Iserith
said: I'm interested. I like location-based adventuring. 4e is no more combat-oriented than any other version of D&D since combat represents a choice players make, not a whole way of playing itself. If you're talking about the rules being combat-oriented, that's a recognition that the outcomes of attacks are pretty much the only platform of mechanical resolution required in a game based on heroic fantasy adventuring. There's really no compelling need to make a Profession: Cook check, in other words, and thus no need for such a mechanic. You're good at cooking because you say so because the only things that require mechanical resolution are things that are not mundane in situations that are not mundane. Mundane things get narrated, not rolled for in 4e. D&D is also not better or worse for predetermined plots and storylines ("rails"). In fact, the original version of the game had nothing like that since it was all location and situation-based adventuring prior to 1982 when plots and storylines started to appear, starting with Ravenloft and Dragonlance . The purest form of the game, in my opinion, is the location-based "dungeon crawl." And if the DM is willing to drop the old tropes that come with traditional dungeon crawls (gotcha traps, mundane resource management, boring failure conditions, etc.), 4e is probably the best platform for a location-based game especially if that location is focused on a premise as you say (disgaea-esque or Legend of Grimrock). The heroes making their way through the dungeon, the challenges they face and overcome, and the bonds they make with each other really is the story. That seems to have been forgotten by a generation of DMs who try to write "the story" before the game ever begins. All D&D is player-driven if the DM will get over himself and get out of the damn way. So, those quibbles aside, I'd be interested in playing. I'd even contribute with sections of the dungeon myself if given the opportunity. I wouldn't be interested in pvp if that's what you mean by "rival parties," since no edition of D&D has handled pvp well. Well a number of things here: 1.) By combat-oriented, I mean the endurance of the combat, in other editions of DnD there is a level of "fatigue" that builds up, people lose hit points, clerics start running out ofh eal spells, wizards start running out of attack/control spells, it's harder to run serious combat for any extended period of time without CAMPFIRE SCENE, simply because the players resources will wear down. In 4e, encounter powers are encounter-based, they're back every fight, second wind is also encounter based, and you have non-extended rest milestones that give some resource regen, party endurance is a much more real thing in 4e, thus the "combat-oriented", it can be played in this manner easier. 2.) My problem is less with rails, more with players. As I noted, I started with exalted, it's a system where starting off everyone is a level 20 character essentially, people who can build cities in a day, fight gods and men, topple armies by thesmelves. The players start off at such a level of power that any attempt at railing it gets laughed at, Puzzle door? Hah, the solar laughs and throws his soak ignoring-triple damage against inanimate object fists at it until it breaks, or uses larceny charms to walk through the door and unlock it from the inside. As such, the best dming style for exalted is adaptive, you give the players a location, you give them some hooks, but overall, since epic powers come with suitably epic motivations, you can just give the players a setting, set them lose with a few hooks and a general direction, and they'll find things to do, and you can just develop the encounters and the plot around their actions, it wroks well, hell, it's one of the few methods of GMing that works in exalted. Every time i've tried that in dnd, it's been "TWO SESSIONS IN A BROTHEL BECAUSE THE PLAYERS AREN'T TAKING ANY HOOKS" or "go around intimidating shopkeeps because we don't want to actually earn gold", or five sessions of.. nothing getting done, less epic power, less epic motivation, in dnd the gm needs to shove the story along, but usually by the time I realize that we're getting nothing done, people are bored and leaving. Thus this concept, it's self motivated, the players have a goal, they have a carrot on the stick, rewards are there, interesting encounters await, etc, I've found myself an unfit GM to run a hard story drive campaign, but have all the confidence in the world I could run a fun location-based game, as it's self-motivating. 3.) By "Rival Parties" I purely mean "Rather than monsters from the MM, a party of adventurers, created, and played by me (Probably ill balancced, or just concepts I wanted to run.) In order to break up the monotone of monsters, and give some reoccurring NPC's to liven up the game a little. So It wouldn't be pvp any more than me running mosnters would be, really.
