ferratus said:
[1]The reorganization of the planes and monsters is too much of a departure from D&D's established continuity (and/or my personal campaign setting).
[2]Dragonborn & Tieflings are not traditional races, and are too monstrous to integrate with other races believably.
[3]I will not get to play the race/class combinations that I have been traditionally allowed to play in prior editions.
I think these three are what bothers me the most. I like the traditional stuff even though some may hate it.
Along these same lines are the exclusion of classic elements like the druid and frost giant that are pretty popular and seem to be set aside at least in part to generate future hardback sales. I don't like the idea of something being left out that I either have to wait to use or homebrew it only to have it shot to hell by a later release. And I understand that WotC wants to sell books, but there's also always been a tipping point where x number of books was too many and made the game cumbersome.
Zinegata said:
Blowing up continuity does kind of piss people off regardless of the game. Largely because when continuity gets re-written the material tends to "jump the shark."
Mourn said:
1st Edition through 3rd Edition have a relationship like the Dr. Who shows... they follow a single continuity, but make small changes and alterations to it throughout to adapt it to their current ideals. They are the same continuity.
1e-3e's relationship with 4e is kinda like the two Battlestar Galactica shows. They have many elements in common (characters, themes, plots, ships, etc), but have no direct relationship in terms of continuity because they are completely separate continuities that have nothing to do with eachother.
Zingata said:
The problem really isn't the change in itself. The problem is that this kind of change usually results in the show, game, or series becoming pretty bad. The new Battlestar Galactica is one of the rare examples where they were able to completely change the style and tone of the show and yet they were able to make it better and more popular.
In contrast, we have a whole host of other shows that fell apart after "re-imagining". Just check TV Tropes for a list of such failures. When it comes to "re-imagined" series, failure is the rule rather than the exception.
Which is why people tend to be very suspicious and hostile when they hear something they love (i.e. D&D) is getting a makeover. By experience, they know it tends to go very badly rather than to go very well.
I agree with this analysis. I think that's another big thing. A lot of us in the geek subculture do get pretty defensive, but we do invest a lot in our hobbies, and so we get upset when things get shifted around and made unfamiliar.
ferratus said:
[4]D&D has embraced wargaming elements too much, making it a tactical wargame instead of a roleplaying game.
That arguement's been around since 3e. And I've always viewed it the same way. D&D grew out of wargaming, so wargaming is hardly an alien element. People have used miniatures for play since the beginning, and personally, I'd prefer the rules to at least acknowledge that enough so that people using minis can use them in their games without serious problems. And besides, if WotC can use the mini game to generate profits without having to crank out too many rule books or new editions too soon, then by all means they should do so.
ferratus said:
- [6]Healing Surges and the loss of Vancian magic takes away resource management aspect of the game, and may make characters invincible. (Unless of course you fight in several encounters in a row. Instead of calling it the end of the 15 minute workday, they should have called it the end of the 4 easy challenges and 1 difficult challenge workday.)
I'll miss Vancian magic, but it's not a shocking change. That's always been a hated element of the game by at least a very vocal minority. And perhaps not even a minority. Prior to 3e, the big argument was "why does the character hith the highests Int have to keep memorizing spells that he just forgets?" Replacing memorization with preparation in 3e handled that argument well, but people continued to hate Vancian for other reasons I guess. One thing Vancian magic handled poorly were the types of spells that take casters days to set up and cast. Perhaps rituals will help evoke a style of magic that's not terribly uncommon in fantasy.
The bottom line is that Gary originally put the Vancian magic in as a balancing factor. Many games since have had different magic systems, and as long whatever 4e's system is reasonably balanced, then I'm not too worried.
ferratus said:
- [7]Using healing surges to recover from wounds may be a good way to simulate an action hero shrugging off broken ribs or deep cuts, but I want a serious wound to cripple or kill my characters.
[8]1st level characters can't be killed with one blow anymore
[9]There are too many abilities granted to 1st level characters, which means that 1st level heroes are professionals instead of apprentices.
I don't pay too much attention to this stuff. D&D's hit point system has always been abstract, and while there have long been detractors, it always worked well enough. Sometimes too much realism hurts a game more than it helps.
No more threats from single lethal hits at first level does remove an element of gameplay that's been around since the beginning too, but this might be overstated. It's never fun to roll up a character and get killed by the first goblin the party encounters either.
Too many abilities at first level has a problem of potential frontloading. If it's not bad frontloading, then I'm not sure if I care.
Campbell said:
Some critical components of classic play include:
- Adventurers lived in a dangerous world where life was cheap.
- It was often assumed that PCs would have a litany of henchman and many players ran multiple PCs.
- Direct combat was rarely seen as a positive occurrence. You were expected to find ways to deal with creatures without putting your life on the line.
- PCs started out as normal folk and grew into something greater. They were still not special (no protagonism).
- Keeping track of things like arrows, spell components, and rations was considered a critical element of play.
- PCs were often out only to serve their own ends. Heroism was not assumed.
- Preparation and strategy were more important than combat tactics.
- Attrition of resources was a critical element of play.
I don't know how much of that I would actually agree with. Resource management has often been overlooked in some of the games I played. Keeping track of rations, mundane equipment, and common spell components (not stuff that had a set cost!) was frequently fudged over. Some of it isn't worth the bother. I didn't care about strictly tracking player equipment like the 50' of rope, the oil flasks, the 10' poles and the like because it just made more paperwork for me as a DM. I
did track magic items, because there were more serious game balance issues there. Some of the supply tracking was also meant as a way to eat up a PC's gp, since in the old days, treasure granted experience points. This lead to the vicious cycle of adventuring where the PCs loot treasure hordes, spend it on more gear and training costs, and then hit another horde so they could start all over again. D&D doesn't need that to function.
It's fine if the rules support resource attrition for groups that want it, but don't penalize groups that find it distasteful. Actually, I feel the same way about minis. Support for the players that want it while not hurting players that hate them.
The big parties and tons of henchmen grew out of early D&D being marketed to wargaming groups that had a dozen or so members and thus would have larger parties of PCs. But how many people play the game like this these days? How many people grew up playing the game with 3 or 4 friends rather than two or three times as many players at once?
They are creating an edition that matches their vision of the way D&D should be played without looking back and taking half measures. They did not construct a list of sacred cows this time around. That is a huge difference.
I'll agree that the lack of sacred cows (and the glee of some that holy bovines have been butchered) isn't necessarily a good thing.
ferratus said:
I can be rewarded for my sadistic plots, creatures and traps instead of being punished for it. How did 2e -3.5e punish me?
By forcing me to come up with reasons not to attack the mage (until he had stoneskin)
By forcing me to come up with a series of boring, easy encounters that barely scratched the party, so they didn't get slaughtered by the big boss.
By forcing me to allow sleeping in the middle of the dungeon.
By forcing my cleric player to blow all his cool miracles on healing.
I'm sorry I'm getting a little angry, but this just really gets my goat. Healing surges make the story flow so much better that I can't imagine going back to not having this mechanic or something like it.
Did I mention you can have 10 challenging fights in a single dungeon, fights that can carry the chance of a risk of death in each fight? Don't you realize how boring 3.5 fights would have to be if you did that in the old system? How pointless the first 9 would have to be?
I don't know how healing surges will actually affect the game, but one disappointing aspect of the 3e dungeon crawl was its lack of viability. The CR/experience system as written made a traditional big dungeon very hard to do, since it would tend to level up the party too quickly. And it also got annoying when the players would blow all their spells on 2 or 3 encounters, then hole up in a room for 8 hours to "recharge", giving me two options. One, I could allow something that felt cheesy, or two I could be a jerk and throw wandering monsters around enough to make the dungeon unsleepable. Perhaps both healing surges and the removal of Vancian magic will make the classic dungeon crawl more playable.
Of course another element of old school healing was the ubiquitous
potions of healing while the game tried to keep magic items rare for balance. Healing surges might be a more elegant approach than that.
That's of course if you wanted to be fair. For the rest of you, I remember your games. I HATED them. Continuously trying to get back up to a reasonable amount of hit points so you didn't die if you encountered the next monster. God forbid if you wanted to actually move a little closer to your character's goals or to go up a level instead of squirming around in a corner of a dungeon trying to get enough rest to survive past the next encounter.
Well, in the old days PCs also ran from more encounters. Unless the DM wanted to be an ass about that as well and ran them down. It was always a matter of not going too deep and getting over your head either. A more lenitent DM at least would hold up on wandering monsters if a party decided to head out instead of pushing their luck.
