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<blockquote data-quote="Mallus" data-source="post: 5439761" data-attributes="member: 3887">I can't speak authoritatively on what a novice DM would make of 4e... seeing as I'm not one, but I can --somewhat dimly-- recall my early experiences playing and running AD&amp;D.Let's just say these campaigns weren't exactly poster children for broad role-playing experiences. They were mainly published modules strung together, with little interstitial material, a whole lot of combat, and not too much else. Well, aside from group in-fighting over magic items <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />.I won't call these experiences definitive, but I doubt they were entirely uncommon, either. There's a reason D&amp;D developed a reputation in some quarters as a shallow, hack-and-slash game. Our D&amp;D campaigns only gained depth when we moved away from module-dictated play, started writing our own settings, drawing greater influence from the fiction we read, as opposed to game supplements ie, when we adjusted the balance between fiction and game. For my old gaming group this was around the time I began running what turned out to be a long, involved campaign using 2e.I don't doubt some novice DM's run 4e as little more than strings of combat encounters... because it's exactly what my friends and I did with AD&amp;D. But neither do I doubt some novice 4e groups will move beyond that into deeper, richer campaigns which closer resemble the more fully realized, living worlds we --well, a segment of player base, at least-- tout as the ideal RPG experience.For some the game's always been deep, and for others it's always been shallow (not that there's anything wrong with that!). The depth is in what we bring to the game, it's not located in the rule books.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mallus, post: 5439761, member: 3887"] I can't speak authoritatively on what a novice DM would make of 4e... seeing as I'm not one, but I can --somewhat dimly-- recall my early experiences playing and running AD&D. Let's just say these campaigns weren't exactly poster children for broad role-playing experiences. They were mainly published modules strung together, with little interstitial material, a whole [i]lot[/i] of combat, and not too much else. Well, aside from group in-fighting over magic items :). I won't call these experiences definitive, but I doubt they were entirely uncommon, either. There's a reason D&D developed a reputation in some quarters as a shallow, hack-and-slash game. Our D&D campaigns only gained depth when we moved away from module-dictated play, started writing our own settings, drawing greater influence from the fiction we read, as opposed to game supplements ie, when we adjusted the balance between [i]fiction[/i] and [i]game[/i]. For my old gaming group this was around the time I began running what turned out to be a long, involved campaign using 2e. I don't doubt some novice DM's run 4e as little more than strings of combat encounters... because it's exactly what my friends and I did with AD&D. But neither do I doubt some novice 4e groups will move beyond that into deeper, richer campaigns which closer resemble the more fully realized, living worlds we --well, a segment of player base, at least-- tout as the ideal RPG experience. For some the game's always been deep, and for others it's always been shallow (not that there's anything wrong with that!). The depth is in what we bring to the game, it's not located in the rule books. [/QUOTE]

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