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4e Compared to Trad D&D; What You Lose, What You Gain
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<blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 7527088" data-attributes="member: 6696971"><p>Let me unpack my thinking on this a little more.</p><p></p><p>The Wandering Monster Clock machinery isn’t just a system of discrete parts. It works in concert, holistically, in order to engender the play experience. This is why when people were claiming that 5e could reproduce the actual 4e play experience (because a widget here, a bit there, a bob here each bore some kind of recognizably 4e aspect to them), I claimed adamantly (and correctly) “no, it flat out cannot.” I think this happens with a segment of D&D players (I’m going to blame 2e’s complete incoherency via kitchen sink, utterly unfocused design here). Rather than looking at a system holistically, they look at it as a discrete “tool-kit”. I think this is why those D&D players chafe at “focused (narrowing) design and tight system play principles, agenda/premise, and well-integrated reward cycles that create a feedback loop that engenders a particular play experience.</p><p></p><p>So here is the play experience the Wandering Monster Clock machinery engenders:</p><p></p><p><strong>Potentially overmatched adventurers struggling against time and environment (urgently trying to explore and deploy loadout expeditiously while avoiding all “unnecessary action”) to pull treasure from a dangerous dungeon.</strong></p><p></p><p>I think right there, we should be able to agree that 4e’s basic ethos tenets (“Go to the Action”, “Big Damn Heroes”, “The Heroic Rally”) as well as so much of its system machinery (extremely robust PCs, resource schedules and Milestones, heroic Quests as well as Monsters and Noncombat Encounters for XP, Gold/Treasure as player-facing PC build resource, etc etc) pushes back extremely hard against trying to recreate something like Moldvay Basic or Torchbearer).</p><p></p><p>In order for it to all come together, you need:</p><p></p><p>1 - Non-robust adventurers</p><p>2 - Resource refresh that is a struggle to attain</p><p>3 - Gold for XP (no Monster for XP...encounters are to be avoided)</p><p>4 - Gear loadout that is essential to success</p><p>5 - Clearly defined Exploration Speed in varying units</p><p>6 - A Wandering Monster Click that interfaces with the directly above</p><p>7 - Deadly (as in insta-gib via mass HP ablation or SoD) Traps</p><p>8 - Swingy, short Combat </p><p></p><p>Stock 4e has (5) above. (6) isn’t a huge barrier to overcome (you can create that clock pretty easily). </p><p></p><p>The rest of it requires A LOT of system drift via A LOT of hacking, 3 being the hugest challenge to overcome (due to the nature of Treasure in the 2 systems being basically opposites).</p><p></p><p>It can be done...but your no longer playing 4e at that point. You’re playing a severely drifted, serious hack if 4e. And due to the amount of drift/hack, you can’t juat “toggle back” to all things 4e. Well, I mean you can, but the play experience would be jarringly incoherent.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Manbearcat, post: 7527088, member: 6696971"] Let me unpack my thinking on this a little more. The Wandering Monster Clock machinery isn’t just a system of discrete parts. It works in concert, holistically, in order to engender the play experience. This is why when people were claiming that 5e could reproduce the actual 4e play experience (because a widget here, a bit there, a bob here each bore some kind of recognizably 4e aspect to them), I claimed adamantly (and correctly) “no, it flat out cannot.” I think this happens with a segment of D&D players (I’m going to blame 2e’s complete incoherency via kitchen sink, utterly unfocused design here). Rather than looking at a system holistically, they look at it as a discrete “tool-kit”. I think this is why those D&D players chafe at “focused (narrowing) design and tight system play principles, agenda/premise, and well-integrated reward cycles that create a feedback loop that engenders a particular play experience. So here is the play experience the Wandering Monster Clock machinery engenders: [B]Potentially overmatched adventurers struggling against time and environment (urgently trying to explore and deploy loadout expeditiously while avoiding all “unnecessary action”) to pull treasure from a dangerous dungeon.[/B] I think right there, we should be able to agree that 4e’s basic ethos tenets (“Go to the Action”, “Big Damn Heroes”, “The Heroic Rally”) as well as so much of its system machinery (extremely robust PCs, resource schedules and Milestones, heroic Quests as well as Monsters and Noncombat Encounters for XP, Gold/Treasure as player-facing PC build resource, etc etc) pushes back extremely hard against trying to recreate something like Moldvay Basic or Torchbearer). In order for it to all come together, you need: 1 - Non-robust adventurers 2 - Resource refresh that is a struggle to attain 3 - Gold for XP (no Monster for XP...encounters are to be avoided) 4 - Gear loadout that is essential to success 5 - Clearly defined Exploration Speed in varying units 6 - A Wandering Monster Click that interfaces with the directly above 7 - Deadly (as in insta-gib via mass HP ablation or SoD) Traps 8 - Swingy, short Combat Stock 4e has (5) above. (6) isn’t a huge barrier to overcome (you can create that clock pretty easily). The rest of it requires A LOT of system drift via A LOT of hacking, 3 being the hugest challenge to overcome (due to the nature of Treasure in the 2 systems being basically opposites). It can be done...but your no longer playing 4e at that point. You’re playing a severely drifted, serious hack if 4e. And due to the amount of drift/hack, you can’t juat “toggle back” to all things 4e. Well, I mean you can, but the play experience would be jarringly incoherent. [/QUOTE]
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