D&D General New Interview with Rob Heinsoo About 4E

[Minigiant]

In my last game that went to 20th level, if I added up the damage dealt the fighter would have come out on top. Utility wise, that's harder to say but probably the bard or rogue.

Declarations of personal opinion and experience does not make other people "willfully blind" to your truth.

The stratification of different elements in D&D's gameplay loop is one of the reasons why we hear about stuff like this.

Splitting damage, heals, control, and utility requires a spotlight split that no one agrees to be mandatory. This is why 4E did it on the mechanics side

 

[overgeeked]

The thing is: READING the rules of a game is not the same as PLAYING the game! Why should reading the rules of the game need the same level of detachment as playing it? When reading the rules, I'm not in the audience watching the play, I'm the actor reading the script.

Rulebooks should be clear and precise first before they try to enchant you with tales of a made up world. Having the rule book explaining clearly and plainly what a class was designed to do shouldn't diminish the immersion at the table.

It’s the same argument about not being able to roleplay because there’s no rules for roleplaying. You and your table are not limited to only the rules. You can RP in 4E just as easily as in every other edition of the game. That people chose not to isn’t a problem with the game.

“I can’t RP at the table because the rules were too cleanly written” and “I can’t RP at the table because there are no rules for RP” are both just nonsense.

 

[Kaiyanwang]

It’s the same argument about not being able to roleplay because there’s no rules for roleplaying. You and your table are not limited to only the rules. You can RP in 4E just as easily as in every other edition of the game. That people chose not to isn’t a problem with the game.

“I can’t RP at the table because the rules were too cleanly written” and “I can’t RP at the table because there are no rules for RP” are both just nonsense.

This is not what people said tho. None lamented the lack of "RP rules" but instead lamented the lack of rules that facilitated immersion in their gameworld, as direct type of rule writing (don't let me use the D word again) or just disruption of setting, class feature and such.

 

[overgeeked]

You're arguing that "more options is more fun"

No. I’m literally not. Fun doesn’t enter into it. That’s the point. Power. Not fun. A character who can do 1d10 damage infinitely is more powerful than a character who can do 1d8 damage infinitely. A character who deals force damage is more powerful that a character who deals fire damage because fire is one if the most resisted or immune damage types while force is one of the least.

A wizard who can outshine other classes in that class’s specialty is more powerful than that class. A wizard who can outshine (almost) all the other classes in their wheelhouse is more powerful than those classes.

It’s not about fun. It’s about mechanical power.

 

[Belen]

That strikes me as a rather bad-faith interpretation of what I said. I've known plenty of players over the years who hated playing preparatory spellcasters because they found it to be too much work choosing spells each day, didn't like flipping through myriad sourcebooks to confirm what each spell did, found the rules about casting unintuitive, etc. If we define the word "better" as "more fun," which doesn't strike me as being particularly odd, then wizards were in no way the better class for those people.

This. I rarely see people play Wizards. They do not like the hassle especially if the DM enforces spell components and costs.

In the past, I tagged spells as common vs uncommon vs rare so a Wizards can easily find and learn a common spells when they level but have to work to get others.

I just do not see a lot of folks even think about playing a Wizard.

 

[Kaiyanwang]

In the past, I tagged spells as common vs uncommon vs rare so a Wizards can easily find and learn a common spells when they level but have to work to get others.

That's what PF2e did unless I am mistaken. Is something I wish to implement for myself but I admit the effort will be monumental.
Still a great idea.

 

[Aldarc]

This is not what people said tho. None lamented the lack of "RP rules" but instead lamented the lack of rules that facilitated immersion in their gameworld, as direct type of rule writing (don't let me use the D word again) or just disruption of setting, class feature and such.

I'm kind of tired of arguments via immersion. I have been told that mechanics for various games that I liked have necessarily broken immersion and therefore were not roleplaying games. I have been told that my experiences being immersed in character while playing these rules must be false because they themselves weren't immersed. Immersion is not a given. It is not so causally connected to rules as people like to pretend them to be, mostly a result of their game preferences than anything else.

 

[Belen]

A wizard who can outshine other classes in that class’s specialty is more powerful than that class. A wizard who can outshine (almost) all the other classes in their wheelhouse is more powerful than those classes.

I see this argument a lot. I have never seen it actually happen in a game. Even my heavy optimizers never choose a Wizard.

The one time I saw anything remotely like it was with a Psion in a part with lower wisdom scores and the Psion could mind-control everyone.

 

[Alzrius]

No. I’m literally not.

Yes, you literally are.

Fun doesn’t enter into it. That’s the point.

No, that's the point to you. But if we accept that other people see "the point" of playing a game of D&D as "having fun," then that's the point to them. Which is the point of what I said before.

Power. Not fun.

Again, that's a you-ism. Not a me-ism, or an everyone else-ism.

A character who can do 1d10 damage infinitely is more powerful than a character who can do 1d8 damage infinitely. A character who deals force damage is more powerful that a character who deals fire damage because fire is one if the most resisted or immune damage types while force is one of the least.

Which matters not at all to someone who wants to play D&D to have fun, and finds even that level of number-crunching to be a drag. Why does their definition of "better" not deserve to get taken into account?

A wizard who can outshine other classes in those classes specialty is more powerful than those classes. A wizard who can outshine (almost) all the other classes in their wheelhouse is more powerful than those classes.

Leaving aside instances of situationality, optimization, and the differences between theory and the actual course of play, isn't the point of all this to have fun? Because I'm fairly sure that most of the people playing D&D, especially repeatedly, are doing it because they want to have a good time. If that's their main goal, which again is not at all unusual, then everything you've outlined here only matters insofar as it dovetails with how much fun it is. And in my experience, there's a lot of people for whom that runs directly counter to being fun.

It’s not about fun. It’s about mechanical power.

For you. For a lot of other players, that's not the case, and their take on things is no less valid than your own.

 

[Alzrius]

That's what PF2e did unless I am mistaken. Is something I wish to implement for myself but I admit the effort will be monumental.
Still a great idea.

One of my favorite things about the AD&D 2E spell compendiums was that they tagged all of the spells in them with rarity ratings.