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<blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5462202" data-attributes="member: 54877">There is some truth to this. OTOH, the reason I like 4E is twofold, and I think the other half not listed above is where your analysis falls short:&nbsp;1. I like where 4E is going.2. I like traveling with it to that destination.&nbsp;Whereas, with 3E I also like where it is going. The journey itself, not so much. (And the prep even less, but it would be possible to build a game with a 3E sensibility that used some of the 4E strategies for reducing prep, though you'd have to make some compromises between the two.)&nbsp;Furthermore, it is precisely the mechanical &quot;sim&quot; side of things where that divergence occurs for me. To pick just one example out of many, 3E multiple attacks versus 4E more rapidly scaling damage. Both mechanical methods kill the monsters more or less equally fast (allowing, of course, for changes in save or die spells and other system changes). Multiple attacks says that if you attack 3 times, you made three physical attacks, each with its own damage. This opens up certain options in the sim space. Scaling damage says that if you do the damage of three physical attacks, you may or may not have made that many physical attacks. This opens up a different set of options in the (little &quot;n&quot;, not Forge-version) narrative space.&nbsp;The fighter goes into the dungeon, kills the orc, takes the pie, and goes home happy. In both 3E and 4E, same D&amp;D result; same D&amp;D genre. Not the same experience, at all.&nbsp;Or to put it another way, what you said was true at the macro level. Every roleplaying game simulates something at the macro level. But when people discuss simulation in games, they usually mean the micro level, or at a minimum how the micro sim feeds into the macro sim and vice versa.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Crazy Jerome, post: 5462202, member: 54877"] There is some truth to this. OTOH, the reason I like 4E is twofold, and I think the other half not listed above is where your analysis falls short: 1. I like where 4E is going. 2. I like traveling with it to that destination. Whereas, with 3E I also like where it is going. The journey itself, not so much. (And the prep even less, but it would be possible to build a game with a 3E sensibility that used some of the 4E strategies for reducing prep, though you'd have to make some compromises between the two.) Furthermore, it is precisely the mechanical "sim" side of things where that divergence occurs for me. To pick just one example out of many, 3E multiple attacks versus 4E more rapidly scaling damage. Both mechanical methods kill the monsters more or less equally fast (allowing, of course, for changes in save or die spells and other system changes). Multiple attacks says that if you attack 3 times, you made three physical attacks, each with its own damage. This opens up certain options in the sim space. Scaling damage says that if you do the damage of three physical attacks, you may or may not have made that many physical attacks. This opens up a different set of options in the (little "n", not Forge-version) narrative space. The fighter goes into the dungeon, kills the orc, takes the pie, and goes home happy. In both 3E and 4E, same D&D result; same D&D genre. Not the same experience, at all. Or to put it another way, what you said was true at the macro level. Every roleplaying game simulates something at the macro level. But when people discuss simulation in games, they usually mean the micro level, or at a minimum how the micro sim feeds into the macro sim and vice versa. [/QUOTE]

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