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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 6583417" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Then your metaphor was poorly chosen, because it makes a distinctly false characterization, and even with the "logic" you later supplied, it cannot hold past mid-Heroic anyway. Surely, if you had enough experience with 4e to feel you understood what was going on, you played until at least level 3 or 5? See, this is just funny. You assume that, because I was referring to B/X, I must have been playing 20 or 30 years ago. 20 years ago, I was in second grade, and did not even know D&D existed. 30 years ago, I wasn't even yet a twinkle in my parents' eyes (that is, I wasn't born yet). The B/X experiences I speak of were last summer (2014). And you somehow missed the "They were good experiences!" bit too--the DM was just fine, thank you very much, and he went out of his way to accommodate some of my interests despite them resulting in some changes to the backstory of his campaign world. (The changes actually meshed quite well with facts that were already well-known, but they were new things nonetheless; his accommodation of my interests was a major draw for me, the other being "I should really try this OSR thing and find out what I like/dislike firsthand.")Yet, as I said above: "ANYTHING you want" did not characterize the experience. It was, as I said, more a matter of wheeling-and-dealing, persuasion, and knowing the kinds of ideas that the DM liked or didn't like. I couldn't really leverage RL resources because it was over Hangouts, though I usually find RL resource leveraging (e.g. bribing the DM with pizza, beer, or something else) distasteful anyway. For instance, my Paladin (actually a Dragonborn racial class, inspired by the B/X and 4e Paladin and, to a lesser extent, 4e Warlord) couldn't do a dang thing to deal with a trap to save his soul, except try to set it off from a safe distance; other people would definitely contract nasty diseases if they touched the mummies we were dealing with, but my disease immunity gave me carte blanche for extracting treasures from sarcophagi. The DM was good--he would give ideas a fair hearing, and if he felt it was possible he would state a DC (usually roll low on d6) and see what came up--but there were PLENTY of things that were just straight up impossible. One of our Thieves would have completely warped the game around his gonzo plans if "ANYTHING [he] want[ed]" actually flew--he was a great player, but I think the DM was right to curb some of the more out-there ploys.And, as I said before, I can understand why this can happen; changes to the toolbox, both expanding or contracting it compared to what someone is comfortable with, can change how they behave. There are, however, ways to encourage greater creativity--particularly by reminding your players that "attacks" do not HAVE to target enemies. If you have a fire at-will? It can light things on fire. Even when you aren't in combat. If you have a non-damaging mark power, perhaps it can help you keep track of one specific person as they meander into a crowd. Etc. There will always be things you have to un-learn or re-learn with a new edition, this one is just a little different from what you might need to unlearn/relearn with prior editions. (Though I'd argue that creative use of powers is not a very big leap from creative use of maneuvers and spells, which the former was present from 3e and the latter's always been present.)</blockquote>

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