Tactical Boardgame?

[Wolfspider]

Well done, ByronD.

 

[fedelas]

I really like Magic the Gathering, D&D miniatures(boardgame) and Storytelling RPG a la Whitewolf. What I really want from the game I play in my Sunday Night is a mix of all these things: i want to customize my character (or my Players character's) with synergy by skills, feats and powers; i want easy to run, strategic, fast combat where decision making have real weight, not only dice roll; I want flavorful background, speaking in character, memorable villains.
D&D 4e can aid me to obtain these results? I think the amswer is a big YES! so it can be the game my group will play (just like we played 3.0 and now 3.5).

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

It isn't a question of what is in 4e that was in 3e already. It is a question of what has 4e removed.

Fiddly skill point shuffling? Lists of spells or special abilities for generic monsters that were useless in combat and woud lead to some DMs constraining what a monster would do outside of combat.

And what did 4E add? Non-Combat Encounter guidelines? An implied setting faciliating the concept of adventurers, with stronger ties to real world mythology?

 

[Kwalish Kid]

You missed my points. I like the tactical board game combat. But it is tactical board game combat. And I will play it on a (virtual?) board. I will not play the non-combat encounters in another room and run back for the combat. I will be playing sitting in front of a board = board game.

What is so bad about to say, that the combat (a very big piece of D&D) is a tactical board game?

I think the big problem is that few reasonable people would identify "board games" with "games played in the presence of a board". There are many games that can be reasonably be called board games that do not have a board. (For example, many of the Cheapass Games collection, and not simply those with cardstock boards.) Even if we accept that the presence of a board is essential to a board game, it does not follow that every game played with a board is a board game. Few would call darts a board game, yet it has a more traditional board than will be used in many 4th edition games.

 

[Doug McCrae]

we just hate young people.

Yeah, I know.

Well duh, right? I mean I certainly wish that was a strawman arguement and was just an attempt to brush aside a bunch of legitimate concerns and reasons.

"This playstyle isn't mine therefore it sucks" is very common on rpg messageboards, particularly the 4e forum. Often it's concealed by some kind of theory but when you tease out the reasoning it always turns out to be -

1. I like X.
2. I will therefore construct a theoretical system to prove that liking X is morally and intellectually superior to not liking X.

 

[Fifth Element]

I'm seeing this argument very often in response to people expressing that they don't like what they're hearing about 4E. Not so much in response to people expressing that they like what they're hearing about 4E. It should be equally valid in both cases, no? And if so, then the argument leaves little point to discussing what we know of 4E at all until we know everything about it.

This thread is not about "I like it" versus "I don't like it". It's about the positive assertion that 4E is no longer an RPG but a boardgame.

That's s positive assertion, and as such the onus is on the person making the assertion to prove it. And at this point, no one (who is at liberty to discuss it) has enough information to make such an assertion. Therefore we can only assume that it will be similar to all previous editions of D&D, which was by default quite combat-focused but is still a role-playing game.

If you want to talk about arguments made in other threads, please do so in those other threads.

 

[AllisterH]

No, actually it hasn't and that is the point. Mr. Gygax (who we are now at a loss without him) and Mr. Arenson took the game AWAY from the board and allowed combat to be played in the head of a group of people around a table with a GM and his words describing the situation. Use of tabletop minis was always optional and frankly until 3.5 I never used them for anything but marching order. Thats about 20 some years of playing D+D without a mini or a tabletop map and combat went just fine.
.

I call shenanigans on this.

There is simply no way to run the classic 1E/2E wizard WITHOUT the use of some type of marking system, be it as simply as whiteboard and marker or as detailed as a grid with minis.
There is just no way you can use the classic wizard spells like Fireball and Lightning Bolt without the use of a "board".

What 4E has done is that it has changed it so that instead of JUST the wizard requiring a board, it looks like the warlock and the rogue both require having a board to help visualize. I personally see no reason why a board would be required for the ranger for example (no more having to worry about shooting into melee is the biggest reason).

IMHO, this is how it broke down in previous editions.
1E/2E - only the wizard, the druid and depending on how stringent your DM was with regard to backstabbing, the thief required the use of a board.

3.x - wizard, sorceror, cleric, druid, rogue and archer wielding classes required the use of an actual physical visualization BECAUSE of their powers.

4E - wizard, warlock, rogue and maybe cleric are the classes that seem to require the use of a board.

The reason why I believe this is HOW their powers work. A class that a) focuses on positioning of itself like the rogue or b) a class that has powers that affect both allies and enemies from range

These classes require that to use the class abiliteis effectively, you NEED to see the entire board. You need to see where the enemy kobold is in relation to everyone else if you want to drop a fireball on it. You need to see what's next to the giant so you can position yourself to get your sneak attack/backstab off.

Conversely, even in 4E, a paladin pretty much only needs to know what's adjacent to him which a DM can simply describe without the use of visual cues.

 

[Fifth Element]

Darn, you are on to us. I guess we have to admit now that 4E is perfect and has no flaws.

You like to talk about strawman arguments. There's one right there. No one is saying you can't criticize 4E. It's the method of criticism that's the issue here.

You can discuss the flaws you perceive in 4E without having to attach some label to it. The labels serve no purpose and you should know they are likely to elicit passionate responses. Labeling something as being not an RPG is inflammatory. It gives the impression (deserved or not) of elitism, that you mean 4E is "only" a boardgame. It feels like an insult to others who like what they see of 4E.

In the end, it's far more likely to be taken as an insult than to do anything productive. It should therefore be avoided. It's like calling someone who doesn't like 4E a grognard. Maybe you mean "grognard" merely as someone who likes older editions. But you should know that it will be taken as an insult more often than not.

 

[Mephistopheles]

This thread is not about "I like it" versus "I don't like it". It's about the positive assertion that 4E is no longer an RPG but a boardgame.

That's s positive assertion, and as such the onus is on the person making the assertion to prove it. And at this point, no one (who is at liberty to discuss it) has enough information to make such an assertion. Therefore we can only assume that it will be similar to all previous editions of D&D, which was by default quite combat-focused but is still a role-playing game.

If you want to talk about arguments made in other threads, please do so in those other threads.

That's a fair distinction, but as this thread is a thread about arguments being made in other threads it seemed as good a place as any to bring it up.

Back on topic, are the numbers of people stating definitively that 4E is a boardgame really that high or is it just the perception of the OP? Even Chris Pramas's blog about his 4E test drive (which put him on the OP's list of publishers who have written 4E off as a boardgame) doesn't mention boardgames at all that I can see (CCGs yes, but not boardgames). He specifically mentions he hasn't written it off yet.

 

[Harkun]

I call shenanigans on this.

There is simply no way to run the classic 1E/2E wizard WITHOUT the use of some type of marking system, be it as simply as whiteboard and marker or as detailed as a grid with minis.
There is just no way you can use the classic wizard spells like Fireball and Lightning Bolt without the use of a "board".

You can call whatever you want on it but its the truth.

I don't know how old you are but us old timers have done it for years. When I started playing back in 79 we never used anything, even scraps of paper. Back in the day, the DM told you a STORY, including a dramatic telling of how the combat was going. Some people I knew back then, even would refuse to use minis because they felt it destroyed the feel of storytelling and the RPG aspect of the game. Go try telling people who play Vampire the Masquerade or even Requiem that they should be using minis or a tabletop. RPGs are about telling a story and that INCLUDES combat.

This as I said is the prime problem. Those like the above poster is so convinced that they need tabletop that they can not even think of playing without it....thus we keep getting farther and farther away until we have what we do now which seems to be the D+D minis game on steroids.