D&D 4E Reconciling 4e's rough edges with Story Now play

[andreszarta]

I was notified about your thread by another party who pointed out another thread where some folks used it to passive aggressively, sneakily-yet-publically, simultaneously edition war and take shots at myself and a few others (which is apparently the point of the thread! What an excellent idea for a thread that is, right?). That reality is pretty dispiriting, tiresome, creepy (how old is this game? 15 years and this is still happening), and would make me disinclined to engage with your post to produce content for that embarrassing, cowardly thread…but I’m not the cowardly type so I’ll go ahead and engage! They’ll almost surely report this offering in the same embarrassing way they used your post as a springboard for sneaky, alt-channel sniping (its crazy that such a thing is allowed on the forum)! So this might be my last help for you! So be it! Don’t care!

I'm familiar with the crowd. At this point what else if not try to be compassionate. If making fun of us is their way to cope with us finding each other in collective knowing and agreement around a specific form of gaming that to them never made much sense, I'm ok with being their laughing stock. I definitely prefer that over causing them further pain.

 

[pemerton]

I'm familiar with the crowd. At this point what else if not try to be compassionate. If making fun of us is their way to cope with us finding each other in collective knowing and agreement around a specific form of gaming that to them never made much sense, I'm ok with being their laughing stock. I definitely prefer that over causing them further pain.

I know it's a bit of a tangent to your thread purpose, but I like your response here. My default response to the stuff @Manbearcat mentioned is probably a bit less compassionate and a bit more spiteful, but there's not actually that much opportunity or occasion to act out any of that spite!

I've always found it a bit weird that some people get very angry that other RPGers are enjoying 4e by playing it a certain way. And I've always enjoyed conversations with posters like @S'mon and @Libramarian for whom 4e played story-now is probably not their main thing (especially in Libramarian's case) but who share my enjoyment in thinking about various different approaches to RPGing, and how different sorts of techniques - including some of those found in (or easily extrapolated from) 4e - can support different sorts of RPGing.

 

[pemerton]

As in "this is the flip side of the coin/the player facing mechanics for dealing with difficult terrain"?

That. And also it's a nice suggestion about how to set up a particular sort of difficult/challenging/hindering terrain - ie make it be a narrow beam (or whatever), require Acrobatics checks to move at half speed, have a rule for making a check if you get hit or otherwise you fall (I'm taking this from the RC - I don't think it's in the PHB), etc. That last bit could be conceived of as a form of terrain power - it creates the possibility of falling without having to push to an empty square, because the occupied square is mostly empty space.

There are wonky aspects: generally being pushed over a ledge gives a saving throw to avoid falling (instead falling prone at the edge), but in the narrow beam case it's being replaced by an Acrobatics check which is far more level-dependent (but there's no "edge" to fall prone at, so the generic rule doesn't easily apply). I think the most important thing is to be pretty upfront with players about how you plan to resolve these things. At least in my 4e experience, the excitement is not in discovering that an Acrobatics checks is needed, but rather in discovering that my PC is here but really needs to be over there and then working out how you're going to make that Acrobatics check despite your low DEX and heavy armour!

Any tips?

A couple of thoughts.

In another active ENW thread, a poster is talking about a 21st level party having crushed the god Lolth. When I ran an encounter between 29th level PCs (I think they were just short of 30th) and Lolth, it was pretty epic, but I had beefed up Lolth to give her enough action economy to be viable against 5 PCs. In general, especially above Heroic tier, my advice would be that you can't go wrong making key creatures/NPCs interesting in their stat blocks, and for solos in particular looking for ways to strengthen their action economy.

The second thought is that the maths is (nearly) everything. So when a designer (or a player) comes up with a combo that seems to break the maths (like the DEX-based barbarian build I mentioned in the other thread) I think it is best to just be upfront and talk about how to fix the maths of the build. Don't fall into the "right to dream" habit of treating the mechanics of the builds as an expression of the fiction (eg what it really means to be a barbarian), such that it would be disrespecting the fiction to fix the maths.

The one bit of maths I didn't fix, and perhaps should have, is the +6 to all knowledge skills for the Sage of Ages. I think this would be better done as Advantage (in the 5e sense) on all those skills. The +6 just goes a little bit too far in breaking the skill challenge maths. In practice, the way I've handled it is (i) to rely on the fact that other PCs also have to succeed at checks to win the challenge, and (ii) to use framing and "soft" moves in the context of the challenge to pressure the Sage of Ages player to declare non-knowledge-based actions. That's where "story now" techniques come into their own!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Hey EnWorld!

My last dalliance with 4e was back in 2017 when I briefly ran a short campaign for a group of friends who were interested in playing the game with a more Story Now approach. Back in the day I was drawing a lot of inspiration from the discussions that were held here, in threads like Pemertonian Scene-Framing; A Good Approach to D&D 4e.

My thinking and experience with Story Now gaming wasn't nearly as mature as it is nowadays with most of my current gaming being firmly rooted in the PbtA tradition. As I am preparing to revisit 4e with the eventual intent of running it, I want to ask for your help in trying to understand and reconcile what I consider to be some of the rough edges in the system that seem to be pointing away from that particular agenda. Since I have a good number of these questions, I kind of want to go in order and explore each one deeply before moving on to the next, but I'm also very open to have the conversation move to surprising places as very often I found those to be tremendously educational and have others point me at their own points of contention. All good contributions!

Let's start with skills. Chapter 5 of the PHB1 talks about skills in a manner similar to every other edition of D&D, a general overview of what each does, its related stats and then a discussion of its associated mechanics. Each skill seems to want to focus on a series of special use cases (such as Heal's First Aid or Dungeoneering Forage) that point at the different ways these skills are meant to be invoked.

When I read these use cases, I don't know why my mind is unable to read them as, say how I would read a PbtA playbook move, and instead what I get from them is a really strong pull towards Right to Dream play were these actions can't meaningfully exist without the more naturalistic approach to exploration.

Let's look at Acrobatics, for instance:

Acrobatics (Dexterity)
Armor Check Penalty
You can perform an acrobatic stunt, keep your balance while walking on narrow or unstable surfaces, slip free of a grab or restraints, or take less damage from a fall.

Acrobatic Stunt
Make an Acrobatics check to swing from a chandelier, somersault over an opponent, slide down a staircase on your shield, or attempt any other acrobatic stunt that you can imagine and that your DM agrees to let you try. The DM sets the DC based on the complexity of the stunt and the danger of the situation. If the stunt fails, you fall prone in the square where you began the stunt (the DM might change where you land, depending on the specific stunt and situation). Your DM always has the right to say that a stunt won’t work in a particular situation or to set a high DC.

Acrobatic Stunt: Standard action or move action, depending on the stunt.
✦ DC: Base DC 15.
✦ Success: You perform an acrobatic stunt.
✦ Failure: You fail to pull off the stunt and might fall or suffer some other consequence.

Balance
Make an Acrobatics check to move across a surface less than 1 foot wide (such as a ledge or a tightrope) or across an unstable surface (such as a wind-tossed rope bridge or a rocking log).
Balance: Part of a move action.
✦ DC: See the table.
✦ Success: You can move one-half your speed across a narrow or unstable surface.
✦ Fail by 4 or Less: You stay in the square you started in and lose the rest of your move action, but you don’t fall. You can try again as part of a move action.
✦ Fail by 5 or More: You fall off the surface (see “Falling,” page 284) and lose the rest of your move action. If you are trying to move across an unstable surface that isn’t narrow, you instead fall prone in the square you started in. You can try again as part of a move action if you’re still on the surface.
✦ Grant Combat Advantage: While you are balancing, enemies have combat advantage against you.
✦ Taking Damage: If you take damage, you must make a new Acrobatics check to remain standing.

Reduce Falling Damage (Trained Only)
If you fall or jump down from a height, you can make an Acrobatics check to reduce the amount of falling damage you take.
Reduce Falling Damage: Free action if you fall or a move action if you jump down.
✦ Damage Reduced: Make an Acrobatics check, and reduce the amount of falling damage you take by one-half your check result (round down).

When I read Balance action for instance, where success means you can move one-half your speed across a narrow or unstable surface...I mean cool, that's what physically happens in the fiction but we got no meaningful output with regards to whatever conflict we are meant to be resolving. Instead we got a output that sort of demands that attention is placed in the minute details of the fiction, and leaves conflict resolution to GM Fiat.

So I guess my questions are:

• Is it just me who is reading skills incorrectly? If so, what am I missing and how am I not seeing them in the proper light? How are these working, as written, to support Story Now? When are we supposed to be rolling them?
• Do others see this similarly? What use are you giving skills then? I assume primarily Skill Challenges but are there other use cases?

I friendly summon @pemerton, @Campbell, @Manbearcat, @chaochou, @S'mon and any others who have experience with this style of play! At some point I want to talk about Rituals and Utility-Based Magic Items and I would really like to learn from you all, as I have done before.

OK, so yes, 4e does have these skill descriptions with these fairly classic D&D-esque 'trad' RPG descriptions. It then introduces the SKILL CHALLENGE, and guess what? SCs throw all of that out the window! The DCs during an SC are fixed at medium (and maybe sometimes hard or easy, depends on which write up you use as to when exactly that will be). The fiction is just generally described, there's no requirement for a 'battle map' or whatever during an SC, and they can range in scale from basically a combat to a year long overland trek spanning a continent.

But here's the thing, 4e has fundamentally a bit of schizziness because it has this very generalized resolution framework that is pure story, and then this other one that's all nuts and bolts. So, in combat it matters that jumping moves you a certain distance, because time and distance and such are super important in combat. You just have to resolve these things. Like, high level PCs might do an SC where they climb the World Ash and leap to the Moon, you can do anything. Then next minute they're fighting and the fighter can leap 40' (8 squares) and that's that. You can either just accept it as a sort of 'cinematic logic' or try to reconcile the two. Frankly it never got to be a huge problem for me.

Honestly, my policy outside of any encounter was simply not to have checks happen. If nothing is at stake, just narrate the outcome or let the player have what they want (say yes). If something is at stake, then there should be an ongoing skill challenge!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Let's talk Rituals! Eye of Alarm, for instance. Same deal right? It totally makes sense in a naturalistic, dungeon crawling context with a persistent world. In a scene-framing game though?

Yeah, it got used some in my campaigns. I just played it pretty much straight. If a successful detection could work as a success in an SC, then creating one let you check Arcana and obviously would send the fiction in a certain direction. Outside of that, it could set up a combat situation, or simply provide a fictional cue. I tend to see rituals as a way of allowing a character to alter the fictional context of the ongoing challenge in order to use a different skill/ability, and possibly to get auto success depending on how good the fit to the situation is.

So, for instance the PCs wanted to get into a guarded town through a back entrance, and they had a ritual that would make them difficult to spot (I forget what its called, but it is a level 1 ritual from somewhere) and track. So they got through the back entrance, and got to use Stealth even though there wasn't any cover and they were in plain sight.

You could also think of rituals as basically about the same as a specific skill use description, just a sort of mini rule to apply at that point. Yes, it is kind of 'trad', but then the outcomes need not be. So, again, it just tells you how to frame the next bit of fiction.

 

[S'mon]

Hi @andreszarta, I agree with @S'mon about a degree of incoherence in 4e - that gets tightened up a bit over time (ie in subsequent publications)

Hm, I think 4e Essentials often made it worse not better; since there are chunks of half-arsed support for simulationist play in there as part of Mearls's attempt to salvage the game. But 4e was never going to be an all things to all people game. 5e achieved that goal very effectively.

 

[niklinna]

Hm, I think 4e Essentials often made it worse not better; since there are chunks of half-arsed support for simulationist play in there as part of Mearls's attempt to salvage the game. But 4e was never going to be an all things to all people game. 5e achieved that goal very effectively.

I'll give you "many things to many people". 5e really doesn't do it for me, and definitely didn't with the original classes & subclasses. But maybe I just haven't met the right 5e DM yet!

4e had its problems, but I lucked into a fantastic multi-year campaign and the DM wove my character (a star pact warlock) deeply into the world, which was pretty rad.

 

[chaochou]

At some point I want to talk about Rituals and Utility-Based Magic Items and I would really like to learn from you all, as I have done before.

Hello! I think I'm on record (and if I'm not, I will be in a moment...) as saying that I didn't use 4e in a Story Now style. @pemerton @Manbearcat @Campbell and others found ways to play it as such - my group didn't really try.

We had an early experimental phase of seeing what could be done with it, but ended up deciding to play to the game's fundamental strength and main design feature - as a co-operative fantasy beat-em-up, which it does better than anything else before or since.

 

[darkbard]

Can you point me to any that don't exist within a larger Skill Challenge context?



Can you expand on this? Like it would seem to me that DW's moves are way more generalizable (and thus useful) than the specific use cases of skills.

I'm pressed for time so can't point you to particular posts right now, but if you scroll through and look for Pa'avu's use of Athletics to combat stunt in the fight in the undercity of Bantouk against the ochre jellies and Chanvati's use of Arcana as part of Living Missile Attack against the id fiend, you'll see two instantiations of Skill use outside of a Skill Challenge. I believe those are the only two in the game so far (and we're level 6!). That's kind of the point, though, and I think @AbdulAlhazred already covered this well: the structure of the Skill Challenge is the use of Skills in the game, or, at least can be.

As for expanding on the ways Skills can be generalizable in a way akin to DW's Basic Moves, I would say that leaning into the idea of Fiction First does a lot of work here. Who is the character? What are their approaches to conflict resolution as reflected by strong Skills (ability scores and/or training/racial/theme/feat bonuses)? What is the fictional framing of a particular conflict, and how does that interact with answers to the previous two? DW's Discern Realities to "search for clues" in a scene that seems rife with potential for sabotage might be approached by a Ranger with good Wisdom and training in Perception or a Wizard through training in Arcana or a Dwarf Runepriest underground and so on.

In these examples, I think "being a fan of the characters" implies broad interpretation of Skill implementation so long as the fiction supports it (it usually can!) and everyone is on the same page with what John Harper advises in BitD: "don't be a weasel."

If I have time later, I'll try to chime in with more details and after having given this more thought.

 

[pemerton]

Hello! I think I'm on record (and if I'm not, I will be in a moment...) as saying that I didn't use 4e in a Story Now style. @pemerton @Manbearcat @Campbell and others found ways to play it as such - my group didn't really try.

We had an early experimental phase of seeing what could be done with it, but ended up deciding to play to the game's fundamental strength and main design feature - as a co-operative fantasy beat-em-up, which it does better than anything else before or since.

I "laughed" because this post made me smile, but it also reminded me of an interesting (serious) comment made by some theorist or other: that the features of a RPG that let it support "story now" may often also be ones that allow it to support "step on up" - namely, elements (which 4e has in abundance) that allow players to make and express choices that impose their will on the shared fiction. It's just the rationale and expectations for why you impose your will that differ in the two cases.