Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5524323" data-attributes="member: 82106">I don't think the intent was 'fluff is option'. I think the intent was to give you minimal fluff that doesn't imply all sorts of additional unspoken or undefined mechanics. A good example is the old AD&D version of Spider Climb. The fluff insisted on telling you HOW it made it possible to climb a wall (by making your hands sticky). This was first of all silly because it didn't explain anything (I don't care how sticky your hands are, you're still not traversing a ceiling). Next it implied all sorts of off-label uses for the spell which caused endless annoyances. 2e had to make the description of the spell 4x longer so they could try to catalog them all and explain all the secondary ramifications of the spell. 4e Spider Climb works perfectly well and has none of those problems. Beyond that it can be cooler because I could for instance describe my character's arms and legs turning into spider legs or something funky like that. The AD&D version? Nah, your hands get sticky.Well, I think 4e overdid things. It isn't an issue with the core rules design. There are just too many powers that create too many ongoing effects. I am all onboard with the conceptual design of 4e, that doesn't mean I think all the details of individual game elements are perfect, either individually or collectively.As for freeform, first I honestly think this is a bit of an exaggeration. There are a pretty good chunk of rules for out of combat situations. 4e does a lot more for out of combat stuff than AD&D ever did, and I'm not really seeing the complaints about this aspect of AD&D. There are LESS MECHANICS than previous editions here, but that is far more the result of having one consistent mechanic that works in 100's of situations vs having 100's of individual mechanics (and I freely admit that 3.x went a good ways in this direction already). Where it IS a BIT more freeform is in terms of defining things like what non-adventuring stuff your character is good at, how to do things that are really setting related (encounter tables, building a castle, hiring henchmen, running a business, etc). Really I personally like that, the players and DM are more free to make these things work in accordance with the way they want to play. It is cool that UA is covering some of this stuff too, no reason not to have some usable rules there for common situations.Because they aren't oddball when the rules provide them? They are just messy and not well defined. If I as the DM can decide what non-standard uses of things will work that's cool. Having to argue with players who want to insist that some unclear word or phrase in the description of 'Contingency' or 'Phantasmal Forces' means they are supposed to be able to do X? Meh. Notice too, ONLY CASTERS got this benefit in previous editions. The fighter? Nah, he just swings his sword. He could try some cool combat maneuver, but he hasn't lost that in 4e, AND he has some explicit ones he can always pull off, AND a more solid resolution system for the stunts. I guess my feeling is if you want less combat then do less combat. 4e will do ALL the other stuff that you could do in the earlier editions out of combat with little difference except cleanup of rules. If the players are LIKING the combats, then I guess I'm not sure what the problem is... If what you mean by 'less interesting interactions with their environment' that the casters don't just have a spell for it then I sadly have little sympathy because I require that the fighter also get to have that interesting interaction. Which brings me to why I don't want to change things. I'm sure there are changes I'd be fine with. I won't be fine with wizards running the show again and I won't be happy with subverting 4e into that game again. I have 2e, I can play it any time I want (and I have plenty of players for it too). Why do people want 4e to be 2e?</blockquote>

Verification