Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Tripgnosis" data-source="post: 4486418" data-attributes="member: 27760">This has annoyed me. The notion that 4e has been turned into a &quot;video-game on paper&quot;I agree that the mechanics give that impression. Having mechanics in the first place kinda makes it lean that way. Everything has been broken down to cause and effect, it's well defined and predetermined and this is the correct way to handle that. The rule books are kinda the physics engine.In older versions, more was left up to the whim of the DM. Not every situation was accounted for in the books. It wasn't all broken down for us. It was more freeform and less mechanical. But the old way was alot harder on the DM. And the more creative and imaginative the players were, the more difficult the DM's job was. But being creative and imaginative was kinda the point. So the newer versions started accounting for more and more varied situations, and started defining things in a more cut and dry mechanical sense. Not to take the fun out of it, but just to make it easier on the DM. So he can have a page to quickly turn to and say, &quot;ok, THAT is how you do it&quot;. All these new things that we have rules for now, were never dissallowed in older versions. You just had to figure it out yourself. But now that we have so many more rules people are starting to see them being a restriction. People just aren't trying as hard to think outside the box, because the box has got enough in it to keep em happy. These rules are better, but the side effect of that is that it allows people - DM's AND players - to be more lazy and to use em as a crutch.My point is this: 4e isn't the entire D&amp;D experience. It's just the backbone. The big difference between D&amp;D and video games, no matter what the edition, is that we're NOT restricted. The DM is a person, with imagination, common sense, and a will of his own.&nbsp; The DM is not a mindless set of equations bound by what has been predetermined. This is the beauty of table top RPG's. We're in charge, and it only feels like a video game if we want it to, or if we allow it to.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Tripgnosis, post: 4486418, member: 27760"] This has annoyed me. The notion that 4e has been turned into a "video-game on paper" I agree that the mechanics give that impression. Having mechanics in the first place kinda makes it lean that way. Everything has been broken down to cause and effect, it's well defined and predetermined and [I]this[/I] is the correct way to handle [I]that[/I]. The rule books are kinda the physics engine. In older versions, more was left up to the whim of the DM. Not every situation was accounted for in the books. It wasn't all broken down for us. It was more freeform and less mechanical. But the old way was alot harder on the DM. And the more creative and imaginative the players were, the more difficult the DM's job was. But being creative and imaginative was kinda the point. So the newer versions started accounting for more and more varied situations, and started defining things in a more cut and dry mechanical sense. Not to take the fun out of it, but just to make it easier on the DM. So he can have a page to quickly turn to and say, "ok, THAT is how you do it". All these new things that we have rules for now, were never dissallowed in older versions. You just had to figure it out yourself. But now that we have so many more rules people are starting to see them being a restriction. People just aren't trying as hard to think outside the box, because the box has got enough in it to keep em happy. These rules are better, but the side effect of that is that it allows people - DM's AND players - to be more lazy and to use em as a crutch. My point is this: 4e isn't the entire D&D experience. It's just the backbone. The big difference between D&D and video games, no matter what the edition, is that we're NOT restricted. The DM is a person, with imagination, common sense, and a will of his own. The DM is [I]not[/I] a mindless set of equations bound by what has been predetermined. This is the beauty of table top RPG's. [I]We're[/I] in charge, and it only feels like a video game if we want it to, or if we allow it to. [/QUOTE]

Verification