Unpopular opinions go here

[Cadence]

How is 5e D&D different from 4e D&D, as far as this contention is concerned?

My memory has 3/3.5 and 4 (as opposed to 1, 2, and 5) being the ones that most assumed a grid layout as a default for combat and with the most (although very different) formalized rules for non combat things.

Under the weather a bit and wouldn't be surprised if brain slog has me misremembering.

 

[pemerton]

My memory has 3/3.5 and 4 (as opposed to 1, 2, and 5) being the ones that most assumed a grid layout as a default for combat and with the most (although very different) formalized rules for non combat things.

5e D&D and 4e D&D both spell out ranges and areas of effect in 5' units (4e abbreviates these to squares).

4e D&D has a formal structure for resolving non-combat encounters/conflicts - skill challenges - and that is a huge difference from 5e (in my opinion). But I don't see how that is relevant to whether or not 4e is a RPG. The definition of RPG is not, and has never been, wargame-derived combat rules + free-form/GM-decides non-combat resolution.

 

[Emberashh]

And those people (should) play Pathfinder 2E.

Very much not my preferred crunch.

Yeah I have to agree. PF2E was designed with its audience in mind only and if you're not already apart of it you're likely to bounce off the system pretty hard.

And thats without getting into my opinion that the game is soulless.

How is 5e D&D different from 4e D&D, as far as this contention is concerned?

Did I say it was? I've said elsewhere that I believe 5e is just a lobotomized 4e.

 

[Cadence]

5e D&D and 4e D&D both spell out ranges and areas of effect in 5' units (4e abbreviates these to squares).

4e D&D has a formal structure for resolving non-combat encounters/conflicts - skill challenges - and that is a huge difference from 5e (in my opinion). But I don't see how that is relevant to whether or not 4e is a RPG. The definition of RPG is not, and has never been, wargame-derived combat rules + free-form/GM-decides non-combat resolution.

Ack, just reread the original post you were replying to. I missed the "if at all". I would certainly disagree with anyone saying 4e wasn't an RPG.

I thought I remembered both 3/3.5 and 4 having lots of pictures of grids in them for combat.

 

[Gradine]

Ska happened because a dark cabal of unemployed horn players in Venice Beach came together to hatch a nefarious plan to infiltrate pop music so they could have jobs for once, and the struggle to counter their dark magicks cost us many lives.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Ack, just reread the original post you were replying to. I missed the "if at all". I would certainly disagree with anyone saying 4e wasn't an RPG.

I thought I remembered both 3/3.5 and 4 having lots of pictures of grids in them for combat.

They do. Both were designed with the grid in mind. That has nothing to do with any other contention, of course.

 

[pemerton]

Did I say it was? I've said elsewhere that I believe 5e is just a lobotomized 4e.

So you also think that 5e is only vestigial in its RPG-ness?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Good question. I did a little looking around, and I think there might be a subtle distinction:

Technical terminology is the "official" language of a domain, and is generally not used outside that domain.

Jargon is language that is given special meaning within a technical domain, but may be used outside that domain.

A layman won't understand technical terms, but a layman will likely misunderstand jargon, if that distinction makes sense.

So, for gaming - "Hit Points" is probably a gaming technical term, as it doesn't get used outside of games. "Feats" would be jargon, as the word "feat" has meaning outside of gaming.

In physics - "Boson" is a technical term. "Relativity" would be jargon.

A lot of legal language is jargon, as it is composed of words that have colloquial meaning that does not match the technical use. "Malice" is legal jargon, for example.

There's a fair bit of academic terms that are, effectively, jargon by this standard; that causes no end of trouble in a few cases.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Seems to be stealing a word from psychology, possibly with attendant stigma.

Well, "disassociated" has a pretty logical constructed structure for what they were trying to say in that essay back in the day. Its just that the combined term pretty quickly picked up a lot of semantic loading.

 

[Thomas Shey]

And important to note too that Immersion isn't a consequence of realism or any hullabaloo like that. Even the most gamey of games can be highly immersive.

Part of the problem is this sentence is, shall we say, not universally held. There were absolutely people back in the RGFA days who felt the farther the mechanics resolution mapped from a direct correspondence to the action, the less immersive it was, and the more stylized the genre was, the less immersive it was. I've hit some folks around here who feel much the same.