Is 4E still D&D to you?

[apoptosis]

What's interesting for those who say it's not D&D is - why not? What are the key things for you that are not present in 4e?

That is a good question and not an easy one to answer.

Wizards with spells that can do a variety of things (a toolbox)

Vancian casting

Wizards are low-powered at low-levels and really powerful at high levels

HP are abstract but have some odd disconnect in that sometimes they really mean physical damage

Randomish treasure

Magic items that are quirky

that is just a beginning, frankly there are a lot of things and I honestly admit that the line is arbitrary and probably not even self-consistent, but I also know it has validity (as much as feel/fun has validiity)

 

[outsider]

Of course it's still D&D. I'm still going into dungeons, killing monsters, and taking their stuff in order to advance my character. I'm rolling d20 to hit. I still have str, dex, con, int, wis, cha. I've still got levels, classes, and hit points. The archetypical party of Fighter, Wizard, Rogue, and Cleric still exists. I can still reasonably expect to be carrying around half a dozen magic items at a minimum. No doubt I'll fight dragons, beholders, and mindflayers at some point. I'm still playing a mechanics heavy and tactically complex game. The core game experience is quite similar, which is ultimately what makes D&D for me.

 

[Tsyr]

I'm going to have to go with "no", not even a little bit.

4E feels like a small-press RPG to me. Mechanically interesting system, maybe a neat setting, but it is exactly what it is. It doesn't have, to me, anywhere near the versatility that 1,2, and 3E did. To expand on that, without recreating races and classes from whole cloth, I cannot even play my old DnD settings now. Even the most vanilla settings, like Forgotten Realms (Which will undoubtedly get its own book, of course, but the point stands) or Greyhawk (which probably wont).

It does what it does well. But unless you want what it does - and I don't - you aren't going to like it.

 

[Tsyr]

Of course it's still D&D. I'm still going into dungeons, killing monsters, and taking their stuff in order to advance my character. I'm rolling d20 to hit. I still have str, dex, con, int, wis, cha. I've still got levels, classes, and hit points. The archetypical party of Fighter, Wizard, Rogue, and Cleric still exists. I can still reasonably expect to be carrying around half a dozen magic items at a minimum. No doubt I'll fight dragons, beholders, and mindflayers at some point. I'm still playing a mechanics heavy and tactically complex game. The core game experience is quite similar, which is ultimately what makes D&D for me.

By that logic, excepting the specific names and terminology, most fantasy rpgs are "DnD". That isn't the case.

 

[delericho]

In 1e, 2e and 3e, a player who had only the core rulebooks would perfectly understand the story of a Gnomish Illusionist that was stranded on Elysium and had run out of spells for the day and then met a gold dragon.

By that criteria, OD&D, BECM D&D, Dragonlance, Spelljammer, Ravenloft and Dark Sun are all "not D&D", as one or all of those elements are missing.

Unfortunately, I can't really define what D&D is in a satisfactory manner. It's really a "I'll know it when I see it" thing. And, with 4e, I do see it - but I can well understand how others might not.

 

[Negflar2099]

I know I shouldn't reply on this topic, it won't come to any good and the thread is so long nobody will read my post anyway, but I just cannot help myself. It's a personal sickness.

Yes I think 4e is very D&D. More so than 3e. I thought I was just bored with D&D until 4e came out and I realized I wasn't bored with D&D I was bored with 3e's interpretation of it. I can't explain what intangible thing makes this edition more D&D to me. Maybe it's the way monsters each have their own xp, maybe it's the art style which evokes earlier editions while still improving the quality of the art, maybe it's the way they've simplified the skill system. I don't know but this system makes me love D&D again.

That's all I have to say. You may return to your regularly scheduled anti 4e rant.

 

[SSquirrel]

4E is the best D&D yet IMO. My wife got bored of 3E after playing almost nothing but 3E w/my friends and I for several years. I did too really. We had both come from playing a multitude of RPGs over the years and having only 3E to play since no one was interested in trying all the other games we liked sucked and we got burned out a few months after 3.5 came out.

Cue 4E's rampup and me telling her all kinds of stuff I'm reading about 4E and sharing the pdfs w/her after they get released. By now she's really excited and interested in the game. She has been so desperate to role play lately that she was starting some ideas to run Arcana Evolved. Now she's instead talking about how she wants to run 4E. She's never DMed in her life and this game is making her want to. I'm very excited and can't wait. Naturally I'll be the walking rulebook to help her out along the way when she asks for a rules clarification, but that's what good gamer geek husbands do

 

[w_earle_wheeler]

It's a good game that I enjoy playing, but I don't really think of it as Dungeons & Dragons.

Not any more than I would see any of the slew of loosely-based D&D fantasy games as D&D.

 

[beeflv30]

Still D&D to me. The rules are flexible and I find that making up new rules on the spot is a breeze. This edition has a bit of each previous edition infused into it with some new ways of doing things (Yay for powers). The game needs a revision every now and then. If it did not reboot it would fade away or become stale.

 

[Gladius Legis]

Yes, it is. And actually even more than 3.x ever was.

Yup.