Does The Game reward creative thinking? Do the rules favour creative thinking over optimization? The answer to that is "no".
Party Optimization still primarily rewards mathematicians. And, to a lesser extent, the Tactician.
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It requires cleverness, but isn't the same as a clever plan or thinking out of the box.
You didn't answer my question. Why is casting Infravision on the thief so s/he can scout "clever" or "creative", but using Come and Get It to bunch up the enemies so the wizard can Thunderwave them over the cliff not?
Why is using Rock to Mud to drop the cavern roof on a dragon "creative", but using the power of an idol of the Summer Queen to dispel a black dragon's darkness not?
Why is staying back and using archery against D&Dnext hobgoblins "clever", but using Parthian archery against hobgoblin infantry in a 4e game not?
In one of the first 4e sessions I ran, the player of a paladin spoke a prayer to the Raven Queen to get combat advantage against a Wight (and I was able to resolve this before [MENTION=64825]wrecan[/MENTION] had written an article on the website suggesting guidelines for doing so). Why is that "creative" in an old school game but "inside the box" for 4e?
I've played hundreds of hours of 4e. Quite a bit of my play experience is written up on actual play posts on this site. Telling me that, simply because of the system we were using, none of that play was clever or thinking outside the box
is insulting. And I'm not sure who this "Tactician" is that you speak of so dismissively. S/he sounds like the "skilled player" whom Gygax lauds in his PHB and DMG. But in fact 4e doesn't reward only that player - because of its level-based rather than "objective" DCs it rewards Fate or MHRP-style gonzoism in play as well as traditional tactical play. I know because I've seen this - for instance, the tiefling paladin who has been set alight by his own ally, and charges among the hobgoblins threatening to set
them on fire, the same character doing a "Gandalf" to follow Vecna down the side of a cliff and stab him with his sword, the sorcerer using Bedevelling Burst to upset the service of jellies at a formal dinner, thereby demonstrating how one might defeat a gelatinous cube in combat. These are all things that have happened in my game, that were clever and creative at the time, that remain so in retrospect, and frankly that couldn't have happened in any other version of D&D but that 4e - mostly
because of its mechanical similarity to games like Fate and MHRP - allowd to happen.
And not a single comma in that paragraph is wrong. I love 4e dearly, but there is no denying that "smart play" has been moving more and more towards finding the right combination of powers, as to take down any monster that might come along. That is the whole point of the CharOp Class Guides
When you say "there is no denying", how am I expected to respond to that rhetorical move?
I mean, I deny it. I have players in my 4e group who have read the CharOp class guides and think that they're wrong - that they pay insufficient attention, for example, to the utility of an ability in actual play rather than in some theoretical mathematical situation. I have players who have chosen a power upon level up by looking through a few books during the session and settling on one that looks useful/interesting to them.
Furthermore, what is the quintessence of classic D&D play? Emphasised by Gygax himself in his PHB, as well as by other authors of the period? It is the MU (and to a slightly lesser extent the cleric) choosing the right spell load out - which is optimised-combo-PC-building, but once per ingame day rather than once per level, and so measured in ingame rather than metagame terms. Schwalb even notes as much in his article! Does anyone think there won't be "class guides" for D&Dnext, advising on which spells are better and which aren't? (Especially given that there are quite subtle parameters to work with, given spell scaling plus tightly rationed high level spells.)
It's tricky to even play 4e non-optimized, as some amount of munchkining is assumed. The math assumes characters are stacking their to-hit stat and actively taking ability boosts to that stat, and taking complimentary feats and magic items while actively perusing your combat role. Being less effective hurts the entire party who is expected to synergize and all contribute equally to their role.
How is D&Dnext going to be any different in this respect? It still has to hit and damage bonuses that are driven by a main stat. It still has stat-gains and feats. It still has magic items, and players can have desires for those items and have their PCs search the gameworld for them.
It's not as if, in AD&D, the fighters didn't load upon on magic weapons and armour while letting the MUs and clerics take the wands and staves!
As soon as someone says "that isn't my experience with X" I begin mentally checking out of the argument.
Fair enough. I guess I think my experiences with game systems (including both 4e and AD&D) are relevant to assessing the claim that 4e ruined the great roleplaying that was at the core of AD&D play. Didn't see it, didn't happen.
I wasn't actually that annoyed by Schwalb's post - it's no different from dozens of other things I've read along those lines over the past 5 or 6 years. It's the rush of people to defend him, and explain how there is actually no denying that 3E and 4e did wreck the heart and soul of D&D, that's surprising. As someone who has found 4e to be the first edition of D&D to really give full effect to the promise I was made by the Foreword to Moldvay Basic, why am I precluded from denying that it wrecked the game? I think it
realised the game.
How often have you spent the entire first session doing character creation? Should it take three or four hours to make a character.
This is a completely different point. It can take a whole session to make characters for Classic Traveller. Fate Core expects making characters to take a whole session. So does Burning Wheel. Are these all games that have destroyed roleplaying in the interests of munchkinisation?