When did I stop being WotC's target audience?

[AllisterH]

re: 4E is all about combat

No, the game isn't all about combat. The game has changed so that no CLASS is a combat-only role.

Let's say you have a standard party of rogue, wizard, cleric and fighter. In 4E, all 4 of these classes are expected to carry their weight in combat AND each one of them is expected to carry their weight in NON-Combat role.

Which I like.

re: 4e is WoW
Reason why I find this comparison meaningless is that 4E has actually moved away from WoW moreso than 3E. Translating 4E to a real-time game is pretty much impossible whereas a 3E conversion is just plain brute computing power.

Yet 4E is the WoW game? Do people really play WoW?

Now, if people had said, "4E is a Disgaea clone". THEN, we're talking about something that's valid...

 

[Psion]

Some people are insinuating that an exploration type game is impossible without heavy simulationism.

Impossible? Some people who?

Let's not play excluded middle here, or attribute things to people here that they didn't say.

Were you to say "some people don't find it satisfactory to do an exploration type game without mechanical support", that would be something that was said. No proclamation about what you would find satisfactory or that it wasn't doable at all.

 

[Hussar]

Some people are insinuating that an exploration type game is impossible without heavy simulationism.

Ahh, is that the link I'm missing? I totally didn't get that then.

Interesting question. Can you do exploration without heavy simulation? I know you certainly can do it with heavy simulation. How does it work without?

I guess, for me, because I would focus more on the encounters and the events that occur during the exploration, the whole sim part of things takes a bit of a back seat. Not totally ignored, but, not the focus either.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Re: Assigning motives.

I'd like to be clear that I do not assume that people posting negative 4E buzzwords have a motivation to anger others. I was only trying to point out that buzzwords themselves invoke certain feelings. Politicians use them to invoke a positive image of themselves and a negative image of their opponent. Here on ENWorld I hope that people are innocently using them as shorthand for their argument. But the very nature of negative buzzwords can spark a flamewar faster than you could imagine. If that was the poster's original intent everyone knows that's not following the guidelines here. If that was not the poster's original intent, then they have caused something then didn't intend to cause. So, IMHO, the use of negative buzzwords has a detrimantal effect on these boards no matter the motives of the poster.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Impossible? Some people who?

Let's not play excluded middle here, or attribute things to people here that they didn't say.

Were you to say "some people don't find it satisfactory to do an exploration type game without mechanical support", that would be something that was said. No proclamation about what you would find satisfactory or that it wasn't doable at all.

Mechanical support for background/setting information is simulationist.

 

[Mad Mac]

Were you to say "some people don't find it satisfactory to do an exploration type game without mechanical support", that would be something that was said. No proclamation about what you would find satisfactory or that it wasn't doable at all.

I'm curious. What sort of mechanical support are you missing? I can understand feeling that the game focuses mostly on combat, even if I disagree. But most of the building blocks for exploration are still there, as far as I can tell. You still have skills that work mostly the same as in 3rd edition, even though they've been consolidated a great deal. You still have rituals and utility powers that let you fly, turn invisible, enhance skill use, ect. These out of combat abilities are more limited then before, but they are still availible, in some cases earlier then ever. (Like the Eladrins teleport ability at level 1)

You can still sneak around and poke things with 10' poles, and I think the trap rules are actually an improvement. What mechanics are you looking for exactly?

 

[I'm A Banana]

However, there's absolutely nothing in 4e that prevents you from having any of that.

No one is saying that 4e is preventative, that it's impossible to have.

People are saying that the rules don't support it as much out of the box as they once did.

The thing no one is saying would be hyperbolic panic that doesn't hold up under scrutiny, and could probably be attributed to "NNNG! 4e BAAAAD!"

The thing that people are saying has a good chunk of evidence to support it.

My basic point is, for my definition of "exploration game" which is traveling in character into an unknown area and finding out what's there, I don't see how 4e is any different than any other edition. Heck, I look at the World's Largest Dungeon, which I did run and realize that it would work considerably better using 4e rules. That's about as "exploration game" as it gets. 20 3e levels of nothing but exploring the unknown.

#1: Reduction of resource management to favor per-encounter balancing
#2: Lack of things to "discover" (monster fluff and gem types and whatnot)
#3: Same-ness in dungeon exploration roles (anyone can use rituals, everyone fights well, anyone trained in Persuasion makes a good "face," Healing Surges obliterate the need for long-term healing, anyone can find traps, traps pose a combat threat not a "gotcha" threat)
#4: Greater ambiguity about hit points (the old argument that if hps are abstract, why is the only thing that reduces them "hits" that would inflict physical damage?)

These problems, for instance, were much smaller (if they existed at all) in earlier editions than they are here.

These problems help facilitate a game that is based around combat mostly because that is what the 4e rules are based around, mostly. They are at their best when you're shuffling little pieces of plastic around a mat. Everything else seems to be a secondary consideration.

WLD being a "discovery" game is pretty weak, too. It certainly has that aspect, but WLD is a dungeon grind, and that means that it wants you to get in a lot of fights.

 

[AllisterH]

#3: Same-ness in dungeon exploration roles (anyone can use rituals, everyone fights well, anyone trained in Persuasion makes a good "face," Healing Surges obliterate the need for long-term healing, anyone can find traps, traps pose a combat threat not a "gotcha" threat)
.

Wow, this I really have to argue against.

Actually, this feature actually ENCOURAGES non-combat encounters. When only one or certain "class" can take part in a specific non-combat encounter, a DM is more likely to have COMBAT encounters than before.

Let's use a non-combat investigative encounter where there was a murder. A classic whodunit. By your own admission, any character could take part. One could be the face specialist, one can focus on rituals trying to solve the murder another can be the streetwise expert.

Yet in the previous editions, when of the classic 4 class party (thief, fighter, cleric and wizard) only 2 of them could take part you expect more DMs tp design said encounters?

I'll use another example. Deckers in the previous editions of Shadworun had their own sub-game and you know what? As a SR GM, I purposely would not have "hacking encounters" since the result at the table was that I would have 4 other players twiddling their fingers and only 1 player actually interested.

So guess what the new edition of SR did? It made hacking/decking no longer a one-class subgame.

We didn't game that often so the D&D way of "you will get to shine but you'll have to wait a few sessions" was not something that worked for my group.

I fully believe that this is also one of the reasons for the redesign. WOTC has to cater to gamers that no longer satisfied with having a game where characters get to shine only at certain situations/levels.

So please, explain how the previous edition separation of noncimbat roles actually encourages a DM to make use of non-combat encounters because I'm truly not seeing it?

 

[Mad Mac]

#1: Reduction of resource management to favor per-encounter balancing
#2: Lack of things to "discover" (monster fluff and gem types and whatnot)
#3: Same-ness in dungeon exploration roles (anyone can use rituals, everyone fights well, anyone trained in Persuasion makes a good "face," Healing Surges obliterate the need for long-term healing, anyone can find traps, traps pose a combat threat not a "gotcha" threat)
#4: Greater ambiguity about hit points (the old argument that if hps are abstract, why is the only thing that reduces them "hits" that would inflict physical damage?)

Hmmm...

"Reduction of resource management to favor per-encounter balancing" and "Healing Surges obliterate the need for long-term healing" seem to contradict each other, in my mind.

Healing Surges spread the need for healing management out amongst the party members instead of placing it on the Cleric (or healing wand) HPs are still a limited resource that needs to be managed, more so than in 3rd edition where you could spend gold for highly efficient out of combat healing. Past the first few levels, there is argueably less healing availible in 4th edition than in 3rd.

Long-term healing isn't an issue in 3rd either, you either camp for the night so the Cleric can restore his healing spells, or so the party can regain their healing surges, or everyone can suck on the magic cure stick. Logistically speaking, there's no meaningful change, only in flavor.

Daily's are similar. You have daily powers spread out through the group instead of concentrated on the spellcasters. 4th edition spellcasters are certainly less hamstrung after blowing their daily powers, but I haven't seen a 4th edition group yet that didn't have to worry about when to spend their dailies, or if they were willing to press on without them. It's a change, but the basic element of resource management of daily powers and healing is still there, and still important.

#3 I don't really understand. I mean, in theory, everyone can use rituals, diplomize, find traps, ect. In practice, only 1-2 party members are going to handle each specialized task. You might have a Ranger who disarms traps, or a Warlock who handles rituals while the Warlord acts as the parties face, but that just means that out of combat roles are not restricted by class, not that everyone can do everything.

 

[Psion]

Mechanical support for background/setting information is simulationist.

Indeed it is; I never suggested it wasn't. You missed the part of your post I was objecting to.