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

[Steel_Wind]

Steel Wind, if I've read you right you thought my line was the quotable one. (If not, I'm an idiot - ignore me.)

I'm curious - do you agree, or disagree, on Planescape? It seems to have been pretty popular, at least on ENworld, but I've never been clear as to why.

At the risk of derailing a discussion that was derailed a half dozen + pages back...

Personally? I absolutely despise Planescape and, moreover, think that Planescape Torment is one of the most overrated CRPGs of all time. Modrons? LAME. Dead Gods? Overrated!

As a setting Planescape did not sell all that well. There is a reason that it was far and away the worst selling of all of Black Isle's AD&D CRPGs, too. It's just not a popular setting, no matter what some die-hard fans prefer to think. That doesn't make them wrong for liking it -- it just puts them in the minority from a commercial standpoint.

I expect the fact that I vastly prefer grim and gritty, low to medium level Tolkienesque fantasy, GRRM's ASoIaF, or Fritz Leiber's Newhon -- and that I hate high level play has a lot to do with my particular viewpoint.

I do, on the other hand, think that the idea of the Blood War, generally, is a neat idea for a D&D multi-planar milieu.

But the rest of it? I'd sooner chew on tin foil and rub the tip of something private and very sensitive with a cheese grater than play it, run it, read about it or look at it. I don't know how to be any more clear than that.

If we all liked the same thing, the world would be a pretty boring place.

 

[TarionzCousin]

But the rest of it? I'd sooner chew on tin foil and rub the tip of something private and very sensitive with a cheese grater than play it, run it, read about it or look at it. I don't know how to be any more clearer than that.

Planescape has a faction especially for you: Xaositect.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

The thing is that Planescape was loved by those who loved it - as a setting it was vastly different from other offerings. And those who loved it could run a rip-roaring-gate-opening-dimension-hopping game with it, and make that game fun!

Me? It was never my cup of tea. It and Spelljammer just were not what I was looking for. But the DM who ran the settings could do things that I, personally, suck at. (He was a fan of nonstop action, I prefer plotting, scheming, and mysteries.) Odd as it sounds, we were each the others favorite GM - we each sucked at what the other was good at.

I haven't seen him since he got divorced and moved to the other coast, suddenly I want to write him and ask what he is running these days.

So, while not my cup of tea, I actually prefer it to Forgotten Realms, simply because it is different.

The Auld Grump

 

[pemerton]

And immortality only comes into play if the PC seeks it out... and just like selecting an epic destiny... the PC in BECMI must discover and choose one of the paths to immortality

In BECMI immortality is something ultimately under the control of the GM. In 4e the players gets to choose his/her version of immortality, and the onus is then on the GM to offer up situations/challenges that speak to the players' choice.

It would be over simplistic, but the summary could be this: BECMI immortality is about the player exploring the GM and game system's conception of immortality; 4e is about the player engaging with his/her own conception of immortality.

And yet I haven't seen you express how Planescape is any more limiting in the moral themes that can be explored than any other setting including a homebrew

<snip>

The moral/thematic landscape in Planescape is their to be shaped, explored and changed by your characters just like that found in The Plane Above or any other setting.

<snip>

If anything, I feel 4e's "Look Ma, no consequences!" approach moreso facilitates the glossing over and ignoring of morality and it's associated themes in the game

4e isn't "no cosequences". Rather, it's "no obligation on the part of the player to conform to the GM's/designers' moral conception".

If the absence of those sorts of consequences means there are no consequences in your game for betrayal or apostasy then you're probably not wanting to play a mythic game at all.

Related to this: I don't think the moral landscape of Planescape really is easily changed - the moral answers are baked right into the planar landscape. I don't think that Planescape would very easily cope with a player deciding that heroism requires working with devils against Celestia, whereas the way 4e's heavens are set up - in particular a history whose dynamics and consequences and conflicts are still unfolding - this sort of decision could mark the dramatic point in a game (eg maybe it's about Asmodeus's role in guarding Tharizdun, or being a general against the primordials).

The absene of metaplot is also an important part of this.

 

[Imaro]

In BECMI immortality is something ultimately under the control of the GM. In 4e the players gets to choose his/her version of immortality, and the onus is then on the GM to offer up situations/challenges that speak to the players' choice.

It would be over simplistic, but the summary could be this: BECMI immortality is about the player exploring the GM and game system's conception of immortality; 4e is about the player engaging with his/her own conception of immortality.

Waitaminute... there is more than one path to immortality and any class can choose any path... so there is choice in BECMI. These paths, like Epic Destinies were created by the designers as opposed to the player... and if there is a quest to become an ED then the DM will design that as well, though the fact of the matter is that this is not even required as it is in BECMI so a PC can just pick a "destiny" at a certain level... the player isn't actually creating what anything means in 4e, so what's the major difference again? I mean I keep seeing you state opinions about how much better 4e is for this but they are not backed up by the reality of the games.

Again if you were arguing that Heroquest or Legends of Anglerre did this better I would totally agree with you... however besides the fact that you can buy access to more ED's I'm not seeing a real difference, and in fact when limited to core rules there are only 4 epic destinies available in 4e and they are much more limited and rigid than the Immortal spheres in BECMI.

4e isn't "no cosequences". Rather, it's "no obligation on the part of the player to conform to the GM's/designers' moral conception".

If the absence of those sorts of consequences means there are no consequences in your game for betrayal or apostasy then you're probably not wanting to play a mythic game at all.

So again there is no higher meaning to good or evil they are not true forces (as they are in most myths and legends) in the world but instead are just a matter of... perception of and physical reaction to... one's choices and actions. If anything this seems more of a post-modern mind set than anything related to epic myths and hero-questing.

Related to this: I don't think the moral landscape of Planescape really is easily changed - the moral answers are baked right into the planar landscape. I don't think that Planescape would very easily cope with a player deciding that heroism requires working with devils against Celestia, whereas the way 4e's heavens are set up - in particular a history whose dynamics and consequences and conflicts are still unfolding - this sort of decision could mark the dramatic point in a game (eg maybe it's about Asmodeus's role in guarding Tharizdun, or being a general against the primordials).

The absene of metaplot is also an important part of this.

Honestly...have you read or played in Planescape?? It is exactly the type of setting where a player could decide that heroism requires him to work with Devils against Celestia... I'm curious as to why you even think Planescape would in some way hinder this... and I'm starting to feel like you really don't know that much about the Planescape setting.

 

[Tallifer]

4E doesn't have an ongoing, supported setting. It has the default Nentir Vale setting that is touched upon in various products; it has three settings that have received minor support in the form of three books each; it also has a kind of default vibe or atmosphere, a "meta-setting" that includes the new planar structure and the mythology that's been presented in the "theme" books (e.g. Underdark, Plane Above, etc). But it doesn't have a setting that is supported in an ongoing way, that is being explored and developed through supplements.

The Neverwinter Campaign Guide may be a step in the right direction. Why? Because one of the biggest mistakes WotC made with their 4E treatment of the Forgotten Realms, in my opinion, was not to explicate it much. They came out with a few books and had some ongoing Dragon articles, but they didn't really show us why this new Realms was a good idea, what potential it had as a D&D setting. They have us a brief sketch with some crunch, and essentially said, "Here's the new Realms, like it or not this is what we're giving you this time around, no more or less." My sense is that if they had been willing to develop it a bit, maybe even just a supplement once a quarter, it would have done better and potentially generated more secondary and tertiary sales.

Maybe it isn't too late. Maybe Neverwinter can bring the new Realms alive, and maybe WotC pulled the Nentir Vale Gazetteer because they've got something larger planned for later this year or next (can we hope for a box set?). As with most things WotC these days, I'm not counting on it but one can hope...

As far as I can tell Fourth Edition has supported the Forgotten realms more than any other setting. Besides the Campaign Setting Guide, Players' Guide and numerous Forgotten Realms articles in the Dragon magazine, there have been a flood of adventures set therein, chiefly through the RPGA Living Forgotten Realms, but also in the Dungeon Magazine. Furthermore, much of the other published material has been designed to fit easily into the Forgotten Realms. Presumably the countless RPGA modules provide a huge reservoir of places, non-player characters and villains.

Until I played Fourth Edition, I had only played the earliest editions, so I knew nothing of the Forgotten Realms. It immediately struck me that the Realms were more prominent than Eberron (and later Dark Sun) and that the points of light was merely a philosophy for homebrewed worlds rather than a strict setting.

(On another note, when I played 1st edition, I do not recall any setting at all except the later appearance of the Dragonlance adventure path. Maybe that was just the homebrew preferences of my dungeon masters however.)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

As far as I can tell Fourth Edition has supported the Forgotten realms more than any other setting.

I don't think so.

From where I'm sitting right now, 3.X FR had at least 15 books. 1Ed introduced it and had about a dozen products- boxed sets and adventures, plus some other stuff.

However, the king of supporting FR was 2Ed, which had boxed sets, adventures and a multiplicity of sub-settings: Al-Qadim, Kara-Tur, Maztica, etc.

All of them had articles in Dragon and Dungeon as well.

Near as I can figure, 4Ed hasn't surpassed ANY previous edition's support of the FR setting.



Or see here:

Portal:Sourcebooks - The Forgotten Realms Wiki - Books, races, classes, and more

 

[pawsplay]

Allow me to heartily and vehemently disagree.

The edition treadmill is a horrible thing for everyone involved except those whose income depends on the health of RPGs as an industry. For everyone else it's a complete pain in the ass; you either have to change to a new ruleset you may or may not like, or you lose all official support for the game you've been happily playing for years.

The edition treadmill serves the industry well. It serves the hobby poorly, when it serves it at all.

Lan-"a rat who jumped off the edition treadmill"-efan

I have a completely different perspective. Most fans of a game are happy to buy updated versions every so often, with different artwork, and slightly different shifts in focus. Naturally, that breaks down if you make changes that are too radical, if you reduce backwards compatibility to the point where you actually do make old rulebooks useless.

Changes like e A&D -> 3e, or from 3e -> 4e should be considered very carefully precisely because of what you are talking about. But you could print 3.5, 3.51, 3.52 and so forth for a long time without alienating anyone.

 

[pawsplay]

I've actually found purist-for-system more suitable for vanilla narrativist play than high concept, because while it has the sorts of problems with pacing and encounter design that I've mentioned upthread, unlike a high concept game it generally won't inject someone else's resolution to the thematic questions into the game. The fact that high concept games have already resolved the thematic issues, leaving the players at the table to explore that solution rather than develop their own, is for me the crucial difference.

But that only makes a difference if the players in a narrativist game are willing to depart from the thematics and tropes of the genre. Obviously, in a game that is going to be "D&D enough," that's just not going to happen. Again, I am only talking about situations where the goals of simulation and narrativism are congruent, where it would be against the original premise to depart from either the integrity of the world (which embodies narrative) tropes or the narrative (which exists within a universe consistent with the narrative). Obviously, you can play "narrativist" games that do not substantially simulate any genre, and you can play genre games that do not care about the thematics of the source material.... but if you construct a game that is faithful to the storytelling tropes of the original, it both simulates the original poetics and allows exploration within the same field of options as the original.

Any sufficiently developed "narrativist" game will create a self-consistent reality which simulates other games played with the same system. In other words, sim. If you move away from mechanistic resolutions, you might be able to more narrativist, but there would be nothing stopping you from going freeform simulation, instead. Ron likes to say that the agendas exist in play, in player priorites, but that flies in the face of "system matters." If system matters, I find it difficult to imagine a counter-argument to what I am saying.

I can see that 4e went for more abstraction, more "storytelling" in some aspects, but it remains the game that simulates itself, the game of winning the game that it is, the narrative of what happens when you play the game that is 4e. 4e has its faults, but it does not lack congruence between its narrative tropes, its creation of the imaginary world, and in-game player rewards. I think the reason some people like 4e is that they like where it leads them; it is a "three color" system, completely "abashed" if not incoherent. But it definitely works on its own terms.

I think a reason a lot of people don't like 4e is that it so clearly communicates what they think you are going to be doing with it, and a lot of people don't want to do that.

 

[pawsplay]

How is this any different from, say, 3E combat?

Can you look solely at your character sheet and answer the question, "Can you beat an orc?"

Actually, you can calculate it to a high degree of accuracy.

Until you know a lot more about the orc (is he an Orc War 1 straight out of the MM, or an Orc Ftr 12, or an Orc Clr 35), you can't actually, meaningfully, answer the question.

Why is 4E dinged for this, while 3E is praised for, essentially, the same thing?

It is not the same thing. It is just true that in 3e, an orc warrior 1 or an orc fighter 12 has certain capabilities, and you can imagine how you will fare against an orc war 1 or an orc fighter 12. It is also true that if you have a +12 Bluff bonus, you are very reliable at bluffing people without well-developed Sense Motive skills.

4e skill challenges really change the situation. The difficulty is going to be determined by how many checks are required, and the DCs required. You cannot just think, "Well, my high Bluff character is going to be successful at bluffing people who are fairly naive" because in 4e, the DC is going to scale to the PCs, and the real difficulty is based on how many components the GM wants to throw at you. This is perfectly demonstrated by the original presentation of skill challenges, where the designers didn't realize they were giving oddball examples where success was unlikely even for skilled characters because of the way they constructed the challenges.