D&D 4E What D&D 4e Should Learn From World of Warcraft

[Lord Zardoz]

Here are my thoughts:

1. Everyone has special abilities to use in combat. 4e is on this track with the "Book of Nine Swords" direction. Other MMORPGs have had much lamer combat - swing, swing, swing - and that's one key reason they're not as popular as WoW. Ah, I fondly remember killing mud crabs just in order to eat in - whatever MMO that has blocked its name mercifully form my mind. Yay powerz.

I agree that every character should be able to contribute to combat.

2. Azeroth is a deep and interesting world. Even for those who weren't into the Warcraft series and don't know anything about the world's history and development, it's at least clear that it's a living, vibrant world that has a realistic feel derived from its evolution over time.

I will disagree with this in part. Azeroth is not what I would call a living and vibrant world, though I do agree that it is deep and interesting. What gives the world that feeling is that every part of the world the player can choose to explore is fleshed out. I think that D&D campaign settings usually do a good enough job in the broad strokes (place names, general descriptions), but they do not do enough in terms of creating usable NPC's. The exception would be the Birthright setting, which has a wealth of NPC's that a DM can pick and choose from, usually giving you an idea of who is who in every kingdom.

Where D&D has an edge is that when the players defeat a powerful villain, the campaign worlds state has changed. When you do that in World of Warcraft, you get a loot drop, then you go back a week later and do it again.

D&D does need to do a better job of providing tools for a DM to generate NPC's to flesh out areas of his world that the players unexpectedly visit.

3. Instant action. In WoW you can go kick some ass with a moment's notice.

I disagree on two fronts. First, in Wow, a first time newb will get to spend alot of time doing advanced pest control. Second, it is a video game, and not subject to the schedules of your friends as much. Also consider that at the late game, I have seen friends spend about 30 minutes trying to organize and plan out an attack on a large dungeon monster, when the actual fight only last either 8 minutes (if they succeed), or less than 1 minute (if they get wiped out). Also, if you rule out going solo, your still limited by your ability to find a group.

4. PvP. Sure, there's non-PvP servers, but everyone knows they're for noobs. This is sticky - I'm not sure the best way to incorporate PvP into D&D. But I have had some relevant D&D experiences - there was one time I was running "Four from Cormyr" in 2e and half the party got turned into vampires; the other half were holed up in a ruin in a swamp that had a chapel undead couldn't enter. We ran a good number of sessions with half the group in each adjacent room trying to get the better of the other. I tell you what, everyone showed up on time and had put a lot of thought into the sessions! I've also frequently used the tactic of bringing in a gamer friend to run a major bad guy in a climactic encounter; having a real dedicated intelligence behind them adds a lot of extra 'zing.' The DM can usually never go as gloves-off because of the complicated group power dynamic.

I can agree that fights where you can pit PC against PC are rewarding. However, I do not think that having easier PvP at a D&D game is a good idea. In WoW, your running up against strangers, and the consequence for a loss is mostly trivial. In D&D, you do not generally respawn easily after death, and outside of contrived situations, whoever kills your pc can generally take your stuff. Not exactly fun.

5. WoW is easy. My 5 year old loves to run her dwarf around the newbie area. I have friends whose wives would never consider playing D&D but they play WoW.

Total agreement. D&D would benefit from being simpler to explain. I think that the D&D Initiative may help here, since in that form, the game will gain the benefit of obscuring alot of the manual calculations.

6. People can do what they want to. Some people like to just fish in WoW. Others are obsessed with their crafting skills. The latest crack I heard on a Wizards blog along the lines of Craft/Profession being lame makes me concerned that they "don't get it." Craft/Profession skills should be more useful and fun, not less. It always struck me as ridiculous that they used 'realistic' rules such that it took you a week to craft a sword, but you could toss together a magic item in a day. I want to build something. I want to pimp my armor.

Total disagreement. Most D&D crafting type stuff is best done away from the table. It may be fun for the player doing it, but not for the DM or the other 3 guys who actually want to go out and kill stuff. The only reason it works in WoW is that no one else is made to wait while you go off and craft stuff.

7. Phat lewt. The 3e magic item economy where they're just about "same as cash" makes it very difficult to hand out cool magic, especially if it's not a pure power optimizer. It just gets sold and rendered into a raft of +1 items. WoW has some of this but it's a lot harder to tune MMO treasure to the particular group/characters than it is in D&D. In earlier editions of D&D, people usually had a magic item they were really proud of. Man, that 1e Unearthed Arcana barbarian who got that magic sword from the Forbidden City that could cast Heal once a week - he was hell on wheels. Not so much now, it's a matter of cost optimizing your armor, natural armor, dodge, and deflection bonuses. In WoW, strangers scope you out and compliment you when they see that blue or purple item.

I also disagree here, but I will concede that the 3rd edition Magic Item Christmas Tree and the better integration of ability scores is at fault for much of the apparent problem at the moment. 3rd edition fixed the problem of non extreme stats not mattering. It also made the decision to try to use the stat bonuses for more things, such as modifying spell casting ability and saves. It then made the mistake of allowing a variety of bonuses to stack (which I suspect was a sloppy fix for AC not scaling with level). This led to easy magic item design, where you could just have an item grant a bonus to some stat, and be sure that you could get several benefits. However, the power of those items was exaggerated, so they became the most sought after.

For basic magic items, you are somewhat correct. But for most artifact level weapons, or intelligent weapons, your assertions are inaccurate. Even at lower levels, there are plenty of interesting magic items that do not work that way. Boots of Striding and Springing, Ring of Swimming, Cloak of the Bat, Slippers of Spider climbing, Figurines of Wonderous Power, Sword of Dancing, or even a Horn of Fog. Does World of Warcraft have either intelligent items or horns of fog?

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

WoW is essentially EQ(1) with a Warcraft "skin" as I said (and the token "quests" which I don't count, since they're largely ineffectual). The gameplay (combat) is pretty much identical (i.e., target a mob, press 1 through 0 (assuming you have your hotkeys set up in order) and repeat ad naseum).

EQ1 has evolved quite a bit if there's more than three buttons to press in combat. In the Velious days, large numbers of the raid could press a single button and then walk away with no appreciable detriment to the raid. That's never been possible in WoW.

And the "token" quests are the dominant paradigm for experiencing the game and leveling it up. There are some quests that are just "go kill X of Y," but the majority require different things than were even possible in EQ1, last time I played it. (I hit the eject button in November 2003, when I got into WoW alpha, so EQ: GoD had just come out.)

Yes, it's possible to reduce things to an absurd degree -- they both use keyboards and mice! -- but EQ1 is a much simpler game, in every sense, than WoW, other than its punish-the-players negative reinforcements like losing XP on death, which led to a style of gameplay dramatically unlike that in WoW.

In EQ1, a good evening was spending four hours in one corner of the dungeon with a puller bringing a single monster back to a group of six every few minutes. In WoW, not only would that not work for the most part, it'd be a waste of time. Instead of the mortal terror even high level EQ1 players/characters tend to have of their environment, WoW demands that players move through their environment and engage in it, and rewards risk-taking, instead of punishing it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And yet still horribly limited in scope and conforming ONLY to the developers desires rather than the influence of PC actions. Computer games can only DREAM of a DISTANT future where one day they will have the adaptability and GENUINE interactivity of D&D. D&D has nothing to learn from WoW on this score - it ALL swings the opposite way.

People need to let this one go. If you're sharing a server with 5,000 other people, not only are the developers never going to allow you to permanently kill off the Foozle, you wouldn't want them to, because it won't be you that does it.

If you want to share a world with thousands of other players, you're going to have to accept a limited ability to reshape that world, except when that reshaping opens up more content, instead of closing it off. The 2.4 patch will allow players to add a new set of dungeons to the game, and how fast it happens is up to the players on each server. If the last time this happened is any indication, those who reach these goals first will have some permanent unique goodies given to them, but the content will ultimately be available to everyone.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

In my opinion this is not the case. Azeroth is good for what it is supposed to do, a framework for quests, but besides that it is rather lacking as nothing which does not lead to quests for adventurers is detailed or even makes sense.

There are more farmlands in WoW than show up in most D&D games, I'd venture. Battling bandits trying to cut off the grain supply to the capital city is a pretty unusual -- and, IMO, more plausible than most -- threat for D&D, as well.

That is not a living world to me. Just look at the whole Shardworld/Drenai whatever things.

I'm not sure what you mean. The draenei didn't come from Draenor/Outland, it was just where some refugees from Argus settled. Others from Argus were corrupted and joined the Burning Legion. When Draenor went boom (and turned into Outland) some of those twisted by the energies released escaped into a few areas of Azeroth. Now the surviving "pure" Draenei have made it to Azeroth under their own power.

That's no more complicated or less plausible than the back story of many of the Forgotten Realms' immigrant peoples.

 

[Doug McCrae]

What 4e has learned from WoW:
1. 24/7 online availability via the Digital Initiative.
2. Better class balance. WoW's class balance is awesome. It kicks the crap out of any tabletop rpg I've ever played, including 3e (though that's the best so far).
3. All classes have lots of special powers. Doesn't matter if you're a fighter or a wizard.
4. More frequent level ups.
5. Monster fights with stages - pretty minor.

What D&D needs to learn:
1. Super easy to start playing. This is also true of editions pre-3e.

What D&D will never learn:
1. Sandbox freedom. The lack of freedom in tabletop rpgs is an inherent feature of the presence of other people. Can't be changed.

Areas where D&D should be less like WoW:
1. Timed buffs. Computers are better at counting the seconds passing than humans are.
2. Rules complexity in general. Until we all have computers in our heads, anyway.

 

[Doug McCrae]

D&D: PC in fighting happens, and when it does it's messy and brutal. Also, in a way, all of D&D is PvP since you're playing "against" (in a way) the DM.

You're not playing against the DM. If you were, you'd always lose.

The DM is supposed to present encounters that seem reasonably challenging but which the PCs win 95% of the time.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

5. Monster fights with stages - pretty minor.

Wow, I didn't think about that one, but you're right. And that is a good thing to snag.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Every PnP RPG offers you a lot more freedom than WoW.

I don't agree with this, at least not the solo parts of WoW.

Solo in WoW, I can go anywhere I want, take on any quest I want, even ones that are too hard for me if I choose.

In DnD I have to do what the other players want. If I want to investigate a smuggling ring and all the other players want to raid a drow outpost then I'm s--t outta luck.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Reminder: In WOW terms, D&D is a hardcore carebear PVE game focused entirely upon instanced group quest content while solo gameplay is so rare as to be unthinkable by most.

This is true. DnD's types of gameplay are much more limited than WoW's.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

That's no more complicated or less plausible than the back story of many of the Forgotten Realms' immigrant peoples.

Heck, in both FR and WoW, orcs come to infest the game world through gates by unpleasant wizards...by Medivh/Sargeras through the Dark Portal in WoW, and by (IIRC) Thayans to fight Mulhorand when Thay was splitting off.

Brad