Clark Peterson on 4E

[Orcus]

Then you agree with me. Cool. I like being agreed with...

I think I agree with you too. I wasnt saying that 4E is no longer an RPG. I mean, that would be crazy. Of course its an RPG. My concern is that it has too much reliance on the grid and that stifles options, in my opinion. It feels too much like a mini game, or maybe I should say it has too many mini game concepts hardwired into it for my tastes. I cant fault Wizards for that, their minis sell better than their other stuff and so incorporating that into their core RPG makes business sense. I dont like it so much though I want to go back to feet and to more freeform movement. I absolutely detest hopping around a grid.

And as for "anime crap" well I am a big boy and I can take the shots for that. Those were my words. I wont take them back. I'm not trying to offend people, but I can see why that would. I just happen to think that 4E is overpowered and even at real low levels. And that just doesnt fit with how I want my D&D to be. I dont want rangers shooting two arrows out of their bow with one shot at first level. Thats what I was referring to. It was probably wrong of me to call that "anime crap" and to link overpowered stuff to anime. I hope you guys see what I mean by sayinig that, as indelicately as I did It wasnt fair or accurate of me to link that to anime and I am certainly not dissing that genre at all. But, as they say, you cant unring the bell.

 

[DaveMage]

So, in summary, this whole thread was caused by a delayed GSL.

Idle minds - eh, Clark?

Ha!

 

[Dark Mistress]

I have been playing monopoly since I was a kid, with many many different people, and I have yet to play it with anyone who takes the role of an imaginary character.

"Hello all. I will be playing a character named Bob Simpson tonight. He is a 45 y/o real estate tycoon wanna-be who likes African-American ladies and Long Island ice-teas. His hairline is receding and he is a bit on the heavy side, but most people find him quite funny. He usually wears a grey suit and a brown suit-case at work, and drive a yellow porsche. If he goes to jail, he will probably break down and sit out at least 5 extra rounds, as he had a nasty experience when he was a kid, which left him traumatized and unable to cope with being locked up"

Do you guys introduce your characters like that in Monopoly? Seriously? For us, it's more like: "I pick the red car, lets roll and see who starts".

I am some friends have, it was actually pretty fun. More so than just a normal game. Including one player leaping from his hotel one he was out of money.(aka he was out of them game) Not something we have done much or often but have done it and it was fun.

 

[Firevalkyrie]

(and just nitpicking here, animation (i.e. anime) is a medium, not a genre. Somebody calling it a genre had best take it up with Brad Bird, but prepare themselves for fisticuffs beforehand (q.v. The Incredibles director commentary ) )

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I think I agree with you too. I wasnt saying that 4E is no longer an RPG. I mean, that would be crazy. Of course its an RPG. My concern is that it has too much reliance on the grid and that stifles options, in my opinion. It feels too much like a mini game, or maybe I should say it has too many mini game concepts hardwired into it for my tastes. I cant fault Wizards for that, their minis sell better than their other stuff and so incorporating that into their core RPG makes business sense. I dont like it so much though I want to go back to feet and to more freeform movement. I absolutely detest hopping around a grid.

I am not sure it is that much ingrained into the system. The implementation in form of the existing powers is board-game dependent. But if you add a few more conditions (and use the existing ones more), you could probably come up with a system that doesn't rely that much on positioning. I think they key to making combat with a power system interesting is in allowing for a lot of "emergent" tactics, combining game effects in reaction to other game effects. The grid is the easiest and least artificial way to create such effects.
You can literally see the possible combinations.

Question is - would you want to? Or is all this "positioning" crap not just too much fun to pass up? That's entirely subjective, of course.

 

[xechnao]

Because to me, the soul of D&D - in terms of the game that the book gives you - has always been in killing things and taking their stuff, and 4E has that in spades

There is an important element missing here: who kills things and takes their staff? Are they robots? are they pirates? are they ninjas? Or something else?

Only now there's new and interesting ways for guys other than wizards to kill things and take their stuff

Interesting to you. Not interesting to me. When my PC represents a man fighting and the fight revolves powers or techniques -or whatever name you want to give- that they apply periodically with the same period and are nothing but certain chances to transfer the same certain types of partecipants in the same certain specific directions in nothing but interesting to me. I rather find it silly as it is at odds of how fights are and thus should be represented. 3e has silly elements as well but at least it lacked square transfering stuff so it was less silly I guess. I am all for more options but I am against silly options -silly the way I find them.

 

[joethelawyer]

clark are you worried that the future gsl will not let you do what you want to do with this product, either now or in the future?

have you thought of making it more into a pathfinder add-on that brings some of the better aspects of 4e into pathfinder?

 

[WayneLigon]

It'll certainly be interesting to see a '4E Arcana Unearthed'; I always hoped more people would follow Monte's example and release true variant Player's Handbooks. I think it would be a fantastic idea to release a true variant for 4E.

I think that trying to recapture a '1E feel' is the wrong way to go, though. That time has passed. If it hadn't, 2E and especially 3E would not have attracted so many players; 3E especially brought players back into the fold - meaning they had been actively driven away by 1E/2E's various little stupidities that don't fare well at all once you've been exposed to other systems.

 

[Remathilis]

I think I agree with you too. I wasnt saying that 4E is no longer an RPG. I mean, that would be crazy. Of course its an RPG. My concern is that it has too much reliance on the grid and that stifles options, in my opinion. It feels too much like a mini game, or maybe I should say it has too many mini game concepts hardwired into it for my tastes. I cant fault Wizards for that, their minis sell better than their other stuff and so incorporating that into their core RPG makes business sense. I dont like it so much though I want to go back to feet and to more freeform movement. I absolutely detest hopping around a grid.

Interesting this comes up around the same time I begin to question the fantastical vs. mundane of D&D in its last two incarnations (with a bit of emphasis on the latest).

I'm noticing a trend here. Fourth edition, while it may/may not have superior rules, has apparently drifted too far from its typical conventions to be recognized by many as the next version of the same game. For some, its mechanical (vancian wizards and "roll to-hit" fighter) for others its thematic (stormclaw scorpions and Elemental Chaos). While I am currently ejoying 4e, something is nagging at me in the back of my brain, something that occasionally calls to me for something "different", like C&C, Pathfinder, or even 3.5 or BECMI...

So I end up in Clark's position in a sense, I'm enjoying my game because we can role-play despite the rules. I don't miss some of the earlier edition headache's 4e has removed. I like elements of the new world like Dragonborn. I want to support the new edition, but there is something that is nostalgically calling be back that didn't exist when I played 3.5...

 

[Filcher]

I rather find it silly as it is at odds of how fights are and thus should be represented. 3e has silly elements as well but at least it lacked square transfering stuff so it was less silly I guess. I am all for more options but I am against silly options -silly the way I find them.

It could also be argued that it is silly the way previous editions have combatants slugging it out without ever moving.

In light of this revelation, I declare 4E to be simulationist. Previous gamist iterations were less realistic when it came to moving around in combat.