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<blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6137088" data-attributes="member: 6696971"><p>I think part of what is lost in the comparison of the editions is the comparison of the cultures that underwrites expectant playstyles. There are obvious system issues that comprise a table experience but there are system-neutral techniques that are culturally driven. There are also misunderstandings as to what experience the systems (and the voice of its designers - and editors - via the books) are mandating. </p><p></p><p>For instance, take the two below entries of the 2009 4e DMG2 with Robin Laws very prominently featured as a voice:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>A whole lot going on here. One thing is that the scene invokes the aesthetic of classic, serial world exploration play that most expect with D&D. You've got something of a Transition Scene treated as an Action/Exploration Scene. So that cultural pillar is well embraced and advocated for here.</p><p></p><p>However, much more interesting than that is the empowerment of PCs to establish setting around them...outright employment in the effort of authoring the fiction and then the GM runs with it. Can you imagine this sort of DM toolkit/technique advice being in the 2e? It would be utterly anathema to 2e's metagame averse, strident forbidding of PC deviation from actor stance. And yet, I've been using this technique since the mid-90s...well before the "indie renaissance"...smack in the middle of the 2e culture outlined above...and received plenty of sideways glances and sometimes outright ire from new, classic 2e culture-entrenched players.</p><p></p><p>This absolutely does make for a different table experience, and its entirely system-neutral with respect to D&D. Even most of 4e doesn't have specific PC build resources to promulgate this style of play; however, there are some explicitly bound up in Rituals and Themes and implied in Backgrounds. Its primarily just a technique that creates a table aesthetic which is dynamically in opposition with classic 2e play.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>A classic trope of classic OD&D play onward. What's most interesting here is that it is entirely at odds with many folks utter misconception that 4e GMs are expected to never, ever put the PCs in unwinnable combat scenarios...typically alleged that there is some sort of (unwritten but implicit) doctrine built into the system that forbids it because combat is acutely balanced (and therefore predictable in output); the fallacy of "entitlement 4e play."</p><p></p><p>Tons of system-neutral, cultural elements at work (or phantoms of cultural elements) that either endorse techniques, abhor them, or invoke them as omnipresent or explicit (in order to dismiss them) when they are not so...or at least their function in play as a table dynamic is misunderstood or misrepresented.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Manbearcat, post: 6137088, member: 6696971"] I think part of what is lost in the comparison of the editions is the comparison of the cultures that underwrites expectant playstyles. There are obvious system issues that comprise a table experience but there are system-neutral techniques that are culturally driven. There are also misunderstandings as to what experience the systems (and the voice of its designers - and editors - via the books) are mandating. For instance, take the two below entries of the 2009 4e DMG2 with Robin Laws very prominently featured as a voice: A whole lot going on here. One thing is that the scene invokes the aesthetic of classic, serial world exploration play that most expect with D&D. You've got something of a Transition Scene treated as an Action/Exploration Scene. So that cultural pillar is well embraced and advocated for here. However, much more interesting than that is the empowerment of PCs to establish setting around them...outright employment in the effort of authoring the fiction and then the GM runs with it. Can you imagine this sort of DM toolkit/technique advice being in the 2e? It would be utterly anathema to 2e's metagame averse, strident forbidding of PC deviation from actor stance. And yet, I've been using this technique since the mid-90s...well before the "indie renaissance"...smack in the middle of the 2e culture outlined above...and received plenty of sideways glances and sometimes outright ire from new, classic 2e culture-entrenched players. This absolutely does make for a different table experience, and its entirely system-neutral with respect to D&D. Even most of 4e doesn't have specific PC build resources to promulgate this style of play; however, there are some explicitly bound up in Rituals and Themes and implied in Backgrounds. Its primarily just a technique that creates a table aesthetic which is dynamically in opposition with classic 2e play. A classic trope of classic OD&D play onward. What's most interesting here is that it is entirely at odds with many folks utter misconception that 4e GMs are expected to never, ever put the PCs in unwinnable combat scenarios...typically alleged that there is some sort of (unwritten but implicit) doctrine built into the system that forbids it because combat is acutely balanced (and therefore predictable in output); the fallacy of "entitlement 4e play." Tons of system-neutral, cultural elements at work (or phantoms of cultural elements) that either endorse techniques, abhor them, or invoke them as omnipresent or explicit (in order to dismiss them) when they are not so...or at least their function in play as a table dynamic is misunderstood or misrepresented. [/QUOTE]
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