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

Actually someone stated that the target demographic was the younger players of the age range listed there Jhaelen.
Yup, and now 'someone' stated something else :)

Actually, I'd say they tried to target everyone, regardless of age. And I think they succeeded.

As an aside: One of my players mentioned she didn't like the new art style in the 4E PHB.
While she didn't say so herself, she agreed when I suggested that it was probably too much like a comic/anime for her liking. It doesn't bother me much but that's probably an aspect of the game that really caters to a younger audience.
 

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If the idea behind 4E was to 'fix' perceived flaws with 3.5, they failed. Spectacularly.
I disagree.

Especially seeing that 3.5 needed a few tweaks, not a complete rebuild.
I disagree (a lot more). 3e breaks down at higher levels. It become increasingly cumbersome to run. At least, that's been my experience. I have one friend willing to DM high level 3.5e --shilsen, one of ENWorld's resident system-masters-- and even he thinks 3.5 requires more and more work for less benefit.

Talk about throwing out the baby with the bath water.
But it was Rosemary's baby...

Loyal customers should be retained, not disenfranchised.
At some point you're faced with the choice of fixing problems or retaining backwards compatibility. Note the big break between 2e and 3e, and the fact the 3e rejuvenated D&D even though it's essentially incompatible with the previous editions.
 
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And that's all that is necessary to invalidate the claim that there is no such thing.

Okay, so the fact that there's a whopping one monster in 4e - and not really even one you'd expect (heck, not even the one they said would be Good in preview material) - is Good means that you can't talk about how they've removed all of the Good monsters even though that was an explicit design goal according to preview material?

"Well, it's not 100% true, there's one counterexample out of over 1000 monster statblocks published for 4e so far" is both true and not going to convince anyone, ever, of anything.

EDIT: Based on a search for "Good" in the D&D Compendium's monster list, it's still just that one, and then some NPCs, who might just have "good" somewhere else in their text like the Human Bandit, Human Guard, and Human Mage.

...there's also the "Dark Skull", which isn't something I have the original source for, but judging by the name it's probably not Alignment: Good.
 
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Yes, I think it went to far.

Mostly because before it was an everyman's game. And I feel that WOTC specialized it to be a game for only a few play styles. You could play from a wide variety of gaming styles with 3e. Unlike a lot of people, i don't think that 4e is crap. It is definitely a popular game amoung some gamers, because it does cater to its targeted audience EXTREMELY well. Unfortunately, that targeting eliminated other groups from being able to play/enjoy the game.

I mean ODD and 1e was about dungeon crawling mostly, and we were just learning about roleplaying. With 2e, the system had adapted to try and cater more to roleplaying (while still being robust at combat). We saw a number of really diverse setting bloom and appear. 3e seems to have tried to to everything - cater to the RPers with RP rules and to the combat players with extensive combat rules. Many people felt that in trying to cover all bases it did noe of them well. 3.5 tried to fix things, and began to tilt even more towards minatures play.

4e took the RPing out of the rules and essentially made a very fluid tactical combat game in which everybody played a role. It also was aimed at making GMing easy and minimizing game prep. It embraced

I think 4e achieved much of its goals at a price. I really like how it is supposed to be easy to prep for a game, but dislike the reliance on minatures and

I understand what they did. D20 was sprawled all over the place. They understood what they were doing, and rather than go halfway, took the bold step of bringing everyone back in under one clear concise ruleset. It severed a huge chunk of their audience, but they are gambling on it bringing even more people.

I was waiting to see the game before I cast my judgement. I figured they were going in the direction they did (not my direction) and was upset at first, but now I am not.

What did I want 4e to be?

1. Simple as a player
2. Simple as a GM to prep and run
3. Easy to play
4. Allow minatures, but not required them.
5. Fixed hit point allowing for variant options for variant styles.
6. Allowed diverse characters (including non-combat ones)
7. Had rules condusive to role-playing
8. Replaced the spell slot system
9. Replaced the aging alignment system
10. Is an everymans game that supports a diverse variety of play styles

I am not into arguing the points above, because I think that they are subjective. I think it did acheive some of them. But others id did not - for some yes and others no.

I would have loved for them to realease a basic game with basic rules, followed by a Roleplayers handbook, a Miniatures handbook, and a Campaign/GM handbook. Allowing people to tailor the game to their style.

Alas, it was not to be. It really only allows a few styles of play, a few types of characters, and requires minatures (to be fun - I am sure you COULD play the game without them - but why would you?).

For those that 4e works for I salute you and wish you many happy hours of gaming happiness. for those that got left behind I feel and share in you pain.

Razuur
 

EDIT: Based on a search for "Good" in the D&D Compendium's monster list, it's still just that one, and then some NPCs, who might just have "good" somewhere else in their text like the Human Bandit, Human Guard, and Human Mage.
To be fair, in the MM there are a fair number of creatures with "Any" alignment. They're not always good, but they are sometimes.
 

With 2e, the system had adapted to try and cater more to roleplaying (while still being robust at combat). We saw a number of really diverse setting bloom and appear.
The settings fostered role-playing in 2e, the system never did. Or are you considering the system and the published settings as a whole?

3e seems to have tried to to everything - cater to the RPers with RP rules...
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.

4e took the RPing out of the rules...
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.
 
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The 4E does not include roleplaying argument is still a load of bunk. There are some things 4E has kicked to the curb, and these things include:

1. 4E has almost completely abandoned any pretense of simulationism
2. 4E does not support the OGL
3. Magic no longer breaks or changes the rules/systems of the game, and power level and what things can/can't do are based solely on level
4. Removal of subsystems and make the game run on a single, defined skeleton
 

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