I think D&D, though doing so slowly, had been improving over it's various editions.
Whereas I'm fan of AD&D and 3e/3.5e, and I never liked 2nd Edition or 4e.
I adore 1st ed Gamma World, even though I recognize that it's a terrible game by modern standards
I have similar feelings about 1st edition Boot Hill, but I wouldn't say those are terrible games, just much simpler.
The OP just made up 'CaW' a little bit ago.
Nod. The CaW/CaS thing is a brilliant insight, IMHO. Could it be refined? Sure, but it's a very sharp idea as is.
Kudos to you for admiting an actual dislike of balance. That actually heads off a lot of back-and-forth we might otherwise have.
Nod, it does save trouble. Note that I didn't say I DISLIKE balance, I said I didn't like it as a major design goal in 4e. The truth is, I'm DISINTERESTED in balance. I don't MIND balance, but I wouldn't sacrifice to get it, as I think the 4e designers did.
4e did not take resource management out of the game. Far from it, there are still dailies
It got rid of most of it. Most spells/powers recharge with a quick rest and you always go into a new combat at full HP -- not features of traditional D&D.
Warriors are not spellcasters - 'essentially' or otherwise.
The first time my paladin killed a minion by marking him and watching him attack someone else, and I noticed that my paladin and the warlord never used basic attacks, but always powers, I realized we were all playing sorcerers, in 3e terms, with reloading spellslots at the end of each combat. The wizard was grinding with his Magic Missile (which originally require a To Hit roll) nearly every round, I was grinding with my Valiant Strike nearly every round, and the only difference seemed to be range. As for dailies, my paladins killer daily is a ranged "spelllike" effect that doesn't involve a weapon, but the wrath of the gawds. My Daily Utility -- much more useful -- is a buff spell that lasts one fight. I believe the Warlord's is a party buff.
Different aproach, different results, different preferences. No bearing on how good a game either one is (was).
Agreed.
Aparently, if done often enough, stridently enough, viciously enough, and combined with a veritable boycott, it can kill a 3-year-old edition of D&D for the first time in the history of the game.
I'm not going buy books for a game I dislike, or subscribe to a service for a game I don't like. I continued to buy WOTC minis occcassionally, and if they had published PDF's of traditional D&D materials I would have bought those too. If you call it a "boycott" to not buy stuff you don't like, well, OK then.
I did buy the 4e PHB on the first day, and even got it signed by the designers at the launch party . . . and I've played it somewhere over a dozen times, most recently in December. But for me, 4e is a complicated version of the Ravenloft boardgame -- it has some of the trappings of D&D and occassional flashes of D&D-like fun, but it's just a board game, not "real". I can tolerate playing it, but it doesn't live in my brain away from the table like traditional D&D does. Traditional D&D brings me to another world, one I daydream and scheme about a lot -- just like I do about war strategy computer games. The 4e campaign, meh, I think about it when I'm at table, never away from it -- like Tetris.
Man, I gotta stop typing and go play some "Making History 2".
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