What is the essence of D&D

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Xenonnonex]

The essence of this thread. At least the last few or so pages.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Looking at the history of this thread, it was going fairly well (occasional bump aside) until it was put forth that the essence of D&D was the primacy of magic, and 4e didn't have that, and that's why

The reasoning started with, as Oofta pointed out in the post I quoted (and one before that), the recognition that 4e was not part of the continuity you posited, but was widely considered NOT-D&D. The stand-out difference (among /many/) I could detect was that martial classes were not only better-balanced than in other eds, but had rough resource parity with casters. The Primacy of Magic as Essence of D&D was a conclusion, inspired in part by 5e's rapt 'Wonders of Magic' section in the basic pdf. I think it has a nice ring, and is consistent with the game's history, tradition, and presentation, including the failure of 4e to achieve accord with that tradition, and 5e's embrace thereof.

In other words, fantasy w/o the primacy of magic is, as Zard put it a few posts (pages?) back in this same thread, a "different genre" from D&D.

 

[Garthanos]

I'm going to disagree with that point.

The heart of the edition war was a small group of disaffected fans who were so personally insulted that 4e wasn't written with them in mind that they couldn't bear to think that anyone else might actually enjoy the game. So, they embarked on a repeated assault in any way they could, never, ever letting up and never ever just walking away.

There's a reason you didn't see that sort of thing on, say, the Paizo boards. Folks that didn't like Pathfinder just didn't bother with it. They didn't spend hours and hours and hours writing lengthy treatises about why 4e was a steaming pile of crap. I get the notion of wanting to say the edition warring was two sided, but, it really wasn't. It was one group trying to enjoy their hobby while another group repeatedly piled scorn and insult and made sure that every one knew it.

I mean, FFS, we're 5 YEARS into 5e and people are still repeating that "minatures wargame" meme garbage that is completely unsupportable but, still remains.

Seriously, the only thing @Tony Vargas has said here is the thing that really differentiates 4e from other D&D's is the primacy of magic in the system. That doesn't make one system better than another, just that 4e is the outlier here. The essence of D&D, as evidenced by every edition that is considered by all to be part of the D&D family is the primacy of magic in the game. He's presented a pretty decent list of evidence to support his assertion. In response, all we've seen is folks drag out every edition war talking point and rehash the same old pointless crap that we had to constantly listen to for years.

So, no, the heart of the edition war really isn't about both sides denying the other had a point. If folks who didn't like 4e had just done what most people do when they don't like something and move on, the edition wars wouldn't have happened at all. But, they couldn't stand the fact that other people might enjoy a different kind of D&D and set out to very deliberately destroy 4e every chance they could.

Missed this I wasn't able to respond to the one you are responding to here without bringing up "fine people" off topic references which wouldn't have been productive.

 

[Guest 6801328]

The reasoning started with, as Oofta pointed out in the post I quoted (and one before that), the recognition that 4e was not part of the continuity you posited, but was widely considered NOT-D&D. The stand-out difference (among /many/) I could detect was that martial classes were not only better-balanced than in other eds, but had rough resource parity with casters. The Primacy of Magic as Essence of D&D was a conclusion, inspired in part by 5e's rapt 'Wonders of Magic' section in the basic pdf. I think it has a nice ring, and is consistent with the game's history, tradition, and presentation, including the failure of 4e to achieve accord with that tradition, and 5e's embrace thereof.

In other words, fantasy w/o the primacy of magic is, as Zard put it a few posts (pages?) back in this same thread, a "different genre" from D&D.

I'm curious about something. I haven't yet...or ever...heard a single person say that the thing they didn't like about 4e was that martial/non-magical stuff was too powerful relative to magic.

I've heard them say that "martial healing" doesn't gibe with their sense of what HP and healing represent, or that AEDU martial powers are "dissociative" (an argument I find particularly lame, by the way.) .

But I haven't heard anybody say, "I believe in the primacy of magic, and 4e didn't deliver on that."

It's only people who (as far as I can tell) preferred 4e, specifically because martial powers were on par with magic powers, who support this theory.

I would think that if Primacy of Magic is really what all these people consider the "essence" of D&D, some of them would be saying that.

Do they just not realize what it is that they like about the other editions?

Are they looking for reasons to dislike 4e because they don't actually understand the source of their dislike?

Are they intentionally being disingenuous about their reasons so as to not admit you are right?

What's going on?

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[jgsugden]

Core to D&D:

• There is a DM and several players.
• Each player controls a PC which moves through a fantsy story/adventure designed by the DM.
• The PCs and monsters have certain core descriptive features including HPs, AC, Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis and Chr.
• Players argue about unimportant elements of the game.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Lanefan]

So have you been in actual caves... I personally like caves and pyramids and utterly different shapes tubes and so on.

So do I - not all the rooms in my adventures are square. But figuring out fireball's AoE is still pretty simple.

Watching that highschool guy who knew enoughmath to hang himself wasnt funny it was dumb.... its magic for flankings sake.

Er...not quite sure what you're getting at here.

Just because it's magic doesn't mean it always has to be perfect, or safe, or be able to tell friend from foe.

Let the innocents die... and so on. Love the way that works out. Fantasy Vietnam or worse also the fun economic factor of picking through the bodies of the dead all the time because you know loot is not just how you advance and its damn practical very realistic.

Are you saying that in your game the PCs don't loot the dead? Really??

 

[Lanefan]

Hardly ever saw it interrupted is that not terrible ... I assumed DMs thought it was being a jerk to interrupt a wizard who hardly had anything to do magical

If the opponent has reason to believe that interrupting casters is a good idea then the DM's only doing her job if that's what she has those opponents do.

and at higher levels there always seemed to be enough defenses that it was an unlikely event itself. But that is just guessing and its been years it may have just been the DMs I personally encountered.

I suspect so; also there's things a caster can do to reduce interruption possibilities e.g. casting from cover, and IME some are much better at this than others.