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Is 4E doing it for you?
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<blockquote data-quote="Felon" data-source="post: 4478470" data-attributes="member: 8158"><p>Well, I'd already covered a lot of it in a previous post in the second page of this thread. There are a lot of 4e rules that just have sloppy mechanics, fostered by a philosophy that goes something like "a flawed, ham-handed rule is better than an elegant, comprehensive rule if the former is simpler than the latter: make rules for people who prefer the straightforwardness of a club over the intricacy of a rapier". </p><p></p><p>If you're into game mechanics, if you like to tinker with that element of the game, then you don't want to look under the hood and see duct tape and rubberbands. Some people would look at that and say "hey, it gets the job done, so who cares?" These are the people who want a nice, light game. The mechanic finds it off-putting, but even worse, it limits the potential to tinker further.</p><p></p><p>So, for instance, when a designer's faced with figuring out how grappling should work, with all the elements that come with it (establishing a hold, escaping, throwing, choking, squeezing, dragging), or how rules should apply to incorporeal or amorphous opponents (can they be grappled, pushed/pulled/slid, knocked prone, etc), he's got the choice to use the club or the rapier. Be meticulous, or just duct-tape the sucker. In the end, D&D went for "grabbed = immobilized, no pinning, no squeezing", and "incorporeal = half damage, otherwise treat just like everything else". There's a spartan principle at work that some folks like, but the mechanic has good reason to regard D&D as a "lite" game, and if he wants something deeper, he can't tinker within the system. If I want to pit the players against a foe that they can't deal with just by cycling through their power cards, then I'm working against 4e's grain, not with it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Felon, post: 4478470, member: 8158"] Well, I'd already covered a lot of it in a previous post in the second page of this thread. There are a lot of 4e rules that just have sloppy mechanics, fostered by a philosophy that goes something like "a flawed, ham-handed rule is better than an elegant, comprehensive rule if the former is simpler than the latter: make rules for people who prefer the straightforwardness of a club over the intricacy of a rapier". If you're into game mechanics, if you like to tinker with that element of the game, then you don't want to look under the hood and see duct tape and rubberbands. Some people would look at that and say "hey, it gets the job done, so who cares?" These are the people who want a nice, light game. The mechanic finds it off-putting, but even worse, it limits the potential to tinker further. So, for instance, when a designer's faced with figuring out how grappling should work, with all the elements that come with it (establishing a hold, escaping, throwing, choking, squeezing, dragging), or how rules should apply to incorporeal or amorphous opponents (can they be grappled, pushed/pulled/slid, knocked prone, etc), he's got the choice to use the club or the rapier. Be meticulous, or just duct-tape the sucker. In the end, D&D went for "grabbed = immobilized, no pinning, no squeezing", and "incorporeal = half damage, otherwise treat just like everything else". There's a spartan principle at work that some folks like, but the mechanic has good reason to regard D&D as a "lite" game, and if he wants something deeper, he can't tinker within the system. If I want to pit the players against a foe that they can't deal with just by cycling through their power cards, then I'm working against 4e's grain, not with it. [/QUOTE]
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