Why is the Vancian system still so popular?

[WhimsyTheFae]

Have you tried teaching them?

Well, I don't really think they're inferior. I was just goofing.

You do make a good point, though (even if this side convo isn't exactly on topic). I probably could do more to be a positive influence.

 

[WhimsyTheFae]

One groups' "creative use" is another groups' "stupid rules lawyering tricks". I don't see this as a bridgeable divide, anymore than, say, people showing how nonconformist they are by all dressing alike, or divided opinions on the coolness of Rifts. You either find it silly or you don't, and no amount of evidence is going to sway either camp.

See, I'm in the "this is silly" camp, but I'm thinking that if the group has decided to play the game, I can either be a distraction (which is what I am, now, constantly ragging on 4e) or I can try to be a positive influence and make the game more enjoyable (which is what I should be doing, regardless of how many slimes I knock prone).

 

[Tony Vargas]

*sigh*

Once again, the people who want different systems for different power sources (myself included) don't see it as a power issue

Yet every argument they make leads to bringing down martial classes and elevating casters. I can't speak to motive, only to what is being demanded. For instance:

What I don't want to see is a martial power system that doesn't make sense, and martial dailyies don't make much sense to me.

Given the classic D&D paradigm, in which abilities that are useable less often are compensated with much greater power, dailies, like vancian spells, are the top tier for sheer power. By arbitrarily - and such double-standards of 'sense' or realism are arbitrary - demanding the martial source be cut off from such power, you are demanding they be inferior. You may not want them to be inferior, but you are demanding it.

Suggestions that some novel approach be taken to power up martial characters relative to their 1e days don't help mitigate that, either. 5e is set to be a veritable reactionary edition, harkening back to prior eds, when weapon specialization or perhaps a few more feats were all non-casters could hope for. Radical new ways of balancing peak-power abilities are unlikely to be considered, let alone adopted.

 

[Saagael]

Not a single 4e DM I know has done that. :shrug:

Really? I know a few DMs that don't actively push that kind of thinking onto players, but when asked said they wouldn't mind that kind of creativity. Its also one of the common things I see pop up in "what do you house rule?" threads. Still, the point remains that its possible, and its not even a houserule; at least no more than "you can light a house on fire with a torch" is a house rule.

 

[Hussar]

A 9th level wizard in AD&D has all of 13 spells he can cast, most of those low level. That's hardly a "Sheer number."

And this fan doesn't want to see any kind of at will magic, unless it's mage hand or dancing lights type cantrips.

But, that's less than half the story though. That 9th level wizard will almost certainly have a selection of scrolls, a wand or three with up to 100 charges and a staff or other spell throwing item.

But, let's say you're right. Ok, the wizard has 13 spells. So, he spends significant amounts of time not doing wizardly things because if he blows all his spells, he's got to spend a day trying to rememorize them.

Why does punishing a character for the class he's chosen have to be a good thing? Why are we telling the Magic User, "hey, great, you have fantastic cosmic powers, but, you can't really use them, because if you do, we're going to make sure you get punished - either you won't have time to regain them (long memorization rules) or at the very least, you're going to spend significant amounts of game time being a somewhat more durable commoner"?

 

[WhimsyTheFae]

Really? I know a few DMs that don't actively push that kind of thinking onto players, but when asked said they wouldn't mind that kind of creativity. Its also one of the common things I see pop up in "what do you house rule?" threads. Still, the point remains that its possible, and its not even a houserule; at least no more than "you can light a house on fire with a torch" is a house rule.

Yeah, I don't think that it's a matter of the DMs not allowing it, but of the players not attempting it. Technically, my statement was correct, but I think that it paints a picture of the DMs that wouldn't necessarily be accurate. The players are AT LEAST as guilty of not thinking beyond the pages.

 

[BobTheNob]

No-one is stopping people from playing 4e creatively. No-one. I loved it in our 4e campaign when a players sealed a cave entrance by using muscle to move rock over the entrance (athletic test) then using Ice Storm to seal it. Yay! Go Players!

But here is the thing, I haven't read one post that sais 3e, or 2e or 1e stifles creativity. Yet this issue comes up again and again and again for 4e. Now you can spend your time saying "Its the DM's fault for not allowing creativity" or "Its the players fault for not being creative" or "There is nothing stopping you from being creative in 4e" (because there isnt) but the fact remains that this keeps coming up.

If this was a marketing company, they would be asking why this phenomena was occurring, not blaming customers for "playing it wrong". When Coke came up with clear-Coke and it failed misserably, did they spend their time blaming the customer base, or did they very quickly review and re-jig clear-coke out of their product offering? To sit there and blame player and DM's for not being creative is just not how anyone should be addressing this.

Surely, based on this coming up time and again, we can at least acknowledge that there was something (or a number of things) 4e did which dissuaded at least a sub-set of players from X-dimensional problem solving and power interpretation.

 

[mlund]

I have to admit, I do love the style of a Wizard who needs to prepare his spells from spell book after resting, cherry-picking the most appropriate incantations and formulas to meet his best estimation of what is to come. I like the idea of overall firepower being depleted over time. I think of Dragonlance as giving me the most intimate narrative of what it is to be a D&D Wizard.

Playing a 3.0 or 3.5 Wizard didn't really feel like the books, though. Nor was it a lot of fun outside of a narrow sweet spot of balance between Link's Crossbow Training (low levels) and Casters & Caddies (higher levels). Also, Fireball and Sleep were world-ender spells in Dragonlance, not Charm Person. My best 3E Wizards were save-or-die factories in combat from Charm Person (protect me, friend!) to Glitterdust (have fun fighting blind) with some AOE and no-save Ranged Touch attacks at higher levels.

"Going Nova," is a problem with 1e - 3e Vancian Magic. Interestingly, though, the narratives that so married me to Vancian Casting also provide a solid restriction on it. Casting Vancian Magic is draining. Trying to force too many fire-and-forget spells in an encounter can make you go unconscious or even risk death. Having a hard limit to the portion of your daily Vancian Magic you can blow in a single encounter fits the theme well.

I hope 5E includes a mechanic that discourages Wizards from burning all their daily spells in a single encounter - some sort of burn-out risk. In compensation, they should have some less volatile magic they can use with impunity at-will. Major Arcana and Minor Arcana have a nice ring to them. I suppose Miracles and Blessings could work on the divine side of things as well. The gods only take so heavy a hand in mortal deeds lest they touch off some sort of firestorm between deities, fiends, and primordials.

- Marty Lund

 

[Hussar]

No-one is stopping people from playing 4e creatively. No-one. I loved it in our 4e campaign when a players sealed a cave entrance by using muscle to move rock over the entrance (athletic test) then using Ice Storm to seal it. Yay! Go Players!

But here is the thing, I haven't read one post that sais 3e, or 2e or 1e stifles creativity. Yet this issue comes up again and again and again for 4e. Now you can spend your time saying "Its the DM's fault for not allowing creativity" or "Its the players fault for not being creative" or "There is nothing stopping you from being creative in 4e" (because there isnt) but the fact remains that this keeps coming up.

If this was a marketing company, they would be asking why this phenomena was occurring, not blaming customers for "playing it wrong". When Coke came up with clear-Coke and it failed misserably, did they spend their time blaming the customer base, or did they very quickly review and re-jig clear-coke out of their product offering? To sit there and blame player and DM's for not being creative is just not how anyone should be addressing this.

Surely, based on this coming up time and again, we can at least acknowledge that there was something (or a number of things) 4e did which dissuaded at least a sub-set of players from X-dimensional problem solving and power interpretation.

Well, I'm not sure that you can't find threads that talk about 3e stifling creativity. I'm actually pretty sure that you can. But, your point is well taken.

And, really, I don't think you have to look any further than the first three core books for 4e. The PHB, DMG, and MM are written in a style that presents the game in a very, very specific way. From some rather unfortunate word choices for examples (Skip over meeting the guards and get to the good stuff ... like combat!) and the whole presentation of the PBH, you get a game that, on paper at least, looks very rigid.

Sure, there's a crap ton of stuff that you can be creative with in 4e. But, it's buried under the mountain of crap that is presented as a fait accomplis. Rituals! Fantastically creative ruleset. Buried at the back of the book, barely supported and pretty much the red headed stepchild of the book.

Someone opening the 4e PHB is going to see classes described by their in-combat role (Role is the very first thing listed after the class name), most of the powers are presented as what you do in combat and anything that is not centered on fairly rigidly presented combat elements is relagated to the status of footnotes, either presented in the front introduction chapters (does anyone actually read these?) or in the back, in the very last chapter after a section that is about twice as long - Combat.

I still maintain that the biggest single issue with 4e wasn't really the mechanics (although I get that these are issues as well, certainly. I'm not trying to sweep away the criticisms) but rather how the game was presented. It LOOKS like a gigantic combat board game.

So, it's not a wonder to see that people have this interpretation of the game.

 

[Saagael]

Yeah, I don't think that it's a matter of the DMs not allowing it, but of the players not attempting it. Technically, my statement was correct, but I think that it paints a picture of the DMs that wouldn't necessarily be accurate. The players are AT LEAST as guilty of not thinking beyond the pages.

This is true that the players are just as guilty as not being creative. What's strange though, and yes this is purely anecdotal, but of the players I've run games for, its usually the ones that are new to the D&D (as in 4e is their first edition to try) that pick up on "powers outside of combat" mentality on their own. It's the people who had played D&D since 2e that I have to pull teeth from to get to be creative.

4e only seems restrictive because the language is vastly different than any other edition. But to add to the topic, I think 5e does need to be more traditional Vancian, but I don't want to see the giant lists of spells that were in 3.5. As much as people decry 4e's power bloat, I feel just the same about 3.5's huge list of spells that players had to sift through every day. I'd like to see that trimmed down to more usable umbrella-spells.