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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4012985" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't think this is at all true. 4e has virtually nothing in common with AD&D excpet for sharing a few fantasy tropes, and is a significant departure from 3E, bascially ditching all the lingering AD&Disms.I'm a big supporter of 4e. But I do agree with those who say the changes in the edition are profound.What surprises me about some of those complaints, however, is that they focus on somewhat minor issues (like Gnomes or Halflings - these are fairly easy to put back in or modify, surely, once one has a look at the PHB and the MM) and not on the fundamental design issues, which are huge.The major changes from AD&D to 3E were two: sophisticated character build rules, and sophisticated action resolution rules. The first set of rules gave players lots of options they hitherto had lacked, thus transferring narrative control in the game from designers to players. The second set of rules brought an end to the GM's special role in AD&D as an arbiter of action success via direct negotiation with the players. This transferred narrative control from the GM to the players. (And there have been a lot of complaints about this.)4e basically picks up where 3E left off - nearly every change from the previous editions is intended to transfer narrative control in one of these two directions. In particular, 4e:*consolidates those aspects of 3E which empower the players over the GM (like character build and action resolution mechanics); *further redistributes narrative control to the players, for example by: *making Demons, Devils and other monsters more immediately recognisable to the players, and gives them distinctive tacics (thus allowing the players to recognise a monster and take account of its known and distinctive tactics in their play choices); *rebalancing magic items and encounter build rules (to make players less vulnerable to accidentally unbalanced GMing); *introducing Second Wind rules and making APs core; *giving all PCs per-encounter abilities (which mean that players are no longer hostage to the GM's decisions about the overall passage of time in the gameworld); *introducing the PoL assumption that PoLs are safehavens until the players choose to trigger adversity (see sidebar, p 20, W&M); *transfers narrative control from the designers to the players and GM together (removal of mechanical metaphysics of alignment, which allows the gaming group to answer moral questions in their own way, during the course of actual play); *undoes imbalances of narrative controls between players (PoL eliminates a lot of campaign backstory, putting different players on an even footing in that respect).All of this facilitate gamist play, by stopping the GM and the game designers getting in the way of the players' pursuit of system excellence. Interesting, it also facilitates narrativist play, by making adversity in the game, and its resolution, something much more shared between players and GM in a potentially co-operative fashion, than something almost entirely under the GM's control (as was the case in AD&D to a significant extent).But changing alignment reduces simulationism (because it forces the players to answer moral questions, rather than play out the game designers' pre-determined answer), it doesn't increase it. Transportation magic is a bit different - it can fit with a different type of simulation, or (as seems to be the intention of the designers) actually redistribute narrative control from the players back to the GM - an exception to the general trend discerned above, but also something which facilitiates the proper balancing of encounters.In one sense all game rules address the players, because they are written and read in the real world, not the gameworld. But I agree that the 4e rules are not simulationist (ie do not model ingame processes). I don't see why that is a problem - granting players narrative control (as non-simulationist rules do) can foster immersion as much as undermine it.After all, in traditional quasi-simulationist D&D play, the GM has almost total narrative control. The GM determines the general degree and frequency (be it spatial and/or temporal)  of adversity, whether by placing encounters in a dungeon or plotting up a series of events, and determines the level of reward (by awarding XP and loot), and resolves moral questions (by adjudicating alignment matters), and has a big say in action resolution (for example, by ignoring the dice if they would "get in the way of the fun"). But I've never heard it suggested that GMs don't have fun playing D&D, or are unable to immerse themselves in the game.</blockquote>

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