Does it exist??
4e since its launch has been a lightning rod of controversy with legions of devoted fans who ardently defend it and many naysayers attacking it from afar ... generally stubbornly clinging to their 3.5 (a very few clinging to 2nd ed or an old school clone). I put myself with the 4e group ... I've played the hell out of 3.5 with many different groups and DMs. I have fond memories of those experiences ... but 3.5 is a bastardized amalgamation of broken combos and min max, feat centric complexity that I leave happily behind.
To me I think the big thing that all of the RPG theorists out there are missing is the simple equation that every game is bound by ... TIME ... you can do either deep complex roleplaying where you interact with dozens of NPCs and become embroiled in political intrigue, investigation, discovery ... dénouement! ... OR .... you can have awesome tactical grid based combat where the party works in unison to defeat challenging encounters via a minis centered tactical skirmish game.
Yes you can have amazing RP with 4e quite easily ... you could even use the skill rules from say 2nd ed combined with the combat of 4e ... but at the end of the day ... if you play in an average group. You are constrained by TIME ... how much time do you have to get what it is done that needs to be done? Years ago I played in a weekly game where we met at noon every Saturday and went till 3 AM. We had alot of time ... we were doing 2nd ed ... we had alot of RP and did alot of combat. These days those kinds of games are rarer and rarer ... even hardcore gamers without busy schedules struggle to put together a five or six hour weekly session. So with a game like 4e ... that has somewhat complex mini centric combats that take an hour or two on average to resolve ... unless you have a good 8 or 10 hour block on a weekly basis ... trying to add deep long RP into the game ... well your not going to be able to get much done. So then you end up with a DM fudging exp so players level up reasonably fast, etc. etc. and you have all these wonkey add on house rules etc. etc. ... as I said ... I'll pass on that. 4e shines at providing cool gritty combat and it just flat out does NOT shine at facilitating really good RP. Yes of course you the DM and you the party can add that in ... but the RULES do not facilitate that. Whoever said previous versions didnt do that ... yes they did ... there were complex skill system sets that had rules for huge amounts of non-combat activity and that added to the options that players had for RP. If your chr was a rogue with alot of aprasial abilities, forgery, etc. etc. you could use that to springboard into RP stuff. All that is removed from 4e and you have a bare bones skill set that is ultra generic and ultra universal ... PERIOD. So 4e DOES NOT facilitate the RP like older versions of D&D did AND as 3.0 and 3.5 did ... 4e kills the RP mood frequently with the abrupt jump to the grid ... that really pulls people out of the abstract RP side of things and plunges you into tactical mini skirmish land ... where things function alot more like a minis game/board game than an abstract deep RP style game.
So for me as long as I'm gaming with people who have time constraints ... I'm always going to pick one or the other ... deep RP ... or crunchy combats ... the folks I game with just don't have the time necessary to really do awesome RP combined with awesome crunchy grid combat ... justice. I've been there done that several times now with trying to make 3.0/3.5/4e be all things to all players ... and it just fails miserably. I strongly advocate that DMs/GMs and players match the kind of game they want to have with the system they are using.
I've also really come to believe that many people doing RPGs aspire to doing "deep role playing" but that of those throngs of people who say that ... only a small percentage really want to put the time and effort in to pull that off. Deep story driven games take a huge amount of prep on the DMs side ... and again ... many aspire to this ... but few want to actually put the time in. On the players side ... pulling off deep RP takes more than a 10 page backstory ... it takes actual roleplaying ability, focus during the game ... controlling yourself so your not constantly causing sideline BSing, and taking away from the immersive experience ... etc. etc. Deep story driven RPing is hard work. I love it ... but to be honest I've only experienced it a hand full of times in all the years I've been gaming. So this is another aspect of trying to have a game where your doing complex mini centric tactical skirmish combat ... AND ... doing awesome deep roleplaying. I think this might be a unicorn to be honest. I hear alot of bloggers out there claiming to be pulling this off ... but I'd love to sit in the back of the room and watch their group ... I'd wager that the vast majority of these so called "everything" games are falling far short of the mark.
Addendum:
If I gave the impression that rules are necessary for good RP ... no they aren't ... you don't even need rules at all to RP ... if you have a good enough group with enough comfort, skill, etc. you can just hang out and weave a cool collective/interactive story ... but really ... be serious ... who does that? What I am arguing is that rules that encourage RP can facilitate newer players ... or even experienced players who THINK they know what good RP is but really don't ... in moving towards better RP. At any rate that is my main point . I don't mean to imply that rules are necessary to support decent role playing. The other main point is people focus too much on having a game that provides awesome combat and deep RP ... I'd argue NO version of D&D has ever done that very well. Along the lines of the mythical interactive story group ... that kind of group is exceedingly rare maybe just a myth.
For someone who is in gaming group building mode ... forming a new group with mixed ages and RPG experience levels ... rules can help. As for GURPS and any of the massive encyclopedic rules heavy systems ... again ... if you have a bunch of older gamers who aren't averse to that kinda game ... cool. If you have a mixed group, some hardcore gamers some not so hardcore ... some 36 some 19. No offense but GURPS, RIFTS, Shadowrun (all games I've played extensively, along with 3.5) are pipe dreams ... people get bogged down in the rules, people get bogged down in min maxing ... the games derail fast if the GM isn't a ripping bad ass master of the rules ... players get bored .. the game ends after 4 or 5 sessions. That's my experience anyway. Anymore I just hope that we have a DM/GM who is a master of the rules to such an extent that the game doesn't derail and that the players are having enough fun to want to come back the next week.
Yes you can have amazing RP with 4e quite easily ... you could even use the skill rules from say 2nd ed combined with the combat of 4e ... but at the end of the day ... if you play in an average group. You are constrained by TIME ... how much time do you have to get what it is done that needs to be done? Years ago I played in a weekly game where we met at noon every Saturday and went till 3 AM. We had alot of time ... we were doing 2nd ed ... we had alot of RP and did alot of combat. These days those kinds of games are rarer and rarer ... even hardcore gamers without busy schedules struggle to put together a five or six hour weekly session. So with a game like 4e ... that has somewhat complex mini centric combats that take an hour or two on average to resolve ... unless you have a good 8 or 10 hour block on a weekly basis ... trying to add deep long RP into the game ... well your not going to be able to get much done. So then you end up with a DM fudging exp so players level up reasonably fast, etc. etc. and you have all these wonkey add on house rules etc. etc. ... as I said ... I'll pass on that. 4e shines at providing cool gritty combat and it just flat out does NOT shine at facilitating really good RP. Yes of course you the DM and you the party can add that in ... but the RULES do not facilitate that. Whoever said previous versions didnt do that ... yes they did ... there were complex skill system sets that had rules for huge amounts of non-combat activity and that added to the options that players had for RP. If your chr was a rogue with alot of aprasial abilities, forgery, etc. etc. you could use that to springboard into RP stuff. All that is removed from 4e and you have a bare bones skill set that is ultra generic and ultra universal ... PERIOD. So 4e DOES NOT facilitate the RP like older versions of D&D did AND as 3.0 and 3.5 did ... 4e kills the RP mood frequently with the abrupt jump to the grid ... that really pulls people out of the abstract RP side of things and plunges you into tactical mini skirmish land ... where things function alot more like a minis game/board game than an abstract deep RP style game.
So for me as long as I'm gaming with people who have time constraints ... I'm always going to pick one or the other ... deep RP ... or crunchy combats ... the folks I game with just don't have the time necessary to really do awesome RP combined with awesome crunchy grid combat ... justice. I've been there done that several times now with trying to make 3.0/3.5/4e be all things to all players ... and it just fails miserably. I strongly advocate that DMs/GMs and players match the kind of game they want to have with the system they are using.
I've also really come to believe that many people doing RPGs aspire to doing "deep role playing" but that of those throngs of people who say that ... only a small percentage really want to put the time and effort in to pull that off. Deep story driven games take a huge amount of prep on the DMs side ... and again ... many aspire to this ... but few want to actually put the time in. On the players side ... pulling off deep RP takes more than a 10 page backstory ... it takes actual roleplaying ability, focus during the game ... controlling yourself so your not constantly causing sideline BSing, and taking away from the immersive experience ... etc. etc. Deep story driven RPing is hard work. I love it ... but to be honest I've only experienced it a hand full of times in all the years I've been gaming. So this is another aspect of trying to have a game where your doing complex mini centric tactical skirmish combat ... AND ... doing awesome deep roleplaying. I think this might be a unicorn to be honest. I hear alot of bloggers out there claiming to be pulling this off ... but I'd love to sit in the back of the room and watch their group ... I'd wager that the vast majority of these so called "everything" games are falling far short of the mark.
Addendum:
If I gave the impression that rules are necessary for good RP ... no they aren't ... you don't even need rules at all to RP ... if you have a good enough group with enough comfort, skill, etc. you can just hang out and weave a cool collective/interactive story ... but really ... be serious ... who does that? What I am arguing is that rules that encourage RP can facilitate newer players ... or even experienced players who THINK they know what good RP is but really don't ... in moving towards better RP. At any rate that is my main point . I don't mean to imply that rules are necessary to support decent role playing. The other main point is people focus too much on having a game that provides awesome combat and deep RP ... I'd argue NO version of D&D has ever done that very well. Along the lines of the mythical interactive story group ... that kind of group is exceedingly rare maybe just a myth.
For someone who is in gaming group building mode ... forming a new group with mixed ages and RPG experience levels ... rules can help. As for GURPS and any of the massive encyclopedic rules heavy systems ... again ... if you have a bunch of older gamers who aren't averse to that kinda game ... cool. If you have a mixed group, some hardcore gamers some not so hardcore ... some 36 some 19. No offense but GURPS, RIFTS, Shadowrun (all games I've played extensively, along with 3.5) are pipe dreams ... people get bogged down in the rules, people get bogged down in min maxing ... the games derail fast if the GM isn't a ripping bad ass master of the rules ... players get bored .. the game ends after 4 or 5 sessions. That's my experience anyway. Anymore I just hope that we have a DM/GM who is a master of the rules to such an extent that the game doesn't derail and that the players are having enough fun to want to come back the next week.
3 comments:
Heck, I don't think that there's a game that's all things to even any individual gamer, much less to all!
I'd disagree that you need rules support to do roleplaying; as long as the GM and players are on a similar page and are reasonable it can work. With the right people you could have an epic role-playing session around Chess.
That said, I think that some of the more universal systems have a decent mix of combat crunchiness and non-combat rules support, like Champions and GURPS.
I agree with your point ... that rules don't facilitate GOOD role playing. That is the main argument people use FOR 3.5 ... that it has more Role Playing facilitating rules and therefore its better. I say BS to that. So I agree with you 100%. If you haven't played Burning Wheel, Dogs in the Vineyard, Spirit of the Century (anything FATE based honestly) its hard to explain that rules can actually FACILITATE RP ... the game itself can be centered around RP. Now with D&D the main RP facilitator has just been a more complex out of combat ability-skill set. 2nd edition for example had dozens and dozens of various very specialized skills. If characters built a certain way they could ... via the rules of the game ... gain a mechanical representation of their character to a greater degree than someone can in 4e. In some cases that helped players get into the personality of their character a little better, it helped them define their characters motivations, etc. to a greater degree. That is an argument I've heard about 4e vs. 3.5 alot. I do agree that it doesn't make 4e an inferior game to 3.5 ... I much prefer 4e over 3.5.
If I gave the impression that was my point I apologize and fully accept the correction. I never meant to imply that rules are necessary to support decent role playing. My main point is people focus too much on having a game that provides awesome combat and deep RP ... I'd argue NO version of D&D has ever done that very well. That said ... that kind of group is exceedingly rare .. the kind that can pull off amazing role playing over a chess game. For someone who is in gaming group building mode ... forming a new group with mixed ages and RPG experience levels ... rules can help. As for GURPS and any of the massive encyclopedic rules heavy systems ... again ... if you have a bunch of older gamers who aren't averse to that kinda game ... cool. If you have a mixed group, some hardcore gamers some not so hardcore ... some 36 some 19. No offense but GURPS, RIFTS, Shadowrun (all games I've played extensively, along with 3.5) are pipe dreams ... people get bogged down in the rules, people get bogged down in min maxing ... the games derail fast if the GM isn't a ripping bad ass master of the rules ... players get bored .. the game ends after 4 or 5 sessions. That's my experience anyway. Anymore I just hope that we have a DM/GM who is a master of the rules to such an extent that the game doesn't derail and that the players are having enough fun to want to come back the next week.
I really agree that good RP tends to come from outside of the game in the case of D&D and most mainstream RPG systems. There are many small press indie systems out there that will blow people's minds though in terms of the rules helping people come out of their shells and pull off awesome RPing. For me I use 4e for cool combats with some light RP on the side ... its fun ... its easy to get a group for and I enjoy it. That said I crave a well run Burning Wheel or Dogs in the Vineyard game ... and frequently those cravings go unfulfilled :)
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