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<blockquote data-quote="Iosue" data-source="post: 6080481" data-attributes="member: 6680772">As an old B/X, BECMI player who missed out on 3e and thus has no lingering war wounds about it, I have often found myself of late arguing against my fellow fans of 4e, pointing out where I think 4e is deficient and could be improved, and extolling the virtues of older editions as legitimate virtues, not accidental by-products of immature or haphazard design.But Gorgoroth's arguments are unconvincing in the extreme, and there is virtually nothing I can get behind.&nbsp; They read like a parody of edition war rhetoric.&nbsp; 4e is &quot;not D&amp;D&quot;.&nbsp; And this is the majority view.&nbsp; 4e doesn't let you be creative because powers are set in stone.&nbsp; 4e doesn't let you be creative because skills are not set in stone.&nbsp; You say, &quot;We didn't do X, Y, Z because the game didn't let us.&quot;&nbsp; People say, &quot;WTF?&nbsp; X,Y, and Z are explicitly mentioned, allowed and encouraged on pages E, D, and F!&quot;&nbsp; &quot;Be that as it may, our DMs didn't do that, and that's the game's fault.&quot;When 4e folks complain of bad experiences with DMs overruling their cool idea/character concept, or with vicious character imbalance, or with the 15-minute adventuring day, the are invariably told, &quot;That's not the game's fault.&nbsp; That was a bad DM.&quot;&nbsp; And that's not entirely untrue.&nbsp; But the pendalum swings both ways.&nbsp; Yes, 4e made some changes to the game.&nbsp; The 4e DMG also provided PLENTY OF ADVICE and how to work with those changes to create the play experience people enjoyed.&nbsp; In over 25 years of gaming and dozens and dozens of game systems, the 4e DMG was best I've ever seen (about equal with Moldvay's DM advice, which gets points for succinctly hitting all the high-points of DMing a rules light game).&nbsp; If your DMs blew off the DMG because they figured &quot;I already know how to DM,&quot; and then the game didn't work for them that's not the fault of the game.&nbsp; You had some mistaken/misguided, in a word, bad DMs.What got me into 4e in the first place was AICN's Massawyrm's review, wherein he wrote about a player diving under a table a goblin was standing on, and kicking it out from under him.&nbsp; Massawyrm thought about it for a moment and then said, &quot;Athletics check vs Reflex&quot;.&nbsp; A simple, elegant ruling making use of a solid rule structure that encouraged and rewarded creativity.&nbsp; And nothing that was the result of a special, highly-skilled DM.&nbsp; That's 4e.&nbsp; I said, I have to get me some of that.&nbsp; If you didn't get that from 4e, you were playing it wrong.&nbsp; And not &quot;wrong&quot; in a &quot;not optimized&quot; meaning, or &quot;not using Forge concepts and reskinning to turn abstract mechanics into a fully realized genre&quot;, but wrong as in not using the basic tools the game gave you.&nbsp; As wrong as someone playing Basic D&amp;D, charging into 15 goblins, saying &quot;I attack,&quot; &quot;I attack&quot; over and over again, and then when they are killed in short order, saying, &quot;This game is stupid.&nbsp; It's not role-playing.&nbsp; You can't do anything and you're character gets killed too easy.&quot;</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Iosue, post: 6080481, member: 6680772"] As an old B/X, BECMI player who missed out on 3e and thus has no lingering war wounds about it, I have often found myself of late arguing against my fellow fans of 4e, pointing out where I think 4e is deficient and could be improved, and extolling the virtues of older editions as legitimate virtues, not accidental by-products of immature or haphazard design. But Gorgoroth's arguments are unconvincing in the extreme, and there is virtually nothing I can get behind. They read like a parody of edition war rhetoric. 4e is "not D&D". And this is the majority view. 4e doesn't let you be creative because powers are set in stone. 4e doesn't let you be creative because skills are not set in stone. You say, "We didn't do X, Y, Z because the game didn't let us." People say, "WTF? X,Y, and Z are explicitly mentioned, allowed and encouraged on pages E, D, and F!" "Be that as it may, our DMs didn't do that, and that's the game's fault." When 4e folks complain of bad experiences with DMs overruling their cool idea/character concept, or with vicious character imbalance, or with the 15-minute adventuring day, the are invariably told, "That's not the game's fault. That was a bad DM." And that's not entirely untrue. But the pendalum swings both ways. Yes, 4e made some changes to the game. The 4e DMG also provided PLENTY OF ADVICE and how to work with those changes to create the play experience people enjoyed. In over 25 years of gaming and dozens and dozens of game systems, the 4e DMG was best I've ever seen (about equal with Moldvay's DM advice, which gets points for succinctly hitting all the high-points of DMing a rules light game). If your DMs blew off the DMG because they figured "I already know how to DM," and then the game didn't work for them [i]that's not the fault of the game[/i]. You had some mistaken/misguided, in a word, bad DMs. What got me into 4e in the first place was AICN's Massawyrm's review, wherein he wrote about a player diving under a table a goblin was standing on, and kicking it out from under him. Massawyrm thought about it for a moment and then said, "Athletics check vs Reflex". A simple, elegant ruling making use of a solid rule structure that encouraged and rewarded creativity. And nothing that was the result of a special, highly-skilled DM. That's 4e. I said, I have to get me some of that. If you didn't get that from 4e, you were playing it [i]wrong[/i]. And not "wrong" in a "not optimized" meaning, or "not using Forge concepts and reskinning to turn abstract mechanics into a fully realized genre", but wrong as in not using the basic tools the game gave you. As wrong as someone playing Basic D&D, charging into 15 goblins, saying "I attack," "I attack" over and over again, and then when they are killed in short order, saying, "This game is stupid. It's not role-playing. You can't do anything and you're character gets killed too easy." [/QUOTE]

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