AD&D gave us adventures, 2E gave us settings... Retrospectives.

[Balesir]

Some nice suggestions, here, but no mention of what is the main thing for 4E as far as I'm concerned - Transparency.

When playing 4E, everyone at the table knows (or at least can know, if they read the rules) what the rules are. In every previous edition, only one person at the table has complete knowledge of the rules. The others have some clues and beliefs, but at the margins at the very least they are just guessing.

So, my list would be:

1e - Adventure! (both the written adventures, and for introducing us to adventuring RPG)
2e - Worlds (for showing how far adventuring could take us)
3e - Breadth (because I think 3e did well pointing up the breadth of game elements, not just character options, that could be incorporated into the system)
4e - Transparency (for finally making the rules something for everyone)

 

[Starfox]

1e: expeditions
2e: settings
3e: characters
4e: encounters
Pathfinder: romances

I replaces 1e's adventures by expeditions ,because the 1e adventure were all about planning and packing and setting out to be away from civilization. And also to differentiate it from Pathfinder.

For pathfinder my first choice of words was adventures, but that was already taken by 1e. So I looked for what separated the two and came up with calling the 1e thing an expedition, and the Pathfinder thing a romance - as in a dramatic tale (not a romantic story). Perhaps saga or epic would be better for Pathfinder, they are basically synonyms.

Well, this in turn conflicts a bit with 2e, stories like Ravenloft and Dragonlance (which were both 1e but is where many people seem to think 2e began) were also romances, but at the same time they were also journeys to discover a setting. And what came during the 2e era was mostly settings - Dark Sun, Planescape, Spelljammer. A 2e adventurer was half tourist, half adventurer, so I agree with "settings" as the descriptive word for 2e.

I like scenes for 4e. I had issues with it at first, and was going to bring forth point-of-light or exploration. But then I realized that they way you explored the points of light in 4E was through encounters. An adventure and even an setting was a series of encounters, scenes each intended to be little show-piece battles. Making a pastiche from the adventure description in Twerps, in 4E "an adventure is a series of interconnected scenes".

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Riffing on that idea about transparency, I would also like to postulate that 3E and 4E both asked, "Why?", and then attempted to answer that question. 1E and 2E did not. (To borrow something that Old Geezer at RPG.net often says in describing OD&D, "We made up some (stuff) we thought would be fun.")

 

[TarionzCousin]

Pathfinder: romance

For pathfinder my first choice of words was adventures, but that was already taken by 1e. So I looked for what separated the two and came up with calling the 1e thing an expedition, and the Pathfinder thing a romance - as in a dramatic tale (not a romantic story). Perhaps saga or epic would be better for Pathfinder, they are basically synonyms.

Perhaps "bromance"?

On a less silly note, I believe Paizo's success with the adventure path/subscription model is their defining characteristic.

 

[Sunseeker]

I've seen this discussion before and what I've seen is:

1e: adventures
2e: settings
3e: characters
4e: encounters

And that seems about right to me.

Now, if only they could distill the essence of that into DDN.

 

[Nellisir]

For pathfinder my first choice of words was adventures, but that was already taken by 1e. So I looked for what separated the two and came up with calling the 1e thing an expedition, and the Pathfinder thing a romance - as in a dramatic tale (not a romantic story). Perhaps saga or epic would be better for Pathfinder, they are basically synonyms.

Saga. Romance has, well, romantic connotations, and epic has rule connotations. And the APs are sagas, I think, but not necessarily epics.

 

[fjw70]

For me the most important part of 4e is the basic mathematical structure that allows for balancing things like classes and encounters, and makes monster creation and tweak a breeze.

 

[Starfox]

Perhaps "bromance"?

On a less silly note, I believe Paizo's success with the adventure path/subscription model is their defining characteristic.

Yeah, and that is what I feel is the romance or saga of the system. It is a sytem for telling these sagas in, less than a system in it's own right.

 

[Raith5]

Another thought for 4e's characterization is:

Teamplay and movie reality

A well-played group of 4e characters is much more powerful than the sum of each character's capability. This was the case in the older editions as well, but nowhere near as much.

The movie reality aspect of encounter and daily powers (it happens when I want it to happen, but not so often as I'd like) led to oh so many heated debates; it has to be part of the definition of 4e's role.

Great points on both counts. Teamplay and team synergies were also facilitated by distinct roles of PCs.

The thing that I find interesting about some of the aspects of cinematic quality of 4th ed is that things like action points and second winds are quite simple mechanisms with huge at the table payoffs.

 

[Starfox]

Please don't make this another edition war thread.