D&D 4E Core 4E vs. Essentials

[Igwilly]

Thanks, [MENTION=15684]Imruphel[/MENTION].

Well, back to feats.

I hate them. I really do. Reason: they are a mood killer in character creation, especially for novices.
This all is my personal experience, but...
I had many new players in my games. By observation, I discovered that some things are done with more enthusiasm than others.
No matter how many classes or races the game has, novice players (and everyone else) happily choose them. Even if what you want is a Human Fighter, these things have clear importance to the character itself; and honestly, if you want simple choices, it's easy to simply use the core books or whatever.
Skills are median. People understand their importance, but it's not that exciting. Same with equipment.
But feats... Oh, feats... they're a real pain.
First, even today I'm not capable of telling you what a feat actually is in character. They are so varied and so bland they don't really translate in the game world: they are just a metagame construct.
And there are so many of them. Even experienced players get unmotivated. And novices... I usually choose that for them - always the simple, but very effective choice - otherwise, this kills their mood.
I know they are supposed to be a character customization mechanic, but I don't think they are *good* at that.

Oh, and I stand still by my previous statement: AD&D 2E is being much more fun to me than "AD&D 3E". I think they messed up with a lot of things in this edition change

 

[S'mon]

I like Core best, but with the Essentials uber-feats. With them in play I need to worry less about PCs getting their magic item pluses on time & can run it more status-quo.

 

[Imaro]

Nevermind... wrong thread

 

[Tony Vargas]

Maybe it's just me - see next comment - but I thought that was sugar-coated. I stuck to facts ...
It's sometimes hard to sugar coat facts.

You've gotta carefully dab them with little white lies to make them more palatable, but without actually obscuring them.

I don't claim to be an expert at the art, myself.

Essentials was more about playing the corporate game with Hasbro than it was a good faith attempt to resuscitate 4E. If WotC had really wanted 4E revived, they would have kept Rich Baker and put him in charge of the revision.

I must've missed Baker's time in the hotseat - I thought the reins had passed directly from Heinsoo to Mearls?

And why would Baker necessarily have tried to actually salvage 4e rather than throw it to the wolves as Essentials?

::google::google:: .... oooh... he did the last ed of Gamma World? I see...

 

[Tony Vargas]

Thanks, [MENTION=15684]Imruphel[/MENTION].

Well, back to feats.

I hate them. I really do. Reason: they are a mood killer in character creation, especially for novices.

Once there were just too many of them, yes, of course.

[sblock="I often go on about 'list based' systems, if you've heard that rant enough already, just skip it."]
So, a system can be 'effects based,' the mechanics model what your character can accomplish, you fill in how they accomplish it.
Or, a system can be 'list based,' the mechanics model what your character can do, including how they do it. Since an RPG character could conceivably do almost anything, these lists tend to just grow and grow...

List-based systems either stagnate and die, or bloat and die.

If you don't add to the lists that make up a list based system the finite options they offer eventually pall and players lose interest.
If you /do/ add to the lists to keep it interesting, the ways in which players can combine elements for each list expand exponentially, and eventually, some of those combinations 'break,' obviating many others, and ruining game balance - again, ironically, causing the game to net lose really choices and become less interesting to players.

D&D has always been list-based. It has generally bloated & died, to be replaced by a new edition.
4e, though, was so robustly balanced in most areas that it resisted the deleterious effects of the inevitable bloat surprisingly well. You couldn't cross-pollinate powers profligately, you couldn't 'spam' a broken encounter or daily power, you couldn't combine 10 classes in one character, there weren't expanding skill lists, etc.
It was also a little bit effects-based in that it let you re-skin your characters appearance ( as 3e had), and more significantly, explicitly let you re-skin your powers, leaving only the mechanical effects unchanged (in 2e, there was a spell that let you do that to other spells, in 3.5 there was a late edition wizard feat that let you do so with spells - both were fairly obscure).
There was one area where 4e was full-on list-based, with all the pitfalls thereof: Feats.
[/sblock]

One solution is to use pregens for new players. Seems to work quite well in 4e if you use the CB. Actually, the off-line CB was better because you could customize and condense a character sheet down to 2 pages.

Oh, and I stand still by my previous statement: AD&D 2E is being much more fun to me than "AD&D 3E". I think they messed up with a lot of things in this edition change

Not see'n it. Of course, 2e was the one ed that actually lost my interest.

 

[Igwilly]

[MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION], I suggest reading the rest of my post.
In my experience, people react differently depending on the gameplay element.
Worse; even I, a veteran comparatively with other local players, tend to dislike this part. It's just something I want to get over as soon as possible.
And the minor aspect they seem to possess is a perfect target for forgetting in actual gameplay. However, they are important to gameplay. That's a tough fight to face.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I suggest reading the rest of my post.

I did. I just had nothing to add, well - beyond the long rant going over my own reason for disliking 4e's morass of chaff feats and confiscatory & regressive feat taxes, but that was under the cut because I've just said it too much over the years.

Pregens were just the one constructive thing I had to say.

 

[Igwilly]

I did. I just had nothing to add, well - beyond the long rant going over my own reason for disliking 4e's morass of chaff feats and confiscatory & regressive feat taxes, but that was under the cut because I've just said it too much over the years.

Pregens were just the one constructive thing I had to say.

Hahaha. Ok, my apologies.

They can be quite useful. Although, I remember the pregens from Character Builder having a bad reputation here.
Well, I suppose I can ask them the basic stuff, and fill out the mechanical details. However, I would like them to know how to build a character by themselves.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Hahaha. Ok, my apologies.

They can be quite useful. Although, I remember the pregens from Character Builder having a bad reputation here.

Oh, I prefered to make my own pregens. Eventually, they stopped including sucky pregens in Encounters packets. Then they just started re-using the Essentials batch, which got really old.

Well, I suppose I can ask them the basic stuff, and fill out the mechanical details. However, I would like them to know how to build a character by themselves.

They can build their second character.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Thanks, @Imruphel.

Well, back to feats.

I hate them. I really do. Reason: they are a mood killer in character creation, especially for novices.
This all is my personal experience, but...
I had many new players in my games. By observation, I discovered that some things are done with more enthusiasm than others.
No matter how many classes or races the game has, novice players (and everyone else) happily choose them. Even if what you want is a Human Fighter, these things have clear importance to the character itself; and honestly, if you want simple choices, it's easy to simply use the core books or whatever.
Skills are median. People understand their importance, but it's not that exciting. Same with equipment.
But feats... Oh, feats... they're a real pain.
First, even today I'm not capable of telling you what a feat actually is in character. They are so varied and so bland they don't really translate in the game world: they are just a metagame construct.
And there are so many of them. Even experienced players get unmotivated. And novices... I usually choose that for them - always the simple, but very effective choice - otherwise, this kills their mood.
I know they are supposed to be a character customization mechanic, but I don't think they are *good* at that.

Oh, and I stand still by my previous statement: AD&D 2E is being much more fun to me than "AD&D 3E". I think they messed up with a lot of things in this edition change

See, this is all why I took care of the whole issue in HoML. You level by acquiring 'boons', which in part replace feats (as well as items, themes, PPs, EDs, etc.). Thus it is LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE mechanically in this system to gain something that doesn't have a narrative basis in the game at hand. Your character takes actions, those actions lead to acquisition of boons, and for each major boon your character levels. It doesn't even make design sense to attempt to create some meaningless non-entity boon. I mean, sure, you COULD, and there are a few "I hit harder" type boons that have been devised, but you STILL have to come up with the narrative logic for acquiring them! I guess a GM could undermine the whole concept by just handing out arbitrary boons at random intervals, but it makes little sense in the overall context of the game.

IMHO this went a HUGE long way to obviating the problems with feat-like elements. Beyond that there are a few design concepts that you can stick by that will help a lot. One of the main ones is applicability. There are no elements in my game that can only come into play at specific GM-determined points (like say a strange language). These exist, but they are totally non-mechanical (termed 'minor boons' which you can simply acquire without consequence, though they still come out of narrative logic). Each boon provides the character with options, and options that are pretty much always relevant. Many of them can be leveraged using my version of 'Inspiration', which means even if the granted mechanics aren't particularly useful at a given time you can still shape the story with it (IE you have the 'Thief' boon, you could expend your inspiration to gain an advantage in a social situation by calling it out).

Again, I must say that in this one sense 5e outdoes 4e, its version of backgrounds and feats simply work better. They missed the boat in their implementation of inspiration and character traits though. Truthfully I'd have much rather seen a game evolved in the direction I'm going with mine vs what Essentials ended up being. It was both too constrained and too much change, just missed the mark.

In this respect I agree totally that Mearls was the WRONG guy to head up 4e development. Its still absurd to claim that he sabotaged the game. Nobody has that much leeway in a company as big as Hasbro, sorry.