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<blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 6066661" data-attributes="member: 59082">Man, that's frustrating. I just spent the last 40 minutes writing a&nbsp; detailed reply to [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] which I accidently deleted.&nbsp; Rather than try to recreate it, I'll cut the point.I think the&nbsp; issue here is that the kind of &quot;thematic depth&quot; and &quot;martial fiat&quot; that&nbsp; you mention as being your experience with 4E is, as Manbearcat said, the&nbsp; result of deeply understanding the rules, which is of course related to&nbsp; system mastery. The problem, though, is that the true pleasures of 4E&nbsp; are only &quot;unlocked&quot; through an enormous amount of play. In other words,&nbsp; as was the case with 3E, while it is very easy to learn the basics, to&nbsp; really understand the system - and to be able to &quot;fly&quot; with it -&nbsp; requires a huge time investment, which also requires interest and a&nbsp; certain aptitude with rules systems.On one hand this is just&nbsp; fine - time investment, interest and aptitude should all be rewarded&nbsp; with a deeper, fuller experience of game play. If I want to spend hours&nbsp; on the Char-Op boards optimizing my character, why shouldn't I be&nbsp; rewarded for it? But the problem is that rules mastery in 3E, which&nbsp; largely took the form of character optimization, has been replaced with&nbsp; the kind of thematic depth that both speak of, so that much of what&nbsp; makes 4E really work requires a massive depth and knowledge of the game,&nbsp; which is one of the major reasons the edition hasn't really thrived and&nbsp; is so castigated in the D&amp;D community.WotC seems to realize&nbsp; this to some degree but I'm not convinced they know how to address it.&nbsp; Next certainly promises a lot - to serve both those interested in rules&nbsp; mastery and those that just want to play casually. The key, though, is&nbsp; if they can &quot;front load&quot; the game enough so that the bulk of it can be&nbsp; grokked relatively easily, but also have enough left over to please the&nbsp; rules masters.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mercurius, post: 6066661, member: 59082"] Man, that's frustrating. I just spent the last 40 minutes writing a detailed reply to [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] which I accidently deleted. Rather than try to recreate it, I'll cut the point. I think the issue here is that the kind of "thematic depth" and "martial fiat" that you mention as being your experience with 4E is, as Manbearcat said, the result of deeply understanding the rules, which is of course related to system mastery. The problem, though, is that the true pleasures of 4E are only "unlocked" through an enormous amount of play. In other words, as was the case with 3E, while it is very easy to learn the basics, to really understand the system - and to be able to "fly" with it - requires a huge time investment, which also requires interest and a certain aptitude with rules systems. On one hand this is just fine - time investment, interest and aptitude should all be rewarded with a deeper, fuller experience of game play. If I want to spend hours on the Char-Op boards optimizing my character, why shouldn't I be rewarded for it? But the problem is that rules mastery in 3E, which largely took the form of character optimization, has been replaced with the kind of thematic depth that both speak of, so that much of what makes 4E really work requires a massive depth and knowledge of the game, which is one of the major reasons the edition hasn't really thrived and is so castigated in the D&D community. WotC seems to realize this to some degree but I'm not convinced they know how to address it. Next certainly promises a lot - to serve both those interested in rules mastery and those that just want to play casually. The key, though, is if they can "front load" the game enough so that the bulk of it can be grokked relatively easily, but also have enough left over to please the rules masters. [/QUOTE]

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