Occasionally my gaming group would visualize what it might be like to play with celebrity gamers, adventure writers, and professional game designers. We often would become a little jealous hearing a game designer talk about their “Thursday night” group escapades. We envisioned that the quality of the game would be much greater. It would be like playing basketball at your local “Y” and having 3 NBA players on your pick-up team.
Then came the latest video podcast at Wizards D&D website. Consider that “Myth Busted”.
The wizards professional table looked no more fluid than our table, and we were running that abomination of a game called 3.5. Rules and ability descriptions were still cross-referenced and players sometimes were uncertain of what their characters were going to do. Five rounds into the podcast lasted over 30 minutes AND the video was edited (shortened). An improvement, yes but hardly a huge improvement in game speed over 3.5
Of particular note and surprise is that these “professional” roleplayers referred to their characters actions as “I”. Example: “I use (insert ability here) on the Mind Flayer.” Just sayin…
To take a sports adage: They put their pants on the same way we do.
As for 4e, which is why the video was made in the first place, I was once uncertain about whether I would like it or not. My Take: The game is different. Some aspects are better, but others are worse. I think the games are equal. And if they are equal, why should I abandon the old one? In business speak, the upgrade just doesn’t “pencil out”. I think I’ll steal what I like from it (and good ideas from other sources) and build an in-house game. Which works as long as the players involved are long-term….If the group breaks up, all bets are off.
My 2 cp.
IGR
Got a link. I'd like to see this but can't seem to locate it. Not sure were they are storing video footage.
I'm not great with the "linkified" thing, but this is the address:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4arch/pod
The video one is the new one at the top of the list.
Of particular note and surprise is that these “professional” roleplayers referred to their characters actions as “I”. Example: “I use (insert ability here) on the Mind Flayer.” Just sayin…
Just out of curiosity, how did you imagine they would do it?
I think the games are equal. And if they are equal, why should I abandon the old one?
My thoughts exactly. (Actually, I think 3.5 is probably superior, but in any case, 4E is definitely no better.)
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I think, frankly, there's one exception:
Dave Noonan's a much better DM than I, or most of my friends are in some key ways.
He really gets into being the monsters, acts and emotes and does the silly voices. It's astounding how few DM's in my experience do that, and I'd greatly enjoy playing in one of his games.
I'm not saying he's unique, or that other DM's don't, but it's clear he puts a great deal of effort into it.
That said, most of his players did seem a lot like folks I know and have seen at my table and at get together's over the years.
To be fair, though, they were playing a level 17 show encounter - and it seemed like some of them had never gotten a character that high in 4E. The girl playing the paladin said she ramped her normal level 3 character to a level 17. They could have been a bit slow cause they were using abilities - and probably a few of them - for the first time.
I'm not great with the "linkified" thing, but this is the address:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4arch/pod
The video one is the new one at the top of the list.
Linking is really easy here. [url=insertURLhereCloseBracket wordsToBeLink [/urlCloseBracket
replace CloseBracket with ] and insterURLhere with the url you'd like to link to. wordsToBeLink are what people have to click on to follow your link.
Hopefully that helps! :)
Sarah G seemed bored.
I thought she looked more irate. :-/
Just out of curiosity, how did you imagine they would do it?
Well, I've seen my fair share of good and bad roleplayers in the 23 years of gaming I've been involved in. I don't necessarily expect them (good roleplayers) to be leeping out of their chairs like idiots and demonstrating their actions, but at the very least I expected "professional" roleplayers to immerse into their character at least a little bit.
One of my closest roleplaying buddies has confided that even though he may play an elf, a dwarf, a orc, even a female, that he often acts out of character and does something HE would do. But he at the minimum NEVER refers to his character as "I".
I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill, I know, but just sharing my thoughts.
Well, I've seen my fair share of good and bad roleplayers in the 23 years of gaming I've been involved in. I don't necessarily expect them (good roleplayers) to be leeping out of their chairs like idiots and demonstrating their actions, but at the very least I expected "professional" roleplayers to immerse into their character at least a little bit.
One of my closest roleplaying buddies has confided that even though he may play an elf, a dwarf, a orc, even a female, that he often acts out of character and does something HE would do. But he at the minimum NEVER refers to his character as "I".
I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill, I know, but just sharing my thoughts.
Am I missing something? Isn't referring to your character in first person better than referring to them in third?
"I jump up and whack the dragon" seems like a more immersive PoV than "Joe Bob jumps up and whacks the dragon" right?
But he at the minimum NEVER refers to his character as "I".
jwrede is unsure why this is a problem unless your buddy is playing more than one character at a time. But it could be because jwrede has never been a big fan of speaking in third person about himself or his characters.
Of course, jwrede does make it a point to use different voices when speaking as character than when speaking as player.
One of my closest roleplaying buddies has confided that even though he may play an elf, a dwarf, a orc, even a female, that he often acts out of character and does something HE would do. But he at the minimum NEVER refers to his character as "I".
Uh... so refering to your character as "I" is bad-roleplaying? Sad, I discovered that me and everyone I play for 15 years are bad role-players then.
Now, seriously... aren't we just talking about personal tastes here, rather than "good" or "bad" roleplaying?
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I don't really think that that is the point of his post though, he's not begrudging the quality of the roleplaying, I think what he expected was that everyone at the table would have their abilities down before they came to the table. That there would be very little book checking and that for the most point a persons turn would take only slightly longer than it took for them to declare their actions.
At least that's what I'd expect from the people working for the company playing the game. I think the bigger myth busted in this podcast is the whole speed of play thing. When advertised it was supposed to be so much quicker and easier, but the player I've almost always known to slow down play is the wizard because he can't remember all of the different ability and effects of his spells. From what I've seen and played of 4e giving every player spells has slowed down any time gained from having simplified and uniform mechanics.
At the D&D game day it took almost every table 4 hours to run through 4 encounters at first level. In the podcast the OP noted how many rounds went by in 30 minutes. So ignoring the comments on roleplaying I think it can be said that at least one Myth has been busted. Does that mean 4e is crap no, just that it isn't some miraculous cure all for dragging game time.
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This took forever for me to watch, I went to download quicktime for my new laptop and the Apple server was down all night. Arg.
It does seem like the "newness" of the material was both a curse and a blessing. On one hand, no-one knew exactly what to expect so the encounter was fresh. On the other, not many players had their abilities down cold, so things slowed down, players became confused, and whatnot.
There are quite a few mistakes, even Noonan let a few from the players slip by. Been while, but a recall the Paladin re-roll power and the Warlock tentacle power being two that were dealt with incorrectly. So even pros make mistakes.
For 17th level play, the game was not too bad. Several characters were using 3-4 powers in one turn, so some slowdown is expected.
Can't remember who was playing the Rogue now, but man he was having a good time even though his brains were being drilled into for half the session.
At the D&D game day it took almost every table 4 hours to run through 4 encounters at first level. In the podcast the OP noted how many rounds went by in 30 minutes. So ignoring the comments on roleplaying I think it can be said that at least one Myth has been busted. Does that mean 4e is crap no, just that it isn't some miraculous cure all for dragging game time.
But remember, as pointed out above, the players are using newly revamped PCs in order to showcase higher level play. I don't think that the uncertainty that some of the players showed can be blamed solely on the version they are playing.
Even in 3.x, if a player is suddenly playing their PC at 13th level instead of their normal 3rd level, I would expect things to be slow as they try to figure out what they could do. Now give me a player who has earned their 13th level and I would think that you would see more flow in the play. If the actual goal was to show how high level combat can flow, I don't think that this was accomplished. They should have done a couple sessions 'off-camera' and then tape the podcast after the players had a chance to test-drive their characters.
Do we all look that bad when we talk about our characters?
Do we all lok that bad when we talk about our characters?
All I know is my group video taped us playing once. After watching it we all vowed never to do that again.
(Yes, we frighten ourselves)
Do we all lok that bad when we talk about our characters?All I know is my group video taped us playing once. After watching it we all vowed never to do that again.
(Yes, we frighten ourselves)
Dang, you ninja'd me on my edit.
Just a quick couple of comments after watching the podcast. I actually had to stop it because it looked so incredibly boring. Just an example of -long- combat, and the "roleplaying" was pretty much limited to Noonan hamming it up. This was just an example of "roll"-playing, which IMO is certainly not the most enjoyable part of the game. I tried the 4E game but at lower levels, and it didn't take nearly as long for combat. If it drags out like this in midrange levels (17 being the new "midrange" I guess, with epic stuff down the line), I don't really understand what was "fixed" by changing over from 3.5 to 4E.
Why not have a video podcast of actual roleplaying and not just hammed-up combat? Lower level 4E -was- fun, because it moved fast for us. You'd think they'd feature a video where people were laughing and acting out their roles, playing the "role" part at least as much as the "roll" part. And where were the "cool digital tools"? They should've showcased far more than they did... as this didn't look all that different from a 3.5E game when combat drags out. Horrible advertisement, IMO.
I'm not exactly sure what was expected. These guys, with the possible exception of Dave Noonan, are not 'professional' role players. If you wanted to see stunning in character portrayals Wizards would have had to have hired actors or something, not round up a bunch of volunteers from brand management etc. to spend a Friday afternoon playing a 17th level one off.
Now I recognize that this was edited and what we saw was the good bits but nonetheless we are talking about employees who agreed to spend a Friday afternoon being filmed while they play. They are not a bunch of pros, their a bunch of geeks who work at WotC.
I think they did a pretty good job and most telling they went from being pretty sedate on the early rounds to appearing to become quite entertained by the game (a fair bit of laughter around the table, that sort of thing) as things progressed. I think a lot of the credit for that goes to Dave Noonan who looks like he's really a very good DM for this style of gaming and managed to draw his players into the game with lots of corny lines and his own energy. Not a bad showing considering that his players where doing a one off at the end of a week of work.
haven't seen the podcast yet but this is a little distressing. some of the people i play with have decided that 4e would be our "beer & pretzels" game, good for one-offs and casual adventuring...
my sneaking suspicion that all WoTC has done is shift the complexities from one area of the game to another.
That's exactly the way a lot of people at my local hobby shop stated they were playing it. And, myself, as well.
Now is the matter of actually convincing some of these people to still play the "beer&pretzels" game. Some hate 4E so much they can't even play it jokingly.
Sarah G seemed bored.
I think she looked like she was saying to herself,"I wish I could be playing 3E right now instead of this crap."
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I keep hearing "Well they are playing 17th level guys...."
I thought 17th' level was roughly equivalent to 11th level in 3.5.
Also I thought that they were supposed to streamline play to work well at all levels.
Is that all just smoke being blown up our posteriors or did I hear some wrong info?
I don't like hearing the excuse of the people using higher level PCs when that was touted as not supposed to be an issue in this edition.
It's the Razz! We missed your incisive commentary!
But wasn't the entire point of the podcast to act as an advertisement of the super cool extra fun that 4E is supposed to be, though? If not, if it wasn't meant to be exciting and draw more people in to 4E, why bother posting it?
I've tried 4E at lower levels and it was faster and generally about as much fun as earlier versions. Showing a slow, drawn out combat just seems bizarre to me as an advertisement choice.
Besides that, the "hey, they're playing lvl 17" doesn't seem to wash for me as an argument. Regardless of the level, it didn't really look like they were having a whole lot of fun. Certainly nothing was there to show how much -more- fun it was supposed to be as compared with earlier versions.
I'm not exactly sure what was expected. These guys, with the possible exception of Dave Noonan, are not 'professional' role players. If you wanted to see stunning in character portrayals Wizards would have had to have hired actors or something, not round up a bunch of volunteers from brand management etc. to spend a Friday afternoon playing a 17th level one off.
Now I recognize that this was edited and what we saw was the good bits but nonetheless we are talking about employees who agreed to spend a Friday afternoon being filmed while they play. They are not a bunch of pros, their a bunch of geeks who work at WotC.
I think they did a pretty good job and most telling they went from being pretty sedate on the early rounds to appearing to become quite entertained by the game (a fair bit of laughter around the table, that sort of thing) as things progressed. I think a lot of the credit for that goes to Dave Noonan who looks like he's really a very good DM for this style of gaming and managed to draw his players into the game with lots of corny lines and his own energy. Not a bad showing considering that his players where doing a one off at the end of a week of work.
I keep hearing "Well they are playing 17th level guys...."
I thought 17th' level was roughly equivalent to 11th level in 3.5.
Also I thought that they were supposed to streamline play to work well at all levels.
Is that all just smoke being blown up our posteriors or did I hear some wrong info?I don't like hearing the excuse of the people using higher level PCs when that was touted as not supposed to be an issue in this edition.
I can't speak for others who brought up the "Well they are playing 17th level guys..." argument, but I can speak for myself.
I wasn't trying to make the excuse that the higher levels are why they seemed slow and indecisive. I was commenting on the fact that they were playing 17th level characters when they were used to playing 3rd level characters. It was their inexperience at playing the higher levels and the fact that they had a bunch of new abilities that they hadn't got used to over the course of developing their PCs through to 17th level by actually playing them.
In my opinion, if you had a group of players who were playing 17th level characters that they had developed over time, you would have seen a bit less pausing and trying to figure out what to do. Would it have been more exciting? Don't know, I don't really know that group. How would it compare to 3.x? Again, I don't know...that is something we will have to wait and see.
From what I've heard, combat in 4e gets longer as you go up in level because the PCs damage doesn't keep up with monster hp. What I've been able to slog through of the 4e PHB seems to confirm that. Couple that with the fact that you can't just memorize one description of an ability in the "exception-based designed" 4e, but have to look at each individual power description even for similar powers, and the epic length isn't much of a surprise.
Now why they decided to do a video to showcase how boring and complicated their game gets at high levels, I have no idea.
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From what I've heard, combat in 4e gets longer as you go up in level because the PCs damage doesn't keep up with monster hp. What I've been able to slog through of the 4e PHB seems to confirm that. Couple that with the fact that you can't just memorize one description of an ability in the "exception-based designed" 4e, but have to look at each individual power description even for similar powers, and the epic length isn't much of a surprise.
Now why they decided to do a video to showcase how boring and complicated their game gets at high levels, I have no idea.
In my experience it hasn't been shorter. However, I'm not convinced that it is necessarily the fault of the rules. It seems to be the same thing that plagues 3.5 games...a player takes too long to decide what to do. Usually its this same player who is not engaged in what is going on at the moment on the board and has to take a few minutes to figure out what has changed since his last go round. Then the player, takes several minutes to decide what to use. (Ironically, its usually the same players that slowed things down in 3.5 too)
The players who are watching what is going on and have decided what to do (with contingencies if the board changes to much), take less than a minute.
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That and not remembering exactly how their powers work, I agree. In fact, I always thought that the combat at high levels takes too long. I in my serious game (i.e.the one that doesn't involve a baby in the room) have a combat timer. players get thirty seconds to declare their action for the round. I don't have hour long combats, in fact I don't usually have combats that last 30 minutes, and the characters are 12 level in 3.5.
I keep hearing "Well they are playing 17th level guys...."
I thought 17th' level was roughly equivalent to 11th level in 3.5.
Also I thought that they were supposed to streamline play to work well at all levels.
Is that all just smoke being blown up our posteriors or did I hear some wrong info?I don't like hearing the excuse of the people using higher level PCs when that was touted as not supposed to be an issue in this edition.
Your building a straw man and then knocking it down. I doubt anyone said anything about inexperienced players being able to play as fast as those experienced with their characters. That said they only have like 10 powers apiece, if they had played these characters for many sessions or built them up over game time they'd know those powers backwards and forwards. However at the moment most of the players sitting around the table are dealing with 10 powers that they don't know and its going to take time for them to look them over.
That and not remembering exactly how their powers work, I agree. In fact, I always thought that the combat at high levels takes too long. I in my serious game (i.e.the one that doesn't involve a baby in the room) have a combat timer. players get thirty seconds to declare their action for the round. I don't have hour long combats, in fact I don't usually have combats that last 30 minutes, and the characters are 12 level in 3.5.
Do your guys buff? Thats the real time sink in my 3.5 campaign. Characters are about 12th and once they decide to give up on the element of surprise they then need to craft their buff list, which is usually around 13 spells that give various benefits to everyone in the party (unless this benefit does not stack with your specific character). Working out what to cast in what order (becuase these are all on timers - some very short timers) and then working out what that means for each character and dealing with the 1-3 personal buffs each player will put up that effect just them is the real time sink for my major fights. Admittedly once its all set up there is some fun in watching them charge the complex and counting down the rounds as the buffs run out.
Do your guys buff? Thats the real time sink in my 3.5 campaign. Characters are about 12th and once they decide to give up on the element of surprise they then need to craft their buff list, which is usually around 13 spells that give various benefits to everyone in the party (unless this benefit does not stack with your specific character). Working out what to cast in what order (becuase these are all on timers - some very short timers) and then working out what that means for each character and dealing with the 1-3 personal buffs each player will put up that effect just them is the real time sink for my major fights. Admittedly once its all set up there is some fun in watching them charge the complex and counting down the rounds as the buffs run out.
Throw a Greater Dispel Magic at the party and what the action grind to a halt again!
Do your guys buff? Thats the real time sink in my 3.5 campaign. Characters are about 12th and once they decide to give up on the element of surprise they then need to craft their buff list, which is usually around 13 spells that give various benefits to everyone in the party (unless this benefit does not stack with your specific character). Working out what to cast in what order (becuase these are all on timers - some very short timers) and then working out what that means for each character and dealing with the 1-3 personal buffs each player will put up that effect just them is the real time sink for my major fights. Admittedly once its all set up there is some fun in watching them charge the complex and counting down the rounds as the buffs run out.Throw a Greater Dispel Magic at the party and what the action grind to a halt again!
Yeah - thats always a major concern. So far its only come up once and it was late enough in the evening that I just choose not to use this power or we'd have to stop the game in the middle of a fight due to the time sink. That said this is something that is of concern. At 12th their not being hit by many dispel magic type effects but within the next two levels such abilities will become ubiquitous and a very necessary tactic to counter my players heavy reliance on buff spells.
Yeah - thats always a major concern. So far its only come up once and it was late enough in the evening that I just choose not to use this power or we'd have to stop the game in the middle of a fight due to the time sink. That said this is something that is of concern. At 12th their not being hit by many dispel magic type effects but within the next two levels such abilities will become ubiquitous and a very necessary tactic to counter my players heavy reliance on buff spells.
Dispel Magic has always seemed to be a spell that benefits the party more than the NPC's, mostly because the party can focus a targeted Dispel on one foe to strip them of most of their buffs. The NPC's would usually have to rely on an area dispel (or have the DM accused of pickingon a particular PC :) ).
One house rule I came up with is that when the NPC does an area dispel, the minute he dispels an effect, he dispels that effect for everyone in the area. Less rolling, less math (simply take that buff off everyone). It helps speed it up a bit.
The NPC's would usually have to rely on an area dispel (or have the DM accused of pickingon a particular PC :) ).
If its the best tactic for the NPC my players can b@~!$ and whine all they want - won't get them anywhere.