Disappointed in 4e

[pemerton]

Either winking is a [free] action, or it is not. Its status as an action should not alter based on external circumstances.

This is actually up for grabs - as LostSoul acknowledged in his concession to Raven Crowking.

Finally, take this to it's logical extreme. 4E does not include 'dead' as a status (for obvious reasons), but if it did what would it look like? I suggest something like this

• You can't take actions
• You can't receive healing
• You can be brought back to life by a raise dead ritual

Would you rule that a dead character can wink because it has no affect on resolution?

Plenty of people have suggested that a number of narrative possibilities are consistent with the mechanics of Dead as a status (and thus of Raise Dead as a ritual).

 

[Fifth Element]

Oh really? So if the party has a pre-planned strategy, that relies on the character winking, is it still not affecting resolution?

Yeah. I've since moved on to the "Every edition of D&D is awesome" thread, so I'm not going to bother.

 

[pemerton]

"Smart play" in any game is play that is rewarded by the game system itself. You mistake "fun play" (in the narrativist sense) for "smart play". When I say that "smart play" and "fun play" should not oppose each other, I mean that a good game intended to be played in a narrativist manner should reward thematically satisfying play, and avoid rewarding behaviours that do not lead to thematically satisfying play.

By this standard, 4e is not a good game for narrativist play, although it has nods in that direction.

By "reward" do you mean "reward mechanics" within the game?

The mechanics of 4e reward completing quests (XP, treasure) and encounters (milestones, XP, treasure). Acquisition of rewards from encounters is on a diminishing returns basis, however, as many will cost resources that have to be renewed (most combat encounters, some skill challenges).

I don't see why this reward structure is at odds with thematically satisfying play (for an appropriate range of themes - I don't think that 4e is ever going to give you The Human Factor, but it might give you Hero). Combat encounters bring theme into play (what is combat role + power source, after all, but a short hand way of identifying the thematic orientation of a PC?), as do skill challenges. Quests, both GM-designed and player-designed, presumably likewise will be based around thematically interesting material.

The game won't reward unthematically satisfying play provided that the GM and players introduce thematically satisfying encounters and quests. As I've often said, I think this means that 4e is not well-suited to sandbox play (but as I've equally often said, it is a mistake to think that is therefore GM-driven - there can be player-driven but non-sandbox play, which 4e permits primarily via player-introduced quests, and secondarily via the character build rules and the skill challenge rules).

The principal lack of thematic flexibility in the 4e reward mechanics is their focus on the party rather than the individual (which extends to the rules for new-PC introduction) - this puts some sort of limit on the capacity of the mechanics to support exploration of intraparty conflict, I think, although the DMG hints at such conflict with its idea of conflicting minor quests for different PCs - I'm not sure whether this should be seen as a tension in the rules system, or rather if the XP rules should be seen as simply a buffer against the otherwise potentially disrupting effects of conflicting quests.

To be honest I don't see the reward mechanic in 4e as radically different from HeroWars. It's quite different from The Dying Earth, to take another example, but in that game the whole approach to rewards is quite a bit more metagamey.

The reward mechanics are very different from 1st ed AD&D, though, to pick one contrasting example - no XP for gold (which means no pre-determined "quest" orientation of the sort that that rule leads to), no penalties for changing alignment (which means no pre-determined thematic resolution of the sort that that rule leads to).

Why do you think that 4e is at odds with the reward of thematically satisfying play?

 

[Emeraldwind]

Thoughts on 4e

Obviously there are some far more experienced and articulate thoughts on this subject, but here is my take.

I never played D&D. Odd as it sounds I did always collect D&D manuals and other rpg books. My friends all played 3E, and consequently always attempted to get me involved. Several times I made the attempt, but the heaps and heaps of rules, the manuals, the wheel barrow of "red-tape" involved simply made it unattractive to me.

Now it is important to note that I may in fact be WoTC's target consumer. The guy that played MMORPG's and the what not not, but simply couldnt be bothered to learn what (to an uninformed observer ) seemed like something far more trouble than it could be worth.

I picked up the 4E core's for the purpose of continuing my rpg collection. After reading them I was really interested. Maybe I was burned out on WoW, maybe it just seemed interesting. For whatever reason I ended up putting a group together and running KoTS.

The entire group really responded well. The only issue being that some of the 3E guys felt 4E had been dumbed down, and apparently this was the reason someone like me would find it interesting. After talking with a few other 3E fans in my local store, I found that the general idea was that because 4e was a simpler system ( and again I am not educated enough on 3e to make a reasonable determination on the validiity of this) it was somehow less enjoyable. Moreover that it is a spoonfed version of D&D designed for nimrods who could have never understood the complexity and or have enjoyed 3E. This type of elitist resistance to change isnt uncommon and I certainly didnt take it personally- I just wonder how much of such a perception actually affects people view of 4E

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The only issue being that some of the 3E guys felt 4E had been dumbed down, and apparently this was the reason someone like me would find it interesting. After talking with a few other 3E fans in my local store, I found that the general idea was that because 4e was a simpler system ( and again I am not educated enough on 3e to make a reasonable determination on the validiity of this) it was somehow less enjoyable. Moreover that it is a spoonfed version of D&D designed for nimrods who could have never understood the complexity and or have enjoyed 3E. This type of elitist resistance to change isnt uncommon and I certainly didnt take it personally- I just wonder how much of such a perception actually affects people view of 4E

In some cases, complexity in a rule system can be good...if it helps you achieve your desired goals as a DM or player. A simple ruleset can be quite good, assuming the same caveat.

OTOH, mastery of complex rulesets as some kind of "badge of honor" always baffled me. This isn't the military, this isn't rocket science, its just a game.

I wouldn't denigrate your enjoyment of the system because of your background or anything- again, that seems elitist and exclusionary to me.

All of that said, for me 4Ed just "simply" doesn't do what I like. I also don't think its actually significantly simpler than 3.X- its complexity is just less obvious.

 

[Psion]

How about a better one: They're still ridiculous, but in a different way.
By saying they're as ridiculous as they've always been, you're not really implying a change. And there has been a change...

By my estimation:
Then: a little odd, perhaps
Now: Ridiculous