TheRPGSite

Let me say this explicitly:

Sett was correct that the encounter became the basic unit of play in 4e. Whether this was true for previous editions or not is contentious and irrelevant here.

However, many people have confused this correct prediction of his with his evaluation of this change (culmination, whatever) as a bad thing. These are two distinct propositions.

So, is it a bad thing? Is this focus on encounters, whether planned or unplanned, combat or non-combat, a good or bad thing?

Quote from: PseudoephedrineIs this focus on encounters, whether planned or unplanned, combat or non-combat, a good or bad thing?

I don't like it, personally.

What should be noted in that statement is that it didn't answer your question. Here's the actual answer to the actual question you asked: the focus on encounters is neither good nor bad, but value-neutral: some people will enjoy it, others will not. That is all.

I'll take individual judgments as valid, so long as they've got reasons behind them.

So why don't you like it?

Quote from: PseudoephedrineSo why don't you like it?

I prefer my games as seamless as possible, and certain of the actions taken in regards to encounters give the encounter independent existence within the game [as I understand it]. For instance, powers which can be used once per encounter, whether that encounter lasts 5 minutes or 15; that doesn't appear internally consistent to me.

Also remember I don't like XP. Or D&D. So...

Do you also object to games with hero points, "dramatic logic" and features like that?

From what I've gathered, 4e essentially describes characterisation as what goes on between "encounters".  The bulk of the rules address setup and resolution of encounters.  Encounters are resolved through what amount to miniatures skirmish rules.

In my book, the characterisation is the meat of "roleplaying", and minatures skirmishing is more "unit-playing", no matter how personally you identify with a particular minature figure.  Ergo, by my standards, 4e is a step away from roleplaying and a codified step toward the sort of characterisation-void gaming that drove me away from 1st ed AD&D decades ago.  But then, I think we can all agree that I am not 4e's target audience.

!i!

What confuses me is why some of ya'all say that codifying the fighting (and other types of "encounters"), and not "roleplaying", moves the game away from "roleplaying". This version, in this respect, is no different than the game the started "roleplaying". What kind of rules are needed for "roleplaying", that are distinct from the rules for "encounters"? I and my friends seem to have no trouble "roleplaying" with any of the sets of DnD rules so far created, so I'm wondering what ya'all are doing differently than we are to have such a perceived need that is not being fulfilled by what's there already. Hell, I doubt I'd have trouble "roleplaying" with no rules at all really, but the "encounters" would probably be less consistent.

Yep, it's a bad thing, I've stated why more than once, and general amnesia/revisionism/lazyasshattery/the fact the semester's over for Pseudo so he's got more time to babble aren't good enough reason to make me repeat it.

However.

AFAIAC the jury's still out as to whether encounterism will be the core around which everything in 4E will revolve. Only months of campaign play will show whether the RAW won't be drifted across the board by hundreds of thousands of gamers in all sorts of directions, some of which new and specifically 4E. If history is any guide, that's in fact what's going to happen.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineSo, is it a bad thing? Is this focus on encounters, whether planned or unplanned, combat or non-combat, a good or bad thing?

It is what it is. But people are upset about it because it is not what it is not. The idea of pre-planning adventures to the point where you can even have these structured encounter scenarios is distasteful to some people, who prefer to run with a great deal more info on the places and the people and only the barest setup to get the players running around in that sort of "sandbox" (conversely, instead of an extremely detailed town or other setup, there are random encounter generators for saving time while maintaining that appearance of verisimilitude).

So people who have less prep time, more complicit / less uber-independent party members, those who run at cons, etc. got this nice bonus for the way they play. Conversely, the purists think they got the shaft, and maybe they did. Truth be told, between the pregenned town and the advice on custom built random encounter tables, I'm not seeing it. But then, I wasn't there for all the crazy awesome shit that happened in the 70s and 80s. If I had seen it done better (IMO 3x did not do it any better), I might miss it.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityAFAIAC the jury's still out as to whether encounterism will be the core around which everything in 4E will revolve. Only months of campaign play will show whether the RAW won't be drifted across the board by hundreds of thousands of gamers in all sorts of directions, some of which new and specifically 4E. If history is any guide, that's in fact what's going to happen.

Smartness. Wait until people play to decide what the realities at the table are going to be. Where do you come up with this stuff?

Quote from: Pierce InverarityOnly months of campaign play will show whether the RAW won't be drifted across the board by hundreds of thousands of gamers in all sorts of directions

Quote from: beejazzSmartness. Wait until people play to decide what the realities at the table are going to be. Where do you come up with this stuff?

Indeed, I have to agree with this wisdom myself.

I agree with those who say time will tell.  My concern is that the emphasis on the game and adventure design will be on crafting encounters and we will move more and more away from the open-ended imagination that is used in campaign play that is driven by the PCs and the world they are in.

All this is only a problem when people think D&D is roleplaying.  And there are still too many people who think that.

While we're at it, there's a thread on EnWorld back in 2006 when Mearls re-did the Rust Monster which Melan contributed to. Melan reminded us of that in the other "Sett is right" thread on RPGSite which Pierce kicked off by a quote from the DMG ("Definition of adventure").

If you read the old EnWorld thread you'll get people who explicitly think Mearls' redoing the monster may foreshadow the key design decisions for 4th edition, including the decision to build mechanics around the single encounter. They also discuss the merits of this approach and (various variants of) its antithesis. So instead of contributing to this thread, I'd like to remind people that on both issues raised in the OP there's this extremely long but also extremely worthwhile thread on EnWorld. Enjoy.

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=168472

Melan's post (which he linked recently)

http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=131786&highlight=rust#post131786

For that I tip my hat to Melan. That's a post replete with amazing insights driven to one mind blowing climax.

Quote from: beejazzSmartness. Wait until people play to decide what the realities at the table are going to be. Where do you come up with this stuff?

In the same place where this kind of thing...

QuoteIt is what it is. But people are upset about it because it is not what it is not.

...is called the blather that it is (rather than not), Captain Obvious.

An Encounter is still a broad term in 4e. For example instead of describing a dungeon room by room they take a series of rooms and describe it as a whole.

Also they seem to revert back to 1st edition in describing towns and regions.

On the other hand they only had 5 rooms in the sample dungeon in the 4th edition DMG.

In contrast everything had to be stated in 3rd edition causing even simple descriptions to be many times the size they needed to be. In the end I think the new format of encounters is going to be the same in the amount of information you will be able to pack into a product compared to 3rd edition. In some instance it is going to be fatter than 3rd and other more compact.

Rob Conley

Quote from: estarAn Encounter is still a broad term in 4e. For example instead of describing a dungeon room by room they take a series of rooms and describe it as a whole.

Rob, good point. And as you rightly point out, not something you get in Kobold Hall (DMG). And a case in point where 4E skeptics impale the poor thing either on "tactical poverty" or on "immersion-aversity" (hey, I can see four rooms now - but how can my character?). Sort of Scylla & Charybdis.  

Speaking of multiple rooms - I guess you're alluding to Keep of the Shadowfell aka module H1 (Herotic Tier, first module). Here's an interesting tidbit back from December where Mearls described his expectations for "H1" which bear on the issue raised here (Source (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=206041)).

Quote from: MearlsI'm creating the maps for H1, plotting out a couple dungeon levels, encounter maps, and a few other things. It's been fun. While H1 is far from a mega-dungeon, I've tried to incorporate at least some sense that the PCs can wander around the dungeon, exploring different sub-sectors and having a really different experience based on what they do.

What in the world does he mean by "at least SOME sense"? Hardly any? Plenty so no one should complain about?

Since a couple of people here on RPGsite are playing KotS now, could you tell us whether your experience confirms this? Also, I remember an exceptional analysis by Melan (hey, again) on dungeon linearity which seems fool proof to gauge such things. Would be nice if someone ran that on KotS as well. Anyone?

Quote from: WindjammerWhile we're at it, there's a thread on EnWorld back in 2006 when Mearls re-did the Rust Monster which Melan contributed to. Melan reminded us of that in the other "Sett is right" thread on RPGSite which Pierce kicked off by a quote from the DMG ("Definition of adventure").

If you read the old EnWorld thread you'll get people who explicitly think Mearls' redoing the monster may foreshadow the key design decisions for 4th edition, including the decision to build mechanics around the single encounter. They also discuss the merits of this approach and (various variants of) its antithesis. So instead of contributing to this thread, I'd like to remind people that on both issues raised in the OP there's this extremely long but also extremely worthwhile thread on EnWorld. Enjoy.

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=168472

Melan's post (which he linked recently)

http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=131786&highlight=rust#post131786

For that I tip my hat to Melan. That's a post replete with amazing insights driven to one mind blowing climax.

Thanks for the links, man. Blast Radius. Explains a lot.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineSo, is it a bad thing? Is this focus on encounters, whether planned or unplanned, combat or non-combat, a good or bad thing?

I have liked the 4 encounters we've had so far. Even with Encounter-based powers, we still had to decide whether to rest or not, and for how long (keeping in mind both a feeling of realism and resource management).

However, I also like room-to-room dungeon crawls and freeform "do what you want and see what happens" play. For those I've still got other games (older D&D and Scion/Exalted for example). Whether I miss playing that way when playing 4e is yet to be determined, but so far the answer looks like it'll be a resounding NO.

Quote from: SigmundWhat confuses me is why some of ya'all say that codifying the fighting (and other types of "encounters"), and not "roleplaying", moves the game away from "roleplaying". This version, in this respect, is no different than the game the started "roleplaying". What kind of rules are needed for "roleplaying", that are distinct from the rules for "encounters"? I and my friends seem to have no trouble "roleplaying" with any of the sets of DnD rules so far created, so I'm wondering what ya'all are doing differently than we are to have such a perceived need that is not being fulfilled by what's there already. Hell, I doubt I'd have trouble "roleplaying" with no rules at all really, but the "encounters" would probably be less consistent.

In our first Shadowfell session we did exactly as much roleplaying as we usually did in older editions, maybe even more depending on which campaign. There was definitely more RPing in Shadowfell than we ever did in our World's Largest Dungeons campaigns. There was a lot less of it than when I ran our 1-25 3.x campaign and the party continually found themselves in situations where swords didn't work.

However, there is absolutely nothing I've seen or experienced in 4e that prevents (or even hinders) roleplaying. There is, IIRC, more mechanical support for it than there was in Basic/AD&D.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineDo you also object to games with hero points, "dramatic logic" and features like that?

Yeah, until I have a bad roll, and then Karma's suddenly my best friend. Which is to say that in philosophy, I don't like unrealistic interferences with the game, but in execution, even I like a little drama with my real.

Whether 4e will be encounterised I've no idea.

But if it is, then that's stupid. It's trying to turn an rpg into a computer game. Which is foolish: focus on your strengths, not your weaknesses. A tabletop game will never do a computer game as well as a computer game can, and vice versa. The strengths of a computer game is that you can handle just going from one encounter to the other because it's visually appealing, and because you can play at any time of day or night, for as long or as little as you like. So a computer game offers pretty pictures and convenience.

An rpg will never have as many pretty pictures or the same convenience. That's its weakness. But it has the strength of being social and creative. Taking it from encounter-to-encounter removes the creativity from players, except for tactical creativity, and it'll also remove a lot of the social stuff, since people won't be as chatty if they're concentrating on moving figurines around and planning all the tactics.

So that focusing on encounters erodes the strengths and shows up the weaknesses of rpgs. It's stupid. It's like serving fine cuisine like you would burgers.

Again, what 4e will do I've no idea. I'm speaking just of the basic principle of making a game focused almost entirely on encounters.

Quote from: James McMurrayIn our first Shadowfell session we did exactly as much roleplaying as we usually did in older editions, maybe even more depending on which campaign. There was definitely more RPing in Shadowfell than we ever did in our World's Largest Dungeons campaigns. There was a lot less of it than when I ran our 1-25 3.x campaign and the party continually found themselves in situations where swords didn't work.

However, there is absolutely nothing I've seen or experienced in 4e that prevents (or even hinders) roleplaying. There is, IIRC, more mechanical support for it than there was in Basic/AD&D.

That's exactly what I expected, and I'm glad to know it's working that way for ya'all, because that means it's probably how it'll work for us too. This leaves me still confused how some people seem to find the rules lacking in some way.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityCaptain Obvious.

It may seem obvious when I say it, but I see a whole lot of people missing the forest for the trees. "Encounters" are a way of designing interesting combats (and they tried doing other things than combat too, with mixed results). The rules and advice on encounter design are superior, and generally more flexible than the ones in 3x (with the exception of monster stat blocks, but if you go by the general rather than specific advice, you can argue in the opposite direction). Sett's repeatedly claiming that combat's getting the shaft somehow. It isn't. Setting and world-building and "the sandbox" are getting the shaft. Or they look that way to those of you who have seen it done better. Foreshadowing indicates frequent re-releases of old settings (they're saying one setting a year), and an attempt to make published adventures that don't suck, instead of or in addition to silliness like including 3x classes in a(nother) PHBII.

Quote from: beejazzISetting and world-building and "the sandbox" are getting the shaft. Or they look that way to those of you who have seen it done better.

That's exactly my concern. Unlike Settembrini I've been mum on the internal issues of the encounter, i.e. how combat plays. I have no opinion until I've actually played it. But what the encounter does to the game world is pretty clear to me.

Unless long-term campaign play turns out to contradict that. Cali says Epic Destiny formalizes long-term play. I don't know what that means exactly, but I don't want rules to proscribe the direction and rewards of a campaign, if that's what that is.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityThat's exactly my concern. Unlike Settembrini I've been mum on the internal issues of the encounter, i.e. how combat plays. I have no opinion until I've actually played it. But what the encounter does to the game world is pretty clear to me.

See, and what I've been saying is that the presence of the encounter framework doesn't directly prevent a DM from using another model. The problem (if there is one) would arise from an absence of tools for sandboxier play. I think 4e might spend a little too much time clarifying encounter design, but there are a few gems (points of light if you will) where the approaches seem combined. For example, the logic that as you go further from town (or the deeper you go in the dungeon) the meaner stuff becomes. Makes some sense on both levels. Or the custom random encounter tables (including too-tough and too-easy monsters or groups of monsters) that you can tailor to specific locales. And which, in the city, can now include far more likely non-combat encounters in the form of skill challenges (okay, so that's a bit of a stretch). I can imagine with a city map and a custom random encounter table or two, I could run a more or less happenstance session. Could the random generators or pregenned cities / nations / NPCs be more abundant? The random name/city/harlot generators are a bit lacking, but there's all the pregenned material I could need.

QuoteUnless long-term campaign play turns out to contradict that. Cali says Epic Destiny formalizes long-term play. I don't know what that means exactly, but I don't want rules to proscribe the direction and rewards of a campaign, if that's what that is.

It's kind of wishy-washy. It's like the next stage after paragon paths (and a new way to customize your character in a similar manner) and an excuse to get rid of high level characters rather than have the mess that was 3.x epic rules. Not that I don't know people who played 3x epic and loved it, but... those rules were daunting to say the least. The specific manner in which players gain "immortality" is up to them. They could become gods, start working on the uberspell and get ingrained into the fabric of reality, gain immortality of some vaguely defined sort (there's pretty much a catch-all category for those who don't want to stick with the better defined routes) and theres... some other I can't remember. The catch-all is super flexible if the player wants something different. But if you're not down with the assumption of ending shit at level thirty, it could feel a bit restrictive.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineLet me say this explicitly:

Sett was correct that the encounter became the basic unit of play in 4e. Whether this was true for previous editions or not is contentious and irrelevant here.

However, many people have confused this correct prediction of his with his evaluation of this change (culmination, whatever) as a bad thing. These are two distinct propositions.

So, is it a bad thing? Is this focus on encounters, whether planned or unplanned, combat or non-combat, a good or bad thing?

Sett was rightish. In a blind men/elephant scenario Sett had the trunk. It's certainly the most prominent feature of the elephant, the one that every school child mentions first when they talk about elephants, but it's still not the entirety of the beast. And just because Sett was right about the trunk, it doesn't mean that he was right when he described the elephant as a long, grey snake.

Which is a round about way of saying that, while encounters are the lynchpin around which a 4E adventure is built, they are not the entirety of the 4E experience, and neither are they the inflexible, Seattle-dictated, uniform building blocks which Sett feared.

The DMG notes that "Over the course of a session of D&D, the game shifts
in and out of five basic modes—setup, exploration, conversation,
encounter, and passing time." Encounters (which include combat and non-combat encounters) are just one aspect of this. They are called out in the DMG as being the tense, exciting parts of the game where dice are most often rolled, which is why they get most coverage in the books - they need more mechanical support. But it's a mistake to say that the encounter need be any more significant in 4E than in previous editions.

If anything, the appearance of "encounter" as a specific term in 4E is much like the use of roles in class design. It's a feature which has always existed to some degree in D&D, but which 4E makes explicit. As such, it gains greater prominence in the mind of the GM and players, but this is intended only to assist the GM in managing that aspect of play. 4E quite explicitely does not suggest that adventures should be a string of linked encounters with nothing significant between them, but rather that the encounters are those parts of the game which naturally acieve greater prominence, and tend to more obviously involve all of the players.

Quote from: Trevelyan[Encounters] are called out in the DMG as being the tense, exciting parts of the game where dice are most often rolled, which is why they get most coverage in the books - they need more mechanical support.

That's something I've been meaning to point out for some time; most [big commercial] roleplaying games have huge sections on combat or combat-related things like knives and guns, and most of the rules are for combat, too. In Shadowrun 3, similarly, there are almost no rules in the core book for things that happen outside of a run: there is plenty of gear, but almost all of it is crime-related.

I'm not sure if that's all good or bad - I think the distinction is meaningless, actually - but I do believe it's because those things need more mechanical support, both because it's the time when the rules matter most, and because it's what people spend most of their time doing in the game.*

*Eh, maybe that's not true of combat in D&D; I suppose it depends on your style. In time investment, we're about 50 percent combat, 50 percent other things, which means we don't spend most of our time in combat, but we do more combat than any other single thing.