Jeff Albertson
Explorer
Save ends. The pre-4th Ed thing of getting stunned for 3d4 rounds was seriously not cool.
For me, 4e just doesn't meet my minimum levels of internal consistency and causal logic. The metagame "proud nails" of 4e are just too frequent and obvious, though at this point I frankly can't even swallow "core" D&D-isms like armor class, hit points, and "Vancian" magic, let alone be bothered to deal with AEDU.
But ultimately, my journey to Savage Worlds was largely driven by the same impulse---I don't want "process sim," I want character-based fictional positioning where the characters have real stakes with what is happening in the fiction. And as you noted, @Manbearcat, that is a wholly independent aim as a GM than simply driving "realistic" results. I've discovered that I'm not terribly interested in "realism"---what I'm really after is "plausibility." And that plausibility may be a result of character interaction with the game world, it may be based on genre tropes, it may be based on mechanical interactions.
So what it is it about 4e that so uniquely pushes characters into fictional positioning "spaces" that allow for this kind of play? Because even having thoroughly engaged with much of @pemerton 's descriptions, I still have a hard time understanding how players selecting a bunch of powers/exploits/spells drives this.
I know Savage Worlds works in this way because 1) the underlying core mechanic makes plausible "process sim" elegant and easy, and 2) characters generally have more freedom to build their character the way they want (free-form, skill-based advancement vs. class and level). If a character doesn't fit into the player's "vision" it's absolutely no one's fault but their own; there's no "accidental" choosing the wrong class, etc. Players get to really define their own vision for a character, and resolving those character actions mechanically is fast, elegant, and produces plausible results the majority of the time.
Because I'm not worrying about mechanical resolution issues, I have huge amounts of freedom as a GM to focus my energies on the fiction.
But how does 4e do it?
I never said that I would consider him to be a good DM. After all, as you say, the numbers given on his various tables would imply a world that could not sustain itself.
That all makes sense.
As I said, I started with 2E, post-1985. He was accomplished and successful and made many significant contributions to the game, but I don't think I'd have fun with him as the DM.I think my point was that Gygax was an EXCEEDINGLY accomplished and successful DM. He also wrote the rules that are usually understood to be the core of D&D simulationism.
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From what I can see Gary evolved with the rest of us, though his contributions in the form of game rules and such much after 1985 is too fragmentary to say exactly.
As I said, I started with 2E, post-1985. He was accomplished and successful and made many significant contributions to the game, but I don't think I'd have fun with him as the DM.
You weren't asking me, but I've used a HeroQuest extended conflict (which has a close analogue in the 4e Skill Challenge) to resolve an eight month siege in a few minutes of rolling and description. Depending on what the players found interesting I'd be perfectly prepared to resolve a war in the same fashion.
I really can't relate, no, because the difference between getting to do something cool maybe 1/encounter (as you level up 2 or even 4 /different/ things) vs either never (pre-3e) or every round (most 3.x feats) seems like more variety, not less.
In a sense, sure. Using 'perceived' the way you do wrongly implies that the problems were similar in nature and validity.
So, no, you can't say that 3e->4e and 4e->5e both represent 'evolution' of the game.
The party line, as I recall it, was that KotSf was designed in parallel, and sent to the printers first, so it ended up using unfinished guidelines to create it's encounters.
What evidence do you have that they DID understand how to write for 4e and consequently what kind of play it was suited for?
Your argument is a huge excluded-middle. Nothing is so simple.
No, I'm saying that a lot of those things can be addressed within the context of 4e, starting over and regressing back to a game that has an only goal of emulating 2e wasn't my idea of the best answer.