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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7750607" data-attributes="member: 42582">AD&D has a closer resemblance to miniatures wargaming than 4e, right down to advice in the DMG about mini scales, rules for building castles and then laying seige to them, etc. 4e (as Rob Heinsoo <a href="http://www.critical-hits.com/blog/2008/03/05/dd-xp-interview-sara-girard-rob-heinsoo/" target="_blank">explained in an interview in 2008</a>) has a closer resemblance to contemporary "indie" RPGs.As far as miniature skirmishing is concerned, all that 4e seems to add to 3.5E (which had creatures spaces defined in terms of symmetrical mini bases, and had rules for 5' steps (= 1 sq shift), etc) is a larger variety of powers that make indvidual positioning during melee more important; and to change the action economy so as to encourage mobility.I'm an "older" player. So are most of the other 4e players who post on these boards, as best I can tell. This notion that "older" players were especially bothered by 4e has no factual basis that I'm aware of.And the people I know who really loved 4e included someone whose other gaming passions were Rolemaster (his first RPG), Civilisaiton and Diplomacy; a boardgamer who's been playing RPGs since Moldvay Basic; a wargamer who's been plauying just as long; and a couple of old Moldvay players who (as far as I know) are WOW amateurs at best.What distinguished the people I know who loved 4e was that they (i) enjoyed games, and (ii) were not interested in a game that involves following the GM's plot crumbs. I don't think this was an accident. Where does 4e try to adjudicate nearly everything? How hard is it to freeze a puddle using Icy Terrain? To close a portal to the Abyss? To make a NPC fall in love with you?4e has a clear action economy; so does Moldvay Basic. Both have crisp, simple presentation of character abilities. 4e's combat rules are far more intricate, but not because they try to "adjudicate nearly everything" but simply because they encompass a far greater number of parameters than Moldvay Basic does. 4e's non-combat rules are both simpler and more general than Moldvay's, because 4e draws on 20 intervening years of RPG design (and especially techniques of "closed scene" resolution developed in indie RPGs).Moldvay Basic isn't a font or layout; it's about a game that presents itself with clear rules and doesn't encourage the GM to manipulate the rules with a nod and a wink. 4e is the first version of D&D since to return to that approach. (Of course it's actual gameplay is different from Moldvay - it's not about Gygaxian dungeon crawling, but about the sort of heroic epic that Moldvay Basic alludes to in its Foreword but doesn't actually support.)Moldvay has a fundamental action economy: the turn, which limits player declared actions and correlates them to the various other economies of the game (wandering monsters; light - torches, lanterns or spells; searching; fighting; etc).4e has a series of action economies: the round in combat; the encounter; the "go" in a skill challenge - and these correlate to the other economies of the game (recovery of expended powers; making checks so as to change the fiction; accruing treasure parcels; etc).It's the tightness of design, and its clear orientation to purpose, that connects the two games. Also the empahsis on adjudication over karaoke.The relevant passages were already cited upthread. The duration "until the end of the encounter" means 5 minutes. Encounter powers are recovered with a rest of 5 minutes or so. The idea that "the encounter" as a mechanical unit in 4e is plagued by uncertainty is not borne out by the rules of the game.In Moldvay Basic and AD&D, all combat takes a turn (including binding "wounds", etc); all searching takes a turn; all movement is in blocks of turns; etc.If you ignore those, then you are ignoring the action economy of those games. Presumably you could llikewise ignore the action eocnomy of 4e. (The 4e DMG2 even had a discussion of various ways to do this.)But this isn't an argument that short rest abilities are "unrealistic" or "break immersion" or "rupture suspension of disbelief". It's a complaint about assymetric resource suites across classes. That complaint is as old as wilderness adventuring in which the MUs dominate because, outside the dungeon, they can safely nova their spell load-out and thereby dominate encounters.Of course 4e solved this problem.</blockquote>

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