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

[Kraztur]

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?

Don't get it. This thread is a summary of the 4E experience. Someone on the 4E side (was it Tony Vargas?) asked Nagol (once? twice?) to specify his dislikes. Nagol declined, was asked again (?), and then relunctantly answered. Then roundly criticized by 4e players. Then defended himself. And then went from there. Why would you isolate anyone as the argumentative one? Especially considering that I think I've been more willing to meet halfway than anybody else here.

 

[piffany]

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.").

But that's not an "in-game reason". Magic works the way it does in 1e (and 2e, and 3e) explicitly because of out-of-game reasons. Gygax wrote an entire article (Dragon #22) explaining that magic works the way it does because it makes the wargame/artillery aspect of wizards more the way he liked it. Now, yes, there's an in-game explanation of why magic works the way it does, but that explanation really has nothing at all to do with the game mechanics. But the reason 3e magic works that way is Because Game.

In other words, it's exactly like why 4e skills work the way they do. Because Game.

 

[billd91]

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?

Since this is a 4e thread about summarizing the 4e experience, isn't bringing up its criticisms on-topic? If the OP wanted an honest assessment, wouldn't confining responses to positive experiences be dishonest?

 

[Neonchameleon]

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.

This is a figment of your imagination. The idea that everything you try always has the same chance of success, no matter what you have done before, how tired you are, and which muscles in specific are tired is just as silly as the idea that Usain Bolt can run the 400m with each 100m taking exactly the same length of time.

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.

In short the game isn't about wounds. So it always must have been wounds. Riiiight.

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."

Because clerics have good PR. Healing times in AD&D are about those of marathon runner recovery.

The entire nature of associated mechanics is that they aren't arbitrary.

They aren't arbitrary which means they must be an incredibly limited subset of what's going on.

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

No, I meant what I said. If you associate you limit.

Hit point loss being physical damage is now and always has been intuitive.

And it having no actual effect on characters until you reach 0hp has always been part of the system. Most games fixed that because if you want hit points to be physical damage that is necessary.

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.

Apparently you think that duelling with everyone around you in the time it takes for most people to engage in one person can accurately be summarised as "Swinging a sword in a circle around you". This is your issue.

 

[Alzrius]

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.

I assert my definitional disagreement - as I have previously throughout the thread - that player agency for their character (those last three words are important too) comes from having their characters be able to exercise what I believe is the central premise of a role-playing game: that anything can be attempted, and that when this isn't so there's an in-game rationale for why such a limitation exists.

Saying that a certain action becomes less effective and/or more difficult to pull off from one moment to the next for a purely metagame reason inhibits that character agency, as such attempts have no inherent in-game rationale (and attempting to hang one on there after the fact will inevitably require dictating the character's agency to the player).

Intent, by itself, is not enough. Agency means the ability to try and do something; wanting to do it is insufficient.

 

[TwoSix]

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

Ah! The heart of the matter!

The restriction is NOT arbitrary. It's designed to enforce genre conventions. It's designed to maximize variance in power use and minimize use of the same power over and over again. It is not associated with any particular in-fiction constraint, true. But it is NOT arbitrary.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Since this is a 4e thread about summarizing the 4e experience, isn't bringing up its criticisms on-topic? If the OP wanted an honest assessment, wouldn't confining responses to positive experiences be dishonest?

Oh, it's on topic. People leaping into 4E threads just to say how they dislike it is an accurate reflection of the 4E experience. As is people making risible claims about 4E.

It's just ... why would you? Why spend so much time on something you dislike?

 

[Savage Wombat]

Since this is a 4e thread about summarizing the 4e experience, isn't bringing up its criticisms on-topic? If the OP wanted an honest assessment, wouldn't confining responses to positive experiences be dishonest?

In fairness, the OP got his question answered after just a couple of pages. This thread is now, I suspect, tolerated as the last gasp of edition warring as long as it doesn't get out of hand.

 

[TwoSix]

Since this is a 4e thread about summarizing the 4e experience, isn't bringing up its criticisms on-topic? If the OP wanted an honest assessment, wouldn't confining responses to positive experiences be dishonest?

Honestly, this whole thread is the 4e forum experience in a nutshell.

 

[Alzrius]

But that's not an "in-game reason". Magic works the way it does in 1e (and 2e, and 3e) explicitly because of out-of-game reasons. Gygax wrote an entire article (Dragon #22) explaining that magic works the way it does because it makes the wargame/artillery aspect of wizards more the way he liked it. Now, yes, there's an in-game explanation of why magic works the way it does, but that explanation really has nothing at all to do with the game mechanics. But The reason 3e magic works that way is Because Game.

You have it backwards here. Gary wrote that article explaining his rationale. But by its very nature, magic has an in-game reasoning for how it functions, under whatever rules it uses. Magic works the way it does because it's magic, and ergo that can be recognized in-game.

In other words, it's exactly like why 4e skills work the way they do. Because Game.

Untrue. Skills are (by themselves) physical abilities that can be used in various intuitive ways. Magic isn't intuitive, as it doesn't need to model anything except itself - ergo, neither are "because game."