D&D is Back!

[Wolfspider]

4E is a quantum leap forward in game design.

Yes. I can finally do with D&D 4e what I've been doing with other RPG systems for at least 15 years.

Revolutionary.

 

[BryonD]

You must be remembering a different year 2000 than I do, then.

The same one I recall, however.
By the time August came around, the 3E will kill D&D crowd was very very small. Much earlier, yeah, they were there. But not at release.

 

[La Bete]

Yes. I can finally do with D&D 4e what I've been doing with other RPG systems for at least 15 years.

So very true. About time too.

 

[La Bete]

The same one I recall, however.
By the time August came around, the 3E will kill D&D crowd was very very small. Much earlier, yeah, they were there. But not at release.

Hmmm. tbh I'm seeing pretty much the same dynamics as during the 3e launch. A little bit more overall negativity this time perhaps, but not that much in any important way.

 

[Scribble]

Time for a dissenting voice that brings some experience to the party (and hopefully a lot less rancor...)

4e is a lot of things, being like 1e AD&D is not one of them.

Thunder, it's not that I feel 4e = 1e. It's a new edition of the game, so there will be changes.

I'm saying that for me, 4e seems like they took the great ideas they had in 3e about improving game play and refined them so they "feel" a lot more like the D&D I know(spent the most time with) and work a lot quicker/ are more open.

It's the fact that I can sit down as a DM and hash out a "cool" adventure without having to worry about whether or not I carried the 1, yet still know that the system is done well enough that I don't have to worry about the system getting clanked.

It's the 3e idea that here are certain things (like skills) that players should be able to do, and improve at doing, with the earlier idea that I still shouldn't have to spend a lot of time accounting for ALL the nitty gritty elements of the task.

It's the 3e idea that players should have options and neat tricks they can mess with, but mixed with the earlier edition idea that there are some things monsters/enemies can just do... Because it makes a good fight/story.

For the first time in a WHILE I feel like as DM I'm once again in control of the adventure as opposed to on a hunt for the proper design method to achieve the effect I want.

 

[Gothmog]

4E is a quantum leap forward in game design. The main influence I see on 4E is a LOT of Savage Worlds design elements, placed into the context of D&D.

Why can SW then put an entire system plus small monster manual in 158 pages? Sorry, much prefer SW's take to 4e's approach. Why is it a quantum leap forward??

Ok, I typed that first part badly- I meant SW got it right, and 4E is a quantum leap forward in D&D game design, not game design as a whole. For the record, I'm a huge fan of SW, and it remains my favorite RPG system by far, but 4E has created a D&D I want to play again, and I'm excited about that. Yes, other games have done this for years, but it was about time D&D picked up on the trend and slaughtered a bunch of sacred cows.

4E supports character building, but without the glory-hogging and ego-tripping of 3.x.. .. PCs are designed to be part of a team in 4E, and if you don't play with the team, you die. 4E also has decreased the need for rules master, which is a HUGE plus in my opinion.

I totally agree on the rules mastery thing (utterl stupid in a RPG context). But what if you only have one player? (a problem of previous editions too, but now, with the added mini/battlemap emphasis, many powers are useless if you have a solo hero). The obsessive emphasis on party roles and interdependency is not a good thing IMNAAHO opinion.
Every character class should be viable as a solo character AND play well together too. That would be a real quantum leap in game design.

The solo play concern you raise is valid, and it would be nice if it was addressed. However, most people I have gamed with in the past play with 3-5 players plus a DM. Making party roles and character cooperation necessary for success and survival was a good move. I've seen far too many sessions degenerate into hard feelings and chaos because someone just has to be the "badass lone wolf" type. The game now actively discourages such behavior, which I think is a good thing.

I'm actually going to run a solo adventure for a buddy this weekend, and I've been thinking about how to handle this. Right now I'm thinking fewer enemies, and maybe letting solo characters burn an action point to get an encounter power useage back. Thoughts?

For me, the less intrusive the game elements are in the game, the more I get into the game and can visualize the world and my character.

Once again, totally agree - but things like marking and shifting and sliding and narrow PC roles etc. etc. are very intrusive to me and take me right out of the 'reality' of the game. (And no, I don't think 3.X 'got it right'. I just don't like some of the more important 'solutions' 4e came up with for these problems).

I'm interested to know one thing though - with increased HP all around and generally less damage dealt, how do you manage to reduce the time spent in combat so much?

I guess the minis thing doesn't bother me at all- I've used them for over 20 years of gaming, and I've gotten used to visualizing things in my head, AND using the minis as representations of where a character is in combat for greater accuracy. I don't see the disconnet between using minis and narrativist style play (I do both). But then again, maybe I'm weird.

I'll admit, the first 4 or 5 fights we had took longer, to get a handle on the new rules. But after that time, the marking, shifting, etc became easy to track. For example, on marking, I used counters (poker chips) next to a marked mini with an arrow on them, and point the arrow towards who marked that character/monster. I picked up little tricks like that from Savage Worlds. The hit point escalation hasn't been a problem either, and in fact I've found 4E fights MUCH more deadly than other editions of D&D. Critters of equal level to a PC can really mess them up, even with marginally decent tactics and average rolls.

 

[Gothmog]

Thunder, it's not that I feel 4e = 1e. It's a new edition of the game, so there will be changes.

I'm saying that for me, 4e seems like they took the great ideas they had in 3e about improving game play and refined them so they "feel" a lot more like the D&D I know(spent the most time with) and work a lot quicker/ are more open.

It's the fact that I can sit down as a DM and hash out a "cool" adventure without having to worry about whether or not I carried the 1, yet still know that the system is done well enough that I don't have to worry about the system getting clanked.

It's the 3e idea that here are certain things (like skills) that players should be able to do, and improve at doing, with the earlier idea that I still shouldn't have to spend a lot of time accounting for ALL the nitty gritty elements of the task.

It's the 3e idea that players should have options and neat tricks they can mess with, but mixed with the earlier edition idea that there are some things monsters/enemies can just do... Because it makes a good fight/story.

For the first time in a WHILE I feel like as DM I'm once again in control of the adventure as opposed to on a hunt for the proper design method to achieve the effect I want.

Yep, thats exactly it Scribble. I'm not saying mechanically 4E feels like 1E...it doesn't. But I think the designers made a concerted effort to bring back the themes of 1E while retaining the more modern and rules-transparent mechanics of 3E, along with the ability to have mechanical character development.

I could run a 1E or 2E adventure with less than an hour's prep time- something I found nigh impossible with 3E. 4E makes that possible again, and gives me lots of interesting options to use as a DM. Thats the major place 3E failed. It was stated that 3E's design philosophy was "options not restrictions", but only from a players point of view. For the DM, it was very restrictive- everything had to be statted out, codified, and I found after a while, I started thinking as a DM strictly in rules terms and mechanics! For me, that killed my enjoyment of the game- I don't play to jump through mathematical hoops, and take into account the interrelatedness of every rule in the game.

For example, if a monster had a special ability, it had to be codified in such a way that it was similar to a player ability. That just sat wrong with me. Its way more work than I want to do for a monster thats going to die in the encounter, and its needless rules layering that adds nothing to the game. With 4E, I just make something interesting up, slap it on a monster, and don't worry the PCs can't do it. That lets me focus on more important and fun things, such as the story and world rather than the mechanics. That is what 1E let me do- focus on characters, story, and plot while the rules faded into the background....and 4E has allowed me to bring that style of play back, much to my delight!

 

[Tamvriel]

Sorry to be the Troll

Time for a dissenting voice that brings some experience to the party (and hopefully a lot less rancor...)

4e is a lot of things, being like 1e AD&D is not one of them. There is a substantial streamlining of the rules and I for one am grateful for it, but too many things that were 'optional' are now 'mandatory'. I have noticed a great deal of things where the designers threw the baby out with the bath water; for instance, Epic Destinies and Paragon Paths - first there is no fluff and once we get here its like "pretentious much?" Angelic face and astral wings, glowing weapons, what the heck is this the Matrix? What if you don't think this is a good idea or if it doesn't fit into your campaign style? No optional rules, just deal with it this is the way it is. By putting it into the PHB they have already made my job difficult because every player will say, but its in the book... at least when it was in the DMG I could say, you shouldn't be reading that anyway.

I'm looking at some of the rules and thinking, "great job" and others thinking "what illegal substances were you imbibing when you created this?" Mind you the system isn't a total loss, but there are far too many things that should have been changed before it went to press. PoL is an obvious design error and campaign creation is going to be a ton of work that may just have me shelving a 'system with a few kinks'.

The more I've played 3.x and previewed 4e (which I've done over several months btw) the more I want to start an AD&D campaign - you know, before two-weapon fighting, before spell limitations, before UA and the dread barbarian or cavalier... It's not that the system was better, just more realistic (and of course that is a far stretch from meaning total realism.) But there were no video games to influence the design back then, in fact AD&D influenced the video games...

I hate WoW and Evercrack and pretty much every other MMORPG on the market, so when I see their influence on the game that I love, yeah it irks me. I understand the reason for it, and as a poster stated on another thread it seems like we are moving farther away from the DM being part of the equation at all. Just players and rules, no administrator. I would hope this isn't the case, but I have to admit, from what I've seen here, especially SUGGESTING that DMs play a character is breaking a rule that goes far beyond tradition for me, nigh unto blasphemy.

I realize a lot of folks started with either 3.x or even 2e, which were vastly different from the original AD&D (or even OD&D for that matter). Part of the charm was the 'rules light and ready to fight' attitude it had, and while I admire the designers for trying to recapture that feeling, there were just too many other things that they tried to force upon me as a DM through the rules to make it worth my while in running this out of the box. So a year or so from now when I finally have all my house rules done, I'll let you know how it turns out.

All I have to say is AMEN

I DO see things that I like but they are so few and far between that I am sickened by everything else.

I believe that the baby got thrown out with the bath water just so the design team didn't have to do anything about the crying.

Many of the bright ideas of 4e are such things as perfect criticals, and non-random hp rolls.

Its like what happened when I first saw 3.0 and its Initiative Roll, then I went WTF you mean my crew doesn't have to re-roll initiative every round, whaaat!.

Well I had that reaction to every little nuance of the new rules that I have seen. I think that whoever wrote the rules, did...um...stupify them for some reason or another.

Now for the Moderator who gave me a nice and friendly hint, I heard and understand it, and I was not trying to be "a troll" as others might call it. Its a simple matter of giving a group oppinion in counter to what someone (e.g. the original poster) was saying. I appologize for seeming the troll.

It would be nice for the authors of the new edition to explain some of the choices that were made in the final product, in their own words. I think that, if that occured, some of us who are unwilling to purchase the new edition, might be converted.

 

[Fifth Element]

I think that whoever wrote the rules, did...um...stupify them for some reason or another.

You've almost got it. Now try saying it without insulting anyone.

 

[BryonD]

Hmmm. tbh I'm seeing pretty much the same dynamics as during the 3e launch. A little bit more overall negativity this time perhaps, but not that much in any important way.

Meh, there was a ton of concern along the way. And some people who decided it wasn't for them. But those were by a vast majority during the development and early reveals. By the time August rolled around, threads like these were very much few and far between. I think you are missing the distinction between what happened and where in the process it happened. Or possibly the "when" of it has become a bit of a blur.