[Those who like 4ed] What has been lost?

[Doug McCrae]

See?

Even before we had the net, people were optimizing. What the net has done is allowed for a wider audience for optimizers to spread their knowledge. As well, like I said, pre 3e, few players actually looked in the DMG (unless they themselves were DMs) so few people realized there were optimal options.

I think that mostly comes down to whether a group has one, or multiple, GMs. I've always (I started rpging in '82) been in groups with multiple GMs, and also played lots of different rpgs, which mostly lack a PHB/DMG distinction, just having one rulebook.

If there's only one GM then I can see how a group can have a very different dynamic. The GM could retain a lot more 'mystique' and, as a result, wield a lot more power, than in groups where anyone can do it, where the mystery has been dispelled.

A lot more time has passed since the days of 1e, a lot more of us have tried our hand at GMing. There are probably far fewer groups now with a single GM.

Part of it is the internet, yeah. Partly it's a move by publishers towards producing products that players will buy. You can see that very clearly in the 2e era, with the likes of the Complete Class/Race Handbooks. Vampire was the same, with its clanbooks, in fact they may have been the inspiration for the 2e splats. 3e just continued that trend. My personal experience, playing 2e in the early 90s, is that there was a huge desire, and ability, to optimize.

I also recall optimizing in 1e, by cheating on my die rolls and reading the module. I actually only read the 1e DMG after we'd stopped playing D&D, but I was able to optimize plenty without it. Another method in those days would be to persuade the DM to use unbalanced rules from magazines such as Dragon and White Dwarf. There was a ludicrously unbalanced assassin power up in early WD which a player in my social circle liked to use.

Point based systems such as Champions also allow for mucho optimization. In fact there was an article in Champions II, published in 1982, explaining how to do it, called the Goodman School of Cost Effectiveness.

What I'm saying is, I'm not seeing this huge watershed in optimization between the pre-3e/pre-WWW era and after. The groups I've been in have always had knowledgeable, determined, min-maxers. And the knowledge has always been out there, not just in the DMG, but elsewhere.

 

[Obryn]

I've never played a game that does absolutely everything I want from gaming. It's why I run a few different games, either alternating them or running one-shots here and there.

Also - and this may sound bizarre - I look at every edition of D&D as a distinct game with a shared mythology, some shared terminology, and some superficial structural similarities. So I'm a lot less inclined to look at myself as losing anything in going from one edition to another, and a lot more inclined to figure out what each edition is best at, and running campaigns or adventures in whichever is the best fit. (For example, when I wanted to run a Gygaxian dungeon-based campaign, I brought out my 1e books and picked up OSRIC as a companion volume.)

So yeah. 4e is not as good at other editions or other games at some of the things I value in gaming. But those other games are also not as good at some of the things I value as 4e is.

So after all that, I guess I'd say I don't have a good answer to this. I'm not going to worry about losing Risk's dice mechanics if I'm playing Axis and Allies, either.

-O

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I really miss the free time i once had to play the game while i studied and i miss the friends i played with. It was a great time.

From a rules perspective i would say i miss the fast and easy character building od 2nd edition ADnD... level 0 rules would help.

I also miss a logic behind attack stats, although i can live with it...

 

[Lanefan]

Maybe if you're using 8 players and miniatures. Look, even Throne of Bloodstone doesn't play this slow. A "session and a half" for 1E combat is IME completely unheard of, ever, and 15 minutes being "a rare low" strains credulity.

Well, at the extreme outer end,the longest (and, arguably, messiest from a DM perspective) combat I have ever run was about 15 years ago, it went on for 2-and-a-half sessions. High-powered party of about 12 characters taking on a very high-powered core group of opponents (most of whom were spellcasters) and their many flunkies, in a situation where magic functioned in some areas and not in others. The battle was spread out over several indoor chambers, as well as outdoors. And both the PCs and the opposition had abilities to travel quickly - e.g. they could leave the ongoing battle, heal up and-or grab reinforcements, and return; or they could jump from one part of the battle to another. Imagine, if you will, a bench-clearing hockey brawl, only spanning several conjoined rinks at once and with intermittent magic going off.

And after all that, the battle was a saw-off! 2 PCs (by now, the whole party) took a few significant opposition prisoners and left, and the opponents' leader took off with 2 PC prisoners.

Fortunately, that was a one-time event. And I think, were I to run the same battle in 4e, it *would* be much faster - the flunkies would be minions and thus disappear much sooner, the travel spells would be rituals and thus much less useful during combat, and so forth.

For shorter combats, I'll have to check our timing - maybe they just seem to take longer than they really do. But 15 minutes would still be really quick for us.

Lan-"the PCs and the opposition leader ended up on the same side later"-efan

 

[DreadPirateMurphy]

I have yet to play in 4th edition, so I won't comment on anything except that with which I have direct experience.

1) The core rule books and most especially the packaged adventures are less fun to read than those of previous editions. Heck, I can still go back to my PDF of the 1st ed. DMG and enjoy poking around for quirky stuff. Prose has been largely supplanted by encounter details, stat blocks, and descriptions of mechanical effects.

2) Since I'm not playing right now, I can't justify a subscription to Wizards electronic content. The thrill of getting Dragon magazine in the mail used to be worth the subscription by itself.

3) Never has magic been more boring. By making it so balanced, consistent, and explicit, they have eliminated any reason to call it magic. In a world where magic is as regular as physics, why would anybody break it out as a seperate sphere of study?

4) Bad rules can encourage DMs to improvise, create house rules, and generally add uniqueness to the game. I'm not suggesting we need more bad rules...but having such a polished system does remove some of that incentive.