Reading a post over on RPGCentric called Why 4e D&D is geared toward combat reminded me of something I’ve been meaning to blog about for a while now.
I know this conversation has been hashed and rehashed incessantly for most of this year, and oftentimes both sides have trouble giving concrete examples of what they mean. Since the burden is on those of us making the claim that things have changed, when I thought of this example I decided to post it. So here it is. 
Powers, because of their specific descriptions (and to a lesser extent their limited uses) take people’s attention away from imagining the actual scene as it’s playing out. One of the criticisms I’ve heard of previous editions is that you just swing your sword/shoot your bow over and over again without having options. But to me, the options were all in your head, and you could imagine and describe doing myriad things with that “mere swinging sword.”
Powers, on the other hand, are fairly specific in what they do, and it’s hard to improvise when you’re shooting stars out of your ass or whatever these things do. You’re quite limited in what you do even with weapon powers like Crushing Blow and such, because you pretty much have to describe a really hard hit. You can’t finesse crushing blows.
It might be possible that over time people will figure out a way to deal with this, perhaps people will evolve ways to imagine at-will powers differently each time they use them, but for now the tendency I see, and it’s very natural, is to fix a certain power with a certain effect or description, and just use that each time.
12:32 pm on November 21st, 2008 1
Good point. I know I would like to see powers related to skills rather than combat.
2:18 pm on November 21st, 2008 2
People seem to be getting SO hung up on the power names. My group doesn’t even use them anymore.
As to the descriptions, i.e. the “stars flying out of your arse” (great analogy BTW) the DMG does everything but demand that you have your characters flavor or “fluff up” any of them. Call crushing blow “overhand chop” then when you get tired of it, call it “Ogre’s fist” if it is an at-will, call it a “grognard special” it doesn’t matter, it’s what you make of it
My last test group consisted of a shadar-kai chainfighter (guess what class? it wasn’t fighter) a Cavalier (dragonborne pally/fighter) and a cryo and pyromancer team. All this was available as 1st level character options. No Level adjustments or any of that silly 3E stuff, just pure, unadulterated fun.
The heavy focus on combat is because no matter HOW you game, combat is always a major factor…if it isn’t, you shouldn’t be playing 3E or pathfinder either, as they are both intensly combat oriented as well.
I can understand and appreciate the issues with immersion and the silly power titles - I LOATHE the silliness of the “healing splooge” but it is what it is.
I like 4e for what it is, a simple UI coating a swiss watch like combat system, with a nearly rules free role playing mechanic. Half the time I don’t even use the RP skills during conversation simply because it is unneccesary.
Honestly, I’m not sure why I am getting worked up. I don’t want to rant in your house, so I’ll cut it short. In the end, you either like it or you dont, the option to houserule that bitch is always there though…babies and bathwater and all that.
You don’t have to drink the kool-aid, we like you either way
3:36 pm on November 21st, 2008 3
In AD&D, was a magic-user harder to roleplay than a fighter?
4:40 pm on November 21st, 2008 4
@Donny: Presentation is important in a game like D&D, and it sounds like your group has done a lot to get past the presentation of 4e. The arrogance of the designer diaries and marketing in the runup to 4e did not help the presentation of the game engine, and that attitude played a large role in how the books were written.
Beyond that, though, the paradigm shift from “you’re imagining the lives of real characters” to “you’re imagining avatars in a fake world” has a LOT to do with my dislike of playing the game, and is another way in which 4e D&D impedes roleplaying.
Thanks for the interesting conversation and adding your perspective to the mix!
4:43 pm on November 21st, 2008 5
@Roger: I’m not sure I understand the question, but I’d say no, because roleplaying can’t be quantified in that way. The reason powers interfere with imagination is that they tell you specifically what your character is doing, and they put a name to it. This is the genesis of the “4e is like a computer game” argument.
5:14 pm on November 21st, 2008 6
I think Roger is saying that spells have always been like that; did the fact that there was an exact name and description to the Bigby’s series impede roleplaying? If it didn’t, then 4th ed. just extends the non-generic aspect of the game to the other classes. Heck, in some ways, for magic users the game has become less specific about in-game actions: somatic components are no longer specified, nor are specific material components mentioned for each ritual.
Still, I think that you’re on to something. The comparison I’d make wouldn’t be toward computer games, though, but rather toward more fully tied-to-a-setting games. Exalted is what springs to mind for me: if you haven’t played it, charms are similarly well-defined and setting specific powers that characters have; it works well for Exalted because Exalted can only really be played in the Exalted setting. DnD, traditionally, however, was never tied to a single world — and now, in some sense because the powers have all this description tied to them, it feels like it is, to the detriment of the freedom of DMs and players.
The other thing that makes it worse, I think, are At-Will powers. Your freedom to describe your actions was typically derived from the fact that you typically just would attack with a weapon. Now, every action basically, you’re using something that has a (C) beside it. That feels to me to be restrictive.
6:06 pm on November 21st, 2008 7
I actually disagree on the descriptions and presentation somehow inhibiting your imagination. For me it gives a good point of inspiration. 4th edition also feels more customizable to me then previous editions because its keeping things simple and modular. I don’t want to sound like a fanboy or a hater but the whole impeding on roleplaying deal just doesn’t make sense to me.
Quote - “Powers, because of their specific descriptions (and to a lesser extent their limited uses) take people’s attention away from imagining the actual scene as it’s playing out. One of the criticisms I’ve heard of previous editions is that you just swing your sword/shoot your bow over and over again without having options. But to me, the options were all in your head, and you could imagine and describe doing myriad things with that “mere swinging sword.”
It’s the same concept. You still get basic attacks. The powers makes combat more dynamic, also the descriptions are replaceable. You said it yourself, the options are all in your head. Fluff aren’t the rules. Also generic basic attack is still boring.
Also improvisation rules never went away. It’s in the Dungeon masters guide.
6:27 pm on November 21st, 2008 8
I think one of the issues I have with 4e is with the over-codification of combat. It doesn’t really fit my style or that of my gaming group to have all the special moves/abilities/powers hard-wired in as they are.
Plus, we often run campaigns where the starting characters are really fledgling, novice adventurers, perhaps just yanked out of their apprenticeship at the blacksmith, conscripted to do something about those pesky goblin raiders. Having those powers and at-will abilities when the character is jusssst starting out and a step removed from shoveling dung for a living seems ludicrous for our style of play. Which is likely why 4e wasn’t a good fit for us—there were systems out there that better suited what we wished to do. Play and let play, of course.
11:43 pm on November 21st, 2008 9
Hello, I agree with the fact that the presentation of the powers, etc. do seem to build a more mechanical environment for 4E. I frankly never fully transitioned to 3.5, and preferred more rules lite incarnations of D20 gaming. But, in fairness I think that the approach used will appeal to a larger group of new gamers. In the end that is very important, if in fact the hobby is to become more widespread and successful in time. Those gamers, both experienced and novices alike, who crave a more “realistic” approach to the gaming experience will house rule things or find alternative systems. I know that almost every gamer out there, whose played for more than a handful of years, will have tried other systems. No one game will fill the needs or wants of a gamer who stays in the hobby for the long haul. At least that’s my take.
1:18 am on November 22nd, 2008 10
“This is the genesis of the “4e is like a computer game” argument.”
Then it’s an argument with no legs. The flavor text is example text, just like it was when they did it with spells in 3e. Reflavoring to your heart’s content is encouraged. You are not asked to nor required to envision or describe your abilities in the same way every round. It’s this kind of straw man nonsense that leaves a lot of 4e players with a considerable amount of distaste to the “4e is a video game” crowd. And lest we reflavor history, the cry far and wide when 3e was released was that “3e is video game D&D”.
2:29 am on November 22nd, 2008 11
Are you the DM of this game? If you are, then the issue is probably mostly your fault.
Any rule set breaks roleplaying immersion. Any one. Whenever you go to the dice or to a rulebook or a gameboard, you’re “impeding” role-playing. If you want to play in a game that is primarily role-playing, or uses role-playing heavily in all aspects of the game, including the combat scenes, then you, as the DM, have to do a couple of things:
First, you need to encourage that level of immersion by doing it yourself, thereby serving as a good example to players - “reskin” powers for your NPCs, create evocative descriptions of the attacks used by monsters, and generally try to get your characters out of the “I use my power” rote - which is basically the old “I swing my sword” rote from any other version of DnD you want to name.
Next, you need to create environments that encourage characters to use environmental features and non-power attacks, and reward them (or at least don’t hinder them) for doing so.
You also need to make it clear that the descriptions in the PHB are starting points to give you an idea of what the power is like, and encourage the players to create good in-context descriptions for the powers.
Sounds like a lot? Well, it is - but that’s what you have to do if you want to take any set of rules, and incorporate it into a smooth role-playing session. If that’s not happening, look at yourself first - do you say “the goblin blackblade does a whispering stab on you” to a character? If you do, then you - more so than the rule-set, are responsible for the lack of role-playing.
Just to give you an example, I DM a bi-weekly short session for my boss’s kid and his friends. They got attacked in a tavern by a group of bounty hunters last session, for reasons too lengthy to get into here. In the first round, the pc’s used bog-standard “powers”. Then I had one NPC throw a table at the bad guys, doing some damage and knocking a few prone. Then one of the bad guys temporarily blinded a pc by smashing the bottle on the bar with his sword.
By the end of the fight we had characters swinging on roof beams, kicking bottles off the bar as distractions, hurling enemies into the firepit - all easy to do with 4e. The fight moved away from powers, or, when they were used, were incorporated evocatively. The power of 4e is the flexibility of the system. And if that’s not happening for your group, either ask the DM to get off his/her butt and make combat fun, or do it yourself. But don’t complain about it, because you’re just plain off-base.
On a side note, I have to agree with Zachary - it isn’t a good system for low-level, low-power gaming, that’s just not what it’s all about.
9:07 am on November 22nd, 2008 12
ok 2nd ed, my theif could attack or hide then attack…form back stab,
he could allways make witty coments and summersault and still can, me or my dm would dicribe the action after every round.
now 3rd ed had complicated maths, i had specific feats instead of general skills which i could fluff out, i still could make a basic attack, whitty comments spend a turn hiding or catch people flat footed! we worrried to much about + from feat and max minning and left D&D behind ugh… C&C was nice and simple thought yay….
now 4th ed calls, simplyfies the complicated matchs, it takes away the superfulious wizard spells for now i sure they come back or i’ll make up my own, my basic attack now has a fancy name but realy its just a basic attack but now i have better encounter powers there a bit more speical and even daylies i feel like a wizard now if im a fighter of thief etc.., there are guides lines to the fluff but i still fit it to the situation, im not allways a cleric but i still taunt and praise and summersault theres no bard class yet but i still carry an instrument and sing,
roleplay has no rules, theres character creation guides to keep all players vaguely equal pwer level and some combat guides to stop one person taking all the glory but its about fun and it what you make it. but it doesnt stop you swing a bar stool in stead of a mace or a magic missile,.
some people can step back from the rules some people can not its take a good DM to make thouse people enjoy the same game…
11:15 am on November 22nd, 2008 13
The argument that powers are “just like spells” seems dubious to me, since very few characters in previous editions were completely wedded to their spells the way all characters in 4e are constrained by their available powers.
Plus, not everyone wants to play a D&D game where all characters have spells. Some people do, and that’s fine, but the 4e lovers need to get a sense of perspective.
10:26 am on November 23rd, 2008 14
I know you’re sick and tired of people discussing 4e over here. I hear ya.
But I wanted to chime in that many, many D&D players are literal minded and have mastermind types of personalities (INTJ on the Myers-Briggs).
While we all wish for more descriptive, masterfully roleplayed combat scenes and non-combat encounters, the way 4e has been written encourages the more literal minded players (I’m one of them) to stay within the confines of the rules and play it as such.
I’m now convinced that the biggest fault of D&D 4e is the way it was written. Taking a Rules Exception design to build a solid ruleset, is a great idea. However, to many, this confines the game to a narrow way of playing it. Powers affecting creatures only, all hazards scaling to PC levels only, treasure parcels, skill challenges.
As written 4e is a toolset to tailor an ‘adventure experience’ around a party. Its basically the equivalent of Roller Coaster Tycoon where the DM builds a theme Dungeon. That dungeon is built with the sole role of giving a specific party of PCs a “fun and challenging’ experience and all elements of the game exist solely for that particular party.
That philiosphy works when that’s what the players and DM are looking for. But for all groups who seek Zero to Hero games, or games where combat take second place to story, 4e (unless hacked) is not for them.
In the hands of skillful hackers, 4e is an incredibly effective game engine. It can be played in all styles with the addition of a few tools and tweaks in its workings.
But in the hands of Joe the Player, D&D 4e too often seems to default to a combat game with narrowly defined effects. Many players don’t dare (or don’t feel like) breaking out of the mold.
I’m rambling… let me refocus my thoughts and I’ll post about it this week on my side.
11:28 am on November 23rd, 2008 15
Great post, Chatty. I’m not sick of talking about 4e, I just prefer well thought out posts to those that…well, to others.
9:48 am on November 24th, 2008 16
A discussion I had a couple of weeks ago with a PC went a bit like this:
DM - So, what do you reply [to the 7-foot tall, recently arisen, death knight]?
PC - Which skill do I roll?
DM - Skill? What do you reply?
PC - ??
DM - What do you actually tell him? He seems to be getting enervated by your silence.
PC - But… which skill? Diplomacy?
DM - The death knight starts to smoothly lean towards you…
PC - [Down on one knee, head looking at the floor] “Oh Great Lord! We are sorry for interrupting you eternal rest…”!
This happened in a 4e campaign, but I can clearly see this happening in 2e, 3e, 3.5e, Pathfinder, etc. campaign.
My point is that the rules just give a framework. When we first read the book and played the first couple of sessions, it was quickly becoming a stale game. “The sorceress throws [yet another] magic missile. [Applaud]“. As a DM I was bored. My players were bored. We were about to bring out the Munchkin cards… Then it hit me. I started describing the moves/attacks of the monsters/NPCs, and I asked the same from the players.
DM - Ilias, what does your fighter do?
Ilias - Move, then Tide of Iron. I charge the goblin next to the precipice screaming of the top of my lungs [thankfully he didn't in real life], and I try [he usually misses...] to shove him off the cliff with my shoulder, sword pointing towards his abdomen. [dice rolls... a hit!]
And the stale Tide of Iron becomes an active RP element. We are thinking of re-christening some of the powers in order to give them more cultural flavor [Tide of Iron for humans, Avalanche for Dwarves, etc.].
To put it in less words, the 4e is really a framework to [try to] avoid weekend long discussions of whether the rogue is 10′ or 11′ feet away, and what is the exact effect of a chain of lightning [more than once it was failing because mithril according to a player was non-conductive... go figure...]. The actual role-playing is left to the DM and the players.
Anyway, these are my two-pennies of thought.
10:08 pm on November 24th, 2008 17
Haha, Tempor, that’s awesome.
4:25 am on November 25th, 2008 18
Just a good use of the Intimidation skill Propagandroid. The DM always starts with a +10 class bonus to the Intimidate skill.
11:17 am on November 26th, 2008 19
My experience teaching 4e to players new to the edition and new to roleplay gaming at all led me to believe that 4e does actually inhibit roleplaying.
Part of the problem is the excessive focus on combat, but that’s something that can be gotten around. (The whole “you don’t need rules to roleplay rebuttal”, which does have some truth to it.) However, the biggest drag on our games was the powers.
Most new players try to do things like “I run up and slash the goblin with my sword!”, which works in every edition except 4e. In 4e I had to keep interrupting my newbie players’ wonderful creativity to ask them to give me the dry, boring, mechanical description of what they’re doing so that I could keep the game moving. In any other game I can take what a player says to me and know what that amounts to in the mechanics. The problem is mostly that there are three options for “run up to him”, and multiple options for “slash with my sword”.
So, my most creative players’ best instincts were being crushed by constant disappointment that they were “doing it wrong”, despite trying and agonising about not discouraging them from their delightfully creative play style.
@Thasmodious: You can’t just reflavour to your heart’s content. The flavour text has implications for how it work in the non-mechanical part of the game, i.e. the fiction that roleplayers care so much about. This is something that my current system of choice is really good at: If the “magic missle” is reflavoured to be ice-based, it does something involving cold; if fire-based, it might light the target on fire; and these are adjudicatable by common sense.
@wickedmurph: Same thing as above, reskinning doesn’t cut it. It doesn’t matter how evocative your descriptions are as a DM, the players are still going to interrupt to ask for the mechanical translation of what you just said because there’s no obvious 1:1 mapping between the fiction I describe as a DM, and the rules that 4e mandates. If I get around those rules, I might as well ditch the system. And I have.
1:35 pm on November 26th, 2008 20
Amazing post, d7, thanks. You’ve articulated my point better than I did, and I especially liked this succinct summary: “So, my most creative players’ best instincts were being crushed by constant disappointment that they were “doing it wrong”, despite trying and agonising about not discouraging them from their delightfully creative play style.”
6:36 am on November 29th, 2008 21
Fourth edition is certainly not a perfect system. I have a few years experience with third edition, and I sorely miss the customization that used to exist. Right now my character still feels like every other character out there. I find myself stretching for some truly strange character histories and personalities to try to make my character act different, coupled with some thoroughly thought through character design choices. All this work just to make my character feel different. The result? I think this is the most creative I have ever been with my characters. They have interesting backstories that relate to the character development and design choices, many of which end up being very distinct from other characters. This has made my characters better at both roleplaying and combat than ever before.
One last praise for fourth edition unrelated to your topic is that it is easy enough to dm that my group finally is able to get together as often as we like. It doesn’t feel like a big chore that needs hours upon hours of prep time, when one of us feels like a spontaneous game we can have one.
11:04 am on December 3rd, 2008 22
“Beyond that, though, the paradigm shift from “you’re imagining the lives of real characters” to “you’re imagining avatars in a fake world” has a LOT to do with my dislike of playing the game, and is another way in which 4e D&D impedes roleplaying.”
I’m sorry I’m late to the discussion, but I wanted to add something here.
I quoted that bit from Propagandroid because that, as compared to comment #11 illustrate where I think we lose sight of where RPG is at today, when we’re discussing 4e vs. “other”
A long time ago, when we didn’t have powerful computers that could bring our formerly imagined worlds to life, when we didn’t have realistic movies that gave visual grit to the former words that we had poured through, we lived these lives because that was the only way to do it.
Now, we can boot up our favorite MMORPG or CRPG and live an immersive world, that is fairly railroaded towards task and combat resolution. It’s not surprising that our pencil/paper RPGs that are published today will reflect that.
But here is the thing. Old can be new. Just as WickedMurph/#11 and Tempor/#16 showed, we can turn the dry/mechanical game into something alive and vibrant. I felt bad for D7/#19 because the one thing I will NOT do is let rules get in the way of a player having fun. If a player describes XYZ as a narrative, then it’s my job as referee to decide if those actions have a basis in my game campaign reality. I’m not going to stop the player from playing. Worse comes to worse, I rule that it happens, here’s what you used in terms of resources/powers/spells and go with it.
I think we live in a world where the game mechanics feel dry/mechanical because they echo the “roots” of where today’s game designers get their inspiration. However, there isn’t a game system in the world that forces us to limit our players’ choices, we limit our players’ choices.
I won’t referee a 4e game, not because it’s a bad system, but because I already have a set of rules that can effectively allow me to guide a cast of characters through a campaign of my story. I *will* play 4e/3e/whateverE, as long as the referee and other players play in an environment where the focus is on the play and the “living life as another character in a vibrant imagined world” rather than a dry/mechanical “board game/video game” approach.
What do you want your game to be? Make it so.
12:31 am on December 12th, 2008 23
I agree that we should make a game be what we want it to be. Frankly, though, my choice of mechanics is part of that. I found that 4e got in my way more than it helped, so I’m not using it anymore.
I too, would play in a 4e game, but that’s because I know the system well enough to avoid its flaws. I don’t expect a new player who wants to play a character’s “imagined life” to do that, and I’m not going to handicap them by choosing a system that’s hostile to that kind of play. … Especially not when there are a thousand competing systems that do what they and I want without fighting the system.
(Incidentally, one thing 4e did get right was to make prep easy for the GM. It did teach me to value that, and my new system of choice also does this. But, I wouldn’t have found it if I’d just persevered with the 800 lbs gorilla.)
12:36 am on December 12th, 2008 24
d7, cut the suspense and tell us what your system of choice is!
2:50 am on December 12th, 2008 25
I didn’t realise that I was being coy! Re-reading both those post, though, I do seem to be. I just didn’t want to provoke a system war.
I’m using Savage Worlds and I’m pleased to say that my players seem to really like it. It’s easy to stat NPCs and creatures on the fly and is full of crunchy goodness for players who enjoy tuning their characters. I’ll avoid proselytising more and just say that I’ve written a lot about it on my blog lately.
10:24 pm on January 4th, 2009 26
So something made me think of this post from awhile back. I read up the comments made after mine and some points got me thinking. Anyways to cut to the chase, maybe a good “hack” would be to tone down on the flavor and make power descriptions more to the point. Here’s an example of what I mean:
At-Will Prayer 1. Offensive Ranged Strike.
“You use your holy symbol to focus a ray of divine light against your target.”
Standard Action. Divine, Radiant, Implement. Wis vs. Ref. Ranged 5 vs. One creature.
Hit: 1d8 + Wis mod. radiant damage, and one ally you can see gains a +2 power bonus to his or her next attack roll against the target.
VS.
At-Will Prayer. Lance of Faith. Cleric Attack 1.
“A brilliant ray of light sears your foe with golden radiance. Sparkles of light linger around the target, guiding your ally’s attack.”
Standard Action. Divine, Radiant, Implement. Wis vs. Ref. Ranged 5 vs. One creature.
Hit: 1d8 + Wis mod. radiant damage, and one ally you can see gains a +2 power bonus to his or her next attack roll against the target.
Take away the flavoring and leave some room for role playing. Anyways I see the point you were trying to get across and think that this would be a good fix to the point. Looking at more cleric powers it could be re-fluffed as follows.
__________
Offensive Ranged Strike “You use your holy symbol to focus a ray of divine light against your target while your ally readies to attack.”
Vs.
Lance of Faith “A brilliant ray of light sears your foe with golden radiance. Sparkles of light linger around the target, guiding your ally’s attack.”
________
Protective Close Strike “You strike at the target while praying for your allies safety.”
Vs.
Priest’s Shield “You utter a minor defensive prayer as you attack with your weapon.”
___________
Brutal Offensive Close Strike “You strike intensely at the target in your god’s name. You can call a nearby allies name to focus your deities strength to against the target.
Vs.
Righteous Brand “You smite your foe with your weapon and brand it with a ghostly, glowing symbol of your deity’s anger. By naming one of your allies when the symbol appears, you add divine power to that ally’s attacks against the branded foe.”
_________
Healing Ranged Strike “You use your holy symbol to bathe your target and ally in divine light, harming your target while healing your ally.”
Vs.
Sacred Flame “Sacred light shines from above, searing a single enemy with its radiance while at the same time aiding an ally with its beneficent power.”
2:48 pm on January 5th, 2009 27
Nice suggestions, kd, I like the way you’re thinking here.