D&D 4E The Best Thing from 4E

[Tony Vargas]

It's only Rationalization if you're inventing it as an excuse to avoid admitting the actual truth.

Yep. There are real differences - and very real similarities - among the various editions. Why invent more?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Yep. There are real differences - and very real similarities - among the various editions. Why invent more?

I'm acknowledging some of the real differences between editions. I don't think there's any disagreement on what the differences actually are.

So, given the truth that there are differences, it follows that any preference for one edition over the other must be based on those differences. If you analyze the data for who enjoys a particular edition over the other, and which difference guide those preferences, you'll start to notice patterns. You can use these patterns to predict how particular individuals may feel about a third game, based on the similarity of its rules to either of the other two games.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So, given the truth that there are differences, it follows that any preference for one edition over the other must be based on those differences. If you analyze the data for who enjoys a particular edition over the other, and which difference guide those preferences, you'll start to notice patterns. You can use these patterns to predict how particular individuals may feel about a third game, based on the similarity of its rules to either of the other two games.

Indeed. Preferences of 3.x over 4e, for instance, would show a predilection for high rewards for system mastery (optimization), class imbalances favoring casters (or, alternately, a preference for low-level or E6 style play), more detailed skill lists, longer DM prep times and less predictable, generally fast one way or the other, 'rocket tag' combats, and so forth.

Preferring 2e over modern eds would point to weighting settings over systems.

Preferring older eds would point to nostalgia being a major factor.

etc...

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Indeed. Preferences of 3.x over 4e, for instance, would show a predilection for high rewards for system mastery (optimization), class imbalances favoring casters (or, alternately, a preference for low-level or E6 style play), more detailed skill lists, longer DM prep times and less predictable, generally fast one way or the other, 'rocket tag' combats, and so forth.

It's possible. It's also possible that a preference for 3.x over 4E might show a predilection for process-Simulation.

If you actually ask those people why they feel that way, you're unlikely to get many responses indicating that they are in favor of class imbalance, longer prep time, or 'rocket-tag' combat. You're more likely to get an answer regarding how classes in 3.x felt more distinct, and how minions or martial healing didn't 'make sense' to them.

Which are all perfectly reasonable answers. It's entirely possible to value class balance, but think that forcing everyone into an AEDU structure is too high of a price to pay for it; those players might have been happier post-Essentials, from what I understand. Minions exist to fulfill a narrative role of letting the PCs seem awesome, at the expense of consistency in the process of simulating combat; if you really care about the process, then there's not much you can do about this, aside from hoping the DM just doesn't use minions ever.

Martial healing... well, I'll chalk that one up to a combination of misunderstanding (about what HP are supposed to represent in 4E) and stubborn refusal to change preconceptions about what HP are supposed to represent. This is the group of players who might be rationalizing that they care about Simulation, when they actually just don't like the change in flavor. Of course, you also get players who honestly admit that they don't like the change in flavor, and that is also a fair critique.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If you actually ask those people why they feel that way, you're unlikely to get many responses indicating that they are in favor of class imbalance, longer prep time, or 'rocket-tag' combat.

I've had exactly that experience, yes. When you think about it, admitting you want class imbalance doesn't win your cause a lot of sympathy - and probably ends the conversation.

I /have/ occasionally, had someone give a response like "of course wizards should be better than fighters," to which all I can say is "thank you for your honesty."

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I just want to pipe in here to say that I have had a lot of fun with 4e, despite the things I don't prefer about it (it's not great with player-empowerment, prep time is too much for me, and the item treadmill is dreadful after a while). But I have had a lot of fun with it, and so have my players, which is probably evidenced in my long thread where I post my game sessions.

Yeah, the item thing... I just decided right off almost that the whole concept of 'parcels' and a fixed progression of treasure and items was antithetical to at least my style of play. For one thing it HUGELY undermines the 'take a bigger risk, get a bigger reward' concept. I mean so what if you were level 1 and you all took on 5 level 5 encounters and beat them? You still get 5 level 1 treasure parcels by the rules!

Not only that but the whole CONCEPT of 'treasure parcels' where the players can simply bank on that they get N wealth per level and M wealth in their 1-30 career is poison to me. Isn't half the fun to win vast treasures and lose them again? To gamble huge stakes on incredibly thin odds and then pull it off? The whole treasure system of 4e fundamentally undermines it all.

I mean, I get it, we all played in that Monte Haul game back in 1982 or whenever and rolled our eyes at the absurdity of it all. We all saw how you could build infinity CLW wands in 3.5 and bypass the whole hit point economy. Yeah, we get it. I don't care. I mean its fine that there's a 'rule' that tells me what the designer's of the game thought about, I'm all for that, but treasure and items in my game are a much less structured thing.

For one thing, I can't be bothered to keep track of all those damned parcels anyway. I hate the very notion of anything that smells like accounting getting into my fun. Fact is, you can just give stuff away, and the game really won't break. I guess if you give the level 5 PCs a million gold they'll probably do something silly that will make you slap your head, like brew 500 gallons of tanglefoot or something, but within reason things are going to be OK.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I've had exactly that experience, yes. When you think about it, admitting you want class imbalance doesn't win your cause a lot of sympathy - and probably ends the conversation.

I /have/ occasionally, had someone give a response like "of course wizards should be better than fighters," to which all I can say is "thank you for your honesty."

Yeah, there were actually quite a lot of those people on the 4e boards back in the day. They would simply insist that it was irrelevant if your character could contribute as much or not since it was a team game, and being the fighter and 'sucking' at 9th level was just not a big deal, the wizard was there to take care of you and so it goes.

It always smacked of rationalization to me, TBH, but obviously you have to accept that people have these opinions. I think a LOT of the love of D&D idiosyncracies falls into this type of category. Back when the game was new, people were highly critical of these things, but they grew to accept them over time and any change will be rationalized as 'a turn for the worse'. The same people, 20 years ago, would have cheered most of 4e's innovations, now they 'hate' them.

 

[JamesonCourage]

Yeah, the item thing...

For one thing, I can't be bothered to keep track of all those damned parcels anyway.

This is the main thing for me. At first, looking through items was a lot of fun for me. What fits with their character concept? What would the character appreciate? What item could turn steer the game into interesting directions (like with artifacts)? These were cool at first.

But then it became homework somewhere around mid-Heroic. Looking up new items was necessary because the rules said so, and I was trying to apply the rules of 4e to run a fairly straight-forward 4e game (to give the system an honest go after having stated my disagreements with it for a while on these boards). And I hate homework for my games (which is why I don't prep for my RPG, I just build the setting).

I think 4e has tons of interesting items (even if people don't like the way some items work -like 1/day flaming weapon bursts or whatever outside of crits- I actually didn't mind the implementation within the confines of 4e). But it really did start to feel like homework for me after a while, and I barely did homework in school (I was the kid with 96-100% on tests, and homework written during the passing period rather than at home the night before). Definitely not going to do it for my game, unless I need to at the very beginning to kick the game off.

But yeah. Inherent bonuses helped a lot. But I still have to look up items. It's tedious. I still have incentive to just upgrade stuff (since many items improve based on their item level), so I still have to weigh that against just giving them new things. And while giving them new things is fun, my players are already not using all of their stuff (at level 11), simply because they can't remember all of it. So my options are give them new stuff they'll likely use (and drop something old) or forget about, or give a minor upgrade to a current item (as long as it fits within the current treasure parcel). And the decisions just gets more complicated as the game goes on, and new items are added or forgotten. (I also have to weigh adding new things, since other players might remember they have it, and mention it, and then we wait while these abilities are looked up during play, putting the scene or combat on hold for the duration.)

Anyway... it's become the worst part of my 4e game for me, followed by making monsters. But that's because both of those felt fresh and exciting in the beginning, and now feel more like homework. But I'm a low-prep GM kinda guy, so I think that has a lot to do with it. Oh, that and not having access to the internet during the game. If I could quickly pull up some monsters or whatever on the compendium, it'd make my job easier. Alas, that is not an option for my 4e game (and ironically is an option for my RPG campaign, although it's not in any way necessary there).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

heh, yeah. So, one of the short list of 'not so best things in 4e'. I mostly did like items, and artifacts were kick-ass, though you really had to take concordance with a bit of a grain of salt. I have to say, I mostly either upgraded items or just riffled through the books or compendium and gave out whatever happened to catch my eye. In a way that works out for the best I suspect, as it puts a bit of a curb on the character build game. If someone REALLY wanted something, or I knew there was something stupendous that they would really love I'd often work it into the game, but in general the players were more into story than "I must have Iron Armbands of Power or suckage!"

 

[Tony Vargas]

One thing that happens in 3e and 4e, with the players having more 'build' power and more control over how their characters develop, is they have less interest in - and angst over - the tools DMs used to use to shape PCs. Magic items being one of the biggest ones.

We haven't seen a whole lot of magic pools permanently changing characters this millennium, either, for instance.