So I’ve read Jason Bulmahn’s review of his 4e experience at Dungeons & Dragons Experience. And all I have to say is what a whiny frigg’n bastard.
Okay…Full disclosure here—Jason’s a good friend. I love playing games with Jason. He’s played in my campaigns, I’ve played in his. We get together on occasion to play board or miniatures games (as we are doing this weekend) and we tend to have very similar likes, dislikes, and ideas when it comes to games. Not identical, but pretty similar. Jason and I also love talking shops. Often we nod at each other in agreement, sometimes we have knock-down drag-out verbal scuffles, but we always have a good time, and I always feel enriched by our conversation. Even if that enrichment comes in the form of one-liners that I can steal from him—Jason’s a very funny guy.
Needless to say, I love to give Jason a hard time…and I can always count on him to return the favor.
I do have to admit that the past six months or so have been a little trying on our friendship. Because of that fickle bastard called business, I’ve been working on a game that I can’t talk to about. I would love to talk to Jason about it because I think he’ll really enjoy it and I am always interested in his opinion. I know him well enough to anticipate the points in our conversation that he’ll give me that strange little curl of the lips followed by a skeptical star, but I am ready for the great game theory conversation that will follow. Jason wants know about that game for personal and business reasons. Much like me, the man practically he bleeds D&D and he also works for Paizo—and Paizo of course wants to make business decisions based on the future of D&D. All that and we end up talking about the weather. Frustrating!
Well, things have loosened up a bit. Jason’s played some 4e. There is information on the intra-webs, and while I still can’t invite him over to my house to play the game, that day is not to far off. And Jason’s learned enough about the game to form his first opinions. Yippie! Fantastic! I just got some fun back!
Now I’m really looking forward to playing board games with Jason this weekend. Partially because I’m sure we’ll spend some time talking about Jason’s experience at Experience in detail (as our ladies roll their eyes and call out “would you too roll the dice already!”), but I thought I would give you all a preview of my “talking points” (gee…I feel like I’m running for office) because I am sure that some of you will find them either interesting or frustrating…or both. I know Jason will. Oh…and in the spirit of our political season, you bet I am going to cherry pick the responses for this column. See, I’m a bad, bad man!
Iuz the Evil sayeth:
“We all had a class-relative action to take pretty much every round. In 3.5, you would sometimes get forced to perform actions that were not part of your core character concept, such as having the wizard attack with a crossbow. While I consider this a plus, it did lead to repetitive action (something I was hoping 4E would avoid) after you used up your more limited powers. In other words, once I ran out of my per encounter powers, I pretty much used the same at-will power over and over because it was the best option I had.”
A first level character gets a basic attack, a couple of at-wills, an encounter power, and a daily power. Each encounter a first level character can do at least four different attacks before they have to repeat an action. Some characters can do five. And if you blow your daily, you can do six or even seven. Add to this mix the various generic action types (or, as I like to call them, not-so-basic attacks) and I think you have a pretty good repertoire of non-repeat action each encounter.
Furthermore, having a best option is a lot different than having little to no option. Once your spells are finished in 3e what did you do? You shoot that crossbow you were talking about and whine to the fighter about taking a nap. How many options real did your fighter actually have in 3e? How many times did you just swing your sword in the same run-of-the-mill fashion you did last round? The difference between 3e and 4e is simply you have an optimal choice you get to repeat, not just an action you always get to repeat. How many frigg’n powers do you want, Jason? ;-). Don’t worry; you get more as you level!
And with a crooked finger, Iuz the Evil produced the following power words…
- Once you face a monster, you know what to expect the next time you face that monster. This was very true in Scalegloom Hall. We faced the same kobolds again and again, and they performed pretty similarly over and over again. Since monsters do not have as many options available to them, they really only have a few things to do. This may be a factor of them being low level, but looking at the Pit Fiend post, I kinda doubt it. There were some variances, due to the room set ups (like swinging skulls and a rolling boulder), but setting those things aside, the kobold slingers did the same thing in every fight we faced them. I am not sure I like this, but there are worse things I suppose.
Now I have not had the chance to read Scalegloom Hall cover to cover, but I know some of the challenges…Mearls sits right next to me and screech like a cacklefiend hyena every time he finishes an encounter. But you are right. Monsters do what they do with the exact amount of complexity necessary (IMO). But there is more than just environmental variance, there is also monster group composition variance. You may not have seen that as much in Scalegloom Hall, because that adventure was written to teach the game (not only to players but also Dungeon Masters) and it uses a very simple sample of creatures and combinations (not to mention, you just have a smaller sample at 1st level, no matter what edition you’re playing). But let’s take a look at what I ran two weeks ago in my Castle Greyhawk game to illustrate the mix of roles and creatures that create interesting encounters.
Basically Iwanted to test my 13th level characters and their savvy players. The following was one encounter split into two waves. It lasted about 12 rounds.
First wave
7 Azer minions (popcorn! – a bit of soldier)
1 Azer rager (brute)
2 Magmin (artillery).
Second wave
2 Large fire elementals (skirmisher)
2 Azers (soldiers)
1 Dragon wyrmling (elite soldier)
1 Adult red dragon (solo – soldier-y)
The azers have similar tendencies, but the minions, the soldiers, and the brutes have their own places on the battlefield. And while all of these critters are fire related, there were enough surprises to keep the PCs on their toes.
The azers have similar tendencies, but the minions, the soldiers, and the brutes have their own places on the battlefield. And while all of these critters are fire related, there were enough surprises to keep the PCs on their toes.
(Oh, and BTW, please do not take my list here as a preview of the Monster Manual; some of the monsters were of my own design, though they take “classic” shapes).
As a DM, I find the ability to have large and interesting battle like this very exciting and the relative ease of the creatures is very liberating. I can challenge the PCs in a larger and more dynamic nature, as I don’t have to put all my eggs in one basket of hit points and keep the action going longer. I have to worry overly much that I am not playing the monster optimally and I don’t fret over monsters that have two or more roles on the battle grid because of some strange bit of legacy design. Ahem…demons ::cough, cough:: devils!
By the end of the battle, most the PCs were out of healing surges, all the encounter and daily powers were used up, and most the PCs were in single digit hit points. They felt challenges and sure as hell didn't find the monsters boring.
Iuz the Evil muses about death he's about to inflict…
“- I am not sure you can die in 4E. Let me clarify that a bit. I am sure you can die, but it seems to me that you need to throw a vastly overchallenging encounter at the PCs, or you need to be a bit of a jerk.”
Oh, yes Jason, you can die. Wait until this summer. I’ll show you first hand. ;-)
Okay, I see your point, that was a bit jerky. Is it harder to die then last edition? Yes, but that’s a feature rather than a bug.
Roleplaying games are the exact opposite of Vegas—the house always loses (or often loses). It’s the DMs job (and one of his most important jobs) to create encounters that often put the PCs on the brink of losing, but without having them lose or lose too much. Many DMs fool themselves into thinking this isn’t the case, but much like using an Ouija Board they are just deluding themselves. Roleplaying games are fun because of tension. Tension is the risk of defeat. Create tension but always have ways for players to snatch victory from defeat. But what is defeat in D&D? Is it character death? It can be, but it should be the rarest form, the most viceral form of defeat. In fact, as DMs, game designers, and game developers I think it behooves us to find more story-specific forms of defeat for our adventures and our campaign. I think we've found ways to create interesting mini-defeats in the game, but that’s a deeper discussion. The fact is, death (except for tournament-style D&D play where I think it has its) is the most disruptive form of defeat for both the players and the DMs. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have its place. It just means that it should be as rare as possible—so it doesn’t disrupt campaigns (by far, the most common and some would argue satisfying form of D&D play).
It’s not like we are designing a video game here and we have tools that allow death to be somewhat common but only mildly debilitating. D&D, like other tabletop roleplaying games are a little more narrative and it is a lot harder to hand-wave death. Those are the main reason why we made an effort to make character death harder to occur. This has been a constant problem that various versions of D&D have tried to solve. You can see that by taking a look at the death and dying rules from edition to edition.
Wow, I feel like I could say a lot more on that point. I know that Rodney Thompson and I have had some interesting discussions on the subject (happy birthday Rodney!). I probably will at some point.
Wow, I feel like I could say a lot more on that point. I know that Rodney Thompson and I have had some interesting discussions on the subject (happy birthday Rodney!). I probably will at some point.
Well that’s all I have time for now. I am sure that Jason and I will chat more this weekend, and produce many points and counter points. I must admit that I am very excited that folks have actually had a chance to play this game and are making comments and starting discussions. It’s one thing to speculate, it quite another to share experiences. I think you learn more from the latter.
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Damn Hippies... I wish that Koala had taken a bite out of you.
Jason Bulmahn
Friend of Stephen.. I guess.