D&D 4E 4E Dislike - a hypothesis

[Hungry Like The Wolf]

You certainly could, and I think one step toward that would be killing this sort of thread. People who don't like 4e don't need to have people who do like it try to analyze why they don't like it. Why not just ask them and accept their response?

I agree and I don't know why.

It really shouldn't be that big of a deal if someone likes a different edition. It's stupid to get bent all out of shape for something like that.

And yet you do it anyway.

 

[avin]

My dislike of 4e stems from long combats and the rules lawyering the system introduces (I'm definitely a fan of rules-lite systems).

In my experience was the opposite. I had to quit 3.5 because of all rules discussion between DMs and players.

Couldn't stand it anymore.

Having started on 2E I really dislike the absense of fluff on 4E, the bad immersion (healing surges? aghs...) and some art... but I'm DMing it at this moment because all the rules discussions are gone.

 

[GreyLord]

If Willow was rereleased as Star Wars: Willow (because, of course, it's set in the prehistory of Tatooine) , would the moviegoers not have the right to object that it's not Star Wars? Did not soda buyers have the right to object that New Coke was not Coke--and really, in what objective universe would New Coke be Coke?

Like Pepsi is also coke, in the parlance of many, what is and isn't D&D in the mind of many is far more complex then the trademark. I have no hesitation calling Pathfinder and OSRIC D&D, and little more calling (the original) Hackmaster D&D. Deep down, I've got to call D&D 4e, a D&Dish game, like Palladium Fantasy, and Hackmaster Basic. They ripped off quite a few of the details, but it's not quite the same.

That sounds a little ridiculous. Just so you know...Palladium IS Closer to AD&D than 3e was. Hackmaster was as well (though in a humorous sort of way). In that light your statement actually makes NO SENSE at all. If you are calling games that are closer to the original D&D and AD&D only D&Dish...then by default 3e would at it's best only be D&Dis too.

I'm not certain you actually realize what you said there...so hopefully the above paragraph clarifies it...because you have me scratching my head trying to figure out what exactly you are trying to say.

Your Willow parallel is equally ridiculous. Willow would be more like calling the Star Wars SE D&D (and by the way...it was called D20 and under the same core ideas as 3e, and even 4e)....which I suppose some did try to do in WotC...but I'm thinking most fans of the systems are not seeing it that way either. The Star Wars prequels are at least somewhat better in relation...and you have similar anger over them when they were released (and still today even) as you do with 4e.

This entire thing is more like the Windows OS. Let's take Windows 95 (1e). It was revolutionary. Times changed, they developed Windows 98 (2e), based off the Windows 95 kernal. Then they revised Windows 98 into Windows Millenium (2.5e). Millenium almost killed the Windows.

They then brought in a new team that designed Windows XP (3.X edition). Windows XP was actually based off of the Windows NT (more modern RPG ideas that were evolving between the years of 1977 and 1999) formula, and NOT the Windows 95/98 Kernal...despite how many similarities there were. Many would claim Windows XP was the biggest and best Windows out there eventually.

Does that mean Windows XP was no longer Windows since it was NOT off the highly popular and revolutionary Windows 95?

Then came out Windows Vista (4e)...and that wasn't exactly applauded by many people. Many would call it a disaster. Did it cease to be Windows simply because of that. Due to it's failure to replicate so many of the good things of Windows XP...did that mean it was no longer Windows because it differed so much. However, there were some that were HUGE fans...and with them came some revolutionary steps to improving the next major Windows OS.

When do you stop calling Windows...Windows. Afterall...due to these irregularities many of the games that ran on the 95/98 kernal would not run off the Windows XP OS...and many of the games that ran off the Windows XP definately wouldn't run on Vista. WinXP even had more compatibility with 95/98 games than Vista.

What comes next after Vista...a new edition of Windows...will they base it off of the WinXP version...or are they going to continue with refining and streamlining the Vista idea (yes, I know...we all know they worked off of Vista and made Win7...but the parallels between Windows and D&D actually are pretty similar in some ways).

Really...I don't care. As long as my games run...I'm fine. And when they don't...I get mad...then find someway to emulate them on the current OS...or reinstall and OLDER OS and play them on that...and I'm fine...

Play what you want...or switch to Linux...but don't start claiming that Windows XP is based off the 95/98 Kernal...and that Vista stinks because it isn't...because you start looking like...well...you can figure it out.

(PS: Though on the Windows side of things...I was very resistant to WinXP due to requiring authentication when it came out...but I was REALLY anti Win Vista to the point that I never owned a computer that had Vista on it).

 

[prosfilaes]

That sounds a little ridiculous. Just so you know...Palladium IS Closer to AD&D than 3e was.

Closer depends on your metric, and while we generally expect the sets of things included in the definition to be continuous, they're not necessarily round, and if you're subdividing a dense spectrum, there's always going to be points where things are separated by a line no matter how close they are. An 18 year-old is an adult, and a 17 year-old is not, even if they're closer in age then the 18 year-old is to the 40 year-old.

In any case, I don't have huge familiarity with Palladium Fantasy, but the Palladium system adds two attributes and renames the others, and messes with the alignment system. It's got different classes, though it seems the races are mostly a superset of AD&D. It's not closer for my purposes.

Hackmaster was as well (though in a humorous sort of way).

I didn't say Hackmaster. I said Hackmaster Basic (which is).

In that light your statement actually makes NO SENSE at all. If you are calling games that are closer to the original D&D and AD&D only D&Dish...then by default 3e would at it's best only be D&Dis too.

Every race and class found in the AD&D 2E PHB is in the D&D 3E PHB and every race and class found in the D&D 3E PHB can be found in AD&D 1E or 2E. The attributes are the same. The hit points are the same. AC is basically 20 - old AC. No other system can claim that.

Your Willow parallel is equally ridiculous.

My Willow parallel to what? The point with Willow is that there is a point where it's not at all silly to say that despite the labelling, that wasn't a Star Wars movie.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I think you're missing my point, which is not that the analogy doesn't have some value--it does--but that your reference to the "same ship" changes it because the answer is simply that, of course, it is not the same ship. 4E is not the same ship as 3E, which is not the same as 2E, 1E, BECMI; ultimately, nothing is the same as OD&D, so is that the only real form of D&D?

I'm not missing your point.

You're missing the point of the SoT, which is that the "sameness" of something that changes is not objectively determinable. Parties could see two things that share 3 of 4 aristotelean causes (say...AD&D and Palladium RPG) and be considered different while looking at things that share only one aristotelean cause (the D&D line as a whole) and be considered the same.

In fact, the same 2 things being compared might be the same for some purposes and different for others.

So looking for objective standards is kind of a waste of time.

In other words, why isn't it enough to say "4E is not my preferred version of D&D but I still recognize it as a valid form of D&D"? Why is it actually necessary to negate its status as a valid form of D&D? Doesn't this only cause problems interpersonally?

Because that would not be an accurate statement of my perception, which is that 4Ed, whose quality as a game I don't deny, is D&D only in the tautological, legal sense to me.

Does 4E only share the same final cause with earlier editions?

To me? Yes.

Doesn't it share a lot more?

To you? Yes.

That's my view, that 4E shares enough with previous forms to still be D&D, and that to say otherwise is to follow a definition of D&D that is too narrow and subjective to be essentially useless.

Your view is no more and no less subjective than mine.

To say otherwise is to be kidding yourself.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

How about instead of refering to 4e as Vista or The Phantom Menace or other not so subtle jabs and insults, we refer to it as it is.

4e is the newest edition of D&D that some people dislike, and in their dislike they claim that it does not represent their ideals for what a D&D game should be.

Seriously, I like Pathfinder and 4e. It can be done. The edition war exists only within hate-fans. And there are easily both on both sides.

What's hilarious is how much flak I got for saying "Yo stop hating editions." I mean, really? You're going to get mad because I'm saying an edition isn't bad? Think that through, a bit.

Sounds excellent!

If you can sum them up in a Readers' Digest form, what major changes/houserules did you do?

Lanefan

All rituals have had their casting time and duration halved and doubled, respectively.

I don't have it online yet (been meaning to), but I've developed what I've tenatively called "Talents." At first, third, and every three levels afterwards (so, just like 3e feats), characters get a Talent. I've made a bunch of 'em, both generalized and race specific designed to fit with the setting. The idea is that talents give you a little bonus or fluffy-thing that doesn't effect combat, but is "cool." So one gives you the linguist feat to learn a language, one gives you ritual caster, etc, etc. That kind of thing.

The race specific ones are all tied into the setting, and some give literally no mechanical benefit at all - halflings can take Skywhale Tamer, which means before they joined the Vavernian Expedition (think: adventurers guild) they were one of the Skywhale Tamers. No mechanical benefits, but it means they'd be well respected amongst other halflings, and they'd have connections with merchants, ports, and even some nobles. Gnomes have two "paths" they can go down, one which gives them a mechanical limb that they develop into doing different gadgetry (such as holding an item they can draw as a free action or counting as a weapon that can't be disarmed), and the other goes into them making a tiny golem to serve them (doesn't act in combat, but outside of combat, I'm sure you can imagine the utility )

I also use DMG2/Dark Sun's inherent bonuses system. There isn't a single +x item in the game - whatever magic items they get, they get because they're cool and useful, not because of maths . It also lets me give gold a real value outside of using it as a separate point buy system of character advancement. The nature of belonging to an adventurer's guild type system means I can start them off with supplies on each mission, which helps encourage ritual use since they don't need to buy ritual supplies unless they want that extra oomph (which they've done, and it's certainly come in handy).

But yeah, I haven't changed the actual chasis or pretty much any of the rules. Most of what I do is just combining the rules in different ways and adding my own thing.

 

[prosfilaes]

4e is the newest edition of D&D that some people dislike, and in their dislike they claim that it does not represent their ideals for what a D&D game should be.

"They claim"? Is there any reason to disbelieve that it doesn't represent their ideals for what a D&D game should be?

 

[DumbPaladin]

"They claim"? Is there any reason to disbelieve that it doesn't represent their ideals for what a D&D game should be?

You miss the point, Prosfilaes. People have no right to claim that 4e doesn't "feel" like D&D to them, according to some.

I'd say the original point of this thread was pretty much simply a minor suggestion that there isn't any logical reason to dislike 4e; people that do so are merely having a knee-jerk reaction because they grew up on 3rd edition.

Personally, I couldn't care less why other people like or dislike 4e; I dislike it and I know why. Wouldn't these threads go a lot easier if we ignored the people whose sole purpose to post here was to attempt to negate the ability of other people to have a contrary opinion?

There's a reason I don't post in the 4e forum -- well two, really. One, I don't know enough about the game to add anything substantive. Two, I don't like it, so I don't have any reason to post there and purposefully troll the fans of the system.

It's very telling that in a thread explicitly called "4e dislike", so many people have fallen over themselves to say why 4e is great.

Who cares if it is or not??

That's not the topic at hand. If that's all you have to say, I have news for you: you have nothing substantive to add to this thread.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Or maybe it was just a slip of words.

Also, the whole "Why would you post here" has already been answered. This thread isn't literally about hating on 4e. If you can't get past that, perhaps you should be leaving the thread.

 

[DumbPaladin]

No thanks, but it was very kind of you to ask.