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<blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5961075" data-attributes="member: 54877">As you have explained, the primary differences between 3E and 4E are not the mechanical underpinnings.&nbsp; Rather, they are:<ul>
<li data-xf-list-type="ul">The deliberate scaling back of magic and scaling up of martial abilities in attempt to deal with the CoDzilla issues, and other such problems that the 3E changes magnified compared to prior versions.</li>
<li data-xf-list-type="ul">A complete reversal on the illusionism that I've been talking about.</li>
</ul>On that latter one, 3E went to great pains to preserve the illusion, going so far as in a few places as to write flavor text that was not in any way congruent with the mechanics.&nbsp; 4E did a complete 180 degree pivot, aggressively wiping out the illusion in favor of transparent mechanics.&nbsp; The mechanics themselves are a logical refinement of 3E.&nbsp;I begin to suspect that part of the back and forth on this issue is competing definitions of &quot;design&quot;.&nbsp; For me, it is something related to engineering or architecture, with artistic and even ornamentation stacked on top.&nbsp; I think that for others something like the 2E approach of &quot;write some text to tell you what the author had in mind&quot; is &quot;design&quot;.&nbsp; 4E is not the polar opposite of 3E, but the polar opposite of 2E, with 3E somewhere in the middle.&nbsp; Or you can think of the textual shift from 1E to 2E as similar to the reverse shift from 3E to 4E--even though 1E and 2E mechanics are very close to the same thing.&nbsp;When 3E radically changed the mechanics but went to such pains to preserve the textual shift that had happened from 1E to 2E, it created the illusion that it was a smaller change than it was, for some people.&nbsp; And the funny thing was, those of us who were about sick of the mechanical implementation flaws of AD&amp;D (while still liking some of the AD&amp;D broader design principles), had already dismissed 2E mechanics as all illusion, and thus didn't mind that 3E was such a change.&nbsp; A pretty neat trick that, convincing two different groups you've got their backs.&nbsp; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />&nbsp;I also begin to understand the furor over the early 3E marketing push of &quot;Back to the Dungeon&quot;.&nbsp; This was one of the few things that went against the illusion they were otherwise maintaining.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Crazy Jerome, post: 5961075, member: 54877"] As you have explained, the primary differences between 3E and 4E are not the mechanical underpinnings. Rather, they are: [LIST] [*]The deliberate scaling back of magic and scaling up of martial abilities in attempt to deal with the CoDzilla issues, and other such problems that the 3E changes magnified compared to prior versions. [*]A complete reversal on the illusionism that I've been talking about. [/LIST]On that latter one, 3E went to great pains to preserve the illusion, going so far as in a few places as to write flavor text that was not in any way congruent with the mechanics. 4E did a complete 180 degree pivot, aggressively wiping out the illusion in favor of transparent mechanics. The mechanics themselves are a logical refinement of 3E. I begin to suspect that part of the back and forth on this issue is competing definitions of "design". For me, it is something related to engineering or architecture, with artistic and even ornamentation stacked on top. I think that for others something like the 2E approach of "write some text to tell you what the author had in mind" is "design". 4E is not the polar opposite of 3E, but the polar opposite of 2E, with 3E somewhere in the middle. Or you can think of the textual shift from 1E to 2E as similar to the reverse shift from 3E to 4E--even though 1E and 2E mechanics are very close to the same thing. When 3E radically changed the mechanics but went to such pains to preserve the textual shift that had happened from 1E to 2E, it created the illusion that it was a smaller change than it was, for some people. And the funny thing was, those of us who were about sick of the mechanical implementation flaws of AD&D (while still liking some of the AD&D broader design principles), had already dismissed 2E mechanics as all illusion, and thus didn't mind that 3E was such a change. A pretty neat trick that, convincing two different groups you've got their backs. ;) I also begin to understand the furor over the early 3E marketing push of "Back to the Dungeon". This was one of the few things that went against the illusion they were otherwise maintaining. [/QUOTE]

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