"4E, as an anti-4E guy" (Session Two)

[Jeff Wilder]

Am I wrong to think that one of the advantages to using a battlemat at all is to more accurately represent spatial relationships? Whatever the other weaknesses of hexes and 1-2-1 squares (and I'm not claiming either is perfect), when a mini shows as further away on the battlemat, it's further away.

Man, I thought the grid intruded in 3.5, but the advice I'm reading here is pretty much tantamount to "don't believe what your eyes tell you about the relative distances between the fighter, the rogue, and the dragon; always go to the grid and judge by that."

Seriously, a tactical RPG that relies on the players deliberately training themselves to do that ... it's just bizarre. I honestly don't get how it can not bother people.

 

[Kez Darksun]

Since I've played on a battlemat of some sort since 2nd edition on, I suppose I'm just comfortable with a grid and judging distances using one.

 

[Nifft]

Seriously, a tactical RPG that relies on the players deliberately training themselves to do that ... it's just bizarre. I honestly don't get how it can not bother people.

"Deliberately training"? Is that what you call playing Nethack, Daleks, and Chess?

Seriously, it's not that hard to understand.

"... unless you're a grid bug", -- N

 

[Charwoman Gene]

I LOVE 4E. I really really do.

I wish they had left the distance measurement alone. I wish I had skill points to some degree.

I don't even mind the firesquares.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Am I wrong to think that one of the advantages to using a battlemat at all is to more accurately represent spatial relationships? Whatever the other weaknesses of hexes and 1-2-1 squares (and I'm not claiming either is perfect), when a mini shows as further away on the battlemat, it's further away.

I think the advantage of the battlemat is to represent the spatial qualities of the characters in relation to each other, not to represent the spatial qualities of distance. Even 1-2-1 is just an approximation. 1-1-1 is just a looser approximation (1.4~ rounds to an integer of 1 fwiw). And hexes never came into fashion because the D&D cartographers used squares.

"Real Wargamers" don't use battlemats to represent the spatial quality of distance. They use a ruler for that.

 

[Minirogue]

I have a solution: all diagonals are now SQRT(2) squares or SQRT(50) feet. There, it is now completely realistic.

 

[WalterKovacs]

So give each player a piece of string cut to exactly how many squares they can move? Templates for bursts and blasts and such (like those fun wire ones)? And then just toss the grid out and play an open area? Cover would be interesting, probably mostly in the DM's hands to adjudicate. Anyhow, didn't mean to sidetrack the discussion but it reminds me a lot of what we did in basic D&D when we used platic army men, weebles and legos to figure stuff out.

One of our groups have been doing this (it's on a grid, but we have been using string. It leads to slower movement (where is the string? Can I get there without provoking?). We had more problems when we had an X-Y-Z battle (fighting down a mountainside with stairs, so ranged attacks had to calculate the hypotenuse. Calculating the root of the sum of two squares certainly doesn't help things run smoothly.

In the games I've run and/or played in with the straight 1-1-1 rules, it hasn't been too much of an issue, but that may be because we don't have a ranger or warlock in the party (anymore). Even back then, it wasn't too hard to find out who was closest. Our party does tons of movement (at least half the party is charging at least every other turn) and it's generally been made more beneficial to have the 1-1-1 system than it's been a hindrance.

 

[Particle_Man]

The last time this thread came up and the last time that Jeff complained about it, the Hexes were brought up.

However, someone complained that the same diagonal problem exists - it's just at right angles instead of diagonals.

The latter irritates me enough to forswear hexes for anything but the largest of wilderness battles.

Can you give me an example? I feel stupid not getting this.

 

[GregT_314]

Never been quite sure how someone can be an anti-4E guy. You can be for it, or indifferent. I mean, it's not coming into your house and molesting your children. If you don't interact with it it won't come after you with knives. You're not "anti" it any more than you're "anti" any of the vast number of people who you've met but not gone on to be close friends with.

But that's cool. Not every game's for everyone. Neither Wizards nor any of the 4E designers are going to cry themselves to sleep because their product didn't win the hearts and minds of every last person who touched it. There's room in the world for people to like different things.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Never been quite sure how someone can be an anti-4E guy. You can be for it, or indifferent. I mean, it's not coming into your house and molesting your children. If you don't interact with it it won't come after you with knives. You're not "anti" it any more than you're "anti" any of the vast number of people who you've met but not gone on to be close friends with.

But that's cool. Not every game's for everyone. Neither Wizards nor any of the 4E designers are going to cry themselves to sleep because their product didn't win the hearts and minds of every last person who touched it. There's room in the world for people to like different things.

The OP was someone that was initially against 4e, but has been actually playing it in order to get a better sense of the game (instead of not liking it simply based on how it looked at first glance). Despite the name of the thread, it's actually quite positive in terms of 4e. Hopefully more people that "hate", or are just indifferent to 4e are willing to give it a try and find out if parts they thought they would hate are as bad as it seems, worse, or not actually a problem.