D&D 4e
I've been playing the new D&D for a little while now and I've realized some things I do and don't like about it.
I like at-will powers and the fact that everybody gets them. I like the balance of classes and abilities.
I don't like the monsters.
Every monster we fight has some wacky ability or combination of abilities that would be viewed as incredibly twinky if a character had them. Last night we fought gibberlings. They knock you down, do extra damage against knocked-down people, and get free opportunity attacks when you try to stand up. How about the gelatinous cube we fought last time? When it engulfs you, you get dazed and start taking ongoing damage. You don't save against being dazed until the end of your turn, so on your turn all you can really do is try to escape. If you succeed, you end up in a space right next to the cube, unable to take a second action to run away. Guess what that thing's going to do to you on its next turn?
It goes on. I realize that for some people, that's the joy in D&D. It's a series of fights against interesting creatures. Fine, but that's not so fun for me, it turns out.
I was thinking about what makes me enjoy this less than other combat-heavy games, such as...well, pretty much everything this group plays. I realized it's motivation and situation, the same things that make me enjoy fight scenes in movies.
I really like the fights in Equilibrium, for instance, but they're really kind of goofy out of context. I've seen people try to show the climactic action sequence to people who hadn't seen the rest of the film, and it just fell flat. The movie does a great job of connecting me to the main character so that I actually do care when he fights his way through loser minions, then better minions, then the main henchman, and then the boss. Plotwise, it's no surprise at all. (Spoiler: the hero does well.) Out of context, it looks cheesy and derivative. When I've seen the whole movie first, though, I'm really rooting for our guy, and I'm really quite pleased when he gets to unleash well-deserved violence at the end.
I've had fights like this in roleplaying games, and they've been great. The bad guy is really bad, we've had some time to get to hate him, and it's really cathartic and fun when we get to finally take him down. This can certainly happen in D&D with the right GM, but the current games I'm in seem to be a series of fights with just enough RP in between to get us to the next fight.
Of course, a series of set-piece fights can be fun for me too. I've enjoyed Feng Shui games, for instance, that are structured just like that. I think the difference for me is that Feng Shui encourages GMs to make fights interesting by putting them in interesting places. One gun battle is mechanically similar to another, but they feel more fun and interesting if one is in a factory (with lots of cover and moving machines and volatile chemicals around) and another is in a restaurant (with lots of diners to avoid and flambes to shove bad guys into and a big aquarium that's just begging to be destroyed by stray bullets).
I think what I'm saying here is that I'd rather fight the same old skeletons or whatever in a variety of interesting circumstances than an endless variety of monsters in the same old 30x30 rooms or wide open plains, and I'll be extra happy about it if we have some motivation for fighting stronger than "we haven't cleared every room on this floor yet." If I just wanted to grind for XP, I could be playing City of Heroes at home with no pants on.
I like at-will powers and the fact that everybody gets them. I like the balance of classes and abilities.
I don't like the monsters.
Every monster we fight has some wacky ability or combination of abilities that would be viewed as incredibly twinky if a character had them. Last night we fought gibberlings. They knock you down, do extra damage against knocked-down people, and get free opportunity attacks when you try to stand up. How about the gelatinous cube we fought last time? When it engulfs you, you get dazed and start taking ongoing damage. You don't save against being dazed until the end of your turn, so on your turn all you can really do is try to escape. If you succeed, you end up in a space right next to the cube, unable to take a second action to run away. Guess what that thing's going to do to you on its next turn?
It goes on. I realize that for some people, that's the joy in D&D. It's a series of fights against interesting creatures. Fine, but that's not so fun for me, it turns out.
I was thinking about what makes me enjoy this less than other combat-heavy games, such as...well, pretty much everything this group plays. I realized it's motivation and situation, the same things that make me enjoy fight scenes in movies.
I really like the fights in Equilibrium, for instance, but they're really kind of goofy out of context. I've seen people try to show the climactic action sequence to people who hadn't seen the rest of the film, and it just fell flat. The movie does a great job of connecting me to the main character so that I actually do care when he fights his way through loser minions, then better minions, then the main henchman, and then the boss. Plotwise, it's no surprise at all. (Spoiler: the hero does well.) Out of context, it looks cheesy and derivative. When I've seen the whole movie first, though, I'm really rooting for our guy, and I'm really quite pleased when he gets to unleash well-deserved violence at the end.
I've had fights like this in roleplaying games, and they've been great. The bad guy is really bad, we've had some time to get to hate him, and it's really cathartic and fun when we get to finally take him down. This can certainly happen in D&D with the right GM, but the current games I'm in seem to be a series of fights with just enough RP in between to get us to the next fight.
Of course, a series of set-piece fights can be fun for me too. I've enjoyed Feng Shui games, for instance, that are structured just like that. I think the difference for me is that Feng Shui encourages GMs to make fights interesting by putting them in interesting places. One gun battle is mechanically similar to another, but they feel more fun and interesting if one is in a factory (with lots of cover and moving machines and volatile chemicals around) and another is in a restaurant (with lots of diners to avoid and flambes to shove bad guys into and a big aquarium that's just begging to be destroyed by stray bullets).
I think what I'm saying here is that I'd rather fight the same old skeletons or whatever in a variety of interesting circumstances than an endless variety of monsters in the same old 30x30 rooms or wide open plains, and I'll be extra happy about it if we have some motivation for fighting stronger than "we haven't cleared every room on this floor yet." If I just wanted to grind for XP, I could be playing City of Heroes at home with no pants on.