D&D 4E 4e -- Is The World Made Of Cheese?

[Derren]

Very diplomatic.
Educated people agree with you (unless they are freaks) while the uneducated ones disagree with you.
And it is of course never possible that things are reversed....

Simulationism. It does that to a person.

Specifically, an overemphasis on simulationism that creates unrealistic expectation of a storytelling/combat RPG to be able or required to model our reality in exacting detail, rather than allowing for Straczynski-esque speed of plot corollaries that are more in line with its design goals.

You mean the expectation that 4E is not worse than its predecessor? Yeah, thats really unrealistic.

 

[unobserved]

Everyone is the hero of their own story. This Unobserved fellow seems to forget that instead feels he's the self-actualized supreme arbiter of what's constructive, useful, idiotic, ridiculous, terminally stupid, or representative of "ass-hattery" for everyone on the Internet.

you're going to stand behind digging through an iron door with a woodspoon as being an intelligent interpretation of the rules and something worth defending?

not that's i'm going to hold it against you. i'm just curious.

 

[Felon]

you're going to stand behind digging through an iron door with a woodspoon as being an intelligent interpretation of the rules and something worth defending?

not that's i'm going to hold it against you. i'm just curious.

If you think that's what people in this thread are trying to say, then you're also engaging in an unfortunately common internet practice: selling people short. They're not "terminally stupid" or "king of the morons" or whatever you want to call them. You're just not seeing their point of view. This is something your archaeologist friend may get up the gumption to tell you the next time you smack him for being all retarded.

Now, just speaking for myself, I'll say this:

As a DM I'm of the opinion that good locks make for more honest neighbors, and good rules make for more reasonable players--or at least players that a DM has to veto less often.

As a player, I like the idea of working from a set of well-known and accepted ground rules, rather than whatever the off-the-cuff ruling is for a given DM in a given mood on a given day.

DM fiat is a great thing. It's a nice thing to resort to when you need to. But like most powerful tools, it's best used in moderation.

 

[hong]

Wow.

Just wow.

Your post count doesn't give you the authority to dictate how anyone else should play the game.

Nevertheless, they are still playing the game wrong.

Just because you don't enjoy or can't imagine a Dungeons & Dragons game that involves tunneling to achieve a military objective, doesn't mean that other players are unable to enjoy that objective, and it certainly doesn't mean those other players are wrong.

They are certainly entitled to do so. They are also welcome to devise rules of their own to handle the situation of digging tunnels, so that I, and 99% of people out there, don't have to pay money for rules that I will never use 99% of the time.

Wow again.

So you're saying that a group of humans, defending a location against another group of humans up north (with identical racial characteristics) are not subject to the same set of rules?

Absolutely correct. They don't even have the same stats. Have you noticed these things called "human rabble", "human lackey", "human mage", "human bandit", and "human berserker"...?

 

[unobserved]

As a player, I like the idea of working from a set of well-known and accepted ground rules, rather than whatever the off-the-cuff ruling is for a given DM in a given mood on a given day.

First of all I agree with you 100%. Fact of the matter remains the rules the OP was looking for aren't in the book as desired. Postulating about the reason for it isn't really going to get you anywhere. Neither is writing a 500+ word disertation to try and prove how a "clever" player could abuse said *lack of rules*.

If you think that's what people in this thread are trying to say, then you're also engaging in an unfortunately common internet practice: selling people short. They're not "terminally stupid" or "king of the morons" or whatever you want to call them. You're just not seeing their point of view. This is something your archaeologist friend may get up the gumption to tell you the next time you smack him for being all retarded.

I never had a problem with what the people in this thread were trying to say. I had a problem with how they went about saying it and how it just seems that every time something similar pops up it turns into the sky is falling because this particular rule as written doesn't cover every conceiveable permutation of player behaviour and therefore 4e is broken, I want my money back.

Choices were made, good or bad and if you don't like it, fix it. And if you don't want to fix it, I guess you can moan loudly about it. Which seems to be the point of this thread and several like it.

If the OP can write 500 words to complain about the situation and even less to say "it's easy to house rule it" then it doesn't really seem like there's a point in discussing whether or not it really is a problem as opposed to how to fix it.

It's all very clever to point out I suppose, but defending it for pages and pages is an entirely different thing. When my friend finds plot holes in a movie featuring Aliens and Predators, I kindly ask him to let me know when he notices a plot hole bigger than the one in which there are actually Aliens and Predators. THAT *might* be worth talking about.

 

[Kishin]

You mean the expectation that 4E is not worse than its predecessor? Yeah, thats really unrealistic.

I'd like to explain how what you just said in any way relates to what I said.

I'll give you a hint: It doesn't.

'Worse' as a generalization is not at all a factor in this discussion. I will ask politely that you not try to misconstrue it as such.

 

[unobserved]

They are certainly entitled to do so. They are also welcome to devise rules of their own to handle the situation of digging tunnels, so that I, and 99% of people out there, don't have to pay money for rules that I will never use 99% of the time.

I'd also like to point out that the rules for "how long it takes to chop down a tree and float it down river and drag it up a hill so that it can be used as part of a particularlly crafty trap that sends logs rolling down a hill at an unsuspecting orc army" are missing from the rules.

I am shocked an appalled at this omission and I will now spend the next 6 paragraphs detailing how the RAW allow me to just roll two dice to see if all the orcs die.

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If only someone had asked only my opinion about what *I* wanted in the rules and done away with anything that *I* thought was useless I would never have had a reason to post this comment.

 

[Plane Sailing]

This thread seems to be deteriorating towards the point of closure.

It seems as though the arguments are mostly done, and views are polarised.

Unless there is something else that someone is burning to say?

 

[Derren]

I'd like to explain how what you just said in any way relates to what I said.

I'll give you a hint: It doesn't.

'Worse' as a generalization is not at all a factor in this discussion. I will ask politely that you not try to misconstrue it as such.

So?
For many people 3E was "just right" when it comes to simulation. So for them the expectation was just that 4E does not make things worse and they were disappointed and now complain about it. So were their expectations unrealistic?

 

[unobserved]

For many people 3E was "just right" when it comes to simulation. So for them the expectation was just that 4E does not make things worse and they were disappointed and now complain about it. So were their expectations unrealistic?

Yes. 4e set out from the get go to make drastic changes.

And surprise, those "just right" 3e books still work! Simulationists of the world rejoice. On and double surprise, if it really rubs you that badly, port over the 3e rules where it makes sense for your game. Everyone agrees, everyone stays happy.

Not everything is for everyone and sooner or later no matter how much you WANT to like something, someone else is going to do something to ruin it for you. Trying to turn around and ruin it for other people really seems to be like a waste of time on all sides involved.