Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="an_idol_mind" data-source="post: 4933668" data-attributes="member: 43749">I think there was a reason for every change made in 4th edition. WotC had in their minds a very specific vision of what they wanted D&D to become, and many of the old standards of the game didn't fit that. As to the nine alignments, WotC envisioned a setting where the good-evil axis was emphasized and the law-chaos axis was not. Lawful good now means really good and chaotic evil now means really evil. Since the law-chaos axis was generally a point of confusion, they probably saw a chance to make alignments more understandable to those who were new to the game. Unaligned is basically the same as neutral, but changing the name separates it from the old tradition of true neutrality, which was once all about maintaining balance. As to Vancian casting, I think that had to be changed because of the new power structure of the game. WotC didn't want a game where playing a wizard was significantly different in mechanics or complexity than playing a fighter. Since every prior edition of D&D has the fighter as a sort of no-frills entry class and the wizard as something much more complex, they had to shift the casting system all around in order to accomplish their goals. As to the cosmology, since WotC had decided to change alignment, they had to change the cosmology around, too. The old planes were based largely around the old alignment system and the classical elements, both pieces of the game WotC wanted to get away from. Additionally, they seemed to want to make the planes more accessible without high-level magic. While the old planes were dangerous even to walk in and were inaccessible to most characters, the new planes were designed to be potential adventuring sites even to low-level characters if need be. WotC had a very specific vision to what they wanted the game to be like and designed the new edition around that vision. Specifically, they seemed to want to emphasize the tactical element of combat more, remove certain imbalances in the system, and get rid of some of the arcane elements of the game that might confuse newer players. I don't think there was any change for change's sake in the new game. I do think that a lot of people, myself included, didn't see the need for these changes to be made. In many views, tactical combat had already been over-emphasized in 3rd edition, the imbalance between the classes made them feel unique and interesting, and the arcane elements of the game gave it a unique charm that other RPGs lacked. In that regard, some people might use the change for change's sake argument because they don't see the old D&D model as something that needed to be broken out of. Overall, I think 4th edition does what WotC wanted it to do and does that style of game better than any previous edition. I think the big divide is that some people don't want to run that type of game and see the newest revision of D&D as a step away from the style of role-playing they consider fun.</blockquote>

Verification