Is 4E still D&D to you?

[hong]

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

Actually, this is precisely why most fantasy RPGs fail, because they _are_ D&D (with the serial numbers filed off). Hence the term "fantasy heartbreaker".

 

[Digital M@]

Dungeons & Dragons 4E. That makes it D&D to me. I only started playing D&D because it was easier to find players. Growing up I played other games and lots of home made games (those were always the best).

In the Army, I started playing RPGs with strangers and picked up AD&D. Not a bad game, but nothing great, but it was easy to find players. That is why I have stuck with D&D. None of my old friends game anymore, so I find new people to game with. Groups of strangers gaming works OK, but the groups have a tendency to break up, start again with a few changes and just as things get rolling, break up again. D&D allows me to find games.

But 4E has the core races (minus the gnome), the core classes, levels, Hit Points, the same monsters. It has more tactics, but not at the expense of role playing. IMO, it actually opens more doors for role playing than 3E. In 3e you had rules on if you could make a horse shoe. If you could make a horse shoe it came at the cost of you being able to run, jump, balance etc. Now if you want to make a horse shoe, the DM says sure, now you just need to find a blacksmith willing to rent out his shop or lend you his space. Or the DM can say, where in your background did you learn that, you said you were raised by desert spiders in a land without metal. It crates more freedom, by not trying to define every single facet with a rule. (I hated that with 3E)

I can see the change in flavor with magic, but I was always turned away from magic users because they were too much work, so that does not impact me.

For me, I do not see anything in 4E that makes it less D&D. To me D&D has never been a ruleset, but the feel of the game, the worlds it was set in and fun around the table. But I have been, am and will always be a casual gamer.

 

[Wombat]

Let's see...

Character classes, armour classes, emphasis on combat, alignment, hit points.

Yep, still D&D.

Then again, this may explain why I am curtailing my involvement with D&D of any edition...

 

[Hairfoot]

Hit points? check
XP & Levels? check
Classes/Races? check
Fantasy? check
Polyhedral dice (especially that d20)? check
Sitting around a table with friends being heroes slaying monsters?

Still sounds like D&D to me.

I have a motorbike. I put a label on the seat which reads "cockpit", another on the fuel tank which reads "rotor". Elsewhere I stick labels saying "tail", "skids" and "stabilising rotor". Hooray! I now own a helicopter!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

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?

Vancian casting- should have been an option for at least one full casting class.

Spells that do more than hurt things or heal them.

Rules for DMs to make their own unique magic items- the Ritual only lets you make things that already exist, without explanation of how to extrapolate into things that do not.

True multiclassing that supports a wide variety of PC development styles. 4Ed's system would be a fine feat based supplement to the 3Ed rules, but its a poor replacement that would support only a mere handful of PCs I've run in the past 30 years- maybe as few as 25%.

CG, NG, LE, NE. The 9 point system is more realistic, flexible and robust than the 4Ed system. In all honesty, though, I'd have been just as satisfied if 4Ed had used a 3 point alignement system (G-U-E). The 5 point system is garbage, IMHO.

The other Planetouched races. It would have been easy as pie and quite elegant to apply some of the mechanical solutions to introducing variety into the classes and made Tieflings one option of many under the umbrella term Planetouched (or Nephilim, or whatever).

FWIW, the same treatment listed above could have been done to Elves and/or Fey in general, saving valuable pages of the PHB for those of us who like (but don't drool over) Elves for some other info of use.

Missing Gnomes, Monks, Barbarians, etc., make it impossible for me to update my PCs and campaigns to the new edition without converting, adapting, or worse BUYING something. After playing for 30 years with several groups- one lasting 20 years and counting, one at 10 years and counting- I'm not really keen on retconning or worse, ditching everything and starting anew.

Negative racial stat mods so that critters look like they should. I'm sorry, but the MM's PC-ized version of the Minotaur is no more fearsome than a Dragonborn (a creature who is, on average, 50-100lbs and 9-11" shorter), and is certainly a lot smarter (on average) than most previous Ed's versions of the bully boys.

Inclusion of mechanics- healing surges, Ftr & Pal aggro, etc.- that are some of my least favorite features of arcade combat games and online RPGs.

A unified system for both PCs and NPCs. Now I have to learn 2 methods of generating personalities? FEH!

I'm all for giving novice DMs tools to work with (including copious examples), but at times, the 4Ed DM is treated like an idiot. Exhibit 1: the magic adjustment charts for monsters and NPCs. If I'm giving an Ogre a +3 weapon, I want it to give him a bonus of +3, not +2 as dictated by his adjustment. If I wanted him to have a bonus of +2, I'd have given him a +2 weapon.

And this is with only a week's worth of perusing the game.

 

[Mr. Wilson]

Yeah, it is to me.

Just like 3.X was before it, and AD&D was before that (sorry, I started in '93 when I was 12, so that's as far back as I go).

Just reading the rules, this feels a lot like AD&D in spirit with most of 3.X's underlying sound design, topped off with new ideas all it's own that make it fun to play every class, not just the Wizard, Cleric, or Druid.

 

[EATherrian]

I think not the general existence of combat powers are the problem (Shadowrun has tons of them in shape of spells, ki adept powers and fire modes) but their reliance on movement causes the miniature focus.

This is my biggest problem. I HATE using miniatures, it takes the focus from the game to the game board. I prefer D&D a board-less game. If I can solve that I'll be happier with the new edition. I also can't play just a simple character anymore. I loved the old Fighter. I like just hitting things. Now I have to think too much. That's not why I play, I play to get away from all the things I have to do as DM, which I do 95% of the time.

I am not sure stale is the correct word. I think a lot of combat games suffer from the fact that ultimately, it is just rolling some dice, and a lot of the descriptions or narration you might try doesn't has relevance to resolving the encounter. That's why I like 3E and 4E combat.

Maybe stale wasn't the best term. Inflexible is probably better. It reads to me that nothing can be done without mapping it all out in advance. I like my games to be able to take strange unexpected turns. I'm a seat of the pants DM, not a let me check my notes DM.

ed: for spelling

 

[EATherrian]

I don't understand this comment in regards to any edition of D&D or for that matter any RPG that I have played. Every game I have played (all versions of D&D, Earthdawn, Shadowrun, GURPS, Palladium, Rolemaster, Marvel Comic Superheroes, TORG, Toon, Paranoia, Unisystem) is a set of rules on how to do stuff (fight, resolve skills, etc). None of these games has rules for roleplaying. I'd really like to understand how a game can contain "more roleplaying" than another. I always thought the amount of roleplaying came from the players and gamemaster. Am I wrong?

You're not wrong. I think what I mean is that the shared set of assumptions about where the characters and monsters fit into the world seems missing. I guess this is mostly a fluff thing, but there seems to be less idea of how things fit into the world in the core here than in earlier editions.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

You're not wrong. I think what I mean is that the shared set of assumptions about where the characters and monsters fit into the world seems missing. I guess this is mostly a fluff thing, but there seems to be less idea of how things fit into the world in the core here than in earlier editions.

The books do seem to be rules-heavy. I kind of like that though in the core books. Some guidance, especially in the DMG and a little in the MM to get that spark of creativity going to start your own personal "Known World" and then detailed work in campaign setting books. I think this is why D&D has excelled over other fantasy RPGs like Earthdawn. I liked Earthdawn, but if you ddidn't like the fluff the rules were tied into that fluff more and hard to diverge.

 

[CleverNickName]

I really expected there to be a wider gap in this poll's results.