Good god. Someone says, in a non-accusatory way, that anime swords are oversized or something. And then someone has to say this is not the case, because god forbid someone say even remotely negative about a preferrred subject, even if it's true.
Someone else is annoyed that people compare 4e as being too "videogamey", because they like video games, and god forbid someone else doesn't like videogames.
Sheesh, people. Can't everyone just get along? What's with all the sniping?
Anyways.
I like video games. I don't like 4e. Why? Because a lot of the things I like about video games I like because there's no work involved in seeing those things done. I get annoyed with 4e (and 3e) because those games involve a lot of calculations, and I don't think RPGs should concern themselves with that.
I think, for RPGs to survive, they need to distance themselves from video game mechanics, not emulate them.
I've never really accused 4e of being too videogamey, but when people do, I know what they mean - limited options, straitjacket roles, and repetitive combats. And here's where I show my work:
Limited Options: You can say that a 4e character has more options than a 1e character. And you'd be right - mechanically, there ARE more options. However, there is a problem. In a 4e game, you are generally restricted to your powers. And that means that you use those powers... over and over again.
There's a great scene in Firefly where Jayne Cobb throws a dagger at a guy, charges him, and beats him up. This is awesome. But if Jayne did that every time he got into a fight, he'd be a boring character. 4e characters seem to be an extension of that - every fight, using the same few moves, over and over again. Sure, we can fluff the powers differently each time, but they FEEL different than in 1e, where "I attack" often felt a bit more cinematic than the different encounter powers.
Straitjacket Roles: I'm not big on MMOs, and here's why: whenever I tried to play a character, people told me exactly how to play that character. And if my healer hadn't optimized for healing, or tried to fight a monster instead of focusing on healing the group, I'd get kicked from the group. Every class had certain roles to play in a fight, and if you broke those rules, the group would get mad.
4e isn't as bad as all that. But if you're a defender who doesn't mark often, or a controller who tries to heal, the group will hate you. And maybe that's rightfully so. But there's something annoying about being in a supposedly "cinematic" game where every fight you're doing a variation on the same thing - controlling the minions, defending so the strikers can deal damage, etc. Sometimes, when I'm the wizard, I just want to slam my staff into the ground and shout "You shall not pass!", and character roles get in the way of that too often for my taste.
Your mileage will probably vary, and that's cool.
Repetitive Combats: There are few real resistances or immunities in monsters. And nothing will stop your powers from working on all monsters more or less the same. Once your group has their options figured out, most every combat will play out the same way - the power results are predictable, and while the monsters are wild cards, we can usually guess that the way to defeat them is to divide and conquer. In every fight, the same encounter powers will be used again and again. The same feats. PCs will be in the same rough approximate position (defenders up front, the archer in the back, etc), unless the unexpected happens, in which case the goal of the game is to get back into your expected position.
You can level this at all RPGs. But the thing is, when you have more input sources (as in 4e and 3e), and these input sources are homogenized, it tends to feel more repetitive than a game with only one input source ("I attack"). I don't know why that is, but it is. At least in my experience.
So there. If I say "4e is too videogamey" that's what I'm saying.
People will try and prove me wrong. Thing is, they can't. That's my opinion, and they're entitled to theirs.
Oh, and anime swords are too big.
