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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 6097493">I think this has less to do with us wanting to hate on 4E and more to do with 4E really bringing clarity to some of these things that were under the surface. This isn't a criticism of 4E. I think one of its strengths as an edition is to speak very strongly to a core group of players whose style it suits. It basically, for me, took a lot of things that had maybe existed as issues in D&D and cranked them up a bit. I don't think that makes 4E objectively bad, or anything like that. It just means some of the things it did were difficult for my sense of what is plausible. The plot coupon thing is a perfect example. For me that just doesn't reflect anything that is actually going on in the setting. It is there for the purposes of dramatic pacing and balance, and I just find it disruptive. Healing in 4E another one (and we have had endless debates, so I understand not everyone sees it as an instant mundane heal, but for me that is how it comes across, and I find it hard to ignore). Some of the other issues for me is some of the martial attacks just feel more like magic or quasi magic (at the very least a good deal larger than life) to me. Again, not a problem for certain styles of play, but it goes beyond how I have traditionally viewed my fighters (again, I understand not everyone agrees on this point, but the core assumptions we carry with us have a big impact on how we perceive things).All that said can we sometimes go too far as a reaction against 4E? Absolutely. I would say the same thing in discussions about OSR and storygames, sometimes people on both sides injure their own enjoyment of the game as a reaction against a style they want to avoid (and as part of preference that becomes ideological). This is why I was trying to engage people with some ideas earlier (perhaps it was another thread) for a cinematic wuxia style D&D that draws on some of 4E's components. I also think a lot of the powers themselves could be workable for someone like me in a more standard game if you just tweaked a few things (replace daily and encounter powers with conditional ones, make a clearer line between what is a mundane and a magical ability). So yes, I think in large part we have probably overeacted to 4E in a lot of respects. I am not totally averse to plot coupons. It depends on what form they take and the game. But for me, the realism issue is they don't represent anything within the fiction, so it gets into the realm of me crafting a story outside my character's point of view instead taking a 1st person perspective. Even in games I do like that have these things (bennies for instance in savage worlds) I always find it a bit jarring when I stop to spend them. There is just this hiccup effect it has on my imagination. Again that isn't to say everyone ought to share that experience, just that it is something I have noticed about myself (I had a very similar reaction to 3E wish lists for magic items when those were popular). I don't know. While I have been strongly defending a position here about flavor, I am also quite tired of people breaking into camps and not trying things because its too X or too Y. Frankly, I would be willing to play an edition of D&D that violated many of the issues I discussed here if it were well rounded and a solid system. 4E is definitely too far in one particular direction for me (and I really did feel like the books were entirely dismissive of my style of play----rightly or wrongly), but I think we may be better off if people put the really strong preferences aside for a bit and just try a simple but good game that captures a broad range of what D&D can be. Whether that is possible I don't know. In many ways, I almost want to go back to the pre-internet days when we really didn't overthink a lot of this stuff.</blockquote>

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