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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4282425" data-attributes="member: 42582">KM, we've talked around a lot of this stuff a fair bit and obviously have quite different takes on a lot of things about 4e in particular, and RPGs more generally. So I'll just pick up on a couple of the points you made to try and offer one alternative perspective.I don't entirely agree with your first sentence here, because "quintessential D&D" is too hard to pin down. If quintessential D&D is White Plume Mountain and the Ghost Tower of Inverness then 3E didn't deliver it either, because those modules only work on the assumption that action resolution is primarily a matter of direct player-GM interaction rather than the application of game mechanics.But if quintessential D&D means high fantasy action with a high body count and little grittiness, than 4e looks like it does deliver.If quintessential D&D means rules tinkering, then I agree that 4e is different from all earlier editions. But I don't think that rules tinkering - which is the passtime of a minority of GMs - is really quintessential to any RPGing experience. Play is what is quintessential, and every edition of D&D has delivered quite a different play experience from the earlier one.As to 4e being simplistic, I don't see that at all. It has 400+ pages of subtly-crafted powers. Well-designed, yes. Simplistic, no. I think you might be confusing elegance of design - which makes the game rules fairly easy to take in - with being simple to play. As Imaro has noticed with his chess/checkers analogy, there is no reason to think that playing 4e is a simplistic experience.(Of the mainstream RPGs that I'm familiar with, the only ones I might be tempted to label simplistic in play are Basic D&D played in a certain spirit, and Tunnels and Trolls - but I'm sure that's doing both games a disservice.)When I look at 4e I have to say I don't see bland repetitive abilities. I see a wide range of complex interactions between rather evocative abilities. Not that the rules text is evocative - I don't need it to be, as the fun will come in play, not reading (in this respect 4e reminds me a little of ICE games, which have bland rules text but produce very evocative play, and it is the opposite of 2nd ed AD&D, which has reasonably evocative rules text but in my experience tends to produce rather bland play). But looking at the powers and imaging the sort of play they might deliver, I get the sense that it would be fun and exciting play.</blockquote>

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