What is wrong with 4E?

[pemerton]

The real problem with 4E is this; it IS an excellent game, that plays very well (although it reads very badly) but it is NOT a replacement for 3.5E. What it is, is a completely different game, both mechanically and philosphically.

This is true. Of course, the same relationship obtained between 1st ed AD&D and 3E. The former was a game with virtually no character build rules and virtually no action resolution rules, which was at its best in modules like White Plume Mountain, Ghost Tower Of Inverness or Against the Giants which pitted the wits of the players against the clever stratagems administerd by the GM. You could play those modules well having never read the rulebooks and using nothing but tactical and strategic common sense. 3E, on the other hand, was a game with extremely complex character build rules and frequently complex action resolution rules. It's hard to imagine playing 3E, especially above level 10, without being intimately familiar with its mechanical intricacies.

I think 4E will bring in new players, and is a nice easy game to DM, but I don't like the fact that most of the powers etc have no obvious explanation in the real world. It makes the mechanics intrude too much into the story-telling (how do you explain "healing surges" and what "hitpoints" actually represent now). I know WE might find some explanations for this eventually, but this is actually the job of the games designers.

Interestingly, I see this as a virtue. It frees the designers to make mechanically balanced powers, while freeing the players to hang the story that they want to upon the mechanics.

I think comparing 4E D&D to previous editions is fully warranted. The game is called Dungeons & Dragons. With that name comes thirty years of history.

<snip>

4E is not aimed at the same demographic as previous editions. To use the name is disingenuous.

As noted above, 4e differs from 3E no more than the latter did from 1st ed AD&D (I never played OD&D, but I gather it was likewise different from AD&D in certain important respects).

And the notion the 4e is aimed at some juvenile or non-gamer demographic is pretty bizarre. There is a degree of overlap here with Hong's casual gamer thread, so I won't bang on about it, but the idea that a game with 400+ pages of power descriptions (including classes, magic items and the monster manual) is not fit for serious gamers is bizarre.

 

[Intense_Interest]

Just that one peasant? Then the players will ask another. And then the DM will make some generalized statement about peasants and wealth-level in his campaign. A statement that he has no intention of writing down or making consistent with the other aspects of his campaign world. At this point, I think pseudo-simulationist reasoning with regards to peasant wealth levels is a waste of everyone's time. The DM doesn't mean it, and players of reasonable intelligence won't believe it anyway. In any case, it would be nice if the authors of the game could explain these basics at some point.

Simulationist? If you're asking that a Player should be able to sell whatever he has on hand with zero interaction with the DM (which assumes Ye Old Convenient Item Shoppe), Simulationist isn't the term you should be using.

That peasant? Too poor. The guy with enough cash? Doesn't want it. The guy with a need? Sure. Buying a mile of rope from the Rope Stand at the lip of the Pit of Doom? Now you're just being silly.

 

[Kaisoku]

@Hussar
Eh.. that cover just says "10 and up". They are just saying that the implied violence and social concepts (a theif for example), are meant for kids of at least a certain age.
Otherwise, the "and up" basically means anyone. You could be a teenager, or a 40 yr old, you can enjoy it. You just might not want to let your 6 yr old play it.

What he was talking about was a target demographic for selling this book. Is D&D being sold to the pokemon, xbox, jrpg crowd? Are they the ones that have access to disposable cash (either themselves, or their parents willing to pay for it)?

What's good for the business of the game isn't necessarily good for the game itself. Which is unfortunate, and I can't blame any company selling anything these days.
Are you going to target the market of old hats that already have a ton of material that might be finicky and decide not to buy all your supplements every year? These are the people that are playing your old versions of the game and have made them their own...
Or are you going to sell to the impulsive people trained to buy everything they can, and have the most cash readily available for it, and most willing to keep buying.

WoW makes a lot of money. Are these the kinds of people that would be good for the life of the tabletop RPG? I doubt it... however if a company could somehow grab that level of clientel for their product, I can't begrudge them for doing so.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

So far the biggest thing wrong with 4E that I've seen is people refusing to take it at face value. It's as though all these players have been lied to for years and now that someone is being honest with them they can't believe it. Just shocking to see.

I'm kind of shocked by the description of the printing quality by the OP. My books are perhaps the best printed things I've seen come out of the RPG world in some time. Certainly the best I've seen from WotC or WW.

I do miss the fluff, but that's just where we are in the publishing cycle not any fault of anything published so far.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

WoW makes a lot of money. Are these the kinds of people that would be good for the life of the tabletop RPG?

This seems rude.

Personally, it's been refreshing to have a version of DnD that can actually be explained in terms of other games.

 

[Kaisoku]

And the notion the 4e is aimed at some juvenile or non-gamer demographic is pretty bizarre. There is a degree of overlap here with Hong's casual gamer thread, so I won't bang on about it, but the idea that a game with 400+ pages of power descriptions (including classes, magic items and the monster manual) is not fit for serious gamers is bizarre.

There is a difference between saying that it's geared for a particular demographic that is less "table-top gamer", and saying that it's for casuals or juvenile.
It's also not necessarily a "wrong" way of playing the game.


This is what I mean...

Someone that plays World of Warcraft might enjoy the multitude of combinations of powers and stackable effects, and like to min-max the particular aspects of the game. Hell, I'll admit.. I play WoW and enjoy that aspect from time to time.

However, that's quite a bit different from the "table-top gamer". Sure you have the min-maxing side... but there's a heckuva lot more Roleplaying, imagination and creativity involved, and usually a lot less "cool powers" and "big numbers".


4e feels like a definite move more towards the "cool powers" side of things. To give the perfect example.. "Gabe" from Penny Arcade, the pokemon playing, WoW loving, dice hating person, has started playing with "Tycho", the consummate D&D player in 4e.
Sure, it started with the WoW card game as a doorway to harder "table-tops" (heh), but he's there playing it now and enjoying it.

The fact that "Tycho" is there playing it with him and enjoying it means 4e is highly likely not the doom-and-gloom that people say it is for the old fart D&D player.

However, it really really is a change in demographic from before. 3e was a change in demographic too in it's day. It brought back a lot of the older D&D players to the game after the long haitus.. but also is attracted/created the simulationist (I hate that word) gamer as well.

Now 4e is doing it's own thing, and finding it's own people. It's definitely a change.
It's not necessarily bad.. but it would be hard to dispute the change itself.

 

[Kaisoku]

This seems rude.

Personally, it's been refreshing to have a version of DnD that can actually be explained in terms of other games.

It's not meant to be rude, sorry if it came across that way.

What I mean is that the changes in the game seem to be moving away from the style and feel of the previous editions of table-top. The DDI push, the change in design from simulation to gamism, etc.

It's not a "bad" way of playing, but it will move away from the style of gaming that 3e fostered for nearly a decade, and that many people have been playing (wether the rules were indicative of this kind of gaming or not) for much longer still.

This style of gaming will not be kept alive by the new demographic and new style of game design that 4e is moving towards.
Will the new demographic of gamer be good for the life of the tabletop RPG "in it's current incarnation" is perhaps what I was implying, and should have said.


Just to be clear, I'm not saying anything is badwrongfun. I play WoW myself, because it scratches a particular itch I've developped since the original Diablo days.
But if I can keep the simulationist design focus of 3e in my table top gaming, I will be a happy camper.. because that's a big itch that I would hate to see unscratched in the future.

 

[gizmo33]

Simulationist? If you're asking that a Player should be able to sell whatever he has on hand with zero interaction with the DM (which assumes Ye Old Convenient Item Shoppe), Simulationist isn't the term you should be using.

I have no idea where you get the notion that I'm advocating zero interaction with the DM. IME at some point, the DM abstracts situations involving a lot of repetition. For example, in order to walk from point A to point B, a player doesn't have to "interact" with the DM 47,000 times each time his character puts one foot in front of the other.

Similarly, if I'm going to ask a city of people if they want to buy a longsword I don't actually have to roleplay that out. So a DM typically makes a blanket statement like "all 47,000 peasants are completely uninterested in buying your sword at any price" - which I'm pretty sure would be met with some interesting reactions from the people I play with. They're not used to the "you can't pick up that rock because it's just a part of the background graphics of the game and not really there" sort of logic. And IMO a DM would only add insult to injury by trying to make up an explanation. No explanation as to why a PC can't sell rope at the mouth of the Pit of Doom is probably necessary - but that's not what the rules are talking about IIRC. (But yet no real statement against PCs *buying* rope at the same location. Hmmm...)

 

[Slife]

If I wanted to play a game like 4e, I'd rather play Descent.

If the combat mechanics don't seem integrated with the rest of the game, I'd rather choose something that focuses really well on combat. The encounter methodology of 4e makes me think more of cutscene-triggered random-encounters than part of a real world.

I *like* games that offer fast and simple, highly mechanical combat, but this seems beyond what 4e is really capable of doing at the moment. The large number of tiny bonuses bog the game down enough to make it irritating.

I also like complicated systems with more options (I play Dwarf Fortress, for crying out loud), but 4e doesn't offer (again, at the moment) enough room for creativity to really be worthwhile. Cunning/Daring/Just plain stupid plans are a lot of fun to execute (one of the reasons I really like illusionists), but I don't see much potential for this in the current 4e combat system. Separating out the interesting spells as rituals was a mistake, and really adds to the "separate physics for combat" feel.

So, basically, 4e tries to have its cake and eat it too, and ends up dropping both. Hopefully new books will fix it, but I'm going to wait and see.

 

[Greylock]

I'm kind of shocked by the description of the printing quality by the OP. My books are perhaps the best printed things I've seen come out of the RPG world in some time.

I'm going to have to agree with the people complaining about the quality. I didn't pay much, only $52.48, but regardless, the quality is NOT equal to the suggested retail price. I've bought many books in the last couple of years that exceed the print quality by a large degree, even some by WotC. Yes, the pages in mine are warped. Yes, the paper is thin. And to add one complaint I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else, the inside of the cover looked like someone shot BBs at it. Little holes, one kinda large. If I resold this to Noble Knight Games, they would not call it mint, and right out the box and barely touched or read it should be mint.

hth