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I want to start off by saying that I prefer Fourth Edition. I started playing and DMing in 2005 with 3.5 and found Fourth Edition to be a welcome change. I've never played anything prior to 3.5, but I have read many people's opinions and experiences with previous editions.
A lot of people say that Fourth Edition is only Dungeons and Dragons in name only and that Pathfinder is its true successor. My question for those of you who hold this view is this: What do you think a Fourth Edition that retained the original spirit of the game would be like?
In my opinion, Fourth Edition is more of a reinvention of Dungeons and Dragons than the next step in its evolution. The designers weren't as concerned with further altering the system as they were with taking the general concepts of Dungeons and Dragons and making their own game, one that is more focused on the core "kill monsters and take their stuff" concept than the "simulationist fantasy world" experience. The website Critical Hits made the comment that Fourth Edition is similar to Marvel Comics' Ultimate series (a line that takes classic characters and reinvents them for modern audiences), and I agree with that. Fourth Edition's canon discards much of the traditional DnD lore (such as the origin of the Abyss and Demons), but also adapts other aspects of it. That also inclines me to believe that Fourth Edition should be viewed as an offshoot of DnD rather than its next step.
Pathfinder seems to be the most well-developed state of DnD's original form. Third Edition stayed relatively true to its roots, and Pathfinder has worked to fix some of the system's most egregious problems. The few new features it introduces continues the tradition of diverse subsystems for different classes (Combat Feats, Channeling for Clerics, Rage Points for Barbarians, Ki Pool for Monks, etc). Pathfinder's designers tout the system's reverse-compatibility with Third Edition material. Even if they hadn't held themselves to reverse-compatibility I wouldn't be surprised if their game had still come out relatively unchanged from 3.5.
It's difficult for me to imagine what a Fourth Edition that was not a rules-reset would be like. I'm not sure how the designers would be able to make enough beneficial changes to warrant a new edition without making any drastic changes to the age-old system. I'm a newcomer to the hobby, though, and I'd love to read any ideas for how Fourth Edition could have existed without being a rules-reset.
Last edited by Hexmage-EN; 27th February 2009 at 05:34 PM..
That's why I said "relatively". I'm well aware that there are old-school DnD fans who don't like Third Edition. In any case it's a lot closer to the old-school than Fourth Edition.
As a quick reply, there are probably as many things that I like about 4e as there are things that I dislike, but the things that I dislike loom large enough to greatly damage my enjoyment of the game. I find myself in the same position with Pathfinder.
Prior to all of the 4e discussions, my goals for designing a "fouth edition" were very different, and my house rules reflected that. Essentially, I (like Pathfinder) took 3e even farther in the direction that it was going. Lots and lots of options, a certain degree of power creep, and fixing a few thorny issues (Turn Undead, for example).
It was only in discussing the changes that WotC was previewing that I began to see that this direction is not a good one for me. I began to see better why earlier editions were written as they were, how the "wonky" parts sometimes prevented bigger problems from arising, and how a degree of randomness, and a degree of imbalance -- allowing the players to strive for/strive to break balance, either through a simulationist or a gamist approach -- creates more "fun" than perfect balance.
RCFG (see sig) will be something along the lines of the 4e I would have liked to see.
The direction WotC took would be significantly improved, IMHO, if the metric for character success had been "the adventuring day" rather than "the single combat". As an example of this, the fey in 3e are well designed to represent fey, and therefore challenges other than combat challenges. This was a vast improvement over TSR-D&D IMHO, where monsters were all more combat-oriented simply because of the way the rules defaulted. We are now back to that default. Combat IMHO should be fast, interesting, inventive, and not require a grid. If anything, 4e accentuates the worst of 3e's combat design (IMHO). I find the tactical grid simulator boring in comparison to TSR-D&D. In 3e, the compensation was that the grid was only a small part of a much larger game. In 4e, not so much so as I'd like.
YMMV, of course.
I also find that "devise crunch, and add flavour afterwards" has created numerous problems for my ability to willingly suspend disbelief in the game world. Again, YMMV. I would have liked the crunch to model the fluff, rather than the other way around.
RC
__________________ [A]ny good dungeon will have undiscovered treasures in areas that have been explored by the players, simply because it is impossible to expect that they will find every one of them.
RCFG - My free mostly-OGC OGL game! RCFG is intended to be a fusion between OS & NS playstyles, giving the advantages of SRD-based gaming coupled with quick character and adventure generation and an Old School feel.
That's why I said "relatively". I'm well aware that there are old-school DnD fans who don't like Third Edition. In any case it's a lot closer to the old-school than Fourth Edition.
I disagree. 4e feels more old school to me. I think its the monsters. They feel more like 'and this guy can do this cool thing! Just because!' where 3e had everything under a more rigid structure.
If you go back and look at edition wars you can just swap 3e/4e for AD&D/3e, and see that this newfangled 3e game was not really D&D, it was just for powergamers, it was nothing but combat, and it was too much like a videogame. I'm looking forward to 4e fans accusing 5e of the same thing.
As for the question at hand, I didn't really want anything from 4e. I didn't expect to like it, having long since grown bored of D&D in both 3e and AD&D varieties. 4e sucked me back in though . They got rid of a lot of the sacred cows that are holding it back. I only hope 5e ditches alignment completely, as well as 3-18 ability scores, classes, and levels.
In my opinion, Fourth Edition is more of a reinvention of Dungeons and Dragons than the next step in its evolution.
And that's pretty much what I did not want. I didn't want a reinvention and certainly not of lore and meta-setting. I can say that 3e stayed pretty true to previous editions because the old adventures and settings work with little more than mechanical changes. I can't say that with 4e.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hexmage-EN
That also inclines me to believe that Fourth Edition should be viewed as an offshoot of DnD rather than its next step.
I agree. A worthy game for a company to produce, but not the old standard I played for over 20 years.
__________________ Bill D
"There's a fine line between a superpower and a chronic medical condition."
- Doctor Impossible
I agree with RC. If anything, I think 4e is too focused, too narrow in its definition of the game and the kind of entertainment it wants to bring.
Too much emphasis on game balance, too much emphasis on making every level the "sweet spot", too much emphasis on making all characters based on the same mechanics, too much emphasis on tactical, mat side-effects of powers etc. These are all strengths of the system in that it makes the game easier to manage, provides ways for everyone to always have something to do, and so on, so forth. Others talked about it at length. But these very strengths are also the worst flaws of 4e in that they kill variety in game play.
I think 4e tries too hard to frame the game and teach what "fun" should be as opposed to opening up the doors of possibilities and imagination the way other editions did.
There is also the sacred cows slaughtered in the process of creating 4e. For some, that's a liberation. For others, that's a break from the D&D they liked to play. Point in case: Vancian casting, for instance. It's part of the D&D I want to play. It's not in 4e. Ergo, 4e is not the D&D I want to play.
This isn't the first time I've heard this view, but it's interesting to me every time.
BTW, Raven Crowking, I took a look at your RCFG project. As I said before, I've never played anything earlier than 3.5, but I've read about earlier editions and I find it interesting that your system incorporates things like name levels and class features that summon followers. I wish you luck with your project!
But...do dwarven women really have to have beards, though?
Last edited by Hexmage-EN; 27th February 2009 at 06:04 PM..
__________________ [A]ny good dungeon will have undiscovered treasures in areas that have been explored by the players, simply because it is impossible to expect that they will find every one of them.
RCFG - My free mostly-OGC OGL game! RCFG is intended to be a fusion between OS & NS playstyles, giving the advantages of SRD-based gaming coupled with quick character and adventure generation and an Old School feel.
BTW, Raven Crowking, I took a look at your RCFG project. As I said before, I've never played anything earlier than 3.5, but I've read about earlier editions and I find it interesting that your system is a seamless blend of the first three editions. I wish you luck with your project!
Thanks! Playtesting is showing a few bugs that need to be worked out, but that is the purpose of playtesting. Overall, I'm pretty happy with how the first draft is working. Definitely shows how a flatter power curve allows a wider "foot" to balance on!
Quote:
But...do dwarven women really have to have beards, though?
The GM/players can change anything they want to.
RC
__________________ [A]ny good dungeon will have undiscovered treasures in areas that have been explored by the players, simply because it is impossible to expect that they will find every one of them.
RCFG - My free mostly-OGC OGL game! RCFG is intended to be a fusion between OS & NS playstyles, giving the advantages of SRD-based gaming coupled with quick character and adventure generation and an Old School feel.
If anything, I guess I would have liked 4e to be much like C&C, but with a Skill system a bit more developed/back in, the same XP Chart for every character class (and thus a slightly more overt balance between them), a cleaned up feat selection, a more open explanation of the way each component of the game works with each other (designer commentaries of sort)... A 3rd edition lite, so to speak, that could have been expanded upon in any number of ways by its users.
Provided I would have wanted a 4e to be published at all, of course.
I think I would have been most satisfied with a 4e that had taken 3.5 and shoved it through the same sausage-making process that Star Wars Saga Edition came out of, instead of starting from first principles and rebuilding everything from the ground up.
I really wanted 4e to be the D&D that fit me. 3e doesn't fit me: the rules weren't transparent enough for easy houseruling, too many tactics, and too focused on resources. Earlier editions don't work for me: not enough flexibility in the rules, not enough of the sort of rules support that I need to houserule, still more resource management than I want, too many un-unified bits, and too much assumption about what kind of story you are telling.
4e came out and there is still too much focus on tactics and resources.
What I wanted from 4e was a game that finally said "To hell with tactics! Let the players jump all over the place. To hell with resources! Let the game participants decide based on their story when they need to stop. Because this is a game for telling stories with." And not just one kind of story, either. I wanted them to drop all their past assumptions about what the default D&D story-world was like and present something that allowed you to make up your own story-world.
So:
They would have dropped Attacks of Opportunity. They would have dropped every rule that needed a grid. They would have dropped all "per day" stuff. They would have dropped anything where you needed to track time. They would have dropped any need to track ammo, coinage, and XP. They would have dropped skill points or made them easier to use. And they would have made the rules clear enough that if you saw a problem still existing you knew what to do to fix it yourself.
It wouldn't be D&D to a whole lot of people, I know. And in my opinion that's half the point.
I wanted 4e to simply be a cleaner edition of D&D. Easier to play, and more importantly: easier to run. DMing 3.5 was a nightmare, and I would do anything for a little relief.
Suffice it to say, my expectations on that point were wildly exceeded.
But I also hoped that 4e would embrace more indie-RPG elements (like shared narrative control).
That said, I have other games to satisfy my inner gaming snob. 4e runs so well that I really don;t want to change a thing.
I really wanted 4e to be the D&D that fit me. 3e doesn't fit me: the rules weren't transparent enough for easy houseruling, too many tactics, and too focused on resources. Earlier editions don't work for me: not enough flexibility in the rules, not enough of the sort of rules support that I need to houserule, still more resource management than I want, too many un-unified bits, and too much assumption about what kind of story you are telling.
Or assumptions that you are playing to tell a story perhaps.
I agree with your assertion that the 4E rules are too fiddly and detailed.
. They got rid of a lot of the sacred cows that are holding it back. I only hope 5e ditches alignment completely, as well as 3-18 ability scores, classes, and levels. 
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