Monday, July 13, 2009

Suck It 4E (Redux)


In general, the enjoyment of a D&D adventure is the fantasy: identification with a supernormal character, the challenges presented to this character as he or she seeks to gain gold and glory (experience levels and magic items), the images conjured up in the participants' minds as they explore weird labyrinths underground and forsaken wilderness above, and of course satisfaction of
defeating opponents and gaining fabulous treasure. This is the stuff of which the game is made. Protracted combat situations which stress "realism" will destroy the popularity of the game as surely would the inclusion of creatures which always slay any character they fight. The players desire action, but all except the odd few will readily tell you that endless dice-rolling to determine where their character will defend against an attack, and so on, are the opposite of action; they are tedious. Furthermore such systems are totally extraneous to the D&D system. Although they might not ruin the game for a particular group of players, general inclusion will turn off the majority of enthusiasts.  It would turn me to other pursuits, for if I was interested in that sort of game I would be playing a simulation of something historical, not a fantasy game.
- E. Gary Gygax, Dragon #16, 1978


4 comments:

  1. I'm confused - what does this have to do with 4e? It seems to me Gygax is doing another of his unwitting trampling-on-AD&D's-silly-simulationist-pretensions pronouncements while handily pointing out the flaw in the silly grognard position that 'extremely deadly low-level play is the true essence of D&D.' Well, that's nothing new. The man wasn't much of a writer but he had a hell of a mind. 4e combat has nothing whatsoever to do with 'realism'; have you ever played the game, or even read the rules? The combat engine is a loopy board game, Battle Chess++ if you like; and its starting point is Gygax's attractive fantasy talk. All well in line with the quote you've presented, in other words.

    4e combats take a long time at first, yes. That's partly because, unlike OD&D/AD&D combats, they're intrinsically interesting and complex.

    4e isn't a retrofitted miniatures wargame; there's nothing accidental or compensatory about its design. That's why it's very, very good at what it does. (I'm sympathetic to the argument that that's why it's not good at certain other things...but I think in a year you'll see new styles of 4e play very much in line with 'old school' principles. If you're looking, if you care, etc.)

    Well. So what?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I suppose I could have made this more succinct:

    "Protracted combat situations which stress "realism" will destroy the popularity of the game as surely would the inclusion of creatures which always slay any character they fight. The players desire action, but all except the odd few will readily tell you that endless dice-rolling to determine where their character will defend against an attack, and so on, are the opposite of action; they are tedious."

    You may read this different from myself. Worrying about 5' moves and standard actions and full attack actions and use of skills like "bluff" for feints, or feats for breaking weapons or disarming folks or blah blah F'ING BLAH...in other words, making the game into one protracted combat encounter after another...is tedious. Plus it ain't the point of the game. Well, it wasn't the point of the original game.

    Combat..."intrinsically interesting and complex," as you put it...was not the point of Dungeons and Dragons per the co-designer. It may very well be "very good at what it does" but it's not D&D.

    Sorry if my point was confusing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The troubles being commented on are these: Combat stretches so long that one or two battles will eat an entire session, and the very obvious "winning strategy" makes your choices in battle tedious and bland. Also, while the system works on the combat scale, it almost entirely ignores every other scale of play.

    Good D&D works on a lot of different scales: Man-to-man combat, dungeon exploration, wilderness exploration, character interaction, empire-building, mass combat, political, naval, strategic, and so forth. But as a result of its central, intricate combat rules, 4e focuses on the "personal combat" scale to the virtual exclusion of all others. If you find the blow-by-blow of combat tedious and trivial, and are more interested in simply seeing how the fight affects the group's ability to meet it goals, 4e is one of the worst systems around.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Post Script: 4e combat is also not "intrinsically interesting". Lots of people find all that detail boring as hell, especially when the game is rigged in your favor and you already know the probable outcome. My group has found that combat is much more fun when there's more at stake and fewer filler rolls.

    ReplyDelete