What did Wizards learn from Essentials?

[Tallifer]

How does everyone feel about the subclass system that Essentials introduced? What I am talking about is the Ranger actually being a Hunter (Ranger) or a Scout (Ranger).

It got way to complicated for me. In normal Fourth Edition, a ranger was a ranger and he had various builds depending on class features, powers chosen and feats bought. He could train in anything from the same pool, although obviously each build had its normal preferences. Plus the Wizards of the Coast have yet to come out with a system to completely swap Essentials features for other features and powers.

Let us hope the conversion between features in the new edition is more transparent. Do not hide stuff under pages of fluffy text: put it in boxes and charts for ease of reference. Put all the fluff in a single big block at the beginning, on a separate page; then additional fluff in an article.

I really liked how the races were printed up in the first Fourth Edition Players' handbook: one page of crunch,and one page of fluff (and then a racial article in the Dragon magazine): I could skip all the fluff to see immediately the information I wanted, and other people could happily read an entire page of fluff.

 

[MoxieFu]

WotC learned that if you ignore the people giving you money while trying to please the people who aren't, you can successfully shorten the lifespan of a system.

Actually, as evidenced by the pandering they are doing now, perhaps they did not.

What you call "pandering" many people consider "listening." And from what I have seen they appear to be listening to everyone and not just the group that shouts the loudest.

Apparently the group you seem to think was giving Wizards all that money wasn't giving them ENOUGH and now they are trying to broaden their customer base.

 

[MortonStromgal]

2e learned that if you wanted each player to run a single character over an extended campaign, "linear warriors, quadratic wizards" was a problem.

I disagree with this as the linear warriors had armies.... So your wizard can cast all sorta crazy but my army destroys your tower and burns you at the stake. When using a d20, having 250 foot soldiers + 30 calvery + etc etc makes it very easy to win against anything but another army.

 

[OnlineDM]

Hopefully they learned not to do anymore X.5 editions. Essentials confused me. I didn't know what it was for, why it was needed, or how I could run it alongside a 4e game.

3.5 re-released all the core books, and went full steam ahead with the revised rules. Essentials was launched with a whimper. I was not, and am not, really sure what to do with it.

Hm. I never experienced this. I saw the Essentials books much as I would have seen Player's Handbook 4 - more options. The monster math was much better, too. I've just incorporated all of it into my normal 4e games without a hitch.

As for the original question, I think that the lesson learned from Essentials is that folks who enjoyed pre-4e D&D liked classes that were mechanically different from one another, martial classes without daily powers, and more descriptive text around classes and races and powers and so on. It turns out that I like that stuff, too, even though I started with 4e.

 

[Mattachine]

In my high-level 1e and 2e games, high level wizards and druids routinely destroyed small armies that lacked high level casters. Conjured elementals and huge-area spells made short work of armies that numbered merely in the hundreds.

 

[Dausuul]

Let us hope the conversion between features in the new edition is more transparent. Do not hide stuff under pages of fluffy text: put it in boxes and charts for ease of reference. Put all the fluff in a single big block at the beginning, on a separate page; then additional fluff in an article.

Ugh, this is one of the things I really hate about 4E. The rigid separation of "irrelevant fluff" and "important crunch" is a big contributing factor to my feeling of playing an abstract tactical board game. I routinely hear players announcing how much damage they've dealt and what status effects they've imposed on Orc Reaver Number Three, without giving the slightest hint of what their characters have actually done.

To me, the statements that fireball creates a glowing bead, that it streaks from your hands to the target and explodes with a whoosh into a ball of flame, are just as much rules text as the statement that it does 5d6 damage. It answers questions such as "Can I start a fire with this spell?" and "Can enemies deduce my location from seeing the fireball?" and "Does it draw the attention of enemies within hearing range?" and "Can I use this to signal my allies if I fire it up into the sky?" These questions are irrelevant to a board game where every move is defined in advance, but they're important things to know in an RPG.

 

[Tallifer]

Ugh, this is one of the things I really hate about 4E. The rigid separation of "irrelevant fluff" and "important crunch" is a big contributing factor to my feeling of playing an abstract tactical board game. I routinely hear players announcing how much damage they've dealt and what status effects they've imposed on Orc Reaver Number Three, without giving the slightest hint of what their characters have actually done.

To me, the statements that fireball creates a glowing bead, that it streaks from your hands to the target and explodes with a whoosh into a ball of flame, are just as much rules text as the statement that it does 5d6 damage. It answers questions such as "Can I start a fire with this spell?" and "Can enemies deduce my location from seeing the fireball?" and "Does it draw the attention of enemies within hearing range?" and "Can I use this to signal my allies if I fire it up into the sky?" These questions are irrelevant to a board game where every move is defined in advance, but they're important things to know in an RPG.

I fail to see how presenting information clearly will influence people's personalities. People who play everything like a first-person shooter and who always speak out-of-character have always done so: when we roleplayed in the early 1980s, there were always the players who crunched numbers, spoke in action movie quotations and acted like serial killers.

Fireball: "A globe of orange flame coalesces in your hand. You hurl it at
your enemies, and it explodes on impact." That is the flavour text from the original Fourth Edition Players' Handbook. I think it gives as much information as you asked for in your example, and I do not see a need for more. The following block of statistics tells me everything else I need to know.

 

[FireLance]

I disagree with this as the linear warriors had armies.... So your wizard can cast all sorta crazy but my army destroys your tower and burns you at the stake. When using a d20, having 250 foot soldiers + 30 calvery + etc etc makes it very easy to win against anything but another army.

I suspect they also learned that not everyone who played a fighter likes playing with armies, which was why Leadership was a feat instead of a hard-wired class ability.

 

[Sadras]

I fail to see how presenting information clearly will influence people's personalities. People who play everything like a first-person shooter and who always speak out-of-character have always done so: when we roleplayed in the early 1980s, there were always the players who crunched numbers, spoke in action movie quotations and acted like serial killers.

Fireball: "A globe of orange flame coalesces in your hand. You hurl it at
your enemies, and it explodes on impact." That is the flavour text from the original Fourth Edition Players' Handbook. I think it gives as much information as you asked for in your example, and I do not see a need for more. The following block of statistics tells me everything else I need to know.

Before I answer, I just want to mention that I am your sig.

Although 4E provides some flavour text for its powers it doesn't even come close to the flavour text of previous editions. In fact editions have decreased in the fluff over the years. Its the fluff that promotes descriptions and character play by players and DMs. So it only stands to reason, the less fluff you provide and the more mechanical the power/spell - the less you will evoke the player to narrate his actions and the more it will be all about the numbers.

I agree 100% that 2-dimensional players have existed during all times of the game we love, but 4E is almost seen to be encouraging it with its one liners.

Compare it to
"A fireball is an explosive burst of flame, which detonates with a low roar and delivers damage proportional to the level of the wizard who cast it...The burst of the fireball creates little pressure and generally conforms to the shape of the area in which it occurs....Besides causing damage to creatures, the fireball ignites all combustible materials within its burst radius, and the heat of the fireball melts soft metals such as gold, copper, silver..etc. Exposed items require a saving throw...to determine if they are affected....The wizard points his finger and speaks the range...at which the fireball is to burst. A streak flashes from the pointing digit, and unless it impacts upon a material body or solid barrier prior to attaining the prescribed range, blossoms into the fireball (an early impact results in an early detonation)...The material component of this spell is a tiny ball of bat guano and suphur."

You cannot compare 4E Fireball to 2E Fireball. The fluff inspires roleplay, a boxed power does not.
Now dont get me wrong, I enjoy 4E, and our group has the experience enough to change the fluff around 4E and Im sure yours does too - sometimes in the PCs favour, sometimes not. We even allow a change in the descrip of the power - in fact we give XPs for good roleplaying/narrative and all that - but that is an experienced group. As a base, if you did not know any editions before, 4E is very very bland.

Give me the simplicity of the mechanics of 4E (with tweaks of course) and the fluff of 1E/2E anyday - that is the campaign we are trying to run.

 

[Tallifer]

Compare it to
"A fireball is an explosive burst of flame, which detonates with a low roar and delivers damage proportional to the level of the wizard who cast it...The burst of the fireball creates little pressure and generally conforms to the shape of the area in which it occurs....Besides causing damage to creatures, the fireball ignites all combustible materials within its burst radius, and the heat of the fireball melts soft metals such as gold, copper, silver..etc. Exposed items require a saving throw...to determine if they are affected....The wizard points his finger and speaks the range...at which the fireball is to burst. A streak flashes from the pointing digit, and unless it impacts upon a material body or solid barrier prior to attaining the prescribed range, blossoms into the fireball (an early impact results in an early detonation)...The material component of this spell is a tiny ball of bat guano and suphur."


Give me the simplicity of the mechanics of 4E (with tweaks of course) and the fluff of 1E/2E anyday - that is the campaign we are trying to run.

I actually agree with you. But I want the fluff separated on the page. I want ALL the mechanical information in the block, and then have the fluff. When i looked at the 3rd edition fireball (which uses almost the exact same text you quoted) it included mechanical rules buried within the fluff. I may have exaggerated my position in some of my posts above, but what I really want is clear and easy to read rules. And I think part of that is separating the fluff from the crunch on the page or pages.