Mercurius
Legend
You're all invited inside the Big Tent of D&D
This post started as a reply to ShinHakkaider from this thread but it got out of hand and I thought it necessitated its own thread.
First of all, Shin, I do not think that you are a jerk or a bad person. I do question, however, the assertion that 4E doesn't have a connection to the games before it. I mean, no matter how you look at it, it does. Maybe not to the degree that 2E was like 1E, or even 3E like 2E (although that is debatable), but it is still obviously connected, still part of the same continuum. Sure, there are major stylistic differences, but that doesn't sever the connection.
(The rest of the post is not addressed to Shin specifically).
I've been playing D&D off and on for almost three decades. I grew up on AD&D, played 2E when it came out, went through a hiatus of a few years in the mid to late 90s when I barely gamed at all, then discovered the predecessor to this site in 1999 and got excited about 3E, which I loved when it came out. I played for a few years and then went through another RPG-hiatus from about 2004 to 2008 when I only followed the industry lightly but didn't play. Then I got excited with the arrival of 4E and formed a new group late in '08, which continues to this day.
My group is comprised of 30-and-40-somethings, all of whom--except for myself--haven't played since college or even high school. To the person, our "formative phase" of gaming was 1E or 2E AD&D. Our style of game play could just as easily be 1E as 4E, OD&D or 3.whatever. I've created my own setting that takes much more from Robert E Howard and JRR Tolkien than it does from World of Warcraft or Hong Kong action movies. It is a mixture of sandbox, dungeon crawls, with smatterings of larger story elements, uncovering the true history of the world, exploration of wilderness, etc. I generally don't allow dragonborn or tieflings because I just can't stand either of them, especially dragonborn (although if a player really wanted to play one I'd find a way to make it happen, maybe as a unique creature), and I'm so-so on shifters and goliaths.
And you know what? 4E works for us. My setting and our game style are much more rooted in the gaming traditions of the 70s-90s than the recent CRPG-influenced years. There are things that I don't like about 4E--I feel the magic has been taken out of magic items, I don't like the power structure for all classes (which Essentials seems to be rectifying), I don't like what they did with alignment, and I don't like many of the fluff elements, among other things. But I really like a lot of the innovations, the simplified core mechanic (which was from 3E), the way AC and Defenses are used, powers for most classes, a consolidated skills list, Character Builder, the balance of classes, the de-emphasis on system mastery and the re-emphasis on tactical savvy, etc. It is not perfect, it is not the D&D I grew up on, but I enjoy playing it.
But my key point is that I make the game my own. It is still Dungeons & Dragons because that is how we play it. It is still d20 based, with the six ability scores, armor class, hit points, vorpal sword-wielding githyanki, elves and dwarves, gelatinous cubes and mind flayers. All the tropes are still there, waiting to be configured in a way that I and my players find pleasing. Yes, rules matter but not as much as the way that one uses them, and not as much as the "fluff" (the story, action, narrative, characters and setting) that they are meant to support.
Have you ever noticed how a lot of people stay with the same hair cut and general styles and tastes that they had around the time they were in college? There are various points in our lives when we “crystallize” around something, a kind of imprinting that occurs and something is set within us. I think this is why many long-time gamers stay with D&D; speaking for myself, there are game systems out there that I think are better than D&D, that are more elegantly designed without all the clutter and unnecessary minutiae (Savage Worlds comes to mind). Most of my favorite fantasy settings were not created for D&D – Earthdawn, Talislanta, and Shadow World, for instance. But I always come back to D&D, it just feels right to me. However, the specific form it takes--the edition or variation--is less important than the family of ideas, memes, tropes, and worlds I enter when I crack open a D&D book. And you know what? 4E works just fine for me.
If you say, “4E is not D&D to me,” I can say, fine, that’s your choice and I honor and respect that, and may even be curious about why you prefer another edition. Not only am I okay with your opinion, but I actually like the fact that there are people out there with different tastes, styles, and preferences. Unity in diversity!
But if you say that “4E is not real D&D” I can tell you that you are wrong, because for thousands, if not millions of people—many of whom have played other editions of D&D—it certain is real D&D. Are we all wrong? Are we deluded in thinking that we are playing D&D? Or is it, perhaps, that your perspective is rather limited as to what D&D is and can be? And you know what? It doesn’t take a thing away from you or your preferred version of D&D to open the tent a bit and invite everyone in. We all share (at least) one thing: our love of the greatest game in the world. Let us recognize that fact, at least.
This post started as a reply to ShinHakkaider from this thread but it got out of hand and I thought it necessitated its own thread.
First of all, Shin, I do not think that you are a jerk or a bad person. I do question, however, the assertion that 4E doesn't have a connection to the games before it. I mean, no matter how you look at it, it does. Maybe not to the degree that 2E was like 1E, or even 3E like 2E (although that is debatable), but it is still obviously connected, still part of the same continuum. Sure, there are major stylistic differences, but that doesn't sever the connection.
(The rest of the post is not addressed to Shin specifically).
I've been playing D&D off and on for almost three decades. I grew up on AD&D, played 2E when it came out, went through a hiatus of a few years in the mid to late 90s when I barely gamed at all, then discovered the predecessor to this site in 1999 and got excited about 3E, which I loved when it came out. I played for a few years and then went through another RPG-hiatus from about 2004 to 2008 when I only followed the industry lightly but didn't play. Then I got excited with the arrival of 4E and formed a new group late in '08, which continues to this day.
My group is comprised of 30-and-40-somethings, all of whom--except for myself--haven't played since college or even high school. To the person, our "formative phase" of gaming was 1E or 2E AD&D. Our style of game play could just as easily be 1E as 4E, OD&D or 3.whatever. I've created my own setting that takes much more from Robert E Howard and JRR Tolkien than it does from World of Warcraft or Hong Kong action movies. It is a mixture of sandbox, dungeon crawls, with smatterings of larger story elements, uncovering the true history of the world, exploration of wilderness, etc. I generally don't allow dragonborn or tieflings because I just can't stand either of them, especially dragonborn (although if a player really wanted to play one I'd find a way to make it happen, maybe as a unique creature), and I'm so-so on shifters and goliaths.
And you know what? 4E works for us. My setting and our game style are much more rooted in the gaming traditions of the 70s-90s than the recent CRPG-influenced years. There are things that I don't like about 4E--I feel the magic has been taken out of magic items, I don't like the power structure for all classes (which Essentials seems to be rectifying), I don't like what they did with alignment, and I don't like many of the fluff elements, among other things. But I really like a lot of the innovations, the simplified core mechanic (which was from 3E), the way AC and Defenses are used, powers for most classes, a consolidated skills list, Character Builder, the balance of classes, the de-emphasis on system mastery and the re-emphasis on tactical savvy, etc. It is not perfect, it is not the D&D I grew up on, but I enjoy playing it.
But my key point is that I make the game my own. It is still Dungeons & Dragons because that is how we play it. It is still d20 based, with the six ability scores, armor class, hit points, vorpal sword-wielding githyanki, elves and dwarves, gelatinous cubes and mind flayers. All the tropes are still there, waiting to be configured in a way that I and my players find pleasing. Yes, rules matter but not as much as the way that one uses them, and not as much as the "fluff" (the story, action, narrative, characters and setting) that they are meant to support.
Have you ever noticed how a lot of people stay with the same hair cut and general styles and tastes that they had around the time they were in college? There are various points in our lives when we “crystallize” around something, a kind of imprinting that occurs and something is set within us. I think this is why many long-time gamers stay with D&D; speaking for myself, there are game systems out there that I think are better than D&D, that are more elegantly designed without all the clutter and unnecessary minutiae (Savage Worlds comes to mind). Most of my favorite fantasy settings were not created for D&D – Earthdawn, Talislanta, and Shadow World, for instance. But I always come back to D&D, it just feels right to me. However, the specific form it takes--the edition or variation--is less important than the family of ideas, memes, tropes, and worlds I enter when I crack open a D&D book. And you know what? 4E works just fine for me.
If you say, “4E is not D&D to me,” I can say, fine, that’s your choice and I honor and respect that, and may even be curious about why you prefer another edition. Not only am I okay with your opinion, but I actually like the fact that there are people out there with different tastes, styles, and preferences. Unity in diversity!
But if you say that “4E is not real D&D” I can tell you that you are wrong, because for thousands, if not millions of people—many of whom have played other editions of D&D—it certain is real D&D. Are we all wrong? Are we deluded in thinking that we are playing D&D? Or is it, perhaps, that your perspective is rather limited as to what D&D is and can be? And you know what? It doesn’t take a thing away from you or your preferred version of D&D to open the tent a bit and invite everyone in. We all share (at least) one thing: our love of the greatest game in the world. Let us recognize that fact, at least.
