Legend4ry Concepts: Re-Inventing the Wheel. Or, How to make a 4e Clone

I've been bit by the inspiration bug, something I've not felt for awhile now. It's exciting, in all honesty. 

In my last post, I talked about learning from video games to make our home D&D games that much better. This isn't a truism in all cases, but at the very least opening up our pools of inspiration (not radiance) allows us to improve our games and grow. I cannot tell you the number of times I've had ideas that are from outside the typical fantasy tropes. For example, my current game is taking a detour into horror with a quest for gold taking huge inspiration from Scott Smith's The Ruins. For those of you who have not seen the film adaptation or read the book, give it a go and tell me that it doesn't scream potential for some terrifying D&D. (I seriously have no idea why it has such a low rating on IMDB, but I have a feeling that it is because it isn't the typical and well-loved horror trope of GOTCHA "scares.")

But that isn't the reason for today's entry in the Legend4ry canon. Today I want to talk about something that I briefly touched on last post and something that's been eating away in my brain ever since. I talked about people throwing out ideas for 4e "retro-clones" (for lack of a better term) with some changes and what not to "fix" some of the issues with 4e, now that 4e is all but abandoned by WotC. Ever since I dropped my own idea of how classes operate onto the figurative table, I've been thinking about it fairly regularly. So let's discuss and analyze this.

I think the first goal of a 4e clone would be making sure that it is compatible (or at least close to compatible) with vanilla 4e rules and published modules. I see no reason why a 4e clone couldn't or shouldn't run through Keep on the Shadowfell or Reavers of Harkenwold. I think taking a page from the OSR is a good idea, "retro"-clones that work well with the original source material. 

Let's define "work well" first. To me that means that you can either run the adventures as-is, or have to make very minimal tweaks. What stands out in my mind is that at the same OSR table you can have players using Labyrinth Lord and Swords & Wizardry with almost no issues aside from varying XP needed to level up values. Likewise, a good 4e clone should be able to be played beside regular vanilla 4e with the same lack of major issues.

Interesting class/role tweaks aside, how would one actually make this work? To make it unique from vanilla 4e, you really need your own "thang" and tweaks. Personally, I think looking at class roles is the best method of doing so. One of my biggest beefs with 4e as-written is the myth that you need all (or most) of the roles to have an effective adventuring group. From my own numerous anecdotal experiences, I've seen groups with all roles and some with only one or two. I really hate the emphasis on saying you need at least three of the four roles, all four if preferable. I dislike that meta aspect where a player wants to play a certain class/role only to find out that someone else is filling that role. Damnit, if you want an all-Striker party then let's do it. Sure it will present some interesting challenges, but there is no reason why this shouldn't be do-able. I've played in and DM'd an all-Striker with one Leader group before, it was a blast! It proved that you don't need a Defender. You don't need a Controller. You shouldn't have to need any specific role. Having them is nice, sure, but it shouldn't be a requirement. (I'm not saying that it is, but it often gives that impression or feels like it.)

The above is something that I've noticed in my playing of DC Universe Online. For certain group quests and raids, people are very, very picky about having certain roles filled. In practice it is nice to have those roles. But, having played in groups without all roles, or only one role, or just two roles, sure it adds a level of difficulty  but it is still do-able. Very do-able in fact. This is something that needs to be considered when de-emphasizing role "requirements."

I touched on it briefly last time, about certain classes being able to switch between roles, with my specific example being the Cleric. The Cleric could drop the extra healing they give out for extra damage. It's not a perfect system, but it definitely merits revisiting. I had an idea awhile back about there only being four actual classes in the game. (Think Dragon Age, for example.) Each of these classes can be built a certain way to achieve the Rogue or the Cleric, for example. 4e makes this easy, I think, with the codified power sources. In a way, this is going above and beyond the role-switching I talked about last post, but it is also in some senses and extenuation of that ideology. 

So, just for fun to illustrate this idea, let's talk about what the Martial class would be. For ease, let's call the base build a Warrior. Depending how you wanted to build it, let's say Defender-y, it would be a Knight or a Fighter. Controller-y would be a Ranger. Striker-y would be a Rogue or a Scout. Leader-y would be a Warlord or a Skald. These are just ideas for a basic system that I've not even fleshed out, but I think it illustrates it at least a little. Currently I'm torn between the system I mentioned last week and this one and trying to find a middle ground to combine the two.

The idea with the above two systems is for more customization. If you wanted to invest in two different roles you could. If you wanted to stick with one, you could do that also. Now, how that would work in practice I have no idea. Again, I'm just openly brainstorming here. So if you have suggestions or critiques, I'd love to see it and hear them! Seriously, constructive criticism is always welcome.

I think for me, for any 4e clone design, I would use the Essentials books as a jumping off point. Math-wise, they work. They offer both simplicity and complexity, depending on the player. I know some 4e fans are going to have knee-jerk reactions to that and I just ask why? Are we still pretending that it's "4.5" or whatever other hyperbole I still hear to this day? If anything, it's more "Unearthed Arcana"-y than anything else. Frankly, I dig it, so I'm using it. That isn't to say that the AEDU classes don't have merit, as they do. 

Another requirement for a good 4e clone is clear and concise definitions for what the respective roles do. Still, to this day, there is no clear definition for exactly what a Controller does. Design from one Controller to the next differs wildly. It's not just in the class' implementation of their role, but in the actual design itself. Does it mean battlefield control? Does it mean area attacks? Does it mean massive de-buffs? For some as-written classes it is all, for others it is one or two. It's confusing, to say the least. As to how I'd define these roles, I'd need to sit down and think it out a bit more before I commit it to internet paper. But when I do, be sure that I'd love to here criticism.

These are just a few ideas that I have been throwing around as a thought-process when life gets busy and I need some "zen D&D" time. I expect this to be an on-going series whenever I have a new idea.

Until next time,

-blob

You can follow me on Twitter @Sorcerer_Blob or via the hash-tag #legend4ry. You can also find my blog and others at the Fourthcore Hub and at the RPG Blog Alliance.