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MMO jive is one of the things bugs me.
Hell, I've had people rage when I asked them not to use the lingo.
"Everybody is doing it! Get with the f@cking times man. It's all the same anyways".
I try to explain that I don't play those games.
It doesn't help.
The level of gamist vs narrative begins to be a battle at the table.
When a player says "I attack the Orc", I ask them to describe it.
Angry stare is the reply.
This is just some of my experiences with playing TRPGs with avid MMO players.
Blank stares, numbers talk, and all "RP" done in the third person, as if ordering a robot minion.
This, is my experience, of the interaction of MMO and TRPG.
Eh the description is nice, but also sometimes you just want to get through players turns as fast as possible to finish a combat and move on with some other sections of the adventure. I have a buddy who puts a lot of rich description into his actions, and the biggest reason he gets to do so is because he's always focused and when he's on deck he does his action straight away.
Lotta people I game with aren't as fast, and if they were then to sit around trying to find creative neat ways to describe a standard attack I'd probably lose my mind at some point. I guess for me if the player can describe his action fast enough then that's cool, but if not I'll be more than happy to hear "At-Will....miss...next!"
Oh, and "I attack the Orc" we've been saying since at least the advent of 2nd edition for sure ;p
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It could be worse- it could be a game based on Magic the Gathering, like 3.0. System Mastery, trap feats and classes, having to continually buy new books to get the new upgraded high powered prestige classes, building characters like decks for maximum power...3.0 is MtG all the way, and Pathfinder is pretty much the same. Wanna get a massively overpowered class? Summoners are in this book over here, and over here we'll show you how to make alchemists a hundred times better than rogues! MtG all the way down.
And as for mmorpgs, I think a big part of the resentment of them is that they have the challenge reward cycle down far better than tabletop rpgs. Play WoW for fifteen minutes and you've levelled up, and got your first new equipment. And as play continues, levelling slows, but not so much that it gets boring, and there's always some new toy to get. Meanwhile, I see tabletop GMs talk about how they like low magic games, talk disdainfully off magic shops, and speak with pride of how it takes characters months to level. And people wonder why mmorpgs have taken so much market share from trpgs.
It could be worse- it could be a game based on Magic the Gathering, like 3.0. System Mastery, trap feats and classes, having to continually buy new books to get the new upgraded high powered prestige classes, building characters like decks for maximum power...3.0 is MtG all the way, and Pathfinder is pretty much the same. Wanna get a massively overpowered class? Summoners are in this book over here, and over here we'll show you how to make alchemists a hundred times better than rogues! MtG all the way down.
And as for mmorpgs, I think a big part of the resentment of them is that they have the challenge reward cycle down far better than tabletop rpgs. Play WoW for fifteen minutes and you've levelled up, and got your first new equipment. And as play continues, levelling slows, but not so much that it gets boring, and there's always some new toy to get. Meanwhile, I see tabletop GMs talk about how they like low magic games, talk disdainfully off magic shops, and speak with pride of how it takes characters months to level. And people wonder why mmorpgs have taken so much market share from trpgs.
I don't know how much truth there is to the first half of your post (they certainly took strong cues from M:tG but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's based on the card game), but the second half is spot on. DMs are the gatekeepers of our hobby and unfortunately there is a subset of DMs intent on making getting through that gate a rather unpleasant experience.
You hate ToB? Well that's probably your problem. Martials getting nice things. You also happen to repeatedly use the word forget, when people are telling you its not forgetting, and it really doesn't help.
Firstly, that is an extraordinarily dumb comment. I don't hate ToB. Secondly, I'm using "forget" because that's what it is from my point of view. I want you to come up with a reasonable in-game explanation for expended maneuvers/powers. Over the years, I've been asking this question every now and then, and nobody has been able to sufficiently answer it.
The character doesn't have any knowledge of the fact that they're "expended". Mechanically, they're expended. Narratively, the opportunity to make use of them successfully only comes up once.
You mean the characters would not notice that the stunts reliably only work once per encounter/day? Why would they not?
It's okay if you're unfamiliar with this sort of narrative playstyle. It requires an extra, higher layer of thinking and that might not be to everyone's taste (though the narrative flexibility it affords you is worth it, I think). You can go read up on it, and you will learn that it's a completely legitimate way of handling things that makes sense both in-world and in the metagame.But don't try and tell us that we don't know what we're talking about.
I did nothing off the sort. But you could be a bit less condescending.
Your reasoning is fine when you are talking about a ex-character approach to role-playing. In CRPGs, I don't have problems with these mechanics, because I'm not really role-playing. In P&P, I try to get into character. I don't see the game from above, and my group rarely uses a battle plan.
That's why I feel that 4e was more like an MMO than 3e/Pathfinder.
You mean the characters would not notice that the stunts reliably only work once per encounter/day? Why would they not?
Because the powers themselves are an abstraction layer covering the in-game blow-by-blow of combat. In other words, for precisely the same reason that level 20 fighters don't "notice" that they miss a crippled kobold with 5% of all their attacks.
In P&P, I try to get into character. I don't see the game from above, and my group rarely uses a battle plan.
That's why I feel that 4e was more like an MMO than 3e/Pathfinder.
But there's nothing even remotely like the narrative-based mechanics that 4e has in MMORPGs.
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The character doesn't have any knowledge of the fact that they're "expended". Mechanically, they're expended. Narratively, the opportunity to make use of them successfully only comes up once.You mean the characters would not notice that the stunts reliably only work once per encounter/day? Why would they not?
There is no "stunt", there's a lot of actions occurring continuously - "shot on the run" might involve significantly different action from one day to the next. Similarly, characters don't notice that everyone moves in exact multiples of 5 feet every round (there's no such thing as a round either, nor do they take it in turns to act). They don't really move like that, it's a simplifying assumption made to speed play, not a simulation of the game world physics.
I fully understand people preferring that game mechanics attempt to represent the game's "laws of physics" but that isn't how 4E is designed (the treatment of diagonal movement being the classic example). Analysing it from "how closely does this mechanic represent how things work in the real world" is like measuring how good a hammer a screwdriver is. Being a lousy hammer doesn't mean a screwdriver is not useful for attaching two bits of wood.
It could be worse- it could be a game based on Magic the Gathering, like 3.0. System Mastery, trap feats and classes, having to continually buy new books to get the new upgraded high powered prestige classes, building characters like decks for maximum power...3.0 is MtG all the way, and Pathfinder is pretty much the same. Wanna get a massively overpowered class? Summoners are in this book over here, and over here we'll show you how to make alchemists a hundred times better than rogues! MtG all the way down.
And as for mmorpgs, I think a big part of the resentment of them is that they have the challenge reward cycle down far better than tabletop rpgs. Play WoW for fifteen minutes and you've levelled up, and got your first new equipment. And as play continues, levelling slows, but not so much that it gets boring, and there's always some new toy to get. Meanwhile, I see tabletop GMs talk about how they like low magic games, talk disdainfully off magic shops, and speak with pride of how it takes characters months to level. And people wonder why mmorpgs have taken so much market share from trpgs.
He speaks the truth!
Power creep, hilarious.
I think you people are misunderstanding Narrativism.
Narrativism focuses on how your character feels. The internal dialog over your character's reaction to events seems out of place when discussing combat mechanics.
I think you guys mean simulationism not narrativism. Simulationists are all about fluff and description. "Describe your attack" sounds like a Simulationist GM, "Player just stares angrily back" is clearly a Gamist player. You just have a style mismatch, that's all.
Narrativism is great fun, I will sometimes play with what a character feels, so as to get them into the mood of the game (horror, disgust, sense of vulnerability, exposure, thirst and tiredness), leaving it then hanging how they really feel and how they react based on their feelings.
Perfect for horror.
I fully understand people preferring that game mechanics attempt to represent the game's "laws of physics" but that isn't how 4E is designed (the treatment of diagonal movement being the classic example). Analysing it from "how closely does this mechanic represent how things work in the real world" is like measuring how good a hammer a screwdriver is. Being a lousy hammer doesn't mean a screwdriver is not useful for attaching two bits of wood.
Truth.
I think that a lot of the 4E=MMO is that (using the threefold description) 4E is a gamist system with a narritivist overlay. MMOs, by their nature are gamist. 3.x was very simulationist.
That change in point of view is not really spelled out in the game (maybe it should wear a large red label reading Warning: Gamist). So many players came to 4E from 3rd and the games assumptions were really interfering with the way they played and they just came away with "This games sucks" and "Daily martials are stupid". So they grabbed onto a game that seemed similar (to them) to 4E (MMOs) and used that as a pejorative. Well that and the "3E sucks" ad campaign.*
As I am simulationist to the core, I never had a great time playing 4E. Add to that the fact that I tend to play solo, and it is pretty easy to morph 3.x/Pathfinder to solo play (with published modules) but with it's focus on roles and teamwork it is much harder to do so in 4E. I stopped playing - but using your metaphor - it is a fantastic game for what it sets out to do.
* Some of the same feeling I think a lot of 4E players are feeling about Next, as it has tossed most of what made them like 4E to go back to a looser, more simulationist ruleset with Next.
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Bill, actually Coke vs Pepsi does make it harder for me to drink coke. Because of exclusive licensing deals for restaurants, shopping centers and even sporting events, I literally can't buy a coke at a huge number of eating/drinking establishments or stores.The ultimate first-world problem.
LOL, you think THIS is the ultimate first world problem compared to "MMOs are stealing my TTRPG players!"
That's hilarious.
MMO jive is one of the things bugs me.
Hell, I've had people rage when I asked them not to use the lingo.
I have to admit that I have an irrational aversion to calling monsters "mobs" and PCs "toons", even though one jargon word is probably as good as another. (Other annoying terms to me: "aggro", "DPS" and "proc".)
When I hear someone complaining "game XYZ is like an MMO!" it usually boils down to mechanical things like "boss monsters" you need to whittle down, cooldown timers on abilities, or applying status effects that add or subtract "aggro". I don't find any of those particularly offensive in a tabletop RPG, though; if it's a good idea, it's a good idea, regardless of who came up with it.
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To introduce a point of contrast, the worst experience I ever had with a player was actually a veteran DnD guy who, to my knowledge, has never played an MMO.
He was obsessed with making the most powerful build possible and ended up annihilating every monster in one shot before most of the party could lift a finger (in a party of 6, no less).
It is entirely possible that, rather than MMOs creating the behavior, it's actually that people who act this way are the sort of type to play MMOs.
I'm not saying 4th ed was bad. But IMO WOTC designed it as a MMORPG you can play on a tabletop.This is a meaningless claim justified with superficial comparisons. It is no different than the people who didn't like what they saw in 3e and decided to blame it on Diablo. 4e is a traditional, tabletop roleplaying game that incorporates influences from nearly every sphere of gaming - including MMORPGs - but that doesn't make it an "MMORPG on paper" (for that, see the 3.5 World of Warcraft sourcebook).
On 4e and MMO comparisons:
Warning: Opinions ahead.
Not entirely meaningless, but we've all done this song and dance before. 4e basically codified a lot of the "gamier" elements of D&D in a way that resembled MMO's. THIS IS NOT A BAD THING.
The "classic" party roles have always been there; Fighter/melee guy, arcane spells/wizard, divine/healer guy, and skillmonkey/thief. But, 4e drew inspiration from MMO's with their updated codex of Defender, Controller, etc. This made sense in the realm of that game system, and worked fine mechanically, but for players not playing 4e, it looked like a direct comparison to MMO's, despite RPG's having always had codified roles.
Also, changing feet/meters etc into squares, things like that that took away "real world" units of measure and replaced them with gameboard units. Again, worked fine in the game, it's just how it was perceived caught a lot of people the wrong way.
It's been a long while, but at one point I was able to draw a lot of direct comparisons between MMO's and 4e, but as a positive thing, since I am a fan of MMO's. I found those to be positive attributes that actually made me more interested in playing the game. But, it's been a couple of years since I've done so, so I'm just relying on memory and gut feeling, so take that as you will.
I think overall the knee-jerk reaction of the entire gaming community regarding any comparison to any game being "like a MMO" is unfair. A friend of mine(and fervent 4e defender), who has never played a MMO in his life, got all in a huff and mad when I made a MMO comparions regarding 4e. Me, an MMO player, and he, having never played one before, yet he got mad and tried to renounce what I felt were fair comparisons.
It's even more unfair for "4e is like a MMO" to be seen in such a negative light, considering the actual D&D MMO was based on 3.5's ruleset, and came out several years before 4e was ever announced.
On topic, I know of one element of most MMO's that does ruffle a lot of TTRPG player's feathers, is the number-centric need to min/max at all times to be even reasonably effective, also the endless, ENDLESS grinding for xp/skills/etc. Some games, like Final Fantasy XI, you'd sit in one spot, and kill the same mobs(enemies) for hours at a time.
This soulless dependence on absolute optimal builds and strategies, leaves little to no room for actual role-playing. Sure, you could play your own way, wear whatever gear you want, go wherever you wanted, but you'd never actual accomplish any of the upper-tier activities in the game, and likely draw ridicule from your fellow players.
Yeah, I don't play FFXI anymore. It was a lot of fun when I had RL friends and family playing it as well, but I'd never go into that game alone.
If that's the way you asked that question, you'd get a blank stare from me to.? Describe what, the Orc? that's YOUR job as the DM.MMO jive is one of the things bugs me.
Hell, I've had people rage when I asked them not to use the lingo.
"Everybody is doing it! Get with the f@cking times man. It's all the same anyways".
I try to explain that I don't play those games.
It doesn't help.
The level of gamist vs narrative begins to be a battle at the table.
When a player says "I attack the Orc", I ask them to describe it.
Angry stare is the reply.
While I think asking your players to describe how they attack each time is a bit extreme, I do think lack of description creates problems in other areas. Namely (and I'm certain this has come up in another thread) when players assume using stealth is "automatic", and it should just be "assumed" they use it whenever, and I have to try and prompt them to describe how they move forward without them realizing Stealth would be advantageous.
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I know I'd be upset if my DM asked me to verbally describe every attack I made as though that was somehow a requirement for undertaking an action my character is capable of performing. That has nothing to do with MMOs, and everything to do with being annoyed at a DM who wants his monkeys to dance for him.When a player says "I attack the Orc", I ask them to describe it.
Angry stare is the reply.
I was on the fence until I saw this post... One of my biggest peeves about how gaming has changed since the glory days of my grognard youth is the fact that nowadays people arent just providing this lowere level of commitment to their character concept, but here Scott you're in fact waving such antics on high as a bright colorful wonderful way to do things, and painting the picture that immersive descriptive combat is a pain in your ass...
I dont think we'd like watching any action movie if it were just a 2 hour episode of rock-m-sock-m robots, but if theres one thing about the direction the game has gone since 2e, this is the one that most jumps out at me as a bad change... And being proud of such a change seems to defy the very nature of what role playing means to me. Thats why it started to be referred to as ROLL instead of ROLE playing, and for 20 years was widely regarded as an inferior playstyle..
I wont flat blame what has happened on MMO's but MMO's were developed so that people who didnt like the ROLE in RPGs to get involved with the game on their own terms. This in itself isn't a problem. But when those MMO guys come back to the table with that same 'proud lazy gamist' mentality, or when developers create whole systems to cater to that 'proud lazy gamist' then IMHO the hobby has suffered.
It used to be that a character reveled in and exalted the interesting, dynamic, choreographed chaos of a fight... To hear such playstyles ridiculed or bemoaned in favor of the simplicity of checkerpieces on a checkerboard once engaged never taking a single step until their foes have dropped, where the most involved and immersive description of an attack is 'I'll flurry of blows the BBEG' then yeah. It aint broke but its badly bent. And nothing screams MMO quite as loudly as "I swing... I swing... I swing.... I swing...."
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MMO jive is one of the things bugs me.
Hell, I've had people rage when I asked them not to use the lingo.
I have to admit that I have an irrational aversion to calling monsters "mobs" and PCs "toons", even though one jargon word is probably as good as another. (Other annoying terms to me: "aggro", "DPS" and "proc".)
When I hear someone complaining "game XYZ is like an MMO!" it usually boils down to mechanical things like "boss monsters" you need to whittle down, cooldown timers on abilities, or applying status effects that add or subtract "aggro". I don't find any of those particularly offensive in a tabletop RPG, though; if it's a good idea, it's a good idea, regardless of who came up with it.
I also hate the mobs/toons lingo.
This is more a problem of a person carrying over his experience as a player into the GM seat than an MMO problem, really. A player is used to being up against countless hordes and winning the day every time. A gm converseley has to be used to having dozens of things he's in charge of role playing dying daily, ad nauseum at every gaming session. You kinda have to be ok with the idea that the things you're running have the job of dying every week to be good at that particular piece of the big GM puzzle. I had the advantage of being a GM for 95% of my gaming career, so it did strike me when I'd see gm's with special flower gmpcs or the 'unkillable boss' type things....
But descriptive combat is its own reward. I know for a fact that every person at my table has a far more vivid and exciting memory of a battle against crabmen on a ship using loose non battlemat 2e mechanics than they have any of the fights we've had on our current adventure path... And its almost certainly a 'simulationist/gamist' style difference. I'm a simulationist and even amongst my players who are more gamist, even they will admit encounters were more vivid and enjoyable and memorable when they were more dynamic and intricate and imaginative. Even with less resources. We always talk about the wild things that happen off the battlemat (including combat in 2e) with thrill and veneration more than we talk about (man I critted that power attack on that guy so bad... BOOOM!) and that includes the guys at my table that are gamist. When the question is about enjoyment, even the mmo/gamists agree that a dynamic combat being as memorable exciting and interesting as the 'story' is better than swingy swinga swing. Five foot step. And NOBODY complains about how long those fights take.
I'm not in the 'all games should be low powered because low powered is more fun' and i'm definitely not in the 'encounters should be well balanced and survivable' camp either... But I think its a circular pattern of misery when people 'want to get on with the story because the fight is lame and boring', so they dumb down the fight to a swingy swingy swingy dice-rolling number-crunchig excersise, which then MAKES the fights lame and boring... You're in such a hurry to get to 'the good part' that you make 'encounters' (which should also be 'a good part/rich and imaginative/immersive experience') into an excersise in combat mechanics.
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I wont flat blame what has happened on MMO's but MMO's were developed so that people who didnt like the ROLE in RPGs to get involved with the game on their own terms.
Actually, I'm fine with being told to describe how I attack now and then, I just prefer it not to be a mandate. I would like to point out MMOs were made for a number of reasons, as were video games, and I'm sure developers would Love if they could somehow make the game more dramatic and roleplayesque in a fashion. Quote a few of my friends who do coding and the like enjoy these games too. Sometimes the best you can do is make sure the gramatic has dramatic imagery and a beautiful look to the combat. YMMV.
Anyways, Are you sure MMOs weren't made as a massive online video game or something? Quiet a few people I know who played MUDs did so while roleplaying with friends and such. I'm pretty sure the sole reason for MMO's existence isn't for a RPG without roleplay.
Speaking of roles, a role has a lot of definitions. I'm actually not a big fan of the Heals/tank/DPS dynamic, that sometimes even seeps into RPGs(not sure who did it first...). There are quiet a few variations, but I always preferred being able to go into a group as anyone I wanted to be and everyone have fun anyway. Also YMMV.
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I think MMO's were originally created by RPG guys so that they had a graphic visual representation of the thing that was originally going on in their head.
First they wanted to make their campaign into a novel. Then they wanted to see their campaign made into a movie. They wanted to SEE it. Then it came full circle. They wanted it made into a video game so they could... play it?
But in order to make it you had to get financial backing. Corporate sponsors dont game. They want profit. And that mostly means catering to your fanbase while making the visuals adequate and the mechanics so simple a horde of 7 year olds will bribe 60 bucks out of their parents to make the investors happy. Those 7 year olds arent invested in the hobby of role playing. They're invested in the hobby of pretty colors and flashes of light and killmobbin 120 things per hour. I'm of course pulling numbers out of my ass but it wouldnt be inaccurate to say that 75% of mmo players do it for the fancy loot and level up injection of 'reward cookie' mechanics than they are contributing to the change they have on the world they're in. Most mmos at the end of the day abjectly dont 'allow' any significant changes to the world. So you take that reward cookie mentality to the table and you have a gamist who revels in murderhoboing, stat optimization and little imaginitive contribution to the campaign...
Its one thing to be able to say 'I saved the princess'
Its another entirely to say what things did I contribute that made my experience of rescuing the princess different from the 5 million other players' who are saving that exact same princess. And a gamist or MMO player might have some differences to talk about, but 'how combat went down' is definitely not going to be one of those talking points. You 'pressed a different combination of feat buttons''... But that aint sayin much.
Bill, actually Coke vs Pepsi does make it harder for me to drink coke. Because of exclusive licensing deals for restaurants, shopping centers and even sporting events, I literally can't buy a coke at a huge number of eating/drinking establishments or stores.The ultimate first-world problem.LOL, you think THIS is the ultimate first world problem compared to "MMOs are stealing my TTRPG players!"
That's hilarious.
i want to drink my ice cold beer out on the veranda, but I get no wi-fi signal out there :(
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Heh, I must be a rare breed. I'm a full-blown 30+ year RPG grognard who also happens to have been a full-blown raiding MMO player in both Everquest and World of Warcraft.
I have to admit that I tend to roll my eyes when people nerd-rage over the use of terms like "mob" or "toon" or "aggro". In my mind that sort of reaction says more about the person reacting than the person using the term.
The main problem with MMOs from a role playing perspective is a lack of flexibility on the game engines, and a lack of any reasonable means to reward role playing. Game engines can do some pretty clever things, but recognizing an accent is still beyond them.
The thing that constantly puzzles me is the repeated assertion that MMOs somehow created the "munchkin" approach to gaming.
I knew munchkins every bit as munchkiny in 1978 as I do today. The main difference between now and then is that the game design has been refined in ways that tend to reward number crunching more. Most of the real serious munchkins I have played with don't play MMOs anyway. I think one reason is because number crunching a game like WoW is a trivial exercise and you can find a thousand websites with a simple google search that will tell you exactly how to do it. Munchkining a Pathfinder build is still more complex and difficult.
Whenever I see all this gamer argument about MMO vs TTRPG differences I sort of have to chuckle to think what my non-gamer friends would think about the discussion. That tends to bring me back to earth pretty quickly.
Dont get me wrong. I'd never made my players suffer through descriptive combat in pathfinder. The mechanics of combat in pathfinder are so stringent that combat is mostly reduced to a stand-in-one-place-and-swinga type of thing... And great effort by optimizers/munchkins has been made to turn such a bland combat mechanic into something at least a little dynamic, personaized, and interesting again.
Dont get me wrong. I'd never made my players suffer through descriptive combat in pathfinder. The mechanics of combat in pathfinder are so stringent that combat is mostly reduced to a stand-in-one-place-and-swinga type of thing... And great effort by optimizers/munchkins has been made to turn such a bland combat mechanic into something at least a little dynamic, personaized, and interesting again.
We could possibly have a bunch of descriptive named attacks, make them extraordinary without supernatural cause. Give them rider effects to make them more effective. Possibly a mechanic related to reloading or using them at-will based on the level of power they have.
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Dont get me wrong. I'd never made my players suffer through descriptive combat in pathfinder. The mechanics of combat in pathfinder are so stringent that combat is mostly reduced to a stand-in-one-place-and-swinga type of thing... And great effort by optimizers/munchkins has been made to turn such a bland combat mechanic into something at least a little dynamic, personaized, and interesting again.
#1 solution to reducing the 'swing-swing' of combat: ditch the battle map, or at least the tactical grid.
I love me my tactical grid, but man does it restrict and confine things. It is also the #1 culprit for time wasted in combat.
Two games to check out: Dungeon World and 13th Age. Neither game has combat rules that incorporate a tactical grid, both play much faster in combat IMO (I've had 2-3 fights + plenty of RP in a 3 hour session of each game). I'd recommend picking them up, reading and playing a couple times. See what you like and dislike about their combat methods and you might get some cool ideas of how to modify Pathfinder to suit your needs.
I dunno about the "restrictive mechanics of combat in Pathfinder." I find plenty of opportunity to get all descriptive during combat when I make an effort. I describe all sorts of things during combat to help create a scene. Even in 4e I role-played the heck out of combat.
My 4e ranger smoked cigars. I tried to find a way to work his guitar smoking into every combat scene he was in. I really wanted to have the other players and the GM get this picture of this stogie-chomping badass firmly embedded in their minds. My combat description would include things like spitting tobacco juice on my opponent, biting the lit cigar in half, taking time to blow a smoke ring to demonstrate contempt, and flicking the cigar into the face of the opponent to goad them into a fight. I even had a custom magic item approved by the GM to be able to light a new cigar in combat on those occasions where a cigar was spit out, chewed up or knocked out of my ranger's mouth. (In one memorable scene he swallowed his lit cigar....)
And that's just the use of one prop.
As a GM I use the attack and damage rolls as a way to spice up combat. A high attack roll might mean the target was completely outmaneuvered, while a roll that just barely hit would be described as a desperate attempt to avoid the blow that just barely failed to work.
We had one random encounter with a she-wolf once that was completely and totally winged, but at the end of the session the players all agreed that they should never have messed with that wolf's pups.
You mean the characters would not notice that the stunts reliably only work once per encounter/day? Why would they not?Because the powers themselves are an abstraction layer covering the in-game blow-by-blow of combat. In other words, for precisely the same reason that level 20 fighters don't "notice" that they miss a crippled kobold with 5% of all their attacks.
1. You compare something that unreliably happens over a long time with something that reliably happens once per day/encounter. That doesn't work.
2. Said abstraction is exactly my point. There is an inherent disconnect between rules and the world the action happens in. How is that not gamist?
But there's nothing even remotely like the narrative-based mechanics that 4e has in MMORPGs.In P&P, I try to get into character. I don't see the game from above, and my group rarely uses a battle plan.
That's why I feel that 4e was more like an MMO than 3e/Pathfinder.
Isn't "narrative-based mechanics" an oxymoron?
Also, they are not needed to offset P&P against Mumorpugers, because role-playing comes easier in the former, but is not something that is a main part of the latter.
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1. You compare something that unreliably happens over a long time with something that reliably happens once per day/encounter. That doesn't work.You mean the characters would not notice that the stunts reliably only work once per encounter/day? Why would they not?Because the powers themselves are an abstraction layer covering the in-game blow-by-blow of combat. In other words, for precisely the same reason that level 20 fighters don't "notice" that they miss a crippled kobold with 5% of all their attacks.
Actually, it does. Because it's not the character that chooses for that action to happen, it's the player.
That's the disconnect with narrative powers. It's not an ability the character possesses, it's an opportunity the story provides. And it is activated when the player decides it happens.
So while in 3.5 the dice decide when a character nails a double natural 20 and maxes his damage, in 4E the player decides when his character gets lucky and deals far more damage than he regularly can.
Now this leads to the problem of gamist or simulationist players always activating the powers at the most opportune times, or right off the bat and then proceeding to work their way from most effective to least effective. But a narrativist player would be more concerned with how the story of the battle progresses and might save the daily for when the character most needs a decisive strike to turn the tide.
TOZ, that's very close to my view of the gamist vs simulationist approach to activating powers and is a pretty nice summation of one of my major problems with 4e.
When playing 4e I always found the gamist utilization of daily powers and action points to completely wreck my simulationist perspective.
But I gritted my teeth, rolled my eyes and did it anyway.
I was on the fence until I saw this post... One of my biggest peeves about how gaming has changed since the glory days of my grognard youth is the fact that nowadays people arent just providing this lowere level of commitment to their character concept, but here Scott you're in fact waving such antics on high as a bright colorful wonderful way to do things, and painting the picture that immersive descriptive combat is a pain in your ass...
It's not a pain in my ass to describe a sword swing, but a DM who wouldn't let me attack without describing said swing would become a pain in the ass rather quickly (not to mention being a red flag for a bunch of other potential issues). Furthermore, it's tough on players who either a) don't like dressing their actions with flowery prose, or b) aren't comfortable roleplaying their actions to that degree. I make an effort to encourage roleplaying in my game, but I'd never go so far as to demand that a player describe their every attack. Even without all the above, it would slow the game down to a crawl.
And being proud of such a change seems to defy the very nature of what role playing means to me.
What roleplaying means to you and what roleplaying means to other people are very, very different things. To act like the rest of the world is somehow letting you down by not living up to your personal standards of roleplaying is pretty self-centered, and is no different from someone who dresses up for every game and learns fluent Elvish in real life looking down their nose at you for being such a "filthy casual".
Thats why it started to be referred to as ROLL instead of ROLE playing, and for 20 years was widely regarded as an inferior playstyle..
It's actually kind of depressing that it took this community two decades to realize that just because someone doesn't want to adopt a bad Scottish accent every time they ask for a cure spell, that doesn't make them less of a RPG player than you, and it doesn't mean that their playstyle is worse or that they're having fun wrong.
I wont flat blame what has happened on MMO's but MMO's were developed so that people who didnt like the ROLE in RPGs to get involved with the game on their own terms. This in itself isn't a problem. But when those MMO guys come back to the table with that same 'proud lazy gamist' mentality,
Consider for a moment that, to a lot of people, that statement would sound incredibly elitist. This is a hobby where grown men sit around a kitchen table pretending to be magical elves with each other for an entire evening. There is no room for elitism in this hobby.
1. You compare something that unreliably happens over a long time with something that reliably happens once per day/encounter. That doesn't work.
A critical miss happens, reliably, 5% of the times you attack (assuming you're not using a loaded die). Assuming an average adventuring day of four encounters, five rounds per encounter, and one attack per round (which is far too low for many martial characters, but whatever) you can expect an average of one critical miss per day, even in Pathfinder. And keep in mind that encounter powers and daily powers are not used reliably once per day or per encounter. Many times characters will get through an encounter with an encounter power (or two) unused, or will decide to rest the night before exhausting all of their daily powers.
So, yes, it works just fine, thanks.
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Consider for a moment that, to a lot of people, that statement would sound incredibly elitist. This is a hobby where grown men sit around a kitchen table pretending to be magical elves with each other for an entire evening. There is no room for elitism in this hobby.
I so wish that were true. I have yet to encounter a human activity, no matter how silly, that hasn't managed to not only find room for elitism, but to elevate it to an art form.
Besides, pretending to be magical elves is SOOOO much better than pretending to be mundane halflings...
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Again just a mismatch of styles...
Vincent is more simulationist, Scott is more gamist.
Since people have ignored two moderator warnings to tone down the personal hostility, I'm locking this thread.