NSR Camp 4, and thoughts on 4E D&D
I managed to get 4 games in:
- Stygian library, Cairn (run by me)
- Sussurating tower, GLAIVE (run by the creator of GLAIVE)
- Abbreviated Harkenwold, 4E (run by me)
- The Grafter's Tomb (Electrum Archive)
Games I played
I played 2 new game systems. Briefly, my impressions: GLAIVE is a nice medium-weight OSR-ish game. It fits nicely in a niche I haven't played in before - medium-weight, not a retroclone, upbeat in tone. It has a nice kind of cartoony aesthetic, and the Sussurating Tower is also kind of a fun, lighthearted module. It's probably pretty approachable for someone coming from 5E who wants a bit less complexity but not like to the degree of Cairn.
Electrum Archive is also a lot of fun- definite Dune inspirations but takes itself a lot less seriously. Someone in the game died after trying to graft a rat brain to themselves, for instance. I played a member of the merchant houses, and I see the potential for a really cool extremely faction driven campaign, but I don't think there's a lot of module support at this point - I'm tempted to make a module for it.
Games I ran - Stygian Library
This was my second time running it (see the previous blog post for the last time). Also, someone ran two games of Gardens of Ynn - depthcrawls seem to have captured the NSR imagination at this point in time. It sounds like we ran it very differently (or the players played it very differently), we hit about 3x as many rooms in Stygian Library as they did in Gardens of Ynn.
(Spoilers for Stygian Library ahead)
The story ended up very different each time. The one thing that it had in common is that both times the trapdoor spider room was very deadly. This time the party basically sacrificed a party member to the trapdoor spider; in their defense some people had cancelled last minute so there were only 3 people in the party.
They saw a very different slice of the meta-story this time. The first time there ended up being a "big boss" which was the wasps, this time it was a devil. Nobody has found the really deep secrets of the place. However, there was a fair bit of overlap in rooms, especially in the like 12-22. The rooms at the beginning and end show up a lot less.
This worked great for a one-shot, but if I did a campaign in here where people really delve the secrets of the place, I wonder if rolling a d12 or even d8 would work. It would take longer to get to the lower levels, but you would get less bunching of rooms, since then the depth would matter more than the die roll. You'd be less likely to move beyond the early rooms without ever seeeing them. The library might feel more distinctive as you go down.
Games I ran - 4E
I was most worried about running this. I was worried people wouldn't like it, even though people signed up to play it specifically. I was worried I'd forgotten the rules, but after a quick refresher it seems like I have permanently devoted an unreasonable amount of brain storage to the rules of 4E.
I ran an abbreviated version of Reavers of Harkenwold. The scenario was that the players were to go to Harkenwold, find out why nobody had heard from the place in a few days, and then report back. I started with E1, and then had exploring the valley as a skill challenge, with two possible final encounters (E3 and E4) depending on the outcome of the skill challenge.
I had wondered if my PbtA experience since last running 4E would make me run skill challenges better. I say this because there are commonalities between clocks and skill challenges. Skill challenges actually came first, and do feel like a less mature version of the general concept. And, in fact, I'd say this experience did help. What I didn't account for is that the math behind skill challenges makes it almost impossible to succeed. I don't think the players ever had a chance. I think I was able to make it lead to some satisfying RP in terms of developing a relationship with an antagonist who showed up in the final battle, but I think the players were a bit frustrated at how hard it was to succeed.
Another big problem with skill challenges as written is that whoever wrote the rules was really concerned about players "abusing" the rules. The rules as written were too narrow and seemed to discourage creativity, which is where skill challenges would shine, and so I ran them with more flexibility. My overall verdict is that they are workable with a lot more houseruling, but they feel very much like an early implementation of a mechanic that has since been done a lot better. I'm a bit disappointed it got entirely abandoned in 5E though rather than just fixed - if they'd been willing to draw from the world of indie games they could have done a good job, I think.
In fact, now that I've played a lot of rules light OSR games, it seems like about 50% of 4E's verboseness is due to a fear that players will try to rules lawyer everything. For instance, the charge rules, which I inexplicably mostly remembered, could be replaced by a GM making reasonable rulings about what charging at someone looks like.
It was a lot of fun to see people familiarize themselves with the system and learn to use it well. 4E is a game that really rewards teamwork - that's one thing I like about it as a modern ("trad") D&D system. For instance, when 5E got rid of flanking, it greatly reduced the need to think about other players and how work with them effectively. Many character abilities work best in combination with the abilities of other classes. I was a bit worried in the first combat, which acted as a tutorial, if people were grasping the rules enough to enjoy themselves. And then when they failed the skill challenge they ended up with the harder of the two battles. But in the last battle, they had figured out the system well enough to have their characters' effectively build off of each others' powers and strengths. This I think made their victory feel really earned.
More thoughts on 4E, 5E, and combat as sport
In OSR, there is the concept of combat-as-war, where you try and avoid fighting as much as possible. When you do have to fight, fight unfairly and prepare as much as possible to have things go your way, because combat is deadly.
This contrasts with combat-as-sport, which is often maligned. In combat-as-sport, there are basically two teams, each team is expected to be somewhat equally matched, combat is not meant to be avoided, and it occurs mostly within well-defined rules.
In 4E, both sides should feel more or less evenly matched in terms of raw damage. However, you don't lose 50% of the time - teamwork and clever tactics are used to put the odds in your favour. To get this experience, character classes need to be fairly complicated and the rules need to be sufficiently complex. You need different types of resources to manage. Not everyone finds this level of complexity fun, though.
5E was meant to bridge various playstyles, ans stepped away from this level of complexity of the rules. Many classes don't have a lot going on other than swinging a weapon, and positioning or other factors doesn't really affect how well they swing that weapon. This often makes combat-as-sport unsatisfying, as results can feel random or like the GM is pulling their punches. But ultimately 5E is not trying to focus on combat-as-sport, as that narrows the appeal of their game system. And I think 4E and its offshoots are fairly fundamentally different from 5E in their design and in the intent behind tht design. I think if you're trying to determine how you feel about combat-as-sport, you should look at 4E or 4E-like games.
As a side note, 4E has a pretty good DMG. It has the most comprehensive section on understanding player motivations and resolving possible interpersonal issues. Although, between that and the extremely defensively written ruleset, I wonder wht sort of players the writers of 4E were dealing with.