I've had a nagging discontent in the back of my mind with the new Star Wars game, and with the things that I'd read about 4E, and I never could put my finger on just what was bothering me... until recently. Suddenly things snapped into perfect clarity: 4E is a game.
"Well, DUH," you're thinking.
But the previous versions of D&D were examples of a game being shaped around roleplaying. Why should a wizard be able to Meteor Swarm some guy for 50d8 damage while the warrior does 1d10+8? Well, clearly because the wizard is a wizard, and that's what wizards do.
4E is an example of a game being shaped without roleplaying. Every class shares essentially identical abilities. They all have their at-will foozle, their per-encounter foozle, and per-day foozle. You can call it a spell, a talent, a knack, or whatever you want, but the rules don't care. If you blanked out every class-specific word in the documents, you'd be left with classes that are difficult to distinguish. You could presume that the person doing the ranged damage is a ranger or a mage, while the people doing melee damage are the fighters and paladins, but that's about as far as you'd get.
What do you get for a lifetime's study of magic? At-will abilities, per-encounter abilities, per-day abilities.
What do you get for faithful service to a god? At-will abilities, per-encounter abilities, per-day abilities.
What do you get for skulking in the shadows since childhood? At-will abilities, per-encounter abilities, per-day abilities.
What do you get for daily battle from the moment you were old enough to hold a sword? At-will abilities, per-encounter abilities, per-day abilities.
From the perspective of game balancing and ease of play through combat situations, that's fantastic. From the perspective of roleplaying through the game mechanics, it's ruinous. Putting each class's abilities 'on rails' like that immediately excludes the possibility of any character ideas that don't fit within the confines of the paradigm.
Say you want to be a Shifter. You want to be a druid who's never in his natural form, but always flying as a bird, sneaking as a goblin, fighting as a griffin. How's he going to fit into 4E? Well, let's see what he can do.
At-Will Abilities:
Bear Claw: Attack vs. AC, 1d8+1 slashing damage as you grow bear claws and attack. Rar!
Per-Encounter Abilities:
Cheetah Speed: You move an extra 3 squares until the beginning of your next round. Zoom!
Per-Day Abilities:
Lion's Might: You turn into a lion for 2 rounds. This gives you +4 strength. Roar!
Um. Kay. But where's the flying as a bird, sneaking as a goblin, or fighting as a griffin? Those things don't really fit into a per-encounter setup, they're nebulous things that last for hours (traveling as a bird), take place outside of fights (sneaking as a goblin), or just aren't included in the designer's list of what the class should have in its abilities (griffins). If you don't feel that your Shifter wants to have bear claws, or run faster, or boost its strength, tough. In order to fit into the 'game first, roleplaying last' model, each class needs to have clearly-defined abilities that are carefully balanced so as not to make the other players unhappy, so you can't have anything so freeform as a blank check to turn into random monsters. Now your character concept sucks, shut up and reroll a wizard and cast Magic Missile every round for your 2d4 damage.
The Saga edition of the Star Wars RPG shows the writing on the wall for 4E with its treatment of the Jedi. The force has been stuffed into tiny, neat boxes that in turn make it difficult to emulate anything that you saw in any of the movies. Even though you watched lightsabers cutting up everything in sight and totally slicing dudes in half all over the place, you're hard-pressed to slice some guy's arm off with one in the RPG, much less cut people in half. From the perspective of a game, this is great; you have more balance between Jedi and non-Jedi characters. From the perspective of the Star Wars universe portrayed by the movies, it's insane. The Han Solos and Chewbaccas of the movie didn't need to be as powerful as the Jedi; they were amply good enough at what they did to hold their own in a fight without resorting to tossing lightning or cutting people in half. But once the game comes into the picture, this entire balance thing comes through and pounds each class with a hammer until they're all the same height, concept be damned. This makes combats a smooth and easy affair, but it casts a pall of blandness over the game. Nobody stands out in any particular direction; everything's been sanded down to a homogeneous plane.
Move forward to the D&D Experience and you'll see the fruits of that labor. A very smooth, very polished system in which absolutely nobody deviates in a significant manner from anybody else. I got an image in my mind's eye, a video game first-person shooter with a 4E wizard pew-pewing out Magic Missiles as fast as the player could click, with the number of health surges remaining to him listed in the upper corner of the screen like health packs. Eventually a bar at the bottom of the screen will fill and he can do a fireball.
Fine for a game, bad for a roleplaying game. Why? Shouldn't a real roleplayer be able to roleplay no matter what the game mechanics are? Yes, but if you go around telling people that you're the exiled son of a prince who had to live on the harsh back streets of a city of druids and assassinates people with secrets you learned from the trees themselves, you'll look a bit stupid in the first fight when your abilities are distinctly un-treeish.
"Leafildor, quickly, use your connection to the trees to make that oak there attack!"
"Um, I can't. That's a once per day thing."
"But you said you were the fallen prince of trees!"
"Well, I am! Once a day until the start of my next round."
"Well, DUH," you're thinking.
But the previous versions of D&D were examples of a game being shaped around roleplaying. Why should a wizard be able to Meteor Swarm some guy for 50d8 damage while the warrior does 1d10+8? Well, clearly because the wizard is a wizard, and that's what wizards do.
4E is an example of a game being shaped without roleplaying. Every class shares essentially identical abilities. They all have their at-will foozle, their per-encounter foozle, and per-day foozle. You can call it a spell, a talent, a knack, or whatever you want, but the rules don't care. If you blanked out every class-specific word in the documents, you'd be left with classes that are difficult to distinguish. You could presume that the person doing the ranged damage is a ranger or a mage, while the people doing melee damage are the fighters and paladins, but that's about as far as you'd get.
What do you get for a lifetime's study of magic? At-will abilities, per-encounter abilities, per-day abilities.
What do you get for faithful service to a god? At-will abilities, per-encounter abilities, per-day abilities.
What do you get for skulking in the shadows since childhood? At-will abilities, per-encounter abilities, per-day abilities.
What do you get for daily battle from the moment you were old enough to hold a sword? At-will abilities, per-encounter abilities, per-day abilities.
From the perspective of game balancing and ease of play through combat situations, that's fantastic. From the perspective of roleplaying through the game mechanics, it's ruinous. Putting each class's abilities 'on rails' like that immediately excludes the possibility of any character ideas that don't fit within the confines of the paradigm.
Say you want to be a Shifter. You want to be a druid who's never in his natural form, but always flying as a bird, sneaking as a goblin, fighting as a griffin. How's he going to fit into 4E? Well, let's see what he can do.
At-Will Abilities:
Bear Claw: Attack vs. AC, 1d8+1 slashing damage as you grow bear claws and attack. Rar!
Per-Encounter Abilities:
Cheetah Speed: You move an extra 3 squares until the beginning of your next round. Zoom!
Per-Day Abilities:
Lion's Might: You turn into a lion for 2 rounds. This gives you +4 strength. Roar!
Um. Kay. But where's the flying as a bird, sneaking as a goblin, or fighting as a griffin? Those things don't really fit into a per-encounter setup, they're nebulous things that last for hours (traveling as a bird), take place outside of fights (sneaking as a goblin), or just aren't included in the designer's list of what the class should have in its abilities (griffins). If you don't feel that your Shifter wants to have bear claws, or run faster, or boost its strength, tough. In order to fit into the 'game first, roleplaying last' model, each class needs to have clearly-defined abilities that are carefully balanced so as not to make the other players unhappy, so you can't have anything so freeform as a blank check to turn into random monsters. Now your character concept sucks, shut up and reroll a wizard and cast Magic Missile every round for your 2d4 damage.
The Saga edition of the Star Wars RPG shows the writing on the wall for 4E with its treatment of the Jedi. The force has been stuffed into tiny, neat boxes that in turn make it difficult to emulate anything that you saw in any of the movies. Even though you watched lightsabers cutting up everything in sight and totally slicing dudes in half all over the place, you're hard-pressed to slice some guy's arm off with one in the RPG, much less cut people in half. From the perspective of a game, this is great; you have more balance between Jedi and non-Jedi characters. From the perspective of the Star Wars universe portrayed by the movies, it's insane. The Han Solos and Chewbaccas of the movie didn't need to be as powerful as the Jedi; they were amply good enough at what they did to hold their own in a fight without resorting to tossing lightning or cutting people in half. But once the game comes into the picture, this entire balance thing comes through and pounds each class with a hammer until they're all the same height, concept be damned. This makes combats a smooth and easy affair, but it casts a pall of blandness over the game. Nobody stands out in any particular direction; everything's been sanded down to a homogeneous plane.
Move forward to the D&D Experience and you'll see the fruits of that labor. A very smooth, very polished system in which absolutely nobody deviates in a significant manner from anybody else. I got an image in my mind's eye, a video game first-person shooter with a 4E wizard pew-pewing out Magic Missiles as fast as the player could click, with the number of health surges remaining to him listed in the upper corner of the screen like health packs. Eventually a bar at the bottom of the screen will fill and he can do a fireball.
Fine for a game, bad for a roleplaying game. Why? Shouldn't a real roleplayer be able to roleplay no matter what the game mechanics are? Yes, but if you go around telling people that you're the exiled son of a prince who had to live on the harsh back streets of a city of druids and assassinates people with secrets you learned from the trees themselves, you'll look a bit stupid in the first fight when your abilities are distinctly un-treeish.
"Leafildor, quickly, use your connection to the trees to make that oak there attack!"
"Um, I can't. That's a once per day thing."
"But you said you were the fallen prince of trees!"
"Well, I am! Once a day until the start of my next round."
