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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Keldryn" data-source="post: 5771960" data-attributes="member: 11999">Implied Setting and CosmologyOne of my favorite things about 4e is the somewhat controversial default setting.  I love that a loosely-detailed setting is included and referred to throughout the books, as it gives newcomers and those of us who no longer have the time or inclination to build our own homebrew settings an excellent starting point.  The implied setting is fairly archetypal fantasy, which makes it relatively simple to substitute a different setting.  Clearly, a lot of work went into creating a new implied setting for 4e that would be easy for players to visualize without having to learn a bunch of everyday-to-the-PCs but exotic-to-the-player information.  Many players don't like the fact that so many story elements (world, cosmology, monster descriptions) have changed significantly from previous editions, but I absolutely love how well thought-out it is.  A lot of effort went into crafting a world and universe where the core game elements mesh with the story elements.  Having started with BECMI and not AD&D, I don't have any particular attachment to the alignment-based "Great Wheel" cosmoloy.  The 4e cosmology is much more approachable, more flexible, and in my opinion is a better fit for the mythological and fictional inspirations behind the concept of the planes.If I were to start a new campaign using older D&D rules, I would likely still use the 4e cosmology.Nobody is sitting out half of the nightI found that 3.x was the worst for this.  If a character got taken out of a fight, the player could be stuck with nothing to do for a long time, given how long encounters can take beyond the first few levels.  The scaling in 3E also created a massive disparity between specialized and non-specialized characters, often resulting in everyone else watching the specialists doing their thing.  4e did significantly better in this regard, setting out to make it so that everybody can contribute something worthwhile to virtually any situation.  It was mostly successful in this, perhaps too much so, as some of the excitement about finally being able to do something really cool is lost when you can always do something moderately cool.The Usual SuspectsQuick and easy for the DM to prep encountersEasier for the DM to gauge how tough an encounter will beSelf-contained monster statblocksBetter balance between character types across the whole range of levelsNPCs and Monsters not constrained by PC creation rules</blockquote>

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