D&D 4E Is 4E the designers homebrew coming to my gaming table?

[JamesM]

If that makes any sense...

That makes a great deal of sense.

I remember Monte Cook arguing that one of the great flaws in v.3.5 was that it changed just enough that every player and DM could never be sure what had changed and what had stayed the same. They essentially had to "re-learn" the game, even if all they re-learned was that this rule hadn't in fact changed while that rule did.

I suspect that WotC wants to avoid that phenomenon. So, where they changed things, for whatever reason, they've changed them quite significantly so as to make it clear to us that we shouldn't assume anything is the same as before.

I think it's a fine strategy, but I personally hate it. It really does feel like they're jettisoning 30+ years of shared story and common vocabulary for 4E, even their reasons for doing so are admirable. This really will be D&D 2.0.

 

[TheSeer]

I imagined the core books providing a game mechanic and fixing problems with how 3.5 played. What I didn't bargain for was a rewrite of some pretty defined themes within DnD. I wonder if this is a bit of the designers homebrew (or office brew if you will) sneaking into 4E

I don't feel that these were broken issues and that the DnD community was clamoring for them to be fixed.

Most importantly, I think the designers should be focusing their attention on rules and soldifying a core gaming mechanic. These fluffy things can be added in later supplements if need be. This seems a bit problematic especially since some of the fixes for 3.5 they have promised appear to be in the works rather than actually resolved (ie multiclassing, gish characters, rapid NPC generation).

I agree that it isn't Greyhawk, but Greyhawk sort of was the original setting for 1E and as a result the Great Wheel is "generic" DND cosmology.

Uhm...Where do you think Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms came from? They were designers homebrew that became D&D. What's wrong with that happening?

 

[Malhost Zormaeril]

At some point the old editions become canon and provide us with a universal concept of what is DND. Those concepts can evolve if written into story etc. Want to change the Great Wheel, then write a cataclysmic event that changes the make up of the planes. Don't simply handwave all the old versions away because you don't like how they work.

Funny, I'm in the complete opposite camp. I HATE cataclysmic events with the passion of a thousand burning suns. It's what ruined Dragonlance: Three hundred and fifty years separate the Cataclysm and the War of the Lance, and then Krynn falls into a pattern where Gods leave, then come back every thirty years or so; a couple of gods die this time around, a millennarian race becomes extinct the next. Holy symbols don't work now, and then they do again. It stretches the imagination that mortal civilisation could withstand things like the Summer of Chaos and the War of Souls every generation... and because D&D changes its rules every ten or so real-world years, we're more or less fated with having a great cataclysmic event every generation.

Well, at least it's not the Star Wars galaxy, where the Republic stands for a thousand generations, protected by the Jedi Order; and then the Skywalkers show up, and suddenly the Republic can't stand for more than ten years, and every five years or so the Jedi order is obliterated in a great fratricide struggle to the point where only three or four Jedi remain. Frankly, it's enough to make one wish the Sith were successful once just to put the Order out of its misery Really, the longest period of political stability since Anakin's time was Palpatine's Empire, where Galatic government remained stable for a whopping twenty years!

Whew! Got that out of my system. Sorry, I guess I got a bit carried away :\

 

[broghammerj]

Uhm...Where do you think Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms came from? They were designers homebrew that became D&D. What's wrong with that happening?

It's fine. So is Eberron. Those settings will change or evolve over time due to influence of new authors which alters the original setting. The important point is that they are settings. GH may be core DnD simply because it was the first.

Much like settings evolve, so should the ruleset. The game mechanic will change over time. What I don't like is that fluff elements that have existed for 30 years are suddenly changed with some hand waving. Elemental planes are suddenly different than the reference points we have dealt with for years. Points of light campaigning is now a must because since then we really have been doing it wrong for 30 years. Etc.

What I have a problem with is someone's homebrew suddenly becoming the new DnD ala new Coke. Some changes seem more like a revolution than an evolution.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Well, at least it's not the Star Wars galaxy, where the Republic stands for a thousand generations, protected by the Jedi Order; and then the Skywalkers show up, and suddenly the Republic can't stand for more than ten years, and every five years or so the Jedi order is obliterated in a great fratricide struggle to the point where only three or four Jedi remain. Frankly, it's enough to make one wish the Sith were successful once just to put the Order out of its misery Really, the longest period of political stability since Anakin's time was Palpatine's Empire, where Galatic government remained stable for a whopping twenty years!

Whew! Got that out of my system. Sorry, I guess I got a bit carried away :\

However, it is a major convention of epic literature that the epic story takes place during the time of upheaval in x or y era. The Iliad may be important for the beauty with which the story is told, but Homer is careful to note that the siege of Troy was the greatest battle in the history of civilization (at least from his point of view) and the beginning of the entire "Greek" tradition in its own way. Luke and Anakin's entire *importance* is illustrated by the fact that they are responsible for transforming a thousands-year-old, galaxy-spanning order twice in two generations; that's why it's an epic fantasy! I'm assuming the same happens with respect to your own PCs, no?

All that said, I'm 100% with you about the use of cataclysmic events to redefine cosmologies between editions, largely because those events are inevitably offstage in a game that's supposed to feature the PCs front and center. Even if the PCs play out the cataclysmic event, the fact that the event MUST happen to justify the edition changes will make the underlying adventure into a railroad (see FRE1-3 for an example).

 

[KarinsDad]

but another way of appealing to new players is by rewriting the setting of the game to make it more intuitive and attractive to newcomers.

Intuitive how?

What is intuitive about an Eladrin?

What is intuitive about a Tiefling?

The word Elf is intuitive. The word Dwarf is inituitive.

 

[KarinsDad]

I mean, what sort of fluff causes problems, exactly?

When as a DM, you decide that Tieflings suck as a race and do not include them in your campaign, but a player really really wants to play one when he read about it in the PHB.

Stuff written down in the PHB tends to be taken as gospel.

 

[The Little Raven]

What is intuitive about an Eladrin?

What's intuitive about five different elven subraces, two of which are near identical aside from mechanics (wild and wood), and two of which are near identical in description (high and gray), and one of which isn't called a "<blank> elf" like the others (drow)?

Not much.

I find eladrin, elf, and drow to be far more intuitive than that mess.

 

[Rechan]

Stuff written down in the PHB tends to be taken as gospel.

I fail to see how that's a "Problem", and a problem of fluff. Just tell the player no, just like the player wanting to play any other thing that doesn't suit your game.

I will always try to play a kobold, no matter what DM I sit at a table under, no matter if it's in the PHB or I have to wait two years for the PC stats. And all a DM has to do is tell me "No" and I'll leave that DM alone about it.

 

[Scribble]

That makes a great deal of sense.

I remember Monte Cook arguing that one of the great flaws in v.3.5 was that it changed just enough that every player and DM could never be sure what had changed and what had stayed the same. They essentially had to "re-learn" the game, even if all they re-learned was that this rule hadn't in fact changed while that rule did.

I suspect that WotC wants to avoid that phenomenon. So, where they changed things, for whatever reason, they've changed them quite significantly so as to make it clear to us that we shouldn't assume anything is the same as before.

I think it's a fine strategy, but I personally hate it. It really does feel like they're jettisoning 30+ years of shared story and common vocabulary for 4E, even their reasons for doing so are admirable. This really will be D&D 2.0.

Eh... The books are still there. That's the great thing about "fluff." You don't really have to know a lot about "game design" in order to muddle it around.

The old fluff is all still there on your shelf.

The new stuff just helps make the new concepts concrete and understandable.

But I can understand your point of view... My only consolation I guess is how many times do you want to read the same book? I mean, I love Neuromancer, but after a while, I just want to read a new cyberpunk story...

Shrug. Time to create new shared vocabs and ideas.