I finally picked up D&D 4th Edition (just the Player’s Handbook) and as I flipped through it, an interesting thought comes my mind. Every class has a well-defined role during combat, be it healing, blostering others, crowd controls (through shifting and pulling), debuffing (marks, combat advantages), area of effect damages and a scissor-paper-rock system (the types of Defenses – Armour, Will and Reflex). It looks like the designers took a page or two out from Game Design Patterns.
This got me wondering though. Who is responsible for building effective characters. This question, however, can be broken down. What do you mean by effective? And in what situation?
Effectiveness in which Situation?
Let define the situation first. Obviously, let start with the most common conflict, and sometimes the only one which matter to a goody number of players – combat. Of course, with the advent of MMOs, where the only type of conflicts is combat (social conflicts are usually govern by the person’s skills not the character’s stats), some players transiting from computer-based MMos to table-top may only concentrate on combat-effective builds.
This leads to a classification of skills such as ‘combat’ and ‘utility’. In fact, this term probably starts with World of Warcraft (which I have never played), appeared in Lord of the Rings Online (which I do play) and I suppose many others, then finally into D&D 4th Edition. Whether table-top RPGs should rely heavily on elements from more rigid form of computer RPGs is another article and a debate-worth topic itself, so we leave that for another time.
Of course, on a table-top session, there are other situations where a character can be considered effective. Fate 3.0 in Spirit of the Century brings in some formal rules for social conflicts, as does Weapons of the God. Then there is also survival situation, such as wilderness survival, traps detection. Featuring less in fantasy games, but more in horror (especially Call of Cthlhu) are knowledge situation, where scholarship, history, lore and ancient languages plays a big part in escaping with just your live or being devoured by an ancient evil of awfulness. Another rare species of conflict is mass warfare, and the game which feature it most recently is A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying.
I believe D&D 4th edition tried its best to have the best of both worlds for every class – powers and such addresses many combat situations, while the skills system address that of survival, social and knowledge. So in this case, the game rules have taken upon itself to create effective characters.
Leaving it to the Skill Systems
Many games are not class-based, and the burden of enforcing effective characters lie in the hand of skills. Many of those games employ some mechanisms to ensure that characters are effective. Unknown Armies introduces default skills and bring the player’s attention to them. A Song of Ice and Fire Role-Playing have templates, and in highlighted section points out some skills which would influence the player’s effectiveness….in combat.
Is it all about Combat?
In the beginning of this article, we see there are many type of situations characters can run into during table-top play. Yet something is quite amiss here when more than half of a game’s material is devoted to combat. Usually, combat is the most exciting part of the game; however, as proven by some other computer games (such as Phoenix Wright), social and legal conflicts are be just as intense.
Why does combat gets so much treatment, while social conflicts, wilderness survival challenges and so on are resolved in just one roll? Perhaps it’s not the system or classes which should enforce character effectiveness. It’s the GM, after all. But when game materials do not suggest how the GM could craft effective social, survival, exploration, political and intrigue conflicts, how could a GM come to devise one that would encourage players to just dump skill points into skills which they deem to be ‘effective’, such as Weapon Use, Dodge and most important of all, anything that may influence Initiative?
Granted, there’s nothing wrong with a heavy-combat focus. Most of the dramatics happen there. Yet that’s only one way, a very thoroughly explored road. There are many other avenues which haven’t been tread on yet, and I think some computer games are ahead of its time. The ending of one of the Wing Commander games, whether if you win or lose, depends on how you talk through it. If that’s possible in a rigid computer game, I think even for table-top games, exploring social, political, mass warfare and other form of conflicts are even more worthwhile pursuits.
So how can this be done? I hope to come up with something and when I do, I will share with you guys.
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August 28th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
In 4e, these things are handled by skill challenges. The combat section in the PHB is actually pretty short, but the bulk of powers for characters are combat focused, of course. Skills are described at length, as well, but there are only a few of them, while powers have to exist for every class from level 1-30. The DMG, however, is focused on world and game building, including skill challenges, which treat skill based encounters on the level of involvement of combat encounters (no more single roll and done). That is 4e’s exploration and social system and takes skill use from the single roll to multi-layered complex situations involving player creativity and character skill.
Oh, and the existence of utility abilities? That doesn’t come from MMOs. A lot of gamers, especially younger ones, seem to get the idea to attribute all kinds of terminology and innovation to MMOs just because that’s where they first encountered them. D&D player’s have talked about utility spells since the 70s. Terms like tank, meatshield, sword and board, originated in the early days, too. MMOs haven’t innovated much of anything to the gamer arena other than combining social networking with video games, and MUDs really did that first.
August 28th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Unfortunately, I haven’t pick up the DMG 4th edition, so I wasn’t about to explore that side. As for the terms of utility/combat spells, I guess I learn something new today.