In defense of 4E

[Matt James]

PS: A writter takes 5 years to write a good book. WotC took 3 years to make 5 new books and new entire game. Take any conclusions you want.

I'm great friends with many current fantasy authors. Besides the absurdity of comparing game design and novel writing, I would be curious to know where you got that number from.

 

[Siberys]

Design on 4e did start in 2005, but wasn't 3.x's design time comparable? And by this point in 3.x's lifetime, 3.5 had been released.

4e has only Essentials and some solid errata - essentials doesn't change anything mechanically, only how it is presented, and the errata was done in a timely manner and for free. 3.x almost never got errata, and when it did it was inconsistent and took forever for it to be released.

Of course, people still complain about errata. Just like people complained when there wasn't.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Of course, people still complain about errata. Just like people complained when there wasn't.

It's not the existence of errata that ticks people off- mistakes will happen, after all- it's the amount and nature of errata in a supposedly professionally done product that is galling.

 

[Matt James]

So are we now introducing a new front on the edition wars? It is now about the amount of errata??

 

[Siberys]

IME, the amount of errata is pretty consistent across systems and companies, at least with game books. With 4e, a lot of the errata was 'inflated' in size by including an explanation and a completely reformatted block for whatever was changed - which I'd view as a good thing to include.

RE: Matt James; Not really. This one's been around since WotC started its errata policy.

 

[Baveboi]

I'm great friends with many current fantasy authors.

Me too. From Brasil, tho, since I hail from here, and I made acquitances with others from outside as well. Only a shake of hands and exchange of words wouldn't quilify for a friendship.

Besides the absurdity of comparing game design and novel writing, I would be curious to know where you got that number from.

They aren't that far apart if you think where you are going with it. There is a stage where you need to research and design it before you can create anything, even the most rudimentary piece of text needs the apropriate designation when you are publishing it in a world-wide material.
Just when you get to the functionality of the product you are creating is that things start to become different from each other.


Edit: Oh, I got that numbers from third parties.
A friend of mine is friends with Ed Greenwood and he insistently tells me that bit of information. Repeteadly. It's a nit pick for him, I just belive his guts and passed it down here. No need to pay attention to it or pay heed, since I can't verify it's worth.

 

[Mallus]

...those guys who always wanted to play a half-dragon with a dragon class using dragon armor, riding a dragon while shooting dragon lazer from their eyes.

This reminds me of The Herculoids. Any D&D campaign that resembles The Herculoids is fine in my book!

But that's just me and a select group of people who see Fantasy RPGs like D&D as something more of a storytelling and game exercise and, you know, less crunchy.

Heh... my group is comprised mainly of crunch-loving storytellers. We can get sidetracked at the drop of a hat.

 

[fjw70]

I agree with much the OPer sais. 4e isn't perfect but I haven't found a game that is yet. On balance 4e is my favorite version of D&D.

I
· My favorite pre-4E classes are casters but especially by high levels, the casters have far more “interesting” things to do in a round than the non-casters. They had many spells to cast and in later systems, many variants with meta-magics while the melee classes were mostly locked in placed swinging their weapons.

This didn't bother me much in earlier editions. I like the Essentials martial classes better then original 4e. They still have some interesting options, just not as many as the casters.

Pre-4E combat for us could get very static. Characters had few ways to move an enemy and little incentive to do anything but take a full round attack action. Any movement beyond a 5 square adjust meant you got only one attack that round instead of your n-attacks at higher levels. This mechanic even introduced a noticeable change in combat as PCs leveled, got their extra attacks and stopped moving around much on the battlefield so they could use those attacks.

This was a big flaw in 3/3.5 IMO. The full-round action discourages movement to much.

Early systems were much less crisp on how actions were defined and were much less regular. 4E, you get a minor, move and standard action, plus clear rules on free-actions and responsive reactions. Everyone has the same amount at all levels. Gives everyone a fair amount of “air” time during battle.

I do like the way the actions are defined in 4e.

· Healers often had thankless and fairly dull jobs. While sometimes 4E goes a little too far, there are first off, a number of very distinct flavors of healers and builds that are more or less healing focused, and second off, the healer generally has a wide range of options from dealing damage to moving foes around to doing other interesting (both in terms of utility and color) support things.

Healing going to far is one of my biggest gripes with 4e. I love the healing surge mechanic but dislike the leader role as it adds too much in-combat healing. I am trying to get a 4e game started that does away with the leader role altogether.

What about non-combat? Well, I think 4E oversimplified skills and I think the skill challenge, while interesting to a point, is overdone but in the end, I don’t think any system has a ton of impact on the non-combat side. Very early D&D left it entirely to the players since there were no skills and some of the middle editions had fairly weak skill systems. Those systems worked fine for non-combat mostly because non-combat doesn’t need a lot of rules to work fine. Put another way, I think any of the D&D editions works fine out of combat.

I love the way 4e does skills. I am not a character builder-type. I want most of my time and thought focused on actual game play and want to put in as little time as possible on building and leveeling up.

 

[Baveboi]

This reminds me of The Herculoids. Any D&D campaign that resembles The Herculoids is fine in my book!

LOL
Good reference. But you have to agree with me that it only works in a select number of cases.
I have a hard time, if not a FFFFun time, picturing Herculoids in a oriental diplomatic campaing. HAHA

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I'm defending 4e by playing and enjoying it. How bout you?

This is really the best way to defend it - I may say that you're wrong, and there is no way that you're having fun with that game. But, really, that's not my call, now is it? You are the one who knows whether or not you are having fun.

If you are having fun then game on, and enjoy your badwrongfun TM and I'll enjoy mine.*

The Auld Grump
* 'Cause Jack Chick will tell us that it is all badwrongfun TM.