Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Windjammer" data-source="post: 4506053" data-attributes="member: 60075">Filthgrinder's post with the forest/tree analogy was pretty spot on. <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/4503324-post56.html" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/forum/4503324-post56.html</a>People debating whether or not 4E feels like old school D&D argue about different things. Just summing up Filthgrinder's point, with which I thoroughly agree, 4E as a whole conveys a game feel, especially to the DM, which is very old school, but there are a bazillion of individual details in the mechanics which, viewed in isolation, are the complete opposite of that. What I find interesting in this debate is how the designers themselves look at it. They never claimed they wanted to go back to the roots. Most I heard was they took the core trope of the game - enter a dungeon, kill things, take their loot and level up, do the same again - and built a whole new mechanics around that trope. Meaning, their thinking wasn't targeted on preserving, or returning to, old school mechanics such as roll 3d6 for stats(whatever).That said, there were a couple of things where the designers were caught by the playtesters in going too far. Heinsoo, of all people, was the one perfectly willing to make D&D into a mechanically altogether different game (see interview in Kobold Quarterly 5), as a result of which there were NO daily powers in early versions of 4E. Then playtesters said that without any remnant of Vancian mechanics the game simply doesn't feel like D&D. So we got daily's in 4E. Thank the playtesters. (Read up on this in "Races & Classes")Another instance would be initiative. Mearls (in his Gaminglands blog) says how there are plenty of mechanically and tactically superior ways to let the party handle initiative, and how he was toying with them in the 4E design process. But if you take away the d20 roll there, you've gone too far. D&D without the DM bellowing "Roll for initiative, guys!" just wouldn't be D&D anymore. So we roll for initiative in 4E.So there you have it. The 4th Edition Designers were acutely aware of these issues, it's just that the stance they've ultimately taken - meaning, the number of compromises to retain a certain D&D feel even on the level of individual mechanical elements - doesn't suit everyone. Some people think they've taken too few compromises, others wish they had taken less. Which gets us to one of the designers' keylines, "4th edition may be for you, but it definitely won't be for everyone."</blockquote>

Verification