Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

[RealAlHazred]

It wasn't common though in any of those cases. It usually required weird Body Powers.

I mean, Growth changed your body weight. And that one wasn't rare.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The only thing 1e has going for it that WotC editions don't is confusion because of all the different systems and writing contradictions.

I think you're missing his point - you're listing class vs class, not system vs system, not "what you need to know to play". As such, a bunch of things you list separately for 4E do actually have 1E equivalents you didn't list. Not all of them - 4E is more complex, but because it's extremely consistent, it's not actually harder to play for most people.

4E also attempts to mitigate complexity by limiting the number of abilities you can know at any given time, so the "more crunch at every level" thing isn't really true.

Unfortunately 4E also tended to make higher-level powers more complicated, and/or be more likely to be Instant or a Reaction or w/e, which bogged the game down in combat.

(Speaking personally, I found it no harder to onboard someone entirely new to TTRPGs to 4E than 2E, which is interesting to me.)

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'd start a thread but I dont think anybody would comment or look at it, so im posting here. Back in December here in Minneapolis we launched a weekend convention (is a 100 attendees considered a convention?) for Battletech.

The very first DunDraCon wasn't probably bigger than that (It was all held in one room).

 

[Thomas Shey]

I mean, Growth changed your body weight. And that one wasn't rare.

If you say so; given the random tables, I don't think I ever saw it come up (and honestly, if it's like every other superhero game it just meant you had two calculations most of the time; grown and not grown.)

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Talking of "people being wrong on the internet", Path of Exile 2 got an update, with a new class and new power set and so on, and I played it and I thought "This is all pretty cool", was progressing steadily through the game again and so on.

Then I foolishly went to the PoE2 reddit, and oh boy, apparently this update was a "disaster" and "everyone hates it", and it's "drastically harder" than previous updates (???). That was certainly news to me lol. I'm not sure if this makes me or them wrong on the internet. I see the devs are listening and making adjustments, which is probably sensible, but it was pretty funny to be like essentially have a good time, and essentially turn around to find everyone else is shrieking in agony lol.

 

[el-remmen]

Some people just seem like gluttons for punishment. It is not cool to victim blame, but at what point do you need to examine your patterns to see if you can break free of what makes you miserable?

 

[el-remmen]

but it was pretty funny to be like essentially have a good time, and essentially turn around to find everyone else is shrieking in agony lol.

That is how I feel about playing D&D and these forums a lot of the time

 

[Maxperson]

I think you're missing his point - you're listing class vs class, not system vs system, not "what you need to know to play". As such, a bunch of things you list separately for 4E do actually have 1E equivalents you didn't list. Not all of them - 4E is more complex, but because it's extremely consistent, it's not actually harder to play for most people.

4E also attempts to mitigate complexity by limiting the number of abilities you can know at any given time, so the "more crunch at every level" thing isn't really true.

Unfortunately 4E also tended to make higher-level powers more complicated, and/or be more likely to be Instant or a Reaction or w/e, which bogged the game down in combat.

(Speaking personally, I found it no harder to onboard someone entirely new to TTRPGs to 4E than 2E, which is interesting to me.)

I don't view crunch as harder to play vs. easier to play. I view it as rules and things you need to know. Complexity.

We completely agree that 1e is harder to learn, but it was more from poor writing and confusion than amount of crunch.

I also disagree that the more crunch at every level isn't true. Between powers and class abilities, the 4e ranger has to know a hell of a lot more than the 1e ranger. Half the 1e ranger abilities I mentioned didn't even kick in until 8th or higher level.

The 1e ranger at 5th level had 3 abilities he needed to know, plus the restrictions, and he gained those at level 1.

The 4e ranger at 5th level had 3 feats, 7 powers, however many skills(I didn't play that edition), plus all the class features just from being a ranger.

So the 4e ranger started with more and gained stuff at every level, where the 1e ranger started with much less and gained nothing per level until 8th level, where he to cast 1 druid spell.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't view crunch as harder to play vs. easier to play. I view it as rules and things you need to know. Complexity.

Inconsistency is a form of complexity.

We completely agree that 1e is harder to learn, but it was more from poor writing and confusion than amount of crunch.

I think that's only true if you look solely at the classes and associated abilities. 1E has more potentially player-facing rules and they're inconsistent.

I also disagree that the more crunch at every level isn't true. Between powers and class abilities, the 4e ranger has to know a hell of a lot more than the 1e ranger. Half the 1e ranger abilities I mentioned didn't even kick in until 8th or higher level.

If you go solely with that, then it's pretty silly because you could just compare Wizards and say the 4E Wizard needed to know about 1/10th as much stuff as the 1E one, which is clearly not really true.

And if we're looking at when it was hardest to play a ranger in terms of how much you had to know rules and look things up, it's not going to 1E or 4E, it'll be 3.5E.

 

[Maxperson]

Inconsistency is a form of complexity.


I think that's only true if you look solely at the classes and associated abilities. 1E has more potentially player-facing rules and they're inconsistent.


If you go solely with that, then it's pretty silly because you could just compare Wizards and say the 4E Wizard needed to know about 1/10th as much stuff as the 1E one, which is clearly not really true.

And if we're looking at when it was hardest to play a ranger in terms of how much you had to know rules and look things up, it's not going to 1E or 4E, it'll be 3.5E.

We can agree to disagree on 1e vs. 4e, because this isn't the thread for a long discussion about a topic. I'll just say that I completely agree with you that 3e was more complex than 4e, and the hardest to play a ranger(or any class) in. It's the most complex edition in my opinion.