The "real" reason the game has changed.

[Ariosto]

But this is true also of AD&D, which precludes telling a story in which a mage wields a longsword

It does not.

See 1st PHB p. 32, The Multi-Classed Character, and p. 33, The Character With Two Classes.

Neither does it prohibit adding more types. The Thief, Paladin, Assassin, Monk, Druid, Ranger, Illusionist and Bard, and the half-elf, gnome and half-orc as player-characters, all came from players or DMs between the publication of the original D&D set and the publication of the 1st PHB.

(Also the Witch, which was advertised but did not appear, and of course the many others in magazines, The Arduin Grimoire and elsewhere.)

Then of course came more in The Dragon, some of which ended up in Unearthed Arcana, and more on Greyhawk, and Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms, and more in Dragon, and then the deluge of 2e supplements...

if metagame-heavy design and play really impeded story, then it would be the case that a game like HeroQuest or The Dying Earth was a weaker vehicle for story-rich roleplaying than a game like Rolemaster, Runquest or 3E D&D. But is there anyone who believes this?

What's with this "story" jive?

HeroQuest and The Dying Earth have piles more dice-rolling for the sake of rolling dice. Either you dig that, find it adds to your fun, or you don't. Either way really has sweet nothing to do with "story". Last I checked, J.K. Rowling used a word processor, not an Action Results Table and a tally.

I'm not really up on the latest HQ (being acquainted only with the old Hero Wars), and I gather there's more "meta-game" distraction now.

What role is it that you want to play? If it's someone in a casino, then maybe getting immersed in manipulating abstractions is to the point (but probably not 20-sided dice). If it's a novelist or Hollywood director, then maybe "telling the story" is to the point.

If it's an adventurer of the ilk of John Carter groping through black pits, or Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser pitting their swords against evil sorceries, then what's to the point is the adventure. Making decisions from that point of view -- "one more roll of the dice with destiny and death" (Fritz Leiber) -- is what constitutes role-playing.

 

[pemerton]

It does not.

See 1st PHB p. 32, The Multi-Classed Character, and p. 33, The Character With Two Classes.

I didn't think I had to spell it all out.

So it preclues the playing of a human mage who wields a sword but has strength less than 15, or who casts spells while wearing armour.

Neither does it prohibit adding more types.

Nor does 4e.

 

[Ariosto]

I'll give you another example, then - an AD&D wizard can't raise the dead, whereas a 4e wizard can

... and there's nary a thing that's not included in the 4e cleric package because it's a distinction of another class?

Getting back to actual facts: Methods already in the PHB and DMG include (but are not necessarily limited to) wish, clone and reincarnation spells; and the ring of regeneration.

Moreover, invention of new magics is explicitly part of the magic-user's role.

 

[Ariosto]

I didn't think I had to spell it all out.

When you make contra-factual claims? Yes, it does make a difference to me what you in fact have and have not written. Others here may be pleased to "put words in your mouth" that you did not say for the simple reason that they were not what you meant.

 

[pemerton]

Ariosto, I'm not sure what you think the point of my examples was.

The point I was trying to make, in an exchange (from memory) with BryonD and Shadzar, was that 4e is not the only game in which the mechanics limit the stories that can be told (the notion of "story", by the way, was one that my interlocutors introduced, not me). I made this point by giving some examples of the way in which AD&D character build mechanics constrain the game. It's not really to the point to argue out the details of those examples.

And it's no part of my point to deny that 4e clerics have abilities (like their Wis buff to healing, or their access to Cloud Chariots) that other classes can't get. I'm not trying to maintain that 4e build mechanics don't constrain the story. Of course they do. It's just that they're not unique, or even particularly distinctive, in that respect.

More generally, you seem to think that I'm some sort of enemy of AD&D, who wishes it didn't exist, or that no one played it. I don't know why you think this - I've never asserted such a thing. My stake in these edition comparisons is simply to defend the legitimacy of 4e as a roleplaying game. (And of course, given that I play 4e and not AD&D, I would rather WotC continue to work on the former rather than the latter game. But if they stop I'll cope. Rolemaster, for most practical purposes, ceased to be developed as a game from the mid-1990s, but that didn't stop me playing it up until the end of 2008.)

 

[Ariosto]

So it preclues the playing of a human mage who wields a sword but has strength less than 15, or who casts spells while wearing armour.

False on the first count, I think. I don't recall any indication that ability-score prerequisites for taking classes apply at any time other than first taking the class. So, you might have a character who formerly had strength and intelligence scores high enough to take both classes, but -- due to age or other effects -- has since received lower scores.

The second count of course is just a semantic trick, treating the vernacular "mage" as exclusively synonymous with the game-jargon "magic-user". By that estimate, there are no dwarven, gnome or halfling "mages" in the PHB either -- just clerics, illusionists and druids. (Some of those, however, are indicated as "NPC only".)

By the same measure, one could not play "a human fighter who cast spells without a second class" even with the addition of the thief and the ranger and the original and revised bards and the revised paladin. After all, they were not the "fighter" class, eh?

More generally, you seem to think that I'm some sort of enemy of AD&D, who wishes it didn't exist, or that no one played it.

No. I think what I have written: that some of your claims are factually false, and that others go out of the way to create "problems" where they would not otherwise be.

 

[shadzar]

My stake in these edition comparisons is simply to defend the legitimacy of 4e as a roleplaying game.

Who said that? What is being discussed without crazy extremes, is the ability to tell stories in how they games differ and that 4th edition restricts story telling.

Pre-4th you had your decisions to make up front, and the could tell the story you wanted with the character chosen from those restrictions.

4th you design some character with all the bells and whistles, but then get constrained in what story you can tell via magical non-magic overnight healing, and though never stealing a thing you get better at stealing things.

I can make all kinds of accusations against 4th edition that will have mods bleeding text all over this thread, including but not limited to thinking it isnt a good roleplaying game.

What is being said is where you get to tell the story.

Pre-4th you get to tell the story AS you play, while with 4th you have to piece a story together AFTER you have played something out.

That is the crux of the argument, not whether 4th is a roleplaying game or not.

When discussing a change to a game, you have to look at those kind of focuses within the game to see that they changed, and try to figure out why.

 

[howandwhy99]

The "real" reason I think is the game is no longer about pattern recognition and instead about story telling. There's no cooperative simulation game with the code hidden from the players any more. That is why it both feels and plays differently than in previous times. Age has nothing to do with imaginative capability in the players.

EDIT: The addictive element, common in puzzles like Soduku, found in games like CCGs and computer games: that's the pattern finding element. An absolutist tendency on the part of postmodern critics denies this possibility, non-absolutist post structuralist still allow it as a possibility. It's all about what one wants from games. And, unfortunately, what some game designers will accept as fun and possible by players. Success, winning, achievement through displays of mental prowess can be extraordinarily fun.

 

[pemerton]

False on the first count, I think. I don't recall any indication that ability-score prerequisites for taking classes apply at any time other than first taking the class.

To dual-class in AD&D requires 15 in any prime requisites for the first class, and 17 in any prime requisites for the second class (if no prime requisites are specified, than every ability with a minimum must be 15/17 as appropriate).

So a dual-classed fighter-magicuser must have at least 15 STR and 17 INT (starting as fighter) or 17 STR and 15 INT (starting as M-U).

So, you might have a character who formerly had strength and intelligence scores high enough to take both classes, but -- due to age or other effects -- has since received lower scores.

So I can't play a story in which my wizard wields a sword, wears armour, and is younger than 41 (the age at which stat penalties kick in). What is the point of this?

The second count of course is just a semantic trick, treating the vernacular "mage" as exclusively synonymous with the game-jargon "magic-user".

It was not intended as such. Yes, I can play a holy man who wears armour while casting spells. No, I can't play a scholarly wizard who wears armour while casting spells, unless I'm an elf (in 2nd ed AD&D, I believe this was further changed to limit me to elven chain - and even in 1st ed, a gnome fighter/illusionist is limited to leather).

What is the point of trying to deny that the AD&D rules impose constraints on the sort of PC that can be introduced into the game, which constraints go beyond simply what logic or imagination or evey playability in the loose sense requires?

 

[pemerton]

Howandwhy99, I'm not sure about your edit - the discussion of postmodern criticism is a bit compressed for me to really follow - but your first paragraph I agree with. Being more sympathetic than you to the Forge-y camp, I would tend to describe it as a shift away from gamist play resting on a very solid foundation of exploration of setting.

I therefore fully agree that the game is no longer the same.

But I don't agree that this is because 4e has made it impossible to tell stories, or to do anything outside combat, or to . . .