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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5618921" data-attributes="member: 54877">Yes, and that is the heart of my problem with some of the discussion. It is fairly clear that a lot (but by no means all of it) is coming from people who have never given 4E any serious attention, much less played it for any length of time. But even that's ok in a way, because people have critical facilities, and a big part of that ability is understanding things somewhat before you experience them in order to understand if you want to experience them more. That is a major part of how people keep from wasting their time. Feeling naturally plays a huge part of this. You really should listen to your instincts. OTOH, what we actually get in text is some variation on (hyperbole here so that the point is clear) of: "I feel this doesn't work. I kind of looked at it briefly. I tried it once with some people that I didn't know, who were hack and slashers, and it went about like you'd expect. My second cousin, three times removed knows a guy whose wife was in a group where the DM said it absolutely sucked at roleplaying/characterization/whatever." And then based on this as the starting place for a discussion, we get the reason why so and so thinks this. You listen to your instincts. You check your feelings. You go with your experience thus far. And then before you go and tell other people about what X can or can't accomplish, you remember that all of these things are very useful but prone to spectacular failures, too. Maybe, just maybe, your instincts and feelings and brief experiences are managing to tell you that you won't like something, and are correct in doing so, but the why is not exactly as you think. And this, BTW, is exactly where I part with some of the more rabid 4E defenders that have, as near as I can tell, made exactly the same kind of category errors knocking 3E, in the mistaken assumption that a counter-attack on edition grounds gets anywhere with such problems. It is entirely true, for example, that there are issues with the 3E fighter, vis-a-vis wizards/clerics/druids, that bother some people in ways that can be directly traced back to the balance and mechanics. In order to compensate for this, many people have used some combination of player fiat, DM story crafting to gloss over the issues, and other things. If someone feels (as I do), that the amount of such tricks is excessive for what you get in return, then the system is not entirely a good fit. But it is precisely the same bridge too far to generalize from this personal fact to some wild conclusion that the 3E fighter is a hopeless situation, inherently. For other people, navigating this issue may be almost as easy as breathing, and thus not much worth worrying about. For them, it isn't entirely correct to say that the problem doesn't exist, but is correct to say that the issue is not causing any trouble. Practically speaking, the problem doesn't exist for them. It is the difference between "solving problems" versus "managing issues". (A key business skill is telling the difference, so that one can apply the correct category of solutions. Try to "solve" some "problem" that is really human nature showing itself again, and you will get nowhere.) Well, in games, some things are solved, some things are partially solved, and some things are sort of solved if you squint at them in bright light on alternate Wednesdays. And then for other things, the game gives you tools or advice to manage them--or sometimes throws up its hands and tells you to deal with it. And in fairness, as with any model, whole reams of problems and issues are shunted aside, deliberately, by the game as, "too much trouble to handle or risk for too little benefit."  So it is a cogent but debatable argument, for example, to say that the 4E designers messed up when they took the issue of the 3E fighter needing to be "managed" in certain ways as a "problem" which they then "solved" at the expense of less granular skills, giving the fighter daily exploits, etc. The place to draw the line between what you can "solve" versus what you are left to "manage" always has costs at the margins, no matter which way you go. And of course, the decisions you make intersect with other parts of the system, and have costs and benefits there, too. To make that argument, one has to first realize that not only does the 3E fighter have "issues" that some people have "managed", but also that the new "issues" that have emerged from the new 4E fighter "solution" are "issues" that some other people have equally "managed." And they did this without dropping all roleplaying or playing a board game or any other of the trivial ideas that might first suggest themselves.  For every problem, someone will quickly suggest a solution that is, "simple, obvious, and wrong." Those solutions are all provided by people that stopped with their instincts, feelings, and a cursory examination of the subject matter.</blockquote>

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