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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 4679442" data-attributes="member: 710">!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!</blockquote>

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