Reading 4e

[Obryn]

I'm a 4e booster, but the idea of reading the PHB class powers straight through sends chills up my spine.

-O

 

[Imaro]

Does anybody else think there are two audiences, one who buys the books to read and another who buys the books to play? 1E AD&D continues to this day to be an amazing read, but unless you have it memorized the books are painful to run a game out of. In addition, we have a lot of collectors in this hobby who buy piles and piles of books they will likely never use, just because they like collecting and reading systems. On the other hand, there are people in this hobby who spend most of their time in this hobby playing and running games. Books are only useful in their direct application to the game at hand. The best example of this are casual players who buy the PHB and the splats that directly pertain to the character they are playing, and nothing else, and don't read these books beyond playing their characters.

Given that D&D is the most popular RPG and the most played, is it that unreasonable a concept for the game books to be aimed at the second group, the people who play and run games?

I would think there is also a segment, of which I believe I am a part of, that runs & plays games, but also would like to enjoy reading the books. I mean we talk about barriers to entry and I think that a game that doesn't read like it is fun to play (especially one that is just books with no shiny pieces included) is going to have a hard time pulling in people and getting them "wanting" to play or run the game.

The funny thing is, much as people tend to claim White Wolf games "are for collecting and reading"... they actually make me excited to run them, and I think this is an important aspect of getting someone to actually want to run a game. In all honesty, if D&D 4e wasn't D&D I wouldn't have even given it a chance, and probably would have just set it aside without reading the full rules.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I am a systems guy and an optimizer, and I still can't get through Martial Power. I can't even get through it to achieve the general system mastery I feel duty bound to acquire. I all but memorized the 4E PHB because it was new and exciting at the time. I found Adventurer's Vault an impossible wall of text that I've only come to grips with because I create dozens of characters in my spare time for kicks. Martial Power, I've barely touched, as I'm waiting for the full Character Builder to deal with that material, and probably won't achieve my standard degree of system mastery until then aside from specificly built characters. I didn't have the promise of the Character Builder when I mastered Adventuer's Vault, but what I've seen of things has me sitting on my hands waiting.

 

[Remathilis]

I look at everyone who read the WotC Presents books and various Design and Development articles and responded on message boards with this:

"Golden Wyvern Adept? I don't want that in my game!"

"I'm using X setting, I don't want to have to rewrite clerics to fit it"

"Bael Turath? No thank you."

"Make the game generic; so that we can use for our own worlds."

I BLAME YOU PEOPLE! YOU KILLED THE 4E FLUFF THAT MAKES D&D INTERESTING READING!

...

I feel better now.

Seriously, when they broke powers from paragraphs to stat-blocks, it made everything easy to look up (and easy to code) but boring to read.

 

[Halivar]

Maybe it's the math/comp-sci geek in me, but I always skimmed the flavor text in 3.x books to get the crunch. Heck, I don't think I ever read an entire paragraph from my Dragon magazines; I just skipped to the tables and read the corollary information. I like 4E's "to the point"-ness.

Now, that said, I think some of the best presentation I have ever seen of crunch and fluff is Privateer Press's Warmachine and IK stuff. Wow, that's good production value. Don't get me wrong; I still skip the fluff. But it looks cool as crap!

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I would think there is also a segment, of which I believe I am a part of, that runs & plays games, but also would like to enjoy reading the books. I mean we talk about barriers to entry and I think that a game that doesn't read like it is fun to play (especially one that is just books with no shiny pieces included) is going to have a hard time pulling in people and getting them "wanting" to play or run the game.

The funny thing is, much as people tend to claim White Wolf games "are for collecting and reading"... they actually make me excited to run them, and I think this is an important aspect of getting someone to actually want to run a game. In all honesty, if D&D 4e wasn't D&D I wouldn't have even given it a chance, and probably would have just set it aside without reading the full rules.

You've made a number of posts on 4th Edition, and I find it hard to believe that if 4E read as well as 1E in a literary sense you wouldn't still dislike it for the mechanics.

 

[Imaro]

You've made a number of posts on 4th Edition, and I find it hard to believe that if 4E read as well as 1E in a literary sense you wouldn't still dislike it for the mechanics.

Honestly, I don't have too many issues with the mechanics of 4e... in fact show me where I have posted about my dislike of the mechanics of 4e. It's all the other niggling details around WotC's decision to make combat mechanics primary with only a nod (at most) to all the "glue" that holds the other parts of an rpg together that I have an issue with.

EDIT: Also with some of WotC's business decisions and whether I want to support those decisions.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I BLAME YOU PEOPLE! YOU KILLED THE 4E FLUFF THAT MAKES D&D INTERESTING READING!

In part, it's that game/system divide again.

But just because your rules are generic doesn't mean you can't have an interesting read. T20 does an awesome job of having a generic ruleset and giving me at least three awesome things to do with it.

I mostly blame the powers and monster systems for this, and they might be getting a little better at that. A giant wall of 30-40 abilities isn't interesting reading for anyone. The Monster Manual suffered from the DM's version of this: a giant wall of 200-300 stat blocks.

The plan was never to be generic. 4e was really never a system that could have been generic. The plan was to be a good reference book, but, again, French dictionaries aren't what make you interested in learning French.

Stat blocks aren't going to be what you look at for inspiration (unless you've got the magical ability to translate that directly to play experience). They are what you use when you're already inspired.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

What more "fluff" was there in the third edition player's handbook, compared to its 4th edition counterpart? Why are the descriptions of the spells and the feats in the 3rd edition handbook not dull, whereas 4th edition spells, rituals, feats and powers are, according to you?

Also, why are you starting another anti-4th edition rant?

These questions above are something I'd like to see answered, so to better understand what irks people who are vehemently against the new edition and have to complain about it all the time, in this case about this "dulleness".

If I may ask you a question too. You (DandD) seem almost compelled to don armor and shield in defense of 4E as if critical discussion of it to you is abhorrent. If you don't like criticism of anything to do with 4E, why respond to an "anti" 4E thread? Why not just not respond to it?

I enjoy both 3E and 4E (and in fact all D&D is Awesome!) and enjoy the discussion, warts and all of the game. Be it good or bad points, I find the diversity of views and opinions here at EN World interesting, dynamic and vital. However, this is twice in two days that I've seen you rushing to the defense of the latest version of the game as if her maidenhood was in direst need of protection. I really don't think you need to. Why not look for ways to encourage discussion rather than criticize the critical? Or simply, if a topic is not to your liking, simply don't post to it?

For myself, I find the 4E books very clean and almost to a point clinical. Having read and used them for a almost half a year, I "know" pretty much what's in them. Now, you bring up 3E (I don't believe the OP did). The Players Handbook for me was not a clean document but it was interesting in it's own way - and not in terms of fluff which ranged from tepid to inspiring. There was a lot of minutiae in that book where as the 4E players handbook has cleaned out a lot of these details, as well as being a more concise, simpler presentation of rules.

For me, there is not as much 4E meat to chew on, not as much detail. The plus side to this is that you get a game where you literally don't need to refer to the rulebook. The minus side to this is a book that is not quite as interesting, whether it be because of a lack of fluff/detail, or the topical minutae that some people enjoy. Another aspect is that 4E borrows so much from 3E. On first reading it (and getting over the wall of classes), a lot of the terminology and details I had already read and understood before in 3E. It is more in the playing that 4E shines, rather than in the reading.

He's refering to 4th edition as being unpolished, and dull. That means that Andor thinks that the previous version is not unpolished, and more exciting to read. Quite easy, don't you think?

No it doesn't. You might just want to have a quick reread of what the OP said. Criticism of one thing does not mean automatic praise of another.

Also, it's an open secret that Andor belongs to the 4th edition critics. Heck, he even admits it in the very first posting above.

Really? And if so, so? I don't think Andor was unreasonable, derogatory or illogical in his posting. It is a valid point and worthy of discussion for those that wish to do so.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Now, that said, I think some of the best presentation I have ever seen of crunch and fluff is Privateer Press's Warmachine and IK stuff. Wow, that's good production value. Don't get me wrong; I still skip the fluff. But it looks cool as crap!

I'll concur with the IK stuff, our group played through the Witchfire trilogy and it was fantastic.

I just recently checked out the Warhammer Roleplaying Game and that has it some damn good fluff. Not as sure on the mechanics though, but A++ for the fluff.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise