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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Red Castle" data-source="post: 9191421" data-attributes="member: 7040765">I played a lot of adnd2 in the 90s, that’s the edition with which I learned about roleplay. Years later, I got tired of medieval fantasy so I started playing other rpgs, then came college and when 3e came out, I tried it a little, but nothing hooked me, so I skipped it. Fast forward to 2008. A friend of mine decide to make me try 4e… I didn’t even knew that there was a 4e. I decide to play a fighter, a good old fighter, nothing fancy. Then the first combat start, and wow! That’s when I realise that as a fighter, I’m not just swinging a sword! I have ‘powers’ too, I can force enemy to move, I can guard my friends and punish the enemies that ignore me. I have a role to play! I was hooked and went to buy the books so I could start my own campaign.When teaching the game to other friends, I remember one of them was really turned off by the lack of skills. Only 17-18 versus the 100+ of 2e. He felt like suddenly there was no personnalisation, that every character would be able to do the same thing (thievery not limited to rogue !? ). I didn’t really tried 4e and came from the same background, so what I did was split each skills into 3 possible specialisations and you could choose to be better in one at the cost of another. It’s only when we really started playing that we appreciated the simplicity of having a low skill count. So we went back to playing as we should. No more specialisation. So simple!Something similar happened when I was reading the Monster Manual… at first, I was a little disappointed that the monster lacked descriptions, that it was just a series of bullet point to give me a feel of the creatures. But nothing really to tell me how they behave, where they live… far from the 3-4 pages of descriptions from the 2nd edition monster manual. But then, it hit me. I can do what I want with these creatures, these are just suggestions. There is not a lot of lore that I must respect, that I must memorize… those creatures are what I want them to be, my own. It’s so simple!Same went for the powers! At first I was surprised by the lack of description. Just one or two phrases to tell me what is a magic missle? A fireball? Where are the 3-4 paragraph that tells me how it looks, how it smells, what components I need? Then it hit me! It can look and smells and feels however the player want it to be! He can make those spells his own! It’s so simple!And that’s what I love so much about 4e! It kept it simple so the DM and players can do what they want with it! It’s a giant tool box to tell your own story in a high fantasy world! And with each books came more tools to put in the box!</blockquote>

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