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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5587966" data-attributes="member: 2067">Newer D&D, too. Whether or not D&D was or is good at it isn't nearly as relevant as the fact that D&D was and is used for it. There are plenty of amazing stories I'm sure 4e players all over the world are experiencing this very week, regardless of the fact that one of the designers of 4e D&D claims that the game was never about that. You can't make a game steeped in the tropes used in novels, movies, and other narrative works and expect people not to add a narrative dimension, even if you personally don't think it's "The Right Way To Play."I think gamist play is an essential element for a great D&D experience, I just believe that it is only one element. Necessary, but not sufficient. Because, personally, if what I'm looking for is just a game, I have awesome multiplayer games at my fingertips with shiny graphics or interesting cardboard or plastic fobs that don't require 300 page rulebooks or coordinating 5-6 busy adults' schedules or even minor math or esoteric stylistic choices like pseudomedeival fantasy. D&D needs to offer me something more robust than a game system, because those are done better, for me, with videogames or boardgames or cardgames than they could ever be done for a tabletop RPG.This partially works into Mearls's philosophy of different types of people who play D&D in different ways. There are some folks who do not play D&D primarily for its game experience. There are some folks who even play D&D for the other stuff it offers despite its game experience. There are some folks who could take it or leave it. There are some folks who like a little, but really want to get on with something else (that's my camp!). There are some who heart it hard. Which D&D were you playing? I haven't seen a D&D yet that has actually embraced the storytelling heart of the inspiration from which it draws. It's always, so far, been a combat system with other bits laid on top of it. 4e just does more to take away those other bits than other editions did, for various reasons. Reasons like believing that D&D was only a monster combat game and not also a storytelling game, or an exploration game, or a simulation game, or a game of political intrigue, or a game of harsh desert survival, or....the list of ways people have played and continue to play D&D goes on.Also, I'm explicitly interested in continuing on from 4e, not returning to the past. I've got precious little nostalgia, I mostly just want to play a game that meshes with how I would like my games to be. 4e doesn't currently meet those needs for me without a lot of finangling.Making it is part of "experiencing" it, and any game that has players is going to involve them as part of making the story. But that doesn't have much to do with anything else in your post. <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    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Ah. So because it hasn't been done before, clearly, it can never, ever be done? So I suppose all the work of game design is done forever and people can either play what already exists or be unhappy, since those are the only options?I am skeptical of how well this point of view meshes with reality. <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    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> I don't think <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DarkerAndEdgier" target="_blank">DARKER AND EDGIER</a> or <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Grimmification" target="_blank">Grimmification</a> are any kind of great solution to any kind of problem, let alone a nonexistent problem like "nobody fights pixies." The reality is that James Wyatt, IMO, successfully demonstrated in that quote that he either didn't understand or didn't care how other groups played the game. He also fundamentally, IMO, misapprehended the role of the monster in D&D historically. Monsters in D&D in the past were generally not simply combat threats. They were there to be interesting things to encounter. Pixies and Nymphs and Good creatures weren't in the MM because you were expected to fight them, necessarily. They were in there because, in some way, they'd be an interesting thing to encounter. Maybe as a fight, but maybe as an ally, or maybe as just window dressing, or maybe as rivals in some way, or maybe just as general DM harassment. The Rust Monster wasn't supposed to be there to offer a balanced, dynamic combat challenge, it was there to give DMs interesting ideas for possible encounters (and an encounter where your primary warrior is suddenly useless is an interesting challenge! It's just not a challenge you can solve by killing things, necessarily), an interesting bit of the world to use. Pixies weren't there to kill PC's, they were there to be a fun thing to meet while traipsing through the woods, providing perhaps an interesting challenge as they played pranks on stuffy PC's. To offer up fun things to do.Because, contrary to James Wyatt's position, D&D was not just a game about monster slaying to many of its players (perhaps even most, given the fact that 4e is still played as a game that is not about monster slaying by many current players, despite its designers' intent). One of the biggest failings of the 4e Monster Manuals, which is one of the biggest philosophical failings of the edition, IMO, is this wrongheaded idea that the only thing other creatures are good for is to kill (and if they're not good for that, you don't need stats!). It's essential that the game have great, interesting, dramatic, cinematic combat. It's also essential that the game have plenty of other stuff. Between screwing up Rituals, screwing up Skill Challenges, and screwing up Monsters, 4e doesn't have a lot of other stuff worth using. It's this failing, more than any other, that must be addressed in 5e, if not earlier. At least, to keep me interested, that's the failing that must be addressed. Which is why I'd propose it for 5e.I suppose the people who want an interesting combat system and who don't care about much else (maybe they just don't feel that they need much else!) will still be pretty satisfied with the game as it is. Which is great, but it leaves me playing Diablo instead, since it's got a much better combat system for me. One that doesn't require 5-6 adults in one room for four hours with 300 pages of rules and 100 little plastic toys. Since spending $60 on a game and clicking two buttons seems so much easier, really.</blockquote>

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