D&D 4E Is there a "Cliffs Notes" summary of the entire 4E experience?

[Alzrius]

Your understanding is totally wrong. I suggest you read page 42.

So you're saying that trying to resolve the exact same action via a page 42 check, rather than a listed "encounter" or "daily" power won't be either more difficult to achieve and/or have less efficacy in its effect?

You mean like casting 42 fireballs in any other edition? How agency stripping!

Incorrect. As I noted, the dissociative problem only arises when you remove (or inhibit) the character's agency without a corresponding in-game reason. Magic has a built-in reason for its limits (that being "it's how magic works.").

I'm really not sure where you're going with this, Al.

Well, where are you going with this?

Can I call you Al?

Nope!

You don't like 4E because it has metagame/narrative/dissociation in its powers. OK. Totally cool. What else do you want people to admit?[/i]

I'm not trying to get anyone to "admit" anything. I'm simply stating my point of view.

I'm not going to say it's bad, because I like dissociative powers better! They make me feel like I'm really roleplaying, because I get to stretch my creativity and fill in the gaps to make the story fit the game.

And if "I should be able to do special fighter trick whenever I want because player agency" and "It's OK to only be able to cast one fireball because magic" are both things you want to support, than there's nothing to be reconciled in our aesthetic preferences.

That's fine. I'm not trying to change your mind - I'm saying why and how I feel that 4E has failed to live up to the central premise inherent in role-playing games, and hence why I don't care for it. That's all.

But if you keep insisting my game denies the players agency, you can expect to keep being argued with on it. Because you're factually wrong.

I'm factually correct in that 4E does deny - or at least inhibits - player agency of their characters (which is not the same thing as player agency unto itself).

 

[I'm A Banana]

But it is not a mechanic. So your claims are rather pointless. If you mean that it's possible to use declarative actions (like picking up a rock that has not been previously established) in character then yes it is.

Again, I don't want to get bogged down in semantic quagmires, so if the word "mechanic" puts a bee in your bonnet, just put the word "method" in its place.

And now your claim becomes the trivial "Out of character suggestions can't be applied as in character mechanics." Which is trivial and irrelevant.

It seemed that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] was unclear on this point as I was making it, which is why I clarified.

 

[Kraztur]

That's a crap comparison, Kraztur.

Not to me.

I'll give you a good one - "This stew suggests you may want to eat it with rice, but I HATE rice!" "So eat it with potatoes?" "No, the mere fact that it suggested rice means I hate it forever".

That's a crap comparison. The analogy is distorted. For one thing, it puts words in someone's mouth ("I hate it forever", and KM didn't say that) - don't do that. Secondly, it's not comparable. I would respond "No, it feels like that stew is meant to compliment best with rice. Whether that's true or not, I don't care. A new potatoe casserole recipe has just come out and I like it better, so I'm going to eat that. I didn't point out the rice suggestion because I'm helpless to understand my alternatives, so don't admonish me and don't put words in my mouth, thank you ver much".

 

[Kraztur]

Honestly, yes. It's like saying I really only like cars where I can open all 4 doors from the inside. That's fine, perfectly valid preference. Then you go test drive a car and say "Oh, I can't open the back seat doors, I don't like this car." Then the salesman tells you "Well, just flip this switch under the dash, it will disable child locks, and all the doors will open." And you reply "Yea, but the doors didn't open before." And then you don't get the car.

You're arguing that "I don't like broccoli, because broccoli tastes gross," and getting the reply "Well, just start liking broccoli" is unsatisfying. Which is totally valid. Pretty sure Ruin is pointing out that a lot of the complaints are the car example, not the broccoli example.

Cars, brocolli, rice with stew, the analogies keep piling up. At the end of the day, are we here to annoy each other with counterpoints based on the wrong extrapolation? I guess the answer is 'yes, yes we are."

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That's a crap comparison. The analogy is distorted. For one thing, it puts words in someone's mouth ("I hate it forever", and KM didn't say that) - don't do that. Secondly, it's not comparable. I would respond "No, it feels like that stew is meant to compliment best with rice. Whether that's true or not, I don't care. A new potatoe casserole recipe has just come out and I like it better, so I'm going to eat that. I didn't point out the rice suggestion because I'm helpless to understand my alternatives, so don't admonish me and don't put words in my mouth, thank you ver much".

Your original analogy remains far more "distorted", and your "response" here makes zero sense in context. If we have the "wrong extrapolation", you've done nothing to give us the right one. TwoSix's response should have clarified things for you (it's precisely right). If not...

 

[Alzrius]

Try reading it. It covers both.

I think you need to re-read the thread. Unless it allows for them to be performed with the same level of efficacy and level of difficulty (to achieve), then the larger point still stands.

4e is pretty trad to be honest.

To be honest, it's really not.

Anything is its own justification.

Apparently not.

When they can try anything they want. This hasn't changed. They also have specialisms which they do not have to negotiate with the DM.

It has changed; the fact that you're abrogating it just a little doesn't make it better.

Try and Come And Get It in AD&D. Most DMs will just laugh at you.

Rightly so, since you'd be exercising a non-magical power to control several other NPCs at once. Laughter is the appropriate response to that.

Other than disarming what do you think 4E fighters can't do that AD&D fighters can?

Use an "encounter" or "daily" power more than once (without somehow becoming worse at it), for starters.

Hit point loss has always been cosmetic damage. Someone is as competent and capable on 1hp as on full HP. This is and has always been the case.

As long as you admit that it's always been physical damage, then the degree to which it degenerates the character's abilities is largely immaterial, particularly since the game has never been overly concerned with that anyway.

Nope. Although this is irrelevant.

I agree that the point you're making here is irrelevant. Just so you don't think we disagree on everything.

Given you've just almost quoted the 1E definition of hit points, I don't think this really needs a rebuttal.

I'm not sure why you think that 1E is relevant (some sort of weird "appeal to history" maybe?) but it doesn't matter. AD&D only defines hit points as not being physical damage is you selectively pull a few specific quotes, and ignore literally everything else in the game. There's a reason why Gary wrote the hit point-restoring spells as "cure light wounds."

What they are is a focus on foolish consistency that isn't how people think and doesn't get outcomes right while ignoring literally everything that doesn't fit into the small subset of factors they cover.

Actually it's more correct to say that what they are is an intuitive consistency that's easily grasped, and cover virtually everything that a character in the game world should be able to attempt.

Just like every set of associated mechanics. The ability to have metagame mechanics (whether AEDU, Fate Points, or WoD Willpower) is essential to me for immersive play for when you want to say "This thing matters to me". Without it you lose the ability to say what matters. And the ability to pace yourself.

The entire nature of associated mechanics is that they aren't arbitrary.; your character can try to do anything. The ability to have metagame mechanics with a corresponding in-game action (for characters) is essential for me to immersive play when I say "this thing matters to me," so I my point is no less valid than yours, if not more.

Good bye most games with dissociated mechanics.

Fixed it for you, since otherwise your comment made literally no sense.

Hit point loss being physical damage is not and has never been intuitive. It's Streetfighter 2 (or other combat) game mechanics. If you are hurt, this slows you down. Hit points are a risible simulation other than of genre.

Hit point loss being physical damage is now and always has been intuitive. It's action-move-intuitive, but that doesn't make it any less intuitive. Demanding that it somehow requires "perfect simulation of reality" is the foolish insistence that no one (save for the entire idea's detractors) has ever felt burdened by.

So do you in your accusations against 4E

Untrue. An arbitrary restriction on efficacy or difficulty is still impinging on a character's agency. You still don't understand that.

You do realise that you can't step in the same river twice.

An improper analogy doesn't give you a substantive rebuttal. There's still no reason why your fighter is suddenly having trouble performing the move he just performed.

Apparently in your world fatigue isn't a thing?

Apparently you think that swinging a sword in a circle once will make you too tired to swing it in a circle again. That might be true for you, but I imagine that a robust fighter wouldn't find it all that difficult.

 

[Kraztur]

Your original analogy remains far more "distorted", and your "response" here makes zero sense in context. If we have the "wrong extrapolation", you've done nothing to give us the right one. TwoSix's response should have clarified things for you (it's precisely right). If not...

I'm the guy who wrote before "It's important to accept that 4E is what it is" and I don't think that KM was complaining what you think. So I don't know what you're saying. Oh well.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Let's say I tell my friend I don't like Transformers Age of Extinction. So he tells me "Watching that movie is entirely optional. If you don't or won't enjoy that movie, it's a problem you're creating. Transformers Age of Extinction is not inherently unenjoyable." I would dump that argumentative "friend" sooo fast...

Now let's change the narrative, accepting much of yours.
A: I don't like Transformers: Age of Extinction
B: Fine. You don't have to turn up to movie night this week. See you at the pub? Or at C's movie night?
A: But it sucks as a movie because it's unrealistic, it has too many explosions, and it's not a masterpiece unlike the rest of Michael Bay's work.
B: *rolls eyes* It's a Michael Bay film. This is a stupid hill to die on. The rest of us are going to have fun.
A: But....
B: Why can't you just ignore it if you don't like it?

You're in a 4th edition thread to say how much you dislike 4th edition. And it's your friend you claim is the argumentative one?

If anybody states a dislike, depending how they articulate it, they're not claiming sort of universal problem. However, a subjective problem isn't any less real, and claiming that I'm creating my own problem is downright annoying. I find that sort of argument (it's only a problem because you've made it a problem) to be intellectually dishonest. Am I wrong?

I defend 4E because I enjoy it. You very seldom see me in any AD&D threads or 3.X threads. But there's an entire picketed protest going on round 4e.

 

[TwoSix]

I'm factually correct in that 4E does deny - or at least inhibits - player agency of their characters (which is not the same thing as player agency unto itself).

I disagree. I assert that player agency only requires the player to be able to state an in-game narration of intent, and that intent has a mechanical resolution possible when there is conflict as to its success. (i.e., the DM advice "Say Yes or roll the dice.") The right the player has to assert any particular "type" of resolution mechanic is controlled by the rules. The entire job of the DM and the rules, working in concert, is to map the stated intent to a particular resolution mechanic. As long as the player can assert intent for the character, he maintains agency.

Please assert where you have definitional disagreement.

 

[TwoSix]

Cars, brocolli, rice with stew, the analogies keep piling up. At the end of the day, are we here to annoy each other with counterpoints based on the wrong extrapolation? I guess the answer is 'yes, yes we are."

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