D&D 4E Are powers samey?

[Minigiant]

Meh. It's all about personal preference which makes you see sameyness or not. Most games only have a few ways to do things if they have multiple methods at all. All players are using the same 1 or 2 systems all the time session after session.

It's all personal preference of mechanics, genre, tone, and style..

 

[Garthanos]

You are also describing a concept I could get fully behind if I was in the mood for a tactical battle game.

That has nothing to do with tactics everything to do with let down.

In an RPG, it is to me all about the story. A situation in which normally inferior combatant

Also known as mooks or nameless characters not under dogs nor the guys anyone is rooting for just schmucks that you will not remember later differentiated with a number behind their designation in most movies.

get the drop on a party who is weakened could easily be an outstanding bit of tension and excitement. And knowing that choices matter is important also.

Yes they should have made that choice to stay home or counted their torches and potions more or did some other bookkeeping work.

It is explicitly a drag "a disappointing end to an exciting or impressive series of events." Change definitions so that has anything to do with tactics and you are just projecting something.

The hero/protagonist of the story dies to a random hit and run car crash or mugging while walking home after saving the world, not sure exactly what its about honestly but that is just not heroic fiction or typical story fair in general.

Heck it seems pretty obvious it's far more about heroic tropes than tactics.

But the fact that you defend 4E for aligning with those words fits perfectly with my lack of desire to play 4E.

The fact that you think dying to a random faceless mook is "good story" and can present not wanting that as being about wanting a tactical game fits perfectly with me not even want to attend any of the same entertainment that you do let alone game at your table.

 

[Garthanos]

Gygax wrote about why he was against critical hits ... he brought up Conan declaring that there was no way Conan would be taken out by some random arrow from out the crowd. Not sure how he let that philosophy of heroic play live alongside a game with save or dies but... its a genre trope really.

 

[Manbearcat]

@BryonD

Can we please talk about games rather than talking about how to talk about games?

I gave you (well, everyone) a very detailed combat scenario above with an embedded non-combat conflict and a clear loss condition (the NPC dies due to being unable to free them from the machine before the beginning of round 4). Can you envision the likely decision-tree faced by any character archetype that you like (or pick a character out of the two groups of 4)? Talk about how that decision-tree, the actions taken, how you envision the combat evolving as a result of those actions taken, and how you see the subsequent decision-trees and actions taken working out such that the experience of it feels "samey" to you.

That would help me immensely understand what (exactly it is) you're feeling and why (the machinery) you're feeling it and why you don't feel it when you play other games.

I had a Magic The Gathering conversation in another thread and a poster helped me understand why he felt "sameyness" through the prism of Magic deck-building. That was helpful (for me at least).

 

[FrogReaver]

Yes, that does help, because I think many of us very strongly disagree with this statement. If they play differently, they aren’t samey.

I don't think you should disagree with that. It's possible to play similarly from one viewpoint and still play differently from another.

The difference is one of "focus" - which is why there are so many points that nearly all RPG's on some level are mostly the same - and those are valid points I might add. That's not the level I'm viewing 4e on though - because if it were then I'd agree that 4e and 5e are the same - which has been the most common refrain against my position.

Instead I'd like to suggest a different take to you - that 4e is actually samey from my viewpoint in ways that 5e is not - while form your viewpoint 5e is samey in ways 4e is not. I suggest both views are valid and that what we should instead be discussing are the ways in which 4e is samey and the ways in which 5e is samey and the ways in which they differ.

I think the most important difference is that whatever way 5e is samey it is samey in ways that most rpg fans have accepted (or that never bothered them in the first place).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't think you should disagree with that. It's possible to play similarly from one viewpoint and still play differently from another.

In general, don't try to tell people what they should agree or disagree with. It makes it much less likely that someone is going to give the least damn what you have to say after that.

I think the most important difference is that whatever way 5e is samey it is samey in ways that most rpg fans have accepted (or that never bothered them in the first place).

Why on earth would that be important, even if we agree that it indicated anything about the actual game, rather than about what the games look like at shallow glance, which I don't?

The only argument I've seen without scoffing for the supposed sameyness of 4e is that too many options packaged in the same format, in a system where you have to review several every round and every time you level up, and where reading a class involves reading dozens of them, cause many players' eyes to glaze over and stop actually reading what the powers do. In 5e, those players don't play casters, IME, and don't choose Battlemaster fighter, or if they do, the least fun part of the experience is choosing their limited-use packaged abilities (ie, their powers).

The thing is, that is a wholly separate and distinct thing from powers actually being samey. It's like if someone goes to a car lot, and they spend too much time reviewing 10 different models of sedan from the same group of years (ignoring the 2000's, in which the manufacturers managed to make dozens of sedans in name, but only about 4 in practice), and eventually feeling like they're all the same. ANyone who actually knows the vehicles knows that they each have different interiors, safety and luxury features, quality and cost of parts (ie how long they'll last and how much they cost to fix or replace), they accelerate differently, handle differently, etc, and that even the casual driver would know the difference if they just had 2 or 3 to choose from. They objectively aren't samey, insofar as samey can have a useful meaning.

But if "samey" can include "they drive very differently and owning own vs the other is a significantly different experience" then samey isn't a word with a coherent, sensible, usable, definition. At all. You might as well be saying 4e powers are floogerely.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

@BryonD

Can we please talk about games rather than talking about how to talk about games?

I gave you (well, everyone) a very detailed combat scenario above with an embedded non-combat conflict and a clear loss condition (the NPC dies due to being unable to free them from the machine before the beginning of round 4). Can you envision the likely decision-tree faced by any character archetype that you like (or pick a character out of the two groups of 4)? Talk about how that decision-tree, the actions taken, how you envision the combat evolving as a result of those actions taken, and how you see the subsequent decision-trees and actions taken working out such that the experience of it feels "samey" to you.

That would help me immensely understand what (exactly it is) you're feeling and why (the machinery) you're feeling it and why you don't feel it when you play other games.

I had a Magic The Gathering conversation in another thread and a poster helped me understand why he felt "sameyness" through the prism of Magic deck-building. That was helpful (for me at least).

Related to my other post, above, I think that magic the gathering feels "samey" for some people for exactly the same reason 4e does, even though there is an incredible amount of difference in what the things actually do while you are playing the game.

A person stares at the choices, and reads them all, and tries to understand them all, and the math that underpins them, and for many people doing this for a certain threshold of powers or cards leads to an "eyes glaze over and I don't care anymore" effect, where it might as well be all the same. Most people don't self-evaluate all that much, so might as well be and is aren't easily distinguished.

They experience "sameyness", even though the powers and cards are actually very, very, different from one another.

Give them 2-5 choices, or even a dozen choices that they'll only usually be considering half of at a time, and even if those choices are more similar, they can easily seem less similar, because the "overwhelmed by too many options that each require some review to understand" effect doesn't kick in. The rogue and fighter are vastly more different in 4e than in any other edition. Two rogues are more different from eachother in 4e than in any other edition. But that doesn't matter to someoen who has hit that wall. In 5e, they look at the rogue, they know that they get a handful of stuff early on, and they can choose between 3-12+ (depending on PHB only vs all sourcebooks) archetypes that will also give them a few things early on. It's...grokable, for people who don't thrive on huge numbers of options and in depth customization.

5e also puts it's depth of customization behind a screen, and walks you through a little maze where most times you make a choice the last choice and the next choice are both out of sight. You're very rarely choosing between dozens of things that fill the same category at once, unless you're choosing spells.

IME, people who experience sameyness in 4e, or MtG, or indeed in GURPS, don't love being told it's a perception of sameyness, not actual sameyness, but...it is. It's caused by the countertintuitive fact that many humans stop seeing distinctions between the options in front of them when there are too many options in front of them.

 

[Oofta]

Defining something as nebulous as "samey" is always going to come down to a personal definition. I gave a longer explanation back on the first page or so.

I would just say that nobody is right or wrong on this. I've used the term myself to describe 4E now and then because the decision points and design structure were the same for all classes. When running a PC the powers just kind of blurred together, the analysis I went through as a player during combat was the same.

With other editions of D&D I always felt like how I played a PC with different classes was more distinct.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Len]

I've used the term myself to describe 4E now and then because the decision points and design structure were the same for all classes.
...
With other editions of D&D I always felt like how I played a PC with different classes was more distinct.

That was exactly my feeling after playing a paladin and a wizard in two 4e campaigns.