My group is using 4e now, and it is very nice for a group of folks with jobs and kids that get 3-4 hours every two weeks to play.
I've added a lot of non-combat backstory to keep the interest level up on the part of the players.
You can find some of the background here at the Bold Beginnings WWW site.
What has your experience been in trying to run non-combat encounters in 4e. I do it, but if I had not cut my teeth on earlier editions, it would be hard to pick-up. The rules are mostly geared towards combat and very, very tactical combat (e.g., counting squares on a mapsheet) at that.
In service,
Could you give us an example of the sort of non-combat encounter you feel would be more difficult for a new DM to run in 4e than in previous editions?
Could you give us an example of the sort of non-combat encounter you feel would be more difficult for a new DM to run in 4e than in previous editions?
Hi Scott,
If you check out the campaign logs, most of the non-combat descriptions are done as narrative now or by the seat of the pants with ad hoc rolls.
Which earlier versions did you play with?
It would probably be easier to relate some specifics than make a generalization.
In service,
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Sounds about the way 1e/2e was always run. Ad Hoc + Seat of Pants = good game in my DMing books.
Seriously thought, 4e is as good and ANY rpg at being an rpg. 3.5e/PF are equally as 'square county'. 3e was a hinge point.
For me as DM 1e/2e/4e (maybe 3e) = DM's friend
3.5e/PF = great games but hard on a 'fly by wire' DM.
S.
Could you give us an example of the sort of non-combat encounter you feel would be more difficult for a new DM to run in 4e than in previous editions?Hi Scott,
If you check out the campaign logs, most of the non-combat descriptions are done as narrative now or by the seat of the pants with ad hoc rolls.
Which earlier versions did you play with?
I've played with pretty much everything from the Rules Cyclopedia on up. I pretty firmly believe that 4e does a great job of facilitating out-of-combat interaction by the giving the DM tools to adjudicate just about any scenario imaginable. If it's just a one-off check that needs to be made, the DC-by-level chart is there for you. If it's a more in-depth non-combat encounter, the skill challenge system gives you a rules framework to apply in the background.
What has your experience been in trying to run non-combat encounters in 4e. I do it, but if I had not cut my teeth on earlier editions, it would be hard to pick-up.
If you're referring to skill challenges, yes I'd say they're disappointing. I'm not sure I'd call them hard to learn, but I've found most skill challenges to be a chore on both sides of the screen. Skill challenges basically just takes the ability or skill check that you'd roll in previous editions and turns it into several rolls. More rolls =/= more fun.
But if you're referring to something else, I don't know what that might be. I'm also not sure what 4e's detailed tactical rules have to do with non-combat encounters. Non-combat in any edition is essentially "describe what you're doing, and roll a check if the DM says so."
Personally, I think the missing fun factor in non-combat encounters is the tactics. 4e combat is fun because of the tactics, so I've worked up a fairly simple social combat system to make social encounters more fun. It's not nearly as involved as 4e's combat rules, but it's more than "roll your best social skill until the DM declares success or failure."
In any case, going by the seat of your pants works as well in 4e as in any other edition, and it's how I run unplanned non-combat situations. The players tell me what they're doing, maybe I ask for a check of some sort and then I describe the results. Now that's good clean fun. :)
I'm also not sure what 4e's detailed tactical rules have to do with non-combat encounters. Non-combat in any edition is essentially "describe what you're doing, and roll a check if the DM says so."
I think it's about perception rather than some actual barrier. I initially found it hard to focus on non-combat facet of 4th edition - mainly because the rules didnt focus on non-combat. There was a wealth of 'how-to-fight' sections but the rest of the roleplaying experience received a reduced focus (though that's shifted over the last couple of years, in my view).
The main mechanic for 'outside combat stuff' was skill challenges which read like a combat. I don't know about the rest of you, but my first few skill challenges were appalling because I slavishly followed the rules and it resulted in a much more stilted performance. Now I'm more comfortable with them, I find them an enormously useful framework (one of two things I plan on porting over to pathfinder if I ever get around to running that). My players often can't tell when we're in a skill challenge and when we aren't - if they get stuck it provides a good framework for moving things forward and glossing over the awkward moments through mechanics. Nonetheless, I dont feel contrained to require strict 'round by round' die rolls if they're on a roll with planning and executing some response to a drama.
Earlier editions, by virtue of the fact that all the rules required more interpretation on the DM's part, got the DM used to the fact that there was a subjective/interpretative component to just about everything. Rulings and judgements on the fly were more expected (at least the way we played the game) and therefore it was easier to wing it through a non-combat encounter based on guesswork and occasional die rolling.
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My "wow" moment with skill challenges occurred when I came to the realization that they can occur over any period of time - unlike combat. Combat starts and then ends when one sides beats the other. Skill challenges can occur over days - in my current homebrew one skill challenge to get the bandits on the PC's side took 4 days game time and involved some events and RPing and some skill rolls. Skill challenges as a base mechanism work very well once you employ a little imagination.
I find coming up with interesting skill challenges far more rewarding as a DM than any 'add up the numbers' combat encounters.
4e is a very kind game to DM's, players rule lawyer to their hearts content and it doesn't really impact on your DMing. In 4e I have found the players look after player things and the DM looks after DM things. I like this, the game mechanics really don't impede or curtail my desires when writing an adventure. I still aren't a fan of battle-grids, but as a game to DM 4e hits the mark.
Lifer DM,
Stefan.
My suspicion in terms of the the idea that this edition spends more time on combat compared to role playing when contrasted to previous editions is that the whole debate is skewed by the fluff...or lack of fluff really in most of the 4E core books. Its really in regards to campaigns and expected norms that the material was cut.
In 1E there was a fair amount of time put into giving us things like tables that would tell you what kind of NPC you would meet in a city or a village or what it was you originally did before you became an adventurer. This presents a specific idea of what the world is and what it is not. Even the 3.x DMGs went a long way in this department telling you about the world in general. 4E, particularly the DMG, removes almost all of that making the system more explicitly a generic fantasy rules set into which you plug in 'your' world. Where it does address these elements it does so often in a compare and contrast model asking the DM to consider his campaign in terms of where it falls in the serious to humorous continuum. Is it dark and depressing or uplifting and heroic in nature. In effect instead of telling us what Dungeons and Dragons cities are like or what the world is like for the peasants instead the whole thing is moved up one level to more a list of ideas or options regarding what elements a fantasy world might include. These parts often read more like the 'design your homebrew campaign world' supplement rather then the The 'World of [campaign worlds name] cyclopedia' which was the element that we traditionally got.
That said it does mean that these parts of the books are much shorter. Present a list of options is much more straightforward then what one got when a designer wrote rhapsodical about the nature of the peasant aristocrat relationship in Dungeons and Dragons.
Personally I value the switch to a 'elements of your campaign world' model compared to one that made specific presumptions about the world. Simply put my home brew is far enough off the beaten path that these presumptions where always useless to me at best and potentially problematic when they did not line up with my world at worst.
I'd certianly like to point out, however, that an in depth view of the culture of elves is not 'role playing focused' material. Its world back ground material. If you strip all of that out of teh previsou editions and simply limit things to 'these are the rules for your character interacting with other people or their environment' 4E fairs pretty well in this regards and is mainly only harmed by the fact that its skill system is fairly all inclusive. Its very much designed to cover almost all randomized elements that become part of role playing while most older editions dealt with this with a series of ad hoc rules meant to cover a variety of different non-combat elements.
Now its impossible to go back and look at this with new eyes again as I did with BECMI 30 years ago but my suspicion is that its actually easier to learn simply because its so compact. Here is the skill system, use it everywhere.
That seems a lot more intuitive then the ad hoc rules we had in 1E and its at least faster to come to a ruling then was usually the case in 3.5 where there was almost always an explicit rule for element X but you'd need to find it in the tome...somewhere.
Well, there is certainly not an emphasis in the rules on non-combat activities, and most of the powers simply do not apply to non-combat settings.
I'm running a campaign in 4e. So, I'm not anti-4e.
In 1st Ed, or just AD&D as it was known at the time, there was a lot of non-combat information and abilities that were included in the rules. True, there was more interpreting the rules in general, but there was also more space devoted to non-combat situations.
I'm not upset at the 4e approach. Skill challenges are OK, but it is not really the same as having spells that allowed folks to disguise themselves or rules about fortification construction or lists of titles of nobility that demonstrated that the system was designed with a variety of activities in mind.
Yes, I understand skill challenges. As one of the previous posters said non-combat in 4e basically means saying stuff and the DM setting up a skill challenge. The heart of the game is clearly counting out squares, working your powers, and collecting the rewards.
That is fine. That is what my current group is mostly into.
I've added some back-story and a little bit of "what folks do outside of combat in the world" though to help the players suspend disbelief.
Two more recent game releases, Fire & Ice, and Warhammer Fantasy RPG 3.0, both had extensive non-combat sections in the rules and did a good job with abilities, skills, description, etc. to create a less combat focused experience.
For example, in Fire & Ice, there is a whole section on how the PCs can improve the quality of the barony they belong to. WHFRPG has large numbers of the equivalent of powers that apply to non-combat situations, and combat is divided into ranges from entity to entity. You're PC is never three squares away in WHFRPG.
You can do anything you want in any RPG, but some are better at emphasizing and portraying certain world views and approaches than others. 4e does not lend well to a non-combat focus. You can do it, but it is a stretch.
In service,
My suspicion in terms of the the idea that this edition spends more time on combat compared to role playing when contrasted to previous editions is that the whole debate is skewed by the fluff...or lack of fluff really in most of the 4E core books. Its really in regards to campaigns and expected norms that the material was cut ...
... Personally I value the switch to a 'elements of your campaign world' model compared to one that made specific presumptions about the world. Simply put my home brew is far enough off the beaten path...
Great posting!
There have been a lot of implicit assumptions in all the versions.
In the current version, it is assumed that half-demons are running around conducting business in towns while Cthulhu-esqe priests (star pact warlocks) are working cheek-in-jowl with paladins fighting for glory and coin.
Like you, I have an implicit world-view in my campaign. Some things in the core rules do not fit. I try to say yes more than I say no to my players' desires, but things like half-demons (tieflings) running around in large quantities did not make any sense in the context of Zhalindor.
Not that there is anything wrong with that ... if you have a group that is getting together, having fun, kicking in doors with a mixed party in a predominantly tactical setting then that is great.
Playing is definitely preferable to not play.
In service,
The 4E rules themselves encourage more interaction and activity, in the same exact fashion as former editions. Some of the game's elements, yes, can impede RP or disrupt it in ways we didn't see in the past - while at the same time, other elements can encourage or enhance it. Each edition has strengths and weaknesses, but I don't think any exists that outright discourages RP as a whole.
It has taken me seven sessions for my players to stop asking where the graveyards are for auto-resurrection and wondering why the monsters don't reset after an extended rest.
;-) [kidding, just kidding]
I laid out a few thoughts about skill challenges and combat emphasis in the last few postings.
in service,
If you're referring to skill challenges, yes I'd say they're disappointing. I'm not sure I'd call them hard to learn, but I've found most skill challenges to be a chore on both sides of the screen. Skill challenges basically just takes the ability or skill check that you'd roll in previous editions and turns it into several rolls. More rolls =/= more fun.
I was really agreeing with your point. Skill challenges cover any eventuality from a rules standpoint, but the meat of the rules and the chrome in 4e revolves around combat. Full stop.
What I meant by hard to learn was that if you have not played in games with a non-combat focus, it would be hard to fight the urge in 4e to spend most of your time in combat encounters. Running skill challenges is not hard per se. It just feels to me like less fun than having abilities and powers on an equal footing with all of the many combat powers that were really designed for a non-combat setting.
In service,
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but the meat of the rules and the chrome in 4e revolves around combat. Full stop.
Er, not wishing to seem flippant, but ALL editions of (A)D&D were exactly this. Show me one published adventure going from Basic D&D --> 1e --> 2e --> 3.Xe --> 4e that wasn't at the core about killing things and taking their stuff. Closest I remember would be Ravenloft and the Dragonlance series - but even then the sub-themes were 'kill things and take their stuff'. If we look at 3.5e most of the feats are related to improving combat, and ones that aren't, well anyone every take +2 to a Skill as a feat? I think you may but a little unfair with this comment - have a look on the DDI or 4e books, the rituals while very different from what we call 'spells' fill all the roles that utility spells did in earlier editions. They actually make things a little more interesting in that rituals don't chew up 'spell slots' and have removed the game killing spells like 'locate object', 'teleport', etc. Such spells were even deemed game killers back in 1e - if you remember Q1 (Queen of Spiders?) there is a door/wall that is immune to Teleport, Teleport without Error, Dimension Door, Passwall, even Plane Shift, all because these effectively render the door-puzzle pointless. No reason for this magic immunity is given at all - 3e players would hate that :)
Play 4e like 3e and you will have a sucky time, I've been there done that, dump some baggage and look at the NEW opportunities 4e afford and you will be better served.
Sorry if this comes across a little gruff - actually I WAS you 12 months ago when it came to 4e. I dislike the WotC boards so I ask 4e stuff here - and as luck would have it there are some very patient 4e players you quietly suffer "4e is Warcraft"* all the while answering honest questions.
Regards,
Stefan.
*Ever since 3.5e entrenched 'square counting' combat D&D has been a little bit 'are we playing D&D or chess, I'm confused?'
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Actually one excellent thing with the Ritual over Spell mechanic is player involvement. All classes get into the action come fight time, but poor old mister Fighter as to stare blankly into their mug of ale while the spell caster (3e and earlier) get to do neat stuff. Anyone who wants now can have a slice of that pie.
The more I play 4e the more I see things I ridiculed actually turning out to be a positive in game.
Still opinions vary based on experience,
Stefan.
Great posting!There have been a lot of implicit assumptions in all the versions.
In the current version, it is assumed that half-demons are running around conducting business in towns while Cthulhu-esqe priests (star pact warlocks) are working cheek-in-jowl with paladins fighting for glory and coin.
Like you, I have an implicit world-view in my campaign. Some things in the core rules do not fit. I try to say yes more than I say no to my players' desires, but things like half-demons (tieflings) running around in large quantities did not make any sense in the context of Zhalindor.
Not that there is anything wrong with that ... if you have a group that is getting together, having fun, kicking in doors with a mixed party in a predominantly tactical setting then that is great.
Playing is definitely preferable to not play.
In service,
Sure. There is actually a couple of pages in the DMG that do a reasonable job of explicitly pointing out many of the underlying presumptions of the D&D world. Nonetheless there is in fact a lot more open or undefined elements to 4E than has historically been true. In effect the elements of the campaign world that get defined by the mechanics of creating D&D PCs obviously continue to exist and there are some other implicit elements that automatically become defined with the inclusion of things like Wealth by Level. However where such an element does not need to be defined due to mechanical constraints (such as the relationship between the Aristocratic class and the Peasants for example) there is much less tendency to include these in the core rules. Instead such elements are part and parcel of the campaign books like Darksun or Eberron or are left up to the DM.
Well, there is certainly not an emphasis in the rules on non-combat activities, and most of the powers simply do not apply to non-combat settings.
I'm running a campaign in 4e. So, I'm not anti-4e.
In 1st Ed, or just AD&D as it was known at the time, there was a lot of non-combat information and abilities that were included in the rules. True, there was more interpreting the rules in general, but there was also more space devoted to non-combat situations.
I'm not upset at the 4e approach. Skill challenges are OK, but it is not really the same as having spells that allowed folks to disguise themselves or rules about fortification construction or lists of titles of nobility that demonstrated that the system was designed with a variety of activities in mind.
Yes, I understand skill challenges. As one of the previous posters said non-combat in 4e basically means saying stuff and the DM setting up a skill challenge. The heart of the game is clearly counting out squares, working your powers, and collecting the rewards.
That is fine. That is what my current group is mostly into.
I've added some back-story and a little bit of "what folks do outside of combat in the world" though to help the players suspend disbelief.
Obviously you absolutely should and its basically expected in 4E that you do. However the model is less about the core rules telling how this works out and more about plugging your, or a bought campaign world into it. The Darksun campaign setting for 4E is an absolutly excellent example of that.
Two more recent game releases, Fire & Ice, and Warhammer Fantasy RPG 3.0, both had extensive non-combat sections in the rules and did a good job with abilities, skills, description, etc. to create a less combat focused experience.For example, in Fire & Ice, there is a whole section on how the PCs can improve the quality of the barony they belong to. WHFRPG has large numbers of the equivalent of powers that apply to non-combat situations, and combat is divided into ranges from entity to entity. You're PC is never three squares away in WHFRPG.
You can do anything you want in any RPG, but some are better at emphasizing and portraying certain world views and approaches than others. 4e does not lend well to a non-combat focus. You can do it, but it is a stretch.
In...
I think in some ways here your missing the forest for the trees. Your defining the old wizard or cleric utility spells as role-playing. Sure they where but it was often a very limited way of interacting with the world. What has happened here is that many of these utility type spells and their effects on the game have been pulled from the wizard or clerics spell repertoire and moved to the group as a whole as part and parcel of the skill system.
During the last part of Paizo's run with Dungeon there where some excellent low level murder mystery type adventures. There have been a handful of good mystery type adventures in all editions of D&D however a defining characteristic of this has almost always been that they where very low in level. This is required because, once the cleric and wizard, gained some levels the answers to such mysteries became a matter of the wizard or cleric memorizing spells that either answered the questions or, if there was magic blocking the answers, usually then excluding targets or objects from the mystery until a handful of suspicious because they are protected by magic, options remained.
Another example of such use of utility spells was party mobility (things like mass flight or party teleports) or use of such utility spells to control the emotions or behavior of the NPCs.
All of this is by and large either gone or only comes online at very high levels (Oracle - which is a ritual that allows the players to contact a God and ask questions is 21st level for example).
What is important here is the amount of adventure design space that this opens up. You can now design adventures that are higher level mysteries or intrigues or otherwise not combat focused. So an adventure about finding out who killed the Kings favorite mistress, and why (The DM might want to complicate things by throwing in a noisy Queen who must be kept in the dark about the existence of such a mistress) something the whole group engages in and its the subject, potentially for a series of sessions. Historically tackling such an adventure was mainly an exercise in intelligent use of the wizard and clerics utility spells, unfortunately that is not very much fun for the whole group so such adventures where exceedingly rare. By moving the investigation of this outside of something that could be answered with magic and into something that was handled in individual encounters by the whole party using the players reasoning and skills we open up design space for intriguing non combat adventures.
Consider also that the limited nature of the mobility magic on tap for the wizard and cleric means that adventures about going places (maybe they need to do a B&E to recover critical information etc,) become much easier for the DM to design and now must be overcome by the ingenuity of the players and their combined skill suite.
There is now more potential for the journey to be the adventure. If the players want to get to the other side of Mount Doom they need to either climb it, go under it or maybe find a pack of Griffons and convince them to carry them over it - their magic is not powerful enough to get the group to the other side by casting a spell (unless the DM wants that to happen...then there is a convenient air ship tied up nearby).
Alternatively we can get into something more action packed here - like a race across the city to catch the fleeing 'person of interest' (or maybe its a race through a crowded city with a prize purse and other teams). While your players have some mobility powers that will play here they are limited in nature...and maybe more importantly - range (if the thing they need to get over is more then usually around 40' feet they are going to have to actually climb it) - your group as a whole is mostly glued to the ground. This opens up design space for all sorts of interesting obstacles within that chase or any other encounter involving movement or obstacles. Maybe they are fleeing - mass teleport as a ritual takes to long to be a quick exit - the scene must be resolved by the players actually making a break for it and using a combination of their movement powers and their skills to get through the obstacles that stand in the way.
If you think that some key NPCs have some of the answers you seek you now have to ask them, or black mail them or save their lost lover or some such to get them to co-operate. Taking over their mind with magic is not an option on the table. A whole significant part of the adventure for the entire group now can revolve around getting such information from an NPC that for whatever reason is not willing to simply cough it up.
When they are 14th level design a political intrigue adventure - they can't crack it using magic, they'll need to interact with your cast of weird and wacky (and possibly creepy - or funny) NPCs the old fashion way - by talking to them.
My whole point is there are a ton of very interesting non-combat focused adventures that have been completely opened up by the limitations built into the magic system and by the fact that most of how the players interact with these elements have been moved to the skill system or to a pure role playing context.
Look a little closer at the Skill System and you should notice that each class generally comes with training (and is therefore quite good, or at least passable) in a physical type skill, a knowledge type skill and a social type skill. Its not perfect and its a little muddled once we really start bringing in the whole array of classes, but its still more or less true. This means that in any given skill based encounter usually some significant number of players can get in on the action. This works really well when your designing your non-combat adventure because everyone gets to participate. This is a key part of the design that makes all characters both good in and out of combat. Its important to note that 4E does not really have a 'face' class. There is no one character who - by design - is just better then everyone else when the swords remain in their sheathes. Non-combat adventure is not the part of the adventure where the Bard gets to shine...everyone is supposed to be able to shine during some parts of the non-combat adventure. This allows you to spend more time out of combat - you need less of it to appease your players just designed to kill stuff. Since they get their social skills automatically with their class and should be just as good as any other class in such circumstances there is every opportunity for them to have fun.
It says something about the system that it is easier to get your Goddess to raise you from the dead then it is to get her to answer a simple question. A little disconcerting maybe but its good game design. Gods that answer questions closes off good adventure design space...coming back from the dead, not so much.
Hi Jeremy,
Excellent post.
WoTC has been very successful with 4e. They clearly understand the demographic that is going to buy their products.
I've been working hard to move my players away from some of the perceptions that 4e encourages. As a GM, you can promote any style that works for you if you can get players to come to the table.
I can envision an entire campaign using only skill challenges. I'm not sure that it would be easy to round up a group of players to do that -- at least out in northern Virginia where I live.
For the record, sometimes "old school" gaming with an emphasis on meta-gaming player interactions would go seriously awry. So, I completely concur that there is a place in the gaming discussion for the point that "hey, I as a player have no idea, but my character is a 30th level thief with an INT score of 28. Really, he should be able to figure this out." In other words, the 4e skill challenge has a place.
One of my memorably worst experiences ever in the gaming realm involved something called the "wall of chaos." The story is recalled here under Gaming Horror Stories.
The challenge that I have been running into is that the players have some expectations that if you are playing D&D 4e then you should be able to resolve any issue with a quick toss of the dice so that you can get back to the business at hand (that being using your expensive minis to explore a gridded challenge filled with terrain, traps, and monsters).
Reference missing the forest for the trees, I could certainly be missing some major points.
Let me say my point in a different way; the presence of the old, non-combat oriented spells in the AD&D and 2e core rules showed that there was more of an emphasis on non-combat encounters. The fact that combat is abstracted in the Warhammer Fantasy RPG, and that there is an entire chapter in the Fire & Ice RPG devoted to actions in play to enhance the players' barony show that those systems have emphasis areas outside of combat. I just happen to like systems that promote meta-gaming interactions and have an expectation that many encounters will not be combat oriented.
The 4e approach feels like it has a very combat, minis, tile set focus to it. (I'm not saying that that is an evil thing. It is a style thing.)
You're absolutely right that the DMG talks about other approaches, but the PHB and the large majority of the rules suggests that the preferred approach is to use a few dice tosses to get around challenges rather than use social interactions at the gaming table to figure things out.
You can move player expectations. Your own campaign description is an example of that. My folks actually look forward to the handouts, historical descriptions, etc. now, but they did not come to the gaming table expecting it.
Do I feel that an RPG is more engaging when you include those meta-gaming and non-combat aspects absolutely. Just looking at the message boards, Meetup, Yahoo gaming groups, Facebook, etc. here in the DC area shows that the games with a good back-story and a fair amount of non-combat activities tend to last a lot longer. As far as I can tell, we're the only 4e game that has lasted past three sessions in recent memory.
My gut tells me that, when the players pulled up to the table for the first session, they were expecting a largely tactically focused experience. The system seems to promote that.
I feel that a lot of the magic of table top role-playing comes in the meta-game with the player interactions.
It is also interesting that nearly all of my players have spent an extended period of time playing WoW.
4e definitely resonates with the WoW players. When they go into an encounter, they talk about "tanking" and "heals" as well as "AOE."
Folks do not play WoW for the great role-playing drama.
I had an almost six year hiatus in gaming (2005-11) because of combat tours outside the US.
I'm thankful that I could put a gaming group together at all, and I could not have done it if Hasbro/WoTC had not published 4e. I tried to get groups together with other systems and earlier versions, but 4e was definitely the hook that got things going.
In service,
Rich
Bold Beginnings: a D&D 4e Campaign set in the World of Zhalindor
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But I think the biggest impediment isn't in the rules themselves, but simply in some people's perception of the game. As you yourself jest about players expecting easy respawn of PCs and monsters. :)In the end, you get out of the game what you give into it. If you walk into it expecting it to discourage RP and only support more mechanical encounters, your players will pick up on such sentiments and assume that is how the game works, and...
Hi Matthew, very good posts here and in the other thread.
I spoke to player expectations in some of my other entries.
Through both tone and volume the 4e rules emphasize the tactical aspects of the game.
You can have a non-tactical focus, but my experience is that the players largely come to the table expecting you to conduct extended combat encounters with them.
Focusing on non-combat in 4e is kind of like buying a truck to use as a static storage device. There is nothing inherently impossible about using a truck for static storage device ... "hey Rich! Look in the owner's manual, it says right on page 27 that 'the bed of the truck is designed to hold up to 1,200 lbs or three cubic yards of material.' See, you can use the truck for static storage. In fact, it is expected!"
Er, no. :-D
The 4e rules allow for puzzles. The rules include sections on skill challenges, but it is a different focus.
It has definitely been a journey getting my group to the point where they look forward to the meta-gaming and non-combat pieces, but there definitely was an expectation of a combat centric game by those that had read the rules before sitting down at the table to hurl polyhedrons.
Again, I'm not being disrespectful of the 4e system.
If WoTC/Hasbro had not developed 4e then I would not be running a campaign now.
OK, off to my weekend journeys!
For those of you in the US, have a happy and safe Memorial Day weekend!
In service,
Rich
Bold Beginnings: a D&D 4e Campaign set in the World of Zhalindor
Sorry if this comes across a little gruff - actually I WAS you 12 months ago when it came to 4e. I dislike the WotC boards so I ask 4e stuff here - and as luck would have it there are some very patient 4e players you quietly suffer "4e is Warcraft"* all the while answering honest questions.
*sniffs* You're soooo mean! :-D
LoL
Stefan, I do not think that you are being mean at all.
I very much appreciate your honest and thoughtful insights.
I kind of skipped 3/3.5 D&D entirely. I did buy the core books and a lot of the supplements for 3e, but I just ended up buying the core books for 3.5.
To be honest, I am enjoying DMing 4e.
For example, I bought Campaign Cartographer a few years back, but it languished. It was more of a challenge to use than the utility that I derived from using up until now.
Now, I use CC for every session.
Drawing the maps in the squares has a certain fun to it.
Plus, using CC, I can come back to the map anytime.
That is very helpful when work and family life intervenes.
In AD&D, 2e D&D, RuneQuest, Call of Cthulhu, Traveller, etc., the players got more utility out of a nice, hand drawn map using my calligraphy skills.
Getting the squares and scales right is very important in 4e. So, CC is a natural fit.
(If your map looks gorgeous, but you cannot fit the minis on it and the scales are off then it is an epic fail on two counts; it does not work for your combat, and you wasted a lot of time doing it.)
The really big difference is that you can whip out an encounter in 4e in literally about a fifth of the time that it took in earlier editions of D&D.
So, I have embraced the fun in 4e.
I was just lamenting that bringing some of the fun, meta-gaming aspects of earlier editions into the game is more of a challenge now, mostly because of player expectations and that it is kind of like ...
Well, I compose music so I will use a musical example.
A standard piano has 88 keys.
When I write piano pieces (see Samples of Staats music), I generally end up using a minimum of 18-20 of the keys in the composition.
Now, I could use just two or three keys, but it would be a bit of an odd musical composition for a piano.
4e feels the same to me. I like. I am using it. I'm just an old school guy though who really enjoys some of the meta-gaming aspects that are de-emphasized in 4e.
If you consider words in the rules to represent keys then the non-combat aspects are a small number on the total key board.
OK, really have to run now!
To those of you in the US, have a safe and restful Memorial Day weekend!
In service,
Rich
Bold Beginnings: a 4e D&D Campaign set in the World of Zhalindor.
Hi Jeremy,Excellent post.
WoTC has been very successful with 4e. They clearly understand the demographic that is going to buy their products.
I've been working hard to move my players away from some of the perceptions that 4e encourages. As a GM, you can promote any style that works for you if you can get players to come to the table.
I can envision an entire campaign using only skill challenges. I'm not sure that it would be easy to round up a group of players to do that -- at least out in northern Virginia where I live.
For the record, sometimes "old school" gaming with an emphasis on meta-gaming player interactions would go seriously awry. So, I completely concur that there is a place in the gaming discussion for the point that "hey, I as a player have no idea, but my character is a 30th level thief with an INT score of 28. Really, he should be able to figure this out." In other words, the 4e skill challenge has a place.
One of my memorably worst experiences ever in the gaming realm involved something called the "wall of chaos." The story is recalled here under Gaming Horror Stories.
The challenge that I have been running into is that the players have some expectations that if you are playing D&D 4e then you should be able to resolve any issue with a quick toss of the dice so that you can get back to the business at hand (that being using your expensive minis to explore a gridded challenge filled with terrain, traps, and monsters).
I'm not really arguing that much against the perceptions of 4E. At least in part WotC has let that be the standing perception and, I suspect, that they do this in large part because they know where their bread is buttered. This is the part of 4E most likely to appeal, especially to the younger gaming crowd they hope to capture.
What I am emphasizing is that, perceptions or not, the actual design under the hood is really damn fine for your non combat needs. The designers clearly thought about this point and crafted a system meant to put non combat encounters on the table in a very balanced manner.
They did not remove the cleric and wizard utility powers because that was easier - its easier to leave them - its easier to fill supplement books with such utility powers. In fact I'm always a little nervous that the pure system I'm reiterating to you has been compromised by some one slipping in some ritual or some utility powers that breaks this elegant little design in some recent supplement and I have just not noticed it yet. There are in fact a handful of somewhat corner case rules that are a problem for it - the ability to use the Arcane Skill as 'magic radar' is a prime example. Personally I won't let the skill be used on anything you can't actually see - but this is a house rule on my part, and its one meant to keep the design space that has been opened up clear and usable by the DM. One can imagine the PCs searching the Kings castles for clues by having the wizard systematically walk the grounds 'pinging' magic sonar looking for a hit...that was a bad design choice that closed more doors then it opened but it is a corner case error, that can be house ruled or designed around.
The plethora of new classes took a very well crafted approach to giving each class a different combination of social, knowledge and physical skills and muddied the waters because there where to many classes to maintain this within their original design. Still, since they did at least try to keep with the program it mainly still works - your just more likely to run across two characters that have the same physical skill emphasized while several physical skills are not strong in your party.
I also want to point out that every time I'm describing some kind of encounter I don't always mean a Skill Challenge - they are good but they are not the be all and end all of each encounter. There can be a tendency to overuse them - making them the focus of every scene that is not a fight. That would be, in my opinion, a mistake. If your in a political intrigue type of adventure and a powerful but secretive Vampire sends one of her thralls to pass on information to you that is not a social Skill Challenge...if the NPC is fundamentally co-operative then you don't have a Skill Challenge - you have a role playing encounter. If you try and craft this into a Skill Challenge it will blow up in your face - it won't work. Some of the worst Skill Challenges I've been in as a player came from adventures written right after 4Es release where the authors started trying to do Skill Challenges for friggen everything. Hence the only co-operative NPC type situation that I can think of off hand that might make a really good Skill Challenge is if the person your talking with is actually all the way to crazy...the kind of crazy that is socially non-functional and the excitement for the players is figuring out what to say and what checks to use to get the information they are actually looking for from the incoherent mess that is this NPCs mind.
Hence when I listed all sorts of encounters above I did not mean that they should all be handled all of the time by Skill Challenges. Some parts of those adventure ideas are just role playing, some are really more deductive reasoning - once the players get the actual clue and add it to their repertoire of other clues no one wants to do a Skill Challenge to see if they solve the mystery. The fun is them making the connections themselves...this is fundamentally a puzzle not a Skill Challenge.
A scene where the players notice a 'person of interest' across the crowded town market could be really cool to start as a Skill Challenge. Players try and sneak toward their prey and maybe they use abilities to sneak up building to approach or they subtlty steal a vendors cart or whatever but the point of this skill challenge is to see where everyone starts on the gridded map...win the challenge and players start 10-15 spaces away (you get to be closer if your character passed more checks) and loose the Skill Challenge and the quarry notices you and bolts for it when your between 20-25 squares away - notice here that the DM decides what success and failure means, there is still a chase scene win or loose. The Skill Challenge was about the fun of trying to get close to a guy in the market. Once he bolts I'd envision the rest of this as a slightly more traditional gridded encounter (you could do another Skill Challenge for this part but two in a row is not your best option in terms of adventure design - normally better to mix it up). So know we have the much loved gridded map (you as the DM have a tricky task here - this is like the longest map ever) and the DM went for inspiration for this chase by watching the James Bond chase scene right near the start of Casino Royale (its a really good chase and would be great for inspiration BTW).
So the first place the map leads to in this chase is a fantasy construction site (they are building a high end tavern maybe). The bad guy leaps a low wall easily (The DM gave him a power that would let him do that) and the players now must get over it but loose as little time as possible - the Avenger has phenomenal acrobatics - its low so he tries to do a handspring over it. The monk straight out tries to leap it. The cleric's not so good at getting over the wall and the heavily armored fighter is pitiful. Maybe the Cleric should slow down and use aid actions to help the fighter over? That is for the players to decide. Note though that none of this is a Skill Challenge - here we need to determine if each individual PC can navigate this obstacle since the ultimate goal is to have one of them get beside this guy with enough actions left to make a grab attack. Hence each of these is really just an individual Skill Check during the course of this encounter.
If our baddie exits the fantasy construction site by bolting into a brothel (where he is known) while shouting to the two bouncers standing outside to stop the guys chasing him we might even get some unusual combat in on this as well...the bouncers are making attacks but the players probably are mostly ignoring them while they keep on after their quarry...soon enough we have a chase within a chase as the bouncers join in trying to grab the PCs even while the PCs are trying to grab their quarry.
The above is pretty much the outline for whats probably much of a pretty fun gaming session and it may all be part of a larger political intrigue adventure. The real point is that here we see a mix of encounter types from something that bears a strong resemblance to traditional gridded combat (with a twist) but there was a Skill Challenge to start this off and skill checks during its course.
Maybe there is more of a role playing scene at the end if the PCs catch him - one intimidate check and the guy is totally willing to spill his guts, now its just about what questions the PCs want to ask.
Good design space has been opened up here for scenes like this and the players can't really easily circumvent the above scene by teleporting near the guy and casting web. Even if they are 14th level they probably have to play the scene out - they have some wicked moves embedded into their characters but its doubtful they have an encounter stopper completely on tap, though for higher level keep in mind they may have range stuns and immobilizes so reviewing their character sheets might be necessary to make sure their quarry has some answers...your the DM, you give the quarry all his powers so picking a couple to deal with the one ranged stun and one range immobilize the players have on tap should be well within the abilities of the DM.
Ultimately if you look at the system closely and try and ignore some of the perceptions around it I think you'll see that in the end a lot of the design decisions taken in 4E actually make non-combat adventures, exciting and intriguing ones, really work well. Its one of the draws I find to the system. It fundamentally comes down to a balanced skill system (well balanced until around Epic - then I'm told it starts to get a bit wonky) that works for most of the levels of the game and remains the corr mechanic for how the players confront diversity out of combat for the whole campaign.
Furthermore if your players are more the combat orientated types don't hesitate to throw the odd combat light adventure at them - their skills come built into their classes. They operate equally well in and out of combat. If this is just a 'change of pace' adventure (or part of an adventure) the fact that they pumped every feat into stuff that makes them fight better won't be a problem. They'll work just fine - so you can (and IMO should) mix it up.
Hi Matthew, very good posts here and in the other thread.I spoke to player expectations in some of my other entries.
Through both tone and volume the 4e rules emphasize the tactical aspects of the game.
You can have a non-tactical focus, but my experience is that the players largely come to the table expecting you to conduct extended combat encounters with them.
I don't want to keep on this to much and I do think that the perception of 4E, if not all true is something of a case of 'where there is smoke there is fire'.
Still just went over to the WotC websight where the new articles for the DDI are being shown off. I'm mainly there to check out Rule-Of-Three and Mike Mearls Legend Lore articles but on a a whim I click on their new adventure Force of Nature.
I only skim it over mainly spending my time reading the Adventure Synopsis section. Still it looks pretty good. More germane to elements brought up in this thread is that the adventure is an illistration of what they are actually doing with the game. Conviently for me they have started to provide a little heading at the start of each encounter that says 'Combat Encounter' or 'Roleplaying Encounter' etc.
There are seven encounters in this adventure which is about some Yaun-Ti that release a powerful Fey creature, An Elk the size of a building, with some scheme that it will make a beeline to a ancient magical prison where the evil they really want released is located and batter down its defenses allowing said eldritch evil to escape.
For the players this adventure is about initially redirecting the Elk so that it does not run over small towns on its way to the location of Eldritch Evil - then getting some nearby militia to try and do that while they find out WTF is really going on and finally tricking the Elk back into the Feywild thus spoiling the Yuan-Ti's plan.
Not a bad little adventure premise really. Furthermore I went and counted up what kinds of encounters where on tap. The adventure records that there are 2 Skill Based Encounters, 2 Role Playing Encounters and 3 Combat Encounters. It actually misses probably 3 Roleplaying encounters in this list as well - the one that starts up the adventure (the adventure hook), one in the middle where the players will have to get organized with the local militia so that they can divert the Elk away from towns etc. while the PCs back track on this Elk and figure out where the heck it came from and what the heck its doing and the final one that wraps up the adventure.
My point in all this is that this is an example of a WotC adventure and even their own stuff is, on an encounter for encounter basis, mostly doing non combat encounters in at least some of their material.
In actual play I suspect that this adventure would be about a 50/50 split between spending time killing stuff and doing either skill or role playing, probably about 3 hours of each at a rough guess.
Once you consider skills and rituals, it does go back to the player, and the amount of encounter and daily powers available per level. That is one area I had hoped they would address with later versions of 4E. It is almost a natural progression, where combat powers and utility or non-combat powers should be seperated, and the character is allowed to progress down both paths. Or just increase the amount of powers at your disposal, but still limit the use per day. With that stated, there a plenty of non-combat powers available, but based on the limited use, the combat powers are preferred, unless you make a conscious decision to give up some combat versatility. I believe 4E has the ground work to bring in all the elements of previous editions in a balanced format, but Essentials went in the opposite direction, and stripped it down more.
As to the solution, you may have to add a house rule, to allow the characters to choose extra skill or utility powers. The downside is coming up with a mechanic to seperate combat from non-combat, as most players will treat it as an arms race, and pick more combat powers.