Cynicism of an AD&D refugee

[fanboy2000]

#2: The game that most people say they want probably isn't the game that they *really* want because people are irrational, panicky apes.

I believe 4e's focus on combat, for instance, comes directly from the perception that combat is the most fun thing you can do in D&D, and that perception occurred because combat has been an action-packed central pillar of the game from day one, and the "20 minutes of fun crammed into 4 hours" perception means that fun only happens when the dice are rollin'.

If my personal experience is any indicator, I think 4e's focus on combat comes from people not using many the non-combat portion of the rules when they roleplay. I've DMed a many people who have put points into the either craft or profession under 3rd. In none of those cases did the rules for making money with those skills ever come-up. Sense PC were adventures, the need to make money via Craft (toymaking) as one of my players had, was unnecessary.

The reason the points were spent on the skill was to put it on the character sheet. If the above player wanted to make a toy, he could roll the dice or just take 10. Sometimes he might take 20. The lengthy rules craft and it's sibling had was, for my game, superfluous.

Ironically, I don't think dropping the skills from the game was good idea, only dropping the lengthy rules. I don't think the rules were necessary. But I do think that the skills, as a devise for putting some personality in game terms and having them on a character sheet, was a good idea.

Personally, I've never had a problem with the PCs not roleplaying. My PCs always want to talk to some NPC or another. I just started a new 4e game. One person played 3e a little, another hadn't played sense 2e was current, and a third had never played any kind of roleplaying game ever. Minutes after creating their characters, they wanted to talk to the Lord Warden of the city. Minutes. One players was negotiating with poor farmers for pies.

Six moths ago with an entirely different group comprised of evil power gaming munchkins who live 600 miles from where I stand now, I had them in the City State of the Invincible Overlord. And they insisted on talking to the Overlord. It was a fun encounter, one of the characters got a city-wide bulletin put out about how stupid he was.

Your millage may vary.

 

[Imaro]

but normal standards sure. i felt the difference between the 2 was very comparable given the re-structure of the dmg.

Huh? I was talking about 3.5 core vs. 4e core (including the Monster Manual)...objectively there is a smaller page count over the three books (And less words) in 4e. Yet it costs about the same (accounting for inflation) that 3.5 did for all 3 books.

 

[Cadfan]

This whole "pay by the page" attitude annoys the heck out of me. You're not paying by the page. That's a silly perspective. You're paying for a game. The game is either worth the cost or its not. The number of pages it took to write the game has nothing to do with it. The word count of the game has nothing to do with it.

Go take a short walk over to the board game side of geekdom. i recently purchased a board game that cost me about ten bucks. The components included only four decks of cards, with forty cards per deck. Did I get ripped off? ITS IMPOSSIBLE TO KNOW FROM THE INFORMATION I'VE GIVEN! The thing i bought wasn't the physical deck of cards, it was the game. The game was either worth ten bucks, or it wasn't. If it wasn't, then increasing the number of cards from 160 to 500 wouldn't have made a darn bit of difference if the game itself weren't altered thereby.

Deciding whether an RPG is worth its cost by looking at page count is like deciding whether to date someone based on their mass.

 

[Imaro]

This whole "pay by the page" attitude annoys the heck out of me. You're not paying by the page. That's a silly perspective. You're paying for a game. The game is either worth the cost or its not. The number of pages it took to write the game has nothing to do with it. The word count of the game has nothing to do with it.

Go take a short walk over to the board game side of geekdom. i recently purchased a board game that cost me about ten bucks. The components included only four decks of cards, with forty cards per deck. Did I get ripped off? ITS IMPOSSIBLE TO KNOW FROM THE INFORMATION I'VE GIVEN! The thing i bought wasn't the physical deck of cards, it was the game. The game was either worth ten bucks, or it wasn't. If it wasn't, then increasing the number of cards from 160 to 500 wouldn't have made a darn bit of difference if the game itself weren't altered thereby.

Deciding whether an RPG is worth its cost by looking at page count is like deciding whether to date someone based on their mass.

I'm sorry that annoys you, but I can tell you 4e was the first time I felt the D&D corebooks were thin for the cost. Also since it is a game built on options (powers, races, monsters, classes, feats, rituals, items, etc.) one can judge it by the number of options it offers and since more pages and less whitespace can translate into...well you should get the picture now. How does not having a wider selection of classes, rules, settings, monsters, races, powers, etc...not alter the game?

IMO it does matter. I don't care how fun a one page PDF- only rpg is...I'm not going to think paying $100 was worth it...ever.

 

[Cadfan]

I'm sorry that annoys you, but I can tell you 4e was the first time I felt the D&D corebooks were thin for the cost. Also since it is a game built on options (powers, races, monsters, classes, feats, rituals, items, etc.) one can judge it by the number of options it offers and since more pages and less whitespace can translate into...well you should get the picture now. How does not having a wider selection of classes, rules, settings, monsters, races, powers, etc...not alter the game?

IMO it does matter. I don't care how fun a one page PDF- only rpg is...I'm not going to think paying $100 was worth it...ever.

If you feel that there wasn't enough in there to entertain you for the amount of money spent, that's fine. I disagree. I'm someone who likes playing non magical classes, so you can probably figure out why I like 4e core more than 3e core- 4e made a design choice to focus on depth of class rather than volume of classes. So, we get Fighters that have, in core, as many or more viable choices than Fighters did over the course of years of 3e development. But then we don't get Druids at all. Its a design choice, and you're free to like it or hate it.

But white space is a meaningless metric. The 4e Rogue isn't vastly better than the 3e Rogue because it takes up more pages. Its vastly better because its better written, and doesn't contain absolutely moronic design choices like a decision to make the worth of its attack rolls entirely dependent on whether you take a certain feat that only becomes available at third level.*

And the attitude that says, "I paid X dollars for this product, and there's WHITE SPACE! I've been robbed!" is stunning in just how thoroughly it misses the point.

*lets face it, we'd be ALL OVER that if it happened in 4e.

 

[pawsplay]

Cadfan,

If there are fewer pages and fewer classes, isn't it logical to conclude that if they added a few more pages, they could have included more? Clearly the 4e design is partially at fault by making every class crowd the rulebook, but it seems like including less text only intensifies that problem.

 

[Raven Crowking]

The 4e Rogue isn't vastly better than the 3e Rogue because it takes up more pages. Its vastly better because its better written, and doesn't contain absolutely moronic design choices like a decision to make the worth of its attack rolls entirely dependent on whether you take a certain feat that only becomes available at third level.*

<snip>

*lets face it, we'd be ALL OVER that if it happened in 4e.

Not sure about that. Not sure about that at all.

It was less than a year before the 4e announcement that people were lambastad for pointing out problems with 3e, after all.


RC

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Even accounting for the endlessly-harped upon invalid options, there are still more character options in core 3e, simply because the multiclassing system generated so many variants. Saying otherwise is like blabbering to me that the sun is in fact the moon; it's one of those things that invalidates every other perspective a person may have on the two systems.

Except that you are percepting incorrectly...

What did you do in 3.5e to distinguish your fighter from the other fighters...

1. skill selection....same as 4e only 4e gives you more choice.
2. feat selection....same as 4e only 4e gives you more choice.
3. Equipment....same as 4e, with a nod to 3.5e having more magic items.
4. Power....oh wait...you don't get to customize your powers....

DS

 

[JiffyPopTart]

That said, you are correct in saying that the illusionist is hard to replicate in 4e, at least completely. None of the at-wills are illusion-heavy. Most levels give you at least one option for an illusion spell, and the cantrips are very nice in terms of pulling off what used to be low-level illusions, but the translation isn't perfect. This will likely be improved possibly remedied by Arcane Power.

Of course, this can be remedied by simply reflavoring the powers. But I'm betting you're not too hot on that, right?

You know....the warlord power that lets someone else make a basic melee attack would be perfect to refllavor as an illusion at-will. It does no damage itself but could easily be explained as distracting or stunning someone long enough for a party member to get a free whack. Just one more to come up with and we are gold.

DS

 

[malraux]

For me, a lot of that white space adds value rather than subtracts. The rule book now works well as a rule book, which for me is its first job, specifically because finding information is easy. Moreover, the usage of various keys (the monster role or the general look and feel of the powers) makes it much easier to process the information once I find where it is.