Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wik" data-source="post: 4667578" data-attributes="member: 40177">I have my own answers to the questions, but I'm not dead set on my opinions as of yet.  But, to answer my own question...1.  Does 4e impose a larger restriction on campaign setting/tone than is present in earlier editions?Yes.  I think because of the focus on combat powers and roles, characters lose a bit of that non-combat focus present in other editions of the game.  Wizards have the same number of combat powers as a fighter of the same level, for example.  And a character's non-combat abilities are rather limited in 4e - what rituals you know, and that's it.  Magic items are usually written for combat uses, and every skill has a combat use.  There are no craft skills in 4e, or anything like that.  Because of that, the game is obviously shunted towards combat.  Meaning, if you were to try to make a 4e game that had a focus away from combat (say, a horror game), you are really taking away the primary focus of the character.  To put it another way, the primary means of differentiation between characters in 4e is in combat - a fighter and a wizard behave differently in combat.  Outside of combat, characters are much more similar in abilities in 4e than they ever were in other editions.  As such, if you take away the combats, you take away many of the mechanical differences in characters.2.  What, really, can be done using a 4e campaign setting using rules as written? Anything based around Combat will be covered well by 4e.  I think the game supports Wuxia very well, and it handles large scale combats admirably.  I think you could use the game to run fairly large mass combats, where both sides field a number of minions. The game also handles "hexploration" fairly well, and I think you could easily run an Isle of Dread-style campaign in 4e.  I think 4e is perfectly suited for a short-session "pickup" format - much like the Gladiatorial Campaign described in DRAGON a few years back.  Each session would last only an hour or two, and would take place entirely within the gladiatorial arena.  Role-playing would be happening during combat rounds, in the vein of popular wrestling.3.  What can be done if you tweak the rules a bit? PLANESCAPE.  If you add a few rituals, and include some more non-combat items, you could cover a PLANESCAPE game really well.  In fact, I think 4e could cover some of those "Classic" 2e campaign settings pretty well - at least, better than 3e ever could.  I think DARK SUN would work better in 4e than in 3e, for example, simply because the differences between a trained and an untrained character isn't as huge in 4e as in 3e.  For example, if you decided to model dehydration on fortitude saves, a wizard would be dead well before a fighter even started feeling the effects, while in 4e, the differences between the two wouldn't be nearly as drastic, so the whole group would be feeling the pressure as one.  4.  And what sort of settings would require a complete rules overhaul? Anything involving horror.  Most horror stories revolve around one big bad guy - in 4e, the characters are really built towards a multiple-foe model.  And the game doesn't convey horror too well - there are no mechanics to reflect horror, and the game is built towards heroic play.  Also, since horror as a genre is aimed towards non-combat, it is a poor fit for combat-centred 4e.  Survival Horror is especially poorly-suited for 4e.  "Outlast waves of zombies" just doesn't work as well in 4e as it does in other editions, because PCs can sort of regenerate to full between encounters (except for their dailies).  In earlier editions, each spell cast was one less resource to use in future encounters.  Anything historical.  The game has been built with a balance of classes and roles expected, and if you were to take away the magic in 4e, the game wouldn't really work too well.  While you could fold magic item enhancements into a character's natural progression, and remove or reflavour all of the "magic" in the classes, the simple nature of powers would make a historically-based game seem fake.  That being said, 4e would handle this much better than 3e could, as 3e also suffered from magic being built into the rules, and was a bit harder to reflavour powers and whatnot.  Really, I think only 2e had any success in the historical campaign model.  ***Okay, all that being said, I think it's disclaimer time:  I like 4e.  I admit it has some shortcomings, and I'm not a diehard fanboi, but I do like the game.  I enjoy running it, and I enjoy prepping adventures in 4e a helluva lot more than I ever did in 3e.  I like the general tone of the game, and I like wotc's approach to reworking some of the sacred cows.  If I do want to run a game that 4e doesn't model very well (for example, the CSI Eberron game), I have no problem using a different system.I just think this is an interesting thought exercise.  But, let's argue away.  But let's not turn this into an edition war - I think we can all accept that every edition has had campaign models that are difficult to implement.</blockquote>

Verification