Honestly, if WoTC didn't create it would 4e be D&D?

[Imaro]

A necessary evil.

Why are they necessary. I mean if your style of play is the way even the majority of most look at and play D&D why even put skill challenges, puzzles, or interaction in D&D 4e? That's more extraneous page wasting for little benefit. Wait, maybe it's because most people don't look at D&D the way you do.

 

[hong]

Why are they necessary. I mean if your style of play is the way even the majority of most look at and play D&D why even put skill challenges, puzzles, or interaction in D&D 4e?

To bribe me into doing other things besides killing things and taking their stuff, by formulating it in a way that my violence-prone mind can understand.

That's more extraneous page wasting for little benefit. Wait, maybe it's because most people don't look at D&D the way you do.

Pish tosh. Most people do look at D&D the way I do, which is why skill challenges are a Good Thing.

 

[Hussar]

By most? Absolutely not.

By some? I'm sure the people who were interested in 3rd party stuff and non-D&D games would pick it up and maybe add stuff to 3.5. You'd probably see ENWorld as a bigger place of acceptance than most.

I mean, look at all the people saying that 4e's ideas were already in various places in 3.5. Certainly Iron Heroes (for instance) didn't get the amount of praise and tenacious trufandom that 4e is getting, despite having many similar innovations.

Swimming WAY upthread for this quote.

I would point out that it works both ways. Yup, the "trufandom" response that we get is due to the D&D branding. As is the vitriol spilled all over the game by those who have an emotional stake in the slaughter of sacred beef.

No one gets too anti M&M, or Iron Heroes. About the only time you see any bad words about C&C is when C&C fans start beaking off about how it's the one true game of D&D.

If 4e wasn't D&D, you're right, no one would care, just like not a whole lot of people care about any d20 product. That it's the new edition of D&D touches a great many more people, in both good and bad ways.

On the question of "Is it really D&D"? Well, considering how much it draws on earlier editions - I was just remarking on the price of Plate Mail which is almost identical to my 1981 Moldvay Basic book.

I look at 4e and all I see are retro elements drawing on the earliest stuff from D&D.

 

[rounser]

I was just remarking on the price of Plate Mail which is almost identical to my 1981 Moldvay Basic book.

It takes more than the price of plate mail to make a game retro.

I look at 4e and all I see are retro elements drawing on the earliest stuff from D&D.

I don't. Early D&D was goofy and slapdash, and had "simulate a fantasy novel" compromises. 4E is antiseptic and logical, and has marketing and rules-before-flavour compromises. In many ways, it's the anti-retro.

I completely understand how it happened, too, because it reminds me of the D&D clone I once tried to create myself - high on logic and rules symmetry that an autistic would adore, but lacking in vibe, nuance and soul. My D&D clone was sterile, and so is WOTC's, IMO. That's why it doesn't inspire me, and why some of it seems so thematically ugly and disjointed, even as it's a technical masterwork.*

One of the former TSR designers was right with regard to 4E, IMO: The inmates have finally taken control of the asylum.

*: Not all of it's thematically ugly to me. I really dig warlocks, and what they've done with fey. And the plane cleanup just leaving the useful ones is nice. Just too much of it is - stuff like warlords, dragonborn, eladrin, tieflings without aasimar, LG and CE feeling lonely, many of the powers making no sense when you try to envision them, healing surges making no sense in terms of their relationship to damage except by employing popcorn logic etc.

 

[Hussar]

Meh Rounser. YMMV and all that of course. I look at all the stuff that's come out and see parallel after parallel with the earlier incarnations of the game - more rigid classes, simplified rules, heavier reliance on DM's, just to start.

But, then again, we're not going to convince each other. You look at it and only see the changes. I look at it and see only what's pretty much the same.

 

[rounser]

You look at it and only see the changes. I look at it and see only what's pretty much the same.

I'd refine that further - you're citing crunch, and I'm citing flavour. The crunch is fantastic, so no wonder you're happy. I just don't like the way that it seems to me that whenever crunch and flavour get in a scrap, WOTC design seems to let crunch needs win, and flavour limps away compromised.

But then, this habit was firmly established in 3E design (e.g. the contents of the monster manual which is full of "need a CR 3 sonic-based attack creature" with flavour an afterthought making it for me a bit of a trainwreck, and later classes with no credible thematic flavour that exist solely for crunch reasons), so represents only a continuation of that.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I'd refine that further - you're citing crunch, and I'm citing flavour. The crunch is fantastic, so no wonder you're happy. I just don't like the way that it seems to me that whenever crunch and flavour get in a scrap, WOTC design seems to let crunch needs win, and flavour limps away compromised.

But then, this habit was firmly established in 3E design (e.g. the contents of the monster manual which is full of "need a CR 3 sonic-based attack creature" with flavour an afterthought making it for me a bit of a trainwreck, and later classes with no credible thematic flavour that exist solely for crunch reasons), so represents only a continuation of that.

But I feel that his exactly didn't happen. There is no Phantom Fungus in 4E. I didn't find any monster yet that's just there to fill something needed.

The closest I can think of is an epic level Minion, a "Lich Vestige", even that has flavor that explains its existence and makes it interesting. (Lich Vestiges are the shells of destroyed Lichs and are pretty... brittle)

The classes all use the same core mechanics with the standardized power progression. The only thing that differentiates them is their strong flavor, pressed into their class features and the powers themselves. If anything, 4E relies more on credible thematic flavor then 3E. It is not following the same trend. And if there weren't so many voices against flavouring a lot of rules aspects in the community, we might have gotten even more.

But compare this: 4E has feats like Astral Fire (extra damage to fire and radiant damage powers). This feels a lot more thematic to me then Energy Substition (Cold) (can make a fireball deal cold damage, but still let it burn paper and other stuff easily combustible).

 

[Umbran]

Hong and Imaro - hey, do you guys actually think you have a hope in heck of changing each other's mind, with the way you're talking to each other? Because I sure don't.

You two are fogging up the thread with a lot of hostility, and failing to make yourselves look like thoughtful people to the world at large. Way to go! We get the point that neither of you can allow the other to have the last word - so I'm having the last word. Just stop responding to each other in this thread, please.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm not sure quite why there's so much debate here. I don't think there's any question that, had the rule-set and fluff (hate that word) that is D&D 4E been released by any other company, then perhaps the majority of D&D 3.5E players would be referring to it with such names as "Fantasy Heartbreaker".

I think anyone who has read my thread on having actually run 4E knows I like the game (on balance), but for my money, it's certainly a "Fantasy Heartbreaker", only, it's one of the good ones.

I suspect that had another company released it, and say 3.5E was continuing, we'd see plenty of people switching over to it, and saying "This is EVEN MORE D&D than 3.5E!".

I guess the issue in the end is what constitutes D&D, so maybe that's why the debate keeps going (that and people love a good argument!). For me, D&D is pretty specific IP, with some pretty specific elements.

4E has most of them. It doesn't, for my money, have all of them. What really separates 4E from previous editions is that it's designers have decided to sacrifice certain things to ensure the best possible experience for an encounter-based level up game. I think this is why people start ranting about MMORPGs. Not entirely accurately, of course, because many earlier ones didn't make many sacrifices for this. But WoW does. Guided player experience is absolutely paramount. Everything has to be doable, everything has to be balanced, the right amount of treasure must be given, not too much, not too little, and the game must be fun, even if that means sacrificing the believability of the game-world to some extent. The extreme intensity of this focus, and the success with which it's achieved makes 4E seem, to me, not quite like "D&D", but some kind of hyper-refined D&D-inspired game. Heck, maybe it just doesn't have enough warts to seem like D&D, maybe that's it.

 

[blargney the second]

I'd refine that further - you're citing crunch, and I'm citing flavour.

I can't even imagine what that flavour tastes like. I don't think I've *ever* been in a D&D game that didn't change flavour much much more than the crunch. (ie a couple of house rules vs entirely different settings.)

-blarg