4E, as an anti-4E guy ...

[jbear]

You want the moon on a stick, you do.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERDUbAv8Qz0"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERDUbAv8Qz0[/ame]

Hilarious. Thank you.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Exactly. I should quit choking down threads that tell people that they shouldn't be playing D&D and move to slaads.

FIFHumorAndContext

 

[MadMaligor]

In no edition prior to 3.0 are minis assumed, or even strongly encouraged. I challenge you to back up that claim. Indeed, prior to 3e, you'd be hard pressed to find a play example that uses minis outside of Battlesystem. The closest you might come is a mention of devising marching orders, possibly by using minis. Nowhere is there anything close to an assumption of their use.

Indeed, it is noteworthy that Mr. Gygax didn't use them in his games.



"I think it is pretty safe to say the 4e rules were designed with minis use in mind. With effort you can play with out but them but it does require a fair amount of DM hand waiving and/or behind the screen position tracking to make area effects work. This was a rules decision influenced by both a style of play that had come out of 3e and the business model that style of play created. WoTC didn't invent playing D&D with maps and minis but we certainly folded it more into the core that TSR had done."

BTW, loving 4e for what it is doesn't require believing that all editions of D&D were always what the current one is.


RC

RC I think this picture says a thousand words. Read the text below the logo at the top.

Box1st

Saying Gygax didn't intend miniatures to be used because he didn't use them, is like saying he didn't believe in the rules he published because he house-ruled so many of them.

The fact that the game, for some people, evolved into a descriptive verbal discourse between player and DM, does not negate the undisputable rule sets for miniature use in every edition. It was always the intent of game designers to provide a system that promoted and supported the use of miniatures, or at the very least grid based combat that could be tracked with pencil and graph paper for those that could not afford minis. I remember how expensive minis were at the time, and the few bucks I was earning mowing lawns in the 70's sure as heck didnt allow me to go buck wild. Today things are much different, and the purchasing power of kids, young adults, and us old fellows gives WotC a market for its products.

4th edition takes this to the n'th degree, but it is not out of character, nor does it come as a surprise in the D&D world. I am actually surprised that some people don't see the relationship D&D has had with miniatures since its inception. The two go hand in hand. They always have, and "likely" (IMHO) always will.

Mal

ps...to the OP, glad your enjoying the game. My appologies for my participation in the derail. =)

 

[Raven Crowking]

Repeat after me: D&D is about combat, has always been about combat, will always be about combat...look into my eyes, you are getting sleeepy....

All too true......

RC I think this picture says a thousand words. Read the text below the logo at the top.

Box1st

Saying Gygax didn't intend miniatures to be used because he didn't use them, is like saying he didn't believe in the rules he published because he house-ruled so many of them.

Well, you can (and will) believe whatever you like. Miniatures wargaming was bigger when D&D first came out, and it was under that umbrella that D&D was best described. Again, it was certainly minis rulesets that were cobbled into the first rpgs.

At that time, miniatures battles were played on often elaborate tabletop landscapes, similar to those shown in the Battlesystem 2e products. Most of the miniatures available were for units, rather than for individuals. Indeed, were Gary & Co. to attempt to represent their characters using minis, one wonders where they would have gotten them from.

Around the time Tim Kask and Gary Gygax were working on dividing D&D into a Basic and an Advanced game, miniatures for rpgs had become a viable market, but there were still far more minis being sold for tabletop battles than for rpgs. Ral Partha was an early adopter, and did quite well. TSR signed a deal with Grenedier to produce official minis, and endorsed them in the AD&D books (while at the same time declaring them unnecessary). One might well imagine that the admonisions to buy only "official" minis was aimed at gaining some of Ral Partha's market share.

There were plans to produce products (similar to the modern Dungeon Tiles) when AD&D came out. They have been mentioned upthread. Interestingly enough, although TSR tried in several ways, interest in AD&D minis was not sufficient to ever produce said Dungeon Tile-like products. The idea was mothballed.

So rare was the useage of minis in AD&D 1e, that the language of minis was expunged in 2e. By the time Battlesystem came out for 2e, the writers assumed that the readers would need a painting guide as well as a guide to making terrain. This certainly wasn't true of the initial adopters of D&D, who were all tabletop gamers, who understood the language of miniatures, and who were able to understand the difference between using the language of miniatures and using the miniatures themselves.

In the most recent issue of Dragon Roots (#3), Tim Kask talks about learning how to play D&D from Gary, and the idea of wrapping his head around an imaginary space that no one could actually see. I guess he wasn't using minis and foamcore either.

That this jibes exactly with WotC's pre-3e market research should come as no surprise.

(In fact, Tim has some words for how the early experiences/rulebooks have been interpreted by some later adopters that certainly apply to this topic.)

Anyway, I, too, apologize for thread distruption. I'd be happy to discuss this topic on a forked thread, however.


RC

 

[MadMaligor]

Forked...

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/257868-forked-thread-all-about-minis.html

 

[cmbarona]

Forked...

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/257868-forked-thread-all-about-minis.html

Good. Now that that's done, perhaps we can get back to discussing the original point of this thread.

In particular, I would be curious to know from the OP: which systems did you play that had a grittier wound system? My first gaming experience was Vampire: the Masquerade, so I remember my first serious forray into D&D 3.5 blew my suspension of disbelief out of the water when we encountererd a certain trap...

It was a high-level campaign, and someone triggered a trap. It shot an adamantine javelin that magically enlarged itself after impact to the size of a battering ram. Now, I was a paladin, so I could use lay on hands, right? Well, I thought that the javelin would have to be removed before any such magical healing could take place. Imagine my surprise when no one was concerned with actually removing the enlarged javelin first. Hit points were hit points, and as long as you didn't die, you were good to go. It might just have been my gaming group, but I don't think that ever would have worked in my Vampire game.

Thus, I have to echo that 3.5 wasn't good at simulating long-term wounds at all.

 

[Rechan]

Thus, I have to echo that 3.5 wasn't good at simulating long-term wounds at all.

Long term injury was basically Con damage.

Which could be instantly patched up with a Lesser Restoration or it's higher level equivalent.

 

[Obryn]

Long term injury was basically Con damage.

Which could be instantly patched up with a Lesser Restoration or it's higher level equivalent.

The only d20 game I've run which has actually had long-term damage last for a ... um ... long term ... is d20 Call of Cthulhu.

Then again, I've incorporated VP/WP into it, along with the fairly regular ability score damage already involved with the game.

Of course, the only reason any of this works is the complete lack of magical healing. Sure, there's technically a spell for it, but any GM who lets his players get their hands on it is probably being too easy on their players. (Besides, that one will zap your sanity, too...)

-O

 

[Rolflyn]

FIFHumorAndContext

Thanks!

 

[Rel]

Do you see, Jeff Wilder? Do you see the sort of thread you've spawned?

This is why we can't have nice things.