See that thread for further discussion on the problems felt by some over the abstractions of 4E.

Quote from: StormBringer;405175Don't concede stupidity, and don't leave on my account!  It's entirely possible I am not providing clear examples.  We can take this up in PM or address it in the 4e-clone thread I started a couple of weeks ago.

Oh, I'm not leaving in a huff; I just feel badly for cluttering up Benoist's thread.

I'll continue to read the various discussions. I'm genuinely interested in why I'm not getting this.

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;405190Oh, I'm not leaving in a huff; I just feel badly for cluttering up Benoist's thread.

I'll continue to read the various discussions. I'm genuinely interested in why I'm not getting this.

Cool.

Back to the topic, then.  Assuming a four colour supers game, there remains the ever present dilemma of how to model Superman and Batman with the same rules.  Or Galactus and Tony Stark, if you prefer Marvel.  

Clearly the setting is one where some haughty style Gods got together in ages past and decided that using flashy moves more than once per day was really gauche and thus decreed (on pain of rusty chainmail underpants for eternity) that there were limits to showing off how cool you are!!

.. To be more serious, while I haven't had a lot of playtime with 4E, for an internally consistent setting in the vein that Benoist is suggesting, I would have to go with something like Wheel of Times Blademasters. There the Blademasters have to reach a zen-like state of concentration (the Flame and the Void) which would effectively be your supernatural Martial source of power and the forms would just be re-badged daily's/etc. Perhaps a good reasoning for the usage limitation on powers is that they require much more concentration and focus than others, making them impossible to repeat until much rest and recuperation has occurred in the case of dailies.

Quote from: tellius;405246.. To be more serious, while I haven't had a lot of playtime with 4E, for an internally consistent setting in the vein that Benoist is suggesting, I would have to go with something like Wheel of Times Blademasters. There the Blademasters have to reach a zen-like state of concentration (the Flame and the Void) which would effectively be your supernatural Martial source of power and the forms would just be re-badged daily's/etc. Perhaps a good reasoning for the usage limitation on powers is that they require much more concentration and focus than others, making them impossible to repeat until much rest and recuperation has occurred in the case of dailies.

I really dig this idea, as presented.  But I wonder if Benoist could get behind it even more if we put some polished Vancian rims on it: What if it was implied that martial abilities had to be rehearsed briefly, imprinted into muscle memory, or (for an Eastern-flavored game) performed in a kata during short and extended rests respectively before they could be used again?

I posted awhile back when it first came out that 4e seems to fit the whole wuxia style almost perfectly. The different classes would stem from the different schools/styles and the limits to powers would fit right in with the Chi-based supernatural foundation of even the martial hero's abilities. I still believe this and now that I have some interest from some folks around my neck of the woods to learn to play DnD I might grab this and run with it. I still have my bare-bones Land of the Crane setting info from True20 that I could adapt to 4e, and now I also have the Red Box and will be getting  the rest of the Essentials line. I think it's a perfect fit.

Quote from: Benoist;404526That's true. That's also why it might work really well with mutants and all sorts of weird like in the new Gamma World 4E too.

PS: Heh ninja'd by the Colonel on this one. Great minds and all.

Hey that does sound familiar!  

Quote from: kregmosier;405326Hey that does sound familiar!  

Winning post.

I also think that 4E would work great with Hawkmoon and Europe's Tragic Millennium (in Moorcock's Eternal Champion series), especially considering the PCs as instruments of the Cosmic Balance in the world, and considering the weird "mutations and crazy machines" nature of science in the world.

Whether we'd be able to steal some ideas from Gamma World to transplant them in a 4E Hawkmoon setting remains to be seen, but I actually do think that it could represent Mike Moorcock's world better, in its baroque weirdness and epic nature dimensions at least, than BRP currently does.

Quote from: Benoist;405377Winning post.

I also think that 4E would work great with Hawkmoon and Europe's Tragic Millennium (in Moorcock's Eternal Champion series), especially considering the PCs as instruments of the Cosmic Balance in the world, and considering the weird "mutations and crazy machines" nature of science in the world.

Whether we'd be able to steal some ideas from Gamma World to transplant them in a 4E Hawkmoon setting remains to be seen, but I actually do think that it could represent Mike Moorcock's world better, in its baroque weirdness and epic nature dimensions at least, than BRP currently does.

Actually, I think that the new Gammaworld would lend itself well to doing a hawkworld game.

Anyway, as far as 4E mechanics go, I've never found myself bothered by the abstractness of the rules. I've been dealing with hit points and armor class for years, afterall.

My assumptions about the game setting though, are that ALL pc's are inherently supernatural in some way or another. Afterall, the only way that plain-old fighters can stand toe to toe with spell-casters of nigh infinite power and have it make sense is if the fighters are more akin to characters like Hercules or Gilgamesh.

I agree with the ancestral memory idea that someone posited earlier in the thread...that's been my goto explanation for the martial power source since I started playing 4E. I like the idea of martial characters gaining momentary flashes of insight from battles long past, which allow them to pull off amazing limited-use abilities. I like the idea of a Fighter channeling the strength of 100 dead warriors to piledrive a stone giant into the ground.

As for the tripping thing, I look at what the "prone" condition actually means in game terms. Basically the proned target grants combat advantage and essentially loses it's move action (having to use it to stand back up). In this case, I think that "prone" is a bad name for the effect...because obviously a gelatinous cube or a wraith cannot be knocked prone...but I can think of plenty of instances where monsters like that might lose their move action.

And marking makes perfect sense if you've ever watched a basketball game.

Quote from: winkingbishop;404126On to some more specific setting ideas.  In one, Martial powers are actually derived from ancestral memory.  Depending on the specifics of your setting, your family, tradition of training (class), maybe even clan (could manifest as build within your class) all come together to determine your heroic abilities.

So Martial power source characters would be like Dune's Bene Gesserit, or Arcana Evolved's Akashics. Great take!

Quote from: winkingbishop;404126I might consider trying to play 4e the way I used to play D&D Basic, where the whole world operates by the game rules: you can tell someone's class by the clothes they wear, and no one would dare think to look for a elven cleric adventurer because that isn't in the rules.  Up the cheese.  If you do this, you don't have to bother apologizing or explaining encounters and dailies.  I'm not saying you should turn your game into a joke - but to simply enjoy it at face value.  We never seemed to mind playing Basic this way as long as we played this way consistently.

I find this conceptually interesting, but I fear it would quickly slide into satire.

Duracell Bunny the RPG.