How Important is Magic to Dungeons and Dragons? - Third Edition vs Fourth Edition

[Cadfan]

Yes, I made an example of a virus. So?

So you shouldn't argue that a rule doesn't make sense by arguing that it doesn't match with fluff that you made up. That way lies madness.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Cavemen can look a computer and call it magic, that doesn't make it magic though.

If the computer is in thier world and they can observe its function but cannot even begin to understand how it does what it does then its magic to them.

Bring the caveman to our world and he's just a primitive who doesn't understand technology. Its all about perspective.

 

[Scribble]

ARRRRRRRGGGG Zog forget to hit save and now Zog lose five hours woth of cave painting!!! ZOG HATE BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH!!!! ZOG SMAAAAAAAAASH MICROSOFT!!!!!

 

[Crothian]

If the computer is in thier world and they can observe its function but cannot even begin to understand how it does what it does then its magic to them.

Bring the caveman to our world and he's just a primitive who doesn't understand technology. Its all about perspective.

It is not perspective, it's what it is. Just because someone can't understand how something works doesn't make it magic. In this discussion the 4e powers tell us what they are, so just because someone wants to call them something else doesn't doesn't matter.

 

[Ariosto]

Clerics & Druids have NEVER used spells due to using a a "mystical artform/science". Their magic was bestowed by their deity.

Although the level titles are of religious origin (Christian apart from "Lama"), Clerics are nowhere in the original set explicitly associated with a deity or deities. They do have "spells", and (contra later versions) are required to have books of spells. Druids in Supplement I are "priests of a neutral-type religion ... and are combination clerics/magic-users." In Supplement III, "They are more closely attuned to Nature, serving as its priests rather than serving some other deity."

 

[Ariosto]

You can't create a sense of wonder with something pinned to a page like a butterfly impaled by a needle.

I agree that it's counter-productive, and I appreciated the fact that in early editions of Pendragon magic was entirely in the GM's hands. However, I don't think it follows that all descriptions are equal. The reduction of a power from something qualitatively distinctive to a mere "+x" kind of thing (e.g., Boots of Spider Climbing, Elven Cloak, Vorpal Weapon) may be unhelpful to the sense of wonder.

 

[Ariosto]

I would definitely consider the "Come and Get It" power magical -- if I could find a non-magical frame of reference at all in 4E. It is so adrift even from "comic book reality" that any attempt to think beyond the pieces and squares and dice-rolls utterly confounds me. To visualize it in any other terms is to run up abruptly against absurdity. To manipulate the rules effectively is to take their abstract logic straight. (YMMV, of course!)

 

[Mallus]

I would definitely consider the "Come and Get It" power magical -- if I could find a non-magical frame of reference at all in 4E. It is so adrift even from "comic book reality" that any attempt to think beyond the pieces and squares and dice-rolls utterly confounds me. To visualize it in any other terms is to run up abruptly against absurdity.

The fighter taunts nearby opponents, seeming to drop his guard. Believing the fighter to be over-confident (and perhaps under-skilled) his foes close to melee...

Can you visualize it better now?

 

[Ariosto]

Say it with me... it's not magic, it's direct control over the narrative.

It certainly has nothing to do with taunting; read the rule!

And when an NPC takes direct control over YOUR narrative? If that's not magic, then in old-fashioned D&D terms it's probably "railroading". Love it all you want, "control over the narrative" in that Ron Edwards sense is not what D&D traditionally is about.

 

[Mallus]

It certainly has nothing to do with taunting; read the rule!

I have the 4e PHB open in front of me, as a matter of fact.

You said that you couldn't visualize how CaGI functioned. I gave you an example, providing reasonable narration for the mechanical effect stated in the power's write-up.

If that's not magic, then in old-fashioned D&D terms it's probably "railroading". Love it all you want, "control over the narrative" in that Ron Edwards sense is not what D&D traditionally is about.

Don't confuse the issue by bringing the specter of railroading. Given a player a tiny bit of narrative authority in combat, with the specific purpose of producing a tactical battlefield effect isn't railroading in any meaningful sense of the word.

It's no more railroading than if the player of a 1e wizard decides to use a fireball.