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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dormammu" data-source="post: 3951583" data-attributes="member: 28738">A big part of the reduction in role-playing is the reduction in realism.  Of course, realism in a fantastic setting is often a touchy subject as not everyone agrees what level of realism makes sense.1E had a very brutal sense of realism (whether it was truly realistic or not).  The number of things that could easily kill you was legion.  Poisons and diseases were brutal and omnipresent.  The number of hazards like slimes, molds, rot grub and throat leeches, that could completely demolish a character for touching the wrong thing, was astonishing.  While some might see this as capricious, it had too great effects:First, it forced players to learn caution.  Caution in the face of danger is more realistic and, in fact, is more in line with the stories that inspire FRPG.  You do not want to make a mistake in old D&D.  You are slow and methodical and cautious.And this informs the second effect... it drew you into the world.  When you were exploring a room in some dungeon, you had to pay attention to the details given by the DM.  You were really on edge expecting traps, ambushes or, hopefully, hidden riches.The map focus of modern D&D is incredibly destructive to realism as well.  Giving players that level of omniscient environmental awareness makes them behave in a very "tactical wargame" fashion.  All sorts of unrealistic fighting tactics evolve from having the bird's eye view (as well as the often assumed player knowledge of monster abilites).The big thing 4E is doing in this regard is balancing classes beyond the bounds of realism.  Removing the immunity to sneak attacks from various monsters is an example of this.  Letting Rogues do über damage in every combat situation is now more important than Rogues being role-played as non-fighters.  I wish they were still called Thiefs. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" />I'll repeat what I've said elsewhere: D&D is moving toward <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordheim" target="_blank">Mordheim</a>; if you don't think that game would be a fun roleplaying game, then you already realize there is a point where combat-orientation is taken too far.  Will 4E cross that invisible line?  Maybe for some people, yes.</blockquote>

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