D&D 4E Where the break between pro and anti 4e is

[hong]

I'll buy that, from what I have seen and read 4e is more like an anime than a "classic" fantasy novel. I am waiting to cast "Giga Slave" myself, that is probably one of those 30th level spells, wonder if WOTC has arranged to license the Slayer's world?

If they, do it will be hilarious, seeing as how Slayers is basically a pisstake of D&D.

 

[JDJblatherings]

[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).

Might actually be fun to work with the new version.

[2]Dragonborn & Tieflings are not traditional races, and are too monstrous to integrate with other races believably.

This does train some campaign concepts but i also opens a whole bunch of new ones.

[3]I will not get to play the race/class combinations that I have been traditionally allowed to play in prior editions.

true, but then there are 40 somethign core classes right now and many prestige classes, no way they were all gettign covered right of the bat.

[4]D&D has embraced wargaming elements too much, making it a tactical wargame instead of a roleplaying game.

This is a nonsense argument, the game grew out of wargaming and 3e set aside some of the earlier wargamish campaign building built into the rules that was in eraleir versions and 44 shows no signs of puttign them back.

[5]Giving martial characters superhuman ability is too cinematic/cartoonish, making the traditional setting of the medieval world with magic and monsters "less gritty" where ordinary people confront supernatural menaces.

PCs were never actually ordinary people.

[6]Healing Surges and the loss of Vancian magic takes away resource management aspect of the game,

it does certainyl remove a great deal of strategy and tactics that when dropped cause a disconnect from established modes of play.

[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.

one healing surge a day sound like a godo idea to me, doesn't stop serious wounds from happening.

[8]1st level characters can't be killed with one blow anymore

crits are gone?

 

[Gryffyn]

'Kill dudes and steal their stuff' isn't really that strong of a defining trait for a role playing game. A large number of RPGs which are not D&D also emphasize combat and looting. Even those games that don't emphasize pillaging tend to have a good deal of murderizing.

As far as classic game play goes I see some elements of 4e that are tacit rejection of classic tropes. While D&D has always been driven mostly by game play elements, D&D game play as conceived by Arneson and Gygax focused on a structure that was reminiscent of extended war game campaigns where attrition, logistics, and preparation played a much larger role than they do in 4e. Classic play also focused more on adventuring and world building than the current paradigm does. World fidelity was considered a crucial element of play. There wasn't very much attention paid to the creation of a satisfying narrative or action oriented play. 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.

4e basically embraces a more action adventure oriented approach that assumes a certain degree of PC protagonism. It also places the importance of the creation of a satisfactory narrative above world building and modeling. Additionally there is further emphasis being placed on each individual encounter serving as challenge (tactics over strategy). It continues a process that started with AD&D 2e material and continued with 3e. The difference this time is that Wizards has basically abandoned the incremental approach. 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.

Outstanding analysis. Spot on. This may be one of the best summaries of the differences in play style between 1980 and 2008 D&D ever written.

I would add one other thing: an overall goal of immersion into the game world, which meant that the players would be much more in the dark. There was a reason Gygax put most of the combat and other rules in the DMG -- the less the players worried about that, the more time they would have to interact with the game world. The theme of D&D was going somewhere unknown and dangerous and coming back to talk about it. A sense of mystery was *crucial.*

The more I think of it, the more logical my love of the Amber DRPG is. It also embraces that approach -- the rules mechanics are completely invisible to the players, which means they have no choice but to immerse themselves in the worlds they explore. Also, Amber is all about uncovering deeper mysteries.

Thanks again for your excellent post.

 

[Celebrim]

I think that is a very accurate summation. How a particular 'anti' DM or player ranks those problems varies alot, but that covers most of the major issues.

For me, the flavor changes are not well thought out from a business standpoint but with the exception of the comic book mentality don't impact me much because I can just ignore them. The big problem I have is basically that I feel the new rules interfere with my narration as a DM. It's not so much that they make it impossible to tell a particular story, its that while individual game events are cinematic and logical, the total collection of these events only makes sense for a world obeying certain action movie hero/comic book tropes. Nothing in the game now happens because it is logical for it to happen. Rather it happens to fulfill internal game needs like balance.

For example, I have no problems with 'exception based monster design' except that I feel its fancy language for something we've always been able to do in any edition, but I do have problems with a per encounter ability where if you've been attacked and missed, you can force the opponent to attack an adjacent. There are some cases where this narration makes sense and its believable that such a fumble was forced, but in the general case using this rule as written breaks my suspension of disbelief and is going to led to arguments with players who likewise have it broken. I don't feel comfortable inventing the narration of this power in the general case, so then its 'exception based' DMing. Now, again, I'm not entirely uncomfortable with breaking the rules for the sake of the game, but I don't want a rules set that forces that on me as often as 4E seems to.

 

[Mirtek]

I am waiting to cast "Giga Slave" myself, that is probably one of those 30th level spells, wonder if WOTC has arranged to license the Slayer's world?

If they, do it will be hilarious, seeing as how Slayers is basically a pisstake of D&D.

There is already is Slayers D20

 

[hong]

There is already is Slayers D20

Yeah I know, but it's not the same unless WotC does it.

 

[roguerouge]

Funny, I started a thread asking for exactly what the OP did, which was a summary of the basic objections towards 4e for people who've not been able to keep up for various reasons.

BUT everyone who posted to those two threads (pro and anti) said that it would lead to rioting in the threads, flame wars, cats and dogs living together, etc. And yet, here we are, summarizing basic positions on the rules without a flame war in sight.

I'm glad to see that my basic faith in enworld's community affirmed.

And, good work, ferratus!

 

[Celebrim]

'Kill dudes and steal their stuff' isn't really that strong of a defining trait for a role playing game. A large number of RPGs which are not D&D also emphasize combat and looting. Even those games that don't emphasize pillaging tend to have a good deal of murderizing.

As far as classic game play goes I see some elements of 4e that are tacit rejection of classic tropes. While D&D has always been driven mostly by game play elements, D&D game play as conceived by Arneson and Gygax focused on a structure that was reminiscent of extended war game campaigns where attrition, logistics, and preparation played a much larger role than they do in 4e. Classic play also focused more on adventuring and world building than the current paradigm does. World fidelity was considered a crucial element of play. There wasn't very much attention paid to the creation of a satisfying narrative or action oriented play. 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.

4e basically embraces a more action adventure oriented approach that assumes a certain degree of PC protagonism. It also places the importance of the creation of a satisfactory narrative above world building and modeling. Additionally there is further emphasis being placed on each individual encounter serving as challenge (tactics over strategy). It continues a process that started with AD&D 2e material and continued with 3e. The difference this time is that Wizards has basically abandoned the incremental approach. 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.

This is one of the best posts in the past six months.

You basically covered why I wouldn't be adopting 4e. Everyone that is happy with 4e, I'm happy for. But the assumptions of what the game should be like have now diverged so much, that at this juncture it seems impossible that we will ever again be a unified community. WotC didn't just kill sacred cows. They brought in a whole herd of new ones. Some people are going to welcome thier new sacred cow overlords, and some people aren't.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The reduction in options will make the game easier to play for casual players, assuming they have pregen characters. I have a feeling making a character might be a beast though. This is pretty ironic actually, the most heard argument in the past about D&D being better than GURPS (or Hero), was the fact that you could sit down and make characters in a few minutes and get playing, where with the other systems, it took a while to make characters, even if play itself was faster.

Well, it all depends on what level you want to create your character. In 3E, creating high level characters takes a lot of work. 1st level characters seem easy, and I do not believe that it's so different now.
3E suffered from one problem: If you wanted to attain a PrC or a special feat, you had to prepare the advancement of your character very early to get what you want. A beginning player will not think about that, but it can haunt him later, if he wants to try something out. And the next time he is rolling up a new character, he might think about, meaning it takes longer for him again. So, the first few times, creating a new character in 3E might be fast, but once you want "more", you'll expend more time.
4E seems to go away from a wide list of prerequisites, so I think this will no longer be a concern.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I would add one other thing: an overall goal of immersion into the game world, which meant that the players would be much more in the dark. There was a reason Gygax put most of the combat and other rules in the DMG -- the less the players worried about that, the more time they would have to interact with the game world. The theme of D&D was going somewhere unknown and dangerous and coming back to talk about it. A sense of mystery was *crucial.*
Thanks again for your excellent post.

The worst thin in D&D 3.5 is: players need to look into the DMG, MM and they know every little piece of the mechanics...

... if 4e remedies that, i am positive. (i am not sure what to think about magic items in PHB, but at least artifacts seem to be in the DMG and cursed items hopefully too)

... i also want to add that losing spell components for powers is sad, but: i really can see material components becoming an implement.
And rituals will be balanced by available funds, so material components may actually play a bigger part of D&D again...