This is NOT an edition war @ RPG MUSINGS

This is NOT an edition war

Hello everyone out there in gamer land. I hope you are having a productive Tuesday. I am breaking normal routine to bring you a snippet of conversation about the game I love so much.

Over at Jebbx@notarealdotcom there is a discussion about the decline of 4th edition. He wrote the article, in part, due to NewbieDM’s latest post over on his blog. Well, you know that my least favorite critique of 4e is that there is no role-playing in it (as written about here), well, I think I may have found my second least favorite critique in Jebbx’s opinion piece. I respect anyone’s right to say what they want and I encourage respectful conversation about topics I am passionate about, and he seems to do so as well. The discussion over there is respectful and thoughtful. Take a look at it.

Here is my response to his post. I am posting it here because I think it says a lot about why the edition wars are stupid, and you can understand what I am saying here, even without having read his post.

I encourage you to put every effort into running a long 4e campaign. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

The 4e system makes DM prep of the mechanical aspects of the game so quick and easy that I actually have MORE time to devote to the storytelling aspects.

You will also find that there ARE differences between the classes, and the system by which the players choose their powers makes it so that even 2 characters of the same class and build can be very different.

The key here is actually your players. 4e lends itself to letting your players describe the awesome effects of some powerful spell they just cast, or the crunching bones in the face of the ogre the fighter just smacked. The 4e powers lend themselves to great elaboration and narration when they are being used – it’s simply a matter of using them. But let’s be honest and admit that this was always the case. If you have a player in your 3.5 game that just says “I roll to hit” and another player that says “I swing my axe at the goblin’s legs as I try to move past him, ducking low so that he might fall over” – which one do you think is more into the game? Which one is most likely to be the one to fall to his knees weeping over the anguish of having to kill one of his own at the end of the campaign? The answer is system independent.

4e is not for everyone, it’s true. But it allows for just as much role-playing and story-building, just as many epic campaign arcs filled with quests, and just as much character-player connection as any other edition.

I hope you enjoy it. but if you don’t – hey, play the thing that’s fun for you – isn’t that why we all game?

I urge you all to go to Jebbx@notarealdotcom and read his nice response to all of the people that commented on his post. Now that is what I’m talking about when I say that these types of conversations should be civilized.

Follow me on twitter: @DMSamuel

Until next time, I wish you good gaming!

~DM Samuel

Tags: 4e DnD
This entry was posted Tuesday, 25 May, 2010 at 11:12 am
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Sersa V on May 25th, 2010 at 1:39 pm

Nicely said.

I am a DM and player who is pretty fed up with 4E, for reasons I don’t need to pollute your blog with, but anyone who argues that 4E is less narrative, less capable of telling a good story… I wonder, why? So despite taking a break from the game, consider this complete agreement.

DM Samuel on May 25th, 2010 at 2:24 pm

Morrisonmp: Thanks for your comment.

While I really love 4e, I don’t claim that there are no problems with the system.

But what I really think is that we should all just go play the game that makes us happy and quit arguing over who’s game is better.

That’s where I stand on the issue and it frees me to let anyone play anything they want while I’m at my table playing what I want.

Thanks for reading!

DM Samuel on May 25th, 2010 at 2:32 pm

I agree all around. It’s about the people and the stories they want to tell, not the system. This is exactly what I’ve been talking about recently on my blog, too. I guess differences between editions is an evergreen topic!

onlinedm on May 25th, 2010 at 8:20 pm

Thanks for the comment!

I agree. There are advantage and flaws to all of the editions. 4e has its own set of both. None of the advantages or flaws of any edition has ever rendered me unable to role-play.

DM Samuel on May 26th, 2010 at 12:11 am

“I swing my axe at the goblin’s legs as I try to move past him, ducking low so that he might fall over”
I have yet to attend a session of DnD, of any edition, that had even one player describe his attacks in anything even remotely close to this- with the exception of one player that trained in martial arts and made repeated efforts to describe her way to success without making dice rolls. That’s just the way DnD is.
Fourth edition is worse than previous editions in that the basic attacks take a back seat to dozens of special named powers with specific effects so the player doesn’t even try to explain his or her action or tactics they just say, “Tide of Iron” and roll the dice. And why should they bother? All the description in the world doesn’t mean a darned thing if you roll a ’2′ on your to-hit roll.

Jason on May 26th, 2010 at 11:06 am

Maybe the example isn’t a great one – too fluffy or cinematic? What usually happens, in a 4e game with me DMing, is that a player picks their action and rolls. Based on the result of the roll they then describe what happened. So the description would happen after the roll rather than before – then the result is actually included in the description, without a die-roll in between. So maybe slightly different.

When I have a new payer I encourage this type of playing by doing it myself a few times. And then, if they don’t pick it up, I will say to them, “tell us how you’re doing it” and I try to give prompts to everyone once in a while, so as to not call out new players.

Either way, my point is still the same: The amount of connection to the PC, the amount of storytelling, the amount of role-playing versus roll-playing in a game depends upon the players and is not edition specific.

As to your point about rolling a 2, one of the things I try to do in my games is make failure mean something. Rolling a two means that you missed, yes, but how did you miss, did the goblin duck out of the way at the last second? Is he faster than you thought the little buggers could be? Did you try a move you aren’t as good at and need more practice? Narration can be added to any edition.

As far as the “Tide of Iron” example, here’s how I would handle that:
When the player says “Tide of Iron,” I say “What’s that do?” and then the player usually describes the mechanic, to which I respond, “No, I mean, tell us what we see when you do this.”

Strangely enough, playing in an online game a couple of times has gotten me in the habit of doing this even more/better than I used to. The online game causes an inability to see facial expressions and tone is sometimes misunderstood, so I try to get players to describe things from the character’s point of view.

If you want your players to use descriptive role-play you have to do two things:
1) you yourself have to do it first, it sets the tone
2) encourage them to do it, a lot

Thanks for the comment!

DM Samuel on May 27th, 2010 at 12:06 am

DM Samuel:
I didn’t mean you couldn’t roleplay with 4th edition, or DnD of any edition for that matter. Merely that there exists a state of mind in every DnD player I’ve ever met that excludes role playing entirely. The attitude is kill it, loot it and on to the next level. Yet these very same players when doing Shadowrun or Star Wars or some other non-DnD rpg actually do role play. I’ve seen so many of these players RP their characters in a game of “generic fantasy”- but if the game is identified as “DnD” something clicks behind their eyes and certain unwritten rules suddenly take over. Gone is the local-village-boy-done-good wielding his father’s sword in the service of her Grace the Duchess of Autumndale. He’s been replaced by a bloodthirsty thief who’s only concern is to replace his +3 magic sword with a +4 (or better) magic sword. It’s not the edition of the rules that is the problem. It’s that the rules are “DnD”.

Jason on May 27th, 2010 at 4:09 pm

I am sad for you if you have never ever met a DnD player that role-plays when playing DnD, especially if these same people will role-play in other RPGs. Why do you think they do that? What is it about DnD that makes them do that?

Sure, I have met individuals that aren’t interested in role-play and are only in it to kill more monsters and get more loot; they tend to tune out during the role-playing parts of the game, but to say that every DnD player you have ever come across has a state of mind that precludes role-playing because of something about DnD? How can that be so?

DM Samuel on May 27th, 2010 at 4:19 pm

“but to say that every DnD player you have ever come across has a state of mind that precludes role-playing because of something about DnD? How can that be so?”

I’ve wondered that myself. I used to think that it was the class level system of advancement that was the problem, but now I believe it is a result of well entrenched expectations. Let me give you an example:

The adventure begins with the PCs in a large city being hired by a merchants guild to seek out and destroy a group of highwaymen that had been attacking convoys travelling on a major trade route between this city and another large city a good distance away. When I asked who ruled the city we were starting in, I got looks from everyone else around the table, DM included, as if that was the stupidest question they ever heard. The answer? There was no feudal lord. No republic or council of elders. When I insisted that common sense demanded any city of this size would have at least one claim upon it, if not several, I was informed the local merchant’s guild controlled the town guard and basically ruled the city. Like it matters- after all, we’re “adventurers”! We answer to no lord!

So off we go in search of the things we’re supposed to kill. About half way between both major cities, just a short distance from the road, we find an abandoned castle. With the exception of a hole in the outer wall the structure is intact and functional. And aside from a few wild animals the entire structure is abandoned. After killing everything in the castle we fall under attack from the raiders- some kind of hyena people. We kill them of course.

I ask, foolishly, “Who owns this castle?” The answer? “No one. It’s abandoned.” Okay. So here we have an almost fully functional castle on a major trade route that is unclaimed by any government. And the closest city is ruled by a collection of merchants, not a feudal lord, and doesn’t have a standing army only a small defense force.
I suggest that we return to the city, collect our pay and use it to recruit some people to refurbish and man the castle. I further suggest that since one of our PCs is a Paladin that we declare him a lord and establish a small independent Barony centered on the castle which we would fund with a tax on the road between the two major cities which we could easily control. The trade route would be secured against any future highwaymen, the Paladin would increase his rank from knight to lord, and we would have a base of operations for future adventures. Win, win right? You’d have thought I suggested we all play a game of Candyland.

I am informed that we can’t do that. We’re adventurers! We don’t have a base of operations. The castle can’t be moved so it is left behind without another thought.

Why? Because we’re “adventures”. Things like serving a feudal lord, defending a barony or trying to improve one’s social stature is beyond the scope of the game. We’re adventures. We just kill things- and loot their bodies on the way to the next level.

Jason on May 28th, 2010 at 11:44 am

I hope you don’t play with that group anymore – sounds like your styles don’t match. In other words, dude, you need a new group.

That was definitely an example of a dismal game, but I have to disagree with you about one statement:
“Things like serving a feudal lord, defending a barony or trying to improve one’s social stature is beyond the scope of the game.”

These things are NOT beyond the scope of the game, but they were apparently beyond the scope of the people you were playing with.

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