Is 4E charmless?

[Nivenus]

I really don't get the whole FR is dead attitude. Some changes were made, a few really bad, a few for the better, and suddenly it's as though somebody raped their childhood.

Actually, from what I've seen working on the FR Wiki WotC's marketing technique worked - there's more users contributing than there were in the months immediately prior to the FRCG and FRPG's release. But it seems as though it's become heresy to actually say anything positive about 4e FR in the forums.

Sorry, that was off-topic. I just get tired of seeing "FR is dead" or "woe is FR" posts.

As others have said (and I've said before) it depends what you mean by charm and who you're talking about. Charm, as I imagine the OP meant, is "flavoring" and in that case I can see their point, though I'm still not sure I agree. The sourcebooks have a great deal less of fluff and setting flavoring than they did in previous editions. On the other hand, I think the artistic qualities of the sourcebooks have gone up immensely and I think the Dragon articles we're getting have quite a bit of charm, both flavor and art-wise.

It all depends on what you mean and who you mean.

 

[WarlockLord]

4e has no charm. There's the straightjacket class system, the way EVERYTHING works the same...I feel like it's a collection of rules for playing a CRPG without a computer, but not like it could stand as a fantasy world. Heck, CRPGs have better magic, and I dislike the attitude that we'll get all this...for the low, low cost of 10 $35 splatbooks. Because I hate this new edition, I went back to 2e. Better, yet looser flavor.

 

[Fifth Element]

4e has no charm. There's the straightjacket class system

Straightjacket class system in older editions = charming
Straightjacket class system in 4E = totally not charming

 

[FireLance]

Straightjacket class system in older editions = charming
Straightjacket class system in 4E = totally not charming

"Straitjacket" depends on where you're starting from.

For some people, the fact that fighters could be equally good with ranged weapons as they were with melee weapons in previous editions, while they are much better with melee weapons than with ranged weapons in 4e means that fighters are straitjacketed into being melee combatants (specifically, melee defenders).

For others, the fact that you can play a martial character that is good with melee weapons or one that is good with ranged weapons regardless of edition (but in 4e, the word written under "class" would be ranger or rogue instead of fighter) means that there is no straitjacket.

For some people, the fact that, depending on spell selection, wizards could buff other characters, or protect them, or deal significant damage to a single target, or deal damage to multiple targets, or be less effective in combat in exchange for effectiveness out of combat in previous editions, whereas they are more focused and limited in 4e means that wizards are straitjacked into being controllers.

For others, the fact that you can play an arcane character who can accomplish any of the above (but not necessarily all of the above) means that there is no straitjacket.

 

[Frostmarrow]

I love my Mini. It's very charming indeed. It's the kind of car that makes you feel like a zoom-zoom. (Whatever that is, I don't know, but I can certainly feel it.)

I also love 4E. It grows on me too. I liked it from the get go and the more I look at it it shifts and changes. There are no obvious solutions, and of course you can min max but it's so complex than you still want to retrain later on. And that you can!

I also like having to cross-reference three books (PHB, AV, MP) just to gain one level.

 

[Darrin Drader]

Straightjacket class system in older editions = charming

By older editions, we're talking about 1E and 2E - the original roleplaying game. Nobody disputes that the classes back then didn't allow for very much customization. That's because nobody had come up with a system that allowed for it. Third edition was the edition that allowed you to play virtually any character concept you could imagine. That's the kind of power I always wished had been built into the earlier systems.

Straightjacket class system in 4E = totally not charming

One day you're playing a game where you can make a character any way you want it, then you "upgrade" and suddenly you're back to more or less the way things were a decade ago. Maybe that works for you. To me it feels a bit like trading in my nice new computer dual-core computer for the Commodore 64. Sure, I loved that C64 back in the day, but that thing just can't do what the new machines can do.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

See, I'd say your argument there is completely bass-ackward - compromising the flavour of a setting for STUPID marketing or kitchen sinking reasons when the implied setting they chose is as quirky as all getup, and wouldn't fit most settings if you forced it with a crowbar. The "Eberron kitchen sink method" which is now seemingly the default (poor FR, RIP) is anathema to D&D worldbuilding, I find it hard to describe how intellectually cowardly it is. I understand why they might do it - TSR tried the purist way and it split the market, but that doesn't make it's reverse right either. Just a different flavour of "wrong, try again".

I know you want to wave the banner for 4E but this really is the living end.

My goal wasn't to wave the 4E banner so much as to express what is apparently a very different approach to world building from yours.

That's why I started out by talking about how interesting it was that there were two such wildly divergent perspectives building off of the same points.

Perhaps if you can find a way to describe the intellectual cowardice you are percieving or, better yet, articulate it as an argument for a world building perspective we could get at the root of this strategic disconnect.

As it is I'm finding it very difficult to understand what you're arguing.

We might look at your statement on how the quirky setting couldn't be crowbared into a standard setting, for instance, for some clarity on the issue.

As I said, my favorite setting is Al-Quadim.

So let's take 6 elements of the implied setting and see how much I have to crowbar -

Dragonborn - Al-Quadim already rejected dragons in 2e so it would seem natural to reject them here. On the other hand, fire breathing honorable lizardmen do seem like a natural fit for the Scherazade meets Harryhausen setting. And the background story about a fallen empire fits perfectly. So significantly less crowbarring than would have been necessary in 2e with it's Ajami mages and warriors.

Bael Turrath - Fallen empire works well here too.

Feywyld - Adds a bit of fairy tale magic. Can't go wrong there. The setting needs more of it. It is the Arabian Nights, after all.

Warlords - Dear God this is so freaking perfect what with an entire nation of Mamelukes in the setting who's whole schtick was chain of command.

Elemental Chaos - Al-Quadim was built on an elemental framework and this makes that framework much much easier to run. All the different species of genie can live in one contiguous environment. And that environment is now an actual environment rather than a Platonic concept into which environments intruded.


So, it's all pretty easy peasy pumpkin pie from where I sit. At the least it's no harder to lever into a setting than 2Es implied setting, and at the best it's significantly easier.

I could be cherry picking, certainly, but I don't know that that obviates my point.

You should be cherry picking when building a setting with DnD and having an integrated implied setting makes that significantly easier to do than having to pick cherries from umpteen billion different trees in 2e.

 

[Mallus]

Nobody disputes that the classes back then didn't allow for very much customization.

I bet Runequest players did.

One day you're playing a game where you can make a character any way you want it...

So you were playing GURPS, HERO, or M&M...

...then you "upgrade" and suddenly you're back to more or less the way things were a decade ago.

... and then you went back to D&D.

 

[Fifth Element]

By older editions, we're talking about 1E and 2E - the original roleplaying game.

2E is the original roleplaying game?

Nobody disputes that the classes back then didn't allow for very much customization. That's because nobody had come up with a system that allowed for it.

2E was released in 1987. Are you telling me no RPG had a system for customizing characters by 1987?

It seems the straightjacket classes back then are considered part of the "charm" of the game. Now it's something to be derided. Again, that's the problem with using such a nebulous term as "charm."

 

[Ashrum the Black]

Hey now!!! As a proud 2009 mini owner I take umbridge to the comparison that my cherry red curve hugging go-kart is "charmless".

As for 4e. IMO, a lot of that seems to stem from the lack of wide third party support. It was the third party books that really helped to broaden 3e's charm when it was first introduced to me. And it was a lot of the 3pp folks that really seemed to push the system and help to shape it into what it eventually became.

They were the ones writing wonky rules that morphed things in ways nodody had considered. Wizards then came along and polished this sometimes crude concepts into workable and truley useable parts of the game. But unltimatly it was a lot of those 3pp folks that helped inovate.

Aside from that the 3pp folks helped cater to the smaller niche groups that right now are truely feeling left out. We'll see if things imporve in the long run on not I guess.

-Ashrum