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<blockquote data-quote="Lizard" data-source="post: 4089079" data-attributes="member: 1054">Just to be clear, these aren't critques of 4e; they're analysis of things which need to be considered in worldbuilding. Each game comes with assumptions built into the rules. In Traveller, human-habitable worlds are dirt common. This tells you a lot about economics, government, travel, and so on. A Traveller game which didn't change the rules, but which treated human-habitable worlds as rare and precious gems, would be one which was hard to play in and maintain believability. Likewise, classic Runequest had everyone capable of minor magics, and this was part of how the world worked.To pick just one example, wars will be more brutal. In 3e, clerics were rare enough and spells limited enough so that healing would be saved for officers and leaders; the common grunts would get Treat Injury checks and bed rest. This meant that wounding a soldier could keep him out of battle for a day or two, at least. In 4e, this doesn't work -- if you want to win a war of attrition, you have to *kill*, both because clerical healing is much more common and because all non-fatal wounds heal overnight. It has nothing to do with honor or brutality; you're trying to win a war, after all. In the &quot;real world&quot;, a wounded soldier is a weapon -- he drains resources, and is a constant reminder to other soldiers of the risks of war, draining morale. In 4e, there are dead soldiers, and soldiers who will be perfectly healthy in the morning. That's the world, and the people who live there will adapt to it. (Unless there's special rules for NPC healing we don't know about yet...)3e (and D&amp;D in general) has features which require thought before worldbuilding; 4e adds some new ones, different enough that they haven't had easy&nbsp; 'conventional wisdom' solutions built up over the past 30 years.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lizard, post: 4089079, member: 1054"] Just to be clear, these aren't critques of 4e; they're analysis of things which need to be considered in worldbuilding. Each game comes with assumptions built into the rules. In Traveller, human-habitable worlds are dirt common. This tells you a lot about economics, government, travel, and so on. A Traveller game which didn't change the rules, but which treated human-habitable worlds as rare and precious gems, would be one which was hard to play in and maintain believability. Likewise, classic Runequest had everyone capable of minor magics, and this was part of how the world worked. To pick just one example, wars will be more brutal. In 3e, clerics were rare enough and spells limited enough so that healing would be saved for officers and leaders; the common grunts would get Treat Injury checks and bed rest. This meant that wounding a soldier could keep him out of battle for a day or two, at least. In 4e, this doesn't work -- if you want to win a war of attrition, you have to *kill*, both because clerical healing is much more common and because all non-fatal wounds heal overnight. It has nothing to do with honor or brutality; you're trying to win a war, after all. In the "real world", a wounded soldier is a weapon -- he drains resources, and is a constant reminder to other soldiers of the risks of war, draining morale. In 4e, there are dead soldiers, and soldiers who will be perfectly healthy in the morning. That's the world, and the people who live there will adapt to it. (Unless there's special rules for NPC healing we don't know about yet...) 3e (and D&D in general) has features which require thought before worldbuilding; 4e adds some new ones, different enough that they haven't had easy 'conventional wisdom' solutions built up over the past 30 years. [/QUOTE]

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