D&D 4E 4e and My Setting: Can You Convince Me To Convert?

[The Ubbergeek]

Also, those levels limitations seems only guidelines - and the rings seems to be soimething different, stromger now...

 

[marune]

When a tree fall.. oops.. When a NPC tries to climb a tree with no PCs around, does he trow the dices ?

Joke aside, not having mechanical support for out-of-combat situation with NPCs don't directly says if the game support or not a simulationist gameplay.

For example, Burning Wheel, a mainly narrativist game, have more detailed skills that any version of D&D.

However, the design of 4E clearly says that the most important thing in the D&D game is combat, which IMHO was always true for D&D. Many others features of the design also say that D&D is mainly a gamist RPG not a simulationist one (as it was also the case for past editions IMHO).

Saying that D&D is mainly a combat-centered gamist RPG doesn't mean that world building must be rejected completely.

To make those numerous combat interesting in such a RPG, of course we need to have a rich detailed setting/theme/genre around.

We just need to remember that this "imagined world" must not come into the way of well-designed challenges. For example, it's okay to choose monsters for an encounter based on the terrain/climate, but only after having restricted the search to the appropriate CR / level.

 

[Nymrohd]

Actually the monsters in 4E will have a lot more fluff and less crunch. So what is done outside of pc interactions (be it social or combat) will be implied by the fluff but there will not be crunch to simulate it.

 

[marune]

Actually the monsters in 4E will have a lot more fluff and less crunch. So what is done outside of pc interactions (be it social or combat) will be implied by the fluff but there will not be crunch to simulate it.

Like I said above, the lack of crunch doesn't change the fact that the game can be played with a simulationist mindset.

The key idea of simulationism is to play the PC/NPCs in the most coherent way possible according to their definitions, who cares if this definition include random checks or only prose ?

 

[GnomeWorks]

Also, those levels limitations seems only guidelines - and the rings seems to be soimething different, stromger now...

Which is neat! I like that idea for rings. But surely they could have come up with some other way to restrict them, rather than level, which is a purely metagame concept? Anything in-character would have been nice.

We just need to remember that this "imagined world" must not come into the way of well-designed challenges. For example, it's okay to choose monsters for an encounter based on the terrain/climate, but only after having restricted the search to the appropriate CR / level.

From the stance of the game itself, this is probably correct. From the stance of a single DM with a homebrew... no. If there are dragons there, and you go there, there are dragons, and you die. The world is how it is; learn to deal with it, or learn that lesson the hard way.

Actually the monsters in 4E will have a lot more fluff and less crunch. So what is done outside of pc interactions (be it social or combat) will be implied by the fluff but there will not be crunch to simulate it.

Why can't we have the rules for those abilities anyway, even if they're streamlined or simplified, or made universal for all monsters? That way we at least have something to go off of.

 

[marune]

From the stance of the game itself, this is probably correct. From the stance of a single DM with a homebrew... no. If there are dragons there, and you go there, there are dragons, and you die. The world is how it is; learn to deal with it, or learn that lesson the hard way.

That's a specific form of simulationist play that was implied in past D&D editions (but not as the default mindset). If you hope 4E to give a nod to it, you'll probably be disappointed.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

per encounter abilities:
magical abilities: no less logical than per day: you need a bit of rest, to memorize the spell again...
martial: some kind of surprising trick, which can´t be used twice in an encounter because there is no surprise the second time you use it.
although in this case it shoul refresh once you switch to a different enemy... maybe we see such a mechanic.

 

[Nymrohd]

Well we have heard of mentions of encounter abilities being recharged, right?

 

[The Ubbergeek]

Which is neat! I like that idea for rings. But surely they could have come up with some other way to restrict them, rather than level, which is a purely metagame concept? Anything in-character would have been nice.

Again, this may be just a suggestion in the style of 'rings should be found by the level X'...

But then, it's game as much as a world, and overpowering is not very fun, as much as a cheap dm.

 

[Gundark]

Anybody care to try to convince me?

Well I think only you can convince you.

couple of things

-Gnomes are gonna be in the MM. I think they'll be usable as a PC race.

-Odds are you'll convert. Not because 4e will be the awesome awesomist (although I'm keeping my fingers crossed it will be). But it'll be the new thing, people like new things.