We're back to AD&D1

[phloog]

Is this true? Was the first adventure released for 4E intended primarily (or even solely) as an exploration of the new combat rules? I suppose I can see the rationale, but I didn't get this from any of the descriptions I read advertising the adventure. I was still entertaining the idea of purchasing it, despite the imminent release of the core rulebooks, but I haven't really been able to put the money aside just yet.

Maybe that's for the best....

I actually don't know if that was the (sole) intent or not, but what I was on about was that often when someone does point out an issue with KOTS, or talks about how it didn't really do much for them from a roleplaying standpoint, others will defend the module by saying that it wasn't meant to do much other than act as a demo of the combat.

My opinion was whether it was the intent or not, it seemed to be the end result, which makes it tougher for me to evaluate 4E.

I'm not suggesting that there needs to be endless chapters in the core books on 'how to role play', but that for me to understand how the MECHANICS support the play, I would need to know more about the non-combat mechanics than KOTS was able to give me...and now with $30 sunk into 4E, the suggestion (which may be true) that annoys me is that I STILL can't get a feel for the 'real' 4E without trying the rest of it, which (for me) would require another 40-100 outlay.

 

[Ghaerdon Fain]

If you need advice in the first place, this is good advice. If you feel competent enough to role play nuanced, complex NPCs then you don't need the advice in the DMG.

AMEN!

Creativity doesn't need a dice role and DMs rely on dice far too much for role playing. Let it flow, be the environment, go zen if you must, but to say 4E is not a real role playing game or too focused on combat is silly. Combat needs rules or else we're back on the field as kids with finger guns going pow pow your dead, no I'm not, yes you are. We need extensive rules for movement and combat. For role playing, not so much. Good on the Dev Team for letting the DMs be imaginative again.

 

[phloog]

An additional thought on roleplaying, 3E, 4E, and earlier...

In my opinion, a large amount of the roleplaying gets muddled as soon as you pull out those damnable grids. While I like 3E for what it is, and vastly prefer it to what I've seen of 4E, in truth I remember far more roleplaying and creativity when we were playing the game primarily in our heads, and only resorting to minis when there was absolutely a requirement to know where everyone was.

Call me a grognard if you will, but there was a lot more roleplaying when the conversations were like this:

"Well, he's quite a long way away from you, so that shot will be at...um...minus 4"

than there is now that the conversations are often:

"Okay, I take a five foot step to flank the kobold, and then the wizard can reach the gnoll six squares away with his spell - do I draw an AoO from the troll or has he already used his for the round?"

I'm still having a great time with 3e, and I think people will have a ton of fun with 4E, but I think that regardless of version, the more time you spend moving pieces of metal/plastic about on a battlemat, the less roleplaying will go on regardless of the specific rules set.

The same, I believe, is true for non-combat -- the more specific rules for interactions, the more we fall back on 'my character does that thing it says I can do on Page 229'...this is sadly true for ANY version of any game.

Even so...the lack of good explanation of how any of the non-combat stuff is setup to work in KOTS is why I remain hesitant/reluctant.

 

[Mercule]

Goes back to 1e AD&D? Yay! Huzzah, even.

My homebrew world was created in 1e, with more than a few BECMI elements. I've found it difficult to evoke the same flavor in 3e because of the mechanical expectations on balance and other rules interaction. If 4e is going for the 1e feel, but with refined rules, I'm so sold, it ain't even funny.

 

[phloog]

AMEN!

Creativity doesn't need a dice role and DMs rely on dice far too much for role playing. Let it flow, be the environment, go zen if you must, but to say 4E is not a real role playing game or too focused on combat is silly. Combat needs rules or else we're back on the field as kids with finger guns going pow pow your dead, no I'm not, yes you are. We need extensive rules for movement and combat. For role playing, not so much. Good on the Dev Team for letting the DMs be imaginative again.

As noted in my ealier post, I disagree with the idea that it's an absolute REQUIREMENT to have 'extensive rules for movement and combat' for a roleplaying game - - I think this is an artificial requirement.

 

[Aeolius]

The whole premise of this thread is misleading...


1e AD&D had flumphs

 

[Ranes]

3E suffered from rules bloat, which 4E seems to be avoiding.

You have got to be kidding. The accuracy of that assessment is on a par with that of the beagle in the tobacco factory, who thought its human handlers had never done it any harm.

4e is not about avoiding rules bloat; it's about scheduling massive doses of it for years to come.

 

[phloog]

Okay...now I'm a thread hog.

thoughts

It feels like some of my players now believe that extensive rules, lots of feats and options and powers, etc., are required...one main driver of this belief is that by sailing the vast sea of splat books and expansions, they are able to create very detailed characters who are unique - my fighter is unlike your fighter in almost every way. Awesome.

The problem is that this is a mechanical solution to the need for uniqueness.

If I think back to 1e games I ran, I can still describe in great detail how Stumpy the dwarf warrior was COMPLETELY different than Valdor the human paladin who was COMPLETELY different from Mermok the human paladin etc. etc. etc.

They had no feats. They had no long list of skill choices.

But they were played differently.

I would suggest that all roleplayers that are worth their salt want to create a unique character.

Given a system with few mechanical differentiators between Character A and B, two players can either:

1) Create a cookie cutter character and not have the differentiation they really want, or

2) Create differentiation in the only way left to them, via roleplaying (backstory, weapon of choice, alignment, religion, goals, attitude, etc.)

It is completely possible to roleplay well and have fun in a game with lots of options/feats/powers, but I believe the tendency is to express uniqueness via mechanics when that option is there.

And I have noticed (and might well be completely alone) that sometimes it is harder to remember the differences in 3E characters than it was to remember them in earlier characters....because with this mechanical crutch, we too often DON'T flesh them out in other ways. I can remember that Stumpy was swept up into adventure unwillingly, and was always looking to retire and return to his blacksmithing...but I can't always remember that Fighter 26 was really cool because he had Improved Overrun.

It sounds like I'm slamming 3e, but I do love it and it's what we're playing now...I just don't see any signs that the 'streamlining' that took place for 4E moved us away from stats and battle maps, and further made mechanical the differentiators.

 

[joela]

roleplaying

So we DONT like ADND 1e today, huh?

gotya.

More seriously: You can role play with nearly any system, the mechanical systems are at the option of the DM.

So folks who use the HERO system -- one of the most popular number crunching systems out there -- don't roleplay? Uh, huh. Though I only played demo games of 4th edition so far (unlike you and your friend who benefited from BUY.com's incompetency), I easily incorporated both touches of roleplaying during combat and outside of it. Do you actually need a game mechanic for your dragonborn to ask a passing human if he tastes like chicken?

 

[scadgrad]

I don't know about back to AD&D, I'm pretty much already there w/ my current ToEE campaign (the original using C&C meets AD&D) and I don't see 4E approaching the abstract models that we work with. I can see how it might be trying to strike a happy medium though and I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I do think it seems to be focusing on keeping the DM's job manageable, a problem that in 3.X eventually drove me away. WotC and Necromancer lost quite a bit of my gamer coin over the past 3 years, but I can be lured back. I remember very fondly the 1st few adventure path stories (Sunless Citadel, etc.) as well as Necromancer's wild and wooly early mods. Those were loads of fun and I'd like to go there again. I won't be doing so if I find the 4E rules to lean more toward "Building the Perfect Battle Mech so I Can Beat the DM" rather than "Let's Make the Game Also Fun for the Time-strapped DM." Obviously, I'm hoping for the latter, but I can see Ranes' point. There comes a point in the progression of any edition, be it 1E, 2E, etc., that every DM has to say enough is enough.