How Important is Magic to Dungeons and Dragons? - Third Edition vs Fourth Edition

[fanboy2000]

Hey guys, I'm back. I brought donuts!

I'm thinking we should all get together and really hash this stuff out over a beer at GenCon. And then play some Dread.

I can't make it GenCon, but if anyone on this thread is going to San Diego Comic Con, you can PM and we get together. I can talk about this stuff all day.

 

[Mad Mac]

As for CAGI, in terms of rules, it makes sense to change the effect to a pull. A shift is a movement action and normally wouldn't work in this kind of context (against an enemy outside of its own term).

Hmmm, possibly. I just looked it as the equivelent of classes like Warlords being able to grant shifts to allies outside of their normal turns. I could have sworn there are other powers that grant non-forced moves to enemies, but I may be mistaken, or they may have errated whatever I was thinking of.

The thing is, in 4e invisibility is not automatically magical; its a discreet set of mechanical effects that is put into a specific context by the fluff or other keywords (especially the power source ones). In a martial context, invisibility is an application of immense skill.

Yup, I'm in full agreement with you there.

 

[Ariosto]

I suppose invisibility, creating illusions, regeneration, and granting wishes aren't magical unless specified to be so, either.

It looks as if this has already been addressed, but ... Yes, I think that is the 4E view. It's a big departure from what "role playing" has meant, but there it is. Theoretically, a DM could override a player's "authorial control" in the name of a world that makes some sense to an observer, but the player's entitlement to move pieces on the board clearly takes precedence. The old concept that one is limited to doing what one's character can do is right out the window (unless we get back to the idea that everything is magical, or the world is a video-game kind of place a la Tron or The Matrix, or some such rationale).

 

[Ariosto]

Since it's a shift, the target also chooses it's own route within the limits of the power. Hardly mind control.

Per the errata, it's a Pull effect. The target does not choose its route.

(Or, in keeping with the "non-magical" view, the target may indeed be imagined to choose ... but its player has no choice.)

 

[Ariosto]

Hilarious! Sounds like a board game rule.

Well, that's what it is. You play the board game, and meanwhile you can if you like improvise some narration about it. Of course, you can do the same with Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Ride -- but they're not advertised as RPGs and 4E is (and as D&D to boot), so that's what it is.

 

[Ariosto]

CAGI cannot be used on allies.

I imagine a power that lets you temporarily turn "allies" into "enemies" for the purposes of your other powers could come in handy sometimes.

 

[Hussar]

Well, that's what it is. You play the board game, and meanwhile you can if you like improvise some narration about it. Of course, you can do the same with Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Ride -- but they're not advertised as RPGs and 4E is (and as D&D to boot), so that's what it is.

Ariosto - out of curiousity, do you consider any game which uses a battle map to no longer be an RPG? Because, even back in the day, when I was playing Star Frontiers, FASA Star Trek, Villains and Vigilantes, and a few that I cannot remember any more, they all had rules that specifically referenced the battle map. Are those game also not RPG's but board games in your view?

I would also point out that in Settlers of Catan, at no point do you actually pretend to be anyone other than yourself. Isn't that what differentiates a board game from an RPG? I always thought the difference was down to, oh, I don't know, playing a role perhaps?

But, maybe I'm just way off base here.

I'm curious about something else though. For all those telling me that pre-4e, you had a clear demarcation between magical and non-magical effects, how do any large or larger creatures fly? Is a hippogriff using magic to fly?

Now, if a hippogriff is not using magic to fly, but is rather just flying through narrativium or something similar to that, then why is a fighter automatically using magic with his abilities?

 

[rounser]

Ariosto - out of curiousity, do you consider any game which uses a battle map to no longer be an RPG?

Nice attempt at obfuscation. Of course not, else merely using miniatures would constitute "not an RPG". No, it's a level of abstraction codified into the rules that is difficult to resolve with being an RPG that is boardgamesque, not the mere presence of a map.

 

[RefinedBean]

D&D rules have always been abstract. The rules in 4E are just abstract as 3.0 and 3.5, in my experience.

Also, I enjoy the boardgame influence on 4E combat. REALLY enjoy it. Are boardgames bad? I didn't know they were, you know, bad.

 

[rounser]

D&D rules have always been abstract.

Not "boardgame level" abstract to this degree. Even HP weren't as abstract as they are now. Sorry, can't wriggle your way out of this one.