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<blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6012640" data-attributes="member: 6696971"><p>Understood. I won't try to convince you otherwise. We were discussing a pretty narrow issue - does 4e support "exploratory play"? I contend that it does and I contend that the same game I've run from Basic onward is what I run with 4e (only it is better supported). That game is not a heroic action movie game nor is it a tactical skirmish game. I would say that my game actually has a large swath of diversity of playstyle and "mood/tone/feel." Given that I can play all of the various ways that I always have (including "Exploratory Play" and "Appalachian Trail Attrition" - and I feel that these are extremely well supported by the Skill Challenge and Disease/Condition Track mechancs) and now my Narrative/Meta-game and Gamist preferences are more supported than ever, empirically, I cannot logically state anything other than I feel the game is more inclusionary than ever. </p><p> </p><p>I really don't want to get into an exceedingly, edition-warry broad topic. I know all of the issues that detractors have with the edition;</p><p> </p><p>- from the dismissive editorialising - "get to the fun" </p><p>- to the unified mechanics structure/homogenization of classses</p><p>- to the siloing/constraining of magical utility</p><p>- to the tactical depth/granularity of combat (and its corresponding difficulty in playing TotM)</p><p>- to its outcome-based (rather than process-sim) resolution mechanics and monster/threat creation</p><p>- to its overt, "in your face" meta-game mechanics and the deployable player resources allowing (and expecting) author and director stance. </p><p>- to its not including gnomes core classes in phb1 </p><p>- to its inclusion of the Warlord and martial healing</p><p> </p><p>and on and on. I understand all of these issues. They are well-considered, thoughtful positions and I respect them. I still hold that 4e allows me to play every single way that I have ever played before (and provides me more user-friendly tools to do so) and also supports my gamist/narrative tastes. Getting into "why people believe the way they believe" or "feel the way they feel" and thus why was 4e not more popular is not going to get us anywhere. There were/are an enormous number of spokes to that wheel...and I really am not interested in speculating on them anymore. </p><p> </p><p>The most speculation I will do is my first hand anecdotes of why friends (long-time ardent gamers) had the visceral reaction that they did after reading the initial editorials...what those same friends' fundamental nature is outside of gaming...and why they responded the way that they did after those initial reactions. Many of them were unbelievably angry by those initial condescending, patronising words of "get to the fun" and their spite and angst was a palpable thing. I'm pretty sure the designers could have grovelled at their feet and begged for forgiveness - "please take me back" - and it wouldn't have made a lick of difference to the edition's success on that micro-scale. It was shallow, "jilted-lover" type stuff that didn't care one way or another about dissociated mechanics, battlemat grinds, unified mechanics, homogenization of classes, etc. What my micro-anecdote says about any of the macro-issues, I don't know. However, I fully hold that certain friends of mine would have given the edition a chance if it weren't for that fateful introduction to the edition. What percentage they are, I know not. It doesn't matter though because the edition is quite dead and we have moved on. I'm just discussing its support, or lacktherof, relative to other editions, for "exploratory or appalachian trail attrition play". I did ruminate on why, generally, people would be dismissive of this specific range of 4e play due to the fact that I find it a bizarre position to take as I can/have empirically reproduced the playstyle via 4e mechanics (especially given that I've never felt that style of play was specifically supported - outside of secret door checks and some ad-hoc stuff with rolling under ability scores, saving throws, BB/LG stuff and other house-ruled shenanigans...most of the play that pemerton is invoking was more-or-less player negotiation with DM BSing your way through lack of concrete mechanics.). S'mon brought up "get to the fun" so it made a nice segue/lead-in to talk about the impact of that initial editorialising.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Manbearcat, post: 6012640, member: 6696971"] Understood. I won't try to convince you otherwise. We were discussing a pretty narrow issue - does 4e support "exploratory play"? I contend that it does and I contend that the same game I've run from Basic onward is what I run with 4e (only it is better supported). That game is not a heroic action movie game nor is it a tactical skirmish game. I would say that my game actually has a large swath of diversity of playstyle and "mood/tone/feel." Given that I can play all of the various ways that I always have (including "Exploratory Play" and "Appalachian Trail Attrition" - and I feel that these are extremely well supported by the Skill Challenge and Disease/Condition Track mechancs) and now my Narrative/Meta-game and Gamist preferences are more supported than ever, empirically, I cannot logically state anything other than I feel the game is more inclusionary than ever. I really don't want to get into an exceedingly, edition-warry broad topic. I know all of the issues that detractors have with the edition; - from the dismissive editorialising - "get to the fun" - to the unified mechanics structure/homogenization of classses - to the siloing/constraining of magical utility - to the tactical depth/granularity of combat (and its corresponding difficulty in playing TotM) - to its outcome-based (rather than process-sim) resolution mechanics and monster/threat creation - to its overt, "in your face" meta-game mechanics and the deployable player resources allowing (and expecting) author and director stance. - to its not including gnomes core classes in phb1 - to its inclusion of the Warlord and martial healing and on and on. I understand all of these issues. They are well-considered, thoughtful positions and I respect them. I still hold that 4e allows me to play every single way that I have ever played before (and provides me more user-friendly tools to do so) and also supports my gamist/narrative tastes. Getting into "why people believe the way they believe" or "feel the way they feel" and thus why was 4e not more popular is not going to get us anywhere. There were/are an enormous number of spokes to that wheel...and I really am not interested in speculating on them anymore. The most speculation I will do is my first hand anecdotes of why friends (long-time ardent gamers) had the visceral reaction that they did after reading the initial editorials...what those same friends' fundamental nature is outside of gaming...and why they responded the way that they did after those initial reactions. Many of them were unbelievably angry by those initial condescending, patronising words of "get to the fun" and their spite and angst was a palpable thing. I'm pretty sure the designers could have grovelled at their feet and begged for forgiveness - "please take me back" - and it wouldn't have made a lick of difference to the edition's success on that micro-scale. It was shallow, "jilted-lover" type stuff that didn't care one way or another about dissociated mechanics, battlemat grinds, unified mechanics, homogenization of classes, etc. What my micro-anecdote says about any of the macro-issues, I don't know. However, I fully hold that certain friends of mine would have given the edition a chance if it weren't for that fateful introduction to the edition. What percentage they are, I know not. It doesn't matter though because the edition is quite dead and we have moved on. I'm just discussing its support, or lacktherof, relative to other editions, for "exploratory or appalachian trail attrition play". I did ruminate on why, generally, people would be dismissive of this specific range of 4e play due to the fact that I find it a bizarre position to take as I can/have empirically reproduced the playstyle via 4e mechanics (especially given that I've never felt that style of play was specifically supported - outside of secret door checks and some ad-hoc stuff with rolling under ability scores, saving throws, BB/LG stuff and other house-ruled shenanigans...most of the play that pemerton is invoking was more-or-less player negotiation with DM BSing your way through lack of concrete mechanics.). S'mon brought up "get to the fun" so it made a nice segue/lead-in to talk about the impact of that initial editorialising. [/QUOTE]
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