# Mearls: Abilities as the core?



## TerraDave (Jul 5, 2011)

He does seem to be going somewhere with these...

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Minimalist D&D)


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## TwoSix (Jul 5, 2011)

It's getting hard to avoid the idea that Mike isn't just free associating.

I do like the idea, though.  Feats or backgrounds or aspects apply modifiers to ability checks, which are the core of all your actions.

If they are considering such a system, I hope they move away from the d20 as the only die used.  It make sense for some subsystems with a lot of randomness like combat, but it makes a little sense that a character with Str 10 could ever beat a character with Str 20 on a task of pure physical ability.  Basically, different types of tasks should use different dice.

Although maybe that should be a higher notch on the complexity dial.


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## delericho (Jul 5, 2011)

A couple of months ago, he declared that D&D gamers clearly preferred big, complex systems, and now he's talking about minimalist D&D?

(And what I find most frustrating about all of that is that I definitely prefer a rules-_medium_ system - both 3e/PF and 4e are too complex for my tastes, but I also don't want something too simple. For me, SWSE pretty much hit the sweet spot dead-on.)

What I like about the current model (and even more the 3e/PF model) is that there is a distinct divide between a characters 'innate' capabilities (ability scores), and the training he has put in various things (skill ranks, feats, and the like). Thus, the character's ability scores absolutely _influence_ your final modifiers/totals, but they don't determine them - and are, in fact, a fairly minor component next to training.

Mike's proposed system would seem to negate that - if you're stuck with a low-Str at 1st level you're going to suck at Athletics... and you're _always_ going to suck at Athletics.


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## WheresMyD20 (Jul 5, 2011)

I think Mearls' example of using a constitution check for a poison saving throw is interesting, but it doesn't take into account the character's level of experience.  A 1st level character with a high constitution would be harder to poison than a 20th level character with a low constitution.  That seems backwards.


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## Viking Bastard (Jul 5, 2011)

Would it be possible to simplify D&D to a more minimalist 'Basic' edition that would still work with the current math (and thus be semi-compatible with normal 4e)? That is, without just moving the complexity around.

For example, if in Basic 4e you:

 Used full Ability Score as modifier.
 Kept separate Ability modifiers, but doubled them.
 Used full level instead of half level.
How far off the expected math would that take us?


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## TwoSix (Jul 5, 2011)

WheresMyD20 said:


> I think Mearls' example of using a constitution check for a poison saving throw is interesting, but it doesn't take into account the character's level of experience.  A 1st level character with a high constitution would be harder to poison than a 20th level character with a low constitution.  That seems backwards.




Or makes sense, depending on what level of proficiency or power you want level to model.


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## TerraDave (Jul 5, 2011)

I think all these posts are a _journey_...who knows were...but they don't really stand alone. 

He is saying you could play in a minimalist style...not that you should. You should be able to control complexity, so that if you want more elaborate skills or defenses/saves, well, then you get those.

Somehow.


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## AeroDm (Jul 5, 2011)

WheresMyD20 said:


> I think Mearls' example of using a constitution check for a poison saving throw is interesting, but it doesn't take into account the character's level of experience.  A 1st level character with a high constitution would be harder to poison than a 20th level character with a low constitution.  That seems backwards.



I think the idea was that 4e progression mechanic (1/2 level) would be added straight to your stats, so the 20th level guy would still tend to be better.

Despite that, I still think it is a bit short sighted. His proposal would certainly streamline the character sheet but at the expense of speed of play. If you only have the six stats and then powers/feats provide all modifiers, that means you have to search your sheet every time and add all the little odds-and-ends to calculate your score. Eventually, some player is going to realize that instead of calculating his score against attacks by adding his Dexterity + his ineffable dodge ability + his shield, he should just write it down on his sheet... maybe call it armor class. The reason we "bring in sub contractors" is because they come up often enough that it is worth putting them on salary.


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## rounser (Jul 5, 2011)

Instead of trying to invent a better mousetrap for the umpteenth time, why don't they focus on consolidating, editing, re-presenting logically and balancing a prior edition?  Imagine a balanced, unified, streamlined AD&D or 3E, with all the splat designed to work together and "knowing the existence of each other" from the start.  In other words, an actual new edition rather than a whole new game masquerading as a new edition.

No-one else can do this but WOTC.  It's a headscratcher why they just sit on this IP goldmine and release yrthaks, digesters, razorfang bloodthunderers and the like in place of better monsters that are in their inventory from prior editions.  Same with spells and magic items.  The "turns victim inside out and sends them through hell" spell sounds like it's from another game in some Hellraiser genre, rather than D&D.  Why bother with flavor like that when there's better ideas already around?

We got a hint of what this can be like with Hackmaster 4E; because the spells and monsters were released in one big chunk, rather than over many years, the spell components that could be drawn from monster parts was all organised, making it look like a unified game in this respect rather than a hodge-podge.

In other words, maybe take off the rules mechanic designer cap, put on the editor cap, and actually produce a new edition of D&D rather than a new game, complete with new mechanics, obligatory new cosmology and new experimental critters in place of classic favorites.


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## WheresMyD20 (Jul 5, 2011)

TwoSix said:


> Or makes sense, depending on what level of proficiency or power you want level to model.




Fair enough.  However, making saving throws (or defenses in 4e) independent of level would be a radical divergence from the core assumption in all D&D editions that level is the primary indicator of a character's power.  At that point, you not just changing mechanics, but one of the key underlying assumptions of the game.

If you changed that assumption, are you really still playing D&D?  (of course, there is no right or wrong answer to that question, but it's one that any D&D game designer should consider carefully before making a change like this)


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## fireinthedust (Jul 5, 2011)

He's wrong about Perception:  it didn't disappear, it got replaced by Spot, Search and Listen checks.  Thieves had the ability to do that, and Int and Wis took over for other characters.

Also, for some reason Wisdom is used for perception checks and Willpower bonuses.  I think it's misplaced.  Wisdom is possible for characters who have bad sight/hearing, or who've been humbled by an addiction (ie: hindering their willpower).


Overall I think he's got something.  I'm glad he has the history about how Ability Score bonuses were an afterthought to what was already present in the game (class bonuses like saving throws).


There are games that already do this:  True20 and Mutants & Masterminds (both Steve Kenson games), and Dragon Age (another Green Ronin product).  DA goes so far as to have *everything* based on ability scores, with your access to different actions based on skills (ie: you can use a str-based sword attack if you have the Longsword training).


I'm guessing there'll be a new edition soon.  Now that Slavisek is gone there's got to be a power shift in the company, and internal concerns being voiced about 4e as-it-stands.  Note the article discussing distaste for the 2-page encounter spread by Cordell.  Now this series of articles discussing "wouldn't it be nice if we had a system that wasn't what we've got".

Okay, I'm posting further discussion on my blog!


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## Viking Bastard (Jul 5, 2011)

TerraDave said:


> I think all these posts are a _journey_...who knows were...but they don't really stand alone.




He may very well be building towards a new edition or something, but these articles mostly sound to me like something someone who has recently been put in charge of D&D would blog about as he mulls over his options.


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## WheresMyD20 (Jul 5, 2011)

AeroDm said:


> I think the idea was that 4e progression mechanic (1/2 level) would be added straight to your stats, so the 20th level guy would still tend to be better.




It wasn't obvious from his example, but that does make more sense.  I just can't see how you'd leave out a level adjustment from saving throws in D&D.



AeroDm said:


> Despite that, I still think it is a bit short sighted. His proposal would certainly streamline the character sheet but at the expense of speed of play. If you only have the six stats and then powers/feats provide all modifiers, that means you have to search your sheet every time and add all the little odds-and-ends to calculate your score. Eventually, some player is going to realize that instead of calculating his score against attacks by adding his Dexterity + his ineffable dodge ability + his shield, he should just write it down on his sheet... maybe call it armor class. The reason we "bring in sub contractors" is because they come up often enough that it is worth putting them on salary.




I think Mearls' point is that minimalist D&D wouldn't have all the little odds-and-ends... or would have a very, very small number of them.  Again, it's not clear from his examples.

I agree, though, that a few subcontractors, like armor class, are worth putting on salary.


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## TerraDave (Jul 5, 2011)

Viking Bastard said:


> He may very well be building towards a new edition or something, but these articles mostly sound to me like something someone who has recently been put in charge of D&D would blog about as he mulls over his options.




They seem like that. Maybe they are meant to. But there is actually much more coherence across them then first appears. 

And the WotCies have been keeping a pretty tight lid on their communications and musings. 

I don't know. But its something.


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## TerraDave (Jul 5, 2011)

rounser said:


> Instead of trying to invent a better mousetrap for the umpteenth time, why don't they focus on consolidating, editing, re-presenting logically and balancing a prior edition?




Well, they actually did that with 1E (called it 2E) and 3E and now have been doing that with 4E. (But don't call it 4.5).

And besides, who says the current plan isn't some variation of that?


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## WheresMyD20 (Jul 5, 2011)

Viking Bastard said:


> He may very well be building towards a new edition or something, but these articles mostly sound to me like something someone who has recently been put in charge of D&D would blog about as he mulls over his options.




I think it may be telling whether or not these blog entries actually lead up to an entry where he lays out his actual rule outline for how he'd build minimalist D&D or if he keeps that secret.


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## Bedrockgames (Jul 5, 2011)

I am not sure there is a core of D&D. For me, D&D was great for so many years because it brought all different kinds of gamers to the table. It was broad enough in scope to appeal  to lots of people.


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## Salamandyr (Jul 5, 2011)

Nineball said:


> Honestly, I'd be happier with even less emphasis on attributes.  They're a pretty big character trap.
> 
> Want to be a fighter that's lean and fast rather then muscular?  No, you suck.  Want to be a thief that survives on his wits and charm rather then fast fingers?  No, you suck.
> 
> ...




I think something like this could be acheived by keeping the base bonuses from attributes smaller.  I think BECMI's attribute bonii were about right 0 to +3 (only from an 18) and no higher.  A great score was nice, but not absolutely necessary.


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## Viking Bastard (Jul 5, 2011)

TerraDave said:


> They seem like that. Maybe they are meant to. But there is actually much more coherence across them then first appears.




We're definitely talkin' hardcore mulling, not idle musings. He's given this a lot of thought, obviously.

Mearls is behind Essentials, right? Essentials showed that you can play around with classes' internals as long as they output the correct math. How you get to that math is less important as long as the math is correct.

That's what Mearls's articles seem to me to be heading towards. That is, expanding 4e along those lines, rather than a full new edition.


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## Bedrockgames (Jul 5, 2011)

Salamandyr said:


> I think something like this could be acheived by keeping the base bonuses from attributes smaller. I think BECMI's attribute bonii were about right 0 to +3 (only from an 18) and no higher. A great score was nice, but not absolutely necessary.





Earlier editions (pre-3e) had much more contained attribute bonuses. I just re-explored 2E in a Ravenloft campaign and I forgot how low some of the bonuses were. Personally I did think some of the modifiers got out of hand 3E and later. I felt the range was a little off.


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## Kzach (Jul 5, 2011)

Grr... I've been posting about this exact same subject matter for years in dozens of posts and threads I've started and they all got universally canned or ignored. Mearls does it and suddenly it's a major topic of conversation that everyone discusses


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## TerraDave (Jul 5, 2011)

Viking Bastard said:


> We're definitely talkin' hardcore mulling, not idle musings. He's given this a lot of thought, obviously.
> 
> Mearls is behind Essentials, right? Essentials showed that you can play around with classes' internals as long as they output the correct math. How you get to that math is less important as long as the math is correct.
> 
> That's what Mearls's articles seem to me to be heading towards. That is, expanding 4e along those lines, rather than a full new edition.




I think marketing was behind essentials...but sure, this could be 4universal or something. But thats something. 

Again, really don't know.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 5, 2011)

The question is not:

1. Can you build a minimalist D&D based on ability scores? Of course you can--just redo the math to work.

or

2. Can you use ability scores for the fundamental, but mostly unseen building blocks of other things? Of course you can--see several existing versions, including 3E and 4E.

No, the interesting question is can you build #1 so that the math works, and the game works, if that is all you use--while *at the same time* having options that work similar to #2, without redoing the math?

I'm not sure if that can be done or not. But it is an interesting question, both from a game design and a business case sense.


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## TerraDave (Jul 5, 2011)

He seems to be implying 1+2 (so I guess 3).


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## Balesir (Jul 5, 2011)

TerraDave said:


> He seems to be implying 1+2 (so I guess 3).



As long as we don't end up with 2.5, that could be fine!

Older editions kept me away from D&D for around 20 years precisely because they tried to be "all things to all men".  They weren't really *good* at anything - they were just "not bad".  4E is finally good at something - and I have other games for other foci, so I'm OK there, too.  If the next iteration is a hodge-podge again, I guess I'll just stick to 4E as I have it.  Minus the constant edition-war whining that might even be better still...


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## delericho (Jul 5, 2011)

Salamandyr said:


> I think something like this could be acheived by keeping the base bonuses from attributes smaller.  I think BECMI's attribute bonii were about right 0 to +3 (only from an 18) and no higher.  A great score was nice, but not absolutely necessary.




Yep, that was a problem. Also, the many, many ways it was (and is) possible to boost your stats. Thus, not only do you have the disparity between the 12-Str Fighter and the 18-Str Fighter, but then add a few more points for gaining levels, a few from magic items, 2 from being a half-orc...

Obviously, if both characters are Fighters it's not such a big deal, but throw in a Monk or other MAD-class, and the discrepancies can really add up.

I'd would definitely advocate moving back to the BECMI scale for attribute bonuses, and also advocate removing (almost) everything that later modifies a character's ability scores.


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## ExploderWizard (Jul 5, 2011)

Nineball said:


> Honestly, I'd be happier with even less emphasis on attributes. They're a pretty big character trap.
> 
> Want to be a fighter that's lean and fast rather then muscular? No, you suck. Want to be a thief that survives on his wits and charm rather then fast fingers? No, you suck.
> 
> ...




Attributes are only a trap when bloated bonuses are the sole measure of what is good. 

Basing a good many activities on the attribute itself (rather than just the bonus) can work just fine . 

If they are disengaged from everything meaningful then why have them?


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## Baron Opal (Jul 5, 2011)

I've felt that attributes are an expression of talent and level is an expression of skill. At the beginning, talent is what lets you survive (or luck). As you gain experience it should be eclipsed by skill.



Salamandyr said:


> I think something like this could be acheived by keeping the base bonuses from attributes smaller.  I think BECMI's attribute bonii were about right 0 to +3 (only from an 18) and no higher.  A great score was nice, but not absolutely necessary.




I have an appreciation for that too. If, for example, fighters gain +1 to attack per level and a 16 strength gave you +2 to attack and damage, a higher strength would be significant at first level. The difference between a fighter with a strength of 16 and another with a strength of 10 minimizes over time, however, becoming irrelevant at tenth or twelveth level. That has a certain asthetic I appreciate.

Now, if we can do something like that as well as having a "tactician" type fighter who gains a benefit from a high intelligence, while still being as simple as the standard fighter, I would be a happy camper.


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## Dragonhelm (Jul 5, 2011)

Mearls' article presents the idea as if it's a new concept.  If you think about it, Castles & Crusades has been using this concept to a limited degree for years now.  Ability scores work in place of skills, work as saves, and so on.  

That being said, a minimalist D&D based on ability scores would be appealing.  Make those scores mean something.  Otherwise, we might as well go the True20 route and use modifiers.  Con as AC is interesting.  But then again, going the C&C route and having all the ability scores working as a save is interesting too.

Str = ???
Dex = Reflex
Con = Fortitude
Int = ???
Wis = Will?
Cha = Will?


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## WheresMyD20 (Jul 5, 2011)

delericho said:


> I'd would definitely advocate moving back to the BECMI scale for attribute bonuses, and also advocate removing (almost) everything that later modifies a character's ability scores.




Another nice feature of BECMI is that ability scores are hard-capped at 18 (+3 bonus) for PCs.  This limit even includes magic items like gauntlets of ogre power and girdles of giant strength.  The only way a player character can have a score of 19 or higher is to achieve immortality, but then you're in a whole other league at that point.


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## Daern (Jul 5, 2011)

[MENTION=3867]Dragonhelm[/MENTION], this is what I thought when I read it as well.  C&C keeps things pretty simple.
I'm pretty into the idea of dialing the complexity up and down in the same system, which is a theme Mearls keeps mentioning.  For instance, the next campaign I run will use some simple skirmish rules I came up with for incidental encounters.  My rules attempt to preserve the resource/power management of 4e without using a battle map, and create quicker combats.  Set piece encounters would use standard rules.  Same character sheets.


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## Viking Bastard (Jul 5, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> No, the interesting question is can you build #1 so that the math works, and the game works, if that is all you use--while *at the same time* having options that work similar to #2, without redoing the math?
> 
> I'm not sure if that can be done or not. But it is an interesting question, both from a game design and a business case sense.




That's exactly the question I meant to put forward earlier, or rather, whether 4e could be retroactively changed to work that way.

If it's possible, there could be a Basic D&D 4e book (or game set) that presented a simplified version of the game that could still be used with other 4e material (maybe not perfectly, _but well enough_ with some general guidelines).

You'd have to crack the numbers, but cutting out skills or defenses wouldn't seem very hard to do. Skills are already categorized by the core abilities and you change the inner math to compensate for the lack of skill modifiers. I think the main problem would be stuff like combat advantage and healing surges.

Is there something major I'm missing?


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## Balesir (Jul 5, 2011)

Having "complexity you can dial up or down" is a nice, cuddly concept and sounds luscious - but I think it's actually a honey trap if you value balance.

Rules with a myriad "optional" components are pretty much impossible to balance with any arbitrary selection of components selected.  In practice, the best you will get is a balanced "simple" system and a tranche of 'complications' that, if you add them all, will also be coherent and balanced.  Adding only part of the 'complication' set will just give an unbalanced, lopsided mess.  At this point, it seems to me that you have two separate games - albeit using the same core mechanical element(s), so why not just treat them as such?


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## JeffB (Jul 5, 2011)

I like generally where Mike is going with these articles.

AFAIC, these are all a precursor to the next edition as he deconstructs D&D to find out exactly what it is in it's base form. With the less than hoped for sales & appeal of 4E, and already 2 "versions" out there in core & essentials, I just cannot see any (sane) company putting out yet another version of the same rule-set, and confusing the bejeesus out of even more people about which 4E products to buy. 

Of course we know WOTC is not quite sane and has not been for about 8 years now 

Yep... I'm calling "new edition announcement" at GenCon


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 5, 2011)

Viking Bastard said:


> Is there something major I'm missing?




Scope of abilities/skills/powers etc. (There may be more, but scope is definitely an issue to solve.)

For sake of argument, in the simple version, say that Cha covers all the social skills, Dex covers all the sneaking and lockpicking, etc. (I know there are holes there. Work with me, and assume they are handled well enough. ). 

Then you layer the skills on top of this as an option. In the traditional model, you've got to divide scope into smaller pieces. This can, of course, be done well enough to get by, if you don't look at it very close. But you will make compromises. The problem is, in such a system, you want *multiple* options. And ideally, you want people to pick some options without prerequisites. (A handful may have prerequisites, again for those inevitable compromises, but most of them should not.) If people are going to the trouble to layer complexity on top of a base system, they want to layer their preferred complexity, not yours.

Hero System and GURPs are two ways out of this--but both are built on the idea that the options are all there, and you limit yourself to the ones that matter. There isn't really a "simple" system that is playable by itself. (Actually there is, but it isn't replicated in print--not even in the "lite" versions of both rules. The core is simpler than is printed. There was discussion between Hero 4th and 5th editions of building on this version, and some people suggested that such a Hero would be built on no more than 4 or 5 effects.)

Moreover, if scope is addressed in this way, you radically compromise your ability to convey the mechanics of source material and adventures. 

My theory--utterly untested by professional game designers thus far, at least in public --is that the way out of this is through multiple dimensions of character abilities affecting task or conflict resolution, but *not* as derived abilities. It is the derived part that causes the design to either screw up the scope or screw up the math.

For example, go back to Charisma as social again, as base. Instead of skills dividing this up, or feats adding on, or whatever--you always use Charisma for the base roll--no matter how many options you use. If you are using the simple version, then that roll is it--much like skill rolls are now. If you are using skills or feats or both, then those things add *different* mechanics that complicate the resolution, but not the roll.

Perhaps skills are focused on addressing sim issues. So if you use the skill option, you are explicitly invoking sim. Skills becomes things you train to do things that not everyone can do, still using your base Cha. "Diplomats" use charisma to negotiate when formal language and protocols are required. Maybe feats are about changing the grounds of the rolls by situation. If you are a "fast talker", you can use Cha rolls faster than normal. (You could just as easily do this the other way around, where the feat "Diplomat" handled special sim cases and the skill Fast Talking modified some situations. It might even be better than the first way, depending on the mechanics.)

In such a model, "races" should be largely replaced by "culture" as a mechanically significant dimension. Being a dwarf doesn't mean much, except perhaps for a few racial benefits that are largely static. Being a dwarf raised under the Granite Mountains, as part of the stonemasons guild, however, exerts some mechanically meaningful heft.

I quite happily admit that this is all mostly theoretical, beyond some practical, mostly failed, home brew system work I've been flirting with for several years now. But I don't see any other way out of the scope issue.


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## GSHamster (Jul 5, 2011)

It could be something like:

Simple Version: Charisma + 1/2 level

Complicated Version: Charisma + skill points (where a character gets X skill points per level to distribute as they wish).

Somewhat similar to the way "taking 10" eliminates the die roll to simplify situations.


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## howandwhy99 (Jul 5, 2011)

Minimalism: Relationship maps are key. Not just PCs to NPCs, but everything in the multiverse.  

Most folks think of the spatial map. "Where is the PC at this moment in time?" Items come up a close second. "What items are the PCs carrying?" However, all too often these items are not tracked spatially when they are not on a player character. Just as often is the tracking of NPCs when they are not within sensory range. Five orcs are in room 31b, forever? 

Relationship maps not based upon space and time are just as important. Who do the PCs know? What is the state of their relationship with these NPCs? What have the PCs done over the history of the campaign? What about prior to it in their backgrounds?

The same importance is placed upon everyone and everything else within reach in the game. Who do the NPCs know? What is the state of their relationships with other NPCs? What is their history? 

Similarly items have history too.  When where they created? What is their history? Who knows about them? How are they perceived?

It may seem daunting at first, but the process is a slow build. The PCs don't adventure through every element within the universe in one session. There is only so much accessible for them to explore. Therefore, just as the player's experience grows, so too does the world his or her PC is within.  Keep mapping out ahead of the party, with each and every map, and any DM will do fine.


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## KidSnide (Jul 5, 2011)

Balesir said:


> Having "complexity you can dial up or down" is a nice, cuddly concept and sounds luscious - but I think it's actually a honey trap if you value balance.
> 
> Rules with a myriad "optional" components are pretty much impossible to balance with any arbitrary selection of components selected.  In practice, the best you will get is a balanced "simple" system and a tranche of 'complications' that, if you add them all, will also be coherent and balanced.  Adding only part of the 'complication' set will just give an unbalanced, lopsided mess.  At this point, it seems to me that you have two separate games - albeit using the same core mechanical element(s), so why not just treat them as such?




That's true if there are many interacting complications, but less of a problem if you silo the levels of complexity.  For example, you could have a game that had a simple no-minis combat system where the PCs chose from a sub-set of the total powers available to them in the  more complicated tactical combat system.  The remaining complexity choices could be in separate non-combat silos where GMs select the collection of abilities that are relevant and appropriate to their game and players choose from the game-appropriate list.

-KS


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 5, 2011)

You know, I think part of the angst (all sides and in between) going on right now is that game design is finally moving firmly into the realm of mature design. That means that some parts of the functioning thing are, for most practical purposes, opaque to the user. At its far end, you get the #2 pencil--usable by a mature 4 year old, but unmakeable by any single being on the planet. (We are a long way from that. We've just finally started down that road. )

It is the difference between, say, a 1967 Mustang or early '70 VW Beetle versus any modern car. Someone interested in motors and willing to work could pretty much maintain about everything in one of those early version that they could physically handle. Lifting the engine out might for a complete rebuild might have pushed it, but I'm sure a few managed even that. Nowadays, you've practically got to be a specialist, and even so, there are some pieces that you'd really rather not touch.

And in not a few game systems for a long time, being willing to get under the hood was more or less the price required to participate, in some ways. Unless you wanted your game to spend a lot of times on blocks, out in front of your house ... (oops, analogy started to run away with me.)

There were people who didn't like Armor as AC, from the very beginning. There still are. But there are very few that play D&D for any length of time, think about it some, but still don't understand why it is the way it is. And most of them are bloody obtuse. 

We are starting to hit an era of design where you can use something *without* understanding it, and it will just work. The huge problem, of course, is that then when it breaks, you'll have to spend that much more time understanding it to get it fixed--or you'll have to get someone else to fix it for you.


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## Spatula (Jul 5, 2011)

AeroDm said:


> Despite that, I still think it is a bit short sighted. His proposal would certainly streamline the character sheet but at the expense of speed of play. If you only have the six stats and then powers/feats provide all modifiers, that means you have to search your sheet every time and add all the little odds-and-ends to calculate your score. Eventually, some player is going to realize that instead of calculating his score against attacks by adding his Dexterity + his ineffable dodge ability + his shield, he should just write it down on his sheet... maybe call it armor class. The reason we "bring in sub contractors" is because they come up often enough that it is worth putting them on salary.



When he mentioned "sub-contractor" mechanics, my understanding was that he was talking about different ways to model the same thing. Your CON is a measure of your toughness. Your saving throws/Fort defense are a completely different measure of your toughness, which are possibly influenced by your CON, but have separate mechanics and separate ways to boost them.

To me, the best example of this is avoidance mechanics in 3e. You had your AC, your touch AC, your AC vs incorporeal attacks, your Reflex save, and maybe a miss chance from displacement/blur/etc. You can take a feat or equip a magic item to improve a subset of the above, but that has no affect the others. As I read him, Mearls is saying, why have all of these similar but separate mechanics for what is essentially the same thing?


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## tuxgeo (Jul 5, 2011)

JeffB said:


> < snip >
> Yep... I'm calling "new edition announcement" at GenCon




OK, you have that corner of the possibility space nailed down; I'll go contrary to that and call "new setting announcement" for GenCon 2011. 
WotC still has Rich Burlew's setting from the setting search last decade; perhaps it's time for that to see the light of day?


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## Mark CMG (Jul 5, 2011)

Dragonhelm said:


> Str = ???
> Dex = Reflex
> Con = Fortitude
> Int = ???
> ...





Personally, I tie Str & Con to Fortitude, Dex and Int to Reflex, Wis and Cha to Will.  Recently I've broken out Prince Valiant (1989) for our group for a short campaign.  In that system you have Brawn for most physical task adjudication and Presence for most non-physical. Two ability scores, some skills that can assist in such tasks (Arms adds to Brawn for combat, for instance, while Oratory adds to Presence for some diplomatic situations).




Crazy Jerome said:


> You know, I think part of the angst (all sides and in between) going on right now is that game design is finally moving firmly into the realm of mature design.





DMs/GMs/Referees/Facilitators have been using the ability scores to adjudicate situations in roleplaying games of all stripes since the very start.  This is nothing new.  How that is codified in the rules has changed over the years, not necessarily evolved, simply been tried in varying manners, but this isn't a matter of maturity or immaturity in game design.  I'd also disagree with the assertion that how something works within the rules can be opaque since having the rules is meant to produce the opposite effect.  The motivations behind creating particular rules might be undefined but their effect on gameplay is transparent.


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## AeroDm (Jul 5, 2011)

Spatula said:


> When he mentioned "sub-contractor" mechanics, my understanding was that he was talking about different ways to model the same thing. Your CON is a measure of your toughness. Your saving throws/Fort defense are a completely different measure of your toughness, which are possibly influenced by your CON, but have separate mechanics and separate ways to boost them.
> 
> To me, the best example of this is avoidance mechanics in 3e. You had your AC, your touch AC, your AC vs incorporeal attacks, your Reflex save, and maybe a miss chance from displacement/blur/etc. You can take a feat or equip a magic item to improve a subset of the above, but that has no affect the others. As I read him, Mearls is saying, why have all of these similar but separate mechanics for what is essentially the same thing?




I didn't read it that way (I'm certainly open to being wrong though, so explain away). Mearls gave an example of a character interacting with poison and he acknowledged that you could "make a saving throw versus poison, a Fortitude save, or suffer an attack against Fortitude defense." He continues, "You already have a Constitution score. While your Constitution modifier can factor into a save or defense, why bother with that step? Why not just use your Constitution score as a defense and your modifier as a saving throw?"

So Mearls is saying that the derivative mechanics like Fort save or Fort defense, which depend on Constitution, should be removed and just use straight Con. Fort Save and Fort Defense are the sub contractors. 

Later in the article he suggests "Mechanics that improved your defenses or saving throws become situational benefits to your abilities." So, hypothetically, you'll have a feat that is +2 vs poison and when you encounter poison you use your Con and your +2 vs poison feat.

My comment was that some of these will become so fundamental that they are worth "putting the subcontractor on salary" or recording it on the character sheet. The first example I see is AC (which is probably Dex + Armor + Shield + Class) which will come up often enough that it isn't worth looking down and adding up a bunch of little fiddly bits.


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## AeroDm (Jul 5, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> You know, I think part of the angst (all sides and in between) going on right now is that game design is finally moving firmly into the realm of mature design. That means that some parts of the functioning thing are, for most practical purposes, opaque to the user. At its far end, you get the #2 pencil--usable by a mature 4 year old, but unmakeable by any single being on the planet. (We are a long way from that. We've just finally started down that road. )
> 
> It is the difference between, say, a 1967 Mustang or early '70 VW Beetle versus any modern car. Someone interested in motors and willing to work could pretty much maintain about everything in one of those early version that they could physically handle. Lifting the engine out might for a complete rebuild might have pushed it, but I'm sure a few managed even that. Nowadays, you've practically got to be a specialist, and even so, there are some pieces that you'd really rather not touch.
> 
> ...



That is a really neat perspective and I dig it.

In my mind, though, I think more sophisticated game design should be *easier* to communicate and let people get under the hood. D&D has near 40 years of proof that the audience loves to house rule. If they are moving towards a system that makes the rules more opaque, then something wrong is happening.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 5, 2011)

Mark CMG said:


> I'd also disagree with the assertion that how something works within the rules can be opaque since having the rules is meant to produce the opposite effect. The motivations behind creating particular rules might be undefined but their effect on gameplay is transparent.




We aren't that far apart, I don't think, though there is some disagreement. The border between opaque motivations of design and transparent or opaque effects on gameplay depends on how you look at it. I'd say that some of the effects on gameplay are transparent, but the whole point of "emergent" properties is that they aren't immediately transparent before they are useful.

But I agree that, still being the early going of this phase, there isn't much that will remain opaque after considered use. 

As for the six basic attributes or variations thereof, any simple design will be somewhat transparent. It can't be anything else. OTOH, I'd say that any more complicated design that works with the simple design, solves the relevant issues, and isn't simply two or three compatible systems bolted together (wth Balesir's caveats noted)--will necessarily have some complicated design underneath--regardless of how well it hides this complication in play and on the obvious effects. It will have emergent properties. 

If one could achieve this goal soley with existing traditional design elements, someone would have by now. An assertion, I know.


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## RangerWickett (Jul 5, 2011)

I'd love a system that works sorta like one Old School Hack I played, where you have stats that affect your non-combat skills, but your attack bonus and damage rolls are completely unmodified by ability scores. A fighter hits things well, and it doesn't matter if he's a fast fighter, a strong fighter, or a smart fighter. He'll always have attack bonus +X and damage modifier +Y.

In a 5e-or-whatever ruleset, his ability scores might modify what weapons he's good with, what special attacks he can use, and what skills he can weave into combat (acrobatics, athletics, surgical precision, bluffing, etc.). But stop forcing players to design specific types of characters if they want to be able to hit things.

If I want to play a 4 Wisdom cleric whom the gods really like even though he's a terrible priest, and if the GM's okay with that character, why should the rules inhibit it?


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 5, 2011)

AeroDm said:


> That is a really neat perspective and I dig it.
> 
> In my mind, though, I think more sophisticated game design should be *easier* to communicate and let people get under the hood. D&D has near 40 years of proof that the audience loves to house rule. If they are moving towards a system that makes the rules more opaque, then something wrong is happening.




"Simple" and "Easy" aren't the same thing. In this case, what you'd probably get are a lot of things that are relatively easy to understand, but not necessarily simple to tinker with. You might have a few that skewed the other way. Then you'd have whole sections that were all simple and easy and others that were neither.

All man-made, complicated systems that aren't simply a mess do this. As you break things into "black" and "white" box design (black being closed, but preferably with a readily understood interface), what becomes particular difficult for some people is understanding the mappings between the boxes. Individual boxes (or small sets of related boxes), however, become far easier to monkey with.

Note the quote that Mearls led with. As you take things (that don't belong) away from a given box (black or white), you simplify the design and use of that box, until it does exactly what it is supposed to do, very reliably. What is less often noted with that quote is that taking away responsibility from a box that shouldn't have it--implies that other boxes can exist and take over those other responsibilities.

Edit: I should note here that, of course, true "black boxes" aren't possible in game system rules printed on paper. Everyone can see the whole thing right there on the page. What is possible, however, is imposing on yourself the discipline of black box thinking during design, so that the different parts of the whole are appropriately "coupled".


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## rogueattorney (Jul 5, 2011)

Mearls' imperfect understanding of any edition prior to 3e rears its ugly head again, and in this case it's a pretty blatant misconception...



> In the beginning, your abilities gave you a bonus to experience points and that was it.




This is false.  In the 1974 rules, the three abilities tied to the three classes (strength - fighting-man, intelligence - magic-user, and wisdom - cleric) mainly gave you experience point bonuses.  (The exception was that intelligence also determined how many languages your character spoke.)

The other three ability scores gave you assorted bonuses that anyone familiar with subsequent editions of D&D should be acquainted with, Con gave you hit point bonus, Dex gave you missile fire bonus, and nearly two pages were given over to Charisma's effect on npc reactions and morale.  

This misunderstanding clouds many of his suppositions and conclusions that follow, namely that,


> If you go back to 1974 and look at the basic rules of D&D at that time, all of the basic, administrative stuff in the game had been solved via ability scores.




He's not coming up with a universal D&D.  He's using misconceptions of the game's history to re-re-re-reinvent the wheel.

EDIT TO ADD:  Wouldn't it be nice if there were some way for people who don't have access to the old rules (people like Mearls, apparently) to access them, perhaps after paying a nominal fee, let's say $5.00 or so?  Wouldn't that just be great?


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## KidSnide (Jul 5, 2011)

RangerWickett said:


> I'd love a system that works sorta like one Old School Hack I played, where you have stats that affect your non-combat skills, but your attack bonus and damage rolls are completely unmodified by ability scores. A fighter hits things well, and it doesn't matter if he's a fast fighter, a strong fighter, or a smart fighter. He'll always have attack bonus +X and damage modifier +Y.
> 
> In a 5e-or-whatever ruleset, his ability scores might modify what weapons he's good with, what special attacks he can use, and what skills he can weave into combat (acrobatics, athletics, surgical precision, bluffing, etc.). But stop forcing players to design specific types of characters if they want to be able to hit things.
> 
> If I want to play a 4 Wisdom cleric whom the gods really like even though he's a terrible priest, and if the GM's okay with that character, why should the rules inhibit it?




I played in a similar game (OK, maybe it was the same game...) and it was fantastic.  I think the strong connection between ability scores and combat effectiveness is one of the great weaknesses of 3e and 4e.  Because these ability scores are _so important_ to a character's combat effectiveness, it greatly limits the ability to create unusual builds without seriously undermining the ability to accomplish anything worthwhile.  If my character takes the wizard class surely that should be enough to be a reasonably effective wizard?  Why is an Int of 18+ also mandatory?

As a quick hack, I've wondered if 4e would be improved if all characters had a fixed ability modifier for attack rolls in their primary class (or classes in a hybrid design), while damage bonuses, effect bonuses and multi-class attacks depended on the ability scores as normal.

-KS


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## Sammael (Jul 5, 2011)

Making the ability scores super-important works _only_ at low levels (1-5) and then _only_ in extremely low-magic games (which Mearls is obviously fond of, given his Iron Heroes legacy).

I am much more in favor of a nice, streamlined (and somewhat abstract) skill system (which is why I built one), since I am a big proponent of the fact that ability scores should only matter until a character becomes learned enough to be able to overcome (or improve upon) his or her heritage. 

All in all, a completely wrong turn in the thinking, AFAIC.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 5, 2011)

KidSnide said:


> As a quick hack, I've wondered if 4e would be improved if all characters had a fixed ability modifier for attack rolls in their primary class (or classes in a hybrid design), while damage bonuses, effect bonuses and multi-class attacks depended on the ability scores as normal.




A slightly different version of the same idea is that the bonus to hit from ability scores don't stack with anything else.  Depending upon how you then scale abilities and provide options for other ways to become "highly skilled," you get an interesting dynamic as characters decide whether to "outgrow" their natural talent or not.  If it is going to take you, say, three feats to develop your Athletics skill enough to beat out your Athletics talent, you might decide not to.  

You'd have to be careful with ability scaling, though.


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## Mark CMG (Jul 5, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> The border between opaque motivations of design and transparent or opaque effects on gameplay depends on how you look at it.





Just by acknowledging a border you have come closer to understanding my own position.




Crazy Jerome said:


> I'd say that some of the effects on gameplay are transparent, but the whole point of "emergent" properties is that they aren't immediately transparent before they are useful.





Emergent properties are either a byproduct of how subsystems interact or result from rules applied to various components and the combination(s) of the interactions with regard to the overall results.  Predicting byproducts is tricky and often incomplete, planning for specific combined interactions is part of the design process.  This is not new.  In the case of the former, transparency results for the end user when they can recognize what was foreseen and what was not.  In the case of the latter, the rules should be upfront about the planned interactions so that the effects can be understood by the end user of the game.  An end user might not need to know the motivations behind the creation process (though I think it is helpful if elucidated) but mechanics and emergent mechanics that are a result of rules application should be clear within the rules, if the designer understands what those emergent properties will be.




Crazy Jerome said:


> As for the six basic attributes or variations thereof, any simple design will be somewhat transparent. It can't be anything else. OTOH, I'd say that any more complicated design that works with the simple design, solves the relevant issues, and isn't simply two or three compatible systems bolted together (wth Balesir's caveats noted)--will necessarily have some complicated design underneath--regardless of how well it hides this complication in play and on the obvious effects. It will have emergent properties.





You're lumping design motivations with effects from rules application together in your assertion that a complex system will necessarily be opaque in its process.  I disagree for reasons stated above in this post.




Crazy Jerome said:


> If one could achieve this goal soley with existing traditional design elements, someone would have by now. An assertion, I know.





You seem to be implying there is something new afoot in the design blogs where some of us are seeing misinterpretation of the tradtional elements (see rogueattorney's post and my previous post regarding ability score uses) being used as claim to new insights while presenting nothing innovative, something you imply by claiming mature design though I am not suggesting that it is claimed in the article(s) nor that it is or is not a goal of this process.  To me, this echoes the design idea behind stripping PC opponents of anything the designer felt was not germane to what could be used or accomplished in a single combat encounter.  It misunderstood the reasoning behind having mutlifaceted opponents in favor of rather bland, IMO, cookie-cutter opponents which produce the grind that many games have come to recognize.  The design motivation seems to have been ease of play and encounter creation but the resultant, emergent properties in gameplay are generally less desirable.  Having occasional opponents be one-dimensional but exteremely effective in their arena is interesting but having most opponents one-dimensional and then countering that planned effect by combining a variety of one-dimensional opponents is a poor substitute for encountering a variety of multifaceted opponents.  It might serve the design goal, and the result might be just as expected, but longterm effect on the play experience seems to wear thin.


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## Mark CMG (Jul 5, 2011)

Sammael said:


> Making the ability scores super-important works _only_ at low levels (1-5) and then _only_ in extremely low-magic games (which Mearls is obviously fond of, given his Iron Heroes legacy).
> 
> I am much more in favor of a nice, streamlined (and somewhat abstract) skill system (which is why I built one), since I am a big proponent of the fact that ability scores should only matter until a character becomes learned enough to be able to overcome (or improve upon) his or her heritage.
> 
> All in all, a completely wrong turn in the thinking, AFAIC.





If all challenges need to scale with level, that might be true that the ability scores are only important at lower levels.  But if one separates challenges that can be affected by abilities alone as well as of challenges where an ability can be used without a skill, if that skill is not possessed, from challenges that can be affected by abilties combined with skills, then this is no longer as simple.  Granted there is one design approach that, in the name of balance and scalability, relegates the usefulness of ability scores to the province of lower levels in some game systems but this is not an absolute for game design.


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## Sammael (Jul 5, 2011)

Mark CMG said:


> But if one separates challenges that can be affected by abilities alone as well as of challenges where an ability can be used without a skill, if that skill is not possessed, from challenges that can be affected by abilties combined with skills, then this is no longer as simple.



Vanilla 3.x had very few pure ability checks. Likewise, since every character could purchase cross-class skills (let's forget about the nonsensical and rarely enforced "exclusive" skills in 3.0) and attempt untrained skill checks (for the most part), this was not a big deal. 4E's mechanic of adding 1/2 level to all checks (both ability and skill checks) is a step in the right direction, since it gives everyone a chance of succeeding that does not rely on ability alone (and takes into account passive learning).

I am biased, of course, since my own system revision does away with pure ability checks. _Every_ check has an associated skill, and characters gain a "base bonus" to all skills (I started with level /2 but toned it down to level / 4 after playtest) as a measure of overall progress.


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## TerraDave (Jul 5, 2011)

RangerWickett said:


> I'd love a system that works sorta like one Old School Hack I played, where you have stats that affect your non-combat skills, but your attack bonus and damage rolls are completely unmodified by ability scores. A fighter hits things well, and it doesn't matter if he's a fast fighter, a strong fighter, or a smart fighter. He'll always have attack bonus +X and damage modifier +Y.
> 
> In a 5e-or-whatever ruleset, his ability scores might modify what weapons he's good with, what special attacks he can use, and what skills he can weave into combat (acrobatics, athletics, surgical precision, bluffing, etc.). But stop forcing players to design specific types of characters if they want to be able to hit things.
> 
> If I want to play a 4 Wisdom cleric whom the gods really like even though he's a terrible priest, and if the GM's okay with that character, why should the rules inhibit it?




But this begs the question...why play a fighter that is clumsy and weak? Or turn it around, your "smart" fighter is a crack duelist and shot with a bow, but can't walk and chew gum at the same time?

Now, if you want to get rid of abilities all togther, or have them modify things in a different way, that is another story...


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## Mark CMG (Jul 5, 2011)

Sammael said:


> Vanilla 3.x had very few pure ability checks. Likewise, since every character could purchase cross-class skills (let's forget about the nonsensical and rarely enforced "exclusive" skills in 3.0) and attempt untrained skill checks (for the most part), this was not a big deal. 4E's mechanic of adding 1/2 level to all checks (both ability and skill checks) is a step in the right direction, since it gives everyone a chance of succeeding that does not rely on ability alone (and takes into account passive learning).
> 
> I am biased, of course, since my own system revision does away with pure ability checks. _Every_ check has an associated skill, and characters gain a "base bonus" to all skills (I started with level /2 but toned it down to level / 4 after playtest) as a measure of overall progress.





I'll continue posting in the abstract, system-neutral, if you will and say that passive learning is not always applicable.  So, too, allow me to add in to my above post that a system that allows all abilities to potentially have the same skill level cap and/or allows any skill to be gained in parallel with other skills, as if they were all skills that could be equally mastered by anyone, might be missing something in the design.


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## Sammael (Jul 5, 2011)

Mark CMG said:


> I'll continue posting in the abstract, system-neutral, if you will and say that passive learning is not always applicable.  So, too, allow me to add in to my above post that a system that allows all abilities to potentially have the same skill level cap and/or allows any skill to be gained in parallel with other skills, as if they were all skills that could be equally mastered by anyone, might be missing something in the design.



Re: passive learning - I agree, but I also think that the number of instances where passive learning _is_ applicable far outnumbers the number of instances where it _isn't_, which is why I'm in favor of passive learning in general.

As a quick sidenote, 3.x had passive learning as well, in the form of BAB - which was - really - nothing more than another skill with slightly wonky rules.

As for the skill level cap and "equal opportunity" skills, again, I agree - in a class-based system, not all classes should have the opportunity to advance all skills equally, and the "cap" should differ. 

I'll step out of system neutrality here for a sec - under my system, a 20th level mage would likely have a +17 bonus on the Arcana skill (10 ranks, +5 base bonus, +2 competence), whereas a 20th level fighter would only have the +5 base bonus (to reflect passive learning - after all, having seen the motions used to cast _fireball_ so many times, the fighter was bound to learn to recognize them by then; it doesn't mean that he can cast spells). If you add abilities to skills, the difference becomes even greater. But the 20th level fighter will likely be able to recognize a _magic mouth_ for what it is...


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## KidSnide (Jul 5, 2011)

TerraDave said:


> RangerWickett said:
> 
> 
> > I'd love a system that works sorta like one Old School Hack I played, where you have stats that affect your non-combat skills, but your attack bonus and damage rolls are completely unmodified by ability scores. A fighter hits things well, and it doesn't matter if he's a fast fighter, a strong fighter, or a smart fighter. He'll always have attack bonus +X and damage modifier +Y.
> ...




You can create any number of justifications for this type of character.  A weak, arthritic fighter could be an elderly master of a forgotten fighting style, and there are tons of examples in westerns where the clumsy drunk is the deadliest shot in the west.  Young and naive clerics and idiot savant wizards are also classics of the genre.

You can legitimately question whether these character types are realistic.  (I have it on good authority that small, elderly martial arts masters go flying when they are kicked in the chest by larger, younger martial arts masters.)  In a more "realistic" game, a GM might want to limit characters that are exceptionally poor in the relevant areas.  However, these are clearly legitimate concepts for a large number of games.  I don't see why the rules should keep them from being playable.

-KS


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## Mark CMG (Jul 5, 2011)

Sammael said:


> Re: passive learning - I agree, but I also think that the number of instances where passive learning _is_ applicable far outnumbers the number of instances where it _isn't_, which is why I'm in favor of passive learning in general.





I would think just the opposite, in that passive learning is situational.  I can learn to swim by being in the water even without a teacher and I can learn from a teacher (formal or otherwise) even away from the water, but without the opportunity for either I don't believe I can become a better swimmer just by occasionally thinking or not even thinking about swimming while walking around doing other things. If I take any given game session and consider how many typical skills come into play, where someone could learn by trial and error or through instruction or even watching another make attempts with a given skill, the list is quite short. Opportunities for passive learning neither seem to abound nor be prevalent but are seemingly rather rare.




Sammael said:


> As for the skill level cap and "equal opportunity" skills, again, I agree - in a class-based system, not all classes should have the opportunity to advance all skills equally, and the "cap" should differ.





Tying skills to class is also problematic in many ways.




Sammael said:


> I'll step out of system neutrality here for a sec (. . .)





Better to say continue outside . . ?  Nothing wrong with it as it has helped us comminucate but your posts have been regarding specific systems or your own additions to them. Again, that's all good because it has certainly helped me understand your points.





Sammael said:


> - under my system, a 20th level mage would likely have a +17 bonus on the Arcana skill (10 ranks, +5 base bonus, +2 competence), whereas a 20th level fighter would only have the +5 base bonus (to reflect passive learning - after all, having seen the motions used to cast _fireball_ so many times, the fighter was bound to learn to recognize them by then; it doesn't mean that he can cast spells). If you add abilities to skills, the difference becomes even greater. But the 20th level fighter will likely be able to recognize a _magic mouth_ for what it is...





I don't see that as enough secondhand experience to gain anything in that regard, let alone nearly a third (if I read you right) of the ability of a master just by being in the room, so to speak.  If I pick up a few words of a foreign language spoken by a neighbor couple (mind you this is passive, without looking words up in books or asking the neighbors their meaning, simply by hearing them and only sometimes with any context), I would think that negligible relative to even being able to get by in their homeland.


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## Lanefan (Jul 5, 2011)

I'm a cynical suspicious SOB sometimes, so I'll ask this now: could this series of Mearls articles possibly be a smokescreen?  He's certainly got people talking here and elsewhere about what he's been writing, and that's good...but what is it that we're *not* looking at?

That said, my previous forecast (see various other threads since about last fall-winter) remains in place.


rogueattorney said:


> In the 1974 rules, the three abilities tied to the three classes (strength - fighting-man, intelligence - magic-user, and wisdom - cleric) mainly gave you experience point bonuses.  (The exception was that intelligence also determined how many languages your character spoke.)
> 
> The other three ability scores gave you assorted bonuses that anyone familiar with subsequent editions of D&D should be acquainted with, Con gave you hit point bonus, Dex gave you missile fire bonus, and nearly two pages were given over to Charisma's effect on npc reactions and morale.



And in 1e and 2e extreme ability scores gave (or took away, there were penalties too) other things as well e.g. saving throw modifiers (Int, Wis, Dex, Con, rarely Cha), to-hit/damage modifiers (Str), and so forth.

Strange that he'd miss this.

Lan-"having ability scores tied to lots of other things is only a problem if said scores constantly change"-efan


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 5, 2011)

TerraDave said:


> He does seem to be going somewhere with these...



The latest article sounds like he's just fallen in love with Castles & Crusades (making ability scores handle the bulk of the work is straight from C&C) or an OSR retro-clone.

It'll be interesting to see what destination, if any, he's heading to here.


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## Sammael (Jul 5, 2011)

[MENTION=5]Mark_CMG[/MENTION]:

You are right, I feel the need to relay how things work in my revision because, for the most part, my revision reflects my stance on many system issues. But, let's go to back to system neutral (insofar as it is 
actually possible).

How else would you cap and differentiate skills in a class-based system if not by class? I'm curious... 

Passive learning in an adventuring context, I think, is far more successful and meaningful than passive learning in everyday life. For example, over the course of his career, pretty much _every_ adventurer (regardless of class) will have to:


Climb a wall, rock, or tree, jump over a pit or a crevasse, balance on a slippery surface or uneven floor
Negotiate, lie, cheat, and deceive other people or monsters
Deal with cults and churches of all sorts
Resist and witness a number of different magical effects
Fight similar monsters multiple times, learning their specific strengths and weaknesses
Stand guard over his comrades, observing the surroundings
Search for treasure, traps, or hidden passages
Exchange information for other information or money
Trek through the wilderness
Use a strange magical item

That's a pretty wide range of skills, and I just pulled all those samples without much effort. I'm sure a think tank such as ENWorld could compile a huge list of common adventuring tropes. 

Furthermore, becoming a high-level character is a huge accomplishment; not many characters make it that far. In order to reach such heights, each character must learn to be at least a little (and here we likely differ on what constitutes "little") self-sufficient when in comes to pretty much everything. 

Imagine a 20th level character who gets ripped off at the market because he did not invest anything in the skill that governs negotiation (despite having participated - passively or actively - in a huge number of negotiations by that point). Is it possible that he learned _nothing_ through observation? I don't think so. 

In an ideal RPG (from my POV), every character would progress using a "learn by doing" method (with optional off-screen training rules). I tried building one such system and it became a bookkeeping nightmare. So, I'll settle for "passive learning" as the next best thing that reflects all the little things somebody learns that are outside of his or her core competency.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 5, 2011)

delericho said:


> What I like about the current model (and even more the 3e/PF model) is that there is a distinct divide between a characters 'innate' capabilities (ability scores), and the training he has put in various things (skill ranks, feats, and the like). Thus, the character's ability scores absolutely _influence_ your final modifiers/totals, but they don't determine them - and are, in fact, a fairly minor component next to training.
> 
> Mike's proposed system would seem to negate that - if you're stuck with a low-Str at 1st level you're going to suck at Athletics... and you're _always_ going to suck at Athletics.



Only if that's the only stat in the mix. C&C's Siege system includes level bonuses. Obviously, your 90-pound weakling's never going to be a threat to the 18 Strength barbarian who put down Strength as a prime stat (C&C gives extra weight to two or three stats, at the player's choice, to represent what the character focuses on, so you can have charming fighters or arm-wrestling wizards), but he'll still get better over time.


----------



## Balesir (Jul 5, 2011)

AeroDm said:


> In my mind, though, I think more sophisticated game design should be *easier* to communicate and let people get under the hood. D&D has near 40 years of proof that the audience loves to house rule. If they are moving towards a system that makes the rules more opaque, then something wrong is happening.



This may be only a personal view, but in my mind the reason people used to houserule extensively was because the system(s) then avaialble did not do what they wanted them to do.  In many cases, the rules did not do anything coherent at all, so houseruling to some degree was essentially mandatory.  In other cases the rules tried to appeal to all tastes, so to get them to appeal to your tastes specifically you had to change them.

For me, 4E was the first D&D edition I didn't feel the need to houserule* because it actually does something well.  It's not a "something" that I want in all games, but for other "somethings" I have other games; at least for one "mode" or "style" 4E actually works OK out of the box.

The same consideration also means I feel more constrained not to "fiddle" with 4E, however.  The fact that it actually does something well means that, if I start changing things, there is something that I might unintentionally "break".  With several older games, they worked so poorly to begin with that the risk of "breaking" something was a sort of "it's already broken in that it does X and Y - how bad could it be if I change it?" deal.

*: When I say "houserule" I am really talking about changing the actual rules and character elements, not adding new monsters or traps.  To me, those are more comparable to designing adventures or dungeons; there is a set of 'meta-rules' that I follow to design them without actually "houseruling" anything.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 5, 2011)

TerraDave said:


> I think all these posts are a _journey_...who knows were...but they don't really stand alone.
> 
> He is saying you could play in a minimalist style...not that you should. You should be able to control complexity, so that if you want more elaborate skills or defenses/saves, well, then you get those.
> 
> Somehow.



A core game with simple rules and then extra packs with optional rules, monsters, classes, spells, and so on, each to cater to a different flavor.

Not hard to do, and it'd be a great unification product that would be a great way to drive product -- Ravenloft would not only be a campaign setting, but it'd have a ton of new monsters, maybe rules for playing as certain types, and rules for horror, madness and ritual magic. The Dark Sun line would be the home of the psionics rules, which could be used anywhere, but which they'd hope would entice you into picking up other Dark Sun products after grabbing the psionics book.

I'd add to the traditional settings a kid-friendly fairy tale/Oz/Narnia inspired book (because D&D needs official rules for player character talking animals, damn it), a steampunk/Victorian magic Falkenstein clone, a modern urban fantasy and maybe a Harry Potter-flavored modern magic high fantasy.

Everyone works off the same D20-but-not core, and bolts on the options they want. Or, if they want to make WotC really happy, buy it all and mix and match the rules, monsters, spells and so on.


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## Sammael (Jul 5, 2011)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> A core game with simple rules and then extra packs with optional rules, monsters, classes, spells, and so on, each to cater to a different flavor.
> 
> Not hard to do, and it'd be a great unification product that would be a great way to drive product -- Ravenloft would not only be a campaign setting, but it'd have a ton of new monsters, maybe rules for playing as certain types, and rules for horror, madness and ritual magic. The Dark Sun line would be the home of the psionics rules, which could be used anywhere, but which they'd hope would entice you into picking up other Dark Sun products after grabbing the psionics book.
> 
> ...



It's a pity I can't give you more XP, because I'm in perfect agreement with this! Unless I'm mistaken, something similar was also a part of WotC's plan in the early 2000s - revising the PH every years or so, reskinning it with different 
 "flavor" (Oriental Adventures, Horror Adventures, etc), while retaining the same core.


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## Balesir (Jul 5, 2011)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> Not hard to do, and it'd be a great unification product that would be a great way to drive product -- Ravenloft would not only be a campaign setting, but it'd have a ton of new monsters, maybe rules for playing as certain types, and *rules for horror, madness and ritual magic*.



...which would almost certainly affect the utility of many of the core character elements and monsters and thus destroy the balance of the system as a Gamist vehicle.

Such a system is perfectly possible - it's been done several times before - but to imagine that it will "please everybody" is simply incorrect.  It will appeal to the same folk as the older editions already appeal to, and they will houserule it into something that they actually want to play, as they always did.  The only cloud in that sky is that there are already quite a number of systems that already achieve that, and some of the adherents of that approach will wise up to the idea that, if they are going to houserule anyway, they might as well houserule what they already have.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 5, 2011)

Balesir said:


> ...which would almost certainly affect the utility of many of the core character elements and monsters and thus destroy the balance of the system as a Gamist vehicle.



Ravenloft, for instance, would theoretically be balanced around Core + Ravenloft, with sidebars talking about what's been tweaked and why.

And D&D has never really been a perfectly balanced Gamist-with-a-capital-G vehicle, so I'm not sure the risk of it failing to accomplish something that it's never achieved outweighs all the good that could come from a more modular system design.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 6, 2011)

Mark CMG said:


> You seem to be implying there is something new afoot in the design blogs where some of us are seeing misinterpretation of the tradtional elements (see rogueattorney's post and my previous post regarding ability score uses) being used as claim to new insights while presenting nothing innovative, something you imply by claiming mature design though I am not suggesting that it is claimed in the article(s) nor that it is or is not a goal of this process. To me, this echoes the design idea behind stripping PC opponents of anything the designer felt was not germane to what could be used or accomplished in a single combat encounter. It misunderstood the reasoning behind having mutlifaceted opponents in favor of rather bland, IMO, cookie-cutter opponents which produce the grind that many games have come to recognize. The design motivation seems to have been ease of play and encounter creation but the resultant, emergent properties in gameplay are generally less desirable. Having occasional opponents be one-dimensional but exteremely effective in their arena is interesting but having most opponents one-dimensional and then countering that planned effect by combining a variety of one-dimensional opponents is a poor substitute for encountering a variety of multifaceted opponents. It might serve the design goal, and the result might be just as expected, but longterm effect on the play experience seems to wear thin.




I can see why you thought I was implying that, but I wasn't intending to.  No, getting back to basics (however understood) is what I'd say is a necessary first step in a longer process. When I'm mentioned maturing design, I'm really reading way ahead to where I think Mearls is going with this.  There really isn't much in that last article that warrants it on the surface.  So I guess I'm a bit off-topic with that line of thought.  

I do think where he is going is a more mature design, though. I guess we'll find out. 

I will note that having the six ability scores drive things does not necessarily mean something directly analogous to how the older versions worked.  It probably wouldn't, in a game with complexity dials.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 6, 2011)

Sammael said:


> As for the skill level cap and "equal opportunity" skills, again, I agree - in a class-based system, not all classes should have the opportunity to advance all skills equally, and the "cap" should differ.




The presense of a cap is somewhat of an admission of design failure. In an elegant and thorough enough system, opportunity costs would make the cap never hit, and thus negate it entirely. 

Of course, here in the real world, a cap might still be a better choice than complicating your design to avoid having one. But having a safety net is different than constantly falling off the trapeze onto one.


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## Mark CMG (Jul 6, 2011)

Sammael said:


> [MENTION=5](. . .) over the course of his career (. . .)





I love your underlying idea for many reasons but this one quoted phrase causes me to dispute tying passive learning to a system that increases the bonus level-upon-level.  For my own part, I have worked with a system that allows players to justify increasing their bonuses by substantiating increases (even mid-level) based on actual situational factors (and there are limits to just how much any person can learn in any given period, passively or actively).


For instance, if much of what gets accomplished between level four and five takes place in or on the ocean, a player could certainly justify that they gained some skill in swimming, even if the actual time at the table doesn't specifically involve the character actively trying to learn to swim better.


To use an example similar to your own, if the characters are in the city much of the time between levels two and four, and for expeiancy's sake we choose to allow equipment purchased from the list between sessions, certainly a player would have cause to say their character has become more streetwise and familiar with the ins and outs of purchasing from merchants, perhaps even extending that reach toward other social skills.


In this manner, passive learning in-game becomes actively implemented, meta-game-wise, for specifc circumstances that are clearly justifiable, IMO.


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## Balesir (Jul 6, 2011)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> Ravenloft, for instance, would theoretically be balanced around Core + Ravenloft, with sidebars talking about what's been tweaked and why.



So you have a separate game - so why not just treat it as such?



Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> And D&D has never really been a perfectly balanced Gamist-with-a-capital-G vehicle, so I'm not sure the risk of it failing to accomplish something that it's never achieved outweighs all the good that could come from a more modular system design.



I'm not at all sure that 'perfection' is possible, in this (or most other) respect(s), but 4E D&D comes far closer to a functional Gamist game than any other system I have seen.  And I have seen a lot.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 6, 2011)

tuxgeo said:


> WotC still has Rich Burlew's setting from the setting search last decade; perhaps it's time for that to see the light of day?



I don't think that'll ever be published as a pay-for-play supplement, unfortunately. It was designed in a different era for a different game under different assumptions. If we're lucky, we'll see it released online as a freebie for the next big D&D anniversary (or maybe for Eberron's 10th or something).


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## Mark CMG (Jul 6, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> (snippage)





I see.  Thanks for the clarification.  My bad for assuming and sorry if that cast your conjecture in an unfair light.  It's an interesting premise and I guess we will know more eventually.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 6, 2011)

Balesir said:


> I'm not at all sure that 'perfection' is possible, in this (or most other) respect(s), but 4E D&D comes far closer to a functional Gamist game than any other system I have seen.  And I have seen a lot.



If Mearls (and, by extension, WotC) were happy with how 4E worked out, this thread wouldn't exist.


----------



## Balesir (Jul 6, 2011)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> If Mearls (and, by extension, WotC) were happy with how 4E worked out, this thread wouldn't exist.



I agree - but how does that relate to the previous comments?  I said 4E is the best Gamist engine so far produced - I stand by that.  That fact that WotC/Mike Mearls aren't satisfied with it isn't really relevant to that.  I suspect that its performance as a Gamist-supporting system is not what they are dissatisfied with.


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## Mark CMG (Jul 6, 2011)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> If Mearls (and, by extension, WotC) were happy with how 4E worked out, this thread wouldn't exist.





A new edition probably has to be different enough from the previous edition(s) to warrant the time and money for development (more of the same and who would buy it?), which might also require that regardless of how happy the company designers are, they need to make changes. This all assumes that at higher corporate levels certain financial goals are expected/required to be met.  The trick, I suppose, to this sort of edition-cycling is to prep the fanbase, warm them to your ideas, and not piss them off if it can be helped.  That's why a lot of this stuff looks less like a dialog (or insight into a dialog) and more like marketing, regardless of what the case might actually be.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 6, 2011)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> If Mearls (and, by extension, WotC) were happy with how 4E worked out, this thread wouldn't exist.




For better and worse, since the start of 3E, the one common denominator of WotC designs has been that someone on the design team wanted to build on what came before *and* solve new problems too.  This necessarily means a design that spirals around the destination, even if staff isn't changing.

There might have been a touch of that in the 1E design, but it was so big on getting a hodge podge of house rules down into a single set of rules, I don't think much time was spent on solving specific problems.  And 2E largely punted on the whole issue and went after setting elements.


----------



## chaochou (Jul 6, 2011)

I thought the article was interesting enough. I like the fact he's asking questions about the need for layering - looking at stuff like that is his job, after all.

But it's very difficult, imo, to draw conclusions simply from him musing about ditching derived values from attributes and using the raw numbers. It's not like that's an innovation in game design. It would be a mechanical change for D&D, but until I see a fuller picture I can't really guess what his point is.

Still, next week he says he's talking about the role of classes. Might be some more clues there.


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## Markn (Jul 6, 2011)

I really feel that Mearls' articles are leading to a new edition. If so, this could possibly be the first edition design that is open to the public and not just play testers. I am convinced that Mearls follows threads like these after each article as a litmus test for his ideas.  Obviously, he has certain ideas but uses feedback to alter them when necessary and he can't just come out and say "Hey I'm creating 5e, wanna help.?". If you stop and think, this could be a landmark moment in the history of d&d and this method could go a long ways to fueling hype and excitement for the next edition since we are invested from the start. 

Just my observation....


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 6, 2011)

Balesir said:


> I agree - but how does that relate to the previous comments?  I said 4E is the best Gamist engine so far produced - I stand by that.  That fact that WotC/Mike Mearls aren't satisfied with it isn't really relevant to that.  I suspect that its performance as a Gamist-supporting system is not what they are dissatisfied with.




Since the discussion is what they're going to do next, the fact that they're not happy with the game's performance -- whatever its virtues -- is pretty much the most important given in the discussion. 

4E could turn everything that it touched to gold, but if they want to scrap it -- which is not an unreasonable inference from Mearls' recent columns -- it won't stop them.


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## KidSnide (Jul 6, 2011)

Markn said:


> I really feel that Mearls' articles are leading to a new edition.




Lower commercial success could easily lead WotC to make the lifecycle of 4th edition shorter than the lifecycle of 3rd edition.  So, I think it's perfectly plausible to imagine WotC working on a 5th edition now.  That having been said, it takes a long time to make a major edition upgrade and one would imagine that WotC is fairly early in that process.  Unless this is part of a much larger effort to rope in 3rd party support (which would probably result in some design leakage), any sort of announcement seems quite premature.

-KS


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## pawsplay (Jul 6, 2011)

TerraDave said:


> He does seem to be going somewhere with these...
> 
> Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Minimalist D&D)




WTH? My designs on Conquest of the Universe keep getting smaller and tidier, and then I read this:



> You already have a Constitution score. While your Constitution modifier can factor into a save or defense, why bother with that step? Why not just use your Constitution score as a defense and your modifier as a saving throw? In terms of story, we see the same results.




It's like he's peeking at my notes.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 6, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> It's like he's peeking at my notes.




That was probably evil Kamikaze.


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## MichaelSomething (Jul 6, 2011)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> A core game with simple rules and then extra packs with optional rules, monsters, classes, spells, and so on, each to cater to a different flavor.
> 
> Not hard to do, and it'd be a great unification product that would be a great way to drive product -- Ravenloft would not only be a campaign setting, but it'd have a ton of new monsters, maybe rules for playing as certain types, and rules for horror, madness and ritual magic. The Dark Sun line would be the home of the psionics rules, which could be used anywhere, but which they'd hope would entice you into picking up other Dark Sun products after grabbing the psionics book.
> 
> ...




Doesn't GURPS do that already?


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 6, 2011)

MichaelSomething said:


> Doesn't GURPS do that already?



And the nWoD and Savage Worlds and lots more besides.


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## Anselyn (Jul 6, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> We are starting to hit an era of design where you can use something *without* understanding it, and it will just work.




I like your analogy too. There is also an interesting discussion going on here on simple/basic/transparent/mature design etc.

But, but ...

If you sit down with a new player - those people we want more of rather than just us long time players -  then if you tell then you have a _Strength_ listed here for your character then the functionality of that strength has to chime with the normal understanding of being strong.

It may be a more mature/sophisticated design to have a game where you have a TLA[1] of +15 related to a whole gamut of strength related activities - but that is also a exclusionary wall for getting new players to play.

[1] Three Letter Acronym - may or may nor be STR - could be BAB ...


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## MoxieFu (Jul 6, 2011)

STR is not a TLA, it is an abbreviation.


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## Viking Bastard (Jul 6, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> Scope of abilities/skills/powers etc. (There may be more, but scope is definitely an issue to solve.)
> 
> For sake of argument, in the simple version, say that Cha covers all the social skills, Dex covers all the sneaking and lockpicking, etc. (I know there are holes there. Work with me, and assume they are handled well enough. ).
> 
> Then you layer the skills on top of this as an option.




I can see where you're going with this, but this is way more ambitious than what I was thinking about. I was thinking something more along the way of Essentials, just taken to an extreme. I was thinking if you didn't want to use skills, you could pick a Basic class like Fighting Man or Magic-User that doesn't get skills and uses abilities for everything, but has it's own math to compensate.


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## UngainlyTitan (Jul 6, 2011)

I have argued elsewhere on similar threads to this one that I do not believe a 5th edition is on the way. Mostly related to the state of the digital tools and the split in the fanbase that such a move would create.

On the other hand, I could see these columns leading to the introduction of a true Basic D&D. One that is a subset of 4e and balanced with the math of 4e.

How about htis scenario, a boxed set expansion for the boardgames (Ravenloft and Wrath of Ashardalon) allowing simple chargen and task resolution using abilities and adding non dungeon encounters. Still DM'less but with the ability to score allies and/or helpful items. The game will culminate with a dungeon crawl.

The rules point you to Basic D&D for further open ended adventure.

Basic D&D - Simple essential styled characters level 1 to 10
Spell casters have a pretty restricted list of powers. No skills, or feats. Non combat task resolution via attribute checks. Can use the reqular 4e monsters and monster vault.

DM advice and encounter and adventure advice.

Basic D&D paragon tier introduces paragon paths and feats, however, no multiclassing or hybrids. Want that go to AD&D (formerly known as 4e)


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## Anselyn (Jul 6, 2011)

ardoughter said:


> IHow about this scenario, a boxed set expansion for the boardgames (Ravenloft and Wrath of Ashardalon) allowing simple chargen and task resolution using abilities and adding non dungeon encounters. Still DM'less but with the ability to score allies and/or helpful items. The game will culminate with a dungeon crawl.




An intriguing idea.

Having tried out Arkham Horror, I just thought I'd rather get on and play CoC.  But I have to admit that it's a great boardgame  - that fails to be a gateway to the roleplaying experience of the same thing.

A proper boardgame gateway to D&D would be interesting.


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## Viking Bastard (Jul 6, 2011)

ardoughter said:


> Basic D&D - Simple essential styled characters level 1 to 10
> Spell casters have a pretty restricted list of powers. No skills, or feats. Non combat task resolution via attribute checks. Can use the reqular 4e monsters and monster vault.
> 
> DM advice and encounter and adventure advice.
> ...




_This_ is what I was thinking.



> Want that go to AD&D (formerly known as 4e)



Rather, go buy normal D&D. The same 4e as is on sale now, branded the same. Then, if you want optional rules like weapon speeds and old-style memorization spellcasting (or whatever), go pick up one of the AD&D line of supplements. Optional rule modules that add complications, but don't mess directly with the math.


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## TerraDave (Jul 6, 2011)

KidSnide said:


> You can create any number of justifications for this type of character.  A weak, arthritic fighter could be an elderly master of a forgotten fighting style, and there are tons of examples in westerns where the clumsy drunk is the deadliest shot in the west.  Young and naive clerics and idiot savant wizards are also classics of the genre.
> 
> You can legitimately question whether these character types are realistic.  (I have it on good authority that small, elderly martial arts masters go flying when they are kicked in the chest by larger, younger martial arts masters.)  In a more "realistic" game, a GM might want to limit characters that are exceptionally poor in the relevant areas.  However, these are clearly legitimate concepts for a large number of games.  I don't see why the rules should keep them from being playable.
> 
> -KS




But is this a role-playing question or a mechanics question?

I say my fighter is 60, but has great experience and tough as nails. Do I go with low physical scores, or decent one, and RP the difference? (my back!). In mechanic terms, if your charecter has a low str or dex, he has to be bad at something. He has to not be able to wear heavier armor, or not climb well, or get hit often. There has to be a mechanical implication. 

The drunken fighter or shot is the same thing. He is clumsy when it doesn't count or the player feels like it, but not when it counts (think of him stumbling across a tight rope). Or the "idiot" wizard who know everything on arcana, the young cleric that has an uncanny sense of things...

You should be able to RP a concept you want, but that doesn't mean you have to mess up the mechanics to do it.


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## UngainlyTitan (Jul 6, 2011)

Anselyn said:


> An intriguing idea.
> 
> Having tried out Arkham Horror, I just thought I'd rather get on and play CoC. But I have to admit that it's a great boardgame - that fails to be a gateway to the roleplaying experience of the same thing.
> 
> A proper boardgame gateway to D&D would be interesting.



 Yes Arkham Horror was what I was thinking of.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 6, 2011)

Viking Bastard said:


> I can see where you're going with this, but this is way more ambitious than what I was thinking about. I was thinking something more along the way of Essentials, just taken to an extreme. I was thinking if you didn't want to use skills, you could pick a Basic class like Fighting Man or Magic-User that doesn't get skills and uses abilities for everything, but has it's own math to compensate.




If you do a design as I'm discussing, then when you have the structure of the design all working and functional--you have to make some compromises for marketing, playability, expectations, etc.  But you make the compromises around the edges, in the naming of things, etc.  Not in the structure.  Little tweaks that "you'd really rather not" on the edges don't mess up the fundamental design.

This is also why I think something like a Basic D&D expansion of the board games might be a business success, and might even be well designed within its limits (and thus fun to play)--but is ultimately something that will frustrate a lot of people.  You try to bolt something like that onto 4E, even as an intro, then you are constrained by what 4E is now.  This is highly unlikely to be a perfect match with the structure you need for a scalable complexity game.  Your other alternative is to alter 4E, but I think that is worse than just doing a new system.

It *might* work to do a new structure, but not a whole new game, and then bolt the basic version and 4E to that (making a few compromises), with the intention of evolving 4E into a better fit for the structure later.  I doubt it, but it might.


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## Markn (Jul 6, 2011)

KidSnide said:


> Lower commercial success could easily lead WotC to make the lifecycle of 4th edition shorter than the lifecycle of 3rd edition.  So, I think it's perfectly plausible to imagine WotC working on a 5th edition now.  That having been said, it takes a long time to make a major edition upgrade and one would imagine that WotC is fairly early in that process.  Unless this is part of a much larger effort to rope in 3rd party support (which would probably result in some design leakage), any sort of announcement seems quite premature.




Agreed.  I would think that a new edition is at least a 2 year cycle and I believe we are in the early stages of that.  I think the lessons learned from 4e is that it is more important to get it right than set a release date - at least I hope that was a lesson learned!   At any rate, if this is the first design via community feedback, then the process may take even longer.  I think all the calls for an edition announcement at Gen Con this year are a bit premature.  You have to have something close to completion before you can announce it - people want details after all.  But something new is most definately on the horizon.


----------



## KidSnide (Jul 6, 2011)

TerraDave said:


> KidSnide said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I agree that there has to be a mechanical implication, I just think the mechanical implication should be something other than "your character is mostly useless."  As it is right now, a Str 12 fighter can't fulfill the defender role and is little more than a joke.  But if you just use roleplaying and have a Str 18, then the character is inappropriately good at athletics and doesn't get the mechanical benefit of a high wisdom.

For an old fighter, maybe it's harder to wear such heavy armor, make those athletic checks (or maybe even do quite so much damage), but he can still hit (and land the "hit" based effects of his powers).  And, he gets the benefit of being good at perception and unusually effective at fighter Wis powers.  That type of character might be somewhat less effective than a pure Str fighter (who does consistently more damage), but it's an interesting, different and viable character.  

A core goal of the character creation rules should be to allow players to create a variety of interesting, different and viable characters with minimal rules overhead.  Right now, if you want to play a Wis-concentrated melee defender, you need to write a whole new class.  Fighter has a minor in Wis.  Why can't I use Fighter for that?  The answer: because WotC gave too much importance to the primary (to hit) attributes, severely restricting effective character builds for little benefit.

-KS


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## TerraDave (Jul 6, 2011)

Now we are almost nit-picking. You can make a high Wis fighter in 4E (or ranger is 3E) and get something out of it. I guess its a harder build...(edit: you can also do some of this through which skills are trained...)

But I think the freedom you are implying suggest another approach. I mean, the fighter is not supposed to be that elaborate of an archetype. And its not clear to me that it should be. 

Point buy...deemphasized ability scores...Later editions of Mutants and Masterminds take this approach--str and dex don't affect attacks--but that is a genre were your powers can have many different sources. In any case, it would be far easier to make the charecter you describe there (and he can fight crime!).


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## ExploderWizard (Jul 6, 2011)

Nineball said:


> It's worth mentioning that Gygax said on these forums themselves that he very often gave players ways to raise their attributes. Though the rules made them out to be entirely static, that's not how they ended up in play.




Providing possible ways to increase stats is not the same thing as being entitled to stat increases per the rules of the game.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 6, 2011)

TerraDave said:


> But I think the freedom you are implying suggest another approach. I mean, the fighter is not supposed to be that elaborate of an archetype. And its not clear to me that it should be.
> 
> Point buy...deemphasized ability scores...Later editions of Mutants and Masterminds take this approach--str and dex don't affect attacks--but that is a genre were your powers can have many different sources. In any case, it would be far easier to make the charecter you describe there (and he can fight crime!).




Restraining ability scores can help, but not without other changes too.  The problem with ability scores is not that they are emphasized, but that they stack with level, feats, magic items, etc. into one final number to hit.  There may be other good reasons for restraining ability scores that are good all by themselves (I can think of a few possibilities), but the real problem here is that "fighter gotta hit," and hitting is "stack everything that applies to hitting".

If you want real variety in fighters, then add options that are important to the role, that don't rely on hitting something.


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## Kaodi (Jul 6, 2011)

I think it is kind of incoherent for a system that models some skills with level based classes that many other skills would be just dependent on your natural abilities. 

Now, one way you could eliminate this incoherence is by eliminating classes and levels, and just make everything dependant on abilities. If you have a Str 13 Dex 12 Con 10 Int 14 Wis 15 Cha 8 you can hit things so hard, dodge things things so well, take hits like the average guy, cast 4th level arcane spells and 5th level divine spells, and suck at persuading people. 

If you do not want a system that allows people to potentially cast 8th level spells off the bat, then maybe you have a level system that caps how effective you are at certain things, but not at how much oomph your successes have. So an level 1 character with 18 str would not be able to hit more often than a level 1 character with 10 str, but he would still have a lot more oomph. And you would still need to be level 15 to cast 8th level spells with an 18 Int, but at first level your magic missiles still hurt a lot more than those of a guy with 12 Int. On the other hand, once you got to 5th level, you would both hit better and harder with magic than the guy with 12 Int.

In either system, the real mode of progression would be bonuses to abilities. 

Also, you could have a system where abilities were abstractions themselves. A guy with an 15 in Str is not necessarily stronger than a guy with 10 Str, but he is just more effective at tasks which are associated with Str. Dragon Fist does something like this already with stunt dice. You can have a terrible strength score, but your associated stunt, called might, can have a really high die type if you but all your increases into it. 

And if you take that abstraction to a more logical conclusion, you might ditch the current "ability" scores (which once upon a time were more properly called attributes, were they not?) and simple go with ability scores called Melee Combat, Ranged Combat, Athletics, Fortitude, Reflex, Arcane Magic, Divine Magic, Persuasion, Willpower, and Skill which covered pretty much everything you would need for a simple system. If you wanted to expand it, then maybe you do it is the same way that sub-attributes used to be done: Melee Combat might have Attack and Defence subcategories, while Skill might have Profession and Knowledge subcategories. 

Maybe I should run with that.


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## Bedrockgames (Jul 6, 2011)

Abdulalhazred: in 2e attribute modifiers were pretty minor and didn't typically kick in until 16 or 17---

Str to hit bonus: 17 +1, 18 +1, 18/01-00 +1 to +3, etc. 

Str damage bonus: 16 +1, 17 +1, 18 +1, 18/01-00 + 3-6

Dex defense adjust: 15 -1, 16 -2, 17-3, 18-4

Con hp bonus: 15 + 1, 16 +2, 17 +2(+3), 18 +2(+4) the parenthetical bonuses only applied to warriors.


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## KidSnide (Jul 6, 2011)

TerraDave said:


> KidSnide said:
> 
> 
> > I agree that there has to be a mechanical implication, I just think the mechanical implication should be something other than "your character is mostly useless."  As it is right now, a Str 12 fighter can't fulfill the defender role and is little more than a joke.  But if you just use roleplaying and have a Str 18, then the character is inappropriately good at athletics and doesn't get the mechanical benefit of a high wisdom.
> ...




My argument is almost entirely one of degree.  I agree that you can make a high Wis fighter in 4E and get something out of it.  It's just that the something you get is really pathetic in comparison to the "to hit" bonus you give up by not making Str your best score.

Because maxing your primary ability is such a "no brainer" in 4e, it really restricts the variety of viable characters that can be built from a single class.  That's a significant design flaw, at least IMO.

-KS


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## Greg K (Jul 6, 2011)

Nineball said:


> It's worth mentioning that Gygax said on these forums themselves that he very often gave players ways to raise their attributes.  Though the rules made them out to be entirely static, that's not how they ended up in play.




I first noticed this when he statted out Gord with level increases.  There were times in the "leveling"  that ability scores were increased. Of course, my initial thought was, "Why did he not include this in the official rules".


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## TerraDave (Jul 6, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> Restraining ability scores can help, but not without other changes too.  The problem with ability scores is not that they are emphasized, but that they stack with level, feats, magic items, etc. into one final number to hit.  There may be other good reasons for restraining ability scores that are good all by themselves (I can think of a few possibilities), but the real problem here is that "fighter gotta hit," and hitting is "stack everything that applies to hitting".
> 
> If you want real variety in fighters, then add options that are important to the role, that don't rely on hitting something.






KidSnide said:


> My argument is almost entirely one of degree.  I agree that you can make a high Wis fighter in 4E and get something out of it.  It's just that the something you get is really pathetic in comparison to the "to hit" bonus you give up by not making Str your best score.
> 
> Because maxing your primary ability is such a "no brainer" in 4e, it really restricts the variety of viable characters that can be built from a single class.  That's a significant design flaw, at least IMO.
> 
> -KS




I think it make sense for fighters, as an archetype, to have pretty high strength, but there is the 4E issue that "16 isn't good enough" and that there is this arms race to pile modifier on modifier on top of that. 

_That_ problem might be dealt with in other ways. In 1E, you had the great equalizer of gauntlents of ogre strength (though this has its own problems). And not to much to stack on top. (funny how these old editions had these balancing factors...)

3E (and to a lesser degree older editions) seemed to deal with this by making trade offs across abilities more costly...low int had a cost, low cha meant you wouldn't have a cohort, etc. 4E, by design I think, weakened these trade offs. 

A totally different approach would be a "cap" on modifiers beyond level, like +5 or something, that would reward high strength, but allow you to compensate for it.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 6, 2011)

Anselyn said:


> An intriguing idea.
> 
> Having tried out Arkham Horror, I just thought I'd rather get on and play CoC.  But I have to admit that it's a great boardgame  - that fails to be a gateway to the roleplaying experience of the same thing.
> 
> A proper boardgame gateway to D&D would be interesting.



In the early 1980s, I probably played as much Dungeon! with my brother as we played AD&D. It wasn't a good gateway product, either -- although I'd love to see a reissue with modern board game materials -- but it was a great companion to it.


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## Gundark (Jul 6, 2011)

Mark CMG said:


> A new edition probably has to be different enough from the previous edition(s) to warrant the time and money for development (more of the same and who would buy it?)




You know I had the same logic about Pathfinder and expected it to fail, or at least to have a short spike and then decline. I thought "why would those who would stay with 3.5 pick up Pathfinder?". I was wrong. Now we could be talking about apples and oranges here, but people seem willing to do things like this.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 6, 2011)

Bedrockgames said:


> Abdulalhazred: in 2e attribute modifiers were pretty minor and didn't typically kick in until 16 or 17---
> 
> Str to hit bonus: 17 +1, 18 +1, 18/01-00 +1 to +3, etc.
> 
> ...




Yes, but what you're not considering is that a bonus in AD&D does NOT mean the same thing as it does in 4e by a long shot.

There were VERY few ways to get a to-hit bonus for example. Also there were a lot less levels, meaning the maximum bonus you would get as a fighter in a typical game is likely to be +12 from level. An extra +1 was VERY useful, especially at lower level where it was virtually the only bonus you could get. Damage bonus likewise where you ACTUALLY did something like 1d8/1d12 or maybe 1d10/1d12 and the ONLY bonus you would get to that would be STR. Plus your opponents had what 4.5 hit points average at level 1 for an orc? +1 damage at level 1 in AD&D was much like getting around +5 damage today. The DEX bonus was a HUGE advantage too, since again it was unlikely you could up your defenses much by other means and it remained a big advantage throughout all levels. Getting +1 hit points is for most characters a 25% or more hit point advantage, again like getting an extra 10 hit points in 4e, and it kicked in at every level whereas 4e's bonus actually means a good bit less as you level up.

It is quite true that the bonuses kicked in at higher scores, but they were quite potent in the context of AD&D.



KidSnide said:


> I agree that there has to be a mechanical implication, I just think the mechanical implication should be something other than "your character is mostly useless."  As it is right now, a Str 12 fighter can't fulfill the defender role and is little more than a joke.  But if you just use roleplaying and have a Str 18, then the character is inappropriately good at athletics and doesn't get the mechanical benefit of a high wisdom.
> 
> For an old fighter, maybe it's harder to wear such heavy armor, make those athletic checks (or maybe even do quite so much damage), but he can still hit (and land the "hit" based effects of his powers).  And, he gets the benefit of being good at perception and unusually effective at fighter Wis powers.  That type of character might be somewhat less effective than a pure Str fighter (who does consistently more damage), but it's an interesting, different and viable character.
> 
> ...




This is called 'being more experienced' which means you're higher level. That's the advantage. Granted that you aren't as good as EQUAL level characters with high prime stats, which is the typical game situation, but I think you can ask any athlete whether an older guy or a younger guy with equally good training will do better. If the game can't model that at all it has problems. 

As others have said, fluff it. You groan and moan about your aching bones, but when push comes to shove, you've got what it takes to get the job done. And really, you can build a fighter with a good score in any off stat without a lot of sacrifice. People like to say different, but a 16 STR works fine.


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## Bedrockgames (Jul 6, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yes, but what you're not considering is that a bonus in AD&D does NOT mean the same thing as it does in 4e by a long shot.
> 
> There were VERY few ways to get a to-hit bonus for example. Also there were a lot less levels, meaning the maximum bonus you would get as a fighter in a typical game is likely to be +12 from level. An extra +1 was VERY useful, especially at lower level where it was virtually the only bonus you could get. Damage bonus likewise where you ACTUALLY did something like 1d8/1d12 or maybe 1d10/1d12 and the ONLY bonus you would get to that would be STR. Plus your opponents had what 4.5 hit points average at level 1 for an orc? +1 damage at level 1 in AD&D was much like getting around +5 damage today. The DEX bonus was a HUGE advantage too, since again it was unlikely you could up your defenses much by other means and it remained a big advantage throughout all levels. Getting +1 hit points is for most characters a 25% or more hit point advantage, again like getting an extra 10 hit points in 4e, and it kicked in at every level whereas 4e's bonus actually means a good bit less as you level up.
> 
> ...




Thanks for the reply AbdulHazred. I agree the bonuses were potent in the context of the system. My only point was the numbers themselves were more contained than you had in d20 (wasn't thinking of 4E so much as 3E with modifiers going into the double digits routinely). Personally I prefered the more contained bonuses.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 6, 2011)

Gundark said:


> You know I had the same logic about Pathfinder and expected it to fail, or at least to have a short spike and then decline. I thought "why would those who would stay with 3.5 pick up Pathfinder?". I was wrong. Now we could be talking about apples and oranges here, but people seem willing to do things like this.



Pathfinder is partially a special case, though. Erik Mona and company had built up a LOT of good will with their run on Dragon and Dungeon, and the way that WotC terminated those magazines left a bad taste in a lot of mouths (including mine, and I wasn't even a subscriber). Mona also had serious bonafides with the Greyhawk and classic D&D community, which helped make him a perceived new standard-bearer for classic D&D. He also did a much better job of speaking directly and honestly with fans than WotC have done for many years. People _wanted_ Mona and company to succeed. 

Also, Pathfinder was originally talked about as being an extension of 3.5, but it pretty quickly moved away from that: You don't hear about a lot of people playing Pathfinder with all of the 3.5 WotC supplements -- more people are playing magi rather than warlocks, for instance. People ended up moving over to Pathfinder, which was perceived as "fixing" a lot of the problems that the 3.5 fans acknowledged that 3E had (as opposed to the more radical surgery that 4E performed), instead of just using the Pathfinder to supplement existing 3.5 games.


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## Mark CMG (Jul 6, 2011)

Gundark said:


> You know I had the same logic about Pathfinder and expected it to fail, or at least to have a short spike and then decline. I thought "why would those who would stay with 3.5 pick up Pathfinder?". I was wrong. Now we could be talking about apples and oranges here, but people seem willing to do things like this.





I guess Pathfinder is a good gauge for what constitutes "different enough."  I did not pick up the PF core book when it was first released though I played in a few games and ran the Free RPG Day adventures prior to this year (though I ran them using 3.5E).  About a month ago a long time gaming group in the area asked me to jump behind the screen for their PF game because their regular GM was moving out of town.  I've grabbed the core PF PDF, some monster cards off the PFSRD site, and have been spending time using that site and the PDF to bring myself up to speed,  It seems significantly different.  Of course, if WotC was going to build off the 3.5E engine rather than the 4E engine (which is even more removed already from 3.5 than PF, as anyone would agree), they'd either have to go in whole new directions or just build on the PF engine.  I don't expect we will see that.

One way to build off the previous engine that I have experimented with is to focus more on RPGing during charatcer creation.  I've often heard people compare any contemporary RPG that uses or makes provisions to use minis as drifting from the realm of RPGs into the combat minis games territory, along the lines of DDM with only a vaneer of RPGing tacked on.  I've seen it, certainly, at gamestores, gamedays and conventions.  Even in discussions with folks who were involved and who agree with what I poiint out as having been the manner in which they play, they will flat out say that the way they play the RPG is RPGing.  Personally, one combat after another, after another with the only characterization being that one player tells another to watch his back.  I swear I watched a three hour combat game, played using RPG rules, where this was absololutely the only thing even approaching RPing.  A bystander might even argue that it was the player not the character but let's leave well enough alone.  Some folks claim the problem lies in the heavy fcus on combat rules, often making up the bulk of the rules in any RPG system.  I think it begins earlier than that in how character creation is presented and how it functions.  I think there are ways to fix that that do not focus on core mechanics so much as on presentation and characerization.  These articles don't make me believe they understand the spirit of RPGs let alone how to fix what they seem to now believe they have broken.


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## Gentlegamer (Jul 6, 2011)

ExploderWizard said:


> Providing possible ways to increase stats is not the same thing as being entitled to stat increases per the rules of the game.



Furthermore, like magic items, providing such ways to increase ability scores rewards in-game play rather than out of game "character building." Vastly preferable, in my opinion.


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## Sammael (Jul 6, 2011)

Re: Burning Wheel skill system; unless I'm mistaken, Burning Wheel requires you to log every single skill test you've undertaken, including that test's difficulty, in order to know when to advance a skill. That falls under the "bookkeeping nightmare" category for me (and most players I've ever had the chance to play with).


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## Keldryn (Jul 6, 2011)

rounser said:


> Instead of trying to invent a better mousetrap for the umpteenth time, why don't they focus on consolidating, editing, re-presenting logically and balancing a prior edition?  Imagine a balanced, unified, streamlined AD&D or 3E, with all the splat designed to work together and "knowing the existence of each other" from the start.  In other words, an actual new edition rather than a whole new game masquerading as a new edition.




Apparently I need to spread more XP around before giving you any, but a thousand times "yes."

4e is a well-designed game, but it is essentially a brand new game and not a revision of of the original Dungeons & Dragons game.  Yes, one can make long lists of changes between OD&D, B/X D&D, BECMI D&D, AD&D, and AD&D 2e, but those games all have a high degree of compatibility between them.  Each successive game's lineage can be clearly traced back to OD&D, either with supplements (AD&D) or without (B/X, BECMI).

3e was, in my opinion, straddling the fence between being a revision of Gygax's D&D and an entirely new game inspired by Gygax's D&D.  Without the familiar wizard and cleric spells, it would probably fall on the "new game inspired by" side of the fence.  For some gamers, 3e was already no longer the same game.

A more streamlined and better organized AD&D, with modern game design sensibilities applied to iron out the rough patches, would be my preference.  Even with some non-intuitive mechanics, TSR-era D&D had an accessibility that I've not been able to replicate with WotC D&D, primarily due to issues rising from character builds and highly tactical combat.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 6, 2011)

Sammael said:


> Re: Burning Wheel skill system; unless I'm mistaken, Burning Wheel requires you to log every single skill test you've undertaken, including that test's difficulty, in order to know when to advance a skill. That falls under the "bookkeeping nightmare" category for me (and most players I've ever had the chance to play with).




It is not a trivial issue, in that sometimes people have a bit of trouble adapting to it. But is not nearly as awful as it sounds coming from the persective of many other systems, since BW skill checks don't happen nearly as frequently. They *only* happen when they matter.

The problem for BW for some people, BTW, is not the bookkeeping of skill logging, but the time when the rules say you should do it--immediately. If you get that last test that advances your skills, by BW RAW, you get an improvement to the skill right then. In a "Fight!" or "Duel of Wits" you'll have more checks, but repeated checks of the same skill only count once, and thus don't matter for the rest of the scene unless you get the same check with a higher difficulty--easy to check if logging right away.

For some, this messes up the narration, because you might have a big scene taking 15 minutes where everyone averages only one test each, perhaps with some helping in there too. (Helping counts as doing the test, and needs to be logged.) So some forgo the "immediate" skill up opportunity and log the tests after the scene. Having tried it both ways, I prefer that too, as it creates a little pause in the action, and helps with players that don't know the rules as well. I might feel different in an all experienced group, where after all the player can log the tests while someone else is acting.

And of course BW is an extreme case. You could always go with some variant of RuneQuest skill "checks" if you want this kind of dynamic. 

But the reservation is well noted. If you are going to use this kind of logging for advancement, you have to make sure that the handling time is not onerous, and that necessarily contrains how often checks can happen. BW makes this a virtue (actually, make checks infrequent anyway for other good reasons, and thus the checks aren't onerous).


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## chaochou (Jul 7, 2011)

Sammael said:


> Re: Burning Wheel skill system; unless I'm mistaken, Burning Wheel requires you to log every single skill test you've undertaken, including that test's difficulty, in order to know when to advance a skill. That falls under the "bookkeeping nightmare" category for me.




I'm not going to go heavily into BW mechanics. But the skill system isn't really a book-keeping nightmare and it has a pay-off in the way it can shape play.


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## 3catcircus (Jul 7, 2011)

I really don't see anything wrong with the basic idea of rolling low with your ability score as the (unmodified) target.  

Take a look at the (crying shame that it is now OOP) Twilight:2013's Reflex System:

You have skills at various levels.  Those skill levels determine how many d20's you roll against the controlling attribute, with the goal of rolling below the attribute.  The system uses the difference between your roll and the attribute as a measure of how successful (or not) you are - 5 or more below is a crit and 5 or more above is a fumble.  For each die roll that is successful beyond the first one, you add 2 to your measure.  Untrained skill use is fixed - roll 2 d20s and pick the highest of the two rolls.

How successful you are determines not only whether or not you hit, but how much damage you do, for example.

This system works really really well - the more skilled you are, the better your chances of success.  The way you get more skilled is by spending your experience points to buy more skill ranks.  Additionally, the system is self-limiting in that you have a maximum number of d20s you can roll, so the equivalent of a 20th level PC isn't exponentially more powerful than a 1st level PC, while also allowing for that 20th level fighter with the 16 Str to be more skilled than the 1st level fighter with the 18 or 19 Str, since an attack would be an opposed roll (with the defender's roll reflecting armor bonuses).

Would such a system (designed for a "realistic" modern combat system) work for a game like D&D?  Probably, but you'd end up having to probably adopt that game's character generation system as well, which would kill the class/level sacred cow (which isn't necessarily verboten, in my opinion).

Magic items would neatly "drop in" - all those items that give a +1 - +5 to attributes or to your AC or to-hit rolls could easily fit in and would affect both the 1st and 20th level guys equally, so magic items that were valued early on would still be valued and wouldn't be overshadowed by the other bonuses and modifiers that currently occur in both 3.x/Pathfinder and 4e. 

The other thing it would do is eliminate the to-hit/AC bonus arms race since armor and weapon bonuses would apply directly to your attributes, so a more-skilled 1st level PC could still effectively attack a less-skilled 20th level character.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 7, 2011)

Mark CMG said:


> I guess Pathfinder is a good gauge for what constitutes "different enough."  I did not pick up the PF core book when it was first released though I played in a few games and ran the Free RPG Day adventures prior to this year (though I ran them using 3.5E).  About a month ago a long time gaming group in the area asked me to jump behind the screen for their PF game because their regular GM was moving out of town.  I've grabbed the core PF PDF, some monster cards off the PFSRD site, and have been spending time using that site and the PDF to bring myself up to speed,  It seems significantly different.  Of course, if WotC was going to build off the 3.5E engine rather than the 4E engine (which is even more removed already from 3.5 than PF, as anyone would agree), they'd either have to go in whole new directions or just build on the PF engine.  I don't expect we will see that.
> 
> One way to build off the previous engine that I have experimented with is to focus more on RPGing during charatcer creation.  I've often heard people compare any contemporary RPG that uses or makes provisions to use minis as drifting from the realm of RPGs into the combat minis games territory, along the lines of DDM with only a vaneer of RPGing tacked on.  I've seen it, certainly, at gamestores, gamedays and conventions.  Even in discussions with folks who were involved and who agree with what I poiint out as having been the manner in which they play, they will flat out say that the way they play the RPG is RPGing.  Personally, one combat after another, after another with the only characterization being that one player tells another to watch his back.  I swear I watched a three hour combat game, played using RPG rules, where this was absololutely the only thing even approaching RPing.  A bystander might even argue that it was the player not the character but let's leave well enough alone.  Some folks claim the problem lies in the heavy fcus on combat rules, often making up the bulk of the rules in any RPG system.  I think it begins earlier than that in how character creation is presented and how it functions.  I think there are ways to fix that that do not focus on core mechanics so much as on presentation and characerization.  These articles don't make me believe they understand the spirit of RPGs let alone how to fix what they seem to now believe they have broken.




Eh, I don't think I buy this. There's plenty of 'fluff' attached to classes and races in the PHBs. There are also quite a few other RP hooks. More than in past editions from what I can see. People may get distracted by the shiny combat game and NOT RP, but I don't think the presentation of 4e discourages it at all. I think there are a few factors that have converged to create the 'people don't RP in 4e' trope. At some level WotC did it, but I think the story is not very straightforward.

1) They made a decision not to build a lot of adventures and in-depth settings. The system, particularly early on, was very heavy on crunch books. The adventures they did make were railroady hack-fests. None of this really helped.

2) Combat is always long and involved. I'm not sure I like the term 'too long', but it sucks up time and if you have players that like to fight you do quickly run out of time to get them RPing much. There are answers to this however, the DMG simply should have said more about it (I'd say they didn't understand the issue at that time though).

3) The encyclopedic rule system tends to discourage a lot of tinkering, or more importantly a lot of experimentation with story related game elements. An example would be cursed items. Usually they're problematic, so they aren't discussed in the rules, yet they are a perfectly viable tool to use. Most DMs simply avoid them because there is almost nothing 'official' on the subject.

There are a few other things in the same vein, but I'd also say that IME 4e allows for some exceptionally rich RP opportunities as the PCs have a hard time falling back on 'fixer magic' to deal with plot issues and such. Rituals, diseases (curses fall here), a good solid non-combat XP system, and the fact that the party will generally cover most non-combat capabilities pretty well actually makes doing this stuff quite easy and rewarding. 

The genuine ease of building good monsters and opponents helps a LOT too. Being let loose from the old "well, lets see what magic user spell we can pound into this round hole" is good. Rituals again are a great boon here as they have no impact on opponent's combat capability (in general) but provide nice plot devices. Unlike AD&D where monsters were really SO different from PCs that it was hard to apply PC mechanics to them in 4e they have all the sorts of hooks that PCs do, so it is actually quite easy to borrow PC mechanics of almost any sort for them as well.



Bedrockgames said:


> Thanks for the reply AbdulHazred. I agree the bonuses were potent in the context of the system. My only point was the numbers themselves were more contained than you had in d20 (wasn't thinking of 4E so much as 3E with modifiers going into the double digits routinely). Personally I prefered the more contained bonuses.




Yeah, I understand what you mean. There were certain characteristics of the way that worked. One was that generally a stat between say 8 and 14 didn't really matter. It COULD matter for ability checks, but IME those were actually used pretty rarely (but I'm sure that isn't everone's experience). One result was a character that was 'blessed' with all mediocre stats was pretty blah and they all tended to blur together after a while as 'Joe Anycharacter'. So in a sense I kind of like the fact that a 14 is materially better than a 12. OTOH the range from +1 to +4 is a pretty significant difference in to-hit (less so for skills, but it certainly matters there too). Add in the fact that characters ramp right on up to +8 or +9 at high epic and I agree that stat bonuses are a little steep. I'd ditch stat boosts myself, which would help.


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## Spatula (Jul 7, 2011)

ExploderWizard said:


> Providing possible ways to increase stats is not the same thing as being entitled to stat increases per the rules of the game.



Of course, Gygax did that, too, with the Cavalier...



AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yes, but what you're not considering is that a bonus in AD&D does NOT mean the same thing as it does in 4e by a long shot.
> 
> There were VERY few ways to get a to-hit bonus for example. Also there were a lot less levels, meaning the maximum bonus you would get as a fighter in a typical game is likely to be +12 from level. An extra +1 was VERY useful, especially at lower level where it was virtually the only bonus you could get. Damage bonus likewise where you ACTUALLY did something like 1d8/1d12 or maybe 1d10/1d12 and the ONLY bonus you would get to that would be STR. Plus your opponents had what 4.5 hit points average at level 1 for an orc? +1 damage at level 1 in AD&D was much like getting around +5 damage today. The DEX bonus was a HUGE advantage too, since again it was unlikely you could up your defenses much by other means and it remained a big advantage throughout all levels. Getting +1 hit points is for most characters a 25% or more hit point advantage, again like getting an extra 10 hit points in 4e, and it kicked in at every level whereas 4e's bonus actually means a good bit less as you level up.
> 
> It is quite true that the bonuses kicked in at higher scores, but they were quite potent in the context of AD&D.



Which generally led, IME, to players feeling like their characters were crap if they didn't have at least one high ability score.


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## KidSnide (Jul 7, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> KidSnide said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




As I noted upthread, I agree that it's _realistic_ to require fighters to have high strength to be effective.  In real life, physical conditioning has a huge impact on performance in athletic endeavors.  To pick just one example, Mark Spitz may be the most skilled swimmer ever (at least in his ability to convert physical energy into forward progress in the water), but his records have been overcome by less efficient swimmers who used modern weight-training techniques to become considerably stronger than athletes were in the 70s.  Likewise, strength, size and speed make a huge different in combat capability, at least according to all the martial arts, boxing, wrestling and other combat style activities I've seen practiced.

And, yes, you can play with a 16 in your primary attribute, and an unobservant player might not notice the character's reduced effectiveness.  To hit modifiers are a big deal.  They are why we have all these expertise feats.  

But that's not the issue -- I don't think that type of realism is a useful goal for a character generation system in a game like 4e and even a 16 is a huge cost in point buy if you want to play a genius warlord or a super-charismatic cleric.

I think that a core goal of the character creation rules should be *to allow players to create a variety of interesting, different and viable characters with minimal rules overhead* (quoting myself above).  Because to hit modifiers are so important to a characters effectiveness (both in damage per round and in the ability to land important effects), WotC severely reduced the number of reasonably effective builds for little gain.

-KS


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## Mark CMG (Jul 7, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> There's plenty of 'fluff' attached to classes and races in the PHBs. There are also quite a few other RP hooks.





Therein lies the problem with mechanics-first design for an RPG system (for any RPG system, though you seem to focus on but one), other things might be attached to the mechanics rather than the mechanics brought in as a way to enhance and stem from character creation concepts that are not necessarily an outgrowth of mechanics.


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## Lanefan (Jul 7, 2011)

Spatula said:


> Of course, Gygax did that, too, with the Cavalier...



True, but the stat increment system he used was pretty slow; certainly not fast enough to "build" a character around.

We took that idea of slowly-advancing percentile stat increments and gave it to all classes in our 1e game, by the way - it hasn't hurt anything so far, 27 years later.



> Which generally led, IME, to players feeling like their characters were crap if they didn't have at least one high ability score.



The way I look at rolling up a character, I want one high score to make it useful, one low score (single digit, preferably) to make it fun, and the rest can be whatever.   The worst ones are those that end up something like 14-13-12-13-14-12.

Lan-"wisdom 9"-efan


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## ExploderWizard (Jul 7, 2011)

Nineball said:


> While it's fairly typical of early D&D to be extensively houseruled, it's curious that the _maker_ of the game did the same.




Why would that be curious? The game was designed as a framework from which individual DMs could construct unique campaigns. Gary was a game designer but also a DM. Why wouldn't he follow the logic of his own design and build his campaign like any other DM? 




Nineball said:


> I would state that the difference between regularly allowing players to raise their stats and being "entitled" (What an interesting word you choose!) to stat increases per the rules is that in the first, you're breaking the rules when you play the game the way it was meant to be played.




Breaking what rules? The only rules that matter are the ones a particular group chooses to play by. Play the game the way it was meant to be played?    When you are able to laugh at such a statement grasshopper then you too will be ready to sit behind the screen. 

Old published adventures sometime featured unique methods of ability score increase (and decrease). Special blessings from a deity, eating magical food, activating an artifact, etc. These are not "regular" stat adjustments because they cannot be predicted or planned for. They are just part of events that might take place in a campaign. 

Likewise a character might acquire certain abilities that are not part of any particular class package due to certain campaign events. The deity of Storms was grateful for the assistance your fighter gave him so now you have the ability to predict weather 1/day and shoot a 6d6 lighting bolt 1/day. There are no hard and fast rules for this kind of stuff and how much of it exists will vary from campaign to campaign. 

Its really fun looking over old character sheets, seeing this oddball stuff and remembering how it all came about. Its the kind of fun that you can't get out of a rulebook.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 7, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> True, but the stat increment system he used was pretty slow; certainly not fast enough to "build" a character around.
> 
> We took that idea of slowly-advancing percentile stat increments and gave it to all classes in our 1e game, by the way - it hasn't hurt anything so far, 27 years later.
> 
> ...




Yeah, the UA stat increment system was pretty meaningless. And yup, a character with all middling stats was a real curse. We actually LIKED the characters with a low stat (or two) just so you had some RP inspiration since it really didn't do your character much harm. Obviously it was nice to have a high stat (or 2, very precious!). The bland characters usually ended up with names like Tribord #3 or something like that... 



KidSnide said:


> As I noted upthread, I agree that it's _realistic_ to require fighters to have high strength to be effective.  In real life, physical conditioning has a huge impact on performance in athletic endeavors.  To pick just one example, Mark Spitz may be the most skilled swimmer ever (at least in his ability to convert physical energy into forward progress in the water), but his records have been overcome by less efficient swimmers who used modern weight-training techniques to become considerably stronger than athletes were in the 70s.  Likewise, strength, size and speed make a huge different in combat capability, at least according to all the martial arts, boxing, wrestling and other combat style activities I've seen practiced.
> 
> And, yes, you can play with a 16 in your primary attribute, and an unobservant player might not notice the character's reduced effectiveness.  To hit modifiers are a big deal.  They are why we have all these expertise feats.
> 
> ...




Eh, I think the system has to allow your character to excel BECAUSE of his strengths. We can agree you should be able to make pretty much any concept, but really that is largely true in 4e already. Perhaps to-hit should be removed entirely from the realm of any modifiers, since it is such an incredibly tempting optimization target. You could still have for instance a set of feats that gave out a non-stacking to-hit bonus, but just make sure there's one which is practical for every character to take, much like the Essentials expertise feats. Still, if a character is slow, weak, and frail it simply isn't cogent for the character to be an excellent fighter compared with stronger, faster, more durable PCs. 

Honestly this brings me back to the idea of eliminating the whole half-level bonus thing from the game. This would make it much easier to have mixed level parties for instance and just generally put level as an attribute more on a par with other things. The 'treadmill' goes away, which means things are more organic. You could also remove ability score bonus as the basis for attack bonus from powers, so instead you'd for instance have all attacks with bows using dex or whatever. All of these things would pull back reliance on high stats a good bit. Removing stat bumps would help a lot too, as now a 12 in some stat is respectable instead of basically laughable at anything beyond heroic tier. 

Sigh, I'm just going to have to write a mock-up of a system pretty soon and get all of this stuff out of my head... lol.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 7, 2011)

Nineball said:


> It is curious that he build a game that _he himself_ would not play.




Well, what would make you assume that Gygax wasn't just like any other DM? We all like to try out new things and we're always inventing new tricks. I mean Gary wrote 2 very distinct versions of D&D. 



> But the actual core rules themselves emphasized very strongly that attributes were static and unchanging.  As I said, it's funny that the rules said one thing and generalized actual play said the exact opposite.




I remember no such statement. There were items provided in the 1e DMG which actually DID change certain attributes permanently. 



> There is a difference between adding things not in the rulebook, and adding things the rulebook tells you not to.




One thing AD&D (or really any version of D&D that I'm aware of) has NEVER done is tell you NOT to do something. 4e DMG has a section on houserules and homebrew. The 1e DMG and PHB reiterated again and again that the game was nothing but a framework, fun comes before the rules, all rules are just guidelines, etc etc etc. Beyond that TSR published a magazine which for MANY years published large quantities of material which was plainly labeled as unofficial and changed or added to the game in almost every possible way. In fact 90% of what is in 1e AD&D is just an edited version of articles from Dragon. Actually I don't think there is even one thing in the 1e PHB that wasn't a houserule before it became part of the official rules.

Now, that being said one of the main motivations for AD&D WAS to codify lots of material most people were playing with already in some form to make the game a little more consistent. Personally I think it is a good idea if you have mostly a consistent base game, and I don't think optional components should be too vital to the way the game plays for various reasons. Still, the spirit of the game has always been tinkering (even if it seems like that fell out of fashion somewhat after the TSR days).


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## BryonD (Jul 8, 2011)

Mark CMG said:


> Therein lies the problem with mechanics-first design for an RPG system (for any RPG system, though you seem to focus on but one), other things might be attached to the mechanics rather than the mechanics brought in as a way to enhance and stem from character creation concepts that are not necessarily an outgrowth of mechanics.



Exactly.

I think this is at the heart of many of the complaints against 4E.

I've seen 4E fans praise the system for the fact that it is very easy to re-skin.  You can take nearly anything and redescribe it and with no mechanical change it is something very different in terms of concept.  And I can see how that would be appealing.

But the price is that the character isn't really married to the mechanics.  So while it is 100% true that you can roleplay anything in 4E that you can roleplay in any other system, that effort is like a completely independent part of the experience.  The "game" is over here and the "role play" is over there.

It gets back to the Andy Collins quote about not building classes based on concept.  

Once "game" and "role play" are segregated then the experience changes.  If you were already playing games more or less this way, then you won't see any loss.  But if you weren't it really detracts.  

There is an important difference between role playing a monk and having your mechanics be built first as an effort to portray some concept of a fantasy monk and playing a set of "compelling game mechanics" which are carefully established first as mechanically balanced and tactically distinct and simply applying a monk flavor overlying that mechanical group.

Just as 4E doesn't "stop" anyone from role playing, Descent doesn't stop anyone from role playing.  But 4E is an RPG and Descent is not and the value of that experience is far less in Descent.  That's the key, "being able to do it", and "getting the same response" are two different ideas.  It is ridiculous to equate Descent to 4E just because you can RP Descent.

And 4E was described as "the math works", "not physics", "compelling reasons" for classes over "being" the concept.  It achieves these things.  But in doing so the fact that you can role play anything with it does not mean it is capable of providing all the same responses that some other systems can.  

4E is much closer to 3E than it is to Descent.  But it is still well down the spectrum in that direction.  

Not everyone played 3E the same.  I'd be surprised if everyone played 4E the same.  But those people that already played 3E in a manner that put them in the area where 4E lives, don't see a difference.  But if you are one of those people, here is the difference we are talking about.  It is optional for playing, but it is mandatory for getting the best bang for the buck for many of us.

That doesn't make your game one drop less awesome.  But your awesome 4E game is still different than some people's awesome 3E games.  If you don't believe that then you are not grasping this point.

And none of this is a "slam" at 4E.  If anything it is simply praise of 3E for doing what *I* want.  What 4E intends to do, it does awesome.

The argument I am making doesn't challenge the fun 4E fans have, only the insistence that some 4E fans demand claiming that there is no meaningful difference in the experience and there is no way anyone anywhere could see 4E as being "boardgamey" to them.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 8, 2011)

BryonD said:


> Exactly.
> 
> I think this is at the heart of many of the complaints against 4E.
> 
> ...




I don't think anyone is claiming that 4e "is the same as" 3e. Clearly they are different games. Just as you obviously may favor one some people favor the other.

For myself I don't really buy, or care about, this theoretical argument that somehow 4e is mechanics that are just fluffed to this or that. Are you seriously saying that you think someone sat down and designed a neat package of mechanics, decided it should be named 'fighter' and then invented some fluff to support that? Seriously? I didn't think so...

In any case IMHO RPGing is about telling a story. I'm going to tell story X. Now, maybe one set of rules or another set of rules makes it easier to do that. I'm going to tell it and pull in the rules I want to use that will make that easy. I did that 35 years ago with Old D&D, and I do it today, and I did it with all the editions of the game in between. The process was different and the results were a bit different but really 4e still fits the same basic genre concepts that other editions did. I could really care less if saves work different now than they did before. 

I don't think comparing 4e to a board game like Descent is really sensible at all. You can use almost any game as a 'role playing game' but so what? Again, if I want to tell a story with players playing characters in the story that isn't a board game. It makes no difference where we get our mechanics from and if for some reason stealing stuff from Descent worked really well so what? It has nothing to do with 4e, which quite obviously is intended to be used as an RPG from the start.


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## The Human Target (Jul 8, 2011)

In regards to the original post...

I'd be all for with a system that used the ability scores as "skills" and divorced them from attack rolls and even defenses.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 8, 2011)

BryonD said:


> I've seen 4E fans praise the system for the fact that it is very easy to re-skin. You can take nearly anything and redescribe it and with no mechanical change it is something very different in terms of concept. And I can see how that would be appealing.
> 
> But the price is that the character isn't really married to the mechanics. So while it is 100% true that you can roleplay anything in 4E that you can roleplay in any other system, that effort is like a completely independent part of the experience. The "game" is over here and the "role play" is over there.




This is the only part of the longer post where I think you really overstate the case. It is not that *any* mechanic can be easily reskinned into *any* concept. Rather, it is that there is "mechanic set A" which has a certain vibe, and because of that, it works pretty well for concept A, and always for A2 and A3. For B2, not so much.

So the "game" and the "roleplay" are not completely independent. They are more independent than in some other games, including 3E. (Though even 3E is more independent in this way than some games. Just inconsistently so. Some 3E things reskinn easily this way; some do not.)

Actually, I'd say the relative difference between D&D 3E and 4E is about the difference between GURPS 3E and Hero System 4th edition. (Not sure about later versions of those games.) GURPS 3E is more specific, but the underlying framework is pretty obvious, and thus easy to reskin, if you want. Whereas, Hero 4th is clearly a mechanic first, which you can then make it something suitable. It's not an exact correspondence, but I'd guess the relative distances are similar. 

Also, the appeal for some of us, along similar grounds to your larger post, is not so much the modest increase in "game" and "roleplay" independence (though that is nice, too, when reskinning is handy), but rather that the "game" elements that we have to work with are, for us, a better representation of the "roleplay" we were trying to do with an earlier ruleset. To wit:

From the 3E to 4E wizard, you gain some independence on mechanics, and you definitely lose some flavor. You might like this because of the toning down of the wizard (a problem for some of us), and you might regain some of that flavor in various ways, but I don't think many people would argue that right out of the box, there is some flavor lost, along the grounds you have supplied.

However, from the 3E to 4E wizard, you gain some independence on mechanics, and you swap one kind of flavor (feat customization, mainly) for another kind (being really good at getting in monster faces). Overall, there is a strong case for the flavor at least being neutral. And of course, if you happen to value the "in your face" part more than the 3E-style customization, this is a net win. It's a strict preference though, and has nothing to do with the independence, whatsoever. The independence just means that if you want an in your face monster, you know how to reskin the mechanics to get one.


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## ExploderWizard (Jul 8, 2011)

Nineball said:


> It is curious that he build a game that _he himself_ would not play.




You mean, kind of like the way Mearls designs for 4E and plays OD&D . 




Nineball said:


> First off, I've been DMing for years, so blow it.
> 
> Secondly, I for one did not enjoy the "old school" days where every table had their own binder of houserules you had to learn if you ever switched groups. If I'm going to buy a rulebook then throw out half the rules, _why bother buying the rulebook?_




Relax. Everyone has different things they enjoy about the game. I actually prefer different DMs games being something other than the same canned experience. 

As for throwing out half the rules I don't know where thats coming from. When I run Basic D&D I don't need to throw out much at all. If anything I will add quite a bit to what is already there. 

_If the rules you begin with are simple then throwing half of them out becomes less necessary. YMMV. _




Nineball said:


> But the actual core rules themselves emphasized very strongly that attributes were static and unchanging. As I said, it's funny that the rules said one thing and generalized actual play said the exact opposite.




Which rules would these be? The AD&D rules for aging in the DMG make it quite clear that attribute fluctuations were a normal part of play as the campaign advanced. There were magical artifacts that could alter attributes. Just because the rules did not include provisions for attributes to increase simply due to advancing level does not mean that they were meant to be static.




Nineball said:


> There is a difference between adding things not in the rulebook, and adding things the rulebook tells you not to.




I await a quote from a D&D rulebook that tells me I shalt not do X.


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## BryonD (Jul 8, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I don't think anyone is claiming that 4e "is the same as" 3e. Clearly they are different games. Just as you obviously may favor one some people favor the other.



I'm glad you see it that way.  But it is routine to have people insist that they played 3E and they now play 4E and there is no difference for them and, therefore, there is no real difference for anyone else.  A lot of people ARE claiming exactly that.



> For myself I don't really buy, or care about, this theoretical argument that somehow 4e is mechanics that are just fluffed to this or that. Are you seriously saying that you think someone sat down and designed a neat package of mechanics, decided it should be named 'fighter' and then invented some fluff to support that? Seriously? I didn't think so...



OK.  They said so.



> In any case IMHO RPGing is about telling a story. I'm going to tell story X. Now, maybe one set of rules or another set of rules makes it easier to do that. I'm going to tell it and pull in the rules I want to use that will make that easy. I did that 35 years ago with Old D&D, and I do it today, and I did it with all the editions of the game in between. The process was different and the results were a bit different but really 4e still fits the same basic genre concepts that other editions did. I could really care less if saves work different now than they did before.



So would roleplaying Superman in a 100 point GURPS game using only the core book be just as fulfilling as roleplaying Superman in a 1,000 point GURPS game using the SUPERs supplement?

We can all sit around and tell a shared story.  A lot of the fun, at least to me, comes from using a solid system for modeling the story being told.  Telling a story and playing an RPG are related but importantly different activities.  



> I don't think comparing 4e to a board game like Descent is really sensible at all. You can use almost any game as a 'role playing game' but so what? Again, if I want to tell a story with players playing characters in the story that isn't a board game. It makes no difference where we get our mechanics from and if for some reason stealing stuff from Descent worked really well so what? It has nothing to do with 4e, which quite obviously is intended to be used as an RPG from the start.



You are making my point for me.
You just said that Role Playing is just sitting around telling a story and so it doesn't matter what system you are sitting around.  But suddenly it is not "sensible at all" to swap out 4E for Descent.  If you are "just telling stories", then you are just telling stories.

I AGREE with you that you can't just swap out systems.  Because in addition to telling a story, the system you are sitting around when you do that is important.

I we were to assign numbers arbitrarily I'd give 3E a 20, 4E a 14 and Descent a 4.  4E is vastly better than Descent.  But anything less than an 18 turns out to be "not good enough", so as far a I care, 4E and Descent are in the same group.

And you can say that, to you, 3E is a 20 (or a 2) and 4E is a 50.  That's great.  I'm not offering any comment on your opinions or preferences.  I accept them.  All I'm saying is that people who don't accept these differences as being real to a lot of players are wrong about that.  Lack of awareness does not make it go away.


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## BryonD (Jul 8, 2011)

Nineball said:


> I don't see it.



Yeah.  I know.  That is a big part of my point.



> You're confusing what you the player bring to the table with what the game brings.  The game brings the mechanics and the fluff.  The players parse the fluff through the filter they make for the game.



No, I'm absolutely not.  I've actually been on record many times stating that you can not find role play between the covers of a book and the players bring that to the table themselves.

BUT, the mechanics of a good RPG must support that.  And in 4E they DO.  Just not nearly as well as in some other systems.




> Except, again, that's not what 4e did.  The monk is an especially bad example for you, as the mechanics for the monk work _brilliantly_ to cover a fast, unarmored, nimble character with high flying acrobatics and a flurry of attacks, along with support for both unarmed attacks and martial art weapon attacks - far better then the 3e monk *ever* did.  The 4e monk _is better for roleplaying_ then the 3e one is because the 4e monk has mechanics that actually support it.



Actually, I picked the monk because it was the example Andy Collins used when he was explaining that they made this change.  You need to correct him, not me.



> The use of "4e" is interchangable with every edition.  No edition of D&D described itself has "the physics work" or "realistic compelling reasons to play a class."  Every edition of D&D has been "here's the classes, they're really cool, which do you want?"  4e is no different from this.



See, I love this.  

When 4E came out the end of "the rules are the physics" was praised over and over by 4E fans.  And was one of the 3E issues that was finally being killed. 



> Yeah, 4e used "the math works."  But 4e use _a whole lot of other things too_.  3e once stated "back to the dungeon."  By your logic, does that mean 3e _can only take place in a dungeon?_



Heh, not seeing the distinction between mechanics and story is part of the point.




> See, I get this, and I don't get this.
> 
> I get that people would play 3e without any combat at all.  I get that they'd play 3e for politics and intrigue heavy games, or for no magic gritty fantasy, or for Arthurian knights.  What I doni't get is _why_.
> 
> There are already games that do politics and intrigue better then D&D.  Games that do no magic gritty fantasy better then D&D.  Pendragon is literally about Arthurian knights!



Why does my intrigue have to be about Arthurian knights.  You are the second person to throw up this example.  It just goes to further drive home the wild difference in perception.



> It's something I've seen with D&D - *and only with D&D* - and it's this bizarre brand loyalty.  That somehow, if you aren't playing D&D, you're doing something wrong.
> 
> 4e is a more focused game then 3e is, you are correct in that.  But 4e does one thing brilliantly rather then 5 things poorly.  Because 3e _isn't good_ at politics and intrigue, the skill system is too widespread and, to use a word some people here love to throw around, "dissociative."  3e _isn't good_ at low magic gritty fantasy, because the CR system is built around having lots of magic available, and the vast majority of classes are centered around having magic.  3e _isn't good_ at Arthurian knights, because the mounted combat is a muddled mess and there's simply far too much inherent magic.
> 
> _Play other games_.  Don't just stick to D&D.  Nobody will reward you for brand loyalty.



Politics works great in my 3E game.  shrug.

But, to be clear, I have ZERO brand loyalty.  
I left D&D for better games a long time ago.  And I swayed more than one group into getting past their brand loyalty and looking for better games.  Then 3E came along and I went back to it not remotely because of the name, but because it rocked.  Certainly that brand loyalty effect had benefits for me because it provided a foundation for that rocking system and the OGL to explode upon.  But my investment was in quality, not brand.


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## BryonD (Jul 8, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> The independence just means that if you want an in your face monster, you know how to reskin the mechanics to get one.



No.  It might just mean that to you.  But it can mean a lot more than that.

But you have veered off into defending your point of view.  I have no qualms with your point of view.  
But there seems to be a real string resistance in the 4E fanbase to accept the idea that a lot of other people don't share that point of view and the overall popularity of 4E is impacted by that.


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## Naszir (Jul 8, 2011)

Part of RPGing is the reaction both the players and the DM take to the rolls?

I wonder how many people agree that there are three components that are being talked about here:

* There is role-playing *: This is the story the DM tells, the creatures he decides to pit against the heroes and the NPC's and the constant shared story building expierence. This includes character to character banter and character to DM banter. There is no rules crunch here. This is part novel/part movie/part improv.

* There is the game *: The crunch. The combat system, the skills and the skill challenge system. My character is this strong/smart/fast compartively to my companions and the world around me. My character has this many hit points and his defenses are this good and this gives a sense that there is a chance that my character is this good in defeating his opponents, is this good in being successful at certain skills and there is a chance that he may die.

I think eveyone has a different idea of how much they want the crunch to influence the role-playing. If you enjoy more of the character interaction and storytelling you don't want a heavy rules game. If you enjoy more of a "game" then you want to be able to fiddle with the crunch.

* Then there are the parts that are a bit of both *: How does my character react to the fact that they failed their skill check in negotiation to get the King's help? When I make a successful attack against a creature I can come up with a description of that attack. When my character is dies because of either bad luck or choices that put him in a bad position I can come up with a dramatic end to his story. 

These three components have always been there to varying degrees. 4e may have taken the combat crunch/role-playing to a new level by including fluff descriptions with the powers for the martial characters. This was already being done in earlier editons with spell-casters so it doesn't seem like a big leap. The whole "you're ruining my role-playing with 4e powers" doesn't hold water with me.

In the end RPGing is all a bizarre balancing act that we all go through differently.


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## JeffB (Jul 8, 2011)




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## ExploderWizard (Jul 8, 2011)

JeffB said:


>




Then why bother posting?


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## Spatula (Jul 8, 2011)

ExploderWizard said:


> Then why bother posting?



Why take an interesting thread and divert it towards edition-war land?


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## ExploderWizard (Jul 8, 2011)

Spatula said:


> Why take an interesting thread and divert it towards edition-war land?




Gotcha. I'll just skim a thread and if I don't like the cut of its jib then I can call it an edition war thread and take a big ol dump in it.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 8, 2011)

BryonD said:


> I'm glad you see it that way.  But it is routine to have people insist that they played 3E and they now play 4E and there is no difference for them and, therefore, there is no real difference for anyone else.  A lot of people ARE claiming exactly that.




Yeah, maybe we read different forums. I haven't seen anyone say there was 'no difference'. I think there are a wide variety of opinions on what the differences are and what significance they have.



> OK.  They said so.




I guess I would need a citation on that. I think the idea that someone designed the mechanics in isolation from what narrative concepts they were intending to model is frankly preposterous. It might hold some amount of water if we were talking about a totally generalized system like GURPS that was designed from the ground up to support almost any genre. Even then at some point the designers had to look at what concepts they needed to support, make sure the core rules allowed them to be implemented, and implement a 'player facing' layer of the game that mechanically related the concepts to the mechanics, as well as providing fluff. In the case of 4e the relationship is MUCH tighter than that. Again the idea that someone, to take a random example, designed the mechanics of the Warlock class and then after the fact decided "Hey, this will make a great caster that operates by making a pact with a powerful being!" just doesn't wash.



> So would roleplaying Superman in a 100 point GURPS game using only the core book be just as fulfilling as roleplaying Superman in a 1,000 point GURPS game using the SUPERs supplement?
> 
> We can all sit around and tell a shared story.  A lot of the fun, at least to me, comes from using a solid system for modeling the story being told.  Telling a story and playing an RPG are related but importantly different activities.




Yes, and what I said was that the story came first, and then I picked the mechanics that would be useful for resolving the things that came up in that story. There are a variety of points at which these decisions happen. First I'm going to conceive a type of game I want to run, then I'm going to look around and find a system that easily supports that type of game, then I'm going to create material for the game I'm going to run, adventures and setting and whatever. During that process I will decide which game mechanics I can use. Generally the system will offer most of that off the shelf if it is even remotely appropriate to the genre and style of play desired. The players will then do something similar to come up with characters to play. Then as we play out our story we will use the mechanics to help us resolve what happens and track how the world and the characters effect each other. We may make up new mechanics, refluff existing mechanics, change some mechanics, delete or ignore others, etc. The mechanics are just a tool. We don't start out with a set of mechanics and just play a game and try to figure out how to explain them. 



> You are making my point for me.
> You just said that Role Playing is just sitting around telling a story and so it doesn't matter what system you are sitting around.  But suddenly it is not "sensible at all" to swap out 4E for Descent.  If you are "just telling stories", then you are just telling stories.
> 
> I AGREE with you that you can't just swap out systems.  Because in addition to telling a story, the system you are sitting around when you do that is important.
> ...




I don't think you're really understanding my point. That is as likely a failure on my part to explain it coherently as anything else. I agree, the system matters, but that is because some systems make some things easier to do. Role play HAPPENS, the system may or may not have some rules that indicate that certain RP decisions effect the mechanics (like say alignment in older D&D or the character development mechanics in Mouse Guard). 4e happens not to have such mechanics on the basis that they tend to restrict player options or whatever. D&D in general never was big on that. This is a respect in which mechanics could impact RP. 

I just don't see that people are 'not accepting those differences'. Personally I don't think there's a way to 'rate' games in any hard and fast way. That doesn't mean I don't find some systems better or worse to use for certain games. I don't think ANY serious posters here have ever asserted that all systems are equal.

Honestly though, there is a pretty strong subtext to your posts. It reads like 3.x was a good tool for role play and 4e is mostly only good for hack-n-slash. Personally I think the opposite. 4e maps the tropes of the fantasy genre with a great deal more fidelity to the mechanics IMHO. Conan is a perfectly viable concept in 4e (the non-magical fighter type who kicks butt using superior physical prowess, weapons, and his wits). A Conan type character in 4e is truly functioning mechanically as advertised. He's a worthy adversary, a mighty warrior hero who can overcome any kind of adversary. You can't even get close to that in 3.x. Any half decent caster or monster with more than trivial magical capabilities will make short work of such a character. Intrigue and mystery? As straightforward in 4e as it could be in any system. Any character can be decently stealthy etc almost trivially. All characters have a core of valuable skills to apply. Casters don't dominate all problem solving, etc. Sure, you can do it in 3.x, but you have to work at it quite a bit more in my experience. This is all obviously my opinion, but I think you're off base in your assessment of the two systems. I'm happy to politely accept that everyone has their opinions and that's cool. OTOH I just don't agree with some of them.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 8, 2011)

BryonD said:


> No. It might just mean that to you. But it can mean a lot more than that.
> 
> But you have veered off into defending your point of view. I have no qualms with your point of view.
> But there seems to be a real string resistance in the 4E fanbase to accept the idea that a lot of other people don't share that point of view and the overall popularity of 4E is impacted by that.




No. I included some of my point of view by way of explanation, same as you. But there seems to be a real resistance in some of the 3E fanbase to accept the idea that some of the things you think are qualitative differences assertions that we reject on grounds other than point of view. You don't have to like the degree to which 4E moves in a direction, but your *assertion* that 4E has crossed the line into "complete independence" of "game" versus "roleplay" *is not shown in your argument*. Trying to pin a reply back on mere point of view is a diversion from that issue.

Look, what we are really talking about are "tipping points". That is, the point at which a matter of degree becomes a matter of kind, simply by enough movement. I accept that there can be arguments made about where, when, and how a tipping point gets crossed. But if your argument is going to be, "some people feel it got crossed here," then one can't argue with a feeling. If you feel it got crossed there, then you feel it, and that's that. OTOH, if your argument is that, " some people think it got crossed here," then presumably you have reasons, and some of them are present in the discussion.

I have reasons why I *think* it did not, and expressed one of them. If I give you the courtesy of assuming that at least some of you expression is thought, not feeling, then I would prefer that responses be in kind.

Of course, it is complicated because what we are discussing is the facts that cause a tipping point in "feel". Of course feel is going to be part of the discussion, and thus point of view. But it isn't all of it.

If your claim is that 4E moved some amount on this scale (true), and that this has been a tipping point in feeling for some people (inarguable, charitably must assume reports of feeling are mainly accurate), then yeah. I'll grant you that fully. It isn't asking much. Nor does it really claim all that much.

OTOH, if your claim is that 4E has moved effectively off the scale (what we are debating), and that some people feel this (again, going with reports) and some don't (again, reports), -- and that the people who don't feel it *only don't feel it because they are not operating on that scale at all*. Then I call extreme nonsense--putting it politely. 

If the argument of moving off the scale is to be made seriousy, it has to be made in good faith, and with the same charity towards reported play as is expected going the other way. I suggest as a first step, digging deep into an understanding of why the "disassociated" meme is a disingenuous piece of crap. Once that underbrush is cleared away, someone might make an argument that could get somewhere.


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## BryonD (Jul 8, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yeah, maybe we read different forums. I haven't seen anyone say there was 'no difference'. I think there are a wide variety of opinions on what the differences are and what significance they have.



I guess so.  I see it over and over.



> I guess I would need a citation on that.



Ok.  It makes no difference to me if you personally go find it or not.  You can take a "see no evil" view, you can go find out for yourself, or you can believe.  It doesn't really matter.  Andy said it and I see it when I look.  You are entitled to whatever opinion you want based on as little or as much information as you wish to seek out.



> I think the idea that someone designed the mechanics in isolation from what narrative concepts they were intending to model is frankly preposterous.



Shrug.  The whole "isolation" thing just shows the problem.  Quit putting things in such absolute terms and you will do better.  They very intentionally adjusted the focus in a significant manner.  Nothing was in "isolation."



> The mechanics are just a tool. We don't start out with a set of mechanics and just play a game and try to figure out how to explain them.



Agreed.  But none of your comments change the difference between the various actual systems.



> Personally I don't think there's a way to 'rate' games in any hard and fast way.



Hard and fast? Absolutely not.  I think my example rating was clearly a simple concept.



> I don't think ANY serious posters here have ever asserted that all systems are equal.



 "All?"  No, but over and over I'm told that 4E plays exactly the same as 3E.  And, further, I believe most if not all of the people saying it are honestly and accurately describing their personal games.  But when you say "all systems" you are completely losing the point.  And when you say you haven't seen it I'm forced to presume you haven't been reading enough of the debate over the past few years to have an well informed comment.



> Honestly though, there is a pretty strong subtext to your posts. It reads like 3.x was a good tool for role play and 4e is mostly only good for hack-n-slash. Personally I think the opposite.



If my text comes across as SUB then I apologize for being unclear.

I don't care what you opinion is and don't see any reason you should care what mine is.  The question is, do you want to understand why people see it differently or not.

But when you say you can't come close to Conan in 3E, you just sound laughable.    Maybe YOU can't.  I don't know.  So that tells me a lot right there.

My point is NOT REMOTELY that you can't do Conan in 4E.  You CAN.  100%.
BUT, you will be creating a really good game board piece that relates to other game board pieces in a manner that purely reacts mechanically.  There are other systems that are far less tied to mechanical balance and homogeneous capabilities.  

And just to pick on one of my 4E peeves, your 4E Conan will automatically get better at everything as he gains in level.  I'd call that wrong right there.  But that is just my opinion.  It has no intended bearing on your game experience.

But, really, there is no point is sitting and arguing your personal game against mine.  If you assessment was a quality view of the overall market, then this conversation would not be happening in the first place.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 8, 2011)

BryonD said:


> I guess so.  I see it over and over.
> 
> Ok.  It makes no difference to me if you personally go find it or not.  You can take a "see no evil" view, you can go find out for yourself, or you can believe.  It doesn't really matter.  Andy said it and I see it when I look.  You are entitled to whatever opinion you want based on as little or as much information as you wish to seek out.




Well, you made a rather incredible statement, so I figure you'd have source for that. You're right of course, OTOH I think extraordinary statements are things I am probably not going to swallow on the basis of hearsay. In any case it is immaterial what Andy Collins said. I've worked on games. Any such statement is as credible as pink flying elephants. It clearly wasn't designed that way. I don't at all doubt they had a core concept and resolution mechanisms and such, those are obviously parts of a game you design from a basically mechanical perspective, but it just isn't possible to design classes and such that way any more than it is for elephants to fly.



> Shrug.  The whole "isolation" thing just shows the problem.  Quit putting things in such absolute terms and you will do better.  They very intentionally adjusted the focus in a significant manner.  Nothing was in "isolation."




I'm actually not really so sure that was the intent. I think some aspects of the game were aimed at being easier to refluff. I don't know that the general idea was to make the game in any way less of an RPG. In fact the game shows many signs that they thought deeply about the nature of RP and how it should relate to game mechanics. You may well disagree with them on that and see it differently.



> "All?"  No, but over and over I'm told that 4E plays exactly the same as 3E.  And, further, I believe most if not all of the people saying it are honestly and accurately describing their personal games.  But when you say "all systems" you are completely losing the point.  And when you say you haven't seen it I'm forced to presume you haven't been reading enough of the debate over the past few years to have an well informed comment.




Well, I can't say what you read and where you read it. I regularly read a number of game design related sites and what AFAIK are the main sites where 4e is a regular topic. Yet I have NEVER seen anyone seriously assert that 4e and 3e play the same. I say 'seriously' because of course the Internet is filled with all sorts of odd opinions, but this is not IME a major theme or even a significant opinion. I get the impression that you're being hyperbolic, but perhaps there is a whole 'net full of sites I know nothing about where this peculiar opinion holds sway. Anything is possible...



> If my text comes across as SUB then I apologize for being unclear.
> 
> I don't care what you opinion is and don't see any reason you should care what mine is.  The question is, do you want to understand why people see it differently or not.
> 
> But when you say you can't come close to Conan in 3E, you just sound laughable.    Maybe YOU can't.  I don't know.  So that tells me a lot right there.




You can make a big strong warrior, yes, but you cannot PLAY said character as such because you'll be completely overshadowed by any garden variety full caster. Your plot significance is nil and your only real function in combat is to clean up the threats that aren't worth bothering with a spell for and playing lineman for the casters. This is perfectly fine, it doesn't make a bad game, it just makes a LIMITED game. One who's limitations IMHO have been overcome by a more flexible design.



> My point is NOT REMOTELY that you can't do Conan in 4E.  You CAN.  100%.
> BUT, you will be creating a really good game board piece that relates to other game board pieces in a manner that purely reacts mechanically.  There are other systems that are far less tied to mechanical balance and homogeneous capabilities.




Right, there's some kind of rule in 4e or lack of some rule that turns my character into a 3 dimensional fully realized character? This is utterly preposterous. Nothing about 4e characters is 'homogeneous' either. The game simply allows all characters to participate and doesn't ABSOLUTELY DEPEND on specific elements of play. Sometimes I have to wonder if people who make these kinds of statements have played with an even moderately talented DM. YOU may have experienced 4e this way, and I feel your pain, but I think you're confusing cause and effect here.



> And just to pick on one of my 4E peeves, your 4E Conan will automatically get better at everything as he gains in level.  I'd call that wrong right there.  But that is just my opinion.  It has no intended bearing on your game experience.




Yes, well, that won't happen in 3e. Instead you're just pigeonholed into a few (and in the case of a fighter a VERY few) narrow skills. We can debate the pros and cons of different skill system mechanics all day, but IME there is no perfect solution. My opinion is that people spend far too much time harping on these kinds of largely theoretical 'issues'. Who cares if my 30th level fighter is roughly as knowledgeable about Arcana as an optimized 1st level wizard? Is he really ever going to compare his Arcana skill to that of a situation intended for low level characters where this is going to matter? It is just irrelevant. In all my 35 years of DMing I have yet to see this situation arise. 



> But, really, there is no point is sitting and arguing your personal game against mine.  If you assessment was a quality view of the overall market, then this conversation would not be happening in the first place.




Why thank you.


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## Greg K (Jul 8, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Who cares if my 30th level fighter is roughly as knowledgeable about Arcana as an optimized 1st level wizard? Is he really ever going to compare his Arcana skill to that of a situation intended for low level characters where this is going to matter? It is just irrelevant. In all my 35 years of DMing I have yet to see this situation arise.




I care. The gamers that I know care.  That you don't comes down to  a difference in preference as to how characters are represented mechanically and what that means in relation to the  other characters in the "world" of the campaign.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 8, 2011)

Greg K said:


> I care. The gamers that I know care.  That you don't comes down to  a difference in preference as to how characters are represented mechanically and what that means in relation to the  other characters in the "world" of the campaign.




Yeah, there are differences in taste between different players/groups/DMs. I don't mean to insult anyone's opinions. I am just stating a very reasonable counterpoint. My feeling is that this is exactly the position the 4e devs were coming from, that advancing skill checks based on level would keep all the PCs roughly in the ballpark where any of them could in a pinch at least TRY a good variety of skill checks, thus both reducing the chances of an adventure derailing and increasing the opportunities for players to participate. The downside being what I consider a pretty small corner case that again will simply never come up in play. I mean as a DM if I want to have an NPC that is portrayed as far more knowledgeable about Arcana than the 30th level Barbarian, he's going to have an Arcana score far beyond what some low level apprentice wizard has. And said apprentice wizard would simply never show up in a campaign running at that level. Remember, NPCs don't run by PC rules, their skill bonuses effectively are nothing more than DCs and can be set as appropriate (maybe the wizard IS an apprentice, but if so he's the greatest prodigal apprentice wizard in history and has an Arcana of 40, an eventuality which 4e is perfectly willing to countenance). In fairness you could do the same thing in 3.5 or PF too if you wished. These kinds of issues are only issues if you insist that the numbers are some kind of 'physics engine' for describing the world instead of tools to help you tell the story you want to tell. Again, you can view it however you want and that's OK, but it is meaningless to criticize 4e based on criteria that 4e isn't interested in being measured by. All you can say is "I'll play something else", which is great. I just don't understand why people insist on calling it a fault in 4e when it has no practical impact in play whatsoever.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 9, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> All you can say is "I'll play something else", which is great. I just don't understand why people insist on calling it a fault in 4e when it has no practical impact in play whatsoever.




And if the answer is, "I don't want to play something else," because most of the rest of the game, you like, then it is trivially easy to fix this edge case. Just put in a house rule that every PC has to pick a few skills that don't get the 1/2 level bonus, and can never be trained.

I mean, if the objection is that the Barbarian ends up too good at Arcana, then it is trivially easy to fix this. And if your group covers the skills well enough, and you think about the implications for skill challenges for a few minutes, it won't even have nasty side effects.

OTOH, then if this is one thing out of many, then we are back to "I'll play something else." I say this, because it seems to come up all isolated, but if you look at the complaints, it is over here, "I wish they'd change X," and then two days later, "I wish they'd hadn't done Y," and so on. At some point, it comes back to the real complaint, which is, "I want the latest version of D&D to cater to my preferences." I can appreciate the desire, and I can appreciate such a push for preferences to influence the next version, whatever it is. However, I don't think that, "Hey, 4E designer, you failed to cater to me when you weren't trying to, you dolt," is going to gain much traction towards that end.


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## Greg K (Jul 9, 2011)

Nineball said:


> Agreed - epic level fighters who are fighting the servants of the gods themselves in 4e have increased in skill to better fit as epic level fighters, fighters in 3e that try to fight servants of the gods are still hilariously unable to swim due to it's skill system.




Let's see.
1. If you want your character to know how to swim, buy a couple of ranks using those X4 at first level instead of min/maxing.  Swim is a class skill.

2. If your character didn't know how to swim at the start and had opportunity to learn later on, buy a rank or two.

3. Concerned about the paltry number of skill points the fighter gts
a. Give him enough Int.
b. Use the Customizing a Character section to show you how to customize the fighter for extra skill points/per level. 

In other words, if your character cannot swim, you have yourself to blame for not taking ranks in swim .


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## Pentius (Jul 9, 2011)

Greg K said:


> Let's see.
> 1. If you want your character to know how to swim, buy a couple of ranks using those X4 at first level instead of min/maxing.  Swim is a class skill.
> 
> 2. If your character didn't know how to swim at the start and had opportunity to learn later on, buy a rank or two.
> ...



Whoa, there.  First you accuse people who don't normally take Swim of min/maxing, which is pretty much uncalled for.  I mean, looking at the Fighter's skill list, you might reasonably be interested in Climb, Jump or Ride, since hey, those are all things I'd expect a heroic warrior to be able to do, too.  No min/maxing about it.

Then, after tossing that out, you direct us to the Customizing a Character section as if that's a real solution.  Here's what that section tells you to do: Haggle with your DM.  Haggling with the DM to trade one mechanic for another is the first trick in any min/maxer's arsenal.  So which is it, are we min/maxing, or are we stopping the min/maxing?  It could be worth a shot, but it is not an acceptable substitute for actually having the rules on your side. 

Then you finish by telling anyone who wants their Fighter to Swim that it's their own fault if they can't, which is arguably true, but not actually the nature of the complaint.  The complaint against the 3e skill system is that even if you do give your Fighter a decent Int score(which would provide him no advantage other than skills), the system fails to let the Fighter cover the sorts of things you could reasonably expect a hero who makes his living being strong to be able to do.


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## Greg K (Jul 9, 2011)

Pentius said:


> Whoa, there.  First you accuse people who don't normally take Swim of min/maxing, which is pretty much uncalled for.  I mean, looking at the Fighter's skill list, you might reasonably be interested in Climb, Jump or Ride, since hey, those are all things I'd expect a heroic warrior to be able to do, too.  No min/maxing about it.



With a minimum of 8pts (assuming no Int bonus), one an buy ranks, Climb, Ride, Jump, and Swim.  Give me time, and I can, actually, find posts where players state (not in this thread) that they don't put ranks in swim, because fighters don't get enough points and Swim rarely comes up. That to me is min/max or power gaming.  However, I did not mean to insinuate that the person I was responding to necessarily takes part in min/max or power gaming. I was using it in a general sense.



> Then, after tossing that out, you direct us to the Customizing a Character section as if that's a real solution.  Here's what that section tells you to do: Haggle with your DM.  Haggling with the DM to trade one mechanic for another is the first trick in any min/maxer's arsenal.  So which is it, are we min/maxing, or are we stopping the min/maxing?  It could be worth a shot, but it is not an acceptable substitute for actually having the rules on your side.



Min/Maxing is a player problem.  If you have a problem player I suggest not playing with them. The example is  there to help players and DMs tailor characters abilities to background and assumes it will be done in good faith. There are further suggestions for such tailoring in the DMG.  

Also note at the start of Customizing a character:
"The rules for creating your character provide a common ground for players, but you can tweak the rules to make your character unique.  Any substantive changes, however, must be approved the DM".

Further down, under Race:
"The rules for the character of a given race apply to most, but not all people of a race". It then discusses how if a dwarf grew up among humans they would not be expected to have certain dwarven features.

In other words, you should be tailoring to background/culture etc.  The reason to talk to your DM?  My guss goes back to rule 0.  They are, theoreticallly, going to know the cultures and what is plausible for their campaign. They are also responsible for ensuring balance among PCs.

The tools and/or suggestions are there. If the DM is not willing to use them, find another DM.




> Then you finish by telling anyone who wants their Fighter to Swim that it's their own fault if they can't, which is arguably true, but not actually the nature of the complaint.  The complaint against the 3e skill system is that even if you do give your Fighter a decent Int score(which would provide him no advantage other than skills), the system fails to let the Fighter cover the sorts of things you could reasonably expect a hero who makes his living being strong to be able to do.



 You and some others might assume that  they should be able to cover such things and a certain level of proficiency. I and some others hold no such assumptions- campaign setting, cultures, individual character backgrounds, and later adventuring experience are the determining factors in what skills thy should have and at what proficiency level.  
And, Intelligence does do more besides skills ( I am assuming you are including bonus modifiers to rolls for appropriate skills). There are feat trees that have Int scores of 13+ as a prereq.


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## Pentius (Jul 9, 2011)

Greg K said:


> With a minimum of 8pts (assuming no Int bonus), one an buy ranks, Climb, Ride, Jump, and Swim.  Give me time, and I can, actually, find posts where players state (not in this thread) that they don't put ranks in swim, because fighters don't get enough points and Swim rarely comes up. That to me is min/max or power gaming.  However, I did not mean to insinuate that the person I was responding to necessarily takes part in min/max or power gaming. I was using it in a general sense.



I'm sure that you could find such posts.  And since not putting ranks into Swim specifically because you don't think it will come up is making a character decision based on a cost/benefit analysis, it could also qualify as min/maxing or power gaming.  However, such a decision is to min/maxing as picking your character's hair color is to roleplaying, that is, it qualifies, but just barely, and that alone does not a roleplayer or min/maxer make.

And that still doesn't address the fact that there was no reason to bring min/maxing into this at all.




> Min/Maxing is a player problem.  If you have a problem player I suggest not playing with them.



Except that no one here is having that problem.  It's something you brought up.  Not that I kick a player for not putting ranks in Swim anyway.







> The example is  there to help players and DMs tailor characters abilities to background and assumes it will be done in good faith. There are further suggestions for such tailoring in the DMG.
> 
> Also note at the start of Customizing a character:
> "The rules for creating your character provide a common ground for players, but you can tweak the rules to make your character unique.  Any substantive changes, however, must be approved the DM".
> ...



Yes, I read the section.  Yes, DMs should be willing to work with a player to ensure they get the best play experience.  But it's still a false solution.  I claim it doesn't work very well, you refer me to a section that tells us to just house rule it.  But I'm not displeased because I never thought of house ruling it, I'm displeased because I would have to house rule it.



> You and some others might assume that  they should be able to cover such things and a certain level of proficiency. I and some others hold no such assumptions- campaign setting, cultures, individual character backgrounds, and later adventuring experience are the determining factors in what skills thy should have and at what proficiency level.
> And, Intelligence does do more besides skills ( I am assuming you are including bonus modifiers to rolls for appropriate skills). There are feat trees that have Int scores of 13+ as a prereq.



You're right.  I absolutely am operating under the assumptions that a given character should be able to cover given things.  And that's cool that you don't assume those things.  I still think it's silly that my hypothetical epic level fighter is in more danger from a shallow river than from the servants of the gods.


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## Mark CMG (Jul 9, 2011)

Nineball said:


> (. . .)... play a game with a good skill system that assumes your character gets better at doing things as he levels.





Odd you use the word "good" when that sort of one-size-fits-all, auto-improve-across-the-board system doesn't seem to appeal to everyone.  What of someone from a land where water is either frozen or so cold even limited exposure means death?  What about someone, from anywhere, that has a phobia that would negate any chance of ever learning to swim? Could these people still be heroes in all other respects?  And the time they don't spend learning to swim, coudn't it be devoted to becoming a better climber? Or are we now haggling and is that bad?  Naw.  The generc nature of a system where everyone simply gets better at all skills, right along side and in parallel with all of his comrades, regardless of whether they devote any effort to learning, by virtue of gaining XP by killing things doesn't sound "good" to me.


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## Greg K (Jul 9, 2011)

Pentius said:


> I'm sure that you could find such posts.  And since not putting ranks into Swim specifically because you don't think it will come up is making a character decision based on a cost/benefit analysis, it could also qualify as min/maxing or power gaming.  However, such a decision is to min/maxing as picking your character's hair color is to roleplaying, that is, it qualifies, but just barely, and that alone does not a roleplayer or min/maxer make.



If the decision is based on cost benefit, we will have to agree to disagree. In my opinon, it is based on strictly metagame concerns based on "what I think my DM will do" regardless if it makes sense for the character. So, they are trying to game the system.



> Except that no one here is having that problem.  It's something you brought up.  Not that I kick a player for not putting ranks in Swim anyway.Yes, I read the section.  Yes, DMs should be willing to work with a player to ensure they get the best play experience.  But it's still a false solution.  I claim it doesn't work very well, you refer me to a section that tells us to just house rule it.  But I'm not displeased because I never thought of house ruling it, I'm displeased because I would have to house rule it.



Let's see
1. it shows the fighter giving up somethings for extra skill points each level and a couple of class skills.

Would I have liked to have seen more examples?  Hell, yes!  However, they showed an example of giving more skill points to the fighter.  I and other DMs have used it, successfully, for many variant fighters.





> You're right.  I absolutely am operating under the assumptions that a given character should be able to cover given things.  And that's cool that you don't assume those things.



Correct, neither of us is wrong for having our preferences


> I still think it's silly that my hypothetical epic level fighter is in more danger from a shallow river than from the servants of the gods.



Whereas, I think it can be kind of cool, but your character is not, necessarily, in danger from a shallow river.  If it the water is relatively calm and not over his head he can wade across (DMG).   Now if it is a fast moving river or over his head, you have something to worry about.


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## Greg K (Jul 9, 2011)

Nineball said:


> ... play a game with a good skill system that assumes your character gets better at doing things as he levels.



Are you implying 4e is a good skill system? That is your opinion  based on your preferences. For my preferences and all, but a few of my friends, the overly broad skills to the automatic +1/2 level and overly focused on the math makes it very undesirable (to be polite) and a deal breaker. Neither of us is wrong. It is based on our *subjective* opinions.



> I agree - I expect fighters to be good at being adventurers and martial heroes.  You expect fighters to be bad.
> 
> Edit: Funny enough, "fighters aren't skilled" is strictly a 3e phenomenon.



Really? See, this is your problem. You assume, because someone disagrees with the automatic leveling, it means they want fighters to be bad.Where did I say I want fighters to be bad?

I want them to have the option of being as, mechanically, good or as bad in a particular skill as makes sense given the factors mentioned above.

And, I used the term "paltry" for a reason to describe the fighter's skill points.  I do think fighters, clerics and the other 2+int classes that don't have Int as their main ability should have received at least 4+Int per level. I even house ruled it give fighters and the other 2+ classes extra skill  points. However,  I chose not to mention it in my previous example, because I was sticking to solutions that were in in the PHB.

So, please stop jumping to conclusions and prescribing motivations. It might make you seem less like the fanatic that you come across to be.


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## Pentius (Jul 9, 2011)

Greg K said:


> If the decision is based on cost benefit, we will have to agree to disagree. In my opinon, it is based on strictly metagame concerns based on "what I think my DM will do" regardless if it makes sense for the character. So, they are trying to game the system.



No, I'm totally agreeing that you could find people trying to pick their skills in such a way as to game the system.  Metagaming to figure out what the DM will do is part of the cost/benefit analysis, specifically, it's trying to determine how much benefit is inherent in such a choice.  I still think that gaming the system when picking one's skills does not a problem player make.  There, we may have to agree to disagree.




> Let's see
> 1. it shows the fighter giving up somethings for extra skill points each level and a couple of class skills.
> 
> Would I have liked to have seen more examples?  Hell, yes!  However, they showed an example of giving more skill points to the fighter.  I and other DMs have used it, successfully, for many variant fighters.



I agree that this, along with many other house rules, can improve the game experience.  I'm not against house ruling, or variant fighters.  Heck, fighters need every edge they can get, in my opinion.  But if we have to fix it, it follows that it was indeed a problem.






> Correct, neither of us is wrong for having our preferences
> 
> Whereas, I think it can be kind of cool, but your character is not, necessarily, in danger from a shallow river.  If it the water is relatively calm and not over his head he can wade across (DMG).   Now if it is a fast moving river or over his head, you have something to worry about.



There are many rivers that are over my head that I would still consider shallow, and just what constitutes fast moving is probably a subjective topic as well.  I may be biased, though, since I have lived most of my life within walking distance of rivers that would go over a giant's head, let alone a man's.


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## JamesonCourage (Jul 9, 2011)

Pentius said:


> I agree that this, along with many other house rules, can improve the game experience.  I'm not against house ruling, or variant fighters.  Heck, fighters need every edge they can get, in my opinion.  But if we have to fix it, it follows that it was indeed a problem.




Maybe it's just me, but you're twisting "we changed the fighter into something that fits my concept better" to "we fixed the fighter because it sucked." Those are two very different things.

Saying that 3.Xe is full of problems that cannot be overlooked and permeate every group is just like saying 4e plays like a board game and everyone has to force role playing upon it. Neither statement is true, though individuals and groups have experienced both.

It's just different anecdotal evidence, different experiences, and different preferences. All systems (not just D&D editions) probably have issues. Not all groups encounter those issues when using those systems.

Just my opinion. It's getting very close to a full fledged edition war, and that's too bad, because this could be an interesting discussion.

As always, play what you like


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## Greg K (Jul 9, 2011)

Pentius said:


> I agree that this, along with many other house rules, can improve the game experience.  I'm not against house ruling, or variant fighters.  Heck, fighters need every edge they can get, in my opinion.  But if we have to fix it, it follows that it was indeed a problem.



When it came to skills, I think all of the 2+Int  classes that did not have Int as their main ability had the same problem- not just the fighter. So, lack of skill points I do concede and the situation could have been just as easily  fixed with more skill points.

I think one of the differences is that 3e is much more of a toolbox and it was left to the DM to institute the changes they felt necesssary .  However, they gave a lot of guidance.  For example, the PHB had the fighter variant example (and we saw more- especially, in the UA) . The DMG discussed training requirements (good for those finding 3e multi-classing to be too free), wizards having to find spells, and variant spell lists (including unique spell lists by deity).  Not necessarily friendly for new/inexperienced DMs and more work than some DMs want to put in, but for myself much more satisfying and rewarding as a DM and as a player.



> There are many rivers that are over my head that I would still consider shallow, and just what constitutes fast moving is probably a subjective topic as well.  I may be biased, though, since I have lived most of my life within walking distance of rivers that would go over a giant's head, let alone a man's.



I just have the Los Angeles River and we get people every year swept away during rain season, because they go in the storm channels.  I don't know how deep it is, but it can get very rapid during a storm. Then, there are the beaches with the undertow that will pull even experienced swimmers under and give  them problems.


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## Mark CMG (Jul 9, 2011)

Nineball said:


> By roleplaying it.  Hard to imagine, eh?
> 
> 
> Incidentally, the difference between a trained skill and an untrained skill is rather sizable.  Your standard fighter with 8-10 intelligence will, when he enters paragon, still have less knowledge: arcana then a level 1 wizard who has it trained.  It's not like everyone is an expert at everything (except bards, but that's sorta their schtick).





Still interested in this swimming skill thing.  You're saying the system makes him a swimmer automatically but I can RP that he is not, and that I cannot, by the system, divert the swimming skill he gains toward something else if I want to RP a non-swimmer.  I just want to be clear because you seem to have lost the crux of our discussion.


Once you clear this swimming skill thing up for me, let's talk about climbing.  Is that automatically increased at each level too?




Nineball said:


> 4e's skill system is basically better at everything.





Well, if what you're telling me about the swimming skill thing is the way it seems to be, then I'm not following the logic that leads to this conclusion.


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## Pentius (Jul 9, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> Maybe it's just me, but you're twisting "we changed the fighter into something that fits my concept better" to "we fixed the fighter because it sucked." Those are two very different things.
> 
> Saying that 3.Xe is full of problems that cannot be overlooked and permeate every group is just like saying 4e plays like a board game and everyone has to force role playing upon it. Neither statement is true, though individuals and groups have experienced both.
> 
> ...



What I'm saying is that I expect a fighter(or equivalent 'athletic guy' class) to be able to perform a few different actions(which tend to fall under skills) well.  This list includes swimming, as well as jumping and climbing.  Given that the 3.5e(since that is the specific book I am looking at) fighter cannot do all three of these things reliably unless he is A) House ruled, B) Given a 12 or higher in what is normally considered an unimportant stat for his class, or C) is Human, and that even if one of these options comes into play, he won't have the skill points to do any more than those three activities, I claim that the 3.5 Fighter is insufficient for portraying the class's archetype in a way that is satisfactory for me.

I am not saying that 3.5 is full of problems that cannot be overlooked, or that these problems permeate every group.


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## Lanefan (Jul 9, 2011)

Pentius said:


> What I'm saying is that I expect a fighter(or equivalent 'athletic guy' class) to be able to perform a few different actions(which tend to fall under skills) well.  This list includes swimming, as well as jumping and climbing.



See, there's a difference right there 'tween you and me, as I have no such built-in expectations.  In any edition.

Swimming in particular is not something everyone can automatically do, even if they're a trained warrior and as strong as an ox.  I mean, just look at Trafalgar-era sailors - mostly fit and in-shape men who spent their lives around water, yet it's an often-verified stereotype that surprisingly few of them could swim.

And correct me if I'm wrong - I've forgotten a fair bit about 3e - but aren't jumping and climbing skills that can be used without ranks?  If so, then the fighter (who is - or should be - strong) is going to be naturally somewhat good at them anyway in comparison to a normal commoner - which is, after all, the baseline here.  A fighter who has put a bunch of ranks in is a lot better than good.

Lan-"how many ranks in climb do I need in order to climb a feat tree?"-efan


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## Greg K (Jul 9, 2011)

Nineball said:


> By roleplaying it.  Hard to imagine, eh?
> 
> Incidentally, the difference between a trained skill and an untrained skill is rather sizable.  Your standard fighter with 8-10 intelligence will, when he enters paragon, still have less knowledge: arcana then a level 1 wizard who has it trained.  It's not like everyone is an expert at everything (except bards, but that's sorta their schtick).



And, if it makes no sense for a given character to have access to areas knowledge covered by Arcana. Verisimilitude goes out the window. With 3e you can control this much better to represent the character.  



> No, 4e's skill system is basically better at everything.  Heck, name  something 3e's system is better at doing?  I'll even give you one: a  case in which a character is literally developmentally challenged in  such a way that they do not become better at doing things as they grow  older and/or more experienced.  There.  That is the epitome of the  limited 3e skill system.



If the characters stop doing adventures that cover certain things for a while, you can represent that by not purchasing skill ranks in those skills and putting them in relevant in skills. In 4e, you are going to have improvement based on the +1/2 even if it makes no sense for the given character.



> When you defended their abborantly tiny number of skills.



Actually, I didn't defend the tiny number of skills. What I did  was point out that the there were options in the PHB for more skills points (which can be used to get more skills) including an option  that gave a permanent increase of 2 skill points per level (8 at first) and two additional class skills.





> That you have houseruled it more or less shows that _you have problems with the system, too._  The only question is, can you find the root of your problems and not the symptoms?



I do have a problem with the number of skill points listed under the fighter and some of  the other classes and I do think some classes could have slightly expanded skill lists.  However, they gave a solution for the fighter in the PHB (that many DMs ignore it is their own problem).

However, the 4e approach is far more drastic than needed to be done, in my opinion, and, definitely, not my preference.  I would have been more satisfied had they stuck with the 3e system, but
1. Given more skill points to specific and added a couple of additional skills
2. Instituted the Cityscape web enhancement of wilderness/urban skill swaps
3. Given a few more examples of class variants
4. Maybe shown a little more DM guidance on using common sense with diplomacy or reworked it
5. added extended skill checks (UA)/Skill Challenges


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## JamesonCourage (Jul 9, 2011)

Pentius said:


> What I'm saying is that I expect a fighter(or equivalent 'athletic guy' class) to be able to perform a few different actions(which tend to fall under skills) well.  This list includes swimming, as well as jumping and climbing.  Given that the 3.5e(since that is the specific book I am looking at) fighter cannot do all three of these things reliably unless he is A) House ruled, B) Given a 12 or higher in what is normally considered an unimportant stat for his class, or C) is Human, and that even if one of these options comes into play, he won't have the skill points to do any more than those three activities, I claim that the 3.5 Fighter is insufficient for portraying the class's archetype in a way that is satisfactory for me.




I'd like to note a few opinions of mine:
1) Not everyone has the same views on you do as to what that archetype should always fulfill, under every condition. Mark CMG is pretty much stating that in this thread.
2) House rules are embraced by 3.5, at its core. There are a few sections that go into house ruling in both the base PHB and the DMG. Heck, I'd say that house rules are embraced by D&D, at its core. So, many people will have no qualms about house ruling something to better fit what they had in mind.
3) It's about preferences. You are not wrong to want the fighter, or any other class, to fulfill a particular archetype. That's your preference. Someone else can prefer a style that gives them the basics, and house rules and homebrews a ton of stuff for their game, and they aren't wrong. Others can stick to RAW, and they aren't wrong if that's what they prefer.



> I am not saying that 3.5 is full of problems that cannot be overlooked, or that these problems permeate every group.




Awesome  I'm glad you don't think they do. I think if most people understood what you do, or said this, than a lot of arguments would slide back into a discussion (which is a good thing, in my opinion!).

As always, play what you like


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## Greg K (Jul 9, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> Awesome  I'm glad you don't think they do. I think if most people understood what you do, or said this, than a lot of arguments would slide back into a discussion (which is a good thing, in my opinion!).




Yep, Pentius, definitely, comes across as a good and open-minded person in that you can have an actual discussion without it becoming an edition war.  He does not jump out like a zealot to defend 4e, overstating his case and ignoring other people's  positions. He recognizes that better is simply a difference in preferences and recognizes the the merits of other people's opinions (even if he disagrees) rather than treating the discussion as some universal "Truth" to be defended.


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## Pentius (Jul 9, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> I'd like to note a few opinions of mine:
> 1) Not everyone has the same views on you do as to what that archetype should always fulfill, under every condition. Mark CMG is pretty much stating that in this thread.



I know that, and have already acknowledged it in this thread.  I'm not saying that my vision of the Fighter is the One True Vision.  I'm just discussing what I expect from the archetype, why I expect it, and how well each system can give it to me.  I find the 3.5 fighter to be lacking, and I have no problem saying so, possibly all day long.  Note that these are clearly personal statements, not blanket ones.


> 2) House rules are embraced by 3.5, at its core. There are a few sections that go into house ruling in both the base PHB and the DMG. Heck, I'd say that house rules are embraced by D&D, at its core. So, many people will have no qualms about house ruling something to better fit what they had in mind.



House rules are great, I like them.  I have notepad open right now with notes for a homebrew race and a simple house rule about healing surges.  But I still hold that house rules are not as good a solution to a problem as official ones, because I can't reasonably expect a new group to play by my house rules(unless I'm the DM.  Then, I totally will).  I also hold that the statement "It's not a problem because you can house rule it." is false.


> 3) It's about preferences. You are not wrong to want the fighter, or any other class, to fulfill a particular archetype. That's your preference. Someone else can prefer a style that gives them the basics, and house rules and homebrews a ton of stuff for their game, and they aren't wrong. Others can stick to RAW, and they aren't wrong if that's what they prefer.



Pretty much, yeah.



> Awesome  I'm glad you don't think they do. I think if most people understood what you do, or said this, than a lot of arguments would slide back into a discussion (which is a good thing, in my opinion!).
> 
> As always, play what you like



And Greg K and I seem to getting more and more "discussion" and less "argument" by the post.  Which isn't bad, considering I stepped in somewhat perturbed by a perceived cheap shot at Optimizers.


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## JamesonCourage (Jul 9, 2011)

Pentius said:


> I know that, and have already acknowledged it in this thread.  I'm not saying that my vision of the Fighter is the One True Vision.  I'm just discussing what I expect from the archetype, why I expect it, and how well each system can give it to me.  I find the 3.5 fighter to be lacking, and I have no problem saying so, possibly all day long.  Note that these are clearly personal statements, not blanket ones.




I know that it doesn't mean much, but I really do appreciate your approach to this discussion, and your responses to me. I'm enjoying reading them.



> House rules are great, I like them.  I have notepad open right now with notes for a homebrew race and a simple house rule about healing surges.  But I still hold that house rules are not as good a solution to a problem as official ones, because I can't reasonably expect a new group to play by my house rules(unless I'm the DM.  Then, I totally will).  I also hold that the statement "It's not a problem because you can house rule it." is false.




Well, I'm glad you like house rules. And though it's a well accepted that "it's not a problem because you can house rule it" is false, I'll actually disagree. If it's a problem for everyone, then I'll agree with you. If it's a problem for most people, I might be inclined to agree with you in general.

However, if it's only a problem with a significant subset of the playerbase, than I'll respectfully disagree. If you give your target audience the Rules, and say "we know that things may not be how you like, so here's how you might go about changing them" than I don't think there's too much of a problem.

You don't like the fighter, and that's a problem for you. My group has some minor issues with it, but nowhere near the issues that other groups have. What "fix" is necessary that'll satisfy us both? The most feasible, in my mind, is house ruling, and good guidance on how to go about it.



> Pretty much, yeah.








> And Greg K and I seem to getting more and more "discussion" and less "argument" by the post.  Which isn't bad, considering I stepped in somewhat perturbed by a perceived cheap shot at Optimizers.




Yeah, it does look that way, and I'm glad to see things segue to that form of communication. It's not thread-wide yet, but maybe we'll get there. Thanks, again, for the time you take to respond to me, and for the civility of your responses.

As always, play what you like


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## Mark CMG (Jul 9, 2011)

Nineball said:


> It means _you get better at things as you adventure_.





So, if at any point you choose something as a trained skill, you automatically progress in it regardless of use or actual training.  I could choose swimming as a trained skill, for instance, then spend my entire adventuring career in a desert (and otherwise nowhere near water nor swimming) but would automatically progress as a swimmer.  Got it.




Nineball said:


> "But Cirno, (. . .)"





Ah . . .  I think I'll just prefer to agree to disagree.


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## Greg K (Jul 9, 2011)

Pentius said:


> House rules are great, I like them.  I have notepad open right now with notes for a homebrew race and a simple house rule about healing surges.  But I still hold that house rules are not as good a solution to a problem as official ones, because I can't reasonably expect a new group to play by my house rules(unless I'm the DM.  Then, I totally will).  I also hold that the statement "It's not a problem because you can house rule it." is false.
> Pretty much, yeah.



I agree. Official solutions are best provided they fix this issue in a manner satisfactory for a given group.  However, since individual players and groups have different tastes and preferences, house rules are often necessary for many groups- especially, since for many gamers there is no perfect system out of the box.  The issue becomes which game requires the least amount of  work or which areas are you most comfortable changing to make it close to your ideal game.




> And Greg K and I seem to getting more and more "discussion" and less "argument" by the post.  Which isn't bad, considering I stepped in somewhat perturbed by a perceived cheap shot at Optimizers.



I have no problem with optimization when it is done for a concept that fits within a given campaign/setting.  When it is taken too the extreme and done to try and game the system rather than to best suit a concept and background to develop a character that is setting/campaign appropriate (my definition of min/max) is when I have issues, but only in games I am running or in as a player.  If I am the DM,I can address it. If I am a player, my choice is to discuss the issue and then decide to play or leave.
And the reason, we can discuss it is that we each recognize that we are dealing with preferences and, thus, the other person's position is valid for them rather than trying to label it irrational or  otherwise dismissing it.  This is not the case with Nineball and one or two other people that frequent these forums.


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## Pentius (Jul 9, 2011)

Greg K said:


> I agree. Official solutions are best provided they fix this issue in a manner satisfactory for a given group.  However, since individual players and groups have different tastes and preferences, house rules are often necessary for many groups- especially, since for many gamers there is no perfect system out of the box.  The issue becomes which game requires the least amount of  work or which areas are you most comfortable changing to make it close to your ideal game.



I agree.




> I have no problem with optimization when it is done for a concept that fits within a given campaign/setting.  When it is taken too the extreme and done to try and game the system rather than to best suit a concept and background to develop a character that is setting/campaign appropriate (my definition of min/max) is when I have issues, but only in games I am running or in as a player.  If I am the DM,I can address it. If I am a player, my choice is to discuss the issue and then decide to play or leave.



Ah, see as long as there is good roleplay, I don't care if the player made the build to fit the concept or the concept to fit the build.  I've done both plenty of times.  I even want a certain level of optimization from my fellow players.  As someone on these boards put it, "Save me from 8 con fighters and 12 cha bards."


> And the reason, we can discuss it is that we each recognize that we are dealing with preferences and, thus, the other person's position is valid for them rather than trying to label it irrational or  otherwise dismissing it.  This is not the case with Nineball and one or two other people that frequent these forums.



Yeah, there is never any shortage of people willing to speak in absolutes or to just plain be inflammatory in any online discussion.  Especially about edition differences.


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## Greg K (Jul 9, 2011)

Pentius said:


> I even want a certain level of optimization from my fellow players.  As someone on these boards put it, "Save me from 8 con fighters and 12 cha bards."




My position is that once you are assigning points to meet a concept, you are optimizing.  You can optimize to best represent the greatest underwater basket weaver, an apprentice mystic warrior that grew up a farm boy and has a knack for horseback riding,  or a super strong barbarian that escaped slavery as a pit fighter. 

Then again, in my opinion, optimization exists on a continuum 

The 8 con fighter might not bother me depending upon the other aspects of the character.  Then again, I have no problem envisioning a fighter with a strength of 12 or 13 and think many fighters of media fall in that range.

 I am , however, trying to picture a bard with only 12 Cha and having difficulty.


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## Mark CMG (Jul 9, 2011)

Greg K said:


> I am , however, trying to picture a bard with only 12 Cha and having difficulty.






Search YouTube using the keyword "cover" and you'll find a few. 


(You'll also find some incredibly talented individuals!)


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## Sammael (Jul 9, 2011)

Good grief, we're not back to the old swimming argument, are we?

In 3.x, everyone can swim, since the Swim skill can be used untrained; the basic DC is fairly low - DC 10 for calm water - and you can take 10 on a Swim check.

In 4E, everyone can also swim. Same rules apply, except you get better (every even level) at swimming, along with all other physical activities. 

So, neither system is good at modelling someone who cannot swim at all. Let's move on...

Humans have an inborn instinct for swimming, just like all other animals. We just need to overcome our fear of water/drowning (which doesn't take much time), and the basic motions of swimming come naturally. Sure, practicing to be a world-class swimmer is not the same as paddling along in the water, but that is not the issue (since D&D is not about setting athletics records). 

Incidentally, I am personally really overweight and out of shape. I spent last summer going to the gym thrice a week for 2 hours (a lot less exercise than a typical adventurer gets). Guess what? Even though I spent no time practicing swimming at all, when I went to the pool in the fall, I was much, much better at swimming than I was in spring prior to the gym. So, practicing one type of physical activity can obviously make you better at other physical activities.

The only thing I will support here is that 4E's 1/2 level bonus is _too good_. But some sort of bonus needs to be there, for both gamist reasons and verisimilitude.


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## Greg K (Jul 9, 2011)

Sammael said:


> Good grief, we're not back to the old swimming argument, are we?
> 
> In 3.x, everyone can swim, since the Swim skill can be used untrained; the basic DC is fairly low - DC 10 for calm water - and you can take 10 on a Swim check..



I can't speak for 3.5, but in 3.0, to take 10, you must be a trained swimmer.  Without training, you are fine provided you are in relatively calm water that is not over your head (3.0 DMG p. 85)


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## Pentius (Jul 9, 2011)

Sammael said:


> Good grief, we're not back to the old swimming argument, are we?
> 
> In 3.x, everyone can swim, since the Swim skill can be used untrained; the basic DC is fairly low - DC 10 for calm water - and you can take 10 on a Swim check.
> 
> ...



Actually, to be fair, 3.5 is the better edition at modeling a character who can't swim.  To take 10, you need to be trained(dmg, page 304).  DC10 doesn't sound like much, but armor penalties are doubled.  If you have no ranks in swim, and you wear even medium armor, your chances of making that check start to fall pretty low.


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## Greg K (Jul 9, 2011)

Pentius said:


> Actually, to be fair, 3.5 is the better edition at modeling a character who can't swim.  To take 10, you need to be trained(dmg, page 304).




So, it is the same as in 3.0 as shown in my page reference to the 3.0 DMG.


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## Sammael (Jul 9, 2011)

Well, if 4E doesn't take armor/encumbrance penalties into account for Athletics checks (not sure if it does), that's just... dumb. 

Even if you cannot take 10, DC 10 is a very low check, provided you are not swimming in armor (again, not the brightest idea in the world). And you have to fail the check by 5 to start drowning, IIRC, so the DC for merely staying afloat is 5.


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## Mark CMG (Jul 9, 2011)

Sink or swim, I was avoiding system comparisons for the usual reasons.


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## Sammael (Jul 9, 2011)

Regardless of system, my points stand:

1. Humans can swim, as long as they can overcome their fear of water.
2. Practicing any sort of physical activity makes you better in all physical activities in general.


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## Greg K (Jul 9, 2011)

Sammael said:


> Even if you cannot take 10, DC 10 is a very low check, provided you are not swimming in armor (again, not the brightest idea in the world). And you have to fail the check by 5 to start drowning, IIRC, so the DC for merely staying afloat is 5.




Correct, in relatively calm water over your head, you go under if you fail the check by 5 or more, but you are rolling a check every round.


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## Pentius (Jul 9, 2011)

Sammael said:


> Well, if 4E doesn't take armor/encumbrance penalties into account for Athletics checks (not sure if it does), that's just... dumb.
> 
> Even if you cannot take 10, DC 10 is a very low check, provided you are not swimming in armor (again, not the brightest idea in the world). And you have to fail the check by 5 to start drowning, IIRC, so the DC for merely staying afloat is 5.




4e does take armor into account, but the penalties are not doubled, and they are lower in the first place(-2 on plate, as opposed -6), so swimming in 4e is not a difficult task, in calm water, anyway.


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## GSHamster (Jul 9, 2011)

In some respects, it might have been better if the 3e skill system cap didn't increase every level. I know that when I played it, I tended to think of skills as "my character is good in these three skills" and just put a point in chosen skills every level.

If the cap didn't increase so rapidly, such that players were always bumping against the cap, it would encourage them to spend excess points on new skills. Their chosen skills would always be maxed out, but they'd have points to toss at new skills.

You'd probably get the same effect if the number of skill points you got per level increased as you got more levels.

It would give some of the sense of the 4e system, but avoid this "being able to swim even though my character is hydrophobic and has never learned how"


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## UngainlyTitan (Jul 9, 2011)

Not particularly interrested in the swimming argument but relating it to the original topic. Would the people with a preference for 3.x then be unwilling to play a system like Mearls talked about in his column where skill as such do not exist but the checks are made against the ability scores?


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## 3catcircus (Jul 9, 2011)

Mark CMG said:


> Odd you use the word "good" when that sort of one-size-fits-all, auto-improve-across-the-board system doesn't seem to appeal to everyone.  What of someone from a land where water is either frozen or so cold even limited exposure means death?  What about someone, from anywhere, that has a phobia that would negate any chance of ever learning to swim? Could these people still be heroes in all other respects?  And the time they don't spend learning to swim, coudn't it be devoted to becoming a better climber? Or are we now haggling and is that bad?  Naw.  The generc nature of a system where everyone simply gets better at all skills, right along side and in parallel with all of his comrades, regardless of whether they devote any effort to learning, by virtue of gaining XP by killing things doesn't sound "good" to me.




This is why systems like D&D are at a disadvantage when compared to systems like Traveller or Twilight:2000/2013 (I've never played GURPS, so that might support this as well) where a comprehensive "life" system ensures that players have the opportunity to create a background for their characters mechanically that supports their characters background narratively.  In those kinds of systems, you can typically select one of more levels in skills like swim, climb, etc.

As an example, in Twilight:2013, you get 9 (+ a variable number based upon that system's equivalent of INT) skill points to distribute amongst a small number of skills (about 30), with a max of 3 ranks except for a language skill.  And that is even _before_ the character reaches age 18 and you ever select the equivalent of a class...

TORG's templates establish background skills through the use of character templates.

Mechwarrior 3e's chargen system starts in early childhood...

Even the d20 version of Traveller modifies which skills you can take as class skills depending upon the tech level of your homeworld, which, while not a full lifepath system, still attempts to do so.

3.x/Pathfinder/4e are sadly lacking in this regard.  The closest that they came was the Hero Builder's Guidebook in early 3.0.


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## Greg K (Jul 9, 2011)

ardoughter said:


> Not particularly interrested in the swimming argument but relating it to the original topic. Would the people with a preference for 3.x then be unwilling to play a system like Mearls talked about in his column where skill as such do not exist but the checks are made against the ability scores?




I would be unwilling. One of the reason that I left 1e was that there was no real skill system (until the proficiency system in Wilderness and Dungeon Survival Guides, but I prefer 3e's skill system with roll high and add skill modifier vs a DC based on the "Common Standard")


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## FreeTheSlaves (Jul 9, 2011)

I like the idea of ability scores being the core but...

- All six stats should matter, noone should be able to dump without noticeable effect, but on the flip side, average stats shouldn't be punishing - that's the domain of low stats.

- The point buy/default array/rolling method should generate stats that give enough without giving too much. MAD is the enemy, it's ok to have a prime stat requirement and 3-4 other stats that appeal to your character build, but too many must-have demands wear thin.

- Stats should be grounded in the role play world where the 3-18 range, with 9-12 being common exist. The problem I find is trying to get my head around what a monsters stats are when they've got most stats out of that range or simply an attribute that jars (3.0E hill giant's 17cha & 4E 19str hobgoblin soldier). I want to be able to glance at the monsters stats and go "a-ha, this monster is really good at X & Y, but Z looks a weakness.

- There should be reasonable ground between giving diminishing returns for high stats and building up lower stats. Too often the stat bump goes into the highest stat as it rewards disproportionately, but tone it down a bit and tone up boosting the lower stats could create a bit of choice in the matter.

- Set a moderate baseline and simply let high stats bring reward. Tying the baseline to a steadily increasing  main attribute which is gobbling the stat bumps knocks the choice out of the matter and means secondary stats fall badly behind the baseline as each level passes.

- Ability modifiers need a serious rein in. 2E modifiers started too high (15+) but apart from high percentile strength, were largely about right. The 3E/4E thing where you can get something approaching +10 to hit from stats alone is way too much. Accuracy modifiers should be 1/2 to a 1/3 of this.

- 1st level stat distribution should model the stats throughout the career, the high str low int fighter should largely stay that way right through to 20th/30th level. It would be fine to allow a character to change this in a minor way through investment however.

I wonder if the stats should have inherent powers like in 1E/2E rather than being a source of modifier like in 3E/4E? I think I'd rather the former approach.


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## 3catcircus (Jul 9, 2011)

FreeTheSlaves said:


> The problem I find is trying to get my head around what a monsters stats are when they've got most stats out of that range or simply an attribute that jars (3.0E hill giant's 17cha & 4E 19str hobgoblin soldier).




Not to belabor the point, but I assume you meant 3.0E hill giant's *7*cha?  

That having been said, I think that one of the biggest problems people have/had with DMing 3.x is that they won't arbitrarily change something to make it fit their campaign.


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## Greg K (Jul 9, 2011)

3catcircus said:


> This is why systems like D&D are at a disadvantage when compared to systems like Traveller or Twilight:2000/2013 (I've never played GURPS, so that might support this as well) where a comprehensive "life" system ensures that players have the opportunity to create a background for their characters mechanically that supports their characters background narratively.  In those kinds of systems, you can typically select one of more levels in skills like swim, climb, etc.
> 
> 3.x/Pathfinder/4e are sadly lacking in this regard.  The closest that they came was the Hero Builder's Guidebook in early 3.0.




In 3e,  there are a number of ways to handle this.
1. When you build your setting, limit the DM limits class choices to those that are culturally appropriate.
2. Modify a class's  skills to create a variant that is background appropriate per Customizing a Character in the PHB. The PHB gives one example. There were a couple of examples  of variants in 3.0 supplements (e.g., the Urban Ranger) and many more examples in Unearthed Arcana (e.g, Savage Bard, Urban Ranger, and Wilderness Rogue).
3.  Modify a race as mentioned under under Character customization and expanded upon in Unearthed Arcana
4. As DM,  use the skill sidebar that states the DM can prohibit a character from taking some skills based on background.
5. Use the urban/wilderness class skill swap from the Cityscape web enhancement.
6.  As a player, spend some of those extra first level skill skill points on skills that reflect background.
7. If you are using 3.0, there is 0/0 multiclassing at first level found in the DMG


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## Greg K (Jul 9, 2011)

GSHamster said:


> In some respects, it might have been better if the 3e skill system cap didn't increase every level. I know that when I played it, I tended to think of skills as "my character is good in these three skills" and just put a point in chosen skills every level.




It might have helped 
1. To not think, "my character is good in these three skills" and put a point every level, but
a. "How good is my character?"
b. Which skills has my character had the opportunity to improve based upon the the type of adventures and the locations or what new skills have these adventures given me a chance to learn.

2. DMs followed the advice in the DMG about looking at the characters they have and taking account their abilities and skills when either building challenges for their characters or running modules (and making appropriate changes since designers don't know the characters at a given table or a group's playstyle).


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 9, 2011)

There's a hidden suggestion here in mearls's article:

How much complexity _do you want_?

If all you want is the simplest D&D you can have, ability scores can do that. It's quick, it's easy, it requires six stats, and you're good to go. 

In fact, if we go back to mearls's list of "core D&D mechanical elements," you have:


 *Armor Class as the basic representation of a character’s defense* = Dexterity Score
 *Alignment (Law v. Chaos, Good v. Evil) as a personal ethos and a force in the universe*: Add on top of your six ability scores.
 *Attack rolls made using a d20, with higher rolls better than lower ones*: 1d20+Strength Bonus vs. Dexterity Score.
 *Classes as the basic framework for what a character can do*: Fighter = +2 Strength and Con; Cleric = +2 Wisdom and Cha; Thief = +2 Dex and Int; Wizard = +2 Int and Wis. (Dwarf = +2 Wis/Con; Elf = +2 Dex/Cha; Halfling = +2 Wis/Cha; Gnome = +2 Int/Dex)
 *Damage rolls to determine how badly a spell or attack hurts you*: Perhaps assigned by class. Fighter = 1d10; Cleric = 1d6; Thief = 1d8; Wizard = 1d4.
 *Gold pieces as the standard currency for treasure*. Duh.
 *Hit dice or level as the basic measure of a monster’s power.* Monsters have the six scores, and theirs raise with level, too.
 *Hit points as a measure of your ability to absorb punishment, with more powerful characters and creatures gaining more of them.*. HP = Con score
 *Levels and experience points as a measure of power and a mechanic that lets characters become more powerful over time.*. All Ability scores go up with level.
 *Magic items such as +1 swords as a desirable form of treasure.* Add directly to your d20 roll or to your ability score.
 *Rolling initiative at the start of a battle to determine who acts first.*: 1d20+Dexterity mod
 *Saving throws as a mechanic for evading danger.* 1d20+relevant ability mod
 *"Fire-and-forget” magic, with spellcasters expending a spell when casting it.*: Spells are magic items (Fighter gets a +1 sword, thief gets +1 bow, wizard gets Magic Missile spell, cleric gets Cure Light Wounds spell). 
 *Exploration and Character Development*: This is sort of the physical/mental ability score divide. Str/Dex/Con  helps you explore new areas, Int/Wis/Cha helps you form connections to NPC's and organizations.

Of course, a lot of people *WANT* more complexity than that. At least, in certain areas. They want character abilities that can help define who they are, and what they can do, as they gain levels. They want specific game elements to use, to declare "_THIS HAPPENS_", be it a spell, an attack, or some sort of skill check.

Of course, the basic framework of the Powers system can be used for that.


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## Sammael (Jul 9, 2011)

ardoughter said:


> Not particularly interrested in the swimming argument but relating it to the original topic. Would the people with a preference for 3.x then be unwilling to play a system like Mearls talked about in his column where skill as such do not exist but the checks are made against the ability scores?



I'd have no interest whatsoever in that system.


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## joethelawyer (Jul 9, 2011)

Here's a question I just posted on my blog, for people who play retroclones, or who are interested in their development  (I toned down the inflammatory language here somewhat, so I wouldn't get banned): 

* If 5e is More Old School, How Long Before Someone Retro-Clones It?  Does WOTC Then Have to Sue All Clones? *


  That seems to be where Mearls is heading with 5e, with all his koombaya  posts on how all editions are the same at their core.  It seems to be  the most long-winded sales job/market research project of all time  though.  What if, after all the blather, they actually put out an  edition of D&D which is familiar to players of older editions?  Does  it fall under the OGL?  In whole or in part?  How much I guess would  depend on how many new terms they invent just for the sole purpose of  making sure it doesn't fall under the OGL, like dailies, powers, healing  surges, etc.

Let's say that for the most part, it does fall under the OGL.  How long before someone tries to clone it?

The bigger question, what would WOTC do?  Would they go after them?

I can't see how they wouldn't be forced to.

Executive who doesn't know what a d20 is:  "Hows sales of the new  edition going after we sunk a million bucks into its development?"

Mearls: "Well, it was good the first couple days, we made $50,000, but  then someone cloned it and is giving it away for nothing."

Executive:  "You're fired, you're whole team is fired--(oh, you have no  team left?), and the remaining 2 people at the company who know what  those weird dice are--- they're fired too--- and we're suing!"

Would they then be forced to go after the other clone publishers?  

Note:  I'm not saying they have good legal ground to stand on---but we  all know that just the cost of defending a lawsuit would halt production  of many clones and force a "I won't do it anymore, I promise, just drop  the lawsuit" type of agreement.

So, the question is, are we better off letting WOTC go down the path of  development they are going down, so they  aren't forced to recognize what we are doing with clones?

Do we want them playing in our sandbox again?


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## BryonD (Jul 9, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> In all my 35 years of DMing I have yet to see this situation arise.



There's your problem.

You don't understand the issues because you are confusing your own personal opinions and experiences with the preferences and experiences of the market as a whole.


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## nedjer (Jul 9, 2011)

joethelawyer said:


> Here's a question I just posted on my blog, for people who play retroclones, or who are interested in their development  (I toned down the inflammatory language here somewhat, so I wouldn't get banned):
> 
> * If 5e is More Old School, How Long Before Someone Retro-Clones It?  Does WOTC Then Have to Sue All Clones? *
> 
> ...




You're maybe being a touch hard on the guy. Way I read it he's New Old School, not Old Old School - which is


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## Gundark (Jul 9, 2011)

JeffB said:


>




True. Like most threads on Enworld this one stopped being productive after about page 3 or 4, and degenerated in a "no I'm right , no I'm right" discussion.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 9, 2011)

Greg K said:


> In 3e,  there are a number of ways to handle this.
> 1. When you build your setting, limit the DM limits class choices to those that are culturally appropriate.
> 2. Modify a class's  skills to create a variant that is background appropriate per Customizing a Character in the PHB. The PHB gives one example. There were a couple of examples  of variants in 3.0 supplements (e.g., the Urban Ranger) and many more examples in Unearthed Arcana (e.g, Savage Bard, Urban Ranger, and Wilderness Rogue).
> 3.  Modify a race as mentioned under under Character customization and expanded upon in Unearthed Arcana
> ...




4e has plenty of mechanisms which allow customization. Provide background elements which grant whatever it is the player wants for instance. Take a theme which grants a skill or a skill bonus. Take skill powers which enhance your ability to use a skill in a particular way, or a feat which does something similar. 

I think people get too hung up on questions of realism when it comes to skills. Consider that you're playing an RPG, the purpose is to tell interesting stories revolving around larger-than-life fantasy characters. The question isn't trivia about whether or not some guy that runs around killing monsters for 30 levels has a better understanding of trees or not. It is about whether or not the system helps you imagine yourself as Ralf the Fighter or not.


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## Greg K (Jul 9, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> 4
> I think people get too hung up on questions of realism when it comes to skills. Consider that you're playing an RPG, the purpose is to tell interesting stories revolving around larger-than-life fantasy characters. The question isn't trivia about whether or not some guy that runs around killing monsters for 30 levels has a better understanding of trees or not. It is about whether or not the system helps you imagine yourself as Ralf the Fighter or not.




Those are your preferences and emphasis for "how the system helps" and the type of things you want out of the game.  If it works for you great. Other people want things that bring more verisimilitude not realism to ground the character into the setting and add more detail.  And, not everyone approaches the game as running around killing monsters- it stopped being that during 1e- so, maybe, that is where the difference in approaches begins.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 9, 2011)

Greg K said:


> Those are your preferences and emphasis for "how the system helps" and the type of things you want out of the game.  If it works for you great. Other people want things that bring more verisimilitude not realism to ground the character into the setting and add more detail.  And, not everyone approaches the game as running around killing monsters- it stopped being that during 1e- so, maybe, that is where the difference in approaches begins.




What makes you think my game revolves around "running around killing monsters". It sounds like you believe that's all you can do unless you have a skill system that splits hear noise from spot hidden. It just isn't that way. 

Of course a lot of play involves fighting, monsters, etc. Why would I use D&D if that wasn't going to be a significant aspect of my game? I don't need a D&D that does everything perfectly. It lets me have a game of intrigue or a game of hex-crawling, or a game of dungeon-crawling, or a game of empire building, or whatever I want. The core is always going to feature going to places and killing things as a common aspect of the game.

In any case the original discussion here was about skills vs ability scores. I'm going to assume we are both on the same side of 'yeah, we want skills'. lol.


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## Greg K (Jul 9, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> What makes you think my game revolves around "running around killing monsters". It sounds like you believe that's all you can do unless you have a skill system that splits hear noise from spot hidden. It just isn't that way.



You were the one stated the game was about 30 levels of killing monsters 




> In any case the original discussion here was about skills vs ability scores. I'm going to assume we are both on the same side of 'yeah, we want skills'. lol.




Yes, we agree on this.


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## Greg K (Jul 10, 2011)

Nineball said:


> What exactly did you take "BACK TO THE DUNGEON" to mean?




After reading the books? Hyperbole!


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## BryonD (Jul 10, 2011)

Greg K said:


> After reading the books? Hyperbole!




Exactly.  You can't point at the actual rules and find "back to the Dungeon" there.  

I'd agree that it was an abstract concept that was largely embraced during the design of 3E.  But as much as anything it was just a marketing slogan.  It isn't "in the details".


"The math works" is completely different because it defines a core fundamental of the game system itself.


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## pemerton (Jul 10, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think people get too hung up on questions of realism when it comes to skills. Consider that you're playing an RPG, the purpose is to tell interesting stories revolving around larger-than-life fantasy characters. The question isn't trivia about whether or not some guy that runs around killing monsters for 30 levels has a better understanding of trees or not. It is about whether or not the system helps you imagine yourself as Ralf the Fighter or not.



Good stuff.

I would want to add - the action resolution mechanics should also help you imagine yourself as Ralf the Fighter _in the course of their application_. (This is my version of the "rules vs fiction" debate!) I personally think that 4e definitely satisfies this criterion.



Greg K said:


> Those are your preferences and emphasis for "how the system helps" and the type of things you want out of the game.  If it works for you great. Other people want things that bring more verisimilitude not realism to ground the character into the setting and add more detail.





Greg K said:


> You were the one stated the game was about 30 levels of killing monsters



No. To say that the game is not about "whether or not some guy that runs around killing monsters for 30 levels has a better understanding of trees or not" _isn't _ to say the game is about killing monsters. It _is_ to say that killing monsters is a core focus of the game, in a way that botany is not.

Fighting "monsters" is a core focus of the X-Men, and the Hulk, and the Arthurian legends, and Lord of the Rings, in a way that botany is not (the closest we get to botany in LotR is Sam's remarks to Gollum about seasoning rabbits ie not very close). But none of those stories is _about_ killing monsters.

4e is designed around the assumption that fighting monsters, scaling Mount Doom, negotiating with sphinxes and efreets, and sneaking into the palace of Orcus, will be core activities, and that botany, and blacksmithing, will not. This is obvious from the barest familiarity with the PC build and action resolution mechanics.

But to infer from that that the game is, or must be, or tends to be, or best supports only, shallow play is completely unfounded. Imaging myself as Aragorn the Ranger, or Lancelot the Knight of the Round Table, or Wolverine the berserker, or Doc Samson the gamma-irradiated psychoanalyst, or even Ralf the Fighter, need have nothing to do with shallow or hack-and-slash play. But as Abdul Alhazred has posted, it also needn't have much to do with thinking about my expertise in botany, nor pondering how I am going to cross the creek without drowning after last night's heavy rain.

To put it another way - _gritty_ does not have a monopoly on roleplaying, on imagination, on storytelling, or on fantasy gaming. No doubt some prefer it. But those who want a different experience aren't therefore more shallow in their tastes.


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## pemerton (Jul 10, 2011)

GSHamster said:


> In some respects, it might have been better if the 3e skill system cap didn't increase every level. I know that when I played it, I tended to think of skills as "my character is good in these three skills" and just put a point in chosen skills every level.
> 
> If the cap didn't increase so rapidly, such that players were always bumping against the cap, it would encourage them to spend excess points on new skills.



Rolemaster and HARP's solution to this problem is diminishing returns - the first 10 ranks give +5 per rank, the next 10 +2 per rank, the next 10 +1 per rank (in RM it then drops to 0.5 per rank, while HARP keeps going at 1 per rank).

This creates more of an incentive for the players of mid-to-high level PCs to diversify in skill selection.

It does have other consequences, though, like level gain being less significant at higher than lower levels (more like AD&D, less like 3E and 4e).


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## pemerton (Jul 10, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> We can debate the pros and cons of different skill system mechanics all day, but IME there is no perfect solution. My opinion is that people spend far too much time harping on these kinds of largely theoretical 'issues'. Who cares if my 30th level fighter is roughly as knowledgeable about Arcana as an optimized 1st level wizard? Is he really ever going to compare his Arcana skill to that of a situation intended for low level characters where this is going to matter? It is just irrelevant. In all my 35 years of DMing I have yet to see this situation arise.





BryonD said:


> There's your problem.
> 
> You don't understand the issues because you are confusing your own personal opinions and experiences with the preferences and experiences of the market as a whole.



I'm not all that interested in the preferences and experiences of the market as a whole.

But is _this _the great case against 4e? That it's a shallow vehicle for roleplaying because its action resolution mechanics, and the encounter building guidelines that are heavily integrated with those mechanics, presuppose that a 1st level wizard and a 30th level barbarian won't find themselves in the same party facing the same challenge? And, as a result, take the view that a +15 skill bonus typically means something different for a high level PC than for a low level one?

(Is it relevant to this discussion that, in AD&D, the meaning of 4 hit points of damage varies depending on both (i) the total number of hit points the vitim of the damage has, and (ii) rather nebulous flavour pertaining to that victim - eg most of a giant slug's hit points are meat, whereas few of a high level PC's hit points are meat? The meaning of one hit point remaining is different from character to character also, for similar reasons. But I can't tell whether or not these points are relevant, because I've lost track of what exactly the flaw in 4e is meant to be, other than not being some people's (most people's?) preferred game.)


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## JamesonCourage (Jul 10, 2011)

I think a big problem is people saying "I dislike Y edition because of these reasons" and then people defending the "attacked" edition. I can defend any edition until I'm blue in the face, but if the guy I'm talking to will still feel that way at the end of the conversation, than it's not going to change anything.

I can say I dislike a certain game because it reminds me of _X_, or I feel _Y_ when I'm playing it, or I don't think it's _Z_ based on my time playing it. Other people can disagree with me all day, but it won't negate my experiences.

For example, some people dislike 3e because of the "wizards > fighters" thing, and others never run across it, or if they do, it doesn't ruin their fun. Other people, however, can say that they dislike 4e because it "feels like a board game" or something similar, and others don't feel that way at all, since it doesn't remind them of a board game in the slightest.

However, try to convince either one of them that their experiences are wrong and you'll hit a brick wall. They aren't going to say, "you know what? You're right, that's not how I feel at all!" It just won't happen.

People have preferences. If someone states their reasoning (I feel this way; I think the game is this; it's like that to me; etc.), and people defend it (your preferred edition has the same problems; I don't feel that way at all when I play it; I don't see how you can think that, as I've never experienced it; etc.), nobody gets any closer to convincing anyone of anything.

The case against any edition? It's got stuff people don't like, based on their preferences. Your mileage may have varied.

As always, play what you like


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## Stormonu (Jul 10, 2011)

Late to the party, and this may have already been said...

I'm not fond of having the game mechanics run directly off skills - it places far too much value on having high ability scores.  I prefer skills and such to have an equal starting point, raised by investing points into it and abilities having a small influence on the total.

However, if the game were to go in the direction of being based off ability, I definitely want the ability to modify the total for certain actions.  If you're going to start characters off with, say, their Strength being used for swim, I want the ability to invest points into that check to make myself better-than-most or perhaps to represent shoring up an otherwise weak ability ("The guy's a shrimp, but I've seen him outswim sharks!").  And not just +1/2 level.  Call it a feat, power, skill points or whatever, I want ways to personalize my character's abilities.  Yeah, that adds complexity, but I want options, dammit.


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## Greg K (Jul 10, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> However, try to convince either one of them that their experiences are wrong and you'll hit a brick wall. They aren't going to say, "you know what? You're right, that's not how I feel at all!" It just won't happen.
> 
> People have preferences. If someone states their reasoning (I feel this way; I think the game is this; it's like that to me; etc.), and people defend it (your preferred edition has the same problems; I don't feel that way at all when I play it; I don't see how you can think that, as I've never experienced it; etc.), nobody gets any closer to convincing anyone of anything.




Exactly.  There are things that I, really, like about 4e. Some of them are ideas that I had wanted implemented back during 3e.  There are things that I dislike about 3e- especially, when it comes to most WOTC supplements.  However, in the end, it comes down to which issues I feel can most easily fixed with house rules (including both 3pp and official options) and which has the areas that feel more difficult to house rules and leave the deal breakers both as a DM and a player.

I accept that some people feel differently  about aspects of 3e either from experiences or just personal preference.  If someone says that something is not addressed or covered in 3e, I will point them to the information including an official rules option/variant  if it exists.  If they ask about third party coverage, I will direct them to that too.  If they claim it is for power gamers, I will point them to all of the passages stating the DM is in control of the rules and options used at their table and official variants rules that they can implement to help rein it in.

If they state that that they don't like 3e, because wizards>fighter, that they don't feel comfortable telling their players no to options (or implementing specific fixes are too much work for them), NPC generation takes too long based on their experience,  or any other reason based on preference, I will accept it as we all have preferences.  They just  should not  present it as a universal truth (which is only an issue with a couple of posters), because many people  don't encounter the  problems (although for NPC generation, I might point out not worrying about being exact unless they are planning to publish).


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## pemerton (Jul 10, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> I can say I dislike a certain game because it reminds me of _X_, or I feel _Y_ when I'm playing it, or I don't think it's _Z_ based on my time playing it. Other people can disagree with me all day, but it won't negate my experiences.
> 
> For example, some people dislike 3e because of the "wizards > fighters" thing, and others never run across it, or if they do, it doesn't ruin their fun. Other people, however, can say that they dislike 4e because it "feels like a board game" or something similar, and others don't feel that way at all, since it doesn't remind them of a board game in the slightest.



What irritates me slightly about many of the posts from those who don't play 4e ( as opposed to those who do play 4e, but identify various flaws in the system - of which I am one) is the tendency to say things like "4e is too much a boardgame" or "4e is more a combat skirmish game than an RPG" or "The roleplaying that 4e supports is only a pale shadow of what 3E can support" or things of that sort.

I see many criticisms of 3E get posted. But I don't see very many saying that those who play 3E are not roleplaying, or are having to fight against the system to play a game that is not shallow. It is the repeated tendency to suggest just these things of 4e, and either expressly or by implication of those that play it, that irritates me. (About once a month we will see the pits of this, when someone tries to shed light on 4e by discussing how you can take on a role playing Monopoly or chess, but that doesn't make those into RPGs.)

TL;DR - 3E players don't repeatedly find themselves being told that their game is not a RPG, and hence (by implication at least) that they are not roleplaying. 4e players do. On a board dedicated to roleplaying games, that is irritating (to me at least).


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 10, 2011)

Well, hmmm, much has been said. Clearly there is interest in many quarters in some changes from 4e. Some people seem to perceive an excessive level of complexity or at least option bloat, some people would rather have no skill system at all, others of us seem to like something along the lines of the current skill system, and others want long lists of narrow skills back (or some point in between perhaps). What else?

I mean I think it is interesting to consider various subsystems on their own, but ultimately a game is a whole and the parts definitely need to come together in a way that feels cohesive. It seems to me that real decisions can only arise from systematic comparative play experiences. I'm struck by the statement made a while back by someone, was it Mearls?, that they were playing through every previous edition of the game. Ahhh, it must be nice to be able to pay gamers to play with you and tinker! lol. 

Personally I feel like 4e was aimed at the right mark. I think a few characteristics emerged from the system that put it a little off that mark, and to some degree the presentation of the game seemed to miss a bit, but I suspect 4e had to happen and there's no way back now. When and if a 5e does appear it will be quite interesting to see, 4e perfected could be a very hard game to ever top in this genre.


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## CuRoi (Jul 10, 2011)

pemerton said:


> TL;DR - 3E players don't repeatedly find themselves being told that their game is not a RPG, and hence (by implication at least) that they are not roleplaying. 4e players do. On a board dedicated to roleplaying games, that is irritating (to me at least).




Perhaps you haven't been to the right boards or talked to the right people. I can probably find LOTS of people that will say 3e isn't RPing. Anyway, people are too sensitive about it so it becomes the sort of religion/politics thing. Believe what you want because no one can challenge what you believe whether 4e or 3e is "your game". I'm of the opinion both systems are flawed for my play style. It's why I started drafting my own version months ago.

And yes, the rough draft I have so far uses Abilities as "core" to the system. Dropping saving throws, spell DCs, Armor Class, in favor of an ability attack/defense scheme.

www.eyrurpg.com

(Still chumming the waters...I'm terrible at fishing I suppose cause no one is biting.)


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## JamesonCourage (Jul 10, 2011)

pemerton said:


> What irritates me slightly about many of the posts from those who don't play 4e ( as opposed to those who do play 4e, but identify various flaws in the system - of which I am one) is the tendency to say things like "4e is too much a boardgame" or "4e is more a combat skirmish game than an RPG" or "The roleplaying that 4e supports is only a pale shadow of what 3E can support" or things of that sort.




I hear many things about 3e, too, though. I rarely hear insults against 2e or other previous editions. I think this is due to the community split during the 3e -> 4e transitional period.

But I've heard how 3e is a horrible game that makes certain things worthless to play. Fighters are garbage that nobody can meaningfully play, but wizards are so good that you can't role play them without breaking the game. Etc.

This is about what mileage people have gotten out of the games, and their preferences. Trying to negate how some people feel -such as my example swipes against 3e- isn't going to work, because that's how it played out at their table.



> I see many criticisms of 3E get posted. But I don't see very many saying that those who play 3E are not roleplaying, or are having to fight against the system to play a game that is not shallow. It is the repeated tendency to suggest just these things of 4e, and either expressly or by implication of those that play it, that irritates me. (About once a month we will see the pits of this, when someone tries to shed light on 4e by discussing how you can take on a role playing Monopoly or chess, but that doesn't make those into RPGs.)




I think this has to do with role play support outside of combat, as well as the focus on miniatures. To my knowledge, there wasn't an edition yet that mandated the use of miniatures. I know I played 3e for a little over 5 years without ever using them. I'm not sure I could do that in 4e with forced movement involved.

Additionally, 2e had non-combat proficiencies, and 3e had narrow skills. I'm kind of hazy on other tools previous editions had, but I'm under the impression that as the game progressed, non-combat tools had historically increased in depth (I may be wrong on this, though). If that's the case, then people may have felt that 4e was a big step backwards in this department. And, seeing as how people were used to non-combat support, I can understand them seeing the lack of several obvious tools (Craft and Profession spring to mind) coupled with the focus on the board, and come to the conclusion that you have come to.

This isn't to say that they're objectively correct. However, I know that as someone who _does not_ use miniatures, and someone who _habitually_ uses skills like Crafts, Professions, or Performs, I was very turned off by the presentation of the game.

Then there's the step towards "gamist" play. I do admit D&D has always had it, but the fact that it was embraced as strongly as it was might support the feeling that those who play the game are indeed playing something like a board game. If I have rules that seem to dictate how things are in a  board game that are purely for the game play's benefit, I don't mind if it doesn't address the "fluff" of the game. On the other hand, when this is introduced into an RPG, I can understand people making that connection.

When compared to 3e, few of these are significant issues. So, I'd submit the possibility that while some people had RP problems with 3e, more people had RP problems with 4e, and thus the split, and the higher number of claims of such a hard time dealing with 4e.

It's not malicious, inherently, to state how you feel. The community has different reactions to different editions, as prominently shown by the reception of 3e compared to 4e. Yes, 3e had its detractors, but not to the degree that 4e did, and I believe that is in part because of the reasons outlined above. To some, those changes "make it more like a board game, and less like a role playing game."

And you know what? They're not wrong to feel that way. You're not wrong to disagree with them. Both of you are wrong the moment you try to negate that feeling.



> TL;DR - 3E players don't repeatedly find themselves being told that their game is not a RPG, and hence (by implication at least) that they are not roleplaying. 4e players do. On a board dedicated to roleplaying games, that is irritating (to me at least).




I understand the irritation, but, again, I don't think it's malicious. There are definitely malicious 3e warriors, don't get me wrong. But I see more malicious posting from the other side. I see more "your argument doesn't matter" and "your feelings don't matter" and "your opinion isn't correct" and "your view of what makes an enjoyable game is objectively wrong" coming from 4e posters than from 3e posters. I see that in this thread, and in other threads.

The fact that "Nineball" is back isn't helping that view any, though. He is by no means alone, though. Just as there are certain posters in support of 3e who state "4e is not D&D" with objective certainty and are wrong, so too are the 4e supporters who try to negate the feelings and opinions of those who dislike their favored edition.

Like I said, I do get that you're frustrated by people saying "4e isn't a RPG" since it's demonstrably false. That attack on it is about as valid as saying "3e is for powergamers" to me. I mean, some people might experience either one, but that doesn't make it true for everyone, and absolute statements that draw from purely personal experience with such subjective material should be avoided, in my opinion.

And, like I said in the quote you responded to, it comes down to preference. Your mileage has varied. It really is that simple.

As always, play what you like


----------



## SteveC (Jul 11, 2011)

BryonD said:


> There's your problem.
> 
> You don't understand the issues because you are confusing your own personal opinions and experiences with the preferences and experiences of the market as a whole.



If only people would take this advice to heart, there would be so many fewer arguments on message boards.

I'd say it especially applies to games people don't actually play.


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 11, 2011)

> It is always "4e is bad."




Well, the wonder of the internet is, you don't have to participate in such discussions. 

Discussions will always include some segment of "I think this thing is bad." We've just had over a decade of talking about the flaws in 3e (from scry-buff-teleport to shoddy grapple rules), and we've only had about 3 years of talking about 4e's problems (long combats, balance obsession, rejection of previous story material), so there's a lot more about 4e to talk about.

And, of course, there are more subjective and relative problems. Some folks really didn't like the fighter/spellcaster balance split in previous editions, but individual campaigns could handle them just fine pretty often, on a practical basis, so there's many that never encountered the problem. 

But if you don't like hearing it, you don't have to hear it.


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## JamesonCourage (Jul 11, 2011)

Nineball said:


> If someone is telling me that the edition of D&D that I play isn't D&D, they are wrong.




*Sympathetic pat* It _is_ wrong. But don't worry, Cirno, you have 4e, and you can be happy playing it, and they'll never convince you not to enjoy it. That goes both ways, though.

As always, play what you like


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 11, 2011)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Well, the wonder of the internet is, you don't have to participate in such discussions.
> 
> Discussions will always include some segment of "I think this thing is bad." We've just had over a decade of talking about the flaws in 3e (from scry-buff-teleport to shoddy grapple rules), and we've only had about 3 years of talking about 4e's problems (long combats, balance obsession, rejection of previous story material), so there's a lot more about 4e to talk about.
> 
> ...




Agreed, but when many of these statements are based on exaggeration or misconstrual it does get quite tiresome.


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## SteveC (Jul 11, 2011)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Well, the wonder of the internet is, you don't have to participate in such discussions.
> 
> Discussions will always include some segment of "I think this thing is bad." We've just had over a decade of talking about the flaws in 3e (from scry-buff-teleport to shoddy grapple rules), and we've only had about 3 years of talking about 4e's problems (long combats, balance obsession, rejection of previous story material), so there's a lot more about 4e to talk about.
> 
> ...



I just wanted to make a quick comment about this. This isn't directed at KM specifically, but is intended to be more general. Of course if you don't like hearing about the problems of 4E you don't have to listen to or read them. This is in large part why I find myself reading the general forum a lot less these days, since it tends to focus on negativism when 4E comes up. That's why I don't read it, and why I think a lot of the 4E crowd doesn't come in here that much.

And that's a shame, really. This isn't the Pathfinder discussion group or the OSR group or, well, you get the idea. It's the general group. My vision for a general discussion board is that everyone gets to discuss things, but grudges are checked at the door. A sort of "Casablanca with no Nazis" (with apologies to Godwin's rule).

Largely this happens for every other rule system (obviously not exclusively, there are exceptions but they are rare--and I don't agree with them either!). The issue is that people just can't seem to behave with any sort of decorum around 4E issues.

To me, this is a simple issue of respect. I have played a lot of 3X, and some Pathfinder, and I don't like them very much anymore. I could go on a really hateful screed about how bad they are for any of the common faults, but what would be the point? Plenty of good folks who have lots of interesting things to say about gaming play Pathfinder or 3X, and I'd be insulting them if I 
decided to come in and rail on their games in this forum (not to mention the Pathfinder one!)

The thing is: there are a lot of general RPG topics that I find interesting and fun to discuss that aren't system dependent. I'm playing 4E at the moment, so comments I make about my game are going to come through that lens, just as someone who's playing Labyrinth Lord will be thinking in those terms.

Here's the point: most (if not all) of the issues about campaigns, game sessions, classes, player issues, DM issues, races, spells, powers, encounters, monsters, traps... frankly you name it that you discuss about D&D are system independent. Each edition handles things differently, of course, but you're talking about a very similar game across the editions, especially if you compare D&D to other RPGs, even other fantasy RPGs. I can have a discussion with a Castles and Crusades player about how their game is going and we'll make sense to each other in a way that, say, an Eclipse Phase or Dresden Files game discussion wouldn't.

I'm not sure if this long-winded post makes any sense, so let me distill it to this: while 4E players can simply not get involved with discussions about how their edition of the game is a board game, a MMO, too simple, too complex, not D&D, a superhero game or any other number of things, starting that kind of discussion is being a jerk. Don't be a jerk in general, okay?


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 11, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Agreed, but when many of these statements are based on exaggeration or misconstrual it does get quite tiresome.




Yes, and that is the heart of my problem with some of the discussion. It is fairly clear that a lot (but by no means all of it) is coming from people who have never given 4E any serious attention, much less played it for any length of time. But even that's ok in a way, because people have critical facilities, and a big part of that ability is understanding things somewhat before you experience them in order to understand if you want to experience them more. That is a major part of how people keep from wasting their time.

Feeling naturally plays a huge part of this. You really should listen to your instincts.

OTOH, what we actually get in text is some variation on (hyperbole here so that the point is clear) of: "I feel this doesn't work. I kind of looked at it briefly. I tried it once with some people that I didn't know, who were hack and slashers, and it went about like you'd expect. My second cousin, three times removed knows a guy whose wife was in a group where the DM said it absolutely sucked at roleplaying/characterization/whatever." And then based on this as the starting place for a discussion, we get the reason *why* so and so thinks this.

You listen to your instincts. You check your feelings. You go with your experience thus far. And then before you go and tell other people about what X can or can't accomplish, you remember that all of these things are very useful but prone to spectacular failures, too. Maybe, just maybe, your instincts and feelings and brief experiences are managing to tell you that you won't like something, and are correct in doing so, but the *why* is not exactly as you think.

And this, BTW, is exactly where I part with some of the more rabid 4E defenders that have, as near as I can tell, made exactly the same kind of category errors knocking 3E, in the mistaken assumption that a counter-attack on edition grounds gets anywhere with such problems.

It is entirely true, for example, that there are issues with the 3E fighter, vis-a-vis wizards/clerics/druids, that bother some people in ways that can be directly traced back to the balance and mechanics. In order to compensate for this, many people have used some combination of player fiat, DM story crafting to gloss over the issues, and other things. If someone feels (as I do), that the amount of such tricks is excessive for what you get in return, then the system is not entirely a good fit. But it is precisely the same bridge too far to generalize from this personal fact to some wild conclusion that the 3E fighter is a hopeless situation, inherently. For other people, navigating this issue may be almost as easy as breathing, and thus not much worth worrying about. For them, it isn't entirely correct to say that the problem doesn't exist, but is correct to say that the issue is not causing any trouble. Practically speaking, the problem doesn't exist for them.

It is the difference between "solving problems" versus "managing issues". (A key business skill is telling the difference, so that one can apply the correct category of solutions. Try to "solve" some "problem" that is really human nature showing itself again, and you will get nowhere.) Well, in games, some things are solved, some things are partially solved, and some things are sort of solved if you squint at them in bright light on alternate Wednesdays. And then for other things, the game gives you tools or advice to manage them--or sometimes throws up its hands and tells you to deal with it. And in fairness, as with any model, whole reams of problems and issues are shunted aside, deliberately, by the game as, "too much trouble to handle or risk for too little benefit." 

So it is a cogent but debatable argument, for example, to say that the 4E designers messed up when they took the issue of the 3E fighter needing to be "managed" in certain ways as a "problem" which they then "solved" at the expense of less granular skills, giving the fighter daily exploits, etc. The place to draw the line between what you can "solve" versus what you are left to "manage" always has costs at the margins, no matter which way you go. And of course, the decisions you make intersect with other parts of the system, and have costs and benefits there, too.

To make that argument, one has to first realize that not only does the 3E fighter have "issues" that some people have "managed", but also that the new "issues" that have emerged from the new 4E fighter "solution" are "issues" that some other people have equally "managed." And they did this without dropping all roleplaying or playing a board game or any other of the trivial ideas that might first suggest themselves. 

For every problem, someone will quickly suggest a solution that is, "simple, obvious, and wrong." Those solutions are all provided by people that stopped with their instincts, feelings, and a cursory examination of the subject matter.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 11, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> Yes, and that is the heart of my problem with some of the discussion. It is fairly clear that a lot (but by no means all of it) is coming from people who have never given 4E any serious attention, much less played it for any length of time. But even that's ok in a way, because people have critical facilities, and a big part of that ability is understanding things somewhat before you experience them in order to understand if you want to experience them more. That is a major part of how people keep from wasting their time.




Yeah, I don't know that I feel it is so much an issue of people simply haven't played 4e. That may be, but what I see is that the same refrain gets repeated endlessly.

I look at it this way, sure I've DMed for as long as anyone in existence practically, but I don't claim to be some kind of brilliant genius DM. So I don't think I'm possessed of some unusual ability to pull magic out of a game. So, when I hear for the 80 thousandth time that "oh, 4e ignores role playing, you don't even get perform, profession, and craft! Everything is just combat!" my reaction has to be "bunk" because it simply isn't true. Again, I'm not some brilliant DM, yet I have no problem using the perfectly good facilities that 4e provides for these kinds of things. Other people may not LIKE the way these things are handled in 4e, OK. That's a matter of taste, but CLEARLY the game accommodates these things and it does so  with a facility that is perfectly adequate to allow this ordinary DM to use them perfectly effectively. Thus, yes, the reaction to these kinds of comments is at best to explain for the umpteenth time how it works in 4e or often one is sick and tired of that and the response is just "your talking kaka, go away." It certainly isn't advancing any debate anymore or providing any kind of insight into the game. That could probably be equally said about common criticisms of 3.x as well, as you pointed out. I don't really want to hear either side of that anymore personally.


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## pemerton (Jul 11, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> I think this has to do with role play support outside of combat
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



Whether or not malice is involved I think varies from poster to poster and post to post. I think more of it is based on ignorance rather than malice - in particular, ignorance of the RPGs that inspired the 4e design.

The non-combat issue is one clear example of this. As a preliminary, it has to be noted that the failure of a game to support crafting or profession as part of its action resolution mechanics _manifestly_ does not show that it's all about combat. (It is frequently said, for example, that combat - as opposed to exploration and looting - was secondary to classic D&D play. Whether or not this is true, the way that classic D&D approaches crafting and professions - namely, by treating them as something you pay NPCs to do - is obviously neither here nor there to its truth.)

But moving to the more substantive point, 4e has non-combat encounter design guidelines and action resolution mechanics - namely, skill challenges - that are very obviously inspired by scene-framing-and-resolution mechanics of the sort found in games like HeroQuest, Burning Wheel, Maelstrom Storytelling etc. Now it is an open question (i) whether or not one wants that sort of action resolution mechanic, and (ii) whether or not skill challenges are a good design for such a mechanic (to my mind they have some difficulties, both obvious and subtle, but are far from hopeless). But these games are obviously roleplaying games, and generally well-regarded ones.

So when a discussion about 4e begins from the premise that it is not an RPG because it doesn't address non-combat activities, something has (to my mind) already gone pretty wrong.

Another relevant piece of data that I've posted before, but - as best I recall - never had any response to: of the 21 wizard utility powers in the PHB, at least 9 have obvious or primary non-combat utility, and of the 18 warlock utilities, at least 11 have obvious or primary non-combat utility. Yet one frequently is told that PC powers are all about combat.

And in this post on another current thread we have one poster saying "If a mechanic says that a thief or a fighter can perform some action which doesn't align to thieving or fighting at all... something similar to teleportation (you just appear somewhere else), then you begin to lose me" and other posters awarding XP and quoting with approval. But how many rogue powers in PHB, MP and MP2 grant teleportation? One: a level 22 utility power called "Mountebank’s Flight" with the flavour text "You steal a bit of magic to stow away on another creature’s teleportation." (There is also a 20th level teleportation power for the paragon path Arcane Trickster.) Across those books, how many fighter powers grant telepotation? None. (Again, a fighter paragon path which requires warlock multi-classing grants a teleportation utility power at level 12)

I don't think posters on an internet forum have any sort of _duty_ to know what they're talking about. It's a hobby site, not an academic colloquium. But comments based on obvious ignorance or disregard of the actual rules text for the game are irritating nevertheless.

As to the gamism - I'm not sure what this means. In the Forge sense, classic D&D is a highly gamist version of D&D (Gygax's instructions to players at the end of his PHB are all about "stepping on up" and engaging in "skilled play"). So is 3E. 4e is playable in a gamist fashion, though very different from classic D&D (it doesn't support Gygaxian "skilled play" very well) and also (in my view) provides the best support for narrativist play of any version of D&D. 2nd ed AD&d is the only version of D&D I know that, at least in its official rules text, decried gamist play in the Forge sense.

If by "gamism" you mean "ignoring the fiction", then we're right back to the suggestion that 4e is stepping away from being a roleplaying game.


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 11, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:
			
		

> Agreed, but when many of these statements are based on exaggeration or misconstrual it does get quite tiresome.




Welcome, welcome, welcome, one and all, too _the internet_! 

Ever been to a politics website? We're pussycats over here. 

Not that it's not wrong, just that you're not going to convince someone who thinks that 4e shot their dog that 4e is the sex. Likewise, you're not going to convince someone who thinks 4e is the pinnacle of modern design that it is a waste of time and effort. The extremes can't find a middle. You can't carry on a _discussion_ with someone so polarized. The most you can do is try to find the reasonable position that they launched from, and try to talk about that...or just ignore it entirely. 



			
				SteveC said:
			
		

> My vision for a general discussion board is that everyone gets to discuss things, but grudges are checked at the door.




My vision for my life is that I have a unicorn that dispenses ice cream and a nightly booty call from Halle Berry. I'm slightly more likely to have my vision realized than you are to have yours.  

STILL: Good vision! 



> Largely this happens for every other rule system (obviously not exclusively, there are exceptions but they are rare--and I don't agree with them either!). The issue is that people just can't seem to behave with any sort of decorum around 4E issues.




Talking about a sometimes-emotional issue, to me, is a lot like driving.

I can't control how anyone else drives. I can only control how _I_ drive. My job isn't to stop other people from driving recklessly, it's to not drive recklessly myself, and to get the hell out of the way when someone is driving recklessly. 

Again, we're not so bad here. Politics. Religion. Apple products. People get crazy about stuff that helps identify them. To a lot of people, D&D is something they identify with. Other rules systems don't often have this problem, since other rules systems don't inspire quite the same level of personal identification that D&D can inspire. 



> while 4E players can simply not get involved with discussions about how their edition of the game is a board game, a MMO, too simple, too complex, not D&D, a superhero game or any other number of things, starting that kind of discussion is being a jerk.




My reaction is generally to do some detective work to find the sane point that they leapt off from in a frothing mania.  

Someone thinks 4e is a board game? Well, maybe it's because they don't like playing with minis and a grid, which 4e *is* pretty dependent on. Maybe a D&D that didn't rely on that so much would be better.

Someone thinks 4e is an MMO? Well, maybe it's because they don't think 4e offers much choice, since so many powers are all about damage. Maybe a D&D that diversified the threats a party faced would be better.

Someone thinks 4e is too complex or too simple? Well, maybe it's because it isn't the right complexity in the right places for everyone. Maybe a D&D that let you choose your level of complexity would be better (mearls's posts often hit this point!). 

Someone thinks 4e is "not D&D"? Well, maybe it's because 4e ditched a lot of the story elements of earlier editions. Maybe a D&D that embraced the tropes that people love would be better.

Someone thinks 4e is a superhero game? Well, maybe it's because 4e characters always feel above and beyond the turnip farmers and town guards that start adventures in fiction. Maybe a D&D that embraced that tier of play more would be better.

It's undoubtedly a jerky way to start off a thread, and it's undoubtedly an emotional over-reaction to something that's probably quite solvable, but it's almost always based in something that makes sense. It takes work to get there, and not everyone would enjoy putting in that work, but for me, discovering what people like or don't like about certain elements (and it's almost always don't like -- people are almost always, universally, on about what they don't like, no matter what the topic) helps me explore the diversity of the D&D player community. People have reasons for what they believe, even if they express their beliefs like frothing lunatics. We _all_ do that from time to time, about things that are emotional to us. 



> Don't be a jerk in general, okay?




Good advice! But we're all jerks sometimes, especially about things that are important to us, and we all have to live in a world where sometimes, people are jerks. And getting all riled up and confrontational about it doesn't help the problem. You can't control how other people drive. All you can do is watch your blind spot, and maybe hide your drunk friend's keys before they try and drive home. 

Haters gonna hate. You can't put a cap on it. Learn from it, or ignore it. Deal with it, and move on. Don't let it drag _you_ down, because that's the only way the hate wins.

Oh, and to reward those people reading to Page 15, here's a picture of Halle Berry.





You're welcome.


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## JamesonCourage (Jul 11, 2011)

pemerton said:


> If by "gamism" you mean "ignoring the fiction", then we're right back to the suggestion that 4e is stepping away from being a roleplaying game.




1) Please, please, _please_ don't put words into my mouth, assume I meant anything beyond what I've written (as you've assumed incorrectly in other threads, and I can quote those if you'd like), or try to twist this into some sort of argument.

2) Let me go back to what I originally posted (what you originally replied to):


			
				JamesonCourage said:
			
		

> The case against any edition? It's got stuff people don't like, based on their preferences. Your mileage may have varied.




3) You telling me that how I feel is wrong, or how anyone else feels is wrong, based on your views or experiences? Again, let me go back to what I wrote:


			
				JamesonCourage said:
			
		

> However, try to convince either one of them that their experiences are wrong and you'll hit a brick wall. They aren't going to say, "you know what? You're right, that's not how I feel at all!" It just won't happen.




If you don't think these are reasonable people, or assertions, or the like, feel free to say why. These are discussion boards. You aren't right when you say that their views are wrong. You are right when you correct their "objective" broad-based claims on the game, if it conflicts with your game.

But, again, if you tell anyone "that's not entirely correct because of _X_" then I wouldn't expect them to change their views. I know that I have not budged in my assessment of the game based on our limited discussions. You can bring nothing intellectually to the table that will "correct" my feelings. Nor can you do it for anyone else, no matter how "wrong" they are to feel that way.

I know you accept others not liking the game. I'd say it's probably not right to extrapolate certain posters' replies to most people who agree with them. Are some people malicious? Of course. Are some ignorant of the actual mechanics? You bet. Are they going to feel differently if you debate with them? Not at all.

I see nothing productive about arguing about it. It's much more productive to say "my mileage has varied" and then expand upon it. For example, in another thread we both participated in, I mentioned that I did something differently than Hussar. Lost Soul inquired as to what it was, and after I gave an example to him, he found it interesting, XP'd me, and told me it may end up changing his view on something.

I'd take that experience and apply it to this discussion. If I say "4e feels like a board game to me, and I don't feel like I can role play with it," then it's perfectly constructive to say, "that's not my experience at all. I was able to role play just fine, and I had no mental connection to a board game. I guess we had different experiences."

However, if you said, "no, it's not like a board game, because it's _X_, and you're wrong about not being able to role play, because I most certainly have while playing it," then it's now just going to be an argument.

I will not be sucked into an argument with you, nor anyone else from either side of this issue. Both sides have problem posts, both sides have posters who are inflammatory, and both sides have posters who have temporary lapses in judgment. I get that. But, again, anyone from either side telling anyone else that their experiences are invalid is just wrong. It's that simple.

If you want a debate, there are plenty of people in these forums that will engage you. If you want to discuss things, I'm wiling to do that. You can champion 4e because it's a fun game that you and your friends can explore themes in. That's great. Please, do not try to argue with my opinions or my views without an invitation to do so. I'm not looking to argue. I'm looking for discussion.

As always, play what you like 



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> [SNIP]
> Haters gonna hate. You can't put a cap on it. Learn from it, or ignore it. Deal with it, and move on. Don't let it drag you down, because that's the only way the hate wins.




Very good post (can't XP again yet).



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> You're welcome.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 11, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> 1) Please, please, _please_ don't put words into my mouth, assume I meant anything beyond what I've written (as you've assumed incorrectly in other threads, and I can quote those if you'd like), or try to twist this into some sort of argument.
> 
> 2) Let me go back to what I originally posted (what you originally replied to):
> 
> ...




Sure, but as pemerton said, there are certain 'issues' and certain statements that come up again and again, and no number of repetitions of "no, fighters can't teleport" or "if you want to be able to play the lute you can just put it in your background, it doesn't change anything mechanically about your character" ever sinks in. I totally agree, people don't have to like those answers, but I'm just not getting anything out of hearing these "truths" repeated again and again. 

It is absolutely true, nobody is going to be convinced to like what they don't like in some kind of online debate. OTOH a "OK, I see, you can do X like that in 4e, I still don't like doing it that way but yeah you can do that and its fine if it works for you." Now, sometimes I hear that. Usually not though.


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## JamesonCourage (Jul 11, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Sure, but as pemerton said, there are certain 'issues' and certain statements that come up again and again, and no number of repetitions of "no, fighters can't teleport" or "if you want to be able to play the lute you can just put it in your background, it doesn't change anything mechanically about your character" ever sinks in. I totally agree, people don't have to like those answers, but I'm just not getting anything out of hearing these "truths" repeated again and again.
> 
> It is absolutely true, nobody is going to be convinced to like what they don't like in some kind of online debate. OTOH a "OK, I see, you can do X like that in 4e, I still don't like doing it that way but yeah you can do that and its fine if it works for you." Now, sometimes I hear that. Usually not though.




If your point is "not everyone is reasonable" then all I can do is agree with you. It's not confined to one side of a topic, nor one topic, nor just the RPG hobby, though.

If this is basically "I wish people were more reasonable" all I can do is sympathize, because telling me that you wish that was the case is something I can relate to, but cannot fix.

As always, play what you like


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## pemerton (Jul 11, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> 1) Please, please, _please_ don't put words into my mouth, assume I meant anything beyond what I've written (as you've assumed incorrectly in other threads, and I can quote those if you'd like), or try to twist this into some sort of argument.



Well, what _did_ you mean by "4e's step towards gamist play"?

I offered two readings - "gamism" in the Forge sense, which D&D - except for 2nd ed - has always been oriented towards - and "gamism" in the sense of "ignoring the fiction". Apparently you didn't mean either of those things.



JamesonCourage said:


> You aren't right when you say that their views are wrong.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



It's none of my business what anyone else's preferences are. But on a messageboard about roleplaying, if someone posts and tells me that the game I happen to prefer playing at present _isn't an RPG_, I think it's within the legitimate bounds of discussion to explain why I disagree.

I believe that you don't like 4e. I don't like 3E. And I loathe 2nd ed AD&D. I have a soft spot for Runequest, but could never play it seriously, because it doesn't support the sort of play I enjoy. Classic Traveller likewise.

These are all statements of feeling. But describing 4e as taking a step towards gamist play looks to me like something else. It _looks_ like a description of the sort of play that 4e supports, and presumably, then, that 4e players engage in. And I'm curious as to what you had in mind.

Maybe you meant "not tending to support immersion, in the sense of the player and the PC having their decision-making experience mereged"? If so, that is true (I think obviously true) of 4e. But there are clearer ways to express that than by saying "it's a boardgame" or "it's not an RPG". Those are obviously inflammatory.


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## JamesonCourage (Jul 11, 2011)

pemerton said:


> Well, what _did_ you mean by "4e's step towards gamist play"?
> 
> I offered two readings - "gamism" in the Forge sense, which D&D - except for 2nd ed - has always been oriented towards - and "gamism" in the sense of "ignoring the fiction". Apparently you didn't mean either of those things.




And asking me what I mean is exceptionally different from assuming what I mean. I'm not going to argue with you on this, or anything else, though.



> It's none of my business what anyone else's preferences are. But on a messageboard about roleplaying, if someone posts and tells me that the game I happen to prefer playing at present _isn't an RPG_, I think it's within the legitimate bounds of discussion to explain why I disagree.
> 
> I believe that you don't like 4e. I don't like 3E. And I loathe 2nd ed AD&D. I have a soft spot for Runequest, but could never play it seriously, because it doesn't support the sort of play I enjoy. Classic Traveller likewise.
> 
> ...




Those are inflammatory statements. You're right. And like I said, if this entire complaint is "some people aren't reasonable" then I agree. However, it seems very one-sided. There are multiple posters on both sides of this issue that make inflammatory statements, and instead of seeing people post "both sides do it" I get "well, that side makes inflammatory statements!"

I mean, some people other than myself have said that both sides engage in it. And intellectually, we both know that they do. So, saying "some people say _this_ about _X_" is a very poor statement, in my opinion, as it seems like you're trying to color all detractors with that argument.

If that's not the case, as I suspect it isn't, then I don't see why you need to single out one side. I know you said that you see more "4e isn't an RPG" than "3e isn't an RPG." I agree. I see more "3e is for powergamers" than "4e is for powergamers."

Both can be experienced. Neither are objectively true to the player base as a whole. I don't understand why it's "some people say _this_ about 4e" rather than "there are some unreasonable people on both sides."

That seems, to me, to be a much more reasonable statement. One that is much less tinted with bias, to be sure. But, again, telling either side that their feelings are invalid, even if it's about something inflammatory, isn't going to change it.

The best you can do is, like I said, say "my mileage has differed." If someone makes an incorrect statement, it's much more effective to ask where they got their information, rather than to say, "no, you're incorrect." Because, really, if they don't like the game, then them mischaracterizing it in a poor light is a statement on their personal character. You calling them out on making inaccurate statements isn't going to change how they feel.

Some people are unreasonable. I can think of posters who are anti-4e and who make inflammatory statements. I can think of posters who are anti-3e and make inflammatory statements. I don't think these statements paint them in a good light. And, though many agree with their conclusion, far fewer probably agree with the passion of their position.

There are unreasonable people. Why it's selective on this issue, at the moment, is something I don't understand.

As always, play what you like


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## pemerton (Jul 11, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> I don't see why you need to single out one side.



More or less for the reasons that SteveC gave upthread - that I want to talk about roleplaying (I'm posting on an RPG site, after all), including talking about actual play experiences, rules experiences etc that I have with my game, and get frustrated by the seemingly constant need to explain and/or justify my chosen ruleset - _especially_ in light of the apparent ignorance of many of its critics of the games that have influenced it.

If 3E posters find that their discussions of their gaming and actual play experiences are getting similarly disrupted, then I have some sympathy for them. I personally don't notice so much evidence of this, but then this is the sort of thing where the interests of the observer might be expected to influence the observations.

To put much the same point a slightly different way - every time I open General there are one or more new threads about (i) why 4e sucks (see the current Dissociated Mechanics thread) or (ii) why 4e is about to/needs to be replaced by 5e or (iii) some combination of or variation on the above.

It's been a while since I've seen General peppered with threads about why we're well rid of 3E, and if only Pathfinder would be next on the block! Again, maybe they're there and I'm just less sensitive to them.

To put much the same point yet a different way - I've never seen anyone on these boards say that 3E is not a game in which serious roleplaying can take place, and is in fact a vehicle only for shallow play. Yet things of this sort are repeatedly said about or implied of 4e (often in, but not confined to, threads of type (i), (ii) and (iii) above).

It irritates me. And it seems to me unnecessary. We all know 4e has metagame mechanics. It's just about the first thing any thinking person will notice upon reading the rules. It's why I play it. It's why some people don't like it. But do we need thread after thread with people banging on about how metagame mechanices are the death of roleplaying?


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 11, 2011)

pemerton said:


> More or less for the reasons that SteveC gave upthread - that I want to talk about roleplaying (I'm posting on an RPG site, after all), including talking about actual play experiences, rules experiences etc that I have with my game, and get frustrated by the seemingly constant need to explain and/or justify my chosen ruleset - _especially_ in light of the apparent ignorance of many of its critics of the games that have influenced it.
> 
> If 3E posters find that their discussions of their gaming and actual play experiences are getting similarly disrupted, then I have some sympathy for them. I personally don't notice so much evidence of this, but then this is the sort of thing where the interests of the observer might be expected to influence the observations.
> 
> ...




Exactly. I mean I haven't gone around to 3.x/PF themed discussion threads to see exactly how often they get bombed by fans of 4e telling people how flawed 4e is or how flawed their experience with it or opinion of it was. However I am going to say that my general impression is this doesn't happen much. 

Yet EVERY SINGLE TIME 4e is discussed in almost any way shape or form, even on the 4e specific forum, the same pattern of comments appears. It just about never fails. What is the compulsion which is operating here? I don't get it. 

I mean the topic of this thread was Mike Mearls' post about ability scores and how they could be used in a game, yet again it devolved into how much 4e skills suck and etc. Some of it started out relevant to the topic, but I think anyone reviewing the thread is going to see what I'm getting at here.


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## JamesonCourage (Jul 11, 2011)

pemerton said:


> More or less for the reasons that SteveC gave upthread - that I want to talk about roleplaying (I'm posting on an RPG site, after all), including talking about actual play experiences, rules experiences etc that I have with my game, and get frustrated by the seemingly constant need to explain and/or justify my chosen ruleset - _especially_ in light of the apparent ignorance of many of its critics of the games that have influenced it.
> 
> If 3E posters find that their discussions of their gaming and actual play experiences are getting similarly disrupted, then I have some sympathy for them. I personally don't notice so much evidence of this, but then this is the sort of thing where the interests of the observer might be expected to influence the observations.
> 
> ...




Let me take this last sentence, and apply your own opening sentence to it:







			
				pemerton said:
			
		

> But do we need thread after thread with people banging on about how metagame mechanices are the death of roleplaying?





			
				pemerton said:
			
		

> that I want to talk about roleplaying (I'm posting on an RPG site, after all), including talking about actual play experiences, rules experiences etc




When the latest edition of the biggest game in the market has embraced a style (metagame mechanics) that rubs much of the previous the wrong way, then I don't honestly see a problem with discussing it. That topic is just people who "want to talk about roleplaying ([and are] posting on an RPG site, after all), including talking about actual play experiences, rules experiences etc."

Giving emotional responses because some people make irrational statements does not contribute to a productive discussion. It just doesn't.

And, you may not notice others bash 3e as often, but it most certainly does happen. Look at catastrophic in other threads, or quotes remaining from Nineball (I can't comment more on this, as it's against the forum rules, as far as I know). They're very inflammatory, and they tell people "objectively" what "innovation" must be, and that nobody could "RP wizards without breaking the game." These are not uncommon statements. Nor are swipes against 4e with posters like Jimlock or the like.

I know that it bugs you on a personal level, but, again, I don't see any more of a problem with "meta mechanics detract from RPing" than "powergaming detracts from RPing." I think both can be true at tables, and both are false as blanket objective statements.

People will talk about stuff with which you don't agree. People will make irrational or erroneous or malicious statements. I don't think it's one-sided, nor do I think it's particularly good for a discussion to throw out one-sided complaints when it can be applied to both sides. This is just going to either form or cement two different sides in a thread, and then we likely have an argument, not a discussion.

To me, that's unnecessary. Just like the irrational blanket statements of "objective" fact that both sides spout forth. Just my two cents.

As always, play what you like


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 11, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> Let me take this last sentence, and apply your own opening sentence to it:
> 
> 
> When the latest edition of the biggest game in the market has embraced a style (metagame mechanics) that rubs much of the previous the wrong way, then I don't honestly see a problem with discussing it. That topic is just people who "want to talk about roleplaying ([and are] posting on an RPG site, after all), including talking about actual play experiences, rules experiences etc."
> ...




Agreed, but again it was essentially a thread discussing Mike's thoughts on what is presumably 4e. Again, is practically every thread discussing some element of 3.5 or PF inevitably bombed with the same opinions? I'm skeptical. I know I don't even look at them let alone post in them. I'll admit, this thread isn't entirely a thread about 4e and it is certainly relevant to discuss various aspects of game design and contrast different design decisions and their ramifications in the light of what Mike is saying. So yeah, the whole topic wasn't perhaps totally out of place here, but it just seems like someone always has to chum the waters. lol.


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## JamesonCourage (Jul 11, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Agreed, but again it was essentially a thread discussing Mike's thoughts on what is presumably 4e. Again, is practically every thread discussing some element of 3.5 or PF inevitably bombed with the same opinions? I'm skeptical. I know I don't even look at them let alone post in them. I'll admit, this thread isn't entirely a thread about 4e and it is certainly relevant to discuss various aspects of game design and contrast different design decisions and their ramifications in the light of what Mike is saying. So yeah, the whole topic wasn't perhaps totally out of place here, but it just seems like someone always has to chum the waters. lol.




There are posters who mainly post in the D&D Legacy section that caused me to eventually migrate mainly over to this forum. I imagine there will be posts in every forum that end up with people chipping in something that is irrational. I see those types of posts commonly out of this site, and occasionally within this site. That's actually one of the reasons I prefer this site: it's much, much less prevalent here, and the mods do a fantastic job of keeping things civil.

Yeah, there are irrational posters who attack 4e. They shouldn't do that. What more is there to say about it, really?

As always, play what you like


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 11, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:
			
		

> Sure, but as pemerton said, there are certain 'issues' and certain statements that come up again and again, and no number of repetitions of "no, fighters can't teleport" or "if you want to be able to play the lute you can just put it in your background, it doesn't change anything mechanically about your character" ever sinks in.




It doesn't sink in because those points ignore the real issues. 

"Fighters Can't Teleport" ignores the real issue at the heart of the "4e powers are too magical for warriors!" That's just contradiction, naysaying. Understanding why someone feels the way they do is hard to do when you automatically shut them down as wrong. They might *be* wrong, but they probably have a reason for thinking that way, anyway. A reason like "some fighter powers do pretty damn magical things when you view power use as cause and effect, and I don't like not viewing it in that way."

"Just Put It In Your Background" ignores the real issue at the heart of "I can't play the lute in 4e!", too. It's dismissive. Again, they might be incorrect, but there's a reason they think this way. A reason like "4e doesn't involve very satisfying noncombat rules." 

Both of those latter parts are fairly valid criticisms of 4e. 4e does have effect-based power design, and is pretty shoddy on rules that aren't combat. The flailing "Superhero fighters!" and "Can't have noncombat abilities!" are just out-sized reactions about that fact. 

If you're going to enter a discussion with someone, you should entertain the idea that, even if they're a little off-base now, that they are a reasonable person, and try and understand how a reasonable person could come to believe it. 

"You're Wrong!" isn't very constructive conversation.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 11, 2011)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> It doesn't sink in because those points ignore the real issues.
> 
> "Fighters Can't Teleport" ignores the real issue at the heart of the "4e powers are too magical for warriors!" That's just contradiction, naysaying. Understanding why someone feels the way they do is hard to do when you automatically shut them down as wrong. They might *be* wrong, but they probably have a reason for thinking that way, anyway. A reason like "some fighter powers do pretty damn magical things when you view power use as cause and effect, and I don't like not viewing it in that way."
> 
> ...




I am not saying anyone is WRONG. But look at what you've said, "pretty shoddy" ain't exactly either accurate in my opinion nor is it constructive. Actually I think the way these things were designed in 4e was a very conscious calculated game design decision, elegant, and effective. I don't demand that everyone like it, but really at least people can try to understand the underlying game design issues which were being addressed. Maybe not everyone is going to get it, but no that kind of thing isn't 'reasonable'. I'm perfectly happy to discuss what I see as the theory behind the design, but there's no answering "it's just crap!" It says nothing profound. It may express one person's feelings on the particular subject but what is the point of posting those kinds of statements? Does it win someone some kind of points? lol. Yes, I get it, there are always some in every batch... Again, it is perfectly fine to discuss it, but can we establish a few conversational skills? Can this be educational. Perhaps someone will at least gain some understanding of the why's and wherefores. I don't expect a whole lot of changing of people's taste in games, but at least understand what you're criticizing. It can only bring greater insight.


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## Balesir (Jul 11, 2011)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Someone thinks 4e is a board game? Well, maybe it's because they don't like playing with minis and a grid, which 4e *is* pretty dependent on. Maybe a D&D that didn't rely on that so much would be better.
> 
> Someone thinks 4e is an MMO? Well, maybe it's because they don't think 4e offers much choice, since so many powers are all about damage. Maybe a D&D that diversified the threats a party faced would be better.
> 
> ...



Sure, and maybe a D&D that was none of those things would be better.  But let's deconstruct this a little, because it's interesting.

The first element of each of the initial statements here would be "I don't like X" (where "X" = 'playing with minis and a grid', 'having all (attack) power choices do damage', 'playing a complicated/simple game', 'games that don't include classic story elements' and 'games where the PCs don't start out very weak').  Thus far we have a very reasonable and neutral expression of preference.

Next up would naturally be "I would prefer to play a game that doesn't include X".  Again, a perfectly natural and non-contraversial statement of preference.

At this stage, though, I come to a dislocation.  There seems also to be an assumed link; that the game played has to be "D&D" and that, therefore, D&D should change/be revised/be reissued to fit with this.

This I don't understand.

OK, the people saying this would like a game that doesn't involve the various "X's" - fair enough, there are plenty around, take your pick.  But to then take this other game, that several folk are happily playing as it is, and say "that should be changed into the game _I_ want to play" just gives me a _"WTF?!?"_ moment.



JamesonCourage said:


> As always, play what you like



Absolutely - I couldn't agree more.  Just don't point at stuff other people are playing and say "that's wrong, it should be changed to be more like what I want to play!".

Edit: I just realised that the last part, here, could be taken to imply that I'm saying that you, JamesonCourage, are saying this; to be clear, you personally are not, so far as I am aware.  I picked out the tag line from you because I agree with it, in the context of the rest of my post.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 11, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> I mean, some people other than myself have said that both sides engage in it. And intellectually, we both know that they do. So, saying "some people say _this_ about _X_" is a very poor statement, in my opinion, as it seems like you're trying to color all detractors with that argument.
> 
> If that's not the case, as I suspect it isn't, then I don't see why you need to single out one side. I know you said that you see more "4e isn't an RPG" than "3e isn't an RPG." I agree. I see more "3e is for powergamers" than "4e is for powergamers."
> 
> ...




There are some unreasonable people on both side, but typically, they are not unreasonable in the same way--on this issue. (You get outliers, of course, and everyone has off days, even normally reasonable people.) This is one reaons why, I suspect, both sets of unreasonable people can feel oppressed by even-handed moderation. From their perspective, the "other side" really is getting away with something that they themselves aren't doing. Personally, I don't care. It would suit *me* fine if moderation was heavily in favor of shutting down 4E proponent excesses and more lax on other excesses. I think that some of the best ways to make my points is sometimes to simply let the guy whom I think in error to keep talking! Obviously, then, I'm not in favor of people agreeing with me but digging a deep hole under my position. Naturally, moderators, wanting to be fair, have to be more judicious about this than what I would enjoy.

But to the larger point, there have been several examples, with a couple of new ones lately, digging such holes, and they have fallen directly into the trap of arguing feelings. It is a lot easier to argue against them, than the more accurate objection: You can have whatever feelings you want, but the moment you start generalizing to other peoples' experiences and design and any number of things, there had better be more of a basis than your feelings. *Calling people on failure to have more of a basis is not claiming that your feelings are invalid*. It is rather that your feelings are signs and indications of *something*, but not necessarily conclusive about any one thing in particular.

Shifting ground between feelings and logic is partly natural. One really ought to be consulting both, to make sure they are at least somewhat in sync. Missing the transition is a common and expected error. Doubling down on it is not so common, and thus should be given a lot less slack.

Joe Player is angry. Joe Player doesn't like new version of his favorite game because it did X. X makes Joe Player angry. X probably makes other people angry. X makes all "right playing" people angry. If you aren't angry about X, well, then we can't call you out on a message board like this directly, but boy, we can imply it constantly.

Write it out like that, and any honest reader over the age of 12 can spot at least some of the flaws. Some 12 year olds might spot the flaws, reject the "conclusion", but then take the unwarranted step of rejecting that Joe is angry. Or that he has a reason. Or that even he knows the reason. (That last one gets tricky, for various degrees of "knows".) 

One of the characteristic, unreasonable debating tactics deployed by some of the more virulent 4E bashers has been to switch freely between emotive feeling and argument, and then whichever way they are answered, to switch to the other. As to why, I could make several guesses, but I don't think that would be wise, except to say that many reasons why are a lot more benign than one would first think.  And from the receiving end, it really doesn't matter why.  If it happens enough, you *feel* rather annoyed.  See, we have feelings too.

I will say that Raven Crowking is an excellent example of someone who is *not* doing this, but is engaged in a lot of the same arguments, from a similar perspective, of people that are. This is what makes his posts so valuable to me. I'm challenged by his posts, rather than fatigued by them.


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## CuRoi (Jul 11, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> One of the characteristic, unreasonable debating tactics deployed by some of the more virulent 4E bashers has been to switch freely between emotive feeling and argument, and then whichever way they are answered, to switch to the other. As to why, I could make several guesses, but I don't think that would be wise, except to say that many reasons why are a lot more benign than one would first think. And from the receiving end, it really doesn't matter why. If it happens enough, you *feel* rather annoyed. See, we have feelings too.




Great post! I was relatively new here a few months ago and got ensared in several "version" debates. Honestly, I can't say whether I was being "emotive" or "logical", however I'm sure I might have appeared emotive more than a few times simply because I was new to the board, had not seen what a pervasive issue this whole thing was, and probably reacted pretty incredulously to the entrenched attitudes that have developed around the whole thing.

I'm a 2e / 3e player and mostly would like to stick to discussing those versions. However, I see a lot of value in some of the 4e approaches even though I don't want to play that version. So originally I felt discussing all flavors of DnD just seemed to be the thing to do. Looking for common ground with other players over what they disliked and liked about each version. Sadly, it just can't be that simple. 

I'm a fan and critic of all versions I suppose. I'm even a fan of a good debate. I'm even someone who is a bit more intuitive/emotive maybe more than logical (more storyteller and less mathematician) so I can give people leeway for getting defensive or too offensive. I also try to make it clear when I am giving an opinion based on just what I like about an RPG as opposed to some objective measure (and it's funny how often people want to argue about that.) What I can't give people leeway for is dragging me into an unproductive argument.  

Lot's of times people think a debate means you pick a position and cling to it come hell or high water. That's when feelings get hurt IMO. They forget that sometimes people lose, sometimes people win, and both sides need to be paying attention cause they should both learn something new and useful in the end.


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 11, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:
			
		

> I am not saying anyone is WRONG. But look at what you've said, "pretty shoddy" ain't exactly either accurate in my opinion nor is it constructive. Actually I think the way these things were designed in 4e was a very conscious calculated game design decision, elegant, and effective.




Exactly. You think those people are _wrong_. And until you can see it from their side, telling them the various ways in which they are wrong isn't going to make them suddenly realize they were wrong all along, any more than a different opinion is going to change your mind. 



			
				AbdulAlhazred said:
			
		

> Maybe not everyone is going to get it, but no that kind of thing isn't 'reasonable'.




If you see it as unreasonable, you've already failed the conversation. Once you think you're dealing with an unreasonable person, you loose the capacity for empathy and understanding that a good conversation has. 

If you want to engage in constructive conversation, you must assume the other person is reasonable deep down, even if they're acting pretty unreasonable at the moment. Of course, the option always exists just to ignore it instead.



			
				Balesir said:
			
		

> OK, the people saying this would like a game that doesn't involve the various "X's" - fair enough, there are plenty around, take your pick. But to then take this other game, that several folk are happily playing as it is, and say "that should be changed into the game I want to play" just gives me a "WTF?!?" moment.




These people, presumably, were playing D&D just fine up to the point where some feature of the new edition grew insufferable for them. Thus, they see the game has having changed away from a model that they enjoyed. So they would like to see it _change back_. 

Because plenty of games are around for those people who WANT those changes, but, before those changes, D&D was NOT that game (in their minds).


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 11, 2011)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Exactly. You think those people are _wrong_. And until you can see it from their side, telling them the various ways in which they are wrong isn't going to make them suddenly realize they were wrong all along, any more than a different opinion is going to change your mind.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




No, no, don't confuse other people being unreasonable for ME being unreasonable. You think I'm telling someone they can't be right (IE have their own opinion?) lol. I'm not the guy walking all over other people's opinion of anything, it is about what I'm GETTING in return. 

And in any case all I want is just exactly what I am giving. I'm not off trashing on other people's favorite games here. I've never said things like 'shoddy' lol.


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 12, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:
			
		

> And in any case all I want is just exactly what I am giving. I'm not off trashing on other people's favorite games here. I've never said things like 'shoddy' lol.




And if you want to talk about why I think that, and why others might think that, and come to an actual understanding of some of the perceived flaws of 4e (and maybe even why I play two campaigns of it weekly despite its noncombat resolution systems!), I'd welcome the conversation.

But step #1 in any constructive conversation is mutual respect.

And assuming that I'm being unreasonable is demonstrating a lack of respect. Assuming that your opinion is the only reasonable one is demonstrating a lack of respect. Dismissively laughing at people is demonstrating a lack of respect. 

And you can't force others to show you respect.

You can only hope to earn it by showing that respect, regardless of if you "get anything out of it" or not. 

So if your reaction to me calling the 4e noncombat rules shoddy is to laugh and be dismissive and assume a defensive position (rather than, perhaps, understanding why I think that), I'm not sure that mutual respect has much of a chance to blossom.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 12, 2011)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Exactly. You think those people are _wrong_...




No, I think that they have combined two separate things into one package, not logically, and gotten too invested in the whole thing being right or wrong.  The particulars may or may not be right, but the combination is always wrong.  You get exactly something like this:

1. I feel X.
2. This is because of thing Y.
3. X always goes with Y.

Then if you say, "Hey, Y didn't happen with me," they respond, "How dare you challenge my feeling!"  But you didn't challenge their feeling.  You said the relationship between X and Y was not always as they imagined it.  However, since they have already decided that the thing and the feeling go together, any challenge to any part of the structure is a challenge to all of it.

It is usually a lot more complicated than that in the expression, of course.

In some people, there can be a psychological basis for this.  Due to not trusting their feelings, people began to think of feelings as either "true" or "false".  (They aren't; they are just feelings.)  They don't see that this always has the potential to "invalidate" feelings improperly.  If the related "fact" Y gets conclusively disproved, suddenly, you aren't "allowed" to feel X anymore.  But I am not a trained person in this respect, and have no idea whatsoever how common it is, much less the scope of the causes.  

Now, if you want to say that trying to point this out, in the specific or the general, is a waste of time--then I have to agree that the evidence is mainly on your side.  However, as the people that I have known personally who have thrown this off have felt very "liberated," it would seem to be worth the effort.


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## BryonD (Jul 12, 2011)

pemerton said:


> I'm not all that interested in the preferences and experiences of the market as a whole.



Fair enough, but the root of this thread is being interpreted as Mearls discussing what makes D&D the popular and enduring concept.  This thread has more of a market zeitgeist to it than a "what 4E fans love about it" vibe.  I'm sure there are plenty of those in the 4E forum and I'm happy to stay out of those.



> But is _this _the great case against 4e? That it's a shallow vehicle for roleplaying because its action resolution mechanics, and the encounter building guidelines that are heavily integrated with those mechanics, presuppose that a 1st level wizard and a 30th level barbarian won't find themselves in the same party facing the same challenge? And, as a result, take the view that a +15 skill bonus typically means something different for a high level PC than for a low level one?



Isn't that more than a little bit of a straw man built on an absurd example?


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## I'm A Banana (Jul 12, 2011)

CrazyJerome said:
			
		

> No, I think that they have combined two separate things into one package, not logically, and gotten too invested in the whole thing being right or wrong.




I was referring to AbdulAlhazred's post, not yours. 

As for yours, I basically agree.  



> the combination is always wrong




And saying "you are wrong" isn't helpful.

Saying, "Why, specifically, do feel X?" works quite a bit better. They can tell you thing Y, and then you can illustrate (bringing them along for the ride) that perhaps thing X and thing Y aren't always connected like that. 

Maybe they get it, maybe they don't, but, man, the conversation is a lot better than two sides shouting at each other, neither one _actually listening_, since they assume they're right.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 12, 2011)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> And if you want to talk about why I think that, and why others might think that, and come to an actual understanding of some of the perceived flaws of 4e (and maybe even why I play two campaigns of it weekly despite its noncombat resolution systems!), I'd welcome the conversation.
> 
> But step #1 in any constructive conversation is mutual respect.
> 
> ...




You said shoddy. I take it like "Oh, someone would have to be stupid to like something shoddy", now maybe you don't quite get how that comes across, but there is a very big disconnect where you are trying to take some kind of moral high ground and lecture me about respect, lol. I don't generally think you're unreasonable, and I often agree with things you say. I think you want to put the shoe on the other foot and see how it fits.


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## JamesonCourage (Jul 12, 2011)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> And if you want to talk about why I think that, and why others might think that, and come to an actual understanding of some of the perceived flaws of 4e (and maybe even why I play two campaigns of it weekly despite its noncombat resolution systems!), I'd welcome the conversation.
> 
> But step #1 in any constructive conversation is mutual respect.
> 
> ...




Just for my two cents, you're on a roll in this thread. Really, spot on over and over. Can't XP again yet, but let's just say I owe it to you.

As always, play what you like


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## BryonD (Jul 12, 2011)

pemerton said:


> But do we need thread after thread with people banging on about how metagame mechanices are the death of roleplaying?



Well, I'll repeat my standard point.

Nothing in 4E is REMOTELY "the death of roleplaying".  

However, "metagame mechanics", "gamist design", or whatever label we want to apply have a very significant impact on the RPG experience.  That impact may be awesome, terrible, or somewhere in between.  The subjective value of it is not in question.  But refusal to accept that there is a "significant" difference, or at least that someone ELSE could very reasonably experience this significant difference, even if you don't, is the boggling thing.

Simple question for you:  Are the rules to Descent "the death of roleplaying"?
I know a lot of 4E fans start gnashing their teeth at the first mention of any "board game", but bear with me.  I'm not asking "is 4e equivalent to Descent".  It is not.  I'm asking: "Are the rules of Descent the death of roleplaying".

I can roleplay in Descent just as much as I can roleplay in 4E AND just as much as I can roleplay in 3E.  Do you dispute that?

But the simple ability to role play on top of a game does not mean that this game provides a quality "role playing game experience".  What constitutes that quality is vastly subjective.  But I think we can agree that it is probably pretty hard to find someone who considers Descent to be the greatest RPG ever.  But if you did, could you prove him wrong?  I doubt it.  You would probably just be convinced that his idea of a great RPG was deeply different than yours.

4E is vastly better than Descent, IMO. (as an RPG)
But, this is not a boolean issue.  
There are degrees.  And not just the measure of those degrees, but even what constitutes the very scales those measures are recorded on are subjective.  
My ability to role play is the same in Descent, 4E, and 3E.  No death here.
The quality of RPG experience is 3E is awesome, in Descent is crap, and in 4E is good.
Descent is fun.  But when I want an RPG it will not be my choice.  But it isn't competing to be my RPG of choice.
4E is a good.  But I'll stick with awesome.

So, are the rules to Descent "the death of roleplaying"?


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## Crazy Jerome (Jul 12, 2011)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> And saying "you are wrong" isn't helpful.
> 
> Saying, "Why, specifically, do feel X?" works quite a bit better. They can tell you thing Y, and then you can illustrate (bringing them along for the ride) that perhaps thing X and thing Y aren't always connected like that.
> 
> Maybe they get it, maybe they don't, but, man, the conversation is a lot better than two sides shouting at each other, neither one _actually listening_, since they assume they're right.




Oh, I basically agree with you here, too.  I'll go you one further, though, and note that for something like that to work, it typically needs to be limited to a few particpants that are like-minded on how it should be handled. And you need some sign of good faith from all participants.

If you can't refuse partcipationg to those demonstrating a desire to win or merely stir things up, it gets really difficult.  Especially, since it is pretty rare to know for sure that those motivations are present.


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## Balesir (Jul 12, 2011)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Exactly. You think those people are _wrong_. And until you can see it from their side, telling them the various ways in which they are wrong isn't going to make them suddenly realize they were wrong all along, any more than a different opinion is going to change your mind.
> 
> If you see it as unreasonable, you've already failed the conversation. Once you think you're dealing with an unreasonable person, you loose the capacity for empathy and understanding that a good conversation has.
> 
> If you want to engage in constructive conversation, you must assume the other person is reasonable deep down, even if they're acting pretty unreasonable at the moment. Of course, the option always exists just to ignore it instead.



What you are enjoining is tolerance, which is laudable - tolerance is pretty clearly a good thing.  But let's be clear; we tolerate what we disapprove of.  You can't tolerate what you approve of - that would be nonsensical.

With that in mind, tolerance requires respect for others as reasonable people and an attempt to understand their point of view.  Well, I can well understand that particular points in the combat system of a given edition, say, will cause some people to feel distaste.  I can perfectly well comprehend (even if I do not share) their disapproval of general features of the rules or systems.  But I cannot, with the best will in the world, see the combat system of 4E (for example) as "pretty shoddy" without some further explanation.  "Pretty shoddy" is a claim to poor quality against some sort of objective standard; without some sort of supporting evidence it's not a claim I am going to be able to accept.



Kamikaze Midget said:


> These people, presumably, were playing D&D just fine up to the point where some feature of the new edition grew insufferable for them. Thus, they see the game has having changed away from a model that they enjoyed. So they would like to see it _change back_.



But no-one has "changed it away" - 3.X is still what it always was, and Pathfinder appears to be pretty similar in most of the ways people who prefer 3.X find important.  The business entity that originally made 3.X has simply made a different game, and one which fills a design space previously uncatered for.  Now, if you were to argue that their failure to support the previous editions and strident deprecation of those earlier editions was somewhat foolhardy and distasteful, I would agree with you - but I still wouldn't see how 4E had "changed D&D" save by adding to it.



Kamikaze Midget said:


> Because plenty of games are around for those people who WANT those changes, but, before those changes, D&D was NOT that game (in their minds).



Actually, I don't think there are anywhere near so many games available for those who like the design features of 4E as there are for those who like 3.x/Pathfinder, but that is really a separate question.  Certainly, 3.X D&D is not that game, I agree.  But WotC didn't change 3.X - they made 4E.  3.X is still there, for those who prefer that sort of thing.  Maybe 5E will be more like 3.X or will otherwise exclude or compromise all the elements in 4E I like; if so, so be it - I will still have 4E and will be thankful that _someone_ catered to the need it fulfills.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Jul 12, 2011)

Balesir said:


> What you are enjoining is tolerance, which is laudable - tolerance is pretty clearly a good thing.  But let's be clear; we tolerate what we disapprove of.  You can't tolerate what you approve of - that would be nonsensical.
> 
> With that in mind, tolerance requires respect for others as reasonable people and an attempt to understand their point of view.  Well, I can well understand that particular points in the combat system of a given edition, say, will cause some people to feel distaste.  I can perfectly well comprehend (even if I do not share) their disapproval of general features of the rules or systems.  But I cannot, with the best will in the world, see the combat system of 4E (for example) as "pretty shoddy" without some further explanation.  "Pretty shoddy" is a claim to poor quality against some sort of objective standard; without some sort of supporting evidence it's not a claim I am going to be able to accept.
> 
> ...




Aye, you've put it quite a bit better than I have. No productive discussion can happen when it is on the level of "that's shoddy!" where we're talking about a largely subjective set of perceived values. We can talk about what we like and what we don't like, and we can talk about the ways we use different games as tools to get the play experiences we desire, and we can talk about the differences between the things we want from a game. Talking about how shoddy one person's preferences are has nothing to do with any of that. Nor is it in any way shape or form a respectful way to speak on that kind of subject. 

Anyway, enough of all that. IMO 4e is built on the concept that skills represent not so much what a character has studied or techniques they use, modus operandi, but much more what sort of things they do. A character with a high Bluff and Insight is a facile liar and student of human nature. A character with a high Athletics is physical, they're the type who solves problems by physical action. I don't think stripping that away is really helpful and I think Mike missed a whole point there, or at least he hasn't touched on it yet. I've found the 4e skill system to be a really useful set of RP tools for this very reason. Whether or not you know how to play the lute is a detail. It can be an important detail if you want it to be, but it isn't something that changes any fundamental ability to accomplish things that are central to the game. So it doesn't require being bought with some pool of resources like a skill. It is simply something you add to the background of your character.


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