What's a Good Gamist Game?
Willow:
I would say I find some of those points debatable whether or not they are present in D&D, and I'd say some are a matter of taste, some are a matter of play technique, but there are some issues in there I'll certainly agree with you. (Stacking bonuses, battles lasting too long.)
Some of these issues can be resolved with house rules- personally 3d6 vs d20 is not a dealbreaker for me, but I think that's a swap that's easy to implement and falls within the realm of 'still undeniably D&D.' Other forums have extensively thought how to speed up combats, and spicing them up so they don't all follow the same path is something that comes with practice.
However, let's face facts: crunchy game design, ones with lots of powers and bennies to pick from (whatever you name them) takes a lot of effort. That's why the indie-community largely hasn't touched it: we don't have the resources. (Some exceptions certainly exist, Burning Wheel being the most evident; but it's not a gamist design by any means.) So it falls to the big companies to produce the crunchy designs, and these are rarely designed with a coherent focus.
There are a lot of games that can produce functional crunchy-bits gamist play: Exalted and Weapons of the Gods/Legends of the Wulin are probably my favorites in that regard, but they have their own system warts and weren't even designed to be played with the same gamist intensity that went into D&D 4th. For the hard core crunchy gamist, they pretty much have to hack and drift, and that doesn't matter if you're starting with GURPS or HERO or D&D: the most recent version of D&D just gets you there faster.
Ghostwheel:
Quote from: Willow on April 30, 2012, 03:14:13 PM
Some of these issues can be resolved with house rules- personally 3d6 vs d20 is not a dealbreaker for me, but I think that's a swap that's easy to implement and falls within the realm of 'still undeniably D&D.'
That's the thing though--the RNG in 4e isn't tight enough that 3d6 would be possible with the scaling +1s. People can already fall off the RNG on a d20 with those stacking bonuses, making the RNG smaller and more weighted towards the middle would just exacerbate the problem, making it not only worse, but also noticeable much faster.
I'm actually going through the process of creating my own gamist RPG with the design goals that are evident throughout my post thus far in mind, but I was wondering if I was reinventing the wheel, and if there might be something out there already that I could use instead of doing all the work to make a good, balanced system (which is thus far still tons of work).
Anders Gabrielsson:
Quote from: Ghostwheel on April 30, 2012, 02:58:13 PM
Some of my problems with D&D 4e:
Abilities feel very standardized from what I've played (I've only been in 4-5 games thus far, though one or two only lasted a few sessions), so people feel very similar.Battles feel like they last too long. Battles in my opinion should last 4-8 rounds, it feels like they last 10-20 rounds in 4e which can easily lead to boredom.Battles seem to follow the same template almost every time. First few rounds you use encounter powers, after that you spam your at-wills until the end of the battle, which gets boring.Tied to the last one, it's impossible to regain powers with actions (or some other way) to create tactical options with more depth.The RNG is still based around a d20, so even if you get an advantage like moving just into position to get combat advantage, for many characters it doesn't make a difference.Damage-wise, some characters feel much more powerful than others, even when they're supposed to A. fill the same role, and B. the less-damaging characters lack anything extra (like a status effect) to make them better.Newbie traps still exist, things that look cool but are in fact a waste of resources which newbies take and don't make them any better.There are many monsters that don't have a specific defense which is low enough to make much of a difference on a d20 RNG.Lack of customizability of classes and multiclassing.Scaling ability scores to the point where defenses can fall off the RNG on one side or another.Lack of resource management which creates a lack of options in risk vs. rewardThere being enough small bonuses that you can rack up in various ways that lead to falling off the RNG.Races still shoehorn classes into them if you want to be viable.The 15-minute workday still being present in 2 aspects - daily powers, and healing surges. Once someone begins to run out of either, they call a halt to rest.
I've seen most of these problems pointed out before, and some I have encountered myself. Some have easy solutions and some don't, and I don't think it's possible to solve all of them at once, but maybe enough of them can be removed or reduced enough that you can find 4E enjoyable.
I won't go through all of them but I'll try to hit the big ones.
Character feeling "samey" is a common complaint. I don't see it myself, but it's true that compared to 3.x the design space for the powers in 4E is tighter. (Personally I find this an advantage as it makes for fewer weird special cases to remember.) It's less of an issue with the classes introduced later (PHB2-3 and Essentials), I think, as they have more unique mechanics.
Are you using the monsters from the MM1 and MM2? There were some problems with the math there - too many hit points, sometimes too high defenses. The ones from MM3 and the Monster Vaults are vastly better in this regard, and generally more fun. (There are some fairly simple changes you can make to the earlier monsters, particularly solos, to make them less "huge bag of hp"-like.) A more radical variant I've seen proposed is to cut hp in half, either for just the monsters or for monsters and PCs both, or allowing a single hit to eliminate a monster that's been bloodied.
As for combats feeling like they follow the same pattern, using interesting environments is key. A fight that takes place mostly in darkness (apart from what light the PCs bring), or partly underwater, or in tight spaces all make for different combats. Yes, on the most abstracted level you'll still usually be using up your encounter powers before going to the at-wills (with Twin Strike Rangers being a clear exception), but once you have a few encounter powers that still leaves a number of permutations. With shorter battles this also becomes less of an issue.
There are a few items and feats that allow recharging of encounter powers, usually in specific situations.
I'm not sure which classes you feel are imbalanced when it comes to damage output vs other abilities. I think it's generally accepted that the archer Ranger does more damage than other strikers and the Fighter can be built to do a lot of damage, but in my experience there's nothing like the Fighter/Caster gap in 3.x.
Multiclassing is indeed weak if you're not using the hybrids from PHB3. I don't think it's fair to say that customizability within classes is lacking, though - again, compared to 3.x, anyone but a full caster will have more options, often many, many more.
There is some class/race synergy, but with the class-race combo feats from the various Power books and the alternative ability scores that were published... somewhere (Dragon, I think? I have a printout somewhere; I'm sure they can be found on the net.) there are more viable combinations than it may first seem.
The 15 minute workday has been discussed extensively, and several solutions have been proposed. One is restricting the access to extended rests; another is using a more gradual, encounter-based recovery mechanic.
Marshall Burns:
Hi Ghostwheel,
This is just a placeholder post 'til I get off work, but I wanted to say that there's some things I'd like to discuss here. I'm working on a D&D-inspired game right now and, while the stuff you're looking for doesn't line up 100% with what I'm looking for, I'd like to compare notes. I'll be back!
Ron Edwards:
Moderating time!
Hey - stop with the D&D 4E chit-chat, already. That content needs to be restricted to what's immediately relevant to the discussion.
Seriously, there are hundreds of places on the internet where you can go to vent or enthuse about this-or-that feature of this-or-that iteration of role-playing that goes by that name. Bring this thread back to a focused topic.
Best, Ron
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page