D&D 4E 4E: The day the game ate the roleplayer?

[apoptosis]

White Wolf is brilliant. All their games are basically a creamy core of angst wrapped inside a crunchy shell of superpowers.

Sad but true

 

[Will]

Wow. Merlin, great quote, good points.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I am now building a shrine to Seerow in one of my cubicle drawers.

 

[Wormwood]

Seerow had some nice things to say about this a while ago on the WotC boards.

Fantastic quote! Thanks.

 

[Nymrohd]

We need to exorcise the grognard within then? But not all classes should be able to do that!

 

[TrainedMunkee]

My Take

Seerow had some nice things to say about this a while ago on the WotC boards.

I've been playing since '79 and the above quote just hit the nail on the head. I've played and ran every version of D&D, Basic and the rest of it's family have always been my favorite versions. Part of this is that I played the game when I was ten and part of it is that it was simple and streamlined, in comparison. By the way D&D has always been a minis game, the only change is that you can't get lead poisoning now. I would be a happy man if I could introduce the game to a group of ten year olds, and they could actually understand the game.

 

[TheSeer]

Personally I have one serious issue with 4E and that is explaining in character the daily restriction on abilities (and to a lesser extend the per encounter) for martial characters. I really have no idea whatsoever on how to handle this.

Uhm...the same way you do for a Barbarian's rage being limited to a certain number of times a day. Why can't a Barbarian get good and cheesed off more often? maybe his body just can't handle it or any number of other reasons which could apply to martial characters abilities in 4E.

 

[Nine Hands]

The Saga edition of the Star Wars RPG shows the writing on the wall for 4E with its treatment of the Jedi. The force has been stuffed into tiny, neat boxes that in turn make it difficult to emulate anything that you saw in any of the movies. Even though you watched lightsabers cutting up everything in sight and totally slicing dudes in half all over the place, you're hard-pressed to slice some guy's arm off with one in the RPG, much less cut people in half. From the perspective of a game, this is great; you have more balance between Jedi and non-Jedi characters. From the perspective of the Star Wars universe portrayed by the movies, it's insane. The Han Solos and Chewbaccas of the movie didn't need to be as powerful as the Jedi; they were amply good enough at what they did to hold their own in a fight without resorting to tossing lightning or cutting people in half. But once the game comes into the picture, this entire balance thing comes through and pounds each class with a hammer until they're all the same height, concept be damned. This makes combats a smooth and easy affair, but it casts a pall of blandness over the game. Nobody stands out in any particular direction; everything's been sanded down to a homogeneous plane.

Severing Strike is what you use to cut off people's hands with a lightsaber instead of flat out killing them.

Force Points are things you use to avoid dying, allowing you to write a cinematically appropriate way for your character to survive being knocked off a cliff.

My current group of 6 Jedi cut things in half all the time and they don't even try hard.

Roleplaying comes from the players not the game rules.

 

[Ktulu]

Personally I have one serious issue with 4E and that is explaining in character the daily restriction on abilities (and to a lesser extend the per encounter) for martial characters. I really have no idea whatsoever on how to handle this.

I see it like the UFC. It's not that you can't do more than one spinning back hand punch, or roundhouse to the head. It's that after one or two, the opponent starts to see when it's coming and readies against it. If you take that view, it really does make a lot of sense. Especially when the fighter's per day ability is only used up if successful (I.e., if it wasn't successful, no one saw exactly what he was doing, so he'll make another go of it. However, if you've done it once, you might not try to pull off such a crazy maneuver again, as it nearly cost you your head)

Ktulu

 

[Mallus]

Sad but true

Why sad? Most fantasy in a nutshell is angst melodrama + superpowers.