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Jan 8, 2013 -- 4:51PM, DavidArgall wrote:

Jan 8, 2013 -- 7:12AM, Uskglass wrote:

Jan 7, 2013 -- 9:55AM, Tony_Vargas wrote:

Like most RPGs, D&D has always devoted a lot of rules and PC stats to combat, but it's always possible to focus on RP & Narrative more than mechanics.  4e made a particular effort, in the Skill Challenge mechanic, to provide rules for non-combat with some structure, FWIW.

Yes, ironically 4e, which is often labelled as a combat centric game, is the first edition to provide an organic system for handling events in exploration and social interaction.
Skill challenges are a simple, fair and completely optional system. And guess what? 4e got bashed for introducing them. 

     Well no, 4e didn't really introduce skill challenges, and it wasn't criticized for that.  It just did a fairly lousy job at them.  Of course it is not at all clear anyone else could do much better, but it was clear the system was simplistic and not that superior to just doing it on the fly. 
   4e deserved an A for effort, but for execution...

Skill challenge system needed a good bit of reworking.  But I think it was a step in the right direction.  It didn't go nearly far enough, but it felt like they were on the right path.

Jan 9, 2013 -- 2:20AM, Uskglass wrote:

Jan 8, 2013 -- 4:51PM, DavidArgall wrote:

     Well no, 4e didn't really introduce skill challenges, and it wasn't criticized for that...

Are you sure? The closer thing to Skill Challenges I can think about from previous editions are complex skill checks, but that's not the same by a long stretch. Unless I'm missing something, in which case please point it out.

4e introduced Skill Challenges to D&D, and was summarily criticized because the initial example Skill Challenges made it look like any important interaction with NPCs should be governed by dice rolls, once again emphasizing the 'G' over the 'RP.'

The biggest similarity to 3e's Unearthed Arcana's Complex Skill Checks would be for mid-combat skill challenges, typically for breaking traps mid-combat. Even then, the nature of 4e SCs would point towards allowing multiple ways to beat it, whereas a Complex Skill Check is 'X number of successful Disable Device checks before Y failures.'

Jan 8, 2013 -- 7:12AM, Uskglass wrote:

Jan 7, 2013 -- 9:55AM, Tony_Vargas wrote:

Like most RPGs, D&D has always devoted a lot of rules and PC stats to combat, but it's always possible to focus on RP & Narrative more than mechanics.  4e made a particular effort, in the Skill Challenge mechanic, to provide rules for non-combat with some structure, FWIW.

Yes, ironically 4e, which is often labelled as a combat centric game, is the first edition to provide an organic system for handling events in exploration and social interaction.
Skill challenges are a simple, fair and completely optional system. And guess what? 4e got bashed for introducing them. 

Well, what 4e may be bashed for, is to give an impression that the rules and numbers are suddenly an imporant part of the game, something that never was the case. Dnd was primarely a roleplaying game, it still is, the rules were just an ade to roleplay and to tell stories! In earlier editions, it was emphasized that you could bend, change or even ignore the rules if that benefited the story. That philosophy still lives on in dnd today and is even voiced by people at Wizards, like Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford.
Combat can be lots of fun in 4e and has a smooth and very good design. Skill challanges are also fun and can be used for a lot of things, even combat if you want to speed that up and have a more freeflow and narrative feel to it.
I think people reacted badly to skill challanges, was because you never needed diplomacy or intimidate to talk to someone before, as an example, and you shouldn`t have to in most cases where the dm could just roleplay the npc and use common sense. To threaten an angry orc chieftain, sure it would make sense to roll for intimidate, but in other cases it would just be silly to think that a common baker or a farmer wouldn`t be scared of a big guy with a sharp sword or mystical wizard in black. Skills can be fun in the right situations, but to use them and to rely on the rules all the time, is not what a roleplaying game should be about.  People didn`t want more rules where they didn`t need them.
4e is a great system with smooth rules, but the rules should not be the most important part of the game. Many believe the rules should be the least important part of the game.

I have quoted a 2nd ed paragraph from the dmg in a few other forums, but I think it just got relevant here too.


2nd edition on combat:

Creating Vivid Combat Scenes 

     Since this isn`t a combat game, the rules are not ultra detailed, designing the exact effect of every blow, the subtle differences between obscure weapons, the location of every piece of armor on the body, or the horrifying results of an actual sword fight. Too many rules slow down play (taking away from the real adventure) and restrict imagination. How much fun is it when a character, readt to try  an amazing and heroic deed, is told "You can`t do that because it`s against the rules".
     Players should be allowed to try whatever they want - especially if what they want to try will add to the spirit of adventure and excitement. Just remeber that there is a difference between trying and succeeding.
      To have the most fun playing the AD&D game, don`t rely only on the rules. Like so much in good role-playing adventure, combat is drama,a staged play. The DM is both the playwright and the director, creating a theatrical combat. If a character wants to try wrestleing a storm giant to the ground, let him; a character who tries leaping from a second floor window onto the back of a passing orc is adding to everyones fun.
     The trick to make combat more vivid is to be less concerned with the rules than with what is happening at each instant of play. If combat is only " I hit. I miss. I hit again," then something is missing. Combat should be more like, "One orc ducks under the table, jabbing at your legs with his sword. The other tries to make a flying tackle, but misses and sprawls to the floor in the middle of the party!" This takes description, timing, strategy, humor and (perhaps most important of all) knowing when to use the rules and when to bend them.

- the revised and updated Dungeon Master`s Guide for the AD&D 2nd edition game.-(chapter 9: combat. page 51)

Jan 9, 2013 -- 12:28PM, ninjazombie42 wrote:

Well, what 4e may be bashed for, is to give an impression that the rules and numbers are suddenly an imporant part of the game, something that never was the case.

No, that was always the case.  The reason the rules seemed less important before was because they were often, to be polite, 'of questionable quality'.  People bypassed huge sections of the rules because they were clunky, contradictory, and/or unbalanced.

The G in RPG is equally important as the RP in RPG.

4e is the first edition of D&D that I can actually play as-is.