A reason why 4E is not as popular as it could have been

[Aldarc]

Re Worldbuilding with 4E: To provide some background, I tend to do a lot of worldbuilding, and rarely do I actually have the chance to play in these worlds that I design. I frequently just want to preserve an idea for a world that I can potentially use later to some degree or another. At other times, I design just as a sort of "RPG thought experiment" of world creation. I admit to coming into D&D by means of 3E, at least seriously, as I have played a few sessions of AD&D, though I recall little of the mechanics on an experiential level.

I do agree that 4E is far more challenging to customize and makes world-building more difficult in some respects. One of 4E's greatest strengths in regards to world-building is its modularity that allows for certain flavors of classes to be used or removed without a fear of losing an "essential" role and risk the integrity of an ideal party composition. For example, 4E demonstrated this through the removal of divine power source classes in Dark Sun, a feat that was practically impossible or impractical to do in either 2E or 3.XE mechanical assumptions. But 4E's modularity allows for an arguably "truer" Dark Sun in 4E than the original in 2E, at least when it comes to classes. Much like in Dark Sun, I found this to a breath of fresh air when it comes to world-building, as I do not feel compelled to retain a divine, psionic, arcane, or primal power source. But the mechanics of 4E also sometimes come with their own set of "world assumptions," that could be frustrating to the DM. For example, the eladrin's fey step assumes the existence of a Fey Wild. But in this respects, this may not be all that different from assumptions regarding an ethereal plane with respects to ghosts or a far realm with respect to abominations. Or in like turn, 3E also had its own set of assumptions regarding classes that sometimes vexed my world-building, such as rangers with divine spells (or any spells for that matter).

(As an aside, I greatly prefer 4E's more "mythological cosmology" than the Great Wheel of old. The new cosmology has actually been more conducive in my idea generation for world-building than the old cosmology.)

Re "Feels like D&D": Both 3E and 4E "feel like D&D" to me, but they seem to be aimed at different markets and attempting to address different "problems" and issues. While I like both and both "feel like D&D" to me, I am not truly satisfied with either. Hearing people say "it does not feel like D&D" in regards to any edition irks me on some level. Behind this statement seems to be the qualifying question of what would make it "true D&D." So the statement "it doesn't feel like D&D" seems to be a step removed from committing what could be considered a "no true D&D" fallacy. I would not mind the statement "it doesn't feel like D&D" as much if the point was elaborated and qualified more fully. "What would make it feel more like D&D?"

(IMO, while Pathfinder may be a more polished variant of 3.5, it fails to address many of the problems - such as fighter vs. wizard power scaling - of 3.X. If anything, it seems to accentuate some of those problems. I do agree with Aberzanzorax that I wish that 4E had taken its cues more so from SW Saga, which itself is obviously built on the customizable d20 Modern. One of my own problems with 4E is its "square-dancing" tactical combat system that practically requires minis. And it seems that neither Pathfinder nor 4E learned from highly praised alt systems such as Arcana Evolved, Iron Heroes, or True20, etc.)

 

[BryonD]

I find this discussion of what is D&D rather sad, overall. If it served a point for enjoying the game, I would not mind it so much, but I cannot see where it will lead to better or more fun play.

If you like 4E as it is AND you don't care how popular the game is then this discussion can not possibly contribute to more fun for you.

Not that I have any delusions of changing things by posting on a website, but if the reality of 4E losing a lot of fanbase is something you care about, then the conversation may contribute to progress. Besides, it is fun.

As for the above quote, all editions of D&D (as well as every game ever created) are black sheep, it just depends on what table you are looking at.

But we are not fixated on "tables", the overall marketplace is important. And your statement is not equal across all editions for that scale.

 

[Dice4Hire]

(As an aside, I greatly prefer 4E's more "mythological cosmology" than the Great Wheel of old. The new cosmology has actually been more conducive in my idea generation for world-building than the old cosmology.)

Yes, I have found this also. The Great Wheel was more where and what, not so much who, or why (history of the cosmology). It just was what was there.

I really like the different power groups in the 4E cosmology, Primordials, demons, gods, Nature spirits, etc. It is really easy to see how they work off of each other, from the beginnings of time to the present day.

Plus, one reason Dark Sun is so good in 4E is the simplicity of its main history. The Primordials won the Dawn War. Simple enough. What would happen if the nature spirits were able to be the 'winners"?

 

[pawsplay]

Does it (legally) say D&D on the cover? If yes, then it's D&D. Objective non-negotiable fact.

For some versions of "it's D&D." If by "it feels like D&D," then according to some people, you are wrong. You are committing a logical error known as equivocaton. For instance:

1. A bird is a warm-blooded saurian that can fly.
2. An ostrich is a bird.
THEREFORE, an ostrich can fly.

You can argue till you're blue in the face, and 4e still won't fly.

Feels like = subjective, and thus open to interpretation and debate.

Let's take some examples:

1. 4e is D&D.
2. 4e to many does not feel like D&D.
3. Pathfinder is not D&D.
4. Pathfinder to many feels like D&D.

All four statements are true, but only 1 and 3 are objective facts. 2 and 4 are built on common opinion and are open to debate.

Actually, I would argue the opposite. What is or isn't D&D is arguable, but arguing about what someone thinks or feels is a non-starter.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

<snip, while what I'm cutting is interesting, it's not what I want to bring attention to in this particular post. Well said, though - Aberzanzorax.>

Re "Feels like D&D": Both 3E and 4E "feel like D&D" to me, but they seem to be aimed at different markets and attempting to address different "problems" and issues. While I like both and both "feel like D&D" to me, I am not truly satisfied with either. Hearing people say "it does not feel like D&D" in regards to any edition irks me on some level. Behind this statement seems to be the qualifying question of what would make it "true D&D." So the statement "it doesn't feel like D&D" seems to be a step removed from committing what could be considered a "no true D&D" fallacy. I would not mind the statement "it doesn't feel like D&D" as much if the point was elaborated and qualified more fully. "What would make it feel more like D&D?"

(IMO, while Pathfinder may be a more polished variant of 3.5, it fails to address many of the problems - such as fighter vs. wizard power scaling - of 3.X. If anything, it seems to accentuate some of those problems. I do agree with Aberzanzorax that I wish that 4E had taken its cues more so from SW Saga, which itself is obviously built on the customizable d20 Modern. One of my own problems with 4E is its "square-dancing" tactical combat system that practically requires minis. And it seems that neither Pathfinder nor 4E learned from highly praised alt systems such as Arcana Evolved, Iron Heroes, or True20, etc.)

There is a lot of wisdom in this post.
I disagree with some points, just the same.

I understand the irksomeness, but I also experience the same irksomeness when someone tells me that my feelings are somehow wrong. 4e just doesn't feel like D&D to me. For others to be bothered by my feeling seems weird. I think of it as a flavor issue, and I think of 4e as not having enough of the ingredients of prior editons for it to to taste similar enough to D&D for me.

On the other hand, I sort of both agree and disagree on the "true D&D" comment you make. On the one hand, I think there are "essential elements" that are central to D&D that really, it cannot exist without (e.g. fantasy roleplaying....if I EVER see a version of D&D without fantasy roleplaying and someone defends it as "D&D" I'm going to laugh at the game and them...it's just plain central to the game)...

....but on the other hand, I'm going to say that all versions (yes, every single one, including my favorite, which still has problems) have problems. Of course they do. They're complex gaming rules/almost theoretical machines? I'm with you that Pathfinder is imperfect (despite attempting-sometimes succesfully, sometimes not- to fix issues/problems with 3e).

"I would not mind the statement "it doesn't feel like D&D" as much if the point was elaborated and qualified more fully. "What would make it feel more like D&D?""

This is also well said. To say "4e isn't D&D" is weird and vociferous. But to say 4e feels too different from prior editions for me to engage with it...feels more natural and real. It's also a more sophisticated way to describe a phenomenon...something that not all people have within them. You are asking for a level of maturity that is higher than the average level of maturity for most American adults. People on these boards usually are slightly higher (just by virtue of an interest in a hobby that involves imagination and math)...but also due to investment and interest in the "philosophy of gaming" here on these boards.

Here I'm just saying that people have varying levels of sophistication. I'm not saying any group or team or camp or whatever is more or less sophisticated than another. I am saying that most people don't have a very clear division between their emotions and their decisions and their logic and their ideal. That takes a lot of work...So much so that religions seeking Nirvana emphasize this work. Rare individuals may succeed in being perfectly clear in their words.

I'm aware of this myself, and I sure as hell know that I don't meet this standard. Other rare people may meet it. Many are like myself, in failing to meet this goal. But most are not aware that this distinction or goal even exists in the first place, and do not have a distinction of these properties as they live their lives, nor do they have goals to achieve what they are not yet aware of.

Regarding wishing people would be highly clear in what they want: Ask for the impossible, and you will be dissapointed.

I think most people have an idea, but not a solid construction, of what they want (myself included).

I realize I sound a bit elitist there...and quite possibly a bit of a jerk, though I do not intend to be. I really don't mean to place myself or others above or below one another. Not everyone understands the world in the same way. I don't want to elevate one way of understanding over another...but I do want to point out that there are differences. An art critic and a sports broadcaster have very specific tastes, refinements, and predilictions. The art critic will fail to understand the nuances of sports, as will the sportscaster fail to understand some of the nuances of the arts.

So I am saying that not everyone can be truly expressive in a literary and perfectly logical and eloquent way. I don't think I can, and I think I'm better than some (but certainly not all, or even most).

So people are going to flub their imperfect explanations (even myself, right now, where I'm trying really hard to be as clear as I can, I will fail partly....and not through any intentional obfuscation...I'm just going to fail because meanings are not solid...they're fuzzy).

People might say "4e isn't D&D" and they'll be imperfect in such a statement. I'm with you, it's inflammatory and wrong. But to ask every person to speak on a message board to be more perfect, to politically and emotionally, as well as linguistically and poetically state their opinion?

I can try to translate the imperfect, and perhaps unintentionally inflammatory, "4e isn't D&D". Here are some options:
"4e doesn't feel right to me"
"4e doesn't feel like D&D to me"
"4e is missing this _one important game element_" that made D&D awesome, or just defined it, to me.
"4e is a poor/adequate/ok/good/great game, but it diverges too much from what I've played in the past"
"4e is missing this one thing from prior D&D. Without that one thing, it just isn't D&D. I won't play fantasy roleplaying without x."
"4e just makes me sad. Too many changes too soon make my emotions erupt...into sadness. Other D&D doesn't make me feel this way. Something is wrong."
"4e is really, really fun! I love it! I hated every version of D&D until this one came out! AWESOME, WotC!"


I can come up with one or two dozen more "perspectives" to describe/translate how someone might say "4e isn't D&D to me" if you like. But I hope it's clear to all how big changes in the game can cause big changes in impressions about the game.

 

[pemerton]

just-in-time means that something is done only when needed to be done in most other areas, so never heard it applied differently or to RPGs before.

Well, in the case of a gameworld, you don't need fictional elements until the players engage with them at the gametable. So "just in time" GMing means coming up with those elements when they're needed, ie, during the course of play as the players engage with them. In a D&D game, that engagement mostly happens via the PCs.

The point of just in time GMing is that the gameworld that results is one that is highly responsive to and engaging of the players. This is achieved because the gameworld is built by the GM around the players' activities at the table (including especially the things they do with their PCs). The quote from Paul Czege that I posted upthread gives an example of this. So does the actual play report from my own game that I linked to. At the forefront of this approach is that the game is a game - it is not the players exploring a pre-existing world, but rather the players and the GM playing a game together in which the story of the PCs is created. (Of course in this sort of gaming there can be a type of experience of "discovering" rather than "creating" the story - but that is just a metaphor, as when an author says of a book that "it wrote itself". The literal truth, at which the metaphor gestures, is along the lines of the creation being a less-than-fully conscious process.)

Just in time GMing can also save on prep time, but not necessarily very much- I find that I spend a lot of time planning and tweaking and revisiting situations, thinking about the direction the next few sessions might take and making notes on possible permutations and developments. And because the parameters for all this change after each session, there is always room to come back to this stuff and revise it. (In some ways, this is not unlike the way in which a sandbox GM might have to make notes after each session to make sure that any on-the-fly decisions made get incorporated into his/her formal setting notes.)

The statement "4e is best suited..." is a bit ambiguous. If you mean that it is better suited to that than it is to other approaches, ok. If you mean it is better suited to that than other editions are, then I would strongly disagree.

This type of thing works great in almost any RPG, in my experience.

I had in mind both of your disambiguations (4e is not the best "no myth" RPG ever, but is I think the best "no myth" edition of D&D), and I don't agree that this is not a point of distinction.

Many of the features of 4e that you seem not to like - the linking of mechanical difficulties of challenge, for example, to metagame considerations like encounter level rather than to ingame considerations like armour worn; or the skill challenge structure for resolving conflicts out of combat - are in my view precisely the ones that support "no myth" play.

They do so in more than one way.

First, these structures set a baseline that gives the players a degree of confidence in putting their PCs forward without engaging in the sort of operational world-exploration that characterises classic dungeon play. In a classic D&D game it is generally regarded as madness just to set off into a dungeon without checking for rumours, scouting out, having a clear objective to which the party sticks, avoiding wandering monsters etc. (All the stuff Gygax discusses at the end of the 1st ed AD&D PHB.) If you don't want your game to feature this sort of operational play, you need to offer the players some sort of reassurance that not scouting out won't get them killed. The more-or-less railroady solution is the notorious Dragonlance "no death" rule. An alternative solution is the 4e solution - a metagame understanding about the way challenges are constructed, which leaves the players in charge of decision-making and risking their PCs, but makes clear where and how those risks will be located. (Robin Laws' second edition of HeroQuest does something similar with the pass/fail cycle being used to set difficulties.)

A second but closely related point is that "no myth" play isn't just about winging it as a GM. It's about presenting the players with situations that will engage them from the start, and keep engaging them as they (via their PCs) resolve them. This is an obvious feature of the 4e combat mechanics, which are very carefully engineered to give combat a certain dynamic, of the PCs starting on the ropes but then, if the players play cleverly, coming back to win as they gradually deploy the various resources to which they have access. But the broader encounter-build mechanics of 4e, including page 42 and it's cousins, provide tools that help get good results in pacing, engagement, challenge etc across the whole game, and not just in tactical combat encounters.

Third, and still related, once you have these sorts of mechacanics in play, activities can be handled in multiple mechanical ways (a bit like HeroQuest's distinction between extended and simple contests). For example, if the players want to have their PC's scout in order to increase their chances of survival, but no one at the table thinks that there is any profit in actually playing out the scouting - for example, the players don't care about the actual lay of the land except as a means to the end of being better prepared for any fights they get into, and the GM doesn't have any situation to initiate based on the lay of the land - then you can simply make a Nature or Stealth or Dungeoneering or Perception check (as appropriate) and award a bonus or penalty to future action on that basis (eg +2 or -2 to the next initiative check). Thus the players still get to engage with the fiction, and the PCs get the benefit of that engagement, but it can be handled at the table in a way that reduces its prominence in relation to the overall content of a session of play.

Fourth, and building on the third point, the "looseness of fit" between mechanics and gameworld - that is, and as discussed in the previous paragraph, on any given occassion there can be multiple mechanical options for resolving something within the fiction, and similarly any given mechanical subystem can have different ingame meanings from instance to instance - opens up greater flexibility in scene framing and scene closing. A very simple example - when resolving overland travel using a skill challenge, it is easy to have a result like one in my most recent actual experience of this, where as a penalty for failure the PCs are denied the opportunity to get an extended rest. This in turn enabled multiple days worth of combat encounters to be combined into a single "day" of adventuring - in the sense that, having failed to get an extended rest, the PCs hadn't recharged their powers, surges etc. In Rolemaster this would be much harder to handle, because overland travel is treated purely on a "miles per day" basis, and the only way to interfere with the PC's rest would be to work out, in detail, the conditions of the ground, the difficulty of falling asleep in a boggy hollow, etc etc (and I'm sure some RM player somewhere has come up with a "Getting a good night's rest" static action table) or else interrupting them with an overnight attack. But the first of these options is not interesting for me - like the example of scouting, it gives an element of the gameworld undue prominence in terms of time taken at the gaming table - and the second option would undo the whole point of balancing verisimilitude of encounter frequency with availability, to the players, of their PC's daily resources.

For me, these differences aren't just theory craft. While reading and thinking about RPG design theory has helped me crystallise them, I experience them regularly when I GM my 4e game, and compare it to the GMing of my previous RM game. My reason for switching to 4e was that, based on reading about it design in the lead up and then subsequent to its publication, I thought that it would deliver what I wanted better than RM: richly characterised PCs, with mechanics that reflect this (so far 4e is no better than RM), with action resolution mechanics that will regularly produce experiences at the table that reflect and build on those characters (I think 4e is marginally better at this than RM, but it's a pretty close call - if 4e wins here, it is for its non-combat action resolution), and with an approach to scene framing and scenario design that helps, rather than hinders, building encounters that will bring all these mechanical features to the fore (and here is where 4e is a huge win over Rolemaster).

And after all this, you're wondering why I don't just play HeroQuest - which is, in turn, better for No Myth than is 4e, because it has no real tactical element at all in its encounter design - the answer is one that I gave upthread: me and my players enjoy a game with crunchy mechanics and tactical options. The only other FRPG I know that combines indie game play with crunch to satisfy RM players would be The Burning Wheel. But for better or worse, I run 4e instead.

4th seems like a great next step for DDM though.

Have you read what I've posted upthread about "just in time" GMing? Or the example of play that I linked to? What has any of that got to do with DDM?

 

[Aberzanzorax]

If I understand your post, Pemerton, and I think I might, I agree with you.


4e, by virtue of balance and strategic focus, is really, really good at off the cuff exploration in, not just a "hack and slash way" but also a high adventure swashbuckling way or a barbaric mercenary way, or even a evil infiltrate and destroy way.


I definitely think 4e is different from prior editions (and others may paint this in a good or bad way, but I don't, myself).

Here I think you've pointed out some excellent strengths, strengths that WotC hasn't really done a great job of pointing out.



I mean, part of the argument of "4e isn't D&D" is really just "the goals, playfeel, and intent of 4e are different from prior editions". So, if WotC wants to change the goalposts, they should at least be clear to the customers where we should "kick the ball" (sorry, superbowl Sunday).

I think WotC played their cards too close to their chest when saying "the more things change, the more they stay the same".


4e IS different, in many wonderful ways. If they wanted to change the game that much, I think they really should have showcased what the changes could offer...not make sweeping, broad, and intense changes and then pretend they never happened?

Those changes are BIG...and they can offer a lot.

But not everyone will like them.

Right, wrong? Agree, disagree?

 

[Mercurius]

But there's nothing to really lose by acknowledging people's opinions that 4e isn't D&D to them, either.

True - and I've tried to clarify that I don't have a problem with the statement "4E isn't D&D to me," although I find it to be both problematic and, as Abezanzorax said, lacking a certain degree of sophistication. In other words, unpack that sentiment a bit. And try to differentiate fully what is your own and what is not.

On the other hand, I think it is OK to debate opinions, otherwise we end up in weird little Citadels of Subjective Impenetrability - as if by stating that something is one's own opinion it becomes impervious from criticism. If I go around saying "Aboriginal Australians aren't real human beings to me" I would hope that someone would call me on my "opinion." (Now of course I'm not equating the two statements but using an extreme example to illustrate my point).

I haven't seen anyone in this thread state that 4Ed isn't "real" D&D, so let's just not discuss that strawman any further.

Uh, I just said the exact same thing - that I haven't seen anyone in this thread say that "4E isn't real D&D." Way to followup up there, Danny . That said, some have come awfully close.

Woah there take your sedative and relax.

? I think you're reading more emotionality than was there, shadzar. Or, as the saying goes, making titans out of titmouses

I am saying if you want to discuss things you must accept the terms being used by the other party. If one says for whatever reason "4th isn't D&D", then discussing 4th in the context of D&D isn't going to work with that person. It is only begging to create a conflict rather than a discussion.

Are you saying that there are no common, interpersonal understandings and agreements that we can fall back upon? I mean, can we at least use the dictionary as a general agreement?

You can try to change their mind, but in doing so your conversation about D&D is likely to turn into an argument or edition war...such as happens here on EN World. Best thing to do is disagree mentally or politely and vocally, and move on to a discussion where the term D&D does include 4th if you want to talk about it, or discus it using the term as defined by the other party and not include 4th edition in the context of D&D.

As somebody pointed out, I think if you're having a conversation with someone who refuses to recognize 4E as a form of D&D then it is probably just best to move along. That sort of willful negation of something that has a pretty weighty body of objective evidence probably speaks of some kind of psychological hang-up.

If you say soy milk is milk, and I refute that saying it is juice as soy has no teet, then we won't be having a discussion about soy milk, as we don't both agree on. Like the pie example floating around. You would go from having a discussion to having a debate over whether "soy milk" is milk or juice.

This will in no way shape or form help you converse about soy milk. So best to find someone who does consider it milk to carry on your discussion of "soy milk", unless both parties want to debate "soy milk" vs "soy juice".

I agree that a lot of time gets wasted on these little side issues and prevents us from going into more meaningful territory. That said, your example of milk is an apt one because it well illustrates why saying 4E is not D&D is, at the least, a highly problematic statement, and more realistically, simply an erroneous statement. There are a few definitions of the word "Milk" via Dictionary.com and by saying that soy milk is not milk then you are saying that the first two definitions are right and the third is wrong. This, I think, well illustrates the question of whether 4E is D&D or not - those that see it as not D&D are choosing to ignore or disagree with one or more definitions. This is why I think Dannager was calling that perspective close-minded: it is consciously choosing to ignore or disagree a broader umbrella of the term.

Quite frankly I don't know where you get off telling me what I have to accept or not. There is the precise thing I was saying about discussion with someone who can agree on the terms, or you will only be starting an argument. Now were you wanting to start a fight with me? Because I will tell you flat out, you mean nothing to me, and I make my own decisions. You will not be likely to sway them in the slightest, especially with that approach telling me what I "damn well better" do.

Umm...who needs the sedative, shadzar? No one is telling you what you "Damn well better do". Relax. I don't care about changing your mind. But in the context of this thread, we're disagreeing. In the 12,457,546,133,343,337 internet debates to date, only in 0.000472% of them has someone actually changed their mind, because very few people are ever willing to admit that they're wrong or limited in their perspective. I don't expect this conversation to be any different. In the end, all of us are limited in our perspective and a good reason to engage in these sorts of conversations is to find ways to become less limited, to open and evolve our perspective.

But anyhow, no harm, no foul, OK? We're all dice-rollers after all

Let's also add Heidegger's "Thingness of Things" and the philosophy of the asian tea house to the "definitions are meaningless and way more complicated than we give them credit for." I mean, sure, it is true. Meanings are like mathematical "sets" with unions and intersections and all that...and even so, they have "non permeable" boundaries that are more akin to bell curves than solid lines, as a whole.

Or we could talk about our own impressions, realistically, on a non-philosophical level.

Well yeah, in the larger sense all definitions are inherently muddy, with permeable edges. Not to mention that words can be used poetically, with metaphoric or symbolic meanings. In the example cited by shadzar, the word milk can mean the elixir of life, the essence of a mother's love. There is also the simple, practical level of utility - what does a word mean in a practical sense. Etc.

Is this a fair statement?

"4e is D&D, but it sure doesn't feel like it to me, and I wish they'd gone in another direction after 3e (possibly something like Star Wars SAGA or Pathfinder)?"

Yeah, it is a fair statement but more importantly, it is a kind and generous one. Why? Because you are included 4E within, to quote Meet the Parents, the "circle of trust" that is the D&D family. 4E may be the black sheep to you, but you are saying that it is still part of the family.

And to be honest, I agree and feel similar - although to a lesser degree. 4E feels like D&D to me partially because I make it feel like D&D. I think that is a key component that hasn't been really touched upon in these conversations - the fact that what D&D is, and what feels like D&D, is at least partially (I would say largely) dependent upon our conscious choice, whether and how we decide to make it D&D, make it our own.

 

[pemerton]

The Great Wheel was more where and what, not so much who, or why (history of the cosmology). It just was what was there.

I really like the different power groups in the 4E cosmology, Primordials, demons, gods, Nature spirits, etc. It is really easy to see how they work off of each other, from the beginnings of time to the present day.

Upthread I had some posts about 4e supporting "situation play" rather than "world/story exploration play".

For me, this point about the old vs new cosmology perfectly captures what I had in mind. The main point of 4e's cosmology isn't to provide a series of worlds for the players to explore. (That's not to say that their PCs won't go there. They will. But they'll go there because they know what they're going to find. There is not the obscurity of many of the elements of the Great Wheel.)

The point of 4e's cosmology is to help make play dynamic, by giving the GM and the players ready made elements to use and react against. They work off each other. So if there is a priest of the Raven Queen in the party, I (as GM) can place a statue of Orcus into the game and get a result. I don't know what that result will be - not until we actually sit down and play - but I can be pretty sure there will be one.

And that's just a simple example. I know from my own game that these elements can be combined to produce complex dynamics and seed complex situations.

I think that in this aspect of the game 4e D&D has finally caught up to Runequest (I posetd last year about the Gloranthafication of D&D.)

 

[Aldarc]

There is a lot of wisdom in this post.
I disagree with some points, just the same.

I understand the irksomeness, but I also experience the same irksomeness when someone tells me that my feelings are somehow wrong. 4e just doesn't feel like D&D to me. For others to be bothered by my feeling seems weird. I think of it as a flavor issue, and I think of 4e as not having enough of the ingredients of prior editons for it to to taste similar enough to D&D for me.

I agree with the non-quoted portion, but I would like to address this portion. I do not think that it's a matter of our feelings somehow being wrong, so much as it is a case of being irked by the disconnect in a shared vision of D&D. It would be much easier if we all shared the same conception of what D&D should be or how it could be improved, but we do not. And therein lies the rub. This is true for both 3E and 4E supporters; there are gaming factions within gaming factions that puts Planescape to shame. It would probably help if we all looked at the player disconnect that exists in both 3.X and 4E.

This is also well said. To say "4e isn't D&D" is weird and vociferous. But to say 4e feels too different from prior editions for me to engage with it...feels more natural and real. It's also a more sophisticated way to describe a phenomenon...something that not all people have within them. You are asking for a level of maturity that is higher than the average level of maturity for most American adults. People on these boards usually are slightly higher (just by virtue of an interset in a hobby that involves imagination and math)...but also due to investment and interest in the "philosophy of gaming" here on these boards.

Here I'm just saying that people have varying levels of sophistication. I'm not saying any group or team or camp or whatever is more or less sophisticated than another. I am saying that most people don't have a very clear division between their emotions and their decisions and their logic and their ideal. That takes a lot of work...So much so that religions seeking Nirvana emphasize this work. Rare individuals may succeed in being perfectly clear in their words.

I'm aware of this myself, and I sure as hell know that I don't meet this standard. Other rare people may meet it. Many are like myself, in failing to meet this goal. Most are not aware of this distinction or goal in the first place, and do not have a distinction of these properties as they live their lives, nor do they have goals to achieve what they are not yet aware of.

Regarding wishing people woudl be highly clear in what they want: Ask for the impossible, and you will be dissapointed.

I think most people have an idea, but not a solid construction, of what they want (myself included).

I realize I sound a bit elitist there...and quite possibly a bit of a jerk, though I do not intend to be. I really don't mean to place myself or others above or below one another. Not everyone understands the world in the same way. I don't want to elevate one way of understanding over another...but I do want to point out that there are differences. An art critic and a sports broadcaster have very specific tastes, refinements, and predilictions. The art critic will fail to understand the nuances of sports, as will the sportscaster fail to understand some of the nuances of the arts.

So I am saying that not everyone can be truly expressive in a literary and perfectly logical and eloquent way. I don't think I can, and I think I'm better than some (but certainly not all, or even most).

So people are going to flub their imperfect explanations (even myself, right now, where I'm trying really hard to be as clear as I can, I will fail partly....and not through any intentional obfuscation...I'm just going to fail because meanings are not solid...they're fuzzy).

People might say "4e isn't D&D" and they'll be imperfect in such a statement. I'm with you, it's inflammatory and wrong. But to ask every person to speak on a message board to be more perfect, to politically and emotionally, as well as linguistically and poetically state their opinion?

I can try to translate "4e isn't D&D". Here are some options:
"4e doesn't feel right to me"
"4e doesn't feel like D&D to me"
"4e is missing this _one important game element_" that made D&D awesome, or just defined it, to me.
"4e is a poor/adequate/ok/good/great game, but it diverges too much from what I've played in the past"
"4e is missing this one thing from prior D&D. Without that one thing, it just isn't D&D. I won't play fantasy roleplaying without x."
"4e just makes me sad. Too many changes too soon make my emotions erupt...into sadness. Other D&D doesn't make me feel this way. Something is wrong."
"4e is really, really fun! I love it! I hated every version of D&D until this one came out! AWESOME, WotC!"

I can come up with one or two dozen more "perspectives" on 4e if you like. But I hope it's clear to all how big changes in the game can cause big changes in impressions about the game.

Well spoken. It's a tough issue to be sure, but such discussions are necessary if we want to find a D&D that pleases the largest market. (One thing that all D&D players want regardless of edition wars is for D&D to succeed.) Even if "4E does not feel like D&D" for a group of gamers, I hope that 4E (and the controversy surrounding it) can be used as a staging point for making a "better D&D" through discussing what elements of the different systems work best for the widest number of D&D gamers (old and new alike). Again, I am curious regarding the question of "What would make it feel more like D&D?" but that may be off-topic and already addressed in other "edition war" threads.