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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4280216" data-attributes="member: 42582">Normally I agree with Hong, but on this occasion I don't. Saying that 4e is simpler than 3E, and hence for casual gamers, is like saying that HeroQuest is simpler than 3E (true), and hence for casual gamers (false) - in fact, most gamers who play HeroQuest are probably more serious than the average 3E player.I am a serious gamer. And on reading the 4e rulebooks I think it is a game that is far more attractive to me than 3E ever was. Of course, one can generalise unwisely from one's own experience, but 4e has one dominant feature that makes it attractive to a serious gamer: sophisticated and (more-or-less) balanced mechanics on which meaningful story can be hung in many different ways.To compare it to another game for serious players, namely, Rolemaster. Anyone familiar with the longrunning series of Rolemaster Companions will know that these consisted of complex optional rules intended to enable the system to deliver slightly different play experiences. In 4e, a good number of those variations in play experience can be produced at the table without needing to change the mechanics, by instead adopting a particular shared narration of ingame events within the parameters set by the mechanics of action resolution.The notion that even 1st ed AD&D was richly detailed compared to some of its contemporaries or near-contemporaries - RM, RQ, C&S, etc - is a little implausible. Even moreso for 2nd ed.3E was not a richly detailed game on a par with those systems either - it was an uneasy compromise between the abstract gameplay mechanics of hit points and armour class, and the simulationist detail of skill points and formulae for magic item creation.So far, the more I read of the 4e books the more impressed I am by the cleverness of the mechanical design, and the flexibility it permits for the layering of as much narrative detail as one might like in respect of matters like actions during skill challenges, performance of rituals and so on.I don't really agree that 4e is "rules lite" - depending what the measure is, of course, but it seems to have mechanics considerably more complicated than Call of Cthulhu, for example.I'm also not sure I agree with your timelilne - Basic Roleplaying, for example, can be a very rules light system if some of the RQ complexity is stripped away, and it has been around for ever. Tunnels and Trolls likewise is venerable and rules light. And one of the most mechanically complex and clunky RPGs - Rolemaster - is nearly as old.200 or so pages of power descriptions, magic items etc, plus the same (or a bit more) of monsters. That is, it's not rules light.A better departure for comparison might be HeroWars/Quest. This is a system with a simple core mechanic which, in its various implementations and once magic is added quickly becomes quite complex in play. It is completely non-simulationist, and intended to support fairly serious narrative play.4e is a system with a simple core mechanic, a few associated mechanics (like hit points and healing surges) but a host of unique powers (and obviously many more to come) which implement those mechanics in various subtle ways. It is not as non-simulationist as HeroWars - for example, turns take place in ingame time, most attack powers correlate  at least roughly to particular ingame happenings, movement and position are tracked in combat, etc - but the simulationism is subordinate to a serious gamist agenda (which is probably ripe to be twisted to a narrativist one, provided that the narrativism is not too gritty or serious).</blockquote>

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