D&D 4E 4e Compared to Trad D&D; What You Lose, What You Gain

[Manbearcat]

I don't think you've left me much of substance to reply to. Clearly I've opened up some old wound that still hurts, and as you even admit much of the reply doesn't pertain to my post, I'm going to just let it pass for the most part.

But I do want to protest that however you read me, I did not and never claimed to encapsulate all of what Dragon contained in the early to mid 80s. Certainly I know that it contained art work, interviews, original games, supplemental material of all sorts, comics and so forth and I don't see how mentioning these things is a rebuttal. I was never attacking the quality of Dragon.

Starting from the bottom:

1) I never thought you were making a claim about the quality of Dragon (nothing I posted engaged with that). The claim you made that I was addressing (which it appeared to me you were making indispute of my “Trad vs 2nd wave” idea) was that there was an overwhelming pervasiveness of “realism sim” culture so embedded in D&D that the power of that signal was there in the game texts, in Dragon, and across micro-communities. That is the claim I’m addressing and that I disagree with (which is why I brought up the breadth of Dragon content and spoke about the prose in Gygax’s D&D vs Basic/Expert).

My claim is that it was there, but it was factional and unfocused (and incoherent with the game texts...hence why Runequest and Rolemaster had early refugees from D&D), not fundamental.

2) I’m not wounded. These are my thoughts on D&D’s history as I experienced it. I’ve put them on the Internet. Engage them or not.

3) Obviously I disagree about there being substance. Maybe you could address what I wrote about “intentful design” (as it’s central):

Do you think precise Environment Scaling/Movement Rates + Exploration Turns + Wandering Monsters/Random Encounters + Gold for XP (and not for monsters) is just a happy accident/bereft of intent and not intenful/thoughtful design to create a very specific impetus and environment for player decision-making?

 

[Garthanos]

Mostly I just don't believe there were ever serious game designers who thought system didn't matter. Maybe a few SAID stupid things like that, but they knew better...

This ... back in the day we didnt have the interwebs but it wasn't that insular and you could find out what game designers thought. For instance you could join and even write in apas or zines like Alarums and Excursions or just subscribe some of the names of people who wrote in it included some very interesting and familiar names.

• Wilf K. Backhaus
• Greg Costikyan
• John M. Ford
• E. Gary Gygax
• David A. Hargrave
• Rob Heinsoo
• John Eric Holmes
• Robin Laws
• Stephen R. Marsh
• Phil McGregor
• Dave Nalle
• Mark Rein·Hagen
• John T. Sapienza, Jr.
• Edward E. Simbalist
• Jonathan Tweet
• Erick Wujcik
• John Nephew
• Spike Y Jones
• Doc Cross
• Scott Bennie
• Ken Rolston
• Nicole Lindroos
• Terry K. Amthor
• Wes Ives

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

3E broke because they thouguht it was fun to remove the restrictions AD&D had, but they did not redesign anything to account for that especially in regards to spells. YOu oculd fix 3.X as well its not fundamentally flawed you would just plug smaller numbers into it and have saves scale better a'la AD&D. FOr example Save or suck in AD&D you made the save 75-95% of the time, in 3.X you could fail 75-95% of the time.

Perhaps, but you couldn't even do that without an edition roll, because it wouldn't be numerically compatible with 3.x material. So, effectively, they might as well fix all the flaws in it at the same time, which eventually lead to 4e...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Starting from the bottom:

1) I never thought you were making a claim about the quality of Dragon (nothing I posted engaged with that). The claim you made that I was addressing (which it appeared to me you were making indispute of my “Trad vs 2nd wave” idea) was that there was an overwhelming pervasiveness of “realism sim” culture so embedded in D&D that the power of that signal was there in the game texts, in Dragon, and across micro-communities. That is the claim I’m addressing and that I disagree with (which is why I brought up the breadth of Dragon content and spoke about the prose in Gygax’s D&D vs Basic/Expert).

My claim is that it was there, but it was factional and unfocused (and incoherent with the game texts...hence why Runequest and Rolemaster had early refugees from D&D), not fundamental.

2) I’m not wounded. These are my thoughts on D&D’s history as I experienced it. I’ve put them on the Internet. Engage them or not.

3) Obviously I disagree about there being substance. Maybe you could address what I wrote about “intentful design” (as it’s central):

Do you think precise Environment Scaling/Movement Rates + Exploration Turns + Wandering Monsters/Random Encounters + Gold for XP (and not for monsters) is just a happy accident/bereft of intent and not intenful/thoughtful design to create a very specific impetus and environment for player decision-making?

Well, there WAS Gygaxian Naturalism, which is something we can't totally ignore. However, I never thought Gygax considered it a technique for generating a 'realistic world' (realistic owlbears, give me a break). Instead it was more of a way of saying "give your scenarios some internal logic that the players can hang their reasoning on." Remember, Gygax was all about testing the player, creating a challenge. For him when the player figures out "there must be eggs, lets find the nest!" to him that was the epitome of what he wanted to see in the game. Of course he valued that form of 'naturalism', but he wasn't some idiot that thought he was creating a world sim. Gygax was much smarter than that!

So, one might interpret that naturalism as an attempt at simulation, but IMHO (at least for its originator, EGG) it was no such thing. It was an aid to generating interesting challenges and creating some immersion.

 

[Zardnaar]

Perhaps, but you couldn't even do that without an edition roll, because it wouldn't be numerically compatible with 3.x material. So, effectively, they might as well fix all the flaws in it at the same time, which eventually lead to 4e...

No it wouldn't be compatible as such but I don't think its key to 3.X vs the stuff that was good from that edition or at least would appeal. Freeform MCing, prestige classes, micro feats etc. 3.5 with BECMI or 5E type numbers (and capped ability scores) with overhauled saves I would play that. Well 10 years go maybe.

 

[Manbearcat]

Well, there WAS Gygaxian Naturalism, which is something we can't totally ignore. However, I never thought Gygax considered it a technique for generating a 'realistic world' (realistic owlbears, give me a break). Instead it was more of a way of saying "give your scenarios some internal logic that the players can hang their reasoning on." Remember, Gygax was all about testing the player, creating a challenge. For him when the player figures out "there must be eggs, lets find the nest!" to him that was the epitome of what he wanted to see in the game. Of course he valued that form of 'naturalism', but he wasn't some idiot that thought he was creating a world sim. Gygax was much smarter than that!

So, one might interpret that naturalism as an attempt at simulation, but IMHO (at least for its originator, EGG) it was no such thing. It was an aid to generating interesting challenges and creating some immersion.

100 % agree with this. D&D World Causality Chain (so players can successfully infer odds/opportunity cost/outcomes based on some combination of world system mechanics + tropes + D&D's wonky mechanical artifacts + the sum total of their total experience and their personal experience under a specific GM) is absolutely central to skilled play in trad D&D. Its and discussion of this was central to the game texts, to probably every micro-culture, and certainly in Dragon. If that is what Celebrim (or anyone else) is meaning when they're talking about "realism", then I completely agree.

 

[Manbearcat]

I'm going to move the core part of this thread either later tonight or tomorrow, but I was thinking.

The Skill Challenge above where the Fighter takes over the ATST vehicle?

That would have involved:

a) Leaping atop of it
b) Ripping the hatch off
c) Defeating the crew decisively in short order
d) Figuring out/adlibing through the alien tech on the fly to pilot it

In that 4e conflict, that would have probably have been 2.5ish rounds (depending on AP deployed and Blast/Burst effects to take out the crew) worth of effort and tropes consistent with what epic martial heroes should be doing in the Epic Tier (some sort of amalgamation of Captain America and Tony Stark).

Yet # 1, my guess is if you polled ENWorld forum users, you'd find that a hefty chunk of respondents would balk at both (a) the Fighter being able to accomplish those tropes and/or (b) the action resolution mechanics/action economy of the game would/should make the opportunity cost of this suite of actions/plan (vs just attacking) extremely punitive.

Yet # 2, its basically the martial analog of the Wizard's Dominate Monster (8th or 9th level spell depending upon edition), which can be accomplished with a single action and a single failed save.

Caveat; though 5e throttled it back to level 8 from level 9, it also did a lot of good things to reign in the power of this spell (from action economy to duration to Concentration to other limits not on the spell formerly).

 

[Garthanos]

Every time gaming the DM is considered a skill it makes me cringe

 

[Campbell]

Every time gaming the DM is considered a skill it makes me cringe

I feel like there is a substantive difference between gaming the fiction and gaming the DM. I think just as we can expect and hold players accountable for playing their characters with integrity we can expect and hold GMs accountable for approaching play with curiosity and playing the world with integrity.

 

[Manbearcat]

I feel like there is a substantive difference between gaming the fiction and gaming the DM. I think just as we can expect and hold players accountable for playing their characters with integrity we can expect and hold GMs accountable for approaching play with curiosity and playing the world with integrity.

There is a substantive difference.

However, the problem I see is the culture of D&D embracing the early 90s first principle of GMing that "there is no such thing as GM accountability for playing the world with integrity. The GM is only accountable for what they perceive will create the best story and most fun at the table."

The problem with that first principle is that it relies upon (a) the GM's ability to correctly calculate a myriad of conflicting inputs (individual play priorities, the fiction, the maths, discreteness, unknowable downstream effects) in the moment to derive a table-coherent output and (b) many times what they (the GM) prioritize (either personally or as a result of the calculations of (a) above) in terms of "story" and "fun" aren't (and oftentimes can't be) what individual members at the table would prioritize.

My opinion of this is it only works when the table is full of passive players who just want to be entertained and roll some dice. Now it may very well be true that the overwhelming majority of players in the world are, in fact, of this disposition.