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| He will kick your ass. |
I played an Old Kung Fu Master template (character class) that I'm pretty sure was designed for jolly little Mr. Miyagi types. For my own guy (see the picture) I decided that he would be a villain like the guy who gets his balls busted at the end of the 1977 classic Invincible Armor. My basic line of explorations was "What if the evil white-haired master of a thousand deadly techniques worked for the good guys?" Since these guys always roll around in wicked cool robes that my guy would be horrible at blending in with modern Hong Kong society. The pic of him in his civilian clothes is swiped from an old SomethingAwful.com column called FashionSWAT. Since have the players in the game had chosen templates based upon white action heroes (I think we had a Mafia thug and a Kurt Russell from Big Trouble in Little China, among others) I also decided that my guy would be a grumpy old racist who thought all honkies looked alike.
But my main problem with this dude was with his charsheet. I claimed to be master of 10,000 ways of killing a man, but mechanically I really only knew 5 different Kung Fu tricks. So I borrowed a trick from Champions, where pretty much any fluff can be assigned to any game mechanic. Enter: Chris Pound. Chris Pound's Language Machines is a collection of word-recombination toys that any GM should keep handy. Need a few Tsolyani names for your Empire of the Petal Throne game? Bam! Howzabout five hundred Dying Earth style spell names? Suck on this Vancian magic!
For this old kung fu bastard with the ugly suit I printed out this sample list of crazy martial art maneuver names. Every time I used a perfectly ordinary melee attack I would call out one of these names and then mark it off of my list. One round a simple punch would become "Roaring Mantis Scratch!", the next round the exact same mechanic became "Golden Sun Claw!" I never shared the whole list with the other players, so they were always in suspense regarding what sort of nonsense I would next spout. One time, as an experiment, I simply rolled my attack without calling out its name. Everyone was visibly disappointed until I quickly looked at my list and tacked on a maneuver name.
I think musing on this experience recently has given me a little insight into why some of the 4e enthusiasts are freaked out about the way 5e seems to be leaning towards the old school. They don't want to go back to the days of "I swing my sword, again". That's perfectly understandable. If I was playing a 4e PC with a dozen weirdo powers I'd probably enjoy announcing my kickassedness just like I did with my white-haired kung fu douchebag. I think a fair number of Exalted players dig on that as well.
But I also think my Feng Shui experience might demonstrate that you don't really need any mechanics backing you up to achieve that sort of baroque combat ballet.
Even if this actual comment space does not erupt into an actual flamewar, I can imagine many 4e fans seeing this as miss-the-pointism on a level with how we view this:
ReplyDeletehttp://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/153954/dd-5e-discussion/p41
The reasons why they would say this are many and varied, but I'm guessing if they are interested they will speak up.
I've been trying to talk some sense into that thread, Zak, but I'm too word-dumb to properly explain why oldschool play isn't some rose-tinted nostalgia trip 4e-backlash.
ReplyDeleteIt's times like these I wish I could write as well as you just did in this post, Jeff. You make a really good point.
I think that D&D always attracted players of different tastes and playstyles, at least in part due to it being the flagship game for RPGs as a hobby. Before 4e came out, basically everyone did their best to make the current edition work for them, which is why back in olden times you had playgroups with binders of house rules that often took their home games in wildly different directions.
ReplyDeleteIMO, 4e is the most focused of editions - it knows what it wants to accomplish in its rules and what type of game works best using those rules and tailors almost everything around that.
There are lots of players who really dig on what 4e is bringing to the table and now that they have a game that explicitly caters to their taste, many of them can't grok why anyone would play a game that doesn't. I think it really shows that D&D has really turned into more of a big-tent genre than any one specific game. This comes with plusses and minuses, depending on who you are.
I think the issue is not literally with the paradigm of "I swing my sword, again," it's "I do some HP damage, again," so whether it's "Brutal Overhand Chop," or "Subtle Spinning Slash," or "Darting Thrust," it's not helping the 4e fans if all 3 do 1d8+Str damage, full stop.
ReplyDeletePrecisely.
DeleteQuestion to 4e players: how would you feel about it if you got to make up your manoeuvres on the spot? Like instead of having "Spinning Cobra Clutch" on your character sheet, when your turn comes in combat you just say that you're doing this new move and describe what it is, and you and your DM work out the effects right then and there?
Delete"you and your DM work out...."
DeleteIs seriously one of the things many 4Eers want to route around.
It is pretty much the opposite of what they wanna do, from what I am given to understand.
4e DMG page 42 is basically that idea but for most 4e players I have encountered that is not desirable compared to the known and signature-to-your-character abilities
DeleteZak, you're correct. A 4e player is happy when the GM allows for flavorful description and exciting narrative, they'll work out cosmetic differences from the written description outside of the game, but they also want... they almost NEED... for their power to do exactly what it says on their power card, regardless of who is GMing or what logic might dictate. Needing to work anything out with the DM during play is the antithesis of the 4e worldview.
DeleteI think I can understand that. If I look at it from the perspective of someone playing a tactical combat game with miniatures and cards, a lot of the 4e viewpoint suddenly makes a whole lot more sense to me.
DeleteA few years back I made the mistake of playing a BECMI Mystic in a friend's Barrier Peaks game. Combat was disappointing, but playing a Hindu monk named Balaram Sumudu Bagravatna Prayatna and punching Vegepygmies while screaming things like "Iron Rainbow Elbow Drop!!!" and "Empty Sandal Technique!!!" and "Three-fold Unbreakable Bitchslap!!!" made for a pretty killer time.
ReplyDeleteIf I had to do it again I'd make him a Luchadore though. Duh.
Well, who doesn't like punching Vegepymies.
DeleteGood call on the luchadore, though.
Oh my.
ReplyDeleteOsatikens's bifurcate eardrum
The spell of cartographic expansion
Poggin's languid escutcheon
The call of the slimy platform
Keroline's urgent sunshade
The charm of restorative profit
Ekitz's conducive pornography
I'm going to be spending A LOT of time with that Dying Earth spell generator. Thanks for the heads-up!
"The spell of cartographic expansion" - Yoink. I can so imagine the look of despair on the mapper's face. I have only one M-U in my home campaign, I'll re-equip her with this stuff. And will totally make scrolls which reveal only the name of the spell before they're used =D.
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ReplyDeleteSorry, I decided to put my reply here, instead.
DeleteI find though it's nice to have the occasional mechanical benefit to the cool stuff you say your character does. Feng Shui has a stunt mechanic where if you do anything fancy with your attack but it does not really change much, that's resolved like a normal attack, but if you want some tangible benefit to what you are doing, then the g.m assigns -1 or -2 modifier depending on what your getting out of it. So, for example, Tetsuo the mad monk is punching johnny pigeons the triad . I could say, "Tetsuo grabs him by his stupid florid tie, pulls him into a heat butt, and then uppercuts him with the hand holding the tie, sending his head rocketing up, but I hold onto the tie and pull him back for another head butt." And all I want to do is a standard attack, cool, it's resolved as normal. But if I was like, "oh and I wanna still be holding the tie, so he can't jump on the swinging platform on his turn" the g.m would go cool, thats -1 and if it works, I'll have him not be able to move away from your on his turn. Lets say I do that, it works, Johnny Pigeons has taking damage, Tetsuo is holding his tie, so on his turn the g.m declares he shoots the tie in half, sending tetsuo reeling back , and then attempts to put like a dozen rounds in tetsuos chest and cause Tetsuo to fall off the catwalk , while screaming, "You made me kill my tie you bald bastard!" So the g.m reckons this is a -2 modifier because it's trying to do alot more.
ReplyDeleteThe player of tetsuo would get to do something if tetsuo fell off, at the very least a dex check or something.
Also since tetsuo has fu powers, he could of used "claw of the tiger" so he did more damage with the attack. And Johnny Pigeons, could increase the damage he is doing by using a weapon on full auto.
So theres 3 levels of mechanical complexity that could be happening and can be accessed depending on how much tacticalness everyone can be assed with in that particular combat.
I liked Feng Shui, it had it's flaws, but had some brilliance as well.
DARTING MONKEY BUTT!!!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if you could get that Same Great Taste™ rewriting Power Attack, Weapon Expertise, etc as 4e-style power attacks instead of overly-verbose feats.
I've used that same list with a Risus martial artist. It rocks the world.
ReplyDeleteUsed this last night with my fighter-that-wanted-to-be-a-monk-but-his-stats-were-too-crappy. Stupid awesome fun!
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