Legends & Lore 09/03 - RPG design philosophy

Emerikol · Sep 6, 2012

underfoot007ct said:
I'm not really sure if this is a "we know best" attitude". Mearls & crew said the feedback from First playtest, overwhelming disliked the simple fighter. Where as this pleases myself, it might not please you. Play style certainly crosses editions, so support many is their plan. There should be option for the fighter to be more simple/old school.

I enjoyed 1e for many years, played all the early mods, fond memories of sandbox years. Yet now as a 4e fan, too often people seem to blame 4e for everything, I am fairly sure the 4e did not make any older play style wrong, nor is the cause of global warming.

Oh it put a stick of dynamite in my playstyle and blew it to kingdom come. I can't fix 4e without basically just rewriting the game. There are too many things that stomp my game preferences. I could fix 3e easier and maybe 1e/2e even more easily.

Emerikol · Sep 6, 2012

Hussar said:
Just to add a smidgeon of gasoline to this.

Before 4e came out, the standard, stock answer to any problems with 3e was to ban any material outside of core. Balance issues? Core only. Too many whatsits? Core only. It was the basic answer to everything.

With 4e, I don't think I've ever seen anyone advocate that a core only game is somehow inherently better than one with additional material.

So, while I think GreyICE has put it a bit too strongly, there is a point here. In 3e, there was so much material, both from WOTC or ((shudder)) 3pp which was really, really bad. To the point where it was the knee jerk reaction, very similar to 2e as well, to simply ban anything outside of the original books.

4e at least has that going for it - there is a pretty recognized improvement in the game as time goes on.

I agree that 4e stuff was "safer" than non-core prior books. I always from 1e on required anything not in the original 3 books to be approved by me as DM. That didn't bother me much. I ran campaigns where the wizard and cleric never dominated or outshone the fighter. And for me it really just wasn't that hard.

I think the very things I dislike about 4e are the reason it was so stable in this regard. It was like Ford saying "You can have any color you want as long as it's black".

Dausuul · Sep 6, 2012

Kamikaze Midget said:
Personally, I think Chess is boring. It is a Solved Game.

No, it's not. It is a theoretically solvable game, and all endgame scenarios with 6 or fewer pieces have been solved, but chess as a whole has not been solved and is not likely to be any time soon.

Whether it's boring is, of course, a matter of personal taste.

D'karr · Sep 6, 2012

Emerikol said:
I think the very things I dislike about 4e are the reason it was so stable in this regard. It was like Ford saying "You can have any color you want as long as it's black".

Man, I couldn't disagree more.

With 3.x we ran a campaign that started out as anything goes. After less than 3 months we had to scrap it and start a core 3 only, with DM approved specifics for any other stuff. That is the epitome of "You can have any color you want as long as it's black". It was the usual "you can use any source as long as it's the core 3."

What I found with 4e was that the additional sources all played rather well with the existing sources. Nothing was "blatantly so broken" that I had to expunge complete sources at all. The additional sources usually provided "width" to the characters instead of "height". So that they had much broader power not so much higher power. This allowed great flexibility.

In 4e I've run multiple campaigns and even one-off games with anything goes (sources) and never had a "problem".

I just can't see how that Ford analogy is even remotely appropriate to 4e.

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Steely_Dan · Sep 6, 2012

D'karr said:
With 3.x we ran a campaign that started out as anything goes. After less than 3 months we had to scrap it and start a core 3 only, with DM approved specifics for any other stuff.

In my experience most of the broken stuff of 3rd Ed is in Core.

D'karr · Sep 6, 2012

Steely_Dan said:
In my experience most of the broken stuff of 3rd Ed is in Core.

To an extent that is true, but at least it was constrained to only 1 book. It was easier to "modify" some things from one source, than everything from multiple sources. YMMV.

Steely_Dan · Sep 6, 2012

D'karr said:
To an extent that is true, but at least it was constrained to only 1 book. It was easier to "modify" some things from one source, than everything from multiple sources. YMMV.

I agree, keeping track of The Complete Gnome Cobbler's Handbook or what-have-you because of that broken feat and those 2 broken spells was painful.

In 1st Ed it was very easy, it says straight out in the PHB that the DM might omit certain spells, alter them, and/or add some; I mean, you can do the same in any edition, but in 1st Ed it felt very smooth and elegant (and obviously more encouraged).

The Shadow · Sep 7, 2012

D'karr said:
I just can't see how that Ford analogy is even remotely appropriate to 4e.

I'm not Emerikol, but I think I know what he meant. His concern is basically orthogonal to what you said.

He has a problem with the whole approach of 4e. (Full disclosure: So do I, though probably not in exactly the same way.) Telling him he can use all sorts of books to enhance the experience of a game he doesn't like that don't address the things he doesn't like (because they're fundamental to the whole game) isn't going to encourage him.

He means, "Telling me I can have all the 4e rules and add-ons I want doesn't help me, if it means I'm still stuck with X, Y, and Z."

My own issue with 4e is largely two-fold: I don't like gaming with a mat, and rich tactical options don't interest me. 4e combat and powers read like Google Map directions to Hell for me. So telling me I can have lots of books full of great new powers and tactical options isn't going to draw me in.

I say this without in the least telling anyone else they should like or dislike the same things I do. If you love 4e, more power to you! Have a great time with it.

D'karr · Sep 7, 2012

The Shadow said:
I'm not Emerikol, but I think I know what he meant. His concern is basically orthogonal to what you said.

I didn't read it in that manner.

His analogy seemed to say you can have all these options as long as they are X. Which is as far away from the truth in 4e as anything I've ever seen.

I can understand not liking a game and saying so. But when the examples given are looked at they seem like "thinly veiled" excuses to bash someone else's preference.

If someone likes A or B then more power to them, let them play A or B. Doesn't mean they have to crap on C.

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