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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 4350812" data-attributes="member: 59082">Wow, Ydars and apoptosis, you two summed everything up rather well (And to be fair, Ydars, about half of the posts in this thread did actually answer my original, the other half being skirmishes in the Edition Wars and various semantical-pedantical debates...not a terrible ratio, I suppose). I really resonate with almost everything Ydars wrote, much of which I've mentioned in various posts in this thread, but also feel that apoptosis added some key points: Namely that any such game would need incredible marketing to do well, and it couldn't be too generic, although Ydars touches on this with the many settings idea.But Ydars, the limitation of D&D 4E is what I find disturbing: That you can no longer (easily, at least) play the "off the farm" style game, and other variations that were once more possible. I do believe that 4E in many (most?) ways is an improvement over 3E, which was an improvement over 2E, etc, but that 4E has become more specific, more stylized along a certain vein, which I feel--and got flack for believing--caters more to a younger crowd (not meant in a pejorative way, despite what Hobo thinks).In some sense 4E needs a 4th tier of game play, a "0-tier" before Heroic. But even then, once you get to Heroic and beyond your character cannot but be a high-powered CRPG-like avatar (another influence being Hong Kong movies and through it, Exalted).D&D 4E allows us to play Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but it doesn't allow us to play A Game of Thrones or The Belgariad or any number of classic fantasy books and their equivalent power level. To be clear once more, I DO like what 4E has to offer, it just seems more limited than before--perhaps by taking away certain limits for characters, or making them easier to bypass. I still don't have a fluent understanding of the rules but I just don't see how some of the things we're talking about can be "pasted" back on. It seems like 4E bypassed a whole "tier" of more mundane RPGing.But again, apoptosis has a very strong point in emphasizing marketing, flavor, and the need for such a game to introduce something new, probably something that hasn't quite been done before--and possibly something mechanical, that is having to do with how the game is played (e.g. Vampire's introduction, or popularization, of LARPing; Amber's dicelessness; Everway's use of cards; etc).I would also like to add that I think if a game were to really reach into a non-gaming crowd, the rules system would have to be very "rules lite," at least at its core, but also have a more advanced optional set that was both completely compatible and translatable to the basic core, and infinitely customizable. Gamers don't realize how complex RPGs are until they try to explain the rules to a non-gaming spouse or friend or relative; non-gamers would need something very basic. Yet most gamers, especially D&D players, like at least some degree of crunch.In conclusion I would say that the bottom line is that the game would have to be able to do everything, but also be quite specific: a fractal model, if you will, which could "zoom" in and out, microcosm to macrocosm, simple to complex. The old and out of print game Aria comes to mind: If someone could pull that off, I think we might have something.</blockquote>

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