In Which I Try to Avoid Edition Warring
Some people have mentioned that 4ed can be used to support CaW play and while it can certainly be used to do that (see the awesome hut of doom example) and Rituals do a great job of helping with that, I think that 4ed is less suited to that kind of play, just as TSR-D&D is less suited to CaS-play. This doesn’t mean that TSR-D&D can’t do CaS, I played a 2ed campaign as a kid in which half of the campaign was gladiator fights and the other half was going out into the wilderness to capture monsters to use in gladiator fights (my character was famous as the best Blink Dog trainer in the city and this was before Pokemon dammit), which is about as CaS as you can get. It was a great campaign, but if I were to run something like that today I’d use 4ed over 2ed in a heartbeat.
Note: if I get anything wrong about 4ed please correct me and don’t assume any ill-will on my part. I really don’t want to be one of the people who say, “hur hur, marking is just the same as taunting, 4ed is a sucky WoW rip-off.” I LIKE marking (at least in its most basic form), I just haven’t played all that much 4ed.
Here’re some reasons why I wouldn’t use 4ed for a CaW campaign:
Combat Takes Too Long
Combat takes a long time in 4ed, which means that there’s less time for everything else. The everything else is very important to CaW gameplay. Of course, you can reduce that number of combats but if you do that, it’s hard to make Oregon Trail gameplay work, which brings me to my next point…
Oregon Trail
Oregon Trail gameplay is based on wearing the PCs down with attrition. You can’t do this if you don’t have time to play out a lot of mini-encounters in one session. Also (correct me if I’m wrong), there are various ways in 4ed to heal a character without spending a Healing Surge, which means that if you have that available then anything that doesn’t make the PCs spend a Healing Surge or use a Daily Power doesn’t cause attrition. Also it’s much easier for a 4ed party to bounce back from attribution with an Extended Rest than it is for a TSR-D&D party to bounce back from attribution with eight hours of sleep.
Sandbox Play
CaW works better with sandbox play and while you can do a 4ed sandbox (see the Angry DM’s blog post about how to run a 4ed sandbox) it seems like a lot of work for me. 4ed fans always tell me that the same critter should have different stats depending on the party’s level. I read one post by a 4ed fan that said that at low levels a dragon would be a Solo monster, if the PCs gain a few levels it becomes an Elite monster, then a Standard monster and finally (when the PCs are sufficiently badass) a Minion. Does that mean I have to restat all of the monsters in the sandbox whenever the PCs gain a few levels? I’m far too lazy to do that.
Missing Rules
Look through the various rules and other game book text that I talked about as being stuff that supports CaW play in my previous post. A lot of it just doesn’t exist in 4ed (or at least not in the first three books, I know that Dark Sun added in rules for dehydration and there’s probably lots of other examples that I don’t know about) but do exist in even the thinnest TSR-D&D intro box booklets.
Less Weird 
CaW often involves the weird, quirky and situational powers that TSR-D&D is chock full of but that are hard to balance for CaS. How the hell do you balance a spell that is useless in most situations but which is massively powerful in a few for CaS play? You can’t. That’s why you won’t find a lot of CaW staples in the 4ed PHB I (although a few remain like the ever-awesome Unseen Servant/Mage Hand). A lot of them have been moved off to Rituals (which are damn cool and great for CaW, but their cost means they don’t get used as often as normal powers).
For example, let’s take a look through 4ed Wondrous Items list, the traditional place for Cool Weird
. The stuff on the list that would be more helpful in a CaW game than a CaS game are let you:
-Get more food.
-Carry more stuff (although it seems to say that you can’t pick up a portable hole if there’s stuff in it and no effect of putting a bag of holding in a portable hole noted).
-Keep people from warping away.
-Change what you look like.
-Portable boat.
-Flying carpet.
-Do rituals better.
-Climb better.
-Have a walkie-talkie.
Not bad, but that barely scratches the surface of the Cool Weird
that the miscellaneous magic items in the 1ed DMG can do.
Process vs. Effect
Although there are plenty of exceptions, 4ed write-ups generally tell you the effect of the power, not the process that causes that effect. This is great for CaS play and for role playing (you can role play how your power has that effect any way you want!) but I don’t like it for CaW play. One of the biggest elements of CaW play is looking at what a power/ability/spell/item/whatever says on the tin and then figuring out how to make it do something completely different or how to make their character immune to it. That’s harder to do in 4ed (although there are many exceptions to this rule, especially when you get to Rituals) since the write-ups don’t give a CaW player as much to work with.
Just look at the write-up for the Warden’s marking ability. I know what effect it has, but what process happens that makes that effect take place? I have not a clue. I can use the anger of nature? Any time I want? Awesome! Now what can I do with it except for marking people? No idea. What can I do to make my character immune to it? If I fight in an unnatural area or in the vacuum of space, does that render the Warden incapable of drawing on the power of nature’s wrath? I have no idea. Those sorts of questions aren’t very relevant to a CaS player since they can come up with cool fluff that fits the situation and role play it out, but they’re very relevant indeed to a CaW player.
For another example let’s look at monsters. One of the abilities of a Succubus is Dominate: Ranged 5; +12 vs. Will; the target is dominated until the end of the succubus’s next turn. OK, that makes sense, the Succubus is vamping people and it’s a “Charm” ability. But how does it work? Is it her voice? Can I protect myself from it if I put wax in my ears? It is her sexy appearance? Does it still work if my character is dragonborn? Heterosexual female? Gay male? Is it direct mental magic attacking my mind? No idea.
Looking at the 1ed Monster Manual for the Succubus, I can see that it can vamp people with a level-draining kiss (so that won’t work if she can’t kiss me, now I just need the right mask…) and with a spell like ability that works just like the spell Suggestion. Let’s look up Suggestion. Yes! It doesn’t work unless the target can understand what the caster is saying. So, we’ll need proper wax for our ears. One problem down, now what else can we do to kill the damn Succubus…
See the difference? Sure the 4ed DM could rule that the 4ed Succubus’ Dominate ability doesn’t work if the PCs puts wax in their ears, but then the DM is put on the spot and has to decide if the PC’s plan works or not according to DM fiat. The 1ed DM can just look it up and know that, yes, the wax-in-the-ears plan works just fine (at least for THAT ability) without having to resort to DM fiat, which can amount to the DM choosing (without any information to go on) if the PC will win or lose.
There are a hundred other examples like that (although 4ed does get better about that in later books, noting that pan pipes don’t work on deaf PCs for example). That sort of thing isn’t too relevant to CaS, but the 4ed power format cuts out a lot of stuff that supports CaW play or puts a lot more stuff on the shoulders of the DM to decide.
No XP for GP
If XP is awarded for overcoming challenges then PCs will try to overcome challenges (CaS), if XP is awarded for detouring around all of the challenges and grabbing the gold then PCs will try to detour around all of the challenges and grab the gold (CaW).
The Rule Zero Fallacy
Of course a lot of the stuff I’m talking about 4ed missing can be added back in (and a good bit might be present in a lot of supplements that I don’t know about, my 4ed-fu is weak), but that line of argument comes perilously close to the Rule Zero Fallacy (it’s not broken if I can fix it with house rules) and, in any case, the difference between the support for CaW in different sets of the three core books is pretty stark (at least in my opinion).
