need to tell your players what the budget is, what level monsters are, etc.




Well, I haven't used the XP budget in a long time.  A good side of 4E is that I can kind of just wing encounters, and get away with it, and I've been able to do so since the PCs were around 5th level.  I've thrown encounters that were over twice the budget at PCs, and they've survived (albeit barely).  Epic hasn't changed that (though I have used the budget a few times lately).

My real beef has been going on for ten levels, and just got worse in Epic - that players can dictate the flow of the game to me, and I have no ability to change it except through breaking the rules.  



			
				wayne62682 said:
			
		

> I understand your points but I can't agree. IMO the worst thing of the old versions of D&D was this whole "The DM is God" nonsense, that the DM could dictate to the players anything he wanted, that the players had NO control over anything, often not even their own characters. That mentality fostered entire generations of, to be frank, asshat DMs that run "their" game with an iron fist, and we are only now trying to get away from that mentality with a joint game where both sides can do things, instead of one side having all the power and the other being thrown a bone to give the illusion of free will.




I can respect our differences, but allow to expand a bit, here.

I'm not looking for "The GM is god" bit.  What I *DO* want is to have a role of "GM as Interpreter", as opposed to what I've got in 4E, which is "GM as Opposition intended to lose".  There seems to be less and less room for me to flex my muscles, and when I DO flex my muscles, Players often have powers that let me say "no, you can't do that, get back in your cage".

And all of this only applies in combat.  Once the fighting ends, I have no problem running 4e, although it is kind of annoying that it takes my epic-level players half an hour before they realize they can CLIMB A WALL.  

What has become of Epic, these days, btw?  "I can kill fifty dragons... but yeah, this door's really locked, you're gonna wanna call a locksmith or something".



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Interesting. Maybe it's partially playstyle, but I usually love it when that happens. Outside of combat at least, I love it when a player takes control of the narrative and all I need to do is describe the painful fallout from their actions.




Actually, we're in agreement.  I love players doing weird stuff, and changing my plans, outside of combat.  And I love players changing my plans IN COMBAT, too, with clever ideas.

What I HATE is that the game has allowed the players to say "no, do this".  They have dailies that let them shut down the combat entirely.  And while they ARE just dailies, there are enough of them that they can do this three or four times.  Meaning, for three or four hours out of every in-game "Day", I'm sitting around having the players dictate a large part of the combat to me.  



			
				Mort said:
			
		

> All that said, it's never a bad idea to change things up and do a different game (or 2 or three) when the current one is getting stale - for whatever reason.
> 
> Too bad about moving to darksun without the 4e though, it's actually the best implementation of dark sun I've seen yet (certainly mechanically, and even good conceptually). Though, E6 also seems like the perfect system to capture the grittiness, yet heroic nature, of Dark Sun (hope you post how that goes; I'm quite curious).




Well, we just got off a one-month game hiatus where we played BECMI.  I had a blast DMing it, and it made me sort of realize that a lot of my GM woes are not inherent, but are instead system-based.  I think I'm running this campaign until the very end (because everyone wants to see it conclude, as opposed to just "fizzle away into nothingness).

I actually enjoy 4E dark sun's presentation (sans Eladrin and Feywild).  However, I've come to the realization that 4e is not for me, and once this campaign is over, I won't be playing it again.  

And yeah, once I start our e6 game, I'll definitely post updates.  My players and I figured out enough tweaks that it should suit my playstyle (I'm a GM raised on the WEG d6 Star Wars rules, and that's where I'm happiest running), and I think it should be a lot of fun, hopefully without all of the crap in 3e I hated that caused me to initially love 4e.  



			
				Diamond Cross said:
			
		

> So why should the players be able to dictate things to the DM?
> 
> That's too much like a player trying to dictate how the referee should rule in their favor.
> 
> ...




I love this entire quote, more or less.  The problem is, the rules let the players do all these things, and unless the GM wants to go against the rules (which could be reasonably argued to overrule player choice), he's stuck with the fact that his big bad end guy is going to be knocked prone every round because every PC has a power that will knock prone even on a miss.  

It's getting to the point where, once I start getting stunlocked, I'm going to start doing the same thing to the players.  We once had a "gentleman's agreement" about stun, but they're beginning to forget about it, so it might be time for me to brush it off and throwing stun monsters at them again.  

For what it's worth, though, they don't bully me into submission.  My players are great.  The RULES, however, bully me into submission.  And that's no fun.  



			
				rkwoodard said:
			
		

> I have had your problem with both 3x and 4th. Mostly where I did not have all the powers/skills/feats of the players memorized.




I haven't had this problem until 4e came along.  I can't remember it ever happening in 3e.  I'm not complaining about player success - hell, I LIKE Player Success - but instead complaining about the ability of players to, without the shadow of a doubt, tell me what happens.  

I never had that in 3e, because there was a counter to every spell, more or less.  I mean, they'd cast magic missile and knew they could reliably say "it takes 10 damage" or whatever, but if they cast a no-save spell with a nasty effect, there was still the chance I could say "oh, but X happens and it doesn't happen".  90% of the time, X didnt' happen.  But if X happened, even if the players didn't know WHAT X was, they could accept it and carry on their game.

These days, if I say "no, that doesn't happen" they will frown and assume I'm breaking the rules.  And usually, I am.  Because there is no real way for Come and Get It to be countered.  Or Tornado Strike.  Or many of the stun-locking or dazing powers (unless the monster has a line in the stat block that prevents any of these specific powers from happening, which is few and far between).


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## the Jester (Apr 23, 2011)

Hmmmm....

I sympathize with your position, although I do not share it. 

Personally, I like it when the pcs counter me or use unexpected tactics. 

Here are a few suggestions:

1. Don't be afraid to use a ton of minions _that don't look like minions._ Then, sometimes those cool counter abilities won't always get used against your buff guys. One thing that helps is if your minions don't all look the same.  Also, fake-roll damage for them. The whole philosophy of "let the players know who the minions are" is, imho, fine _as long as the minions are visibly different from the rest._ However, in an encounter with (f'rex) vampire spawn minions and a collection of human mercenaries (wizards, soldiers, etc), _why should the pcs be able to pick out the spawn?_ For instance, let's say your bad guys consist of:

5 vampire spawn minions [leveled up to lvl 8 minions]
Theo, lvl 8 soldier [flavored as a fighter]
Zartan, lvl 8 controller [flavored as a wizard]
Moammed, lvl 8 leader controller [flavored as a cleric]
Stryder, lvl 8 artillery [flavored as a ranger]

When the party meets them, describe Theo, Zartan, Moammed and Stryder individually. Then do the same thing for each minion: "This guy wears a red cloak and has a spear and bow. This one is woman in chain mail holding a black unholy symbol of Bleak. This one is unarmored and stands in some kind of unarmed fighting stance..."

2. Not often, but once in a while, give a monster an ability like this:

*Oh No You Don't! * At Will 1/round*
_Trigger:_ An enemy uses an immediate action that either triggers or is triggered by this creature or an action of this creature.
_Attack (Free Action Interrupt):_ Close burst 10 (triggering enemy): +x vs. Will.
_Hit:_ The target cannot use an immediate action (save ends).


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## Wik (Apr 23, 2011)

the Jester said:


> I sympathize with your position, although I do not share it.
> 
> Personally, I like it when the pcs counter me or use unexpected tactics.




Ha, that makes me sound like someone who doesn't like change.  I actually ENJOY unexpected tactics.

However, a power that will auto succeed, even on a failure, is not an unexpected tactic. And having a player tell me "this happens" is not my idea of fun.  

Because I have little ability to say "this happens" to them anymore.  There are just too many counters.


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## (Psi)SeveredHead (Apr 23, 2011)

Just what sort of crazy abilities do epic PCs have?


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## Vegepygmy (Apr 23, 2011)

Wik said:


> What I HATE is that the game has allowed the players to say "no, do this". They have dailies that let them shut down the combat entirely. And while they ARE just dailies, there are enough of them that they can do this three or four times. Meaning, for three or four hours out of every in-game "Day", I'm sitting around having the players dictate a large part of the combat to me.



Maybe it's a matter of the _degree_ to which this is true, but I don't really see the difference between a daily power that forces your monster to fall prone (4E) and a Trip attack that causes your monster to fall prone if the PC wins an opposed Strength check (3E). In both cases, there are rules, and the rules apply to both players and DMs. IMO, that's a Good Thing, and I simply don't share your frustration.

Now, it is definitely true that earlier editions of the game did not have official rules for knocking opponents prone. DMs had much more responsibility/leeway then to adjudicate such actions. If that's what you're longing for, I understand, but I simply don't share your feelings. In the Bad Old Days (TM), DMs would constantly make _ad hoc_ rulings for such things, and in my experience (just _my_ experience, people!) there were a lot of really bad/misguided DMs making inconsistent rulings, simply disallowing such actions, fudging results, etc.

So I actually _prefer_ the New Way, both as a player and a DM. It does force the DM to master his knowledge of the rules, but again, I think that's a Good Thing.


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## Wik (Apr 23, 2011)

Vegepygmy said:


> Maybe it's a matter of the _degree_ to which this is true, but I don't really see the difference between a daily power that forces your monster to fall prone (4E) and a Trip attack that causes your monster to fall prone if the PC wins an opposed Strength check (3E). In both cases, there are rules, and the rules apply to both players and DMs. IMO, that's a Good Thing, and I simply don't share your frustration.




Except in 4e, that trip attack is generally something like "you knock the target prone" as part of the attack.  And you can knock a giant prone with it.  Or an ogre.  Or a centaur.  Or a millipede.  Or an ooze.  All with the same chance of success.

And if I say "well, it's a carrion crawler.  How are you knocking it prone?" and refuse to allow it, I'm being a jerk GM or going against the rules and essentially nerfing a player ability.  While I might still do that from time to time, I have to be really careful - if I keep nerfing that ability, I'm really just hosing the player.


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## GSHamster (Apr 23, 2011)

Wik said:


> And if I say "well, it's a carrion crawler.  How are you knocking it prone?"




Flip it over onto its back?

Sounds to me like you just need to be a little more inventive when describing what happens in combat.

The alternative is the horror that was 3E Trip and Grapple rules.  The words "I try to trip him" should not require pulling out the rulebook.


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## Mad Zagyg (Apr 23, 2011)

Wik, I just thought I'd chime in to confirm my identical experience with you on this matter. It's one of the many changes to D&D that has played such an enormous role in the rift that exists in the player base.

I've often joked around with my group that D&D would be an awesome game if it weren't for the friggin' players. A joke, obviously, but one that holds some meaning.

This isn't just a 4e problem either, although it's the first edition to totally embrace player control at the expense of DM control. You can see signs of it taking hold in late 3.5 as the philosophy of the game designers shifted. Take the Magic Item Compendium from 3.5 for example. A book that contains the nefarious quote, "A player points to an item published in this book or the Dungeon Master's Guide and asks, 'Can I buy this?' The answer should usually be, 'Yes.'" This is quite a different philosophy from the 1st Edition Dungeon Master's Guide, the first words of which read, "What follows herein is strictly for the eyes of you, the campaign referee. As the creator and ultimate authority in your respective game, this work is written as one Dungeon Master equal to another."

The DM's role as narrator of the game has remained relatively intact. There is even a fair argument that his role as narrator has been strengthened with some additional freedoms allowed in the mechanics of 4e. Power level and control of combat however has shifted heavily into the hands of the players. The primary effect of this is to reduce the sense of mystery and discover the game once held.


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## wayne62682 (Apr 23, 2011)

Wik said:


> And if I say "well, it's a carrion crawler.  How are you knocking it prone?" and refuse to allow it, I'm being a jerk GM or going against the rules and essentially nerfing a player ability.  While I might still do that from time to time, I have to be really careful - if I keep nerfing that ability, I'm really just hosing the player.




This is a personal bugbear for me since my DM has in the past done something similar (told me my Fighter couldn't push a giant with an Encounter power, and couldn't stop a flying creature with Combat Superiority or whatever Fighter power stops the target moving if they're marked and you hit them).  I had a lengthy thread here in the old days when I was a more active poster that was ranting about it.

There is a difference now between keywords and how the ability functions; you just have to be creative in applying it.  In other words you should be thinking "How DO you knock a Carrion Crawler prone?" and not "How do you knock a Carrion Crawler prone?!!"


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## ggroy (Apr 23, 2011)

Wik said:


> It's about the fact that my players now have the ability to say to me "No.  I am doing this, and you have to adjust".
> 
> ...
> 
> Essentially, my problem is that I feel the DM has less power than he used to at the actual table, and it makes me feel like my role is somehow less important.  DMing 4e is, in my experience, less fun than DMing in other games, because it feels like less of an art, and more like a trade.   If that makes any sense at all.




This is how my rpg games are for the most part, when I'm the DM.  I'm quite lenient as a DM.

I DM a game that the players want, which may not always be what I want.

Before the game ever starts, I'll ask the players as a group to explain in great detail what exactly they want in the game.  I'll tell them what the the consequences of their choice of houserules can produce, as to whether it will make things too easy and boring or whether it will be too hard and frustrating.

In general, I don't have much of an ego investment in the rpg games I DM. (There are other things in life much more important than rpg games, for which I will invest my ego in).

For me, I never quite understood why some individuals heavily invest their ego in DM-ing and/or playing rpg games.


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## mach1.9pants (Apr 23, 2011)

Well, I have not experience of 4E beyond 10th level but it seems that the designers share your worries. The upgraded Dragon (Shademaw) recently released on Dragon (free) seems nothing more than an attempt to stop those stunlock type things. It is a great monster for Epic tier but does make me realise that the designers maybe did not fully test Epic Tier. So to stop the players auto-killing your enemies then start putting powers in like Shademaw

*Instinctive Devouring*
On an initiative of 10 + its initiative check, the dragon can use 
a free action to charge or to use bite. If the dragon cannot use a 
free action to make this attack due to a dominating or stunning 
effect, then that effect ends instead of the dragon making the 
attack.

*Action Recovery*
Whenever the dragon ends its turn, any dazing, stunning, domi-
nating, or unconscious effect on it ends.


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## Mark CMG (Apr 23, 2011)

I think that RPG rules (not editions, but rather particular rules in any edition or RPG) that presuppose an adversarial relationship between the DM/GM/Referee/Facilitator and the players, and not just conflict between the characters and their opponents/environment, lose some of the spirit of RPGs.


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## fitch3k (Apr 23, 2011)

Wik said:


> We played our first session of Epic-level 4th edition the other day, and I was definitely nonplussed. It was a bizarre little game, where the Players felt almost paralyzed and powerless in some situations, and yet had the ability to basically dictate the course of the game in others.
> 
> For example, there was a tower, two hundred feet high. They couldn't figure out a way to ascend it. Even though, if they made a climb check, they'd only fail on a natural 1. After half an hour of them making plans and scratching them, I just had to snap and say "Geez. You guys are $@^#ing epic!"
> 
> ...




don't try and control things so much, it's really an invitation for you as a dm to be more creative. read about open hand power, it's about allowing someone else's force to hinder and frustrate them. It sounds to me like you are very forceful and that your players have figured out how to use it against you.


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## Fifth Element (Apr 23, 2011)

Diamond Cross said:


> That's too much like a player trying to dictate how the referee should rule in their favor.



I assume you mean in a competitive sport? D&D is not a competitive event (it is in fact collaborative, not combative, as a wise man said), so the analogy doesn't fly.



Diamond Cross said:


> The game should be collaborative, not combative. But neither should the DM have to give in to every single whim of the players either. The final decision should always go to the referee.



While 4E certainly gives more narrative control than previous editions, "every single whim" is way off the mark. Way off. DMs are still DMs, and explicitly hold the final say in what happens.



Diamond Cross said:


> Good players use strategy to fight monsters, they don't bully the DM into submission.



Wik did request no edition warring, and this strays awfully close in that it is an utter misrepresentation of how the game works in 4E.


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## nedjer (Apr 24, 2011)

fitch3k said:


> don't try and control things so much, it's really an invitation for you as a dm to be more creative. read about open hand power, it's about allowing someone else's force to hinder and frustrate them. It sounds to me like you are very forceful and that your players have figured out how to use it against you.




He's trying to mediate not mechanise. His players are confusing the normalisation of rules lawyering with player choice. Wik offers them intuition and they settle for mere arithmetic.


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## Heathen72 (Apr 24, 2011)

GSHamster said:


> Flip it over onto its back?
> 
> Sounds to me like you just need to be a little more inventive when describing what happens in combat.
> 
> The alternative is the horror that was 3E Trip and Grapple rules.  The words "I try to trip him" should not require pulling out the rulebook.




The alternative? You suggest that the only solution to Wik's woes is to revert to 3E. Wik made it quite clear that he didn't want for this thread to be edition war  - he was pointing that for him the current system doesn't allow him to GM in a way that he enjoys, to the detriment of everyone's enjoyment of the game - so why make it one? Referring to an supposed inadequacy of a previous system doesn't resolve his issues with the current system. It's irrelevant.


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## GSHamster (Apr 24, 2011)

spunkrat said:


> The alternative? You suggest that the only solution to Wik's woes is to revert to 3E. Wik made it quite clear that he didn't want for this thread to be edition war  - he was pointing that for him the current system doesn't allow him to GM in a way that he enjoys, to the detriment of everyone's enjoyment of the game - so why make it one? Referring to an supposed inadequacy of a previous system doesn't resolve his issues with the current system. It's irrelevant.




I didn't mean to make it an edition war. To me there are two ways you could go with something like Trip.  Either say you can trip pretty much anything, and fudge exactly how it happens and "handwave" odd cases like oozes or carrion crawlers.

Or you can come up with a rules system that accounts for all the possibilities. You can't trip something that two sizes larger or smaller than you. The defender gets a bonus for each leg they have greater than 2. Etc.

To me, the gain in verisimilitude of the second system wasn't really worth the overhead it incurred.


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## Lanefan (Apr 24, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> I assume you mean in a competitive sport? D&D is not a competitive event (it is in fact collaborative, not combative, as a wise man said), so the analogy doesn't fly.



It certainly does fly, in that in either case you have someone (referee/DM) in a position of sometimes being able to make a ruling either in the player's favour or not.  And it's only human nature to try and lobby that ruling to go your way. 



 Fifth Element said:


> Diamond Cross said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



What's 4e got to do with it.  Diamond Cross' observation is perfectly valid for every edition.

Lanefan


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 24, 2011)

Wik said:
			
		

> What I HATE is that the game has allowed the players to say "no, do this". They have dailies that let them shut down the combat entirely. And while they ARE just dailies, there are enough of them that they can do this three or four times. Meaning, for three or four hours out of every in-game "Day", I'm sitting around having the players dictate a large part of the combat to me.




Yeah, giving every party member a daily, and making those daily abilities always do _something_, is kind of a new approach to things.

I wonder if some martial Essentials classes might go a little easier on you (at least in giving you less dailies!). 

If I were to design the next MM, I'd probably think about including more "reactive" monster abilities, especially on solos and elites, so that you get to do something whenever the players go. 



> Except in 4e, that trip attack is generally something like "you knock the target prone" as part of the attack. And you can knock a giant prone with it. Or an ogre. Or a centaur. Or a millipede. Or an ooze. All with the same chance of success.
> 
> And if I say "well, it's a carrion crawler. How are you knocking it prone?" and refuse to allow it, I'm being a jerk GM or going against the rules and essentially nerfing a player ability. While I might still do that from time to time, I have to be really careful - if I keep nerfing that ability, I'm really just hosing the player.




Yeah, this can be an issue with effects-based mechanics (rather than cause-based mechanics), but it's pretty hard-wired into 4e to behave like that, so addressing it is....complicated.


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## Heathen72 (Apr 24, 2011)

Wik said:


> And if I say "well, it's a carrion crawler.  How are you knocking it prone?" and refuse to allow it, I'm being a jerk GM or going against the rules and essentially nerfing a player ability.  While I might still do that from time to time, I have to be really careful - if I keep nerfing that ability, I'm really just hosing the player.




It's a reasonable question, and in my opinion if the player is unable to answer it then you should feel free to disallow it. This supposes that it is the player doing the describing, but why should the GM need to do so? It's the player's power - they should describe it. And if they are unable to do so in such a way to satisfy the GM then by all means nerf the power. Not that it should require much. In the case of the carrion crawler a simple "I flip it on its back like it's a slater" should suffice. The crawler would then spend a round getting back on its feet. 

Having the players imaginatively describe the ways their powers work has been on the GM wishlist since gaming began. I give my players bonuses to hit for good descriptions. They responded with good descriptions, and so I raised the bar a little - they need to make great descriptions to get the bonus. And balance be damned. 

In 4th Ed, the players gain more narrative control over the actions of their opponents. Fine. But they should describe how their character achieve it. Oh, and if you can't do this, and you don't like that you can't, perhaps 4th Ed isn't the system for you, as Wik has found...


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## Fifth Element (Apr 24, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> It certainly does fly, in that in either case you have someone (referee/DM) in a position of sometimes being able to make a ruling either in the player's favour or not.



The implication was that there's something wrong with the referee/DM favoring the players rather than being completely impartial. This is bad in competitive sports, but neutral in D&D in that it is not inherently bad. Some people play that way, some don't, and both are fine.



Lanefan said:


> What's 4e got to do with it.  Diamond Cross' observation is perfectly valid for every edition.



What's 4E got to do with it? Check the thread title and the OP. The implication is that the 4E power system allows/encourages the players to bully the DM.


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## alms66 (Apr 24, 2011)

I didn't fully read the thread, but to address the OP's dislike of "player empowerment", I think that this has become a reality in RPG's designed in the past decade, maybe a bit longer, due to - to put it plainly - crappy GM's.  The players are at this game trying to have fun, trying to do what they enjoy only for the GM to crap all over their ideas making whatever the player is attempting ridiculously difficult to do or just flat out saying no.

As a player, that f'n blows.  You're at the whim of the DM, pure and simple.  That was the first 20 years of gaming and it sucked.

Then the new wave of games kick in and take some of that power away from the GM, and it's a good thing.  I'm sure there are times where all GM's have been guilty of abusing their power and trying to impose their view of fun, or their pre-scripted plot, but simply put, their are more players than GM's at the table, and their fun should outweigh yours - in numerical terms, but ideally, everyone should be having equal fun, ideally.

It all comes down to everyone being on the same page in the end, and if everyone were, there would never have been the "revolution" of player empowerment.  If everyone would just sit down an talk for even just an hour about what type of game they want to play and be brutally honest about it, including their likes and dislikes of all the RPG variables, I think everyone would be happier.  It would prevent things like one player wanting to play an ultra-powerful wizard in a high-fantasy setting and the GM instead designing a ultra-realistic, low-powered setting and then trying to shoehorn the players into doing what he wants to do.

Spend the time to get everyone on the same page, and the game is much more enjoyable, or at least I've always found it so.  Just my 2 cents.

But it seems nowadays everyone wants to make a character that has no tie-ins to the other characters and in fact many of the PC's would kill each other if played appropriately, then everyone jumps to the table and starts gaming in 20 seconds or less.  How the F can that be fun?  No one has agreed to anything, it's just a bunch of random characters thrown into a random setting and random plot - I'd rather play something else at that point - maybe it's just me.


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## pawsplay (Apr 24, 2011)

In the Final Fantasy IV, there is a martial artist as a character. At one point, your characters battle a Ghost Train. It is difficult, but not impossible, for the martial artist to Suplex the Ghost Train. It's something to see, I'll tell you.

In an RPG, the purpose of a GM is to decide whether this is the sort of game where you can suplex a Ghost Train or not. While there is usually some sort of way to rationalize a power in 4e, or the situation can be considered in the abstract only, there are definitely situations where the characters suplex the Ghost Train. It's one of 4e's faults, in my estimation as a player.


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## NoWayJose (Apr 24, 2011)

Many DMs sacrifice a lot of time and effort to run a campaign, and I think that generally speaking, they deserve and have every right to overrrule the rules, if they are well-intentioned.

I agree there are bad DMs and DMs that make mistakes sometimes, but is this really what the world has come down to, setting up safety railings and training wheels and danger signs, all for our own good, to coddle our soft vulnerable egos, to protect us from the risk of a bad DM? Soon, we'll all be bubble boys, protected from the evils of the world and all its possible abuses, all for the sake of fun. But how much fun can you really have in a bubble suit?


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## Heathen72 (Apr 24, 2011)

alms66 said:


> I didn't fully read the thread, but to address the OP's dislike of "player empowerment", I think that this has become a reality in RPG's designed in the past decade, maybe a bit longer, due to - to put it plainly - crappy GM's.  The players are at this game trying to have fun, trying to do what they enjoy only for the GM to crap all over their ideas making whatever the player is attempting ridiculously difficult to do or just flat out saying no.
> 
> As a player, that f'n blows.  You're at the whim of the DM, pure and simple.  That was the first 20 years of gaming and it sucked.
> 
> ...




I haven't time to respond to this post in depth. On the other hand, I read the whole thread, so kudos to me. In short, I agree with the latter parts of your post, but I really disagree with the initial paragraphs. I think in many ways the game back then was better for the freedom that GM's were given to serve their players with the best possible game they could create, and the best rulings they could make. I acknowledge that there were also elements that potentially led to GM caprice being abused, but I don't think this has changed. 

Sure ideologies have changed over the years, with the focus changing from dungeons, to simulationist, to story teller, to gamist and so on, and it's great that the hobby has evolved, but let's not assume that every aspect of each innovation is an improvement. 

Frankly, I don't think the 'revolution of player empowerment', (a phrase that looks it should be on a placard at some protest rally) was due to crappy GM's or indeed driven by players. Certainly in terms of the ruleset, I think it was driven by the executives at game companies - perhaps to simplify and ease the GM's burden - but I can't say for sure, as I am not them. 

Regardless or the ideology that drove it, I think that in many respects the 'revolution' has failed.


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## ggroy (Apr 24, 2011)

alms66 said:


> If everyone would just sit down an talk for even just an hour about what type of game they want to play and be brutally honest about it, including their likes and dislikes of all the RPG variables, I think everyone would be happier.
> 
> ...
> 
> Spend the time to get everyone on the same page, and the game is much more enjoyable, or at least I've always found it so.  Just my 2 cents.




Back in the day, I was DMing a 1E AD&D game where the players wanted to level up really fast.  After looking at their proposed houserules, I just came out and told them that it would be much easier to just start the game with all their characters at level 30.  But I also told them that they may also become bored relatively quickly in such a high level game.

We agreed to start our game at level 30, with most of the player characters as magic users.  So after playing for awhile at level 30+, the players indeed got bored of the game quite quickly, just as I predicted.


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## LostSoul (Apr 24, 2011)

Wik said:


> "GM as Opposition intended to lose"




I noticed this after a few sessions of 4E.  I think that's by design.  The PCs are supposed to win.  I don't think it's the DM's responsibility to seriously challenge the PCs*.  I'm not really sure what the DM's responsibility is.  I _think_ you're supposed to be a helping hand in their ascent to heroism; you create encounters that show how the world needs the PCs to save it ("The world needs heroes"), and add colour to their eventual victory.

* - One alternate way of doing this: the DM creates a challenging setting and then plays out the NPCs and setting with as much internal consistency as possible.


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## the Jester (Apr 24, 2011)

LostSoul said:


> I don't think it's the DM's responsibility to seriously challenge the PCs*.




Wow, serious playstyle difference. I totally disagree.


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## pawsplay (Apr 24, 2011)

the Jester said:


> Wow, serious playstyle difference. I totally disagree.




Yeah, to me that would be like DOING THE METAPHOR with someone who was faking it. It's already enough that the odds are tipped in the PC's favor, by dint of the heroic scenario, there is no reason to actually make it easy.


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## TheUltramark (Apr 24, 2011)

IronWolf said:


> I watched the video, why would you veto this?  It seems like a legit use of powers and some luck.  Let the players be heroes when it happens.  It is fun!




ok, I'd ask the player to explain how it happens, describe the action..."it's on my sheet" doesn't explain jack!  Now if the player comes up with some creative narrative or even something funny that everyone busts a gut laughing about, then maybe it does happen.  

I let my players get away with the impossible all the time, because they "sell me" on it.  The guy that just sits there rolling his dice and reading off his sheet (and probably rules lawyering) is a drag - at our table at least. 

Also, it isnt just me, I say "I do this" or "I do that", but we have 4 DM's out of our table of 7, and the other three guys will all say the same thing, "what I say goes".

Finally - It is clearly a matter of trust.  If you join an on line game(or RL game too), with somedude you never played with before, it's a lot harder to trust him to keep the game fun if/when he starts overruling players


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## Hautamaki (Apr 24, 2011)

Giving players more narrative control of battles is a new wrinkle to 4e, but to be fair high level players had a huge narrative control of out-of-battle stuff in 3e thanks to teleport and scrying spells.  DMs really had to be creative to come up with ways to keep dungeons and adventures relevant when players are given the tools to completely bypass them.  I suppose the same thing applies here in 4e.  Players have the ability to completely take X numbers out of the fight Y times per day... so if you really really don't want that to happen to a given monster Z, you have to try to make sure the players have already used their Y number of powers taking out monsters X before they even get to Z.  

The Jester already offered some great ideas, encouraging players to waste powers on mooks and minions, and using monsters that have abilities that can negate these kinds of narrative control powers.

Another possibility is to just keep throwing stuff at the players, even after they've decided to take their daily rest, to prevent them from recharging those powers until they are all gone, and then and only then is when BBEG Z makes his appearance.

A third possibility is to put a very strict time limit on the players to accomplish their quest.  If they stop to rest after the 5th encounter and their dailies are gone, it will be too late!  If your players are used to the 5 encounter work day so they have 1 daily per, it's time to introduce them to the joys of the 6 and 7 encounter days.  They are big boys now that they are epic, they can learn to handle it =p

This means that not only are they still challenged, but they don't feel cheated out of their character's power.  They NEED to abuse their characters' abusive powers just to survive the sheer amount of stuff you are throwing at them, and that's fine, that's fun for an epic level character.  They know their powers give them X free passes per day, that's fine; just give them X+1 or X+2 or X+3 challenges so that they really have to go back to thinking carefully about resource management and whether they really want to use their daily on this monster, or whether another bigger meaner one is just around the corner... ready to go and ruin their day whether they think they can run away and take a rest or not.... mwahahahah!


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## TheUltramark (Apr 24, 2011)

Hautamaki said:


> Giving players more narrative control of battles is a new wrinkle to 4e,



no it isn't, FAR from it, in fact, it is my belief that 4e give the characters WAY LESS license that every before



Hautamaki said:


> but to be fair high level players had a huge narrative control of out-of-battle stuff in 3e thanks to teleport and scrying spells.  DMs really had to be creative to come up with ways to keep dungeons and adventures relevant when players are given the tools to completely bypass them.



I have never had that problem, usually at my table, the players never want to bypass anything, if the DM says, ok, blah blah blah this is the adventure, and the players say we teleport away, thats a whole night wasted...who wants that?


Hautamaki said:


> I suppose the same thing applies here in 4e.  Players have the ability to completely take X numbers out of the fight Y times per day... so if you really really don't want that to happen to a given monster Z, you have to try to make sure the players have already used their Y number of powers taking out monsters X before they even get to Z.
> 
> =====
> 
> This means that not only are they still challenged, but they don't feel cheated out of their character's power.  They NEED to abuse their characters' abusive powers just to survive the sheer amount of stuff you are throwing at them, and that's fine, that's fun for an epic level character.  They know their powers give them X free passes per day, that's fine; just give them X+1 or X+2 or X+3 challenges so that they really have to go back to thinking carefully about resource management and whether they really want to use their daily on this monster, or whether another bigger meaner one is just around the corner... ready to go and ruin their day whether they think they can run away and take a rest or not.... mwahahahah!



I think it is kind of a shame that all your players want to do is be the uberest they can be, and I guess I am lucky that my table is full of players who like to role play.


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## LostSoul (Apr 24, 2011)

the Jester said:


> Wow, serious playstyle difference. I totally disagree.




That's how I think 4E was designed, not how I see the DM's role in general.


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## Herobizkit (Apr 24, 2011)

Just a quick observation.

The 'game' part of RPG is a tool set to move along the narrative by resolving conflicts, both in the literal and figurative sense.

The 4e tool set is designed to 'make combat come alive'.  In previous incarnations of D&D, the term 'I swing' was used by myself and my gaming group the most.  Why?  Because swinging your weapon was usually the most effective way of dealing with opponents.  Trying combat tricks and maneuvers often had a higher chance to fail than a basic attack (and even penalized you by giving the opponent a free swing at you for the effort), and thus, were seldom attempted.

4e tries to take that boring away with combat options that are generally more interesting than 'I swing'.  Each power has a slightly different effect than the other, and the player actually gets to think about what power he's going to use.

Now, in Wik's case, if his players can't figure out that they can climb walls by the Epic tier, then I would posit that the game to that point has been weighted heavily towards combat... possibly TOO much.

And I do feel that 4e's fancy new combat system is the cause... because 80(?) percent of the PHB is stocked with "Things To Do in Combat".  Granted, you don't NEED a complicated skill system to resolve non-combat encounters, but 4e tried to get that in there with their 'complex' skill challenges (the paper equivalent to Quick-Time Events).

I would suggest to Wik that, should he hate how combat works in 4e, start planning social/RP/story-based adventures around the player's Skills.  You'd have to start slowly... count all the combats that are expected and replace every third one with a social/skill-based encounter.  Or, start imposing social penalties for the murderous players who solve all their problems with weapons.  Sure, they're heroes, but they're more feared than respected once they get to Epic level.

Or even better... retire the Epic heroes and get back to basics with a new 1st level campaign, but break out the Epics once in a while for a 'guest appearance'.


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## Hautamaki (Apr 24, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> no it isn't, FAR from it, in fact, it is my belief that 4e give the characters WAY LESS license that every before
> 
> 
> I have never had that problem, usually at my table, the players never want to bypass anything, if the DM says, ok, blah blah blah this is the adventure, and the players say we teleport away, thats a whole night wasted...who wants that?
> ...




The key distinction is 'in battle' vs 'out of battle' narrative control.  In previous editions players had way more out of battle narrative control in that they had much greater ability to determine which fights they fought and under what conditions.  Of course players had some abilities they could use to force monsters to do what they want in battle, such as charm or even tripping or grappling, but as we all know that very rarely happened due to the cumbersomeness of the rules for some of those abilities, or the difficulty in beating a decent monster's saving throws for others.

In 4e on the other hand players have a lower ability to control what fights they get into and under what conditions because their out-of-battle spell casting has been slowed down and toned down to a large degree compared to 3.x.  However, players have a greater ability to control monsters within the battles themselves thanks to dailies and encounters that all classes have access to that stun, knock down, or force movement on monsters automatically, no matter what monster it is, even on a miss.

BTW, I'm glad that your players are perfect, my players are perfect too, but that has nothing to do with the actual nature of the rules as written, which is what we are talking about.


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## NoWayJose (Apr 24, 2011)

Wik said:


> For example, there was a tower, two hundred feet high. They couldn't figure out a way to ascend it. Even though, if they made a climb check, they'd only fail on a natural 1. After half an hour of them making plans and scratching them, I just had to snap and say "Geez. You guys are $@^#ing epic!"



Interesting that this part of the OP hasn't been addressed so much.

I'm wondering if the players didn't try to climb because there was no 'Climb' skill listed on their character sheets?

Alternatively, in a narrative/cinematic game, it isn't obvious that ALL epic heroes can climb 200 foot walls. That's more a mechanical artifact of D&D rules. Maybe they reasonably assumed that only epic thieves can climb anything. If so, it's not their fault that there's a discrepancy between what the players assume the PCs can do vs what the PCs would know they could do. In which case, I'd allow a Wisdom check to clue them in.


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## slwoyach (Apr 24, 2011)

Well you could always put it out that either you get to hand off the DM hat once in awhile so you don't have to deal with it or you'll be running a different game.  Unless of course you feel 4e's positives outweigh its negatives.


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## Beginning of the End (Apr 24, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> there is a vid on youtube that maybe everyone has seen of Chris Perkins DMing for Acquisitions INc. in a live session during a convention.  During the fight, a zombie rotter (yes a minion) knocks a hydra prone with a smash...I tell you this, NO CHANCE I let that go down at my table...I don't care how pretty and colorful your little sheet with your powers on it is, and i don't care what it says I say what happens, and that just don't.




I'm guessing chopping a head off from the inside and causing the top of a cliff to collapse by punching it really hard would be right out, too?

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=079Z1CRXDmM&feature=player_embedded]Video[/ame]


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## NoWayJose (Apr 24, 2011)

Beginning of the End said:


> I'm guessing chopping a head off from the inside and causing the top of a cliff to collapse by punching it really hard would be right out, too?




Comparing Hercules (epic level hero in a CARTOON) to a zombie rotter (1 hp minion in D&D) is comparing animated demi-gods to animated corpses (puns intended). So no, the analogy doesn't serve you well.


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## the Jester (Apr 24, 2011)

LostSoul said:


> That's how I think 4E was designed, not how I see the DM's role in general.




Aha- gotcha.

Still, I bet Irontooth would disagree.


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## Beginning of the End (Apr 24, 2011)

NoWayJose said:


> Comparing Hercules (epic level hero in a CARTOON) to a zombie rotter (1 hp minion in D&D) is comparing animated demi-gods to animated corpses (puns intended). So no, the analogy doesn't serve you well.




Fair enough. I should have read Ultramark's original post closer to realize that he was completely full of . Wil Wheaton's PC may be a rotting zombie that serves as the party's minion, but he's clearly not playing a 1 hp minion. Nor does the MM's "zombie rotter" minion have the ability that Wheaton uses. A zombie hulk has something similar, but that's a Brute 8.


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## Balesir (Apr 24, 2011)

I find much of this thread quite disappointing.  I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but it's still depressing that several GMs apparently feel this way.

Back in the, what, '80s and '90s, I went through this stage, too.  "I am the mighty GM!  This is *my* game - and I have full responsibility to make it great!!"

Then I wised up.  One day, after reading and thinking about just what RPGs are "all about", I thought "why am I doing this crap?"  The game is played by a group of people.  The game is the responsibility of the whole group, not just one of its members.  Trying to take control of it to "tell your story the way you want to" is just ego masturbation.  "Ruling your table with an iron fist" is the same, even if your intentions are as pure as driven snow.  I realised that, as a GM, I wasn't there to give some kind of performance - I was there to have fun with my friends.

Now, when we agree to play with a gamist focus, it's up to the GM to set up tough and interesting challenges, and *it's up to the players to step up to those challenges*, not try to avoid them or dodge the risk in them through tedious, finicky play.  They are supposed to be playing heroes, dammit!!

When we play with an explorative focus, it's up to the group as a whole to take the previously established "facts" of a setting or a situation and develop it _jointly_.  If the players are aiming to "win" in these games, they're missing the point (and the fun).

If we play with a narrativist focus, it's up to the GM to create a situation (and setting) ripe with plot potential - *and it's up to the players to give their characters plot hooks and motivations*.  Players trying to make sure their characters have no weaknesses or strong desires ("dramatic needs", in the jargon) are short-changing both themselves and the rest of the group.

Giving the GM all the power demands that s/he is responsible, alone, for the fun in the game, because power and responsibility go together, always.  That tends to drive players to avoid challenges and risk, to follow the GM's lead or try to "win" instead of trying to invent a new world, and to make characters with no flaws, aims or defining features.  And all of that is just no fun at all.


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## Plane Sailing (Apr 25, 2011)

I don't think that Wik is saying that the GM should have all the power.

I think he is saying that he currently feels he has no power, and that is where the problem lies.

Regards,


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## slwoyach (Apr 25, 2011)

We're almost to the point that we don't need DMs.  Just buy the module and go.


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## MarkB (Apr 25, 2011)

NoWayJose said:


> Interesting that this part of the OP hasn't been addressed so much.
> 
> I'm wondering if the players didn't try to climb because there was no 'Climb' skill listed on their character sheets?
> 
> Alternatively, in a narrative/cinematic game, it isn't obvious that ALL epic heroes can climb 200 foot walls. That's more a mechanical artifact of D&D rules. Maybe they reasonably assumed that only epic thieves can climb anything. If so, it's not their fault that there's a discrepancy between what the players assume the PCs can do vs what the PCs would know they could do. In which case, I'd allow a Wisdom check to clue them in.




One of the keys to Epic play is presenting Epic challenges. If the tower is climbable by even an untrained Epic character, clue them in during the description - i.e. "the walls, though sheer, would present little obstacle to practised adventurers such as yourselves". 

If, on the other hand, it is a tower built to withstand assault by Epic creatures, then maybe those walls _shouldn't_ be easily climbable - either they're built ultra-smooth and tough to grant no purchase, or there are defensive measures built in to discourage climbers, or maybe they're not physical walls at all, but planes of force that repel anything which touches them.


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## TheUltramark (Apr 25, 2011)

Hautamaki said:


> The key distinction is 'in battle' vs 'out of battle' narrative control.  In previous editions players had way more out of battle narrative control in that they had much greater ability to determine which fights they fought and under what conditions.  Of course players had some abilities they could use to force monsters to do what they want in battle, such as charm or even tripping or grappling, but as we all know that very rarely happened due to the cumbersomeness of the rules for some of those abilities, or the difficulty in beating a decent monster's saving throws for others.
> 
> In 4e on the other hand players have a lower ability to control what fights they get into and under what conditions because their out-of-battle spell casting has been slowed down and toned down to a large degree compared to 3.x.  However, players have a greater ability to control monsters within the battles themselves thanks to dailies and encounters that all classes have access to that stun, knock down, or force movement on monsters automatically, no matter what monster it is, even on a miss.
> 
> BTW, I'm glad that your players are perfect, my players are perfect too, but that has nothing to do with the actual nature of the rules as written, which is what we are talking about.




first off, everyone's players should be perfect
next, i DO see what you mean about the in-battle flavor of the fight.  The pushes and pulls and slides and whatnot.  My perfect players, though, have been doing this all along in all editions, mainly because we all thought the idea of a player and a monster standing toe to toe swinging away until one of them dropped was stupid.


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## Wik (Apr 25, 2011)

I don't want to have to engineer my encounters to trick my players into using all their crazy powers on big monsters.  I don't want to have to worry about doing design tricks to stop players from dictating the game.  I want to play the game as written, have fun for a few hours, and spend the week thinking about the campaign outside of the rules. 

I don't want to have players that can, regardless of the situation, tell me "I use this power.  If I hit, THIS happens.  If I fail, THIS happens."  I want to be able to have some ability to take a player's input device (their powers, in this case) and use that to make a judgement on what happens in the game.

I DON'T want players essentially taking away my ability to react to and interpret their actions, which is what I'm finding 4E does.  There are plenty of times where the game basically locks me into doing actions.  And our group quite often doesn't even see the monsters they're supposedly fighting... they just see bags of hit points and tactical situations.  And as a GM, I feel burned out because player actions are very rarely described (what's the point, when the effect is predetermined and description takes time in an already long combat?), and one thing could just as easily be another.

But I don't want all the power.  I have no problem with my gibbering mouther getting one hit killed (even though I pretend to still hold a grudge).  I have no problem with players solving problems creatively.  

What I HATE is players TELLING me what happens, rather than telling me their actions, and ASKING what happens.  

4E is doing that to me.  And it makes me feel like I'm losing my GM chops.


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## Thasmodious (Apr 25, 2011)

Wik said:


> What I HATE is players TELLING me what happens, rather than telling me their actions, and ASKING what happens.
> 
> 4E is doing that to me.  And it makes me feel like I'm losing my GM chops.




Is this just a shift in the semantics of the game, though?  Players have always been able to do this in various manner, and in many different systems, whether it be knockback rules for big weapons or the many D&D spells that grant the caster some control over a target, command, charm, dominate, etc.  In other editions, the player cast their spell, the monster saved and the DM had to report the success or failure, but this is a meaningless difference in the game.  You had no more control over the success or failure of a dominate spell then then you do a power now (unless you employed DM fiat to gain whatever outcome you desired and the DM rolls the save mechanic let you do this without notice).

In effect, what I am asking is, is there really a  difference between:

"My power hit and the monster is rebuked three squares back and is prone until I break control"

"I roll a 24 on my turn undead"
"You now command the undead"
"I command it to go over there three squares away and cower until I say otherwise."

The player exerts the same level of control, the only different is the shift of the knowledge of the outcome of the attempt to a public awareness, instead of a behind the screen one.


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## The Human Target (Apr 25, 2011)

All I can say is I don't feel that way at all DMing me 4e game.

If anything I feel like I have more control than I did in 3E.


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## fuzzlewump (Apr 25, 2011)

The Human Target said:
			
		

> All I can say is I don't feel that way at all DMing me 4e game.
> 
> If anything I feel like I have more control than I did in 3E.




This. No edition wars, since I won't say and don't care if it's better or worse. Me as dm: oh, you cast dominate monster? Oh you cast hold person? You cast any multitude of save or sucks/die? Guess my monster doesn't have a turn then. 

I'm also not understanding why dm's care if their monsters get trounced? Is that the most important factor why dming is fun? Or even a factor at all?


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## FireLance (Apr 25, 2011)

Wik said:


> I don't want to have players that can, regardless of the situation, tell me "I use this power.  If I hit, THIS happens.  If I fail, THIS happens."  I want to be able to have some ability to take a player's input device (their powers, in this case) and use that to make a judgement on what happens in the game.
> 
> ...
> 
> ...



I get where you're coming from, but to me, a 4E power with miss effects is really quite similar to spells in previous editions with half or otherwise reduced effects on a successful saving throw. To my mind, the only real differences are:

1. The frequency. In previous editions, only spellcasters had abilities that always had some effect (even if the effect could be reduced with a saving throw). Now, every class in 4E has the potential to do this. If this is the problem, I think it's inherent in the system and there isn't much that can be done about it, short of restricting certain powers.

2. Who rolls the "save". Is it possible that you felt more in control in previous editions because the player stated his action (casting a spell) and you determined the effects by rolling saving throws for the targets? The shift from making saving throws to making attack rolls was intended to make the attacker feel more in control, even if the chance of saving/missing was exactly the same. The flip side, of course, is that the DM might feel a corresponding loss of control when the monsters are attacked. If this is the problem, switching back to a system of you making "defence rolls" for the monsters (at least, when the players use daily abilities) might do the trick.


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## Umbran (Apr 25, 2011)

Wik said:


> What I HATE is players TELLING me what happens, rather than telling me their actions, and ASKING what happens.
> 
> 4E is doing that to me.  And it makes me feel like I'm losing my GM chops.




I don't see how this is fundamentally different in the new game - in the old game, if a wizard cast Sleep (or used any number of other spells or powers), some number of monsters fell asleep(or had whatever effect happen to them) - the GM didn't generally get a say in the matter, if he was playing by the rules. There's a spell or power description, a saving throw, and there you were.  The GM's say only came in when he wanted to break the rules, or there was no rule.

However, I'll note two things:

1) Monsters and NPCs don't use the same rules as PCs.

2) 4e uses "exception based design" - most of the powers are exceptions to the base rules, rather than an integral part of them.

It then follows that you can still do what you darned well please, as you can give your monsters "exceptions" to particular powers.  

Be that as it may - I'm thinking that the issue isn't a fault in the game, so much as a mismatch with your own desired style.  You say it yourself - as the GM you don't like the players telling you what happens. But, "I don't like it" does not equate to a flaw in the game.  Pizza with anchovies is not flawed - I just don't care for anchovies.


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## Zhaleskra (Apr 25, 2011)

While I still haven't actually played 4e, one thing I have seen is that it's not so much that too much is new -- it's that they gave things that they already had titles.

I also remember earlier editions having spells where X victims of Y Hit Dice or less are affected, no save.


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## Wik (Apr 25, 2011)

Umbran said:


> Be that as it may - I'm thinking that the issue isn't a fault in the game, so much as a mismatch with your own desired style.  You say it yourself - as the GM you don't like the players telling you what happens. But, "I don't like it" does not equate to a flaw in the game.  Pizza with anchovies is not flawed - I just don't care for anchovies.




Oh, you're exactly right.  That isnt' a fault with the game - it's a fault with my style.  I was never really trying to hate on 4e... just grumbling about a facet of the game that really peeves me.    

All I feel is that 4e seems less difficult to run.  There is less room, in my opinion, for individual DM talents to shine through.  If five 4e GMs were run a module, it'd probably turn out roughly the same... if those five GMs ran another module for another system, I imagine there'd be a larger difference in the play experience.

I really do feel like a player in a board game - and when you play a board game, being the guy destined to always lose kind of sucks.


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## Wik (Apr 25, 2011)

Zhaleskra said:


> While I still haven't actually played 4e, one thing I have seen is that it's not so much that too much is new -- it's that they gave things that they already had titles.
> 
> I also remember earlier editions having spells where X victims of Y Hit Dice or less are affected, no save.




Well, I can't think of a single pre 4e power, or from another game, that will always work, regardless of situation or target, and have a miss effect that is almost as good.  

It's mostly just a shift in how the game is played, for sure.  But it bugs me being TOLD to do something, as a GM.  I've never encountered that, save in 4e.  And it's not just my players, because I've played other games with them.


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## Umbran (Apr 25, 2011)

Wik said:


> Oh, you're exactly right.  That isnt' a fault with the game - it's a fault with my style.  I was never really trying to hate on 4e... just grumbling about a facet of the game that really peeves me.




Fair enough.

Though, again - I don't like anchovies, but the existence of anchovy pizza doesn't cheese me off.  It is there for those who like it, and there are other pizzas (or, by analogy, games) for those who don't.



> There is less room, in my opinion, for individual DM talents to shine through.




I think this is an illusion.  As I've noted - in the past the rules dictated many effects on monsters.  If I didn't want those effects to happen, I'd have to break the rules.  I don't see how things are any different now. 



> If five 4e GMs were run a module, it'd probably turn out roughly the same... if those five GMs ran another module for another system, I imagine there'd be a larger difference in the play experience.




I am not sure that's the case*.  However, if it is, some would call that a feature, rather than a bug in the system.



* I think it largely depends on how you tell them to run it - tournament-style and "in your own campaign"-style are different beasts.


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## C_M2008 (Apr 25, 2011)

Wik said:


> I don't want to have players that can, regardless of the situation, tell me "I use this power. If I hit, THIS happens. If I fail, THIS happens." I want to be able to have some ability to take a player's input device (their powers, in this case) and use that to make a judgement on what happens in the game.
> 
> I DON'T want players essentially taking away my ability to react to and interpret their actions, which is what I'm finding 4E does. There are plenty of times where the game basically locks me into doing actions. And our group quite often doesn't even see the monsters they're supposedly fighting... they just see bags of hit points and tactical situations. And as a GM, I feel burned out because player actions are very rarely described (what's the point, when the effect is predetermined and description takes time in an already long combat?), and one thing could just as easily be another.
> 
> ...




After 2 years of 4e (release to mid 2010) I couldn't quite put my finger on what I didn't like about the system other than the overly long drawn out combats. This sums up my feelings on the matter rather nicely. 

Players dictating the opponents actions in combats is mildly annoying to extremely aggrevating depending on the circumstance and never really felt appropriate even when I was the player and not the GM.  It always felt like the combat became about status effects and not the story/narrative reason for the combat in the first place. 

This is different than in prior versions of D&D as there was a saving throw for any sort of status effect (with the exeption of a couple overpowered spells) and they weren't available to everyone. Now they're everywhere and even if there is a "saving throw"(attack roll = saving throw) there's a miss effect that does the same thing or similar enough.  It is true that all versions enable a player to decide what happens to their opponents - 4e just guarantees that decision bears fruit however. 

Its not about being in control or beating the players, it's about the GM role/player role more than anything.  Is the GMs role in a combat to interpret player actions and decide how the NPCs respond to the player actions; to challenge the players and provide excitement ?  Or is it merely to roll dice for the meatbags until the inevitable conclusion? 
If it's the latter than the GM isn't really required for the combat, might as well go read a book for an hour until it's over.


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## Mort (Apr 25, 2011)

Wik said:


> Oh, you're exactly right.  That isnt' a fault with the game - it's a fault with my style.  I was never really trying to hate on 4e... just grumbling about a facet of the game that really peeves me.
> 
> All I feel is that 4e seems less difficult to run.  There is less room, in my opinion, for individual DM talents to shine through.  If five 4e GMs were run a module, it'd probably turn out roughly the same... if those five GMs ran another module for another system, I imagine there'd be a larger difference in the play experience.
> 
> I really do feel like a player in a board game - and when you play a board game, being the guy destined to always lose kind of sucks.




Interestingly, I've had the exact opposite feeling and experience. To me, running 4e subtly allows me to be more individual and/or arbitrary. Since there is no push at all to make the monsters use the same rules as PCs – I can have the monsters do what I need them to do. For example, if I don’t want a monster to be knocked prone I can a) just say it can’t be knocked prone, all such attempts simply fail or b) give the monster a saving throw vs. any imposition of the prone condition (with a + to the save if I want) – either way the game does what I want easily.

And that’s combat, outside of combat 4e took away much of the tools players had to circumvent plot that were readily available in prior editions. High level murder mysteries, for example, no longer have to account for all sorts of things that would throw in a wrench.

One issue I have had with 4e: having to remind players that their power cards are not the be all end all, there are other options (Despite the power cards being large, bold and even in color). With the codification of powers in the way 4e does it is very easy for players, and often the DM to forget many other options exist and going off script is not only valid, but should often be encouraged.

As to your assertion that 4e “normalizes” the DMing experience, I can’t say I’ve seen that either. At GenCon last year, I was a player is several 4e adventures some of which had a very similar plot (the mcguffin was different and the monsters differed but the flow seemed extremely similar), yet with different DMs the feel of the adventures was completely different. The best were the ones that ran with the “outside the box” thinking of the players and really made the adventure their own. The least satisfying were the ones where the adventure seemed canned or pre-ordained. But the point is they played very differently, a great DM still made a great difference.


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## Mort (Apr 25, 2011)

C_M2008 said:


> Its not about being in control or beating the players, it's about the GM role/player role more than anything.  Is the GMs role in a combat to interpret player actions and decide how the NPCs respond to the player actions; to challenge the players and provide excitement ?  Or is it merely to roll dice for the meatbags until the inevitable conclusion?
> If it's the latter than the GM isn't really required for the combat, might as well go read a book for an hour until it's over.




This whole, the 4e DM is reduced to a rolling machine with meatbags for monsters, assertion is just so foreign to me. As the DM, I dictate almost every facet of the players play experience, in and out of combat. When the players fight a monster, I control the monster, its motivations and its reactions. I control, for the most part, which actions by the PCs are likely to result in vanquishing the monster (frankly I love it when the PCs come up with something I haven't thought of, means they're engaged, paying attention and are invested in the outcome).

Giving the players a portion of narrative control, in and out of combat makes the players (IMO of course) more heavily invested in the game and is a great thing. But it's only a portion, I've never felt that my presence was even remotely unnecessary or that my ability to convey the world and story I want is the least bit reduced (and again, I actually think it's become easier under the current rule set).


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## Balesir (Apr 25, 2011)

Plane Sailing said:


> I don't think that Wik is saying that the GM should have all the power.
> 
> I think he is saying that he currently feels he has no power, and that is where the problem lies.



Nice point - but unless he's running a published scenario with _very_ boring monsters exactly as written, I don't see how that can be so - even in the combat encounters.


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## Wik (Apr 25, 2011)

Balesir said:


> Nice point - but unless he's running a published scenario with _very_ boring monsters exactly as written, I don't see how that can be so - even in the combat encounters.




Oh, I run interesting fights.  I've got one coming up for tonight that is a combo action scene, puzzle, and violent tactical challenge.  Running interesting fights has never been a problem for me.

What's become a problem is that there's less room in my mind for the fun, random stuff I like, and that I believe players having the ability to dictate the game is part of that.  While I KNOW there are "players dictate the choices" powers in other games, in my experience, they'd always wait until I said "yeah, it works" before they'd move the pieces on the battle map or something.

Because even Wish had a counter.  Finger of Death didn't work on everybody.  Even if you cast your disintegrate spell, there were ways around it.

Nowadays, they can use a power that says "you slide the target three squares before attacking", and even if they're fighting Gandalf who is shouting "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" they can easily slide him out of the way and get what they want.  

And if I say "well, he said you shall not pass" they can point at their power card and say "but it says here he does" and come up with all sorts of creative reasons why that is.  And if I say "no", I'm essentially breaking the rules of the game for personal story reasons, and nullifying a player's character choices.  And if I allow it to happen, well then, really, what point does description and fluff play in the game, if it's all so bendable?

Now, I KNOW I can add on exception-based effects.  I get that.  But I don't want to have to add them all the time, and basically have boss fights be immune to crafty powers.  I LIKE players being creative with their powers.  But when our cleric plops down a power card, moves Orcus across the board because the power card says so, rolls a d20, declares he hit, and then rolls damage - all without even asking me to see if anything happens - then I get a mite tetchy.  

I guess it might just be my experience, and others haven't encountered it, but it's definitely something I've seen. And it doesn't make me a bad GM, or anything like that.


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## MarkB (Apr 25, 2011)

It occurs to me that this may be the first ever thread started by a DM complaining about being railroaded by his players.

I'm not sure how I feel about that, but it may be progress, of a sort.


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## Thasmodious (Apr 25, 2011)

Wik said:


> While I KNOW there are "players dictate the choices" powers in other games, in my experience, they'd always wait until I said "yeah, it works" before they'd move the pieces on the battle map or something.




That's what I was talking about.  The difference is an illusion.  If the PC uses a spell, and it works, they had to wait for you to nod sagely and say "yes, your targets fall asleep", but there is no real difference between the two.  There is no loss of control just a quicker resolution.

Strangely, I have the opposite feeling in many cases.  As a player, while I knew it was the rules of the system, I *hated* casting spells and waiting for the DM to make his save roll behind a screen and declare for me whether the spell I used worked or if my whole round, and spell slot had just been wasted.  I love stating my action, rolling the results, and applying the action.  If I miss, I don't feel as if the DM stole my action.  It was an illusionary feeling in the first place, like yours, but there none the less.


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## Crazy Jerome (Apr 25, 2011)

Wik said:


> Nowadays, they can use a power that says "you slide the target three squares before attacking", and even if they're fighting Gandalf who is shouting "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" they can easily slide him out of the way and get what they want.
> 
> And if I say "well, he said you shall not pass" they can point at their power card and say "but it says here he does" and come up with all sorts of creative reasons why that is. And if I say "no", I'm essentially breaking the rules of the game for personal story reasons, and nullifying a player's character choices. And if I allow it to happen, well then, really, what point does description and fluff play in the game, if it's all so bendable?




I've always had the possibility of this kind of problem in any game I ran, though not the particular one you mention here.  (The 4E player combat options don't particularly bother me, though excessive stunlock might eventually.)

My answer has always been the same:  Talk to the players outside the game, decide how we want it to work, and anything they do is fair game for the opponents.  Occasionally, if I think they might not like that last part, or perhaps did not fully consider the implications of their actions, I'll ask.  They set the tone of what is possible.  I let them have it with everything implied therein. 

Every now and then, though, this gets out of hand.  I think this might be what has happened in your game.  An arms race develops, and none of us are really happy about it.  Repeating the same uber tactic over and over is often a dead giveaway that such has happened.  The only thing I've found to do then is negotiate our way out of the arms race.

If interrupt and other action economy items are causing you so much stress that you are stuck either escalating to an arms race you don't want, or letting the players walk all over every combat, then they should be backing off some.  Period.  This isn't about how good the system is or how good your or the players are, but an out of game problem, that can only be solved out of game.

How you solve it can be any number of things, including in-game changes, from nerfing such powers to going back to that gentleman's agreement you referenced.


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## Mort (Apr 25, 2011)

Another issue: as discussed in this thread. Early monster design for paragon and especially epic tier play failed to consider just how many options 4e characters have as they advance in level. This resulted in stun-locks and other problems for DMs who thought they were presenting a challenge but in fact - it really wasn't. MM3 and beyond has reconfiggered the math a bit, and more importantly introduced monsters that supposedly don't suffer from these issues (such as a new approach to solos for example as they are the most prone to lockdown).

As Wik's game is in epic levels I can certainly see how this might contribute to the issue he's expressing (the feeling that players just have too much control over the actions of your monsters).


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## Umbran (Apr 25, 2011)

Wik said:


> While I KNOW there are "players dictate the choices" powers in other games, in my experience, they'd always wait until I said "yeah, it works" before they'd move the pieces on the battle map or something.




Well, here's a question: are you playing with the same people as before?  Because, at the moment, it sounds a lot more like the issue is not the rules themselves, but the player's behavior and expectations.  

Now, we can argue over whether the rules themselves set up those expectations, but ultimately you cannot leave your relationship with your players up to a rulebook, nor blame the rulebook for it - in the end, if you cannot exert personal leadership, and your players cannot accept it, then the rule set you're playing with is moot.

You see, if I recall correctly, the rules already have examples of what we are talking about.  I'll have to go look at my books when I get home to find an example....


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## Wik (Apr 25, 2011)

Umbran said:


> Well, here's a question: are you playing with the same people as before?  Because, at the moment, it sounds a lot more like the issue is not the rules themselves, but the player's behavior and expectations.
> 
> Now, we can argue over whether the rules themselves set up those expectations, but ultimately you cannot leave your relationship with your players up to a rulebook, nor blame the rulebook for it - in the end, if you cannot exert personal leadership, and your players cannot accept it, then the rule set you're playing with is moot.
> 
> You see, if I recall correctly, the rules already have examples of what we are talking about.  I'll have to go look at my books when I get home to find an example....




I've been with the same group, more or less, for a couple of years.  And we actually have stopped playing 4e a few times for other games, and this problem would disappear.  We might have people assuming they auto hit in 3e, or something, but never players basically taking turns with little GM input on the effects.

Hell, even 4e Gamma World didn't have this problem, and it's basically the same system (although it was crazy and wild enough that I think it was more due to the board game vibe more than anything else).

But really, we're just a beer and pretzels group, and I don't wanna get all "draw the line" on my players.  I just want to finish the campaign, give away all my 4e books, and switch to a game I enjoy more.  I've been trying for a while to figure out what I don't like about 4e, and I figured it out a few days ago.


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## Diamond Cross (Apr 25, 2011)

> Wik did request no edition warring, and this strays awfully close in  that it is an utter misrepresentation of how the game works in 4E.




You're way off base. First of all, I haven't even read any of the 4e books. I have zero interest in 4e. Secondly, I've had plenty of experience with bad players and bad DMs. Those were general statements meant to address that point and his as well.

Thirdly, I hate edition warring too.

Before accusing people you should learn to ask first.


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## Dannager (Apr 25, 2011)

This looks a lot like a power struggle to me. The DM is used to have a _crapton_ of power to exert over the game: narratively, mechanically, structurally, and so on. The players, in ages past, have had _almost zero_ power over the game - their power begins and ends at the reach of their character's personal ability.

This power disparity is what has given rise to the "asshat DM" trope over the years - by putting all the power in the DM's hands, you're just asking to have it abused by DMs who don't know any better or simply don't care. Recent games (and not just 4e) have started to shift away from this, encouraging players to help dictate the flow of the game. In 4e, we saw this mechanically as early as the PHB's Deadly Trickster epic destiny, which actually allows the player to tell the DM that the die the DM just rolled came up as a 1, and that he can't reroll it. This firmly places the narrative control, for a brief moment, in the player's hands. The roll being manipulated doesn't even have to have anything to do with the Deadly Trickster - the player is, very briefly, sitting in the DM's chair and saying "I just rolled a 1."

This is a _good thing_. The idea of the DM as the all-powerful decider is a dying idea. It's on the way out. I popped into this thread and saw the whole "I'd _never_ let a zombie knock a hydra prone in _my_ game," bit and just started laughing. You'd shut down an intelligent move by your players that they probably thought was very clever and were looking forward to seeing it happen? That's pretty awful.


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## Diamond Cross (Apr 25, 2011)

If players get to dictate the flow of the game then what use is the DM?


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## jaerdaph (Apr 25, 2011)

A wise man once said the following on these very message boards, and it has always stuck with me:



> I'd rather compare adventure creation to writing HALF a story, realizing that the players and their PCs will fill in the other half. - Dave Stebbins




Now I don't play 4e, but I have been playing a lot of ICONS Superpowered Roleplaying lately, and that game allows for player control and retcon. And I have to say I really enjoy it, both as a GM and player.


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## Dannager (Apr 25, 2011)

Diamond Cross said:


> If players get to dictate the flow of the game then what use is the DM?




No one is talking about players dictating the flow of the game in a total sense. We're talking about the idea that the DM no longer has _absolute_ control of the flow of the game. The players can share in that responsibility. The DM still retains direct control of all the monsters/NPCs, crafts the encounters/over-arching story, acts as primary rules arbiter, and so forth.

It's the difference between Situation A:

PLAYER: I want to do Thing X!
DM: You can't do Thing X because I don't like it!

...and Situation B:

PLAYER: I want to do Thing X!
DM: I might not want you to do Thing X, but the game gives you the ability to do so. My personal desires do not exceed yours, especially when the rules of the game itself are on your side.

I typically like to shy away from blanket value judgments, but Situation B is just _better_.


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## Fifth Element (Apr 25, 2011)

Diamond Cross said:


> If players get to dictate the flow of the game then what use is the DM?



Players get to _briefly and occasionally_ dictate the flow of the game. No one has suggested that players have complete control over the game in 4E.

Also, see Dannager's post above.


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## NoWayJose (Apr 25, 2011)

jaerdaph said:


> A wise man once said the following on these very message boards, and it has always stuck with me:
> 
> 
> > I'd rather compare adventure creation to writing HALF a story, realizing that the players and their PCs will fill in the other half. - Dave Stebbins



Good quote, but two counterpoints:
1) DMs usually invest/waste/sacrifice more time prepping for a game (compared to the players) with possibly diminishing returns (as per the complaints here)
2) A fair DM writes his/her HALF of the story for the sake of a good overall story (that is, not biased towards the monsters per se). Most players write their HALF of the story for their own sake (that is, they're biased towards the betterment of their PCs, and not the story overall).

The quote makes it sounds as if a game is always a wonderful equal marriage between DM and player, which I hope is usually true, but sometimes it could be more like a husband working 80 hours/week to support his self-indulgent wife. If that's the case, at least he could have some control when she goes spending all his money.


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## The Shaman (Apr 25, 2011)

jaerdaph said:


> A wise man once said the following on these very message boards, and it has always stuck with me . . .



I believe what *Wik* finds troublesome is not that the players are writing half the story, but that they're overwriting his half as well.


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## Patryn of Elvenshae (Apr 25, 2011)

I am having a hard time parsing Wik's complaint into a form that makes sense to me.

I can't understand the idea that "My player uses X power, and Y happens" is somehow objectionable.


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## Crazy Jerome (Apr 25, 2011)

The Shaman said:


> I believe what *Wik* finds troublesome is not that the players are writing half the story, but that they're overwriting his half as well.




Well, not half, but a particular niche piece that he really doesn't want overwritten. If the neighbors cat is mauling me by surprise every morning as I leave for work, the fact this only take up 10 minutes of my day is going to be dwarfed by the pall it casts over the rest. 

I think we are getting too caught up in the particular details, though. See, on this particular thing, I like for my players to have narrative control. Heck, I expend a lot of energy pushing the players to take this kind of control over major parts of the game, because they are naturally inclined not to.

So I try to put myself in Wik's shoes by imagining something different niche where I'd be less than thrilled if the players took control. I guess I'd be put off if the players had game-provided abilities where they decided that my villain's main henchman was actually an undercover spy working for the party (or vice versa). Or less extreme, you rolled for treasure, and if you succeeded, it was there. (The indy game Donjon has never appealed, at all.) I'm not even that set on having control, but I do want something there before the roll happens.


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## Dannager (Apr 25, 2011)

The Shaman said:


> I believe what *Wik* finds troublesome is not that the players are writing half the story, but that they're overwriting his half as well.




It sounds to me more like his players are writing maybe 10% of the story, and he's miffed that occasionally they get to write an extra 5%, which means he _only_ gets to write the remaining 85%.

*~ let's not have any of this objectionable besmirching of some elses character, thanks. Wik is being very clear about his thoughts and doesn't need you to try to put words into his mouth. - Plane Sailing, ENworld Admin ~*

And, lest we forget, there are more players than there are DMs.


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## The Shaman (Apr 25, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> Well, not half, but a particular niche piece that he really doesn't want overwritten.



Yep, not the whole half, but portions which are, to *Wik*, the province of the referee to maintain. 







Crazy Jerome said:


> If the neighbors cat is mauling me by surprise every morning as I leave for work, the fact this only take up 10 minutes of my day is going to be dwarfed by the pall it casts over the rest.



Somehow I'm working this into my campaign.







Crazy Jerome said:


> See, on this particular thing, I like for my players to have narrative control. Heck, I expend a lot of energy pushing the players to take this kind of control over major parts of the game . . .



Same here, but what *Wik*'s describing is what I think of asusing the mechanics to 'invent' changes whole-cloth in the game rather than working to achieve control as an effect of their actions.







Crazy Jerome said:


> So I try to put myself in Wik's shoes by imagining something different niche where I'd be less than thrilled if the players took control. I guess I'd be put off if the players had game-provided abilities where they decided that my villain's main henchman was actually an undercover spy working for the party (or vice versa). Or less extreme, you rolled for treasure, and if you succeeded, it was there. (The indy game Donjon has never appealed, at all.) I'm not even that set on having control, but I do want something there before the roll happens.



I think of the example of players who want a skill like Diplomacy to function like _dominate_.


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## Mort (Apr 25, 2011)

The Shaman said:


> I believe what *Wik* finds troublesome is not that the players are writing half the story, but that they're overwriting his half as well.




I could see this grating in heroic or even paragon, but Wik mentioned that his game is in epic levels.  In epic (or at least my conceptualization of epic) there's something wrong if the players can't tell the universe to (at least ocasionally) sit down and shut up.


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## The Shaman (Apr 25, 2011)

Mort said:


> I could see this grating in heroic or even paragon, but Wik mentioned that his game is in epic levels.  In epic (or at least my conceptualization of epic) there's something wrong if the players can't tell the universe to (at least ocasionally) sit down and shut up.



And as *Wik* has been very clear in noting, the way in which 4e handles this is not his conceptualized cup of Epic tea.


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## NoWayJose (Apr 25, 2011)

Mort said:


> I could see this grating in heroic or even paragon, but Wik mentioned that his game is in epic levels. In epic (or at least my conceptualization of epic) there's something wrong if the players can't tell the universe to (at least ocasionally) sit down and shut up.



I'd say the answer is "It depends". What happens if Hercules meets Lucifer? Can the demi-god command the Prince of Darkness to sit down and shut up with 100% probability of success?


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## Imaro (Apr 25, 2011)

NoWayJose said:


> I'd say the answer is "It depends". What happens if Hercules meets Lucifer? Can the demi-god command the Prince of Darkness to sit down and shut up with 100% probability of success?




If he has the At-Will "Sit Down and Shut Up"... yes, yes he can and there's nothing the Morningstar can do about it.


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## NoWayJose (Apr 25, 2011)

Imaro said:


> If he has the At-Will "Sit Down and Shut Up"... yes, yes he can and there's nothing the Morningstar can do about it.



I wish I had that "Sit Down and Shut Up" power on this forum. Not so much the "sit down" part, because most of us are already sitting down at our computer, but the "Shut up" part which I would use on Umbran 

I'm kidding, I love you Umbran! You're more like Michael the Archangel, really.


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## Mort (Apr 25, 2011)

NoWayJose said:


> I'd say the answer is "It depends". What happens if Hercules meets Lucifer? Can the demi-god command the Prince of Darkness to sit down and shut up with 100% probability of success?




In a contest of strength where Hercules power lies? Yes, quite likely. Which I why Lucifer would never get into a non-rigged contest of strength with the likes of Hercules and if he does he deserves to lose. 

There's even a play (Alscestis) that has that as the  ending. [edit: well not exactly, pretty darn close)


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## Plane Sailing (Apr 25, 2011)

Dannager said:


> I typically like to shy away from blanket value judgments, but Situation B is just _better_.




I think you should probably continue to shy away from blanket value judgements, because situation B may very well be what you prefer, but that doesn't make it better.

It just means that some people prefer that situation, others prefer different situations.

Normally someone knowingly picks up a different game with the understanding that it is run differently (e.g. Icons). I think that some people have experienced the same disconnect which Wik mentions because they originally thought that D&D was still the same old D&D but it turned out to have changed to a different style of game.


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## Dannager (Apr 25, 2011)

Plane Sailing said:


> I think you should probably continue to shy away from blanket value judgements, because situation B may very well be what you prefer, but that doesn't make it better.




You're right. I'm sure there are _tons_ of DMs out there who prefer to have - and frequently exercise - absolute veto power over their players. The fact that DMs with that preference exist was the point.

See: You can't trip a hydra with a zombie even though the game says you totally can because I'm the DM and I say so!


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## NoWayJose (Apr 25, 2011)

Dannager said:


> See: You can't trip a hydra with a zombie even though the game says you totally can because I'm the DM and I say so!



Aww, jeez. It's just a game, where you can get weird things like backstabbing oozes and carrion crawlers being knocked prone that leave some people looking for logical answers. Some DMs and players would prefer to overrule these corner cases for narrative reasons. It's nothing personal, it's not an intended insult to the player or a DM ego trip.


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## LostSoul (Apr 25, 2011)

Dannager said:


> See: You can't trip a hydra with a zombie even though the game says you totally can because I'm the DM and I say so!




The DM might want to say "no" for more reasons than "Because I say so!"

My hack tells the DM to say "no" when the action breaks the consistency of the game world.  It's the DM's job to maintain that consistency, because he can - and must - make impartial decisions.  Players can't make those decisions because they must advocate for their characters.  The DM doesn't have a conflict of interest; the players do.  My hack falls apart if the DM and players don't do their jobs properly.


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## Dannager (Apr 26, 2011)

NoWayJose said:


> Aww, jeez. It's just a game, where you can get weird things like backstabbing oozes and carrion crawlers being knocked prone that leave some people looking for logical answers. Some DMs and players would prefer to overrule these corner cases for narrative reasons. It's nothing personal, it's not an intended insult to the player or a DM ego trip.




Again, that needs to be examined. When the player has the ability to do something (by the rules), the player _wants_ to do that something, and the DM makes an arbitrary decision not to allow it because _he just doesn't like it_, that's an instance of the DM putting his desires above those of a player _and_ the game's rules.

I'm not going to get into the whole argument of why it makes perfect sense to be able to apply the prone condition to oozes or anything else. It's been done, people continue to ignore it, nothing new here.


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## Dannager (Apr 26, 2011)

LostSoul said:


> The DM might want to say "no" for more reasons than "Because I say so!"




And, sometimes, that's okay.

"You'll _never_ see a zombie knock a hydra prone in _my_ game," though? Not okay. At least, y'know, _as far as I'm concerned_.


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## SSquirrel (Apr 26, 2011)

Wik said:


> After half an hour of them making plans and scratching them, I just had to snap and say "Geez.  You guys are $@^#ing epic!"




Sounds like your players had a real duh moment heh



Wik said:


> And then, in a fight, they had powers that would stun monsters before they could act, that would guarantee monster movement, and interrupt powers that basically said "no, Wik, you can't do that".




The joy of winning the initiative roll huh?



Wik said:


> It's about the fact that, no matter what, our fighter can blow Come and Get it, and dictate the movement of my monsters.  It's about the fact that, in a big fight, my players can basically stun-lock my big bad monsters, and if I say "no, that doesn't happen" I am breaking the rules and depriving them of their core strengths.  It's about the fact that, if I want to do something, my players feel they have the right to say "no, this doesn't happen."




Well when they are allowed to select powers that say just those things, of course they feel they have the right to say so.  My DM usually has a good laugh when his carefully planned combat gets gutted by us.  Like when we bypassed a line of 8 demons w/an Arcane Gate and during the surprise round nearly killed the psion we were attacking.  He died after one quick action on the first full combat round, leaving the demons and 2 other bad guys.  We refer to it now as "The Death Subway"  

In the last session, my wizard got jumped by 3 dryad's treewalking ability and nearly killed.  Burning Hands, Dimension Door, action point, Fireball (I'm only L10 right now) punished them a good bit and after our warden got ahold of them, I dropped Twist of space on the 4 of them, lined them up away from the treeline w/our warden still holding them in place.  




Wik said:


> Or, in other words, in other games, the players would try something and run the risk of failure, or the GM having the potential to say "no, that doesn't happen".  Now, it's a matter of "Well, I missed on the attack, so he's only stunned until the end of my next turn.   Now, everyone, Coup de gras him!".




I really hope you aren't allowing players to Coup de Grace on a stun.  Coup de Grace requires the Helpless condition, which only happens when Dying/Unconscious.  If they're stunning guys and Couping them, that would be your own fault.  Or it was merely a poorly chosen example   Not playing in an Epic game, how many powers really have Stun effects on Miss?



Wik said:


> Essentially, my problem is that I feel the DM has less power than he used to at the actual table




It's not just a feeling, it's a fact.



Wik said:


> and it makes me feel like my role is somehow less important.  DMing 4e is, in my experience, less fun than DMing in other games, because it feels like less of an art, and more like a trade.   If that makes any sense at all.




It does, but IME that trade has not been a problem.  Easier to put an adventure together and both sides of the table have a level of narrative control.  In 3E my DM asked me to create a few monsters for us to fight that would be tailored against particular party members.  He did this b/c 1)  he knew I was very good at min/maxing characters and 2) he was frustrated by the effectiveness of some group members, like our psychic warrior.  So I designed these 3 monsters w/class levels and some great feats for beating particular party members.

Now our group had no way of knowing which monster was designed for which character, but as luck would have it, none of the monsters I had made that were designed to take on particular party members got to actually fight said party members.  The rogue happened to pick on the one that was tailored against my Wizard, the psychic warrior took on the one who was supposed to stop the rogue cold, etc.  That DM was definitely one of the "Me vs Them, I am God" type and his frustration at having his carefully planned scheme fail was great fun for everyone.  After the session he even had a good laugh about it.



TheUltramark said:


> there is a vid on youtube that maybe everyone has seen of Chris Perkins DMing for Acquisitions INc. in a live session during a convention.  During the fight, a zombie rotter (yes a minion) knocks a hydra prone with a smash...I tell you this, NO CHANCE I let that go down at my table...I don't care how pretty and colorful your little sheet with your powers on it is, and i don't care what it says I say what happens, and that just don't.




I'm sorry, if I was running that game I would be way too busy cracking up laughing and falling out of my chair to be able to tell them no.




Wik said:


> My real beef has been going on for ten levels, and just got worse in Epic - that players can dictate the flow of the game to me, and I have no ability to change it except through breaking the rules.
> 
> I'm not looking for "The GM is god" bit.  What I *DO* want is to have a role of "GM as Interpreter", as opposed to what I've got in 4E, which is "GM as Opposition intended to lose".  There seems to be less and less room for me to flex my muscles, and when I DO flex my muscles, Players often have powers that let me say "no, you can't do that, get back in your cage".




I don't see a problem with players having a bag of tricks and being able to have solutions.  It beats the heck out of being limited to "I swing my sword and whatever else the DM will allow me to do".  You forget the GM has always been intended to lose, unless he's in the habit of just making the players play things like Tomb of Horrors or a dungeon full of Grimtooth's Traps.  

The DM is (usually) running the bad guys, which are naturally in opposition to the party, and the players are playing heroes (generally) who are usually in the habit of winning.  That doesn't mean they won't take a thrashing now and again or choose to avoid a nasty encounter rather than get the stuffings beat out of them, but overall players will win and that's the way the game should be.  Otherwise you're always having to roll up new characters and have no real continuity.



Wik said:


> And all of this only applies in combat.  Once the fighting ends, I have no problem running 4e, although it is kind of annoying that it takes my epic-level players half an hour before they realize they can CLIMB A WALL.




Again, your players took their dumb pills before that session 




Wik said:


> What I HATE is that the game has allowed the players to say "no, do this".  They have dailies that let them shut down the combat entirely.  And while they ARE just dailies, there are enough of them that they can do this three or four times.  Meaning, for three or four hours out of every in-game "Day", I'm sitting around having the players dictate a large part of the combat to me.




It's all about point of view.  You are currently looking at it as the players shutting down your plans and having things dictated to you.  Plans almost never survive the first encounter w/an enemy in real life, so why should it go otherwise in a game?  There is a large gap between railroading DMs forcing the players along a particular path and players completely controlling everything, which does not happen in 4E.  

Players have some ways to take charge of certain situations and are allowed to be more reactive.  4E was designed to be more cinematic in play and to give the players more power at the table.  Not to make it an edition war, but when the stated goals of the new edition are one thing and that one thing is completely at odds with what you are wanting from a game, it seems like another game is the answer.




Wik said:


> I actually enjoy 4E dark sun's presentation (sans Eladrin and Feywild).  However, I've come to the realization that 4e is not for me, and once this campaign is over, I won't be playing it again.




Looks like we realize the same things here.  Our Dark Sun game actually just ended up in the Feywild.  Apparently we're being run thru some of the leadup material to the 4E Tomb of Horrors 



Wik said:


> (I'm a GM raised on the WEG d6 Star Wars rules, and that's where I'm happiest running)




Lots of fond memories of that system from college, altho it did seem once a player's skill reached about 4d+2 or 5d+2 that it was rare they failed no matter what got thrown their way.




Wik said:


> It's getting to the point where, once I start getting stunlocked, I'm going to start doing the same thing to the players.  We once had a "gentleman's agreement" about stun, but they're beginning to forget about it, so it might be time for me to brush it off and throwing stun monsters at them again.




Our last encounter involved a bunch of ongoing damage from minions, 2 Will O Wisps and an obelisk that would shoot out a sleep ray at people every round.  Our rogue spent a large portion of the fight on his back heh.  If the players are able to dish out as many stuns as you say, it's only fair that the monsters can do similar.  Make sure you're using MM3/MV stats on monsters and bring things w/lots of conditions to the mix.  Keep them on their toes.


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## NoWayJose (Apr 26, 2011)

Dannager said:


> When the player has the ability to do something (by the rules), the player _wants_ to do that something, and the DM makes an arbitrary decision not to allow it because _he just doesn't like it_



Arbitrary is "based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system". Ruling that a zombie can't trip a hydra isn't arbitrary, it's based on reasons of subjective plausibility. I think the real problem is that you believe that the rules supersedes the DM's right to prioritize the narrative when it feels appropriate.

There's one way to play chess. How many different ways can you play D&D? Just one way?


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## Lanefan (Apr 26, 2011)

Dannager said:


> Again, that needs to be examined. When the player has the ability to do something (by the rules), the player _wants_ to do that something, and the DM makes an arbitrary decision not to allow it because _he just doesn't like it_, that's an instance of the DM putting his desires above those of a player _and_ the game's rules.



And sometimes the rules need to be hammered with the *Sit Down and Shut Up *ability (no save) in the name of common sense, believability, realism, consistency, or any of a bunch of other things where hard-and-fast rules just don't fit.

That why there's a DM.  That's what she's for.

You're also assuming the DM is only making these changes against the players; what's to say the same DM isn't changing things behind the scenes to give the players a break, by perhaps making an arbitrary decision not to use (or to ban outright) some silly ability or other.

The more rules there are in a system, the more likely it becomes that someone will find a way to use them to break said system.  For example, having functional 'trip' rules is great.  Allowing them to be used against oozes or air elementals is broken.

That said, the whole slide/shift/mess-with-your-opponents mechanics system in 4e makes Wik's problem go both ways: neither players nor DM can do what they want due to constant interference by the other.

Lan-"looking for ways to make Sit Down and Shut Up work in real life"-efan


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## Patryn of Elvenshae (Apr 26, 2011)

NoWayJose said:


> Ruling that a zombie can't trip a hydra isn't arbitrary, it's based on reasons of subjective plausibility.




Why is it impossible for a zombie (by definition, a made-up creature) to trip a hydra (also by definition, a made-up creature)?


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## Dannager (Apr 26, 2011)

NoWayJose said:


> Arbitrary is "based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system". Ruling that a zombie can't trip a hydra isn't arbitrary, it's based on reasons of subjective plausibility.




It's based on the "reasoning" that the DM doesn't like imagining a zombie knocking a hydra prone in his own head.

But sure, _I'll play this game_.

What is it that prevents the zombie from knocking down the hydra? The zombie's minion status? If minions can't knock down non-minions, then they shouldn't be able to knock down players, so clearly that's not it. The fact that the zombie is smaller than the hydra? If that's the case, no player power should be able to knock a large or larger creature prone. The fact that the hydra has multiple legs? If that's the case, how many legs does it take to gain utter immunity from being knocked prone?

Face it: this is an _unquestionably_ arbitrary decision based on the DM's personal conception of how he _feels_ a game mechanic should and should not work, to the point of ignoring the rules and the desires of his players.



> I think the real problem is that you believe that the rules supersedes the DM's right to prioritize the narrative when it feels appropriate.




I believe that the desires of the DM often do not outweigh the desires of his players, and I believe this to be _especially_ true when the game's rules are on the player's side. And I've said this twice now.

You can leap to the defense of some imagined inviolate narrative all you want, but I _really_ doubt that allowing your players to knock a hydra prone with a minion would ruin _anything_ in your game, and _at most_ would require you to suspend the tiniest fragment of disbelief for a single monster's turn for the sake of the shared enjoyment your players will get out of their clever move.



> There's one way to play chess.




Absolutely.

Oh, unless you count Fischer Random Chess. Or displacement chess. Or transcendental chess. Or upside-down chess. Or Dunsany's chess. Or handicap chess. Or the pawns game. Or peasant's revolt. Or Weak!. Or Active Chess. Or Alice chess. Or circular chess. Or Cubic Chess. Or cylinder chess. Or Chess Attack. Or Doublewide chess. Or flying chess. Or gravity chess. Or grid chess. Or hexagonal chess. Or infinite chess. Or Lord Loss chess. Or Los Alamos chess. Or Milennium chess. Or Minichess. Or Polgar Superstar Chess. Or singularity chess. Or three-dimensional chess. Or Absorption Chess (or Absorption Chess II). Or Accelerated Chess. Or Andernach chess. Or Antichess. Or Arimaa. Or Atomic chess. Or Benedict chess. Or Checkers chess. Or checkless chess. Or Chicken Chess. Or Circe chess. Or Crazyhouse. Or Einstein chess. Or extinction chess. Or Genesis Chess. Or guard chess. Or hierarchical chess. or Jedi Knight chess. Or knight relay chess. Or Knightmare. Or Legan chess. Or Madrasi chess. Or monochromatic chess. Or patrol chess. Or PlunderChess. Or refusal chess. Or replacement chess. Or rifle chess. Or Stationary King. Or Take-all. Or Three-check chess. Or ChessHeads. Or dark chess. Or dice chess. Or Fantasy Chess. Or Kriegspiel. Or No Stress Chess. Or Play It By Trust. Or Penultima. Or Schrodinger's chess. Or synchronous chess. Or avalance chess. Or doublemove chess. Or kung-fu chess. Or Marsellais chess. Or monster chess. Or progressive chess. Or zonal chess. Or Bosworth. Or bughouse chess. Or business chess. Or Djambi. Or Enochian chess. Or Forchess. Or four-handed chess. Or fortress chess. Or three player chess. Or Queen's Quadrille. Or Hippodrome. Or Anti-King chess. Or Baroque. Or Berolina chess. Or Bomberman chess. Or chess with different armies. Or Dragonchess. Or Duell. Or Gess. Or grasshopper chess. Or Maharajah and the Sepoys. Or omega chess. Or pocket mutation chess. Or Pole chess. Or Shako. Or stealth chess. Or 2000 A.D. Or Capablanca chess (or Capablanca random chess). Or Embassy Chess. Or Gothic chess. Or grand chess. Or Janus chess. Or modern chess. Or Seirawan chess. Or Chessers. Or Proteus. Or playing cards on a chess board.

Oh, and my personal favorite: Knightmare Chess.

Credit to Wikipedia for that ridiculously long list of chess variants.



> How many different ways can you play D&D? Just one way?




Any number of ways. But this isn't about trying to find the One True Way to play D&D. This is advice, and it's good advice: if you put your personal desires above those of your players even when they have the rules on their side - _especially_ when it's over something as incredibly trivial as whether or not a zombie can knock a hydra prone! - you are sabotaging your own game.


----------



## Dannager (Apr 26, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> And sometimes the rules need to be hammered with the *Sit Down and Shut Up *ability (no save) in the name of common sense, believability, realism, consistency, or any of a bunch of other things where hard-and-fast rules just don't fit.




I have found that, in almost every situation where it comes up, the human mind is more than imaginative enough to come up with a plausible scenario whereby the situation dictated by the rules makes perfect make-believe sense. I do not see "That doesn't make sense in the magic elf land in my head!" as an acceptable reason to shut down something a player is absolutely allowed under the rules.

Would the player's proposed action utterly and without question ruin your entire campaign with no chance for you to reconcile the events? Then sure, you might have cause to ask them to change their mind. Otherwise? Don't be _that_ DM.

Oh, and because why the heck not:



			
				Lanefan said:
			
		

> The more rules there are in a system, the more likely it becomes that  someone will find a way to use them to break said system.  For example,  having functional 'trip' rules is great.  Allowing them to be used  against oozes or air elementals is broken.




It is _not_ broken, and I challenge you to prove that it is.

Furthermore, I will make the argument that _not_ allowing the prone condition to affect oozes/air elementals/whatever _is_ broken, as it is an immunity that is not factored into their design and thus does not receive the benefit of balance considerations under the system's assumptions.


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## NoWayJose (Apr 26, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> And sometimes the rules need to be hammered with the *Sit Down and Shut Up *ability (no save) in the name of common sense, believability, realism, consistency, or any of a bunch of other things where hard-and-fast rules just don't fit.



Indeed. Perhaps a desperate DM beset by rules lawyers can simply hand out a form to each player at the beginning of every game session. This form goes something like:

D&D Player Consent Form
------------------------

The undersigned hereby consent to abide by the DM's Houserule that he/she may Veto any rule at any time for any reason x times per session. The DM must provide an explanation for the Veto based on reasons of believability, verisimilitude, plausibility, or narration (unless classified as Top Secret due to a yet undisclosed plot element in which case the DM must disclose the reason after it has been de-classified). Each player may then submit a counterargument to the DM. After consideration of each counterargument, the DM then makes his final decision and, if affirmed, the Veto is formally passed and officially in effect as if it were an Official Decree from Wizards of the Coast for a 24 hour period.

Any player who disagrees with the Houserule must leave the premises immediately, although he/she may join any other D&D group that does not employ this consent form.

Printed Name __________________
Signature ____________________
Date _________________________


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## TheUltramark (Apr 26, 2011)

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> Why is it impossible for a zombie (by definition, a made-up creature) to trip a hydra (also by definition, a made-up creature)?




a number of reasons, but mostly because I say so (in my game...in your game it may in fact be a common occurrence, and so be it.


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## TheUltramark (Apr 26, 2011)

player: I knock the hydra prone with a punch

Me (dm) : No you don't, you do what for damage?

player: it says right here, target knocked prone ! ! !

Me: Hydras are immune to getting knocked prone

player: no they aren't ! ! !  (tears starting to form)

Me: this one is

player: that's not fair ! ! ! ! (kicking of feet about to commence) 

Me: If you don't tell me the damage, I'm gonna assume it's zero...

player: that's B---S--- this is my power, it says I knock it prone, damnit, it gets knocked prone!!!!!!

Me: OK, the Hydra falls over, shaking the ground, everyone make a athletics check to stay standing {{DC 50 }} - whoops, looks like everyone's prone...good job


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## NoWayJose (Apr 26, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> Me: OK, the Hydra falls over, shaking the ground, everyone make a athletics check to stay standing {{DC 50 }} - whoops, looks like everyone's prone...good job



Some other ideas:

Realmass Hydra:
Trait - Realistically Sturdy: The realmass hydra is synchronized with the laws of mass, gravity and momentum, and cannot be knocked prone by any creature 3 sizes or lower.

Longheaded Hydra:
Trait - Autonomous Bite: When the hydra is prone, it may continue to use bite and breath attacks as if it were not prone.

Wobblecrusher Hydra:
Trait - Wobbly: When knocked prone, the hydra falls over onto any adjacent square. Any creatures in that square are crushed for 5d10 damage and pinned and immobilized until the hydra is no longer prone.


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## Dannager (Apr 26, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> a number of reasons, but mostly because I say so (in my game...in your game it may in fact be a common occurrence, and so be it.




See, if we were arguing against a caricature or a straw-man, that would be one thing. But we're not. The above post is a real post that a real person who (probably) runs a real game wrote.


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## Dannager (Apr 26, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> player: I knock the hydra prone with a punch
> 
> Me (dm) : No you don't, you do what for damage?
> 
> ...




If you were trying to make your hypothetical player appear entitled, petulant, and prone to throwing tantrums when he doesn't get his way, that tactic _maaaaaaaay_ have backfired on you, there.

In this scenario, you: ignored the game's rules, told the player no (outright), made up an arbitrary immunity for your monster to have that negated a clever player's tactic post hoc, threatened to make the player's damage _zero_ when he challenged your made-up-on-the-spot-immunity, and then punished _the entire group_ (again, totally arbitrarily) with a (once again, made-up-on-the-spot) rule that when big creatures fall prone (or maybe just hydras? Who knows? No one, because it's arbitrary!) they knock everyone around them prone unless they succeed on a truly ludicrous Athletics DC (that, by the way, makes _far _less sense than knocking a hydra prone in the first place) *and then blamed your punishment of the group on the player*.

Just to be clear, this is what you _actually would do_ if this situation arose?


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## TheUltramark (Apr 26, 2011)

Dannager said:


> See, if we were arguing against a caricature or a straw-man, that would be one thing. But we're not. The above post is a real post that a real person who (probably) runs a real game wrote.




when you say above post, do you mean mine, or the patryn of elvenshae

I certainly meant no disrespect to him or his opinion, he asked me a question, and I answered it.  My next post is a clearer example of what I originally posted.


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## Dannager (Apr 26, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> when you say above post, do you mean mine, or the patryn of elvenshae




I meant yours. Thank you for expanding upon your point, though. It illustrated things much, much better.


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## TheUltramark (Apr 26, 2011)

Dannager said:


> If you were trying to make your hypothetical player appear entitled, petulant, and prone to throwing tantrums when he doesn't get his way, that tactic _maaaaaaaay_ have backfired on you, there.
> 
> In this scenario, you: ignored the game's rules, told the player no (outright), made up an arbitrary immunity for your monster to have that negated a clever player's tactic post hoc, threatened to make the player's damage _zero_ when he challenged your made-up-on-the-spot-immunity, and then punished _the entire group_ (again, totally arbitrarily) with a (once again, made-up-on-the-spot) rule that when big creatures fall prone (or maybe just hydras? Who knows? No one, because it's arbitrary!) they knock everyone around them prone unless they succeed on a truly ludicrous Athletics DC (that, by the way, makes _far _less sense than knocking a hydra prone in the first place) *and then blamed your punishment of the group on the player*.
> 
> This is the worst example of DMing I have _ever_ witnessed.




first of all, nobody I've ever played with has ever attempted to knock a creature with about 10X the mass of their character prone with a punch.

second of all, I've never played with anyone who threw a tantrum over not getting their way, they may in fact argue their point and make valid points, and maybe even convince me that it can be done.

Third of all, adding to a monster is quite the norm, making a general rule is quite the norm, and punishing slow play is quite the norm, and have been at our table for 20 years, so it isnt exaclty like springing it on the players
however
this is an example of how to "win over the dm"

player : "I charge the Hydra, and with a leap, a smash my only weapon, my fist into the thing, hoping my power of "knocking down the thing 10X bigger than me" works.

dm: well, let's see how well you hit it.

adj roll : 25 (wows from all the table) and dmg 11 (max possible)

dm: well thats certainly a clubberin' you handed out, and you say your daily power knocks the target prone with no exceptions, no matter the size of the beast?

player: thats what it says...maybe I push the thing back, but its mass gets caught on some crack -or- wait, I know, one of the other heads is lunging at me at the same time, and as I hit the thing in the belly, the head goes under itself and its all discombobulated, and it doesn't fall prone in the truest sense, but is sort of twisted up

dm: still sounds janky - but what the hell - thats exactly what happens, the thing isnt prone, but you guys get the prone modifier until its turn.


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## Dannager (Apr 26, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> first of all, nobody I've ever played with has ever attempted to knock a creature with about 10X the mass of their character prone with a punch.




But if they did, we know how it would play out now?



> second of all, I've never played with anyone who threw a tantrum over not getting their way, they may in fact argue their point and make valid points, and maybe even convince me that it can be done.




That's not how you presented it, though. You presented a stereotypically entitled player who throws a tantrum when he doesn't get his way. The snag, of course, is that in the act of punishing your player for daring to call you out on an arbitrary ruling that makes his character less effective than it ought to be, it's your hypothetical DM who comes across as controlling and entitled.



> Third of all, adding to a monster is quite the norm,




Really? You regularly add immunities to monsters on the fly because your players made a smart decision?



> making a general rule is quite the norm,




Making rulings is the norm. Making rulings that put your own desires above those of your players and contrary to the rules of the game? Not so much the norm (or, at least, I hope not).



> and punishing slow play is quite the norm,




That wasn't punishing slow play. That was shutting down a valid disagreement that your player had with you. You didn't even bother to say something like "That's my ruling, we can discuss it after the game if you disagree."

Oh, and then you punished _the whole group and blamed it on the player_.



> and have been at our table for 20 years, so it isnt exaclty like springing it on the players




Suddenly adding the (rather significant, given how many large and huge creatures are in the game, especially in paragon and above play) rule that large creatures can't be knocked prone qualifies as "springing it on the players" in my book.



> however
> this is an example of how to "win over the dm"




You shouldn't have to be "won over" any more than _you_ should have to win over _your players_. Consider, for a moment, that there is _no reason_ your players should be forced to explain themselves to you that could not _just as easily_ be used to compel _you_ to defend _your reasoning_ to your players. Sitting in the DM chair does not give you anywhere near the complicit authority you seem to believe it does.


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## Jeffrey (Apr 26, 2011)

IMO, we've been heading that way since they stuck the word "Advanced" before "D&D" on the box. This, despite what the authors have said in their introductions.

The "DM is GOD" fiat only fails when you have a _bad _DM. Bad DMs have always outnumbered the good ones, hence the efforts over the years to make a rule for any and everything. 3ed made the leap whole-heartedly into that water. 4ed is only the natural progression of this.

I know of a great DM who has introduced hundreds of people to the game who always started out this way: "Bring your imagination, a sheet of paper and a pencil. You don't need books. You don't need figures. You don't even need dice, you can borrow mine. Within fifteen minutes of sitting at the table you will be playing D&D."

Hmm. To be fair, the first two paragraphs above could be the result of me being a crotchety old geezer, hopelessly stuck in his ways.

And you damn kids get the hell off of my lawn!


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## Thasmodious (Apr 26, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> player: thats what it says...maybe I push the thing back, but its mass gets caught on some crack -or- wait, I know, one of the other heads is lunging at me at the same time, and as I hit the thing in the belly, the head goes under itself and its all discombobulated, and it doesn't fall prone in the truest sense, but is sort of twisted up
> 
> dm: still sounds janky - but what the hell - thats exactly what happens, the thing isnt prone, but you guys get the prone modifier until its turn.




And that right there is all that's needed to "justify" those few, isolated wonky conditions that come up once a year or so in 4e.  It's hardly the monstrous case of total immersion breaking zaniness that it gets labeled all the time.

"How do you make an ooze prone?"
"Have you ever seen Terminator 2? Remember when Ahnold hit the T-1000 with the Thumper grenade? That's how."


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## Crazy Jerome (Apr 26, 2011)

Dannager said:


> Any number of ways. But this isn't about trying to find the One True Way to play D&D. This is advice, and it's good advice: if you put your personal desires above those of your players even when they have the rules on their side - _especially_ when it's over something as incredibly trivial as whether or not a zombie can knock a hydra prone! - you are sabotaging your own game.




I'd probably not allow a zombie to knock over a hydra on Lost Soul's internal consistency grounds--on steroids.  Namely, the players at the table probably wouldn't like it if that happened.  If they really pushed, I'd put it up for a vote. And then whatever we decided, I'd be consistent with it.   

See, that's the problem with extremes of "Viking Hat DM" versus "Kumbaya DM"--most players actually want you somewhere in the middle.  If they have problems with a DM's style, it probably is not that the DM is that extreme, but is somewhat more Viking or Kumbaya than they want.  

There is a *huge* difference between, "We will at all times play with my personal whim," versus, "We will at all times have some internal consistency."


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## Dannager (Apr 26, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> I'd probably not allow a zombie to knock over a hydra on Lost Soul's internal consistency grounds--on steroids.  Namely, the players at the table probably wouldn't like it if that happened.  If they really pushed, I'd put it up for a vote. And then whatever we decided, I'd be consistent with it.




I've never met a group of players who would balk at the idea of one of them knocking a hydra prone if they had a power that said the target was knocked prone.


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## Abraxas (Apr 26, 2011)

Dannager said:


> I've never met a group of players who would balk at the idea of one of them knocking a hydra prone if they had a power that said the target was knocked prone.



I have.


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## TheUltramark (Apr 26, 2011)

my whole point is - and has been for that matter:
"it's on my sheet" is not an explanation of an action

also, every rule has exceptions!
can something without feet be tripped?
can something already laying on the ground be knocked prone?
can something that moves 2 already, be slowed?
can bats be blinded?
can a stone golem be petrified?

with a creative explanation, impossible is nothing..."it says so right here", however, is far from creative
Also, for the record, when I dm I encourage seemingly impossible actions...as long as the players are creative.  In fact, the nuttier it sounds, the more likely I am to allow it.
The video that raised this mini-debate shows the player, just say, I attack, roll, hit, then say I do X damage, and OH! it says here it gets knocked prone...then he flips the hydra mini on its side...
I just do not feel that adds anything to the action, and luckily all the guys at my table agree.


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## NoWayJose (Apr 26, 2011)

NoWayJose said:


> Many DMs sacrifice a lot of time and effort to run a campaign, and I think that generally speaking, they deserve and have every right to overrrule the rules, if they are well-intentioned.
> 
> I agree there are bad DMs and DMs that make mistakes sometimes, but is this really what the world has come down to, setting up safety railings and training wheels and danger signs, all for our own good, to coddle our soft vulnerable egos, to protect us from the risk of a bad DM? Soon, we'll all be bubble boys, protected from the evils of the world and all its possible abuses, all for the sake of fun. But how much fun can you really have in a bubble suit?






TheUltramark said:


> second of all, I've never played with anyone who threw a tantrum over not getting their way, they may in fact argue their point and make valid points, and maybe even convince me that it can be done.



OK, this is NOT going to be politically correct, and I'm probably get a ton of heat over this, but I think it has be asked...

What's at the heart of the problem raised by the OP?

Was 4E designed the way it is partially to appease a new narcissistic 'Me' generation? The new generation that I keep reading about in articles that supposedly have an inflated sense of self, lack of empathy, are vain and materialistic, with an overblown sense of entitlement. This might explain 4E's push for fairness, balance, everyone feeling useful all the time, and rules not designed to be subject to interpretation in order to avoid conflicts and easily hurt feetlings.

Just wondering if this is a real or imagined elephant in the room.


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## Dannager (Apr 26, 2011)

NoWayJose said:


> Was 4E designed the way it is partially to appease a new narcissistic 'Me' generation? The new generation that I keep reading about in articles that supposedly have an inflated sense of self, lack of empathy, are vain and materialistic, with an overblown sense of entitlement. This might explain 4E's push for fairness, balance, everyone feeling useful all the time, and rules not designed to be subject to interpretation in order to avoid conflicts and easily hurt feetlings.




From what I've read in this thread, it seems a little laughable to label the younger generation as having an inflated sense of self and overblown sense of entitlement.


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## TheUltramark (Apr 26, 2011)

Dannager said:


> I've never met a group of players who would balk at the idea of one of them knocking a hydra prone if they had a power that said the target was knocked prone.




can you knock a snake prone?


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## Dannager (Apr 26, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> "it's on my sheet" is not an explanation of an action




No, but it gives that character the ability to perform said action.



> also, every rule has exceptions!
> can something without feet be tripped?



Yes. And the argument for why this is the case has been repeated about a million times.



> can something already laying on the ground be knocked prone?



Something that is already prone cannot be knocked superprone. But (and, as above, I predict that making this argument will have absolutely no effect) the prone condition is a mechanical effect that is part of an abstract set of combat rules and does not necessarily translate to anything literal. A creature that is already "lying" on the ground (as an ooze would) can still be knocked prone, imparting the appropriate penalties and requiring an action to right itself, unless that creature is specifically immune to the prone condition.



> can something that moves 2 already, be slowed?



Yes. This is important, as a monster may have certain powers that only function on a slowed target.

Furthermore, a slowed creature's speed cannot be raised above 2, while a creature whose speed is already 2 _can_ raise it above that value through powers or external effects.



> can bats be blinded?



It's a very common misconception that all bats echolocate. This is false. Only members of _Microchiroptera_ echolocate. Megabats (_Megachiroptera_) navigate using more traditional senses, and _all_ bats rely on sight to a certain extent, depending on environmental conditions.

This is actually a pretty interesting challenge for you to bring up, since, presumably, in bringing it up you're implying that you would not allow bats to become blinded in your own games. Ostensibly, because bats echolocate and thus don't need eyes. Except that many bats _don't_ echolocate, so you could just as easily be creating an entirely _un_realistic situation by making your arbitrary ruling that ignores the abstract nature of D&D combat.

But, to answer your question in a more straightforward way, yes, bats can be blinded. Some of them have blindsight, and therefore are not especially inconvenienced by the effect.



> can a stone golem be petrified?



Yes.


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## Dannager (Apr 26, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> can you knock a snake prone?




Yes, you can. 

In fact, you can even knock a snake _swarm_ prone.


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## TheUltramark (Apr 26, 2011)

Dannager said:


> Yes, you can.
> 
> In fact, you can even knock a snake _swarm_ prone.




can I ask how you knock a snake prone? or will this anger you further?


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## TheUltramark (Apr 26, 2011)

Dannager said:


> Something that is already prone cannot be knocked superprone. But (and, as above, I predict that making this argument will have absolutely no effect) *the prone condition is a mechanical effect that is part of an abstract set of combat rules and does not necessarily translate to anything literal*. A creature that is already "lying" on the ground (as an ooze would) can still be knocked prone, imparting the appropriate penalties and requiring an action to right itself, unless that creature is specifically immune to the prone condition.




so....
combat rules = abstract
powers rules = not to be tinkered with

if thats how your table plays, then more power to ya, as long as YOU have fun paying your way, God bless ya!  Our table plays a little (or a lot) differently, and we have fun playing our way.


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## Dannager (Apr 26, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> can I ask how you knock a snake prone?




By affecting it in such a way that it suffers the penalties associated with the prone condition and must take an action to right itself.

It it helps you imagine it more easily, you could mentally rename "prone" to "significantly inconvenienced", and heck, _that's_ something a snake could be!

The particulars of exactly how that occurs are up to you and your players.



> or will this anger you further?



Smiley face gave you that impression, did it?


----------



## Dannager (Apr 26, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> so....
> combat rules = abstract
> powers rules = not to be tinkered with




The combat rules are abstract. The power rules ought not to be unilaterally messed with for arbitrary reasons.


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## Thasmodious (Apr 26, 2011)

Dannager said:


> It it helps you imagine it more easily, you could mentally rename "prone" to "significantly inconvenienced", and heck, _that's_ something a snake could be!




Significantly inconvenienced, heh, I like that.  The point is that you're (theultramark) getting way to hung up on a single word and not imagining that the word could apply in a more broader sense.  It does.  The word prone is defined by the dictionary in a certain manner.  In 4e D&D it is defined explicitly as granting combat advantage, getting a bonus to AC against ranged attacks, and taking a -2 to attack rolls.

Is it really hard to imagine how a snake could position itself so its harder to hit with an arrow, is easier to hit with a mace and not in a great position to attack?  I'm thinking stretched out would do it.  Snakes coil to strike, and a ball of snake is easier to shoot than a thin stick of snake.  Now, can you imagine a PC "inconveniencing" a snake into such a position?  If you do have trouble, watch any episode of The Crocodile Hunter ever.


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## Dannager (Apr 26, 2011)

Thasmodious said:


> Now, can you imagine a PC "inconveniencing" a snake into such a position?  If you do have trouble, watch any episode of The Crocodile Hunter ever.




Animal Planet is contributing a lot to this thread. I learned about bats from that network, and now The Crocodile Hunter is helping with immersion.


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## Lanefan (Apr 26, 2011)

From a realist's perspective, and applying Sit Down and Shut Up to the rules for a moment, I would say:


TheUltramark said:


> can something without feet be tripped?



Almost always no, though there might be exceptions.  Flicking a snake (that has no feet) a few feet into the air would give the same mechanical effect, IMO; but I can't think of what you could do to "trip" an ooze that wouldn't just damage it instead.


> can something already laying on the ground be knocked prone?



Again, almost always no; but see example re 'trip' above.


> can something that moves 2 already, be slowed?



Of course it can.  Its move can be reduced to 1.  Something that already has move 1 can be reduced to move 1/2.  And so on.


> can bats be blinded?



Before reading this thread I would have said yes, by use of a Silence effect.  Now I'd say it'd depend on the bat species: some can be blinded by Blindness (or Darkness, whatever), others by Silence.


> can a stone golem be petrified?



Yes; the moving stone parts become rigid stone. (not that most players would ever think of trying this)

Lan-"if a blinded bat gets tripped and flies into a petrified stone golem does that make the dungeon collapse?"-efan


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## FireLance (Apr 26, 2011)

LostSoul said:


> The DM might want to say "no" for more reasons than "Because I say so!"
> 
> My hack tells the DM to say "no" when the action breaks the consistency of the game world.  It's the DM's job to maintain that consistency, because he can - and must - make impartial decisions.  Players can't make those decisions because they must advocate for their characters.  The DM doesn't have a conflict of interest; the players do.  My hack falls apart if the DM and players don't do their jobs properly.



That's not a bad approach, but I would go one step further. If the player uses an ability which affects a monster in a way which the DM thinks is implausible or would break the consistency of the game world, the DM should substitute that effect with something of similar value instead of simply negating it. If the DM decides that a snake can't be made prone, then an attack that would knock a normal opponent prone could do extra damage instead. The exchange might not always be exactly equal (how much extra damage is being knocked prone "worth", for example?) but it would seem to me, at least, that the DM is trying to be fair instead of simply blocking me.


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## Hussar (Apr 26, 2011)

Just read the thread from the beginning and this was on page 1.



Diamond Cross said:


> /snip.
> 
> The game should be collaborative, not combative.
> 
> But neither should the DM have to give in to every single whim of the players either. The final decision should always go to the referee. /snip




Umm, I do not think collaborative means what you think it means if all final decisions are left up to one person.  



slwoyach said:


> We're almost to the point that we don't need DMs.  Just buy the module and go.




Funnily enough, I played more than a few 1e modules this way back in the day.  



LostSoul said:


> The DM might want to say "no" for more reasons than "Because I say so!"
> 
> My hack tells the DM to say "no" when the action breaks the consistency of the game world.  It's the DM's job to maintain that consistency, because he can - and must - make impartial decisions.  Players can't make those decisions because they must advocate for their characters.  The DM doesn't have a conflict of interest; the players do.  My hack falls apart if the DM and players don't do their jobs properly.




The problem is, what happens when the player decides that an action is consistent but the DM doesn't?  The DM over rules the player and the player is basically SOL.  The idea that a player is automatically more biased because he's playing a character ignores the large amount of DM's out there for whom the setting is more important than the players.  It is quite possible for a player to be just as impartial as the DM.



NoWayJose said:


> Arbitrary is "based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system". Ruling that a zombie can't trip a hydra isn't arbitrary, it's based on reasons of subjective plausibility. I think the real problem is that you believe that the rules supersedes the DM's right to prioritize the narrative when it feels appropriate.
> 
> There's one way to play chess. How many different ways can you play D&D? Just one way?




Isn't it arbitrary specifically because it's "subjective"?  If it wasn't subjective, it wouldn't be arbitrary.

Do the players not have any rights to prioritize the narrative when they feel its appropriate?  Why should the DM be the only person who gets to decide what is "plausible"?



TheUltramark said:


> player: I knock the hydra prone with a punch
> 
> Me (dm) : No you don't, you do what for damage?
> 
> ...




Funny how in all these examples, it's always the whiney player kicking up a fuss over the perfectly reasonable DM.  It's never the other way around.  Hrm, wonder why that is?



TheUltramark said:


> can you knock a snake prone?




The problem Ultramark is that you are conflating the plain English definition of Prone (lying on the ground) with the game defined condition of being Prone.  These are not the same thing.

If I move half my speed (in any edition) in a round, but a I narrate that I'm running, do I apply the Running condition?  No, I don't.  Because I can narrate that I'm running, skipping or doing the boogaloo for that distance and, because I have not exceeded my base movement, I do not apply the Run condition.  In 1e and 2e, I may still make a melee attack, in 3e, I can make a single attack, and in 4e, I have just used my move action (probably).  No conditions would be added despite the real English definition of my narration.


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## Hussar (Apr 26, 2011)

FireLance said:


> That's not a bad approach, but I would go one step further. If the player uses an ability which affects a monster in a way which the DM thinks is implausible or would break the consistency of the game world, the DM should substitute that effect with something of similar value instead of simply negating it. If the DM decides that a snake can't be made prone, then an attack that would knock a normal opponent prone could do extra damage instead. The exchange might not always be exactly equal (how much extra damage is being knocked prone "worth", for example?) but it would seem to me, at least, that the DM is trying to be fair instead of simply blocking me.




Honestly, why bother with the extra work?  Your attack disrupts the targets movement such that it takes an action to right itself in some fashion and grants a bonus to melee attacks until such time as it rights itself.

That's an extremely wordy definition of the Prone condition.

I wonder if those who won't allow an ooze or snake to be knocked prone grant bonuses to attacks.  After all, it's already lying on the ground and can only move in a limited fashion.  Shouldn't I get a bonus to attack since I occupy the higher ground?

Conversely, I wonder how many apply penalties to ranged attacks as well.


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## FireLance (Apr 26, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Honestly, why bother with the extra work?



In all honesty, *I* probably wouldn't bother with the extra work. However, if the DM already intends to change the rules by saying, "No, [monster] can't be knocked prone," the least he could do (IMO) is to follow up with something along the lines of, "But your [ability] does [this] instead." 

After all, (again, IMO) the DM must not only be fair, the DM must also be seen to be fair.


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## LostSoul (Apr 26, 2011)

FireLance said:


> That's not a bad approach, but I would go one step further. If the player uses an ability which affects a monster in a way which the DM thinks is implausible or would break the consistency of the game world, the DM should substitute that effect with something of similar value instead of simply negating it.




I've never negated the effects of a power.

I altered Martial Encounter Exploits to be At-Will, but they have "Triggers".  Triggers are fictional details that you need to have set-up in order to use the Exploit.  One of the PCs has Spinning Sweep; her player defined the Trigger as "When the target's legs are exposed," based on how she sees her PC using the Exploit.  

Obviously that won't work against oozes since they don't have legs.  It would work against a hydra, though there would probably be some modifiers to its defence.

Spells and Prayers are magic so I don't worry too much about those.



Hussar said:


> Honestly, why bother with the extra work?




The change was made to get players to think about - and take advantage of - what's happening in the game world.


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## weem (Apr 26, 2011)

Dannager said:


> The combat rules are abstract. The power rules ought not to be unilaterally messed with for arbitrary reasons.




Bonus points if you read all of this [MENTION=73683]Dannager[/MENTION] 

I have read through everything up to this point and just wanted to ask you, what about cases where it is not arbitrary? Cases where the decision is not random, or simply based on a whim - but rather where the DM put some thought ahead of time and said, "quick note to self... this guy can't be made prone".

I ask this with total respect, and not looking for an argument - I simply want to clarify as you seem to refer to "arbitrary" reasons being unreasonable... so I'm curious about pre-determined (non arbitrary) reasons (and if you referenced those already somewhere, I apologize - been reading this thread for a while now and things are getting blurry).

In other words, would you be cool with the situation if the DM said, "Well, it was something I decided ahead of time", or do you need something more - perhaps the DM telling you in advance, before the game started? Where is the line, essentially?

I feel like (and I could be wrong) you *would* be okay with a DM modifying a creature BEFORE the game, making it impossible to knock it prone (as in this case it would not be an arbitrary change) - after all, monster modding/reskinning is a big part of the DM's toolbox. However, a lot of DM's (myself included) do a lot on the fly and some decisions such as these come right to our mind in the midst of the game.

The problem here is that if you *are* allowing it when it is planned, but *not* allowing it on the fly, then I feel like it becomes a gotcha game - where it is now the player vs the DM - "no way DM, you didn't say it before we starting playing" etc. Sometimes the player vs DM is a good/fun/intentional thing (see Fourthcore), but it has never been so in my case, with any of my players, ever for over 20 years now.

In fact, if I told my players "I will make no snap decisions on powers during play - rather, I will let you know ahead of time the changes I am making to monsters" my players (any/all of them, ever) would cock an eyebrow and ask, "why not?".

I'm going to quickly touch on this specific comment about power rules and that they "_ought not to be unilaterally messed with for arbitrary reasons_". I get the feeling here that your argument stands on the idea that, "the power says it does X, so you can't change it... it's in the book". The problem for me is that in the DMG, page 4 under "How to be a DM" it says...

_"The DM's goal is to make success taste it's sweetest by presenting challenges that are just hard enough that the other players have to work to overcome them, but not so hard that they leave all the characters dead"_

...this is also in the book. And in fact, it doesn't say anywhere that powers can't be tweaked. In fact, nothing is locked down as far as rules go. There is more to be said about the freedoms a DM does have than there is anything about what can't be changed by anyone.

With that in mind, remember that often times, the balance they talk about there (between too hard and too easy) can not fully be determined until you are in the midst of the battle. Sometimes what you think will be easy turns out to be very difficult for the players, and the other way around. The XP budget helps here (I'm speaking of 4e specifically here) but there are too many variables sometimes to know for sure. A DM needs to be able to manage the balance during the challenge. In some cases, the DM can achieve this by tweaking powers, or the results of them, like previous examples of the ooze not being knocked prone. And in that case to me it's not all that arbitrary - at least there is an argument to be made there. To me, arbitrary in this case would be rolling a % change for your power to fail "just because", or just saying "no" every once in a while for no other reason than to hear themselves say it - I hardly think these are reasons behind Wik's tweaking (I assume anyway).

Here's a quick question related to this as well... what if the DM had said, "Ok, he is knocked prone. In fact, he's also... I don't know... blinded for smacking his head on the ground?... 2 rounds blinded, save ends" - is this change acceptable or arbitrary, and as such something you would prefer left out?

To give you a quick story, I never stepped out of a D&D game as a player for any reason other than a scheduling conflict until last year. Why? The DM did not make the game challenging enough. He upped encounters here and there, and did what he could, but our group was so well organized (nothing to do with me) that it continued to steamroll everything. This game was no longer fun for me and after our 18th game of the campaign, I finally stepped away - it just wasn't challenging enough. I told him previously, "I'm just not invested in my character because there is no reason to believe we will ever be challenged - there is no fear of death here". Of course, that doesn't mean you have to "break" the rules to make the game challenging, but I would have certainly welcomed it if he had.

Anyway, again, I'm not trying to call you out and pin you to anything specific - it's just a genuine question is all, one I kept asking myself as I was reading through the middle part of this thread. If this sounds like I am trying to be an arse, then we'll blame it on me being very tired at the moment (I hope the post makes sense) 

--- EDIT ---

One quick addition since there has been no response after this yet (I added a question a few paragraphs up)


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## Celtavian (Apr 26, 2011)

*re*

The nice thing about 3E was that you could create counters fairly easily. You may be able to do this in 4E, but I'm not sure how without making things up that aren't inherent in the game. Just as an earlier poster stated, you'll have to do ridiculous things like make up some attack the monster can sacrifice to break a daze or stun.

If the designers are doing things like the above,  maybe you should make up abilities the monster has to deal with what the players are throwing at him. Make it immune to stun if that allows it to be more of a challenge. Just outright immune. Or give it some ability that allows it a saving throw against abilties that don't normally allow a save. With its +5 solo save, it should make it. Make it so that it can save immediately rather than on its turn.

If you want to keep playing 4E because your players enjoy it, then tailor the game to suit what you want as a DM. That is what I do even with _Pathfinder_. _Pathfinder_ has toned a lot of things down, but at the same time ramped some things up. I have to create challenges to deal with all these different abilities the players have. I calculate probabilities and scenarios mathematically and create monsters based on my calculations.

For example, if I calculate the party can output a 100 points of damage a round and I want a combat to last 6 or more rounds, I give the monster 600 or more hit points even if the rules only say 200. If someone casts a spell with a DC of 25, I want the monster to save the majority of the time I work its save up to +23.

I work on how an encounter should feel as a DM versus strictly following the rules. If the players are using their abilties in a fashion to dictate to you the feel of the encounter, that is rubbish. You should as a DM do what you wish with the monster to get the feel you want.

If you want your players to be in a knock down, drag out fight where they feel their lives on the line if they don't win, then design a monster to make them feel this way. To hell with following the rules absolutely. You make the monster and get the feel you want.

If the players beat it, they'll feel a whole lot better than if they beat pg. 32 Monster Manual solo using standard party tactic number 3 that works exactly as they want it to work. 

DMs should not as some say run a game with an iron fist. I've never viewed DMing in that fashion. But DMs should know their players well and be able to design encounters that challenge them and make them feel like they had to work to win even if it leaves the players going "This isn't how the rules work". If the players are relying on the rules for easy wins, sitting around reading their rule books figuring out the best possible group combos, you need to punch them in the mouth so they feel a little stunned that things aren't working out the way they planned. Make them feel like they're in a fight and make them sweat some. That's what makes DMing fun, at least it does for me.

Might be a problem in 4E given that players are extremely limited. If you create encounters to overcome their powers which are limited, they don't have other options like previous versions of D&D. So I would be careful doing that in 4E. But I know in _Pathfinder_ I mess up their standard strategies all the time, so they have to devise new ones to overcome a new obstacle. That's part of the fun of the game.

I would be in the same boat as you if I didn't have a great deal of latitude in encounter design. Probably why I tend to gravitate towards game systems with lots of open-ended options for the players with their abilities. I hate it when character and strategy is set in stone. Hard to get a dynamic feel to combat when the game is rigid in terms of how things work.

And I too hate _Come and Get Me_. That power drove me bat crazy trying to imagine how that worked within the narrative flow. You might want to ban that power to put your mind at ease.

But start making stuff up. See how it works in 4E. Throw your players for a loop. Creating narrative challenges is huge fun for the DM. The players, even if they complain, feel a lot better when they beat something really challenging versus an easy win against a by the book opponent.


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## FireLance (Apr 26, 2011)

LostSoul said:


> I've never negated the effects of a power.
> 
> I altered Martial Encounter Exploits to be At-Will, but they have "Triggers". Triggers are fictional details that you need to have set-up in order to use the Exploit. One of the PCs has Spinning Sweep; her player defined the Trigger as "When the target's legs are exposed," based on how she sees her PC using the Exploit.
> 
> Obviously that won't work against oozes since they don't have legs.  It would work against a hydra, though there would probably be some modifiers to its defence.



The underlined bit, to me, is negating the effect of a power. I do appreciate that the reduction in effectiveness against certain targets might be balanced by the possible increased frequency of use against other targets, though. Still, while it works for you and your group, it would not be my preferred approach.



> Spells and Prayers are magic so I don't worry too much about those.



Given this set-up, I would simply avoid playing martial characters. If using magic will bypass all the considerations about being realistic, I'd rather just do that and make things simpler for everyone.


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## FireLance (Apr 26, 2011)

Celtavian said:


> The players, even if they complain, feel a lot better when they beat something really challenging versus an easy win against a by the book opponent.



I agree that a DM should challenge his players. However, some ways of challenging are (IMO) better than others.

I personally tend to favor giving the players secondary objectives in addition to simply defeating the monsters. For example: running a gauntlet of monsters while staying ahead of an advancing wall of magical fire; encountering monsters enhanced by a magical effect and choosing to either focus on fighting the monsters in their more powerful state, or attempt to dispel the effect first; fighting on a sheet of moving ice that threatens to drop the PCs over a ledge (this is especially interesting when combined with monsters that slow or immobilize).

Alternatively, I could simply increase the challenge level by using a higher-level by the book opponent or advancing a by the book opponent to a higher level.

I try to avoid simply negating the PCs' abilities by using either monsters with specific immunities or environmental effects that shut down specific abilities (the latter was more common in previous editions - anti-magic zones being a prime example). This is the sort of challenge which tends to annoy me most as a player, especially if it gets used frequently.


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## LostSoul (Apr 26, 2011)

FireLance said:


> The underlined bit, to me, is negating the effect of a power. I do appreciate that the reduction in effectiveness against certain targets might be balanced by the possible increased frequency of use against other targets, though. Still, while it works for you and your group, it would not be my preferred approach.




Yeah, sometimes I tell the players that their PCs can't use specific powers.  I guess that results in the same thing, in a way.



FireLance said:


> Given this set-up, I would simply avoid playing martial characters. If using magic will bypass all the considerations about being realistic, I'd rather just do that and make things simpler for everyone.




There's more to the game than that!  In general, I've found Arcane and Divine characters to be _less_ powerful in combat; I think it has something to do with how I apply modifiers to attack rolls.  I still concern myself with the in-game effects of Spells and Prayers, but I didn't think I needed to change any rules to do so.


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## Balesir (Apr 26, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> with a creative explanation, impossible is nothing..."it says so right here", however, is far from creative
> Also, for the record, when I dm I encourage seemingly impossible actions...as long as the players are creative.  In fact, the nuttier it sounds, the more likely I am to allow it.



So, the point of the excercise is players having to come up with an explanation you like of why their character can do what the rules say they can?  What's the point of that?  Why not just *start* from the position that their character _*can*_ do what the rules say they can, and, where you (_as a whole group_) feel the need to have an explanation of how this happens, work to produce a  mutually satisfying explanation _collaboratively_?  Why do you need the GM to be sole arbiter of what is "believable" and what isn't?  How does that even make sense?



NoWayJose said:


> Was 4E designed the way it is partially to appease a new narcissistic 'Me' generation? The new generation that I keep reading about in articles that supposedly have an inflated sense of self, lack of empathy, are vain and materialistic, with an overblown sense of entitlement. This might explain 4E's push for fairness, balance, everyone feeling useful all the time, and rules not designed to be subject to interpretation in order to avoid conflicts and easily hurt feetlings.



Was Old Skool roleplaying designed the way it is partially to appease an old narcissistic 'Me' generation? The old generation that I keep reading about in articles (a whole book, actually) that supposedly had an inflated sense of self, lack of empathy, were vain and materialistic, with an overblown sense of entitlement? This might explain Old Skool's push for GM power, GM story, everyone feeling cowed all the time, and rules designed to be subject to interpretation in order to avoid player uppityness and easily hurt GM feelings?



NoWayJose said:


> Just wondering if this is a real or imagined elephant in the room.



Well, if we're getting into arbitrarily disallowing things we have problems fitting into our imaginations, I think I'll just say "no" to both of these rickety pachyderms...


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## NoWayJose (Apr 26, 2011)

Balesir said:


> Was Old Skool roleplaying designed the way it is partially to appease an old narcissistic 'Me' generation? The old generation that I keep reading about in articles (a whole book, actually) that supposedly had an inflated sense of self, lack of empathy, were vain and materialistic, with an overblown sense of entitlement? This might explain Old Skool's push for GM power, GM story, everyone feeling cowed all the time, and rules designed to be subject to interpretation in order to avoid player uppityness and easily hurt GM feelings?



If so, Old School (What's Old Skool?) failed completely in their appeasement approach. What happens when an old narcisistic DM tries to cow old narcisistic players? Boom!!! Hurt feelings and nerdrage for everyone. Bruising and crushing of egos continued for 30 years, it was a human rights disaster.


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## TheUltramark (Apr 26, 2011)

Hussar said:


> The problem Ultramark is that you are conflating the plain English definition of Prone (lying on the ground) with the game defined condition of being Prone.  These are not the same thing.
> 
> If I move half my speed (in any edition) in a round, but a I narrate that I'm running, do I apply the Running condition?  No, I don't.  Because I can narrate that I'm running, skipping or doing the boogaloo for that distance and, because I have not exceeded my base movement, I do not apply the Run condition.  In 1e and 2e, I may still make a melee attack, in 3e, I can make a single attack, and in 4e, I have just used my move action (probably).  No conditions would be added despite the real English definition of my narration.



actually in the PHB (since the rules are the master of the game) on page 277 it states "You are lying on the ground" under if you are prone...now in some essential book, players handbook 16, or some random dragon magazine it might have changed, but I'm in the dark on that one.
the running example is fair, yet I wold add that if you run 15 feet toward an enemy, then attack it normally (1/2 e) single attack(3e) or even in 4e, I probably would consider that a charge, I don't mean to split hairs over this - you make a lot of valid points...thank you and have a nice day


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## LostSoul (Apr 26, 2011)

Balesir said:


> Why do you need the GM to be sole arbiter of what is "believable" and what isn't?  How does that even make sense?




From anyway.

Bobnar (tx Ben) is standing on a tree stump when the wood-trolls attack. Does this count as the high ground?

...

Another solution, equally good, equally not-always-suitable: give the moment of judgment to a player who's strongly invested in getting it right, not in one character or another coming out on top.

Player 1 wants the game to have a reliable-but-interesting internal consistency, but STRONGLY wants Bobnar to have the high-ground advantage.

Player 2 wants the game to have a reliable-but-interesting internal consistency, but STRONGLY wants Bobnar to NOT have the high-ground advantage.

Player 3 STRONGLY wants the game to have a reliable-but-interesting internal consistency, and doesn't care a bit whether Bobnar has the high-ground advantage.

Which player should get to judge Bobnar's position? (Hint: Player 3 should.)​


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## TheUltramark (Apr 26, 2011)

look, I am going to pull the chord on this one, I can't win.  If at your table you follow the powers rules no matter what, and think there can be no exceptions, then more power to ya.  It's a matter of personal taste.  
I just feel the rules are there to serve the game, not the other way around.  

Another thing I thought of about the "hydra attack" scenario, I am pretty sure anyone at my table would ask before hand "am I even able to knock a hydra prone? because it sounds ridiculous" before using their power, and after I said no, would instead use some power that maybe stuns it, or immobilize it, or maybe confuses it....instead of being a dick and saying "oh no, it says on my sheet i can knock it prone and so if you say the giant snake can't be knocked prone then you're the worst DM ever"


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## MrMyth (Apr 26, 2011)

Wik said:


> It's about the fact that, no matter what, our fighter can blow Come and Get it, and dictate the movement of my monsters. It's about the fact that, in a big fight, my players can basically stun-lock my big bad monsters, and if I say "no, that doesn't happen" I am breaking the rules and depriving them of their core strengths. It's about the fact that, if I want to do something, my players feel they have the right to say "no, this doesn't happen."




Well, keep in mind that Come and Get It was always an outlier in working that way - and that is now no longer the case. 

Still, the problem remains in the form of daily powers where stuff happens on a Miss or via an Effect. 

The answer, in my opinion, is to absolutely say "that doesn't happen". Not on the spot, of course - but more monsters should feature immunities. I'm in a Paragon game where our rogue inflicts crippling penalties on enemies that make it almost impossible for them to hit - as long as they are vulnerable to fear. Yet we are fighting primarily undead. It feels strange that almost none of them are immune to fear. 

Im not saying everything should be protected from the PCs strongest attacks. But important monsters _should _have defenses against stun - either immunity or by reducing the effect or otherwise. Appropriate monsters can't be dominated or forced moved or whatever. 

In my epic game, I tended to give such benefits to important enemies - though usually with some downside. A raging elemental golem might not be able to be stunned - but would instead, for that duration, become vulnerable to damage. The PC sees a clear result from their power, without it ending the encounter outright. 

I also tried to set a tone of "feel free to use whatever tricks you want... but expect to be met in kind." So if the PCs really trick out to stun-lock enemies, they can prepare to meet lots of enemies who do the same. No one really wanted that, so stuns were used relatively sparingly. 

I think part of the problem is that some conditions are handed out more freely than they should be. And that some powers are written so that nothing the monster can do can prevent the outcome from happening. Which is a shame, because it does get back to the system mastery issue of third edition - instead of the DM needing to figure out how to protect the key monster from SoD, he needs to figure out how to protect them from being stunned, or from the sorcerer sticking them in a teleport loop for absurd amounts of damage. 

In some ways, while the effects are weaker, that almost makes it more insulting - your epic monster is being rendered inept since he's cornered by a defender, and if he tries to move away, gets hit by an OA that knocks him down and trips him, and then he gets dazed by the rogue and can either spend the next round flailing on the ground, or waste his turn standing up... etc. 

In the end, it mostly worked out - our Epic game remained enjoyable. PCs could dominate some encounters, but would run into occasional enemies that really shook them up. That felt appropriate epic, overall. But it does require some attention to what encounters you present, and how you present them, and I can see the frustrations that can come with dealing with that. (Especially if you try diving right into Epic level out of the blue.)


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## Thasmodious (Apr 26, 2011)

NoWayJose said:


> Was 4E designed the way it is partially to appease a new narcissistic 'Me' generation? The new generation that I keep reading about in articles that supposedly have an inflated sense of self, lack of empathy, are vain and materialistic, with an overblown sense of entitlement. This might explain 4E's push for fairness, balance, everyone feeling useful all the time, and rules not designed to be subject to interpretation in order to avoid conflicts and easily hurt feetlings.
> 
> Just wondering if this is a real or imagined elephant in the room.




Completely, and poorly, imagined.

1.  This generational identity crap is codswollop.
2.  4e is not played by a single generation.  RPGs are played by all ages.  4e is played by plenty of players who've been playing since OD&D and OSR games are being played by 20 year old kids.  

So, you managed to pass judgment on and insult an entire generation of people for no real contribution to the discussion at hand.


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## chaochou (Apr 26, 2011)

I think arguments here about he legitimacy of GM fiat are a bit of a red herring.

I think that legitimacy (can a snake be knocked prone, or a hydra) is decided on a group by group basis. One group might be fine with a GM ruling, another might expect to have a discussion about the 'effects' of being prone and retcon the fiction to match those effects. Another might let the players decide what's most interesting.

But in 4e GM fiat in combat has to be transparent. If my power says 'this knocks the target prone' then the GM has to explicitly tell the table that effect hasn't happened. It isn't prone, or it isn't stunned, or it isn't dazed.

I can can understand that transparency not suiting every GM or every group. Some GMs and groups work well when the GM can fiat behind the scenes (completely plausibly) and keep the game moving and exciting. Some GMs do it expertly. If I read it correctly this is what the OP would like to do and is finding problematic.

So, as a theory, do the 4e rules put any sly deviation from the rules front and centre compared with before? I'd say moreso than 1e, but not having been a 3e player I can't make a comparison.


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## NoWayJose (Apr 26, 2011)

Thasmodious said:


> 1. This generational identity crap is codswollop.



Does "codswollop" mean IMO or does it mean "I am a God and there is a 100% probability I know the Truth"?



> 2. 4e is not played by a single generation. RPGs are played by all ages. 4e is played by plenty of players who've been playing since OD&D and OSR games are being played by 20 year old kids.



1. 4E partially appeals to 'Me' generation
2. All 4E players are part of the 'Me' generation

I call out that logical fallacy to be "codswollop". At that no time did I state that emotional immaturity is exclusive to any one age group, and at no time did I say that people of any age and stripes cannot benefit from 4E's design.



> So, you managed to pass judgment on and insult an entire generation of people for no real contribution to the discussion at hand.



You're absolutely right. This discussion should have ended with some excellent posts from weem, LostSoul, Celtavian, and TheUltraMark on page 10.


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## Imaro (Apr 26, 2011)

I think another (possibly tangent) issue involved with this topic and concerning 4e is the fact that the players have so many powers and such varying effects that, IMO, it is alot harder and takes longer to construct encounters that challenge the PC's by taking their particular abilities into consideration. This is one of my hang ups with those who claim the DM doesn't need to know or understand all the players powers... yeah, he kinda does to create his encounters and to make rulings... I think it's the fact that designing your encounters like this has been made into such a hassle with 4e that many DM's just end up designing 4e encounters without custom tailoring them, and I think this in turn leads not only to irritating "gotcha" moments but also less satisfying and challenging games for many.

Another thing of note is that the nature of 4e also makes it so that a DM is constantly trying to adapt to different monsters with different powers, effects, etc. While the players get to continuously hone their abilities both individually and as a team... add to that the fact that 4e is skewed to favor the players anyway and it does seem a little lackluster in playing the game from the DM's side.... I find DM'ing 4e easier but also vastly less satisfying than previous editions.


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## Thasmodious (Apr 26, 2011)

weem said:


> I feel like (and I could be wrong) you *would* be okay with a DM modifying a creature BEFORE the game, making it impossible to knock it prone (as in this case it would not be an arbitrary change) - after all, monster modding/reskinning is a big part of the DM's toolbox. However, a lot of DM's (myself included) do a lot on the fly and some decisions such as these come right to our mind in the midst of the game.




While I am not Dannager and not attempting to speak for him, me and him have been arguing somewhat on the same side, even if I disagree with some of his rigidity in regards to the rules in general.

The problem comes in on not when, but how.  In the specific examples (the hydra, snake, etc), the DM is "modifying" a particular monster, during gameplay, after the player has chosen an action, just because he can't immediately picture a plausible scenario where the condition can be applied by a melee fighter.  One of the posters arguing on that side already specifically stated he'd have no problem with spells or prayers, just melee powers.  That is what is arbitrary about it.  The player has already taken his action, an action that was well within the known rules, and then the DM trashes it on a whim.  That creates just the kind of confrontational DM v. Player mentality we're trying to avoid.

Imagine this scenario, the DM throws his prized, beloved, snake creations at the PCs, not recalling that the parties Irish Priest has the St. Patty ability and can turn and rebuke snakes like they were undead.  The player does so and succeeds well enough to one-shot the whole encounter only to hear:

"umm, no, these snakes are, um, immune to being controlled and such..." 

If the DM is on-the-fly countering player's abilities and making them suddenly not work, it can't help but create a confrontational vibe.  The above example is a lot different than the DM having planned for this and responding thusly:

grins evilly - "you do not seem to be able to exert your god-given influence over snakes against these creatures, you wonder what foul magic or dark purpose must be at hand..." (and, of course, the DM actually has one).


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## Thasmodious (Apr 26, 2011)

NoWayJose said:


> Does "codswollop" mean IMO or does it mean "I am a God and there is a 100% probability I know the Truth"?




It means "isn't taken seriously by anyone with any authority on human behavior, and is just a tool of the corporate media culture to categorize and divide us along age gaps for marketing purposes"  

And hey, you said you expected to take heat for your callow, negative judgment of an entire generation, so don't cry defensive foul when you get it.


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## billd91 (Apr 26, 2011)

NoWayJose said:


> Was 4E designed the way it is partially to appease a new narcissistic 'Me' generation? The new generation that I keep reading about in articles that supposedly have an inflated sense of self, lack of empathy, are vain and materialistic, with an overblown sense of entitlement. This might explain 4E's push for fairness, balance, everyone feeling useful all the time, and rules not designed to be subject to interpretation in order to avoid conflicts and easily hurt feetlings.
> 
> Just wondering if this is a real or imagined elephant in the room.




I wouldn't put much stock in any sort of "Me Generation" designation, particularly applying to young people today. The Me Generation was used to describe Baby Boomers back in the 1970s, in part, to describe their own sense of self-importance as individuals and as a generation itself. That the term has come around again is no surprise since Generation Y, presumably whom your Me Generation term is applied to, is largely the kids of that earlier boom.

That doesn't mean that I don't believe there is a player entitlement elephant in the room, from time time to time. I just don't think it has anything to do with a player's birth generation, per se.


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## NoWayJose (Apr 26, 2011)

Thasmodious said:


> It means "isn't taken seriously by anyone with any authority on human behavior, and is just a tool of the corporate media culture to categorize and divide us along age gaps for marketing purposes"



Perhaps those 'marketing purposes' include designing games to meet the sensibilities of a certain market segment. When an authority on human behavior joins the forum, introduce me.



> And hey, you said you expected to take heat for your callow, negative judgment of an entire generation, so don't cry defensive foul when you get it.



I can handle the heat. Petulance doesn't qualify as 'heat'.

I've had the pleasure of engaging in many rational, rewarding discussions with mature individuals regarding the application of verisimilitude to the D&D narrative.

This is NOT one of them.


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## Thasmodious (Apr 26, 2011)

NoWayJose said:


> I've had the pleasure of engaging in many rational, rewarding discussions with mature individuals regarding the application of verisimilitude to the D&D narrative.
> 
> This is NOT one of them.




No, it certainly is not.  Nothing about you passing negative judgment on an entire generation of people is rational, rewarding or mature. Nor does it have anything to do with verisimilitude in D&D.  It is offensive, though.


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## weem (Apr 26, 2011)

Hey [MENTION=63272]Thasmodious[/MENTION], thanks for the response!

Let me just pull two quick items here...



> The player has already taken his action, an action that was well within the known rules, and then the DM trashes it on a whim. That creates just the kind of confrontational DM v. Player mentality we're trying to avoid.






> Imagine this scenario, the DM throws his prized, beloved, snake creations at the PCs




I don't want to put words in your mouth, so I apologize if this is not what you were intending... but, these two items seem (to me) to assume the following...

1) That every time a DM makes a change to a power, they are "trashing" it.
2) That ever DM has (at least some) prized monsters that they are willing to "trash" powers for in order to see them survive (longer).

Neither of those are the case for me, ever, and I think that if you are assuming this kind of "DM vs Player" mentality right off the bat, you are going to see that (whether it is there or not) all the time.

Speaking only for myself, I have no personal stake in anything I lay down on the table. If I put it down, I do so expecting it to die/be destroyed - because I don't put anything on the table with the idea of "this will certainly wipe the party" or, "there's no way I'm letting the players mess this thing up".

That's not to say there aren't DM's like that, and in fact you may only be speaking about those kinds of DM's - the thing is, they are (imo) very few and far between.



> If the DM is on-the-fly countering player's abilities and making them suddenly not work, it can't help but create a confrontational vibe. The above example is a lot different than the DM having planned for this and responding thusly:




It can be confrontational, sure - but in most cases, I think it's only confrontational if you (anyone) want it to be. To me, it would simply be odd. I would ask the DM (politely, after the game) if there were special reasons why there were a number of changes to my powers made at the table (assuming this was a regular thing), because there might be a good reason.

Of course, if there were indicators that this was not the case (for example, the DM laughing maniacally, pointing his/her finger at you each time they "trashed" a power), then sure, it's pretty obvious it's confrontational. The problem is, when people (not necessarily you as I don't know your situation) assume that everything that doesn't go there way was done out of spite, or out of a "DM vs Player" mentality. It's not fair to make that leap every time things don't go your (anyone's) way.

Maybe I'm just the odd man out here, but I think we should give each other the benefit of the doubt first, politely ask about it later (no tantrums at the table please) and leave the game if you feel it is necessary.

Thanks again for the response Thasmodious, I appreciate it


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## NoWayJose (Apr 26, 2011)

Thasmodious said:


> No, it certainly is not. Nothing about you passing negative judgment on an entire generation of people is rational, rewarding or mature. Nor does it have anything to do with verisimilitude in D&D. It is offensive, though.




I am sorry you took offense. My next task will be to _review The Rules of EN World, and note how real-world political discussion isn't allowed._

Edit: Sorry, Umbran, I will rephrase.

I asked about a "new generation that I keep reading about in articles that supposedly" have narcissistic qualities. This is not me explicitly passing "negative judgement on an entire generation of people". Perhaps anger directed at me specifically should instead be directed to the journalists and authors who wrote those books and articles. Raising the issue in relation to the OP is no more offensive than the aforementioned articles being published in *major* mainstream newspapers, like the Wall Street Journal and several others. I'm still ambivalent whether they're true or not. I accept heat for raising a non-politically correct question, meaning that some people may take offense, and I'll accept criticism that the aforementioned articles are flawed from someone who is an "authority" on these matters (as I'm ambivalent in the 1st place), but I don't accept that I've been purposefully offensive, even if that's a grey line, and I'd accept the consequences of treading on grey lines.


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## Umbran (Apr 26, 2011)

*Now is the time that everybody here is probably going to want to take a breath and take the rhetoric down about 7 notches. There's an aggressive and personal tone here that's not appropriate for these boards, and continuing along the current lines is not likely to turn out well for anyone involved.

That may be the only warning the thread will get, so please consider yourself warned to be on your best behavior.  Thanks. *


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## Crazy Jerome (Apr 26, 2011)

Thasmodious said:


> The problem comes in on not when, but how. In the specific examples (the hydra, snake, etc), the DM is "modifying" a particular monster, during gameplay, after the player has chosen an action, just because he can't immediately picture a plausible scenario where the condition can be applied by a melee fighter.




Modifying the results in the narration after the player is already committed is against the spirit of 4E.  There should not be "gotchas" based on mechanical rulings.  (Situation gotchas are another matters.  )  That is why, on those occasions where I didn't catch the issue before the dice were rolled, I'd allow the player to take back the action, if they wanted.  They might still want to go ahead, which is fine too.

As far as I'm concerned, two of the many hats a DM wears are totally separate:

1. Impartial referee of the rules and/or leader of the group during rules discussion, especially for impromptu tweaks.

2. Using situation to push the characters to the limit, in the interest of challenge and drama.  

Trust in the former is crucial to being able to fully do the latter.


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## LostSoul (Apr 26, 2011)

Thasmodious said:


> The problem comes in on not when, but how.  In the specific examples (the hydra, snake, etc), the DM is "modifying" a particular monster, during gameplay, after the player has chosen an action, just because he can't immediately picture a plausible scenario where the condition can be applied by a melee fighter.  One of the posters arguing on that side already specifically stated he'd have no problem with spells or prayers, just melee powers.  That is what is arbitrary about it.  The player has already taken his action, an action that was well within the known rules, and then the DM trashes it on a whim.  That creates just the kind of confrontational DM v. Player mentality we're trying to avoid.




I think the poster you are referencing is me.

I don't modify monsters on the fly, and I was talking about a specific rule in my "4E hack" - which is a pretty different game, and there's a lot more to it than that.  I don't change powers on the fly; there is a rule that states when you can use Encounter Exploits, which is set up when the Exploit is chosen.

(In playtesting, Martial Exploits have been more flexible than Spells or Prayers, but I haven't tried to break the game.)

There's nothing confrontational about it, because as DM I don't care what happens.  What I care about is maintaining the consistency of the game world and remaining impartial.  If I don't do that, the game fails.

If my hack was written so that the DM was supposed to care about the outcome of actions or encounters, I'd use a totally different approach.  Otherwise it's likely that you'd get the DM vs. Player result that you identify.


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## TheUltramark (Apr 26, 2011)

well, since my style of play and/or dm has been called -in this thread- wrong, unfair, and "the worst ever", let me just share a few items from the rules:

page 277 of Dungeons and Dragons Players Handbook clearly states:
when prone you are lying on the ground...it is not some "mechanical affect" of "abstract combat rules"


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## Thasmodious (Apr 26, 2011)

weem said:


> I don't want to put words in your mouth, so I apologize if this is not what you were intending... but, these two items seem (to me) to assume the following...
> 
> 1) That every time a DM makes a change to a power, they are "trashing" it.
> 2) That ever DM has (at least some) prized monsters that they are willing to "trash" powers for in order to see them survive (longer).
> ...




I think the word "trashing" was poorly chosen on my part.  My example meant to paint a picture of an encounter that the players practically circumvent that the DM had spent considerable time and effort on and was looking forward to.  Not that he wanted the snakes to win or survive, just that he figured this was going to be a dynamic, engaging encounter that would test their abilities and then one player one-shots it.  

The bad DM response, my example, would be to thwart that player after he does so with a retcon'd immunity.  If he did so, and the encounter went on to be dynamic and engaging all would likely be forgiven or forgotten or never noticed.  But as DM policy, I think it's a poor way to go on a regular basis.  The players thwarting a combat or trap is often a highlight unto itself.  

Similarly, I think it would be a poor way to go to often thwart the effects of a PCs powers because it's a stretch in a particular situation.  I would say doubly so in the case of doing it only to melee powers and not worrying about verisimilitude issues with magic, as that would tend to unfairly punish melee characters at the expense of the balance of the system.




> Speaking only for myself, I have no personal stake in anything I lay down on the table. If I put it down, I do so expecting it to die/be destroyed - because I don't put anything on the table with the idea of "this will certainly wipe the party" or, "there's no way I'm letting the players mess this thing up".




Of course you expect it to die.  But did you expect it die to one shot, in the first round, before it got to show off any of the things you had designed it to do? Have you never had a situation where the players skipped entirely some encounter you thought was going to be a highlight, or completely thwarted what you planned to be some wildly engaging, multi-dimensional super encounter (RP, combat, skill based, whatever)?  

That situation doesn't compare directly to the DM disallowing a power because he can't make sense of it situationally, but from the player end, they are pretty similar - the DM countering PC abilities after-the-fact to service his own expectations.  That's the crux of my examples.



> It can be confrontational, sure - but in most cases, I think it's only confrontational if you (anyone) want it to be. To me, it would simply be odd. I would ask the DM (politely, after the game) if there were special reasons why there were a number of changes to my powers made at the table (assuming this was a regular thing), because there might be a good reason.



Oh definitely.  Interrupting the game for that discussion is a no-no.  But if the answer was, "it didn't make sense to me that your melee fighter could compel my creatures to move toward you, or that you could knock a snake prone, etc." I would explain how I could rationalize those considering the overall abstractness of combat.  Now, if I was playing a melee fighter and the DM continued to modify his monsters and thwart my powers secondary effects because they don't make as much sense to him because they are "mundane" and not magical, we're going to enter Thunderdome territory, as that is contrary to the conceits of the agreed upon game system we are using, which brings us back to the core of this thread in general, I think.

Which, to Wik (see what I did there?), I would say, if it doesn't work you, even if you can't quite put your finger on it or whether or not the game has truly changed or its just your perception, play something else that DOES work for you and don't fret too much about it.  We can have an interesting and varied discussion (and have) about whether the conceits of the game have really changed between how attacking against static defenses play out versus how the similar player-tells-your-monster-what-to-do abilities of previous editions worked or if its a more tenuous perceptual difference.  But the end result is the same - if it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you.


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## Falstaff (Apr 26, 2011)

Wik said:


> Oh, and please no edition warring.  I'm not trying to do that.  I'm seeing a fault with a current game, and can't figure out a way to fix it.  I'm just wondering if other people have seen that fault... not whether or not that fault existed in 3e and other editions and how 4e actually improved yadda yadda yadda.
> 
> For what it's worth, once we finish up this 4e campaign, we're running an E6 Dark Sun campaign, because pretty much every player except one is basically sick and tired of 4E.  Probably due to the fact that I have had very little fun running it, with a few major exceptions (and, to be perfectly honest, those exceptions probably would have been fun regardless of system).




I did see that fault, starting with 3rd edition. It is one of the main reasons I won't play or run recent/current editions of D&D.


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## Lanefan (Apr 26, 2011)

weem said:


> To give you a quick story, I never stepped out of a D&D game as a player for any reason other than a scheduling conflict until last year. Why? The DM did not make the game challenging enough. He upped encounters here and there, and did what he could, but our group was so well organized (nothing to do with me) that it continued to steamroll everything. This game was no longer fun for me and after our 18th game of the campaign, I finally stepped away - it just wasn't challenging enough. I told him previously, "I'm just not invested in my character because there is no reason to believe we will ever be challenged - there is no fear of death here". Of course, that doesn't mean you have to "break" the rules to make the game challenging, but I would have certainly welcomed it if he had.



I've never played 4e but I picked up the core books when they came out, and have given myself a working knowledge of the system (though without keeping up on all the errata etc.); and even on first reading this was something that kinda leaped out at me as well: if run as designed, where's the fear of death?

It's interesting to see someone else found the same thing.

Lan-"dying on a regular basis since 1984"-efan


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## Falstaff (Apr 26, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> I've never played 4e but I picked up the core books when they came out, and have given myself a working knowledge of the system (though without keeping up on all the errata etc.); and even on first reading this was something that kinda leaped out at me as well: if run as designed, where's the fear of death?
> 
> It's interesting to see someone else found the same thing.
> 
> Lan-"dying on a regular basis since 1984"-efan




I feel the same way. Without the fear of death (or some other serious result, such as mutilation) how can victory ever hold value? I want my PCs shaking in their boots in *every* combat encounter. I don't want them to be able to look at their hit points and say "I'm not afraid of a few orcs, their damage capacity isn't enough to kill me for many, many rounds". I can't get invested in such games.

It is one of the reasons why I play/run HackMaster. The simple Trauma rule makes every combat something to fear and seriously consider.


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## Thasmodious (Apr 26, 2011)

LostSoul said:


> I think the poster you are referencing is me.
> 
> I don't modify monsters on the fly, and I was talking about a specific rule in my "4E hack" - which is a pretty different game, and there's a lot more to it than that.  I don't change powers on the fly; there is a rule that states when you can use Encounter Exploits, which is set up when the Exploit is chosen.
> 
> ...




I was just going to respond with XP but "must spread..."  Your hack sounds interesting and I'm clearer on your position now.  Clearly, I took you to mean that magic requires no plausibility explanations.  So, a question about your hack - do you play out combats in a less abstract manner so the triggers for exploits come up? Is it through structured rules with facing, positioning, and the like or more in DM and players being more descriptive at the table?


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## Lanefan (Apr 26, 2011)

Thasmodious said:


> Of course you expect it to die.  But did you expect it die to one shot, in the first round, before it got to show off any of the things you had designed it to do? Have you never had a situation where the players skipped entirely some encounter you thought was going to be a highlight, or completely thwarted what you planned to be some wildly engaging, multi-dimensional super encounter (RP, combat, skill based, whatever)?



Or write a complete adventure and have the party bypass it entirely due to sheer dumb luck on their part?  Yep...

But two questions leap to mind here:

1. I thought part of 4e's design was intended to do away with one-shot kills or disables, so how are your monsters getting one-shotted?

2. There's been lots of talk about the party characters being able to use their abilities to "tell the monster what to do"; maybe there need to be more monster abilities that can, in effect, "tell the characters what to do".  A good start might be something like (making this up here) *Hyperactive* --- _Daily --- Duration: Encounter --- You win initiative and act first in any round.  Use of this ability is a free action_.  Give this to every significant monster and that way at least it always gets one chance to show its stuff and mess up the party a little.  

Lan-"it's not just an arms race - we're using legs too"-efan


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## weem (Apr 26, 2011)

Thasmodious said:


> Of course you expect it to die.  But did you expect it die to one shot, in the first round, before it got to show off any of the things you had designed it to do?




I go into combat not knowing what to expect - the encounter could be avoided entirely (which has happened) in which case it doesn't even see one round. So, do I expect something to die in one shot (aside from minions of course), of course not, but I think what you are getting at is when it happens, does it not get to me in some way (even if that is simply a pout, hehe).

The answer is, no, it doesn't bother me in the slightest - but here's why (and in this way I may differ from some methods)... I play as a cheerleader for my players. I find that the drama is more rich when I play this way. When the players do well, I will tell them (for example), "Damn, good job, that was awesome!" - I think that means a lot to a player when they get it from a DM in a sincere way. Players kill one of my mobs in one round? I might be shocked, but I make sure to express that shock so they really get a good feeling about the success.

On the other side of that, as the "cheerleader" (if you will), I also show sympathy when things don't go there way... you might hear me say "Damn man, that sucks, but I think you will have a shot at it next time... I predict you roll... an 18 next time!"



Thasmodious said:


> Have you never had a situation where the players skipped entirely some encounter you thought was going to be a highlight, or completely thwarted what you planned to be some wildly engaging, multi-dimensional super encounter (RP, combat, skill based, whatever)?




As I mentioned earlier in this post, yes, they have skipped encounters entirely, but in the event I put a lot of planning into an encounter that gets skipped, that's okay because I can often find a way to use it later, or tweak it to work for some new idea.

With that said, I try not to plan anything too time consuming for just this reason. I want to stay a step ahead of them, but not plot out so much that I put myself in the position of having to toss a lot of content that is skipped.

I hope that answers those questions - I'm typing this quickly as I have a lot of work to get back to!

Thanks again for the conversation so far Thas (in case this gets closed before I can make it back)


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## Patryn of Elvenshae (Apr 26, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> if run as designed, where's the fear of death?




Death, IMO, is overrated as a penalty for poor play.

I mean, seriously, what happens when a PC dies?

1) If the specific character isn't intimately tied into the campaign's story arc: 

The *player* gets sorta bummed out, spends the next XX minutes rolling up a new character (varying by edition and level), and somewhere around the next corner the party takes, "What ho!  You seem a trustworthy fellow!  Care to join us on our epic quest?"

And the player's character is back in the game - sometimes, looking suspiciously similar to the one that just expired.

2) If the specific character is tied intimately into the campaign's story arc:

Uh-oh.  The Prince-Who-Was-Promised is sorta dead-on-arrival, or one of the Four Prophesied Heroes isn't going to be there to stand against the Final Darkness.  I guess that just about wraps it up for that storyline, huh?  Or, maybe we had it wrong, and Bob the Fighter wasn't actually the prophesied hero - the real prophesied hero was _this guy_, Bob 2 the Fighter!

3) If the whole party dies:

So, uh ... What campaign do you guys want to run now?

In short, I think that non-death consequences for failure are far more interesting and much farther reaching than death.


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## Thasmodious (Apr 26, 2011)

weem said:


> I go into combat not knowing what to expect - the encounter could be avoided entirely (which has happened) in which case it doesn't even see one round. So, do I expect something to die in one shot (aside from minions of course), of course not, but I think what you are getting at is when it happens, does it not get to me in some way (even if that is simply a pout, hehe).
> 
> The answer is, no, it doesn't bother me in the slightest - but here's why (and in this way I may differ from some methods)... I play as a cheerleader for my players. I find that the drama is more rich when I play this way. When the players do well, I will tell them (for example), "Damn, good job, that was awesome!" - I think that means a lot to a player when they get it from a DM in a sincere way. Players kill one of my mobs in one round? I might be shocked, but I make sure to express that shock so they really get a good feeling about the success.
> 
> ...




Sounds like at the end of the day, we DM in very similar ways.  I used to be a fairly narrative focused DM who did lots of prep and adventure design, so being thwarted or having the "damn, i forgot they could do that" moments happened.  With situations like my earlier examples, I just rolled with it, but yeah, I'd be disappointed if they thrashed my nifty new monster in a round or avoided the big, dynamic encounter I had carefully set up to challenge them to the limit while playing to their strengths.  

These days, I GM mostly on the fly and stick all those good ideas and encounters and monsters in a file to be pulled out when the situation arises and if the monster doesn't get to showcase or the devious trap filled corridor is skipped all together, it can show up again later, tweaked a bit if need be.  I, too, don't set up a lot of expectations in the game so the players can dictate the events and the direction.  Their five brains tend to be a lot more clever than my one brain (though not at the 5:1 ratio they like to think they have )

All of this is a fair tangent from what I was trying to illustrate a few posts ago, but it's a good discussion nonetheless.


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## billd91 (Apr 26, 2011)

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> Death, IMO, is overrated as a penalty for poor play.
> 
> I mean, seriously, what happens when a PC dies?
> 
> ...




But why stick to worst case outcomes of character death? Why not:

1) If the specific character isn't intimately tied into the campaign's story arc:

Player gets a chance to try out another character concept he has. I'm usually trying to decide between several when I make up a PC for a campaign. Character death gives me a chance to work up another one, perhaps one even better suited to the campaign now that I know more about where and how it's going.

2)  If the specific character is tied intimately into the campaign's story arc:

The situation changes in ways nobody could immediately predict. As a frequent DM, these circumstances can be pretty awesome as they really get creative juices flowing. It will get most people thinking of the campaign in a fresh way.


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## Thasmodious (Apr 26, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> Or write a complete adventure and have the party bypass it entirely due to sheer dumb luck on their part?  Yep...




Heh, curse them!



> 1. I thought part of 4e's design was intended to do away with one-shot kills or disables, so how are your monsters getting one-shotted?




I was speaking of DMing in general and not 4e specifically.  That is indeed less common (not gone, by any means) in 4e, but bypassing encounters and thwarting the best laid plans are still part and parcel. 



> 2. There's been lots of talk about the party characters being able to use their abilities to "tell the monster what to do"; maybe there need to be more monster abilities that can, in effect, "tell the characters what to do".  A good start might be something like (making this up here) *Hyperactive* --- _Daily --- Duration: Encounter --- You win initiative and act first in any round.  Use of this ability is a free action_.  Give this to every significant monster and that way at least it always gets one chance to show its stuff and mess up the party a little.




You know, that wouldn't be a bad system house rule - the monsters always go first, first round, then roll initiative.

What the players can do, the monsters generally can do in some form, so they push, pull, slide, prone and command PCs on a regular basis, too.  Maybe that is Wik's real problem, he doesn't like feeling that he is on equal footing with the lowly player, whom the DM has traditionally bossed around the battlemat while chuckling maniacally.  Maybe he doesn't like the shoe being on the other foot now, and his players finally getting a little payback?  Is that it, Mr. I-Am-the-Law DM?


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## Patryn of Elvenshae (Apr 26, 2011)

billd91 said:


> But why stick to worst case outcomes of character death?




Because I'm responding to people who are lamenting, "Oh Death, where is thy sting?  Oh Grave, where is thy victory?"



> Player gets a chance to try out another character concept he has.




This doesn't actually require that the PC dies.



> The situation changes in ways nobody could immediately predict. As a frequent DM, these circumstances can be pretty awesome as they really get creative juices flowing. It will get most people thinking of the campaign in a fresh way.




Yep - and if you're a really on-the-ball, make-stuff-up-on-the-fly GM, this is a good time for you to show your stuff.

If you're not, though, it's a good way to have things fall apart.   And, let's face it, really experienced DMs (the ones who tend to be good at thinking on their feet) also tend, IME, to avoid tying the campaign plot too tightly to specific characters specifically to avoid this problem.


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## Umbran (Apr 26, 2011)

billd91 said:


> But why stick to worst case outcomes of character death? Why not:




What Lanefan asked was "Where is the fear of death?"  If character death is generally a positive experience, then there's no fear of it, and players won't do a heck of a lot to avoid it.


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## Mark CMG (Apr 26, 2011)

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> 2) If the specific character is tied intimately into the campaign's story arc:
> 
> Uh-oh.  The Prince-Who-Was-Promised is sorta dead-on-arrival, or one of the Four Prophesied Heroes isn't going to be there to stand against the Final Darkness.  I guess that just about wraps it up for that storyline, huh?  Or, maybe we had it wrong, and Bob the Fighter wasn't actually the prophesied hero - the real prophesied hero was _this guy_, Bob 2 the Fighter!





Novel-by-proxy games tend to be problematic for reasons like this.


----------



## billd91 (Apr 26, 2011)

I partly agree with the OP, but less from a standpoint of losing control as a DM. I'm just not that keen on the reliability of powers (or specific tactics) in nearly any/all circumstances without consideration for the nature of the target. A creature's offensive or powers may be interesting in themselves as it acts, but, with respect to what my PC is doing to it, I may as well be hitting a generic target with X defense and Y hit points. It's like considering only a subset of possible factors that could reasonably affect a fight. 

If the players can trip nearly anything, including oozes, carnivorous trees, and snakes or terrify undead creatures, the game's rules may work consistently, but I don't find that very valuable in presenting a consistent setting that has much verisimilitude. Instead of developing sets of tactics and powers against different kinds of opponents, my effort as a player is better spent in picking a few powers with a lot of synergy. I'm building to generate spikes in effectiveness rather than broad competence because that's the incentive the game provides. The challenge in the game is less "What's our best strategy in this case?" and more "How can I implement my standard strategy in this case?"

4e may have been designed to give players an option to do things other than standing and swinging or being a trip monkey with a spiked chain, but I don't think it has gotten away from the one-strategy pony school of character design. Not with the behavior of powers, anyway.


----------



## billd91 (Apr 26, 2011)

Umbran said:


> What Lanefan asked was "Where is the fear of death?"  If character death is generally a positive experience, then there's no fear of it, and players won't do a heck of a lot to avoid it.




It's in the role playing, Umbran. As a player, death isn't that big a deal. It takes time to whip up a new character, sure, and that take me out of the action for a little while. But my characters... most of them don't like dying for some reason. They totally rage against the dying of the light.


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## LostSoul (Apr 26, 2011)

Thasmodious said:


> I was just going to respond with XP but "must spread..."  Your hack sounds interesting and I'm clearer on your position now.  Clearly, I took you to mean that magic requires no plausibility explanations.  So, a question about your hack - do you play out combats in a less abstract manner so the triggers for exploits come up? Is it through structured rules with facing, positioning, and the like or more in DM and players being more descriptive at the table?




It's less abstract; one of the main goals was to draw players into the game world.  We describe the actions in some detail, though not too much.  Some of the rules allow you to get a lot of modifiers to your attack roll based on your PC's action, so it's in your best interest to describe it even if you aren't setting up an Encounter Exploit.

The rules on facing, positioning, and the like are all about the description and resolution of actions.  It wasn't too hard to get into that style of play, since that's how most games that I've played work.  We had to drop minis, though; I'm sure they'd help at times, but they bring us out of the game world too much.  Maybe later.

There are times when things get confusing for me, when I lose track of who's where and what's going on, and that's a failure on my part.  It's a flaw in the game and I'm not sure how to deal with it.


----------



## Crazy Jerome (Apr 26, 2011)

There should be just enough PC death in a campaign to make the PCs fear it enough to care.  This necessarily varies from table to table.  At our table, we've gotten down to about 0.5 deaths per campaign being sufficient--though I'm not sure how much of that is drawing on previous, deadlier campaigns.


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## The Shaman (Apr 26, 2011)

billd91 said:


> But why stick to worst case outcomes of character death? Why not:
> 
> 1) If the specific character isn't intimately tied into the campaign's story arc:
> 
> ...





Mark CMG said:


> Novel-by-proxy games tend to be problematic for reasons like this.





billd91 said:


> I partly agree with the OP, but less from a standpoint of losing control as a DM. I'm just not that keen on the reliability of powers (or specific tactics) in nearly any/all circumstances without consideration for the nature of the target. A creature's offensive or powers may be interesting in themselves as it acts, but, with respect to what my PC is doing to it, I may as well be hitting a generic target with X defense and Y hit points. It's like considering only a subset of possible factors that could reasonably affect a fight.
> 
> If the players can trip nearly anything, including oozes, carnivorous trees, and snakes or terrify undead creatures, the game's rules may work consistently, but I don't find that very valuable in presenting a consistent setting that has much verisimilitude. Instead of developing sets of tactics and powers against different kinds of opponents, my effort as a player is better spent in picking a few powers with a lot of synergy. I'm building to generate spikes in effectiveness rather than broad competence because that's the incentive the game provides. The challenge in the game is less "What's our best strategy in this case?" and more "How can I implement my standard strategy in this case?"
> 
> 4e may have been designed to give players an option to do things other than standing and swinging or being a trip monkey with a spiked chain, but I don't think it has gotten away from the one-strategy pony school of character design. Not with the behavior of powers, anyway.





billd91 said:


> It's in the role playing, Umbran. As a player, death isn't that big a deal. It takes time to whip up a new character, sure, and that take me out of the action for a little while. But my characters... most of them don't like dying for some reason. They totally rage against the dying of the light.



I am regretfully out of XP for the day, so I'll simply say, Worth repeating.


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## samursus (Apr 26, 2011)

Well, I made it to the 3rd page (around 60 posts) of this thread and realized it essentially people debating the merits and defending play styles.

Thats what we do 

Personally, when I DM games I do it to tell my players a cool story, and my players bought into that paradigm.  I allow them to co-create within my concept as they will, as long as they don't try to completely over haul it.  

Combats mean little to me... I find them FUN tactical mini-games.  Whether the PC's win or lose, the story goes on, just as interesting in its losses as its wins.

So 4E works well for my style, and my players all know what kind of game I run.

If they want a sandbox game, they know to find another DM.


So Wik, nothing wrong with your desires.  I know you asked for advice or similar experiences, but honestly I wouldn't waste your time.  You have said the annoyance factor with 4e has been building up, so take a break from it.  I am also a HUGE BECMI fan, and it sounds like you had a blast with it.

Follow your bliss man!


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## Umbran (Apr 26, 2011)

billd91 said:


> It's in the role playing, Umbran. As a player, death isn't that big a deal.




For you, maybe, and that's great.  More power to you.  

But most of the players I've worked with get somewhat more attached to campaign-characters than you seem to.  Losing them means somewhat more - and GMs need to be aware of that.  They can use the fact to their advantage with those players, and avoid pitfalls with those players as well.


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## billd91 (Apr 26, 2011)

Umbran said:


> For you, maybe, and that's great.  More power to you.
> 
> But most of the players I've worked with get somewhat more attached to campaign-characters than you seem to.  Losing them means somewhat more - and GMs need to be aware of that.  They can use the fact to their advantage with those players, and avoid pitfalls with those players as well.




I would recommend more people play Call of Cthulhu. Great remedy for over-attachment to character tendencies.


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## Fifth Element (Apr 26, 2011)

billd91 said:


> I would recommend more people play Call of Cthulhu. Great remedy for over-attachment to character tendencies.



This assumes that such attachment is in fact a negative thing?


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## billd91 (Apr 26, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> This assumes that such attachment is in fact a negative thing?




I figured that my use of the term *over-*attachment would have indicated that I meant something crossed over into the realm of being a negative thing. Exactly where the line between attachment and over-attachment is will depend from player to player and play style to play style. But if you recognize there's a problem at your table or with your levels of attachment, I recommend a course of Call of Cthulhu therapy.


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## Fifth Element (Apr 26, 2011)

billd91 said:


> I figured that my use of the term *over-*attachment would have indicated that I meant something crossed over into the realm of being a negative thing. Exactly where the line between attachment and over-attachment is will depend from player to player and play style to play style. But if you recognize there's a problem at your table or with your levels of attachment, I recommend a course of Call of Cthulhu therapy.



Oh sure, but Umbran's post which you quoted did not refer to such negative things, but player preferences.


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## Lanefan (Apr 26, 2011)

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> And, let's face it, really experienced DMs (the ones who tend to be good at thinking on their feet) also tend, IME, to avoid tying the campaign plot too tightly to specific characters specifically to avoid this problem.



It's not often I agree with you but this time you've nailed it in one.  Well put.

As for the idea of Cthulhu therapy, nobody would notice much of a difference in my game - they're all bat-guano crazy to begin with!

Lan-"tying your campaign plot to Cthulhu is never a bad idea"-efan


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## Beginning of the End (Apr 26, 2011)

NoWayJose said:


> Good quote, but two counterpoints:
> 1) DMs usually invest/waste/sacrifice more time prepping for a game (compared to the players) with possibly diminishing returns (as per the complaints here)




If you're not interested in having the players make important choices and contributions to the "story" of the game, then one is forced to wonder why you're playing an RPG at all. It would seem that writing some fiction would be a more effective way of meeting your interests.


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## Heathen72 (Apr 26, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> This assumes that such attachment is in fact a negative thing?




Of course it is. That is what 'over' generally means. Or at the very least superfluous. 

Attachment is of course A wonderful thing, unless you have a kill happy GM, or if it leads you to being overcautious as a player.


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## Mark CMG (Apr 26, 2011)

spunkrat said:


> Of course it is. That is what 'over' generally means. Or at the very least superfluous.
> 
> Attachment is of course A wonderful thing, unless you have a kill happy GM, or if it leads you to being overcautious as a player.





Yup.  When someone ignores the qualifier billd91 had intentionally included, it creates an argument that is merely a trick of semantics.  billd91 is absolutely correct that _over_-attachment to characters is problematic.  CoC is a great game to help curb such tendancies, as is Paranoia and other games that emphasize other aspects of gameplay.


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## Hussar (Apr 27, 2011)

LostSoul said:


> /snip
> 
> Spells and Prayers are magic so I don't worry too much about those.
> 
> /snip.




See, this one bugs me.  Why is it that the non-casters get beaten with the "reality" stick but the casters get a free ride?  Sure, "it's magic" means you can give a big one finger salute to physics, but, the non-casters are heroes in fantasy fiction - a genre replete with non-magical characters doing fantastic things that would turn you into paste in real life.

I just find this double standard very frustrating because it permeates so much game design philosophy.


----------



## Hussar (Apr 27, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> well, since my style of play and/or dm has been called -in this thread- wrong, unfair, and "the worst ever", let me just share a few items from the rules:
> 
> page 277 of Dungeons and Dragons Players Handbook clearly states:
> when prone you are lying on the ground...it is not some "mechanical affect" of "abstract combat rules"




Umm, how does that actually counter anything I said?  Or are you claiming that a snake or ooze cannot lie on the ground?  Is there someone arguing that being knocked prone does not, in some way, cause you to touch the ground with a majority of your body?

I said:



			
				Me said:
			
		

> Your attack disrupts the targets movement such that it takes an *action to right itself in some fashion* and grants a bonus to melee attacks until such time as it rights itself.




Which, again, is a pretty wordy way of saying, "you're lying on the ground".  No one, as far as I can see, is denying that when you are knocked Prone (game condition) you are not touching the ground with a large portion of your body.


----------



## LostSoul (Apr 27, 2011)

Hussar said:


> See, this one bugs me.  Why is it that the non-casters get beaten with the "reality" stick but the casters get a free ride?  Sure, "it's magic" means you can give a big one finger salute to physics, but, the non-casters are heroes in fantasy fiction - a genre replete with non-magical characters doing fantastic things that would turn you into paste in real life.
> 
> I just find this double standard very frustrating because it permeates so much game design philosophy.




I didn't make a change to spells and prayers because I didn't feel like there was a need to.  Spells are already reasonably grounded in the game's fiction, and I had seen players improvise with them without any changes.  I figured with the changes to martial exploits that would be enough to spur it on.  (Prayers are too out there for me to make much sense of, so I added stuff in other areas to pick up the slack.)

But anyway.  If someone said their PC's action was to knock a rider off a horse with Reaping Strike, Tide of Iron, Cleave, or Sure Strike, I'd allow it*.  If someone said their PC's action was to knock a rider off a horse with Ray of Frost, Magic Missile, Scorching Burst, or Cloud of Daggers, I wouldn't.  Thunderwave would, of course, but that's what it does.

I haven't seen the "double standard" in playtesting.  It might exist, and it might be revealed if I played with the intent of breaking the game, but so far I haven't gone down that path.


----------



## Hussar (Apr 27, 2011)

LostSoul said:


> I didn't make a change to spells and prayers because I didn't feel like there was a need to.  Spells are already reasonably grounded in the game's fiction, and I had seen players improvise with them without any changes.  I figured with the changes to martial exploits that would be enough to spur it on.  (Prayers are too out there for me to make much sense of, so I added stuff in other areas to pick up the slack.)
> 
> But anyway.  If someone said their PC's action was to knock a rider off a horse with Reaping Strike, Tide of Iron, Cleave, or Sure Strike, I'd allow it*.  If someone said their PC's action was to knock a rider off a horse with Ray of Frost, Magic Missile, Scorching Burst, or Cloud of Daggers, I wouldn't.  Thunderwave would, of course, but that's what it does.
> 
> I haven't seen the "double standard" in playtesting.  It might exist, and it might be revealed if I played with the intent of breaking the game, but so far I haven't gone down that path.




If they're going to knock someone off of a horse, why wouldn't they just Bull rush?  Isn't that what Bull Rush is for?

Let's examine this a bit further though.  Ok, I try to Reaping strike and try to knock a rider off the horse.  Does he still fall off on the miss, since Reaping Strike always hits in some way?

And, fair enough with melee attacks, but, what about ranged ones?  Can my Rogue Sly Flourish someone off the horse with a well thrown dagger?  If so, then why can't the wizard Magic Missile the guy off the horse?  Can my Warlock Eyebite him off the horse, since Eyebite in the description actually talks about the victim "reeling"?

Or is it always a case by case decision?  Which btw, I'm perfectly fine with.  There's loads of games that work like this and it can be really fun.


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## LostSoul (Apr 27, 2011)

Hussar said:


> If they're going to knock someone off of a horse, why wouldn't they just Bull rush?  Isn't that what Bull Rush is for?




That would work, too.  You could also slam into the horse, get it to rear up, then Spinning Sweep those exposed legs.



Hussar said:


> Let's examine this a bit further though.  Ok, I try to Reaping strike and try to knock a rider off the horse.  Does he still fall off on the miss, since Reaping Strike always hits in some way?




No, because the roll resolves your action.  You failed.  Reaping Strike does damage on a miss, but it doesn't mean your action was successful.



Hussar said:


> And, fair enough with melee attacks, but, what about ranged ones?  Can my Rogue Sly Flourish someone off the horse with a well thrown dagger?  If so, then why can't the wizard Magic Missile the guy off the horse?  Can my Warlock Eyebite him off the horse, since Eyebite in the description actually talks about the victim "reeling"?
> 
> Or is it always a case by case decision?  Which btw, I'm perfectly fine with.  There's loads of games that work like this and it can be really fun.




I don't see how Sly Flourish with a thrown dagger would knock someone off a horse.  Maybe if he was already off-balance... riding over some rough terrain, making a leap, if he was blinded...  same goes with Magic Missile.

Eyebite's more interesting.  (Warlocks usually are.)  It would probably depend on what your Pact is and what your Eyebite is actually doing.  You might be able to Eyebite the horse and cause it to throw its rider off.  One PC in my game (a Fighter-Warlock in the vein of AD&D multiclassing - I told you there was more to it!  ) forces the target to see ultimate despair and lose all hope when she nails someone with her Eyebite.  That wouldn't knock a guy off a horse or cause the horse to rear up.  Maybe if she had made a Pact with Bryakus, Father of Serpents...

As you can see, it's a case by case decision.  That's the main goal, to make those fictional details matter, so that players are forced to pay attention to the game world.  Well - they aren't actually forced to do that, but it's the smart way to play.  The PCs in my game are usually a mix of levels; I've seen low-level PCs (2 or 3) be much more effective than higher level PCs (6 or 7) in the same encounter.  The cool thing is that this effectiveness comes from playing your character to type (ie. using your skills, as you defined them) and manipulating the game world.

That's a lot of text.  Still worked up after the game.


----------



## Celtavian (Apr 27, 2011)

FireLance said:


> I agree that a DM should challenge his players. However, some ways of challenging are (IMO) better than others.
> 
> I personally tend to favor giving the players secondary objectives in addition to simply defeating the monsters. For example: running a gauntlet of monsters while staying ahead of an advancing wall of magical fire; encountering monsters enhanced by a magical effect and choosing to either focus on fighting the monsters in their more powerful state, or attempt to dispel the effect first; fighting on a sheet of moving ice that threatens to drop the PCs over a ledge (this is especially interesting when combined with monsters that slow or immobilize).
> 
> ...




I don't shut down their abilities unless it is an abiilty that shouldn't be in the game. I don't like abilities that have a high percentage of working and turning an encounter trivial. I don't think games should have abilities in them that work 100% of the time and are not counterable.

When you have an ability that works if the creature fails to resist, then you can control the amount of resistance for the various creatures so that you can make an encounter more difficult or less so. You do not want your BBEG being defeated easily or he really isn't a BBEG is he? If it was easy to beat Dr. Doom, Sauron, of Voldemorte, then they really aren't a BBEG. Their the path LBEG (Little Bad Evil Guy) that wasn't really a threat, it was only a matter of getting to him to kill him. That may work now and then, but certainly shouldn't be the norm.

The BBEG should make your players feel like they were in the fight of their lives. You want to DM so well the players fall in love with their characters. And then you want to make them feel like they are fighting for their lives when they face that ultimate villain driving the adventure along.

I use the tactics you recommend on lesser encounters and occasionally on main encounters if I want an added element of danger or uniqueness.

But if you're not designing BBEGs to be knock down, drag out fights, then that BBEG doesn't deserve being called a BBEG does he? An enemy has to live up to its billing. Or it isn't much of a story is it.

And a BBEG won't live up to his billing if your players wander in there, stun him multiple times, no one really gets even close to losing their life, and kill him fairly quickly with ridiculous ease never even tasting their own mortality as they battle an evil so powerful, so wicked, so threatening that it is capable of destroying towns, cities, nations, and worlds. What kind of weak BBEG would that be?

And as an aside, no way am I ever running a dragon no matter the system or rules where the players destroy it with ease because game designers gave the players powers that make the game too easy. That's not happening in my games. 1,000 plus year old dragons will always be well-prepared for dealing with adventuring parties as they should be. Dragon and demon lord killing isn't meant to be easy.


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## billd91 (Apr 27, 2011)

Hussar said:


> I just find this double standard very frustrating because it permeates so much game design philosophy.




There are plenty of people who don't agree that it's a double standard. It's a *different* standard because there's a significant different factor - magical spells.


----------



## TheUltramark (Apr 27, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Umm, how does that actually counter anything I said?  Or are you claiming that a snake or ooze cannot lie on the ground?  Is there someone arguing that being knocked prone does not, in some way, cause you to touch the ground with a majority of your body?
> 
> =======
> 
> Which, again, is a pretty wordy way of saying, "you're lying on the ground".  No one, as far as I can see, is denying that when you are knocked Prone (game condition) you are not touching the ground with a large portion of your body.



for the umpteenth time:
if your game adheres to the letter of the law when it comes to powers, and everyone at your table has fun doing it that way - then God bless ya man! I hope you keep having fun for the next 1000 years!
I assure you, at the game I play at, we take a more imaginative approach, meaning slithering beasts cannot be knocked prone, and things made of stone can't be petrified, and things without a sense of hearing can't be deafened, and it works for US, we have a great time.  

I am sorry I tried to defend our game style, it won't happen again.


----------



## FireLance (Apr 27, 2011)

Celtavian said:


> I don't shut down their abilities unless it is an abiilty that shouldn't be in the game. I don't like abilities that have a high percentage of working and turning an encounter trivial. I don't think games should have abilities in them that work 100% of the time and are not counterable.



To a certain extent, I agree. Abilities that turn an encounter trivial are fun initially, but they eventually go stale. However, I don't think that reliable abilities are necessarily bad. Certain types of players enjoy having reliable abilities because it allows them to make plans with a high degree of certainty. (You could argue that they might as well be playing chess, which is composed almost entirely of reliable and irresistable attacks, but if that's the play style they enjoy, I see no harm in mixing a little chess into their D&D.) The trick is to find ways to make the abilities reliable without allowing them to trivialize the encounter. My personal sense is that the 4E approach has generally been to limit such abilities in terms of frequency (X times per encounter or day) and/or duration (not more than a single turn). Perhaps it should have gone further, to somehow limit the number of such abilities per character (by carefully tailoring the power list from each class, for example).



> And as an aside, no way am I ever running a dragon no matter the system or rules where the players destroy it with ease because game designers gave the players powers that make the game too easy. That's not happening in my games. 1,000 plus year old dragons will always be well-prepared for dealing with adventuring parties as they should be. Dragon and demon lord killing isn't meant to be easy.



Heh.  I would probably let them do it _once_, just to reward them for the effort they took to plan and find the right abilities (or simply because they were lucky enough to pick them). Then, I would tell them how I'm changing the way the abilities work (or maybe even outright banning certain powers) in the _next_ campaign.


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## FireLance (Apr 27, 2011)

billd91 said:


> There are plenty of people who don't agree that it's a double standard. It's a *different* standard because there's a significant different factor - magical spells.



In other words, it's not a double standard because martial abilities are supposed to be inferior to subject to restrictions that do not apply to magical abilities in the first place?


----------



## pemerton (Apr 27, 2011)

LostSoul said:


> I'm not really sure what the DM's responsibility is.  I _think_ you're supposed to be a helping hand in their ascent to heroism; you create encounters that show how the world needs the PCs to save it ("The world needs heroes"), and add colour to their eventual victory.



I assume that the example campaign arcs sketched in The Plane Above, Underdark, etc give some idea of what the designers have in mind. It seems to me that the GM's role is something like you describe, but not merely to add colour. Rather, I would say that it is to add _conflict_ to the PC's eventual victory - so while the victory may be (mechanically) mostly guaranteed, the thematic signficance of the victory, and of the choices made on the way there - and, hence, the exact sense in which "victory" is achieved  - is up for grabs in play.


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## Beginning of the End (Apr 27, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> for the umpteenth time:
> if your game adheres to the letter of the law when it comes to powers, and everyone at your table has fun doing it that way - then God bless ya man! I hope you keep having fun for the next 1000 years!
> I assure you, at the game I play at, *we take a more imaginative approach*, meaning slithering beasts cannot be knocked prone, and things made of stone can't be petrified, and things without a sense of hearing can't be deafened, and it works for US, we have a great time.
> 
> I am sorry I tried to defend our game style, it won't happen again.




Are you capable of "defending" your game style without denigrating others?

Because right now you're doing a lousy job of it.

*~ welcome to a threadban. As Umbran said upthread, no further warnings. That guy is attempting to be conciliatory time and time again and you pick on one element of wording and try to start a fight?  Plane Sailing ~*


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## NoWayJose (Apr 27, 2011)

Beginning of the End said:


> If you're not interested in having the players make important choices and contributions to the "story" of the game, then one is forced to wonder why you're playing an RPG at all. It would seem that writing some fiction would be a more effective way of meeting your interests.



I am interested in having the players make important choices and contributions to the "story" of the game. Perhaps you are wondering up the wrong tree.


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## Dannager (Apr 27, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> I assure you, at the game I play at, we take a more imaginative approach, meaning slithering beasts cannot be knocked prone, and things made of stone can't be petrified, and things without a sense of hearing can't be deafened




An approach which doesn't want to imagine how a slithering beast can be affected by the prone condition, doesn't want to imagine how a stone golem can be petrified, and doesn't want to imagine how bats can be blinded is _more_ imaginative?


----------



## Neonchameleon (Apr 27, 2011)

Celtavian said:


> The nice thing about 3E was that you could create counters fairly easily. You may be able to do this in 4E, but I'm not sure how without making things up that aren't inherent in the game. Just as an earlier poster stated, you'll have to do ridiculous things like make up some attack the monster can sacrifice to break a daze or stun.




Or simply using the newer monsters as written.  Such as the Monster Vault dragons - which firstly get a free Instinctive Action on Initiative +10 that's a bite, claw, or ending a stun/dominate, and secondly get a free ability to end effects on them at the end of their turn.



> If the designers are doing things like the above, maybe you should make up abilities the monster has to deal with what the players are throwing at him. Make it immune to stun if that allows it to be more of a challenge.




Or better yet make it impeded by the stun but not entirely taken down.



> Just outright immune.




And except in very rare cases that sucks.



> Or give it some ability that allows it a saving throw against abilties that don't normally allow a save. With its +5 solo save, it should make it. Make it so that it can save immediately rather than on its turn.




A number of monsters have this.  For instance the Ettins all get two sets of initiative counts (one for each head).



> For example, if I calculate the party can output a 100 points of damage a round and I want a combat to last 6 or more rounds, I give the monster 600 or more hit points even if the rules only say 200. If someone casts a spell with a DC of 25, I want the monster to save the majority of the time I work its save up to +23.




When you talk about grinding through that I get very glad I play 4e where most of the maths is in the system.



> If you want your players to be in a knock down, drag out fight where they feel their lives on the line if they don't win, then design a monster to make them feel this way. To hell with following the rules absolutely. You make the monster and get the feel you want.




I'm so glad I can just use monsters out of the book to do this in 4e.  And it doesn't feel samey at all because there is enough already there that the encounters are varied.



Lanefan said:


> I've never played 4e but I picked up the core books when they came out, and have given myself a working knowledge of the system (though without keeping up on all the errata etc.); and even on first reading this was something that kinda leaped out at me as well: if run as designed, where's the fear of death?




In the hands of the DM as in most RPGs.  Although they did have to raise monster damage.  It just isn't a lottery any more.


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## pemerton (Apr 27, 2011)

NoWayJose said:


> I think the real problem is that you believe that the rules supersedes the DM's right to prioritize the narrative when it feels appropriate.





Dannager said:


> It's based on the "reasoning" that the DM doesn't like imagining a zombie knocking a hydra prone in his own head.





Balesir said:


> So, the point of the excercise is players having to come up with an explanation you like of why their character can do what the rules say they can?  What's the point of that?  Why not just *start* from the position that their character _*can*_ do what the rules say they can, and, where you (_as a whole group_) feel the need to have an explanation of how this happens, work to produce a  mutually satisfying explanation _collaboratively_?  Why do you need the GM to be sole arbiter of what is "believable" and what isn't?  How does that even make sense?



On this point I tend to agree with Balesir and Dannager rather than NoWayJose - I don't see that the GM has any special entitlement to have his/her suspension of disbelief preserved.



chaochou said:


> I think that legitimacy (can a snake be knocked prone, or a hydra) is decided on a group by group basis.
> 
> <nip>
> 
> ...



This is a good post, and for me at least helps highlight _why_ 4e lends itself better to a "group consensus" approach to verisimilitude rather than privileging the GM's view. Given that the game is committed to transparency, why not have everyone work together in the way that Balesir describes in the quote above.



LostSoul said:


> The DM might want to say "no" for more reasons than "Because I say so!"
> 
> My hack tells the DM to say "no" when the action breaks the consistency of the game world.  It's the DM's job to maintain that consistency, because he can - and must - make impartial decisions.  Players can't make those decisions because they must advocate for their characters.  The DM doesn't have a conflict of interest; the players do.





Crazy Jerome said:


> I'd probably not allow a zombie to knock over a hydra on Lost Soul's internal consistency grounds
> 
> <snip>
> 
> There is a *huge* difference between, "We will at all times play with my personal whim," versus, "We will at all times have some internal consistency."





Hussar said:


> The problem is, what happens when the player decides that an action is consistent but the DM doesn't?  The DM over rules the player and the player is basically SOL.  The idea that a player is automatically more biased because he's playing a character ignores the large amount of DM's out there for whom the setting is more important than the players.  It is quite possible for a player to be just as impartial as the DM.



I think that LostSoul's idea of the GM as arbiter of internal consistency (developed, as I understand it, from some ideas posted by Vincent Baker) is interesting. It's true that, in a typical RPG, players are locked into an "advocacy" role that the GM need not be. But I think Hussar is equally right to note that, in practice, many GMs find themselves advocating also - for their story, for their setting, for _their_ conception of fictional consistency.

This is why, and particularly for 4e, I think that group consensus makes for a natural solution that reduces the risk of arbitrary GMing, while still placing a check on player advocacy. In practice, for many if not most groups, it is likely that the GM will take the lead in establishing the group consensus (at least, that's so for my group - maybe I'm just projecting onto others in assuming that we're typical!), but there is (in my view) a lot of difference between _GM as lead negotiator_ and _GM as law_.




Crazy Jerome said:


> There should not be "gotchas" based on mechanical rulings.  (Situation gotchas are another matters.  )



I think the parentheses in this post are a great summary of what the 4e GM is for (in my view, and as I said a few posts up): providing the conflict that shapes the character of the PCs' "victory". Running the encounters is also a big part of the GM's role, of course, but to some extent perhaps subordinate to designing them. (Of course, if you GM on the fly then designing encounters and running them become more integrated processes. I think skill challenges in 4e can work very well like this - combat encounters can be a bit trickier, depending on how much you as a GM depend upon prepared encounter maps, terrain etc.)



C_M2008 said:


> Players dictating the opponents actions in combats is mildly annoying to extremely aggrevating depending on the circumstance and never really felt appropriate even when I was the player and not the GM.  It always felt like the combat became about status effects and not the story/narrative reason for the combat in the first place.
> 
> This is different than in prior versions of D&D as there was a saving throw for any sort of status effect (with the exeption of a couple overpowered spells) and they weren't available to everyone.
> 
> ...



On the other hand, I think this really understates the role of the GM in 4e encounter resolution. Even if we put page 42 to one side - which is a big "if" - the GM has to do a lot more than "roll dice for the meatbags". Deciding what "the meatbags" do, and adjudicating the consequences of PC actions (especially important for skill checks, but often important for powers also), is part of the "story/narrative" and "deciding how the NPCs respond" to PC actions.



Wik said:


> I feel is that 4e seems less difficult to run.  There is less room, in my opinion, for individual DM talents to shine through.  If five 4e GMs were run a module, it'd probably turn out roughly the same... if those five GMs ran another module for another system, I imagine there'd be a larger difference in the play experience.





Balesir said:


> Nice point - but unless he's running a published scenario with _very_ boring monsters exactly as written, I don't see how that can be so - even in the combat encounters.



For the reasons just given, I tend to agree with Balesir, and think that Wik here understates the role of the 4e GM. But as I said, I think that 4e GMing is most importantly about scenario/situation design.

I've personally never run an adventure module "straight from the can", but would find this a particularly unsatisfying way to run 4e, I think, because it would tend to reduce the game to exploring someone else's story. And in a game in which PC victory is mechanically favoured in the way described above, there wouldn't even be the suspense of failure!



NoWayJose said:


> OK, this is NOT going to be politically correct, and I'm probably get a ton of heat over this, but I think it has be asked...
> 
> What's at the heart of the problem raised by the OP?
> 
> Was 4E designed the way it is partially to appease a new narcissistic 'Me' generation?





Thasmodious said:


> 4e is not played by a single generation.  RPGs are played by all ages.  4e is played by plenty of players who've been playing since OD&D



I'm with Thasmodious here - though I've been playing only since Moldvay Basic rather than OD&D.

I don't see why an approach to the game that favours consensus establishment of the fiction is narcissistic. To me it seems open, friendly and generous!



TheUltramark said:


> I just feel the rules are there to serve the game, not the other way around.



And personally I find this phrase slightly annoying. Yes, the rules are there to serve the game. But it doesn't follow from this that the rules are therefore to be ignored - because perhaps following the rules is part of the game! For me, to date at least, this has certainly been the case for 4e. Following the rules has produced an interesting and gripping game. And an important part of that has been applying the rules that provide for player-initiated and player-driven improvisation and narrative.


----------



## NoWayJose (Apr 27, 2011)

pemerton said:


> On this point I tend to agree with Balesir and Dannager rather than NoWayJose - I don't see that the GM has any special entitlement to have his/her suspension of disbelief preserved.
> <snip>
> I think that LostSoul's idea of the GM as arbiter of internal consistency (developed, as I understand it, from some ideas posted by Vincent Baker) is interesting.



Ha ha, different tones in your reply to parallel (if not the same) questions of the DM's role in the story. In the former, flat disagreement with no further contribution. In the latter, a more diplomatic tone. But I won't bite except to make the mere observation.



> I don't see why an approach to the game that favours consensus establishment of the fiction is narcissistic. To me it seems open, friendly and generous!



Another observation to note is the response to the referenced quote in which ALL 4E gamers of all stripes can and do enjoy the benefits of 4E's design, as well as the misnomer of referring to the approach itself as narccissistic (ie., games cannot be narccissistic).


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 27, 2011)

Mark CMG said:


> Yup.  When someone ignores the qualifier billd91 had intentionally included, it creates an argument that is merely a trick of semantics.  billd91 is absolutely correct that _over_-attachment to characters is problematic.  CoC is a great game to help curb such tendancies, as is Paranoia and other games that emphasize other aspects of gameplay.



Come on. Similarly, when someone makes a comment that ignores the context of the post they're quoting, it leads to confusion. Umbran said that some people do have an attachment to their characters (which is a preference thing), and billd91 responds with CoC. He did qualify it, but did not make it clear that quoting Umbran did not mean he was referring to Umbran's hypothetical players. Thus the confusion.


----------



## Balesir (Apr 27, 2011)

LostSoul said:


> From anyway.
> 
> Bobnar (tx Ben) is standing on a tree stump when the wood-trolls attack. Does this count as the high ground?
> 
> ...



Despite the fact that the question posed here is really one of rules interpretation rather than one of envisioning how the rules-as-written might be believable in the game world, I think this is spot on.  For rules interpretation, a neutral arbiter is required - which is why, when we play D&D 4E, we want as few rules interpretations as possible (because we should all, in the "heat of battle", have investment in the outcome - that's where our fun is with 4E).  With other games - Hârn, for example - we should usually be more focussed on setting and situation integrity.  At least, most of those present should.  Neither of these situations requires (or is even improved by) sole discretion resting with the GM.


----------



## Zhaleskra (Apr 27, 2011)

Can't someone both be attached to a character and be aware that said character is a bunch of stuff on some paper or some data on a computer? I guess I'm going on the over-attached angle too, as I'm willing to let characters I'm attached to die.

That's part of the appeal of RPGs to me: it's a story that's being written as it's played. Perhaps my character's part in it ends early.

While I agree that certain characters have plot immunity in actual fiction, I disagree with a reason I saw on another board earlier. James Bond does not have plot immunity because he's James Bond, he has plot immunity because the book is already written and he survived.


----------



## billd91 (Apr 27, 2011)

FireLance said:


> In other words, it's not a double standard because martial abilities are supposed to be inferior to subject to restrictions that do not apply to magical abilities in the first place?




Subject to certain kinds of restrictions - yes. In most lore, legends, literature, what are the guys who aren't using magic doing? The fantastic things they pull off are usually exaggerations (sometimes extreme) of what normal people can do. Beowulf holds his breath a long time. The heroes of the Iliad slaughter hundreds of enemies on the battlefield in gross and bloody ways. Fantastic stuff, but generally within certain bounds of behavior. When they do deviate, magic is usually involved like Achilles's invulnerability.

Magic doesn't have those bounds. For every different magical system, different standards are constructed. Rune magics of Scandinavian legends operate in particular ways. Chi sorcerers operate in another. Medieval alchemists in another. Tolkien elven magic in another. And D&D sorcerers in yet another again. So it's not a double standard. It's a different standard because of different expectations.


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 27, 2011)

Zhaleskra said:


> Can't someone both be attached to a character and be aware that said character is a bunch of stuff on some paper or some data on a computer?



Absolutely. But that's a nice middle ground, and on the internet middle ground does not get much play.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 27, 2011)

NoWayJose said:


> Ha ha, different tones in your reply to parallel (if not the same) questions of the DM's role in the story. In the former, flat disagreement with no further contribution. In the latter, a more diplomatic tone.



LostSoul gave a reason that is related to the distinctive roles of player and GM in the game (in particular, the player's role of advocating for his/her PC). If you did the same upthread, then apologies - I missed it. But I took you to be talking about the GM having a privilege to preserve (what s/he takes to be) consistency. LostSoul is not talking about a GM's privilege, but a GM's duty. These are quite different things.


----------



## NoWayJose (Apr 27, 2011)

pemerton said:


> LostSoul gave a reason that is related to the distinctive roles of player and GM in the game (in particular, the player's role of advocating for his/her PC). If you did the same upthread, then apologies - I missed it. But I took you to be talking about the GM having a privilege to preserve (what s/he takes to be) consistency. LostSoul is not talking about a GM's privilege, but a GM's duty. These are quite different things.



The context was a theoretical head-butting between player vs DM on a zombie knocking a hydra prone. DM: No way. Theoretical Player: Yes, way! NoWayJose: The reasoning you are viscerally disagreeing (hereby defined as the "problem") is because you and the DM have different priorities over handling the same scenario, thus a conflict of interest. I was just defining the "problem". Who is "right" in the theoretical zombie-vs-hydra (if such a thing can even be determined) is what the last 15 pages are about.

Even if I was explicitly stating that "the GM has any special entitlement to have his/her suspension of disbelief preserved" (which I wasn't, and if I was, not in those absolute terms), then you stating that "I agree with him rather than him", is akin to writing "QFT" or "This", that is, "Here I am, pemerton, casting my vote". Not a criticism per se, merely the observation I had when I wrote "flat disagreement with no further contribution". At least that's way I read it, but I apologize if I misunderstood.


----------



## TheUltramark (Apr 27, 2011)

Beginning of the End said:


> Are you capable of "defending" your game style without denigrating others?
> 
> Because right now you're doing a lousy job of it.




how am I denigrating anyone?
I am disagreeing, but I have said - again, a million times - if thats how you play and you have fun doing it, then 'keep rollin til the wheels fall off'

yet 4 out of 5 (unofficial stat) posts seem to be denigrating my style of play, which -not that it's any of your business- me and my game enjoy boundlessly, so,  if at my table I have a home rule that slitherers cannot be knocked prone, how on earth does that affect anyone else on this board????


----------



## TheUltramark (Apr 27, 2011)

Dannager said:


> An approach which doesn't want to imagine how a slithering beast can be affected by the prone condition, doesn't want to imagine how a stone golem can be petrified, and doesn't want to imagine how bats can be blinded is _more_ imaginative?




again..."because it says so on my sheet" is not imaginative IMO
clearly most people disagree


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## TheUltramark (Apr 27, 2011)

pemerton said:


> And personally I find this phrase slightly annoying. Yes, the rules are there to serve the game. But it doesn't follow from this that the rules are therefore to be ignored - because perhaps following the rules is part of the game! For me, to date at least, this has certainly been the case for 4e. Following the rules has produced an interesting and gripping game. _*And an important part of that has been applying the rules that provide for player-initiated and player-driven improvisation and narrative*_.



That's exaclty MY point
improv and narrative are the keys at our table


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## Fifth Element (Apr 27, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> how am I denigrating anyone?



By saying you play a "more imaginative" style, in a game that's all about imagination. You don't see how easy it is to take this as "you don't play right?"


----------



## NoWayJose (Apr 27, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> By saying you play a "more imaginative" style, in a game that's all about imagination. You don't see how easy it is to take this as "you don't play right?"



Conversely, by saying he plays a "more imaginative" style game, it's equally easy to take this as "I think my way is more imaginative, and I'm not liable for your interpretation of this as an absolute statement that infringes on your self".


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## Patryn of Elvenshae (Apr 27, 2011)

NoWayJose said:


> Conversely, by saying he plays a "more imaginative" style game, it's equally easy to take this as "I think my way is more imaginative, and I'm not liable for your interpretation of this as an absolute statement that infringes on your self".




No matter how many "In my opinion"s and "Don't take this the wrong way, but"s and similar weasel-wording you want people to add to your posts*:

1) You didn't actually put them there, and

2) That doesn't make the statement less insulting.

EDIT: * The general "you," not the specific "you."


----------



## LostSoul (Apr 27, 2011)

Balesir said:


> DFor rules interpretation, a neutral arbiter is required - which is why, when we play D&D 4E, we want as few rules interpretations as possible (because we should all, in the "heat of battle", have investment in the outcome - that's where our fun is with 4E).




That's interesting.  Why do you want the DM to have investment in the outcome?  Do you find that the DM has a conflict of interest, since he's the one building the encounters?  I imagine not, but I'd like to hear your answer.


----------



## TheUltramark (Apr 27, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> By saying you play a "more imaginative" style, in a game that's all about imagination. You don't see how easy it is to take this as "you don't play right?"




I am sorry for offending anyone

there is no right or wrong way to play, as long as it is enjoyable, go for it


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## NoWayJose (Apr 27, 2011)

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> No matter how many "In my opinion"s and "Don't take this the wrong way, but"s and similar weasel-wording you want people to add to your posts*:
> 
> 1) You didn't actually put them there, and
> 
> ...



Oh, thanks for the edit, it was confusing me.

Regarding the IMOs and perceived insults, I think it's worth considering that it takes a certain quality for a person to get to page 16 of an Enworld thread.

Theoretical example:

Page 1:
Person A: I like dogs
Person B: I like cats

Page 2:
Person A: Dogs are a man's best friend!
Person B: Cats are cute!

Page 3:
Person A: No, cats are aloof and selfish
Person B: Dogs are smelly and bark too much

Page 4:
Person A: You shouldn't talk like that. My dog is the best, the love of my life.
Person B: I find this insulting. You're invalidating my pet choice.
etc. etc.

Now 99% of people have no interest in this drawn-out argument. The other 1%? Maybe they don't understand that a preferance for dogs or cats does not invalidate the other's choice, or maybe they care too deeply what the other person thinks, or maybe they have lots of time and passion to argue for their side.

All of us, including myself, that got to this page of this thread or any other thread may recognize that nobody put a gun to our head and we did have a choice as to how much we engaged in the conversation as well as how much we allow ourselves to be affected by other people's subjective opinions. There are many things in life that are unfair and hurtful. Relatively speaking, Enworld is mostly harmless.


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## Fifth Element (Apr 27, 2011)

NoWayJose said:


> Conversely, by saying he plays a "more imaginative" style game, it's equally easy to take this as "I think my way is more imaginative, and I'm not liable for your interpretation of this as an absolute statement that infringes on your self".



Certainly. But more careful writing can save trouble on messageboards a great deal of the time.


----------



## NoWayJose (Apr 27, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> Certainly. But more careful writing can save trouble on messageboards a great deal of the time.



Sure, in an ideal world. However, it simply isn't realistic to expect everyone to be 100% careful all the time. We all make mistakes, lose patience, forget, etc. Given that it's unrealistic to control other people, it's worth noting that the reader chooses to read it and chooses to respond. Also, see above.


----------



## billd91 (Apr 27, 2011)

NoWayJose said:


> Sure, in an ideal world. However, it simply isn't realistic to expect everyone to be 100% careful all the time. We all make mistakes, lose patience, forget, etc. Given that it's unrealistic to control other people, it's worth noting that the reader chooses to read it and chooses to respond. Also, see above.




The onus is on everybody. There's little point in a messageboard if nobody's paying attention to each other and automatically assuming the worst of the other posters.


----------



## Fifth Element (Apr 27, 2011)

NoWayJose said:


> Sure, in an ideal world. However, it simply isn't realistic to expect everyone to be 100% careful all the time. We all make mistakes, lose patience, forget, etc. Given that it's unrealistic to control other people, it's worth noting that the reader chooses to read it and chooses to respond. Also, see above.



We can say the same about the people who interpret what's written to be an insult. They've made a mistake or lost patience, or what have you. It's unrealistic to expect this not to happen. And the writer has chosen to write something, knowing that others will read it.

So yes, everyone should read things in the most charitable light, but the onus is not solely on the reader. Careful writing helps as well. That's all I'm saying.


----------



## Lanefan (Apr 27, 2011)

pemerton said:


> And personally I find this phrase slightly annoying. Yes, the rules are there to serve the game. But it doesn't follow from this that the rules are therefore to be ignored - because perhaps following the rules is part of the game!



In most traditional games e.g. Monopoly, Chess, etc., this is quite true.

But not D+D.  And that's what makes it great.

Sure there's rules presented as guidelines (well, in earlier editions anyway) and for most of the time they get the job done just fine.  But in a game where pretty much the only limits on what might come up are set by the collective imaginations of the players/DM/module writer/game designer there's going to be times when the rules just don't work; and they have to be flexible enough to be able to get out of the way and wise enough to know when to do so.

In other words, the rules must serve the game.

The whole simulation-of-reality-only-with-magic argument is another question entirely; hard-and-fast rules often conflict with this as well (e.g. Zombie vs. Hydra), but how to deal with that is pretty much up to each DM and-or group to decide.


> For me, to date at least, this has certainly been the case for 4e. Following the rules has produced an interesting and gripping game. And an important part of that has been applying the rules that provide for player-initiated and player-driven improvisation and narrative.



I don't think anybody's saying that players shouldn't be able to initiate and-or drive narrative; the question is merely one of to what degree, and is likely only answerable on a group-by-group basis.


			
				LostSoul said:
			
		

> That's interesting. Why do you want the DM to have investment in the outcome? Do you find that the DM has a conflict of interest, since he's the one building the encounters? I imagine not, but I'd like to hear your answer.



Why shouldn't the DM have an investment in the outcome?  Unless an encounter is a complete cakewalk for the party it is going to affect them somehow (injuries, deaths, depleted resources, etc.) and is thus going to affect what they do next - which directly affects what the DM is expected to deal with next, based on what the party does.

Lan-"how would you like your rules served, sir?"-efan


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## NoWayJose (Apr 27, 2011)

billd91 said:


> There's little point in a messageboard if nobody's paying attention to each other and automatically assuming the worst of the other posters.






Fifth Element said:


> We can say the same about the people who interpret what's written to be an insult. They've made a mistake or lost patience, or what have you. It's unrealistic to expect this not to happen. And the writer has chosen to write something, knowing that others will read it.



Yes, I agree with that too. Please allow me to phrase it another way. My impression, rightly or wrongly, is that people are MORE likely to blame another person than to be self-aware of their choices in the matter. Since the see-saw naturally leans to one side, leaning back to the other side is what may right the balance somewhat. I did not meant to imply that leaning all the way to the other side was the solution.


----------



## Plane Sailing (Apr 27, 2011)

Please also note that I've threadbanned someone for jumping to a negative conclusion about someones position, and it is likely to happen again in the thread if people don't cool down. As Umbran said several pages ago, we expect people to behave in a civil manner and to give each other the benefit of the doubt. There has been too little giving people the benefit of the doubt in the last couple of pages.

Thanks.


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## Mark CMG (Apr 27, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> Similarly, when someone (. . .)





I'm discussing one situation, if you want to discuss what someone else posted, please quote them and discuss it and I will join in if I have something to post.


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## Thasmodious (Apr 27, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> In most traditional games e.g. Monopoly, Chess, etc., this is quite true.
> 
> But not D+D.  And that's what makes it great.
> 
> ...




With the particular quote you responded to, and the words above, I'm not entirely sure where you're coming from, but if it's - the rules are guidelines and should be ignored at will by the DM to service his game, then I disagree.

The rules form the basis for the shared expectations of the game.  Players build their characters based on those expectations.  Ignoring them or changing them on a whim to suit the game has a direct effect on the characters and the expectations of the players.  If I build a loremaster in 3e only to find out that the DM doesn't care much about knowledge skills, rarely calls for their use, and doesn't impart advantageous information based on such rolls, then I've wasted a lot of the resources I have to build a balanced character and the character I wanted to play is rendered largely ineffective and less fun because he took the knowledge rules to be guidelines AND didn't make this clear from the start.  

I have nothing against tweaking systems and changing rules, I do this with every game and every game system I've GM'ed.  I love house rules.  But any and all houserules I use are clearly communicated to the group ahead of time.  Similarly, I inform the group about what standard rules and subsystems I don't use (such as encumbrance or monster morale), so they won't waste character resources buying modifications to that subsystem.  Similarly, I have no problem with making rulings to deal with all the wacky stuff that comes up.  My preference is for systems like 4e or older editions of D&D that don't try to cover anything and want the GM to make rulings.  But we all gotta know the basic rules ahead of time so we are visualizing the same game in our headspace.

Another example tied to an on going discussion in another thread, I would need to know if I was playing in a game that had a skill system, but where the DM generally based the success or failure of a skill based character action on player skill (playing 20 questions correctly while searching or disarming traps, basing RP outcomes solely on player RP, etc), because in such a game I'm wasting my time making a skill-monkey same as I would be if the game was straight up hack-n-slash.  If the game has a skill system, one would expect that to be the ultimate method of skill based resolution.  

Now, if that isn't the point you were trying to make, thank you for spending a couple moments reading about my general preferences


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## Dannager (Apr 27, 2011)

Thasmodious said:


> With the particular quote you responded to, and the words above, I'm not entirely sure where you're coming from, but if it's - the rules are guidelines and should be ignored at will by the DM to service his game, then I disagree.
> 
> The rules form the basis for the shared expectations of the game.  Players build their characters based on those expectations.  Ignoring them or changing them on a whim to suit the game has a direct effect on the characters and the expectations of the players.  If I build a loremaster in 3e only to find out that the DM doesn't care much about knowledge skills, rarely calls for their use, and doesn't impart advantageous information based on such rolls, then I've wasted a lot of the resources I have to build a balanced character and the character I wanted to play is rendered largely ineffective and less fun because he took the knowledge rules to be guidelines AND didn't make this clear from the start.
> 
> ...




This reflects my thoughts on the matter as well. I'd rep you for it, but apparently I need to find some more people to emphatically agree with first.


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## LostSoul (Apr 27, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> Why shouldn't the DM have an investment in the outcome?




I probably should have said "any _specific_ outcome".


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## Fifth Element (Apr 27, 2011)

NoWayJose said:


> Yes, I agree with that too. Please allow me to phrase it another way. My impression, rightly or wrongly, is that people are MORE likely to blame another person than to be self-aware of their choices in the matter. Since the see-saw naturally leans to one side, leaning back to the other side is what may right the balance somewhat.



That's fair to say, I think.


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## Fifth Element (Apr 27, 2011)

Mark CMG said:


> I'm discussing one situation, if you want to discuss what someone else posted, please quote them and discuss it and I will join in if I have something to post.



I'm confused. I interpreted your post to refer specifically to what I posted, calling it a semantic trick. Is that not right?


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## Lanefan (Apr 27, 2011)

Thasmodious said:


> With the particular quote you responded to, and the words above, I'm not entirely sure where you're coming from, but if it's - the rules are guidelines and should be ignored at will by the DM to service his game, then I disagree.



What I was trying to get at was more like...


> I have nothing against tweaking systems and changing rules, I do this with every game and every game system I've GM'ed.  I love house rules.  But any and all houserules I use are clearly communicated to the group ahead of time.  Similarly, I inform the group about what standard rules and subsystems I don't use (such as encumbrance or monster morale), so they won't waste character resources buying modifications to that subsystem.  Similarly, I have no problem with making rulings to deal with all the wacky stuff that comes up.  My preference is for systems like 4e or older editions of D&D that don't try to cover anything and want the GM to make rulings.  But we all gotta know the basic rules ahead of time so we are visualizing the same game in our headspace.



...this, at least in part.

When a DM decides ahead of time i.e. pre-campaign that something doesn't work and then goes ahead and fixes it as a houserule; then clearly communicates that to the players going in, I think we all agree that's no problem whatsoever.

Where the problem arises is when the DM realizes at some point deep into the campaign that something is broken and-or doesn't work the way she envisioned it.  At that point she's stuck.  Making a major change to the rules in mid-campaign immediately invalidates all that has gone before (at least in my view; but I'm pretty hardcore about continuity and consistency) and so she either has to live with it for the remainder of the campaign or drop the campaign and fix what's wrong before starting another.  And sometimes that fix means going to a whole different system or edition.

And I think that's what happened with Wik assuming I'm reading the original post right; though it didn't take him long to realize something wasn't working the way he wanted, he still didn't have a good way of fixing it while maintaining the same campaign in the same system.

The rules, in other words, for whatever reason weren't serving his game.  And as DM/referee/whatever, that's his call to make.

The difference between this particular case and most others, however, is that it wasn't any specific rules that weren't working, but rather the philosophy behind them...which is what's making this discussion interesting. 

Lan-"prismatic wars is a serious time sink"-efan


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## Mark CMG (Apr 27, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> I'm confused. I interpreted your post to refer specifically to what I posted, calling it a semantic trick. Is that not right?





Again, if someone else has posted something that is problematic for you, please quote them and discuss it.  If I find it is something I wish to discuss with you, I will join in.  I was clear about what I posted and you tried to take the discussion in a different direction over another issue ("Similarly . . .") I'm not interested in getting into a side-bicker with you or dragging the thread further from the OP's discussion.


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## TheUltramark (Apr 27, 2011)

after careful consideration I would like to apologize once again for my poor choice of words when i said I play a more imaginative game.  Pulling away from it- clearly it could easily be taken as an insult, and I am sorry.  

I think I was just being defensive, it seemed that quite a few people were bashing my game, and my table's style of play, and our propensity to prefer the spirit of the law over its letter.

I hope this sums up my position more clearly and less combatively.


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## jbear (Apr 27, 2011)

Skipped pages 11 to 16 ... it looked like things were spiralling into an abyss and from the Moderator comment above my instinct seems to have served me well.

I also notice that Wik pulled back from the thread eventually and stopped commenting.

Two things called my attention about Wik's complaint. 

The first was that he felt the system caused players to SAY what was happening (especially with interrupts and powers that influenced his monsters that couldn't be countered) as opposed to ASKING if what they wanted to achieve could be done. 

Comment: My players are just about to hit level 9 so I'm far from Epic tier. So far that I don't really even know if this is a feature that becomes more pronounced as the game goes on. But surely if they are using Interrupts to attack your monsters they still have to hit on MOST occaisions. I'm trying to imagine what powers you are talking about ... do you mean like a Fighter's Mark Interrupt when the Mark is violated? I don't know, I'm kind of having a hard time understanding what the issue is exactly, whether it's a global feeling or more specific to certain things like Effects.

Secondly, the complaint seemed to be pretty final. There was no real desire expressed to find a solution. I think Wik hit his own nail on the head when he responded to Umbram agreeing that the problem was more a clash of desired play style than a flaw of the system. So ... really ... not much can be done. Suck it up mate, the end is nigh! 

Some of the best points made: 
The game is at its best when everyone contributes. Sometimes this means players accepting hardships because it makes the adventure better/more challenging. This requires the players to be able to trust the DM and for the players to not always play to "win" (make things less challenging)

DMs should be able to make rulings on the fly. They should not be arbitrary. The rules should however be consistent. Players invest character resources into making their characters effective, nerfing this because it ruffles your feathers is unfair. Again both sides need to contribute here. Players have to be able to trust the DMs impartiality. Players shouldn't just make characters that deliberately make things so unchallenging that the fun slowly dies.

When a situation stretches the DMs imagination to the point where they can't get their head around it, asking the player to describe what is happening seems like a good compromise. If the player comes up with something decent, run with it. If not ... not buying it this time Jack.

Anyway, I guess I'll learn more as the campaign progresses but for now I really enjoy player participation in the narrative. I have a lot of House Rule game elements going on that lets this happen a lot more than what the rules strictly dictate: Drama Points, Drama Cards, 'Do Something Cool' Encounter powers ...looking at introducing SabreCat's Purple Cards (similar to my own Drama Cards but with a twist), player created magic items tied into their backstory ... 4eis really just my springboard for the adventure I want to run. And as far as springboards go, its solid and springy


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## Fifth Element (Apr 27, 2011)

Mark CMG said:


> Again, if someone else has posted something that is problematic for you, please quote them and discuss it.  If I find it is something I wish to discuss with you, I will join in.



Seriously confused now. *You* were the one who posted something that was (possibly) problematic for me, so I quoted *you*. Unless you were not referring specifically to me, which is what I just asked and you didn't answer?


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## pemerton (Apr 28, 2011)

NoWayJose said:


> you stating that "I agree with him rather than him", is akin to writing "QFT" or "This", that is, "Here I am, pemerton, casting my vote". Not a criticism per se, merely the observation I had when I wrote "flat disagreement with no further contribution".



What I was trying to do was to indicate (in part by synthesising some things that other posters had said) _why_ (in my view) 4e naturally lends itself to a certain approach to play - namely, one in which their is a high degree of player control, and where preserving the continuity and coherence of the fiction in light of this control is a shared, group responsibility. The flip side of this is that (again, as I read the rules and guidelines of the game) the GM has no special privilege to veto choices or actions in the name of coherence - this is a group matter (though, in practice, in many groups the GM is likely to be the most influential voice). This, in turn, gives rise to the question that LostSoul (and others) posed, namely, What is a 4e GM for? And I tried to answer that also, in a way which shows how the GM makes a very important contribution to a 4e game _without_ that contribution being one of constraining the application of the rules so as to preserve coherence.



Lanefan said:


> In most traditional games e.g. Monopoly, Chess, etc., this is quite true.
> 
> But not D+D.  And that's what makes it great.
> 
> Sure there's rules presented as guidelines (well, in earlier editions anyway) and for most of the time they get the job done just fine.  But in a game where pretty much the only limits on what might come up are set by the collective imaginations of the players/DM/module writer/game designer there's going to be times when the rules just don't work



I think that what you say here is true for rules whose aim is to simulate ingame causal processes. When rules of that sort do a bad job of simulation - eg because of some corner-case consideration that wasn't taken into account when the rule was written - the best way to proceed might be to vary or suspend the rules.

But the more that the rules play a different fuction - something like allocating narrative privileges around the gaming table - then the idea that they can be suspended or varied becomes more problematic. This is _especially_ so if the GM purports to suspend them, and thereby obtain a privilege of narration that s/he would _not_ enjoy according to the rules, at the expense of a player who, as a result of the suspension, will lose a narrative privilege that s/he otherwise _would_ have enjoyed according to the rules.

In my view the action resolution rules in 4e come closer to the second sort of function than in any other version of D&D, and probably are (in absolute terms) closer to the second sort of function than to the first sort of function. I think this is why the issue of "suspending the rules" creates a type of controversy in 4e play that it doesn't, at least to the same extent, in AD&D. It's not about "player entitlement problems" or narcissism. It's about the different way in which the rules work, and hence the different consequences and implications of the GM purporting to unilaterally suspend them.



LostSoul said:


> Why do you want the DM to have investment in the outcome?  Do you find that the DM has a conflict of interest, since he's the one building the encounters?  I imagine not, but I'd like to hear your answer.



I'm not the one to whom you put the question, but it's an interesting one that I hope you don't mind me picking up on.

I think that in a game in which the GM is desiging encounter/situations so as to force the players to make meaningful choices in responding to them, and in which the vehicles whereby players express those choices are their PCs, then for the GM to unilaterally suspend or vary the action resolution rules so as to curb the PC's powers is to get in the way of what is meant to be going on. It's to invite the players to make a choice, using a certain vehicle, but then to deprive them of that very vehicle and hence to prevent them from making the choice that you, as GM, have invited them to make.

Now that's all stated at a pretty abstract level. In practice, one little verisimilitude-based veto in relation to knocking an ooze prone may not have very serious consequences. Still, my strong preference is to work within the parameters that the players have established (via the character build rules) and to (jointly) construct a coherent fiction that fits within the choices the players have made according to the rules (when page 42 is invoked of course I have more latitude - but I regard PC powers as the core of player resources, with page 42 being an indefinite penumbra on which they can draw to amplify their core).

I doubt that the slope of intervention is all that slippery, but perhaps out of an abundance of caution I prefer not to test it at all.


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## pemerton (Apr 28, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> again..."because it says so on my sheet" is not imaginative IMO



I agree with this. But I think the solution is not a GM veto but an effort by the group to work out what just happened in the fiction (perhaps led by the player who has used the power, but helped out by others, including the GM, if s/he is having a slow day).



TheUltramark said:


> That's exaclty MY point
> improv and narrative are the keys at our table



To the extent that we have a difference of approach, then, it might be that I see the rules as providing the foundation for the improv and narrative, and the parameters within which it is done.

In a different sort of game from 4e, whose rules played a different function, I'd happily approach it differently (see my reply to Lanefan one post up), although I'd want to keep in mind what Thasmodious said about not nerfing player build choices too badly.

Even within the confines of 4e, I may also in part just be the lucky beneficiary of particular player build choices. The fighter in my game - who does a lot of forced movement (Footwork Lure, Come and Get It) and combat advantage/knocking prone (Deadly Draw, Polearm Momentum) is a halberd specialist. So it is always pretty easy to have a sense of what has happened in the fiction - he is besting his foes with his deft polearm work! A knife fighter using some of the same powers might make the fiction more challenging to conceive of.


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## Hussar (Apr 28, 2011)

LostSoul said:


> That's interesting.  Why do you want the DM to have investment in the outcome?  Do you find that the DM has a conflict of interest, since he's the one building the encounters?  I imagine not, but I'd like to hear your answer.




Gonna tag on the next bit too:



LostSoul said:


> I probably should have said "any _specific_ outcome".




I don't think it's avoidable that the DM is going to have some degree of investment in a specific outcome to an encounter.  If nothing else, most DM's design encounters with the idea that all the PC's are going to survive.  Subsequent encounters (presuming you design adventures more than one encounter at a time) typically presume certain results from previous encounters.

Take the classic example of putting scrolls of Stone to Flesh in basilisk or medusa lairs.  That's a pretty heavy handed example of the DM having a vested interest in, or at least fairly decent ability to judge, the results of an encounter.

Treasure placement often comes about from the DM having some pretty good ideas of what the PC's will need in the future.  

Taken too far, obviously this is a bad thing and leads to lockstep railroading.  But, it's unlikely that the DM will have no bias whatsoever in how a given encounter will flow.  Earlier in this thread, someone talked about the BBEG being a knock down, drag out fight and adjusting the BBEG to ensure that happens.

Is it bad advice?  I don't think so.  It sucks to have a weak climactic encounter.  So, as the DM, I'm certainly pre-disposed to ensuring that that given encounter will lead to a fairly specific (knock down, drag out fight) result.


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## Wik (Apr 28, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> And I think that's what happened with Wik assuming I'm reading the original post right; though it didn't take him long to realize something wasn't working the way he wanted, he still didn't have a good way of fixing it while maintaining the same campaign in the same system.




You got it exactly right.  While we did add a few houserules at the 11th level point, they were mostly recommended by players to alleviate some problems I'd been having, and were really advantageous to the players (essentially, I let them pick their own magic items, saving me having to do the homework of treasure parcels - it's worked out pretty well, actually).  

My main problem is that, the way the game is designed, it does not contribute to the type of game I want to play.  I have a very hard time getting the game to fit my style of "wing it, see what happens, and roll with weird situations and have fun with the results".  Because, while weird things can happen, the powers system is far too formulaic for the crazy random stuff to happen that I love to see in a game.

That's me.  I'm fine with it not fitting everyone's experiences, but in my experience, I've found that the game basically allows the players to dictate to me what happens, without really giving me room to take those dictations and turn them into something interesting.  

I should also mention that my players are much better at tactics than I am.  Ha.



			
				jbear said:
			
		

> I also notice that Wik pulled back from the thread eventually and stopped commenting.




I've been following the thread.  I just didn't really have anything to add.  And it got a little aggressive for a while, and I really don't like threadwars.  It also seemed to get a bit edition warry for a while, and those suck, too.  Because while I can tell you I won't be playing 4e once this campaign ends, I do think it's a fine system, and I can get why a lot of people love it.



> The first was that he felt the system caused players to SAY what was happening (especially with interrupts and powers that influenced his monsters that couldn't be countered) as opposed to ASKING if what they wanted to achieve could be done.
> 
> Comment: My players are just about to hit level 9 so I'm far from Epic tier. So far that I don't really even know if this is a feature that becomes more pronounced as the game goes on. But surely if they are using Interrupts to attack your monsters they still have to hit on MOST occaisions. I'm trying to imagine what powers you are talking about ... do you mean like a Fighter's Mark Interrupt when the Mark is violated? I don't know, I'm kind of having a hard time understanding what the issue is exactly, whether it's a global feeling or more specific to certain things like Effects.




Some of my players are hitting monsters of their level on a 4 or 5+, so they hit pretty often.  And most dailies still have a rider effect on a miss... some of which are almost worse than the hit (for example, if it's SE on a hit and UEONT on a miss).  

And I'm not really talking about fighter's mark.  I'm talking about forced movement powers, or stunlock powers, or things of that effect.  It's not one particular power.... it's the accumulated effect of five players all playing powers that force you to do things.  When you play that sort of game, it often seems like the amount of choices you make as a GM are rather limited.  

Or, as I mentioned it earlier, GMing 4e to me feels like a trade, whereas running the games I like to run, it feels more like an art.   I've found that, when I'm firing on all cylinders in 4e, it's almost always because it's a non combat situation, and I'd be firing on all cylinders regardless of system in those cases.  In fact, 4e might even be a deterrant in those situations, because I have personally found that PCs can (generally) do less outside of combat than their other edition (or other system) counterparts, as my "climb the wall" example hinted at.

I just don't have fun playing that type of game.  It'd be fun as a board game, but as an RPG?  Not my cup of tea.



> Secondly, the complaint seemed to be pretty final. There was no real desire expressed to find a solution. I think Wik hit his own nail on the head when he responded to Umbram agreeing that the problem was more a clash of desired play style than a flaw of the system. So ... really ... not much can be done. Suck it up mate, the end is nigh!




Exactly.  I'm not looking for solutions.  There is no solution.  It's not my game, and that's that.  My players know it's not my game, and we're working on a house ruled version of E6 for our next campaign.  I might also run Earthdawn some time in the future.  Both of those games seem like a closer fit to what I want to run.

What does bug me are the accusations from some people that I'm trying to run a railroad, which is not how I run games at all.  I do have a plot, but I love winging it when the players make crazy detours.  That's my favourite part of the game, and it doesn't really seem to work so well with me in 4e.  I don't know why, but there it is.  And that, of course, is an entirely different thread topic!

And yeah, I don't find the system flawed at all.  I just don't like what the system produces.  To each their own, right?


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## Balesir (Apr 28, 2011)

LostSoul said:


> That's interesting.  Why do you want the DM to have investment in the outcome?  Do you find that the DM has a conflict of interest, since he's the one building the encounters?  I imagine not, but I'd like to hear your answer.



Sure - it's because I and those I game with use D&D for 'challenge based' play, since I find it suits that manner of play well but not others (though pemerton has made a good case that 'bang-based' story/moral choice based play can work with it, too - haven't tried that, yet).  For this type of play, the GM needs to be, _at the moment of actual play resolution_ (i.e. not while building encounters or setting any houserules required, if any), focussed on beating the players, tactically.  The encounter is set up to make this a generally losing proposition, of course - but making the best tactical fist of the situation is important, to give the players the best "challenge" to overcome.

With other play modes - explorative "setting simulationist", for example, this focus is not only not required, it is actively harmful.  For that style of play, however, I won't be using D&D, as I find it a poor system for that type of play.  Ususally we will be using HârnMaster, Traveller or maybe GURPS for that.


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## jbear (Apr 28, 2011)

I can understand how those accusations would be annoying. I think you had words put into your mouth a few times too, if I recall rightly. Also annoying.

But the thread did touch on some quite interesting issues before it became the war of attrition to prove or disprove whether a snake can be knocked prone or a hydra can be tumbled.

Anyway, I hope the change brings the breath of fresh air that you need! Continuing playing in a way that you don't enjoy is madness. Do what you love. Life is way too short for anything else.


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## pemerton (Apr 28, 2011)

Balesir said:


> I and those I game with use D&D for 'challenge based' play, since I find it suits that manner of play well but not others
> 
> <snip>
> 
> For this type of play, the GM needs to be, _at the moment of actual play resolution_ (i.e. not while building encounters or setting any houserules required, if any), focussed on beating the players, tactically.  The encounter is set up to make this a generally losing proposition, of course - but making the best tactical fist of the situation is important, to give the players the best "challenge" to overcome.



I can't give you XP at this time, so just wanted to say this made plenty of sense to me.


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## NoWayJose (Apr 28, 2011)

pemerton said:


> The flip side of this is that (again, as I read the rules and guidelines of the game) the GM has no special privilege to veto choices or actions in the name of coherence - this is a group matter



I agree. I think what was happening before was a classic scenario of people seeming to take extreme positions to justify their view.

Person A: The DM has a say!
Person B: No, the player has a say!

In actuality, perhaps both people would be happy to consider a compromise position, but they wanted stake their claim as to why [DM or player] "deserves" influence in the process, which people may interpret unconsciously as being one-sided and invalidating.

I'm not sure I like the word "special privilege" or "rights" because this is just a game. The only objective and real rights in D&D are real-life human rights. If a DM perceives a "right" to manage the narrative, I see it as a subjective responsibility balanced with the players' happiness, and not intended in absolute terms. Of course, I should give you the benefit of the doubt that it wasn't intended in absolute terms either.



pemerton said:


> I think this is why the issue of "suspending the rules" creates a type of controversy in 4e play that it doesn't, at least to the same extent, in AD&D. It's not about "player entitlement problems" or narcissism. It's about the different way in which the rules work, and hence the different consequences and implications of the GM purporting to unilaterally suspend them.



I'd like to take this opportunity to clarify my positioning on feelings of entitlement and 4E rules. Disclaimer: This is all speculation on my part and is subject to interpretation. I hope to receive the benefit of the doubt.

Theoretical scenario: A human-sized zombie knocks a 10-ton hydra prone to the ground. Rules say it happens. DM and/or one or more player believes it shouldn't happen narratively, and nobody created a houserule in advance because nobody anticipated this.

In a real game, if you're fortunate, everyone's already on the same page (all "pro-rules", or all "pro-narrative" like TheUltraMark's game) OR, just as well, nobody really cares one way or another and a decision is made with minimal fuss. Otherwise, there are only 3 options:
a) the rule is used as is
b) the rule is negated
c) the DM and players reach some sort of compromise

This is basic conflict resolution, and it only goes completely smoothly if nobody takes it personally. However, if you have two or more people who are passionately at odds with each other, it's possible that at least one person will be unhappy with a contrary resolution. It takes emotional maturity to handle conflict resolution without making it personal.

For example, if you lose to somebody in checkers, you might be upset about losing, but there's nobody to blame and it's a bit weird to blame the checkers rules. However, if the game rules are open to interpretation and not ruled in your favor, you can react viscerally against the referee or the player you thought was cheating or the GM or whatever. I think many of us have been sore losers at least once in our gaming lives.

Intentionally or unintentionally, 4E is actually very clever in its design, because clear-cut rules not subject to interpretation help to reduce the risk of arguments and interpersonal conflict. That is, if everyone respects the rules exactly as is, without the messiness of human adjudication, then the rules say the zombie knocks the hydra prone, and there's nothing to argue about, it's a fact and it's nothing personal. Due to page 42 of the DMG and other elements, 4E rules will never be entirely non-discretionary, but arguably less so than in earlier editions.

It then follows that inviolate rules = less arguments = more fun.

If it's true that 4E rules = less arguments, it does NOT follow that "playing by the rules" is due to any one group being worried about arguments. Some people want to stay on the path:


pemerton said:


> In practice, one little verisimilitude-based veto in relation to knocking an ooze prone may not have very serious consequences. Still, my strong preference is to work within the parameters that the players have established (via the character build rules) and to (jointly) construct a coherent fiction that fits within the choices the players have made according to the rules




But staying on the path is not fun for everyone:


Wik said:


> My main problem is that, the way the game is designed, it does not contribute to the type of game I want to play. I have a very hard time getting the game to fit my style of "wing it, see what happens, and roll with weird situations and have fun with the results". Because, while weird things can happen, the powers system is far too formulaic for the crazy random stuff to happen that I love to see in a game.




Some people (including myself) are simply not at their happiest when playing 100% by the rules when they're not perceived to be ideal rules for that moment in play. In a game where fun is the ultimate goal, the happiness of the group as a whole unquestionably supersedes any one rule (*IF* the two are incompatible).



jbear said:


> Secondly, the complaint seemed to be pretty final. There was no real desire expressed to find a solution. I think Wik hit his own nail on the head when he responded to Umbram agreeing that the problem was more a clash of desired play style than a flaw of the system. So ... really ... not much can be done.



The bad news: Finding that optimal happiness for the group is an art, not a science.

The good news: This thread HAS been beneficial in teasing out some ideas. You summarized those highlights from 16 pages of sweat, blood and tears. This yields an optional playstyle for 4E, which may not have been entirely obvious before and which some people might choose to use.


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## Raven Crowking (Apr 28, 2011)

Wik,

If you're not happy with something, you have a perfect right to change it.  And, yes, that means not running a game you don't enjoy running.  You can offer to run something you would enjoy, and, if your friends are into it, great.  If not, running nothing is better than running a game that has become a chore.

Best of luck with whatever you decide.

RC


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## LostSoul (Apr 28, 2011)

Balesir said:


> Sure - it's because I and those I game with use D&D for 'challenge based' play, since I find it suits that manner of play well but not others (though pemerton has made a good case that 'bang-based' story/moral choice based play can work with it, too - haven't tried that, yet).  For this type of play, the GM needs to be, _at the moment of actual play resolution_ (i.e. not while building encounters or setting any houserules required, if any), focussed on beating the players, tactically.  The encounter is set up to make this a generally losing proposition, of course - but making the best tactical fist of the situation is important, to give the players the best "challenge" to overcome.




Thanks.  That's how I imagined it working: the DM working off of one set of responsibilities while building encounters, and another in the moment of play.

I don't think that this is the only way to run challenge-based play with a DM (I'm not sure that's what you're saying).  The "DM as impartial arbiter" can work, but you need to create a setting that will result in challenging situations for the players to deal with.  Eero Tuovinen does a good job of explaining it here: Challenge-based adventuring


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## nedjer (Apr 29, 2011)

Balesir said:


> Sure - it's because I and those I game with use D&D for 'challenge based' play, since I find it suits that manner of play well but not others (though pemerton has made a good case that 'bang-based' story/moral choice based play can work with it, too - haven't tried that, yet).  For this type of play, the GM needs to be, _at the moment of actual play resolution_ (i.e. not while building encounters or setting any houserules required, if any), focussed on beating the players, tactically.  The encounter is set up to make this a generally losing proposition, of course - but making the best tactical fist of the situation is important, to give the players the best "challenge" to overcome.
> 
> With other play modes - explorative "setting simulationist", for example, this focus is not only not required, it is actively harmful.  For that style of play, however, I won't be using D&D, as I find it a poor system for that type of play.  Ususally we will be using HârnMaster, Traveller or maybe GURPS for that.




That's a shamefully hijacking of the term 'challenge-based' that diminishes challenges to the level of tactical rules-mastery. Hand it back now  A challenge is conquering a nation or colonising a planet; not beating up orcs and stealing their copper pieces.

And wtf? with playing just setting simulationist or just . . . I want to do challenge-based, exploratory, diplomatic, intriguing, horror and mystery . . . in the one system at the one session. And double  to the GM who skips any one of them.


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## TheUltramark (Apr 29, 2011)

NoWayJose said:


> I'd like to take this opportunity to clarify my positioning on feelings of entitlement and 4E rules. Disclaimer: This is all speculation on my part and is subject to interpretation. I hope to receive the benefit of the doubt.
> 
> Theoretical scenario: A human-sized zombie knocks a 10-ton hydra prone to the ground. Rules say it happens. DM and/or one or more player believes it shouldn't happen narratively, and nobody created a houserule in advance because nobody anticipated this.
> 
> ...



We still use C - but the final say rests with whoever has the pencil (is the DM)


NoWayJose said:


> This is basic conflict resolution, and it only goes completely smoothly if nobody takes it personally. However, if you have two or more people who are passionately at odds with each other, it's possible that at least one person will be unhappy with a contrary resolution. It takes emotional maturity to handle conflict resolution without making it personal.



or at the very least, enough maturity to not ruin the gaming experience for the rest of your group


NoWayJose said:


> Intentionally or unintentionally, 4E is actually very clever in its design, because clear-cut rules not subject to interpretation help to reduce the risk of arguments and interpersonal conflict. That is, if everyone respects the rules exactly as is, without the messiness of human adjudication, then the rules say the zombie knocks the hydra prone, and there's nothing to argue about, it's a fact and it's nothing personal. Due to page 42 of the DMG and other elements, 4E rules will never be entirely non-discretionary, but arguably less so than in earlier editions.



I think I am going to call our homebrew D&D 4/2 (4th edition mechanics, with 2nd edition narrative) 


NoWayJose said:


> Some people (including myself) are simply not at their happiest when playing 100% by the rules when they're not perceived to be ideal rules for that moment in play. *In a game where fun is the ultimate goal, the happiness of the group as a whole unquestionably supersedes any one rule* (*IF* the two are incompatible).




perfectly put!


NoWayJose said:


> The bad news: Finding that optimal happiness for the group is an art, not a science.
> 
> .



lol - if you want science go play checkers????


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## pemerton (Apr 29, 2011)

LostSoul said:


> The "DM as impartial arbiter" can work, but you need to create a setting that will result in challenging situations for the players to deal with.  Eero Tuovinen does a good job of explaining it here: Challenge-based adventuring



Am I right in thinking that this was quite influential on your design of your hack?


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## LostSoul (Apr 29, 2011)

pemerton said:


> Am I right in thinking that this was quite influential on your design of your hack?




Yep!


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## Lanefan (Apr 29, 2011)

nedjer said:


> That's a shamefully hijacking of the term 'challenge-based' that diminishes challenges to the level of tactical rules-mastery. Hand it back now  A challenge is conquering a nation or colonising a planet; not beating up orcs and stealing their copper pieces.



Yet the big challenge is made up of many smaller challenges, each of which is made up of smaller ones yet; until you get down to the point where the here-and-now challenge at the table is simply to get those coppers out of those Orcish pocketses in the safest way possible.

Lan-"I'm challenged enough already"-efan


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## nedjer (Apr 29, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> Yet the big challenge is made up of many smaller challenges, each of which is made up of smaller ones yet; until you get down to the point where the here-and-now challenge at the table is simply to get those coppers out of those Orcish pocketses in the safest way possible.
> 
> Lan-"I'm challenged enough already"-efan




Awh, the wee ickle baby challenges  

An aircraft carrier may be made of a million nuts and bolts, but it's only the flight deck that gets on the TV


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## Balesir (Apr 29, 2011)

nedjer said:


> That's a shamefully hijacking of the term 'challenge-based' that diminishes challenges to the level of tactical rules-mastery. Hand it back now  A challenge is conquering a nation or colonising a planet; not beating up orcs and stealing their copper pieces.



Yeah, the words are not really ideal, but the language is poorly fitted to describe such things as we find ourselves describing.  If I call it "gamist" folk will leap to all sorts of alternate definitions that have been "appended" to that word, in the context of RPGs.  If I call it "snargle-based", on the other hand, no one will have a clue what I'm on about (including me!).

I'm really thinking in terms of "challenge" as in "you are challenged to a duel".  In that sense - a (succession of) challenge(s) laid down and either accepted or declined - I think it fits pretty well.



nedjer said:


> And wtf? with playing just setting simulationist or just . . . I want to do challenge-based, exploratory, diplomatic, intriguing, horror and mystery . . . in the one system at the one session. And double  to the GM who skips any one of them.



If you want to try that, I wish you well.  After over 30 years of playing (including GMing) roleplaying games, I am convinced that you can only do one of the "core foci" really well at any one time.  Either the players are focussing on the immediate challenge, they are focussing on the fabric of the setting, characters and/or situation or they are seeking out moral themes in the game at hand.  I find that trying to mix these leads to confusion and, often, frustration.  Of course, YMMV.


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## Balesir (Apr 29, 2011)

LostSoul said:


> I don't think that this is the only way to run challenge-based play with a DM (I'm not sure that's what you're saying).  The "DM as impartial arbiter" can work, but you need to create a setting that will result in challenging situations for the players to deal with.  Eero Tuovinen does a good job of explaining it here: Challenge-based adventuring



I'm sure it's not the only way, but it is a functional way.  Eero's article was interesting, but building a world that players build their own challenges out of seems unneccessarily complicated, to me.  I would do that sort of thing for simulationist play, maybe - but, even there, it is simpler to conspire with the players beforehand to set up the situation we all agree we are interested in.  Same with challenge-based, for me - it's simpler just to ask/discover through discussion what the players are interested in before creating the setting and challenges.  That way, everyone ends up doing less work!


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## Crazy Jerome (Apr 29, 2011)

Balesir said:


> If you want to try that, I wish you well. After over 30 years of playing (including GMing) roleplaying games, I am convinced that you can only do one of the "core foci" really well at any one time. Either the players are focussing on the immediate challenge, they are focussing on the fabric of the setting, characters and/or situation or they are seeking out moral themes in the game at hand. I find that trying to mix these leads to confusion and, often, frustration. Of course, YMMV.




I was with you all the way up until that paragraph.  It is true that some kinds of challenge or sim or seeking out moral themes do not mix well.  But you can get a very good game out of mixing any two, with a small dose of the third.  One of the reasons that 4E works well for us is because you can mix challenge and bangs.  Not all bangs have to be central to what most people mean by seeking out moral themes. 

An important consideration when synthesizing these focuses in a way that works is that any one element not mechanically dominate focus.  In an earlier editon of D&D, as you indicated, I'd have to spend a certain amount of energy in an exploratory game--not challenging too much and thus sending the players into turtle mode (or TPK).  Because the challenge portion of 4E is so transparent, however, I can push the players hard, via situation, with relatively little effort.  These frees up our brain cells to appreciate the bangs that matter.

Part of the reasons that people haven't had much success focuses is because the systems available to them don't support such mixes.  

Also, you could almost say that the 4E level of challenge is more a "simulation of a challenge" than a challenge.  That is, it creates an illusion of greater risk than is actually present.  If the DM is not aware of this fact, he or she might back away too much.  After all, that was one of the tried and true ways to learn 30 years ago:  "Oops, that TPK'd the party, or almost did.  Better back off a bit next time."  But 4E can give you a, "this close to TPK" impression over and over without killing a single character.


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## Dedekind (Apr 29, 2011)

I have to admit that I, too, get annoyed when my players completely wipe out one of my monster's best powers with an ill-timed immediate action. One tough encounter being turned into easy-times is OK, but all of them becomes a problem. 

I have resorted to cheating. Sometimes, my attacks always hit!


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## nedjer (Apr 29, 2011)

Balesir said:


> Yeah, the words are not really ideal, but the language is poorly fitted to describe such things as we find ourselves describing.  If I call it "gamist" folk will leap to all sorts of alternate definitions that have been "appended" to that word, in the context of RPGs.  If I call it "snargle-based", on the other hand, no one will have a clue what I'm on about (including me!).
> 
> I'm really thinking in terms of "challenge" as in "you are challenged to a duel".  In that sense - a (succession of) challenge(s) laid down and either accepted or declined - I think it fits pretty well.
> 
> If you want to try that, I wish you well.  After over 30 years of playing (including GMing) roleplaying games, I am convinced that you can only do one of the "core foci" really well at any one time.  Either the players are focussing on the immediate challenge, they are focussing on the fabric of the setting, characters and/or situation or they are seeking out moral themes in the game at hand.  I find that trying to mix these leads to confusion and, often, frustration.  Of course, YMMV.




In these parts that kind of challenge is known as a Holmgang.

I wouldn't envisage having all 'the players' centre stage, all the time, but I want them on stage or at least changing costume for the next act


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## Lanefan (Apr 29, 2011)

nedjer said:


> An aircraft carrier may be made of a million nuts and bolts, but it's only the flight deck that gets on the TV



Fine, until your challenge for the moment becomes getting a couple of those nuts onto the right bolts so the damn flight deck doesn't fall off! 

Your party isn't the world, no matter how you skin it; and - to continue with your aircraft carrier analogy - while you might see the challenge as being the war in which the 'carrier is deployed and what the 'carrier does therein, I see it as a bunch of little challenges each of which helps keep the 'carrier afloat and going the right direction.

And if I'm a crewman (adventuring party) trying to fix a couple of nuts and bolts (performing a minor mission part of which involves taking coppers from Orcs) then at the moment I'm not too worried about what the captains and admirals (gods and deities) are doing.  I'm just dealing with the challenge in front of me.

Lan-"if the world is an aircraft carrier I'd like to be one of the planes"-efan


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## nedjer (Apr 30, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> Fine, until your challenge for the moment becomes getting a couple of those nuts onto the right bolts so the damn flight deck doesn't fall off!
> 
> Your party isn't the world, no matter how you skin it; and - to continue with your aircraft carrier analogy - while you might see the challenge as being the war in which the 'carrier is deployed and what the 'carrier does therein, I see it as a bunch of little challenges each of which helps keep the 'carrier afloat and going the right direction.
> 
> ...




Where's your inner Harrier Jump Jet gone?

And, you like 'fessing up here - you use kobolds yeah?


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## Lanefan (Apr 30, 2011)

nedjer said:


> And, you like 'fessing up here - you use kobolds yeah?



Now and then, against low-level groups or of I need some cannon fodder.  Why do you ask?

Lanefan


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## nedjer (Apr 30, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> Now and then, against low-level groups or of I need some cannon fodder.  Why do you ask?
> 
> Lanefan




Failed attempt to tease you over the use of mundane dungeon fodder. Failed, because you didn't blink; failed because I guess everything doesn't have to be Whizzbang Sparklyboots to rise above the mundane


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## pemerton (Apr 30, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> It is true that some kinds of challenge or sim or seeking out moral themes do not mix well.  But you can get a very good game out of mixing any two, with a small dose of the third.  One of the reasons that 4E works well for us is because you can mix challenge and bangs.  Not all bangs have to be central to what most people mean by seeking out moral themes.
> 
> An important consideration when synthesizing these focuses in a way that works is that any one element not mechanically dominate focus.
> 
> ...



I'm not 100% sure that I agree with this post, in part because - at least in terms of Forge orthodoxy - I find it hard to judge how much the "challenge" element of my game is a technique for bringing out the thematic content, as opposed to a focus of play in it's own right. Nevertheless, a very good post (but I still can't XP you at this time).


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## Balesir (May 3, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> I was with you all the way up until that paragraph.  It is true that some kinds of challenge or sim or seeking out moral themes do not mix well.  But you can get a very good game out of mixing any two, with a small dose of the third.  One of the reasons that 4E works well for us is because you can mix challenge and bangs.  Not all bangs have to be central to what most people mean by seeking out moral themes.
> 
> [snip further good stuff not essential to context of this post]



Okay, what was being responded to, here, was that I said "I am convinced that you can only do one of the "core foci" *really well at any one time*". It might be worth my explaining a bit more what I mean by that and why I think it.

A good deal of what I think about 'story' in roleplaying games has its roots in a book called (appropriately enough) "Story", by Robert McKee. Something he says in this book (and I am going to summarise and paraphrase _wildly_, here), is that *a story is what happens when someone wants something but can't get it*. Unpacking this a little, the "wants something" has to be a real, burning need (called a "dramatic need") and not just a vague inclination to add it to their wishlist, and the "can't get it" has to be an out-of-the-ordinary escalation of inability - it might almost seem like a planned or deliberate denial.

I have long found this to be an excellent guideline for building a story, both in roleplaying games and elsewhere. As an exercise for the reader, try this:

1. Imagine a character - as ordinary or extraordinary a person as you like - who decides they want a cigarette. And, naturally, I don't just mean that they think _"oh, I could use a cigarette right now"_, I mean that they determine that *they want a cigarette - and they want it now!*

2. Imagine them doing something to meet that need by the simplest, most obvious route possible.  Reaching into their pocket for their packet of Marlboro, for instance.

3. Think of a reason why doing this doesn't work. Maybe the packet is empty, or maybe it's just not in their pocket.

4. Imagine them doing the _next_ most obvious thing to get a cigarette.

5. Imagine why _that_ doesn't work.

6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until you get a story. (Last time I did this with friends, using this exact starting point, we ended up with a murder-mystery.)

Now, the point of all that for this post was that roleplaying stories, if they are made collaboratively, tend to work the same way. Players come up with dramatic needs for their characters (or the game setup gives them such needs, or the GM provides "plot hooks" - a generally poor way to proceed, frankly). The players describe their characters setting out in (usually) the most straightforward way to fulfill those needs - and the GM tells them why that doesn't work. Rinse, repeat, until you get a story (or die trying...).

All that is fine and good - except that this makes the 'story' an emergent property. No-one can know how it will proceed, as the control is split between the non-GM players and the GM. So, in the meantime, everyone focusses on the things the characters do to fulfill their needs, and the things that stop them. The nature of these 'obstacles' or 'hurdles' - which is affected by the nature of the dramatic need(s) - defines the nature of the game in actual play.

So, let's examine a few types of obstacle.

First is the simple physical or practical hurdle. Something challenging but not overpowering or insuperable, that invites the protagonist to tackle the obstacle using skill, wits and chutzpah. The classic dungeon adventure is almost made for this type of obstacle; each "room" contains an "encounter" obstacle that can be tackled with tactics, sword and spell, and there really isn't any alternative option if you want (read "need") to get the treasure that lies beyond. The dramatic tension in this sort of challenge comes from the need to work within the terms of the challenge - which might be defined by a game system or a set of social and societal mores, as examples - to overcome the hurdle and get what you want.

Secondly there is a moral or ethical obstacle. The goal is in easy reach, if you simply sacrifice the halfling child to get it. Oh, that's a problem? This is an interesting type of obstacle, because it often represents a plot twist, which is to say basically an invitation for the protagonist(s) to change their dramatic need. Maybe what they really _meant_ they needed was not simply "the treasure", but "the treasure obtained without killing any innocents"... The dramatic tension here comes from whether or not the protagonist(s) will succeed in keeping to their ideals in the face of temptation (or other "friction") - and whether, in the end, their ideals seem worth sticking to.

Thirdly (and finally??) there is the insurmountable obstacle. This doesn't really have to be totally insoluble, but the key is that it pushes the protagonist(s) to explore outside their "known territory" - to "boldly go" where no character has gone before and look for an alternative route to get what they want (or "need").  This last one works best when you make a small conceptual jump. Stop thinking of these three types of obstacle from the point of view of the _characters_ - and think of them as obstacles posed to the *players*. Now think of this last one making the _player_ explore their character's personality more, or explore the workings of an alien world more, or explore the ramifications of their character's situation more.  The dramatic tension, here, lies in the simple workings of curiosity. What will the players find when they "go beyond the boundaries"?  It is, honestly, the lightest in touch when it comes to dramatic tension - but sometimes this can be a good thing.

These, I think, describe the three "modes" of play. "Gamism" is the first - a simple challenge to the tactical ability and balls of the players to overcome simple practical obstacles in the game world. "Narrativism" is the second - a challenge to the players' own moral or ethical compass (as expressed through their current character, which is a piece or reflection of themselves rather than literally "them"), inviting testing of ethical assuptions and reflection on ones ideals. And "Simulationism" is the third - an impetus to explore the setting, character and situation portrayed in the game to add to it in such a way that their character's (evolving) dramatic need can be met.

Now, back to what you said about mixing these modes or foci in one game.  I think that is possible, but consider the consequences. If you start with the first type of obstacle - easy to do in D&D 4E - and then add in a 'bang' to challenge the characters' dramatic need(s) in some way, it's possible that the new dramatic need they fix upon will be a purely practical, physical one. In that case, it seems to me that you have kind-of-flirted with Narrativism - offered the players an invitation to it, even - but not really switched. Alternatively, the players might settle on a moral/ethical or otherwise philosophical dramatic need. A fully Narrativist game would be honed to hammer away until this was achieved (and then go on to resolve it); but a game like D&D seems to me to just become irrelevant at this point in terms of its core systems and mechanics. Once a philosophical dramatic need is revealed or settled upon, practical or physical challenges simply become distractions, perhaps best handled with a simple die roll or even arbitrary fiat - rather than things worthy of time consuming adjudication.

Then consider the third type of obstacle. Almost by definition, this involves setting up hurdles that are not amenable to the spells and powers of the D&D system. These types of obstacle demand a system that simply models the game setting and is infinitely extensible - preferably via induction, coupled perhaps with imagination - to describe new facets of the world.  Certainly, this approach could be "bolted on" to any system, but I would then ask what is the point of the original system?  There comes a point where "Rule 0" and "Page 42" becomes a system unto itself, and "we're not in Kansas any more" as far as game system is concerned.  Once the invitation is out there to step beyond the boundaries, a game that relies on the boundaries, that feeds off the restrictions created by the system to generate its core tension and thus generate fun, is blown.  Part of the fun of a "dungeon" is the restrictions posed by the tunnels and walls; take away the walls, and you just have a hole full of monsters and treasure - a very different game indeed. I think the same is true of the game system as a whole - the dungeon is a metaphore for the game, if you like.

So, while I am sure that any type of game can be mixed with any other, and can be played using any game system, I think that doing any of the styles *really well* required a sole focus and a supportive system.

That's not to say, even so, that an introductory phase might not be accomplished with one focus before switching to another - but switching too many times is likely to be disruptive, even so, and it may well be worth considering switching system at the twist point.


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## Thasmodious (May 3, 2011)

Balesir said:


> There comes a point where "Rule 0" and "Page 42" becomes a system unto itself, and "we're not in Kansas any more" as far as game system is concerned.  Once the invitation is out there to step beyond the boundaries, a game that relies on the boundaries, that feeds off the restrictions created by the system to generate its core tension and thus generate fun, is blown.




Page 42 could absolutely be used to run a D&D game on its own, sans powers, combat rules and the like.  And it's the existence of something like page 42 that keeps the system from becoming "based on its restrictions".  If 4e was just powers, then you'd be right that it relies on its boundaries.  But it isn't.  The powers are, or can be, examples of things you can do on a fairly regular basis, while not representing a set limit on all things you can do.  While freedom of action can be tacked onto any system, 4e has it built in as a base assumption and this makes an important difference in the focus of the game.  Where it differs from the early editions which also accounted for freedom of action with "rule zero" and "when in doubt, roll a die", is that 4e takes a more structured approach and supplies a framework.  Now, 4e can and often is used just as a tactical combat game with its focus on the powers and HP based attrition, but that isn't all that it can be nor what it was designed to be.



> So, while I am sure that any type of game can be mixed with any  other, and can be played using any game system, I think that doing any  of the styles *really well* required a sole focus and a supportive system.




Now, as to mixing types, where I think the conclusion that you can't mix well falls apart is that this is what stories do.  These types of obstacles are tools, not different styles unto themselves.  Many stories present their conflicts utilizing all types of conflict, and often in the same "scene".  Games can easily do the same.  I guess where I disagree is that there is not a need to do any one "really well" but utilizing those tools builds a more complete game than focusing in on one sole element.  The whole of the game is greater than the sum of its parts.  The bulk of most RPG systems deals with the first type of obstacle out of necessity, that's where the most rules bulk is needed.  But page count does not equal focus.   



> That's not to say, even so, that an introductory phase might not be accomplished with one focus before switching to another - but switching too many times is likely to be disruptive, even so, and it may well be worth considering switching system at the twist point.




The thing is, "switching" is not a noticeable thing to the player or the reader in a well developed story or game.  Players approach an obstacle by whatever means are necessary and don't tend to analyze along the lines of "which is this one now, a moral quandary or should we just bash things?"  The GM may think of these things, but its not so cut and dried as turning one off and turning on another.  So I don't think utilizing various tools leads to a muddling of the narrative waters.


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## chaochou (May 3, 2011)

Balesir said:


> Okay, what was being responded to, here, was that I said "I am convinced that you can only do one of the "core foci" *really well at any one time*". It might be worth my explaining a bit more what I mean by that and why I think it.
> 
> ... lots of good stuff....





I must spread some XP around before repping that post, so if anyone can cover me, would be appreciated


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## Bleys Icefalcon (May 3, 2011)

*This is a very difficult issue for me to chime in on*

As I find myself drawn into comparing the versions/editions of our game.  In fact TO discuss this topic in it's fullest, I almost see no way to NOT compare editions...

First off, I must have some time on my hands, as I read not only the OP, but all of the replies.  I even took th time to draft a lengthy reply earlier in the week, but the computer I was at had timed out, and about an hour's worth of writing was lost.  This said, I feel strongly enough to try and share my opinion and insights (again) - hopefully it works this time around.

Player Control vice DM control is a touchy issue.  For me - as a player - the one thing I have always enjoyed the most about DnD was not knowing everything.  I really get a kick out of facing monsters and situations I didn't have experience in dealing with yet.  So, naturally, for me, I don't necesarily want to know every possible rule, every possible exploit, every possible power gaming trick.  I don't really want, nor have I ever been interested in having that "perfect character" with the most powerful ever combination of feats, skills, classes - etc.  Why am I playing this game if all I want is an endless debate with my DM about rules, and my character is so rediculously powerful that (as the OP posted) he can lock down a Demigod with no, let me rephrase NO chance of said demigod doing anything to get out of it.  This reminds me of the old old days - good old fashioned 1st Edition - and our ancient characters, in some cases ten plus 'real' years old.  We had grown so insanely powerful, so rediculously uber, that our DM had been reduced to utilize Dieties and Demigods for our random encounters.  And yes, we'd find Loki (not some avatar of him, but He - Himself) and we'd promptly open a can of whoop-ass on him.  The rules were clear.  We had the abilities and powers, and hell, we ALL had quite a few more levels, hit points and special abilities than any of the dieties listed in that book.  Needless to say it got boring, real fast.

How this relates to this discussion?  The DM works hard long and meticulously in creating a fun, interesting and challenging adventure for our Epic 4th Edition characters - only to find that the very Rules themselves take away virtually any threat of mortality to the PCs.  In fact, those same rules literally dicate that it's the role of the DM to ensure the success of the players and their characters.

To the OP - sounds like you're not playing the right Edition.  I submit it's not the DMs role to ensure the success of the players and their characters - it's the responsibility primarily of the players.  Yes, it would be irresponsible of the DM to put a few challenge rating 20 monsters in front of the player's brand new 1st level characters, that's not what I am saying - what I am saying is it should not be the role of the DM to coddle our players, to hold their hands, hug them and tell them bedtimes stories - instead, he's there to challenge them, and to instil an element of mystery.  4th doesn't let you do that.  In 4th, he's a simple referee.  Yes he can tell a story, but he is tightly bound by the rules to make everyone a super-hero.  What's the fun in that?  What's the challenge?

Our group played 2nd Edition Rules for several years, and eventually everyone started just knowing the various monsters.  Their weaknesses, strengths, abilities - everything.  So I changed them.  Orcs started having classes, and not topping off at 3rd/4th level.  Oozes abilities began to change with the region and climate they were found in, and tons upon tons of new monster and threats were added into the game.  I found that at least in our group's taste, they despised a lack of challenge, and hated "knowing" everything.  The game got boring fast.

Now tying the hands of DMs might be a good idea, as I will be the first to admit, there are alot of them that simply suck at it.  Many are egomaniacal dictators that live in a cave, with a sign at the entrance says My Way or the Highway.  I get that, I've played with them.  I didn't like it either.  But I have also played with some pretty miraculous storytellers, that didn't always stick to the rules, and we for the most as players didn't care; as we were having the time of our gaming lives.  Of course we'd have a few rules lawyers throwing a hissy over one thing or another - and our DM would adjudicate.  And that's where most of the heat seems to lay in this long, long thread.

Many of you don't want the DM to be able to adjudicate.  If it's a rule, and by god even if the rule makes no damn sense at all, we're going to stick to it.  Ahem...  while yes it is a fantasy game, let's have a few checks and balances.  In our campaign we have a house rule we wrote that adds Parry on top of Armor Class.  We had a situation come up where a Melnibonean Mist Giant swung a two ton mattock at a dwarven warrior, and critted said warrior.  Now, our house rule is Parry.  Only that.  Not dodge.  Not twist aside at the last possible moment.  Not get lucky and stumble to the left or right.  Not feinting.  No, our Dwarf raised his Silvered Battle Axe and Knocked the Mattock aside.  This Mattock should have sundured the blade of that axe.  Should have splintered the haft of it.  Every bone in both of the dwarf's arms should have shattered, the tendons, muscles and ligaments shredded.  Our dwarf should have been a wet, sticky, crunchy dead mound of bone, metal and flesh.  Instead he performed the impossible.  Not the unlikely.  Not the fantastic and improbable.  The impossible.  The DM ajudicated an ammendment there and then - that a blow or object that should be unparryable - is just that, at DMO (Dungeon Master's Option), something generally missing from 4th.

4th is dumbed down to allow all of us to DM.  The DMs powers and abilities are weakened, and we find ourselves role playing our way through a board game.  For some people that's awesome.  Especially the World of Warcraft players.  What's the penatly if we die in WoW?  What's that?  a Little (and I do mean LITTLE) inconvenience?  IMO we have a game now that coddles the players and simply doesn't challenge them, not really.  I for one want to know that I had to work my butt off to win an Epic battle.  I want, no need to be surprised, and yes, I also want a little pee to leak out because I am a bit skeered.  I certainly don't want to dictate to my DM how ineffectual and limp his super powerful monsters are.  If there's no challenge, no risk in it for me?  I am not even remotely interested in playing.


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## Thasmodious (May 3, 2011)

Bleys Icefalcon said:


> ...instead, he's there to challenge them, and to instil an element of mystery.  4th doesn't let you do that.
> 
> In 4th, he's a simple referee...
> 
> ...




2008 EnWorld called, it would like its posts back.

Seriously?  The game's been out three years now, at least try and learn an actual thing or two about the game before trotting out the same tired, and untrue, cliches.


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## TheUltramark (May 3, 2011)

again, we are life long early edition players just starting out in 4e (we are 3rd level) but we are all having a blast.  My second night with the pencil last night and it went great, my first time running a combat encounter, went real smooth, one player went off by himself, he was the only one to be seriously injured, it was fast enough paced, only a few times were the players caught unaware (ya know "hey Joe, it's your turn" joe: "Oh?, crap, let me see here.....") I only forgot to do one thing with my monsters, and it turned out for the better really.

I know everyone says it gets sucky at the higher levels, but for right now, we are lovin it!


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## Lanefan (May 4, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> I know everyone says it gets sucky at the higher levels, but for right now, we are lovin it!



Suggestion: slow down your level advancement rate RIGHT NOW.  That way, it'll take that much longer to get to the alleged sucky bits... 

Lanefan


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## FireLance (May 4, 2011)

*Bleys Icefalcon*'s post sparked off a few thoughts, but let me just get the following out of the way first:



Bleys Icefalcon said:


> The DM works hard long and meticulously in creating a fun, interesting and challenging adventure for our Epic 4th Edition characters - only to find that the very Rules themselves take away virtually any threat of mortality to the PCs.  In fact, those same rules literally dicate that it's the role of the DM to ensure the success of the players and their characters.
> 
> ...
> 
> ...



These are the parts that I generally disagree with. In many cases (IMO), the problem is not with the rules, but with the DM. Yes, you _can_ play 4E as a board game. Yes, you _can_ run a game in which there is no mystery. Yes, you _can_ run a game that isn't very challenging for the players. But this is neither a problem that can be blamed on the 4E rules (with some caveats; see below), or a problem that is unique to 4E, based on your own example of boring fights with the gods in 1E.

That said, many people believe that the epic-level monsters that were released in the early days of 4E were not challenging enough for high-level characters. Monster design has improved since then, and the more recent epic-level monsters are considered to be more challenging.



> In fact, those same rules literally dicate that it's the role of the DM to ensure the success of the players and their characters.



I think this is a misrepresentation of the advice in the DMG. It's been a while since I read the book, so I can't quote chapter and verse, but the general impression I get is that DMs are advised to present the players with _winnable challenges_. I think too many people focus on the _winnable_ part and forget that they should also be _challenges_. Making them too easy is just as bad as making them too hard.



> instead, he's there to challenge them, and to instil an element of mystery



This I agree with, but I would add that unfamiliar monsters and unknown monster abilities are not the only source of mystery in a game. NPC motivations, historical events and ancient secrets are other ways to add mystery into a game that do not require the DM to change monster statistics. 

IMO, making changes to monsters is also something that should be done in moderation, changing enough to keep encounters interesting while maintaining a sense of consistency. If the PCs have fought similar monsters in the past, they should have a reasonably good idea of what to expect. Otherwise, it really does start looking (at least to me) like a board game.



> Many of you don't want the DM to be able to adjudicate.  If it's a rule, and by god even if the rule makes no damn sense at all, we're going to stick to it.  Ahem...  while yes it is a fantasy game, let's have a few checks and balances.  In our campaign we have a house rule we wrote that adds Parry on top of Armor Class.  We had a situation come up where a Melnibonean Mist Giant swung a two ton mattock at a dwarven warrior, and critted said warrior.  Now, our house rule is Parry.  Only that.  Not dodge.  Not twist aside at the last possible moment.  Not get lucky and stumble to the left or right.  Not feinting.  No, our Dwarf raised his Silvered Battle Axe and Knocked the Mattock aside.  This Mattock should have sundured the blade of that axe.  Should have splintered the haft of it.  Every bone in both of the dwarf's arms should have shattered, the tendons, muscles and ligaments shredded.  Our dwarf should have been a wet, sticky, crunchy dead mound of bone, metal and flesh.  Instead he performed the impossible.  Not the unlikely.  Not the fantastic and improbable.  The impossible.  The DM ajudicated an ammendment there and then - that a blow or object that should be unparryable - is just that, at DMO (Dungeon Master's Option), something generally missing from 4th.



This part made me appreciate the elegant simplicity of AC. Because AC is composed of many factors - parrying, dodging, armor, etc., a miss can be flavored in whatever way is most plausible. If it makes no sense for a dwarf to be able to parry a giant's attack, then the giant's miss means that the dwarf dodged the blow instead. In fact, I'm starting to think that subsystems in which cause and effect are more tightly linked are actually inferior to those which present the DM and the players with more narrative flexibility.


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## Dannager (May 4, 2011)

Bleys Icefalcon said:


> As I find myself drawn into comparing the versions/editions of our game.  In fact TO discuss this topic in it's fullest, I almost see no way to NOT compare editions...




That's kind of a shame.



> Player Control vice DM control is a touchy issue.  For me - as a player - the one thing I have always enjoyed the most about DnD was not knowing everything.  I really get a kick out of facing monsters and situations I didn't have experience in dealing with yet.  So, naturally, for me, I don't necesarily want to know every possible rule, every possible exploit, every possible power gaming trick.  I don't really want, nor have I ever been interested in having that "perfect character" with the most powerful ever combination of feats, skills, classes - etc.  Why am I playing this game if all I want is an endless debate with my DM about rules, and my character is so rediculously powerful that (as the OP posted) he can lock down a Demigod with no, let me rephrase NO chance of said demigod doing anything to get out of it.  This reminds me of the old old days - good old fashioned 1st Edition - and our ancient characters, in some cases ten plus 'real' years old.  We had grown so insanely powerful, so rediculously uber, that our DM had been reduced to utilize Dieties and Demigods for our random encounters.  And yes, we'd find Loki (not some avatar of him, but He - Himself) and we'd promptly open a can of whoop-ass on him.  The rules were clear.  We had the abilities and powers, and hell, we ALL had quite a few more levels, hit points and special abilities than any of the dieties listed in that book.  Needless to say it got boring, real fast.




An interesting comparison. Thankfully, 4e stays exciting over all 30 levels.



> How this relates to this discussion?  The DM works hard long and meticulously in creating a fun, interesting and challenging adventure for our Epic 4th Edition characters - only to find that the very Rules themselves take away virtually any threat of mortality to the PCs.




If this were true, 4e characters would not die. In my extensive experience both playing and running 4e, PC deaths can and do happen, and not infrequently either. Smart players tend to have characters survive longer, and players who are not as on top of things tend to have characters die more often. Just like in every edition.



> In fact, those same rules literally dicate that it's the role of the DM to ensure the success of the players and their characters.




Yes. The role of the DM is to facilitate the game for the players. If the DM orchestrates a situation by which the PCs all die, the game is (arguably) over and must begin again. There is almost no narrative or hedonistic upside to killing off all the PCs, and the upsides of their continued survival and progress are significant and many.



> To the OP - sounds like you're not playing the right Edition.  I submit it's not the DMs role to ensure the success of the players and their characters - it's the responsibility primarily of the players.




That responsibility is not exclusive. It is shared between the DM and the players.



> Yes, it would be irresponsible of the DM to put a few challenge rating 20 monsters in front of the player's brand new 1st level characters, that's not what I am saying - what I am saying is it should not be the role of the DM to coddle our players, to hold their hands, hug them and tell them bedtimes stories - instead, he's there to challenge them, and to instil an element of mystery.




You can challenge your players and you can instill a sense of mystery in them without any real threat of the game coming to an abrupt, disappointing end. As in any edition of D&D, the point is to create a plausible illusion of mortal danger whereby the players experience the thrill of being put in harm's way without jeopardizing the game.



> 4th doesn't let you do that.




Yes, it does. What I think you meant to say here is something along the lines of "I don't know how to make my game work like that." You don't speak for the entire edition, and you certainly don't speak for the countless DMs running 4e games featuring the very suspense, thrills and mystery you claim are impossible.



> In 4th, he's a simple referee.




This is false. The DM, in 4e, is storyteller, encounter designer, group arbitrator, referee, motivator, and game facilitator. You will not be taken seriously claiming otherwise.



> Yes he can tell a story, but he is tightly bound by the rules to make everyone a super-hero.




No, he's not. The DM can houserule however he would like, just like in any other edition of the game. Or any game, period, for that matter.



> What's the fun in that?




I can't _possibly _imagine what the fun could be in pretending to be awesome for a few hours a week. Why would _anyone_ want to have a good time in their shared escapist fantasy world?



> What's the challenge?




Just like in _every other edition_, the challenge is crafted by the DM to entice the players to play their characters well. And, just like in _every other edition_, a DM who casually allows a total party kill to take place is probably doing harm to his game.



> Our group played 2nd Edition Rules for several years, and eventually everyone started just knowing the various monsters.  Their weaknesses, strengths, abilities - everything.  So I changed them.  Orcs started having classes, and not topping off at 3rd/4th level.  Oozes abilities began to change with the region and climate they were found in, and tons upon tons of new monster and threats were added into the game.  I found that at least in our group's taste, they despised a lack of challenge, and hated "knowing" everything.  The game got boring fast.




Cool. I'm glad you agree that the ability to easily modify monsters is an important tool for DMs to have. Isn't it awesome that 4e makes this easier than any other edition of the game ever has?



> Many of you don't want the DM to be able to adjudicate.




Really? I haven't seen that anywhere.



> If it's a rule, and by god even if the rule makes no damn sense at all, we're going to stick to it.




You have failed to understand the opposing argument. We don't believe that nonsensical rules should be followed. We believe, however, that just because the DM *is unable or unwilling to come up with a plausible mental image of a particular event doesn't mean that the DM should feel that it's his right to deny his players something that they want, and is allowed in the rules*. I can _totally_ imagine how an ooze could be affected by the prone condition. If you, as DM, cannot imagine it, that's *not my problem*. When one person has the rules and an imagination on his side, and the other merely has a lack of imagination, there is precious little reason that the decision should be in favor of the one without the imagination.



> Ahem...  while yes it is a fantasy game, let's have a few checks and balances.




We have them. They're called rules. What you want is different. You want carte blanche to overrule the actual rules and your players' desires on the fly in order to bring the game more in-line with your personal desires. That is the issue being discussed here.



> In our campaign we have a house rule we wrote that adds Parry on top of Armor Class.  We had a situation come up where a Melnibonean Mist Giant swung a two ton mattock at a dwarven warrior, and critted said warrior.  Now, our house rule is Parry.  Only that.  Not dodge.  Not twist aside at the last possible moment.  Not get lucky and stumble to the left or right.  Not feinting.  No, our Dwarf raised his Silvered Battle Axe and Knocked the Mattock aside.  This Mattock should have sundured the blade of that axe.  Should have splintered the haft of it.  Every bone in both of the dwarf's arms should have shattered, the tendons, muscles and ligaments shredded.  Our dwarf should have been a wet, sticky, crunchy dead mound of bone, metal and flesh.  Instead he performed the impossible.  Not the unlikely.  Not the fantastic and improbable.  The impossible.  The DM ajudicated an ammendment there and then - that a blow or object that should be unparryable - is just that, at DMO (Dungeon Master's Option), something generally missing from 4th.




Right. Your dwarf went in with the expectation that the world and the rules worked a certain way, and the DM threw that out the window because he couldn't find a way to mentally reconcile the narrative with the rules. Of course, I can certainly imagine a fantasy movie scene where a giant swings a massive two-ton club at a dwarf, and the dwarf manages to angle the trajectory of the club ever so slightly upwards such that it passes barely over the top of his (admittedly low to the ground) head. And perhaps the player running the dwarf you're talking about could imagine exactly the same thing. You're talking about pitting two mental narratives against one another, and calling the one _without_ the rules on its side the winner.



> 4th is dumbed down to allow all of us to DM.




Dumbed down? Hardly. This is the sort of thing I hear from people talking about newer video games. Touch any overly complicated sacred cow for the sake of streamlining and focusing on the exciting gameplay, and a tiny but incredibly vocal minority of players starts screaming "IT'S DUMBED DOWN!"

4e provides clear guidelines and effective tools for running a game that make it easy to DM without investing huge amounts of time. You can call it dumbed down if you want, but to anyone actually running 4e games effectively, it just sounds like bitter whining.



> The DMs powers and abilities are weakened,




Nonsense. DC by level charts _alone_ have made the DM more agile and responsive than he's ever been.



> and we find ourselves role playing our way through a board game.




Oh look. Someone calling D&D a board game because they haven't figured out how to run an enjoyable game of 4e. It must be Tuesday.



> For some people that's awesome.  Especially the World of Warcraft players.  What's the penatly if we die in WoW?  What's that?  a Little (and I do mean LITTLE) inconvenience?




What does that have to do with 4e? Are you saying that all that's required of a 4e character when he dies is a 30 second corpse run? Because that's what it _looks_ like you're saying, and that's wrong.



> IMO we have a game now that coddles the players and simply doesn't challenge them, not really.




4e challenges players just as much as every other edition of the game. No more, no less.



> I for one want to know that I had to work my butt off to win an Epic battle.  I want, no need to be surprised, and yes, I also want a little pee to leak out because I am a bit skeered.  I certainly don't want to dictate to my DM how ineffectual and limp his super powerful monsters are.  If there's no challenge, no risk in it for me?  I am not even remotely interested in playing.




I played 3e for _years_. I played 2e for _years_. In both editions I played in games where I had to explain to the DM how ineffectual and limp his super powerful monsters were. And, occasionally, I had the same explained to _me_ as my own monsters were steamrolled.

On Sunday, when I ran my 4e game, my players were _terrified_ of the gnoll archers they were up against. Were their characters in any danger of a TPK? Nah, the NPCs they'd told to wait outside would have conveniently shown up to rescue them if it looked like they would be wiped out. Did the players have any idea that was the case? _None whatsoever_.

The problems you're pointing out are DM problems, not problems with the game. You keep saying "4e does this," or "4e says you can't do that," and yet you have all these people telling you that it works exactly the way you want it to work. It's time to consider a different explanation.


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## Al'Kelhar (May 4, 2011)

Thasmodious said:


> Significantly inconvenienced, heh, I like that.  The point is that you're (theultramark) getting way to hung up on a single word and not imagining that the word could apply in a more broader sense.  It does.  The word prone is defined by the dictionary in a certain manner.  In 4e D&D it is defined explicitly as granting combat advantage, getting a bonus to AC against ranged attacks, and taking a -2 to attack rolls.




Aye, there's the rub.

The fundamental problem that we are facing is that the game designers have attached a series of mechanical effects to a condition or status applied to a creature in the game, the condition or status to which they have attached a label _which is misleading in a reasonable number of cases_.

In my long and varied legal career, I have been a professional legislative drafter.  This is the reason that I hold the very firm view that the consistency and integrity of the D&D 4E rules - and every other incarnation of the D&D rules - is an illusion that one set of gamers desperately clings to. It is also why I find these sort of semantic discussions deeply amusing. If I had developed a legislative scheme with so little coherence and consistency as the D&D ruleset, I would have been sacked. A word to WotC - if you want to establish a robust ruleset, hire some legislative drafters.

Two fundamental principles of rules drafting:

1. Do not define a word that is unnecessary to define. If the plain and ordinary meaning of a word, when read in the context in which it appears, is clear and unambiguous, it does not need to be specifically defined.

2. If you have to define a word, then how it is defined must not be inconsistent with the word's plain and ordinary meaning.

So... if I were to say to you, in normal conversation, "I had to chase a snake out of my back garden yesterday. Lucky I was able to pick it up and throw it prone before it bit me", you'd think my use of the word "prone" was a bit unusual. Because, well, knocking a snake prone is not something that one can do, in the ordinary sense of the word "prone".

While I think the "prone" condition in D&D 4E is merely a bunch of mechical effects given a label, that label causes confusion and the sorts of debates we see here, because it does not accord with our instinctive understanding of what the label means.

Cheers, Al'Kelhar


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## Thasmodious (May 4, 2011)

Al'Kelhar said:


> Aye, there's the rub.




Nay, here's the rub - D&D is not a legal contract or a piece of legislation that will later be used in court proceedings.  It's a game played a bunch of cheeto-eating dudes to escape from their mundane lives pouring over legal contracts and such.  On a message board we can have a 30 page discussion about knocking a snake prone, around the game table it just isn't an issue.  A group deals with the corner case however the group normally deals with the corner case and moves on.  In many cases, that involves applying the listed modifiers to the snakes status and continuing to the next players action without any hesitation, because its a game and knocking a snake prone is not difficult to imagine as this thread has demonstrated a dozen times over.

One of the design goals of 4e was not to fall into the trap of the corner case legalese.  "Well, there are some things that the word prone doesn't seem to fit as well, so we have to build in a bunch of special exceptions and use extra small print so they will still fit on power cards..."

Corner cases fly by when the system isn't built around adjudicating them so the books must be consulted to see if it covers the 1 in 30 sessions oddity the group is currently facing.

While I disagree with the way ultramark says he'd handle it, it would still fly by at the table without an hour long nuanced, semantic discussion.  It's just ultimately not a big deal around the table, so no, D&D would absolutely not benefit by bringing in expert legalese craftsmen to "shore up" the rules of the GAME so there could be no misunderstanding in a court of law.  

Today on The Gamer's Court...


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## Lanefan (May 4, 2011)

Thasmodious said:


> Nay, here's the rub - D&D is not a legal contract or a piece of legislation that will later be used in court proceedings.  It's a game played a bunch of cheeto-eating dudes to escape from their mundane lives pouring over legal contracts and such.  On a message board we can have a 30 page discussion about knocking a snake prone, around the game table it just isn't an issue.  A group deals with the corner case however the group normally deals with the corner case and moves on.



Which, for an experienced group and-or a group familiar with on-the-fly rulings, makes perfect sense.

However, there's many groups and DMs out there who see the rules as the game, the whole game, and nothing but the game.*  And for them, when a corner case arises - which it inevitably will, and different every time - the first reaction is to reach for a rulebook to sort things out with the full expectation that it can, and will.  But if the rulebook is unclear in wording, intent, or specifics then it isn't much help.

* - disclaimer: I don't personally subscribe to this point of view; in fact, I see it as rather shortsighted.  But I know it's out there, both from my own experience and from what I've read here on occasion.



> One of the design goals of 4e was not to fall into the trap of the corner case legalese.  "Well, there are some things that the word prone doesn't seem to fit as well, so we have to build in a bunch of special exceptions and use extra small print so they will still fit on power cards..."



In which case, why not just find a better word - or invent one - and use that instead.  *Askew* is one possibility - my 4e-fu isn't good enough to come up with the full 4e wording of what the condition means, but it would be much the same as for prone but with this change:

- remove reference to falling down, replace with "a creature askew falls prone if it can and must spend an action getting up, otherwise it is disoriented and must spend an action finding its bearings."

This way there's no arguments about oozes being knocked prone, nor about someone already prone being knocked prone, etc.

Now, if I can dream that up in two minutes surely a professional designer who knows what they're doing can come up with a better one.


> D&D would absolutely not benefit by bringing in expert legalese craftsmen to "shore up" the rules of the GAME so there could be no misunderstanding in a court of law.



I'm worried about the court of the game table, which is sometimes much less forgiving. 

Lan-"could this thread please be subtitled 'attack of the prones'"-efan


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## Thasmodious (May 4, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> In which case, why not just find a better word - or invent one - and use that instead.  *Askew* is one possibility - my 4e-fu isn't good enough to come up with the full 4e wording of what the condition means, but it would be much the same as for prone but with this change:





Because, as soon as you do, you or someone else on a message board will find another corner case that invalidates that or will have created a new corner case with the different word.  That's the pitfall of designing for the corner case rather than the general state of things.  In most cases, calling it prone works just fine.  In a few, rare cases, it can get a bit wonky if you poke it with a stick.  Any individual group will have a method for dealing with this without much thought.  Either the DM says you can't knock a snake prone, or a player describes it as "going all Steve Irwin on the snake", or the group doesn't fret with it much at all.  

Point is, the "better" word is one that fits in most of the situations that will be encountered at the game table, and in this case, it's likely 'prone'.  Like I said before, it's not hard to imagine doing something to a snake or a cube or a hydra that causes it to take a penalty to hit, be harder to hit from range and take an action to "right itself".  That's what the condition implies.  And if it doesn't jive with a particular group's sensibilities, there is nothing wrong with a group agreeing that powers will be tweaked at the table to make sense to that group.  But I don't see a need to design games to account for every wonky corner case and situation that could possibly crop up over the course of hundreds of sessions.  In fact, I think it is impossible to do so.


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## Lanefan (May 4, 2011)

Thasmodious said:


> Point is, the "better" word is one that fits in most of the situations that will be encountered at the game table, and in this case, it's likely 'prone'.  Like I said before, it's not hard to imagine doing something to a snake or a cube or a hydra that causes it to take a penalty to hit, be harder to hit from range and take an action to "right itself".  That's what the condition implies.  And if it doesn't jive with a particular group's sensibilities, there is nothing wrong with a group agreeing that powers will be tweaked at the table to make sense to that group.  But I don't see a need to design games to account for every wonky corner case and situation that could possibly crop up over the course of hundreds of sessions.  In fact, I think it is impossible to do so.



Impossible to hit every case, yes.

But it is very possible to eliminate some of those cases - my 'askew' example above might, for example.

In other words, if all other things are equal and one word covers 95% of the cases while another covers 97% which would you choose?

Lan-"askew much of the time, it seems"-efan


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## Thasmodious (May 4, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> Impossible to hit every case, yes.
> 
> But it is very possible to eliminate some of those cases - my 'askew' example above might, for example.
> 
> ...




Sure, but I don't think 'askew' covers it.  I think prone does, snakes aside.  You said yourself you could imagine a coiled snake getting knocked prone (I think that was you).  When a PC is using a power that applies the prone condition, its a pretty good assumption that the snake is in a coiled to strike position as opposed to a strolling on the sand dune position.  

We're making a stretch of an assumption if we assume that the designers didn't have much the same conversation or consider the labels carefully.  The ones chosen are the ones they feel apply that 97% of the time.  If it helps you sleep better at night, call it askew.  It works about as well as prone, if a bit awkwardly, for legged creatures and works better for cubes and snakes.  The drawback is the -2 to hit at range because of the profile. It's just semantics in the end, the mechanical effects are what's important.  

This would be far from an unreasonable conversation at the game table:
PC:...and the snake is prone.
PC2: How do you knock a snake prone?
DM: Prone, askew, whatever, point is the snake has a -2 to hit, grants combat advantage and you have a -2 to hit it at range

Thas-"they be just words, mon"-modious


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## Balesir (May 4, 2011)

Thasmodious said:


> Page 42 could absolutely be used to run a D&D game on its own, sans powers, combat rules and the like.  And it's the existence of something like page 42 that keeps the system from becoming "based on its restrictions".



Yes, but I still think that a game run completely by Page 42 would not be D&D 4E.  That is not to say it would be a bad game - with the right group it could be very good - but it would be very different from the "standard" 4E game. The game is strong enough to have an element of Page 42 and still remain based on what the majority of the rules pages are about - but a game that *is* Page 42 is something else entirely.  Add to that that Page 42 is _still_ explicitly about dealing with practical and physical challenges; it's clear that something else has to be added to it to get a game with another focus (I would tentatively suggest that these would be a narrative 'theme' or 'issue' for one style and a coherent world model for the other).  While this "extra something" can be added by play groups that know what they are seeking, without prescription, I would still say that they form part of the "system" used to play the game. The fact that they are not written down, and that an experienced group might know what they are at a gut level without necessarily being able to express them in words, does not change that. A published game system that was designed to support such other styles, though, would absolutely have, at the least, some guidelines and advice for constructing those additional elements. The best also have rules for it.



Thasmodious said:


> Now, as to mixing types, where I think the conclusion that you can't mix well falls apart is that this is what stories do.



Do they?  I'm not at all sure that most do. It seems to me that this is a large part of what we call "genre".  It's not the entirety of genre, but most genres fit mostly into one 'camp'; action-adventure, for instance, rarely steps significantly beyond the "gamist" mode. Crime thrillers and murder-mysteries are generally "gamist", too, with good and bad clearly delineated and unblurred throughout. Some 'action' stories flirt briefly with a serious theme, but don't actually take the step into "narrativism" by actually challenging the "received wisdom" in any meaningful way. Star Wars, for example, seems to me to be almost pure "gamist"; the one real challenge to the "Light side = good; Dark side = bad" paradigm is when Luke discovers Vader is his father. Now, if Vader had tuned out to be the ultimate big-bad that Luke had to kill, that might have turned seriously Nar - but as it was the practical goal was able to switch seamlessly from "kill Vader" to "kill the Emperor", and the basic schema was not really seriously questioned, let alone tested.

Avatar - another action flick vaunted for its "ethical content" - is pretty much the same. The basic "greedy industrial corporation = bad; primitive ecological stuff = good" is never really in doubt. Worse than that, the eco-folk are even proved to be unequivocally right, in the end. If the planet had not been "alive", and the eco-folk had reacted to environmental danger by killing a portion of their young by lottery, that might have constituted a meaningful challenge - but the contest was never really there.

As an example of a really Narrativist film, I would take The Reader. Who is the villain in that film? There's an _interesting_ question! But the film's action sequences are hardly points of doubt - _everybody_ knows that 17-year-old boys have unlimited endurance, where sex is concerned 

Another example of Nar would be Deadwood (the HBO series). Sure, it has a few "action" moments - but they are spice, not the main event. No-one would watch Deadwood for the special effects. Well, not without disappointment, anyhow.

For examples of Sim my first thought is the Aubrey & Maturin books (not the Master and Commander film, particularly, although it wasn't bad - it did tend to action-adventure a bit). Sure, there is action - how could a war story be without it - but it's never the main focus. It's a picture of life, which never ties up in a neat 'ending'.



Thasmodious said:


> These types of obstacles are tools, not different styles unto themselves.  Many stories present their conflicts utilizing all types of conflict, and often in the same "scene".



I maybe chose a poor example in the "ethical challenge" I proposed. Such challenges may indeed fit into D&D, but unless the players make a very specific response to them they are unlikely to make for a 'narrativist' story. The "sacrifice the halfling baby", for example. If the players refuse, then the game stays on the previous tack (unless refusing also carries an ethical price - a "real" bang where neither option maintains all the players'/characters' principles intact). If the players choose for their characters to sacrifice the baby, however, the story may well change it's nature.



Thasmodious said:


> Games can easily do the same.  I guess where I disagree is that there is not a need to do any one "really well" but utilizing those tools builds a more complete game than focusing in on one sole element.  The whole of the game is greater than the sum of its parts.



Sure, you can flirt with other types of focus - maybe the group will even run with one of them. In the end, though, I think the story will be pretty clearly one thing or another.



Thasmodious said:


> The bulk of most RPG systems deals with the first type of obstacle out of necessity, that's where the most rules bulk is needed.  But page count does not equal focus.



Not neccessarily, I agree - but there are systems that have actual support for the other foci and simplify the practical challenge rules considerably. Pendragon is one example.  Sorceror is another. Vampire: the Masquerade tried, but ultimately failed - mainly, I think, because it tried to do more than one focus at once.



Thasmodious said:


> The thing is, "switching" is not a noticeable thing to the player or the reader in a well developed story or game.  Players approach an obstacle by whatever means are necessary and don't tend to analyze along the lines of "which is this one now, a moral quandary or should we just bash things?"



Actually, I think they absolutely do. Take the "halfling baby" case; if sacrificing the baby isn't even a consideration, then no switch has been made. All you have is a complication to add to the practical challenge. But what if the alternative is that orcs break into the city and sack it? Or a party member dies? If the players don't notice that sort of switch, I can only think they're not paying attention.



Thasmodious said:


> The GM may think of these things, but its not so cut and dried as turning one off and turning on another.  So I don't think utilizing various tools leads to a muddling of the narrative waters.



Variants of all the types of challenge can be used as elements or alternatives for any focus of play. In a Sim game it's possible to have fights, of course, but that does not mean they suddenly become gamist. The challenge type doesn't change the focus on its own. It might _invite_ a change in focus - but unless and until the group as a whole takes up that new focus it hasn't really changed, I don't think. An elephant might kill a lion defending its young, but that doesn't make it a lion hunter.

Edit on snakes: I might have difficulty imagining _knocking_ a snake prone, but I have no difficulty imagining _throwing_ one prone. 'Prone' means it's flat on its back, just as with humanoids. That whole argument is just silly, IMO...


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## Crazy Jerome (May 4, 2011)

Balesir said:


> ... So, while I am sure that any type of game can be mixed with any other, and can be played using any game system, I think that doing any of the styles *really well* required a sole focus and a supportive system.
> 
> That's not to say, even so, that an introductory phase might not be accomplished with one focus before switching to another - but switching too many times is likely to be disruptive, even so, and it may well be worth considering switching system at the twist point.




The whole post deserves more response than I can give right now, as we are still recovering from the Tornados here. But Thasmodious already touched on what I believe to be the main difference in actual play, related to the above quote.

The stated assumption is that too many times is disruptive. This is key. For the style of play at our table, switching is not only not disruptive, but expected and highly useful. 

I write software for a living. So both from understanding how CPUs work, and how people write code, I'm well aware that there really isn't such a thing as "multi-tasking"--despite the illusion that computers create, and that software managers can't seem to ever fully grasp.  What you have is "task switching". If it happens easily and seamlessly enough, then it appears to the outside person to be "multi-tasking". And no, multiple processers on your single machine is not "multi-tasking" any more than having 4 people load firewood onto a truck is "multi-tasking". This is dividing the work, which is a separate, but important and related concept.

Now, some people task switch better and more effectively than others, in general. And just about everyone task switches between some tasks much more effectively than they do other tasks. I happen to task switch very slowly when writing code or, well, writing something like this post. One interruption, and I have to ramp up again. But when I'm running a roleplaying game, I task switch very easily. Most of the people I game with do as well. We switch from roleplaying characters talking (on different levels) to OOC chatter to mechanics to metagame discussion to explicitly story-driving behavior (author stance, narration, etc.), sometimes within seconds.

This is not always perfect (nothing ever is), but it *does* happen the way I just described it. Yeah, sometimes I'm building up to a certain moment, and someone says a lame joke and temporarily derails me. It happens. And sometimes I'm building up to a dramatic moment, and someone puts in a great joke, and we go into pun mode for 5 minutes. But see, that five minutes is as much a part of the emergent story as the drama we were driving for. In popular culture, the closet thing I know to explain it is to say that Terry Prachet wrote a western novel, then the Coen Brothers adapted it to a screen play, which Clint Eastwood directed. Sandra Bullock and Adam Sandler starred. Jody Foster and Robert Duvall produced, and were the supporting actors. Robin Williams was the main villain. We don't always hit, but hit or miss, we are always quirky. That is our table.

And quickly, my definition of "story" is basically a quirky extrapolation from the basic creative writing conceit of story, which is that conflict makes story. That's it. You have a hunter in the woods. You can talk about him all day, describe the sun, the trees, etc. You have no story. Add a bear. Now you have a story.

Where the quirky comes in, is that we don't care how the conflict resolves, gets framed, gets adapted, etc. We are happy with hunter shoots bear. We are happy with bear eats hunter. We are happy with hunter mortally wounds bear who eats hunter before it dies. We are happy with hunter stalks bear but the situation is unresolved before some other conflict intrudes. We are happy with hunter and bear form an alliance to stop tiger. We are happy with hunter and bear become best friends and go to Vegas where they start a musical review. And it doesn't really matter to us whether the hunter or bear or both are PCs, either.

All that doesn't really answer Balesir's point, but I think it at least lays the groundwork for my set of competing assumptions.


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## Thasmodious (May 4, 2011)

Balesir said:


> Yes, but I still think that a game run completely by Page 42 would not be D&D 4E.  That is not to say it would be a bad game - with the right group it could be very good - but it would be very different from the "standard" 4E game.




Of course it would different from standard, but it would still be identifiably D&D.  I'd still like to run this sometime, perhaps as an OLG.



> Do they?  I'm not at all sure that most do. It seems to me that this is a large part of what we call "genre".  It's not the entirety of genre, but most genres fit mostly into one 'camp'; action-adventure, for instance, rarely steps significantly beyond the "gamist" mode. Crime thrillers and murder-mysteries are generally "gamist", too, with good and bad clearly delineated and unblurred throughout. Some 'action' stories flirt briefly with a serious theme, but don't actually take the step into "narrativism" by actually challenging the "received wisdom" in any meaningful way.




You're kind of moving the goalposts on me here, though.  We're talking about mixing the elements of play, not requiring that any we use be the main focus when it is being used.  I don't think stories "switch" from one to the other, but blend.  I would agree, most have a primary focus, but they mix seemlessly the other elements, the great ones often do, anyway.  

In response to your examples, I'd say Star Wars is a simplistic example because it's a simplistic by design story and a classic white/black hat one, one that helped define the trope.  Even then, it has both elements of narrativism (I'm using, but don't really like, the GNS terms to keep us on the same page) and simulation blended in.  We also have the arc of Han Solo and, counting the prequels, the full arc of Vader himself, to consider.  And while the rich settings are mostly backdrops, we still have a strong element of world and journey, both literal and metaphorical.  As for Avatar, I'd say it was criticized for its "ethical content" not vaunted for it.  It was a tired retread of industrial society versus ecology precisely because the elements were never in doubt.  That was handled much better in an example I'd hold up as a highlight of blending elements that also, as a side benefit, led to the creation of our beloved hobby - 

LotR.  The thematic thread running through the whole tale was industry versus nature, but, as with most great stories (and I think great games), the theme was not something so directly acted upon by the characters.  There are moments where a character makes a comment in support of the theme, but mostly Tolkien just shows us by making us love Hobbiton, and Rivendell, and Fangorn, and half a dozen other locations.  The physical obstacles are many: fights, battles, natural obstacles, social obstacles (dealing with the elves, the ents, etc).  We have a pretty seemless blending of all the elements, focused on a party, broken down into challenges, that nonetheless includes a wealth of moral and ethical situations, a strong running theme, and exploration of both the world and society as a central part of the adventure.

I feel I need to stress that I'm talking about blending the elements and not switching foci.  I don't think switching focus is the goal.  I don't think making a game moment solely about one thing or another is a good way to go about it.  I agree that many stories and games likely have a focus along one element or another, they are primarily action based or primarily a game of exploration (sand box for example), but a good game will blend in plenty of physical challenges and combats as well as elements of story and plot (whether GM or player determined, or both).  



> Sure, you can flirt with other types of focus - maybe the group will even run with one of them. In the end, though, I think the story will be pretty clearly one thing or another.




I don't.  It may well have a clear focus, but even most action stories have _story_, even while action is what drives it.  Sure, at the low end of genre, its pretty generic and tacked on, but, again, the great ones rise above the trappings by blending the elements, by having a great story, real character development, a focused setting.  The Matrix is a prime example of this.     



> If the players don't notice that sort of switch, I can only think they're not paying attention.




My argument is that it's not a switch, or doesn't have to be.  You don't stop the game, completely change the presentation, clear the minis off the map while the dilemma is being resolved, its blended with the action element or with the setting element.  It arises from character or plot or setting.  You don't have to change the focus of the game, it's ALL the game.


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## Crazy Jerome (May 4, 2011)

Thasmodious, can't give you XP right now. It's ALL the game, ALL the time!

Note, too, that unstated in this discussion is the role that immersion plays. Roleplayers desire different amounts of immersion, but the level of immersion desired necessarily changes the parameters of the dicussion from table to table. Any level is fine, if that is what you want, but quite simply, there are things possible at very shallow immersion that simply can't easily happen at deep immersion, and vice versa. There are probably other competing factors that have those same kinds of defining consequences. 

It doesn't do any good to attempt to define "story" universally based on a particular set of choices for immersion and those other factors. Story is bigger (broader? deeper?) than that.


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## Fifth Element (May 4, 2011)

Al'Kelhar said:


> Two fundamental principles of rules drafting:
> 
> 1. Do not define a word that is unnecessary to define. If the plain and ordinary meaning of a word, when read in the context in which it appears, is clear and unambiguous, it does not need to be specifically defined.
> 
> 2. If you have to define a word, then how it is defined must not be inconsistent with the word's plain and ordinary meaning.



I don't think this has anything to do with the problem of knocking a snake prone. The "prone" condition, when applied to the majority of cases in 4E, means just what the ordinary sense of the word means. It's only when you get into unusual cases, like snakes or oozes, that there's a potential problem for some people.

The definition of prone, in 4E, is a purely mechanical one. Mechanics are included to represent the effect of being prone, and these effects are the effective definition of prone.

The problem only arises when a creature that you would not normally think of being prone, such as an ooze, is knocked prone. That's an immersion thing, so far as I can tell, not a definition thing.



Al'Kelhar said:


> While I think the "prone" condition in D&D 4E is merely a bunch of mechical effects given a label, that label causes confusion and the sorts of debates we see here, because it does not accord with our instinctive understanding of what the label means.



Sure, anything that's defined mechanically can have this problem. But what would you recommend it be called if not "prone"? Should we make up entirely new terms for each defined mechanic in the game? Because that has its own problems.


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## Neonchameleon (May 4, 2011)

Bleys Icefalcon said:


> As I find myself drawn into comparing the versions/editions of our game. In fact TO discuss this topic in it's fullest, I almost see no way to NOT compare editions...




How did I know as soon as I read this that the following post was going to simply show how badly you understand 4th edition?



> Why am I playing this game if all I want is an endless debate with my DM about rules, and my character is so rediculously powerful that (as the OP posted) he can lock down a Demigod with no, let me rephrase NO chance of said demigod doing anything to get out of it.




I don't know.  But that isn't 4e.  Now high powered mooks can be stunlocked.  But demigods?  Even low level dragons can automatically escape stunlock without having to roll.



> This reminds me of the old old days - good old fashioned 1st Edition - and our ancient characters, in some cases ten plus 'real' years old. We had grown so insanely powerful, so rediculously uber, that our DM had been reduced to utilize Dieties and Demigods for our random encounters. And yes, we'd find Loki (not some avatar of him, but He - Himself) and we'd promptly open a can of whoop-ass on him. The rules were clear. We had the abilities and powers, and hell, we ALL had quite a few more levels, hit points and special abilities than any of the dieties listed in that book. Needless to say it got boring, real fast.




Ayup.  Which does not and can not apply in 4e.  You can get damn powerful.  But you never get as powerful as a 17th level wizard in older editions.  There is no 4e equivalent to Wish.  



> How this relates to this discussion? The DM works hard long and meticulously in creating a fun, interesting and challenging adventure for our Epic 4th Edition characters - only to find that the very Rules themselves take away virtually any threat of mortality to the PCs.




Which explains why my 4e campaigns are more lethal than the 3e and 2e ones were in my group...



> In fact, those same rules literally dicate that it's the role of the DM to ensure the success of the players and their characters.




Source?



> instead, he's there to challenge them, and to instil an element of mystery. 4th doesn't let you do that. In 4th, he's a simple referee.




Complete and utter codswallop.  I don't know what game you are talking about, but not 4e.



> Yes he can tell a story, but he is tightly bound by the rules to make everyone a super-hero. What's the fun in that? What's the challenge?




Define Superhero.  At first level goblins or kobolds in equal numbers are considered a match for the party.  Some superheroes!  At 17th level the wizard can cast _Wish_.  Now that makes him more powerful that most superheroes.  Oh wait.  Wish doesn't appear in 4th edition.  It does in 3e, 2e, and 1e.  Do you really want to keep talking about superheroes?  Because unlike previous editions, 4e ranges up to high end pulp and sword and sorcery heroes.  Not people so powerful that they can gank Loki easily.



> Our group played 2nd Edition Rules for several years, and eventually everyone started just knowing the various monsters. Their weaknesses, strengths, abilities - everything. So I changed them.




Congratulations.  You customised monsters.  Something 4e makes easy for you.  Never mind the fact that there are half a dozen statblocks for Orcs in Monster Vault alone.



> Now tying the hands of DMs might be a good idea, as I will be the first to admit, there are alot of them that simply suck at it.




And you keep arguing that the DM's hands are tied.  You're arguing this without evidence.



> No, our Dwarf raised his Silvered Battle Axe and Knocked the Mattock aside. This Mattock should have sundured the blade of that axe. Should have splintered the haft of it.




Why?  A parry isn't a straight block or it would be almost impossible to parry a fencing foil (which I can tell you is not the case) - you would have to catch the point on the guard of your own foil.  It's deflecting the weapon so it doesn't hit.  Either blocking or using your leverage to sweep the blow outside the line of your body.



> Instead he performed the impossible. Not the unlikely. Not the fantastic and improbable. The impossible.




Bull!  The Dwarf caught the tip of the giant's club with his axe and, putting his muscle behind it, swept its momentum out of the line of his body.  At every moment he was applying force to the club at right angles to the motion of the club so it wasn't too hard - and the club missed him and instead sunk deep into the earth or smashed against the walls.

There.  Your so-called impossible parry.  Sure you need to be very skilled to pull that off.  But it certainly isn't impossible.



> The DM ajudicated an ammendment there and then - that a blow or object that should be unparryable - is just that, at DMO (Dungeon Master's Option), something generally missing from 4th.




Translation: The DM got his panties in a bunch that he'd screwed up and decided to screw over the dwarf so his giant could look awesome despite not actually being that good.  He changed the rules of reality and the narrative consistency of the game mid way through.

I also trust he carried his ruling right the way through and said that shields didn't work at all against giants.  Because every objection you have against parrying should also prevent shields getting in the way.  Block with your shield and it just gets smashed back into you, shattering your arm and causing all the other results.  If he didn't immediately rule that as well then he's definitely just dicking over the other side of the table when the game goes against the creatures he over-identifies with.

For the record, contrary to your beliefs, 4e handles matters properly.  A blow of the sort you describe would likely do half damage on an miss.  So skill and armour works but you can't completely avoid all damage facing that.  Or it would be against reflex - armour does you almost no good, all you can do is try to get the hell out of the way.



> The DMs powers and abilities are weakened,




You keep asserting this.  You have yet to say how other than that the expectation is now that the DM will not dick over a player by changing the rules when he gets his knickers in a twist.



> and we find ourselves role playing our way through a board game.




And here come the cliches.  You'll be talking about World of Warcraft next...



> For some people that's awesome. Especially the World of Warcraft players.




... this is my surprised face.

*Piratecat here. Okay, you've strayed from "making your point" to "making your point by being sarcastic and rude." Both of you ratchet it back, please. - PCat*



> What's the penatly if we die in WoW? What's that? a Little (and I do mean LITTLE) inconvenience?




D&D is the _home_ of the Raise Dead spell.  Death has minimal inconvenience in D&D when compared to almost any other tabletop RPG.  And you need to be 8th level to Raise Dead in 4e or 9th in 3e.  (Or 7th in 3e to _Reincarnate_).  Death, where is thy sting?

That said, if you've just been playing _Encounters_ I see where you could be coming from.



> IMO we have a game now that coddles the players and simply doesn't challenge them, not really.




And if that's your experience, it's the DM's fault, not the system's fault.



> I certainly don't want to dictate to my DM how ineffectual and limp his super powerful monsters are.




Then put down the Wish spell and come join us with 4e.  Even high level chumps are still chumps.  But we don't get to simply drop _Earthquakes_ on top of dungeons.  Or beat up Gods.  Or readily re-write reality.  Or Diplomance our way through encounters automatically.  Or...

And for the record, if you want mystery, magic, and wonder, 4e beats older editions.  3e is the worst case - with NPCs and PCs using the same rules it means that if NPCs can use any given magic _so can PCs_.  4e allows the DM to use completely different rules for the monsters.  And with well-designed 4e monsters (don't bother to point out that MM1 Orcus is a pushover - we know), the monsters can be extremely powerful and scary.


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## Fifth Element (May 4, 2011)

Thasmodious said:


> Sure, but I don't think 'askew' covers it.



Indeed. Just replacing one everyday word with another doesn't help with this issue, and can often hurt. In this case, "askew" generally means "crooked".

"What, you knocked the bugbear crooked? What the heck does that mean?"

No term is ever going to be perfect, and I fully agree that using the one that covers the most cases is the best choice. Prone (nearly always applicable) versus askew (maybe applicable sometimes) is an easy choice.


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## TheUltramark (May 4, 2011)

It seems the real basis for this argument is do powers work infallibly or can they, in certain situations, be thwarted.  Obviously I am in the camp of "occasional thwartation" 

I am certain this is not the only scenario like this, either.  In fact, it owuld not surprise me to find hundreds of cases just like this one.  In my opinion, and luckily the opinion of all at my table, the dm has the final say, not the player.

I do agree with Thasmodious, though, this is very much not a big deal at the table.  Something like this would be handled in short order, and we as a group would move on quickly enough.


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## MarkB (May 4, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> I don't think this has anything to do with the problem of knocking a snake prone. The "prone" condition, when applied to the majority of cases in 4E, means just what the ordinary sense of the word means. It's only when you get into unusual cases, like snakes or oozes, that there's a potential problem for some people.




For that matter, I don't have much trouble imagining knocking an ooze prone. Just because they're undifferentiated biologically doesn't mean they are physically too.

Your typical ooze in combat is likely to be extruding cilia on its underside for extra grip, and pseudopods from its top side to lash out at opponents. If you flip it so that the cilia are at the top and the pseudopods are underneath, that's going to inconvenience it until it takes a moment (let's call it a move action) to reconfigure itself.


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## Raven Crowking (May 4, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> It seems the real basis for this argument is do powers work infallibly or can they, in certain situations, be thwarted.  Obviously I am in the camp of "occasional thwartation"
> 
> I am certain this is not the only scenario like this, either.  In fact, it owuld not surprise me to find hundreds of cases just like this one.  In my opinion, and luckily the opinion of all at my table, the dm has the final say, not the player.





Well, AFAICT, the 4e ruleset agrees with you 100%.  The DM has the final say in 4e, as in all other editions.  And, unless I am mistaken, the DM's right to "occasional thwartation" is expressed in the books.


RC


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## Crazy Jerome (May 4, 2011)

One of the *good* things about the prone condition is that it prompted the question, "how do you knock an ooze prone?" Because then people that had the question got the real answer, which is that the mechanics and the label are not 100% in sync, and that the appropriate response when they are not is use your judgment, keeping the priorities of the table in mind.

The big problem with highly legal language, when used, is that it creates the illusion that the mechanics and words are perfectly in sync, when in fact this can never be true 100%, even with reams of fine print.

Legal languages teaches people that the spirit of the game doesn't matter; that they should not care about it at all. Even those conscious of the problem must spend some effort not letting it creep in on the edges. 

And to top it all off, some mechanical game rules are, in fact, technical in effect and language. Legal language is pseudo-technical. Mixing the two can easily confuse people (and in fairness, it takes a really good writer to keep the distinctions separate for most readers, given a big enough document). 

Legal language should be reserved for when it matters--such as this will needs to be subject to as little interpretation as humanely possible. And even then, we'll sometimes have fights over it. It isn't worth going to that kind of trouble to convey the rules of a game, while obscuring the spirit of that game. Might as well have legal language for how we determine what goes on our pizza.


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## TheUltramark (May 4, 2011)

ok, I can look up rules too

In the players handbook it clearly states that when prone you grant CA in melee, you get +2 to ranged defenses, you take -2 to all attacks...AND YOU ARE LYING ON THE GROUND.

It isn't just some common sense, or webster's definition, it's actually in the rule, and by it being there, doesn't that imply that before you are prone you are....you know...NOT lying on the ground???????


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## Thasmodious (May 4, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> ok, I can look up rules too
> 
> In the players handbook it clearly states that when prone you grant CA in melee, you get +2 to ranged defenses, you take -2 to all attacks...AND YOU ARE LYING ON THE GROUND.
> 
> It isn't just some common sense, or webster's definition, it's actually in the rule, and by it being there, doesn't that imply that before you are prone you are....you know...NOT lying on the ground???????




You are getting too technical and focusing on the one piece of the condition with no mechanical effect.   However, any creature has a method of moving itself that involves contact with the ground.  A snake and a man both use contact with the ground to move themselves about, a snake has more contact with the ground, relative to its total surface area than a legged creature.  A snake moves along the ground by manipulating its ventral scales along the ground.  The ventral scales are located on the underside of the snake.  Essentially, when a snake is moving, it is not lying on the ground anymore than I am moving if I am lying on the ground.  The part of its body responsible for its locomotion is in contact with the ground and active.  If you disrupt that, the snake has to right itself to move again, in that space, when its ventral scales are not on the ground, or not enough of them are, THEN it is lying on the ground.  Otherwise, it is moving along the ground just as any other creature does.  Lying on the ground implies a lack of movement, and indeed, the lack of movement is part of the mechanical effect of the prone condition.

Secondly, having the prone condition applied in no way implies that you weren't previously on the ground.  You could well have been.  There is no requirement that you are standing in order to have the prone condition applied or re-applied.  In most cases having it applied again would have no in game effect, it would just be ignored since you were already prone.  However, some powers might apply a duration or another situation to deal with such as entangled or a more severe penalty.  

So, to sum up:

1. A moving snake is not lying on the ground, it is moving along the ground. An attacking snake is not lying on the ground, it is coiled to strike, raised up in a position to both strike and move.  
2. Often conditions are secondary effects.  The rules specify that the longest duration applies when a condition is applied twice by different attacks.  Someone proned by a secondary effect is then hit with a command type spell with (save ends), the caster commanding the target to be prone.  They are prone until they save.  Same with blind, deaf, whatever.


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## Barastrondo (May 4, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> ok, I can look up rules too
> 
> In the players handbook it clearly states that when prone you grant CA in melee, you get +2 to ranged defenses, you take -2 to all attacks...AND YOU ARE LYING ON THE GROUND.
> 
> It isn't just some common sense, or webster's definition, it's actually in the rule, and by it being there, doesn't that imply that before you are prone you are....you know...NOT lying on the ground???????




Nope. Because if it did, then if I were hit by an immobilized effect that was going to end at the end of my next turn, then I would be immune to any effects that restrained me. However, a condition that includes "unable to move" doesn't imply that I was able to move before I was restrained. Hence, sucks to be me.


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## Patryn of Elvenshae (May 4, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> ok, I can look up rules too
> 
> In the players handbook it clearly states that when prone you grant CA in melee, you get +2 to ranged defenses, you take -2 to all attacks...AND YOU ARE LYING ON THE GROUND.
> 
> It isn't just some common sense, or webster's definition, it's actually in the rule, and by it being there, doesn't that imply that before you are prone you are....you know...NOT lying on the ground???????




So, if I understand you correctly, you're saying a snake can't be made prone because it's already lying on the ground?

Wouldn't that indicate, then, that snakes are *always* prone, and always take the penalties and bonuses associated therewith?

If you're saying that they don't take those penalties all the time, then conversely there's no problem with giving a snake the prone condition.  When that happens, the snake is just lying on the ground (which it does anyway) in such a way that it had additional effects (which doesn't normally happen) - namely, the benefits and penalties applied by the prone condition.

So what's the problem here?


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## Patryn of Elvenshae (May 4, 2011)

Doppleposten! Ja!


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## TheUltramark (May 5, 2011)

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> So, if I understand you correctly, you're saying a snake can't be made prone because it's already lying on the ground?
> 
> Wouldn't that indicate, then, that snakes are *always* prone, and always take the penalties and bonuses associated therewith?
> 
> ...



this is just fun to argue this, as I have said before, it really isn't that big of a deal, but I do like to plead my case, so here goes
Snakes are in fact always (always being relative) on their bellies.  Humans are not so often found in that position, and seldom do you see a human fighting from his belly, although it is possible to do so, and obviously has been done.  Fighting in an unnatural way is why you get penalized for being prone.  Snakes are naturally prone, so why would they get a penalty?

Now, you can argue about flipping a snake over, or grabbing and lifting a snake, or some other kind of attack, but punching a snake will never knock it prone in my game.  Furthermore, if you try and "spring it on me" like "I do 9 damage, and OH! - I almost forgot, it's knocked prone" - sorry, you just blundered your attack - but fear not, we'l all fun just the same.


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## Thasmodious (May 5, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> Snakes are naturally prone




No, they are not.  They simply have more "feet" in touch with the ground.  When those feet aren't in touch with the ground, they are THEN prone.


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## eamon (May 5, 2011)

MarkB said:


> For that matter, I don't have much trouble imagining knocking an ooze prone. Just because they're undifferentiated biologically doesn't mean they are physically too.
> 
> Your typical ooze in combat is likely to be extruding cilia on its underside for extra grip, and pseudopods from its top side to lash out at opponents. If you flip it so that the cilia are at the top and the pseudopods are underneath, that's going to inconvenience it until it takes a moment (let's call it a move action) to reconfigure itself.



On the one hand - that's a neat explanation!

I don't think I'll use it, however.  I don't think prone oozes make sense (more on that later), and assuming it doesn't make sense, it's unwise to harp on it.  Let's face it, there's lots of stuff in D&D that doesn't make perfect sense.  It's trivial (and hilarious fun) to have a one-shot with lots of ludicrous counter-intuitive scenarios that are rules-legal but challenging to visualize (just like the prone ooze).  In a normal campaign these are just as possible, but people _don't_ harp on them because they're not out to undermine verisimilitude.

As to why the explanation - which is good, and creative - is still not something I'd actively encourage:

First of all, there's the rules consistency issue: prone doesn't just involve movement penalties, it also involves ranged defense bonuses and attack penalties, and CA - but only to melee attackers.  The fiddling-with-ooze-internals explanation only matches partially here.  It doesn't rhyme with the ranged defense bonus, nor does it explain the CA specific to melee attacks.  You might be able to tweak the explanation and patch up these holes slightly, but the problem with doing so is that the explanation will be intricate and obviously reverse engineered to achieve _just these _mechanical modifiers.  If you insist on finding an explanation to match the precise mechanical effects, the oddly specific in-game effect serves to _remind_ people that you're playing an unrealistic game rather than to ameliorate the inconsistency between mechanics and in-game events.  If you don't, it just doesn't match very well.

Secondly, there's the ability consistency here: obviously _mechanically_ if a PC has a power imposing prone he can't just willy-nilly say it instead slows or whatnot: the PC's abilities are consistent across scenarios.  But in-game if you tweak the explanation to fit the mechanics you get complete inconsistency on the fluff front: why, if in one scenario (say) a fighter turn a five-foot cube on its head can't he do something similar in all situations?  Would you let him do that to a defenseless bale of hay?  If he can trip even a giant, why can't he fell a tree in one swoop?  If a seeker can push a huge giant (without fail!), can he push a huge boulder?  If you change the in-game explanation all the time, the question arises why the abilities of the in-game character change all the time.  It'd be wonderfully in-character for a player to describe some of his attacks colorfully, and proceed to use those same skills later again with consistent in-game effects but differing mechanical effects.

So, you can use cool descriptions for drama, but it's virtually impossible to refluff basic mechanics without running into consistency issues.


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## Hussar (May 5, 2011)

Didn't I just read this EXACT conversation in another thread? Oh, yes I did.  Wow, that was confusing.  Thought I had the wrong windows open.

-----------

While the idea that the 4e DM has the final say is in the 4ed DMG, there is also a rather lengthy treatise in there on "say yes" which is not present in previous versions of D&D.  IOW, sure, you can say no.  That's not really in question.  But, before you say no, stop and actually give an honest try to say yes first.  

Which is more important - stopping the game to explain why the PC's power cannot knock the snake prone, probably prompting a rules discussion at the table (possibly one that drags on for several pages across multiple threads... oops, sorry, that's on forums, not game tables) or simply shrugging, adding in the modifiers and having the player explain how he's knocked the snake prone?


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## Hussar (May 5, 2011)

eamon said:
			
		

> Secondly, there's the ability consistency here: obviously mechanically if a PC has a power imposing prone he can't just willy-nilly say it instead slows or whatnot: the PC's abilities are consistent across scenarios. But in-game if you tweak the explanation to fit the mechanics you get complete inconsistency on the fluff front: why, if in one scenario (say) a fighter turn a five-foot cube on its head can't he do something similar in all situations? Would you let him do that to a defenseless bale of hay?




Well, I'm not quite sure what effect knocking a bale of hay prone would be, but, sure, why not?



> If he can trip even a giant, why can't he fell a tree in one swoop?




Because trees, by and large, don't locomate?



> If a seeker can push a huge giant (without fail!), can he push a huge boulder?




Not familiar with this specific power, but, again, boulders don't locomate typically.  You can push the giant, because using the power causes the giant to stumble (not directly but by imposing a little bit of Player Editorial power)



> If you change the in-game explanation all the time, the question arises why the abilities of the in-game character change all the time. It'd be wonderfully in-character for a player to describe some of his attacks colorfully, and proceed to use those same skills later again with consistent in-game effects but differing mechanical effects.




This would only be true if you insist that all powers have one, and only one possible explanation for how they work instead of having them work differently on a case by case basis.


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## Balesir (May 5, 2011)

Thasmodious said:


> You're kind of moving the goalposts on me here, though.



Yes, and I apologise for that. Put it down to me blundering around a bit in that last post, as I often do when trying to communicate about this very slippery conceptual area. Let me try to add clarity, again...



Thasmodious said:


> We're talking about mixing the elements of play, not requiring that any we use be the main focus when it is being used.  I don't think stories "switch" from one to the other, but blend.  I would agree, most have a primary focus, but they mix seemlessly the other elements, the great ones often do, anyway.



That "primary focus" may relate to what I'm trying to say, but it may not, since there is a critical difference between what we are talking about here with "stories" and roleplaying. Your next example highlights it nicely...



Thasmodious said:


> That was handled much better in an example I'd hold up as a highlight of blending elements that also, as a side benefit, led to the creation of our beloved hobby -
> 
> LotR.  The thematic thread running through the whole tale was industry versus nature, but, as with most great stories (and I think great games), the theme was not something so directly acted upon by the characters.  There are moments where a character makes a comment in support of the theme, but mostly Tolkien just shows us by making us love Hobbiton, and Rivendell, and Fangorn, and half a dozen other locations.  The physical obstacles are many: fights, battles, natural obstacles, social obstacles (dealing with the elves, the ents, etc).  We have a pretty seemless blending of all the elements, focused on a party, broken down into challenges, that nonetheless includes a wealth of moral and ethical situations, a strong running theme, and exploration of both the world and society as a central part of the adventure.



Right, but this "ethical content" is hotly disputed by Tolkien fans and the supposed thoughts and beliefs of the man himself - did he deliberately set out to create a paen against industry, and associate industry with the fascists becoming prevalent at the time he wrote the tale, or not? And here lies the key difference between reading, or watching (or listening to) a story and roleplaying. With a story, we are witnessing the finished work, the tale complete, after the act of creation is done. With roleplaying, though, we are in the midst of the act of creation. The story is being made at the table. The analogue, then, is not with the finished tale of LotR, but with JRR Tolkien's focus as he wrote it. Sadly, there is only one person who even could really know what that was - and he has long passed from the world. Was the "industry : fascist : bad vs. countryside and nature : hobbits : good" stuff something he deliberately crafted into the story, or was it simply his world-view, naturally and unconsciously expressed as he focussed on creating an adventure tale? I don't know - and I'm pretty sure I never will.



Thasmodious said:


> I feel I need to stress that I'm talking about blending the elements and not switching foci.  I don't think switching focus is the goal.  I don't think making a game moment solely about one thing or another is a good way to go about it.



OK, so you have one focus, but it contains a number of things. I'm struggling to see how, but as I have said before, maybe it's possible - I have just stopped trying (for now) to do it.



Thasmodious said:


> I agree that many stories and games likely have a focus along one element or another, they are primarily action based or primarily a game of exploration (sand box for example), but a good game will blend in plenty of physical challenges and combats as well as elements of story and plot (whether GM or player determined, or both).



I'll pull you up here for what I see as a common misconception - sorry if it was just a slip. The physical challenges and such *are* elements of the story and plot! That was kind-of the point of my description of "story" before getting into game specific stuff, earlier. As long as you have adversity/conflict - i.e. a protagonist with a dramatic need unable to fulfill it due to a series of barriers, whether they involve an antagonist or not - _you will get a story_. It may even be a good one. "Story elements" are simply "adversity/conflict", and "plot" is what we see in retrospect as we view events in hindsight. As Charles Tilly pointed out, "the truth is not a story" - stories are a way that we try to communicate about the truth by connecting certain parts of it together.



Thasmodious said:


> I don't.  It may well have a clear focus, but even most action stories have _story_, even while action is what drives it.  Sure, at the low end of genre, its pretty generic and tacked on, but, again, the great ones rise above the trappings by blending the elements, by having a great story, real character development, a focused setting.



And every roleplaying game will generate a story; that is like saying every roleplaying game (or story) involves an imaginary reality. Even with "historical" stories, this is true, since the story is happening in our heads, otherwise it would be the events themselves, not a story about them.  But both of these observations are generic. They say nothing about the nature of the game/story within its general class. _Of course_ there will be a "shared imaginary space", and _of course_ there will be an emergent story - those are fundamental, necessary elements for the whole endeavour to work. It's a bit like saying that a car is like a bicycle, because they both have wheels; _of course_ they both have wheels - but it's the other things they have or don't have that makes them different.



Thasmodious said:


> The Matrix is a prime example of this.



Movies are an interesting case. Here, the story is almost created multiple times - first by the screenwriter, then by the director, the cameraman and so forth. It may be that the screenwriter had one focus and the film makers another. The Matrix almost pulled this off, I think.  Avatar, less so.



Thasmodious said:


> My argument is that it's not a switch, or doesn't have to be.  You don't stop the game, completely change the presentation, clear the minis off the map while the dilemma is being resolved, its blended with the action element or with the setting element.  It arises from character or plot or setting.  You don't have to change the focus of the game, it's ALL the game.



Absolutely, it's all the game. But, in play, the game group will be focussing on something - they will be "doing" something specific. Maybe the group you play with focus on a melange of overcoming the immediate in-game obstacle, figuring out the most interesting moral line to adopt in the current situation and assessing how the game world and characters "work" in the current situation - but I find that I generally focus on just one of those, and I find games I GM work better when I focus on just one of them, too. Your experience may be different - if so, good luck to you!


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## eamon (May 5, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Well, I'm not quite sure what effect knocking a bale of hay prone would be, but, sure, why not?



I'm not talking about _mechanical_ consistency, I'm talking about _in-game_  consistency - so if you can flip a gelatinous cube, you should be able  to flip over anything similar (barring significant differences).  And...  it seems a bit ridiculous for a fighter to be able to do that.

On the topid of pushing over giants and trees.


> Because trees, by and large, don't locomate?



I meant pushing over a giant, which is not the best of examples, indeed.

On the topic of seeker's pushing class feature...


> Not familiar with this specific power, but, again, boulders don't  locomate typically.  You can push the giant, because using the power  causes the giant to stumble (not directly but by imposing a little bit  of Player Editorial power)



Sure, so you cause the boulder to roll a little.  Why not?


On the topic of powers' in-game effects...


Hussar said:


> This would only be true if you insist that all  powers have one, and only one possible explanation for how they work  instead of having them work differently on a case by case basis.




And that's exactly the point.  If you redefine a power's in-game  function continually, you're constantly redefining the character's  abilities.  Are you really going to allow those new in-game  interpretations in other scenario's where they're possibly more  powerful?  Probably not.

So to recap; refluffing powers opens a proverbial bag of rats: and if you as a DM do so, you can't in good conscience (at least, I couldn't) disallow it in another scenario, you've gotta be consistent.  And furthermore, the refluff doesn't actually make sense in the first place (whence the ranged defense bonus and the melee-specific CA?)

I think refluffing has a solid niche in introducing a little bit of drama, but not so much as a means to explain away incongruous mechanics.


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## Kingreaper (May 5, 2011)

eamon said:


> I'm not talking about _mechanical_ consistency, I'm talking about _in-game_  consistency - so if you can flip a gelatinous cube, you should be able  to flip over anything similar (barring significant differences).  And...  it seems a bit ridiculous for a fighter to be able to do that.



*I* can, if necessary, flip over a bale of hay.

I'm not a superstrong fantasy warrior. In fact, for my build/genetics (which are admittedly, both rather close to the standard warrior archetype) I'm a weakling. I'm a pretty standard pizza-eating, sunlight-fearing, geek.

A fighter who can't flip a bale of hay? What kind of game are you playing?

If you were talking about an artful dodger rogue, I might get your point. But then again, that'd be someone who was doing it via trickery, and you can't trick hay.




> On the topic of seeker's pushing class feature...
> Sure, so you cause the boulder to roll a little.  Why not?



Well, for starters you have to overcome it's static friction.

If the boulder's rolling already, then yeah should be doable.



> So to recap; refluffing powers opens a proverbial bag of rats: and if you as a DM do so, you can't in good conscience (at least, I couldn't) disallow it in another scenario, you've gotta be consistent.  And furthermore, the refluff doesn't actually make sense in the first place (whence the ranged defense bonus and the melee-specific CA?)



Melee-specific CA? The lack of cilia, and presence of pseudopods, makes it easier to get an attack in without being parried.

Ranged defense bonus? Pseudopods are tougher than cilia.

Simplez


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## Balesir (May 5, 2011)

eamon said:


> And that's exactly the point.  If you redefine a power's in-game  function continually, you're constantly redefining the character's  abilities.



If I may make a slight correction, in the example provided you are not redefining a power's in-*game* function, you are redefininf a power's in-*setting* operation, which is quite different. The D&D 4E rules set out to define in-game functions and capabilities, rather than in-setting effects and capabilities as is traditional among "mainstream" roleplaying systems. On the one hand, this creates problems with "simulationist" habits, since the "game world" is no longer explicitly modelled and determinant. On the other hand, it's actually quite liberating, since the limits to the capabilities of sapient lifeforms are notoriously tricky to quantify. 



Kingreaper said:


> ... you can't trick hay.



Or maybe that would be an Epic level ability?


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## Crazy Jerome (May 5, 2011)

Everytime this type of discussion gets started, I can't help but think that a certain amount of the disconnect is that people simply don't know how some things work. And not the same things, either. We've all got these holes in our practical experience, and they make it difficult to discuss simulation *and* narrative breaks from simulation.

I'd talk about the holes in my knowledge, but obviously I don't know what those are. 

Snakes do not "fight prone". How do you know? If you have ever seen a snake strike and then strike again, you know they don't have much reach while staying ready to quickly strike again. If they commit and stretch, it takes a few seconds for them to be ready again. That is why people can, if they have the nerve, grab a rattlesnake by the tail immediately after a strike. (I don't recommend that you try this at home.)

If you don't know that, then your "sim" of snakes is that they lie on the ground and bite people. If you write house rules to fit, they'll probably have snakes acting in ways that snakes don't. (Simplifying, obviously.) Likewise, if you want to narrate a power that makes a snake prone, and don't know how real snakes act, then you are kind of at a loss, or you have to get even more imaginative than someone who does know. Or maybe you change the nature of snakes, via fiat or magic. 

And of course, that doesn't address how snakes act in any film, book, story which you might want to capture in the setting. It also doesn't address any gaps in the game authors' knowledge when they were writing the general rules.


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## Raven Crowking (May 5, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> Snakes do not "fight prone". How do you know? If you have ever seen a snake strike and then strike again, you know they don't have much reach while staying ready to quickly strike again. If they commit and stretch, it takes a few seconds for them to be ready again. That is why people can, if they have the nerve, grab a rattlesnake by the tail immediately after a strike. (I don't recommend that you try this at home.)




Yup.

But....grabbing a snake by the tail, even when it is stretched out, can result in a bite anyway.  I've seen it happen.  Snakes are pretty good at twisting their bodies around, and the person holding them isn't always nearly cautious enough.


RC


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## Crazy Jerome (May 5, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> Yup.
> 
> But....grabbing a snake by the tail, even when it is stretched out, can result in a bite anyway. I've seen it happen. Snakes are pretty good at twisting their bodies around, and the person holding them isn't always nearly cautious enough.
> 
> ...




The guys I know that did it were grabbing water moccasins, then snapping their heads by flicking the snake away from them before it could recover.  They would immediately let go.  Either the snake is dead (and thus no problem), or it is still alive and now its head is away from the guy who is no longer holding it.  

I know how it is done, and I'm still not gonna do it.  There are a lot of things that can go wrong, and you don't even have to roll a 1 for them to happen.


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## Raven Crowking (May 5, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> The guys I know that did it were grabbing water moccasins, then snapping their heads by flicking the snake away from them before it could recover.  They would immediately let go.  Either the snake is dead (and thus no problem), or it is still alive and now its head is away from the guy who is no longer holding it.
> 
> I know how it is done, and I'm still not gonna do it.  There are a lot of things that can go wrong, and you don't even have to roll a 1 for them to happen.




Too true!

My older brother, while visiting California, once encountered a large rattlesnake.  He calmly put his booted foot on its head, pulled out a pocket knife, and decapitated it.  He then took a picture holding the body, which looks to be about 5 ft long.

He knew enough not to touch the head, which can still bite as a reflex action after death.


RC


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## Neonchameleon (May 5, 2011)

Hussar said:


> While the idea that the 4e DM has the final say is in the 4ed DMG, there is also a rather lengthy treatise in there on "say yes" which is not present in previous versions of D&D. IOW, sure, you can say no. That's not really in question. But, before you say no, stop and actually give an honest try to say yes first.
> 
> Which is more important - stopping the game to explain why the PC's power cannot knock the snake prone, probably prompting a rules discussion at the table (possibly one that drags on for several pages across multiple threads... oops, sorry, that's on forums, not game tables) or simply shrugging, adding in the modifiers and having the player explain how he's knocked the snake prone?




Absolutely.  Justifying a slightly odd result adds to immersion because it enhances details.  Changing the rules on the fly first focusses the group on the rules (to the detriment of immersion and the highlighting of any problems), second often causes players to feel slighted and antagonistic, and thirdly simply slows things down.

Except where they are absolutely crippling, rules disputes should be handled after the game.  The DM chaging the rules of the game on the fly is every bit as much of a rules dispute (the DM vs the rulebook) as a player vs DM dispute.  Yes, you break infinite loops and full Murphy's Rules as DM.  And anything worldbusting.  But less than that?  You're causing five times more problems changing things on the fly than simply not sweating the small stuff and handling it after the session.  (And a big part of the job of the _designers_ is to make sure that this is all small stuff).

IMO, the only time saying "no" and changing the rules on the fly is better practice than saying "yes" and continuing is when saying yes is so absurd that it will grind the whole table to a halt for half a minute (note: expanding descriptions does not cause the table to grind to a halt) and leave a bad taste in peoples mouths.  Because that is precisely what will happen every time you say no to the printed rules.


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## Raven Crowking (May 5, 2011)

Can I hold you guys to this the next time a "Say Yes" discussion comes up, and it is claimed that it doesn't mean a DM can't say No to knocking a snake prone, playing a Warforged Ninja in a PotC setting, etc.?

Neither "Say Yes" nor "Say No" should be the default.

The default should be:  "Say what you think will make a better game".


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## Thasmodious (May 5, 2011)

First, this is an interesting discussion and I've enjoyed it.  We may be the only two, but hey, _suum cuique_...

It's clear I did have a misunderstanding of exactly how you were using the GNS terms as types.  I thought you were defining narrativism specifically as conflict that arises because of story, as if story was a separate element from the other two.  I felt that you were redefining all three terms a bit as examples of what you were talking about, but it seems you are using them as intended, so I think we are on the same page, now.  The mutual exclusivity of playtypes is primarily why I don't agree with GNS theory in the first place and why I responded to your original post.  

A successful game, for me, necessarily blends and weaves elements as tools to advance the game by advancing the characters, both in a gamist sense (gaining levels) and as characters (achieving goals, resolving conflicts, etc).  For example, my current game is a Savage Worlds game set in the Firefly 'Verse.  The primary elements of the game are very much a blend of the elements under discussion (as was the show).  The game is fairly action packed, the characters constantly come into conflict with each other, the setting, and their own ethics as they work on that shady gray line, and they, obviously, are constantly dealing with the realities of the familiar setting (crappy ships liable to break down at any minute, avoiding or manipulating the bureaucracy of the Alliance, exploring the various worlds etc.)  Conflict arises from all these elements and often more than one at a time.  



Balesir said:


> Right, but this "ethical content" is hotly disputed by Tolkien fans and the supposed thoughts and beliefs of the man himself - did he deliberately set out to create a paen against industry, and associate industry with the fascists becoming prevalent at the time he wrote the tale, or not?




Its a bit of a tangent, but I think the green = good, industry = bad, was a purposeful element.  And I don't think he was equating Sauron and co. to real world fascism anymore than I buy the Christian allegory argument.  I could argue that all day, as I have before, with lots of examples, being one of those Tolkien fan/scholars who likes to go on about it _ad nauseam.  _But, that's a discussion for another time, thread, and forum. 



> And here lies the key difference between reading, or watching (or listening to) a story and roleplaying. With a story, we are witnessing the finished work, the tale complete, after the act of creation is done. With roleplaying, though, we are in the midst of the act of creation. The story is being made at the table. The analogue, then, is not with the finished tale of LotR, but with JRR Tolkien's focus as he wrote it.




Yes, that's what many of us love so much about this hobby.  Writing is not an accidental act and while things can be interpreted that weren't there intentionally, when you have a consistent theme returning time and time again as a constant thread throughout the story, it's usually no accident. But that doesn't mean it's the focus, or sole focus.  I don't think a writer switches anymore than I think we switch between modes at the game table.  That's why I keep using the word weaves, as that is what I see going on.  Weaving elements together specifically because they do cause conflict is the essence of storytelling. 



> They say nothing about the nature of the game/story within its general class. _Of course_ there will be a "shared imaginary space", and _of course_ there will be an emergent story - those are fundamental, necessary elements for the whole endeavour to work. It's a bit like saying that a car is like a bicycle, because they both have wheels; _of course_ they both have wheels - but it's the other things they have or don't have that makes them different.




Different, both both will get you where you need to go.  They are more similar than different.  I could explain a car to man who has only ever seen bicycles much easier than I could explain, say, a computer.  This may be at the center of our discussion.  While the three elements of GNS are different, they are also similar in that they are all sources of conflict, and conflict is story.  Since they are all sources of conflict, they are all tools to create conflict, and I like to use tools.  I don't like limiting myself to a single focus.  I like for the game to be fun, the system playable, the characters to be developed and to grow, conflicts to come from varied sources, etc.  And I feel that great stories often do the same.



> Movies are an interesting case. Here, the story is almost created multiple times - first by the screenwriter, then by the director, the cameraman and so forth. It may be that the screenwriter had one focus and the film makers another. The Matrix almost pulled this off, I think.  Avatar, less so.




It's collaborative, and more broken down into a series of significant encounters/scenes, so I think moviemaking is much more similar to RPGs than literature. 



> Absolutely, it's all the game. But, in play, the game group will be focussing on something - they will be "doing" something specific. Maybe the group you play with focus on a melange of overcoming the immediate in-game obstacle, figuring out the most interesting moral line to adopt in the current situation and assessing how the game world and characters "work" in the current situation - but I find that I generally focus on just one of those, and I find games I GM work better when I focus on just one of them, too. Your experience may be different - if so, good luck to you!




I agree that the players will face a particular focus, an overriding concern in any conflict, and that focus will likely arise from one or another element. But, multiple elements can be in play inside a single encounter, and should be, IMO.  

The PCs get in a fight due to a misunderstanding of local customs, they vastly overpower the locals, who have drawn weapons, and are intent on killing rather than brawling.  The PCs have one clear goal that is easily achieved - survive - but how and at what costs?  The ethics of the group and the realities of the setting will come into play.  Should these locals die because of a misunderstanding, what are the legal and social ramifications, are they skilled enough to maybe talk their way out, do they just blast anyone that stands in their way?  Depending on the answers to these questions, their actions and secondary goals are heavily influenced by the friction between all these elements and you have a deeper conflict than just 4 HD of locals to beat down.


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## Raven Crowking (May 5, 2011)

Here's an area where I'm confused, and maybe someone can help me.

Ever since 1e, there's been a general idea of "understand the rules before you tinker with them".  AFAICT, that is only made explicit in 1e.

Now, ever since 3.0, I've been hearing how WotC-D&D is more transparent than TSR-D&D, thus making things easier to judge.  It seems that each new version is more transparent than the last.

One would think that, if this were true, it would be easier to tinker with WotC-D&D than TSR-D&D.

But, over and over again, WotC-D&D advocates say that tinkering with even such a small thing as whether or not a snake can be knocked prone is going to somehow throw the game off kilter.

If WotC-D&D is really so transparent, shouldn't the DM know the consequences before making the call, and be able to adapt to them far more easily than with any version of TSR-D&D?  Yet every version of TSR-D&D expected tinkering, and worked as well -- or better! -- with tinkering as without.  In a very real way, 4e is D&D because it is Gygax's rules + someone's tinkering.

Personally, I'd like to see one of these two memes die:

(1)  WotC-D&D is more transparent than TSR-D&D, thus making it easier for a DM to judge what will happen as the result of any change, or

(2)  WotC-D&D falls to pieces the minute you rule a snake can't be knocked prone.

I'm thinking both are actually incorrect.


RC


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## Neonchameleon (May 5, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> Here's an area where I'm confused, and maybe someone can help me.
> 
> Ever since 1e, there's been a general idea of "understand the rules before you tinker with them". AFAICT, that is only made explicit in 1e.
> 
> ...




You misunderstand on all counts.

First, the two are not contradictory.  The difference in tinkering is between a racecar and an SUV.  The racecar has been computer modelled to hell and back.  And we know exactly what will happen if you lower the undercarriage an inch or turn the spoiler fifteen degrees.  It's transparent.  Whereas you can do almost whatever you like to the SUV whether or not you know what you are doing - and the effects probably won't be major.  (The racecar will probably still handle better than the banger afterwards - and the SUV will get more torque unless you seriously change the racecar).

Second it will not break the game to make snakes immune to being knocked prone.  I've faced monsters that are immune to being knocked prone.  It doesn't break the game.  What it does do is slow things down, annoy people, and generally get in the way to no good purpose whereas an attitude of saying yes rather than having the DM do some petty quibbling on the fly that the game runs more smoothly.  If the DM is changing the rules on the fly then it brings the rules to the forefront of the game and this pushes back immersion.  He's also changing the mechanics of the gameworld on the fly, pushing back any understanding the players have of where the characters live. It's IMO bad practice on most grounds to rule like that on the fly.  (That said, some monsters (including dwarves) have powers to avoid being knocked prone).

Thirdly, 3e is Gygax's rules and tinkering.  4e was redesigned from the ground up, inspired by Gygax.  From what I've seen of RCFG, it's more Gygaxian than 4e.


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## Raven Crowking (May 5, 2011)

Neonchameleon said:


> You misunderstand on all counts.




Ah, well....perhaps.  See my Status.



> First, the two are not contradictory.  The difference in tinkering is between a racecar and an SUV.  The racecar has been computer modelled to hell and back.  And we know exactly what will happen if you lower the undercarriage an inch or turn the spoiler fifteen degrees.  It's transparent.  Whereas you can do almost whatever you like to the SUV whether or not you know what you are doing - and the effects probably won't be major.  (The racecar will probably still handle better than the banger afterwards - and the SUV will get more torque unless you seriously change the racecar).




I agree about the difference between broad-based balance and knife-edge balance, but I don't think that 4e is a racecar, or that it is as transparent as you think.  The racer has been computer modeled to hell and back.  4e has been altered and errata-ed to hell and back.  Transparency would not require so much errata. 



> Second it will not break the game to make snakes immune to being knocked prone.  I've faced monsters that are immune to being knocked prone.  It doesn't break the game.  What it does do is slow things down, annoy people, and generally get in the way to no good purpose whereas an attitude of saying yes rather than having the DM do some petty quibbling on the fly that the game runs more smoothly.




You are making a lot of assumptions here about who is at the table, and what they want from a role-playing game.

Outstanding among those assumptions is that the DM is making changes "to no good purpose", and is involved in "petty quibbling".  



> Thirdly, 3e is Gygax's rules and tinkering.  4e was redesigned from the ground up, inspired by Gygax.




Not sure I buy that, either.  I think that the lines from Gygax -> 3e -> 4e are quite clear.



> From what I've seen of RCFG, it's more Gygaxian than 4e.




That I would agree with.


RC


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## Raven Crowking (May 5, 2011)

Neonchameleon said:


> From what I've seen of RCFG, it's more Gygaxian than 4e.




Actually, we invited Gary to a recent playtest session.  But when he showed up, we all aged 10 years, so we never found out what he thought.


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## Crazy Jerome (May 5, 2011)

Neonchameleon said:


> IMO, the only time saying "no" and changing the rules on the fly is better practice than saying "yes" and continuing is when saying yes is so absurd that it will grind the whole table to a halt for half a minute (note: expanding descriptions does not cause the table to grind to a halt) and leave a bad taste in peoples mouths. Because that is precisely what will happen every time you say no to the printed rules.






Raven Crowking said:


> Can I hold you guys to this the next time a "Say Yes" discussion comes up, and it is claimed that it doesn't mean a DM can't say No to knocking a snake prone, playing a Warforged Ninja in a PotC setting, etc.?
> 
> Neither "Say Yes" nor "Say No" should be the default.
> 
> The default should be: "Say what you think will make a better game".




I have never been a "Say Yes" purist, which is one of the reasons I prefer Improvizational Jazz to Improvisational Theatre as a metaphor for a gaming session.  (Another reason is that I have more theoretical and practical experience with Jazz.)  

And our group cares about two figs about immersion.  So we don't mind stopping the game.  But we do care about time.  So there is no "Say Yes" or "Say No" on a whole lot of these questions.  Rather, it is, as DM, you the group has pushed me to a point where I have to rule "Yes" or "No", and I think that we might have different opinions about it (or I started to rule, and someone disagreed).  So we state the issue clearly, then vote.  Sometimes it takes all of 60 seconds.  

Now, having voted, you can bet I'm going to put on my Viking Hat and enforce that vote to the hilt, even If I disagreed with the outcome.  Because this ain't just me and my preference anymore. We stopped the game and voted.  If you want me to take off the Viking Hat, you'll have to bring it up again and vote again--which is an option.  And whatever we decided for one character, PC or NPC, will apply to all of them (within reason, given sometimes different expectations and mechanics).

A lot of times when I "Say No," I'm just saving time.  I can make a highly educated guess how the players are going to vote on a medium zombie knocking down a giant and "Say No".  If it matter enough to a player to stop the game and put it to a vote, that's always the players' option, as long as it isn't too frequent.  You pick your battles.  Because the players don't want to waste time either.  

We used to do this stuff after the game, but we found that frequently this caused more trouble than just getting it done as it arose.  Issue arises.  Fix it.  If it won't stay fixed, muddle through and fix it later.  If it seems fixed, but didn't stay fixed, burn that bridge when we come to it.


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## MrMyth (May 5, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> Can I hold you guys to this the next time a "Say Yes" discussion comes up, and it is claimed that it doesn't mean a DM can't say No to knocking a snake prone, playing a Warforged Ninja in a PotC setting, etc.?
> 
> Neither "Say Yes" nor "Say No" should be the default.
> 
> The default should be: "Say what you think will make a better game".




Well, I think you may be mistaking the difference between a default and an asbolute. The concept behind "Say Yes" is a reminder to the DM to carefully consider whether there is a good reason to prevent a PC from attemping something interesting or playing an unexpected role. 

That said... yeah, I'm mostly in agreement. Reasons to approve or disapprove of a choice will change from one DM to the next, one game to the next, there shouldn't be any set absolute one must adhere to. 

And I don't think that is what the "Say Yes" advice is intended to be - it is simply a reminder to think twice before making such decisions, and make sure that whatever your reasoning (preserving integrity of the setting, internal consistency of the combat, avoiding setting precedents for unbalanced stunts in the future, etc) does intend weigh in stronger than approving something that would provide a more entertaining experience for the player. 



Raven Crowking said:


> Now, ever since 3.0, I've been hearing how WotC-D&D is more transparent than TSR-D&D, thus making things easier to judge. It seems that each new version is more transparent than the last.
> 
> One would think that, if this were true, it would be easier to tinker with WotC-D&D than TSR-D&D.
> 
> But, over and over again, WotC-D&D advocates say that tinkering with even such a small thing as whether or not a snake can be knocked prone is going to somehow throw the game off kilter.




Well, for myself, I think such claims are silly. But I also don't see them crop up all that often. Is it possible you are misreading some similar concepts as that sort of argument? 

Being able to knock snakes prone, by default, isn't really an issue of balance within 4E, but one of philosophy. 'Avoid removing PC capabilities without good reason.'

It isn't that the game breaks down if the polearm wielding fighter can no longer trip snakes. It is that one player might feel sidelined if he's built to flip enemies over and take advantage of their weakness, and suddenly they have entire adventures in which everything is immune to his core function. 

The other claim that I often see, which might tie into this, is that while it won't disrupt the balance, it does set the stage for a lot of nit-picking. You rule that snakes can't be knocked prone, and one PC instead now wants to argue that they should instead _always _count as being prone, just that they don't suffer the normal penalties for being prone. This means that his feat, Headsman's Chop - which gives damage bonuses when using an axe or heavy blade to attack someone while prone - would still apply, even if the snake didn't grant combat advantage or have difficulties with moving. 

His argument may even make sense - one imagines someone with such a skill would be perfectly able to put it to good use against your standard snake slithering along the ground - but then you open up the situation to even more discussion. Can the snake turn off this 'counts as prone' shtick if it coils up? Does that reduce its reach when it does so?

You end up getting into a lot of minutia. I don't think any of it - pretty much any decision made at _any _point in this process - is likely to _unbalance_ the game. But it will slow it down, and once you set the precedent of letting what makes sense override what is written in the rules, you risk everyone having a different opinion for how 'what makes sense' should actually work in game terms, and Knights of the Dinner Style arguing following from there. 

Now, I'm not saying every rules call will lead to such antics, nor that one should avoid making a call just for fear of player disagreement. But I think it is one of the reasons offered for trying to adhere to a strict rules system in order to ensure shared expectations by everyone at the table. And that this sort of point is put forward more often than claims that the slightest adjustment to some critter's abilities in 4E will somehow result in catastrophic damage to the balance of the game system.


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## Thasmodious (May 5, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> Here's an area where I'm confused, and maybe someone can help me.
> 
> Ever since 1e, there's been a general idea of "understand the rules before you tinker with them".  AFAICT, that is only made explicit in 1e.




I think that's just good basic GMing advice anyway.  I know people often tell those new to Savage Worlds to play it before changing it.  The system and presentation lends itself to tinkering so well that most new GMs to the system already have tons of ideas to tinker and modify before they even get to play it.  And while it is highly customizable, there are core mechanics that can easily get out of whack if you mess with certain things without accounting for the interaction.



> Now, ever since 3.0, I've been hearing how WotC-D&D is more transparent than TSR-D&D, thus making things easier to judge.  It seems that each new version is more transparent than the last.




True.  3e was the first to put the math of the system right in the DMG.  They showed you the numbers they and adventure writers used to create balanced encounters, expected level of item strength from PCs, etc.  



> One would think that, if this were true, it would be easier to tinker with WotC-D&D than TSR-D&D.




I don't think one necessarily leads to the other.  A tightly cohesive system even with all the math exposed might well be harder to tinker with than a looser system.



> But, over and over again, WotC-D&D advocates say that tinkering with even such a small thing as whether or not a snake can be knocked prone is going to somehow throw the game off kilter.




I don't think anyone in this thread has said that, I certainly don't think so.  I just don't think the DM should get in the habit of trying to nullify PC abilities when it suits his fancy or his sensibilities, at least not without player input and that with such a small issue of whether or not a snake can be proned, it's probably better to just stick with the collectively understood rules and move on, in most cases.  It's not going to ruin an evening if the DM decides this can't be done, but it's going to ruin an evening either if you just don't fret over it in the first place AND the game will move on without argument or distraction.



> If WotC-D&D is really so transparent, shouldn't the DM know the consequences before making the call, and be able to adapt to them far more easily than with any version of TSR-D&D?




It's not about the consequences in this example, it's about negating the players actions.  It won't throw off game balance or bring the whole system to its knees or anything.  The issue is whether or not making a nod to a perceived, argument prone realism by the DM in a system as abstract as 4e is something that should be done (and that's not even the actual issue addressed by the OP )



> Yet every version of TSR-D&D expected tinkering, and worked as well -- or better! -- with tinkering as without.  In a very real way, 4e is D&D because it is Gygax's rules + someone's tinkering.




Mostly true.  I don't think Red Box was quite as welcoming to tinker with as it was a more cohesive system.  But with 1e, you could do literally anything, since the designers took the same approach when designing subsystems.  Let's have this one use d12s, they do get used enough! This class will have a skill table! We'll account for weapon speed, but not individual armor types! We'll use a percentile dice random table here and a hard and fast rule there!  No two groups I've ever played with played 1e the same way.  That's what built my hankering for house rules to this day.  

[old man voice] back in my day ... and we LIKED it!



> Personally, I'd like to see one of these two memes die:
> 
> (1)  WotC-D&D is more transparent than TSR-D&D, thus making it easier for a DM to judge what will happen as the result of any change, or
> 
> ...




1) is somewhat true and somewhat not.  It would be more accurate to say that with transparency you know better what can or can't be tinkered with.  Let me put it this way, in what way is showing the math behind the system, that was already there, is a bad or counter-productive thing? It doesn't lead to some perfect gaming nirvana, but more knowledge is generally a net gain.
2) Don't think anyone is saying that.


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## Crazy Jerome (May 5, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> Personally, I'd like to see one of these two memes die:
> 
> (1) WotC-D&D is more transparent than TSR-D&D, thus making it easier for a DM to judge what will happen as the result of any change, or
> 
> (2) WotC-D&D falls to pieces the minute you rule a snake can't be knocked prone.




I mostly agree with NeoChameleon on the second one.  I'll add to what he said that the other concern is that a lot of the rules of the type "don't let a snake be knocked prone" are a combination of not understanding the spirit of 4E (or not liking it) with trained habits from previous versions of tweaking little things all the time.  There is a sense in which talking about it is useful for getting the spirit of the rule, but actually doing the tinkering is just so bloody unnecessary.   I'm aware of this because I *love* tinkering for its own sake, sometimes to the frustration of the players in our group.  They roll their eyes and say, "Here he goes changing the rules again."  Mainly they just like to give me a hard time, though, even if it is the first rule change in a year.  But there was a time when it was real frustation, felt as "just leave it alone, already!" 

On the first one, I think 4E is far more transparent, and this makes it easier for a person to effectively house rule--provided that the person has grokked the transparency and is willing to put away preconceptions from earlier editions.  I also think this makes it easier for the willing to fully grok the spirit and the mechanics of 4E.  

But "easy to understand" is not a synonym for "easy to do".  There are several ways in which earlier versions are easier to house rule, once you gained that understanding.  Exhibit A:  Make a new class.  It's pretty tough to understand everything you'd need to understand in 3.5 (limiting ourselves to only WotC classes just for sake of discussion), in order to make a good, balanced class.  But once you more or less got it, making the class is easy.  Once you did a few classes, it becomes real easy.  4E is the opposite.  It is far easier to understand what goes into a class, but harder to make a good new one.  

There is also the cost/benefit trade off, already referred to by "bloody unnecessary".  In say, 1st ed. AD&D you can make a new class with significantly *flawed* understanding, and it still may come out ok.  Everything is already so out of whack that throwing another class in isn't going to mess things up too badly, maybe even with new dedicated mechanics.  And if it does, you can just change it again.  And you can expect your audience to do the same, if you want to publish.  All the real understanding will come from time and playtest anyway.  So best to get to it.  

The standards for a "good" class are raised in 3E, which means you might not live up to them, but if you do, you are more likely to get something worth having.  In 4E, they raised the bar again.  The transparency helps you navigate the new standards, but it doesn't solve all problems.


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## Fifth Element (May 5, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> But, over and over again, WotC-D&D advocates say that tinkering with even such a small thing as whether or not a snake can be knocked prone is going to somehow throw the game off kilter.



Actually no; anti-snake-proners may have argued that allowing a snake to be knocked prone would throw the game off kilter, but I haven't seen the claim above.


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## Raven Crowking (May 5, 2011)

Thasmodious said:


> I think that's just good basic GMing advice anyway.




No disagreement here!



> True.  3e was the first to put the math of the system right in the DMG.  They showed you the numbers they and adventure writers used to create balanced encounters, expected level of item strength from PCs, etc.




Disagreement here!

The 1e DMG put the numbers used to determine XP, and how the XP were then used to calculate monster level, right there in the DMG.  I would be hard pressed to tell you where you can find the data in 3e to actually determine what a creature's CR should be.

Can you tell me where to find that in the 3e DMG?  Anywhere in 3e?



> I don't think one necessarily leads to the other.  A tightly cohesive system even with all the math exposed might well be harder to tinker with than a looser system.




I'm not sure I agree with that.....Unless the "tightly cohesive" system also has math which is unnecessarily complex.  If I can clearly see that the needed outcome is "4" and I am changing "2+2", then I know that the change must either result in "4" (1+1+2, for example) or that I need to alter the needed outcome as well.  The more transparent the system, the easier this should be.

For example, if I know that not allowing X is going to make the fighters miss 1/3 more often, I could presumably adjust hit points to allow the fight to stay the same overall.  Or I could leave hit points to make the fight harder.  Or lower AC.  Etc.



> I don't think anyone in this thread has said that, I certainly don't think so.  I just don't think the DM should get in the habit of trying to nullify PC abilities when it suits his fancy or his sensibilities, at least not without player input and that with such a small issue of whether or not a snake can be proned, it's probably better to just stick with the collectively understood rules and move on, in most cases.  It's not going to ruin an evening if the DM decides this can't be done, but it's going to ruin an evening either if you just don't fret over it in the first place AND the game will move on without argument or distraction.




(1)  It is a matter of preference whether or not the rules of the game or the rules of the game world take precedence.  If the former, then certainly just stick with the collectively understood game rules, and knock your snake prone.  If the latter, then certainly just stick with the collectively understood game world rules, and don't allow your snake to be knocked prone (should that be the case).

(2)  Neither the first nor the second cases requires fretting, argument, or distraction, insofar as all parties have the same preference.  If not, either the first or the second case can cause fretting, argument, or distraction.

(3)  Therefore, neither "Just go with the RAW" or "Just change the RAW" is a perfect solution....or objectively superior to the other.

There is no "one true way"/"one size fits all" solution here.

And that, IMHO, is fine.


RC


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## Crazy Jerome (May 5, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> I'm not sure I agree with that.....Unless the "tightly cohesive" system also has math which is unnecessarily complex. If I can clearly see that the needed outcome is "4" and I am changing "2+2", then I know that the change must either result in "4" (1+1+2, for example) or that I need to alter the needed outcome as well. The more transparent the system, the easier this should be.
> 
> For example, if I know that not allowing X is going to make the fighters miss 1/3 more often, I could presumably adjust hit points to allow the fight to stay the same overall. Or I could leave hit points to make the fight harder. Or lower AC. Etc.




If complexity of a given part was the only factor, you might be right. However, were that true, "cohesion" wouldn't even be an important concept. It is true that complexity, especially unnecessary complexiity, is a barrier to understanding and change, but it is not the only barrier.

Red Box D&D and 3E are very loosely coupled. The are so loosely coupled, that the cohesion is only in that they are both D&D, and what expectations people bring with that, setting material, etc. Mechanically, they aren't coupled at all. There is nothing you can do mechanically in either system that will affect the other, mechanically, one iota. This is true no matter how much complexity you add or remove from either system, even to ridiculous extremes.

In 3E, the d20 is tightly coupled to the mechanics. It is embedded throughout the rules system. But conceptually, it is very simple. Can you replace the d20 with 3d6, or d8+d12, or 2d10? Sure you can. Takes less than a minute to write a house rule as such. There isn't even any math. The ramifications are subtle and far-reaching.

For some in-between examples, the cleric is more tightly coupled to 1E than it is to 4E.   In 4E, if you want to do a cleric, how you do it is probably tightly coupled to the leader role.


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## Thasmodious (May 5, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> I'm not sure I agree with that.....Unless the "tightly cohesive" system also has math which is unnecessarily complex.  If I can clearly see that the needed outcome is "4" and I am changing "2+2", then I know that the change must either result in "4" (1+1+2, for example) or that I need to alter the needed outcome as well.  The more transparent the system, the easier this should be.




Right, you are more well informed because of the transparency, but the tinkering may still be quite complex.  Easier than if that transparency wasn't there but less easy than a system designed with tinkering in mind.  If the change you want to make mucks the basic math that runs through the whole system, it can be quite complex, requiring numerous adjustments to a number of other elements of the system to maintain balanced interplay of the core mechanics.  Transparency makes the results of your tinkering more, well, transparent, which is good, but it can also show you what probably shouldn't be tinkered with at all because the ramifications are too big.  Which is my point about a tighter system being less malleable than a looser system (which, I don't think is a controversial statement). 



> (1)  It is a matter of preference whether or not the rules of the game or the rules of the game world take precedence.  If the former, then certainly just stick with the collectively understood game rules, and knock your snake prone.  If the latter, then certainly just stick with the collectively understood game world rules, and don't allow your snake to be knocked prone (should that be the case).




The point some of us have been arguing falls under what is collectively understood or not.  The game system rules are generally understood to be the shared framework of the game and the GM should communicate changes to those core rules that all can read and understand, as those can modify how players interact with the world and build their characters.  The issue comes up when it's not collectively understood.  

You are playing in a game where your powers are used on a regular basis without modification.  That's the collective understanding.  Then some wonky corner case shows up (blinding a bat, proning a snake, etc) and the DM THEN declares "you can't do that, it doesn't make sense to ME".  That's my objection.  I don't think of the people arguing on my "side" in this thread would object if, at the beginning of the game, the DM announced, "by the way, you can't prone cubes, oozes and snakes cause that's silly to me" or "in my game, the rules of the game world supersede the game rules".  Players could make informed decisions about powers that might put them in questionable corner cases, then.  It's arbitrarily and uncollectively changing the understood social contract that I object to.


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## Raven Crowking (May 5, 2011)

Thasmodious said:


> You are playing in a game where your powers are used on a regular basis without modification.  That's the collective understanding.




The collective understanding of _*whom*_?  

You are playing in a game where the DM is allowed to adjudicate the use of your powers, or anything else in the game.  That's the collective understanding from where I sit.  It has been since Holmes.  AFAICT, the 4e rulebooks explicitly support that collective understanding.

Then some wonky corner case shows up (blinding a bat, proning a snake, etc) and no one at the table blinks when it is adjudicate.  Indeed, the DM seldom has to declare "you can't do that, it doesn't make sense to ME" because the players automatically self-adjudicate out of creating those wonky corner cases in the first place.

It's arbitrarily and uncollectively changing the understood social contract that I object to.  Moreover, while I am fine with you arbitrarily and uncollectively changing the understood social contract for your group, I very much challenge the notion that you -- or WotC -- or anyone else -- can do so for the rest of us.

I say No.


RC


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## LostSoul (May 5, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Which is more important - stopping the game to explain why the PC's power cannot knock the snake prone, probably prompting a rules discussion at the table ... or simply shrugging, adding in the modifiers and having the player explain how he's knocked the snake prone?




I think this is the crux of the issue.  I don't think it's a minor element of system; I think it has huge effects on how one plays the game.  How you want to deal with this will depend on a number of things, but the two most important are 1) _why_ you are playing D&D and 2) how much attention you want to pay to the game world while playing.

There are a lot of combinations of the above.  I don't see any problem with having the player explain what's happening in the game world unless you want to have challenge-based play.

Challenge-based play ("Step on Up"): You're playing to see if you, as a player, have the ability to succeed in the game.

Since the point of play is to succeed game, we have to put limits on how one achieves that goal.  Otherwise there's no challenge.  If the player can manipulate the game world in order to succeed, we have to put strict limits on the player's ability to do so.

We're talking about two ways to do this; I'm sure there are more.  The first is the way 4E deals with it: allow the player to describe the outcome of his PC's action, but don't give that description any mechanical effect.  The description of the action doesn't feed into the economy of the game.  This maintains the challenge.  We limit the methods the player has to achieve his goal ("success") to what the rules say his PC can do.  By doing so, we give the player meaningful choices to make, because he's limited to a few choices that are balanced against each other.

This works well.  The problem is that the description of the action doesn't have anything to do with why we are playing the game in the first place.  Imagining the game world doesn't feed into our goals of play.  There's no feedback loop.

The second way relies on someone to make judgement calls based on what's happening in the game world - "You can't knock the snake prone; if it was coiled to strike, you could, but it's not."  This places the game world into the economy of the game; it has a mechanical effect.  Imagining the game world feeds back into our goals for play; players can use their abilities to manipulate the game world in order to succeed.

This also works well.  The problem is that you need to use a specific set of techniques or the game falls apart.  If the player making the judgement calls has a bias in making his decisions - he wants player A to win instead of player B, or he wants situation X to occur in the game instead of situation Y - the game you're playing is one of social positioning and manipulation.  This player needs to have the ability to make decent judgement calls, and that can be difficult.

Both methods can work.  I think players have to determine what's important to them.  Can you get a player who can make judgement calls that are consistent and without bias?  Do you want to focus on the imagined game world, or is that not that important?


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## Dannager (May 6, 2011)

LostSoul said:


> The second way relies on someone to make judgement calls based on what's happening in the game world - "You can't knock the snake prone; if it was coiled to strike, you could, but it's not."  This places the game world into the economy of the game; it has a mechanical effect.  Imagining the game world feeds back into our goals for play; players can use their abilities to manipulate the game world in order to succeed.
> 
> This also works well.  The problem is that you need to use a specific set of techniques or the game falls apart.  If the player making the judgement calls has a bias in making his decisions - he wants player A to win instead of player B, or he wants situation X to occur in the game instead of situation Y - the game you're playing is one of social positioning and manipulation.  This player needs to have the ability to make decent judgement calls, and that can be difficult.




This is a false dilemma. Goals of play are not exclusive to "winning the system" or "maintaining world consistency". Both can be significant goals, and those goals can be just two among many that the players at a game have.

You need to consider that perhaps you _can_ have your cake and eat it, too. Obviously, telling a player who prides himself on system mastery that he can't knock the snake prone despite the rules explicitly allowing him to do so, he will be disappointed and will enjoy the game less. And, _equally obviously_, having no remotely plausible in-world explanation for an event would be equally disappointing to a player who is focused on developing a shared imaginary world.

The problem is that this thread is _chock full_ of people who look at the snake situation and say to themselves, "I cannot immediately come up with an explanation for how a snake could be knocked prone (or some other equivalent effect), therefore such an explanation does not exist." The reality is that while *you* (the DM, typically) may not be able to envision what's happening to the snake, your players might! In fact, they could have a totally reasonable scenario already playing out in their heads! Just in this thread, we have examples of people offering excellent descriptions of how a snake can be affected by the prone condition, or how a dwarf can parry a giant's two-ton club.

We need to move away from:

"I cannot immediately come up with an explanation for how a snake could  be knocked prone (or some other equivalent effect), therefore such an  explanation does not exist." 

...and move towards:

"I cannot immediately come up with an explanation for how a snake could  be knocked prone (or some other equivalent effect), but this does not mean that no such explanation exists, and - _especially _when the rules are on their side - I ought to give the players' imaginations the benefit of the doubt."


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## The Shaman (May 6, 2011)

This is becoming an itch I can't scratch.

Folks, prone means FACE DOWN. _Supine_ means FACE UP.

And before anyone quotes Dictionary.com at me, read this: "PRONE implies a position with the front of the body turned toward the supporting surface." "Lying down" is vague and doesn't convey the full sense of the definition.

So, you don't trip someone onto his back and call him prone.

Pardon the interruption. Please carry on.


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## Fifth Element (May 6, 2011)

The Shaman said:


> This is becoming an itch I can't scratch.
> 
> Folks, prone means FACE DOWN. _Supine_ means FACE UP.



That's one definition, sure. Another is the more general "lying flat, prostrate". Prostrate, in turn, can imply face down, but does not necessarily do so.

Great thing about English is that words often have several related, but not necessarily synonymous, meanings. It's also an annoying thing about English, but I think it's a net positive. (It also has words that have several different, and completely unrelated, meanings. That's annoying as well.)


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## Raven Crowking (May 6, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> Prostrate, in turn, can imply face down, but does not necessarily do so.





Which is why it is always important to get your prostrate checked.  Especially as you get older.


RC


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## Ariosto (May 6, 2011)

I presume that Wik's players are not bored. If everyone (not just the DM) is bored, then what's the point of carrying on the same way session after session?

I find it pretty odd, though. Where is the interest?

If there's no chance for surprises, if as a player I am effectively controlling both sides with perfect intelligence regarding not just plans but outcomes, then I will be bored. Even playing a wargame solitaire, there is a chance factor to produce the unexpected.


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## Fifth Element (May 6, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> Which is why it is always important to get your prostrate checked.  Especially as you get older.



Zing!


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## Hussar (May 6, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> Can I hold you guys to this the next time a "Say Yes" discussion comes up, and it is claimed that it doesn't mean a DM can't say No to knocking a snake prone, playing a Warforged Ninja in a PotC setting, etc.?
> 
> Neither "Say Yes" nor "Say No" should be the default.
> 
> The default should be:  "Say what you think will make a better game".




Well, you know what my specific answer is to Can I play a Warforged Ninja in a Fantasy Pirates campaign.    (For those who don't, it's well, hell yes, that would be cool, provided you can come up with a suitably piratey background).  Granted, if you said, "play a Warforged Ninja in a Master and Commander setting" I'd say no because it's genre breaking.  But, to each his own.

I find that "Say Yes" or at the very least "Yes and.." to be the best way to run a game.  This, to me, is the dividing line between Old School and New School games - the diffusion of power from the DM to the entire group.  In an Old School game (system independent, I'm talking play style here) the DM is the final word, no matter what.

And, to be 100% fair, this works quite well.  You get a single vision of the setting and, presuming the DM isn't a dick, a balanced and fair arbitration of the mechanics.  This can work extremely well.

But, New School games tend to reject this paradigm of running the game.  Instead of residing all of the responsibility (and blame) for the game in the DM, New School games make all players responsible for the game.  Everyone at the table is responsible for making sure that the game is the best game it can be.

Again, this can work very well.  If everyone is on board, and the social contract at this table becomes much more important, then the game is going to be the best experience for that table.  However, it does place an onus on the players that was missing in the past.  In the past, the players were only responsible for themselves.  I come to the game, I play my character, and that's all I am responsible for.  In New School games, the players are not only responsible for their own characters, but also for the group as a whole.

Obviously, I'm a very New School type DM.  I advocate strongly that everyone at the table is responsible for how the game turns out.  No final authority exists at this table, beyond what the group as a whole can hash out.  Which tends to mean that the rules are taken as the default state unless the whole group wants the rules to change.

If everyone at the table agrees that snakes can't be knocked prone, then, groovy, change the rule.  However, if it's only the DM vs the Player, then the default (at my table anyway) is that the rules should stand.

Then again, I play with players I can implicitly trust to make sure that the game will be the best we can make it.  I don't want to play in groups where that is not true.


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## Raven Crowking (May 6, 2011)

Hussar said:


> Instead of residing all of the responsibility (and blame) for the game in the DM, New School games make all players responsible for the game.  Everyone at the table is responsible for making sure that the game is the best game it can be.




1e is a New School game?

(Or, have you read the PHB?)


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## The Shaman (May 6, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> That's one definition, sure. Another is the more general "lying flat, prostrate".)



Prostrate also means face down, but as I already quoted above, _in actual usage_ prone means face down.

Cherry-picking the definition doesn't change that one bit. Prone does not mean, "flipped on your back."


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## TheUltramark (May 6, 2011)

The Shaman said:


> Prostrate also means face down, but as I already quoted above, _in actual usage_ prone means face down.
> 
> Cherry-picking the definition doesn't change that one bit. Prone does not mean, "flipped on your back."



no, but according to 4e rules, prone does in fact mean lying on the ground, and I think the rule implies back, face or any other part - up


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## The Shaman (May 6, 2011)

TheUltramark said:


> no, but according to 4e rules, prone does in fact mean lying on the ground, and I think the rule implies back, face or any other part - up



Perhaps, but all that shows is that the editors at Whizbros are as sloppy as the sap at Mongoose who let "merchant marine" = "shipboard soldier" into one of its _Traveller_ books.

Seriously, words _actually mean things_, and their errant usage by so-called professional writers is really inexcusable.


----------



## Lanefan (May 6, 2011)

And here we open up an even broader aspect to this whole discussion:







MrMyth said:


> It isn't that the game breaks down if the polearm wielding fighter can no longer trip snakes. It is that one player might feel sidelined if he's built to flip enemies over and take advantage of their weakness, and suddenly they have entire adventures in which everything is immune to his core function.



This.

To some, including (I think) the designers of 4e, this is a problem.

To me, it is not.  I repeat, Varying Degrees of Usefulness Are Not A Problem.

As long as everyone has their periods of value to counterbalance their periods of lesser usefulness, who cares?  Take, for example, the 1e Illusionist.  If an adventure was spent fighting nothing but undead the Illusionist was mostly useless.  But if the next adventure is spent fighting dumb Ogres the Illusionist becomes the most useful member of the party (and by far the most fun to play)!

So if the polearm-banger gets into a fight against snakes and finds himself not as useful for a while, so what?  Next battle might be one where only the polearm guy can reach the enemy at all, or where 'trip' is the only way to slow 'em down... 

Lan-"mostly useless from time to time"-efan


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## LostSoul (May 6, 2011)

Dannager said:


> This is a false dilemma. Goals of play are not exclusive to "winning the system" or "maintaining world consistency". Both can be significant goals, and those goals can be just two among many that the players at a game have.




I don't disagree.  I outlined _one_ way to achieve both: you have an impartial arbiter whose job it is to maintain that consistency.  That doesn't need to be the DM in all games.  (I can imagine a DM-less game that solves this problem by giving players turns in which their responsibilities shift.)



Dannager said:


> The reality is that while *you* (the DM, typically) may not be able to envision what's happening to the snake, your players might! In fact, they could have a totally reasonable scenario already playing out in their heads!




Yeah.  One way to do this is to have the player describe the action the PC is taking in the game world, and have another player - whose job it is to make judgement calls without bias - act as the authority on what's reasonable and what's not, given the game's setting.

The problem with making the same person responsible for both overcoming challenges and maintaining consistency is that you have a conflict of interest.  You have to pick one or the other.  Not in all cases, but in many.  4E gets around this problem by removing the relationship between the game world's consistency and mechanical effects.  That can be a problem, for some, in itself; the imagined content of the game and the economy of the game don't have as much overlap as they desire.  (That's where I sit.)


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## Dannager (May 6, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> As long as everyone has their periods of value to counterbalance their periods of lesser usefulness, who cares?  Take, for example, the 1e Illusionist.  If an adventure was spent fighting nothing but undead the Illusionist was mostly useless.  But if the next adventure is spent fighting dumb Ogres the Illusionist becomes the most useful member of the party (and by far the most fun to play)!




I daresay that your average gamer is not willing to trade one Saturday afternoon of useless boredom watching his friends do cool things for another Saturday afternoon where he feels _totally awesome_ while his friends suffer through their own bout of useless boredom and watch him be cool for a day.

_Everyone _should feel like they have something_ significant_ and _unique_ to contribute to _every_ encounter. They don't have to be the star of the show every time, but they shouldn't feel like the cheer squad either.


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## Aus_Snow (May 6, 2011)

Dannager said:


> _Everyone _should feel like they have something_ significant_ and _unique_ to contribute to _every_ encounter. They don't have to be the star of the show every time, but they shouldn't feel like the cheer squad either.



Just for the record: I'm not currently playing D&D of any stripe, and frankly, I couldn't care which one "wins" at any time, regardless. Aaanyway...

Is there any correlation between the "truthiness" of your claim and the typical (average?) duration in real time of encounters?

Just curious. I think there might be - what do you think?


----------



## Dannager (May 6, 2011)

Aus_Snow said:


> Just for the record: I'm not currently playing D&D of any stripe, and frankly, I couldn't care which one "wins" at any time, regardless. Aaanyway...
> 
> Is there any correlation between the "truthiness" of your claim and the typical (average?) duration in real time of encounters?
> 
> Just curious. I think there might be - what do you think?




I'm not _quite_ sure what you mean here, but addressing the idea of encounter length (in real time), the system needs to hit a nice middle ground between an encounter that is so short that some players don't get a chance to meaningfully contribute, and so long that the action becomes senselessly repetitive and the outcome completely predictable (as a side note, when people discuss encounters being too long because it's already obvious who is going to win, it's worth noting that winning or losing isn't the whole of the outcome of an encounter; resource expenditure is part of an encounter's outcome as well).

In my experience, 4e hits this sweet spot more consistently than any system I've played around with to date.


----------



## Aus_Snow (May 6, 2011)

Dannager said:


> I'm not _quite_ sure what you mean here



Sorry, I could've been clearer, yes. 

What I mean is, *I* suspect that significantly longer (in real time) encounters might be more subject to your proposition - that "[e]veryone should feel like they have something significant and unique to contribute to every encounter. (etc.)" - while significantly shorter encounters might be less so.

That is, if an encounter (in which any given participant might, um, _not be one_, all that much if at all) is dragging on, I could see that your case might well apply. Otherwise, or more particularly, if an encounter is brief... not so much?

That was all. So, essentially, I was wondering whether brevity of say, combat resolution, for example, correlates directly. Assuming your position is well grounded, even then. Which sounds more or less reasonable for some as yet undefined percentage of folks.


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## Neonchameleon (May 6, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> I agree about the difference between broad-based balance and knife-edge balance, but I don't think that 4e is a racecar, or that it is as transparent as you think. The racer has been computer modeled to hell and back. 4e has been altered and errata-ed to hell and back. Transparency would not require so much errata.




I couldn't disagree more.  Transparency is the very reason it _does_ have so much errata.  Creating is a lot harder than criticising - and the transparency of 4e allows far, far easier than criticism.



> You are making a lot of assumptions here about who is at the table, and what they want from a role-playing game.
> 
> Outstanding among those assumptions is that the DM is making changes "to no good purpose", and is involved in "petty quibbling".




I am making the assumption that at the table in the course of play the DM is arbitrarily deciding that snakes can not be knocked prone.  4e DMs can change whatever they want - but that is the example under discussion.



Raven Crowking said:


> Can I hold you guys to this the next time a "Say Yes" discussion comes up, and it is claimed that it doesn't mean a DM can't say No to knocking a snake prone, playing a Warforged Ninja in a PotC setting, etc.?




A DM can say no. He just shouldn't without damn good reason. (And for the record I'd _probably_ say no to the Warforged Ninja in the PoTC setting - but if the player was sufficiently inventive to make it work then I'd say yes).



> Neither "Say Yes" nor "Say No" should be the default.




The default should be: "Say what you think will make a better game".[/QUOTE]

Which is far more of a judgement call. And IMO what will make a better game is taking what's around and running with it (i.e. saying yes) 9 times out of 10.



Raven Crowking said:


> The collective understanding of _*whom*_?
> 
> You are playing in a game where the DM is allowed to adjudicate the use of your powers, or anything else in the game. That's the collective understanding from where I sit. It has been since Holmes. AFAICT, the 4e rulebooks explicitly support that collective understanding.




Oh, the DM is still _allowed_ to. The DM is also allowed targetted metiorite strikes with no collateral damage or to turn characters into slugs with no chance of failure.



> Then some wonky corner case shows up (blinding a bat, proning a snake, etc)




Blinding a bat is fine. They have blindsight in 4e (at least the only ones I found in the monster builder do). Now _deafening_ a bat is far more interesting.



> and no one at the table blinks when it is adjudicate. Indeed, the DM seldom has to declare "you can't do that, it doesn't make sense to ME" because the players automatically self-adjudicate out of creating those wonky corner cases in the first place.




Indeed. Which is why when the DM _does_ adjudicate it's problematic. There's automatically at leas one person at the table who thinks you can.



> It's arbitrarily




Given lessons from improv drama and Indy games, I'd hardly call switching to the IMO superior default of "Say yes or roll the dice" arbitrary.



> and uncollectively changing the understood social contract that I object to.




You mean that WoTC should take the attitude "As it was under Gygax, it is now and ever shall be, game without end"? Because there is no way you can ever have the social contact indicated by the rules for D&D changed if that is your criterion. (Polls of the entire D&D community being impossible). Part of the publisher of D&D's role is to keep the game current. And that includes taking account of the changing nature of the community and what is coming out of e.g. the Forge.



> Moreover, while I am fine with you arbitrarily and uncollectively changing the understood social contract for your group, I very much challenge the notion that you -- or WotC -- or anyone else -- can do so for the rest of us.




All WoTC can do is change the default for groups. You can change yours straight back.



> I say No.




And I say I'm glad to, after all these years, see a version of the dominant RPG in existance that supports much of what I want to see in an RPG. Which includes a ruleset good enough that the DM can use it without often needing to overrule it.



LostSoul said:


> We're talking about two ways to do this; I'm sure there are more. The first is the way 4E deals with it: allow the player to describe the outcome of his PC's action, but don't give that description any mechanical effect. The description of the action doesn't feed into the economy of the game. This maintains the challenge. We limit the methods the player has to achieve his goal ("success") to what the rules say his PC can do. By doing so, we give the player meaningful choices to make, because he's limited to a few choices that are balanced against each other.
> 
> This works well. The problem is that the description of the action doesn't have anything to do with why we are playing the game in the first place. Imagining the game world doesn't feed into our goals of play. There's no feedback loop.




I strongly disagree. The fiction determines what and how you can do, and secondly you change the fiction when you act. There is the feedback loop there. Movement and positioning are critical parts of the feedback loop. But unlike e.g. GURPS, 4e fiction is lose-grained. Positioning works in multiples of 5ft. Combat rounds are 6 seconds, and the system assumes that you are smart enough to pick your moments within those seconds to do things when they _are_ possible. There are monsters that are immune to being knocked prone in 4e - but they are those that are absolutely immune to prone, not just those you'd have to pick your moments for. The game encourages you to manipulate the gameworld - but the law is not concerned with trifles.



> Do you want to focus on the imagined game world, or is that not that important?




I want them to. It's simply a matter of "Don't sweat the small stuff."



Dannager said:


> I daresay that your average gamer is not willing to trade one Saturday afternoon of useless boredom watching his friends do cool things for another Saturday afternoon where he feels _totally awesome_ while his friends suffer through their own bout of useless boredom and watch him be cool for a day.
> 
> _Everyone _should feel like they have something_ significant_ and _unique_ to contribute to _every_ encounter. They don't have to be the star of the show every time, but they shouldn't feel like the cheer squad either.




This. (Can't currently give you XP). But everyone having something significant to contribute is good. (Although it may be part of why 4e combat is slower).


----------



## Raven Crowking (May 6, 2011)

Neonchameleon said:


> Given lessons from improv drama and Indy games, I'd hardly call switching to the IMO superior default of "Say yes or roll the dice" arbitrary.




You begin with a goal, and you then ascribe tools to achieve that goal.  If you take the next step, and assume that your goal applies to everyone, you've blundered.

My point was not that "As it was under Gygax, it is now and ever shall be, game without end" but rather that WotC's, or your, desire to change the social contract does not make the social contract changed for anyone else.  Nor should it.  It does not change the default expectations, it does not make adhering to the previous social contract an "arbitrary change".

WotC has power over the D&D trademark.  It has no power whatsoever over the default social contract for groups.  WoTC *cannot* change the default for groups -- it lacks both the necessary authority and power.  There is no need to "change yours straight back".

I am not willing to give anyone outside my table any authority whatsoever over what our social contract is.  Not WotC.  Not the ghost of Gary Gygax.  Not Neonchameleon.  Not even Piratecat.

And if you allow me to have authority over your table's social contract -- or WotC, or the ghost of Gary Gygax, or even Rel, well, good luck with that.  



> And I say I'm glad to, after all these years, see a version of the dominant RPG in existance that supports much of what I want to see in an RPG.




And, while I am sorry that D&D wasn't your cup of tea, I am glad that you now have a game that is.  I'm even glad that that game is also D&D.  And, when 5e or 6e swings the other way, I'm glad that you will still get use out of those books.

The biggest reason I don't play 4e, though, is that it does not include a ruleset good enough that the DM can use it without often needing to overrule it......for what I want out of a game.  If I used the 4e ruleset, all I would do is overrule it.  I would have to call the game "Page 42".

There are *much* better games for what I want.

And now there is a *much* better game for what you want, compared to what was available before.

That's a good thing.  We both win.


RC


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## Fifth Element (May 6, 2011)

The Shaman said:


> Prostrate also means face down, but as I already quoted above, _in actual usage_ prone means face down.
> 
> Cherry-picking the definition doesn't change that one bit. Prone does not mean, "flipped on your back."



Using a definition in the dictionary is cherry-picking? I could say the same about you: you're using the one that supports what you say, while ignoring the other more general one. I wouldn't say that, because English words often have more than one meaning, some more precise and some more general.


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## Fifth Element (May 6, 2011)

The Shaman said:


> Seriously, words _actually mean things_, and their errant usage by so-called professional writers is really inexcusable.



So they looked in the dictionary and saw that one definition of prone is "lying down". They certainly couldn't use supine, since that word doesn't seem to have a more general version in its definitions and "kocking prone" in 4E does not necessarily mean the target ends up on its back.

What should they have used? Recumbent?

Perhaps keeping up with changes in language usage is what really needs to be done here. Forsooth, I am afeard that thy critism of yon "so-called professional writers" is a bit hasty.


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## Neonchameleon (May 6, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> You begin with a goal, and you then ascribe tools to achieve that goal. If you take the next step, and assume that your goal applies to everyone, you've blundered.




I don't.  But that doesn't make going after a consistent goal arbitrary.



> My point was not that "As it was under Gygax, it is now and ever shall be, game without end" but rather that WotC's, or your, desire to change the social contract does not make the social contract changed for anyone else.




WotC have control of the _default_ social contract for D&D games.  They do not have control over the social contract at any given table.  Just the default one.  You seem to be objecting that they've changed the default.



> Nor should it. It does not change the default expectations,




The default expectations for a group that doesn't know each other come from the ruleset and the game you are playing.  WotC can and indeed has changed that.  And IMO changed it for the better.



> it does not make adhering to the previous social contract an "arbitrary change".




Your words.  It's a change from the default paradigm.



> WotC has power over the D&D trademark. It has no power whatsoever over the default social contract for groups.




What do you think the ruleset _does_ other than to provide a default social contract for negotiating conflicts and assisting shared understanding?  And in what way do you think those aren't _deeply_ embedded in the social contract?



> There are *much* better games for what I want.
> 
> And now there is a *much* better game for what you want, compared to what was available before.
> 
> That's a good thing. We both win.




Agreed


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## Raven Crowking (May 6, 2011)

Neonchameleon said:


> WotC have control of the _default_ social contract for D&D games.




No, they do not.  No more than Spalding has control over the default social contract of tennis games.  I cannot object that they've changed the default, because they cannot do so.  I can only object to the idea that they have this ability, coming either from WotC or elsewhere, and what some seem to wish the default to be.

You may give WotC the right to change the social contract at your table.  I do not at mine.  Neither what WotC wants, nor what I want, is the "default" for the masses.

Outside of Orwell's _*1984*_, and competitive sports leagues, no one has that power.  When WotC considers paying me what a pro athelete makes, I'll consider granting WotC the power to determine what the default social contract is.

But until then -- and probably even after then -- the "default" is chosen by the end consumer.  WotC, or you, or I, may certainly *urge* folks to accept something as a default.  But that does not make it so.



RC


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## pemerton (May 6, 2011)

eamon said:


> refluffing powers opens a proverbial bag of rats: and if you as a DM do so, you can't in good conscience (at least, I couldn't) disallow it in another scenario, you've gotta be consistent.



But the parameters of consistency are set by the mechanics - so it's not unfair to the player to confine "refluffing" in the various ways that you suggest.

Another example - forced movement grants a saving throw only when it would land a character in hindering terrain. Which is to say, most of the time characters fall prone from forced movement only on the edges of cliffs and the like.

Some might regard this as an oddity - although it is hardly at odds with the typical tropes of the fantasy adventure genre - but it is not unfair for a GM to deny a save against forced movement in other contexts, because the rules don't provide for one.


----------



## Mort (May 6, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> No, they do not.  No more than Spalding has control over the default social contract of tennis games.  I cannot object that they've changed the default, because they cannot do so.  I can only object to the idea that they have this ability, coming either from WotC or elsewhere, and what some seem to wish the default to be.




The analogy is off because Spalding does not set the rules or etiquette  for tennis, default or otherwise (now if you learned tennis from Spalding instructional videos then yes your default would in, fact, be set by Spalding). WoTC sets the rules for the default version of D&D, and _also_ sets guidelines for how those rules are applied. Anyone learning the game from their books, or from someone teaching it from their perspective of the books, will get those rules _and the social contract they imply_ as a default. Many players have had their assumptions set by earlier versions of D&D and/or other games entirely so don't adhere to the default in the slightest. And many who read/learn the rules will choose to deviate from them - but that does not mean a default does not exist.




Raven Crowking said:


> You may give WotC the right to change the social contract at your table.  I do not at mine.  Neither what WotC wants, nor what I want, is the "default" for the masses.




I'd argue this is false. The default is set by the game designer and writers. Anyone reading the rules, or learning from someone who has, will pick up a certain way of doing things. WoTC by expressing their preference, sets the original defaults and assumptions. The fact that it's easy to deviate from does not change that fact.



Raven Crowking said:


> Outside of Orwell's _*1984*_, and competitive sports leagues, no one has that power.  When WotC considers paying me what a pro athelete makes, I'll consider granting WotC the power to determine what the default social contract is.
> 
> But until then -- and probably even after then -- the "default" is chosen by the end consumer.  WotC, or you, or I, may certainly *urge* folks to accept something as a default.  But that does not make it so.
> 
> RC




It's not a power, it's a default suggestion. And, for better or worse, many people tend to abide by the default suggestion.


----------



## Raven Crowking (May 6, 2011)

pemerton said:


> But the parameters of consistency are set by the mechanics




Or by the fiction.  Depending on taste.



Mort said:


> The analogy is off because Spalding does not set the rules or etiquette  for tennis, default or otherwise




Nor does WotC set the etiquette for RPGs, default of otherwise.  Nor does WotC do more than set the default rules for a small slice of D&D.

(1) 4e is not the "default version of D&D".

(2) WotC sets the default rules for 4e, but not the rules (which are determined at table, and rightly so, and explicitly so in the RAW).

(3) IF "Anyone learning the game from their books, or from someone teaching it from their perspective of the books, will get those rules _and the social contract they imply_ as a default" AND "Many players have had their assumptions set by earlier versions of D&D and/or other games entirely", THEN the so-called "default assumptions" in 4e are not the default in the slightest. 



> I'd argue this is false. The default is set by the game designer and writers.




Against a blank slate, maybe.  But there hasn't been a blank slate since the 70s.

Sorry, WotC doesn't get to decide that their current version is the default version of D&D, and neither do you.

Sorry, WotC doesn't get to decide that their current assumptions are the default social contract of D&D, and neither do you.

You are free to believe otherwise, of course.


RC


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## pemerton (May 6, 2011)

LostSoul said:


> One way to do this is to have the player describe the action the PC is taking in the game world, and have another player - whose job it is to make judgement calls without bias - act as the authority on what's reasonable and what's not, given the game's setting.
> 
> The problem with making the same person responsible for both overcoming challenges and maintaining consistency is that you have a conflict of interest.  You have to pick one or the other.  Not in all cases, but in many.  4E gets around this problem by removing the relationship between the game world's consistency and mechanical effects.





Neonchameleon said:


> The fiction determines what and how you can do, and secondly you change the fiction when you act. There is the feedback loop there. Movement and positioning are critical parts of the feedback loop.



My experience matches Neonchameleon's on this. I think that 4e does make certain elements of the fiction - like terrain, positioning and movement - highly salient.

LostSoul is right, though, that other aspects of the fiction - like facing, detailed fighting techniques, etc - are not made salient.

There are yet other aspects of the fiction - like the precise character of injuries, and the precise manner in which a PC overcomes the prima facie burden those injuries place upon movement etc (given that D&D doesn't generally have wound penalties) - that no mainstream version of D&D makes salient. And, from my memory of reading his posts, LostSoul's 4e hack doesn't make this particular part of the fiction salient either.

If I wanted to adduce a single encounter area I have GMed that, for me, strongly confirmed the feedback between fiction and mechanics, it would be the first room of the Well of Demons (from H2). My players fought in it twice - once against its scripted inhabitants, and again against some gnolls and demons. The first time, the player of the wizard worked out that a ghoul was controlling a golem. He had his PC look for the source of control, noticed the amulet, killed the ghoul, took the amulet and then took control of the golem, thereby winning the encounter. That's engaging the fiction. The second time around, much of the combat centred around the pit in the room, with the PCs trying to avoid falling into it while using it to channel their enemies and even push one in. And there was jumping over the pit by both PCs and foes. For me, that's engaging the fiction also.


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## Balesir (May 6, 2011)

Thasmodious said:


> It's clear I did have a misunderstanding of exactly how you were using the GNS terms as types.  I thought you were defining narrativism specifically as conflict that arises because of story, as if story was a separate element from the other two.  I felt that you were redefining all three terms a bit as examples of what you were talking about, but it seems you are using them as intended, so I think we are on the same page, now.



No worries - that was mostly down to me getting muddled in my own analogies and attempts at explanation.  Yes, when I talk about GNS I mean the Forge definitions, since they (the actual identifications of each focus) are a genuine achievement, in my view.



Thasmodious said:


> The mutual exclusivity of playtypes is primarily why I don't agree with GNS theory in the first place and why I responded to your original post.



Exclusivity of focus is a thorny subject, and I think it's impossible to "prove" one way or the other.  All we can have is our own experience and, to some extent, aesthetic sense (since it is clearly possible to _try_ to mix foci - the question is whether this can produce good play outcomes or just a kludgy muddle).



Thasmodious said:


> A successful game, for me, necessarily blends and weaves elements as tools to advance the game by advancing the characters, both in a gamist sense (gaining levels) and as characters (achieving goals, resolving conflicts, etc).



It's interesting that you think of levels as a gamist device.  Actually, I'm not sure they are.  _Experience points_ are certainly a feature that drives players towards gamist play - hence why so many GMs pining for non-gamist players stop using xps as written.  Levels themselves, though, I think are actually a story conceit.  They ensure that the story works up to a climax and finishes with a (perceived) tougher challenge than it began with.  It's sort of a built-in story-arc shape that doesn't have to be designed for or focussed on in play.  As such, I think it can support Narrativist play as much as gamist - and I should credit *pemerton* for bringing me to this realisation.  Added levels are not really a player reward, in the sense that lower level play should not be less fun than higher level play - that would be a poor design.  The only sense in which they might be gamist _per se_ is in the sense of "OK, you handled those powers , spells, resources etc. alright - now see how you cope with these as well!"

The only thing I think 'levels' really hurts is *Sim*, and this is for two reasons.  The first is that Sim is a delicate flower when it comes to player focus; push players towards Nar or Gamism and Sim will get ditched in the dirt, in my experience - I have had to cull even moderate "character advancement through adventuring" mechanics to get Sim games to work in the past.  The second is that, after long and painful hours with "A Magical Medieval Society", excellent as it is, I have concluded that any society where some people are inherently immune to a range of things that could kill off most others and are inherently capable of greater feats (regardless of training or effort) is dysfunctional.  I just can't make it work to my satisfaction as a Sim setting.



Thasmodious said:


> It's collaborative, and more broken down into a series of significant encounters/scenes, so I think moviemaking is much more similar to RPGs than literature.



Yes, and maybe this points to where we might find some common ground.  The Forge GNS stuff talks about un-mixed focus _in actual play_.  With a movie, you have a scriptwriter writing first, then a production crew taking over.  Maybe there is a similar tactical/strategic thing going on in roleplaying games.  While I can't think of an occasion when mixing the focus while actually at the table has worked well, I can quite see where the wider campaign, the meta-play in which the structure of several encounters is considered, might be addressing a different focus.  Maybe "layers" of focus is an appropriate way to consider the play structure?  I don't know right now - something to consider and maybe experiment with.



Thasmodious said:


> The PCs get in a fight due to a misunderstanding of local customs, they vastly overpower the locals, who have drawn weapons, and are intent on killing rather than brawling.  The PCs have one clear goal that is easily achieved - survive - but how and at what costs?  The ethics of the group and the realities of the setting will come into play.  Should these locals die because of a misunderstanding, what are the legal and social ramifications, are they skilled enough to maybe talk their way out, do they just blast anyone that stands in their way?  Depending on the answers to these questions, their actions and secondary goals are heavily influenced by the friction between all these elements and you have a deeper conflict than just 4 HD of locals to beat down.



Picking out "what is the challenge, exactly" is a key element in roleplaying, for sure.  This is, to my mind, an area where D&D 4E is expressly gamist, because it assumes that the challenge is set by the DM.  It has no inbuilt allowance for the players to decide what their aim is for a particular scene; compare it with some Indy games like PrimeTime Adventures, where the protagonist (and antagonist) select their own goals for each conflict, and it's a totally different paradigm at work.  At best, in D&D (any edition), this will be "DM wings it" territory, unless there is a pre-specified "solution" decided by the DM up-front.



Raven Crowking said:


> The biggest reason I don't play 4e, though, is that it does not include a ruleset good enough that the DM can use it without often needing to overrule it......for what I want out of a game.  If I used the 4e ruleset, all I would do is overrule it.  I would have to call the game "Page 42".
> 
> There are *much* better games for what I want.
> 
> ...



I can't XP you currently, but this hits the nail on the head, I think.  Has 4E changed the assumed (in the rules design) social contract and game style in D&D? Yes - thank goodness, as far as I'm concerned!  Does this mean D&D is poorer for setting-focussed (and character-focussed) games?  Yes - but then, IMO, it was never that good, anyway.  What should people who want to play such games do?  Pick another system!  Honestly, there are some really great ones out there!


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## Mort (May 6, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> Nor does WotC set the etiquette for RPGs, default of otherwise.  Nor does WotC do more than set the default rules for a small slice of D&D.




But it does for that slice - that's the point.



Raven Crowking said:


> (1) 4e is not the "default version of D&D".
> 
> (2) WotC sets the default rules for 4e, but not the rules (which are determined at table, and rightly so, and explicitly so in the RAW).




Again, it sets the default until you change it at the table - that's the point.



Raven Crowking said:


> THEN the so-called "default assumptions" in 4e are not the default in the slightest.




ONLY if you rely on an earlier default. If you learned from 4e then it may well be, for better or worse, your default.





Raven Crowking said:


> Against a blank slate, maybe.  But there hasn't been a blank slate since the 70s.




Not for me, not for you. But for anyone coming new to the hobby, there can easily be a blank slate.



Raven Crowking said:


> Sorry, WotC doesn't get to decide that their current version is the default version of D&D, and neither do you.




WoTC gets to present their current version of D&D as the default - you are free to reject that. 

I get to present whatever version of D&D or other game as the default at my table.





Raven Crowking said:


> Sorry, WotC doesn't get to decide that their current assumptions are the default social contract of D&D, and neither do you.
> 
> You are free to believe otherwise, of course.
> 
> RC




WoTC absolutely gets to present their version of the social contract in their books, as does GURPS in theirs, Whitewolf in theirs, me in my game, or you in yours. The fact that you are free to reject the presentation does not change that.

I'm just not getting where you are coming from RC. The default is set by the initial presentation and environment. For many the initial presentation and environment will be that of WoTC (Say from experiencing Encounters at the local game shop, or a WoTC game at a Con etc.), so their default assumption is set by WoTC. If they then come to your table you change the default - does not mean it wasn't there in the first place.


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## Raven Crowking (May 6, 2011)

You are absolutely allowed to take anything you like as your default, or the default at your table.

"The default" without those qualifiers implies something much larger.

WotC has a vested interest in your seeing 4e as default D&D.  They also have a vested interest in your seeing a subscription model and "Say Yes" as the default, as both drive player sales and put money into the bank.

You're damn right that I can -- and do! -- object to that attempt to reshape the default.  However, my objection is not "changing the default back" -- it never changed in the first place.

And, yes, WotC gets to present their version.  But their version doesn't become "the default" because it is presented.  It only becomes "the default" if it is accepted by enough people that it does, indeed, become so.  I don't think WotC-D&D has even necessarily become "the default" over TSR-D&D, let alone the 4e version of WotC-D&D.

Again, you are free to believe otherwise.


RC


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## Balesir (May 6, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> Or by the fiction.  Depending on taste.



It's a convenient mental shortcut to think of the fiction shaping the outcomes and "consistency", but it doesn't.  It can't.  It doesn't exist.  It is a mere figment of our imaginations.

Hence, the mechanics literally do shape consistency; but those mechanics might say something like "the players collectively (or the GM alone) must consider what they think would happen in the fiction as they envisage it, aided by guidelines as set out in these rules and by dice, to adjudicate what happens and keep that consistent".  Those are still mechanics, however, and we should be wary in the extreme of believing that "the fiction" has any sort of independent existence or authority.


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## Balesir (May 6, 2011)

The Shaman said:


> Prostrate also means face down, but as I already quoted above, _in actual usage_ prone means face down.



Is that some kind of American thing?  Because I've never heard it used that way over here - nor have I ever pictured it as being so restricted.  To me, 'prone' just means "lying on the ground", period.  The term "flat on his back, prone" would make absolute sense.  Have I been mistaken all these years?


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## Raven Crowking (May 6, 2011)

Balesir said:


> It's a convenient mental shortcut to think of the fiction shaping the outcomes and "consistency", but it doesn't.  It can't.  It doesn't exist.  It is a mere figment of our imaginations.




IYHO, perhaps.  Not mine.

I would say that the mechanics are there to answer unknowns about the fiction, i.e., to enter the "game" aspect into an rpg (otherwise, we could simply call it "collaborative story-telling").


RC


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## The Shaman (May 6, 2011)

Fifth Element said:


> Using a definition in the dictionary is cherry-picking?



No, using part of a definition out of context is cherry-picking.


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## The Shaman (May 6, 2011)

Balesir said:


> The term "flat on his back, prone" would make absolute sense.



The term, "flat on his back, supine," would be the correct usage.


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## MarkB (May 6, 2011)

The Shaman said:


> The term, "flat on his back, supine," would be the correct usage.




So would "flat on his back, prone", since "prone" in common English usage simply means "lying down". It may have narrower definitions, but those definitions aren't in general use, and the English language is defined through usage, not regulated via academia.


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## Fifth Element (May 6, 2011)

MarkB said:


> So would "flat on his back, prone", since "prone" in common English usage simply means "lying down". It may have narrower definitions, but those definitions aren't in general use, and the English language is defined through usage, not regulated via academia.



This is what I'm saying.

In some contexts, the differentiation between prone and supine is meaningful and important. D&D is not one of those contexts. In everyday parlance, people use prone to mean lying down, and simply don't use supine.


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## Fifth Element (May 6, 2011)

Balesir said:


> Is that some kind of American thing?  Because I've never heard it used that way over here - nor have I ever pictured it as being so restricted.  To me, 'prone' just means "lying on the ground", period.  The term "flat on his back, prone" would make absolute sense.  Have I been mistaken all these years?



No you haven't.

One of the definitions in the dictionary is "lying face down". Another of the definitions is just "lying down" without specifying which side is up.

Both of these are definitions of the word prone, and using either is fine.


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## Patryn of Elvenshae (May 6, 2011)

The Shaman said:


> Seriously, words _actually mean things_, and their errant usage by so-called professional writers is really inexcusable.




Yeah, Shaman?  Buddy?

You're being super anal* about this.

Especially because you're wrong:



> b. Of (the posture or attitude of) a person or animal: such that the belly is next to the ground, or lies beneath the body; lying face downwards or on one's belly; bending forward and downward; facing downwards. Also fig. Cf. prostrate adj. 1a.
> 
> In strict use opposed to supine. *In later use freq. more generally with reference to lying horizontal, or on the ground, without specific implication as to bodily posture.*
> 
> c. Of something usually erect or standing, as a tower, column, etc.: *lying flat, or in a horizontal position; that has fallen down or been cut down.* Cf. prostrate adj. 1b.




* Oh, and:



> 2b  :  of, relating to, or characterized by personality traits (as parsimony, meticulousness, and ill humor) considered typical of fixation at the anal stage of development




... from M-W's Medical Dictionary.


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## Balesir (May 6, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> I would say that the mechanics are there to answer unknowns about the fiction,



But *everything* is unknown about the fiction, because it doesn't exist.  That's my point.  Everything about the fiction must be established via a process - the mechanics.  Take a look at "Universalis" for a particularly graphic use of this in a roleplaying system.  In other game systems, a slew of assumptions, unverbalised but accepted conventions and habitual tropes suffice to underpin the mechanics outside of a very narrow area that is specifically treated by "the rules". That doesn't mean that there is any such thing as an independent "fiction" that, like medieval "justice", exists somewhere to be discovered - it just means that the mechanics are social and nobody is thinking about them very deeply.

As to perhaps the most common trope about "making sense", time for some words from Rene Descartes:
_"Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have."_



Raven Crowking said:


> i.e., to enter the "game" aspect into an rpg (otherwise, we could simply call it "collaborative story-telling").



An RPG *is* collaborative storytelling, even though collaborative storytelling is not necessarily an RPG.  A story is generated by collaboration (or by the GM, but then one wonders why the players are there, and arguably they are not even roleplaying).  Other stuff is needed, too - which is why not all collaborative storytelling is roleplaying.


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## Raven Crowking (May 6, 2011)

Balesir said:


> But *everything* is unknown about the fiction, because it doesn't exist.  That's my point.  Everything about the fiction must be established via a process - the mechanics.




Shennanigans.

I begin the process of creating the fiction without referencing the mechanics.  Indeed, I choose the mechanics that match the fiction *after the basics of the fiction are established*.  The fiction comes first.

The fiction "exists" in exactly the same way that the mechanics "exist" -- as a series of ideas invented by, and utilized by, individuals.  Neither fiction nor mechanics exist prior to their invention; after the fact, both exist.

Which is not to say that a real Narnia exists, but rather that the fictional Narnia, as imagined, has exactly the same level of existence as the instruction to "roll 1d20, add modifiers, and compare to a DC" exists.



> An RPG *is* collaborative storytelling, even though collaborative storytelling is not necessarily an RPG.  A story is generated by collaboration (or by the GM, but then one wonders why the players are there, and arguably they are not even roleplaying).  Other stuff is needed, too - which is why not all collaborative storytelling is roleplaying.




There is that which differentiates a salmon from all other fish, i.e., which defines the "salmon" aspect of the creature (otherwise, we could simply call it "fish" without any need to differentiate). 

Clearer?


RC


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## The Shaman (May 6, 2011)

MarkB said:


> So would "flat on his back, prone", since "prone" in common English usage simply means "lying down". It may have narrower definitions, but those definitions aren't in general use, and the English language is defined through usage, not regulated via academia.



Already addressed this in my previous post: the use of prone, _in English usage_, implies face down, or if you prefer, ventral surface to supporting surface.


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## Crazy Jerome (May 6, 2011)

I find it difficult to be much excised about the how gamers view "prone", after the brutal murder of the meaning of "Deus ex Machina" perpetuated a few years back. 

I do wonder, though, given several threads running right now, what happens when you knock a snake woman prone.  I wasn't mean enough to ask this question in Shark's topic.


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## Ariosto (May 6, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> I begin the process of creating the fiction without referencing the mechanics.  Indeed, I choose the mechanics that match the fiction *after the basics of the fiction are established*.  The fiction comes first.




Balesir can speak for himself, of course, but all I am seeing in his argument is a petty semantic quibble.

Namely, I think his insistence is that "Raven Crowking makes it up" is a 'mechanic'.


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## Fifth Element (May 6, 2011)

The Shaman said:


> Already addressed this in my previous post: the use of prone, _in English usage_, implies face down, or if you prefer, ventral surface to supporting surface.



Sorry, dude, I'm a native speaker of English, as are the others arguing against this, so far as I can tell. We use English, just as you do. Prone, in everyday usage, can mean simply lying down without specifying which side is up. I know this because I use it this way myself and people understand me, and I've heard others use it this way and understood them. We can't be "wrong", since the purpose of language is communication. And since you're the first to make a fuss about using prone to mean face-down only, it seems everyone else in this thread to date understood what was meant by it.

On top of that, one of the dictionary definitions makes no mention of which side is up. You're ignoring that definition and focusing on (ie, "cherry-picking") the other, more specific definition which is used to differentiate it from supine (suggested by the fact that supine only has the precise version of the definition).

If you're a surgeon, prone vs. supine is a useful and necessary differentiation to make. But in everyday usage, it's generally not important, and that's why prone can also have the more general meaning of lying down. That's why we use it as such.

And I think that's enough of this derailment.


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## Raven Crowking (May 6, 2011)

Ariosto said:


> Balesir can speak for himself, of course, but all I am seeing in his argument is a petty semantic quibble.
> 
> Namely, I think his insistence is that "Raven Crowking makes it up" is a 'mechanic'.






The mechanics come before the fiction because creating the fiction is a mechanic?



So, when I write a short story, I'm actually making a game scenario?



Frankly, I'm _*floored*_ by this.  Totally *supine*!


RC



PS:  Sorry, but you know that I am _*prone*_ to bad jokes!


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## Ariosto (May 6, 2011)

Well, at least you're not excised.


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## Plane Sailing (May 6, 2011)

I think that when this thread has diverged so far from the original premise that it is merely talking about the definitions of 'prone', it has probably reached the end of its useful life.

What normally happens in threads once they reach this stage is that some people in entrenched positions end up getting heated and potentially banned.

So I'm going to take the step of closing this thread now. I think Wik has had a good chance to discuss the question he originally raised.

If you think there are any untravelled walkways in this thread which are worth continuing, please feel free to start a new thread on that specific topic.

Thanks


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