D&D 4E Presentation vs design... vs philosophy

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[pemerton]

I played BECMI, AD&D, 2e and 3e so when 4e came out the presentation of the book to me was not relatable. You went from Rolemaster to 4e. I cannot describe to you the disappointment I had when I paged though the PHB. I had not seen a preview or anything so yeah it was my first look after buying it and I was immensely frustrated with it.

I've played a lot of B/X and AD&D as well as Rolemaster. What struck me about the PHB was that

(1) The uniform formatting made extracting information easier - Gygax's books in particular are terrible for getting information out of (both in class descriptions and spell descriptions);

(2) The sequence of presentation of material was perhaps misjudged - eg the magic items and the powers come before the combat rules, but a lot of them can't be made sense of except by reference to the combat rules;

(3) There was stuff that seemed unhelpful to me (and that I've still never read) like the italicised text at the top of a power description and the build suggestions for each class.​

The cleanest presentation of D&D I know of before 4e is Moldvay Basic. It's striking that, if one focuses on text (rather than colour and layout) the description of the fireball spell in the two systems is almost identical.

My favourite version of AD&D to play has been Oriental Adventures, but that book suffers from terrible presentation. Many classes have "natural language" text descriptions supplemented by tables and yet it can still be hard to make sure that you've actually kept track of everything about your class .

 

[Minigiant]

While true, there's a lot of accusations when people say that they aren't fond of every edition. I've been accused of "hating" 4E* because I tried to explain why I eventually came to dislike it or tried to explain why I may have uttered the phrase "Didn't feel like D&D" at one time in the past.

It's not like I didn't have fun now and then while playing 4E. I even wish there were a few other thing they had carried over like a better option for a fighting cleric to heal as part of attacking.

But hate? Nah. Simply at the bottom of my ranking of the 15 different types of D&D.

*Just to reiterate: I don't hate any version of D&D. I hate Bob with the hate of a thousand suns, but he knows why.

And that's fair.

I rank early 4e much lower than late 4e. But it's all D&D.

Much how there are a dozen versions of Batman. Will Arnett Lego Batman is as valid as Adam West TV Batman as is Val Kilmer Movie Batman as is Silver Age Batman.

 

[FrogReaver]

And that's fair.

I rank early 4e much lower than late 4e. But it's all D&D.

Much how there are a dozen versions of Batman. Will Arnett Lego Batman is as valid as Adam West TV Batman as is Val Kilmer Movie Batman as is Silver Age Batman.

The thing is - validness is individual in context.

Someone could find that one of those actors did the job of portraying batman so poorly that he really wasn't portraying batman. That's a valid opinion.

Someone could find that character of batman portrayed by the show shouldn't actually have been called batman and nevertheless feel the actor played the role perfectly. Also a valid opinion.

IMO, it's not right to try to force others to say something else is valid that they don't believe is.

 

[Manbearcat]

Here is the thing on “samey” (and I mentioned it elsewhere).

What actually matters isn’t comparing 1 power to another (although I don’t even think that stands up under scrutiny).

What actually matters is the following:

As a product of the interactions of an (a) entire PC build + (b) rules interactions + (c) battlefield and team monster dynamics, is the feel of actually playing (tactical decision-points and the attendant emergent thematics) character x (forget cross-class...we can just stick to intraclass) easily discriminates from the feel of playing character y?

If you’re playing a Sohei themed Rogue Duelist/Artful Dodger/Swashbuckler, it’s going to feel (and emerge as) extremely different from an Assassin themed Rogue Infiltrator by level 1! By level (say 6), you’re going to have virtually no overlap in an entire work-day worth of decision-points and emerging thematics (probably around 15-18 rounds of combat).

And that’s just the combat side of things. The separation will only increase with Skill Challenges.

Quoting my own post! How douchey!

Thinking on the above two characters I invoked, in terms of MTG decks, they would be:

Simic Flash - Green/Blue deck that’s all about off-turn counters, slipperiness, and building a board state that sustains damage and pressure in the process.

Mono-black Murder - Heavy removal (of enemy creatures from the board) with Rotting Regisaur (a value creature with huge damage but also makes you vulnerable) and other opportunistic big damage value cards.

Toooooootally different deck archetypes, decision-points, thematic.

 

[DEFCON 1]

But you're right. I'll keep my hate silent and let it simmer, burning a deep hole in my psyche leading me to the dark side.

The fact that you weren't already doing this makes me wonder what exactly they were teaching you in school...

 

[FrogReaver]

The things I would have wanted to change about fourth edition mostly center on the knowledge that the class design project wasn’t entirely finished upon release. I’d never wanted to use the exact same power structure for the wizard as every other class, for example, but we ran out of time, and had to use smaller variations to express class differences than I had originally expected.

4e Lead Designer Rob Heinsoo

This is an endless, and evergreen, conversation.

Do people think that now they will suddenly convince others that their perceptions were incorrect? What is "same-y" is different for different people. But if the designers of 4e can acknowledge that there was (at least at the beginning) less variation (more same-y-ness) than they wanted, it shouldn't be hard to acknowledge that players might perceive that.

But none of it matters, because it is just an issue of preferences. People like what they like.



So .... how's the thread going? All good? We learn anything about Pathfinder 2 yet?

Thanks for the best post of the thread!

 

[Oofta]

The fact that you weren't already doing this makes me wonder what exactly they were teaching you in school...

What can I say. I grew up in a small town with limited resources. Hate was pretty much expressed as driving around in pickup trucks yelling "Yeehaw" a lot.

 

[Minigiant]

The thing is - validness is individual in context.

Someone could find that one of those actors did the job of portraying batman so poorly that he really wasn't portraying batman. That's a valid opinion.

Someone could find that character of batman portrayed by the show shouldn't actually have been called batman and nevertheless feel the actor played the role perfectly. Also a valid opinion.

IMO, it's not right to try to force others to say something else is valid that they don't believe is.

Eh i don't know.

If you hit the major notes and aspects of Batman, D&D, or whatever, it's hard to all it not valid.

At that point you are criticizing quality nor validity. Losing validity for the most part is intentional as you must purpose diverge from what is known several times.

Now there is an argument that quality can be so bad that you miss the mark completely and become invalid examples. But that hasn't happened in Batman nor D&D.

 

[FrogReaver]

Eh i don't know.

If you hit the major notes and aspects of Batman, D&D, or whatever, it's hard to all it not valid.

At that point you are criticizing quality nor validity. Losing validity for the most part is intentional as you must purpose diverge from what is known several times.

Now there is an argument that quality can be so bad that you miss the mark completely and become invalid examples. But that hasn't happened in Batman nor D&D.

Seems all that is still going to depend on ones personal opinion of things.