Jan 30, 2009
An Open Letter to Wizards
Dear Wizards of the Coast,
Before I delve into the matter that concern me, some disclaimers.
The first five minutes I spent with the product made the lifelong gamer/inner-game-design-wannabe in me go ‘A-ha!’. The next ten minutes were like a chain explosion of eureka’s. I like many of the decisions made in the production of the rules of this game. I like them so much I made a blog devoted to the game a few weeks later. I am no apologist for the latest edition of this venerable game, but I am certainly a fan.
Also, I know that everyone is constantly telling you what you should be doing. This letter, I’d guess would be added to that choir, but the spirit of this is intended not just to nitpick or find fault, but to be constructive and address an issue that concerns me. I’ll strive to be honest but not nasty.
Here’s what’s bugging me. Your published adventures leave me cold.
I’m not referring to what’s published in Dungeon, as some of those stray some from the thus-far established format. It is your shrink-wrapped, find-it-in-a-bookstore adventures that really aren’t doing it from me. Those adventures –and I know argument by anecdote is the slipperiest of slopes –also leave other people I talk to in similar chilled states.
What’s with all the roleplay-ENCOUNTER-ENCOUNTER-ENCOUNTER-skill challenge-ENCOUNTER-ENCOUNTER-ENCOUNTER-ENCOUNTER-roleplay going on? I understand that your current format appeals somewhat to beginners, and seems easier to produce. But it doesn’t showcase what 4th edition really brings to the table in terms of roleplaying. I know from my personal games that 4th edition is a much more flexible and rewarding system than your adventures show. I know from reading the blogs and writings of your chief writers/designers that they know the system is capable of more.
Show us! A lot of older, mature gamers (also known as people liable to buy published adventures due to lack of time to prep) that I have met (again with the anecdotes!) were willing to give 4e a shot, but after a chain of fight-fight-fight, got turned off from the game. It’s not that the adventures are bad –it’s the format that needs re-working. I like the new encounter formatting, but I really hate the non-stop combat encounters. What I want are more adventures like the Red Hand of Doom. That was a mini-campaign, but it moved between combat encounters to roleplaying encounters and everything in between almost flawlessly. 4th edition needs more of this!
I’ll confess that, though I avoid edition wars, cannot stand to hear this constant ‘4e is WoW’ and ‘it’s all combat’ that edition warriors claim for battlecries. I know that many of these people would be pulled over with a more a open, story based set of adventures. More use of skill challenges will show people what they are all about, and more roleplaying encounters will get people, young and old, inexperienced or veteran, to perceive more clearly what 4th edition is all about.
Please continue the great facilitation on roleplaying that you started in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Open up the game and provide more people with examples of what the game can do; of what experiences it can help achieve. You won’t convince or win over everyone, but you will open at least a few eyes. Provide examples to believers and doubters that roleplaying happens and is encouraged in your adventures. There is much to 4th edition that I feel is not being properly shown to the public, so here would be a great start. Show us what 4e is really all about!
If someone from WotC actually reads this, thanks for your time.
Regards,
Quinn, aka Gamefiend
Very good point. I too am a huge fan of 4th edition, mainly based on the way my players (long time RPGers) love it. That being said, if WotC could make adventures that, say, near the quality of work done by Paizo, it would truly highlight the quality of 4th edition even more so.
I still don’t know that I like 4th edition any better than previous versions. Things that bother me:
1. Too many status effects make keeping track of combat a chore.
2. Soo many attack options that have little differentiation cause even my somewhat experienced players to take much (much) longer per turn.
3. Damage doesn’t seem to scale well with hp so that as the levels go up fights start lasting a great deal longer.
4. Almost no non-combat related abilities for classes, and the few that there are must be taken INSTEAD of another combat ability (which rarely happens for utility powers).
I have resorted to using a timer from pictionary. I let the players that beat their enemies in initiative take a turn, and then we alternate back and forth with enemies and the part all together. The party has 3 minutes to take all of their actions or they are lost. It definitely makes combat more frenetic and enjoyable and we get through them much faster.
welcome to At-Will!
Agreed. The adventures just need more ‘oomph’ generously applied to make them really sing. More story elements to supply meaning/context to the battles. That drives roleplaying, and I think it will drive more people to and through the adventures. Right now I mostly buy the adventures for the maps and some encounter ideas. I haven’t even thought about running on yet.
As for published adventures, I’ve always leaned towards running my own material. Part of the enjoyment of the game for me has always been the building of a campaign. I have really started feeling the time crunch though, now more than before since I am actually running two different groups that meet to play about once a week. So really, good material that I can steal for my game is gold for me at this point.
Agree with the post, of course.
As far as Pathfinder adventures go, if WotC could come up with as good concepts as some of those adventures do, but apply the WotC level of design to it, I would be very happy.
One of the biggest flaws with 4e design philosophy is that it’s all about combat and encounters, with story only present as a tenuous thread to string encounters together.
My campaign differs greatly from that design, and as a result I’ve house-ruled stuff in such as secondary skills and making fights more meaningful (players should only fight when they have to, not as an excuse to get loot). The biggest thing to remember is to reward the players for story accomplishments as much (if not more so) than combat encounters.
Hi guys!
@JackofHearts 4e combat can be a bit fiddly. Do you use any props to help track status? One of my favorite tricks these days is to get a bunch of blank index cards. As conditions get applied to PCs, I just toss them the index card to put right on their character sheet. When the condition goes, I take it back. As for tracking monster stats, I usually try and keep some tokens and what not available to mark conditions. It can be a lot of extra props, but they can help everything go smoothly. I feel that the flow of 4e combat takes some getting used to, but I like it. I run my own material definitely for adventures. It’s the way I’ve always done it, and the way I like to do it. But to me, adventures are what give a peek into the soul of the game. I feel like WotC’s giving the wrong sort of peek into their game.
@Dave Yes. Yes. Yes. That would be the best of all possible worlds for me. One thing I feel is lacking in WotC’s 4e adventures are good characters. We get some interesting opponents, but no one character or group of characters for players and GMs to really interact with and that are memorable.
@Oz I agree with you completely and do very similar things in my campaign. I haven’t had to rule in secondary skills, but I do reward story achievements highly and am shifting the game to less and less combat for the sake of it and more combat with meaning.
I completely agree here.
I’m planning on running “Scepter Tower of Spellgard” for my friends and I’m having a hard time finding spots for role playing in there.
I expected the published adventure to be mostly combat, but I kind of expected it to leave some “holes” to fill up with other kind of activities.
I’m having fun preparing the whole thing, but it really beats the idea of “ready-to-play” adventure to the ground.
Hi Eric!
Scepter Tower is brutal. Fight fight fight fight fight. Rest, repeat. There’s interesting background and a couple of spots here and there, but there needs to be a better overall story that’s touched at several spots along the way to provide a sense of continuity, provide more opportunities for roleplay, and just improve the adventure all around.
/signed
Hey Gamefiend, I love your blog. I have to say, all games are what you make of them. I feel that I do agree with your analysis. We are running into this in my game now. I designed it from scratch but followed their guidelines. Now, it seems clear that it’s too encounter heavy. So in a few sessions, when this current adventure is complete, I will spend more time in session focusing on ‘other.’ Because really, that’s where the juice is and that’s where the fun is.
But can’t you do that with the store bought stuff too? I mean, why not throw a RP timeout in the middle of whatever module you purchased? Will it break the module? I know, it’s about time. But after the few encounters you play in any given session, when starting any given module, you should have a sense of what it’s all about and tweak it to fit your group, can’t you?
Anyway, since everyone is putting it out there, I love 4E. It’s one of the best systems that I have ever played. I encourage any haters to play a session or two with my crew. You would see why any negatives are actually positives. It is all what you make of it.