Are we allowed to be excited for the system, but not D&D?

[Kzach]

I've always held that the rules are not the world. Yes, there are some aspects of a rules system that cascade down into world-design, however they're not the be all and end all and do not dictate your fluff.

The default system might have low magic, nothing stops you from having high-magic however. I find altering a system on this level is fundamentally pretty straightforward and easy without any major redesign.

So yes, you're allowed to like the system and not the fluff. Hell, most of what I don't like about 4e so far is all fluff. Dragonborn... pish-tosh, not in my world!

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Well, I'm glad we aren't going that far back.

I had a game in which I was playing a loyal spy that returned back to his home city. In a later game, I referenced how, if I died, at least my masters had learned the valuable secret I had brought home. My GM told me, "Sorry. You didn't tell me that you told them X, you just said 'I report in'."

I know what you mean. I had one DM who told us all that since we didn't say we tied up our horses before going to sleep that they all wandered away in the middle of the night.

In another game, with a different DM, we put an important item in the saddlebags of our horses and had the warforged watch over the camp all night as he didn't have to sleep. The DM made the warforged make a spot check and then said all our horses were gone in the morning. When we asked how high the spot check was to watch horses walk away from the camp in the middle of the night, he responded "You never said the warforged was outside watching the horses, so I assumed he was in the tent."

 

[Moon-Lancer]

A revelation came today to me when I was looking at the wotc website info on 4e. I don't care much for elves, dragon-borne-spawn-things, Forgotten Realms, magic-item-dependency, beholders, drow, gods-as-a-plot-device, or planescape-isms that seem to be amongst the most iconic aspects of what-is-D&D.

On the other hand, I'm really excited about the new rules without all the D&Disms.

Am I allowed to think that way or am I a grognard? Anyone else in the same boat?

jh

Pritty much. Welcome to the club?

 

[Korgoth]

I think most people would definitely call me a grognard (although I lack a beard, at present -- hah ). I think separating the system from the "D&D" label is a useful thing. I have no interest at all in 4E, as far as it being my "new D&D." 4E (and even 3E, for that matter) don't seem like D&D, to me, and 4E won't be a replacement/upgrade/new D&D, for me. However, I still think 4E has some interesting features, design-wise. It's a different approach that caters to a different kind of game from the old editions. I don't see myself ever running a 4E game, but I'd happily play in one, now and then -- it may not seem like D&D to me (and I stress the "to me" part, here -- if it feels like D&D to you, I have no argument with you), but it looks like it's a well-designed system that's probably fun to play, regardless.

I have developed a similar view. D&D is OD&D74 to me. I have pretty much all I'll ever need for that and can happily run campaigns in it for the rest of my life, if I can get players. But many of the mechanics in this crazy new fantasy battles role playing game sound kind of fun to play around with, so I'm looking forward to trying it out. I won't necessarily think of it as D&D, but it looks like fun (and WOTC was good enough to make the OD&D PDFs available for a modest fee, thereby ensuring that the One True Game is forever in print). Also, I'm not too worried about "wonky fluff" because fluff is always at the mercy of the DM anyway.

 

[ZetaStriker]

I don't mind 'DnDisms' too much... I haven't been DMing too long(maybe a year or two of on-again off-again play), and the group I'll be started 4E with will have little to no DnD experience, so we haven't really grown tired of a more traditional setting yet. I don't use Greyhawk though, although I do steal bits and pieces of flavor from time to time when creating our fantasy world.

 

[med stud]

You are allowed to be excited about anything you want. There is no list of accepted things to be excited about.

 

[Bluenose]

I was never fond of a lot of the D&D "fluff" in the past, which didn't stop me playing it. Not liking some of the new "fluff" won't stop me playing 4e either. What will stop me is if I don't like the rules.

 

[Voss]

Pretty much how I feel about it- the fluff and some of the default concepts cause a lot of teeth-grinding, but I can rip those out. But the rules need to be good, and need to jettison a lot of garbage that accumulated in 3rd. It looks like it will, so I am cautiously 'hopetimistic'.

But yeah, the absurd horde of sentient races, sub-races, bestiality-crossbreed fetishisms, and all that are getting jettisoned with extreme prejudice.

 

[WayneLigon]

Am I allowed to think that way or am I a grognard? Anyone else in the same boat?

The system is really all I've ever cared about. I've rarely used the things that lot of other people mention that 'define D&D' to them: the look and feel of certain monsters, for instance.

 

[Jackelope King]

The system is really all I've ever cared about. I've rarely used the things that lot of other people mention that 'define D&D' to them: the look and feel of certain monsters, for instance.

See also: this. I don't think I've ever used beholders, or half of the critters in the MM as written, and I tend to shred campaign settings and then glue patches of them back together to get the game to play the way I want. D&Disms can go rot and it'd still be D&D to me, so long as it was about getting together with my buddies, killing monsters, taking their stuff, rolling funny-shaped dice, and the races basically all being humans with funny-shaped ears. Oh, and a big barrel of cheese puffs. That's quintessential D&D.