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<blockquote data-quote="gizmo33" data-source="post: 4461581" data-attributes="member: 30001">But the perspective of the OP seems to me to be entirely based on the &quot;anti-1E&quot; (or whatever you want to call it) side of the edition war.&nbsp; If you say something is a bad game element, and then base that opinion on what the prevailing design philosophy is for the current edition, then I think this is, necessarily, going to be about edition.&nbsp;For example - the design philosophy of 1E says it's ok that specialist characters (like a giant-slaying ranger) to sometimes not be very effective (like when facing all non-giants or whatever).&nbsp; The idea that the player is somehow &quot;owed&quot; his character always being effective seems IME to belong to later editions, especially 4th.&nbsp; 1E was fine with characters being sub-optimal.&nbsp; If you've used up your spells, or the party is fighting something you're weak against, then hide in the back and wait for the next battle.&nbsp; &nbsp;Look - it's not like it's that much fun to play Monopoly for 3 hours and wind up losing.&nbsp; But the philosophy that most people seem to operate under is that the existence of adversity makes the good things more enjoyable.&nbsp; The alternative, which is true of a lot of DnD games, is that you &quot;just barely&quot; kill everything that you fight, time after time - after a while people are going to catch on, and the illusion of risk that your character was taking (perhaps an artifact of people's memories of previous editions) will fade.&nbsp;It would be like comparing soccer to horseshoes.&nbsp; 4E players would probably complain that soccer isn't fun because no one wants to do that much running.&nbsp; Similarly, 4E players probably don't enjoy mapping dungeons in detail, catching diseases, getting lost, dealing with paladin vs. assassin party problems, running away from monsters, losing levels for kissing a demon, having their equipment turn to rust, and dying from a system shock roll.&nbsp; Because those things aren't fun to you doesn't mean that they were designed from a &quot;flavor first&quot; perspective.&nbsp; &nbsp;The &quot;flavor first&quot; train of thought is not about what you think is fun/not-fun.&nbsp; It's logically about what the motivations/priorities of the designers were, and so IMO it helps to recognize that they probably thought a lot of things were mechanically fun/interesting that many of the current generation of gamers don't.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="gizmo33, post: 4461581, member: 30001"] But the perspective of the OP seems to me to be entirely based on the "anti-1E" (or whatever you want to call it) side of the edition war. If you say something is a bad game element, and then base that opinion on what the prevailing design philosophy is for the current edition, then I think this is, necessarily, going to be about edition. For example - the design philosophy of 1E says it's ok that specialist characters (like a giant-slaying ranger) to sometimes not be very effective (like when facing all non-giants or whatever). The idea that the player is somehow "owed" his character always being effective seems IME to belong to later editions, especially 4th. 1E was fine with characters being sub-optimal. If you've used up your spells, or the party is fighting something you're weak against, then hide in the back and wait for the next battle. Look - it's not like it's that much fun to play Monopoly for 3 hours and wind up losing. But the philosophy that most people seem to operate under is that the existence of adversity makes the good things more enjoyable. The alternative, which is true of a lot of DnD games, is that you "just barely" kill everything that you fight, time after time - after a while people are going to catch on, and the illusion of risk that your character was taking (perhaps an artifact of people's memories of previous editions) will fade. It would be like comparing soccer to horseshoes. 4E players would probably complain that soccer isn't fun because no one wants to do that much running. Similarly, 4E players probably don't enjoy mapping dungeons in detail, catching diseases, getting lost, dealing with paladin vs. assassin party problems, running away from monsters, losing levels for kissing a demon, having their equipment turn to rust, and dying from a system shock roll. Because those things aren't fun to you doesn't mean that they were designed from a "flavor first" perspective. The "flavor first" train of thought is not about what you think is fun/not-fun. It's logically about what the motivations/priorities of the designers were, and so IMO it helps to recognize that they probably thought a lot of things were mechanically fun/interesting that many of the current generation of gamers don't. [/QUOTE]

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