No, actually I can't see why it is this way at all DS. It has BECOME codified as a meaningful distinction over time, it didn't START OUT as one. The same result could easily have been achieved by other means that were less confusing. We're only talking about a very few specific situations. I mean really, there are HOW MANY opportunity action powers which attack that aren't Opportunity Attacks? Seriously, this would have been trivial to write in a clearer and more straightforward way.
Clearer than putting 'Opportunity Action' in bold letters with those powers and attacks?
What I'm saying is it is an obtuse enough rule that even people who ARE experienced with RPGs and game systems CAN be confused by it. They are neither idiots nor lazy, they are simply ordinary 4e players, like you find at most tables. They have books, they have undoubtedly read them. They obviously didn't go over every bit of the rules with a fine toothed comb. That IS what it takes to unravel stuff like this. You can call my players lazy bums all you want, but that doesn't make it true. Now YOU may be playing with nothing but rules hounds that spend loads of time but you may want to unbend and learn to appreciate that this is not the usual situation.
No, I just know how to use an index. Seriously- If I'm presented with some game rule I'm not sure about, the first thing I do is go to the index and go... oh. And if that rule references something else I'm not sure about, I go to the e index and go... oh.
Case in point: Opportunity Attacks. The first thing under that says: Opportunity Action. So I go 'What's an opportunity action?' and I go there it it tells me and says Opportunity Attacks are one type of them everyone gets.
Obtuse would be if I had to look for some sidebar in some secondary source that explains the difference.
These people play 4e once a week for 4-5 hours. They don't DM, they also play plenty of other games, and generally speaking they have a reasonable grasp of the rules. THIS particular rule tends to trip up pretty much everyone in that category. It IS a problem rule.
Has anyone tried the simple 'One is a type of action, the other is a specific action' explanation?
I mean, if the group can grok the difference between a move action and a Walk action... they should get this; it's the same difference.
NO IT ISN'T!!!!!!!!! I have the actual observational evidence to prove it! You have theorycrafting and a hypothesis.
I have actual observational evidence of the fact it's not that difficult, and a god damn index.
Right, except the names for the two things are nearly identical and easy to confuse. The game uses plenty of 'terminology' so loosely in other places that such distinctions can easily seem meaningless.
Other things are confusing. This is not.
It is (and again I am citing evidence not opinion) OBVIOUSLY not that clear. An Opportunity Action which results in an MBA and an Opportunity Attack which results in an MBA, hmmmm, those aren't similar at all!
Of course they are similiar. Opportunity Attacks are members of the subset of Opportunity Actions, and of those that end in an MBA. But they're not the same thing. Most Opportunity Actions have different triggers, or different effects. Only one Opportunity Action, however, has the same trigger Opportunity Attack does, and ends in an MBA: It's name is Opportunity Attack.
ROFLMAO! It is hard to even take any attempt to call them easily distinguished seriously.
I just don't understand what you mean here: Opportunity Action is a kind of action. Your statement is as logically equivalent as saying that it's hard to distinguish between a Standard Action and a Melee Basic Attack because they both tend to involve attack rolls and so it's confusing.
Both are completely different KINDS of concepts.
Worse than this there is really no significant in-game reason for the two situations to call for different modifiers.
Other than the fact that one describes a general class of action, distinguished for the purposes of the action economy the game is based on, and the other is a specific action with a specific trigger and a specific result that also happens to be a member of the first type?
They cover essentially exactly the same type of situation
This is the part where I begin to believe you do not understand the difference as well as you think you do.
and the only distinction is how the ability to use them is granted, not what they do. Meaningless distinctions are NOT good RPG design.
It's not a meaningless distinction.
One is a very simple construct:
Opportunity Actions are actions that have triggers, cannot be used on your turn, interrupt the trigger, and can be used once per turn.
Opportunity Attack is a type of opportunity action that has the specific trigger 'When an enemy uses a ranged power, uses an area power, or leaves a square, while adjacent to you' and has the effect 'Make a melee basic attack.'
One is a template, and the rules that govern said template. The other is filling in the template. One is the superset, the other is an element of that superset. One is a resource, a currency in the action economy, and the other is an action that costs that currency. The difference between five dollars, and a five-dollar milkshake.