Are Essentials more old school or just a clever marketing ploy?

[Anathos]

That's the point. Prior to 4e our group improvised more with called shots, awesome stunts, bizarre uses for spells, etc. With our switch to 4e a "card game" mentality emerged where players forgot they could do anything not codified in a power - similar to the concern you raised. IMO this was to the detriment of the game. The reason I asked our DM to run a short encounter without powers was to reflect to the other players how our gaming style had changed since 4e. And it did get everyone thinking about what was different. We're all good friends who trust our DM so YMMV. I'm thinking of running a one shot game to test out Essentials for our group and doing the same experiment for an encounter to see if Essentials plays differently in terms of encouraging improvisation.

The problem with this is you're implying that it's the game's fault that this has occurred, that the game is making you be less creative. This is obviously not the case; the DMG is very clear that you can do things outside the rules, providing guidelines that are important enough to have been updated twice. The game isn't draining your group's creativity, your group is just being lazy. Their powers give them something interesting and useful to do every round, so they don't bother to come up with anything on their own.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's the point. Prior to 4e our group improvised more with called shots, awesome stunts, bizarre uses for spells, etc. With our switch to 4e a "card game" mentality emerged where players forgot they could do anything not codified in a power - similar to the concern you raised. IMO this was to the detriment of the game. The reason I asked our DM to run a short encounter without powers was to reflect to the other players how our gaming style had changed since 4e. And it did get everyone thinking about what was different. We're all good friends who trust our DM so YMMV. I'm thinking of running a one shot game to test out Essentials for our group and doing the same experiment for an encounter to see if Essentials plays differently in terms of encouraging improvisation.

What I'm trying to say is there is an opposite perspective here.

Playing AD&D was like being in a straightjacket to us. You're an M.U. and you want to swing a sword, sorry, rule 27 says you CANNOT do that. You're a fighter and you want to climb? Sorry, there simply is no rule for that, you aren't a thief, you don't HAVE that class feature. Anything that wasn't considered as doable by the people that designed the classes was just not possible. Sometimes you could cover it with ability checks or secondary skills/NWPs. A LOT of the time you simply couldn't.

MANY character concepts were just impossible to realize in any sensible fashion in AD&D as well. You can be an elf that uses a sword and casts spells, but that's it, you can't be human, you can't just learn one sword fighting technique, you have to stop advancing at level 9 or 12, etc. It was a KLUNKY system. Classes were narrow and no real thought was given to being able to stretch them much beyond what they were set up to do. A ranger was NOTHING but a guy that runs around in the forest, etc. Lots of concepts simply fell between the cracks and weren't feasible.

Customizing your character? Forget it. There was really no such thing. Later in 2e that changed, but all that really showed was how brittle the system really was. The kits and options and whatnot simply imploded the system as soon as they were added.

The options and choices available in 4e is very liberating to me. NOW I can free things up. The players, and the DM, can create characters and stories that really just didn't work well at all in the old days. It isn't total freedom, but it is a LOT of flexibility that didn't exist way back when.

As for the whole "nobody bothers to do anything but use powers anymore" thing. I'm not really sure that is the fault of the presentation of POWERS. I think it has more to do with the presentation of encounters and how 4e lays out developing and adventure. It isn't really all that fluid a technique. What is presented to the players can easily become routine and buttoned down if you just follow the formula.

I think the more productive approach than trying to go back and chop away at player options is to really look at the organization of the game structure that surrounds what the player characters DO. Encounter design guidelines are not a bad thing, but the game just sort of stops there. It gives you a palette to use, but only to paint one kind of picture with. You CAN do a lot more with it, but the rules have made it seem like whatever you do has to fit into an encounter framework.

I've seen some discussions of this on a couple boards, but it seems like it has taken a while for the 4e community to start to really understand the tools and their strengths and weaknesses. Basically it seems to me like Essentials is a great answer to the wrong question.

 

[Korgoth]

Playing AD&D was like being in a straightjacket to us. You're an M.U. and you want to swing a sword, sorry, rule 27 says you CANNOT do that. You're a fighter and you want to climb? Sorry, there simply is no rule for that, you aren't a thief, you don't HAVE that class feature. Anything that wasn't considered as doable by the people that designed the classes was just not possible. Sometimes you could cover it with ability checks or secondary skills/NWPs. A LOT of the time you simply couldn't.

Interesting. To me it is almost exactly the opposite. OD&D (1974) is the most liberating, conceptually advanced role playing game that I've ever encountered (I came to it late; started with Moldvay); virtually every other fantasy game seems like a defective copy.

You have your Fighting Man, your holy man (Cleric) and your wizard (Magic User). What can they do? Anything. My Fighting Man might be a heavily armed mercenary legionaire, yours might be a lightly armed sneak who fights as a peltast. My Cleric might be a pious servant of the One True God, yours might be a cynical sorcerer who manipulates various lesser spirits with irresistible incantations. My Magic User might be a pirate whose spellbook is contained in elaborate scrimshaw; yours might be an enchantress.

Can a given character operate a sailing vessel? Well, the MU who is a pirate can but the enchantress probably cannot (unless there is a reason why she can). Can a Fighting Man move silently? Well, my mercenary with his lorica cannot, but your peltast probably can. If we need to roll for it, just roll versus DEX and be done with it.

As soon as you add skills, powers, etc. and codify all this stuff, you take options and flexibility away. With OD&D I can play any kind of fantasy game I want, bar none. The more exacting the detail in the rules, the more I am constrained in what I am able to do with the game. 4E is almost totally constrained into a single style.

Essentials seems like a step in the right direction to me, though obviously with my White Box I already own the perfect FRPG and have no reason to ever buy another except out of curiosity. 4E as it stands comes off a bit like a hybrid of a role playing game and a board game. That's not an entirely bad thing... board games are doing well right now. But if 4E wants to be a gateway game (in the sense that people actually start with it as their first RPG) then it needs to be simpler... Essentials makes it simpler.

 

[Anathos]

You have your Fighting Man, your holy man (Cleric) and your wizard (Magic User). What can they do? Anything. My Fighting Man might be a heavily armed mercenary legionaire, yours might be a lightly armed sneak who fights as a peltast. My Cleric might be a pious servant of the One True God, yours might be a cynical sorcerer who manipulates various lesser spirits with irresistible incantations. My Magic User might be a pirate whose spellbook is contained in elaborate scrimshaw; yours might be an enchantress.

Can a given character operate a sailing vessel? Well, the MU who is a pirate can but the enchantress probably cannot (unless there is a reason why she can). Can a Fighting Man move silently? Well, my mercenary with his lorica cannot, but your peltast probably can. If we need to roll for it, just roll versus DEX and be done with it.

As soon as you add skills, powers, etc. and codify all this stuff, you take options and flexibility away. With OD&D I can play any kind of fantasy game I want, bar none. The more exacting the detail in the rules, the more I am constrained in what I am able to do with the game. 4E is almost totally constrained into a single style.

If this is what you're looking for in an RPG, you're playing the wrong game. Play Dogs in the Vineyard; it has the concept-focused flexibility that you want and none of the rules that you feel bog you down.

 

[UHF]

I love 4e more than 4E, so it is with considerable humor that I must relay this true story.

I've been teaching a crop of new players to play D&D using 4th Edition. There are lots of kids, 6-12 and a few adults. So, when the Red Box came out I dutifully told everyone to go out and get a copy and start playing.

1 month later... I call the father (the DM) of a few of the kids and start talking him through the various issues he's had. (Oh... and it does sound like they are all having fun... and the family is spending more time together.) He tells me that his son doesn't like the fighter and wants to know when his fighter will get more powers. After some discussion I explained the differences between 4e and 4E.

Then I talked to his son about his Slayer.
"All he can do is these stances, and I use them a lot, and this one encounter power that boosts his damage. He can't do anything!"
"Well, we've been playing full 4th edition, and Essentials characters are different. They are a lot like old D&D."
"Does he get more powers?"
"No, not really."
"But all I can do is hit it with my sword!"

So... A 10 year old thinks Essentials sucks. Worse still, I doubt I could get him into an older style of game.

Understand that this isn't a rant. I just found it hilarious that this kid hit on one of the big complaints with older versions of D&D. I'm actually planning to fit his father with a Slayer since he's constantly overwhelmed with choices in our regular game.


Quickleaf: First I have say that if you have a good group, and good play, and good trust, why use 4e? IMO you have the right makings to do something rules light and get away with it. The reality of 4e IMO is that it levels the playing board between those who grok RPGs and those who aren't so swift at it, those who are too aggressive about character optimization, and those who want to role play. It adds a level of consistency to the play which appears to be unnecessary to you. You could get away with what ever game you wanted.


We recently had the odd problem of killing a Troll without any fire at hand. So my players improvised. They tossed him down a deep pit. I figure the Troll woke up about half way down. *Banff*

 

[Saracenus]

4e has the answer to player creativity, in the DMG its on pg. 42 and in the D&D Essentials DM's Book it is now on pg. 107-108. Without using powers you can set a DC and damage by level.

Example, my 2nd level PC slides under a table that 3 kobold slingers stand upon and kicks the table up and over, spilling the kobold to the floor.

My DM consults DM's Book pg. 107-108 and determines that its a STR vs. REF attack, the table is light and kobolds aren't very heavy either but since there is more than one its awkward , so Moderate DC 13, and if the attack is successful the kobolds will take 1d6+4 damage. Further my DM determines that if I succeed on the attack by 5 or more they are knocked prone.

I have used my PC and the surrounding the environment to make an attack and there is a way to adjudicate it.

Or, as someone has posted elsewhere, his assassin used his Executioner's Noose to grab a tall pedestal down on an opponent.

This is just in combat, there are ways to use skills and abilities outside of combat as well. Its a matter of thinking beyond the basic write up and being creative.

I think were core 4e fell down in this regard is that page after page of powers drowns out the short section on improvising.

My two coppers,

 

[Jack99]

You're melting my brain dude!

The fact that Gold Dragons are now listed as "unaligned" in MM3 and whatever the other thing KM mentioned was, I forget is actually causing people issues? Are we now reduced to such a pitiful level of total utter slavish dependence on printed material that DMs can no longer improvise AT ALL???!!! That they NEED to have paladins that can only have one alignment?

What happened to creativity?

Honestly, if your game is 'grid-centric' maybe it is time to look at the people at the table and ask if there's something going on here. I mean I ADMIT that SOME parts of my games ARE played on the battle grid, absolutely. Those parts are still pretty free-form and creative. I certainly understand how that part of the game can get lazy and people stop extemporizing much, but if that is the whole focus of your game, then maybe there's a level of creative imagination that has drained out of the game.

Honestly I'm sympathetic to what you're saying, and I think Mike certainly is right that 'tone' is a significant part of a game. I'd just like people to understand where some of the people playing 4e are coming from, like myself.

I pretty much dropped D&D from the lineup of games I ran back in the 2e days, around the mid 90's. The reason being it was just WAY too buttoned down. There were fun things about it, but besides the system being clunky it was just TOO LIMITED. You made the characters that the game allowed you to make. If your concept didn't fit into the pigeon hole of one of the existing classes you were pretty much SoL. The rules actively prevented you from doing anything outside of what they provided.

4e TO ME is a marvelous toolbox. The classes follow similar rules and are really very modular. They were designed carefully (for the most part) to allow for a LOT of jiggering within the system. A Ranger could be a twin rapier wielding swashbuckler. A fighter could be a sword-n-board con based knight, or a dex based rapier wielding fencer, or a highly intuitive glaive wielder.

I think the mechanics of the E-classes are fairly clever and I have nothing against them, but when I look at the Sentinel and the Cavalier I see classes that are VERY set-piece. They are boxed right into a single concept like the old AD&D classes were. It really isn't quite that severe but THERE IS a good bit that is lost. Imagine if Essentials WAS 4e. You could play a 2-handed wielding Slayer or a sword and board Knight. You can't really do much else, except either homebrew or wait around for a class that matches what you want, or just not play what you want to play.

It may be a small nit in the overall scheme of things, and 4e Essentials is still a lot more flexible than AD&D was, but not as flexible as classic 4e. Something IS lost when you delete rituals and button down all the classes.

Sorry that I melted your brain, that was not my intent. I just want to clear up that I do understand "the other side", I was after all part of it for a long time. It's only lately that I have begun to realize some of the things I have stated in my other posts. Of course, it could just be what Anathos says (quoted below) - that it's the many powers that have made my players lazy. Well, then I am still happy about Essentials, in the hope it will make them less lazy. I do not think it's just that though, but we will see. Of course, in my case, it might take a while, since we are nowhere near done with the current campaign, and I am not going to force or even suggest that we redo our characters. It will have to wait until we are done, or I kill them. That of course can, given my high-frequency of kills and TPK's, happen any day

The problem with this is you're implying that it's the game's fault that this has occurred, that the game is making you be less creative. This is obviously not the case; the DMG is very clear that you can do things outside the rules, providing guidelines that are important enough to have been updated twice. The game isn't draining your group's creativity, your group is just being lazy. Their powers give them something interesting and useful to do every round, so they don't bother to come up with anything on their own.

 

[TerraDave]

After reading through this, and being someone yelling that there is more to esentials then you think...

It may not be that much. I don't really know that combats will be much shorter, or that mechanics will somehow become less noticable. I also don't see the "World of Nentir" (and its various assumptions) fading into the background. It is still there front and center as far as I can tell.

But people are now getting into issues that I think you could have had in 3E or even earlier versions of the game.

 

[Scribble]

I also don't see the "World of Nentir" (and its various assumptions) fading into the background. It is still there front and center as far as I can tell.

That was actually one of their stated goals wasn't it? To make the Nentir Vale world, not fade away, but instead blend right into the rules?

 

[Imaro]

4e has the answer to player creativity, in the PH its on pg. 42 and in the D&D Essentials DM's Book it is now on pg. 107-108. Without using powers you can set a DC and damage by level.

Just wanted to comment on this real quick... the rules you are talking about are not in the PHB, they are in the DMG... I personally think 4e would have been better served in making the rules available to both players and DM's (with a much more thorough explanation of how to adjudicate for the DM.) equally. I don't have my essentials RC with me right now, but does anyone know if they are included in the RC?