unsolicited IMs from a friend, about D&D 4E, today
This is part of my RPG series of entries here at SOB. See the inaugural entry in the series for more details.
(13:46:03) [redacted]: i finally got around to looking at the 4th edition players handbook. it's a fucking travesty
(13:47:50) [redacted]: the aggro mechanic they gave fighter types blew my friggin mind
(13:48:12) [redacted]: they essentially took the thing that makes mmo's fail to be anything like rpg's and added it to their rpg
I don't know if you agree or disagree with what your friend said, but I've been saying that about 4e since I cracked the spine. He was more concise than I've been so far though, so I may use that last line as if I'd thought of it myself at some point. ;-)
Comment by Helmsman — 30 April 2009 @ 04:47
Helmsman — if you look up at the top of the page, where it says "Filed under:", and click on the RPG link, you'll get the contents of the RPG category here. If you sift through that stuff, I'm sure you'll find some indicators that I do indeed agree with my friend's estimation of the game. I walked into a store a day or two after 4E came out and thumbed through the books, as did my SigO. We agreed pretty quickly that our hopes 4E would be a good game had been pretty thoroughly dashed. It was trite, superficial crap, in our initial judgments.
Later, further perusal of the books only convinced me that my initial judgment was pretty accurate, at least for my own taste in gaming.
Comment by apotheon — 30 April 2009 @ 07:52
Actually. . . what makes MMOs not like RPGs is more the lack of a central GM and interpersonal interaction driving the game as opposed to an impersonal program guiding every rule an action. I mean, I don't care if he (or you) like 4e in particular, but if you are going to knock it be accurate with your knocking. Agro control really has very little to do with the fundamental differences of RPGs and MMORPGs.
Comment by justaguy — 30 April 2009 @ 08:47
There's always room for interpersonal interaction in MMORPGs. It just doesn't play very well, because the rules (enforced by the game's source code in this case) don't support it worth a damn.
. . . which is kinda what WotC did with 4E. Aggro is like a cheap trick for avoiding having to make roleplaying decisions about how (N)PCs act, so that fits. Hell, there aren't even any enchantment/charm spells any longer, for crying out loud.
Comment by apotheon — 30 April 2009 @ 08:59
justaguy
In regards to MMO's, the programming itself is meant to play the part of the central GM, as well as the game world and the persona of all NPC's in the world. As far as interpersonal interaction goes that's really up to each player, very much like in a tabletop setting. "Good" players will actually play the role of their characters, while others stick with the standard "I hit this and I search for that" in such a way that the role they are playing may as well be that of a deaf mute.
The aggro mechanic is a crutch to allow these players to exist in a game setting without having to think. Removing improvisation, planning and thought from combat reduces combat, which is meant to be one of the more exciting aspects of the game, to easily the most tedious.
4th edition more closely resembles HeroQuest to me than what is meant to be an exercise of imagination. HeroQuest has it's place, but to see Role Playing devolve into board games truly is a fucking travesty.
Comment by LiveFromHell — 30 April 2009 @ 09:18
Well it's good to see that at least a few have a similar analysis of the game.
Comment by Helmsman — 30 April 2009 @ 10:07
Sorry, mmo aggro is a lot different then marking in DnD. Tell your friend to read slower next time before jumping on the bandwagon.
Comment by Tom — 1 May 2009 @ 06:32
"while others stick with the standard "I hit this and I search for that" in such a way that the role they are playing may as well be that of a deaf mute."
Which is something that has been around LONG before 4e. Hell, I saw a lot of that back when I played ADnD. . . so it's not like 4e invented this mentality. Someone who has that mentality will be that way in whatever system they play. Some might make it easier or harder, but they'll find a way to get what they want out of it.
And. . . I'll point out that in general (I can't say 100% cause I don't pretend to have it all memorized) the agro mechanic in 4e doesn't /force/ anyone to do things. It just gives them penalties to doing it. Ignoring marks causes damage, or provides opportunity attacks, or penalties to actions. . . it's not exactly a "taunt" mechanic ala MMOs.
"4th edition more closely resembles HeroQuest to me than what is meant to be an exercise of imagination. "
In general, I find the "4e destroys imagination" attacks to be. . . well. . . unimaginative. I've personally found 4e to be no more or less conducive to my imagination than 3e/pathfinder was (or, really, most an game system I've tried but I'll confine myself to the general area of comparison for the moment). 4E is meant to be a "high fantasy" where the characters have powers beyond that of average folk. It's focused on "kick in the door, kill monsters, take stuff" as far as mechanics go, but I don't see anywhere it telling me that I can't RP as I do that. Or I can't be imaginative in how I use my powers. Sure, that's up to GM fiat.. but when hasn't the success of creative use of your abilities been in the hands of the gamemaster?
"The aggro mechanic is a crutch to allow these players to exist in a game setting without having to think."
So. . . by adding more tactical control to the players, they have to think about combat less? In every 4e combat we've had I'm constantly thinking. . . I'm also RPing, I'm yelling and charging, I'm describing my actions, I'm calling out to the other characters. . . I've not seen 4E impede my ability to do that, or to make combat any more tedious than combat ever has been. (which in my experience has always taken a disproportionate amount of time to the rest of the game, in every system I've played)
Again. I don't really care if anyone likes 4e in particular. I'm not seeking to convert anyone. I just don't understand the particular line of attack. . . eh. I guess not being on the same side of the line impedes my ability to understand the fundamental truths that are self evident to those on the other side of it.
Comment by justaguy — 1 May 2009 @ 06:53
Perhaps I can weigh in a little. I won't argue that 4e's mechanics work or don't work, however what I believe the line of argument is trying to get at is that D&D is incorporating a lot of highly artificial mechanics that have no resemblance to reality whatsoever. These mechanics might aid in game balance, they might make gameplay quicker, but what they also do is they inhibit immersion. Mechanics that have no grounding in reality make it simply harder to role-play, because instead of doing actions within the setting that make sense the character has to justify why those actions would make sense within the setting, or not and simply gloss over the inconsistencies. Either way this provides just another barrier to overcome when trying to get your characters to ROLE play and not just kill things with dice, I'm not saying it's not possible but I do firmly believe it's a step backwards for the hobby in general.
Comment by Helmsman — 1 May 2009 @ 08:59
Tom:
Not really. D&D 4E provides an explanation for why aggro happens that isn't evident in, say, World of Warcraft, and it's a little more controllable — but it still basically does the same thing (induces enemies to attack one person rather than another).
I think perhaps you should try learning to make a point before trying to "argue" in the future — since all you actually "contributed" was unsubstantiated contradiction, rather than actual arguments.
justaguy:
Nobody said otherwise.
Nobody said it did.
LiveFromHell basically said exactly that, so I don't know what point you're trying to make.
That, as far as I've been able to determine, wasn't LiveFromHell's point. If you're going to argue against what he said, please argue against what he actually said. If you're going to claim that you don't see the similarities between MMORPG aggro and D&D's various encouragements to attack a particular person, I think I'm going to have to believe you're being disingenuous.
I see aggro all the time in WoW without any "taunting" going on.
I'm more impressed by arguments that point out how someone's statements are logically invalid than arguments that claims someone's statements are "unimaginative". You have failed to make anything like a valid point with that statement.
Rules support for roleplaying activities has been substantially stripped out of 4E, though. See above, where you yourself said that "Some [games] might make [roleplaying] easier or harder, but [players will] find a way to get what they want out of it."
There's considerably less opportunity for being imaginative in the use of a character's abilities when those abilities all pertain to doing damage or dampening damaging ability, though.
When that "control" is just handed over, without much (if any) roleplaying justification, and doesn't come about as a result of actually trying to manipulate the other characters socially or through tactics that provide control as a side effect, then — yeah, in some respects it definitely means they don't have to think about what they're doing, so much.
Helmsman:
Thanks for offering that succinct, clear explanation of the heart of the matter. The lack of verisimilitude and roleplaying justification for what's going on in most of the 4E "powers" is much of what I, personally, dislike about 4E. Own the Battlefield is pretty much the canonical example, where the description ("flavor text") is:
As an indication of the philosophy behind 4E's design, it's pretty discouraging.
Comment by apotheon — 1 May 2009 @ 09:42
Someone is wrong on the internet! Meh.
Most of my post is related to the premise that 4e is a travesty. . . so I'll sum up a reply to most of the "no one said it did" comments. It often seems as though the people who are putting forth arguments in that vein have the implied ". . . and it was better in system x.". I personally don't find that compelling because, for me, I've not seen any more or less individual RPing because of 4e.
The "unimaginative" comment was perhaps a bit more obtusely ironic than I meant it to be. Perhaps a better way of putting it would be to say that I have not seen where the system hinders creativity of the players, and view most of the flavor text as fuel for my imagination on how the power would play out in the battle at hand. I see it as a handhold to help me RP, where the other side sees it as a crutch that hinders peoples creativity. And I see allowing your creativity to be limited that way as being uncreative.
"If you're going to claim that you don't see the similarities between MMORPG aggro and D&D's various encouragements"
Sure, I see similarities. . . I just don't consider them direct mappings.
"I see aggro all the time in WoW without any "taunting" going on."
To uh, steal a phrase. . . I'm not sure what your point is. The original post is about how adding an aggro control component destroyed 4e's RPG feel. . . at least, those three quotes seem to indicate that to me. Is that not your friends point? Aggro itself, as in "the mobs attacking someone" exist in everything. . . so I assumed he was referring to the ability to attempt to control that dynamic.
However, if it is more about the meta-game aspects of the powers. . . I'll mostly concede that. It's a problem if you see that as immersion breaking. I more or less look at it as. . . a way to describe to me what is going on. I then take it upon myself to put whatever spin is appropriate to it in the game.
Of course I kind of think I'm not in any of the main camps here. . . I ran Pathfinder beta for 8 months or so. I'm currently playing in a 4E game. I'm seriously considering running 4e using the ideas from Mike Mearls about how to go gridless when I restart my game. Or maybe I'll use the fantasy mods for Mutants and Masterminds. Or maybe Savage Worlds. Or maybe back to Pathfidner if I decide what I'd get from leaving it doesn't outweigh what I get from staying. So perhaps I'm not really interacting with the system in a way that I can really understand the "unimaginative" argument.
Comment by justaguy — 1 May 2009 @ 11:54
What I've seen is that the people who tend to value the roleplaying aspects of the game tend most often to avoid playing 4E in favor of earlier editions. I guess it makes perfect sense that the amount of RPing going on wouldn't be any different in 4E if the people playing it are overwhelmingly people who prefer a depth of roleplaying that matches what 4E supports and encourages, though.
In some respects you're right — because one can always house-rule away the nonsense that shaves pounds off the top of the game's verisimilitude. Of course, if there's another edition of the game that doesn't have the problem that needs to be house-ruled away in the first place, that strikes me as a better option.
They may not be exact equivalents, but then, exact equivalents would involve the sort of arithmetical complexity that is only reasonably handled by software. The guys at WotC did a reasonably good job of adapting aggro effects to a pen and paper RPG in a way that is actually pretty easy to use. That requires a fair bit of cleverness. Unfortunately, it's a clever solution to a non-problem, in my opinion.
My point is that your statement that the difference between MMORPG aggro and D&D 4E aggro is "taunting" doesn't seem like a very compelling argument.
I think the point was that aggro mechanics are a particular case of a broader problem.
I don't speak for LiveFromHell, of course, but that's definitely the impression I get of what he meant, and I tend to agree with it. The "aggro" rules, and a number of other rules that show similar metagaming characteristics, seem very arbitrary, and lack any kind of in-game justification most of the time. Yeah, immersion is broken, suspension of disbelief is weak, verisimilitude is lacking, reality is sacrificed to role-playing convenience — however you want to put it.
Comment by apotheon — 1 May 2009 @ 12:14
Rather than reply statement by statement I'll just try to hit a couple of my earlier points that may not have been clear enough.
The implied travesty isn't in the rule itself. It exists in the way that the "aggro rule", however you want to label it, enables lazy game play. Rather than take the time to work out a way to manipulate an enemy into attacking the target you want it to attack through clever tactics and imagination, this mechanic is handed to players as a tool to circumvent using their brains. The role playing approach to combat is traded in for a crutch that allows lazy players to bypass thought itself, and isn't the mental escape why the majority of us actually play these games?
As with any rpg, each group of players will approach 4th edition in their own way. I don't doubt that there are groups out there that still manage to squeeze a fair amount of role play out of the system by ignoring, altering or adding rules. I'm of the school that HATES replacing role playing opportunities with dice rolling, however, and that's what jumps out at me the most reading through the 4th edition books.
Also, with the risk of coming off as insulting here, isn't it rather juvenile to deny that the "mark" system is an aggro mechanic? It is what it is regardless of what color you paint it.
Comment by LiveFromHell — 1 May 2009 @ 01:06
"and isn't the mental escape why the majority of us actually play these games?"
I think the majority of us play the games to have fun, in whatever way we do that. . . mental escape might be 4 hours of high end in character rp or it might be sitting around a table eating pizza, kicking in doors and killing goblins with minimal "in character" rp. I hesitate to even /imply/ one is objectively better than the other, much less stating it. shrug
"Rather than take the time to work out a way to manipulate an enemy into attacking the target. . . "
I. . . eh. Lazy? I'm not sure why it's lazy. Marking in particular doesn't take away creatures self will. They can choose to accept the penalties and act how they want to. So you still should worry about positioning. You should plan how your powers work best in your particular situation. If you are going to use herding powers to move things around the battlefield, you need to figure out how best to use them. . . I don't see it as particularly lazy. It's not your style, obviously. It seems to break apotheon's suspension of disbelief. . . but thinking is still required to make the most of what you have.
"Also, with the risk of coming off as insulting here, isn't it rather juvenile to deny that the "mark" system is an aggro mechanic?"
I'm not particularly insulted (by this at least, the lazy stuff kinda bugs me. . .). . . I'm much more confused since as far as I know I didn't deny it being an aggro mechanic. I believe all I said was that marking doesn't actually /force/ mobs to attack you (as far as I recall, there may be individual marking powers that do this that I'm not familiar with). I'm not really going to say anything more about that, because I can't decide what you're getting at other than getting the feeling we are using terms in different ways.
Comment by justaguy — 1 May 2009 @ 11:52
Maybe not — but it takes away just a bit more of what separates RPGs from chess: the need to act within the context of the character's understanding of the world in order to affect that world.
Put another way, using marking instead of a roleplayed manipulation (or, at the very least, a feat or class feature that is explained in a way that makes sense from the character's point of view) is a bit like having a character use information the player has, but the character shouldn't, to solve a conundrum central to the plot of an adventure module.
From a roleplaying perspective, it's lazy — because you're foregoing all that roleplaying effort in favor of just snapping your fingers and making shit happen without having to worry about why it works.
Of course, if you don't really care about the roleplaying, laziness probably isn't the reason you don't object to the change from 3E.
Sure it is. It's just more the kind of thinking one uses in a tactical miniatures wargame or an online turn-based strategy game, or even a game of chess, than the kind of thinking that differentiates a roleplaying game from all those things.
I guess the person who explicitly denied marking was an aggro mechanic was Tom.
Comment by apotheon — 2 May 2009 @ 12:10
"Of course, if you don't really care about the roleplaying, laziness probably isn't the reason you don't object to the change from 3E."
I can't decide if that is supposed to be a shot or not. . . But regardless I do care about roleplay. It's something my game group has struggled with for as long as we've been together (which admittedly is only a few years so it's not like I mean decades here). We go back and forth with how much we really do as compared to more 3rd person narration of our actions. What I specifically don't care about is the /rules/ around that RP. The more the rules actually come into play in my RP the more it tends to chafe me.
I don't object to the change from 3E because I considered it fundamentally flawed for my tastes. I don't care for vancian magic. I didn't like the relative power levels of classes over time. The combat system struck me as rulesy and inflexible, and often led to me trying to arbitrate around it when people tried something clever. Which isn't to say I think 3E is a horrible system. Pathfinder certainly addressed some of my issues. . . though I don't think they addressed enough (or in a manner I want) for me to be super hyped over it. 4E addresses some of my issues, but honestly I'm up in the air on what I think of the system. I have fun with it, I like it in general, I just don't know what it will end up being what I decide to run when I start up again.
I think a lot of our. . . whatever this is, comes from fundamentally different views of the subject. Yeah thanks captain obvious I know, but what I mean is this. I view the mechanics and quickly move on to determine /how/ it works in the world. The fighter marking a target is focusing on him. . . actively engaging in a way that hinders their actions. It's not just a OOC mechanic, it represents a type of action in the game. And yeah, sometimes this is easier than others but generally I can come up with something that meets my bar of disbelief.
Comment by justaguy — 2 May 2009 @ 12:36
Not really. It's more like hyperbole.
Roleplaying is about more than in-character conversation. It's about in-character decision making, and how actions cause reactions via in-character decisions.
For instance, contrast two approaches to something like "aggro":
4E Approach: You mark an enemy. The enemy now has to attack you, and only you, or it's likely to die much more quickly. Your ally, from whom you want to distract the enemy, doesn't mark the enemy. It's like flipping a switch, and the players don't have to think about how this appears to work from an in-character perspective.
3E Approach: You use an all-out attack on the enemy to get it to regard you as both a threat and, potentially, a more vulnerable target. Your ally, from whom you want to distract the enemy, uses an all-out defense on the enemy to get it to regard him as less threatening, and as a much more difficult target to hit. It's roleplaying.
. . . but how, exactly, is the fighter "actively engaging in a way that hinders their actions"? Saying he's doing so in an attempt to brush away any arbitrary abstractions isn't the same as actually being able to explain it.
Comment by apotheon — 2 May 2009 @ 01:02
"Not really. It's more like hyperbole."
Mmhmm.
re:3e/4e
You know, honestly. . . I don't see much difference between those two. Combat is. . . abstract. To me saying "I use power attack" isn't any more rplike than saying "I mark this guy". But I guess, in my head, the mark process isn't just saying "I mark him". For a fighter it represent that you are focusing on that target. You're spending a few extra swing s that round making sure it knows you're looking for an opening. It's pressing your attack on that target so that as soon as his attention shifts away you are ready to strike him. For a paladin it represents that you are channeling a bit of divine energy, focused on that target. You're backing your call of "Fight me!" with divine force that flows out of you and into your foe. So I guess. . . by default I'm RPing the mark in my head so it doesn't seem anymore of a mechanical crutch than what you are describing. . .
Comment by justaguy — 2 May 2009 @ 08:40
Why not? The Power Attack feat just reflects a very specific ability, easily imagined in practice — the sword-wielding equivalent of a haymaker punch. Just as someone who can't fight with his fists worth a damn would be able to throw a haymaker, but wouldn't be able to actually get any benefit out of it, so too would someone who isn't practiced in the technique be unlikely to actually do any extra damage by making a full-body commitment to a single swing, though someone with real skill at that sort of armed combat could do so.
As someone who has spent a fair bit of time in his life learning about how to fight in various ways (martial arts, military training, fencing with foils, sabers, and shinai, and so on), I can tell you that "focusing on a target" is the normal way to fight. How does focusing on the target with a fighter's "power" cause a target to take damage when the target attacks someone else in a way that focusing on a target in a "normal" way doesn't?
Frankly, one of two things should be done with this stupid-ass rule:
it should be eliminated
it should become a basic rule of combat rather than something particular to certain classes
Of course, the latter case is handled better by flanking rules.
You can say that it's just "I'm focusing on my target" all you like, but realistically, that doesn't justify the mechanic worth a damn. When do you not "focus" on your target in a fight? When you're fighting more than one opponent? If that's the argument, then why doesn't it work for everyone, at all times, when there's only one opponent?
Comment by apotheon — 2 May 2009 @ 08:52
"Why not? The Power Attack feat just reflects a very specific ability, easily imagined in practice "
Because for me, marking is a very specific easily imagined ability. . .
""focusing on a target" is the normal way to fight."
Well. . . I would think that aiming at your target is the normal way to fight. . . but the "AIM" action defines a particularly focused version of aiming at your target. I don't see marking as being any different. You spend actions to aim, you expend actions to mark. . . it represents either a magical effect (for paladins etc.) or specially exerted effort.
"why doesn't it work for everyone, at all times, when there's only one opponent?"
Because marking represents a specific ability that people have been trained in/granted by their deity for their specific style of devotion/etc. It works every time that specifically trained individual expends the effort needed to utilize that training.
I suppose ultimately my only real answer to you is that I don't have the specific hang ups over the rule that you do. My martial arts training was a good 8 years ago now, I've never been in the military, and my training with guns is basically the training any country kid gets growing up. I don't expect, nor desire, an extreme level of realism in my combat simulation.
Comment by justaguy — 2 May 2009 @ 11:53
justaguy
"Well. . . I would think that aiming at your target is the normal way to fight. . . but the "AIM" action defines a particularly focused version of aiming at your target. I don't see marking as being any different. You spend actions to aim, you expend actions to mark. . . it represents either a magical effect (for paladins etc.) or specially exerted effort."
The problem is in both the rule itself and it's purpose. If I'm being attacked by three people, assuming they each pose a relatively similar threat, what exactly is "person A" doing that makes me fight less skillfully if I don't give him priority over "person B" or "person C"? Perhaps one could try and justify it by claiming that "person A" can make himself appear to be more of a threat, but wouldn't that be better handled with Charisma or appropriate skills? Whichever logic you use to justify the existence of the rule, or it's meta-game, the purpose it's meant to serve poses another problem
It's an aggro mechanic. It's sole purpose is to help control the damage output of an enemy target. As stated earlier, while it doesn't actually force the marked target to respond as desired, it very strongly encourages it to. As with mmo's that use very similar mechanics, it enforces the prominence of "holy trinity"(tank + healer + dps) approaches to almost all encounters, where the desire to conform to this "holy trinity" begins to overrule other preferences in both party composition in mmo's and character creation in tabletop games. Why enable this mode of thought, whether it's correct or not? Why not enable and encourage unique and creative approaches?
The entire concept is almost impossible to justify in any kind of realistic meta-game, and the tragedy is that it was completely unnecessary. It alienates more serious players so that the casual players aren't required to give their DM a logical excuse for making the character with the expensive armor and the over-abundance of hit points his primary target. It may not be so in your case, but my eyes see it as a crutch to enable lazy gaming.
To each their own I guess.
Comment by LiveFromHell — 2 May 2009 @ 05:05
justaguy:
Perhaps you could tell me how, from an in-character perspective, it actually works. Part of that, of course, would be telling me how it doesn't work when someone that doesn't have the same marking power tries the same maneuver.
Aiming, in the real world, essentially requires letting your guard down for a moment. When you do that in melee combat — duelling with longswords, for instance — you get hit. It's called "leaving yourself open". Also, aiming doesn't usually result in someone automatically taking damage when he or she attacks someone other than you.
Okay. What, exactly, have they been trained to do? Don't say "marking", because that has no meaning from an in-character perspective.
I don't need "extreme" realism. I just need an in-character justification for in-character capabilities, lest they become roughly incompatible with roleplaying.
Comment by apotheon — 2 May 2009 @ 06:11
@ LiveFromHell
You consider the aggro control mechanic to be an issue, where I just don't. That's going to be a deal breaker for you and I'm not really trying to sell you 4e anyways. To each their own indeed. . .
@ apotheon
"automatically taking damage when he or she attacks someone other than you."
True. . . however in the real world magic doesn't exist either. . . and the only mark that I'm aware of that causes that is the paladin one, which is magical in nature. I'm not going to attempt to explain why magic does anything it does beyond saying "it's magic".
"telling me how it doesn't work when someone that doesn't have the same marking power tries the same maneuver."
I suppose you won't be satisfied with me saying because they aren't trained, eh? I guess in a world where people are throwing fireballs and fighting goblins I don't see it as a stretch to see the fighting folk being somewhat preternatural in their skills as well. "Marking" represents the ability to give extra focus to someone. In combat you're watching everyone, in theory at least, but fighters have been trained/have natural aptitude/whatever that provides them with extra awareness when they focus on a target. That allows them to get in their way, to strike at just the moment that opponent is distracted, or looks to move towards another foe. Why can't everyone do it? Because they can't, basically. Not every person is skilled that way or has received that level of training. As you pointed out, the untrained might be able to throw a punch, and even try to throw their body into it, but they won't be as good as someone who has training. Sure, they can try to pay extra attention, but they don't know quite what to do so they don't really get a benefit.
Meh. Honestly, I think we've reached a point of diminishing returns on the investment of this conversation. . . I don't agree with your position, you don't agree with mine, and neither of us is likely to convert the other. Soooo, take that all as you will.
Comment by justaguy — 3 May 2009 @ 12:45
@LiveFromHell: Are you sure you've really thought that argument out? I mean, you said:
"The implied travesty isn't in the rule itself. It exists in the way that the "aggro rule", however you want to label it, enables lazy game play. Rather than take the time to work out a way to manipulate an enemy into attacking the target you want it to attack through clever tactics and imagination, this mechanic is handed to players as a tool to circumvent using their brains. The role playing approach to combat is traded in for a crutch that allows lazy players to bypass thought itself, and isn't the mental escape why the majority of us actually play these games?"
I could change a few words there and say:
"The travesty of the 3e/Pathfinder system isn't in the rule itself. It exists in the way that enchantment/charm spells enable lazy game play. Rather than take the time to work out a way to manipulate an enemy into doing what you want it to do through clever dialogue and imagination, this mechanic is handed to players as a tool to circumvent using their brains. The role playing approach to persuasion is traded in for a crutch that allows lazy players to bypass thought itself. . .."
An equally valid point, is it not?
I suspect you'd say that Charm Person and its ilk are meant to be parts of the roleplaying experience, rather than replacements for them, regardless of the fact that some groups do, in fact, employ them as replacements. However, the same thing can be said about marking.
So what makes "charmed" good and roleplay, and "marked" bad and not-roleplay?
(There are other spells I could use to make this point, but since someone specifically called out enchantment/charm as something 4e was lacking, it seemed too good an opportunity to miss.)
Comment by Scott — 3 May 2009 @ 02:23
Scott
You could make that point with any ability in the game world that contradicts the natural laws of our own. The difference lies in the use of the mechanic. If you read through the text of the basic "Charm Person" spell, you find the effect text to be rather ambiguous. The player isn't gifted an advantage without thought, since he still has to think about how to get the best effect from the spell. Furthermore, the text doesn't provide a specific effect, giving the DM leeway in deciding exactly what can be done with said charmed person before an opposed Charisma check is required. I can see how it could be abused, given a dense, unimaginative DM.
In contrast, the mark power provided to the Fighter class specifically, gives no leeway to the DM to avoid having every combat situation the party runs into irrevocably controlled by an ability that requires no thought to use, and frankly has no satisfactory explanation of where this ability is coming from. The similar ability of the Paladin can at least be explained by the divine power he wields. As far as I've read, however, a fighter strikes, dodges, parries and in all ways conforms to the natural laws we are accustomed to. If he desires methods of breaking these laws he can always learn some wizardy along the way and multi-class.
All of that is tertiary to the real point. Dungeons and Dragons, or any other table top role playing game, does not now, nor has ever needed an aggro mechanic. Earlier, I unfairly compared 4th edition to HeroQuest, when in it's simplicity even HeroQuest managed without any sort of aggro mechanic. You STILL had to make sure the Wizard or Elf didn't enter a room first, and in some cases you were very well served by blocking a doorway with the Dwarf or Barbarian and using the Wizard or Elf to do their damage from the safety of a diagonal square. As basic as these tactics are, they still required a modicum of forethought, forethought that I doubt would have been used at all if the Dwarf or Barbarian had some unexplained means to coerce goblins to attack them instead of the much softer targets that blundered into the room.
justaguy
"Meh. Honestly, I think we've reached a point of diminishing returns on the investment of this conversation. . . I don't agree with your position, you don't agree with mine, and neither of us is likely to convert the other. Soooo, take that all as you will."
Agreed.
Comment by LiveFromHell — 3 May 2009 @ 09:11
justaguy:
Magic is a setting element — not an arbitrary rule used to provide more options for controlling the movement and behavior of lead miniatures on a grid map without any kind of in-character justification. The comparison you offer is entirely invalid in this context.
I like magic systems to present themselves in a way that, while the characters may or not understand it per se, at least seems consistent and systematic to the characters (well, at the very least, to the characters that supposedly know enough about it to be able to use it).
You aren't trained at flarblegarsting. Does that help you understand how flarblegarsting works?
Let's add a new tactic to the game: you can flarblegarst up to three enemies at once. If you do it to one of them, that enemy receives a -5 to initiative. If you do it to two, they both get -3 to initiative. If you do it to three, they all get -1 to initiative. A target creature remains affected by this as long as you're in melee combat range with it and maintain that creature as one of your designated targets for flarblegarsting. This only takes effect after your first action in combat, but does not require you to expend an action. Do you have any idea how that works from an in-character perspective?
I'll help you out a little. Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that flarblegarsting involves making hand gestures that distract a target and make it hesitate in combat. No, I'm not going to tell you why someone who doesn't have that power can't do the same thing. Do you really understand what's going on there, from an in-character perspective?
That's how "marking" looks to me, by the way.
I guess whether I think you're high in this case depends on what exactly you mean by "preternatural". They're not supposed to be using magical effects when they're fighters (for instance). Their "powers" are supposed to refer to combat expertise, rather than supernaturally inflicting damage on others with the power of their, um, muscle-flexing, or something. Part of what makes fighters interesting in a D&D setting is that they do what they do without magic — but, I guess, if you want a game wherein fighters use innate magical capabilities to inflict damage on others when those others don't pay enough attention to them (in which case I'd have called the power something like "combat narcissism" rather than "marking"), then go for it. I was looking for a game of D&D, though, rather than of Dragonball Z. Dugeongs and Dragonballs?
Back in 1993, when some idiot tried to mug me for my trenchcoat, he demanded that I give it to him. I asked him why I should many times, and he mostly just repeated the demand. At one point, he said "Because I said so."
My response to that was "That doesn't work with my mother. What makes you think it's going to work with you?"
The same principle applies here.
I don't buy it. There's no logical basis for that difference in skill in "marking", as far as I've been able to determine — especially once a non-warrior class has gotten a few fights under his or her belt.
Scott:
No — because enchantment/charm spells provide additional grist for roleplaying, and have an in-character justification. Marking lacks both of these enticements.
The problem to which LiveFromHell was referring is, if I'm on the same page as him, that by providing battlemat tactical effects that have no in-character perspective explanation, the "marking" mechanic eliminates the action-by-action image in the player's head of what's going on in combat. Combat mechanics that are evocative to the imagination are good because they help visualize the combat; those that just present battlefield control or modifiers to successes or either cause or prevent damage without any in-character justification, on the other hand, do the opposite: they encourage the player to avoid visualizing parts of the action, because there's no reasonable way to visualize them.
When you're not visualizing what's going on any longer, you're being "lazy" from a roleplaying perspective, because you've given up on roleplaying entirely in favor of rolling dice and bookkeeping (and maybe moving little figurines around on a battlemat).
I don't understand how it is that so many 4E fans claim that 4E made combat better by presenting more flavor to the various types of attacks a character can make, but completely ignore the fact that mechanics such as "marking" do the opposite, inflicting damage to, and encouraging specific action from, enemies in combat without providing any flavor at all. Worse, while generic attacks (unlike specific attacks that have some kind of flavor text attached) can at least be explained from an in-character perspective, marking doesn't really present any obvious ideas for how it looks in combat at all.
I don't see how marking can be used as part of the roleplaying experience — and that's the problem. It doesn't fit into the visualization of what's going on, an understanding of how action unfolds from an in-character perspective, or the characters' relationship with the world in a manner that helps the player see the world through the character's eyes.
Comment by apotheon — 3 May 2009 @ 09:50
@LiveFromHell:
"You could make that point with any ability in the game world that contradicts the natural laws of our own."
Yes. Remarkable, isn't it? What would you say that suggests?
"The difference lies in the use of the mechanic. If you read through the text of the basic "Charm Person" spell, you find the effect text to be rather ambiguous. The player isn't gifted an advantage without thought, since he still has to think about how to get the best effect from the spell."
Ah, but the player IS gifted an advantage without thought — the target is friendly toward him, with no effort on his part. At least, no effort other than the decision to cast the spell.
Furthermore, the same exact effect is possible through a Diplomacy roll in 3e — except that Diplomacy skill is not supposed to "contradict the natural laws of our own [world]." Diplomacy is so infamous for its effects on the game that there are entire "character optimization" builds that rely upon it.
"Furthermore, the text doesn't provide a specific effect, giving the DM leeway in deciding exactly what can be done with said charmed person before an opposed Charisma check is required."
Uh, no, the text does provide a specific effect. "This charm makes a humanoid creature regard you as its trusted friend and ally" is pretty specific, especially with the parenthetical directing the reader to the Influencing NPC Attitudes rules. I don't have the 3e DMG to hand just now, but I'm pretty sure that "friendly" attitude is codified there. "It perceives your words and actions in the most favorable way" — not just a favorable way. Specific. Dominate Person gets even more specific. Opposed charisma checks play a part only when the target "wouldn't ordinarily do" something.
The GM can decide when that applies, sure. The 4e GM can also decide when a marked target attacks someone other than the marker. Is there a difference? (Actually, there is: in 3e, the victim only gets a saving throw to try to act as he normally would. In 4e, he can just act.)
@apotheon:
"I don't see how marking can be used as part of the roleplaying experience"
Clearly. That's not the game's fault, though.
If you're not visualizing what's going on in combat, that's down to you, not the rules. I've yet to have any player — new or veteran — have any trouble with marking, once they've grasped the basic concepts of roleplaying combat.
Your comments about flavor text tell me roughly where you're coming from. . . and that you don't get 4e. 4e is like HERO: it gives you the mechanics, and you provide the flavor. All of the flavor text in the books is there solely as example, and can be changed around at will. The books tell you as much. It's not like 3e, where the spell description was the spell description, and any change was a house rule. It's a much more freeform game, more similar to 1e or BECMI.
Comment by Scott — 4 May 2009 @ 01:29
I don't know about him, but I'd say it suggests you made a spurious argument for something you don't actually believe, and should probably pay more attention to the sentences following the one you quoted from LiveFromHell.
So — are you arguing for a game without magic? What kind of idiocy is this?
Magic may contradict the (understood) natural laws of our own world, but it doesn't contradict the natural laws of the game's world. In fact, it's an intrinsic part of the game's world. Marking, however, at least in cases where it can't be simply explained away as "magic" (as in the Paladin's case), has no relation to the natural laws of the game's world at all. This is a problem.
That's not very specific compared with the Fighter's Marking in 4E, which says "While a target is marked, it takes a 2 penalty to attack rolls for any attack that doesn't include you as a target. . . . In addition, whenever a marked enemy that is adjacent to you shifts or makes an attack that does not include you, you can make a melee basic attack against that enemy as an immediate interrupt."
You are clearly possessed of the urge to be a condescending ass. That's not the game's fault, though. I won't hold it against other fans of 4E.
Obviously, that's not what I was saying. Shithead.
I have to wonder, with a statement like that, whether you've ever even played 1E — trying to claim that 4E is like AD&D 1E.
Comment by apotheon — 4 May 2009 @ 11:56
Scott: You're being somewhat disingenuous here. The distinction between meta-game and in-character decisions is as old as D&D, and the common knowledge that metagaming can have negative effect on in-character roleplaying is only slightly younger.
What the position put forward is, as I understand it, is that marking is a wholly meta-game mechanic. There isn't any in-character meaning to the action, nor to the NPC's response to the mark. The position also holds that a Charm does have an in-character meaning and so does the NPC's response to the Charm. All I see them saying is "I cannot imagine what a Mark looks like to my character in my minds eye." So, if you can imagine it, just describe it to win this argument.
Comment by d7 — 4 May 2009 @ 12:23
@Scott
"You could make that point with any ability in the game world that contradicts the natural laws of our own."
"Yes. Remarkable, isn't it? What would you say that suggests?"
Well, to me it suggests that any idea that anyone on the planet has ever had can be picked apart if someone has the time or inclination. I have neither, do you?
"This charm makes a humanoid creature regard you as its trusted friend and ally"
How is that at all specific? Does it specify exactly what this creature is or is not willing to do for a trusted friend or ally?
Do you automatically assume that your neighbor treats his "trusted friends" in the same regard that you do?
Does it supply the player with ideas with what to do with his new pal?
The exact parameters of the effect are left to be determined by the DM, in response with the plans the players have for their charmed target. I assume your use for the spell isn't reduced to, " I cast Charm Person on that guy over there. I win DnD right?"
In contrast, the Fighters "mark" ability has a very specific effect. . .a -2 penalty when he isn't they target of his "marks" attacks. Furthermore, and more to the point of the entire friggin discussion, the charm spell can be explained by the natural laws of the world the campaign takes place in. A fighters ability to flex his muscles, thus attracting the ire of a creature much better served by chowing down on the mostly helpless wizard standing right in front of him is pretty damn hard to explain.
Sheesh.
Comment by LiveFromHell — 4 May 2009 @ 01:21
@d7: "All I see them saying is "I cannot imagine what a Mark looks like to my character in my minds eye." So, if you can imagine it, just describe it to win this argument."
As if it'd be that easy. But since you asked: I already have, sort of. "4e is like HERO: it gives you the mechanics, and you provide the flavor." You decide what your mark looks like. Do you use expert foot- and bladework to "stick to" your target, so that no matter where he turns, it seems like you're always in the way? Do you plant a magical compulsion on your target, so that it finds itself "wanting" to attack you? Does your endless litany of bad puns enrage and distract your opponents? Is your silent glare so intimidating that enemies become rattled and overestimate the threat you pose?
You can make it pretty much whatever you need to make it to fit your character. It's all up to you, though. The book isn't going to tell you what every fighter's mark looks like, because every fighter's mark can look different. All the book needs to tell you is what the mechanical effect of the mark is. And if you're an experienced enough GM, there's nothing stopping you from changing that, too.
@apotheon: "So — are you arguing for a game without magic?"
Pretty much the exact opposite, sport.
@LifeFromHell: "Furthermore, and more to the point of the entire friggin discussion, the charm spell can be explained by the natural laws of the world the campaign takes place in. A fighters ability to flex his muscles, thus attracting the ire of a creature much better served by chowing down on the mostly helpless wizard standing right in front of him is pretty damn hard to explain."
Well, that's the point I'm trying to get at. The mark is no more outside the game world than the charm spell is. They're both as much a part of the campaign world as the GM and players choose to make them. They can both be dissociated mechanics, or they can both be integrated, depending on how the GM and the players treat them. There's nothing inherently more "realistic" about one than the other, from either the in-game or the out-of-game perspective.
Comment by Scott — 4 May 2009 @ 10:51
That's a fucking cop-out, and you know it.
No — because if that was how it worked, other people who use expert foot- and bladework to "stick to" the target would be able to achieve exactly the same effects. Part of explaining how an ability a character has works so that it doesn't detract from suspension of disbelief is explaining how it doesn't work for others.
No — not if you're a Fighter.
Why would one class be able to do that, but not another?
More of the same! See my above objections. What you seem to be lacking is the aspect of the explanation that justifies a particular class getting to perform a particular Marking maneuver as an exception to the rule that other classes can't do it.
I think you're bending over backwards trying to justify it, in much the same way the game was apparently designed first as a series of tactical rules, and only later fitted to a roleplaying paradigm of game play. Roleplaying feels like an afterthought in 4E, and this "Well, we're giving you rules for exerting influence over who your enemies attack, and if you want a roleplaying justification for it you have to make it up yourself!" crap just reinforces that sense that roleplaying was bolted onto a tactical miniatures game.
I've run across a few wiseacres claiming that 4E is actually more "old school" D&D than 3E, which I thought was a load of crap when I considered all the editions of the game I've played, from OD&D on up to 3E. I see now that I was too hasty, though; it's actually a lot like what I've heard about the immediate ancestor of D&D, which was Dave Arneson's modification of a tactical miniatures game, with a single-character playing style and the concept of a "character" rather than just troops bolted onto the game.
By that standard, even checkers could be considered a roleplaying game. I'd rather play something with the traditional flavor of the D&D editions I've actually played, though.
Then why don't you just fucking try to be reasonable? The only way your argument about Charm Person makes any real sense is if you're trying to use it to argue against the use of magic in the game. Otherwise, it's spurious nonsense. Sport.
Really? Where in the implied setting of the game does it become inescapably obvious that some reasonable behavior by a nonmagical character causes creatures to suffer bizarre, harmful effects if they attack the weakest, most efficiently damage dealing enemy rather than the most sturdy, melee-effective enemy with their melee weapons? You haven't provided any explanations. All you've given are excuses.
The Charm Person spell grants flavor to the game. Marking is just an arbitrary battlefield control mechanic that you're expected to excuse based on wild suppositions and crazy, half-baked justifications, such as trying to explain away how an entire family of wizards can be so poverty-stricken in the Harry Potter books, since the author never deigned to do so, or even provide any setting characteristics that imply an economically reasonable explanation.
The fact that the Harry Potter books have magic in them doesn't excuse the completely unmagical state of poverty afflicting the Weasley family having no evident reasonable explanation any more than the fact that the D&D game has magic in it excuses the completely unmagical state of an orc trying to gnaw on a Fighter's helm rather than a Wizard's unprotected head having no evident reasonable explanation.
Comment by apotheon — 5 May 2009 @ 04:47
sigh at himself for his morbid fascination with continuing to read this
"I don't buy it. There's no logical basis for that difference in skill in "marking", as far as I've been able to determine — especially once a non-warrior class has gotten a few fights under his or her belt."
Sure they can do it. . . they just have to multi-class into fighter, just like if you wanted to learn spell casting or back stabbing or any other thing that is an ability specific to a class other than your own. . .
"Why would one class be able to do that, but not another?"
Why does one class get extra damage when sneak attacking and not another? No. . . I'm honestly curious about the logic here. I want to know why it's okay to have a class feature, like sneak attack, but not have a class feature like marking (or hell, insert flarbelgasting in there, the actual ability is irrelevant aside from it being a feature specific to a class.). And no, I'm not talking about if the power makes sense to you, it obviously doesn't and I'm done trying to build that bridge to nowhere. Unless no physical power that is class exclusive makes sense to you, in which case this is a very different class and ability design argument.
Comment by justaguy — 5 May 2009 @ 06:43
Scott, justaguy, you're both talking about this aspect of mechanics so I'll address you both:
I, Chad, and others who call 4e's mechanics dissociative see a difference between things like sneak attacks and marks. Sneak attacks work the way they do based on what sneak attacks are inside the game world. They are a strike, expertly placed, to do a particularly nasty wound that pierces vitals and/or bleeds a lot. The rules for how sneak attacks work for the most part reflect this in-game fiction about what "sneak attack" means when it happens; i.e., you can't sneak attack a golem, it takes training (hence only the Rogue class can do it), it can only be done when the opponent is at a disadvantage (from behind pre-3e, while flanking in 3e), and so on. All the mechanical effects of a sneak attack derive from its fictional flavour.
Now, marks are a different beast to our eyes. A mark is explained only by the mechanics: there's no flavour given. We still don't have a problem at this point, because yes, we can just make up our own flavour. (Some people find meaningless, fill-in-the-blank mechanics distasteful and will not like that answer, but I'm not representing that view. The theme that different people like different things and this will cause different love/hate reactions to a system will come up again, though.)
So assume I'm looking at marks and have made up some flavour. Now I, being an player who puts immersion very high up his list of reasons to roleplay, am going to want the flavour I come up with to have a ficitonal meaning that has few to no holes in its logic (in the game setting, natch). If I decide that a paladin's mark means divine holy fire that damages the target when they ignore the divine challenge, and a fighter's mark is flexing his muscles and growling, that's cool so far. Do they make sense together, though? These particular flavours don't. They somehow cause the fighter to have the ability to remove a god's holy wrath from a paladin's enemy simply by flexing and growling at it. That doesn't make any sense!
The difference between a dissociative mechanic and a mechanic that is integrated with the fiction isn't whether the GM and players have bothered. It depends on whether something can be integrated at all. In the case of marks, I haven't been able to find a satisfying association between the mechanic and the fictional meaning of the mechanic that doesn't have that kind of nonsensical result.
Now, you probably still don't see why any of that matters. That's fine. But here's the kicker: a lot of people do care. For some people, like me, a dissociative mechanic can hurt my immersion (and hence, my enjoyment) of a game as much as seeing a boom mic fall into frame can hurt my suspension of disbelief in an action movie. Of course, one boom mic and one dissociative "WTF?" moment in a game is not much. In the case of 4e, though, there are so many of these "WTF?" moments during play for players like me that we cannot maintain our roleplaying groove. Results will vary depending on how and why a particular player roleplays, since there are many ways to roleplay that aren't vulnerable to dissociative mechanics.
So, that's why you don't see a problem in your own use of 4e and we do see a problem in our use of 4e. You're not playing it wrong—that's not what we're saying. We just can't play it the way you play it and still enjoy ourselves. Hence, we don't like 4e, and will never like it. What many people see as freeing—that the mechanics leave the fiction up to the group—is a fatal flaw for me and others who play for the reasons that I do.
Comment by d7 — 5 May 2009 @ 10:10
For reference, here is an article about different Metagame Rewards that might give some context to the above. It lays out many different ways people can enjoy roleplaying, and it makes it obvious how many of them don't overlap. "Kenosis" is what I mean when I talk about immersion, and some players just don't get their kicks from that. 4e doesn't work for people who do.
Comment by d7 — 5 May 2009 @ 10:32
If that doesn't get the point across, I don't know what will. Thanks for the well-conceived commentary, d7.
. . . with the caveat that, for me, a certain level of immersion is more of a prerequisite than "the point", in and of itself.
. . . and while I'm at it, there's far more of a clear distinction between:
those with a skill in aiming for a vital area ("sneak attack" or "backstab" ability) when given the opportunity and those without
(because that sort of precision in hitting the right part of a target is quite different from the accuracy required merely to hit a target)
. . . than there is between:
those with a skill in, um, making people regret attacking someone else ("marking") and those without
(because, apparently, that's what the rules say)
edit: Wow. I'm sure glad I can edit my own comments, since I hosed up this comment so badly when I first posted it.
Comment by apotheon — 5 May 2009 @ 10:41
> If that doesn't get the point across, I don't know what will.
It might not. It's a paradigm difference, which are notoriously hard to explain and hard to grasp, by definition.
FYI all, the link to the metagame rewards article is more trying to illustrate the idea that people play for reasons that make no sense at all to other people. I mean, I just do not understand Alea players, except intellectually. I never would have imagined that people played RPGs for the thrill of the gamble, the actual outcome be damned, without reading that article. I still don't get it, but at least I know it's out there.
Comment by d7 — 5 May 2009 @ 11:13
So, having read through the thread here and found myself wrestling with some self-evident truths of my own, I really find myself wondering if the following is the case. . .
Apotheon and LiveFromHell can't wrap themselves around the Marking concept of a Fighter because the rule in the 4e PHB lacks flavor text.
Nobody seems to have an issue whatsoever with the Paladin ability. It's divine power, causes an enemy to take damage if they don't attack, etc. It's even specified that even though their ability uses the word "challenge" in its name, that it's a non-verbal ability that doesn't rely on intelligence or any sense of common understanding between the Paladin and the markee.
Nobody whatsoever has mentioned the Warden version of the ability, which comes with even less text than the Fighter's version. Wardens simply are able to mark each adjacent enemy as a free action each round, and then subsequently they can use some interrupt free actions to hinder or attack the opponents if they make the wrong moves. But because they're Primal, we can use some sort of self-imposed justification for what happens. "A tree spirit did it" comes to mind as sort of the Primal version of "A Wizard did it." But regardless, nobody here seems to care, since it's ostensibly semi-magical. Okay.
For the fighter version of this ability to mark opponents and cause them to take consequences, we have a similar lack of flavor to the Warden version. . . And that lack of explanation of "how" and "why" is the gist of the issue for those that take issue with it.
Since it's obvious that nothing either justaguy or Scott came up with for why it works, in a flavor sense, meets your exacting standards, but you can easily overlook any holes or flaws in Sneak Attack, Aim, Power Attack, Two-Weapon Fighting, etc. (Not to mention things like the Warlord's ability to heal with a Charisma based Exploit — a non-supernatural ability from the same Martial background that the Fighter's abilities come from.), would this debate seriously be over and done with if WotC had simply put in the PHB a paragraph of flavor text to assuage your feelings on the matter? A canonical "Here's what this looks like"?
Really?
Or would you just pick apart the look and feel of that flavor text in order to impose your own concept of what's realistic in a Fantasy game.
Comment by Venlar — 5 May 2009 @ 04:35
You're oversimplifying to the point that all you get is superficialities that don't really explain the problem.
The problem is that the lack of flavor text is symptomatic of a "rules first, roleplaying shoehorned in later" approach, where we're expected to "wrap our heads around" excuses — not explanations, just excuses — for the rules to exist from an in-character perspective. In short, the problem isn't that we can't wrap our heads around the arbitrary nonsense that is the Marking system, but that the characters can't, and this breaks suspension of disbelief when playing a roleplaying oriented campaign.
The reason you're having so much difficulty putting yourself in our shoes, apparently, must have something to do with your inability to understand what goes into putting oneself into a character's shoes.
Comment by apotheon — 5 May 2009 @ 06:00
Venlar:
I mentioned the paladin's mark ability as an example of something that cannot make sense, not in context with all the rest of the rules.
I didn't mention anything else because making a point is usually easier when you don't drag in any distracting elements.
But, clearly you can see that there's some kind of trend with these abilities. What all those abilities that you picked out have in common is a lack of concrete ties to the fiction. "Flavour" is interchangeable and almost entirely meaningless—the Warlord doesn't literally pick up and move the enemy when Own The Battlefield is used, nor does it suggest what's actually happening. There's some stuff that goes on in getting from point A to point B that is handwaved away. It's not handwaved away in other games, and dammit, that stuff that's being handwaved away is important to me.
And, it's not like I'm imagining things, because you can pick out exactly those powers that, according to our arguments, should irk us. You're right, and they do.
Comment by d7 — 5 May 2009 @ 07:48
Yes, that must be it. If someone disagrees with you, it's because they suck at roleplaying.
I agree that there's not a lot of spelled-out flavor in 4E, and my impression from the beginning has been that that's by design. WotC supplies the crunch, you supply the fluff. I don't really see what the issue is.
I don't understand why, apotheon, you have such an easy time understanding that a rogue can sneak attack and do extra damage but non-rogues can't because they're not trained to, but such a hard time understanding that a fighter can mark and draw someone's attention in combat but non-fighters can't because they're not trained to. What's so hard about seeing fighters do something in combat that other classes can't? They're good at fighting. It's in the name and everything. . .
And d7, it can make sense. I'll give one possible example (which I'm sure will be duly ignored as 'excuses'). The fighter marks a foe by attacking him, flexing and growling, swinging his sword and making a show of his martial prowess, and his enemy feels the threat, realizing he can't give his full attention to another of the fighter's friends or he'll open himself up to attack (-2 to attack anyone else). The paladin steps up and issues his divine challenge, drawing the foe's attention away from the fighter, calling upon his god to burn his cowardly enemy unless he faces the paladin in combat. (The fighter's mark is superseded and the enemy will take damage if he attacks someone else). The fighter attacks again, drawing the foe's attention and making him fear for his physical safety, turning all of his focus back away from the paladin to the fighter, breaking the 'magical compulsion' of the divine challenge. (The paladin's mark is superseded by the fighter's.)
In short, it doesn't break my suspension of disbelief any more than hit points or classes or any of the other abstractions that the rules use.
Comment by Shad — 5 May 2009 @ 09:42
Shad:
Frankly, if you assume that I'm arguing in bad faith, you're giving yourself a lame excuse to not actually think about what they're saying. Assuming that was just a moment's cynicism and not an indication that you honestly don't care about my answer. . .
No, that's a good explanation of how a paladin's and fighter's mark interact. My follow-up objection is that we've now added some pseudo-rules fluff that should have consequences: i.e., fighters can "scare" people out of supernatural compulsions. Maybe it's only certain kinds of supernatural compulsions, granted. Even so, it's something that has odd consequences when the in-fiction meaning is worked out.
That kind of odd consequence is something that the designers didn't take the time to work out. How could they, with hundreds of powers and thousands of possible interactions to be explained? The fact that they have created a mechanical system that has, by its nature, many of these unexplored interactions means that I will keep running into them. If I keep making up pseudo-rules fluff to explain them, my game is going to get silly, fast.
Frankly, I don't want to do the work. The upshot is that this work is entirely unnecessary for a lot of people. For other people they only need a very little bit of this kind of work to make their suspension of disbelief happy. That's great, but deep immersion is the whole point of roleplaying for me, so 4e needs a very lot of work. I certainly don't have time to sit down in the middle of every combat that a new interaction shows up in to figure out how they make sense. It's a constant string of "WTF?" moments that interrupt my game. I've got better things to do.
And, to make absolutely clear, this is my hangup. It's not one I can ignore (ignoring it would mean not roleplaying the way that I enjoy roleplaying), and it's one that I don't encounter in the systems I do like. Other people without this hangup can and do enjoy 4e just fine, and I'm not saying they shouldn't or that they're playing in some inferior, less "roleplaying" way. Other people share my hangup or a close relative of my hangup enough that 4e feels "broken" to them. You can tell these people pretty quickly by whether they complain that 4e gets in the way of (their) roleplaying, or that 4e hurts (their) immersion.
Comment by d7 — 5 May 2009 @ 10:23
Shad:
Who said that? Since I don't see anyone saying anything like that, the impression I get from what you say is that, if someone disagrees with you, it's because they're evil — and, thus, the problem of malicious misdirection is yours, and not mine or d7's.
Clearly.
There's a difference between being good at hitting someone in general (the result of a lot of practice at hitting people) and being good at picking the most vulnerable, vital targets on an enemy's body, including knowledge of anatomy. The former is a general combat skill; the latter is a specialized skill that many very experienced combatants may never learn.
In contrast to the sneak attack capability, marking doesn't have an in-character explanation that works as a skill that some people can have, and not others, based on specialized training. What — some people have specialized training in growling? What kind of cockamamie game do you think I'm running?
There's nothing "so hard" about seeing fighters do something in combat that other classes can't. The problem is fighters doing a thing that hasn't even been adequately defined from an in-character perspective as a specialized skill.
So are Wizards at 15th level. If you don't believe me, you should try pitting a first level Fighter against a 15th level Wizard in melee combat.
That's a weak and pathetic attempt to justify it, but let's just assume that's a good explanation for the sake of argument — because I have a point to make. Okay, so Fighters can do that. Now: tell me how that's a specialized skill that only Fighters could know, something that doesn't involve basically just using an the equivalent of an Intimidate skill. Remember, in order for it to believably be a class-specific capability, there has to be some kind of reasonable explanation for why a member of a different class can't reasonably do the exact same things the Fighter is doing.
I'm talking about the action, the justification for the game effects, since from an in-character perspective the action causes the game effect. I'm not talking about metagaming stuff, where the action is just an excuse to have the effect. What special knowledge, special skill, or special power is there in a Fighter that allows the character to perform the underlying action? Without that, you have no in-character justification. Instead, you have the equivalent of some convoluted mental backflips necessary to avoid dismissing how "Reverse the polarity!" will make the space creature menacing the Enterprise go away is really just a bit of pseudo-scientific babbling that doesn't really explain anything.
Why would the "superseding" even happen, there? How does taking damage if you attack someone else just go away because someone new flexes and growls at him? What about the power of divine wrath smiting one's foes is so easily brushed aside by a little bit of flexing and growling?
The only explanations I can think of for why that wouldn't break your suspension of disbelief are inattentiveness, numbness as a result of long exposure, a lack of actual suspension of disbelief in the first place because you're treating it like a purely tactical game, or a bunch of other options that are all rather insulting (so I'll keep them to myself).
d7:
That strikes me as tautological, since it's probably the case that the very reason you like those other systems (or, at least, a requirement for liking them) is that they don't impose that kind of immersion-breaking burden on you. I sympathize, especially when to keep the rules consistent with each other, I'd probably have to come up with a unique explanation for why things worked out the way they did almost every time the rules had to be explained away without the kind of troublesome interactions you mentioned.
Comment by apotheon — 5 May 2009 @ 11:08
@d7
"Frankly, if you assume that I'm arguing in bad faith, you're giving yourself a lame excuse to not actually think about what they're saying."
I can't say for certain, but I'd bet he's responding more to apotheon's knack for latent condescension. . . stuff like "The reason you're having so much difficulty putting yourself in our shoes, apparently, must have something to do with your inability to understand what goes into putting oneself into a character's shoes." Which very strongly implies that Venlar isn't a skilled rper as he lacks the comprehension to get into a characters' shoes.
And to reply to your earlier post, which I debated and decided against, but since I'm here anyways. . . I actually do think I understand why immersion is important to you. I like things to make sense in my game worlds as well. . . it's just that my scale of what makes sense is different than yours. It's like you are taking A and B and getting C while I'm looking at it and not even seeing B. I do have things that bug me in 4E, probably some of the same things as you do honestly. But instead of going "WTF? This sucks." I've tended towards "WTF? Hmm. . . well if they mean this then. . . okay yeah.".
"You're not playing it wrong—that's not what we're saying. "
I'm not sure everyone agrees with you on that but yes, I agree with you. I don't think you're doing it wrong for not playing or liking 4e.
@apotheon
Just because you don't like the explanations given doesn't meant they aren't explanations. They may not be sufficient to shift your way of thought, but they are still explanations.
"the problem isn't that we can't wrap our heads around the arbitrary nonsense that is the Marking system, but that the characters can't,"
I. . . am truly confused. Because to me that reads like you are saying the characters have independent thought process from /you/. So. . . umm, what?
Comment by justaguy — 5 May 2009 @ 11:20
> That strikes me as tautological [...]
I don't think it's a tautology. That I am a (among other things) Kenosis-motivated player isn't a given. It does mean that I most enjoy systems that either enable immersion or avoid interfering with it, but I think that's a straightforward implication rather than a tautology.
Looking at the Metagame Rewards article again, I think Kenosis is actually the only one on the list that 4e doesn't work with. It doesn't impede Expression, which is interestings: I think that's aspect of RP that I think most 4e fans are actually thinking about when they say it "doesn't interfere with roleplaying". It does enable a particular kind of Kairosis, but admittedly it's one tightly linked with Ludus. The other kind of Kairosis—character development—isn't impeded, except for those players who drive development via Kenosis.
It would be interesting to go down a list of game systems and mark whether they enable, interfere with, or are indifferent to each of the metagame rewards. Kind of a Geek Code for game systems. If people knew what their own Metagame Rewards Code was, they could see how well a system matched.
Comment by d7 — 5 May 2009 @ 11:26
Sorry, we posted across each other.
> I actually do think I understand why immersion is important to you. I like things to make sense in my game worlds as well. . . it's just that my scale of what makes sense is different than yours. It's like you are taking A and B and getting C while I'm looking at it and not even seeing B.
Yes! It's a matter of degree. 4e's immersion-oddities fall into my "no go" zone, but your line of tolerance is drawn elsewhere and 4e doesn't cross it.
Well now. . . what was that supposed to resolve again? I think it was some thesis about this being an underlying reason for the split between people who think 4e "can't" be used to roleplay and those who are doing it anyway. See my comment one higher for a musing about Expression vs Kenosis (immersion) as two different sides to the "role"-playing coin that are impacted differently by the 4e system.
Comment by d7 — 5 May 2009 @ 11:33
d7, I apologize if you took my inital comment as directed towards you. You've been very rational and actually seem interested in discussing the issue. As justaguy pointed out, my comment was a reaction to apotheon's "The reason you're having so much difficulty putting yourself in our shoes, apparently, must have something to do with your inability to understand what goes into putting oneself into a character's shoes," which does indeed read as though he's accusing venlar of being unable to roleplay effectively.
I can understand your point, that running into these "WTF" moments during a game session can break your immersion, and I concede that it's a matter of degree and we have different levels of tolerance for that sort of thing. I do think that I've run into these moments (where the rules pull me out of the character) in pretty much every RPG I've ever played, so I don't see it as a new or different thing with 4E. You may be right that it will happen more with 4E than with some other systems, as the focus with 4E seems (to me) to be the mechanics. I'm not trying to argue that 4E is perfect or for everyone or anything silly like that. Like the metagame rewards article points out (and defines in detail), people don't all get the same things out of gaming. We shouldn't expect any one system to satisfy everyone.
apotheon, I'd appreciate it if you toned it down a little. I understand that you're passionate about roleplaying and are really invested in the conversation, but you're coming off as less than civil. Highlighting and replying to my comment about not really seeing marking as a big issue with a dismissive "Clearly" doesn't really advance the discussion in any helpful way. Dismissing dissenting point of views as "pathetic and weak" or "excuses" is also more combative than meaningful.
There's nothing "so hard" about seeing fighters do something in combat that other classes can't. The problem is fighters doing a thing that hasn't even been adequately defined from an in-character perspective as a specialized skill.
This seems to really be where things are going round and round here. For some of us, it has been adequately defined from an in-character perspective. It's not defined for you by 4E, which is the issue for you, and which obviously makes 4E not the right system for you. In my game, I can give it whatever explanation I choose, such as "fighters are proven masters of combat who exude an aura of confidence and presence, making them stand out in the field of combat as someone not to be ignored lightly." It's sufficient to me to explain how fighters can manipulate someone's attentions on the battlefield, i.e. mark them.
Okay, so Fighters can do that. Now: tell me how that's a specialized skill that only Fighters could know, something that doesn't involve basically just using an the equivalent of an Intimidate skill. Remember, in order for it to believably be a class-specific capability, there has to be some kind of reasonable explanation for why a member of a different class can't reasonably do the exact same things the Fighter is doing.
To me, a Fighter is a combat specialist. They're just better at fighting than any other class. It's their purpose. They should be able to do things in combat that other classes can't do. (Which is why, in many previous editions of D&D, basic fighters have seemed boring compared to rangers or paladins or barbarians or what have you. At least they have to me.) Just because someone else can learn the Intimidate skill doesn't mean they should be able to mark someone in combat (if that's how you're choosing to interpret marking).
Since we've been using sneak attack as a counter-example, let's continue with that. You've stated it's a specialized knowledge of anatomy that Rogues can use to do more damage. Don't people with the Heal skill have 'specialized knowledge of anatomy'? Why can't my Fighter who knows all about the internal workings of the body from his Heal skill use that knowledge to do sneak attack damage? (Other than 'because that's a Rogue ability', since 'because that's a Fighter ability' doesn't seem to be an acceptable answer.)
(My own answer to that is pretty much 'because that's a Rogue skill'.) Rogues know how to use that specific knowledge in a different way than other classes. They've been trained to stab people in the kidneys. Fighters can mark someone in combat. If you want to see that as Intimidation, then it's a specialized use of Intimidation that they use in a different way than other classes. They've been trained to show themselves to be a clear and present danger in combat.
apotheon, your level of immersion is obviously deeper than mine, but that doesn't mean that I don't suspend disbelief. It's a sliding scale, not a binary thing. For some people, the concepts of hit points or class levels breaks their disbelief, but you seem to be ok with those abstractions. You've found a way to explain them to yourself in a way that satisfies you. I've done the same with marking.
d7, in terms of Kairosis, I do think it works with 4E. You can have immersion, just not to the degree that you and apotheon are looking for. And that's fine. And I agree that 4E does have more focus on Expression than Kairosis, which I find kinda interesting. I hadn't thought about it in those terms before.
Comment by Shad — 6 May 2009 @ 08:19
I think apotheon is frustrated. I have the advantage of not "defending" my home turf, but I know what it feels like to get a flood of commentors of varying degrees of hostility to me and what I choose to write. In the worst case on my blog I just gave up any attempts at civility with the horde and just settled in to enjoy smacking people with cluesticks as much as I could. That wasn't about 4e, but 4e does seem to be a subject on which people make huge assumptions about the other side's motivations for (not) liking it. Those uncharitable assumptions leak through and always sound personal.
I mean, Scott definitely cranked the condescension up several notches, and I saw apotheon respond in kind. But then, Scott's coming from the perspective that the ease of refluffing 4e is a really good thing, which is going to really give him a challenge trying to see that it can be a bad thing, too. (Pointing out the well-known truism that something's strengths can easily also be its greatest weaknesses might help.)
> d7, in terms of Kairosis, I do think it works with 4E. You can have immersion, just not to the degree that you and apotheon are looking for.
Yeah, as soon as I wrote "It's a matter of degree" I realised that there will be a degree of immersion that will work for some Kairosis players.
> And I agree that 4E does have more focus on Expression than Kairosis, which I find kinda interesting. I hadn't thought about it in those terms before.
It is. . . though I'm not sure what consequences it has since it's outside of my usual way of thinking. Does it lead to more light, theatrical roleplaying? I guess that fits the "more cinematic" goal of 4e, if so.
> [all the sneak attack vs marking stuff]
The difference to me is that marking doesn't lend itself as well to a solid fictional explanation as sneak attack does. Backstabs are well-integrated with the Thief/Rogue concept, while "come get me!" isn't so well integrated with the Fighter concept. Unlike sneak attack, a Fighter's mark also has obvious (to me) counter-fiction, such as the fact that "kill the wizard now OH GOD!" is a pretty sound strategy.
I mean, Fighters are the very opposite of a clear-and-present danger in 4e: they dish out much less damage, are slower, and are designed to sit back and soak up damage. The well-armoured guy on the battlefield that just hangs out and menacingly waves his sword is the last guy I'm going to walk up to and fight. Strikers and Controllers are always going to be more sensible targets, not because of their Role (since in-fiction nobody knows about Roles), but simply because of how effectively they threaten the enemy.
So, to ground that out, the clear-and-present-danger explanation for a Fighter's mark has that working against it, while there's nothing comparable that makes sneak attacks hard to swallow. That tips Fighters' marks over my immersion line so that they make me go "WTF?" all the time. And they do happen all the time, so I end up just glossing over what's going on there, which further removes me from the character's-eye-view that I enjoy in roleplaying.
Comment by d7 — 6 May 2009 @ 10:23
I mean, Fighters are the very opposite of a clear-and-present danger in 4e: they dish out much less damage, are slower, and are designed to sit back and soak up damage. The well-armoured guy on the battlefield that just hangs out and menacingly waves his sword is the last guy I'm going to walk up to and fight. Strikers and Controllers are always going to be more sensible targets, not because of their Role (since in-fiction nobody knows about Roles), but simply because of how effectively they threaten the enemy.
In the 4E I've played or seen, it hasn't really been people walking up to the fighters to engage them. Marking has been more about "I choose this guy to focus on and make it harder for him to attack my friends." Yes, the lightly-armored types like wizards and rogues tend to do more damage and make juicier targets, but if I'm in the middle of combat and some well-armored juggernaut with the attitude and reputation of Conan makes it known that he's coming for me, I'm going to be at least a little distracted, keeping an eye out for his attack. And like you said, I know he's going to be able to soak up damage, so I can't ignore him and expect someone else to take him out before he attacks me.
It's not about how much the fighter damages the enemy, but how much he threatens the enemy. Controllers and Strikers may be able to out-damage him, but not out-threaten him.
At this point, we may just be talking past each other. It just makes sense to me that a fighter can mark and distract an opponent in battle, as much as it does that a rogue can strike at a vulnerable area during combat. I can explain it in a lot of little ways, but I don't think I can explain it in one big over-arching statement which will satisfy you and apotheon. And I'm ok with that. It works for me and it doesn't work for you. That happens.
Comment by Shad — 6 May 2009 @ 10:55
justaguy:
Latent conde- . . .
Did you fucking read what Venlar said? He opened with a fucking insult. Take a step back and realize that the fact he agrees with you doesn't make him a victim or a hero. Not only that, but it's the kind of insult that involves playing stupid. If it wasn't meant as an insult, he really can't understand putting oneself into a character's shoes.
The fact that I'm not pretending someone is either being nice when he isn't or a master of all things when he clearly isn't doesn't make what I said "latent condescension". Cram your latent judgmentalism up your ass. Thanks.
You've obviously gone to some lengths to be a reasonable human being in discussion before this, but y'know, that doesn't excuse your pop-psychology Internet diagnosis BS.
Go ahead and make the accusation if you like. Don't be passive-aggressive about it.
. . . but you're wrong. I'm saying the same thing d7 is saying, in this case. If you think I'm saying something else, it's probably a case of confirmation bias helping you take on the mantle of the martyr so you can view people who disagree with you as "bad people".
It's not that I don't like them — it's that they completely ignore 50% of the problem.
Okay — explain to me how this does not give you the appearance of someone who can't wrap his head around putting himself in his character's shoes, thus giving you the gall to start insulting me and assuming bad faith with terms like "latent condescension".
d7:
I didn't mean that being a kenosis-motivated player is a given. "Given these premises, that statement seems almost tautological." Among the premises is that you're a kenosis-motivated player. That's all I meant. It wasn't . . .
Criminy. Sometimes I feel like everybody's just intent on intentionally misconstruing everything I say. What's with this morning?
Fine. Call it that, if it makes you feel better. Enjoy.
That's an excellent idea. The only problem would be achieving some kind of objectivity with such ratings. There'd have to be a set of standardized ratings for each category of evaluation to really make it work.
Shad:
I'm curious why, when you're talking to d7 here, you say this — but when (apparently) responding to me above you basically took the position that there was nothing about 4E that gave that impression at all with statements such as "WotC supplies the crunch, you supply the fluff. I don't really see what the issue is." Your self-contradiction may be overlooked by people who are willing to make the Diplomacy roll, but I just don't feel inclined to coddle your self-contradictions right now.
It's not like you said "Oh, I see what you mean now." It's more like you decided to take one position when directing a response to me (badly, since neither d7 nor I could tell that's what you were doing), then another when responding to d7. My choices, if I have to come to a conclusion now, are basically to assume one of the following:
You can't or won't admit to a flaw in the system for someone else's more roleplaying oriented style of play in the concrete, but will in the abstract as long as it isn't described in a way that makes it seem like a flaw.
You're trying to separate d7's arguments from mine so you can "win" against someone, in a classic divide-and-conquer strategy that has nothing to do with actually constructing a rational argument.
. . . but I'm willing to entertain other explanations if they aren't full of crap.
When you can make that request without sounding like a hypocrite, I'll consider it. Have a look at the very first thing you said in this discussion, and tell me with a straight face that my response to you was unprovoked:
Actually, don't bother telling me my response to you was unprovoked, because I'd just tell you that you're a liar. I know I should assume stupidity before malevolence, but I really don't think you're that stupid.
Yeah. Your opening salvo was an accusation of bad faith. Piss off, hypocrite. I don't subscribe to the notion that "the better man" is the one who sacrifices correctness to the cuddly feelings of his attacker, so I'm afraid you're going to have to do better than hypocrisy if you want me to back off.
It was exactly the response your commentary, without any kind of logical support, deserved. If you aren't going to address my arguments with reasoned arguments of your own, I'm not going to treat them as if they prove anything other than the direct, obvious meaning they carry. I'll take your comment at face value — that, when you say you don't understand, maybe you just don't understand.
If you don't like that, say something more substantive in contradiction of what I said than "I don't understand."
Your argument consisted of:
In rough translation, that means "4E doesn't give a crap about justifying its rules from an in-character perspective, which is what you've been saying all along. I don't see what the problem is." By making a statement to that effect, you've ignored thousands of words of explanation of why that's a problem in foregoing discussion, but somehow you now expect me to just accept what you said as some kind of meaningful contribution to the discussion. Sorry. Not gonna do it. If your entire argument is "I don't understand," I'll just agree with you — because it's pretty clear that you don't.
Where do you get off, making a statement like that, then accusing me of misconduct by saying something that "doesn't really advance the discussion in any helpful way"? The difference between what you said and what I said was that what I said wasn't a passive-aggressive dismissal; it was just a dismissal, honest and straightforward.
Would you like me to point out the flaws in the arguments to which I responded with such terms, the same way I did with your "I don't understand" argument? I don't dismiss an argument as inconsequential or preëmptively dismissive without reason.
I get that, to you, it has been adequately defined — but, from where I'm sitting, it's because to you "adequate" means "a token attempt has been made". What really confuses me about all this is the idea that you can't see how fucking inadequate it is to me, and for some reason when I point out the differences in motivation that I suspect lie at the foundation of our difference of opinion on the matter, you start getting all offended as if what I said was that you are unskilled or something like that.
Under such conditions, if you're offended, that's your fault.
No no no no NO. That's not the problem. It's not just that 4E hasn't defined it. It's that 4E hasn't, none of you (where "you" means 4E fans who can't grasp the simple fact that 4E lacks some roleplaying support) have defined it according to the very simple fucking criteria I've mentioned at least three times in this discussion alone, and I haven't come up with an explanation that suits either.
It's not like I haven't tried — but I haven't come up with anything any better than the half-measures all of you have provided, either.
The problem here certainly isn't that I think any of you are stupid or unimaginative when it comes to trying to justify this stuff from an in-character perspective, no matter how much it may make you feel better about the disagreement to pretend I'm an evil ogre attacking your for stupidity or lack of imagination (even though some of you shitheads have accused me of lacking imagination). The problem is that you can't or won't understand the simple requirements that I have actually explained to you for providing a reasonable in-character justification.
Hell, justaguy even went so far as to start pretending he thinks I'm crazy, implying that I must believe characters have their own independent thoughts and are somehow communicating their disbelief to me, in an attempt to avoid having to address the matter of justifying a rule's effect on the game from an in-character perspective worth a damn.
. . . but somehow it's me how has to "tone it down". Yeah. Kiss my ass. Talk to me again when you're willing to admit your own culpability in the direction of this discussion.
You, in particular, Shad: first impressions matter. Everything you've said has been colored by your opening salvo. Have fun with the motives and attitude you displayed there. You have to live with them unless and until you say something that reverses the damage you've done to your own reputation in this discussion.
It's insufficient for me, for reasons I've already offered. If you are going to continue to ignore those reasons, or dismiss them with statements like "I don't understand," I'm going to continue to be more and more dismissive of your utter failures to address the arguments that have come before.
I agree, in general. This is not in dispute.
It's basically how you've chosen to interpret it — an intimidating presence (i.e., Intimidation) that has a direct in-game effect. I don't see the difference between what you described as the justification for Marking and the actions one might take with an Intimidation check.
. . . and you've failed to justify Marking according to my criteria here. The criteria were:
Saying that you believe Fighters should be able to do things in combat that other classes can't, because toe-to-toe melee combat is their thing, doesn't explain why this thing in particular is something that only Fighters should do. I require a justification from an in-character perspective. All you've offered is a justification from a rules balance perspective. "The rules indicate that Fighters should be able to do in-your-face melee combat better than anyone else. I choose this as an example of what they do better." How can you not see that this isn't justification from an in-character perspective? My only recourse here, unless you're just playing dumb for some reason, is that you can't (or won't) wrap your head around the idea of separation of in-character and out-of-character perspectives.
Sure — but there's a difference between knowing that applying pressure slows beleeding and knowing that stabbing here will kill a man faster. They're different skills. If you can provide something that separates Intimidation-intimidation from Marking-intimidation like that, you might have a point.
It's a completely different focus of the knowledge of anatomy. By way of example:
Bob is a martial artist. His martial art is Aikido. With Aikido, he knows where to apply pressure to incapacitate someone without injuring him.
Jane is a martial artist. Her martial art is Muay Thai. With Muay Thai, she knows how to bludgeon someone into submission with fists, elbows, knees, and feet, with occasional momentary binding maneuvers that make it easier to apply such strikes, including knowing where to hit for maximum effect.
Both of these people actually know some basic anatomy that can help them be more effective with their particular combat skills. There is, however, a distinct difference.
Bob knows where to apply pressure to incapacitate someone without injuring him (even though it's going to hurt a lot if the target resists), but not so much how to quickly incapacitate someone with injuries by striking the guy.
Jane knows how to incapacitate someone with injuries by striking him in tender areas, but not so much how to incapacitate someone with a little judicious pressure applied to the digital nerve by a precise twist of a wrist.
Neither of them can effectively learn how to achieve the expertise with the other's specialization in combat technique just by taking a CPR course. Even an MD isn't going to suddenly be able to do what either of the others do, in the Aikido practitioner's case because what the doctor of Western medicine learns isn't really relevant, and in the Muay Thai practitioner's case because while the doctor certainly knows where the kidneys are, he has no punching or kneeing technique suitable to use against the kidneys (unless he has learned, say, Muay Thai).
If the MD learned Tae Kwon Do, he might be able to combine the skills he has to achieve similar (if slightly less effective) results to Jane's, but combining his medical knowledge with Judo won't cut it for achieving Bob's results. If an accupuncture and accupressure doctor from China learned Judo, she might be able to achieve similar results to Bob's, but learning Tae Kwon Do won't cut it for achieving Jane's results.
By the same token, knowing what herbs to use in a poultice, where to apply pressure to slow or stop bleeding, how to use a field dressing, and that clean wounds are less likely to fester and become infected is not equivalent to knowing how and where to attack an inattentive target to kill him more quickly, unless by "attack an inattentive target" you mean intentionally treating wounds on an incapacitated or trusting patient to make him bleed to death faster.
I like my answer more — because it makes sense from an in-character perspective.
I'm not the one that basically described it as an intimidation technique. If you're going to use intimidation (note the lower case
ithere) as the in-character justification, I'd like you to explain how this form of intimidation differs from Intimidation from an in-character perspective. Simply saying it differs because it's a power only Fighters have is a circular argument, "justifying" the fact that only Fighters can do it because only Fighters can do it.I know it doesn't. The difference appears to be that I suspend disbelief more often by way of having clear ideas of what various actions mean from an in-character perspective than you do, whereas you suspend disbelief more often by way of ignoring the places where verismilitude is lacking than I do.
I never said otherwise.
Actually, these are things that I struggle with, to various degrees, a lot. I've implemented a number of different house rule damage systems to improve on that aspect of the game, in fact, and even shared them in some detail here in SOB, on occasion.
It's true that I'm willing to put up with these shortcomings in the verisimilitude of the system's design, at least some of the time, and overlook the lack of clear justification from an in-character perspective. At other times, though, I'm not. Even more to the point, when someone else says "Hit points are completely unrealistic," I don't dispute that, saying "The mechanics of the game provide a way of determining how and when characters die. I don't really see what the issue is." You, on the other hand, have said exactly that about the problems I've brought up with Marking.
That is the reason I have such a difficult time taking your arguments, and those of others here, seriously. When faced with someone pointing out a clear flaw in the verisimilitude provided by the D&D system I use, something that can serve to break suspension of disbelief, I say "Yeah, I can see how that's a problem. When I'm playing this game, though, I'm willing to ignore that in the name of having fun." When you are faced with someone pointing out a clear flaw in the verisimilitude provided by the D&D system you use, something that can serve to break suspension of disbelief, you say "There's nothing wrong with it! You're a bad person! Fuck off!" except of course that you spend a lot more words on saying that than in my example, and take a much more passive-aggressive approach to it (rather than the strictly aggressive approach in my contrived quote).
Comment by apotheon — 6 May 2009 @ 11:03
@apotheon:
>> "4e is like HERO: it gives you the mechanics, and you provide the flavor." You decide what your mark looks like.
> That's a fucking cop-out, and you know it.
That's built right into the 4e rulebook. It's a default assumption of the game.
It's also part of, you know, roleplaying.
>> Do you use expert foot- and bladework to "stick to" your target, so that no matter where he turns, it seems like you're always in the way?
> No — because if that was how it worked, other people who use expert foot- and bladework to "stick to" the target would be able to achieve exactly the same effects. Part of explaining how an ability a character has works so that it doesn't detract from suspension of disbelief is explaining how it doesn't work for others.
Who says it doesn't? Anyone sufficiently trained in combat (ie. possessing the correct feats and/or class features) can achieve the same thing. This is no different than, say, Evasion in 3e.
>> Do you plant a magical compulsion on your target, so that it finds itself "wanting" to attack you?
> No — not if you're a Fighter.
Why not? Is there a rule I'm unaware of saying that no Fighters can ever use magic? Besides, we were talking about marking, not Fighters' marks specifically. Paladins, Warpriests, Swordmages, and Wardens could all use this explanation.
>> Does your endless litany of bad puns enrage and distract your opponents?
> Why would one class be able to do that, but not another?
Another class could, if they were equally good at it (had the right training).
>> Is your silent glare so intimidating that enemies become rattled and overestimate the threat you pose?
> More of the same! See my above objections. What you seem to be lacking is the aspect of the explanation that justifies a particular class getting to perform a particular Marking maneuver as an exception to the rule that other classes can't do it.
The reason is the same reason that a Fighter can't sneak attack, a Wizard doesn't start with heavy armor proficiency, and a Rogue doesn't start with rituals: in a class-based system, some classes will have abilities that others don't. In-game, this is usually explained by a focus on those aspects that they do possess, to the exclusion of others — that is, a Fighter learns footwork and bladework to entangle an enemy along with the use of a large number of weapons and armor, a Rogue focuses on using light weapons to precisely strike undefended vital areas, a Wizard concentrates on magical studies.
There's nothing stopping any of them from picking up the other abilities, too, but they have to work harder at it (spend feats, multiclass, pick up the right paragon path, whatever).
If you're arguing that everyone should be able to do everything equally well, then you're playing the wrong game. You want something without classes.
> I think you're bending over backwards trying to justify it, in much the same way the game was apparently designed first as a series of tactical rules, and only later fitted to a roleplaying paradigm of game play. Roleplaying feels like an afterthought in 4E, and this "Well, we're giving you rules for exerting influence over who your enemies attack, and if you want a roleplaying justification for it you have to make it up yourself!" crap just reinforces that sense that roleplaying was bolted onto a tactical miniatures game.
> I've run across a few wiseacres claiming that 4E is actually more "old school" D&D than 3E, which I thought was a load of crap when I considered all the editions of the game I've played, from OD&D on up to 3E. I see now that I was too hasty, though; it's actually a lot like what I've heard about the immediate ancestor of D&D, which was Dave Arneson's modification of a tactical miniatures game, with a single-character playing style and the concept of a "character" rather than just troops bolted onto the game.
Actually, you have it backwards. It was Arneson who was more invested in the roleplaying, back in the day. It was Gygax whose games were more a matter of strategically assaulting a dungeon, and who tended to focus on player knowledge and tactical skill, rather than on in-character gaming. Read his book "Role-Playing Mastery" if you don't believe me.
D&D itself was designed first as a set of tactical rules, with roleplaying bolted on, as you put it. This is the same through all editions. It's the emphasis on roleplaying that's changed. 3e was the first to begin to "officially" support re-fluffing, as far as I'm aware, but 4e goes much further with it — but it's something we all did back in the day. When I played Basic, my magic missile was rarely a glowing arrow; it was an enchantment my elf whispered over a regular arrow, a flaming skull that shrieked through the air and exploded on impact, a tiny sliver of pure elemental darkness, and about a hundred other things, but rarely what the text described.
That's pretty much the essence of roleplaying.
>> All the book needs to tell you is what the mechanical effect of the mark is. And if you're an experienced enough GM, there's nothing stopping you from changing that, too.
> By that standard, even checkers could be considered a roleplaying game. I'd rather play something with the traditional flavor of the D&D editions I've actually played, though.
Then. . . do so?
You're writing about 4e, though.
>> Pretty much the exact opposite, sport.
> Then why don't you just fucking try to be reasonable? The only way your argument about Charm Person makes any real sense is if you're trying to use it to argue against the use of magic in the game. Otherwise, it's spurious nonsense. Sport.
No, not the only way. Look up Devil's Advocate and get back to me.
>> The mark is no more outside the game world than the charm spell is.
> Really? Where in the implied setting of the game does it become inescapably obvious that some reasonable behavior by a nonmagical character causes creatures to suffer bizarre, harmful effects if they attack the weakest, most efficiently damage dealing enemy rather than the most sturdy, melee-effective enemy with their melee weapons? You haven't provided any explanations. All you've given are excuses.
You're making a lot of untrue assumptions there. But let me grant them to you.
To illustrate: You're in a fight. Conan is standing next to you, wielding a greatsword three times as long as you are tall as if it were a dagger, and shouting exhortations to the blood god to torture you in a variety of interesting ways once he, in the not very distant future, separates your intestines from your belly. Even if Gandalf is standing 30 feet away, and even assuming that you rationally know that he's the greater threat, do you seriously think, in the heat of combat, that you could simply ignore Conan and waltz over to Gandalf without so much as a twinge of doubt or uncertainty?
> The Charm Person spell grants flavor to the game. Marking is just an arbitrary battlefield control mechanic that you're expected to excuse based on wild suppositions and crazy, half-baked justifications, such as trying to explain away how an entire family of wizards can be so poverty-stricken in the Harry Potter books, since the author never deigned to do so, or even provide any setting characteristics that imply an economically reasonable explanation.
Charm Person grants flavor to the game if you roleplay it. Marking grants flavor to the game if you roleplay it.
Just out of curiosity, why exactly couldn't a family of wizards be poverty-stricken in Harry Potter? Bearing in mind that this is a very large family of honest wizards, none of whom has much idea how the mundane world works.
Comment by Scott — 6 May 2009 @ 11:25
I gotta run some errands so I can't absorb the most recent salvos entirely, but I wanted to comment two things that caught my eye:
apotheon:
> . . . but I'm willing to entertain other explanations if they aren't full of crap.
(This will be a psych answer, because that's where my training lies. So, grains of salt if you need 'em.)
The alternative explanation I have for Shad's different responses to the same argument is that the arguments are differing in their emotional payload, or stakes. I'm not emotionally vested in the 4e/3e edition war anymore, so I'm easily avoiding defensive barbs in my arguments. Those are easier to swallow by someone who disagrees with them simply because their fight/flight reflex isn't getting in the way. With apotheon's arguments there's the additional emotional payload, which can be blinding despite the intellectual payload being nearly identical.
I mean, I don't begrudge you the shouting, apotheon, since I know exactly what it feels like to be in your position. I know that once I go into scorched-earth argument mode I've lost though, not because I'm wrong but because there can be no middle ground anymore to meet on—I've nuked it. I do find it extremely satisfying though, and sometimes it's all that's left, so, yeah, I'm no saint. I just don't have the investment in this conflict.
Scott:
> > > "4e is like HERO: it gives you the mechanics, and you provide the flavor." You decide what your mark looks like.
> > That's a fucking cop-out, and you know it.
> That's built right into the 4e rulebook. It's a default assumption of the game.
Yeah it is. That's pretty much the core of the objection. That why it looks like a cop-out.
Comment by d7 — 6 May 2009 @ 12:03
I'm not going to go into a really detailed thing here at this point. I will, however, apologize for my initial post. You're right, apotheon, my first comment was ill-conceived and I shouldn't have made a first impression like that. (Directed "badly" because the tags I used to quote your comment didn't show up when I submitted the comment, and there's no way to preview or edit, so I couldn't change it afterwards, or I would have.)
I don't mean to come into your blog and get into a finger-pointing contest about who is being hypocritical or passive-aggressive or insulting or whatever. I think there's evidence enough that we both have been. If you want to continue that line of discussion with me, you should now have my email and we can take it up there.
I'm not sure what contradiction you see in me saying "WotC supplies the crunch, you supply the fluff" and me saying that 4E may induce more "WTF" moments than other systems. That's one of the dangers of a crunch-heavy, fluff-light system. People will interpret things in a number of different ways which may or may not initially meld with additional rules as they come into play. I thought the difference of opinion we've been having has been whether it's possible to smooth out those WTF moments in-character or not. I've been saying 'yes', you've been saying 'no'.
Saying that you believe Fighters should be able to do things in combat that other classes can't, because toe-to-toe melee combat is their thing, doesn't explain why this thing in particular is something that only Fighters should do. I require a justification from an in-character perspective. All you've offered is a justification from a rules balance perspective. "The rules indicate that Fighters should be able to do in-your-face melee combat better than anyone else. I choose this as an example of what they do better." How can you not see that this isn't justification from an in-character perspective? My only recourse here, unless you're just playing dumb for some reason, is that you can't (or won't) wrap your head around the idea of separation of in-character and out-of-character perspectives.
Ok, I think I'm seeing the crux of the issue here. I'm trying to give an in-character explanation for a mechanic. "This is the rule, so here's how I interpret it to make sense in-character". And you're asking for an explanation of why this has been included as a mechanic in the first place. I'm not the one "choosing this as an example of what they do better", WotC did. I'm just looking at it and going, "How does this actually work, in terms of my character?"
I'm not trying to argue that 'marking' as a concept flows immediately and naturally from the concept of a Fighter. It's a mechanic that has been introduced to add flavor and interest and ability to the class. I'm sure it's all part of that mythical 'game balance' people talk about. (I would, however, argue that while Rogues are sneaky and dextrous, I don't see anything that would make advanced anatomical knowledge flow immediately and naturally from the concept of a Rogue, either. But since it was introduced several editions ago it's become ingrained as part of the Rogue's set of abilities.)
When faced with someone pointing out a clear flaw in the verisimilitude provided by the D&D system I use, something that can serve to break suspension of disbelief, I say "Yeah, I can see how that's a problem. When I'm playing this game, though, I'm willing to ignore that in the name of having fun." When you are faced with someone pointing out a clear flaw in the verisimilitude provided by the D&D system you use, something that can serve to break suspension of disbelief, you say "There's nothing wrong with it! You're a bad person! Fuck off!" except of course that you spend a lot more words on saying that than in my example, and take a much more passive-aggressive approach to it (rather than the strictly aggressive approach in my contrived quote).
Admittedly, this is the only thread I've read on your blog. This is the only impression I have of you and your gaming style, so I've not seen you previously mention being willing to ignore flaws in the system. I've only seen you say that marking is too big a flaw to overlook. My impression has been that you have a stricter threshold for suspension of disbelief than I do, and I've been trying to explain how I continue to suspend my disbelief in the face of this particular mechanic. (And I'm pretty sure I never said 4E was flawless, or that you're a bad person. Said or implied, aggressively or passively.) The point I was trying to make with bringing up hit points and class levels is that we BOTH are willing to suspend disbelief and ignore flaws in order to play the game and have fun, just to different degrees.
Obviously, marking as a concept or mechanic crosses a line for you that it doesn't cross for me. And not because I lack in-character perspective, but because I come at that perspective from a different starting point than you do. I start with (in this case) the 4E rules as written, and map the mechanics to in-character abilities and reasoning. You (I believe) start with a more global character class concept, "This is what a fighter is like", and map the ruleset and mechanics to that concept. I take the pieces I'm given and see what happens when I put them together, while you have a blueprint in hand and use the pieces to build the blueprint. And 'marking' is a piece that doesn't fit that design.
Comment by Shad — 6 May 2009 @ 12:24
Scott:
That may well be, but I thought I was arguing with you — not with an inanimate rulebook. It's the fact you're saying that in response to a request for some kind of demonstration of how the rules don't suck from a suspension of disbelief point of view, not your explanation for why the rules don't include flavor text, that's at issue here.
Your attempt to avoid answering the challenge set before you by saying it's my responsibility as the player to come up with excuses for the broken-ass rules myself is a cop-out. Period.
Perhaps you're not aware of it, but "roleplaying" isn't a magic word that makes the roleplaying-hostile rules of a game evaporate with nary a trace. There's a reason I don't use chess as my "roleplaying" game of choice, and that's just a more extreme example of why I don't use 4E as my RPG of choice.
The difference is that what was described as in-character justification for the rule wasn't a "feat" kind of thing — it was a "you know combat" kind of thing.
What are you arguing here?
Are you saying that all Fighters, in all D&D campaign settings, use magic?
I think it would be pretty difficult to argue convincingly that Fighters aren't generally understood to be nonmagical, thanks to thirty years (give or take) of them being presented that way in various editions of D&D.
Are you saying that all classes in 4E are basically just special cases of the Wizard?
This might be a stronger argument. Considering the homogeneity of the mechanics for Wizards and Fighters in 4E, a strong case could be made that the various classes in the game (and all their powers) are just magical abilities, essentially identical to spellcasting (since spellcasting is the same thing in the context of the rules). That would easily solve the problem of justifying the Fighter's Mark from an in-character perspective, but something tells me that's not what you're suggesting.
It works for some types of marking, but not for others. Try explaining the "others".
Holy crap. Now you're claiming that you have to be specially trained to tell a pun. Please try coming up with explanations that don't make me laugh outright at their stupidity, please — or just concede the point.
Thank you for, again, ignoring the fact that this is about in-character justifications.
True — but there's an assumption that the reason one class can do something that another cannot is somehow directly linked to what makes the classes different from each other in terms of that focus. So far, I haven't seen any explanation for how the Fighter's Marking ability is exclusive to the Fighter's focus. Not just explained by it — exclusive to it. If it's just explained by it, and can also be just as easily explained by the focus of another class, you haven't effectively explained why only a Fighter can do it.
I'm not, which should be blindingly fucking obvious unless you're not arguing honestly. Please avoid the straw men.
I wasn't saying that Arneson wasn't invested in roleplaying. Please stop assigning arguments to me that I didn't make. I said that the game was a miniatures game with the concept of a "character" (instead of "troops") bolted onto it. It was Arneson's interest in roleplaying that resulted in the concept of a character being bolted onto the game in the first place. If anything, all your statement that Arneson was interested in the roleplaying aspect of the game proves is that Arneson had motivation for bolting the concept of a character onto the game in the first place, thus setting up exactly the situation I just described as being similar to the way roleplaying feels like it was bolted onto 4E as an afterthought.
Not exactly. Each edition provided more roleplaying oriented variation in the game, up to 3E. Each made more sense from an in-character perspective. You can't just brush that away.
There's a difference between what you call "re-fluffing" and what I'm being told 4E is meant to encourage — which is making up everything from scratch except the combat modifiers. At that point, I have to wonder why they bother calling something "Marking", rather than "aggro penalties" or something like that. Why not call everything an
[adjective] [modifier], if everything's just supposed to be a modifier with no in-character context, where players are supposed to invent all the in-character context from scratch.Really? Why do you think that "the essence of roleplaying" is spending all your time trying to figure out how to justify the way the rules work from an in-character perspective? If that's the case, this whole discussion has been "roleplaying", more so than an actual 4E game, since we've been trying to figure out how to justify some of the rules from an in-character perspective.
Somehow, it doesn't feel like I've been playing a roleplaying game here.
Thank you for ignoring the fucking point.
A devil's advocacy excuse for what you did would be arguing against the use of magic in the game. You look up the meaning of the term.
I believe that, if Gandalf was the greater threat in the immediate future, Conan in this situation wouldn't cause me any more doubt or uncertainty in my decision to deal with the frailer, but greater threat, among opponents than a scrawny pencil-necked accountant with the same sword — at least, not to the extent that I would suddenly be unmanned by this doubt and uncertainty and be unable to stab Gandalf through the gullet.
Now, with that in mind, add in the possibility of a rogue who looks exactly like Conan, wielding a greatsword three times as long as I am tall as if it were a dagger, shouting exhortations to the blood god, et cetera, and tell me why he doesn't have exactly the same effect you propose the (presumably Fighter classed) Conan would have.
You can't handwave away the difference between how the Charm Person spell has a reasonable justification from an in-character perspective and how the Fighter's Mark mechanic doesn't by saying "you roleplay it". Maybe that's sufficient for you, but it isn't for me, because the whole point here is that roleplaying is (for some of us at least) interrupted by incidents of rules lacking reasonable explanations from an in-character perspective.
Why the hell couldn't they use magic to produce value that can be traded for other value in the mundane world? The only explanation for that, as far as I've been able to see, is that the entire family has an a collective IQ of about 35 — but I don't think their behavior is entirely consistent with that explanation.
d7:
No problem.
I understand what you're saying, but when the other party started lobbing nukes first, I figure the middle ground has been annihilated already. When others start using scorched-earth tactics against me, I tend to stop coddling their tender feelings.
Shad:
Thanks for the apology. Assuming you're willing to start over fresh and make reasonable arguments rather than employ argumentum ad hominem (and other) fallacies, I'm willing to do the same.
It also didn't address something anyone else actually said. It addressed an assignment of bad faith to someone else's words, which — because it wasn't an accurate assessment of what anyone said — was thus uncertain in its intended target. I couldn't even reasonably infer that you addressed me with any certainty, because it assumed that a motivation I didn't have was indisputably established as my motive.
As for the tags, I'm not sure why WordPress is fighting me. The thing is a mess of spaghetti code under the hood, and I've been fighting with the problem of whether it would be easier to navigate it all to fix a few serious issues I have with it (including this issue), to just write my own Weblog application from scratch, or to migrate to another and fix whatever problems it has. I apologize for not having selected my Weblog application software more carefully when I first started SOB.
I don't remember saying that was contradictory. If I did say something to that effect, please quote it — maybe there's some context that changes the character of my statement. If not, quote where you think I said so, and I'll explain what I actually meant.
Well, I'd say it was more a disagreement about how much one can reasonably smooth them out, since every RPG I've seen has those moments as far as I recall. The difference that bothers me about 4E is the frequency of that kind of problem coming up and how easily it can be brushed away — and, of course, how well such a brushing away holds up to later tests. In essence, though, you're right; that's the core of the discussion.
Not exactly. I need a in in-character justification that is good enough to have justified including the mechanic in the first place — not necessarily assurance that this was the reason it was included in the game. It may seem like a fine discinction in some respects, but it's an important distinction, if only to avoid the possibility of the discussion being dragged off-plot into the realm of trying to figure out what the game designers were actually thinking or saying that it's absurd to try to argue about what the game designers were thinking.
So am I — but I'm trying to do so within the larger context of an entire world with other characters, including answering the question of "Why doesn't this work for other characters?"
The most important thing for me, in adding flavor and interest and ability to the class, is that it adds a sense of "realism" to the character, and that it gives me a way to explore and develop the persona of the character. Something that only adds tactical "interest" from a perspective so abstracted from the in-character perspective that it feels more like a rule in chess than a rule that separates RPGs from chess isn't going to serve that purpose, and may even hinder it, as in the case of Marking (thus far).
I understand that you brought up the "flow immediately and naturally from the concept" thing is just an attempt to understand what I'm saying — but it's off the mark. That's not a necessary part of my criteria for the suitability of a rule for roleplaying purposes.
I think I do have a higher threshold for suspension of disbelief, because I'm trying to achieve something that requires greater suspension of disbelief when I play the game.
I'm also happy to concede that the explanations that have been provided are good enough for the people who provided them. What bothers me about all this is that, when I explain why they don't work for me, everybody tells me I'm wrong. Well, fuck that.
Your very first statement to me essentially implied I was a bad person.
When I say that the weaker explanations for why mechanics like Marking work don't satisfy me, and people keep arguing against that because they think I'm just being silly and not accepting the ultimate wisdom of the 4E game, I'm basically being told that all the flaws I perceive in the system don't really exist — that I'm just hallucinating, or something.
The implications are there, whether you see them or not.
It's a good point, but it doesn't make the problems with the verisimilitude of the system's effects on play that we've been discussing go away.
I think that's a pretty fair characterization of how I develop a character. Technically, I guess I start with as much of an understanding of the world in which the character will live as I can already access, and develop a character concept based on that — which depends on the GM, of course (and when I'm the GM, that means the ball's entirely in my court). Part of this involves having an understanding of why the world works the way it does, to some extent. Rules that violate a consistent understanding of the world bother me, and too many such rules overcome my ability to suspend disbelief.
The hit point system damages suspension of disbelief as much as the Marking system, but the hit point system is to some extent a core assumption of D&D as an archetypal RPG. When choosing which rules to tolerate, it takes a much higher precedence than Marking for that reason.
House rules are an option, of course. The requirements of game balance in 4E are strictly tied to combat, though, which means that keeping characters sufficiently balanced in power level requires a lot more care than in a game where characters are balanced more by having entirely separate areas of expertise, even outside of combat, because the value of a socially oriented character's power isn't damaged as much by a combat oriented character's power getting a slight boost, or buy losing a minor ability that pertains to that social specialization when other characters still can't compete effectively in the social realm.
As a result of all that, removing, replacing, or adjusting the Marking power — or any other combat rule — is much more treacherous in 4E than a similar change in 3E might be, much more prone to throwing things out of whack. This increased likelihood of failure to keep the game within a reasonable range of "balance" when making changes, coupled with the higher incidence of problems of verisimilitude thanks to the way many rules appear to be conceived for purposes of tactical balance and tactical options, without (much) regard for roleplaying concerns per se, makes 4E a non-starter for me.
Any time I try to explain some part of this, unfortunately, I end up with a discussion like this. A crap load of 4E fans descend like harpies to attack me with their filthy talons for having the temerity to suggest that something like the Marking mechanic or the Own the Battlefield power interferes with suspension of disbelief, makes the game feel more like a poorly conceived tactical miniatures game than an RPG to me, and is emblematic of a lot of the design philosophy of 4E.
Comment by apotheon — 6 May 2009 @ 01:44
At the risk of bring Forge theory too close to D&D and triggering an antimatter/matter explosion, Ron Edward's essay on the components of imaginative roleplay might be enlightening. (It's really short, and only the first section is relevant to this anyway.)
Scott, when you say that making up the flavour of Powers, or what a Magic Missile looks like, are roleplaying, you're technically right. They're just not necessarily a part of roleplaying that everyone thinks is important when weighed against the other components of roleplaying.
Imagining what my Magic Missile looks like or what exact hoodoo is happening when Own the Battlefield happens is what Ron defines as Colour: "any details or illustrations or nuances that provide atmosphere". Atmosphere is great, and I love generating appropriate colour for my games on-the-fly. I consider it a part of storytelling, not necessarily roleplaying. When I roleplay, it has much more to do with the role of a character (bolded to indicate a technical term from Ron's essay) being portrayed within a setting and an interesting or challenging situation.
The defining line between setting and situation on one side and colour on the other, in my mind, is whether they present interesting choices: setting/situation does, colour doesn't. Why I dismiss flavour text in 4e as meaningless is because it's mere colour—the system doesn't let me make decisions based on the flavour text, only the mechanic. The flavour text is just window-dressing, and the system doesn't make a stronger tie between setting and mechanic than this throw-away window-dressing. There's this disconnect between the mechanic and the setting that mere flavour (or worse to me, reflavouring) doesn't bridge.
Put another way, the only reason for me to care about the mechanics is for being able to skillfully manipulate the mechanics themselves. If I'm only interested in mechanics I play a board game or a wargame (or Magic). When I want to roleplay, I want the mechanics to make me care because of what they mean, entirely in setting terms.
I'll agree that there is an amount of freedom granted by the system because it doesn't tie a specific mechanic down with a specific in-world meaning. It's a trade-off; you can't have both. It's a lot of work to reflavour mechanics that are tied closely to the setting. (Earthdawn, anyone?) For myself, though, that's not a good trade-off—I'd rather play Earthdawn than 4e D&D. I want to play D&D, but the current edition left off bit that I think are vital.
Comment by d7 — 6 May 2009 @ 02:42
I'm Chad, and I approve d7's message.
Sorry, couldn't resist the lame joke — I'm just saying that d7's latest comment is an excellent addition to attempts to explain what we evidently both feel is missing from 4E.
Comment by apotheon — 6 May 2009 @ 03:03
@apotheon
> Did you fucking read what Venlar said? He opened with a fucking insult. Take a step back and realize that the
> fact he agrees with you doesn't make him a victim or a hero. Not only that, but it's the kind of insult that
> involves playing stupid. If it wasn't meant as an insult, he really can't understand putting oneself into a
> character's shoes.
I'm sorry, remind me again? What part of the beginning of my post was an insult? Was it this?
> So, having read through the thread here and found myself wrestling with some self-evident truths of my own,
> I really find myself wondering if the following is the case. . .
Or this?
> Apotheon and LiveFromHell can't wrap themselves around the Marking concept of a Fighter because the rule
> in the 4e PHB lacks flavor text.
I will certainly concede that my post ended with a level of inflamed rhetoric that I didn't initially intend to include, and I apologize. To be fair, though, as I read through the first 30-odd posts in the thread, I found myself put off by your ad hominem attacks. . .
> Obviously, that's not what I was saying. Shithead.
. . .after you'd earlier relied on not taking stock in an argument that failed to refute your own from a logical standpoint. . .
>> In general, I find the "4e destroys imagination" attacks to be. . . well. . . unimaginative.
>
> I'm more impressed by arguments that point out how someone's statements are logically invalid than
> arguments that claims someone's statements are "unimaginative". You have failed to make anything like a
> valid point with that statement.
. . .so by the end of my response, it felt like responding in kind might have been the appropriate thing to do. It wasn't, and in the more recent vein of the comments thread tending toward civil discourse, I'm done with that. Again, I apologize.
More generally. . .
Anyway, it's clear that this entire discussion is a microcosm of a bigger issue – there are some rules in place that break everyone's immersion. For me, and for everyone I know and have spoken with, Grappling does it in previous editions. Every previous edition I've played, from Red Box on up to several post-3rd Edition variants, has made Grappling a pain. Although it's tended to come up less often in the groups I've played with, Mounted Combat tends to be this same way with me. Mechanically, they seem to be bolted on to the side of the rules, instead of flowing with them.
So when I see something like the Marking mechanic in the game, which alleviates a number of issues that I know I've personally struggled with ("Why play a Fighter, when all the other Melee classes have more flavor and abilities?", "As a non-squishy melee combatant, how do I get the right things to pay attention to me at the right times during combat?", "As a squishy caster, who doesn't have access to any sorts of illusion- or charm-type spells, how do I make things not pay attention to me without simply standing around with my finger in my nose?"), and which has such a broad number of examples as those generated here in the thread for potential options (to the point where every Fighter's version of Marking could look and feel fundamentally different from all other Fighters' versions), I find that it doesn't break my own immersion in the game.
In fact, if anything, it enhances it.
If I want to believe that a Fighter's training enables him to repeatedly slap an enemy in the face as part of his combat maneuvering, and that this gets the enemy's attention just enough to cause him to break the fragile and tenuous hold of a Paladin's Challenge compulsion effect (the weakest and most fleeting of all possible geases, in my estimation), in part due to the Paladin allowing his ally to do it. . . Well, great! It's something I can hold in my mind as a possibility, and roll with as combat moves forward. When the Paladin re-applies his Challenge mark, his compulsion regains the attention of the enemy combatant in much the same way. Perhaps the fighter stops slapping at that point. Perhaps the first hundredth of a second of the Challenge is the really important part, and that's enough to pull the enemy's attention away enough to get it to ignore face-slapping for a moment. Whatever.
Why can't other classes do the same face-slapping routine and get the same results? Well, in part, it's because the Fighter is simply really good at it. He's been face-slapping for years, and has honed his technique so keenly that it actually works in the midst of combat. In a separate, but equally important part of the explanation, it's because the other classes simply don't want to. Oh, they may think they do. But deep down, in the most primal parts of the backs of their brains, they enjoy having hands. And slapping an enemy's face in the midst of combat is a good way to find oneself slightly less well-endowed in the "hands" sense. Maybe not this time, but next time or the time after. So, they hesitate a tiny little bit, and whatever they're slapping knows it. It's not fooled.
With only the above Super Face-Slapping Technique in his bag of tricks, a Fighter could still find himself at odds when trying to influence a broad variety of opponents in the greater DnD mythos. Intangible creatures, fire elementals, level-drainers, things without faces, etc. all come immediately to mind as particularly bad opponents to try slapping in the face.
That's why the Fighter's not limited to face-slapping. In much the same way that no seasoned adventurer in previous editions would think of leaving home (inn, tavern, whatever) without a piercing, a slashing, and a bludgeoning weapon, as well as some form of both Melee and Ranged option with which to combat anything he or she comes across, so too does the Fighter stock up on various implementations of attention-getting, Mark-inducing options.
Roaring at the enemy, kicking his shins, insulting his mother, flashing hideously mal-formed pre-dentistry teeth, glaring fiercely, kicking pebbles and sand underfoot, repeated feints to the face and groin areas, fervent quasi-religious exhortations, suggestive eyebrow-wiggling, a particularly nasty-sounding cough, close-talking, engaging the enemy in an at-length discussion of why the fight would already be over in a previous edition of the game (Okay, that one's just for the OOTS-like characters who understand they're in a game world whose rules change occasionally for arbitrary reasons), etc., etc., etc. . . Fighters might not be the most cultured and eloquent characters in the game, and they probably haven't spent years and years poring over arcane tomes and learning the exact incantation that will make green flames shoot out of their fingers, instead of blue or red ones. But they haven't been idle, either. It takes more than knowing how to swing a sword to distinguish oneself from the rank-and-file of the town's militia. Any clod can learn to put the pointy end of the stick in the soft thing. Finesse and technique come along as the Fighter trains his art, but so does something else — an innate knowledge of how to get things done, and in the case of protecting his or her companions from harm, sometimes that means slapping a few bad guys in the face.
Comment by Venlar — 6 May 2009 @ 03:59
I find myself regularly put off by the way people tend to misuse the term "ad hominem".
Uh . . . what? What does that mean?
Your "apologies" strike me as far less heartfelt than others in this discussion. If you could refrain from undermining the appearance of sincerity after this point, though, I'd be willing to grant the benefit of the doubt.
Grappling is a huge problem in both 2E and 3E. I don't really remember in 1E, and I don't think there was such a mechanic at all in OD&D. Anyway, my point is that you'll get no argument from me on this, in general.
More specifically, I think 3E's could have been great if the core explanation of the mechanic was clarified, because of the fairly comprehensive coverage of special cases, but the incoherency of the core 3E grappling mechanics presentation destroyed all that. Both 4E and Pathfiner RPG improved significantly on the playability of grappling over 3E, but I think PRPG did a better job of improving the playability without sacrificing the basis for more comprehensive coverage.
I wouldn't say 2E's was "a pain" — it was very quick and simple, making even 4E's look overly complex by comparison — but it sucked for other reasons. 2E's grappling rules were more "an annoyance" and "a bore" than "a pain", in my opinion, even if the Overbearing mechanic (a small part of the whole) worked pretty well.
This has never been much of a problem for me, probably because most of the "flavor" in the games in which I've played and that I've GMed was in the roleplaying interactions and characters' decision making qualities rather than in combat maneuvers no matter what class anyone was playing.
My answer to that has always been coming up with ways to make it difficult for enemies to get close to the squishy party members, rather than to add abstract mechanics to the game that semi-magically affect the motivations of enemies without direct relation to the actual actions of the characters as causative factors. Placing meat shields in front of doorways is great for that kind of thing.
Well, that's a conundrum. Have you considered the notion of thinking about how your character might solve the problem, if he were a real spellcaster, without thinking about things in terms of rules?
. . . which tends to raise the specter of questions like "Why can't my third level kebab vendor use that tactic? Why should the rules arbitrarily prevent him from doing so?"
See . . . I don't get that. It seems like such an absurd excuse for the Marking mechanic — that Fighters have specialized training that makes them effective at bitch-slapping people in such a way that they irresistibly cannot avoid taking penalties when attacking others, and that one cannot achieve the same effect without such specialized training — should definitely interfere with immersion.
I have never, ever, conceived of a Fighter-type character concept that involved "consummate expert at slapping people in the middle of combat".
I guess you're just trying to convince me that I really don't want to play 4E now. My choice of class, apparently, determines whether or not my character will ever want to be able to use a Marking technique like the Fighter's.
Congratulations. Your vision of the game strikes me as so inane that, if I were to accept it as the canonical explanation, I would never want to play any game that had that mechanic in it ever, regardless of how great the rest of the game might be.
Your explanations of how Fighter's Marks work, both up to this point and following it, read more like something that would appear in The Onion than in a serious discussion of game design.
Sorry. I simply don't buy it. If you're really just a sock puppet trying to make 4E fans look ridiculous, I'd appreciate it if you'd stop.
Comment by apotheon — 6 May 2009 @ 04:42
> Perhaps the fighter stops slapping at that point. Perhaps the first hundredth of a second of the Challenge is the really important part, and that's enough to pull the enemy's attention away enough to get it to ignore face-slapping for a moment. Whatever.
The key word there is "whatever". You don't care about this because it's irrelevant to your game. Any ol' explanation will do. And since obviously all games in the world are played exactly the same way. . . Well, sarcasm aside, do you see the problem?
It's kind of like the difference between prose and poetry. Poetry is evocative, full of movement and brilliant imagery, but doesn't describe the actual action in concrete detail. Prose says "this happens, then this happens", describing it in more-or-less detail. My imagination provides the brilliant imagery by putting together the details, while poetry does it the other way around. 3e and earlier D&D felt like prose to me, while what you're offering above is evocative but insubstantial poetry. They're just different, and when I want the one I won't accept the other as a substitute no matter how good the poetry is.
Comment by d7 — 6 May 2009 @ 05:08
apotheon:
>> To be fair, though, as I read through the first 30-odd posts in the thread, I found myself put off by your
>> ad hominem attacks. . .
>I find myself regularly put off by the way people tend to misuse the term "ad hominem".
From Miriam-Webster:
> ad hominem
> Function: adjective
> 1 : appealing to feelings or prejudices rather than intellect
> 2 : marked by or being an attack on an opponent's character rather than by an answer to the contentions made
Calling someone a "shithead" certainly falls within the definition.
Making the implication that I'm a poor role-player because I fail to understand your point does as well. But that came after I made my first post, so I wasn't really referring to that in my second.
Also, you haven't told me where in the beginning of my first post the insult lay. I'm still waiting.
> Your "apologies" strike me as far less heartfelt than others in this discussion. If you could refrain from
> undermining the appearance of sincerity after this point, though, I'd be willing to grant the benefit of
> the doubt.
If you choose to misinterpret my sincerity, that's your issue. I didn't have to write that out, and wouldn't have if I didn't feel it.
On to better subjects!
> Both 4E and Pathfiner RPG improved significantly on the playability of grappling over 3E, but I think PRPG
> did a better job of improving the playability without sacrificing the basis for more comprehensive coverage.
I agree that 4e improved the playability of Grappling. Pathfinder tried to do that, and instituted the CMB derived-stat that was intended to improve the playability of grappling amongst other non-standard combat maneuvers. I'm of the opinion that the haphazard implementation of CMB didn't really help things, though. Grappling, Bull Rushing, and all the other one-off cousins remained special-case rules that followed their own convention and didn't flow from the rest of the rules. It traded one special-case complexity for another, and ended up no better for it.
> Well, that's a conundrum. Have you considered the notion of thinking about how your character might solve
> the problem, if he were a real spellcaster, without thinking about things in terms of rules?
Again with the implications that I'm a poor role-player, and that I don't look at things from my character's point of view. I'm really not sure where you think this is coming from. If I were to re-word the general case of "My lightly- or non-armored characters can't figure out how not to get hit in combat", it doesn't evoke the actual point that I was trying to get across. I chose to state it from my point of view because my characters aren't posting here; I am.
>. . . which tends to raise the specter of questions like "Why can't my third level kebab vendor use that
> tactic? Why should the rules arbitrarily prevent him from doing so?"
Once again, we're back around to the rules of the game giving a level of abstraction from reality. Your kebab vendor probably cooks lamb in a way that no fighter would be able to, either.
> See . . . I don't get that. It seems like such an absurd excuse for the Marking mechanic — that Fighters
> have specialized training that makes them effective at bitch-slapping people in such a way that they
> irresistibly cannot avoid taking penalties when attacking others, and that one cannot achieve the same
> effect without such specialized training — should definitely interfere with immersion.
Okay, now I'm calling shenanigans. You've asked over and over in this thread for a rationale for Marking which did 3 things:
1) Explained why the Fighter could do it.
2) Explained why nobody else could do it.
3) Explained why it superseded an in-place Paladin's Challenge.
I gave you that.
> Congratulations. Your vision of the game strikes me as so inane that, if I were to accept it as the
> canonical explanation, I would never want to play any game that had that mechanic in it ever, regardless
> of how great the rest of the game might be.
And because you didn't like my whimsical (and purposely-chosen to be whimsical because it was exactly that — an example) description of it, you've found yourself backed into a corner and now have to throw away the entire game system because you don't like it.
> I guess you're just trying to convince me that I really don't want to play 4E now. My choice of class,
> apparently, determines whether or not my character will ever want to be able to use a Marking technique like
> the Fighter's.
> In short, the problem isn't that we can't wrap our heads around the arbitrary nonsense that is the Marking
> system, but that the characters can't, and this breaks suspension of disbelief when playing a roleplaying
> oriented campaign.
Well, when you've already pre-supposed that your character will not be able to understand one of his core abilities, I don't see why you'd want to use the ability anyway. Maybe you should play a Wizard instead.
d7:
> The key word there is "whatever". You don't care about this because it's irrelevant to your game. Any ol'
> explanation will do. And since obviously all games in the world are played exactly the same way. . . Well,
> sarcasm aside, do you see the problem?
Absolutely. I don't need everything nailed down to a particular level, and some role-players need things specified to a much lesser or greater degree than I do. If I needed it more nailed down,
> Perhaps the fighter stops slapping at that point. Perhaps the first hundredth of a second of the Challenge
> is the really important part, and that's enough to pull the enemy's attention away enough to get it to
> ignore face-slapping for a moment.
would become. . .
> The fighter stops slapping at that point. The first hundredth of a second of the Challenge
> is the really important part, and that's all it takes to pull the enemy's attention away enough
> to get it to ignore prior face-slapping.
But that does, as I'm sure someone will comment, suppose that the Fighter is aware of the Challenge happening. One can easily find edge-case scenarios when the fighter would be unaware of its occurrence, and would keep laying the smack down, so to speak. At that point it becomes a GM ruling. Smart players will endeavor not to have this ever come into play.
Regardless, I take your meaning. It's a degrees thing.
On poetry vs prose. . . I can see what you're trying to get at, but in my own perspective of battles in 4e, I disagree. I completely agree that 3rd Edition and previous versions of D&D fit your definition of Prose. But for a system that's so fundamentally built on a tactical battle simulation as 4e is, I don't see the Poetry comparison. Things happen, actions lead to reactions, people and creatures move around the battlefield in interesting and often unexpected ways. In this, I don't see the fundamental paradigm shift from 3rd edition. (Please don't construe the last comment as the much broader "I don't see how 3rd and 4th edition D&D differ; I'm an idiot." You know that's not what I'm saying just as well as I do. ;)
Out of combat and away from the battlemat, there is certainly an interesting difference in that socially, players are often going to find fewer uses for their Powers and other abilities, simply because they've been couched by the book in such a hard-hitting, combat-flavored style. Therefore, players will be less likely to look for interesting ways to use all the tools available to them. A prime, and classic example of this is the Grease spell. It was only just re-introduced to a Wizard's options in the Arcane Power supplement. The description is basically "Here's what happens when you cast this in a fight — oh, and it makes things slippery, too". For anyone that's used Grease as the go-to spell for 1,001 uses in previous editions, that's an obvious let-down. When I read it, I kind of slumped, and said to myself "Well, I guess I won't re-train to get it, then. Oh, well." (Yes, I currently play a Wizard in my 4e campaign) And then I re-read the description and realized that there wasn't anything technically there that would keep it from being used in the majority of ways that I've either used it or seen it used in the past.
Getting back to Poetry vs Prose, though, none of that says Poetry to me. If anything, it says Prose even more.
Comment by Venlar — 6 May 2009 @ 06:49
> I don't see the Poetry comparison. Things happen, actions lead to reactions, people and creatures move around the battlefield in interesting and often unexpected ways. In this, I don't see the fundamental paradigm shift from 3rd edition.
The difference to my eye is that the Things That Are Happening in a 4e combat are mechanics first, fiction second or not at all. In 3e, things were muddier, but the Things That Are Happening during a combat were an equal blend of fiction and mechanics, neither overruling the other. If you go back as far as AD&D, the Things That Are Happening in combat were fiction first, mechanics second.
Why that is comes from what role the mechanics filled in the system. In AD&D the mechanics were an attempt (however abstracted) to represent a fantasy world. The world was the inspiration for the mechanics during every moment of play.
In 4e, the role of the mechanics are to provide an interesting tactical game. The mechanics come first during play, and whatever is happening in parallel in the fiction is an afterthought. The fiction is whatever you want it to be, refluffable, replaceable. The mechanics have tactical meaning but lack fictional meaning.
Consider this AD&D action declaration: "I grab the tree branch overhead and kick the orc in the skull." (I did this in my first game ever.) Compare with this 4e action declaration: "I use Knockdown Shot." AD&D actions can be declared without un-immersing from the fiction and without even referring to mechanics, while 4e actions must be declared in mechanical terms. In 4e you have to think in mechanical terms to Get Things Done, while in AD&D you have to think in fictional terms to Get Things Done.
As another example of the disconnect I see between 4e rules and the world, compared to prior editions' rules, consider the Rogue attack "Sand in the Eyes". This Power's only requirement is that the Rogue be wielding a light blade. There's no mechanical requirement for there to be anything actually on the ground in order to use it, and a player would rightly be annoyed by a DM who said it couldn't be used because they're fighting in a spotless marble corridor of the palace. It's only flavour text, right?
In AD&D it's not the mechanics that determine whether someone could try that, but the world. Are there pebbles or aren't there? If there are, you could try to blind your opponent. If there aren't, you can't. Do something else. Smash them with a priceless vase. (And, before you say that you could refluff "Sand in the Eyes" to be smashing a priceless vase too, consider that blinding is not an obvious or likely consequence of this different action.) The world, interpreted by the DM, determines what players can and can't attempt. In 4e it's just the rules, regardless of what the world is like.
Comment by d7 — 6 May 2009 @ 11:52
"Cram your latent judgmentalism up your ass."
Nah, I like it out in the open. . . easier to keep an eye on. Plus, I have a hard time typing while standing.
"the problem isn't that we can't wrap our heads around the arbitrary nonsense that is the Marking system, but that the characters can't"
After making an offhand comment to a friend about this all, I've sort of had an epiphany. It's like you are a "method actor", or at least that's what you seem to be describing. You're not just playing a character, you're becoming that character. And that is, in fact, odd to me. Not in a bad way, but it's kinda outside my experience with anyone I've played with. And I don't think that means I've not played with Rpers, just not ones that are of the same style as you. I suppose this doesn't really add much to the conversation. It just occurred to me, and i don't really care to engage with the rest of this conversation at this point. . .
Comment by justaguy — 7 May 2009 @ 12:37
Bah.
The term "ad hominem" is used to refer to a logical fallacy. In that fallacy (as the dictionary definition you cited hints), on attempts to advance an argument by assaulting the opposing person rather than the opposing argument. You seem to have missed a key part of this: "rather than".
If I call you a shithead, it's because I think you're a shithead. It's not an attempt to advance an argument. If you read the word "shithead" within the context of one of my comments, and you pay attention to what does or does not read like an attempt to advance an argument, you'll see that "shithead" doesn't fit those criteria.
Imagine for a moment I say something like "Correlation does not imply causation. Oh, yeah, and it's past my bedtime." Would you think I was using the statement that it's past my bedtime to advance the argument?
If not, maybe you should consider why you're using a term (ad hominem) that means "you're improperly using that to advance an argument" to refer to the second sentence a statement like this: "Correlation does not imply causation. Oh, yeah, and you're a shithead."
Making inferences that you're a poor role-player because you're inclined to look for offense in everything I say is your problem — not mine.
Are you serious? That wasn't sarcasm? Are you really so thoroughly blind to the character of your own behavior that you can't tell? Criminy, I thought you were being facetious. Yes, it's when you tried implying that LiveFromHell and I are too dull-witted to figure out how the Marking mechanic works.
I didn't "choose to misinterpret" anything. I doubted it, because your "apology" was couched in terms of statements to the effect of "It's all your fault, but I'll apologize anyway."
I guess, if you aren't aware of your own insults, you may not be aware of your equivocations when apologizing, either — which would mean you're sincere in the intent, even if you can't help undermining its presentation.
I'm of the opinion that it's not haphazard, and it fixed things rather nicely — but then, I've actually used it, and I've noticed how it unifies the systems for about thirty different actions.
I'm of the opinion that having systems for handling a number of special cases is a good thing — rather than 4E's approach, which is to pretend those special cases don't exist.
Again, with the assumptions of bad faith and inferences based more on your own biases than my statements. . . .
This pretty clearly demonstrates that you have no clue what I'm talking about.
I don't think you're a bad roleplayer. I'm increasingly of the opinion that you don't give more than half a shit about roleplaying, though.
Your argument takes the form:
explain why the Fighter can do it by offering half-baked excuses that sound more like satire than a serious attempt to give some in-character justification for how the action plays out
completely abandon any pretense of reasonable in-character justification when explaining why nobody else can do it
offer a surprisingly good explanation of why the Fighter's Mark supersedes the Paladin's, though it's predicated upon the assumption that the Fighter's Mark works from an in-character perspective as if it were designed by a satirist rather than conceived by a writer of swords-and-sorcery fantasy
Implicit in those criteria was the requirement that it not be fucking absurd — and you clearly know it's absurd. You even went so far as to end it with "whatever", as d7 pointed out, indicating your utter contempt for such roleplaying concerns as suspension of disbelief.
I asked for something that would help suspend disbelief, and you gave me something that actually damaged suspension of disbelief, and now you're trying to claim you somehow made a point there. What's your point? Is it that I'm an idiot for wanting suspension of disbelief in the game?
Holy fuck, stop playing stupid.
Maybe I should play a game that was designed by people who give a shit about suspension of disbelief instead — and aren't defended by people who have such an obvious low opinion of those who give a shit about it.
Not exactly — at least, not in my case. I don't necessarily need it nailed down. I need it to be something that could reasonably be nailed down, and immediately suggests a path to that end. Something like "you can make people have a -2 penalty to hit simply by wanting it to be so, make up your own fluff if you want any, 'cause we don't care" doesn't really fit that description.
The shift that I see is that the way I'd describe the action in combat in an earlier edition doesn't sound like a tactical miniatures game. Instead, it sounds like an RPG.
I keep running across 4E players that seem to think that roleplaying is what happens outside of combat. I don't like my RPGs divided into artificial little boxes like that. I prefer the combat to be roleplaying, too — playing the role of the character. For my gaming preferences, the combat rules (and other rules — but that's not really relevant to 4E) should support playing the role of the character, and provide a means of adjudicating the effects of in-character actions. They should not supplant in-character actions once battle is joined, the way they do in 4E.
Clearly, you prefer a different approach to playing RPGs, and that's fine, but I really wish you'd grasp the fact that my reason for preferring a different gaming style than yours isn't a case of my ability to understand how 4E rules work is defective. Dismissing my distaste for a supposed "roleplaying" game whose mechanics treat roleplaying as an afterthought, as what happens between combats to give players an excuse to get to the fighting, as something unimportant to the core mechanics of the game themselves, on the basis of my supposed inability to wrap my head around a mechanic that only consists of a simple arithmetic expression — well, that's just asinine.
It's weird how you get that, but don't get how 98% of the rest of 4E looks that way to some people, too. Actually, much of it looks worse than that, because it doesn't even get to the point of having an obviously evocative name like "Grease" or a descriptive statement like "it makes things slippery". The Fighter's Mark and the Warlord's Own the Battlefield are my current favorite examples of that.
Frankly, I don't know how one could even begin to offer serious suggestions for how Own the Battlefield works. What — do strings descend from heaven, attach themselves to combatants' limbs, and literally move them around like puppets?
I think, when he introduced the word "Poetry", d7 was referring to the fluff players can add — where you might make up descriptions of the action, and you call that roleplaying. Meanwhile, d7 and I expect roleplaying to include the poetic turn of phrase, the evocative color and flare added to the game, but we also expect it to include stuff like an actual explanation of how events progress.
Notice that prose can contain poetry, or be as evocative as poetry, but it must also include narrative, character-driven action, and so on. By the same token, roleplaying in the style of d7 and me can contain a description of what someone does, but must also include a reason for doing it, and assumptions about how the campaign world works.
For you, meanwhile, it seems like roleplaying consists of the poetry only — a description of how a character performs some action — and ends the moment you pick up your dice.
On the subject of accusations that I'm saying you're a bad roleplayer:
I have no idea. I haven't said I have any idea, either. For all I know, you might be great at it. Your tendency seems to be to sideline it a lot, though. I'm a pretty good shot with an M-16, but I haven't fired one in a while — and, by the same token, it seems like if you're pretty good at roleplaying, that doesn't have to mean you do it all the time, and if you don't do it all the time, that doesn't have to mean you're not any good at it. You'd rather deal with "interesting" movements of miniatures on the grid map when combat is engaged, apparently. To you, just as to the designers of 4E, it seems that the abstract tactics of the representational combat system is "the game", and the rest is superficial stuff that just exists to get the characters between combats.
I actually rather loathe the use of the term "fluff" to refer to roleplaying concerns. It implies that roleplaying is just insubstantial stuff that doesn't really matter, that it's all interchangeable and unimportant.
It's not unimportant to me. If it was, I might still be playing a game, but it wouldn't have to be a roleplaying game. Think about that — it's a roleplaying game, by name. The roleplaying is so important it's in the name of the gaming genre. It's not unimportant. It's not "fluff".
Comment by apotheon — 7 May 2009 @ 01:19
@apotheon
>> I'm not sure what contradiction you see in me saying "WotC supplies the crunch, you
>> supply the fluff" and me saying that 4E may induce more "WTF" moments than other systems.
> I don't remember saying that was contradictory. If I did say something to that effect,
> please quote it — maybe there's some context that changes the character of my statement.
> If not, quote where you think I said so, and I'll explain what I actually meant.
You quoted me as saying (where I was talking about 'WTF moments'):
>> You may be right that it will happen more with 4E than with some other systems, as the
>> focus with 4E seems (to me) to be the mechanics.
And you replied:
> I'm curious why, when you're talking to d7 here, you say this — but when (apparently)
> responding to me above you basically took the position that there was nothing about 4E
> that gave that impression at all with statements such as "WotC supplies the crunch, you
> supply the fluff. I don't really see what the issue is." Your self-contradiction may be
> overlooked by people who are willing to make the Diplomacy roll, but I just don't feel
> inclined to coddle your self-contradictions right now.
I've read it over several times and I still am unsure where you see a contradiction, so any further explanation would be helpful.
> Well, I'd say it was more a disagreement about how much one can reasonably smooth them out,
> since every RPG I've seen has those moments as far as I recall. The difference that bothers
> me about 4E is the frequency of that kind of problem coming up and how easily it can be
> brushed away — and, of course, how well such a brushing away holds up to later tests. In
> essence, though, you're right; that's the core of the discussion.
Well, like we've already discussed, I believe it will come up more frequently in 4E than in some other systems. Partially because it's just newer and everyone's running into these WTF moments for the first time, and partially because it's more concerned with 'crunch' that fits together than with creating or inspiring a setting. We do seem to differ on the opinion of how easily it can be brushed away, and on how difficult it is to adapt that brushing to future tests.
>> I'm trying to give an in-character explanation for a mechanic. "This is the rule, so
>> here's how I interpret it to make sense in-character". And you're asking for an
>> explanation of why this has been included as a mechanic in the first place.
> Not exactly. I need a in in-character justification that is good enough to have justified
> including the mechanic in the first place — not necessarily assurance that this was the
> reason it was included in the game. It may seem like a fine discinction in some respects,
> but it's an important distinction, if only to avoid the possibility of the discussion being
> dragged off-plot into the realm of trying to figure out what the game designers were
> actually thinking or saying that it's absurd to try to argue about what the game designers
> were thinking.
I don't know what you find acceptable as justification for including a mechanic. I don't honestly see why Rogues having an innate knowledge of internal organs gets a free pass, but Fighters knowing how to distract or threaten or engage someone in combat (more than non-fighters) is unrealistic.
(And I'm not a mind-reader and I never bothered to read any of the 4E designers articles about why they chose or didn't choose certain things, so I have no idea what they were thinking on pretty much any topic, and I won't pretend to.)
>> I'm just looking at it and going, "How does this actually work, in terms of my character?"
> So am I — but I'm trying to do so within the larger context of an entire world with other
> characters, including answering the question of "Why doesn't this work for other
> characters?"
Which makes it sound like I'm working in a vacuum, which of course I'm not. It's not like I'm coming up with 'because my fighter's god distracts the enemy FOR him!' and stepping on a paladin or cleric's toes. The thing I don't get here is. . . why should it work for other characters? You seem to be completely fine with the idea that Wizards study hard and spend time training themselves to cast spells. And that Rogues study hard and spend time training themselves in anatomy. But not with the idea that Fighters study hard and spend time training how best to comport themselves on the battlefield. How is it in any way unrealistic to think that someone who spends all their time fighting can pick up and learn little tricks that people who spend their time doing other things (spellcasting, hiding in shadows, praying, whatever) haven't learned?
Even if you see combat during the adventures as 'training' for melees, that doesn't mean every little thing fighters do is immediately accessible to other classes. That improvement in combat is already accounted for by the levelling system. A 15th level wizard is better at combat than a 1st level wizard (or a 1st level fighter). And if you (or your character) really wants to learn that neat little trick the party fighter just pulled, you can. That's one of the reasons multiclassing rules exist.
> I'm also happy to concede that the explanations that have been provided are good enough for
> the people who provided them. What bothers me about all this is that, when I explain why
> they don't work for me, everybody tells me I'm wrong. Well, fuck that.
Well, I can't say anything I've read in this read has convinced me you've been 'happy' about any of this. ;) And coming from the other. . . well, I hesitate to use the word 'side'. . . coming from another point of view, I've basically read your statements as telling other people they're wrong, too. For example, using words like "pathetic and weak" to an explanation of mine doesn't really come off as a 'happy concession' followed by an explanation. It comes off as a dismissal.
>> And I'm pretty sure I never said 4E was flawless, or that you're a bad person.
> Your very first statement to me essentially implied I was a bad person.
No, I implied that you implied that venlar (I think that's who you were replying to) was a bad roleplayer, because if he couldn't understand your point, then he couldn't be very good at putting himself in his character's shoes. Any idea of you being a bad person came from your interpretation, not from my words. I was dismissing your comment, not judging your person. I may think you're something of an SOB, but I can get that just from reading your blog title. ;)
> When I say that the weaker explanations for why mechanics like Marking work don't satisfy
> me, and people keep arguing against that because they think I'm just being silly and not
> accepting the ultimate wisdom of the 4E game, I'm basically being told that all the flaws I
> perceive in the system don't really exist — that I'm just hallucinating, or something.
And in return, I'm not seeing some of the explanations for why mechanics like Marking can work in in-character ways as 'weak', and I get the impression that you reject them all out of hand because you are just so opposed to the idea of 4E that you need to hold on to these specific things you've pointed out as huge gaping flaws. I'm not saying it's NOT a flaw, I just don't see it as a gamebreaker.
In my mind, in the Generic Fantasy Setting, Fighters are the masters of one-on-one battlefield combat. Face-to-face, knockdown, drag-out melee combat masters. That's their niche. Their job is to wade into combat and hit things, and stop things from hitting the people they're protecting. It doesn't seem like a 'weak explanation' to me to expect Fighters to have specialized knowledge, abilities, or training for one-on-one melee combat that no one else has. It seems perfectly logical and natural. Why does no other class? Because they don't put the time and effort into learning the same things that the Fighter does. The same exact reason that Fighters don't know how to sneak attack someone. They've not spent the time learning where to stick a knife between the ribs. Instead, they've spent that time learning how to make themselves perceived as a threat, or perfecting that battle-howl that they use when they see someone just about to attack the fighter's ally, or learning how to take advantage of every moment their foe pays attention to someone else to hinder them in any way possible – tripping, or pushing, or hitting the enemy's blade with their own – not enough to damage or move or disarm them, but just enough to put them off their game.
> The implications are there, whether you see them or not.
And when you say things like that, you imply that I'm blind or willfully ignoring you, neither of which is true.
> Any time I try to explain some part of this, unfortunately, I end up with a discussion like
> this. A crap load of 4E fans descend like harpies to attack me with their filthy talons for
> having the temerity to suggest that something like the Marking mechanic or the Own the
> Battlefield power interferes with suspension of disbelief, makes the game feel more like a
> poorly conceived tactical miniatures game than an RPG to me, and is emblematic of a lot of
> the design philosophy of 4E.
And here, I get lumped in with 'harpies' with 'filthy talons' because I'm defending a 4E mechanic that I don't have any issue with. No bias there.
I don't see myself as a '4E fan'. Or at least not solely as a 4E fan. I play the game and I enjoy it. I think it works well. I also play Pathfinder, and I enjoy that, and I think it pretty much works equally well, overall, just differently. The 4E focus on the tactical rules really cleans up combat, but Pathfinder is more lenient to a wider range of character concepts (in my mind, at least). I have issues with both games, but that's what house rules are for.
I'm 'defending' marking because I don't have an issue with it, and I'm perfectly capable of coming up with a number of explanations for why and how it works for me, which I've done. I do understand that they may not work for you (even if I don't fully understand why these explanations are unsuitable to you).
> the higher incidence of problems of verisimilitude thanks to the way many rules appear to
> be conceived for purposes of tactical balance and tactical options, without (much) regard
> for roleplaying concerns per se, makes 4E a non-starter for me.
I have no problems with a statement like this. I find this explanation much more convincing and understandable than comments about 4E being "trite, superficial crap." Personally, I've always seen D&D (and RPGs in general) as a combination of tactical and storytelling games. Combat tends to be on the tactical side of things, and everything else tends towards the storytelling side. Roleplaying can/does happen in both aspects.
Comment by Shad — 7 May 2009 @ 08:40
jsutaguy:
> It's like you are a "method actor", or at least that's what you seem to be describing. You're not just playing a character, you're becoming that character.
I can't speak for apotheon, of course, but this is very-close-but-not-quite true. It's like I'm a method actor and need to become my character to roleplay, but not quite. I don't want to get inside the character's head, I want to get inside the character's world. If I can do that then getting inside the character's head is sometimes not necessary. But, for the way I play, getting inside the world—getting a ground-level view of what exactly is going on—is the whole point of the exercise.
Suppose my character is a storm wizard and I'm looking (through his perspective) at a particularly spectacular waterfall cascading into a pool. There are orcs gathered in the pool for worship, and my wizard has been trying to hunt down and eliminate this tribe. I have Lightning Bolt at my disposal. Do I fry one orc, or maybe a handful if I can line some up? Hell no! I blow that sucker straight into the pool and watch them all meet Gruumsh.
Can I do that in 4e? Not by the rules. "Lightning Bolt", the Power, doesn't let me do that. The GM might give it to me anyway, but that's a very slippery slope for 4e. Imagine if every Power fired off, only to hear the player say "and remember, my 'Sand in the Eyes' Power is actually a burst of blinding fire from my Flamerogue Guild Tattoo, so when I use it on this wolf he should have a chance of catching on fire as well as being blinded. Why not? You let me set that tapestry on fire with it!" As Scott helpfully pointed out, that the fluff is replaceable and doesn't have any game effects is an inherent assumption of the system.
By contrast, in prior editions of D&D this was just how the game worked. The abilities of each class were explained via the fictional effects of their use (there are exceptions in 3e, and few to none in 2e and before). It was an inherent assumption of the system that the characters did things in a fictional world, and then the GM and players figured out how to adjudicate that.
The point of that comparison is that getting down to eye-level with my character doesn't really work in 4e. I can use that Lightning Bolt against the orcs directly, but I can't do anything else with it. If I get down to eye level anyway I start imagining a conversation between the wizard and fighter like this:
W: "Well, that's one orc disposed of, now you can. . ."
F: "Why didn't you use your bolt of lightning to strike the water? In fact, why didn't it go through that one orc and into all the rest?"
W: "The arcane magicks are too strange for you, I see. This power of the storm that I command can only be aimed at one enemy at a time and. . ."
F: "That's a fool's spell, then. They're standing in a pool, in copper armour, with their swords raised in salute to Gruumsh. If there was a storm and real lightning struck that one's sword," he points at a very angry, live orc, "then the whole lot of them would be crisp and blackened, and pleasantly floating face-down in yonder pool. What kind of charlatan are you?"
Considering that this is where my mind goes when I try to roleplay anything involving 4e Powers, you might appreciate why I don't enjoy the system.
Comment by d7 — 7 May 2009 @ 09:41
@d7
> Can I do that in 4e? Not by the rules. "Lightning Bolt", the Power, doesn't let me do
> that. The GM might give it to me anyway, but that's a very slippery slope for 4e.
I think that's a slippery slope in any version of D&D. I don't think a direct interpretation of 2e or 3e or 3.5 or Pathfinder would let you use one lightning bolt to kill an entire group of orcs (unless they were lined up..). I don't really see this as a valid argument for singling out one version of the rules.
(As a GM, it would be a very situational thing for me. I tend toward the lenient side of things, because I like encouraging that sort of thinking. But I don't see myself making a significantly different ruling on this whether we were playing 3E or 4E.)
Comment by Shad — 7 May 2009 @ 10:28
> The key word there is "whatever". You don't care about this because it's irrelevant to your
> game. Any ol' explanation will do. And since obviously all games in the world are played
> exactly the same way. . . Well, sarcasm aside, do you see the problem?
Mmm, there's a difference between 'any old explanation will do' and 'any old reasonable explanation will do'. If an explanation was irrelevant, there'd be no need to make one in the first place. (And yes, I realize this hinges on the word 'reasonable' and that there's a sliding scale for what different people and groups find reasonable.)
I suppose I just find leniency to work on both sides, from the GM and from the player. It's a fantasy world, so I don't require a physics-based explanation on how casting a fireball works. It's magic. Wizards have abilities beyond those of people in our reality. (I do require the magic system to be consistent, though. Or as consistent as I can get it.) All the characters are heroes. They all can do things that surpass people in our reality, including the fighters. They're not just good at combat. They're really good. Preternaturally good.
Comment by Shad — 7 May 2009 @ 10:37
> All the characters are heroes. They all can do things that surpass people in our reality, including the fighters. They're not just good at combat. They're really good. Preternaturally good.
Ah, okay. This is probably where we're walking different paths. I rather liked that in 3e and prior (again, 3e was muddy on this, but just consider the core books for now) the character's weren't preternaturally good. They were naturally good, by training and experience. Fighter's aren't sorta-supernatural in my home setting, and 4e makes them sorta-supernatural.
> I don't think a direct interpretation of 2e or 3e or 3.5 or Pathfinder would let you use one lightning bolt to kill an entire group of orcs.
Sure it does. To quote from the PHB 2e (original cover art), page 51:
> Since this isn't a combat game, the rules are not ultra-detailed. . . Too many rules slow down play (taking away from the real adventure) and restrict imagination. . . . To have the most fun playing the AD&D game, don't rely on the rules. . . . The trick to making combat vivid is to be less concerned with the rules than with what is happening at each instant of play. If play is only "[mechanical action declaration after mechanical action declaration]", then something is missing. Combats 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.
Are you familiar with the rulings vs rules dichotomy? That's what I'm getting at, here. Rulings-based systems inherently allow a world-first, rules-second approach to roleplaying. Rules can allow world-first roleplaying, but only if they're designed to follow from the fiction, not dictate the fiction. 4e is designed so that rules are first and the world follows the rules, and further leaves it up to us to figure out a plausible explanation for any fiction-free mechanic (such as the Fighter's fish-slapping dance). You're also, if considering bending the rules, exhorted to "Before . . . designing a house rule, ask yourself how necessary it is." (DMG4e, p 189)
These are very different paradigms. I can see how someone who started with 3e and went to 4e wouldn't see much difference, but for someone like me who started with AD&D 1e (or apotheon, who started with OD&D), the difference between 4e and what went before is really clear.
Comment by d7 — 7 May 2009 @ 11:36
Shad:
I see now what happened.
When you said:
. . . there was no context for me to understand how I would have pointed out an apparent contradiction. The context was attached to the crunch/fluff statement. I said that, as far as I could tell, your words amounted to:
The key there is the second sentence. In talking to d7, when you said "4E may induce more 'WTF' moments than other systems," then saying to me "I don't see what the problem is," you appear to be contradicting yourself (at least according to my impression of what you meant). It's a bit like calling Comcast about unreliable Internet connectivity, and having the tech on the telephone say "Well, the router that handles your connection on our end is old and flaky and prone to dropping its network connections, so that's why that's happening. I don't see what the problem is." The problem, my friend, is that my Internet connectivity is unreliable — or, in this case, that the WotC approach of saying "we supply the crunch, you supply the fluff" makes the game more prone to WTF moments, which just prompts me to prefer a game that doesn't dump WTF moments on me on a regular basis.
In summary: if you say to d7 "I can see how this cause leads to that problem," then recount the cause to me in a vacuum without any implication that it gives rise to a problem, and say "I don't see what the problem is," it looks contradictory to me.
I think d7's reference to the unsuitability of 4E rules to on-the-spot rulings outside of the crunchy rules themselves are pretty explanatory of why I feel that eliminating the WTF moments, even when one can do so at all, doesn't tend to stand up to future incidents very well without essentially dismantling the "game balance" house of cards.
What about my explanation involving martial arts above as surrogates or analogies for the difference between a Rogue's Sneak Attack and a Fighter's Mark didn't make sense to you?
This is true, but my point was more about why what one person can do cannot be done by another when there's no obvious "special training" restriction from an in-character point of view. It wasn't so much about whether a Fighter is stepping on a Paladin's toes.
For example . . . if an explanation is something like "you flex and growl at him, and he feels intimidated into believing you the greater threat and the guy that must receive all your attention," I have to wonder how that is different at all from the Intimidate skill (as I said earlier). Since anyone can learn to be intimidating, regardless of his or her class, I don't see what makes Fighters so much more special in terms of their ability to attract aggro.
It seems like, beneath any attempts at explanation, every single suggestion I've seen of why a Fighter can but a Rogue can't is tied to a circular argument like "because the rules say so". The closest anyone made to a reasonable argument for allowing that exclusivity of the Marking power was the claim that just as a Rogue might learn Intimidation and thus achieve the same thing as the Fighter's Mark, a Fighter can learn Heal and thus achieve the same thing as the Rogue's Sneak Attack. As I pointed out with my example of Bob and Jane, the martial artists, these are not equivalent examples, though.
I'm perfectly fine with all those things. I'm just not perfectly fine with the way the Fighter's Mark works being part of the results of the Fighter's study, exclusive of what other characters can do, without a reasonable explanation. There's a ready-made explanation, obvious within the rules and flavor text and a general understanding of how real life works, for the Wizard and Rogue abilities of spellcasting and sneak attacking respectively; casting spells for a Wizard is a scholarly pursuit that obviously requires a lot of focused study, and the sneak attack in and of itself is predicated upon assumptions of specialized knowledge.
The Fighter's Mark, meanwhile, is so far predicated only upon the notion that Fighters know how to fight, but for some reason other fighting abilities are fair game to other classes. Claiming that the only reason Fighters get that Marking ability is because they're good at fighting is inconsistent with a lot of the other rules considerations in the game, especially when the Mark seems in most explanations offered to be more of a social effect than an actual fighting skill.
My intent was to tell people they're wrong about my preferences. Everybody's telling me that their explanations are good enough for everyone, and not just "Well, they're good enough for me, so I don't care about your concerns when I play." It's more "Your concerns are obvious bullshit. Why can't a Fighter have a power prohibited to a Rogue?" when it seems obvious to me that I'm not saying Fighters don't get to have powers prohibited to other classes — they just need their powers to have explanations that make it clear why other classes can't have them, just as other classes need to do the same.
Remember, all this disagreement about the Fighter's Mark started with the idea that Fighter's Mark is just an example of a problem throughout the 4E game, and not any notion that Fighters shouldn't get any Fighter-only powers.
As a response to what I actually asked, it seemed pathetic and weak. The fact you don't care about the question I asked, for your own gaming preferences, doesn't change the fact that your explanation doesn't answer what I asked. I'm sorry that I chose phrasing that was hostile in character, but the underlying message is still valid: that totally doesn't provide a reasonable solution to the problem I brought up.
I said:
This (in the context of earlier discussion) just means "Since you don't appear to ever do so, you probably don't have any experience with what goes into it."
Your response was:
This implies that whenever people disagree with me, I throw away all logic and reason and simply insult their skill at the tasks for which they believe themselves well-suited.
Roleplaying can include other things than putting oneself in one's characters shoes. Note, for instance, that justaguy referred to me as being the RPG equivalent of a "method actor". Like d7, I'd say that's not exactly right — but it kind of serves as a halfway decent analogy for helping him understand the differences in playing style, apparently. An actor who just reads from the script and doesn't go into all that "method acting" stuff is still an actor, and may be very good at it, but he doesn't really put himself in the character's shoes. If he has never tried method acting, he probably doesn't understand what goes into putting oneself in one's characters' shoes the way a method actor does.
Now, imagine that a method actor and an epic theater actor are discussing a play. The method actor may point out that he prefers scripts that do not break the fourth wall, because that tends to interfere with his ability to stay in character, since he finds it difficult to incorporate a knowledge of the fourth wall into his in-character perspective (noting that not all method actors have this problem, but let's just roll with it as an analogy for the discussion at hand). The epic theater actor might at some point exclaim "Just make up an explanation that works for you! What's the problem?" After this, the method actor may say something like "You obviously don't understand the process of putting yourself in a charcter's shoes," by which he means that the epic theater actor doesn't understand method acting.
Your statement was equivalent to saying that the method actor just said the epic theater actor was a bad actor, and that he habitually does so whenever any actor with a different perspective on the art disagrees with him on matters of acting technique. How could the method actor not take offense at that characterization?
How could I?
That's because they suit your roleplaying style. If I had asked for an explanation in the spirit of your roleplaying style, the answers would be "strong" answers for that purpose. When I have spent thousands of words trying to get people to answer the question for my roleplaying style, and people keep answering it for yours, those answers are weak. They simply don't answer the question effectively, and the problem appears to be that nobody can figure out why I'd want a more meaningful answer than one that loops back around to "because the rules say so" when taken to its logical extreme. Not being able to understand why, nobody bothers to try coming up with a more meaningful answer than that (or just accept that none they can think of exists).
This is a huge part of the problem, right here, that keeps leading to flame wars. The second sentence is key when it comes to motive; the first sentence is key when it comes to the offense a lot of 4E fans seem incapable of avoiding giving to others.
Yes, it's a flaw. No, you don't see it as a "gamebreaker". The reason you don't see it as that big a deal is that you have a different roleplaying style than I have. We have different goals when it comes to roleplaying. That's fine. You're welcome to accept flaws that I'd reject out of hand because, to you, they aren't important, and this in and of itself doesn't cause me any consternation.
You take this difference of opinions, of motivations and goals, as some kind of indication that my reasoning is defective, though. You assume that my rejection of flaws you don't reject are a result of me having some kind of attachment to 4E sucking, rather than being a result of the fact that these flaws are, collectively, a huge impediment to the achievement of my goals in playing a roleplaying game.
I don't know how you actually feel about using miniatures with a bunch of miniatures-focused tactical options to resolve combat, but let's say for argument's sake that this is a key, necessary component to the game for you. How would you feel about a game that didn't provide any miniatures support at all, and when you tried to use miniatures with it you found it incredibly boring?
How would you feel if I said "Well, sure, I guess that could be regarded as a flaw, but it's not a big deal. I think you just hate the idea of this being a new edition of the game for some reason, and your biases are clouding your reason. You just reject all the rules of the game out of hand because you are just so oppposed to the idea of No Miniatures Edition (NME) that you need to hold onto these specific things you've pointed out as huge gaping flaws."
No, that's not the case, and you'd be rightly upset with me for dismissing your preferences as so much bullshit, just excuses for hating something with unreasoning prejudice. The things you would be pointing out about NME that you dislike because they're incompatible with, or at least a hindrance to, miniatures based play would collectively be the problem with NME for you, but for some reason all the NME fans would be saying "I don't see what your problem is. NME is clearly superior to ME. Sure, I guess the tactical stuff could get a little more detailed like you say, but that's just not important."
When the question requires an in-character explanation, the out-of-character assertion that Fighters have to be good at fighting to fill their niche in the game system is a weak explanation in answer to that question. Oh, sure, it's a great explanation in answer to the question of why Fighters can do this stuff from an out-of-character, metagaming perspective about game balance, but that's not the question that was asked.
It's the same reason from an out-of-character perspective, but not from an in-character perspective — or, rather, the same answer from an in-character perspective just becomes an excuse, rather than a good reason, because it doesn't satisfy the in-character verisimilitude required.
I can explain, in excruciating detail if need be (especially with the help of Google), how the knife between the ribs action works (and works more than once, since he can keep using it), requires specialized knowledge to be particularly effective (maximizing the chance of puncturing a lung for instance), and why that effect takes place when used on an enemy. I can also explain how all of these aspects of the action contribute to the notion that a reliably effective Sneak Attack ability is part of a particular set of capabilities that are subject to the restriction that specialized training is required, all without any reference to the rules themselves aside from the basic assumption that the rules provide a unique means of representing the effects of that action.
Can you do the same for the Fighter's Mark?
How exactly does the Fighter make an enemy perceive him as the threat on the battlefield, time and time again whenever he Marks a target? What specialized knowledge does that require to be particularly effective such that only Fighters can do it? Why, precisely, does that effect take place when the action you describe is used on an enemy? So far, the only explanation of an action at all is something like "growling and flexing".
How exactly does the Fighter discern the right moment to emit a blood-curdling battle-howl, and how does it work time and time again without inuring enemies to its effect? What specialized knowledge does the howl require to be especially effective such that only Fighters can do it? Why, precisely, does that effect take place when the action you describe is used on an enemy?
How exactly does the Fighter hinder and distract an enemy with pushes, trips, and strikes to his blade enough to apply distinct disadvantages to the enemy's fighting capabilities without taking away from the Fighter's opportunities to attack normally, time and time again? What specialized knowledge does this tactic require to be especially effective such that a first-level Fighter can do it, but a fifteenth-level Wizard who has been in orders of magnitude more fights than the Fighter can't? Why, precisely, does that effect take place when the action you describe is used on an enemy without having a similar effect on the fighter?
I want explanations that include things like: the physics and/or biology of the actions, as I could give for sneak attacks; the reasoning for exclusivity to a particular class from an in-character perspective, rather than a rules balance perspective; and how a consistent, reliable power that supersedes another, similarly effective power, and can be superseded by it, results from this specialized knowledge.
I don't know what you want me to say. If you can't see the same implications, there must be a reason. The implications aren't simply absent because you haven't stated you recognize them.
Bah. I said they "descend like", not that they're harpies, or that they don't clean their fingernails.
I don't recall using the word "solely".
You clearly have different goals for your games than I have for mine. I think we've established that.
The 4E focus on the tactical rules also neglects the in-character perspective. That has, in essence, been at the core of this discussion all along. The Fighter's Mark is an example of this problem — which, apparently, isn't a problem for the way you play the game, but that doesn't mean it isn't a problem at all.
Comment by apotheon — 7 May 2009 @ 12:11
>> Also, you haven't told me where in the beginning of my first post the insult lay. I'm still waiting.
> Are you serious? That wasn't sarcasm? Are you really so thoroughly blind to the character of your own behavior
> that you can't tell? Criminy, I thought you were being facetious. Yes, it's when you tried implying that
> LiveFromHell and I are too dull-witted to figure out how the Marking mechanic works.
Aha, and here it is. You misinterpreted my words. Read it again, for me:
> Apotheon and LiveFromHell can't wrap themselves around the Marking concept of a Fighter because the rule in
> the 4e PHB lacks flavor text.
I never said anything about you being "dull-witted," nor did I say you couldn't understand the rule. I actually chose my turn of phrase extremely carefully to remove that implication from my message. And yet, you missed the point of it.
I said that you're unable to wrap yourselves around the concept. As in, being unable to fully embrace it. I'm certain that you understand it from an intellectual point of view, and that you fully understand why it's in the 4e rules. My point was that you needed something more in order to to fit the rule into your world-view.
> 3. offer a surprisingly good explanation of why the Fighter's Mark supersedes the Paladin's, though it's
> predicated upon the assumption that the Fighter's Mark works from an in-character perspective as if it
> were designed by a satirist rather than conceived by a writer of swords-and-sorcery fantasy
> Implicit in those criteria was the requirement that it not be fucking absurd — and you clearly know it's
> absurd.
See, now you're really starting to put yourself in my shoes. I am, indeed, both a bit of a satirist and an absurdist at heart. I derive joy from shining light on things that have been taken to their extremes within a particular boundary system, and in so doing I allow both myself and others to find humor in it.
The example of the Fighter's own particular version of "Lay on Hands" that I gave you was intended not as an example of how a real medieval knight might have gone about it. It was designed, within the boundaries that you yourself had put forth, to satisfy a series of conditions for what makes the ability work for some, not work for others, and both supersede and be superseded by other effects of similar nature. Alas, despite being practiced at my art, my faculties at absurdist satire deserted me when it came to the third portion, and I had to fall back on a truly "good" explanation.
The endeavor had less to do with the content of my example than it had to do with giving you what you'd said you wanted. In so doing, I had two possible outcomes: Either you'd be satisfied and we could then move on to discussion of other things that irked us about 4e (and in so doing, we'd find a different line drawn in different sand, and would quite likely find different people on different sides of it — all yielding a fresh and interesting path for the conversation to go down), or you'd throw my example out. In opting for the latter road, you demonstrate that you yourself don't know with precision what you want out of this exercise, and you make me wonder what additional boundaries you'll place on it down the road, should someone come up with a physical activity that now conforms to the 4-axis boundary system you've instituted.
You keep returning to the "growling and flexing" example of what the Fighter does that embodies the visible portion of the marking action. It's obvious from this that you feel that all the other options we've given you for what the fighter might be doing at that moment have no greater weight to them in your estimation, and thus you fall back on a somewhat comic standard in order to make your point. You and I are not that unalike, since I certainly see a bit of absurdity in your choice of repeated example.
Might we find a happy medium instead, by choosing to couch our combat actions not in terms of "I grab the tree branch above me and kick the orc in the head!" nor "I use 'Own The Battlefield'," but instead something more hybridized? ". . .and after mercilessly slashing the Quasit, I then kick the Minotaur's sword-hand and press my advantage against him, thus marking him with my attention"? I know this doesn't fix the other 98% of the problems that folks have with the system. But at least we can then descend on something we all dislike about 4e, and turn our harpy talons to better use than mindlessly rending each other.
Comment by Venlar — 7 May 2009 @ 01:54
No, I didn't misinterpret your words. I may have misinterpreted your intent, but not your words. No matter how finely you try to slice the cheese, it's still cheese. "Wrap around" is a common colloquial metaphor for "understand". If you didn't mean "understand", you shouldn't have effectively said "understand". Period.
There are times when talking about someone understanding something (or not) is perfectly reasonable, but this wasn't one of those times, so don't even start trying to defend an interpretation that relies on the accepted usage of the "wrap around" metaphor.
You chose the wrong words. I got the right interpretation, given the words you chose. If that interpretation doesn't match your intent, that's great, but that would also mean that the words don't match your intent. To have clearly indicated that your use of the "wrap around" metaphor was nonstandard would have required a far more significant departure from usual formulation than replacing "minds" with "selves"; it would have required something like "wrap your roleplaying styles around", thus very obviously indicating that you're not talking about understanding, but are in fact talking about something specifically else.
No, that's not right. What's really going on, as far as I've been able to determine, is that I'm trying to avoid having to build an argument starting from premises as basic as "We have language. A general theory of language suggests a communicative goal, such that our choice of structure for a language must have some kind of systematic consistency and, perhaps more importantly, be a shared structure so that we can use a common language to convey concepts." As such, I refer to the high-level, abstract set of conditions I require for a reasonable expalanation.
Then, you come along and apparently decide to play silly buggers with the whole thing, apparently out of some misbegotten desire to find excuses to "prove" people wrong about something when they disagree with you — preferably about their motivations — even if you can't prove them wrong in the disagreement itself. You do this by intentionally misconstruing my meaning, and throwing some kind of uninspired satirical regurgitation into the discussion and, when I don't accept absurdity as "reasonable", you hold that up as "evidence" that I don't actually have any real desires with regard to the game that conflict with 4E's rules, thus "proving" to your own satisfaction (but probably not that of anyone else who's willing to be honest with himself or herself) that anyone who disagrees with you about the supremacy of the 4E system is just biased and irrational.
That's certainly how it looks to me, anyway, now that you've shared the secrets of your asinine little "test".
All of them have been comic in nature, with the exception of the physical interference approach that has been hinted at, but not supported effectively — probably because the person who advanced that notion in the first place realized how easily that falls apart under scrutiny, but I'm just guessing at the reason.
Sure, we could do that . . . if, like the "grab the tree branch" example, the intent in tying character action to game rule effect was obvious. It isn't. How does "marking him with my attention" translate into "he takes penalties in combat"? I'm pretty sure that just ensuring I keep track of someone, in and of itself, won't make him less capable of attacking someone else entirely. In fact, if anything, the only person against whom an enemy who has drawn my full attention should be burdened with attack penalties would be myself, since that implies that I'd be better able to react and avoid getting hit.
Comment by apotheon — 7 May 2009 @ 02:54
I think taking a quick moment to pause and think would be wise here. Consider the intentions of each person posting here. I have played Dungeons and Dragons since "Elf" and "Dwarf" were classes as well as races. I have awaited the release of each edition eagerly. I don't think anyone here, though I can't specifically speak for anyone but myself, woke up one morning and decided they were going to lambast the 4th edition of dungeons and dragons. Those of us arguing that we believe a mistake, or several. . .or MANY, mistakes were made with 4th edition aren't doing so out of a desire to "Hate" on DnD. On the other hand, my "fanboi" radar is going off a bit, giving me the feeling that folks would have come to defend 4th edition regardless of the original complaint.
Speaking of the original complaint, let's revisit it by asking a few simple questions.
Is the ability to "mark" something, regardless of how it can or can't be explained in meta-game, anything other than an aggro mechanic?
Does any table top role playing game NEED an aggro mechanic?
More importantly:
If you believe similar "crutches" existed in earlier editions, fine. That's irrelevant to the point. Making mistakes in the past doesn't excuse making similar mistakes in the future. As far as I was taught, you are supposed to learn from mistakes, not repeat them.
If you believe such rules AREN'T mistakes, fine. State your opinion and go about your way. Apparently no one here can change your opinion, and I can assure you that the opinions I've read here aren't going to change mine. Why continue bashing your head against the wall by continuously sporting the same argumentative opinion on another persons blog?
Comment by LiveFromHell — 7 May 2009 @ 03:39
> No, I didn't misinterpret your words. I may have misinterpreted your intent, but not your words. No
> matter how finely you try to slice the cheese, it's still cheese. "Wrap around" is a common colloquial
> metaphor for "understand". If you didn't mean "understand", you shouldn't have effectively said
> "understand". Period.
No. You misinterpreted them. The colloquial metaphor isn't to "wrap around". It's to "wrap one's [head/mind/brain] around". All three of those options are directly linked with a concept of cognition and understanding, and are used interchangeably in this context. There's your cheese. Broadening the turn of phrase to include the heart, viscera, etc. was a direct departure from this, "thus very obviously indicating that [I'm] not talking about understanding, but [am] in fact talking about something specifically else."
> anyone who disagrees with you about the supremacy of the 4E system is just biased and irrational
Let me clue you in to something here that you probably couldn't have known. I don't particularly like the 4e system as a whole. I have some serious issues with it. Most recently (say, in the last decade), I've enjoyed both the Pathfinder and Arcana Unearthed/Arcana Evolved 3rd edition variants better, from a system-as-a-whole sense. I've mentioned a few things in particular that I dislike about this system (Warlords' charisma-based martial healing, Grease, and the paradigm of couching every ability of a character in its combat utility first and every other aspect secondary), and a few things that I do like (the Marking system chiefly, but also the streamlined Grappling rules). So, since I don't really find 4e to be supreme in any significant measure, the people who "[disagree] with [me] about the supremacy of the 4e system" are the frothing fan-boys and your imagined harpies. I don't actually care whether you yourself like or dislike 4e.
I like the Marking system in 4e. As I've said, I like the fact that it fixes a few things for me that I've had issues with in previous editions. The 4e marking system has been the focal point of this whole thread's discussion, but when you extrapolate my sunny disposition toward it outwards to encompass the whole of 4e, you do me as much a disservice as you do when you assume I need the tactical advice of "think like your character would".
For me, 4e is the game of the moment. My gaming group is currently playing it because that's what our current GM has decided to run. Prior to that, we had a very successful stint of Pathfinder under another GM, and prior to that I ran a very brief and ill-fated game of Spirit of the Century with this group. SotC, for us, had some of the opposite issues to what 4e has, namely that it embodied a level of open-endedness that my players and I as GM found to be somewhat paralyzing. It was very freeing in the sense that everything you did came under the "grab the tree branch" style of description. . . And then trying to figure out what that meant in game terms became an issue.
At some point, the pendulum will undoubtedly swing back, and we'll give SotC another go. Maybe we'll do a variant whose setting feels a little more germane to our experience than the Pulp 1920s of the default world. Maybe not.
For the moment, though, 4e is what my attention is focused on, for better or for worse.
> Sure, we could do that . . . if, like the "grab the tree branch" example, the intent in tying character
> action to game rule effect was obvious. It isn't.
Sure it is. If you can't figure out which game rule is being invoked by the latter two-thirds of that sentence fragment, then I have to revise my estimation of you. It's not the "attention" that's the important part, it's drawing the tie between a physical activity, "kick the Minotaur's sword-hand and press my advantage against him," to the rule "thus marking him". This character has already taken an attack action of some sort against a quasit, most likely with some form of bladed weapon, and then chooses to employ a method of causing an obvious physical threat upon the minotaur. At no point does he lose sight of the quasit (or the other zero-to-infinite attackers that might surround him to whatever depth of playing field we might arbitrarily choose), nor does he stop paying attention to them. There was no talk of his "full attention" being paid to anything in particular. He's a Fighter; it's his job to know what's going on around him in combat.
Comment by Venlar — 7 May 2009 @ 05:07
A couple of interjections:
> it's drawing the tie between a physical activity, "kick the Minotaur's sword-hand and press my advantage against him," to the rule "thus marking him".
You're importing rules-language into the fiction. If the only way to clearly connect the fictional explanation to the rules implementation of the action is to use rules language, then there isn't really a clear connection between the pure fiction and the rules.
Maybe it's not obvious why that's a non-starter. Here, let me change tack a bit. . .
> The 4e marking system has been the focal point of this whole thread's discussion
It was easy to miss in the wall of text, but the discussion of Marking began with something to the effect of "There are a lot of holes in 4e; for example, marking. . ." Marking is only one symptom that (we hoped) would be illustrative of the larger perceived problem. If it's not obvious why Marking is being used as an example of a larger problem, perhaps it should be abandoned for a clearer example.
May I offer. . .
Fighter: "Sir Ranger! Do that two-arrow trick again! It took the wind out of that ogre's sails, to be sure!"
Ranger: "I can't."
Fighter: "I believe in you! You can do it! Just —"
Ranger: "No, I mean I can't. I can only do that again after we get into a different fight."
Fighter ". . . What the Hades?"
To translate, Encounter Powers break my suspension of disbelief. I can't think of a reasonable in-fiction reason for some of them to not be repeatable, especially the more mundane ones like Two-Fanged Strike, which (fictionally) just involves nocking two arrows at once.
Is that more illustrative of the conundrum than marking?
Comment by d7 — 7 May 2009 @ 07:42
> my "fanboi" radar is going off a bit, giving me the feeling that folks would have come > to defend 4th edition regardless of the original complaint.
Then your radar needs some fixin', because at least two of us have recently stated that we're not "4E 4ever OMG!" diehards. Surprisingly, I have the ability to enjoy multiple game systems (and even multiple versions of the same game system, if you want to split hairs), usually in different ways and for different reasons. I like 3.5, I like Pathfinder, and I do also enjoy 4E. I've also stated that I understand it's not a system everyone can or should like.
> Does an aggro mechanic do anything other than LIMIT role playing potential by
> providing a means for "weaker" players to bypass intelligent and tactical approaches
> to combat?
Yes, of course it does. There's been a lot of text, so maybe you've missed several different posts giving different methods for ways to role play the marking 'aggro mechanic'. Which means it's ADDING role playing potential for some people. Perhaps not you, and definitely not d7 or apotheon. (And I'm not attaching any negative weight to that. It doesn't work for you. That's fine.)
Secondly, it doesn't remove any of the previous role playing potential from combat. You're still allowed to use 'intelligent and tactical approaches'. The WotC police aren't gonna come to your house and make you stop thinking outside the box. (And in fact, they'd encourage it. There's a whole big section in the 4E DMG encouraging people to use the environment in combat, like swinging from a chandelier, etc. And suggestions on how to go about officiating those sorts of situations. See page 42.)
Thirdly, 4E is indeed more focused on tactical combat rules, and aggro mechanics are an addition to those. Again, you may not enjoy the tactical side of D&D, so 4E is not your cup of tea, but that doesn't mean the rules aren't useful for those who do.
(And to go WAY back in the thread, if you believe 'aggro mechanics' are the only thing that separates MMOs and pen and paper RPGs, then I begin to doubt whether you've actually played both. I'll assume it was hyperbole.)
But obviously I'm not as "strong" a player as you, because I like the variety of both roleplaying AND tactical situations.
> If you believe such rules AREN'T mistakes, fine. State your opinion and go about your
> way. Apparently no one here can change your opinion, and I can assure you that the
> opinions I've read here aren't going to change mine. Why continue bashing your head
> against the wall by continuously sporting the same argumentative opinion on another
> persons blog?
I don't believe the 'aggro control' rules are mistakes, no. I believe that people can like them or not like them for various reasons. And I have continued to post here because I believed this was a discussion that both sides could take something away from, even if it's just a better understanding of what someone else's opinion on the topic is. (And the only person who should really be telling me to get lost is apotheon, not you, LiveFromHell, since unless I misunderstand, this isn't your blog.)
Comment by Shad — 7 May 2009 @ 09:10
@d7
> You're importing rules-language into the fiction. If the only way to clearly connect
> the fictional explanation to the rules implementation of the action is to use rules
> language, then there isn't really a clear connection between the pure fiction and the
> rules.
It's not the only way to clearly connect them, but it's the most obvious and clearest way for giving examples.
> To translate, Encounter Powers break my suspension of disbelief. I can't think of a
> reasonable in-fiction reason for some of them to not be repeatable, especially the
> more mundane ones like Two-Fanged Strike, which (fictionally) just involves nocking
> two arrows at once.
Yeah, I got nothing for this example. I'm sure some of the Encounter and Daily Powers can be explained by only having the energy or the opportunity to use those powers once per combat or per day, but the more mundane ones. . . I have no idea how to reconcile those without breaking suspension of disbelief.
Comment by Shad — 7 May 2009 @ 09:15
Venlar:
I addressed that, when I said:
See how I referred to "minds" (one of the three options in head/mind/brain) there, and how you need to replace it with something more significantly different than "selves"? Has it not occurred to you that, to many people, the head/mind/brain concept is the self? The use of "self" instead of "mind" could easily be interpreted as synonymous with "mind". Your use of "yourselves" instead of "your minds" is, taking the obvious and common approach to understanding the "wrap around" metaphor, most easily and obviously interpreted as making no difference to the meaning.
. . . and finally, the metaphor is to "wrap around". What is being wrapped around is the head/mind/brain. Thus, you "wrap
[something]around". Because the "something" is variable, I shortened the phrase, but you could as easily have read that as "wrap[one's (brain|head|mind)]around". Play it either way — the result is the same.Taking a step back, then:
No, I didn't misinterpret your words. See above. Your weird distraction with objecting to my elision of the
[your foo]from the phrase "wrap[your foo]around" doesn't change that fact.There is no reasonable expectation that you could be talking about including heart, viscera, et cetera in the "wrap around" metaphor. What the hell do my internal organs have to do with the matter? I didn't consider those as possibly included because that would be absurd. Would you, instead, prefer that I simply assume the most absurd interpretation of everything you say, rather than the most reasonable?
So your motive is . . . trolling? It results in much the same sort of conversation as simply being a rabid 4E fan, I suppose. I was trying to avoid such blatant assumption of bad faith on your part, though.
I've noticed you like it for its mechanical conveniences in combat encounters, but I really don't think that's worth the damage to roleplaying related verisimilitude.
How am I doing you a disservice when I point out that I arrive at my problems with the Marking system by thinking about it from an in-character perspective, then ask you to do the same while trying to justify the mechanics from that perspective for me, and you repeatedly fail to provide a justification that satisfies the in-character perspective? I just tried to remind you to stop stepping out of the in-character perspective to end up tying the explanation back into rules balance concerns, and to stop betraying the spirit of the in-character perspective explanation by making a mockery of the whole exercise of trying to explain how the mechanic isn't patent bullshit from an in-character perspective. Instead, you give me shit like (as d7 put it) the Fighter's fish-slapping dance.
Fine, you like other games. That:
doesn't mean you won't rabidly defend 4E just because it's 4E, and even if you won't do that, it
doesn't mean you won't rabidly defend a 4E mechanic because of non-roleplaying motivations even when the complaint against it is roleplaying oriented, and even if that's not the problem here it
doesn't mean you aren't just trolling
The explanation from which I drew the inference that he was giving a particular enemy his "full attention" was the one that involved the words "marking him with my attention". If it's not a matter of giving a creature his full attention, I'm not sure what the hell that was supposed to mean from an in-character perspective (understanding that giving someone one's "full attention" doesn't mean one is fully incapable of noticing other combatants if they make nuisances of themselves).
Anyway, even if you define it as "more than fifty percent of my attention", my explanation about how giving a particular enemy one's attention is unlikely to result in making it difficult for that enemy to attack someone else.
Shad:
I believe it was a mistake to integrate them so tightly into the game that they can't really be rooted out without destroying game balance.
Yes, it's mine, not LiveFromHell's. No, I'm not inclined to tell you to "get lost" at this point. No, I don't think LFH was telling you to "get lost" anyway. He was suggesting that much of this discussion may have been a bit unproductive, and asked why, if others agree with that assessment, it's still going on — with special emphasis aimed at those who disagree with my perspective, since any comment here is in some respects directed at me, it being my Weblog (as you pointed out).
Comment by apotheon — 8 May 2009 @ 01:08
It helps if you play the game first.
Its like. . . 4e's the picture to 3e's (or the desperate grab for money, 3P) thousand words.
Comment by Grazoo — 10 August 2009 @ 01:20
What helps is if you don't assume everyone in the world has exactly the same priorities as you, Grazoo. Some of us like game systems with good support for roleplaying in the rules, instead of this asinine "You can roleplay with your imagination!" tripe I've been reading from 4E fans like you lately.
What's the point if the character creation process sucks the life out of the character in the first place?
It also helps if you read the discussion so far.
. . . and that crap about 4E being the picture is pretty silly. The picture it paints is paint-by-number and monochrome. I like a slightly more interesting picture than that.
Comment by apotheon — 10 August 2009 @ 02:33
fascinating read!
Comment by M. — 10 August 2009 @ 07:59
Haha. Enjoy your already defunct munchkin system.
Comment by Grazoo — 12 August 2009 @ 10:11
Additionally, I can't believe you find it "asinine" that people ROLE PLAY with their IMAGINATIONS.
Holy fuck, you deserve Pathfinder
Comment by Grazoo — 12 August 2009 @ 10:16
What's that based on — the fact that as of this writing PRPG's Core Rulebook is Amazon's #1 bestseller in roleplaying games, even though it hasn't even reached its official release date yet? Maybe it's just based on some kind of irrational hatred of anything that competes directly with 4E.
. . . and "munchkin"? What, now you've descended that far into ad hominem fallacies? Good job failing to make a point.
I believe the appropriate response here is "Whoosh." That's the sound of the point going over your head.
The worst part of it is that you probably missed the point intentionally, thus assuming the role of complete moron of your own free will.
Comment by apotheon — 12 August 2009 @ 02:27
This thing is like an ant trap. People keep wandering into it.
Grazoo: I don't think you're really all that surprised that apotheon spat venom when your first comment bashed 3e as a money grab and bloated. If you keep that in mind when you re-read the answers to your comment, you might see them in a different light. :)
Anyway, on the subject of "ROLE PLAY" and "IMAGINATION": There seems to be a lot of confusion about what people mean when they say the rules doesn't support roleplaying. Have you only ever played D&D? If so, then I can understand where your confusion comes from. You have to admit that rules make your 4e combats more interesting, right? You don't actually need them, but you'd rather have a set of fair and interesting rules than not? So, what's so weird about wanting that for things that aren't hitting people with sticks? A lot of (non-D&D) games offer rules to do two things in non-combat situations: a) take the game in unexpected directions so that it becomes more interesting; b) give the player interesting choices to make with a mix of fictional and mechanical tradeoffs.
If you can't picture that, you might try some non-D&D game sometimes. But even if you don't care for that, you can at least agree that rules make all parts of our hobby more interesting and less predictable, right?
Comment by d7 — 13 August 2009 @ 07:00
I had to laugh at that. The imagery is comical.
As for the rest of your commentary — you've done an excellent job of presenting a well-reasoned response. Keep commenting at SOB, please. You definitely help increase the signal:noise ratio in discussion.
Comment by apotheon — 13 August 2009 @ 07:10