The Impasse

[Fenes]

The main problem we have is that people simply cannot accept that not eveyone plays like they do, or has the same taste. And that's often compounded by a very narrow view of what is D&D - and made even worse by the crusading zeal many display when it comes to advertise their own playstyle. In short, the impasse is that too many people define D&D as "what I play as D&D".

Back pre-4E, we have had quite "lively" discussions whether or not a game where PCs could not die without the players consenting to it was D&D - or even fun. Despite many having fun playing that way. Some people simply could not even fathom that some other people have no fun worrying for their characters.

The same you can see with the edition wars. People need to accept that not everyone likes the new or old edition. And that, for a variety of reasons, the new or old edition is not for everyone.

I really don't get how we can gladly accept that playstyles differ when it comes to roleplaying relationships, evil campaigns, combat-heavy or combat-light campaigns, how we can advice people to pick compatible players for their groups, to make sure everyone wants simialr experiences from the ganme, yet when it comes to editions we act as if one edition fitted all, and take offense when others don't play by the same rules.

I once listed my reason for not playing 4E: It is not a single issue, nor a big issue, but rather a lot of little things that add up. Drop by drop, they weigh down on the "not for me" scale.

No perform skill.
No crafting skills.
No profession skills.
Fireball now a daily instead of a staple.
Martial powers do not recharge as well as they do in Bot9S, causing a card game feeling.
Martial powers require too much mental gymnastics to make sense, or drop to "do not think about it"
Game terms and grid instead of real measurements for movement.
Too much "shift".
System is set for far more combats per day than I want.
Skill Challenge system was not playtested, and came out bugged.
Not enough classes.
Lizardfolk as core race.
Too much limiting fluff (tieflings restricted to one appearance, and one origin).
Game terms that remind me of MMOGs (Striker, defender etc.).
Powers not having enough power. I want crits that can one shot enemies, sword attacks that take down half the enemies' hit points. I want a barbarian that can kill an equal-levelled pit fiend in two rounds (Pouncing charge, finishing blow), not a game where we need to grind down enemies MMO-style.

And I guess more I don't recall right now.

All those points, for themselves, are solvable. But together they amount to far too much work for far too little gain for me, and make me consider 4E as clearly "not for me".

Yes, I have no doubt I could form 4E into something that I could like with a lot of house rules and a lot of work - but why bother if it would turn it into something not many would recognize as 4E anymore? Far more sensible to pick what I like from 4E, and add it to my game (which is already pretty far from "standard" D&D 3.5).

 

[xechnao]

Do you imply that WotC did not research their audience and just "blindly" (to use the operative word in this thread) picked up everything from MMOs or CRPGs and tried to force it into D&D?

I doubt that. I don't feel like that was the case.
I think they looked at aspects that lead to interesting and engaging gameplay in games, and some examples of that can be found in MMOs or videogames, but a lot also exist in traditional RPGs. There are differences between these mediums, but that still does not mean that nothing can be transplanted. I am pretty certain that most RPG designers - including those at WotC - understand their medium pretty well.

It was not blind but it looked at the wrong directions. It researched in a wrong way. It did the wrong experiments. If it had researched more perhaps it would have found out the right ones but this did not happen IMO. A kind of example follows bellow.

Stories can be told in movies or novels. You will have to adapt the story. Likewise, you can import mechanics from an RPG to an MMO or vice versa. You need to adapt the details of the implementation, but if the basic idea is sound, it is possible. (Whether your specific implementation works - just as with story adaptions to different media - is another matter.)

Literature is something very researched and developed. In our case I would say that importing mechanics would be like trying to import in a story written for a novel the animated features or sound effects of movies. It can be done but you will have to model and alienate the story. This means that your final goals will have to change too and in this case you are found in the position to have to start from the very base of things. But for what goal now? The original story developed on the sound models of literature is gone. You see you are at a dead end regarding your original goal or aim. This means that your original aim was a wrong one.

 

[Kzach]

The main problem we have is that people simply cannot accept that not eveyone plays like they do, or has the same taste.

I have to disagree. I think the primary reason is the lack of cookies.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

!

It was not blind but it looked at the wrong directions. It researched in a wrong way. It did the wrong experiments. If it had researched more perhaps it would have found out the right ones but this did not happen IMO. A kind of example follows bellow.



Literature is something very researched and developed. In our case I would say that importing mechanics would be like trying to import in a story written for a novel the animated features or sound effects of movies. It can be done but you will have to model and alienate the story. This means that your final goals will have to change to and in this case you are found in the position to have to start from the very base of things. But for what goal now? The original story developed on the sound models of literature is gone. You see you are at a dead end regarding your original goal or aim. This means that your original aim was a wrong one.

Show me this with actual game mechanics that were "imported". Show me the euqivalent of your literary examples in game design of 4E. Show me the specific example.

I only have counter-examples to your claim.

Fictional Example:
- Guilds. Can you translate them from WoW to D&D?
Not in the sense of a guild made of dozens or hundreds of player characters. You can translate the general idea, that players belong to a specific faction or create their own. A game mechanical representation might allow you to use the Guild to acquire resources (magical items, henchman or allies).

Actual Examples:
- Roles. A concept found in many MMOs, with various implementations. A concept also found in "classic" D&D, but more as an emergent principle than as a design guideline (incidentally, it seems the same is true for many MMOs. I remember comments on how people use different class builds in World of Warcraft to achieve a role of "DPS", "Debuffer", or "Tank" or "Healer"). In D&D, Cleric typically had a Healer role, Fighter typically had a Tank or a DPS role, and a Rogue tended towards DPS, and finally the Wizard always did a lot of area stuff and other things that shaped the battlefied (like just removing enemies from the combat via save or die.) But other classes had less defined focuses, and some complained about that, because they didn't work well in combat (lacking any specific role and designed with conflicting roles. The Monk was very fast, but could only use his attack/damage abilities well if he stood still, for example - and than lacked the AC and HP to survive long in combat).
So, 4E decided to pick out these "emergent" concepts of roles and make them explicit, designing classes to fulfill these roles. Was that fundamentally wrong? Or is that not even something _really_ taken from online games and just something that was always somehow present in the game but never fully realized?

- Monster "Weights" - Minions, Elites and Solos:
A common concept in many adventures if the final confrontation with the BBEG. After having brought down the defenses of the Dragons Lair, the adventurers finally confront the dragon. That's something found in CRPGs, MMOs and Tabletop/pen & paper RPGs.
How to handle this? Just give the monster more hit points, higher defenses? That's what was often done in D&D, as it seems. (Just pick a higher CR in 3E). Many computer games do it differently - these "boss monsters" don't just have a boatload of hit points, they have special attacks, area effects and all that. 4E adapted this idea with its Elite and Solo Monster denominations, trying to adress problems inherent with merely using increased defenses and hit points - the action economy issue.
Another simple concept found in many media (not just RPGs and MMOs) are weaker enemies, that the heroes encounter in big numbers but take down quick and dirty. A simple approach is just reducing the number of hit points of the monster, making it faster to kill. That alone might work, but there is still some unresolved issue - the processing power of the DMs brain required to keep track of more monsters. Just reducing hit points doesn't change this effort much, since you still keep track of conditions and hit point totals. So 4E went and removed most of the tracking process - monsters with just one hit point usually die and don't have time to suffer from conditions (most of the time.) I think this is a very clever adaption from other media and working in the specialities of online games. Not just looking at what is "simulated" with the rule, but also how it makes managing it easier!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

No perform skill.
No crafting skills.
No profession skills.
Fireball now a daily instead of a staple.
Martial powers do not recharge as well as they do in Bot9S, causing a card game feeling.
Martial powers require too much mental gymnastics to make sense, or drop to "do not think about it"
Game terms and grid instead of real measurements for movement.
Too much "shift".
System is set for far more combats per day than I want.
Skill Challenge system was not playtested, and came out bugged.
Not enough classes.
Lizardfolk as core race.
Too much limiting fluff (tieflings restricted to one appearance, and one origin).
Game terms that remind me of MMOGs (Striker, defender etc.).
Powers not having enough power. I want crits that can one shot enemies, sword attacks that take down half the enemies' hit points. I want a barbarian that can kill an equal-levelled pit fiend in two rounds (Pouncing charge, finishing blow), not a game where we need to grind down enemies MMO-style.

And I guess more I don't recall right now.

All those points, for themselves, are solvable. But together they amount to far too much work for far too little gain for me, and make me consider 4E as clearly "not for me".

Yes, I have no doubt I could form 4E into something that I could like with a lot of house rules and a lot of work - but why bother if it would turn it into something not many would recognize as 4E anymore? Far more sensible to pick what I like from 4E, and add it to my game (which is already pretty far from "standard" D&D 3.5).

The bolded part is really what makes 4E not "your" game. Handling the rest is easy, but that is a very fundamental design aspect of the game. You are not _supposed_ to take down your opponents so fast, it's expected that you maneuver around and work for synergies.


Or maybe it's not so hard after all? Maybe just double damage for encounters and tripple for dailiy powers? Nah, I don't trust this to work, the underlying design ideas are still incompatible with this idea...

 

[DandD]

I wouldn't mind grinding down monsters in the style of the manga "Berserk" of Kentaro Miura.

I'd rather have a team-based game than playing a game about action-divas upping each another at the table when spending D&D-time.

 

[Fenes]

The bolded part is really what makes 4E not "your" game. Handling the rest is easy, but that is a very fundamental design aspect of the game. You are not _supposed_ to take down your opponents so fast, it's expected that you maneuver around and work for synergies.


Or maybe it's not so hard after all? Maybe just double damage for encounters and tripple for dailiy powers? Nah, I don't trust this to work, the underlying design ideas are still incompatible with this idea...

See, that's a big part of the problem right there - you telling me what's easy and what's not, as if you knew my taste. And this is what is it about: Personal preferences. And, honestly, you should not presume to know what's easy for me and what's hard.

I could handle the damage by simply using more minions, and reducing the monsters' HPs. Combat is not that big in my game.

I have a lot more trouble wrapping my mind about the fluff of the game, especially around the combat mechanics that center on shifting people this and that way. And of course the whole "dailies" and "encounters" for martial characters. I could handle that too - mainly by making everything encounter or at will, and banning stuff I can't reationalize, or by making everything "magical".

But again, why bother? 4E offers me nothing I want that I could not much, much more easily get by adding one or two things to my house rules instead of rewriting a game system (mechanics and background) that, summed up, rubs me the wrong way in way too many places.

 

[Kzach]

But again, why bother?

I've been asking myself that every time I read your posts. Why are you bothering? Who are you trying to convince? Do you really think people who like 4e care about what you don't like about it? Are you doing it for validation from others who agree with you?

So you don't like 4e. Good for you. I don't like eating babies*, but I generally don't spend hours talking about it on forums across the internet.


*I do, however, like eating cookies.

 

[Fenes]

It was an example of what I hope is a way to discuss editions without causing an edition war, in the line of what Rel pointed at as an excellent example of discussing edition preferences.

Your hostile reaction shows that either my post was not as suited to that goal, or that you cannot take any disagreement with your edition choice, and would want me (and probably anyone else not playing your game) gone from these boards.

 

[DandD]

If you only have one combat per game evening, it wouldn't matter if the combat abilities of the characters are daily, encounter or at will, as they're still going to be only once a game evening, which will encompass several days up to several months.

And of course, there are already daily non-magical abilities in 3rd edition. Be it "Defensive Roll" or "Barbarian Rage" (having several is useless if you only have one combat encounter per day because of your spellcasters needing to rest again after unleashing their arcane and divine spells), if people don't have problems with it in prior editions, they can't have problems with it in 4th, 5th or 22th edition, whenever these will be (unless a totally new system is devised, which I would hope).