The Official "4e Critique and Rebuttal" Thread

[tzor]

Okay, I'm going to yeah-but you here. Yeah, but if the characters decide they're going to go to the dragon's lair, you, as the DM, should be interposing encounters along the way to ensure that they are at least potentially capable of dealing with it by the time they get there. "Dealing with it" may equate to "realize we're in way over our heads and run away", or it may equate to hearing the lamentation of the Dragon Women. It just needs to not equate to "rocks fall, everyone dies."

My classic example was a 2E game run by a DM still in a 1E mindset. The ranger blew her tracking skill big time trying to find a baby black dragon. We found a rather large green dragon instead. It was sleeping. WE SWAM AWAY! (It was an underwater lair.) Eventually we went back to kill it only to find it wasn't a green dragon after all; it was the discarded scales of a dracoliche!



TPK sucks, no doubt about it. But living without the fear of TPK is not living, and is unfun. Wasn't that the whole idea of points of light? It's a dangerous world out there. You should be surprised every day that you didn't die the previous day. When you realize that every encounter is level appropriate just for you, the world becomes a bright monochromed place; flavorless, but far from dangerous.

[Crawfish]

if your players despite the warnings keep on marching into a dragon's lair, they probably aren't interested in the sort of game where doing that is a death sentence, you should adjust accordingly. they obviously want to be big goddamn heroes who can take on a dragon, or they want to sneak around in the lair to steal his gold, or whatever! i dont know, you could try talking to them

[ScottS]

wait so what makes the "flyers are a bitch" specifically apply to 4e? what would an earlier edition rogue, fighter, or barbarian do?

Fly (the spell) would normally come online at the start of the sweet spot, which is technically where 4e is supposed to begin (the rule of thumb I use is lv1 4e = lv4 older editions). You could also play races with intrinsic flight like aarakocra. Also see above (slightly ninja'd in re flight items; you can get stuff like this after a while in 4e, pretty sure Ebony Fly is the lowest at 9, living 'griff mounts are supposedly 5 but they're costed as lv9).

This is explicitly by design though (PHB p.28). Heroic is supposed to be the "ground-only" tier, paragon the "some flight, some teleport" tier and epic the "you can fight the whole encounter without touching the ground" tier.

If you're doing a heroic or low-paragonic encounter where the PCs need ranged attacks or flight, you are not playing the system as intended.

Flying creatures enter the game for Team Monster at lvl 1. Specifically, the "hovering strafing dragon" scenario starts at lvl 1 (white dragon wyrmling from Draconomicon is a lv1 elite with fly 6 (hover) and close blast 4 breath). (also note that after errata, any creature with flight can "hover" in the usual sense; the keyword now only means that the creature doesn't fall when you stun it)

[lighttigersoul]

No, that's just it. The debate isn't about "what's the best way to a strong narrative" -- reducing it to that question already assumes a particular model of game play. The whole point of GNS theory (and its successors) is that narrative-centric games are a style of game play, not the style of game play.

Again, no matter WHAT game you play, or how you play it, a narrative develops. This is how humans work, everything is a story to us. Narratives are a consequence of doing things. Whether that narrative is 'strong' or 'weak' to any particular person depends wholly on their opinions on the universe as strong stories emulate life as we see/feel it, and weak ones do not.

And yes, mechanics matter. But in the case of killing things, it doesn't really matter except as far as the narrative is concerned. If people should die easily, the mechanics of the model need to emulate that. It doesn't matter if it takes on roll or twenty, if the out come is 'You've been stabbed, you're dead' both systems are equal for emulating the required outcome. The simpler one is better for all uses you'd need the model for.

i dont know, you could try talking to them

This is the only piece of DM advice I'd say applies to literally every game you ever play. Talking to your players and playing the game you ALL want to play is more important than any set of mechanics.

[talozin]

TPK sucks, no doubt about it. But living without the fear of TPK is not living, and is unfun. Wasn't that the whole idea of points of light? It's a dangerous world out there. You should be surprised every day that you didn't die the previous day. When you realize that every encounter is level appropriate just for you, the world becomes a bright monochromed place; flavorless, but far from dangerous.

Oh, I don't know; you can still get TPK'd by things that are in your "level appropriate" range. (Maybe you can't in 4th, or it's at least unlikely?) The point isn't to make every encounter a walkover, just to make it so it's at least on your RNG, so to speak.

Fights should be challenging, especially fights against major campaign opponents. And sometimes getting into a challenging fight is going to mean you lose and everyone dies. That's fine, I just don't think, "Roll for initiative. OK, you all die," is much fun.

[talozin]

Again, no matter WHAT game you play, or how you play it, a narrative develops.

And yes, mechanics matter. But in the case of killing things, it doesn't really matter except as far as the narrative is concerned.

I'm not sure we're actually disagreeing at this point. Yes, there's always narrative; and no, if your only concern is with the narrative, it really doesn't matter what mechanics you use to kill things. What I'm getting at is that not everyone games in a narrative-centric fashion, and that not all games are intended (or well suited) to narrative-centric play.

[Darwinism]

TPK sucks, no doubt about it. But living without the fear of TPK is not living, and is unfun. Wasn't that the whole idea of points of light? It's a dangerous world out there. You should be surprised every day that you didn't die the previous day. When you realize that every encounter is level appropriate just for you, the world becomes a bright monochromed place; flavorless, but far from dangerous.

Oh, I don't know; you can still get TPK'd by things that are in your "level appropriate" range. (Maybe you can't in 4th, or it's at least unlikely?) The point isn't to make every encounter a walkover, just to make it so it's at least on your RNG, so to speak.

Fights should be challenging, especially fights against major campaign opponents. And sometimes getting into a challenging fight is going to mean you lose and everyone dies. That's fine, I just don't think, "Roll for initiative. OK, you all die," is much fun.

Yeah, TPKs can happen at any level. I've been part of one in 4E, which matches with my one TPK in 3.5E, and both were just results of horribly bad luck during do-or-die encounters. Usually a really tough fight results in one or two player deaths, but at least now they don't lose a level for being so stupid as to get murdered.

And why do some of the 4E attackers assume that any encounter is going to be trivial? Players are, naturally, assumed to be capable of winning any encounter they should be facing. This is stated in 4E but has been part of any decent DM's game construction as far back as I've been playing; throwing your players into a situation where they can only lose is a horrible game mechanic and if you want to defend it think about it this way: it's a hallmark of jRPGs to have plot battles where you have to lose to be railroaded into the plot.

ZOMG VIDJA GAMES.

[violence in the media]

If the debate is which is the best way to a strong narrative, you can debate it for years, but in general I prefer choice and consequence, but obviously I'm with people who feel that random encounter is the height of narrative truth.

I'm going to stop you right here, because you're heading down the path of false dichotomy. Choice/consequence and random encounter are not mutually exclusive approaches. They're each equally bad in sufficient absence of the other.

If I go hiking in an area where I see this sign:

I should rationally expect that I may run into a mountain lion. There are choices/consequences and random occurences throught this little adventure. I chose to enter the area, and one of the consequences is that I may run into a mountain lion. Whether or not I run into said mountain lion is something I have limited ability to influence.

What I am objecting to is the notion that, because I have ventured into this area, the universe will place a mountain lion in my path if it is deemed sufficiently challenging and dramatically necessary. Or, failing one of those two conditions, that mountain lions will not actually exist there at all. If I decide to specifically go looking for a mountain lion, how do you fairly adjudicate that? Do I always find eventually one because that's my stated goal? Do I never find one, because it's irrelevant to the story from your POV?

The thing you're doing by focusing solely on forming a "strong narrative" is eliminating much of my input as a player. Maybe my "strong narrative" involves more finding a litter of mountain lion cubs and taking them home with me and less completing whatever quest I was dragged into because of some other PC's family ties. If everything that happens in the world is under the MC's control, which is different from it being under the MC's adjudication, then the players are showdogs being led through an obstacle course.

The comparison to the Lone Wolf books is apt. Despite loving those as a child, I wouldn't want to play through them as a game of D&D now. There's no capacity for any fortunate or unfortunate turns of events outside of the variations of combat. There's no chance of our party lucking out and meeting a coven of helpful witches or unfortunately getting ambushed by a raiding party of Giaks. The forest path always leads to the witches, and the hill path always leads to the Giaks.

[Roy]

Ignoring more Persistent Fail.

But I don't care that the dot is green, that fucker pissed me off. Fuck you video game invincibility.

Amen.

And this is why it's important to play a real game. Like 3.5. That way, when you decide "Hey, that fucker pissed me off. I want to kill him." then you can set about doing that. Even if he really is some random person with a death wish (since you'd have to be really fucking stupid to pick a fight with the guys who laugh at armies, unless you're at similar levels of awesome). Now it's likely killing him won't accomplish a whole lot, but getting the town guards, who probably can't do anything to you anyways to start a murder investigation. Even so, the fact you really can choose to kill someone when you have a reason to, without lol video game invincibility getting in the way, is absolutely required for a real game.

3.5 is a real game. Various other systems also offer real games. Even shit like NWoD, which is really fucked up still offer an immersive world, even if it's a really fucked up one.

4.Fail offers a game where you go into the dungeon to grind, then come back and click green dots to shop, sell, and save before repeating. Except even the old floppy disc games of that kind did the math for you. Which is why it gets the name 4.Fail.

[Darwinism]

You're still missing the point; even if there is planning in place for situations those situations do not exist until the players begin to interact with them. In any game.

For the red dragon who is a possible encounter; are you simulating him when the players aren't interacting with him? Do you stage mock battles between the dragon and other adventuring parties, rolling for everything, with only you watching because it would totally happen in a simulationist world? Or does he only actually exist when the players begin to interact with him?

[Darwinism]

Ignoring more Persistent Fail.

But I don't care that the dot is green, that fucker pissed me off. Fuck you video game invincibility.

Amen.

And this is why it's important to play a real game. Like 3.5. That way, when you decide "Hey, that fucker pissed me off. I want to kill him." then you can set about doing that. Even if he really is some random person with a death wish (since you'd have to be really fucking stupid to pick a fight with the guys who laugh at armies, unless you're at similar levels of awesome). Now it's likely killing him won't accomplish a whole lot, but getting the town guards, who probably can't do anything to you anyways to start a murder investigation. Even so, the fact you really can choose to kill someone when you have a reason to, without lol video game invincibility getting in the way, is absolutely required for a real game.

3.5 is a real game. Various other systems also offer real games. Even shit like NWoD, which is really fucked up still offer an immersive world, even if it's a really fucked up one.

4.Fail offers a game where you go into the dungeon to grind, then come back and click green dots to shop, sell, and save before repeating. Except even the old floppy disc games of that kind did the math for you. Which is why it gets the name 4.Fail.

I am going to save this post because it's just such an uplifting thing to read. Whenever I feel sad I can read it and think, "man, this idiot is so funny," and immediately feel cheered up.

Thanks Roy.

[Novembermike]

And this is why it's important to play a real game. Like 3.5. That way, when you decide "Hey, that fucker pissed me off. I want to kill him." then you can set about doing that. Even if he really is some random person with a death wish (since you'd have to be really fucking stupid to pick a fight with the guys who laugh at armies, unless you're at similar levels of awesome). Now it's likely killing him won't accomplish a whole lot, but getting the town guards, who probably can't do anything to you anyways to start a murder investigation. Even so, the fact you really can choose to kill someone when you have a reason to, without lol video game invincibility getting in the way, is absolutely required for a real game.

3.5 is a real game. Various other systems also offer real games. Even shit like NWoD, which is really fucked up still offer an immersive world, even if it's a really fucked up one.

4.Fail offers a game where you go into the dungeon to grind, then come back and click green dots to shop, sell, and save before repeating. Except even the old floppy disc games of that kind did the math for you. Which is why it gets the name 4.Fail.

Wait, what keeps you from killing an NPC in 4e?

[Crawfish]

The funniest part about Roy is that he's getting mad at 4e for abstracting things rather than having clunky rules for everything, which is easily a million times more like a CRPG or MMO, where all the NPCs are meticulously statted out! An MMO is where you can't do anything that falls outside the mechanics - while in 4e you can just abstract it. I guess I can't wrap my head around Roy's MMO playstyle, but to each his own

Sorry, you can't go kill Deathwing. He's level 85. You will have to grind on goblins first.

[Novembermike]

The funniest part about Roy is that he's getting mad at 4e for abstracting things rather than having clunky rules for everything, which is easily a million times more like a CRPG or MMO, where all the NPCs are meticulously statted out!

Sorry, you can't go kill Deathwing. He's level 85. You will have to grind on goblins first.

Yeah, the thing I don't get about all of the 4e = video game stuff is that it's essentially a move back to the the original D&D as I remember it, which was basically a set of rules for adjudicating fantasy combat with the idea that the player and the DM would work out everything else. I'm not even a fan of D&D, I think that the whole level paradigm is bad for real roleplay (ie playing a character rather than fighting monsters), but 4E is the best system I've seen from TSR or Wizards for making a party of characters and having them go on a quest.

[Username17]

Wait, what keeps you from killing an NPC in 4e?

They don't have stats.

Plus the game outright tells you that despite the fact that peddlers can sell you any (common) magic item, that you can't kill one to get a bunch of magic items. Or any magic items at all. It's literally the MMO vender system. The NPC salesmen are "green dots" who can't be attacked and don't have the stuff they can sell you even if they could.

This is a persistent problem with the game, where Yuan-Ti show up with glowing bows that inflict poison damage, but when the players actually kill them and take the bows and the arrows they don't get any glowing or any poison. It's literally the system of "Item Drops" from Diablo. You can see armor and weapons on your enemies, but they don't actually have those things. It's just a graphic - not an interactable object.

-Username17

[Maxus]

It's just a graphic - not an interactable object.

-Username17

Without the benefit of something pretty to look at, barring good descriptive imagery from the DM.

[Halloween Jack]

I hate the idea that just because the PCs are level X, they must always face level X challenges. It's so retarded that I couldn't play the game.

...

If the party is marching thru a dragon's territory (sorry that it exists outside combat), there is a chance they'll encounter it. If I roll a random encounter die and it comes up, it's not the DM being a dick, it's the DM being nature. And sometimes it's a bitch. The DM is not there to hold hands nor to punish. It can be entirely random and not a plot device. Not everything in life has a reason for it. Most of life is a red herring, in fact.

Why do want your game to be ruled by random generators? Why do you want to avoid responsibility for taking part in making the game interesting?

So very ironic that so many accuse 4th edition of being a video game, when some state that they demand their own experience be nothing more than a video game. If you want a game that tries really hard to be a physics engine and does nothing but generate random happenings in such-and-such location, close the books, go home, and play Nethack.

Sure, you could run into a band of 1st level goblins at 10th level, but you can hand-wave past that encounter and get to doing something else.

B-b-but you're violating the made-up laws of nature! My verisimilitude

[Crawfish]

Wait, what keeps you from killing an NPC in 4e?

They don't have stats.

Plus the game outright tells you that despite the fact that peddlers can sell you any (common) magic item, that you can't kill one to get a bunch of magic items. Or any magic items at all. It's literally the MMO vender system. The NPC salesmen are "green dots" who can't be attacked and don't have the stuff they can sell you even if they could.

This is a persistent problem with the game, where Yuan-Ti show up with glowing bows that inflict poison damage, but when the players actually kill them and take the bows and the arrows they don't get any glowing or any poison. It's literally the system of "Item Drops" from Diablo. You can see armor and weapons on your enemies, but they don't actually have those things. It's just a graphic - not an interactable object.

-Username17

They have stats if you fight them. If my PCs killed a shopkeeper that would be that though, I wouldn't make them roll - they can take on a random peasant. Although maybe the dude who works at Magic Items Mart should be statted up as some powerful wizard when fought? idk.

If my players wanted to grab stuff off the monsters, I let them do it. Last time I had them fighting an elephant tentacle monster made of magma and obsidian, after defeating it the barbarian was like I WANT TO WEAR ITS SKULL AS A HELMET and that was that, I reskinned a magic item (Badge of Bezerking iirc) and went with it

[Novembermike]

Wait, what keeps you from killing an NPC in 4e?

They don't have stats.

I'm not sure how this means you can't kill them.

Plus the game outright tells you that despite the fact that peddlers can sell you any (common) magic item, that you can't kill one to get a bunch of magic items. Or any magic items at all. It's literally the MMO vender system. The NPC salesmen are "green dots" who can't be attacked and don't have the stuff they can sell you even if they could.

This is a persistent problem with the game, where Yuan-Ti show up with glowing bows that inflict poison damage, but when the players actually kill them and take the bows and the arrows they don't get any glowing or any poison. It's literally the system of "Item Drops" from Diablo. You can see armor and weapons on your enemies, but they don't actually have those things. It's just a graphic - not an interactable object.

-Username17

That's obviously because the merchant system is an abstraction. The peddler doesn't necessarily actually own all of the stuff he can sell you (he probably gets an order in and checks around to see if he can find one in the area) and he certainly doesn't just keep it all in his coat pocket. If I was dealing with weapons for people who kill things for a living, I'd probably take some precautions myself.

[Crawfish]

it's kind of funny the dudes throwing the ITS AN MMO slur around are completely incapable of abstracting outside the game mechanics, just like all their RPG experience comes from an MMO

[Halloween Jack]

That, and Roy has played MMOs much more than I ever have. What's all this talk of things turning green and grey?

[LR]

it's kind of funny the dudes throwing the ITS AN MMO slur around are completely incapable of abstracting outside the game mechanics, just like all their RPG experience comes from an MMO

We can. It's really easy. But if we do that, then we aren't playing using the system anymore. We're playing Magical Tea Party because the rules have broken down.

You still don't understand. We don't want rules that cover everything (which are not the same as rules for everything) because we can't make shit up. We want rules because making shit up makes the game worse just as easily as it makes the game better, and we don't want to play any game which is that capricious.

[Psychic Robot]

It exists as a concept, but it is not actually part of the game (flavor text describing your world is not mechanically part of the game because) until the players do encounter it.

Think of it as a Lone Wolf book; when you choose one path that is what exists in the game world, not the other possible paths that you could have taken. They're just possibilities, not part of your world.

Sorry.

Everything wrong with 4e and its players can be seen in this post.

[Novembermike]

Here's the thing. There are generally three things that happen in a table top rpg. There's combat, which tends to be pretty nonsensical for most people and thus needs rules. There's normal interaction, which needs a few rules (how much does item x cost, how fast can a horse move, that kind of stuff) but that you can generally figure out by yourself. Then there's the fantastical weird stuff that happens, like whether a dragon can latch onto the adamantium substructure of a partially constructed wizard's tower that you pretty much have to make up on the spot because any consistent rules would be unwieldy.

4E does a decent job of giving you rules for the stuff that's hard to adjudicate and letting you argue out the rest. The lack of rules for certain things is intentional because a reasonable person can figure out how to solve the issues the rules don't cover.

[Novembermike]

It exists as a concept, but it is not actually part of the game (flavor text describing your world is not mechanically part of the game because) until the players do encounter it.

Think of it as a Lone Wolf book; when you choose one path that is what exists in the game world, not the other possible paths that you could have taken. They're just possibilities, not part of your world.

Sorry.

Everything wrong with 4e and its players can be seen in this post.

Let's take an example where the starting point for an adventure is the assassination of the king. If you are going to do this, you don't roll up the assassin's, take them through the king's palace and when they all die because they rolled poorly on their disable device check scrap the adventure, do you? No, you just tell the players that as they enter the city black flags are hanging from every window and dirges are being played from every bell tower.