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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Reynard" data-source="post: 4446730" data-attributes="member: 467">It isn't that 4E doesn't give you a great number of toys to play with (or tools to use, whichever you prefer).  It's that it gives you toys/tools for a particular style of play.  I'm tempted to try and label that style of play, but whatever I called it it would insufficiently descriptive and would likely cause an argument.  Instead, let me try and explain what I mean and maybe we can come up with the right terminology together.One of the stated design goals of 4E is that the game plays "the same" from 1st to 30th level.  This is is different than the game has been before, and not to its benefit (or at least to the benefit of my enjoyment of the game).  Earlier editions assumed shifts in the types of adventures and play over the level spread.  For example, when characters in 1E and 2E reached a certain level (and built a stronghold) they acquired titles and followers.  The books didn't go into great lengths to describe many details beyond this (1E did nore than 2E, but I think only because 2E asumed you'd be buying the appropriate supplements).  And while 4E has it's "tiers" of play, those tiers describe the level of fantastic the characters are likely to encounter and explore more than anything else.  Heroic characters go into a dungeon, Paragon characters go into a demi-plan and epic characters go knock on orcus' own door, but they are still engaging in the kind of adventure that involves 2 fights, a rest, rinse, repeat.  By contrast, earlier editions assumed -- via things like strongholds and followers -- that high level PCs didn't do so much dungeoneering, but instead tamed wild frontiers, rules lands and built nations.  Even 3E -- the "back to the dungeon" ediiton -- had followers rules in the core.I guess what I am trying to describe, which was brought into sharp focus for me by something as innocuous as the lack of guns in the 4E DMG, is a tone and design philosophy built around how Mearls and Co. like to play D&D.  It's the first edition that feels like a game in the true sense, rather than a toy.  Now, if the style of game that i liked coincided with the one presented in 4E, I'm sure I would be doing cartwheels over 4E.  unfortunately, it is pretty much the opposite: I like operational play; I like a changing gamescape; I like immersion (as opposed to constantly being pulled out of the game to consult character sheets, minis on a battleboard, power cards, or whatever).Of course, i understand it is simply a matter of taste and that my tastes are obviously not the most common or profitable ones -- even Pathfinder isn't becoming more like "my" D&D, it's trying to improve on something already flawed (namely, 3.5).  And I also understand that it is reasonable to assume that as 4E matures, the liklihood of styles of play and the tools to engage in them that I prefer appearing increases.  Eventually, someone, 3rd party of WotC is going to do a 4E "Strongholds" book or a book dedicated to PC classes that aren't all monsters in combat.  I'm not worried about that because the core rules set the tone for the game and define what the game is about, and 4E's core has left me uninspired and cold.</blockquote>

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