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4e: A work in progress?
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<blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 4636311" data-attributes="member: 54707"><p>I think that's certainly a fair enough critique. No plan ever survives first contact with the enemy. Or even first contact with the astute and clever officer who knows it will not work as envisioned. Theory and practice are always antagonistic siblings.</p><p></p><p>On the other hand nothing is ever really absolutely complete, or as good as it will become through real world exposure. So nobody starts out building a Lexus or a Raptor, they start by building a Model T and a bi-plane.</p><p></p><p>Now perhaps 4E (which I like better than 3E, but 4E does have obvious weaknesses in design, and 3E has a few strengths in comparison) could be more appropriately analogous to a modern vehicle, with 3rd, 2nd, AD&D, and previous editions being the proto-typical models of previous eras. In that case, in my opinion, 4E is kind of like a car built to run on an experimental fuel. In some ways it is a radical departure, not merely a progressive advance on previous models.</p><p></p><p>Radical redesigns have both their own particular assets, which favor certain types of progress, but also their own inherent set of entirely new and peculiar flaws. You don't have to experiment with how gasoline will react in a new model of combustion engine automobile, you already know what gasoline does by long process of observation and engineering. Therefore you can concentrate on other problems, like efficiency, or ergonomics.</p><p></p><p>Redesign a thing fundamentally enough though and you might still produce a car, but it may very well be so different from previous car models that it is analogous to shifting design paradigms from the prop driven airplane to the jet driven airplane. (I am not saying 4E is a fundamental shift in fantasy role play gaming equivalent to the advance to the jet engine, to me it is not. But it does suffer the same kind of problems you have to solve when you attempt a radical redesign. <em><strong><span style="color: Red">Just attempting a different operational paradigm implies wholly different sets of problems to be addressed</span></strong></em>, than merely upgrading current technologies. And in a sense that is what editions are, different technological-era versions of gaming. A Raptor is an airplane, so was the one flown at Kitty Hawk. They are nevertheless so different in nature, operation, and appearance that if you did not know the developmental history of the past you might not necessarily make the connection of the one to the other.) </p><p></p><p>Anyways you can't improve a thing except by experimentation, and far more often than not, by trial and error, and by exposing a thing to the very sure rigors of the real world. And there is one undeniable thing about the real world - <em>it is filled with people</em>. And that means what is brilliant in one camp, is a dark disaster in another.</p><p></p><p>And maybe that is as it should just naturally be. No friction, no fire, no impulse to progress.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jack7, post: 4636311, member: 54707"] I think that's certainly a fair enough critique. No plan ever survives first contact with the enemy. Or even first contact with the astute and clever officer who knows it will not work as envisioned. Theory and practice are always antagonistic siblings. On the other hand nothing is ever really absolutely complete, or as good as it will become through real world exposure. So nobody starts out building a Lexus or a Raptor, they start by building a Model T and a bi-plane. Now perhaps 4E (which I like better than 3E, but 4E does have obvious weaknesses in design, and 3E has a few strengths in comparison) could be more appropriately analogous to a modern vehicle, with 3rd, 2nd, AD&D, and previous editions being the proto-typical models of previous eras. In that case, in my opinion, 4E is kind of like a car built to run on an experimental fuel. In some ways it is a radical departure, not merely a progressive advance on previous models. Radical redesigns have both their own particular assets, which favor certain types of progress, but also their own inherent set of entirely new and peculiar flaws. You don't have to experiment with how gasoline will react in a new model of combustion engine automobile, you already know what gasoline does by long process of observation and engineering. Therefore you can concentrate on other problems, like efficiency, or ergonomics. Redesign a thing fundamentally enough though and you might still produce a car, but it may very well be so different from previous car models that it is analogous to shifting design paradigms from the prop driven airplane to the jet driven airplane. (I am not saying 4E is a fundamental shift in fantasy role play gaming equivalent to the advance to the jet engine, to me it is not. But it does suffer the same kind of problems you have to solve when you attempt a radical redesign. [I][B][COLOR="Red"]Just attempting a different operational paradigm implies wholly different sets of problems to be addressed[/COLOR][/B][/I], than merely upgrading current technologies. And in a sense that is what editions are, different technological-era versions of gaming. A Raptor is an airplane, so was the one flown at Kitty Hawk. They are nevertheless so different in nature, operation, and appearance that if you did not know the developmental history of the past you might not necessarily make the connection of the one to the other.) Anyways you can't improve a thing except by experimentation, and far more often than not, by trial and error, and by exposing a thing to the very sure rigors of the real world. And there is one undeniable thing about the real world - [I]it is filled with people[/I]. And that means what is brilliant in one camp, is a dark disaster in another. And maybe that is as it should just naturally be. No friction, no fire, no impulse to progress. [/QUOTE]
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