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Posted by: Redjack Mar 18 2010, 09:15 PM

Please continue D&D 4E discussions here.

Posted by: Dwight Mar 18 2010, 09:43 PM

Thanks.

Strange, those are two problems that I've never really had in SR. Both uneven levels of competency, since the areas of competency tended to be spread wider across situations than in D&D, and judging what some team may or may not be able to handle. Other than SR tends to retain deadliness that D&D slowly removes with higher levels (though not as much in D&D 4e). Of course changing the later is a pretty serious change to the world/conflict resolutions. Respect for a mook with a shotgun is something that would create a very noticeable, wide felt change in the atmosphere of the results of the conflict resolution if removed. Ergo it is not a problem, it is a feature.



Tellingly in a decidedly different manner. Then there is the matter of how the spaces of modern worlds mean something very tactically/strategically different than the spaces of even faux medieval worlds. It is actually something that SR isn't the greatest at modeling, and it's been built for a modern setting from the very beginning, and obviously D&D is pointed somewhere very different. For good reasons.

A better fit for a system is something a bit more modular where the core isn't the combat system. So you can readily replace out the combat system if it isn't geared towards the modern setting without gutting the system core. Also keeping combat more a peer of other actions.

Posted by: Cheops Mar 19 2010, 07:56 PM

Of course range doesn't matter in SR depending on how you normally run your games. If you are constantly fighting in buildings or smallish compounds it isn't an issue -- may as well be in a dungeon. I think it would be good enough to deliniate a short range (which may come up in a grid combat) and a maximum which will let you know for longer ranges. YMMV, but I haven't seen any SR tactical combat being used for long range battles at my tables (usually this is because it is a sniper or ambush at range so the other side doesn't even get a chance to fight back). Huge range battles, like mortar fire, naval battles, dogfights, and artillery bombardments are probably best handled through the skill systems or skill challenges -- not grid combat.

Competency isn't about coverage -- its about usefulness. Try putting a Street Sam into a party of 4 mages. How useful is he? Not very. How much better is a group of 4 mundanes just by the addition of 1 mage? What is at issue is why can't everyone be just as useful? Let's say you need to add a Striker to the group and you have the choice of a Magical one or an Augmented one. In SR you are almost always better off with the Magical one. In SRD&D4 it wouldn't matter -- what does the player want to play? Does he want to shoot fireballs or shoot guns? Both are equally useful to the team and both do the designated role.

Actually the competency of the D&D system is that it DOESN'T make any rules for stuff outside of combat. That is left completely up to the group to decide at the table. There's a rough skills guideline but the idea was to leave decisions about fluff and setting to be decided at the table and not in the rulebook.

Posted by: tete Mar 19 2010, 08:10 PM

With all respect to people who want D&D SR this is not a game I would want.

Here is why

I HATE COMBAT!!!!! I have no interest in playing a combat game, I'd rather go play counter-strike. Shadowrun is AWESOME because its about sneaking and lying your way in to get something and getting out without having any combat. What drew me to Shadowrun was that if we did it right there was no combat and if we did it wrong combat was over fast and people were dead (usually us). I also dont want a balance RPG. I enjoy playing a mundane face, decker, magician, everything. Its not about winning or balance its about having a good time and getting to play a fictional character. I dont want my mage and my street sam to play the same at all, they should feel very different. Also I love dice pools!

Posted by: Cheops Mar 19 2010, 08:35 PM

Who says you aren't allowed to sneak around and be clever in a D&D version of the game? At least if you failed and ended up in combat you'd have a very solid, exciting, and balanced set of rules for simulating that combat. I'd rather have a super slick combat system and then be allowed to have lots of leeway in handling the non-combat stuff than the other way around.

The reason balance in characters matter isn't because you can't have fun being weaker than someone else. It's because it is a royal pain in the ass for the GM if the group is as unbalanced as a typicall SR group. If you have 1 character who can routinely get around/through/over absolutely every challenge single-handed then, when the GM throws something that is a challenge for that 1 character it guarantees that the other players won't be able to contribute or that their characters die. It's not about the players -- it's about the GM.

Posted by: Crank Mar 19 2010, 08:50 PM

I'm not sure what the hang up on "balance" is for some people. I've haven't cared if I was the toughest, weakest or on equal footing with everyone else in a long time. SR isn't a game where "balance" is measured easily as a face with no combat skills is just as likely to complete a run as a cyberzombie, they just have to go about it differently.

I have found that DnD would not support the concept of a sneak around game at all. The whole game is geared around combat encounters which net you x amount of experience and y amount of treasure. Get outside of combat and the game breaks down.

Posted by: tete Mar 19 2010, 08:59 PM

Yes, you can...

My personal best example is I had a BLAST playing a 0 level character in AD&D because when I rolled up my 3d6 stats I didnt even get a 9 in anything. For 2 years (off and on because we played other games) I played this character. I was the only PCs who didn't die at some point. Some of the guys even hit level 9 and I was still having fun with my 0 level commoner. When a monster attacked, I ran and hid! BEST D&D GAME I EVER PLAYED IN!



Whos to say its not balanced as is. My face can walk right into a building convincing the guards im someone else and walk out without a shot being fired. I dont need to even have any firearm skill. That is balance, I'm a face guns/magic not my thing, lying is my skill.


[edit] To use D&D 4 for example, a shadowrun game would be a series of various skill challenges with combat only occurring if a skill challenge fails. So all those at-will etc powers that they have, would come up rarely if ever in actual play.

Posted by: Cheops Mar 19 2010, 09:52 PM

First of all if you are going to Quote me then please quote the entire context. I did NOT say that it isn't fun being weaker. I said that it ISN'T because of lack of fun. It is because it is difficult for the GM to judge the appropriate difficulty if combat does start when the PCs are unequal.

Why can't you be just as competent as the Street Sam/Mage in combat just because you are good at lying? Since you choose to focus on being good at lying they are better at other areas than you by investing their resources differently.

You are correct. If it was a run I needed to get out of the way quickly in SR D&D I would just run it as a Skill Challenge. That would be an example of a sub-quest (our target is building A but we are going to hit building C so that we can zip line over) or a run that is a set-up for greater plot elements later in the story. Eg:

Story for the session is that the group pulls a run that results in the Mafia's interests being harmed. The main plot of the session is that the Mafia has it out for the group and now the group needs to find a way to deal with it (negotiation, make an offsetting run against the yaks, etc). However, instead of just handwave the run I do it as a Skill Challenge instead.

So, out of combat balance. Let's say that your face, a street sam, a hacker, and a mage are all trying to infiltrate the building to succeed in the above Skill Challenge. Your face is successful at every single Diplomacy and Bluff check you are called to make because you are an awesome people person and liar. However, the mage screws up one too many times checking the Arcana aspects of the security. Now security is alerted and combat starts and lets say that your face is discovered at the start of combat by more stringent accreditation checks. The GM had decided that the combat with security should be moderately difficult for the party. How does he do that in SR4?

The mage and the street sam are much better combatants than the hacker and the face. Something that will be moderately difficult for them will likely be killer for the other two. However, something that is moderately difficult for the Face will be a cake-walk for the street sam and mage. In D&D4 this is no problem -- all are equally good in combat. It is also easier to scale if someone is missing. Let's say your face manages to get away before being discovered. The GM knows exactly how many NPCs to subtract to make it equally difficult without the other character.

If it is the out of combat stuff and role-playing that defines your character then why does everyone being on the same footing in combat cause so much hatred?

Edited: for clarity in first paragraph.

Posted by: tete Mar 19 2010, 10:00 PM

apologies for the mis quote.

That said, what if I as a Face dont want to be good at combat... My tactic is to RUN AWAY.

Hopefully no mis-quote here.

Because I dont want to be good at combat, I dont ever even want to enter combat. You know how people say when the decker does his thing we go grab a pizza. Thats how I feel about combat, when you go into combat I want to go do something else call me when your done. Dynamic combats and short combats are better but I would like to spend less than 10% of my roleplaying time in combat. D&D 4e is all about the combat. They did a great job offering abilities making terrain matter etc. Kudos to WOTC, but none of that interests me. I've got to a few demos and been bored out of mine mind because its all about the combat. Sure you can do things outside of combat but really they are segways to get to the monster. The best Shadowrun games I've played in had 0 combat. We planned it out, did the leg work, broke in, got the item got out and got paid. AWESOME.

[histoy] I started with D&D redbox, we played it like a board game... HATED IT. Later a guy invited me to Traveller promised me it was nothing like D&D. IT WAS AWESOME, we were merchants dealing which getting good prices on goods then selling them at a profit it was like Settlers of Catan with acting! LOVED IT. I didnt get into RPGs through wargaming I got into them through improv acting so apreciation of the tactics of wargaming are lost on me. Never something I enjoyed.

I understand some people like tactics of wargaming and enjoy combat but the thing that always drew me to shadowrun was that if combat happened it was a punishment for doing something wrong not something that was going to happen every game.

Posted by: Cheops Mar 19 2010, 10:18 PM

Then you run away. How is this a hard concept? You can be better at something out of combat while still being equally useful in combat. Whether you decide to participate in combat is up to you and your table -- not the game designers.

However, for those of us who do participate in and enjoy combat we get the best of both worlds. We can all be just as useful in combat but still have some spotlight time out of combat when our specialty comes up. Also, now that you are just as useful as everyone else at the table, if the session ends up being combat heavy (say the Street Sam decides to settle the Mafia issue with his guns) then you don't get excluded because you can't fight.

Posted by: tete Mar 19 2010, 10:34 PM

but your forcing my character to be good in combat, I dont want that. Under the current rules I could spend my nuyen and skill points to be good in combat and lying if I wanted, or I can be good in basket weaving and lying.

[edit] Lets take your combat heavy example, I want to be excluded... Thats not my character. If the street sam choose that route either A. I dont go or B. I assist in other ways, perhaps as a distraction. or C. I turn the street sam in and gain a favor from the mafia.

There is nothing wrong with everyone having there own time to shine, for the street sam that is combat. I don't need to be a part of his shining moment if I dont build my character that way. I get the choice.
Doing it the D&D 4 way I am forced into a character concept that I will be good at combat.

So yes your gaining the best of both worlds FOR YOU. What about those of us who want to play a social game with no combat. If you say theres no reason you cant do that, I say to you well then remove all the combat rules except the skills needed (no movement, techniques etc) now play your combat focused game, there is nothing in the rules preventing you from doing that.

[edit 2] Again nothing against D&D 4. I think they did a great job designing a game based on what the design goals were. Mission Accomplished! Its just that the design goals they had have nothing to do with the type of game I personally enjoy. Shadowrun is a game that I currently enjoy, I would hate to see it go down that path. Not because it wouldnt be well done but because I would no longer buy or play it. I would either have to play an older edition (nothing wrong with that) or change games.

Posted by: Particle_Beam Mar 19 2010, 11:43 PM

It is far easier for you to give yourself penalties to symbolize the combat deficiency of your character than the other way around, making your character worthwhile and good in combat while also being good in non-combat stuff.

Also, if your character betrays the street sam, prepare to get a punch in your face by the player of the street sam, as you rightly deserve it, "roleplaying" or not.

People moan and bitch about how they have to focus and specialise being good in something and mediocre/sucky in the rest, and all Shadowrunners ought to be good in tailing, sneaking, fighting, and escaping, be it the muscle, the mage, the mesmerizer or the matrix-jockey, else they're dead weight and a liability.

You're always allowed to screw yourself over with stats-wise and make your character a retarded luddite with spasms and epileptic seizures if you don't want to play a character who can contribute to the essentials of shadowrunning.

Posted by: tete Mar 19 2010, 11:57 PM

First off, betraying the street sam is option C. The guys I play with it wouldnt happen because they wouldnt Fing go after the mafia. Thats just stupid! Better plan on retiring after that run cus payback will be a bitch.

I'm not making a luddite just because I have no combat skills. I can spend those points on driving, sneaking, all kind of useful abilities. Especially in a game where combat doesnt happen.

Put my group in perspective, in 6 months of play (about 20 runs) we have had 3 combats. Combat only happens when we F up. Now this might not be your group but please dont penalize mine by forcing your style of play on us. These are the types of groups I look for and play in. Its the type of game I enjoy.

[edit] SR4e has already forced a style of play because now as a Face I max out without cyberware where as before I could just keep spending karma on my Negotiations without ever buying cyberware because there was no cap.

Posted by: Particle_Beam Mar 20 2010, 12:24 AM

Then that option never existed in the first place. And betraying means that the other player is allowed to punch you in your face with no consequences.

Of course you're making a luddite. You can't even use a gun and smart-link to fend yourself in the sixth world, so this cripple who drags everybody down might as well go back in the woods naked and look for the company of satyrs and sasquatch who won't maul him to death. Perhaps a pack of hell hound wil find him first, hopefully.
And you think that when your character (and everybody else) has good combat stats, you'd suddenly be forced to play dungeon-hacks and hour-long combat scenes every time you meet? Either you don't know what you're really talking about, or you don't trust your gaming group.
So what? You're still able to play a retarded luddite with spasms and epileptic seizures, even if you have well-rounded stats everywhere, and 40 dices as an average pornmancer who talks as sexy as a redneck hillbilly performing intercourse with his livestock and giving birth to his cousin.

Posted by: Tanegar Mar 20 2010, 12:36 AM

I'm with tete on this one. D&D4 forces you to be, first and foremost, a combatant. Everything revolves around combat. The vast majority of powers are combat powers; before the advent of utilities (I forget which book introduced utility powers), every power was a combat power. The entire game is built on the assumption that your character goes around killing monsters and taking their stuff. If you want to do something other than kill monsters and take their stuff, well, you're on your own. Skill challenges are a laudable effort to disguise just how half-assed and tacked-on the skill system really is, but don't actually change the fact that the skill system is half-assed and tacked-on.

In SR4, by contrast, the skill system is the game. You are not forced to take any skills or qualities that you don't want. You can be a completely badass hacker who doesn't know which end of a gun the bullets come out of, or the slickest con man who ever walked the earth but who runs screaming from battle, or a magician who refuses to harm anyone, but is still an asset to the team with creative use of illusions and other non-combat magic. None of those concepts are mechanically supported in D&D4. My experience as both a player and DM in D&D4 is that once you become familiar with the rules, you hit the boundaries very quickly. SR4 also has boundaries, but they're much more generous, IMO.

Posted by: Particle_Beam Mar 20 2010, 01:07 AM

That would be the Player's Handbook 1. Where all the combat powers are introduced first too.
I'm pretty sure that you actually mean something else than utility powers, as you'd have to be blind to oversee them in the Player's Handbook 1.
That's the price the skill system in D&D has to pay since 3rd edition. The good is that the mechanism (roll a d20, add modifiers, compare result wih difficulty check) is the same as for combat (roll a d20, add modifiers, compare result with armor class), which hasn't changed in 4th edition. Who knows what the developers where smoking when they thought about skill challenges and how it would change the skill system of D&D.
At least, you're not incapable of being intimidating or climbing as a fighter anymore.
You can easily play a retarded character in D&D (all editions, some forcing it upon you) too, just the same as in Shadowrun. Just give yourself some penalties that make you have a roll of -100 if you try to attack or whatever when your character started having an epileptic seizure and was masturbating at the same time, because you want him to be a retard who goes into danger.

No other player should be forced to have a character that is good at combat, but incredibly sucks at interacting with other mentally npcs and dirt farmers, or a player who wanted to play a cunning bard and powerful mage like Väinämöinen, but is foced to suck so hard in combat, he might as well play something on his x-box 360 or similar.

But if you really want to be Dumbdumb, the fighter who is too stupid to breath, or Elan from the Order of the Stick prior to gaining a level in Dashing Swordsman, then you're allowed and encouraged to handicap your character for your amusement.

I mean, seriously, are you people trying to tell me that if you see normal combat stats in a pen-and-paper rpg, that you become retarded in real life and will only play out combat situations for the rest of your life?

Posted by: Dwight Mar 20 2010, 01:21 AM

As someone that has played a Shadowrun character without a firearm/ranged weapon skill other than a couple points in a Flare Gun, and a bear minimum in fisticuffs Skill (that he never really used, and was only taken for defense during combat), and an IP of 1, I assure you he wasn't a cripple that dragged everyone down.

There were other people to handle the bulk of the shooting. That wasn't his time to shine (though he did save the bacon of a couple on his team by once by untrained shooting of some pesky guards using a firearm he picked up off a body during the run. His time to shine was when there was a need for some oddball skill like piloting a boat or talking their way into some place or trying to understand some magical effect/artifact (not Awakened but he had a serious academic knowledge of the arcane).




D&D proper is still, despite improvements over the decades, and some attempts during the d20 years, relatively weak outside of combat. It very much centers on combat, the definition of character abilities center around it. I don't hold that against D&D, 4e is one fine kill-things-and-take-their-stuff game. But I sure don't deny it. So no, you wouldn't actually get the best of both worlds.

When I started on replacing the SR system I went to one that even more emphasized other abilities on equal standing with combat. As well it's combat is even more modular, so I could swap out it's out-of-the-box medieval combat systems. Yes, systems. It actually comes with a few of them to provide choice between different levels of detail depending on how much screen time you want a given combat to have. Then I completely replaced the combat systems to give a much stronger tactical feel than SR 4e, consistent with modern firearms/combat/vehicles/spaces.

Of course I wouldn't consider it particularly "Shadowrun" in that the SR systems generate fairly flashy results. The action is somewhat over-the-top. I made my choice because I wanted something slightly more mundane feeling. Because I'm big into movie imagery I set the primary benchmarks for one of the particular types of combat (the most detailed but not the chase/dogfighting one) as the final shootout in Way Of The Gun. That is the atmosphere I decided I must be able to create. Well that and I had to be able to do the scene off the cover of 1e/2e SR, which so far is working well, too (though I've only tested play of that archtype scene at a contemporary tech level, not at SR level tech, yet).

The result, while even closer to the movies often listed in those "what movie is SR to you" threads, is even further from what you get with the D&D combat/system.

Posted by: Particle_Beam Mar 20 2010, 01:41 AM

So you mean your character wasn't a cripple and a drag because the gm created very specific situations where the cripple is useful, like Elan before training under the captain of the Mechane was sometimes useful (he knew how to climb up a horse and tell others how to do it)...

Posted by: Dwight Mar 20 2010, 01:48 AM

No. Other than, you know, the GM didn't artificially dictate/create situations where combat Skill use was the only ingredient to what was dictated as the single/only viable solution(s).

P.S. I picked up the watercraft piloting skill in response to what we the players saw as an opportunity to procure and use a boat as part of a solution. Because that was his job, to have/learn oddball Skills. His catch line was "Can I ____? I've been around ____ all my life!" So he proclaimed he'd "been around boats all his life", even though he grew up in the desert. *cough* Then while the others were busy trying to rent a nice boat he was at boating school learning the basics of running one.


EDIT: He might also have had a point or two in bladed weapons. I'm not sure, I'd have to check. I do know he had a knife. I don't recall him ever having stabbed someone...though he did infamously once take on a speeding car with a knife...and won*!

* 'Won' being defined as 'didn't die'.

Posted by: Particle_Beam Mar 20 2010, 02:41 AM

Either you had many months to prepare and the run was unimportant, or you're going to have a hard time explaining how your character learned driving a boat without ramming the next giant tanker that fast.

And combat skills will be important as when you're entering a high security facility to steal a prototype/extract a scientist/find out about the connection of victim to a company man/upload a virus into their unconnected network/re-arrange the furniture to create a bad Feng-Shui for the execs and other stuff, you're going to deal with armed guards, spirits, paranormal creatures, noisy wage slaves, security drones and other hazards. No matter how good the best one is, it's the die results from the one who rolled the worst that matters.
High stealth, good combat abilities, and ways of escaping from law enforcement are the bread and buutter of any average Shadowrunner working for your average mysterious Johnson.

Posted by: Dwight Mar 20 2010, 02:51 AM

Have you ever seen a James Bond movie? Like that. Edge, baby. Plus, what's the Attribute again? Reaction? The Threshholds he was rolling against were pretty high. Six or eight or something. The write-up of the AP is somewhere on these forums.



Sure combat skills are really useful at times. That's why he tolerated the psychos he worked with.



Wah? For shooting things? That's silly. For stealth, for the people at some particular point where sneakiness is required, sure. That's why you send scout-types off by themselves. EDIT: Not that I'd personally ever bother everyone to roll Stealth is some situation. Just the one with the worst ability + worst modifiers.



Go Team!

Posted by: Particle_Beam Mar 20 2010, 03:25 AM

James Bond works alone (or is hindered by some chick who'll land in his bed). And he gets state-of-the-art equipment that the russians (or Blofeld's minions) won't ever get even if they begged on their knees for it. 007 is also backed by a national counter-intelligence agency. A typical shadowrunner can be glad if he that "beta-grade cyberware" really is "beta".
You have to be mentally challenged to work as a terrorist for hire together with other building-blowing mercenary terrorists without any means to defend yourself.
Shadowrunners are not the good guys. They're the ones who will blow up orphanages, sky scrapers, airports and hotels for the right price when hired by a Mr. Johnson with connections to religious fundamentalistic organisations. Being a pacifist while working as a Shadowrunner is like screwing little children to prevent pedophiles from screwing them.

You can of course claim that your character is a bloody amateur who will soon let himself be overrun by a car, that's understandable. After all, playing a tragic clown can be funny.
Everybody has to sneak by the entrance for starters. Having the runners with the good stealth skill being alone in the facility while the hacker who needs to disable to security system inside because it's not connected to the wireless matrix (ohz noez) staying outside or worse, being detected will lead fast to such problems. And then shooting will be determined which team works better. Security, soon backed up by law enforcement, or the rag-tag gang of greedy kidnappers and terrorists hired by an ominous Mr. Johnson who needs deniable assets?

Posted by: Dwight Mar 20 2010, 03:50 AM

Slim had no implants so he did not need to worry about reported quality of implants.

Also, James Bond improvises all the time with things/vehicles other than his own r33t Q supplied goodies. Maybe you haven't seen anything other than trailers?



I tire of your circular logic. Conflict must be resolved by combat, so combat is the central skill. Combat is the central skill so conflict must be resolved with it. :/

Posted by: Tanegar Mar 20 2010, 05:11 AM

QFT.

Posted by: nspace Mar 20 2010, 07:27 AM

D&D 4E works just fine out of combat as long as someone isn't kicking and screaming about how the game is all about combat and is willfully sabotaging the out of combat gameplay. You just think up what your character could do in a situation and the GM has enough guidelines to tell you what to roll to see how it works out. The limit is really your imagination.

Just because some people play D&D 1E, 2E, 3E and even 4E for combat, does not mean D&D is about combat. In SHADOWRUN it is called playing a pink mowhawk game. Should we run around screaming about how shadowrun is all about combat because some people run pink mowhawk games? Of course not, that would be silly. It is equally silly to make those accusations against D&D.


Now, D&D 4E does things differently than Shadowrun, in that they made the decision that having players taking turns dominating the spotlight doesn't make a good team based game. Combat for example is about the party working as a team to be successful instead of one or two players with absurdly over the top combat monsters destroying everything without using any sort of teamwork.

In reality, the D&D4E 'team effort' model respects the idea of 'you've got to respect a mundane with a gun' better than SR4 does. In D&D4E your characters that are "bad" at combat (i.e. a controller or a leader), won't put out as much damage or absorb as much damage as a striker or defender, but they can do well enough to be dangerous, or they can lend support to the combat characters. So you can have your leader face that is "bad" at combat run around and hide and shout out warnings, and fire off shots with your "dude its a gun, you point it that way and pull the trigger" training (which in the SR setting is supposed to be enough to be dangerous), while tricking attackers into chasing you or tricking them into falling back, or confusing them, or hacking their communications and smart links, or any number of "I'm not a gun fighter" activities that you can do during combat.

Roleplaying games are group activities, why do people want to set a group of people down at a table and then not cooperate as a group? It seems very strange.

Posted by: Cheops Mar 20 2010, 01:47 PM

QFT.

You can make Clerics in D&D that have no offensive combat ability whatsoever. They either heal all combat or else provide bonuses to other team mates. They still have a function and a value in combat that is equal to everyone else -- without them people would do less damage and die more easily. But they are not good at being the one to actually hit and kill the enemy.

As far as absolutely refusing to participate in combat that it is a matter for tete and his table to discuss. If combat has 0 value for him I fail to see how a balanced combat rules system hurts him in the slightest (-1*0 = 0). For those of us who like both D&D4 is wonderful. So essentially for tete he is no worse off with D&D4 -- he can still shine out of combat and can avoid combat just like he always did in SR4. For those of us who like a balanced combat where everyone can participate without it being instant death D&D4 is better. So, no one loses out in the equation and some people gain.

Being good at combat in D&D4 in NO WAY limits your ability to make a good character in non-combat aspects -- you just use your character options on non-combat stuff instead of combat stuff like the Sam. It won't be your focus but you will still be competent at combat.

Posted by: Dwight Mar 20 2010, 02:56 PM

The limit is crappy support. Someone above mentioned the poor differentiation between characters. Further that skill test for extended conflict resolution is half-baked. The designer has acknowledge that. It's an interesting germ of an idea, a work in progress. Maybe for 5e? The difference when you use a system that very actively supports what you mention, and goes even further, is stunning. Plus, and SR 4e is short here too which was a large reason for me going beyond it, supporting verbal conflicts to the level of combat conflicts. Then those matrix/electronic ones. I can't really speak about SR 4e outside the core as I haven't really delved into Unwired but the core is half-baked...which is sad because it had potential.



That boating trip mentioned above wasn't a picnic. D&D really only manages it because it defines every character in a 'combat' centric manner. Every character is a 'combat character'.



I think D&D does emphasize team more directly in overt combat actions (I mentioned that earlier as a positive it had going) and Initiative in SR has always been problematic with allowing contributions from around the table. SR 4e was certainly an improvement. Slim, with no Init/IP boosts could choose to fire at key points and he was a decent attention sink. Still, team action tactics, really tactics at all, isn't SR's strong point. It was very much a top design goal I aimed at *cough* when designing the CQC combat sub-system.

But the latter part of your statement entirely misses, in a number of ways. "Mook with a shotgun" is about danger, about how much larger the force multiplier for a firearm is compared to the force multipler of melee weapons. How that person can directly kill you. See Omar's fate in The Wire for an example. Back in d20 days there was a bunch of messing around with critical hits and stuff to try jigger something together but in the end it required what was effectively a rewrite of the system front to back so that the product wasn't even d20 anymore.

Further the use of space is all wrong. Starting with firearms being largely vector weapons.

Posted by: Dwight Mar 20 2010, 02:58 PM

Combat character doesn't equate to "offensive combat ability".

Posted by: Particle_Beam Mar 20 2010, 03:30 PM

Or maybe you can't even understand that James Bond doesn't roll anything...
Conflict situations where people are shooting at you is resolved by combat. That is so obvious, I speculate that you're being dense on purpose.

The scene in "The Terminator 2" where they break into Cyberdyne Systems Corporation and the resulting shootout with the police is what Shadowrun is all about. Not James "I'm working solo because that's what agent flicks are all about" Bond.

And of course, James Bond is a beast in combat with high combat skills. 2070, in Shadowrun, his equivalents walk with Deltaware-cyberware around and can shoot stun bolts with his mind if they go the extra mile. 1950 to 2010, the only implants his enemies have are metalic teeth and cardial pacemakers if at all. Ooooh, how terrifying.

Posted by: Dwight Mar 20 2010, 03:40 PM

I'm talking about how it looked. The excuse the writers use. Further, to address your missing the point down post, not the whole format of the movie as having one central character (though Bond does share the screen with teammates occasionally they are a lot like he use to be with women, going through them like a hay fever sufferer goes through kleenex).



Bigger picture, how did the situation where shooting arose happen? The GM just skipped to there?



One part of the break-in sequence is what you are focusing on. *facepalm* The combat monster vs combat monster part.

Round-round you go.

Posted by: nspace Mar 20 2010, 05:32 PM

Acting like Terminator 2 has one combat scene, and that none of the other characters participated in the combats is absurd. I'm finding your accusations of circular logic to be fallacious.

Taking the terminator thing further, the Sarah Conner Chronicles were very 'shadowrun', and they got into combat all the time, and they all participated in it despite basically having their own cyberzombie on the team.

Posted by: Dwight Mar 20 2010, 05:42 PM

Which is why I am NOT doing that. You, however, were cherry-picking...yet in the process showed off the very uneven level of combat skills across that "team".

Posted by: Bull Mar 21 2010, 10:06 AM

I'll tangent this thread slightly... I have always felt, and still feel, that D&D doesn't need to rely on skills and rules outside of combat.

RPGs have always been little more than a game of Let's Pretend. And as kids, we certainly didn't need a bunch of rules to tell us how to pretend. And that's all roleplaying is. Pretending you're something or someone else.

Honestly, I think 3.X made D&D players lazy in many ways. THe game became about the math, and how to put together a character in the best or most interesting way, about what you were going to do 10 levels from now, what prestige class you were taking, what magic items you needed to best be whatever. It was never about who you were, it was about what you were.

And this make Baby Jesus cry.

It used to be, if you wanted to be a "Prestige Class", you simply were that prestige class. Except, you know, we just called them characters. I had a 1/8 Hill Giant Barbarian in 2nd edition D&D, playing just with the core 2nd ed books. If you look back at 2nd ed, there was no Barbarian in the main book (Ok, I'll be honest, I'm only about 90% sure there wasn't. It's beside the point here). There were also no rules for being "Giant Blooded" or anything like that. I was a straight up fighter. I rolled old school for the character, 2d6, assign em in order. I had an 18/37 strength and a 7 Intelligence. So I came up with a backstory that involved his grandparents, a potion of giant growth, and a love afair between a man and a demi-attractive hill giantess. His name became Brawnar, often called Brawnar the Dense. Sometimes called Brawnar of the Hill People.

Brawnar was an amateur taxidermist and an amateur armorer. He would often attempt to make armor out of monster trophies (He had a helmet fashioned from a minotaur helmet and a shield made from the scale of a white dragon). He was illiterate, but the groups Swashbuckler (A by the book rogue who liked to leap around in combat and swing around by any rope or chandelier that happened to be nearby) taught him to "reed and rite", poorly. He had a great affinity for horses, and when he cooked he could even burn water.

D&D was always great because you were only limited by your imagination. We didn't need a sense motive skill, or a diplomacy skill, or a bluff skill. We could talk to the NPCs in character and do our best to roleplay what we were attempting to do. Any competent GM would work with us, accepting our efforts for what they were, and deciding whether we succeeded or failed based on our merits and our effort to succeed. Sometimes, if that wasn't enough, you could role a die. A d20 role would suffice, and you could roll and simply add an attribute modifier vs a TN set by the GM, based on difficulty, how we usually played our characters, and how well the GM thought we were doing based on our roleplay, or you could roll against your attribute, attempting to roll under it, again with modifiers based on your actions.

I take it back. D20 didn't just foster lazy players. It fostered lazy GMs too.

I'm not saying 2nd ed was all sunshine and roses. Overall, 3rd edition was a vast improvement in the rules set, simplifying things like saves and armor class, and for the core classes, balancing out the power levels a bit better. But third went way too far, IMO, and added way more crunch than was really necessary, and I think it was detrimental to the game.

The rules themselves should be focused on combat, and that's where 4th got it right, more or less. YOu ened rules to arbitrate combat situations. That was always the weakest point of "Lets Pretend". It was easy enough to decide that you and your cousin were going to be Han and Chewie, and that your brother and other cousin were going to be Boba Fett adna STormtrooper. THe problem always came when you both pulled out the sticks you were pretending were guns, shot each other, and then had the tradition "I shot you first! No, I shot YOU first!" arguement.

The rest of the rules? Not that necessary. Any half decent GM should be able to come up with a ruling on the fly and be at least semi-consistant. YOu use yur stats as a general guidelines. And roleplay out the rest.

I even think that applies to Shadowrun a little bit. The very best gaming sessions I've ever had, both as a player and GM? THey involved little to no dice-rolling. Because dice weren't necessary.

Bull

Posted by: Cheops Mar 21 2010, 12:31 PM

This is exactly what we are talking about. Combat is the one and only place where you can and should have universal rules for an RPG. It is the place where characters are the most likely to die so having a good set of mechanics to simulate this danger and to ensure that the Table knows how it should go down is essential.

Here's a mind blower -- SR4 is no better and no worse than D&D4 at resolving out of combat activities. It can't be. Or else you'd end up with the most messed up, 2000 page rulebook you've ever seen (FATAL anyone?). There are essentially an infinite number of possibilities outside of combat (limited to imagination) and no game system has ever gotten close to a true mechanic for resolving ALL of them. The simplicity of the D&D4 mechanics and its focus on combat allows each individual Table to decide how it wants to make believe -- well written, exciting, and balanced combat make sure that every table has fun in the deadliest portion of the game.

So I guess the question comes down to how much rules cruch do you want interfering with your game of cops and robbers -- D&D4 is more rules light (options heavy) whereas SR4 is rules heavy (options heavy)?

Posted by: Cheops Mar 21 2010, 01:33 PM

Just wanted to comment on something Bull said in the Rumors thread. Specifically it is about lack of resources.

The awesome thing about the Encounter/Daily set-up is that it is very easy to modify to be any length you want. In fact, Silent7Seven Games has done just that with a product called Rugged Adventures. Now they made theirs pretty defined with a Short Rest now taking 6 hours (instead of 5 minutes) and an Extended Rest taking 2 days (instead of 6 hours). For those who aren't D&D4 literate, this means it takes a full night's rest to recover your Encounter powers and a full weekend of rest to recover your Dailies and Healing surges. It makes for a slower paced, more resource management system.

Okay, let take the changability of this system and instead of placing hard time limits on it let's instead place plot limits on it.

The team has just finished a run and is going into down time. The group gets an Extended Rest before going into downtime but is only given a Short Rest at the end of it because it is 2 weeks and they aren't sure when they'll get work. The Street Sam's player loves combat and for shits and giggles gets into a bar fight thereby using 2 of his healing surges. Everyone else plays it more moderate and uses their various feats to build/repair stuff using a modified Ritual system (I was using it for everything like Forgery, Vehicle Modifications, Spirit Summoning, Ritual Spellcasting, etc -- Martial Practices kind of gives a guideline for this). So when the call goes through from the Johnson they have all their powers but the Street Sam is out 2 healing surges going in.

The story is this: the team is hired to extract a kid from an MCT facility. They get the kid back to their safehouse where they soon discover that he has weird abilities to control machines with his mind. They foil a couple of his escape attempts while waiting for the heat to die down. The moral dilemma is that he has been experimented on mercilessly (first aid reveals that his head has been opened multiple times) and that he says if the team doesn't let him go he will only suffer more at the hands of new scientists. Let's say, for the sake of argument that the team has some moral fiber and decides to help the kid out. They meet the Johnson and tell him they won't go through with it sparking a fire fight. They then have to dodge the Johnson's strike forces while trying to get the kid to a safe haven in SSC lands. The story ends with them placing the kid in protective custody in Bellingham.

Breakdown is this: accepting the job, extraction, escaping the heat, escape attempts by the kid, convincing the runners, refusal/fire fight, chase scene, setting up the safe haven, crossing the border, ambush in the forest, arrival in Bellingham.

Armed with that knowledge of the scenes the GM can now decide how tough he wants it to be in resource management. Let's say he wants the post refusal part to be difficult resource management but not killer. So he makes all the combats from the fire fight to Bellingham be at level or level - 1 (normal or easy not tough). But he doesn't let them have any extended rests and only a short rest after crossing the border. He also decides to call the extraction a dungeon with the kid as the treasure parcel at the end. Thus no extended rests while doing the extraction. So, using the pacing and naming of a play, here's the scenes of our 1 act Shadowrun:

1) Accepting the job, extraction (extended rest) -- remember the Street Sam is down 2 healing surges until after the extraction now
2) Escaping the heat (extended rest) -- can make this one a really tough encounter since they get an extended rest afterwards
3) Escape attempts (extended rest)
4) Convincing the runners (extended rest)
5) refusal/fire fight, chase scene, setting up the safe haven, crossing the border (short rest), ambush in the forest, arrival in Bellingham (Extended rest, likely downtime)

I can guarantee you that the 5th scene will be really hard for the team. Of course, unless the GM is being a total dick he should forewarn the players about how this will all go down: "Okay guys, we are starting an extended action scene. You won't get a short rest until you are across the border and no extended rest until you deliver the kid." Street Mage: "Guess I won't try to end this fast by using all my Dailies then." Street Sam: "This is going to hurt..."

Posted by: Cheops Mar 21 2010, 01:33 PM

Sorry, heavy index finger

Posted by: Dwight Mar 21 2010, 03:54 PM

As long as you understand the deepest conflicts, the crux of the resolution, was combat. It is the kill things and take their stuff game.



I'm not going to argue that, to be sure I will never sit at a D&D 3e/3.5e table again (yes, never is a long time, and if the zombie of Dave Arneson rose out of the grave and said "hey, want to sit in a 3e game I'm running" I'd still turn him down....and not because he might just snicker-snack on my brains the first time I failed a saving throw). Except D&D 4e still isn't about who you are, it is now how can you synergy with others in combat. Which is interesting, for sure. I like a lot of what 4e has done. But the interludes become cut scenes, relatively speaking, as...



I argue that was just the symptom of unresolved disagreements. It fell down the rungs until combat became the 'solution' and then it failed there too because there was no framework for resolving it in combat, either. Putting lots of rules in for combat but anemic support upstream just re-enforces players behavior to head to combat when you really want something done (or whine/bluster/screw with peoples, primarily the GM's, head).



Ah, the false dichotomy of dice and roleplaying.



Yet where was the conflict? If I and the other people around the table all agree then we could stay at home and write out our fanfic. You could chalk it up to "art through adversity" I guess. With the dice there as grease you can push harder, farther, deeper. You discover things that you didn't know, nobody at the table knew. I've seen those emotional moments without dice but the most sterling examples, certainly the most consistently delivered, are when roleplay included the dice.** They were the grease between the two forces of nature (AKA players) headed at each other in opposite directions.

Certainly as the GM it is much easier to push hard, to bring a challenge. Otherwise constantly with a "well how would this happen, with no uncertainty?" and "am I being fair here" tying one arm behind my back. Can't bring the A-game heat when you are holding back on the pitches.


** Note: No, I am not talking about D&D 3e or 3.5e. It has rules bulk with little to no support via an extendable framework. I would hazard a guess that the most disappointing, empty feeling, "incorrect" feeling result on a social roll I can remember was a Diplomacy roll made in D&D 3.5e.

Posted by: Dwight Mar 21 2010, 03:57 PM

I loath my ISP

Posted by: tete Mar 21 2010, 09:42 PM

Its a conceptual thing, not a play thing. In every edition of D&D even if you pick the wizard your ability to hit goes up with new levels regardless of if you ever have pulled a knife. I know that at level 10 my wizard will be better with a dagger than he was at level 1, even if he has never used a dagger in combat. In contrast with skill systems I either get to spend my points where I want or only on things I use (Call of Cthuhlu for example). If the same thing happend in Shadowrun as D&D then my firearms may go up even though I never have used a gun. This breaks certain concepts, I can still chose never to enter combat but my points were spent for me in a way that has nothing to do with my character. It would be the same as if your Street Samurai suddenly got better after 100 karma with sorcery even though he has never cast a spell. Sure he doesnt have to use that ability but if you concept is a street sam who doesnt trust magic users... your concept was just smashed by the rules.



That depends on how focused your game is on combat. Look at something like Vampire where when my social character can beat your combat character by telling him to go for a walk in the sun when you attack me and if you fail your "will save" combat is over and you go for a walk in the sun. I mean that was literally 2 or 3 die rolls and combat was over. Unknown Armies is another great example where you dont want to get into combat because one shot from a gun and its time for a new character. These games tend to spend less time on their combat rules because combat is not what the game is about.

Posted by: Cheops Mar 22 2010, 01:30 AM

Wow. You haven't ever played D&D4 or else you don't play at a table with much imagination. I've found that lack of imagination is the primary reason why tables latch on to sub-par core mechanics and also why they don't tend to encounter the problems with said faulty core mechanics. You realize you get skills and feats on top of combat ability and you get to pick where you want to put said skills/feats?

Posted by: hobgoblin Mar 22 2010, 02:19 AM

i think his main issue is that of the BAB, and how it goes up with class, not with how skill(point) deployment.

btw, CoC's basic system only allows a skill to increased if it gets a good roll during play. So no skill use, no increase.

Posted by: Dwight Mar 22 2010, 02:31 AM

Also known by nicknames such as The Rambo Philosopher. Present in varying degrees through out the history of D&D.

Posted by: Warlordtheft Mar 22 2010, 02:13 PM

My main issue wioth 4E D&D is that unlike 3.0 and 3.5 is that it seems at the 3000 foot level of combat, everyone does the same thing. One thing the got rid of was mind control spells, IIRC. The other point I'd make is that the system is basically designed for running dungeon delves. Which if that is your thing. go for it. THe minitures rules supports this. It is also of the heoric type (which while fun at times, does lessen the challenge), this means PC death is rare and that mooks are insignificant.

In the end I picked up just a few of the 4E books, even ran a few RPGA events, but ultimately lost interest. Part of that is that I have 2 groups that I play shadow run with, one where I am the sole GM and the other where I am a player. THough we have 4 people that are the same in both groups.

Posted by: tete Mar 22 2010, 04:14 PM

What he said...

My problem with D&D isnt the out of combat stuff, it is with the combat stuff. Its a conceptual thing rather than a rules thing. D&D (any addition) forces you into a combat roll because as you level you automatically get better at combat, you can ignore going into combat but your character sheet still shows the improvement.

I wish I had recordings of my groups "sub par" imagination for you... I think you would be shocked at how little we roll dice and how much improv acting goes on. For instance in our Halloween game we played for 12 hours all in character and we had one die roll as a PC was confronted by a vampire and got off one shot (the one roll) before he died. The rest was all investigation, it was a modern day haunted theater game. I suppose you would say Ars Magica is a sub-par system because has a terrible combat system, but the game isnt about combat its about being a wizard and researching spells so who cares if the combat sucks your never going to use it. Its like adding a combat system to settlers of catan, its never going to come up so why bother.

[edit] I'll admit some systems can be sub-par.I think that as long as you are not throwing in house rules its ok to be sub-par. Why? because the game didnt really need those rules if the situation comes up so rarely that you don't care about sub-par rules. D&D doesn't need to spend 20 pages on how to properly craft a sword because it doesn't come up that often. I could say it has sub-par rules if I want to run a game around crafting or... I could pick a system with more intricate crafting rules. I dont want Shadowrun to become D&D 4e because now I'm being force to take my non-combat style game and use a system designed around combat or choose a system that better fits my style of play. D&D 4e is great at what it does but what it does well is not a game I'm interested in playing. And yes I have played several games of D&D 4, even with some of the guys over at WOTC (Thanks guys it, much like the 3e games you ran for me are always enlightening into the mechanics), and I will say the dynamic combat was really well done and amazing, skill challenges are interesting (need some work on them though) and all it all its a well designed game, its just not for me.

[edit2] Shadowrun 4e already forced a few character types (and I will admit most were more obscure ones) to vanish as playable characters while taking others that were as obscure if not more so and pushing them into almost the norm. I just don't want this slide to continue further because it at some point will force me to only play older edtions and not buy new books and that would be a sad day seeing how I've been playing SR since 1e.

Posted by: Greul Mar 28 2010, 05:25 AM

My groups have always played D&D and SR for different reasons, in D&D regardless of edition it was for the thrill of battle and the new and shiny stuff that could be gained from it, including advancement.
In SR it was for the run, gathering intel, assembling gear and trying to avoid combat so I could collect those Karma points.

Grexul

My screenname is missing an 'x'.

Posted by: Kovu Muphasa Mar 28 2010, 03:06 PM

I will keep it simple and only talk about 3 of my players
I love 4eD&D
Player 1: Loathes it and hates getting hit in combat. [They are doing it just to make my last 20+ years of playing worthless and whines and take it personally when he take more than 10 points of damage].
Player 2: Has not played in 15+ years who walked right in and loves it.
Player 3: Who is Apathetic to the System, he just want to Bash Monsters.

The same basic group is part of our SR game.
Player 1: Dislikes SR, but it is the only game in town for him [There is not enough combat for him and we don't loot the bodies for treasure]
Player 2: Has been enjoying it.
Player 3: I bad at SR4 Characters building, but has come up with some good chatacter concepts.


As far as D&D I think player 3 has is right. It is Dungeons and Dragons not Barmaids and Blackmiths. Yes you can play a non-combat campaign, heck 4e makes it possible to make it to 30th level and never get into a fight. But that not the point of the System. You could also run a SR game where you spend 10 minuets getting and planning the mission and the rest of it is firefights.

As a friend of mine puts it.
D&D Adventures are Home Invasion Robbers.
Shadowrunners are professional Jewel Thieves

A D&D version SR4 should play more like Black Hawk Down than The Kingdom.

To the Reverse a SR4 version of D&D should play like Ladyhawk rather than LotR.

Posted by: Wesley Street Apr 1 2010, 04:45 PM

*bing!*

Or Potters & Ploughmen. D&D is, has always been, and always will be... a gateway RPG game. No more, no less. Hit the monster, get the loot. Easy. 4E took a simple concept and stripped the BS to permit accessibility. Which was the right move.

"But... but I could do so much more with previous editions!" the nerds doth protest shaking their Tomes of Horror in the air.

"No," I reply. "No you really couldn't. At least, not within the rules as written. Everything you think was great was actually what you accomplished through improvisation and imagination, not RAW. Which is the bloody point."

D&D has always been the RPG equivalent of a chain restaurant. Tastes fine, perfectly filling, but not particularly challenging to the pallet or inspired... though once in awhile something unusual will be introduced that will make you sit up and take notice. D&D has the power of THE BRAND and funds to hire professional illustrators. That is all.

I enjoy 4E. It's fine. But D&D is not the best RPG product ever created nor even the best fantasy product. There are many current and out-of-print products that I could hold up as contenders; games that actually, by RAW, utilize large lists of craft skills extensively, etc. etc.

I played 2nd edition. It was terrible and I felt like I had wasted my time and money. I was brought back into RPGs by a friend who wanted to try 3.5. It wasn't terrible but it wasn't particularly great. D&D 4E isn't great either but it's definitely not terrible.

If you can accept that D&D is and will always be a flawed game with a simple and fun premise, you can begin to enjoy life a lot more.

Posted by: Kovu Muphasa Apr 1 2010, 05:50 PM

The other thing to remember:
The System is Unimportant
The System is all Important

That a mean with this is they system is important to how the game feels.

Modern/Cyberpunk
If you want gritty realism like Blackhawk down, d20 modern isn’t going to do it, the PCs will have to many HP and will feel invincible. If you are planning on running the A-Team, it works perfect.
I am currently running a Modern Sci-Fi/Horror Game. I started with Twilight: 2000 than went to SR2. about 3 months in SR3 came out. Then d20 Modern came out and to get “Player #1” involved I went to it. Now I am back to SR4a. It is working good, but for a few small thing like the one players “Horn of Vahalla”.


The same goes with Fantasy
For Lord of the Rings you want something like GURPS or Roll[Rule]-Master.
If you want Hawk the Slayer D&D is the way to go.

Personally I want my Fantasy games to be quick, deadly [for the monsters] and a little over the top and D&D 4e fits that bill perfectly.

Posted by: rumanchu Apr 6 2010, 07:09 AM

DISCLAIMER: as I post this, I haven't read any other posts in this thread (I'm moving a reply that I was going to make in another thread here, as this thread is more relevant. I apologize if I repeat anything that anyone has said so far here)

One of the things that I like about the way that the rules are set up in D&D4E is that (in theory) there is always a "broad" rule that applies (this, in fact, is the basis of two of the "Three Basic Rules" laid out on p.11 of the PHB)...as opposed to SR4, which lacks such an assumption. There are at least three extremely opinionated (rules) arguments that I have seen in the past few weeks based around the fact that there is only one "rule" that can be cited in SR for something that happens to be an arguably limited scenario. The argument then degenerates to a he said/she said debate over whether the rule cited is the "default" rule.

(As an example -- the printed rules for stacking armor in SR are pretty much limited to the passage on SR4A p.161: "If a character is wearing more than one piece of armor at a time, only the highest value (for either Ballistic or Impact) applies." Now, one point of view is that this rule means that the default rule is that any non-worn armor stacks. Another point of view is that, since the only way that someone can gain Armor in the core rulebook (without using something that explicitly states that it stacks with worn armor) is to wear armor, the default rule is that armor does not stack.)

Of course, one needs only spend the barest of time perusing the official D&D forums to see that they are rife with arguments about rules...which, as you pointed out, tend to be pedantic as hell. D&D4E rules arguments tend to boil down to what is or is not a "specific" rule.

I won't even get into comparing D&D4E movement with SR4...mostly because the movement rules in SR are such a mess (as rules); the SR movement rules are perfectly serviceable as storytelling devices.




Personally, the more things that a game system requires that I put points into or roll dice for outside of confrontations, the more limited I feel as both a player and a gamemaster. While I certainly don't think that *every* character should be able to write Oscar-worthy films while winning Top Chef, the Pulitzer, and the Nobel Prize for Physics, a player whose character is a former chef shouldn't have to be constrained by die rolls to take a job as a short-order cook to fill the time between runs.

(Or, to go to an example where the game-world fiction failed when game rules were applied: there was no way (using D&D rules) for Bruenor to forge Aegis-Fang until D&D4E was released (and, based on how the character has traditionally been statted out, even then you had to wait for Martial Power 2 to have an entirely "mundane" version of Bruenor that was able to craft a magical hammer. In this case, we're talking about a major character is (arguably) the most influential set of D&D novels that violated the game rules for 20+ years; yes, he only ever crafted the one item, but...someone hung up on the rules wouldn't have let him).

"Never let the facts get in the way of a good argument." -- P.T. Barnum, 1875

Posted by: Tanegar Apr 6 2010, 01:56 PM

I feel exactly the opposite. From the time I first started playing D&D4, there was something about the character sheets that made me deeply unhappy, and it took me a little while to figure out what it was: almost every single thing on it pertains to combat. Although, in the specific example you give (a PC who is a former chef taking a job as a short-order cook) I would not require die rolls, and would disapprove of any GM who did, I emphatically do not subscribe to the school of thought which holds that every single interaction other than combat should be handled purely through roleplaying. I believe that clear rules for non-combat activities richen and deepen the game. Roleplaying is certainly good and desirable, but if I, the socially awkward player, am playing a slick-as-oiled-glass con man, I definitely don't want to have to rely on my own (nonexistent) fast-talk abilities to sway an NPC. That's what dice are for.

Posted by: Kovu Muphasa Apr 6 2010, 03:45 PM

I have 1 real problem player and one player that is having problems with 4th.
The problem with them is they walk into the game with the "I hate 4th edition" thinking before they ever get their. When you enter a game like that, you cannot enjoy the game.

This goes back to this

The System is Unimportant
The System is All Important

If you want to run around and bash monsters: you want 4e
If you want a game with dramatic over the top Hollywood moves: you want 4e
If you want a game where team play is the goal: You want 4e
If you want to run a game were it is all intrigue and simple skill usage: You want 4e

If you want a run around an possible kill monsters in one swing with your Min/Max Character: you want 3e
If you want a game with a complex skill system that can be easily abused: you want 3e
If you a random group of characters to go on adventures and one had better be a cleric: you want 3e
If you want to run a game were it is all intrigue and slow advancement unless the DM is really nice: You want 3e

It is all about the flavor

If you like 4e great, spread the word
If you like 3e [or any other edition] great, but relies that 4e is here to stay and quit giving us that like it grief.

BTW: if there are any groups in the Riverside aria that want a 30+ Veteran player who hates 4e let me know you can have him.

Posted by: rumanchu Apr 6 2010, 05:11 PM

There are rules in 4E for just that situation - Diplomacy, Bluff, etc are all skills that you can roll dice to resolve situations with. While I can understand why you might find this to be lacking when you compare it to the amount of rules that cover combat, most of the complaints about D&D4E being "combat heavy" that I've read online have dealt with the fact that there isn't (for example) a set of rules for crafting items, or cooking a meal, or pretty much anything that isn't typically used in direct opposition to someone else.

Ultimately, Dungeons and Dragons *is* focused (mechanically) towards combat situations...it would be foolhardy to argue otherwise. It did, after all, begin as an optional set of rules for a tabletop wargame. I find it lazy and disingenuous, however, to say that the *only* thing that you can do in D&D4E is fight things -- though I agree that someone who wants deep mechanics for non-combat situations would be better served to find another game system to use.

Posted by: Bull Apr 6 2010, 05:46 PM

Complaining about a lack of dedicated, deep RP rules is like copmlaining about the lack of dedicated, deep RP rules in your average Halo or Mario game. It's simply not what they're designed for. If I want to play an RPG video game, I'm gonna go grab Mass Effect or Final Fantasy. If I want to simply blow things up, I grab Halo. If I want to stimp on turtles and collect coins, I play Mario

Bull

Posted by: tete Apr 6 2010, 07:07 PM

I think the main problem with D&D 4e from a roleplaying angle is that most people looking for the options they had in 3.X only bought or read the core D&D line. Which is designed for noobs. PHB2, MM2, and DMG 2 is where all those options your used to start showing up. Then you have WOTC claiming "we changed everything but its the same game" WHAT??? how can, brain melting... On top of that you watch the DM commentary on the Robot Chicken and his example of 4e roleplaying is TERRIBLE!!!!! apparently anything that isnt covered by the rules is roleplaying! WTF! and this from the CREATIVE DESIGNER of 4e. This just shows me that there is a disconnect between the designers and some fans. Those fans just need to wake up and try other games, honestly the D&D they want will never exist as long as the same people are designing it. There are a 1000 systems out there get out and try one.

And this is exactly why I don't want Shadowrun to use the D&D 4e rules.

Posted by: Dwight Apr 6 2010, 10:57 PM

Sure, but what is the "confrontation"? D&D, although 4E is a smidge better than previous editions IMO, is infamously anemic in the area of rolling dice inside a confrontation other than when the confrontation is combat.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/iron-chef-america/index.html

Shadowrun is sort of getting there, too. It was an early adopter of allowing for a character focused on something other than hurting people. But it's still confused and it's implementation is uneven and clunky. IMO that's the core problem with the Matrix rules [in the core]. It has all those nitty-gritty detailed rules about comlink Response and System and agents and program levels etc. that prior SR editions are gummed up with, but it failed to deliver the framework (lightweight or otherwise) to use those details or the Matrix. More framework (the basic Skills section is a start) and less detailed crap that gets is the way and serves as fodder for rules lawyering and other arguments and time wasted flipping pages.

Yes, there is a another way other then the control freak of SR and the shrug of D&D. A solid, extensible framework that is a tool to use rather than an enclosure.

Posted by: Dwight Apr 6 2010, 11:17 PM

D&D 3rd edition? I'm not exactly sure how that qualifies as a "complex skill system"?

Posted by: rumanchu Apr 6 2010, 11:42 PM

While I concede that there are indeed situations where you might need to compare the ability of two people when cooking, weaving, or dancing, D&D4E does a reasonably good job of ensuring that most of the time when you are going to want to contest something with someone else there is a rule on how you should roll dice to determine the outcome. (Personally, I thought that they should have included rules for things like crafting and other "noncombat" abilities in PHB3 rather than the Hybrid Class rules).

Like Bull said, though, D&D is probably not the system for people who don't want to spend a significant amount of game time fighting...and it never really has been. In a similar vein, the original Changeling would be a poor choice for running hypertactical combat stories.



I feel pretty much the same way with the implementation of the Matrix in SR (and this is coming from someone who plays the hacker type in both of my SR groups). If I were to nail down where I think that the Matrix rules go wrong, though, it's in trying to make the Matrix work in a manner consistent with how computers work now. Imagine how someone in 1950 would write rules for how Computer Warfare Specialists would operate in the year 2000...IN THE FUTURE!!! Odds are that they would have very little in common with how computers *really* operated 10 years ago. Hell, look at how archaic (overall) the Matrix rules were in SR1 compared to how computers actually worked in 2005 (I need to be PHYSICALLY PLUGGED IN?!?), and that was a difference of only 16 years.

Posted by: Dwight Apr 7 2010, 12:18 AM

You can actually have your cake and eat it too...if you are willing to open wide. Having that solid support for non-combat skills (my experience has set the bar much higher than what D&D provides) doesn't preclude very tactical combat. But to keep it manageable most people have to be willing to acknowledge that there is a difference between having a tactical sub-game and a very rules bulky sub-game, and be willing to sacrifice the later.




I think it is pretty generous to describe the Matrix as anything approaching consistent with how computers work now.

But the root of the problem is still in delving into those hard nuts and bolts details. Keep it a level up from there, keep it to what it can do, not how it does it. Then leave it up to the players at the table to imagine (or ignore) the details in the way that suits them the best.

That way you don't need to make the trade off between trying to describe something that a computer user of 2005 can relate to it and some computing paradigm that is alien to the computer user of 2005 (and probably the laws of physics to boot) but somehow makes sense to the author.

Posted by: Kovu Muphasa Apr 7 2010, 12:59 AM

You haver sepent an hour and a half wating for someone to spend his skill points.
We had one guy who would always make his INT his first or second highest stat and then put 1 point here and one point there. It only got worse when he got our group to say that if you put 1 point into a Cross Class skill it becomes a "Level-0" Skill, but you are now considered "Trained" in it.
or
The Elf Rouge with a 20 Dex, Trained in Stealth and then manages to gets a Cloak of Eleven Kind at 4th level.


With 4th there are only Trained Skills and Untrained Skills and only 2 Require Training
1] Acrobatics: You are Required to be Tained in it to avoid Falling Damage
2] Arcana: You are Required to be Tained in it to Detect Magic

Posted by: Dwight Apr 7 2010, 02:48 AM

That is true. Now given that I played a number of years of 3e/3.5e, shouldn't the question occur to you as to why I have never spent an hour and a half waiting for someone to spend those points?

It is a bit fiddly with character creation (limiting it to allocating in blocks of 4 points during character creation and the number of decisions to make drops drastically). But that + a painfully indecisive player hardly constitutes a "complex skill system". Overall I'd argue it is the opposite, there isn't much to the system overall to justify having even a marginally fiddly Skill point allocation. D&D 4E has just acknowledged this and brought character creation/advancement more in line with the rest of it.

Posted by: tete Apr 7 2010, 03:07 PM

That and the Matrix rules dont fall inline with the rest of the rules... With Star Wars Saga at leased hacking works the same as bluff. I'm actually working on a list of changes I want to make to SR4 most of which are based on the Ubiquity rules. My new non-combat Matrix test is Logic+Computers+Program vs a Threshold = System, successes count against the threshold and failures count for moving the system up to passive alert. I should point out the TN has been moved from 5 to 4 in this hack as Ubiquity uses 50/50 dice.

Posted by: Kovu Muphasa Apr 7 2010, 03:45 PM

He is one of the reasons we started when it comes to character creation in SR we started to say "Whats Your Concept?" and then make the character gor him.

Posted by: Dwight Apr 7 2010, 06:04 PM

Correct me if I'm misunderstanding your post; You propose rolling the same pool multiple times, at least System times, just to get in, before trying to actually accomplish anything? I've found extended tests the weakest part of skills core of SR4. By weak I mean "rolling-rolling-rolling before anything of note happens, slowing down my game" weak. Your suggestion, as I read it, sounds even worse.

Generally no real action happens till I get into the system so single pass/fail roll, and outside of situations that I can't actually imagine at the moment he's getting in no matter what is rolled. Because generally speaking outside = *snore* and inside = the action.

What do you plan to do for in-combat rolls? SR4 is closer to melding the two but it didn't come together.

Posted by: tete Apr 7 2010, 09:37 PM

You have to understand Ubiquity. 4+ is a success and you need 1-5 successes depending on the average, you can always take the average rather than roll in Ubiquity.

So take my example a system is generally rated 1-6 (not System + Firewall, just System) so you will need 1-6 successes on your dice to do the thing you want to do in one action.
Your dice pool is your Logic+Computers+Program Rating. So a really good Hacker with a good program should be around 15+ dice giving you 7+ successes and more than enough to beat your rating 6 system.

Example I want to find the files on the top secret project for X. The system is a rating 6 our hacker gets 7 successes finds the data and begins to download it in one roll and one turn.
The thing I am adding that is not part of Ubiquity would be to count the failures. I'm not sure how the chart would work yet but perhaps after 20 failures the system goes to passive alert.

For in-combat rolls I plan to make it work exactly as the meat world after Ubiquity modification, which basicly just lowers the dice pool on defense and combines dodge+soak into the same roll.

I'm trying for unified quick rules so we can get on with the mission.

[edit] note my example above assumes you already logged on to the system with enough permissions

Posted by: Dwight Apr 7 2010, 09:48 PM

Nope, that's not the issue. I read the other thread where you mentioned Ubiquity, generally speaking no problem with that (not having to roll for a roughly 50/50 test does strike me as odd but I'm giving that a free pass *shrug* ). The issue is the potential for multiple die rolls where the result of each is "nothing happens". EDIT: Especially when the net result of a bunch of rolls can be a cockblock for the meat of the action ever happening.



What I mean is non-combat Matrix actions happening during non-Matrix combat action. Or, put another way, how do you do the conflict from the SR 1e/2e cover? If that isn't handled well, and I'm not convinced any edition of SR has yet, you are coming up short. This rolling, rolling, rolling might work there (EDIT: although issues with cockblocks may still apply). Is it a countdown, or they just have to beat the Threshold on a single roll and they succeed?

Posted by: tete Apr 7 2010, 10:08 PM

The issue on the cover

1. Roll Initiative
2. Go in Initiative order
3. On the hackers turn he can attempt the hack, if he gets enough successes he gets in, if not count those success toward the total needed and he can try to add more on his next initiative pass. So I would call it a countdown

[edit] I wouldnt seporate the hacking from the normal game, just have the ICE insert itself into the normal combat initiative order if triggered.

[edit2] to answer your other question, the success would stack, so nothing may happen for one round but each round you should be making progress. In most cases if your competent and not on an Ultraviolet system you should be able to just take the average and move on without rolling.

Posted by: Dwight Apr 7 2010, 10:12 PM

What if there was no ICE triggered?

I don't understand what "I wouldnt seporate the hacking from the normal game" means?

Posted by: tete Apr 7 2010, 10:32 PM

Well lets say Dodger needs to download a file but they get caught in a firefight while hes plugging in. Assuming he can take the average to beat the threasholds it would be 2 tests, 1 to logon and 1 to find the file in question. That would require 2 combat action phases + whatever time the GM decides he needs to actually download the whole file. If he cant take the average to beat the system it may take more than one round to logon or find the file in question but the thresholds should not be set so high that this happens to a competent hacker.

What I ment by the previous statement is there is no mini-game. The Hacker doesnt get his own mini-game on his combat phase and everyone sits around, combat happens during the hacking, its all one initiative cycle. If the hacker only got one pass he'll have to wait to find that file till everyone rolls initiative again.

Posted by: Synner667 Apr 7 2010, 10:37 PM

Do you treat Decker rounds the same as meatspace rounds ??
ie, Deckers don't do things in Decker timescales, which is usually faster than meatspace time [thoughtspeed being faster than meatspeed]

Posted by: tete Apr 7 2010, 10:42 PM

Yes

Posted by: Synner667 Apr 7 2010, 10:52 PM

It's my standard character design method...
...Concept -> wordy description for attributes -> attributes -> wordy description of skills -> skills

Posted by: Dwight Apr 8 2010, 12:48 AM

What I've done, and keep in mind combat is a little different an actions are scripted ahead to a degree and resolve simultaneously (have you played Wings of War? a lot like that), is that it is a mini-game intruder vs system/human admin countdown (on both sides, winner is the one that reduces the other side to zero, first). The actions are in lockstep with the meat combat but meat combat can, and often has multiple discrete steps/hacker action. This isn't to say that the meat characters are doing more, in fact the opposite is likely to be coloured as so. So it is just that the scale of discrete game mechanic actions to in-game world actions is different between Matrix and meat, with the Matrix actions somewhat more visualized to allow the people at the table more leeway to describe what is going on, fitting with how they are comfortable with envisioning the nuts and bolts of the computer tech (see my post above).

Also the outcome of the mini-game is reduce the other side to zero and you get what you wanted (plus unwanted side-effects scaled to how much you were reduced, like some level of injury from a fried brain or an inconvenient twist such as the opponent gained a clue about the meat behind the icon and is going to show up inconveniently later or you missed some piece of the paydata that you came for), partial success before you bailed or were reduced to zero gets you something good and something bad again in rough proportion. Again, much more a framework, a tool for the GM and the players at the table rather than numerous dictated details encoded in the rules.

If you are familiar with the Mouse Guard RPG, I shamelessly ripped the core concept of the mini-game from there and then adapted it to work along side more detailed combat plus some different partial victory/defeat consequences. EDIT: Had to make some modifications/tweaks to up The Scary some, too. Mouse Guard isn't aimed at evoking in players the gut wrenching and grim mood that I envision for a dystopian future. On the other hand I kept the team aspects, so lesser skilled tag-alongs aren't tourists but aren't total boat anchors either, thus more opportunity for whole party excisions with detailed action in moderately dangerous regions of the Matrix.

This mini-game is the same as if there was no meat combat going on when the GM makes the director decision to focus in on the action and draw out the scene. Otherwise the whole conflict, to accomplish what the player wants, is single roll or single versus roll and move on.

P.S. As a bonus a ripped down version, where the opponent isn't rolling and there is only you counting down the 'opponent', is included for 'dumb' tech. So you can use it for contemporary, and even 20th century levels of tech, in combat. I wouldn't bother with it outside combat though, just one roll and move on, as in combat it's just a pacing mechanism to keep meat combat and 'hacking' in sync.

Posted by: Kovu Muphasa Apr 8 2010, 01:50 AM

I thought this was about D&D 4e

Posted by: Dwight Apr 8 2010, 02:13 AM

A thread naming oversight by Redjack. The discussion originated as a discussion about a hypothetical post-CGL company replacing SR4 with another system, D&D 4e was mentioned.



But if you want it to be about D&D just treat my last post as the bar for solid support of non-shooting-people-in-the-face to measure D&D's relatively anemic support up against, and therefore why D&D would be a poor fit for SR. *cough*

Posted by: Mesh Apr 13 2010, 02:16 AM

http://forums.obsidianportal.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=1057&page=1#Item_0

Will never play 4e. It's a video game version of D&D based off MMOGs.

Posted by: Bull Apr 13 2010, 03:14 AM

WHich were based on CRPGs, which were based on D&D, which were based on miniatures gaming.

Your argument is flawed, though your opinion is not

Bull

Posted by: Whipstitch Apr 13 2010, 04:33 AM

Yeah, saying it's genuinely video game and MMO based is not really true at all. There's obvious roles in place, but it's really just a and RPG w/ minis combat more than anything else. I'd make a more direct comparison to stuff like clix games. Limited number of abilities per character, often dependent on bloodied status or healing surges, sorta like how clix abilities change up as the unit takes damage etc. Gygax and crew really were just building upon a legacy of kill-the-dudes-and-raid-the-castle skirmish rules, so it's not all that strange to see things come around full circle.

Personally, I think there's room in gaming for a franchise that's rather combat heavy but systemically light in other areas. Roleplaying doesn't necessarily need much dice support to happen, after all, and some people aren't really that much into getting in character to begin with. If I were to criticize 4th ED, I would complain more about how the Powers system lends a rather predictable mindset to most battles: You burn your encounter powers then resort to daily powers if necessary and then just stick with at-will. I'll grant you that it's actually not all that much less interesting in practice than most systems (I would argue that it's better than most and some fun stuff can happen when players set things up for each other well), but when your system is so predicated on combat it'd be nice if it was a cut above what it currently is. With that said, it's a good enough game that I'm hard pressed to come up with ideas to fix that. So, overall, I think it's a pretty good game and most of the criticisms I see tend to be of the apples to oranges variety and stem from irreconcilable differences in taste.

Posted by: Dwight Apr 13 2010, 12:55 PM

Complaining about the D&D rules being combat centric is like complaining water is wet. Reading that post I picture the author saying "This new glass of water? It is wet!" Like it is some sort of discovery, some sort of surprise that a glass of water is wet....implying prior ones weren't.

Posted by: Kovu Muphasa Apr 13 2010, 02:47 PM

Nobody has ever answerd this question

And what is wrong with that?

Posted by: Mesh Apr 13 2010, 02:52 PM

Actually, that's exactly the point I was making, circular and ludicrous as it may be. MMOGs copy the combat aspect of D&D which sees how popular MMOGs are and ditches the RP and setting for a table top version of the MMOG. Laaaaame.

Regardless of your mechanics rules in Shadowrun, it is a much richer world with a cool history with greater potential for world influence, RP, and things other than hack'n'slash... which is fun and fun in Shadowrun, too. It's just not the whole game.

Mesh

Posted by: Dr. Funkenstein Apr 13 2010, 02:59 PM

As I stated in another thread, for me, it's totally cool that they tried to define roles and give players a reason to build their characters a specific way. The problem is that they force you to pick a role and build your character around it no matter how silly or unlikely that may be. Character stats revolve around combat with non-combat situations (which is totally different than just roleplaying situations) being a pain in the ass to figure out or fit into your character. Hell, just being able to talk to people with Comprehend Languages, for example, is a struggle. You have to spend a small fortune and waste a ton of time to perform that "ritual." If it's not an ability to be used in combat, it's delegated to rituals, and nearly every single ritual has ridiculous pricetags and mandatory downtime associated with them.

It's one thing to have a game system that focused on combat, it's quite another to have a system that only focuses on combat.

The game also constrains characters so much in the name of game balance, but in reality it's just as broken and prone to abuse as any other system. The things you can do with a polearm and a not-even-intentionally-munched-out character build, for instance, is sickening. Some classes (which I dislike on general principle) are way overpowered while others are overly constrained. If you're going to cripple players and their ability to be as creative as they'd like, you should at least make sure the payoff for doing that is worthwhile. 4e doesn't deliver in that regard at all.

I'm not saying that I liked 3e any better, either. The rules bloat that game developed was even worse than 2nd edition. But the point remains.

Posted by: Kovu Muphasa Apr 13 2010, 03:07 PM

10gp is a fortune???
5th level: "That is a small amout of cash."
10th level: "Thats pocket change."
15th Level: "I don't carry any thing that small!"
[Yes I know its residium not GP]

Posted by: Dr. Funkenstein Apr 13 2010, 03:34 PM

It is if you prefer low level games, and that's one of the dirt cheap rituals, too.

Posted by: Delta Apr 14 2010, 07:38 AM

I have only played only low level 4E games so far, actually I've never played or dm'd anything beyond level 3 yet, and I do not agree that 10gp would be a fortune.

Posted by: KnightRunner Apr 14 2010, 08:28 PM

This made me laugh, because it is so true.

One couple I game with (D&D 3.5). They are not much into RP but they love a good dungeon crawl and epic combat. And hey so do I sometimes, that's why I play with them. They are also serious WoW junkies. One night we were in the middle of a very nasty combat during a Gygaxian dungeon crawl. Both of them were wearing shirts that said "Eat,Sleep, WoW". Anyway the topic of switching to 4e came up. That both stating vehemently that they would never play 4E. I asked why. Their answer? "Because it is too much like WoW, and turns it into nothing but a minis combat game." They are good friends, but sometimes I can only shake my head.

Posted by: Delta Apr 15 2010, 07:32 AM

Exactly my opinion on 4E. Is it combat-centric? Sure. Is it dungeon crawl-focused? Hell yes. Because, you know, this is what D&D is about. Just because they tried to make it into a kind of universal rules set with d20 (failing miserably, in my opinion) doesn't mean it always has to be this way. 4E is a great game for the kind of campaign it was created for, and that's a lot more than I can say about many other games out there.

Posted by: Synner667 Apr 15 2010, 07:41 AM

That's the thing...
...D&D is a product of its time - and that time was for dungeon crawling adventures and wargame variants.

When you play a boardgame, you rarely complain about the focus on combat, and inability to sweettalk the opposition...
...Because that's the way the game is played.

D&D4E, in many ways, has just gone back to its roots.
The people complaining have spent time playing RPGs where characters can do other things, and want D&D4E to have caught up - in which case it's not the game for them.

Posted by: Warlordtheft Apr 15 2010, 03:22 PM

Hey there are boardgames games that allow for that. Conquest of the empire, Samauri Swords, Settlers of Cataan.....etc..etc...

Posted by: Dr. Funkenstein Apr 15 2010, 03:27 PM

When a game promotes itself and is identified as the pinnacle of the RPG scene, one might actually expect roleplaying to be a viable and important option thereof. D&D 4e is not a roleplaying game. It's a combat simulator with roleplaying scenarios handled as obtuse and asinine "skill challenges" that, surprise surprise, rely entirely upon the luck of d20 rolls and, for all intents and purposes, appears to have been specifically crafted to be so annoying that no one would want to bother using them. "Here, roll d20 100 times. If you succeed 75 times, you win!"

/suicideattempt

Posted by: Belvidere Apr 15 2010, 03:31 PM

I've been playing D&D since second edition and I've loved it the entire way along. People complain the 4.0 is too combat based and the rules only apply to fighting and in my opinion that is a GREAT thing. If you look back at 1st and 2nd edtion D&D, there were very few rules for social situations and it was up to the players and their role-playing to come out of a social situation successful. Around 3e, which I still love. It began to suck the role-playing out of it and replaced it with roll-playing. I understand the need for that, because not everyone can talk the way they want their character too, but it just take alot away to me. So as a DM for 4e, I don't use skill challenges(which ticks off a few of my players, but oh well) and I take social situations and strategies back to what they were, role-playing. The rules only need to be their for combat anyway. At least that's my opinion. I shouldn;t need to roll to lie to the gaurd, my DM and I should know my character well enough to know whether or not the gaurd believes me, and actually role-play out the scenario. I hate the fact thatyou can spin the perfect lie, then it all falls apart because of a bad roll. it just seems silly.

Posted by: Kovu Muphasa Apr 15 2010, 03:42 PM

So by that logic D&D and AD&D are not roleplaying games becouse thier are no rules for role playing at all, just sugestions.

Posted by: Dr. Funkenstein Apr 15 2010, 04:03 PM

<shrugs>

Think whatever the hell you want. People are allowed to dislike D&D 4th Edition if they feel it does a shitty job of being an actual roleplaying game instead of just a video game simulator. A poor one at that. If you enjoy that sort of thing, more power to you. But I'm not going to call it an RPG when, after years of development and experience, they instead choose to embrace that one, tiny aspect of RPGs and all but completely ignore and outright annoy people who want to indulge in the brunt of it. It's called a "roleplaying game" for a reason.

For me, combat rules are there to help resolve conflicts that arise as part of the actual roleplaying experience. The world doesn't revolve around it in fantasy any more than it does in real life. This is not so in D&D. Practically all it is now is a dungeon/map experience where every move is resolved through combat. If you're not killing something, you may as well not even be playing the game. At best, you have one or two pages of "rules" (all designed to be annoying as Hell) to help you "rollplay" through those apparently inconsiderate moments where combat isn't practical. You know, like talking to the king so he can tell you where the next impossible dungeon filled to the brim with an idiotic array of random monsters is located. All so you can get the gold to buy that new Generic Weapon of Mechanical Bonus +3 so you can kill even bigger random monsters in even more stupid and completely unbelieveable dungeons.

If you like it, fine. I don't. I think it's absolute shit. And if Shadowrun ever adopts it as its core engine (which, by the way, is what the discussion is about), that'll very likely be the day I forever give up the greatest roleplaying game of all time. Because it'll no longer be a roleplaying game at all. Just like D&D 4e.

Posted by: Kovu Muphasa Apr 15 2010, 04:18 PM

I play Battltech, Star Fleet Battles, and WH40k
In all three of them we roll play a little and they are not "RPGs"
I have seen Role Play playing Monopoly.
Both of the new books have whole sections deticated to Roleplaying.

As far as the Skill Chalages:
They are thier to encurage roleplay and interaction.
Each player takes a turn trying to get past the challage.
In the other systems if you had a player who sat in the background and did nothing out of combat he did nothing, now he must interact with the world other than smashing goblins.

Posted by: Dr. Funkenstein Apr 15 2010, 04:23 PM

No. You don't encourage anything through the use of tedium and repetitively useless rolling of the dice. Well, that's not accurate. You encourage people not to do it.


No. Now all he does is roll some dice and ruin everyone's chances of succeeding because he was one of those douchebags who grew up only playing video games and so-called "RPGs" like D&D where roleplaying was something to be spat upon, so all he wanted to do was smash goblins. And in a game that revolves entirely around combat, it's no surprise that he doesn't have a single roleplaying-ish ability on his sheet to speak of. Well, unless you want to count the forced increase to all of his skills despite a complete and utter lack of attention (or even noticing that they exist due to their complete lack of uselessness).

Forcing him to roll dice doesn't do jack for changing any of that, except add to the tedium of the whole thing, and forcing someone who has no business being a part of something to be a part of it for... no real reason other than "don't just sit there, roll some dice because that's so much fun, honest"ness. Not that it matters, since the only time it comes up is, again, when you're trying to ask the king where to go get some more treasure for some random dungeon, or trying to save the princess (which, incidently, is only there so the GM can show how awesome he is by "proving" that roleplaying really is a part of the game, omg!) without having to do anything other than roll a couple of dice so you can get that sweet new magic item that lets you kill even bettererer.

Posted by: Kovu Muphasa Apr 15 2010, 04:46 PM

It forces the Group to interact. At fist it is only to roll 1d20, then they start to think of ways to get a modifier in thier benifit, then when one of the groups figurs out that if they try to help the other guy, then they start talking to each other about making plans and then they start role playing with each other.
The other thing about the skill challages that I forgot for the longest was if they can come with a way to bypass the Skill Chalage without rolling a single die they can.
Soon Skill Challanges just a set up for the players to make them think and some times thay can be the most fun part of the game. especialy when mixed in with a combat.

Posted by: Dr. Funkenstein Apr 15 2010, 04:53 PM

No it doesn't. Being part of a group "forces" that by its nature. If a person doesn't want to sit on their ass, they can think of ways to contribute all on their own. Well, assuming the game actually encouraged that and had options outside of combat.

All skill challenges do is force everyone to be a part of the tedious, useless, repetitive rollplaying (that's not a typo, by the way). No actual roleplaying is required or expected. You just roll your dice a bunch of time and add the number. As long as you get some completely random threshold out of some equally random number of required rolls, you succeed. Yay! No thinking, no interaction, nothing. Hell, you get more damn interaction out of combat in D&D than you do skill challenges. There's no variation either. It's always the same thing over and over. One skill, one modifier, a bucket of dice, and that's it. "Hurry up," the game system screams, "get this over with so we can go kill some random dragon that's apparently trapped in this tiny room in a dungeon with no exits big enough for it and, honestly, has no logical reason for being here other than to give you a bunch of treasure so you can move down to the next level."

Posted by: Kovu Muphasa Apr 15 2010, 05:00 PM

I don't know who you have been playing with, but I have had more than once spent more than a hour with a Skill Challenge that had a dozen rolls and all the rest was roleplay. One of my Players [after he was the one who made the challenge successful] now like the Skill Challenges more than monster smashing.
I guess it depends on how you run them.

Posted by: Dr. Funkenstein Apr 15 2010, 05:13 PM

Skill challenges are totally inane. All they ever consist of is rolling the exact same die, using the exact same skill, and adding the exact same modifier X amounts of times. Because, apparently, just doing it once isn't enough for whatever stupid reason. It's much more important to make it "challenging" and "realistic" by adding another random bit of randomness to a completely random and asinine system which does nothing to encourage roleplaying (quite the opposite).

All your alleged example proves is that you can ignore the game system and roleplay despite it, which isn't proof at all. Quite the contrary, really. Skill challenges are neither required nor an encouragement thereof.

Posted by: Dumori Apr 15 2010, 05:25 PM

I like 3.5 as in 4th you cant have as much fun. Full stop. Every time I've paled 4th I've gone 3.5 was more fun.

Posted by: Kovu Muphasa Apr 15 2010, 05:45 PM

One of the examples of what I am talking about. [All of the Bracketed thing are how it has been before 3e or 4e]

The Party is trying to get information about the bandits

Player A [Rouge]: I go and talk to the local guild about the bandits. He goes and starts talking to locals about were the Thieves Guild is, after talking and we roleplay talking to a few of them he is given a Streetwise Check DC: 15 he has a +2 for his CHA, +5 for being Trained and I give him a +2 for some of the money he passed around. He rolls better than a 6 and find the location. [Earlier Edition: There is a 20% chance of him finding it that actually requires no roleplay and there is normally no way to improve it.]
-This takes 5-15 minutes of Roleplay.

Player B [Fighter]: Starts to talk to some of the local garrison. Once more we roll play him talking to them and also passes them a few coins. He makes his Streetwise DC: 15 and he has no bonus for CHA, but he is trained and giving him a +2 he needs a 8 or better. [Earlier Edition: There is a Reaction roll made that has a 50/50 chance of success and with no CHA adjustment is remains 50/50]
-This takes 5-15 minutes of Roleplay.

Player C [Warlord] and Player D [Wizard]: Both decide to go to hall of records to look for a map or something. After talking to the old lady that is in charge eventually getting their way into the records room and starts looking around. After a looking around for a while the Warlord decides that he has a worse roll, INT +1, Trained +5, he decides he is going to help the Wizard. {Aid Another Action Skill Check DC: 10} he succeeds and the Wizard now rolls his History, INT +4, Trained +5, and +2 for being an Eladrin, The Warlords Aid Another Action adds another +2 giving him a +13 on the roll.
[Earlier Edition: I don’t even know what the other editions did other than it was either their or not.]
-This takes 10-20 minutes of Roleplay.

Each players got to interact with NPCs and got to do something and feels that they contributed.

Yah I see where 4e destroyed Roleplaying.

Posted by: Dr. Funkenstein Apr 15 2010, 06:09 PM

You assume I care about 3rd edition or any other incarnation of D&D. I wouldn't want Shadowrun to use any of those systems. Which, not surprisingly, is a point you seem to continue to ignore.

That said, yes, older editions of the game were different -- shocker! -- but all of them -- every last one of them -- had more options available outside of combat (the vast majority of which you ignore in order to make your point, such as all the non-combat oriented spells, proficiencies, class abilities, kit bonuses, situation modifiers, and etc.). 4th Edition, however, went out of its way to throw all of that to the dogs. In fact, your examples are so insanely biased that you may as well not even have bothered mentioning any of it. It's also amazing how everyone in 4th Edition has every skill, all of which automatically increase with them. Even the idiot savant and antisocial Fighter (who's lowest Charisma score is an 8, by and by, because.. uhm.. well, that's just how things are) is a veritable Don Juan at higher levels. That's not a roleplaying mechanic, that's... I don't even know what that is.

And, as an aside, each example you gave were 1) not skill challenges, 2) used just one skill (and only skills; other abilities? wassat? those are only for combat!) each time, and 3) required the exclusion of the majority of other players for each one. All things you were heralding against earlier in the thread.

Oh, and the word is "rogue."

Posted by: Kovu Muphasa Apr 15 2010, 06:32 PM

You are knocking the System. I have been playing since 1981. I have run/played almost every system that came out before 2000.
My 4 favorits RPGs are
1] Aftermath, but the combat can get insaine [Up to 20 rolls to determain a single gun shot] {Skill Based Sytem}
2] Shadowrun {Skill Based System}
3] D&D 4e {Level Based System}
4] World of Darkness
Other than D&D the whole system based on Skill Checks and other than a small section on how to roleplay.
They each have thier stong points and weak points.

4e is probably one the best games to teach Roleplay. all of the PHBs, DMGs and most of the source books give you averthing you need to learn to rollplay. D&D PHB1 1st page is "This is a Roleplaying Game".
Every other game on this list requires Soscial Skill Rolls, Driving Rolls, Stealth Rolls and Combat Rolls.

The point I was trying to make is
IT IS THE GROUP NOT THE SYSTEM

I don't see how my example debunks that there is no Rolplay. This could have come up in SR, Aftermath, GURPS, or Bunnies and Burows. You role play and let that dertermine if thier is any modifiers and then make a roll.
In Showdow run it would have been the Face, the Street Sam, the Hacker and the Street Mage It is still all the same.

Posted by: Dr. Funkenstein Apr 15 2010, 07:11 PM

Sorry, but with utterly insane comments like that, the only thing to do is agree to disagree.

Posted by: Kovu Muphasa Apr 15 2010, 08:01 PM

Then I guess the half dozen or more peaple that I have tought D&D don't know how to roleplay.

Posted by: Warlordtheft Apr 15 2010, 08:08 PM

Not one of your favorites?

I'll agree with you Kovu, D&D is typically the easiest game to introduce people to RPGs. Weather it makes good training for better roleplaying, that is more individual dependent.

Posted by: Kovu Muphasa Apr 15 2010, 08:30 PM

I could have made the list longer my Favorites
Furry Outlaws/Pirates
Gear Krieg RPG
Iron Claw/Jade Claw
Wolrd Tree
Toon

Posted by: Dumori Apr 15 2010, 09:33 PM

I just personally spend half my time playing 4th ed being bored. I mean it pans out combat wise and out of combat wise as a flow chart(all the time) ffs if one wanted you could write a program do play it endlessly for you (tough it would be a slightly inane idea due to no GM input). Sure I've never got to far in to it ect but thats how it seams.

Posted by: tete Apr 15 2010, 11:22 PM

Oh come on, really? It might be one of the easiest to get players for but come on! Mouseguard, Nobilis, Vampire... Your really going to pick D&D 4e?

We recently introduced 3 new players to roleplaying. The GM chose GURPS set in the watership down world because they had all either read the book or seen the cartoon. He pregened our rabbits and we sat down and played. The session rocked cus the GM ignored all the rules in GURPS except roll 3d6 under your skill level. The rest of it was all roleplay, including one bunny making the black rabbit appear crossing the moon using her Fiver power (psionics) to scare away the dogs. That was not in the rules but it was awesome.

Posted by: Kovu Muphasa Apr 16 2010, 01:01 AM

Making PreGens is just one of the tools to teach
What else makes it good is somthing nobody ever thinks of, the GM knowledge of the Game/Adventure.
I use the Village of Homlet as my Teaching adventure. I have probably ran it 8-10 times in 1st-4th eds, Oriantals Adventures, Furry Outlaws and I even have a version of it writen for Shadowrun, but I have not run that one yet.
I can run it in my sleep, which means I can concintrate on teaching the rules not what is going to hapen next in the adventure.

Posted by: Dwight Apr 16 2010, 05:47 AM

Which is to say that GURPS sucks as an introductory game for beginners? Throwing out all the rules is pretty much conceding to that. Which I guess was your point?

I will say that out of all of the D&Ds, a case can be made for 4e as one of the best for experienced GMs to introduce to RPGs, and I would suggest very well could be the best for an inexperienced GM. Basic D&D might be the closest competitor there, yet 4e has a lot of polish for things such as helping beginners to avoid stepping on their own dick.

But once you include the whole of RPGs, yeah, it faces some very stiff competition. Especially on the inexperienced and younger side of GMing.

Posted by: Dr. Funkenstein Apr 16 2010, 05:48 AM

There's a difference between introducing players to the nature of roleplaying games, and between a game encouraging and being an excellent system with which to roleplay. Huge differences.

Posted by: KnightRunner Apr 16 2010, 01:59 PM

my 2 copper....


1. I like D&D4E. I would not say it is my favorite game, but it is an improvement over previous editions. And like it or not, it is the most played game. Which means it will be the easy to find groups/people to play with. Although in my area Pathfinder may be making a run for popularity.

2. I do not disagree with most of what Dr. Funk is saying. I just think he is being a bit unfair. D&D is a Role Playing Game because it allows Role Playing. It may not be the best at it and we can argue the degree to which the game encourages RP. Regardless, RP can and does happen. So no matter how combat centric the game is, it game deserves the title RPG.

It is also unfair to compare combat vs. RP in a game. All games have both. Some just emphasize one over the other and some do a better job at one or the other. (or both) In many cases a products choice in design is driven by its fan base. The truth is that a lot of people want a combat centric game and WoTC is trying to give it to them.

3. Skill challenges were designed to encourage RP. I honestly believe that. Allow me to explain. This is the first time in D&D that an attempt was made to allow character advancement by doing something other than killing things. Theoretically a player could advance without ever engaging in combat. So yes I like the idea of skill challenges. Unfortunately I think the designers missed the mark. Skill challenges in practice, all too often discourage RP in favor of rolling dice.

4. D&D can be a good tool to introduce people to RPG's. Mainly because, as I mentioned above, it is the easiest to find people to play and in many cases the easiest to find material for.

5. Role playing is more about the People than the System, but some systems are more encouraging to RP than others. So, yes I have seen some D&D4E games with great RP. Though truth is, that the better RP players are not drawn to the system.

6. If I want a good beer-drinking chip-eating night of combat with hours of BS and tangents, then I play 4E. If I want more RP and some plot, I play Shadowrun. (Note: Just examples not a definitive list.)

7. Dr. Funk is entitled to his opinion. Though I must say he seems to put a lot of energy into hating D&D4E. Don't hate it, just don't play it.

Posted by: Dr. Funkenstein Apr 16 2010, 02:37 PM

The discussion was about Shadowrun adopting a D&D4e system. That's what I "hate." I don't care much one way or the other about 4e in and of itself. I even play it from time to time, but I'm going to scoff at anyone who says it's a great roleplaying game, let alone one of the best for encouraging actual roleplaying. That, alone, is patently absurd.

Posted by: KnightRunner Apr 16 2010, 02:48 PM

Well to be honest, such a thing would ruin Shadowrun for me as well. I just find your opinion to be a little harsh. (Though basically correct) *shrugs*

The variety of opinions expressed in this thread are the perfect example of why there needs to be a variety of games and systems.

Posted by: Bull Apr 16 2010, 04:40 PM

I've said before, and I'll say again, I like D&D4e. It's not perfect, you can roleplay just fine in it. You just have to, you know, roleplay. Kinda like you had to do back in the 80's when I started gaming. Honestly, having skill rolls to fall back on far too often puts the Roll in Roleplaying, even in Shadowrun.

That said, I do still agree with you here. Shadowrun would be terrible under D&D 4e. It would be terrible under D&D 3.X too.

And this thread doesn't quite know what it wants to be. It started off with the "Shadowrun adopting D&D 4e rules", but it's kinda morphed a bit into a general D&D thread, and I think you guys are arguing from two different places.

Bull

Posted by: tete Apr 16 2010, 05:42 PM

Yes, exactly. GURPS is crunch at times (especially character creation) so I wouldnt argue it as a good system for noobs. You can still use it, but that doesnt mean the system is good for it



For an inexperienced GM I would say WFRP 2e. Honestly its all you need in one book and is easier for someone with no roleplaying experience to read and then run better than any other RPG I have read. The sample adventure in the back helps to.

For experienced GMs obviously the game your most familiar with is the best for you. Baring that I would say Mouseguard is a top contender.

Posted by: Dwight Apr 16 2010, 11:41 PM

I find exactly the opposite. Without the dice what the "roleplay" turns into more and more is coded arguing of the player's case. Having the dice there [properly and judicially applied] takes away that odd situation of trying to get the player's point across through the muddled medium of this strange encoded language of "roleplay". This might not be so bad if you didn't have to try tailor it and aim it so hard at one particular person at the table but, save for outlying games, players effectively do.

Also I don't have to lie to my friends to have the characters I'm controlling effectively deceive the characters they are controlling, or out-stubborn other players to bring across a willful character. So I can push into character further without being a jerk myself.


Of course dice poorly applied often come off brutally jarring. I'm looking at you, as written, D&D 3e Diplomacy.



As noted above in one of my previous posts, when I start talking about a port of SR to different system and was told this was a D&D 4e thread (or something to that effect), it started out with discussions about another the hypothetical of the SR license being falling to another existing RPG company that then brought out an SR5 a different, existing game system as the base for the rules. I think this discussion about how D&D works (4e and otherwise) is a fairly decent part of the discussion....as is talking about rules in general and other options.

Posted by: Dwight Apr 16 2010, 11:59 PM

I really need to sit down and go through that entire book some time. I was in the playtest but I haven't actually gotten to play all of the finished product. I know there have been some changes but the draft I had was pretty good at steering clear of jargon, keeping things straightforward, and explaining what is going on. Mind you it certainly can trip up experienced RPG gamers that come in with assumptions, that don't just read the rules and play them. *shrug*

Posted by: Mesh Apr 18 2010, 01:43 AM

Dead wrong. 3rd edition was actually the first version of D&D to only give out xp for combat. But even that statement isn't entirely true. They offered guidelines for rewarding other types of encounters and other ways of getting past encounters... but effectively they turned D&D into a purely combat rewarded game. All previous editions gave out rewards in a much more free form way. Basic (see companion set) actually went so far as to break down what % of xp should come from killing, treasure, roleplay, and other sources. Back then creating magic items was more of a quest, and when you were successful you earned xp not expended it... etc.

Reducing social encounters (yeah, that's the roleplaying part of the game) to dice rolls seriously sucks if that's all you're doing. Versions of D&D do that. Shadowrun does that. This is the make or break part of roleplaying: How does your GM handle it? Does he let gather info, intimidate, and sense motive allow the players to get all the clues, manipulate all the npcs, tell which one is lying, and crack the mystery with a bunch of d20's? Same for Shadowrun: Do you let your players rely purely on dice to deal with the Johnson, do their research, manipulate the ncps, and solve everything so they know exactly who to blast and how to cover it up?

Hell no. You let them roleplay at the very least all the interactions with the npcs of note. Johnson got you by the short hairs and lowballin' you? Put on a show! React how your character would react. Argue your case. At the end of it you may use some dice rolls to help the DM decide how far to swing things (for or against you), but RP > dice any day.

Sure you can still use bluffs on security guards and secretaries, but you're missing out on half the fun of running if you don't play these out with even the bare minimum of interaction. As a DM/GM I want even my players with horrible RL social/interpersonal skills to try to RP, "Step out of your shell and try it, chummer. It's fun, and you'll enjoy it." Then I use the dice to help out: Ok RL your social skills are nil, but your guy does have a 5 charisma and a wad of cash... your RP didn't help (you told the bouncer he's cool and asked to buy him a drink. yeah, that wasn't slick), but I'll let you roll your etiquette to avoid getting your face smashed, and heck maybe he got a laugh out of it and will let you in anyway. When I as a GM don't know one way or the other how a less than essential npc will react, I'll let the dice pick up the slack for the player's ability or lack of ability.

What you personally allow in your games is the make or break, but here's the rub about 4e: The PHP is 318 pages all describing what you can do in combat. WTH!?! Sure, sure, you don't have to run combat all the time, but what the frag are the expectations of the players? They pick up the PHP and want to know what you do in the game, and all they see are 40 pages per class of ways to whack drek.

Compare that to Shadowrun. You don't even get to the rules before you've read a killer story that sucks you into the world of 2070 (or year of choice). The game is the world. The world is its history. And its history is written in the shadows of the streets. Enter the players into those streets.

Posted by: Dwight Apr 18 2010, 02:08 PM

I take issue with two things/assumptions embedded in that sentence:
1) combat is a great place to "roleplay", as in play the character
2) if you only roll dice for social then it would suck....the same as if you only rolled dice in combat it would suck, and for most RPGs (and other games) you don't because people generally don't like it, sometimes being refered to as "the game playing you" (think Snakes & Ladders where you just roll the dice, there are no decisions for the player to make)

The general criteria for a social conflict resolution mechanism that doesn't "suck" is:
1) not "mind control", it doesn't change the characters attitude even if it does change their actions, ultimately this means that all people running a character than is directly impacted by the outcome must agree to the range of possible outcomes (prior to the roll in pretty much required in practice)
2) things tend to work better when there is a range of different potential outcomes rather than a binary branching, though if you can get binary branching fine enough (lots of rolling) it can have the same effect as multiple potential outcomes
3) the mechanism should heavily encourage players to say/do things IC (be it by 1st person or 3rd person), and what the character expresses should matter, meaning it is factored to the outcome

This is why 3e D&D Diplomacy sucks in use so much. Binary, no mechanism for shared agreed upon range of results prior to the roll (anti-thematic to the rules overall). There is a little bit of what was said done, factoring in, but it usually is only a die bonus...and with the way the distribution curve for a single d20 roll looks (meaning straight, flat line), so with this wide range of outcomes the bonus (unless it is absolutely huge) often doesn't feel like it "mattered".

And no, Shadowrun has never really explained how to do this. The only thing they really have on D&D 3e/4e is: A more varied number of Skills, so you can put have a number of varied rolls quickly after one another, and the curve of the dice pool probability isn't flat, so you can evoke a little more "it mattered" feeling to bonuses. So no, Shadowrun doesn't do a hugely better job of it but D&D would be a move backwards.

Posted by: Mesh Apr 18 2010, 02:47 PM

Yeah, you're assuming alright. It's hard to "take issue" with something that doesn't contradict your own views.



Exactly. Did you read the entire post before you shot off a reply?

Mesh

Posted by: Dwight Apr 18 2010, 04:13 PM

Let me tie that back to part of KnightRunner's comment:

That is an improvement that D&D 4e. While I don't agree that it is the first, it is definitely a stride forward (and yes, Basic D&D was in a number of ways superior to AD&D ... probably the most dramatic demonstration of RPG design passing Gary by, in a number of way generally 3e was closer to Basic than AD&D, as the two lines were folded back together). Skill Challenges tries to set up a structure for mixing in both, in a larger structure over an extended period of time. It certainly doesn't reduce it to just dice rolls, although unfortunately the homogenization of the Skill levels in 4e kind of works against it. And overall it's pretty flat, just more than D&D has provided before.

Posted by: last_of_the_great_mikeys May 11 2010, 02:31 AM

You know, D&D and Shadowrun are entirely different games based on entirely different systems with entirely different goals. I don't know why you're trying to compare them. Just play the one you enjoy or play both if you don't.

You wanna be the hero of the age? Wanna rise to ungodly levels of power and change the very land upon which you tread? Play D&D.

You wanna be a badass criminal in a gritty, dog-eat-dog world where there are no heroes? You wanna live in a world where the only colours are shades of grey, the system crushes the masses and nobody is innocent? Play Shadowrun.

Whichever you play, have lots of fun!

Posted by: Dwight May 11 2010, 08:00 PM

Did you read the thread, the whole thread?

Posted by: Grinder May 11 2010, 08:05 PM

Why bother? This is dumpshock!