D&D 4E Is 4E winning you or losing you?

[KarinsDad]

Im predicting 4E will get bloated even faster than 3E did starting with so much high-powered munchkinism when they add too many character options/PrCs again.

This is my concern and the playtests listed so far tends to support it.


Yesterday, I had my players run into a Mirror of Opposition (as a defense on an ancient temple).

It was difficult as a DM for me to run the 5 PCs because even at 4th level, they have a lot of options. Needless to say, the PCs wiped out the Mirrored NPCs: partially because the PCs had Eberron Action Points and the NPCs did not, partially because the players were rolling better than I was on average, but also partially because each player knew his PC inside out and even though I had looked them over ahead of time and had a copy at the table, I still did not know/remember all of the nuances which give the PCs a slight edge each.

I could not imagine doing this successfully against high level 3.5 PCs, let alone 4E ones described in the playtests.

 

[Presto2112]

Well, let's just say it's not losing me, because it never had me to begin with.

I haven't been following the blogs all that closely (barely at all in fact), and the few perfunctory things I've seen far from excite me, with the exception of the "warlock as core" thing, but then they'll just completely $^%# with the way the warlock works anyway, so even that's a big yawn.

I've found the system I like, and I've found the right combination of rulebooks for my game group, so I don't see myself switching for a long time.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

While some of the things promised in 4e sound (mechanically) interesting I grow increasingly tired of the marketing ploys WotC are using as they ask us to strip naked and cavort around the sacrificed Sacred Cows with them.

After playing OD&D recently the scales have fallen from my eyes and I have learnt why the cows were made sacred.

The funny thing about the metaphor of the sacred cow is that it's a double metaphor. First, there's the main idea that a sacred cow is something that people irrationally cling to, and which the silly irrational people go out of their way to do even though there are obviously better ways to do things. This metaphor comes from the British incredulity at the Indian people holding cows as objects of reverence and refusing to slaughter and eat them even when they were starving.

But then there's the other metaphor. Of the British colonialists who came in and saw a "backwards" people who wouldn't do obviously beneficial things because their primitive polytheistic culture forbade it. It did not occur to the British that perhaps the Hindus weren't stupid. Perhaps there was a reason that Hindu culture protected cows; perhaps the reason had been so long ago ingrained in the culture that people did not even remember what it was.

As it turned out, there was a good reason. If you keep your cows alive, you can get milk out of them. The benefits of long-term milk production outweigh the benefits of short-term meat availability. Since people have a hard time thinking in the long term, the culture stepped in with a religious prohibition that resulted in a net long-term gain in prosperity. When viewed in terms of net benefit, sacred cows simply make sense.

But when you view the metaphor from that angle, does the gusto of those who kill sacred cows for the sake of killing them make sense? Was there a good reason that they were made sacred in the first place?

Just a thought.

 

[malladin]

However, it seems weird when people complain about things they imagine might be in the game, on the chance that it'll turn out to contain elements that they are afraid it might contain, but there is no real basis for imagining that it'll contain those elements.

However, it seems weird when people praise things they imagine might be in the game, on the chance that it'll turn out to contain elements that they hope it might contain, but there is no real basis for imagining that it'll contain those elements.

On the information we've got it works both ways, yet there seems to be a trend to say there's not enough information to be negative/pessimistic but that information's more than sufficient to be positive/optomistic. I can't see how thats justified and it'd be nice to see people acknowledge the validity of other peoples interpretations rather than saying there unjustified, either way, cause in the end its all opinion and some opinions are not more justified than others just because they support one conclusion over another.

Nigel

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

So far, winning. I still have some concerns and can see the possibility of wanting/needing to use house rules right out of the gate, but nothing that I know about it so far is a deal-breaker, or even close to that. I am, however, patiently but eagerly awaiting more information and I may not have some questions answered until I hold the new players handbook in my hands.

 

[Just Another User]

I can understand a lot of the negative feedback. However, it seems weird when people complain about things they imagine might be in the game, on the chance that it'll turn out to contain elements that they are afraid it might contain, but there is no real basis for imagining that it'll contain those elements.

It is no more weird than people being enthusiast about things they imagine might be in the game, on the chance that it'll turn out to contain elements that they are excited it might contain, but there is no real basis for imagining that it'll contain those elements.

(Malladin ninjaed me )

 

[McBard]

I wish 4e had been announced and released even earlier. My group gave up on 3.5 a couple of years ago, and will never play it again. In our opinion, WoTC can't too radically change 4e from 3.X.

With that said, I'm fairly neutral about the previews. Much of it sounds good, but I'll just have to wait and see if the final product excises the weaknesses of 3.X enough. The fact that WoTC has been so up front about how 3.X characters can't be converted--that they'll need to be recast or reformed--is a pretty good sign that 4e might just be radical enough of a change to make it feel like a new system.

I hope none of the crunch of my $3000+ library of 3.X books can be used in 4e.

 

[JamesM]

But when you view the metaphor from that angle, does the gusto of those who kill sacred cows for the sake of killing them make sense? Was there a good reason that they were made sacred in the first place?

Just a thought.

And a very good thought it is.

Many traditions and customs may seem purely arbitrary or whimsical or just plain stupid when you don't consider the circumstances under which they arose. Unfortunately, most people have short memories and even worse knowledge of history, so, when confronted with some "stupid" tradition they don't like, they laugh at it or ignore it or, worse yet, try to get others to follow their lead. In some cases, there are few, if any, consequences to their actions. In others, though, their ignorance shows itself in spades, as the bad consequences the tradition/custom kept in check run wild without anything to prevent them any longer.

The same is true of many elements of D&D. Older editions of the game look, to newcomers, to be very ad hoc and patchwork in nature, as if they were cobbled together over time without any rhyme or reason. The truth is that, yes, they are patchwork, but it doesn't follow that the patches weren't added for very specific reasons -- quite the opposite. Now, in some cases, probably many, you can re-design things from the ground up to avoid the circumstances that demanded the need for patches, but in some cases you can't. In some cases, you have a choice: either accept that the guys who worked on earlier editions weren't dummies who never gave any thought to how rules interact and maybe had a good idea or two or else ditch what they've done and create what is effectively a new game.

I don't know for a fact that 4E is a new game, but it sure feels like it to me based on the little we've seen. I may in fact be completely wrong on this point and I'd love to be. Perhaps it'd be nice if a couple of the upcoming Design & Development articles stressed 4E's continuity, both mechanically and thematically, with previous editions rather than highlighting how it differs. That'd be a small step toward winning me rather than losing me, as it is now.

 

[malladin]

It is no more weird than people being enthusiast about things they imagine might be in the game, on the chance that it'll turn out to contain elements that they are excited it might contain, but there is no real basis for imagining that it'll contain those elements.

(Malladin ninjaed me )

Yeah but you put it more clearly

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

However, it seems weird when people praise things they imagine might be in the game, on the chance that it'll turn out to contain elements that they hope it might contain, but there is no real basis for imagining that it'll contain those elements.

On the information we've got it works both ways, yet there seems to be a trend to say there's not enough information to be negative/pessimistic but that information's more than sufficient to be positive/optomistic. I can't see how thats justified and it'd be nice to see people acknowledge the validity of other peoples interpretations rather than saying there unjustified, either way, cause in the end its all opinion and some opinions are not more justified than others just because they support one conclusion over another.

Nigel

That's true, and an alternative position that I support is to assume that when the designers say that they're addressing a problem in D&D, that they have identified the problem in the same way that I see it talked about in the Rules or General forums here, and are attempting to smooth it over with a minimum of fuss. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. If they say that magic item dependency is reduced, I'm not going to doubt that it's true when wizard implements are previewed. If it's reduced, it's reduced and enhanced implements must not be critical to wizard performance. If, when the PHB comes out and wizards are heavily dependent on magic items, I'll know I was wrong, but until then, I think that you can have "nice, but not necessary" magic items, and if I can imagine it, they can design it.

There's a bit of hype to cut through, but for the most part I think that the descriptions of the rules, while vague, are probably an accurate portrayal. So far, they've focused less on the mechanics of the new rules, and more on how those mechanics occur at the table. I get the impression that any problems we will have with the game will be due to either:
1. A given player dislikes the mechanics, and prefers the old rules
2. There are unexpected synergies that appear once there are many more people playing the game

I don't think that the stuff we're hearing about is untrue. However, it's not the complete picture. If they say prep time is shorter, play is faster, PCs, NPCs, and monsters are easier to create and run, or any of the other things they've been saying, it's probably because they've seen it borne out at the playtest tables. So I'm not worried about that. I'm mostly worried about what they're not telling us.

So I think that objections to the revealed information that object to what they're telling us will be the case are valid objections (i.e #1, above). Objections that fit into category #2, above, will only really be sound when we have a chance to interact with the rules. But objections that go from what they tell us to some imagined implication are not really valid objections. And, as you point out, neither is praise on those grounds. Personally, I'm pleased with what they've promised us, without having to invent any other bits to supplement it. If they deliver, I will like this edition. I think that they think they can deliver. Of course, they're promising to deliver a few things that I'm not that fond of, but I think that overall they're putting together a pretty good game.