D&D 4E Presentation vs design... vs philosophy

[Minigiant]

Which does point out a rather major error in 4e's presentation.

Someone like me - and I'm going to guess I'm not alone - is going to decide what to do with a new edition based entirely on reading through the first round of core books (PH-DMG-MM) and maybe the first few adventures. If those don't give me the whole game and-or don't impress me, I ain't coming back for more later: the chance is blown.

With 4e it seems from all I've read/heard that those who did come back for more later found it worth the wait; which is good for those people but really sounds like an overall smack-my-head marketing strategy.

I hate to say it but two of the main things holding D&D back is that 1) the designers don't come at it from a neutral perspective and let their biases affect their creation and 2) like all gaming making money is top priority and this affect scheduling.

And that's why every version of D&D or D&D successor has aspects that make you facepalm. Because a lot of the errors and miscues are something a open mind and a little time fixes.

Good thing we have DMs.

 

[Manbearcat]

Just remember, the OP specifically asked that we not get into edition wars!

This hasn't been an edition war so I don't think it needs any overt or passive-aggressive attempt to curtail our conversation. This has been an edition conversation. People are behaving nicely and we're having interesting, informative exchanges.

And yes, it was spawned by the comparisons of PF2 to 4e and it has evolved from there. That's...pretty normal.

If you want to have a conversation about PF2 and 4e, how about you tell me about how you think noncombat action resolution in PF2 is inspired by Skill Challenges and the Success With Complications and Fail Forward nature of 4e?

 

[Lanefan]

@Oofta and @FrogReaver and anyone else who felt 4e characters were same due to some aspect of unified mechanical structure.

I’m curious. Have you guys played Magic the Gathering? If so, what do you feel about the deck archetypes/themes and the unified mechanical structure? Does it feel “samey” to you in the same way that 4e does? If not, why?

Though there's differences in play within the game, I've usually found one game of MTG is, in the end, very much like another. And not just because I lose.

More to the point, when the flavour of the cards is stripped away MTG is really nothing but a glorified exercise in mathematics, statistics and probabilities; and while different elements applied to that chassis (i.e. different deck designs) might encourage or trend toward certain results, the underlying chassis is always exactly the same.

The only other mitigating factors are metagame actions by the players e.g. constantly fiddling with the cards in your hand in order to distract your opponent, or outright cheating e.g. shuffling but not really shuffling. For these purposes I'll henceforth ignore them.

The quesiton with regards to different RPGs (or D&D editions, depending on focus) is whether the underlying chassis is always the same, and-or whether it should be.

It was clear even in 3e that WotC had learned from MTG regarding two things: unified mechanics (everything on a d20, etc.) and keywords (eschew natural language wherever something can be shoehorned into a keyword). This, along with a very rules-first focus, made 3e appealing to MTG players - which IMO really helped its sales.

In 4e they took it a step further and unified some underlying mechanics into AEDU, while at the same time filing off some rough edges. Combined with the 3e developments (which were largely kept), and in comparison with 0e-1e-2e's mechanical chaos, it's not difficult to see how someone might start thinking in terms of 'samey' in a general sense, even while some specifics remained quite variable and different as we've seen by examples upthread.

5e has backed off a bit from the rules-first focus and gone back to a bit more natural language in place of keywords; these two things make it 'feel' muc different from 3e-4e even though some of the underpinnings haven't changed much. One could argue, for example, that at-will/short-rest/long-rest isn't as far removed from AEDU as it's been made to appear.

At least, that's how it all looks from the peanut gallery.

 

[Maxperson]

Look, dude... you keep telling us you hate Bob. But since we don't know Bob, nor what he did... it is very disempowering to the rest us to keep that knowledge hidden. How can we adequately discuss the pros and cons of Bob if we aren't given all the details? ENWorld is a message board for discussion, and until Bob is fully put on the table and we are allowed to debate, you do the board a disservice. Do not hide Bob from everybody. Bob deserves to have his day in the sun, especially since he knows what he did.

Or are you afraid that perhaps it's not Bob that is the problem, but maybe it's you? Hmm? Is that it, Oofta? What are you trying to hide? Or is there even a Bob at all?

You know what? I don't think there is a 'Bob'. Or more to the point... I think Oofta is actually Bob themself. I'm right, aren't I? Oofta is Bob. Bob is Oofta. And Oofta knows what they did.

He smiles too much.

 

[Lanefan]

Well, it's not like there's a secret "this is why you should not like 4E" handbook. Or is there ...

Insert joke here about it being a Chick tract from 2009...

 

[Minigiant]

See comments like these throw me... I want to play D&D for D&D tropes there are thousands (probably more) of rpg's that do magic differently, if I don't want the tropes of D&D and/or it's settings... why am I playing D&D??

Because many D&D editions fail at providing the D&D tropes?

There are mechanical D&D tropes, narrative D&D tropes, and D&D setting tropes.

And each edition attempts them all. And they fail at many of them.

 

[Manbearcat]

Really good post @Lanefan

Things I don't agree with, but that is a really well-put and informative post (as to how you perceive and categorize all of these things).

 

[FrogReaver]

Ok. This is actually interesting and I think we're getting somewhere.

Everything we're talking about here screams to me that you're making several category errors (or at least some kind of arbitrary category conflation), both in MtG and in 4e D&D. But you're very confident that you're not. That issue has to have some kind of explanatory power here.

I would say you are - but there really isn't a point in bickering back and forth on that.

I guess let me ask you this:

What do you think about the bedrock fact that in virtually all non-aggro the maths have been done such that you're going to need 23-24 lands to not get your drops but not get mana-flooded/screwed? What do you feel about the "freedom" to have 21 mana in a high-cost mid-range deck...but in reality, its totally dysfunctional and not playable?

How do you perceive that? Is that "freedom" or "sameyness" (even if its emergent sameyness)?

I'd say freedom. Let me explain. While it may be the best case to not get mana-flooded/screwed - there's always the case that I may be putting together a deck where my optimum strategy against yours is to get myself slightly mana flooded because there's this 5 mana card that if i don't play early enough i will more than likely lose. So it's great and wonderful freedom IMO. Even if it's not generally a tournament grade strategy to make a deck that would need to function that way.

Wanted to also add, if it starts getting to the point where all colors also have to have 10 creatures, 15 instants, 5 enchantments etc - and all of those creatures instants and enchantments do nearly the same thing except for a few - then that may start feeling a little samey to my taste

 

[Manbearcat]

@FrogReaver

I'm not sure how to continue this line of conversation given our differences on categories, but at least that was informative as to why we see things differently here.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*