Why I Intend to Purchase the 4th Edition Books

[Spell]

i don't particularly agree with the original poster that later editions of the game lack what Belorin so nicely spelled out... the main gripe is rule multiplication and min/maxing: there were min/maxers even in the beginning, as far as i can gather from the stories i've been told, and everyone always had at least some house rules.

now, please notice that i don't want to start an edition war, because it would be stupid and fruitless. in fact, i don't think one can't do great campaigns with 3e, 2e (which was and still is my favourite, even if i recognise all its weaknesses), or with any other edition or derived game (c&c, hackmaster, and so on).

i think what Belorin is hinting at was that, in the old days (and even a bit later, when i was playing every week), gaming was something that put people together. you would hang out with your pals in school, or during week time, you would go to the cinema, or play football, go to the pub or whatever, and THEN, you would sit around the table and play D&D, too.

yes, i did meet lots of wonderful people that i wouldn't have met if i didn't play D&D. and, yes, i have met lots of "weirdos", too. but i stopped gaming regularly when it became less of a friend thing, and more like a communal hobby that i happened to share with some random people sitting at the same table ever once a week.

i don't miss those sessions. i miss playing with my friends, or with people that i can trust to build a funny game together, whether or not i'm the DM. i think it has a lot to do with the "high trust" enviroment that came up in another, very interesting thread.

i don't know if 4e will help building up trust between players. i might be very wrong, because i never really got into it, but the amount of rules present in 3e might have come across in some circles as a way for players to defend themselves from the DM, or from each other, or whatever.

i don't know how much is the case, but, if someone actually felt that way, maybe switching to a slightly lighter ruleset, like 4e seems to be, and one that put a lot of emphasis on fluff once again [instead of trying to regulate everything, from expected wealth per level, to every single spell you need to create a magical item... sorry, i couldn't resist! ], might mean getting back the feeling of building a trusting bond with the other players.

just my 2 pences.


ps: for the records, i lost interest in 3e when i felt that i needed to memorize lots and lots of rules to be able to run my adventures smoothly... all of the sudden, i felt i couldn't wig it and keep any player happy.

 

[Mistwell]

Hmm. OK, I am going to try and make an argument in favor of the original poster.

Let's say that 3rd edition D&D placed an emphasis on combat and the combat grid. In addition, it encouraged balanced encounters.

While experience points could be granted for overcoming non-combat challenges, 3rd edition seemed to de-emphasize these tasks in favor of balanced combat.

Social situations in 3rd edition came down to usually a single die roll. In prior editions, there were few rules for how to handle such challenges, as so they were role played more often. Now that there was a mechanic to represent the role playing, I suspect social situations in 3rd edition involved less role playing to overcome the challenge than in prior editions. 4th edition, with it's social challenge system worked out much more extensively, may put more emphasis back on role playing your way out of social challenges. It might not, and it could just end up being several dice rolls rather than just one, but still the evidence is there than some more emphasis may be placed on the issue in 4th edtion.

Strategically working out how to avoid or overcome combat challenges was, at least for me, a more common event in older versions of D&D. When I played Against the Giants, I recall our party HAD to work out a way to attack or avoid the bulk of the giants in their great hall in a non-traditional manner, because we would all get killed if we took them on through the regular "kick in the door and attack" mode. Older versions of D&D placed less emphasis in creating "balanced" challenges, thus resulting in such unbalanced ones that required more thought in how to avoid or overcome them. 3rd edition, however, introduced a lot more systematic balancing of encounters with the EL and CR system, which resulted in (for me at least) more balanced combats and less frequent radically unbalanced ones that required avoidance or non-traditional strategy. We have some hints that 4th edition may address this issue and give the DM better tools to challenge the party with encounters, thus perhaps forcing the party to work out how to avoid the challenge or overcome it through non-traditional means. Personally, I am not seeing that, since I think per-encounter abilities and additional monster "rolls" and such will only result in even more fine tuning of the "combat balance" system and thus even less frequent unbalanced encounters. But, perhaps the OP is seeing that issue different than I am.

Now, let's say that such non-combat challenges in D&D have some real world usefulness. Working out how to succeed in a social challenge in a game has some application to social challenges in real life. Coming up with strategy to avoid a combat challenge or get through it in a creative manner has some application to avoiding conflict in real life. And if 4e reemphasizes these things, then it offers some benefits to real life.

Personally, I don't see 4e going in that direction. But I can understand if the OP thinks it might be going in that direction, based on some things the WOTC have said about it.

 

[Spell]

mistwell, i'm totally with you about the encounter balance (or lack of thereof) in the previous editions, and how it did create very interesting and rewarding moments.

i hope you're not right about 4e going in a direction of even more fine tuned challenges... but if you are, i'll just shamelessly steal all the ideas i like. after all, spending 90$ once every 6 years for a new ruleset is not too bad... i've done much worse!

 

[Jack7]

I appreciate the step up Umbran, I really do.

It doesn't bother me a bit, what the other fella said, I can't imagine getting all worked up over something somebody I don't know, and who doesn't know me, says on the internet of all things. It's kinda hard for me to express in language just how little I care about such things.

It's just a comment, and it's just the internet.

But I do appreciate the sentiment of your comment in this respect.
But the other comment doesn't offend me in the least, as a matter of fact I don't care at all.
Maybe they meant it as a joke, I kinda laughed at it that way. Like what Hussar said. The irony humored me. Wit is a dying art in the modern world, and maybe they meant it as wit, and that kinda thing amuses me. It's hard to tell, just in writing, what's running through the other guy's mind. Or out of it for that matter. Maybe it wasn't even directed at me. Many people are a bit too sensitive about a lot of things nowadays, themselves especially, but I'm not one of them. I suspect I'll troop through okay if it was meant as a shot across my bow. My bow has seen worse.

However, if it does violate some agreed upon rule of decorum here then I'm with you, because thems the rules. This ain't my town to sheriff, I'm just riding through and yakkin with the locals. But if it doesn't bother anybody else then I don't need to be protected from words. They're just words and I've had a lot of things a lot more dangerous than letters and syllables aimed in my direction in my time. That don't rattle me none.

But I'd hate to see this thread closed just on account of somebody's sloppy expression, if it was sloppy language for this site, if anybody is taking anything useful from it. And if not, then that's okay by me too.

I said my piece. And my peace too.

So let the other fellas gab now, far as I'm concerned, long as it's lawful and orderly and all.

I'll just tip my hat back, put my feet up, and enjoy the show.
Maybe somebody will say something really interesting, one way or another.
If so I'll enjoy that too.

And truth be told, a few of you already have.

Useful? Useful outside of D&D? RPGs? Useful how?

That reminds me of an old set of lines.

"Courage must be harder, heart keener, determination greater, as slowly wanes our force of arm."

I don't know why, it just does.

You know, I've been asked about writing a book about exactly how you go about that. So maybe now I will.
And maybe I'll put a little write up, a brief summary about that, in another thread too. If'fin I get the time.

ps: for the records, i lost interest in 3e when i felt that i needed to memorize lots and lots of rules

I hears ya. Any game that is more work than fun ain't much use to me.
And any game that is more about rules than problem solving has a real problem being useful.
It might be very distracting, and extremely time consuming, but not in the good way.

 

[Lackhand]

It's just a comment, and it's just the internet.

Hear hear! For what it's worth, I think that the other poster meant "... because your wife is chewing on you painfully" and was joking. At least, that's what I read. Who knows?

Aaaanyway: OP: I'm curious! What was it that you thought D&D 4 would bring you in the real world that D&D 3 wouldn't/didn't? More free time, because of less fiddly math, which you could use to read philosophy?

I'm with you: It's a game, let's all have some fun playing it.

I call dibs on the tiefling warlock. I promise not to be emo!

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Please explain exactly how 4e will be "more useful in the real world." Use specifics, not "Those of you who've been around will know what I'm talking about." Because it makes zero sense to me, and I'm not willing to try to read my opinions about 4e into it. (And it seems to me that if pragmatism is your ideal, D&D is not going to be a good use of your time.)

 

[Mistwell]

And any game that is more about rules than problem solving has a real problem being useful. It might be very distracting, and extremely time consuming, but not in the good way.

So, is it your opinion that past editions of D&D were more about problem solving than 3rd edition, and you have hopes that 4th edition will once again put emphasis on problem solving?

 

[Belorin]

What it boils down to is whether you love the game for itself, for playing it, for the people you play it with or for the time you spend playing it, we all love the game. That's why I intend to pick up the new books.
Keep it real Jack.

Bel

 

[Belphanior]

That reminds me of an old set of lines.

"Courage must be harder, heart keener, determination greater, as slowly wanes our force of arm."

I don't know why, it just does.

You know, I've been asked about writing a book about exactly how you go about that. So maybe now I will.
And maybe I'll put a little write up, a brief summary about that, in another thread too. If'fin I get the time.

That is a very interesting phrase you have there. Definitely food for thought.

But I must ask you the following:
Please give a direct answer to the question you were asked (ie. "Useful? Useful outside of D&D? RPGs? Useful how?"), if you don't mind. You have alluded to this usefulness a while now without seeming to be willing to provide substance to that statement. It makes you look obtuse in a passive-aggressive way. No offense meant, honest, you're probably not, but you are avoiding the question which makes you hard to understand.

 

[Jack7]

Please explain exactly how 4e will be "more useful in the real world." Use specifics, not "Those of you who've been around will know what I'm talking about." Because it makes zero sense to me, and I'm not willing to try to read my opinions about 4e into it. (And it seems to me that if pragmatism is your ideal, D&D is not going to be a good use of your time.)

I reckon I'm gonna have to do that elsewhere. Maybe in another thread.
Let me just say that it has an awful lot to do with style of play. And whereas what I am talking about technically could have been done with the 3rd Edition as well, it sure wasn't easy.

I'm hoping from what I've been reading that the 4th Edition will be more conducive to the real world, and thereby useful in that sense. In addition I expect it may be more fluid, adaptable, unencumbered (see I can use gaming terminology too) by extraneous crap, less rules con-flustered, and more conducive to real role playing and problem solving.

That is, the point of the game will return to role playing and problem solving, and not be an orgy of the imagination about this or that magical doo-dad which absolves the player from using his own skills, intelligence, ingenuity, creativity, knowledge, and personal experience from devising solutions based upon his own personal, real world capabilities.

What made the 3rd Edition such a real stinker to me was that it effectively stripped the player of the need to make his own decisions, to devise his own unique and impromptu solutions to situations, both tactical and strategic, because of the misguided emphasis on megamagical device number seven thousand eight hundred and ninety five point seven. Now that flaw in the ointment could be overcome with hard work and a lot of redirection, but that was the nature of the beast. She didn't roar and shout "bring it on," she meowed and then coughed up complicated fur-balls of domesticated taxonomy. I mean heck, just to get into a scrape was more like maneuvering the space shuttle into a proper geosynchronous orbit than getting into a real fight where people are cutting throats, sweating, shouting, and killing what they kill.

If I'm gonna play a role playing game then to me it just seems kinda logical to spend my time both role-playing, and problem solving, in a fashion which is uniquely my own and the result of my own ingenuity. (Not to mention the ingenuity of those around me.) The 3rd edition concentrated on skills and feats ad infinite, and that's a good thing as far as I'm concerned, but it did it bass-ackwards. It concentrated upon the character's skills and feats and expertise, not the player's. The character's capabilities and abilities, not the player's.

If you get that then you get exactly what I mean.
If you don't then I don't reckon I can't explain it better or more succulently. (I meant to say succinctly, but Microsoft spelling messed this up, and succulently made me laugh, so i kept it.)

Maybe you've never thought about it before. And if you've never played any other way then I can't blame you.
But I played the original and I can see the difference between it and the 3rd edition as easily as I could spot the difference between a mountain lion and a possum painted as a pole cat.

The 3rd was all about the fantasy, in the original versions the fantasy was just the vehicle. The means of getting there. It wasn't the obsession, and the point wasn't to run away from the real world, but to find a different and creative way of approaching the real world.

Now if you want to play the game to escape the real world, to exercise a character, to glitter dome and Xanadu up that imaginary fella with a whole host of eldritch trinkets, then that's your right and your prerogative. I got nothing against it, but I'm sure far from impressed by it. It's juvenile and escapist to me. Me I played the game, and maybe will again, to exercise myself through a character. I was the character, the character wasn't a substitute or idealized me. The character let me exploit my own nature and capabilities in an imaginary setting, it was not an imaginary substitute for me. Give me a ten foot ole, some rope, some chemicals maybe, a bow and a blade and a real poser, and my buddies and me could, given time and determination move mountains and crack open diamonds and kill the bad guys in the ambush they never saw a'coming. All with ingenuity and flexibility. Now magic could very well prove helpful, and it was an excellent tool, like any other tool, on occasion, but it was no substitute for brains, cunning, insight, and cleverness. And no character or his magical this or that was a substitute for us. That is, my buddies and I solved whatever problem needed solving, righted whatever wrong, and acted out whatever needed to be acted out. Not the characters. The characters were just the skin, the players were the soul. Somewhere along the way the game lost her soul in favor of not very well drawn cartoon characters. And that's fine if that's all you want as a time killer. But to me if I'm gonna be role playing and problem solving then that's not just for the sake of killing time, it's practice for when I might need to kill some real problem in real life. And there's been plenty of times, in one way or another, when I can look back upon the games we played and know that when something went boom in real life, it had already went boom before in practice. And I had already thought about it, planned for it, was ready, and well trained.

Now if you think 4 won't be the way I'm envisioning, I reckon you got as good a shot of being right as me. But from what I've read I suspect it will be a step in the right direction at least, which is back a little towards reality and towards role playing and real problem solving. With real brains and personal experience, not just game magic and imaginary character experience.

And if that turns out to be the actual case then I won't weep for Argentina, or the demise of the 3rd edition.

Aaaanyway: OP: I'm curious! What was it that you thought D&D 4 would bring you in the real world that D&D 3 wouldn't/didn't? More free time, because of less fiddly math, which you could use to read philosophy?

How'd ya know?