My first go as a player in 4e
masqueradeball:
Actual Play Report: D&D 4e Latecomer
Last night I joined in a 4e group that had been going on for some 5 to 7 sessions before I joined. The premise was a little strange. Similar in concept to the show .Hack, the fantasy content of the game is happening within a video game that that the characters within the game are playing. So, are 4e statistics represent the character we are playing in the game-within-the-game.
Now, it was explained to me before I made my character that there was some deeply disturbing stuff going on within the game, stuff that was negatively affecting the real world, so that I needed to make sure my character had a good and serious reason to be devoted to the game. By talking with the DM (Garrett), I came up with the idea that my character was a high school girl not likely to play an mmo (or any other video game) but that her younger brother, an obsessive player of the in-game-game, had gone missing and that she decided to go online in order to try to see if any of his (her younger brother's) in game friends had any knowledge of where he might have gone.
So the first challenge was making a D&D character. I found this difficult, caring about the character that my character would make for a game within a game was tedious. Eventually I picked a ready made concept from those provided by 4e that I would not normally be attracted to as a player. I ended up making a Shielding Cleric (from the Divine Powers book) who focused on de-buffs and heals with very little built in attack power. I thought the decision would help me gel with the other players, because my character would be very very heavily focused on support.
What was play like... we pushed through three set piece combats that were long but fun enough, mostly, I think, because I wasn't very involved. It's was like playing monopoly with your family. You don't really care who wins or what happens, you just roll the dice when someone reminds you its your turn and try to pay enough attention not to get completely lost, its fun because you like spending time with your family. That was the D&D game, pick a power, roll a die, something might or might not happen, doesn't really matter. I should note that other players were definitely more invested in the combat, but that was fine too. I don't think I made the game any slower or harder with my level of disinterest, but I guess you would have to ask the other players.
After the set pieces, there was a completely (or nearly completely, there were some meaningless dice rolls made here and there) rules free scene, that was a sort of info-feed with very little in the way of meaningful choice. This was also fun, it allowed the back story bit that I had come up with show up in play and provoked a little bit of in game conversation.
So, what did I take away from all of this:
I never really understood just how bad whiffing could be, in the earlier versions of D&D that I have had a lot more play experience with, I generally avoided characters that had to choose when to use limited resource powers. Rolling to see if your any time attack hits or misses was a reasonable, of rather bland, way of simulating combat, but when failing a roll burns through a resource your attempting to apply tactically, its just (at best) boring or (at worst) maddening. The fact that I didn't care (or at least didn't care very much) made this manageable, but considering I get to do one thing every three to four minutes (of real time), and that there's a 25-50% chance that the thing that I do in that time will be meaningless or effectively meaningless is pretty stupid. There has to be a better way to capitalize on randomness in combat.
… also, I am completely done with DM fiat as a valid mode of play. It was hard for me to care about the set piece combats, in part, because I didn't feel empowered, by the GM or the other players to attempt to avoid them, or to do anything except passively participate. A guess I didn't actively try, but that's because I just felt that it would be pointless (that and past experience with this group, if not this game).
Like I said, though, I did enjoy the experience, if not the game. I like the concept, I like my character, I like the fiddly combat it theory, but I feel like if I allowed myself to become invested in any of these things, I would get frustrated and quit...
As a little aside: It seems like a lot of the mechanics in D&D don't represent anything beyond game mechanics, and that, again, makes it hard to care about the fictional content: examples from this game: grabbing and thus immobilizing a giant ape and a charge that consisted of running backwards 10 feet and then charging forward over that same 10 feet against an armed opponent, all within the span of some fraction of a six-second round. I want to know what this stuff looks like, and how it works. Is the charge some kind of three stooges move? Was the grab a comic book maneuver where Captain America can Judo flip the Hulk? How does this fit in with the tone of the game in general... not to mention all the complications offered by the “this is a game within a game” logic, which made me care even less.
So, what discussion points are there in all that:
How do you help players connect with combat, especially as player in a GM run game where you cannot control when or where combat happens without upsetting the other players?
How do you make whiffing a dramatically interesting event, especially when your committed to using a system where it cannot really be eliminated?
Callan S.:
Hi Nolan,
I think more broadly it's a question of 'when will the game end', atleast session wise, or ideally, campaign wise. Otherwise each combat can be like pushing a boulder up a hill, but it always slips at the top and rolls down. Endlessly. Just a kind of hell. Further, once you get an ending time, it makes you realise that things wont last and that makes you appreciate them more. Without an ending time it's like asking 'how do you spruce up hell?' - in which case I'd point to world of warcraft's 'endless game' love affair and the amount of resources it takes to continue that puppy (though by fuck, they earn way more than enough money to pay for those resources).
I bet your game follows traditional gamer patterns and has no set ending time (hell, I've played plenty like that)?
On whiffing, it seems you have a problem with the resource expenditure (though perhaps if you played old D&D you might not even like no resource loss whiffs anymore - might have grown out of the whole thing). The only resources I remember are the per encounter and dailies? Why do you have a problem with losing these?
I might suggest instead of you being fussed by losing the resouce, you have a problem with going to the effort of thinking out a plan of some sort, then the dice making your plan moot and a waste of time to formulate. It's 'roll to see if your gamist skill is irrelevant or not'. D&D still showing it's roots (thought there seem to be a surprising number of automatic hit powers coming in with 4e - D&D is still evolving). Sound about right?
masqueradeball:
Thats exactly it, the in game content that your talking about, making plans and then attempting to in act them, is super frustrating. Thats why the expendable resources become an issue. Its like I have this one chance to use Power X. If I use Power X and you use power Y then we can do awesome tactic Z. Awesome! But then the dice rear their ugly head and I roll and... oh wait, never mind, nope, just hit him. It boils down to the same thing as the older editions, stand in one place and roll to hit, except now the game is filling in all the flavor text for me... lame.
Callan S.:
My partner has struck that a bit as well with RPG play using dice. In a card game like lunchmoney she's fine with all the cards, which all do fixed damage when applied and fixed effects (the randomness comes from the shuffle and draw of the cards). She's not terribly fond of the dice rolls. I think it's the distancing the roll makes between player skill and what happens next, kinda shooting gamism in the foot. Not that I'm against gamist gamble, but asking for skill, then eliminating its relevance with gamble is pretty self conflicting.
So basically your saying you get this one chance with power X and then that's it for planning, not because of a fault in skill on your part, but because the dice simply eliminate you from the picture. Then it's back to the many rolls to hit, which a simple computer program could do as well?
4E is still pretty...slippy...with character death - it pretty much leaves the arrangement up in the air still. What was the arrangement with your GM?
You do still have the gamble of the rolls - enough bad rolls, and you get a big ressurection slap. Though 'gamble to see if you don't lose' is not as fun as 'gamble to see if you win something' I grant. In highlighting the 'gamble to see if you don't lose' I'm probably showing some habit of having grown into D&D's nuances like that.
Tell me, with the latter idea in mind, if roll of a nat 20 gave you 200XP or some such number, would it be interesting to roll in a slot machine kinda way? What if any roll got some XP, with it geometrically decreasing toward 1?
Just tossing some ideas around...
masqueradeball:
Would it be more interesting to roll and see how much XP I get, maybe... I think the best thing for me would be to say... okay, you failed the roll, so you can either except that or take X Bad Stuff and get the power through anyway.... and that Bad Stuff would have to mean something... what I want is for there to be decision points that encourage me to care, instead of discourage... in part thats an experiential thing, I mean, it has a lot to do with me and my mind set, so... I don't know how much this has to do with the game, but I feel like some games make it easier/more desirable for me to invest
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