Retro Post: 4e Might Be Right Continued

Previously.

[If you're actually reading these Retro posts, you are truly hardcore.  I salute you (and question your tastes).]

3e set the tone. The D20 mechanic really is an improvement in playability over older versions. Right up until you add in a bunch of modifiers, which are very hard to keep track of. Skills and feats are the ultimate in customizability and useless time wasting in character creation, advancement, and actual play. The worst aspect is that the player now plays a China Doll. After all the time that the player has put into creation and maintenance, the DM dare not kill them out of hand.

Bang, you’re dead! That’s Old School. You know what, it’s wrong. People get into this to indulge in an heroic fantasy, not an historical one. You play dumb and get your character killed, too bad. Your character goes down in a pitched battle with the big villain or protecting the helpless from a hoard of Orcs, you can write a ballad about it. “Ooops. The random encounter with the giant rats has overwhelmed the entire party. TPK. Okay, everybody roll up new characters.” Nobody plays the game for that thrill, not even the most sadistic DM.

The reliance on minis and mats, the craftsmanship involved in making up a character, and the unwieldy nature of creating and using NPC’s and some monsters has had a largely unrecognized effect on the 3e and 4e game. DM improvisation, players taking adventures of the rails, and random encounters are almost play styles of the past. Encounters have to be set up and planned to some extent in any version. 3e and 4e encounters require so much set up, that even the players understand that if they go “rogue” in an adventure, there may not be any encounters. Both version have made some attempt at making encounters “easier” to create and more “play balanced” for the party. The amount of effort expended in following those formulas and in playing them out, ensures that there will be few of them and they will be virtually mandatory if there'’ going to be any adventure.

Since characters are had to replace, if the dice have fated that they’ll die, it’s got to be meaningful. So no random encounters. That’s okay. As established, encounters are hard enough to make and mandated to the point that players can’t do whatever and DM’s can’t BS encounters in reaction. This sort of short circuits the current en vogue play style of Old School, the sandbox. This is where the DM does large amounts of prep work for an adventure setting and then the players immediately head straight off the map. How is this different than any other Old School game? In a larger sense, there isn’t any. For all the extra work, even if the players go along, the DM will still be improvising the whole session and each succeeding one. Over prep and under prep, the worst of both worlds. The properly run sandbox is essentially the DM playing by himself in a setting without the characters when the players aren’t looking.

As stated before, in 4e player choices amount to either engaging the DM’s planned encounters, or not having any encounters. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. The typical low level, nearly helpless Old School characters getting wiped out by random encounters, while trying to figure out where to play in the sandbox, isn’t fun for anyone except the most cautious (and tedious or lucky) players. People are exhorted to be cautious in real life enough. Time to find some glory!

By contrast, low level 4e characters are nearly indestructible, assuming the recommended play balanced encounters. They’re not going to be able to take out Orcus, but it’s going to take a couple of rounds for him to kill them. The encounters and adventure will be mapped out well in advance. Player decisions will basically be all tactical. But they will look good and probably feel pretty superheroic cleaving through their opponents. Of course the trade off for this are fight scenes that play out like an epic paper cut death match. There might be a few too many hit points in 4e.

4e has also done away with having to stock the dungeon with treasure. By giving the characters whatever they want as long as it’s level appropriate. This strikes me a singularly lazy or alternately an almost complete dismissal of the DM and his role. May as well go play a board game or a computer game and finish the deal. Skill challenges essentially abrogate the role of the player, their thinking and role playing.

Collectible card gaming is slowly being worked into 4e, prototyped in Gamma World and now an optional accessory. Between that and the heavy emphasis on combat rules with battle mats and minis, official D&D seems more like a tactical strategy game than an RPG. Along with the lack of improvisation and simple character creation, little wonder fans of previous versions of the game don’t consider it real D&D. Even with some similarity to 3e, Pathfinder fans find 4e taken to too much of an extreme, without the game flexibility benefit.

But 4e gets it right in some areas. Powers and monsters are precisely defined (even if those powers all seem to involve moving pieces on a board like chess). Characters are built to heroic proportions. Adventures are designed to let them shine and eliminate nonsense and filler encounters.

Hard (not vague) rules that are easy to use. Characters that are tough and simple to create, play, and advance. Adventures that force the players to think and make decisions, but are free of fluff encounters. Settings that start small and grow via adventures played, not giant pre-made constructs. It’s hard to say if RPG’s are getting closer to something more mainstream acceptable. Or if the next official version of D&D will be a hobby fetish mess mandating minis, cards, and online content. Ooops. Already there. WOTC’s made their choice with the IP. We’ll see where Old School and Paizo take their games.