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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7811869" data-attributes="member: 996">I'd love to keep /opinion/ out of it. My opinion, which doesn't matter in the least, is that 4e was absolutely D&D, that though the changes it made were extensive, they were directly evolutionary from 3e, and generally (except for the abandonment of modular multiclassing) improvements.  If I were arguing my opinion, I'd say that 4e being "NOT D&D" is a bunch of hyperbole.  I can see why it /feels/ that way, and acknowledge that, but it's not how /I/ feel.  It's also just not that important an opinion to me.  I'm fine with stipulating that 4e was Not D&D, in some essential sense, since it's clearly an overwhelming perception, and, I can even empathize on some level, since I did experience moments of disequilibrium when there was no freak'n spells/day chart for the magic-user.  (OTOH, having each class's powers organized by level right after the class, was comfortingly 1e- like.  So, y'know, feelings, they're subjective.)4e stood out as different, though, whether it crossed a line for you personally, or not.  And, objectively, if often only cosmetically, it was /different/.  As a game, strictly mechanically, it was significantly less broken.  As a nostalgic experience of old-school D&D, it did not flow naturally - I could, and did, evoke nostalgia in 4e, but it was 'bits' and it was still with a very different mechanical spin.  My group explored the Temple of the Frog as an extended skill challenge and faced Stephen the Rock all in a single, long session - it'd've taken months of play in old-school dungeon-crawl mode.But that's all feelz and opinions and retreating into subjectivity so no one has to be right or wrong or experience any sort of disequilibrium or re-examine their positions.Then an excess of crunch can hardly be pointed to as a reason 4e is "not D&D," in your case, can it?  3e was even crunchier and more 'bloated' (had more awesome options!) than 4e.I mean, was it even "not D&D" in your estimation?  Was 3e also "not D&D" for you? Mostly around cantrips being at-will, as I've heard it. But it's not nearly enough to make 5e 'not D&D,' while 'Fighters Casting Spells' (magic & martial balanced on the same resource schedule) was. Nothing about gritty campaigns nor the popularity of the fighter - which, spanned all editions, 4e included - undercuts the Primacy of Magic as the Essence of really-D&D edition of the game.  In fact, it's absolutely necessary to have alternatives to magic, in use, in play, to highlight that Primacy.  Without the Fighter, there's no one who would have died but for that healing magic.  Without the 5e fighter, able to Action Surge and dispatch /4/ orcs in one round if he hits and rolls good damage all 4 times at 5th level, the power of the 5th-level wizards new Fireball to dispatch a dozen whether they save or not simply isn't as awesome.  As for discounting what people say:  when there's a cacophony of different opinions about underlying facts, the underlying facts are subject to examination and analysis, the cacophony is not.</blockquote>

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