This slimy friend represents that which scares me about upcoming features for 4th edition D&D. This April, the Player’s Handbook 3 comes out and provides all of us gamers with the rules for psionic power. Gah, it’s here already. I just don’t feel like it’s been enough time. Don’t get me wrong: I have faith in the folks at Wizard’s Coast to perhaps nerf the craziness that is blinking things out of existence or banishing them to an astral plane with a thought.
I mean, all of us can hearken back to the time when psionics first came out for D&D. And we all recall how TOTALLY balanced psionics were:
And so, I threw it on the ground… with my mind.
Psionics are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, however. I’d like to take a moment and discuss meta-gaming in general with everyone. Now, psionics don’t automatically equal meta-gaming, but it makes (or at least, made) it so easy to do so. After reading, I’d love to hear your own thoughts about the act that makes playing oh so difficult sometimes. But first, as any good scholar would do, let me define my terms. Meta-gaming is when you as John Q. Gamer refer to things about the game mechanics as or in your character during game time. In other words, if your half-orc wizard (just a hilarious thought to begin with — I feel his name would be Krummsh Brightlight’burnyface) begins spouting off knowledge about the DC of breaking down a wooden door in a rough Giant accent, that’s some ridiculous meta-gaming. Characters aren’t supposed to know these things, and, even after gaining certain experience with in-game rules, there still should be a level of suspended disbelief and “knowledge.”
These thoughts sparked light in my brain-meats last night. After a pretty intense session with my Monday night group, I discussed some of the inherent flaws in the 4th edition combat system with one of the rogues in the game. On a pretty awesome side-note, I’d like to point out that my good friend and fellow gamer Dave Dobson, the man who invented Snood (the game that cost me my GPA my sophomore year of college), plays the sly rogue. Having both played previous editions and rightfully labeling ourselves as sometimes curmudgeons about 4th, we still both agreed that the oftentimes superfluous amount of status effects (especially the higher level you are) combined with the relatively repetitive combat power choices yields an environment rife for meta-gaming. And I understood that it’s my job as DM to curb these chances for meta-gaming. If you too are a DM of a massive campaign, I’d like to provide four helpful hints for preventing this type of obnoxious gaming:
1) Give a mote of flavor text right before the player casts or enacts the power; seeing the twinkle of impending epic-ness in their eyes fills me with joy
2) Use D&D Insider’s monster builder to creatively alter some otherwise straightforward battles; add a breath weapon or AOE power to a monster to force the players to use more strategic means in combat
3) Add some more effects to some of the items that you find in the Adventurer’s Vault or Player’s Handbook that make them more player-specific (i.e. if you have an invoker in your game who likes to pop minions, make a minion-smiting weapon that doesn’t do much damage but provides a wide spray or something)
4) For the love of Pelor, describe the deaths of the baddies or the wounds/deaths of your PCs; it makes everything that much more exciting
Those are some ideas of the top of my head, and I’d love to hear more from you all out there in pixelated land. Make it rain.
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