Forked Thread: Did 4e go far enough or to far?

[Imban]

How can using the biggest brand name in the hobby (for it's entire history) be a detriment?

Well, it's not if you want to sell a lot of books.

It's a bit of an albatross around your neck if you want to use it to sell a lot of books but at the same time you think directly competing with the World of Darkness would be a better idea.

 

[Umbran]

5. Ok, this one is a little more complex.

The power system has the potential to permit characters to mix and match abilities. This in turn has the potential to allow for a lot of variety by permitting characters to take things that aren't part of their usual suite of powers. For example, a Fighter might want to take a power that helps him fire a crossbow particularly well. Ways to do this are already becoming available: if you look at the gladiator article, the multiclassing mechanic is being used to give characters the ability to learn special weapons tricks that might not fit with their regular class, but which add variety. Like a wizard who mostly casts spells, but occasionally wields a whip, and gets good advantage out of it. The architecture exists for this to happen.

Unfortunately, its got a flaw. Not a major flaw, and maybe even an inevitable flaw, but a flaw.

Basically, its this: the value of a power granted by a feat, or a new option granted by a feat, varies based on who is receiving it. And the game has to charge for it based on the recipient best able to exploit it. So, for example, a power that lets you make an attack based on dexterity has to be charged for on the assumption that someone who's favorite ability score is dexterity will be taking it. But that just makes it over priced when someone who doesn't favor dexterity wants to take it, which in turn limits how much you can use this mechanic to create versatile tricks for your character.

Use the whip as the example.* The whip feats have to be balanced on the assumption that they will be taken by a Rogue. They work based on Dexterity, after all, and rogues have an off hand so they can fight with a dagger/whip combination. That's fair, and I understand this. But a whip might be a cool thing to give to a Warlock, right? Except that warlocks don't use dexterity. So a warlock who uses both magic and a whip would end up with a crappy whip power. That means the whip power should either be less difficult for said warlock to obtain, or, should be powered up. But if its powered up enough it becomes a no brainer for rogues.

I don't like this, but I don't see a solution either other than direct DM intervention. I can't see anything that WOTC could do to fix the situation, since its so... nuts and bolts and based on individual characters.

I get what you're saying here, and you are correct, but whether it is a flaw is based in an assumption - that any and all concepts you can come up with should be equally valid choices in the game.

I submit that it isn't so much a flaw as the nature of the RPG beast. To be colorful: Any system that tried to be infinitely flexible would end up like a wet noodle.

This is one of the major reasons why RPGs have a long tradition of house-ruling. The published system cannot, as a practical matter, handle everything cool all the players everywhere can conceive, but typically the local GM can handle those things his small group throws at him for a single campaign.

 

[Cadfan]

This is one of the major reasons why RPGs have a long tradition of house-ruling. The published system cannot, as a practical matter, handle everything cool all the players everywhere can conceive, but typically the local GM can handle those things his small group throws at him for a single campaign.

Right, that's what I was getting at near the end. It may be that balancing these sorts of things just isn't possible without direct DM intervention, because the scale on which I'm evaluating balance is too close to individual characters for the designers to make meaningful judgments.

Still, the idea of dipping abilities from non synergistic (and therefore more variety-laden) areas of the game is a cool one, and I kind of nebulously hope that someone will come up with a way to make it balanced.

 

[malraux]

For me, it went about far enough. I'm actually glad the meta-setting got a reboot, as I only got into the game in '02. There was just so much backstory in everything that it was hard to know the story about anything. Some of the changes feel like change for sake of change, but there's not much that actually feels bad.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

WotC went farther than I would have gone in changing things, and I think they got it right. I like what 4E is better than the 4E I was imagining before it came out.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

My answer is based on the assumption that I have a reasonably informed view of the designers' goals, and am looking at it strictly of what they could have done to better meet them. (I happen to like where they were headed, but it isn't the only 4E design I could have liked. Give me another set of designers and goals, and I'll comment on that. )

They didn't go far enough in two areas:

1. Didn't push the concept of rituals as broad and deep as it could have been pushed. Me, I make up my own flavor, but people that feel the lack of flavor could have been a lot more happy with more effort in rituals, especially expanding it into options for craft skills and other sim elements that not everyone cares about.

2. Instead of a long list of powers for every class, should have pushed the power design even more, into something akin to a power-building concept, with rules. In effect, do a Hero or GURPS lite version of powers, with examples. This would have been a very clever compromise between people who enjoy the class/level part of D&D but want more flexibility--keep the classes, levels, and stuff attached to them--but make a separate system for the powers. The funny thing is, with the powers as written, they aren't that far from that now. They just weren't as explicit about it as they were with the rest of the system.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

My answer is based on the assumption that I have a reasonably informed view of the designers' goals, and am looking at it strictly of what they could have done to better meet them. (I happen to like where they were headed, but it isn't the only 4E design I could have liked. Give me another set of designers and goals, and I'll comment on that. )

They didn't go far enough in two areas:

1. Didn't push the concept of rituals as broad and deep as it could have been pushed. Me, I make up my own flavor, but people that feel the lack of flavor could have been a lot more happy with more effort in rituals, especially expanding it into options for craft skills and other sim elements that not everyone cares about.

2. Instead of a long list of powers for every class, should have pushed the power design even more, into something akin to a power-building concept, with rules. In effect, do a Hero or GURPS lite version of powers, with examples. This would have been a very clever compromise between people who enjoy the class/level part of D&D but want more flexibility--keep the classes, levels, and stuff attached to them--but make a separate system for the powers. The funny thing is, with the powers as written, they aren't that far from that now. They just weren't as explicit about it as they were with the rest of the system.

I'd have to disagree with your #2 from the designers standpoint. One of the major design goals of 4E was to make it more of a class-based system than 3E was. It was a design decision not to cater to the people who prefer a more class-free method of character creation.

 

[Jack99]

In the end, perhaps the ultimate question is, "Did they go far enough to gain economic success for the product?" We have been told sales have been decent. If they remain so, then the answer will be "Yes, they went far enough."

As I write this, it’s the two-month anniversary of the launch of the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons. I thought I’d take a moment to tell you how we’re doing. The excitement around the new edition is still as strong as it was at launch, and we anticipate carrying that excitement through Gen Con, PAX, and beyond as new products roll out and the full scope of the power of the edition becomes evident. From a business perspective, the core rulebooks are already well into their third printing, the H1 and H2 adventures are both in reprint. The new Dungeon Tiles product, DU1 Halls of the Giant Kings, is almost gone from our inventory less than one month after going on sale. This means that, using the current trends, we’re going to crush our original projections for 4th Edition in 2008!

Actually, we were told the sales were pretty fan-[censored]-tastic. Well, that was of course not the word Mr. Slavicsek used, but it certainly wasn't "decent" either. But maybe you have a newer official statement?

 

[Korgoth]

Ultimately, they managed to do both. Obviously to speak about this is to speak in generalities... individuals will tend more or less to differ.

There are people who continually deride, bash and vilify D&D and the sort of game it was originally intended to be (exploration of sprawling underworlds, strategic management of resources and hirelings for perilous treks, etc.). They have many times pronounced such gaming dead, have celebrated those pronouncements and belittled those who enjoy such play. Simply put, these people angrily prefer Hero, Rolemaster, GURPS or some other game to D&D and want to see traditional D&D die out. For these people, I don't think 4E went far enough. If what you really want is "GURPS Fantasy released under the D&D brand name and lavishly supported by a successful company" then 4E is going to seem like it takes steps in the 'right' direction but ultimately fails to seal the deal.

Then there are those who enjoy traditional D&D style play (as above, a game of exploration and strategy). For them, I would say 4E definitely goes too far, because it removes many of the elements which are conducive to that style of play. In particular, exploration takes it on the chin because there is an evident abandonment of any conceit of a consistent/persistent world for the PCs to explore. Mearls himself basically summed it up when he commented on the difference between 4E and OD&D: in OD&D, players will confront a puzzle or situation like something in a story and try to think their way through it; in 4E, players will use their mastery of the rules to overcome it (that's a paraphrase; I'm sure the original quote is floating around). Also, while there are many younger players still at this late date getting into traditional D&D, many of the adherents of this type of play are thirtysomethings or older. These people's interests in fantasy were formed more by Tolkien and Howard and less by Naruto and FF7 (note: I thought FF7 was a fun game).

So I think you're looking at a deeply divided fanbase for several reasons. For some, 4E is good but not good enough to stop playing the game they liked better than D&D in the first place. For others, 4E is too great a departure from their preferred style. Obviously, for some 4E is just right and a perfect hybrid of the divergent schools. For others, D&D brand loyalty is so strong that they would play the current edition pretty much no matter what. Obviously sales are good right now... a lot of people are trying 4E to see if they like it. Personally, I project that it will eventually founder in part because a lot of people are going to decide that it doesn't really feel like D&D, or that they could get roughly the same experience with WoW or Descent. But that's my prognostication, and I'm no better at that than anybody else when we're talking about economics. Even if I were a trained marketing analyst it would still be just a coin toss!

 

[WhatGravitas]

I don't think of it in terms of "far enough" or "too far."

I love 4e. But there are a few things I wish they had done that they didn't do. Warning! Dead horses flogged in the paragraphs to follow! Mercilessly! And then they're reanimated and flogged again!

I agree with almost all your points (I don't mind the dragons as much as you seemingly do, while I sooo agree on your wizard comment)

What irks me is the lack of connection between narrative and rules. See, I'm a fan of reskinning, but there are a lot of disconnects. I can stomach them, but other people can't. I think 4E could have needed more polish in this, as well as overall presentation (the art gets worse with every new thing I see). Especially seeing the thoughts that went into the flavour department (see the two preview books), I think 4E somewhere lost a heap of flavour and good art and background concepts... and it ended up... I don't know where.

Cheers, LT.