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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Set" data-source="post: 4480107" data-attributes="member: 41584">While I see where you are coming from, Kamikaze Midget, it seems to me that quite a few of the rules choices in 4E were designed specifically to get rid of story-mangling effects, like quick and easy long-range teleportation or ressurection (by moving them into rituals). I still prefer 3e to 4e, personally, but I do believe that the designers wanted to try and have the powers presented not mess up the narrative, and the powers / rituals divide, as well as the daily / encounter / at will mechanic, both serve that purpose pretty well, answering pesky questions like 'why don't they just ressurect everyone, and rulers live until they die of old age?' and 'why don't wizards lead with maximized empowered twinned scorching temporal oblivion every single combat?' The narrative is different than it would be in a game world that works under 3e assumptions, but it takes a world like Eberron or the Forgotten Realms, explicitly designed around (or adapted to, over many years) these assumptions, to serve 3e rules mechanics, while a more 'generic fantasy' world would be better served by 4e rules, where 'scry and die' or 'polymorph into a war troll' or 'war priest casts righteous might and spanks the warriors' concepts aren't as germane to the world. You can still craft narratives, just not identical ones.  The Paladin might not be able to cure disease a few times a week (which would just be terribly frustrating in a plague scenario, since he'd watch hundreds die in between his weekly cures, and possibly watch the one person he *did* save get re-infected and die anyway!), but might have to quest for whatever is necessary to work a ritual of curing that can actually save the town.  Curing Disease becomes less a rules mechanic and more a story element.  It does ask more of the DM, a little more 'oh, there's no rule for that, so here's what happens,' with the goal being, 'what makes a good story.' Try to ignore the edition warriors, with their talk of venom and lunacy.  You've got some valid points, but I think the worst of it is just a paradigm shift.  Stories can still be told, and some stories are *easier* to tell under 4e, as there are less spells and effects that can ruin a dramatic story (by instantly Finding the Path or whatever).  'Traditional' D&D fare might not be exactly as it was, but I think that generic fantasy fare would be quite a bit easier to replicate, in many regards. Granted, many 'traditional' elements of generic fantasy, such as summoning, necromancy, shapeshifting, scrying, divinations, mind control spells, etc. remain to be added to 4e, so it's hardly the ideal 'generic fantasy' system, but it seems likely that the designers are working on adding these elements.  I haven't bought the new edition yet, but I imagine that I will, and I certainly have nothing against it.  Like most 'grognards,' I've played dozens of different games over the years, and I've never been so fond of whatever edition I'm playing at the moment to feel the need to call someone a 'lunatic' or whatever for having a different view.</blockquote>

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