The "metagame"-y stuff in 4e, that some call "narrative" is not about fairness; it is the obesity scooter.

Quote from: Spinachcat;402262But most fortunately, the hobby is full of RPG choices.

This is probably the most important and useful thing said in the whole thread so far.

Short answer:  No

Long answer:  No

Quote from: Werekoala;402216Ooo... that looks interesting. Maybe if I get REAL fancy I'll look into that..

What's Sculpey?

It's a polymer based clay that you bake in your oven.  It doesn't get hard like ceramic, but it is much easier to work with than regular clay.

Polyform website

There are other brands, like Fimo, but they are all roughly the same.  I think Stuart had a blog post about making miniatures with Sculpey a while back.

Quote from: StormBringer;402210Assholes!  You probably both have a Hot Wire and a nice set of blades to go with it, too!  Why don't you both just come over to my house and slap me in the face?

Isn't there a queue?

Quote from: Benoist;402065If I was to run core Heinsoo 4E, it's something like this I'd do. I was thinking of a -literally- dark setting, with people cowering in Citadels (the "points of light" thing makes me think of Citadels in the night, with torches burning, keeping the darkness at bay), and Heroes somehow touched by the night and allowing them to perform feats beyond human capabilities. A bit like Corum with his hand and eye, some alien touch that could both allow them to be super-heroic, but also would at times limit or control their actions (which would explain the rules, and maybe could involve some other mechanics like Sanity, switching personalities when the alien thing takes control of the character, or whatever else). Just an idea.

The eternal night idea sounds very much like William Hope Hodgsons "The Night Land", which btw is available at Project Gutenberg for free...I found it a fairly good read, though I had to wince a bit at the domestic violence scene later in the book.
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/10662

On the original topic - I'd agree with Sigmund that the narrative stuff is all "smoke and mirrors" - so I'm disagreeing with Windjammer. There may be player decisions in when a character can use their powers, but this doesn't really give any substantial degree of story control/ability to aid story development to the players.  
At best, you get to tell how the evil Orcus was killed by [Power X] instead of how you grinded him to death in a gruelling epic battle.

I think its interesting that people are taken in by the "narrative" explanation for power use but the powers are fundamentally about gameplay. I'm guessing Forge people generally approve of the removal of sim elements from D&D as fixing "incoherent design", but in general I expect their opinion is that its still D&D and so for peasants.

Fundamentally, I don't think D&D can be a "storygame". As a game, there is a battle going on between the players and the GM for the PCs actual survival, and consequently ability to control the storyline or narrate events is going to be used by the players for their personal advantage. A player can't be trusted with a substantial share of the GM's job in a D&D-type system, so any control over the story passed to the players will be heavily restricted by lots of rules. In other words, attempting to share power with the players instead passes this power on to the rulebook.

The Drama Cards or Plot Cards mentioned at the start could be a move in the story direction, but I suspect what these do will be fairly limited.
Pathfinder like 3.5 is complex enough as a system that "on the fly" GMing is difficult, so players probably have to be encouraged to follow the GMs plot and any "plot complications" cards introduce would be minor stuff - nothing adventure changing.

I'm not sure DnD emphasizes the competitive aspects between players a d DMs anymore.  At least it's no longer about out witting the DM and more about beating the level appropriate encounters.

Quote from: Fifth Element;402364Isn't there a queue?

Well, I can make sure certain people get priority tickets.  

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;402368I'm guessing Forge people generally approve of the removal of sim elements from D&D as fixing "incoherent design", but in general I expect their opinion is that its still D&D and so for peasants.

Not the impression I've gotten at all, especially since John Harper talks and plays about 4e all the time, and Baker's current project is a purely gamist dungeon-crawl-ish game.  Clinton R. Nixon has said he likes the OSR, and the consensus I was able to glean was that B/X D&D is a very well put together game -- AD&D got the short end of the stick because it espoused too much "sim" design.

In fact, I don't think I ever got the impression that D&D was for peasants, or any other trad games seen as "Gamist" in nature.  If anything, there was a massive hate-on for White-Wolf and other unfocused sim designs bent on trying to tout story and whatnot as a goal, but I never saw such animosity towards D&D as a whole, since both Nar and Gamist designs were lauded, while Sim generally gets the short end of the stick (except for the few that are considered "coherent", or basically just super focused on one thing, like CoC).

And hell, there are even some Forge peeps who don't like 4e much at all, not because it's D&D, but because they themselves don't like the uber-gamey focus.

Quote from: MonkeyWrench;402372I'm not sure DnD emphasizes the competitive aspects between players a d DMs anymore.  At least it's no longer about out witting the DM and more about beating the level appropriate encounters.

It really never was about outwitting the DM. A DM could always squash any party if he didn't restrain himself. Before 3rd edition, when DMs didn't straitjacket themselves into encounter budgets, setting up encounters was ultimately DM's discretion; and even in 3rd edition, the DM doesn't HAVE to set budgeted encounters, does he now. You could only ever outwit the DM as far as he let you.

You don't have to set budgeted encounters in 4e, either.  The DM has the final discretion and there is advice for tweaking up and down and sideways in difficulty.

The encounter budget is just a tool for the DM to eyeball how difficult an encounter is -- just a more detailed and well thought-out version of hit-dice in TSR versions.  It's by no means a straight-jacket, it's just useful.

Quote from: Peregrin;402436You don't have to set budgeted encounters in 4e, either.  The DM has the final discretion and there is advice for tweaking up and down and sideways in difficulty.

The encounter budget is just a tool for the DM to eyeball how difficult an encounter is -- just a more detailed and well thought-out version of hit-dice in TSR versions.  It's by no means a straight-jacket, it's just useful.

I ran an encounter that was waaaaay outside of the XP budget last week. It was a lone frost giant who happened to have taken up residence in a valley where the PCs were trying to recover the wreckage of a crashed Spelljammer.

The frost giant had an AC of 28. He wasn't unhittable, exactly, but the toughest, most optimized dude in the group would have needed a 17 to hit him.

Luckily the players only goal was to kill the frost giant, not necessarily battle it. And they figured that out fairly quickly.

The monk stealthed into the cave, located a stolen keg of brandy and poisoned it. Then the drow bard approached with the carcass of a Hippogriff the party had killed earlier.. and bluffed that she had returned from a great hunt. First they shared the food and then she suggested a drinking contest, which the frost giant won...


...by drinking the poison.

handled as an improvised skill challenge.

I suppose I meant that in 3e and 4e the tone of the game wasn't as adversarial as in older additions.  In purely anecdotal terms the various group I've played in never ran it as adversarial either.  Character death was minimal and usually temporary.

The impression I got from playing 4e is that encounters should are built around the PCs level and that there is an expectation of ultimate PC victory.  Of course individual games may vary - I know I tried my damnedest to kill PCs w/o overwhelming them.

Quote from: Peregrin;402436You don't have to set budgeted encounters in 4e, either. The DM has the final discretion and there is advice for tweaking up and down and sideways in difficulty.

No! Dammit, no! Despite what it actually says in the rules, DMs are to be strictly held to encounter budget. When a DM is suspected of going over budget or if a player begins to feel the encounter is too difficult, WotC should be immediately notified via Form 23b, Possible Rogue DM, and then the DM should be taken out back and shot, not necessarily in that order.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;402451No! Dammit, no! Despite what it actually says in the rules, DMs are to be strictly held to encounter budget. When a DM is suspected of going over budget or if a player begins to feel the encounter is too difficult, WotC should be immediately notified via Form 23b, Possible Rogue DM, and then the DM should be taken out back and shot, not necessarily in that order.

Seanchai

In other words, the written rules set absolutely no expectations for play.