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<blockquote data-quote="Jay Verkuilen" data-source="post: 7751791" data-attributes="member: 6873517">Every game clearly has the &quot;Hand of the Designer&quot; insofar as they are designed. What I meant by the &quot;Heavy Hand of the Designer&quot; is that 4E was much more intricately assembled and very relentlessly game balanced with all the interactions thought through and prescribed. It was written in a manner that did not invite the DM to do much alteration of the rules because of that. I know there were people who didn't feel that way, but I for one---and obviously not just me---really felt that alterations were essentially impossible and that my hands were tied as DM. A number of folks here have said &quot;I didn't feel a need to alter 4E because it was balanced&quot; but that's not necessarily the only reason to alter a game. I often want to shift things around to realize a particular vision. This is something I've done in pretty much every version of D&amp;D I've run except 4E. My 3.5 campaign, for instance, had a lot of Unearthed Arcana rules. However, I felt that, because of how intensely designed 4E was, this was essentially impossible. My understanding was that this was part of the design intent: WotC felt that by having such a tight ruleset it would take that issue out of the hands of the DM. For some DMs this was very much freedom. I know at least one DM who loved the fact that he didn't have to think about any of the design space. However, I chafed at it and never enjoyed running 4E. I even felt it was hard to design monsters and magic items. There were other reasons that I didn't like 4E on the balance, although there were many parts of it I did think were well-done. Ah, yeah, I recall that now.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jay Verkuilen, post: 7751791, member: 6873517"] [I]Every[/I] game clearly has the "Hand of the Designer" insofar as they are designed. What I meant by the "[I]Heavy[/I] Hand of the Designer" is that 4E was much more intricately assembled and very relentlessly game balanced with all the interactions thought through and prescribed. It was written in a manner that did not invite the DM to do much alteration of the rules because of that. I know there were people who didn't feel that way, but I for one---and obviously not just me---really felt that alterations were essentially impossible and that my hands were tied as DM. A number of folks here have said "I didn't feel a need to alter 4E because it [I]was[/I] balanced" but that's not necessarily the only reason to alter a game. I often want to shift things around to realize a particular vision. This is something I've done in pretty much every version of D&D I've run except 4E. My 3.5 campaign, for instance, had a lot of [I]Unearthed Arcana[/I] rules. However, I felt that, because of how intensely designed 4E was, this was essentially impossible. My understanding was that this was part of the design intent: WotC felt that by having such a tight ruleset it would take that issue out of the hands of the DM. For some DMs this was very much freedom. I know at least one DM who loved the fact that he didn't have to think about any of the design space. However, I chafed at it and never enjoyed running 4E. I even felt it was hard to design monsters and magic items. There were other reasons that I didn't like 4E on the balance, although there were many parts of it I did think were well-done. Ah, yeah, I recall that now. [/QUOTE]

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