Forked Thread: Did 4e go far enough or to far?

[Mallus]

1. 4E has almost completely abandoned any pretense of simulationism

I'd say in a number of ways, 4e simulates the things D&D should be simulating --ie action movies and adventure stories-- just fine.

 

[justanobody]

By "someone" you mean who exactly? And a link would be nice.

I don't remember if it was here or some youtube video. Sadly I have no speakers right now, and the search functions for these forums are disabled, so cannot check either. I would gladly provide names, etc if I had them.

I just recall a mention on the emphasis of younger players being a target demographic from someone from WotC...or may have been from WotC but is no longer....

What is the age range listed on the product? The lowest age is usually the target age rNGE DEMOGRAPHIC FOR "TOYS".

 

[Betote]

I've said it before in other threads: 4e is a very different game from 3.x. Both are D&D because both have fighters, wizards and clerics who kill monsters, take their stuff and advance in levels, and that's enough for me.

And, although I generally prefer 3.x (or PFRPG) to 4e, I think it's a good thing that they're so different. It adds variety, and whatever happens nobody has come to my house to burn my 3.x books, so I've lost nothing and I've won a new game which I might want to play someday

 

[Imban]

What is the age range listed on the product? The lowest age is usually the target age rNGE DEMOGRAPHIC FOR "TOYS".

I don't think either 3e or 4e has one printed on the cover, but I'm going to hold up my AD&D 2e player's handbook that says "For Ages 10 and Up" and then beat you with it mercilessly.

 

[justanobody]

I don't think either 3e or 4e has one printed on the cover, but I'm going to hold up my AD&D 2e player's handbook that says "For Ages 10 and Up" and then beat you with it mercilessly.

Was half-orc, the offspring of a victim of rape, in 2nd edition?

Those age listing have changed since then. I think that time the product only had to be safe for those ages to use, like board games; but now I think those age ranges reflect content appropriateness as well after the whole ESRB ratings and MPAA ratings changes and all.

I know plenty of 10 years olds that played when that edition came out, but it was not really their target audience, while 4th does in fact cater content to a PG-13 rating more than previous editions.

Exposed breasts, etc of the past when there was more censorship, and not that is has become more relaxed in some things you see less visuals and such verbal content regarding the way things were presented in 2nd edition even.

Though I do think one 4th edition core book has an image of someone being beheaded.

I seem not to be able to find that on my 2nd edition books, which printing/version and what page please?

 

[Fifth Element]

I seem not to be able to find that on my 2nd edition books, which printing/version and what page please?

Yes, it's annoying when someone makes an unsupported claim, isn't it?

Anyway, says it right on the cover of my 2E PHB. "For intermediate through advanced players, ages 10 and up."

Edit: Which is, incidentally, precisely the same wording found on the 1E PHB (wizard cover at least): "It is the ideal vehicle of imagination for intermediate through advanced players, ages 10 and up."

So much for you half-orc hypothesis. 1E had nudity in the MM as well.

Edit again: I don't think the 3E or 4E PHBs have age ranges. But my copy of the 3.5 Basic Game indicates an age of 12+.

Edit again again: Here you can see the age for the 4E starter set is also listed as 12+ (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=products/dndacc/217120000).

So yes, the recommended age has increased since 1E/2E, though I see you dismissed that by claiming the recommendations mean different things. That's another unsupported claim. Please support it.

 

[Cryptos]

Put me down for "not far enough" in most cases interspersed with a few "WTF?" issues.

Not far enough 1) Alignment. Just kill it. It's got no mechanical purpose now. Excellent work! But then, why keep it?

Not far enough 2) Class restrictions / design flaws. For the most part, these were done away with in 4e. Hooray! But then you get to the Rogue and look at the powers... it makes it very tough for me to justify taking the Rogue class when I have to choose between Butterknife and Bean Bag if I want to use the powers of the class, when I can just take a less weapon restricted class, pick up roguish skills and say "I'm a rogue." Let alone the havoc it plays on a character that wants to multiclass into Rogue. Fighter / Rogue? "I'm a master of combat who has some experience in exploiting my enemy's weaknesses and can usually do so about once per battle, but to do so I have to switch from my hackmaster 2000 to this butterknife. Oh, I'm a master of combat, but I can only stab your kidneys with a much, much smaller blade."

Limit proficiency, fine. All classes deal with that to some extent. But to carry the proficiency limitations into the rules of the each and every power in the class? Yikes. You just made what should be one of my top 3 classes move to the bottom of the list.

I feel this is part of a problem shared by Star Pact Warlocks, where only one of four pacts that is split 50/50 in their key ability for attacks.

For both the rogues and one-fourth of warlocks (inexplicably only 1/4th), they seem to have placed very tough restrictions on the class or path as a whole because one ability was too good (sneak attack or fate of the void.) This seems like backwards design to me. If the ability's too good, place restrictions within the ability, not within the whole class. I consider examples of this sort of design the dumbest part of 4e.

The design of the Rogue class seems flawed, and there are some strange, unevenly skewed things going on within the Warlock class that I tend to give the hairy eyeball every time I look at them. I guess this leans slightly in the 'WTF' category as well.

WTF? #1: What's with all the damn elemental powers before we've even gotten a chance to see an elemental power source? Fire wizards, ice wizards, storm wizards, fire swordmages, storm swordmages... it seems like Arcane IS the elemental power source to me. So very, very bizarre. In some respects it's a case of not going far enough, because this allowed them to give Wizards sacred cows like Burning Hands and Fireball. But for me it's still very much a "WTF were they thinking" thing as well. If they come out with an elemental power source after seeing what powers are in Arcane, I'm going to be very confused.

WTF #2: Skill challenges played according to RAW just seem too weird. "Ok, it's time for the bonus round! Use these skills this many times, successfully roll the dice and you get a prize!" I loved the way they sounded leading up to the release of 4e, and will probably continue to use them in that more freeform "here's the problem, figure out how you're going to solve it and what skills you'll use to do so" format. The RAW for skill challenges makes me wonder, again, "WTF were they thinking"? I can only suspect they might have dumbed the whole thing down and cut out room for creativity because of some very bad feedback from some very dull, non-roleplay testers.

Edit: Not far enough #3: You created a very tactical combat system. Cool! But you kept the grid, when hexes would make more sense for the shape of blasts and bursts, and your 1-1-1 diagonal movement scheme.

 

[Razuur]

The settings fostered role-playing in 2e, the system never did. Or are you considering the system and the published settings as a whole?


Where are the "RP rules" in 3e? I've been running a role-play heavy 3e campaign for almost 5 years now I'll be damned if can find them.


How? -- it wasn't there to begin with. (or are you still lumping settings into the "rules", in which case we've only seen one published 4e setting so far, so it's probably too early to tell how much RP support there is the 4e rule set.

Mallus, I am not going to even go there. The entire thing is subjective and it is quite obvious from your posts on multiple threads how you stand.

I wrote the post with honesty from my perspective and I believe that much of that my post and my list is subjective.

We simply disagree. And apparently never will. That is okay. I even wished people (and you are in that group) who like 4e good luck and wished them happy gaming. I am not lashing out, being a 4e hater. The question was whether we thought 4e went to far or not far enough. I feel that it went to far for the reasons above.

It is *VERY* obvious that your and my play styles are *VERY* different and that we have *VERY* different opinions on what we find as a stong system.

And that is just fine. We can both be right because it is subjective.

I bid you good day.

Razuur

 

[Nebulous]

I don't mind playing 4e. I just don't like the aesthetics of the books: visual presentation, mostly (art, the ridiculous overabundance of monochromatic bars on half the pages of the PHB and the entire MM, the fact that WotC employs a bajillion artists for Magic: the Gathering but isn't showcasing their diversity in D&D), but also small stuff like how you heal perfectly from death after 6 hours of napping, or that I can't stab a guy in his foot to slow him down more than once in a 5 minute period, or that the DMG gives little attention to crafting a world.

It's a great game for combat and action, but the world it portrays and the world I want to run are very dissimilar.

I sort of agree with RangerW. The presentation of 4e...to me..is appalling. I can't believe they made some of the choices they did, especially when i'm aware of the resources at their disposal (the cover of the PHB still sickens me). Now, i like running 4e, and I think that the tactical miniature aspect of the game is top notch and i'm really liking that part of it...but there is going to come a time sooner or later when i get really tired of the boring, nerfed magic system and the repetitive combat actions (prone/stun/immobile/daze, etc).

Ideally i think that 4e would make the perfect computer game, where the streamlined hit points and healing surges, powers and skills for five PCs would be easily controlled by one player. And that's how i think of the pen and paper game in my mind...we're just playing a table top video game. Fun, yes, but i don't know for how long.

 

[Mallus]

I wrote the post with honesty from my perspective and I believe that much of that my post and my list is subjective.

That's why I was asking for your honest opinion regarding what fostered role-playing in previous editions of D&D. Your experiences of those games is different from mine and I was curious. For the record, I don't think any edition of the game does much in the way of encouraging or discouraging role-playing. My groups did a lot of role-playing in AD&D, 2e, and 3e, but not because of anything in the books, it was all from what we brought to the table personally.

We simply disagree.

I wanted to know precisely what we were disagreeing about.

I even wished people (and you are in that group) who like 4e good luck and wished them happy gaming.

So far I like 4e. I also like 3.5e well enough to continue running a 13th level campaign it it. And I positively adored the 2e campaign I ran for many years.

But what I really find interesting is the larger question: what encourages role-playing? People have very different opinions on the subject --which of course feeds into the even larger question of the how they define role-playing-- and I like discussing fundamental differences like that.