4E is for casuals, D&D is d0med

[Intense_Interest]

Also, HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH.

"3e was a mess, whereas 4e is perfect right from the start and is set up wonderfully."
"Oh right, 3e kills babies and 4e gives ice cream and rainbows."
"AD HOMINEM!"

No, it doesn't quite work that way.

*3E was a mess- objective measure

*"You are saying that 3E kills babies"- non-objective measure, inferred intention of poster, against the rules.

*Pointing out the rule breaking by pointing it out as an agreed-upon logical fallacy.

*Gleefully dragging down a discussion into a Cheer Leading non-discussion.

You have been direct-quoting or inferred quoting me for a month now, itching for a fight. This makes you a troll. Go away.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

*3E was a mess- objective measure

*"You are saying that 3E kills babies"- non-objective measure, inferred intention of poster, against the rules.

*Pointing out the rule breaking by pointing it out as an agreed-upon logical fallacy.

*Gleefully dragging down a discussion into a Cheer Leading non-discussion.

You have been direct-quoting or inferred quoting me for a month now, itching for a fight. This makes you a troll. Go away.

First off, I don't even know who you are. I only remember people with pictures next to or below their names. And Lizard. I'm not out to get you.

Secondly, you weren't aiming at making a subjective statement. You were using an ad hominem attack - that 3e is a mess - against someone who's not even trying to make it a "4e is bad, 3e is awesome" thread. Someone is trying to have a reasonable debate with you, and you continuously call them a troll for disagreeing with you followed by an equally continuous bashing of 3e when that's not even the point of the debate.

And to top it all off, after insulting 3e and providing nothing to debate, you go off and claim that Midget is the one doing the ad hominem attacks. I'm not cheering Midget on, I'm laughing at your attempts are debate while inwardly cringing.

 

[I'm A Banana]

More rules doesn't mean the system is easier to tinker with. Again I say it's just the opposite.

I agree that more rules doesn't mean that the system is easier to tinker with.

It's not about the quantity of the rules at all.

It's about what those rules cover.

The 4e rules at launch don't cover running, say, Chaotic Neutral Half-Orc Druids. The 3e rules did.

That means that no one using only the 4e launch rules will be able to use that, while someone using the 3e launch rules could.

This increases the "tinkerability" because, at the very least, it adds a feature that you can then subtract. If you say "There are no Chaotic Neutral Half-Orc Druids," then you make a declaration about the world, because you're still allowing CE half-orc druids, or CN gnome druids, or CN half-orc aristocrats. Similarly, if you just ditch one of those elements ("No CN alignment, no half-orcs, or no druids") you have changed your game. Each of those elements is something you can tinker with.

At the very basic level, every rule or option is something that you can do one of two things with: allow or reject. More options = more decisions to allow or reject being possible = more "tinkering" by allowing or disallowing different options. 4e has fewer options, thus fewer decisions to make, thus less tinkering.

4e lacks concrete rules for those options, but gives you the ability to easily create them when needed.

Okay, sure, but by giving people rules for these options, they give people the opportunity to accept or reject the rules themselves as well as each part of the rule. That allows more rules customization, which is synonymous, in my usage, with "tinkering."

"Tinkering" is modifying the existing set. If there is less in the existing set to modify, then you can't tinker as much. You can always add brand new stuff, but that's not a virtue to everyone, and its actually a flaw to many, because it is always easier to cut something down than to build something up (and thus it is easier to ignore a rule you don't use than it is to invent a good rule for something you need but the game doesn't provide).

A lack of rules isn't an inherently freeing or desirable thing, or else we'd all be playing Rock Paper Scissors for task resolution and deciding what happens next purely based on narrative contrivance. That's no more desirable than an impenetrable codex of legalesque gibberish that falls like a Jenga tower when you move a block around. 4e certainly doesn't embrace either one of those ethos.

"Casual" is a slam meant to make the user seem "Supercool Hardcore".

Repeating something that's wrong doesn't make it any more right.

I don't know of any other way to refute this that I haven't used already. No, you are incorrect, it is not. Casual is a descriptive term, not a value judgment.

Why don't you respond to the fact that the 3E splat books and 4E modular systems are a parallel development?

Probably because I can't respond to something that hasn't been presented in the discussion yet?

So if you'd like, I can respond now?

3E gives you underwater rules (so does 4E) and then piles Freedom of Movement, divergent damage tables, and unclear magical effects (is a fireball still hot? How about lightning bolt) on top.

Look, I understand that you feel like 3e made you watch while it drowned a whole sackful of kittens and that you're really happy that 4e is giving you a million dollars and a night in a hotel with Tricia Helfer. I just don't care about what you feel like. I care (a little) about what each game actually does, and when you can talk about that without crying about your sackful of kittens and telling me how much you love your future marriage to Trish, maybe I will begin to care (a little) about what you feel like.

And yes, 'casual' reeks of elitism when used on the internet, at least to me. Maybe I should blame the time I spent playing WoW for this.

Hm...the internet just got a little bit sadder now that I realize "casual" is frequently an elitist put-down.

Tonight I will say my little evil prayers to the Old Ones that I never, ever, ever reach a point where my head is so far up my rear that I think that those who don't put their heads up their rear are somehow beneath me.

No, "Casual" is a description, when I'm using it here, at least. It is, actually, a mostly positive one -- I like my Wii. I like 4e. I enjoy getting people into things that they don't have to obsess over to have fun with. 4e is definately a step in that direction of being "casual," and I like it for that.

I think all the hair-splitting between "casual" and "easy to learn" and "straightforward" and "highly efficient" is semantic nonsense for the most part. If you don't believe me, get a thesaurus and/or an English Literature degree.

*3E was a mess- objective measure

Wrong.

*"You are saying that 3E kills babies"- non-objective measure, inferred intention of poster, against the rules.

I don't care if you think 3e is a mess or if you think 3e gave you AIDS, or, for that matter, if you think 3e is the second coming of Gygax. The plumage don't enter into it.

*Pointing out the rule breaking by pointing it out as an agreed-upon logical fallacy.

I'm still wildly unclear about where this rule breaking is going on. I'm just telling you that "4e roolz 3e droolz" gets no one anywhere and I'm probably telling you that because it is probably my #2 pet peeve here at ENWorld, tied with its inverse "3e roolz and 4e droolz" and following closely behind people not posting more pictures of sexy folks.

I'm also probably telling you that so you can perhaps understand why you're really wrong when you think that someone calling 4e "casual" is an insult.

And thus you can perhaps come to understand that some people don't like 4e for entirely valid and substantial reasons.

But heck, here I am trying to let facts get in the way of a message board conversation, I'm sure that's gotta be against the rules of the Internet, if not ENWorld.

*Gleefully dragging down a discussion into a Cheer Leading non-discussion.

"3e is a mess, while 4e is awesome!" will do that every time 'round here...

You have been direct-quoting or inferred quoting me for a month now, itching for a fight. This makes you a troll. Go away.

If you think he's hopeless, use your ignore list.

I think you've still got hope, or you would've been on it at the first mention of 3e killing your parents and griding them into chili that it made you eat.

 

[Treebore]

I don't get it. 4E may be all new and cool, etc... but it has a bunch of problems that will need to be worked out, rules created, etc... so why do people want to buy it?

Is it simply because its the new gadget on the market?

I don't know, makes much more sense to me to stick with the gadget you have taken all of the bugs out of and have it operating exactly the way you want it to work.

Why go to 4e, at least right away, and have to fight your way through all the hidden problems all over again, write up house rules to fix them, etc... seems much better to just stay with what already works.

 

[hong]

At the very basic level, every rule or option is something that you can do one of two things with: allow or reject. More options = more decisions to allow or reject being possible = more "tinkering" by allowing or disallowing different options. 4e has fewer options, thus fewer decisions to make, thus less tinkering.



Okay, sure, but by giving people rules for these options, they give people the opportunity to accept or reject the rules themselves as well as each part of the rule. That allows more rules customization, which is synonymous, in my usage, with "tinkering."

"Tinkering" is modifying the existing set. If there is less in the existing set to modify, then you can't tinker as much.

Humpty Dumpty did this better than you.

 

[pemerton]

They don't tell you how to set up rules for underwater combat, or how to use NPC's as PC's, or monsters as PC's, or what age your PC starts at, or what job he had before he was an Adventurer, or, if he worships an evil monstrous god, what enemies he can fight and what abilities he can take, or if he's not a divine-powered PC, what choosing a god even means....

For what it's worth, a typical starting age is suggested on PHB p 30 (18 to 25 for humans), the issue of prior jobs is discussed on p 24, and the significance of worship on p 20 (and under the god descriptions that follow).

A question, however: how does a game become more flexible and more of a toolbox by mandating via a dice roll the starting age of a PC?

But if you're one of those people desperately seeking an aquatic campaign, or one of those who likes having Beholders as PC's

No version of AD&D supported Beholders as PCs. 3E offered an approximation to it. The particular mechanic that tries to achieve this is widely (though not universally) regarded as unsuccessful.

3e's solution to that problem was to give you as much as you could possibly need and have you choose to use what you wanted or needed at the time...a toolkit.

4e is not nearly as concerned with those who want to play the game differently (though, as I've said many times, its a continuum, not a binary choice).

I just don't see it. Yes, 3E tells me how to play a CN Half-Orc Druid. 4e tells me how to play a Good Tiefling Warlock. Tropes come and go, but they don't really tell us much about whether or not a game is a toolbox, a serious game, a casual game, or whatever.

3e did kind of care, because they gave me new systems for resource management all the freakin' time, so I could play a Warlock or a Fighter if I wanted something straightforward or a Barbarian if I wanted a per-encounter mechanic, or a Wizard if I wanted a pool of per-day abilities, or...whatever.

Now this is a more important point. 3E did deploy a wide range of character build and action resolution mechanics in the very same game. The question is, did it succeed? Or is it like a supposedly universal points-based system in which everyone knows that 100 points of Spartans can't actually take on 100 points of Space Rangers and hope to win?

Play experience shows that 3E did not (on the whole, for most players most of the time) succeed in this respect. Instead, the per-day mechanics (which govern healing and firepower) dominate, and those players whose PCs are hostage to different mechanics become subordinated to the dominant mechanics.

3E is not the only game to suffer from this problem. I know from long experience that it happens in Rolemaster also, with its PPs per day spell recovery rules.

Even if 4e does end up with a 15-minute day (and I am mildly optimistic that it won't) it still won't be as problematic as 3E, because at least it will be a democratic 15-minute day - it won't be one group of players having their play subordinated to those who chose a different (and dominant) resource management mechanic.

If you are one of those who are in the minority, and did not find that one particular resource management mechanic emerged as dominant, than I could see why you might dislike that aspect of the 4e rules changes.

Chartmaster?

I was wondering if someone else had thought of it. For those who really do like rules tinkering and a very flexible system that supports a wide range of PCs and campaign tropes, try Rolemaster. It's a great game with two editions currently in print. Plus there's HARP, which is sort of RM lite, from the same company. And there's HARP lite, which is a free download from their website.

As a long time RM player, I do find the notion of 3E as a tinkerer's paradise a bit odd, because when I look at it through Rolemaster eyes I see a lot of stuff that would not be very easy to tinker with while maintaining game balance.

 

[pemerton]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the casual-ness of 4e one of it's big selling points?

No. It's elegance and simplicity of entry are its selling points.

In this respect it is (perhaps) like Runequest - an incredibly elegant system, that is very simple to enter (though fairly rich to explore and master). But inferring from this, to casualness, would be a non-sequitur in the case of Runequest, and I'm having trouble seeing why it's not a non-sequitur in the case of 4e.

I don't get it. 4E may be all new and cool, etc... but it has a bunch of problems that will need to be worked out, rules created, etc... so why do people want to buy it?

Is it simply because its the new gadget on the market?

For some of us, at least, because it's a manifestly better designed game than 3E.

I think part of the reason D&D player's have the expectation that a game can't be played without houseruling is because (i) D&D does not have a history of especially strong, coherent mechanical design. and (ii) D&D does not have a history of being especially upfront about the sort of play experience one might get from using the rules as written. The two are in fact related, because if (i) is true it becomes hard to know what one might say in order to render (ii) false - incoherent mechanics won't produce a consistent play experience.

4e has strong coherent design and is upfront about the sort of play it is intended to support. If you want the sort of play experience that you might normally expect to get from Chivalry and Sorcery, 4e is telling you upfront to go and try that other game because 4e won't deliver it.

Now this doesn't stop individual players trying to drift 4e into something more like Chivalry and Sorcery. Some of the complaints about 4e, however, seem to take the form of "It's shallow/casual because I don't have to drift it before I can play it."

Runequest, Rolemaster, Tunnels & Trolls - all can have bits added on, all can be tinkered with both mechanically and thematically. But all can be played straight out of the box and will deliver what they promise. Now D&D can too - 4e looks like the first version of D&D since Red Box Basic that can be played out of the box without some sort of house ruling and drifting being required. Welcome back, D&D, to the world of good game design.

 

[Intense_Interest]

The 4e rules at launch don't cover running, say, Chaotic Neutral Half-Orc Druids. The 3e rules did.

That means that no one using only the 4e launch rules will be able to use that, while someone using the 3e launch rules could.

This increases the "tinkerability" because, at the very least, it adds a feature that you can then subtract. If you say "There are no Chaotic Neutral Half-Orc Druids," then you make a declaration about the world, because you're still allowing CE half-orc druids, or CN gnome druids, or CN half-orc aristocrats. Similarly, if you just ditch one of those elements ("No CN alignment, no half-orcs, or no druids") you have changed your game. Each of those elements is something you can tinker with.

At the very basic level, every rule or option is something that you can do one of two things with: allow or reject. More options = more decisions to allow or reject being possible = more "tinkering" by allowing or disallowing different options. 4e has fewer options, thus fewer decisions to make, thus less tinkering.

I don't see the inherent difference in "tinkerability" between a feature you house-rule in that works within a system and a feature you house-rule out that doesn't work for your game. Further, if a system is more able to add things it is a better system to "tinker" with, which is the essential design philosophy of 4E.

Add to this the Jenga-nature of the previous rule set- Wealth by Level was tied into Magic Items which was tied into CR scaling that was a reflection of the Monster System that filtered into Monsters as PCs (in a sense) means that the tinkering within the system was more taste-based than actually reformative.

Meanwhile, you can strip all magic items out of 4E by handing out the engine assumed plusses and refusing to tailor encounters around Magic Item X.

Okay, sure, but by giving people rules for these options, they give people the opportunity to accept or reject the rules themselves as well as each part of the rule. That allows more rules customization, which is synonymous, in my usage, with "tinkering."

"Tinkering" is modifying the existing set. If there is less in the existing set to modify, then you can't tinker as much. You can always add brand new stuff, but that's not a virtue to everyone, and its actually a flaw to many, because it is always easier to cut something down than to build something up (and thus it is easier to ignore a rule you don't use than it is to invent a good rule for something you need but the game doesn't provide).

Ignoring Wealth-by-Level charts created a degenerative game, for example. I would argue that there is no inherent difference between Adding, Subtracting, or Altering rules; as long as the system can support the change.

In a rhetorical example, jackbooting the W/E/D/U by level chart for a single new class (exception based design) and constraining that class with an entirely-Daily power selection to create a Vance Caster. Is this altering the Power/Level chart, subtracting it, or adding a new class?

Second, an added suite of powers that re-introduce CN and LN foes, powers, and classes (maybe from Law and Chaos: Moorecockian Tapdance) is no more an amount of "tinkering" than subtracting alignment altogether would be.

Sidenote, I think we've gone deep into the Semantic hole.

Look, I understand that you feel like 3e made you watch while it drowned a whole sackful of kittens and that you're really happy that 4e is giving you a million dollars and a night in a hotel with Tricia Helfer. I just don't care about what you feel like. I care (a little) about what each game actually does, and when you can talk about that without crying about your sackful of kittens and telling me how much you love your future marriage to Trish, maybe I will begin to care (a little) about what you feel like.

There's your rule breaking: but be careful about ascribing motives to the actions of others or telling others how they "should" think. You are not only telling me what kind of feelings I am having, but how pejoratively minor in scope they are to you.

No, "Casual" is a description, when I'm using it here, at least. It is, actually, a mostly positive one -- I like my Wii. I like 4e. I enjoy getting people into things that they don't have to obsess over to have fun with. 4e is definately a step in that direction of being "casual," and I like it for that.

I think all the hair-splitting between "casual" and "easy to learn" and "straightforward" and "highly efficient" is semantic nonsense for the most part. If you don't believe me, get a thesaurus and/or an English Literature degree.

You are simplifying to a definition without regarding the negative associations that should have already been apparent, unless you fail to see the demeaning nature of calling a person "casual".

"Well designed" "Straightforward" and "highly efficient" is a judgment about the game system- Chess, for example. "Casual" is a judgment about the players, calling them the Lowest Common Denominator and unwilling to make the leap into a Hardcore game.

And thus you can perhaps come to understand that some people don't like 4e for entirely valid and substantial reasons.

The substantial reasons I have seen and agree with is that it'll cost more money and Angels aren't Good. Yet a collection of valid data-points does not come to an absolute sum of a value-comparison.

Hell, I think there shouldn't have been Usually-Good Angels in the MM, instead putting them into the Book of Vile Darkness: ruleset for Evil PCs. That agrees with one reason while contradicting another- that doesn't mean that I condemn 4E.

Why go to 4e, at least right away, and have to fight your way through all the hidden problems all over again, write up house rules to fix them, etc... seems much better to just stay with what already works.

This assumption only works if you find that 3E can be made into a worthwhile game of Fantasy Roleplaying. Personally, I used the d20 engine to play Spycraft for the past 3 years. Value judgement, yes, but it answers your question.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I don't get it. 4E may be all new and cool, etc... but it has a bunch of problems that will need to be worked out, rules created, etc... so why do people want to buy it?

When reading your post, I get the impression you believe that 4E is somehow broken or has fundamental issues.

I've read through the books, played a play-test scenario (a full adventuring session), created a few monsters and PCs by now, and a friend of mine is already converting his Savage Tides / Pathfinder campaign to 4E. I have not seen any issues, and in fact only a lot of things I prefer over 3E.

If I look at these boards, there seem to be two issues I found noteworthy:
1 The explanation of the skill challenge system doesn't work well. Something seems to be missing or incomplete.
2 One Ranger power might turn out to be broken against Solo monsters.

I already have an idea how to address 1, and am waiting to see 2 in actual play.

But I have no ideas how I can fix the power balance between Fighters and Wizards in 3E. Or how I can remove the alignment system from the existing spell system. Or how I can remove the wealth by level guidelines.

 

[sinecure]

Here's a list of some of the worst things about the new edition. I thought I'd put together a list for anyone too blind to see through the shiny wrapping.

Repeatedly forcing mechanics on players which stop them from roleplaying:
powers - you can't do these unless you've got 'em. So don't bother trying.
marked condition - when has this happened to you in real life?
action points - You just get to go twice because we like you.
milestones - I can move twice in a round now again because of what? And my magic items work again why?

No suffocation rules?

PC classes with actual mechanical differances. There is only 1 class all use.

Only 5 ways for any attack to work: melee, ranged, burst, blast, or wall. That's not limiting, right?

Rituals - These have nothing to do with level. These are based upon setting. You could give everyone every one of these rituals at 1st level. It doesn't change anything. It only changes setting.

3E uber healing is now maximized. Everyone is full HP every day, magic healing or no. Fighting has virtually no consequences. Kill, Kill, Kill.

Regeneration is practically worthless outside of combat. Remember how it worked before?

Movement has been nerfed. Where is the standard 12 square move? Out with d20, right? If they wanted better movement, why limit themselves to 6 squares. Maybe to fit on a DDM map?

Card game initiative. Upkeep phase, Action phase, Resolution phase. Think this pulls a player out of character to do?

All of wrestling, grappling, and pummeling entirely consist of being "immobilized". Which means you simply cannot leave your square. I hope none of your combat maniac players actually liked this kind of fighting (or you'll have to wait for the wrestler-monk class)

6 second combat rounds. Real nice. Your still stuck in 3e's explicit combat system massively zoomed in on every muscle flex and eyebrow arch. But now with fewer options. I didn't think it was possible.

Bye bye colossal creatures. They just don't sell well enough as minis. And anything smaller than Tiny too. Still think they aren't limiting the game based on the DDM game and minis lines? Minis are their big money maker.

Saving Throws are nerfed. Almost everything you used to choose whether or not to save against, unknowing sometimes whether it was bad or good, are now all attacks on your PC. Absolute worst change so far. And worst of all? Most don't even understand why.

Anything that is bad that can happen to you is a "condition". Basically, there is little to no variation in what spells, I mean "powers", can do to you. Everything has an identical effect on your character. All petrification the same. All polymorphs the same. All poisons, all spells, all damages "typed". Only diseases are still unique as far as I can tell.

Removal of etherealness, astral body, and incorporeality for "insubstantial". I guess people felt this was an unnecessary complication that hurt the game. The Gods of Simplicity kill yet again.

The 18 hour day. All 6 hour extended rests require 12 hours in between. How's that for rule lawyering folks into living outside the 24 hour day solar cycle? Maybe we should make worlds which turn every 18 hours cause "that's how the rules extrapolate". Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Magic Items as equipment. Way to go. It's not like treasure is a reward or anything.

And they made them totally bland. Something that could potentially shake the bowels of the earth now just one of a 100 different kinds of screwdriver. For instance, Ring of True Seeing? Now misnomered as it lets you See Invisibility and ignore Concealment. Concealment? Maybe they forgot what True Seeing actually is? Or maybe they threw half of what it used to be see through under a bus? The gods kill again.

Residuum. So the default playstyle is everyone gets whatever magic item they want pretty much whenever they want? Only limited by level, course. Stand back! Monty Haulism has been written into the rules.

Identifying magic - not even a 1st level spell anymore. Now every single PC auto-identifies 1 power / 5 minute resting period on any magic item. In other words, you could do this in your sleep.

Adventuring Gear list? Nerfed. Where'd it go? Standard Adventurer's kit? Nice idea, but the skill of purchasing items for their multiple abilities in the dungeon? Gone. Not that anyone in 3e was encouraged to pick soap as a means of making a trap.

Carrying, Lifting, Dragging. a.k.a. "Encumbrance". Practically invisible. It's like they are trying to hide it. Yet, they include 3 bolded terms: Normal load, Heavy load, and Max Drag load. These aren't on the character sheet. Here's the utterly useless rules: normal = normal. The other two means your Slowed. Everyone hated Encumbrance anyways, right? Burn it from D&D! The new edition is about Options!

Multi-Classing. Have you seen this? Maybe they should have called it something else? Like Spell Stealing or something.

Feats. As in 3e, a game for the min-maxers to play with. Totally pointless when you can do this without having the players actually knowing what perks they have mechanically. Just tell them the description. These 100s of little tweaks drive statblock creators bonkers. And allow players to force broken abilities on their DMs. They only include these things to feed the min-maxers and sell them their books.

Skills. Here we actually find the last vestiges for what passed as "the rules of the game". Shrunk down to the size of a nickel, these guys don't even realize that this is the real RPG. Dump skills from the players sheets and just use whatever real rules actually work for. Some here aren't half bad, but over half of everything is missing too. Leave these in and your players will be mentally stuck thinking they can only do one skill or another. And their imaginations will dry up into ones as tunnel visioned as the designers.

I can't even go on to the Classes. Let's just call these what they are: Card Decks. Wizards has completely removed the RP from RPGs. Now they only have to worry about preset, designer allowed options that they can keep a handle on. Like Magic the Gathering, they just balance every card in the series with each other card in it. The idea of using one's imagination? To think outside the box? Yeah, that's really encouraged here isn't it? It's not that you can't try to do anything you want, it's the rules make you think you can't. "I can't use that power, it's not on my sheet".

Forget the rest, I'm tired. And I'm not even done with the first book.