A bit tired of people knocking videogames...

[Jhaelen]

I have never considered one page of rules of thumb to be serious support for creativity. The idea that you can put a different coat of paint of a single page of "one size fits all" mechanics for every situation is a hallmark of the homogeneity of 4E.

You could also call it consistency.

I definitely prefer a universal approach to a plethora of wildly different subsystems.

This is one of my main criticisms of the 3rd edition of Earthdawn: Too many subsystems make the game difficult to DM. If it wasn't for them it would be my preferred ruleset for epic fantasy gaming.

Runequest on the other hand does an excellent job of applying the same mechanisms to a wide variety of situations. It's one of the few systems where you can quickly memorize the entire ruleset.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I have never considered one page of rules of thumb to be serious support for creativity. The idea that you can put a different coat of paint of a single page of "one size fits all" mechanics for every situation is a hallmark of the homogeneity of 4E. IMO.

My experience from behind the DM screen is almost the reverse. The very shortness of page 42 is an indication that you should just go with the flow and improvise - if it was massive it would be hamstringing and I would continually feel I was doing it wrong because it was against the actual letter and spirit of the rules. About all I want to add is a condition equivalency guide.

Is this an accurate description of how you played 3E? And, if so, why do you think your comments are meaningful to my play experience?

In my experience the people who just list power names and those who endlessly say "I full attack" are the same once they reach equivalent levels of familiarity with both systems - as are those who fluff in both systems. (Of course there's a slightly higher hurdle to 4e familiarity for non-casters and a lower one for casters).

 

[Raven Crowking]

Page 42 may be a good thing, but it is not the Holy Grail of gaming.

I have no doubt that it spurs some to creativity, just as to others it seems a suboptimal afterthought to simply using class powers.

 

[Diamond Cross]

That's the thing about personal experiences i can't stand. Everybody thinks their personal experiences is true for them and must be true for everybody else and anybody who doesn't match them must be lying.

Which is a bunch of hooey.

 

[amerigoV]

To quote GURPS rules, if sand in the face always worked then people would give up carrying weapons and instead wander round with bags of sand. Improvising isn't generally as good as muscle memory and the most effective things PCs can do.

This has me thinking about Savage Worlds and the Tricks/Test of Wills mechanics. The throwing sand in the eyes trick is, well, a Trick. You do not see those the strong combat machines do that very often. You do see "weaker" combat characters do them more often (I had a R2-like droid significantly impact a combat using tricks since he was not a combat charcter). It's Savage World's way of letting character concepts that are not combat oriented to still have an impact in the fight scenes.

I missed just about all of 2e, but going 1e to (hiatus) to 3e really struck me how every class was now effective in combat. There were still a few disparities, but they really had narrowed. In my 1e days the fighters and the MU killed everything, the cleric was first aid and turn undead, and the thief was for the troublemaking player (not really a combat dude, but an exploration specialist).

Although I have only played a modest amount of 4e, I can see why Page 42 may not be used often since 4e has more optimized combat for all classes/roles.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Ah, yes the age old debate between using the rules to do something and improvising doing something. Here's a link to bring up an interesting point.

 

[Dannager]

Is this an accurate description of how you played 3E? And, if so, why do you think your comments are meaningful to my play experience?

Or are you not being honest about 3e? And, if so, why do you think your comments are meaningful to my play experience?

Let me get this straight. In 3e, you had (functionally) pretty much one solid way to attack each round: the full attack. In 4e, you have a number of choices of roughly equal strength whose effectiveness might vary situationally.

In 3e you felt like you had the freedom to imagine your full attacks however you want, because you weren't being "straight-jacketed" by power names, and in 4e you feel restricted by your powers, despite the fact that you actually have more good choices.

Am I getting this right? I just want to make sure.

 

[Raven Crowking]

In 3e, you had (functionally) pretty much one solid way to attack each round: the full attack.

No idea what game you mean by "3e", but my experience with Dungeons & Dragons is very different.


RC

 

[Fifth Element]

You may be. But I'm not. I'm visualising roughly the same approach applied to whatever the situation is. I think across the course of the first three levels I repeated descriptions twice with my wizard and once with my monk. (My Warlord a bit more because he tended to spam Powerful Warning ("Duck!" - although that was different based on the incoming attack) and Direct the Strike (naming moves from the PCs katas with a different naming convention for each PC he used it for))

Indeed. I don't think the claim that you visualize the same power the same way holds any water. At the very least, if you're using Come and Get It against an ooze, would you really imagine it the same way as when you use it against a human bandit?

3E has many equivalents. Does the fact that a fighter uses Power Attack mean he imagines his attack the same way every time. Or a paladin using Smite Evil?

 

[Mark CMG]

I always loved reading Asterix at my pal's house. Good times.

I got talked into test driving the new electric Ford Asterisk*.






*Flatteries not included.