The D&D Experience (or, All Roads lead to Rome)

[pemerton]

do you have an off-site "Pemerton's Guide to 4E Theory?"

I've deleted your smiley so that my serious response looks marginally less unwarranted!

For my best guess as to how 4e is meant to be run, given its rules plus what the designers said back when it was being released, see my post upthread on XP rewards and skill challenges, plus this post in your "Reason why 4e is not so popular" thread - which explains why 4e seems to be designed to support "just in time"/"no myth" play in a way that is harder for strongly simulationist rulesets to achieve.

 

[BryonD]

Not unlike the way some decided to take offense at every single word that came from WOTC's mouth in the run-up to 4e.

Absolutely.

Now if you are trying to aim that at me personally, I'd take exception. I'll readily admit to be eagerly argumentative. But I don't run around whining and taking offense.

But, if you just mean in general, then absolutely, and it is annoying whichever direction it runs.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Absolutely.

Now if you are trying to aim that at me personally, I'd take exception. I'll readily admit to be eagerly argumentative. But I don't run around whining and taking offense.

But, if you just mean in general, then absolutely, and it is annoying whichever direction it runs.

As someone foolish enough to be that whiny git from time to time, I concur.

 

[BryonD]

The trick is, people draw the lines based mostly on their own preference.

Which is how it should be.

"I don't like X, therefore X isn't something that I like". It's tautological. I don't like 4e, I like D&D, therefore 4e isn't D&D.

I don't agree that is the sequence.

I like D&D. This doesn't feel like D&D to me, therefore I don't like it.

That still isn't exactly open-minded, but you are shuffling the sequence to move it from the opinion being expressed over to a really unreasonable position, that isn't being pushed. (The same old issue of telling someone else what they think, getting it worng, and then going off attacking your own error.)

And again, just to clarify my own position, 4E feels a bit like D&D to me and 3E feels a bit like D&D to me. They both have similarities and they both have differences. All in all, if we are talking about pre-3E D&D as the reference, then "feeling like D&D" is a bad start. I left pre-3E D&D because I found better games. To me, 3E feels like D&D with the parts I didn't like mostly scrubbed out. And removing those parts makes it not feel completely like old school D&D. But the general D&D flavor is there and the overall feel is much better. To me, 4E feels like D&D with the parts I didn't like enhanced. And in each case there are other elements of "feel" that are completely new, not previous likes or dislikes. But I think we all agree it comes down to "key preference" issues.


I would be surprised if there isn't someone out there who never liked any prior version of D&D, but likes 4E. I would suspect the same logic applies to them:

They don't like D&D. 4E doesn't fee like D&D so that barrier to likeing 4E is removed. Obviosuly in this case the extra step of "and they do like 4E" is requried, but that is just extra.

And D&D fans have done this since AD&D was released. Just ask Diaglo.

Certainly true.

 

[billd91]

I'm looking for people to stop trying to tell me that 4e is primarily a tactical skirmish game, or that a game run without a pre-build setting cannot be anything but a series of hack-n-slash random encounters not much different from a game like Talisman.

Now someone might turn around and say that when a poster says "4e is just a skirmish game" what they're really saying is "4e is just a skirmish game for me", or "I can't see any way to run or play 4e other than as a skirmish game." But I don't buy it. In particular, the tone of "I can't see any way to run or play 4e other than as a skirmish game" is something like a confession of an inability, or of a desire to learn - it invites a response of "OK, fair enough, but here's how I do it, maybe you could try that if you were interested". But the tone of "4e is just a tactical skirmish game" isn't like that at all. It's pretty clearly an attack on the game, with an implied criticism of the players of the game as not being real roleplayers.

Do you also get cheesed off when people say that D&D is essentially killing people and taking their stuff? That's a common phrase around here, including in defense of 4e despite it also generally reducing the game down into a tactical killing and theft game.

I do feel that 4e put far too much emphasis on the mini skirmish game element of the rules. In fact, I've recently come to the realization that one of the things about 4e I don't like is that it feels like I'm participating in a pro-wrestling game. Lots of special, even weird, moves get thrown around in a fight, usually only once... reminds me very much of pro-wrestling.

 

[BryonD]

And for completeness: the lowpoint of those sorts of jibes is when roleplaying in 4e is compared to speaking in a funny voice while moving the boot around the monopoly board. Which example I have seen put forward, on multiple occasions, as a real contribution to the analysis of the nature of roleplaying in 4e. That sort of nonsense isn't just about someone not feeling like playing 4e, or not knowing how to run or to play in 4e, and it would be disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

You may be referencing someone else. I don't know.

But I know I have mentioned the monopoly angle a time or three.
I absolutely don't think that there is anything approaching an equivalence between 4E and monopoly. But I've also seen the defense of 4E presented in ways that fail to distinguish it from monopoly. And I won't hesitate to point that out.

Those jibes may bug you, but look at them in context and you will find there are times when they are far from disingenous.

 

[Mercurius]

Oddly enough, Daniel Craig isn't James Bond to me. Nor is George Lazenby. Sure, they played the role, but to me, there was something missing.

This isn't something you can dismiss as an affectation. This is a bona fide statement of an emotional reaction to something.

If you re-read what I wrote, I did not dismiss this feeling as an affectation, but that if it was taken beyond affectation it came across as "obstinate defiance," as Aldarc put it. Or maybe willful denial?

I'd say your definition is starting to get in trouble once you start talking mechanics (which have varied greatly over the history of the game) and is floundering by the end of the third statement because "themes" again opens the door to the HERO (etc.) D&D Clones that can deliver those as easily as TSR's and WotC's product line.

Do you go through the dictionary and cross off which definitions are wrong to you? The four definitions I listed are all ways that the term "Dungeons & Dragons" are commonly used; they have nothing to do with what I think is D&D, or what is "D&D to me."

Scan through any English dictionary and you will find that a large number of words have multiple definitions with slightly to moderately different meanings. D&D is no different. As I've said elsewhere, the vast majority of non-gamers wouldn't know the difference between HERO fantasy and D&D; by their definition it is all D&D. This isn't an exact definition but it isn't "wrong" in the same way that calling a box of generic tissue Kleenex isn't "wrong."

I'm looking for people to stop trying to tell me that 4e is primarily a tactical skirmish game....(SNIP for brevity's sake)....That sort of nonsense isn't just about someone not feeling like playing 4e, or not knowing how to run or to play in 4e, and it would be disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

Well put. I find it ironic that this sort of thing is ignored or unnoticed by many who take issue with criticism over the "4E is not D&D" statement. As if the issue, the "problem," if you will, is only because some people refuse to respect such statements. My point has been that it is worthwhile to question what sort of interpersonal impact these sorts of statements make, beyond just "offending people that bend over backwards to find offense."

My feeling is that people in general don't take enough responsibility and creativity for making the game their own, that there is enormous room and flexibility to take a given rules set--especially a D&D edition--and creating the kind of atmosphere and feel you want. If anything I would say that "4E is not D&D to me" is a baffling statement in that I don't see why it couldn't be made to be D&D to anyone.

This is not to say that I think everyone should play and/or like 4E, not at all. Nor am I saying that everyone who says that "4E is not D&D to me" is lacking in creativity; actually, my sense is that many people who make such statements have bucketloads of creativity, but they simply seem unwilling to apply it to 4E. This is where I see "obstinate defiance come in." If one cannot make 4E be D&D to them, my sense is that they must have a rather finicky and narrow acceptance of what is D&D, or a "obstinate defiance" against 4E that prevents them from feeling how it, too, is D&D and can be played to feel like D&D with just a little flexibility of thinking.

The James Bond analogy works, I think, because it illustrates how there can be very different takes to playing the character "James Bond" and they are still all James Bond. The statement "Daniel Craig is not James Bond to me" implies an unwillingness to be flexible, to embrace a different variation as valid. Sort of as if, if you look away, it won't exist...I mean, Lazenby wasn't my favorite Bond, nor was Dalton or Brosnan, but they were all James Bond, they all captured the character in different ways.

That's the point: There's no one-size-fits-all take on James Bond. There is the "archetype" of James Bond, just as there is the archetype of D&D (or Rome), and then there are different, unique, embodiments of that archetype.

I've deleted your smiley so that my serious response looks marginally less unwarranted!

For my best guess as to how 4e is meant to be run, given its rules plus what the designers said back when it was being released, see my post upthread on XP rewards and skill challenges, plus this post in your "Reason why 4e is not so popular" thread - which explains why 4e seems to be designed to support "just in time"/"no myth" play in a way that is harder for strongly simulationist rulesets to achieve.

Thanks, I'll take a look. And I was honestly curious, not mocking you!

EDIT: Your hyperlink took me to page 13 which only has a couple very short posts by you. Can you provide a direct link or, better yet, a post #?

 

[Gryph]

There's an excellent series in Dragon, from about 2000 (ish) just after the release of 3e where Gary took a reader poll on what constituted the important elements of an RPG and then he discussed in his Up On a Soapbox column the results. He stated there that he was rather surprised that improv theater ranked number 1 or 2 (I misremember which) as the most important element in RPG's.

I'm thinking that perhaps the definition of RPG has evolved some since the mid-70's.

I have no doubt nor disagree with the idea of roleplaying having matured and expanded, just like the rulesets of rpgs have matured and expanded. On the other hand, if the "evolved" definition can no longer encompass the original definition there is something entirely too limiting about the evolved definition.

The breadth and scope of gourmet hamburgers that I can get today for lunch does not mean that the simple beef patty on a bun is no longer a hamburger. The fact that most people (myself included) prefer to add some nuance and personality to their characters when playing an rpg does not mean that the guy who plays his elf ranger in a quiet, mechanistic way is not roleplaying.

Anyway, I stand with the folks that accept that the guy playing WoW or other CRPGs is, in fact, roleplaying. An admittedly bland and generic sort of roleplay, but roleplay none the less.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Do you go through the dictionary and cross off which definitions are wrong to you?

No. But when people are trying to find common ground, certain definitions may not be as useful as others. As I've pointed out in various IP Piracy threads, "theft" has many definitions, and "copyright infringement" meets several...and no version of theft is all inclusive.

But here's the thing: no definition of theft overlaps a crime that is not theft.

All I'm trying to get you to do is to work towards a definition of D&D that doesn't draw in games that clearly are not. And when you have tried opening your definitions to "themes" and "feel" and capture games like Pathfinder, you have done so in a fashion that is overinclusive and thus, not helpful.

The statement "Daniel Craig is not James Bond to me" implies an unwillingness to be flexible, to embrace a different variation as valid.

No, and stop trying to infer when nothing is implied.

It's simply a statement that the speaker finds that particular interpretation as somehow lacking. The speaker may indeed find a wide variety of performances as completely valid, just not his. At some point, you may find someone cast as JB who gives you the same feeling- say, Billie Piper. Are you then inflexible when you say "Billie Piper isn't James Bond to me," even after she does 6 movies? No. clearly, you just don't care for her in the role.

To take the example back to it's roots, those who express "4Ed is not D&D to me" are simply stating that they find 4Ed lacks a certain D&D-ness, not that they are inflexible or denying certain realities.

How many games have been published under the D&D brand? And when I find ONE that doesn't do it for me, I'm inflexible? Please.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I don't feel like my Bond-watching is somehow marginalized by her devotion to the man from Edinburgh.

Ah - but suppose you talked about your love of Bond movies fairly often with your friends, and every time you did, your Mom hopped into the room to mention how "Daniel Craig isn't James Bond."