D&D 4E Are powers samey?

[Garthanos]

I don't see how that's floogerelevant.

You are so being floogish about it now.

 

[pemerton]

Or all other activities and no combat at all... sorry does not follow a game day has to include any combat. And all those non-combat encounters in 4e can be fully flushed and provide experience to the pcs. Nor does a session have to be an entire day if you are only playing a couple of hours ie it just does not follow.

You can take a folding chess board and hit someone over the head with it. You may even be able to hurt someone, possibly badly, but it doesn't make that chess board a good weapon.

If you're meaning to imply that 4e is not suitable for playing sessions with combats, I strongly disagree. Here are two actua play pots of combat-free 4e sessions.

But I don't think 4e is well-suited to a combat free campaign. That would make too much of PC buil irrelevant.

 

[pemerton]

everything you said about cool variety of narrative bits can be lifted out of this conversation and placed into a 5E conversation, or a GURPS conversation. You can't make a case for a mechanical system this way. It may be true that YOU find 4E delivers the best quality. But you have not given any reason for me to stop seeing the problems I see in 4E. You just keep repeating your own personal praise.

As I've said a few times now. Everything is relative. I think that there are other systems which run circles around 4E at delivering these scenarios. Clearly you disagree. Cool. But history, and the fact that this thread exists, suggest that there are a meaningful number of TTRPG fans who find some other game to be better than 4E.

I don't see how this has any bearing on whether or not 4e powers are "samey".

Unless "samey" is just a synonmy for "disliked". But that doesn't seem to be how it's being used. It seems to be used as an explanation and a reason for dislike.

I'm saying that the underlying math produces the same range of controlled, predictable, "balanced" results.

Again, this doesn't read like its just a tautology of "I don't like it". It reads like it is intended as an explanation. In which case I think it's reasonable for @Manbearcat, or someone else (eg me) to ask what this is supposed to mean. What are the "predictable results". Which results? The outcomes of a combat? Of a skill challenge? Of an attack roll? Of a campaign? And predictable by whom?

It wold be helpful if you explained what exactly you mean by "the math", and how you think it is related to results. (Eg from past posts, and maybe some upthread in this thread, you seem to think it's a really big deal in 4e that a 10th level wizard with 8 STR has +4 to Athletics checks rather than -1, but I've never been clear what you think the significance of this is to actual play, nor what results you think it leads to that may or may not be predictable or predicted.)

also maybe I missed it but can we talk about Star Wars Saga Edition? that was basically a dry run for 4e and much more well received by the community as a whole. like I knew at least one guy who LOVED Saga edition despite "needing miniatures" but absolutely hated 4e for some reason, and I feel like it part of it was not trying to package all it's classes the same way.

I don't know anything about SWSE. But this thing about "packaging classes the same way" keeps recurring. As if what makes Class A differ from Class B is the level at which it gets an ability, or the recharge rate of that ability, or the mechanical minutiae whereby that ability is resolved.

None of that is relevant to the fiction created by play. It's all just features of the real world experience of PC-build processes and action resolution processes. Strange that a game that was attacked for its "dissociated" (ie metagame) mechanics should also be disliked because it differentiates characters in terms of their effect on the fiction rather than in terms of the real-world sensations and decision-procedures associated with playing them.

 

[FrogReaver]

I always thought even when playing AD&D to get player involvement in the game world the best way was to bounce off of what they were doing and wanting and start that off I had players coming up with where they were from including custom races we built allowing a huge changes to the details of a sometimes vaguely defined part of my game world all centered around their character. Players definitely influenced plot from the get go with all this but also the things they showed interest in I made important... avoiding the dead end thoughts. Was this encouraged by the game? maybe not but it wasn't inhibited either.

you messed up the quote. Someone else was responsible for those words, not me.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

No worries! I mean, I'm sure you're right. After all, I wasn't part of that war. I've only observed the fallout since then.

And I must say, all of this back and forth of trying to logically prove subjective opinions has been so very productive! I've seen tons of people convinced!

Person after person has been like, "Wait a minute. You know what? That thing I liked? I don't like it. Because ... LOGIC!"

Oh, no, the exact opposite of that! That's what I meant.




yawn Years, you say? What's the return on that investment? About the same as people that have spent year "proving" 4e was a "good game" I'd gather.

You know what has a better ROI? The stock market! Ha! What? Too soon?

Playing the game you like. That has a better ROI.



You know, I hate to break it to you, but it's not really the people that don't like 4e that have a very emotional investment anymore.

Look at this thread (or any other). There are those who are like, "4e has to be awesome, because LOGIC!" And others are all, "Whatever, like what you like." And then the return is, "NO. I DEMAND THAT YOU CANNOT LIKE WHAT YOU LIKE! YOU MUST RECANT YOUR HERESY! SAME-Y IS NOT SUBJECTIVE! IT IS A PLATONIC IDEAL! LET ME SPEND 500 MORE COMMENT FORUM-SPLAINING THIS TO YOU!"

So, yeah. Like what you like. Even, um, the same-y stuff.



sigh Because it's not about evidence. One more time, people like what they like. I have a friend who only watches anime. She doesn't like "real stuff" like the great programs on HBO, or Netflix, or whatever. I can provide all the evidence in the world that both things touch on the same subject matter, and so on and so forth, but it's about preferences.

Heck, I got in a bit of a spat with @doctorbadwolf because I think 5e attack cantrip's are "same-y" and he doesn't. Neither of us are right, or wrong, it's just a difference in our preferences and opinions.

Once again, people like what they like.



Dude, are you being sarcastic?
Dude, I don't even know anymore.



Or, in the alternative, try this out. Someone doesn't like something. Fin.

This is so weird to me. I like James T. Kirk more than Picard. Why? Well, it has to do with Kirk's more action-oriented persona.

BUT WAIT ...

What about the casual sexism? Does that mean that Picard NEVER had action sequences? Do I hate Picard? What about Sisko?

Couldn't this just be a shortened form that also takes into account a lot of other factors, including things like, "I have an inherent appreciation of the camp of TOS" and "Kirk ties into an ineffable feeling of nostalgia that is personal to me due to when I first saw him," and "There is a bizarre nexus between the on-screen Kirk and the James Blish novels that I read" and "I have an appreciation for that which came first and set the template," and "Kirk, as a necessary counterpoint to Spock (and to a lesser extent McCoy) embodies something necessary in the human spirit to me."

Maybe. Or maybe I just like seeing Kirk getting his shirt ripped up on a same-y looking planet that resembles Calabasas.

Don't yuck on someone else's yum.

While I agree with you on this, perhaps if someone doesn’t want to be challenged on their dislike of something, calling it a somewhat insulting term isn’t the best way to state their dislike.

Because “samey” doesn’t equal “dislike”. See, for instance how many people think comics are “kinda dumb and nonsensical”, but also love comics. Others say that about comics because they don’t like comics. They haven’t just stated dislike, they’ve invited a challenge to their statement.

same deal here. Saying that 4e powers are samey ain’t just a statement of dislike.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Bingo!

Ever see two people talking about, say, basketball? And one person ("A") says, "I love basketball because of X, Y, and Z." And the other person ("B") is all like, "Whatever, all you have to is watch the last two minutes of the game."

Now, no matter how much A tries to basketball-splain things to B, no matter how much A tries to cajole, bully, set up advanced rhetorical exercises, and even put up advanced and lengthy examples of how basketball games work and DEMAND that B explain how his position can be true ....

A is missing the point. Because it's really a synecdoche about preferences. B doesn't like basketball. So to B, it's all a bunch of nonsense and people running and sweating and then, with two minutes left, some team will try and win.

You can't make someone like what they don't like. And one person's "same-y wame-y" is another person's "exciting tactical decision points."

Right, so B should just say they don’t like it.

 

[FrogReaver]

Right, so B should just say they don’t like it.

Then you (or someone) will ask why they don't like it... then we will be right back where we are now.

Either that or not saying why will be used as evidence that we don't have any reasons or any good reasons for disliking it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

5e suffers from a similar issue. If you only give the PCs one fight in a day, they are going to smash the living daylights out of it. In any day in which you have an encounter, you have to have 6-8 of them or the game breaks down.

I’ve never had any issue challenging players in either edition with a single fight in a day.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Then you (or someone) will ask why they don't like it... then we will be right back where we are now.

Either that or not saying why will be used as evidence that we don't have any reasons or any good reasons for disliking it.

Not really.

Or folks could at least start with subjective statements, rather than objective statements that many pages later they clarify were meant to be subjective.

eg, 4e felt samey to me, for whatever reason/for these specific reasons/.

Because saying the game is samey is an objective statement that doesn’t make any sense to anyone who doesn’t easily experience the “overwhelmed by choice” reaction to 20 different models of same-year sedans.

When a person sees an objective statement about something with which they are very familiar, and that statement seems nonsensical and even directly opposite the observed state of the thing from their own familiar POV, they will challenge that statement.

This is why “this band/song sucks” gets an and some attempt at explanation of how objectively good at making music the band is or whatever, from people who are familiar with the genre and style and specific band, and can recognize technical proficiency and a well built composition.
Yes, the underpinning reaction that creates “this band sucks” is subjective, but the statement itself is not, and tends to indicate ignorance more often than simply linguistic laziness.