Pathfinder 1E If Paizo can, why can't Wizards of the Coast?

[Dannyalcatraz]

Compare any edition of D&D to Warhammer FRP 1st or 2nd edition (I haven't played WRFP 3d.)

I suggest that the various editions of D&D are all more similar to each other than they are to Warhammer. I further suggest that the differences between any edition of D&D and Warhammer are greater than the differences between that edition and other editions of D&D.

I can't- never played any Warhammer- so what you say may be true.

Given your mention of Warhammer, I could just as easily assert that 4Ed is RADICALLY different, given the nature of the changes between editions of CoC, HERO, GURPS and so forth, and that Warhammer is just the most radical change of system changes.

But both comparison are apples & oranges: what happens in other systems & their revisions doesn't mean that 4Ed isn't the farthest outlier within the D&D editions (or not).

 

[Mournblade94]

And yet, this is still D&D. A lot remains yet.
Wher Pathfinder is not D&D if another form in spirit technicaly.

Anyway, is that even important? Is D&D as a name and brand important? iS BEING 'TRUTY' to D&D's legacy better than a better game, or if the new edition is better,w hy not say 'to heck with D&D'?

I gave 4e a very good and honest shot. I felt it was not a better game. If they made a better game and stripped Legacy I would be OK with it.

By my evaluation at least, they blew tradition and legacy out of the equation, and they made a game that was different with no improvement to the third edition.

 

[AngryMojo]

And yet I as a very competent gamer and DM as I am sure you are (No snarkiness) see 4e as an extreme deviation from what D&D previously was. I see differences in gameplay, philosophy, and construction.

I really do not get the assumption of PC's fighting one monster or monster type at a time. I never delivered encounters that way.

I also never accepted rules from the Book fo NIne swords. I did not like the direction of D&D then. I was more disappointed with 4e. I was hoping for a D&D SAGA release.

In any case, i see 4e as an extreme variation off of the previous design models.

I'll both agree and disagree on various points. I do agree that 4e is a strong variation over the designs of 3e, in many regards, design philosophy being chiefly among them.

3e used a cohesive, integrated design. All the parts worked together to form a giant clock of a game, which the more you get into it, the more you see. The problem wound up being that integrated design, while very strong by itself, does not lend itself to expansion very well. Take a look at the Tome of Magic and Book of Nine Swords, both of which had very mixed responses, because they took those integrated mechanics and tried to fundamentally alter them. Same with psionics, and any number of splatbooks. IMHO, 3.5 was at it's best with a small selection of books available, and even then mostly drawing from the core three.

4e, by contrast, uses a modular design. Each individual piece is designed to work cohesively within itself, without altering the game as a whole, or anything else in the game. You never have to worry about Class X taking a Prestige Class designed for Class Y and having unintended effect Z, which shoves Character Alpha far above or below the power curve. Yes, you lose some customization in the process, but the modular approach makes expansion much easier, and IMHO delays true bloat.

When 3.5 came out, I bought the three core books, and proceeded to buy books for about a year and a half. After that, there was such a drop in quality, and things got so difficult for me to keep track of, I stopped buying books. Now 4e is over two years into it's life, and I'm still buying most all the hardcovers they release, because I feel they will enhance my game experience, and indeed they do.

3e was the beginning, and at least for now the end, of integrated game design for D&D. While second edition could have been argued to have a more modular approach, there are times where I doubt these ideas were really thought out at that time. Behold the advancement of game design over the years. The jump from 3e to 4e keeps the framework of the system. You still roll a d20, add modifiers, compare them to a difficulty and determine success. Rolling high is always good. The action economy is basically the same, if a little more solidly defined, tactical positioning is important and use of a battlemat is highly recommended. Opportunity attacks remain, as does Vancian casting, just with a few more restrictions and applied across the spectrum. Class design, indeed what class even means, is different, as is monster design. Both these resemble 2e far more than 3e. When 2e jumped to 3e on the other hand, your peripherals of the game (classes, monsters, etc.) completely changed their definition, as did the majority of the system. Complicated math made way to streamlined math, the battlemat went from being completely optional to highly reccomended, the action economy changed as well as many of the baseline mechanics. D&D went from a hodgepodge of rules built around a single core to a large, humming, efficient machine.

Both the 2e to 3e and the 3e to 4e transitions were big steps. I see the 2e to 3e step as much larger, at least 3e and 4e share the same basic mechanical guts. Every edition so far of D&D has been a huge change, though the reasons can be debated until the end of the roleplaying hobby. I feel it's due to the complexity of the system, but that's just me.

 

[LuckyAdrastus]

[MENTION=83096]AngryMojo[/MENTION]:

Really good analysis on your last post, especially on the differences between 2e and 3e. I'd give you xp, but I can't because I already did too recently!

I think you get something basic about 3e: it is the edition that most focused on creating a unified mechanical system for the entire world. That's a task which 4e never claimed to do, instead directing the DM to use DM fiat for many things like noncombantant NPC stats.

I think this was both a benefit and a disadvantage for 3e. It let you do something really fun: create a concept and say "how can I represent this as mechanically correctly as possible?" I have a friend who plays Mutants and Masterminds 2nd ed (which mostly used 3e mechanics) and one of the funnest things he does is take classic comic heroes and represent them mechanically. It can be quite a challenge (how to you stat Batman? Isn't he good at everything?) but can be very rewarding.

In 4e, you often cannot do this, because the system is focused around two things more narrowly: statting PCs, and creating simplified monsters to defeat them. Everything else that is challenging is handled by skill challenges, which simplify the mechanics to the point that the PCs are usually just rolling against easy/moderate/hard difficulties. Although the skill challenge system was pretty weak in DMG1, by DMG2 it has become quite strong -- my regular campaign uses one almost every session, and they work great for us.

In other words, if you wanted to introduce Aragorn the ranger for a negotiation, in 3e you would usually stat him out, which is as complex as making an NPC, and then roll opposed checks on various social skills against the PCs. Assuming there is no chance of combat, all his other stats are wasted design time. In 4e, you just throw the PCs against a skill challenge, use easy/medium/hard DCs as appropriate, and Aragorn never has stats.

I think this is nice for 95% of gamplay in 4e, since you're focusing on the gameplayer. But it does mean that 4e isn't a very good system if you just want the intellectual experience of statting out Aragorn.

I think it also means 4e is better for you if you like re-flavoring, and 3e is much worse. In 3e, you are supposed to represent everything with universal mechanics, and it usually works, but can sometimes break down. Want a NPC chef who is fantastic at his job? He better have a lot of HD or levels to get those skill points, so don't forget he can also clobber low level monsters with his rolling pin.

In 4e, you can just hand-waive -- the NPC chef is good at cooking and bad at combat, even though the mechanics of the game doesn't express this with a mathematical number (except a skill DC if the party want to use a skill to interact with his food somehow!).

Anyway, now I'm rambling too, but my point is that 3e and 4e are different games representing different directions for D&D from each other and earlier editions too. 3e is focused on trying to completely simulate a fantastical "reality," where 4e is focused more narrowly on facciliating the kind of gameplay that fills the majority of most tabletop RPGS -- combats and role-playing situations with meaningful chance of success and failure in how they effect the plot.

They are different games with different purposes and different uses.

 

[IronWolf]

I think you get something basic about 3e: it is the edition that most focused on creating a unified mechanical system for the entire world. That's a task which 4e never claimed to do, instead directing the DM to use DM fiat for many things like noncombantant NPC stats.

I guess I have never felt that the 3e system took DM fiat away from me. I appreciated the unified mechanical system, but didn't feel bound to apply it to all situations - at least not to the letter of the law - if it didn't make sense.

Everything else that is challenging is handled by skill challenges, which simplify the mechanics to the point that the PCs are usually just rolling against easy/moderate/hard difficulties.

I have this in 3.x as well though. At the beginning of the skill section it breaks down what the DCs would be for easy, average, tough, challenging, etc. I used that all the time for determining what difficulty to make a skill challenge. It makes it easy to plug in a specific task and determine difficulty.

In other words, if you wanted to introduce Aragorn the ranger for a negotiation, in 3e you would usually stat him out, which is as complex as making an NPC, and then roll opposed checks on various social skills against the PCs. Assuming there is no chance of combat, all his other stats are wasted design time. In 4e, you just throw the PCs against a skill challenge, use easy/medium/hard DCs as appropriate, and Aragorn never has stats.

I rarely stat out the majority of my NPCs in a game. Maybe in their barest form if I do think I really need to know something. An approximation has generally worked for me. I am sure many folks might be uncomfortable with that, but it has worked for me in the past.

I think it also means 4e is better for you if you like re-flavoring, and 3e is much worse. In 3e, you are supposed to represent everything with universal mechanics, and it usually works, but can sometimes break down.

While 3e certainly allows you to represent everything with mechanics I'm not sure I am supposed to. Or maybe it is more accurate to say you can easily get by without representing everything with universal mechanics.

I think your post is a good one as it helps show the wide variations in which people were playing 3.x which quite likely helped form people's opinions of 4e along the way. For the advantages/differences you list for 4e, I've been playing 3.x in similar manner for years - possibly because I am comfortable not feeling bound to support everything with the universal mechanics and others were not, so when 4e came along they felt liberated.

 

[Mistwell]

But what makes this particularly interesting, frankly, is what this says about 4E compared to previous editions of D&D.

...Because 3E cleaned up and inverted the math, it's easier to just grab the appropriate stat block from the MM and plug it in, but the principle remains consistent. And with only a handful of exceptions (primarily giants and dragons, which kept having their power levels diddled with), encounter balance and design was incredibly consistent from 1974 to 2008.

But then we get to 4E and, as you say, suddenly that goes out the window because the game is fundamentally different on a mechanical level.

And that's hardly the end of the universe: I've run Tomb of Horrors in FUDGE, converted Exalted adventures to D&D, and played a Dragonlance Chronicles campaign that had been converted to GURPS.

But it does speak to how profoundly different 4E is compared to previous editions of the game.

I disagree about the ease of converting to 3e from 0e, 1e, or 2e.

In fact, I would bet if you sit two experience people down, and give each whatever existing paper or electronic tools are available, that the 4e guy can convert any of those old adventures to 4e much faster than the 3e guy can convert them to 3e. Particularly if it is a higher level adventure. In fact, it's entirely possibly the 3e guy will have time to work on one or two high level spellcaster conversions in the time it takes the 4e guy to convert the entire adventure to 4e.

Yes, 4e has some changes from what came before. So did 3e. In big ways.

Anyway, I am not sure how this helps further this topic. Both 4e and 3e are great games. I just think these debates go better when they are accurate. There is lots to complain about with 4e - but the speed of converting from prior adventures is simply not a well founded complaint.

 

[LuckyAdrastus]

Both 4e and 3e are great games.

I wholeheartedly agree. Although I play 4e now, and had lots of fun playing 3.5, 3e, and everything back to when I was a wee one in the 80s.

[MENTION=21076]IronWolf[/MENTION]: You also make very good points on the playability of 3e. Every game has strengths and flaws, and some OTHER games might indeed be lousy, but 3e and 4e both seem to have developed wide followings and provided a lot of fun times.

 

[knightofround]

Again, this does not mean that profit-mindedness does not sometimes get in the way of creative development. I would say that it sometimes, even often, does (see, for example, Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time fantasy series).

Not to nitpick or anything, but I really doubt that profit had anything to do with the length of WoT. Robert Jordan simply had a tendency to, well, not be able to stop writing. Not just his WoT books, but his Conan stuff too. As long as the WoT series is, it would be 1.5x longer if his wife didn't edit out most of it. He was writing the last book when he died, and the author who picked it up, Brandon Sanderson, saw no way to finish it in one book...so its being split up into 3. And if you've read the first follow-up written by Sanderson, I think you'll see that Sanderson condenses a *ton* more action in a book compared to Jordan...and yet, that first book is one of the largest WoT books on record...with two more to come.

So I really doubt it had anything to do with profit. I think it has more likely that Jordan let his creative world get too big; too many storylines, too many characters; which inevitably killed the pacing in the later half of the series.

The sad thing is that there were many other books that Jordan wanted to write that were not the core WoT...the most exciting of which, imo, was an out-trigger of Mat in Seanchan after WoT ends. Sadly, those stories will never see the light of day. Jordan was a giant, and he is missed.

 

[Mercurius]

Hmm, not sure if I agree with you, knightofround. We really can't know, but given the trajectory of the story I think profit had a huge impact on the length of the series. I stopped reading after Crown of Swords--I just couldn't get through the prologue of Path of Daggers--but it seemed that the decline in quality began around book 6 or 7, when Jordan "stretched out" the action and what had previously occured in one book was now taking 2-3 books. The same could be said of George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire.

I also read somewhere Brandon Sanderson hinting at pressure from Tor to split that one book into three, although can't remember where I saw that. But it is simple math: If you can sell, say, 300,000 copies of a single book you might as well split that up, so that if you write three you sell 900,000.

In the case of Jordan what we might have seen was a combination of a few factors - pressures from Tor, his own financial gain, and his own tendency to over-write, as you say. But if the books hadn't been so profitable I highly doubt that we'd be looking at 14 books; If you go back to what I consider the peak of the series, A Shadow Rising, and outline a trajectory from there, the story would still be huge, but maybe 7-10 books, but not 14. And remember, even Jordan "only" wanted it to be 12.

So to put it another way, "artistically" the series should have been 8-10 books; Jordan's over-writing lengthened it to 12 books, and Tor further lengthened it to 14.

 

[drothgery]

I also read somewhere Brandon Sanderson hinting at pressure from Tor to split that one book into three, although can't remember where I saw that. But it is simple math: If you can sell, say, 300,000 copies of a single book you might as well split that up, so that if you write three you sell 900,000.

Well, it was more Tor looking at how long Sanderson (who almost from the beginning thought it would end up being at the very minimum two books) said the book would be, and Tor coming back and saying
1) We aren't going to print anything that's impossible to make into one paperback, so that's three books.
2) We really need to have a WoT book out by 2009 if we want to convince fans that we're serious about finishing this thing.

Me, I don't think anyone could reasonably have read the WoT books up to the last one Jordan wrote and believe it was even remotely possible for Jordan to finish it one book, or even two, no matter how much he wanted to.