Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="BryonD" data-source="post: 5615773" data-attributes="member: 957">Exactly.I think this is at the heart of many of the complaints against 4E.I've seen 4E fans praise the system for the fact that it is very easy to re-skin.  You can take nearly anything and redescribe it and with no mechanical change it is something very different in terms of concept.  And I can see how that would be appealing.But the price is that the character isn't really married to the mechanics.  So while it is 100% true that you can roleplay anything in 4E that you can roleplay in any other system, that effort is like a completely independent part of the experience.  The "game" is over here and the "role play" is over there.It gets back to the Andy Collins quote about not building classes based on concept.  Once "game" and "role play" are segregated then the experience changes.  If you were already playing games more or less this way, then you won't see any loss.  But if you weren't it really detracts.  There is an important difference between role playing a monk and having your mechanics be built first as an effort to portray some concept of a fantasy monk and playing a set of "compelling game mechanics" which are carefully established first as mechanically balanced and tactically distinct and simply applying a monk flavor overlying that mechanical group.Just as 4E doesn't "stop" anyone from role playing, Descent doesn't stop anyone from role playing.  But 4E is an RPG and Descent is not and the value of that experience is far less in Descent.  That's the key, "being able to do it", and "getting the same response" are two different ideas.  It is ridiculous to equate Descent to 4E just because you can RP Descent.And 4E was described as "the math works", "not physics", "compelling reasons" for classes over "being" the concept.  It achieves these things.  But in doing so the fact that you can role play anything with it does not mean it is capable of providing all the same responses that some other systems can.  4E is much closer to 3E than it is to Descent.  But it is still well down the spectrum in that direction.  Not everyone played 3E the same.  I'd be surprised if everyone played 4E the same.  But those people that already played 3E in a manner that put them in the area where 4E lives, don't see a difference.  But if you are one of those people, here is the difference we are talking about.  It is optional for playing, but it is mandatory for getting the best bang for the buck for many of us.That doesn't make your game one drop less awesome.  But your awesome 4E game is still different than some people's awesome 3E games.  If you don't believe that then you are not grasping this point.And none of this is a "slam" at 4E.  If anything it is simply praise of 3E for doing what *I* want.  What 4E intends to do, it does awesome.The argument I am making doesn't challenge the fun 4E fans have, only the insistence that some 4E fans demand claiming that there is no meaningful difference in the experience and there is no way anyone anywhere could see 4E as being "boardgamey" to them.</blockquote>

Verification