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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6856635" data-attributes="member: 42582">I've noticed that many of the people who favour 4e - eg many posters on these boards, as well as the group I play with - have been playing D&D since the 70s or early 80s. In my own case, the relevant date is 1982.I've also noticed, based on posts on these boards plus talking to people I know who play 5e, that many of those who play 5e haven't played D&D before.I'm not sure that anything much follows from all these observations, though.CCGs are wargames or boardgames whose business model is based around (i) constantly selling new components by (ii) managing (via marketing, accreditation, market churn, etc) an ever-changing "official" play environment.4e, like all editions of D&D, resembles a wargame or a boardgame in certain respects (eg it has resolution mechanics that use dice and depend upon player declarations of "moves" in the game). But it has neither (i) nor (ii). So the only way that it resemlbes a CCG are in the ways that CCGs aren't at all distinctive.At my 4e table we use character sheets. I believe there are some tables that use cards, though. I think TSR published <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Spells-Advanced-Dungeons-Dragons/dp/1560763647" target="_blank">spell cards for AD&D</a>, didn't they? And aren't there <a href="http://www.gf9-dnd.com/gameAcc/tabid/87/entryid/170/Default.aspx" target="_blank">spell cards</a> available for 5e? After all, 5e characters, too, have abilities on varying recharge ("cooldown") rates which could easily be represented on cards if someone wanted too (or a sorcerer could use a pool of coloured tokens for sorcery points, a bard or battlemaster use a pool of dice for inspirationss or manoevre dice, etc). I don't see that 4e is very special here.And it's been a while since I've played MtG, but (i) it doesn't have a "recharge rate" mechanic at all (but rather uses a discard/draw mechanic), and (ii) it's cards aren't devices for representing the capabilities of a character whom the player is playing in a shared fictional situation.As for what you call "min/maxing" or "synergising", back in my day we just called that being a good player! Gary Gygax, in his PHB (published 1978), emphasises the importance of skilled play, which includes knowing how to manage the resources available to one as a player. It's true that 4e expanded the sort of resource management a wizard or cleric player has always had to engage in to include players of other classes (and 5e has continued that trend, as illustrated eg by the player of a fighter having to manage resources such as action surge, second wind and manouevre dice). But I don't see that that has anything in common with MtG.I don't get this, for three reasons.First, unless MtG has changed dramatically over the past decade or so, it doesn't involve pushing or tripping or ledges, because there is no positioning or geography in MtG.Second, 4e doesn't have a canonical "trip" manoeuvre. That's an artefact of 3E. In 4e, as in 5e, the canonical notion is knocking someone prone.Third, in 5e, why wouldn't a monk use his open hand technique to push an enemy 15 feet towards his fellow monk, who would then use her martial arts to knock the enemy prone, so that the barbarian berserker can then use his/her bonus attack from frenzy to do extra damage before pushing the enemy off the ledge?Are you saying that you don't like gridded combat but prefer "Theatre of the Mind"? Or that you don't like to think about positioning and terrain in the way that my previous paragraph invokes them? Fair enough, but I don't see how that relates to MtG or CCGs at all; nor do I see what it has to do particularly with 4e. 3E and 5e, like 4e, include the apparatus for precise positioning. For instance, in 5e presumably it is meant to matter that an open hand monk or a Gust of Wind spell pushes an enemy up to 15 feet away, whereas a Thunderwave only pushes 10 feet. And if players of monks aren't meant to be using their abilities to knock enemies prone or push them, why are those abilities even in the game?2nd ed pre-Combat and Tactics is the last version of D&D I can think of that is very casual about this sort of incombat positioning. (Though even it nevertheless has the occasional spell AoE, like lightning bolt's 5' wide vs 10' wide versions, which makes the details of positioning matter.)</blockquote>

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