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1 year ago ::
May 04, 2012 - 8:19AM
#401
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My main problem is people always come into the forums claiming "You can't roleplay in 4E". Then when proven wrong, they say "Oh, well I meant me and my group can't roleplay 4E".
So next time you complain about the roleplay aspect of 4E you should clarify that "My group never had any success roleplaying in 4E". So that new players and those that haven't played 4E don't get the idea its a universal part of 4E.
This a dig at me?  I'd think that all any one here can do is speak from experience - isn't that a given? Your language suggest I am edition warring, with "claims" and being "proven wrong". Please, I'm not here to score points for "my team" - I'm asking a question, not declaring a universal fact.
And I think those new players would do well to ignore all of us and just play the game and make up their own mind. We all have.
There are several people in this thread that keep talking about not being able to roleplay in 4E. Its meant to cover all those people that think its impossible to roleplay in 4E or that because there is a grid you can't do it.
If they acknowledge that it can happen, and they just haven't experienced it themselves then I have no problem.
Also its really a left/right brain issue. If you plop that grid down your logic brain becomes dominant while you learn the rules and math involved in tactical play. Once it becomes second nature you'll find it easier to roleplay.
They could greatly improve the ease at which people roleplay during grid based combat if they simplify the system and speed it up. People like me that eat math for breakfast and have logical debates regularly have no problem roleplaying during grid based combat, because the logic and math isn't a challenge...
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1 year ago ::
May 04, 2012 - 8:28AM
#402
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Date Joined:
Jul 25, 2003
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@nelyo
My social example was meant to be seen as absurd. A parody on combat. I really woudlnt want social or exploration cards per class, because as much as pg 42 is the "you can do anything page" having a card in front of you is the easier option than making somehting up yourself.
I think if the game focuses on one pillar (in print) it does suggest the kind of game it is. 4e suggested a far mire tactical grid based combat game. Cthulu suggests a exploration game cos fighting is the last resort (theme) and the character buld is skill based (rules). Star wars suggests an heroic tale where describing your movement cinematically allows you to travel farther in your turn. Dark hesy suggests investigation. Rogue trader, exploration. And deathwatch combat against hordes of enemies. The rules do suggest a preferred pillar even if all pillars are possible.
How many times have you read that no one wants to take a non combat feat because they then feel gimped. Why domyou think this is? Is it because all pillars are there and accounted for equally, or is it perhaps, despite all the fantastic roleplay that is occuring around 4e tables, that a combat feat is mechanically better than a noncombat feat?
I get what you are saying here and I agree to a certain extent, but I think this is more of a problem with D&D tending to put the emphasis on combat as opposed to a problem with designing *balanced* combat. I think chaosfang hit this on the head in the other thread when he said that it isn't about balance vs. roleplay but rather rules vs. roleplay. Thus it wasn't the fact that 4e balanced combat that made it more difficult for your group to roleplay, but that it devoted so much of the rules to combat (though I would argue that this is endemic to D&D in general). You can take a simple rules system and balance it without limiting creative action; I would venture to say it'd probably be easier than with a complex rules system.
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1 year ago ::
May 04, 2012 - 8:31AM
#403
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Date Joined:
Oct 26, 2004
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That's the part I don't understand. What is so much more difficult about roleplaying under 4e than say 3e or any of the earlier editions?
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1 year ago ::
May 04, 2012 - 8:34AM
#404
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That's the part I don't understand. What is so much more difficult about roleplaying under 4e than say 3e or any of the earlier editions?
Nothing.
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1 year ago ::
May 04, 2012 - 8:43AM
#405
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Date Joined:
Mar 21, 2011
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@rampant
For my group, the players had trouble roleplaying because they were focusing attention toward the edition's heavy focus on combat and the list of attacks, utilities, and interrupts.
Namely, the power cards kept most of my group in a very neat box; they would read the fluff text, note the power's name, and never see beyond what was written on the card. In the instances when they would try something exciting (during combat), their immersion in the game was broken by a creature's shift-as-an-interrupt or some other hindering power.
Now, that was all with regard to combat. Beyond combat, my group did roleplay with some success, and once I had encouraged them to explore the nuances of their characters, NPC interactions and environmental explorations were roleplayed quite well. Combat, however, never cleared that hurdle, and that's why my group abandoned 4E.
Is it impossible to roleplay in 4E? No. Absolutely not. I can think of a Psion I played in a friend's game, and that character was one of my most memorable gaming experiences to date.
If the power cards went away, I think the combat component of 4E would find a greater sense of immersion in more groups, but of course, I am speaking from a generalized perspective of experience with relation to my group.
Edit: Not that this will shed more light on my group's experience, but three of the players were new to table-top RPGs and two of them have played AD&D and 3E/3.5. Everyone was excited for 4E, and the group kept an open mind as it tried to find its way through the different approach to role-playing games. While none of the players hold any open animosity toward this edition, they prefer other approaches toward roleplaying games.
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1 year ago ::
May 04, 2012 - 9:00AM
#406
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- Forum Guide
- Hero Craftsman Gold Medalist
- Master Dungeon Master
Date Joined:
Jun 23, 2005
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Thi is one of those places where psychology finds logic and beats the crap out of it. There is no practical reason people can't roleplay in 4e, but I've seen aenough complaints to believe that the power system creates in a segment of the community a blinder of sorts in which people don't think outside the box, the box being constructed entirely of their powers. The existence of page 42 and extensive advice on reflavoring and improvising simply doesn't overcome the psychological bloc created by that list of powers. I don't know why it is, but I have to accept that it is true, for a segment of gamers. I've found that 4e inadvertently triggers alot of psychological blocks in some gamers. Healing surges, so-called "disassociated mechanics", powers, and what I called Combat Investment, all created these places where people behaved in ways that really shouldn't have caused such behavior, but for psychology. I didn't personally experience them, but some (but certainly not all) of my players did, and it took me a while to just accept it as true. It was one of the hardest things for me to accept about 4e, because it means that the best designed game in the world means crud if it runs afoul of player psychology, and I haven't a clue how to anticipate that.
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1 year ago ::
May 04, 2012 - 9:48AM
#407
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Thi is one of those places where psychology finds logic and beats the crap out of it.
There is no practical reason people can't roleplay in 4e, but I've seen aenough complaints to believe that the power system creates in a segment of the community a blinder of sorts in which people don't think outside the box, the box being constructed entirely of their powers. The existence of page 42 and extensive advice on reflavoring and improvising simply doesn't overcome the psychological bloc created by that list of powers.
I don't know why it is, but I have to accept that it is true, for a segment of gamers.
I've found that 4e inadvertently triggers alot of psychological blocks in some gamers. Healing surges, so-called "disassociated mechanics", powers, and what I called Combat Investment, all created these places where people behaved in ways that really shouldn't have caused such behavior, but for psychology.
I didn't personally experience them, but some (but certainly not all) of my players did, and it took me a while to just accept it as true. It was one of the hardest things for me to accept about 4e, because it means that the best designed game in the world means crud if it runs afoul of player psychology, and I haven't a clue how to anticipate that.
Right. OTOH I think it also points to a need to be fairly cautious about what we consider as reasons for why people do or don't like the experience they have with a given game. It is easy to point to specific things, but are those really the things that are creating an issue or not? It probably varies from one group to another too. It may have to do with style of play, experience with other games, etc. Who really knows?
I'd really like to see 4e re-presented with the primary emphasis put on placing the narrative at the front of the process and with a more streamlined faster combat system and tighter more cleaned up rules in a number of areas. Some of the things that have been apparently tried out in 5e go in the right direction, assuming we have a reasonably accurate idea of what IS being tried (maybe not in all areas).
I know powers have been flailed on a lot specifically. That isn't a ridiculous hypothesis at all, but I'm not sure there is no such thing as a good solid power system fairly similar to the 4e one that can work fine in the right context. Fewer and more iconic powers, more emphasis on using them in different ways, etc. It could work fine. There ARE a lot of nice system advantages to having a single basic framework to build classes off of. It seems like a shame to just toss that in the ashcan when there is only a tenuous theory that they are 'bad for roleplay' etc.
That is not dead which may eternal lie
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1 year ago ::
May 04, 2012 - 10:23AM
#408
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Date Joined:
Aug 19, 2007
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@Nelyo Yeah I can agree with chaosfangs statement too, "rules vs roleplay". So perhaps my bête noire isn't balance... (although I'd still run around the ragged rocks arguing about why all classes don't need to have combat parity and you'd run around the rocks too and tell me its important to keep everyone engaged and meaningful in combat and I'd there's more than combat and you'd say combat has always been the focus of the rules everything "else" is player/dm investment and i'd feel like the kid at the back of the math class going, but i just don't get it *chuckle*... and yadda yadda.) Perhaps, because balance was made to be the shining epithet of 4e, that's what I saw to waggle my disapproving finger. - - On the whole psychology thing... a thought as to why the power cards may seem immutable (as in follow them exactly, don't dare try to make your own stuff up), is that the wizards power cards are spells and spells have always been immutable through the ages. You couldn't willy-nilly be inventing versions of "burning extremities" (unless your name was Mordenkainen). The fighter (heck every class) also has power cards, they are their special effects... the thought: "...they then must be like the wizards power cards and ergo also immutable." It's perhaps short sighted. As to them themselves, the power cards, I liked them. Especially for the martial classes. Not so much for the casters. And no i don't know how to fix that, if it even should be fixed. Forget I said anything. The other reason we as a group didn't invent stuff in combat is that we didn't feel like we knew enough of the system to do so. We didn't start slapping on house rules until we felt we could reasonably understand their effects, and I'm pretty sure we had no idea what we were doing to the balance of the game by halving hitpoints and surges in an effort to speed up combat. We just eventually did it to solve "something" we didn't enjoy, long combats. It never occurred to any of us to make up our own powers. We (embarrassingly *blush*) missed out on pg 42.
The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules.
-Gary Gygax
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1 year ago ::
May 04, 2012 - 10:57AM
#409
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@Gunthar
I think you need a better GM. Just saying. In any game I run no player would ever be left out of the loop for 2 1/2 hours. If anyone ever ended up with a character 'weaker' than the others like what you're describing I'd arbitrarily soup them up. Powergaming is pretty much irrelevant in my games. I'm sorry you had to experience all that.
You pretty much entirely missed the context of the message. Balance needs to be built in so the DM doesn't need to "soup up" a character for a player. New players, veteran players, re-discovering players should all be able to make effective characters of equivalent power levels easily. Building in "system mastery" is also a terrible idea. The DM shouldn't have to micro-manage the game.
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1 year ago ::
May 04, 2012 - 1:01PM
#410
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Date Joined:
Feb 13, 2012
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By definition a roleplaying game concerning any subject matter can be driven by the those three forces. So simulation is definitely NOT related to real world realism. (Unless the game is set in some version of the real world perhaps).
Clearly D&D is not a simulation of any real historical period. There's no myth or famed series of novels that features wizards who throw balls of fire and priests who heal with a touch, but both of whom 'forget' each spell as they cast it. So it's not simulating anything of that nature, either.
What does it simulate? If it has nothing to simulate, the claim that it fails as a simulation is just silly.
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