The Nature of Change (or, Understanding Edition Wars)

[Sammael]

Maybe I misunderstand what you mean, but I'm not sure I see these as putting you on their train so much...

I mean I own a scion (Toyota) but I don't really deal with Toyota at all. Anytime I need service I go to a local mechanic I know and trust. Any upgrades I've added to the car I've gotten from 3rd party companies, and I don't even get my oil changed using official toyota air filters and what not... So am I really a toyota customer?

So even if you play 3e, but you're buying all your gaming stuff from some other company, are you really on the WoTC train? Or did you just hop on briefly to get to another railway?

Maybe the caturtle express?

Er... doesn't diaglo also own (or used to own) pretty much every single WotC--published book up to a certain point (when they... pushed him off their train)?

 

[Scribble]

I agree that MMO's are certainly adding elements and lot of them are great elements.............for an MMO. Elements that serve a computer game very well need to be considered very carefully before being applied to a tabletop game, thats all. I play computer and tabletop games and enjoy both for very different reasons. When differences begin to blur and move closer to similarities then its time to step away and re-evaluate things.

Depends on the element in my opinion. I think the big question is why the design element works. Like is it an element that makes playing a game more fun, or is it an element that overcomes a problem computers have.

Even then, sometimes problems that computers have, the average human DM will have as well.

 

[Darrin Drader]

The system consistency changes, like a bagillion different rolls for different things (1d10 for initiative, 1d6 for surprise, d% for thief skills, etc.) being rolled into a core resolution mechanic (d20) paired with mathematical consistency ("higher is better" as opposed to "higher is better except when lower is better"), are the biggest change ever made to D&D's system since AD&D was created. That's a change to something like 75% or more of the math used in the game.

Then we have the removal of racial restrictions (suddenly, after three decades of fiction and game rules stating otherwise, elves can have paladins), the standardization of experience (no more charts for every class), damage reduction ("impossible to hurt" becomes "harder to hurt"), spells (full-time casters all get 9th-level spells, not just wizards), the scale of ability scores with the removal of caps (which merited +2 bonuses/-2 penalties, a 100% increase over previous editions), the massive change to the multiclass system (from 2e's two separate versions, multi- and dual-)... there's tons of stuff (like Monte Cook's "Ivory Tower Game Design" journal entry) that show that, objectively, 3e was a radical departure in game design from 2e and earlier (and you are correct in that much of it was just bringing in ideas that other games had innovated years before, which could be why they seem less radical to you: familiarity from other games).

The difference, as I see it, is that you like the changes from 2e to 3e more than you like the changes from 3e to 4e, which makes the 3e-4e changes seem far more radical.

That's a fair statement. Game design is not science (except when you're talking about computing statistical probability, but that's a different discussion). When I say that my design philosophy is conservative, you do have to ask the question conservative relative to what? So when I say that my bias is that 3.5 was about as close to D&D perfection as we've seen so far, it makes sense that I'd see things in the manner you described. And to put some history on my bias, when 3E came out, I was still playing a houseruled version of 2E, and I was really not intending to switch to the new system. I bought the PHB, decided to give it a spin, and I ended up absolutely loving the way it worked so I switched my group over immediately. It inspired me to see what kinds of new stuff I could come up with to add to the system. I approached 4E more or less the same way, but with opposite results. I actually liked it on paper at first, but just didn't like how it played.

So yeah, I can agree that there is no scientific and definitive right and wrong in this discussion. My opinion is that the design process for 4E might have benefitted by someone being a little more aggressive in asserting that people might not follow if they go this far afield of 3.5, and that might have produced a game that a lot of people, including me, would have preferred.

If you're happy with 4E, the question then becomes whether there's some middle ground that would have made players like you and players like me happy. Maybe the answer to that is that no, we're too far apart. We're better off playing entirely different games.

 

[Scribble]

Er... doesn't diaglo also own (or used to own) pretty much every single WotC--published book up to a certain point (when they... pushed him off their train)?

Thats why I said maybe I was misunderstanding... Because it seemed like he was saying he was on their train but only because 3pp he bought from were associated with WoTC in some way, and not because he was buying actual WoTC books?

 

[Lacyon]

Having never played WOW means than you have no chance at noticing any similarities at all.

That strikes me as incredibly dubious. Especially given that, as you quoted, I do notice similarities. In all editions of D&D.

4E continued this and dispensed with any remaining mystery by listing items as actual gear in the PHB. Another 4E addition to the magic item situation is the ability to disenchant unwanted magic items into residum.
This is a direct WOW import as items in WOW are routinely disenchanted into materials that fuel item enchantments.

This concept was in games and fantasy fiction well before the existence of WoW. That I know. And yes, I knew that this was in WoW as well, even without having played it. So while it is a similarity with WoW that did not exist before, I still don't see evidence that it was actually a "direct WOW import".

Aggro mechanics: There have been tank, glass cannon "striker" , and healbot archetypes long before any MMO. The computer games simply used the archetypes that were already in use on the tabletop. Not having a live DM meant giving the AI mobs a reason to attack the toughest target even if that would be a far from intelligent choice. It allowed players to use teamwork to "tank and spank" a monster. This is a game mechanic that is not needed for a tabletop game. This goes back to the oldest rules of game design: The rules serve the game and not the other way around. Aggro based mechanics are good example of a game serving the rules. The rules say something works despite any logic or reason so either the game changes or the world simply obeys the rule without question.

This is an MMOism? People have been complaining about things happening in D&D without (sufficient for the individual in question) logic or reason for as long as I can remember. I was one of these people, a good 10+ years before MMOs were invented.

Retraining: 3E had this before 4E and its a common occurence in WOW. Some WOW players "respec" or retrain daily depending on if they are grouping or playing solo. This has the benefit of letting players tinker with different bits of the rules but the constant overwriting of skills and abilities makes a chartacter feel more like an avatar or toon than a part of an ongoing living fantasy world. The concept of "bad" decisions being judged so because they were not optimized for job X even though the player had fun with that choice is one that seems more at home in tabletop battle games than in a roleplaying game.

That this is similar to WoW I can't deny, but since, as I said above, every edition of D&D is similar to WoW, I'd like to know why people think it necessarily came from WoW instead of simply being a clever mechanic that happens to show up in more than one game.

I've never had a "cartoon"-feeling when using the retraining rules, or even letting people "retrain" feats and stuff before the rules for such in 3E ever came out. This might be just because I used them with some restraint. When my 3E Dwarf Wizard retrained his Toughness feat for something else, he didn't lose any hit points, because retraining only happens on level-up. He just gained fewer hit points than he would have at other levels and ended up with one more other feat.

Likewise, if I retrain my skill training in a typical 4E game, it's usually because I just haven't been using the one skill and think I'd like to gain another. So there's no disconnect where my character used to be spouting off random Nature facts and suddenly can't tell poison ivy from crab-grass - if the skill was being used all the time, I'd hardly have reason to retrain out of it. And since I can still only retrain on level up, you notice me learning the new skill around the same time everyone is learning new things. So you might notice that I learned more than someone else, but that happens to people in real life all the time and doesn't seem like it should be immersion-breaking.

When a wizard realized he learned a spell that turns out to be less good than he hoped, he may decide to seek out another one. And even though he probably still is casting his crappy spell all the time, when he learns that substitute spell (read: levels up, retrains) why would he go back to preparing that crappy spell in the slot instead? If it's not one of his "slotted" spells, why would he use that crappy spell in place of one of his other at-wills or encounters? It makes a reasonable amount of sense that the unused one will atrophy.

I can totally understand that it can be done in radically immersion-breaking ways, and that someone reading the book can go "that's ridiculous! People can do that in totally immersion-breaking ways! It needs to be saddled with some justification so that people can't break the immersion!" But I've found in play that generally, people don't try to break immersion, and asking them politely not to when they do works. YMMV of course.

There are major flavor changes that align 4E (and parts of 3E) with MMO style games. The largest overall flavor change that may be causing the most resistance is that of genre tone.

4E is not an MMO of course. It is a superhero tabletop roleplaying game wherein the protagonists dress in robes and armor rather than capes and tights. The move from swords and sorcery to supers is I think, the cause of a great deal of the resistance. It would be like taking the marvel supers RPG and turning the heroes into fighters, mages, clerics, and rogues in feel, and leaving them in the trappings of capes and spandex.

I'm not sure how to respond to this other than that I really don't see it (yet). I haven't played a lot of 4E (yet) so some of this might start to ring true. But it doesn't look to me terribly different from BO9S stuff, which I adore, so I doubt it.

 

[Darrin Drader]

You say the balance between new & old works because you don't particularly care about the areas where 3e departed from the past. But it was a big change, mechanically to be sure but also stylistically. A lot of people had problems with 3e's emphasis on high fantasy - if you played D&D where +1 swords are rare & precious and the characters are not super-heroes, then you probably think that 3e abandoned D&D's core identity. You're (I'm guessing) fine with the high fantasy elements but still want some simulationist trappings.

Yes, I do generally a run high fantasy when I run D&D. However, even I agree that the assumption that the characters would be overloaded with magic items in order to keep up with their opponents was a little much, especially at higher levels. I liked to run games where magic items were a little more rare and PCs couldn't just go out and create every magic item they wanted to own because I would keep their gold piece awards on the low side. This means that I had to look at their opponents and make sure that they were equipped to fight those things, and if they weren't make some modifications to the monsters. Later on, it meant that the default CR for monsters was a little high, so that was one of the things I'd compensate for.

One of the reasons that 3.5 works for me is that the system was flexible enough that you could make changes like this with relatively little difficulty (to me at least, your results may vary). 4E feels a lot more rigid to me, even if the assumed power level is back on track for what I consider fantasy normal.

I will say that 3e was rather conservative when it came to trying to capture the "feel" of previous editions, despite being an almost completely different game. Whereas 4e has basically done a DC-style Crisis event where you see a lot of the familiar elements but they're scrambled and different. That has little to do with the mechanics of 4e, though, and much to do with the radical setting changes.

Yeah, absolutely true.

 

[Spatula]

OK. So I'm probably going to get dogpiled for mentioning this. But I'm going to put this smiley here: - see him? You can't look me in the eyes because it's the intarweb. But can anyone, whether friend or foe of 4E, look McSmiley in his four eyes and tell me/him that 4E does not remind you, in any way, of World of Warcraft?

I think someone already beat me to this, but WoW reminds me of D&D (and also Warhammer). And before WoW existed, EQ was even more blatant in stealing major chunks of D&D. That's because a lot of people making these computer games also play (or have played) D&D.

Magic items: Starting with 3E magic items were changed from an art to a science. No longer were items mysterious and rare

Perhaps someone can point you in the direction of MerricB's breakdown of the 1e modules from a few years back, wherein magic items were not at all rare. And the "mystery" is spoiled as soon one reads the DMG section on magic items, or sees enough items to know what they are generally capable of. You only have one first time.

they were to be cranked out and sold like any other commodity. All you needed (per RAW) was raw materials, time, gold, and xp and presto-a magic item.

Magic items had gp values in 1e DMG, and yes we (and many other people) used those values in the 80's to buy items in interdimensional bazaars. And all you needed to make items (per RAW) was raw materials, time, gold, and some percentage checks and presto - a magic item.

Another 4E addition to the magic item situation is the ability to disenchant unwanted magic items into residum.

Artificer class, 3e Eberron Campaign book.

Aggro mechanics

...don't exist in 4e (but did in 3e! in the Knight class, PHB2). Monsters still have free will and aren't computer controlled. Defender types provide disincentives for opponents to attack other targets; otherwise intelligently-played monsters skip over the tin cans and eat the wizard, and there's nothing that the tin-can can do to stop it.

Retraining: The concept of "bad" decisions being judged so because they were not optimized for job X even though the player had fun with that choice is one that seems more at home in tabletop battle games than in a roleplaying game.

What about "bad" decisions that looked like fun but turned out not to be? "Sorry, you made a mistake, you're stuck with it for the life of the character." "OK, I commit suicide and introduce the character's previously unrevealed twin." It's a game, the purpose is to have fun, not to suffer.

4E is not an MMO of course. It is a superhero tabletop roleplaying game wherein the protagonists dress in robes and armor rather than capes and tights. The move from swords and sorcery to supers is I think, the cause of a great deal of the resistance.

That move happened in 3e, if not sooner.

 

[Scribble]

If you're happy with 4E, the question then becomes whether there's some middle ground that would have made players like you and players like me happy. Maybe the answer to that is that no, we're too far apart. We're better off playing entirely different games.

Couldn't you ask that same question about 3e in regard to all the 3e is not D&D people?

 

[Lacyon]

I'll take your word for it on the gnomes, but I thought more was needed to make them a playable race than what was in the 4E MM.

They're playable as is. They aren't considered kosher for the RPGA yet.

 

[Scribble]

One of the reasons that 3.5 works for me is that the system was flexible enough that you could make changes like this with relatively little difficulty (to me at least, your results may vary). 4E feels a lot more rigid to me, even if the assumed power level is back on track for what I consider fantasy normal.

Which is strange to me... Because 4e feels way easier to modify then 3e ever felt to me. (Maybe our brains work differently.)