Post by anarkeith on Mar 3, 2011 14:46:45 GMT -5
We had a great discussion after last night's session of Dark Sun 4e.
What I took away from it was that Dave enjoys using game mechanics to express his character's role in the game world. A perfectly legitimate form of role-playing. Adam however found that mechanics (particularly 4e mechanics) put him in mind of a board game, and he felt out of touch with the role of his character when the game mechanics (as written) were heavily in use (such as during combat.)
Adam said (and I paraphrase) that he had actions he wanted to undertake, but felt like they weren't in the rules, and so therefore wouldn't be allowed.
As a GM, I've usually got several Daves, some Adams, and various other types of gamers sitting around my table. No one gaming style is going to work for all of them, just as it's impossible to engage all the characters in an encounter (though the 4e rules make a valiant effort to do so.) The challenge the GM faces then is to provide as many opportunities for each of the players to role-play in the manner they most enjoy, while presenting a cohesive adventure.
The clear mechanics of 4e enable me to entertain Dave with a combat or skill challenge. But, I've got to keep in mind that the Adams and Fritz's at my table need to trust me enough to play in their preferred mode, either in conjunction with the mechanical mode, or in addition to it. So, when Adam decides that he wants to shove the BBEG back through the extra-planar portal through which he materialized, I need to be able to negotiate with Adam to reach a method of resolution to the conflict (Adam's shove versus the BBEG's intention to stay here and wreak havoc). Adam needs to feel comfortable floating his idea out there, while Dave is busy rolling initiative and calculating which power is going to put the most hurt on the BBEG.
One of the things that has gotten 4e into trouble with gamers (IMHO) seems to be the elaborately codified combat mechanics. Everything is defined, choreographed, balanced and pre-adjudicated. The transition from on-the-fly GM judgments, made in the storytelling or exploration phases of the game, to by-the-book rulings in combat is a jarring transition.
As a result, players confronted with combat (or other more codified phases of the game) tend to self-limit to the options defined on their character sheets or in the rule books. The gray areas between the rules are lost, and so the game becomes (for some) more of a mechanical exercise.
Encouraging players who prefer to "play in the gray" to continue to do so, while still balancing that with the expectations of those happily engaged by the game mechanics must be a two-way negotiation. Just as the GM must be ready to listen to a player's proposed action, the player must be ready to listen to the GM's proposed method of conflict resolution, and to respect the GM's right to adjudicate the conflict. That's really what cooperative play is all about, but in this case we the players are placing our trust in one of our own to be the "master" of the game.
My first year-plus of running 4e has been a rollercoaster experience. I'm guilty of setting up sessions devoted exclusively to a series of elaborately staged combat encounters. 4e is packed with tools to for this. Too often, huge swaths of time were devoted to mechanical pursuits at the expense of free-form gaming. And players have, in some cases, lost touch with the knack for "coloring outside the lines".
Recently, I've blamed the system for this. But, increasingly, I've come to suspect that it is the GMing that is at fault. James C at A Dungeon Master's Tale puts it well when he says of players, GMs and dice:
That's a whole RPG rulebook in one paragraph, as far as I'm concerned.
So, what I'm trying to do going forward is to simplify 4e mechanics, while still leaving enough mechanical "vocabulary" for players like Dave to role-play in their preferred mode, AND adjust my GMing style and encounter design to encourage other methods of conflict resolution and problem solving.
What I took away from it was that Dave enjoys using game mechanics to express his character's role in the game world. A perfectly legitimate form of role-playing. Adam however found that mechanics (particularly 4e mechanics) put him in mind of a board game, and he felt out of touch with the role of his character when the game mechanics (as written) were heavily in use (such as during combat.)
Adam said (and I paraphrase) that he had actions he wanted to undertake, but felt like they weren't in the rules, and so therefore wouldn't be allowed.
As a GM, I've usually got several Daves, some Adams, and various other types of gamers sitting around my table. No one gaming style is going to work for all of them, just as it's impossible to engage all the characters in an encounter (though the 4e rules make a valiant effort to do so.) The challenge the GM faces then is to provide as many opportunities for each of the players to role-play in the manner they most enjoy, while presenting a cohesive adventure.
The clear mechanics of 4e enable me to entertain Dave with a combat or skill challenge. But, I've got to keep in mind that the Adams and Fritz's at my table need to trust me enough to play in their preferred mode, either in conjunction with the mechanical mode, or in addition to it. So, when Adam decides that he wants to shove the BBEG back through the extra-planar portal through which he materialized, I need to be able to negotiate with Adam to reach a method of resolution to the conflict (Adam's shove versus the BBEG's intention to stay here and wreak havoc). Adam needs to feel comfortable floating his idea out there, while Dave is busy rolling initiative and calculating which power is going to put the most hurt on the BBEG.
One of the things that has gotten 4e into trouble with gamers (IMHO) seems to be the elaborately codified combat mechanics. Everything is defined, choreographed, balanced and pre-adjudicated. The transition from on-the-fly GM judgments, made in the storytelling or exploration phases of the game, to by-the-book rulings in combat is a jarring transition.
As a result, players confronted with combat (or other more codified phases of the game) tend to self-limit to the options defined on their character sheets or in the rule books. The gray areas between the rules are lost, and so the game becomes (for some) more of a mechanical exercise.
Encouraging players who prefer to "play in the gray" to continue to do so, while still balancing that with the expectations of those happily engaged by the game mechanics must be a two-way negotiation. Just as the GM must be ready to listen to a player's proposed action, the player must be ready to listen to the GM's proposed method of conflict resolution, and to respect the GM's right to adjudicate the conflict. That's really what cooperative play is all about, but in this case we the players are placing our trust in one of our own to be the "master" of the game.
My first year-plus of running 4e has been a rollercoaster experience. I'm guilty of setting up sessions devoted exclusively to a series of elaborately staged combat encounters. 4e is packed with tools to for this. Too often, huge swaths of time were devoted to mechanical pursuits at the expense of free-form gaming. And players have, in some cases, lost touch with the knack for "coloring outside the lines".
Recently, I've blamed the system for this. But, increasingly, I've come to suspect that it is the GMing that is at fault. James C at A Dungeon Master's Tale puts it well when he says of players, GMs and dice:
Discuss, Decide, Describe and Resolve are the four in-game actions by which the three participants exert their agency. Here's the bottom line in my view: The dice get to decide and resolve. The DM can do all but discuss and players can do all but resolve. Put another way, the DM establishes the nature of the world and its inhabitants. The DM decides upon what would or could happen given no involvement from dice or players and then arbitrates their involvement. The players discuss, decide upon and describe their actions. The dice resolve any conflict and make the decisions the DM is delegating to them (i.e. random monsters, random treasure, random whatever). Posted Dec 7, 2010
That's a whole RPG rulebook in one paragraph, as far as I'm concerned.
So, what I'm trying to do going forward is to simplify 4e mechanics, while still leaving enough mechanical "vocabulary" for players like Dave to role-play in their preferred mode, AND adjust my GMing style and encounter design to encourage other methods of conflict resolution and problem solving.
