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<blockquote data-quote="Shun" data-source="post: 4273124" data-attributes="member: 68049">For the record, I'm not a 4E hater, but upon reading the PHB there were a lot of nagging similarities to video game RPG's.&nbsp; WOW is a convenient target but I think the idea applies to many more video games as well.&nbsp; The thing is, the similarities are difficult to articulate.&nbsp; But I would say that the homogenization of character abilities (ie. &quot;powers&quot;) is a departure from the real differences you would find in characters from other editions.&nbsp; Granted I'm kind of old school, but when I played the most (AD&amp;D) the classes were very, very different entities.&nbsp; And with this homogenization comes the way you &quot;build&quot; characters by putting powers, racial traits, feats and skills into boxes just like you would on a video game.&nbsp; There's kind of a template that applies to everyone regardless of class. (Side note:&nbsp; I'm just getting back into D&amp;D with 4E and I find all of the verbiage on the boards like &quot;character build&quot; and &quot;optimization&quot; kind of strange.&nbsp; That stuff seems straight out of video games and not tabletop RPG's.&nbsp; In the old days, I always &quot;made&quot; or &quot;developed&quot; characters.)&nbsp; And finally, it's the way that the initial materials for 4E are super combat-focused.&nbsp; This is not a criticism of 4E because it's very easy to incorporate role-playing in the game w/o a whole lot of rules.&nbsp; But the predominance of combat rules leads people to think that the game is just about combat.&nbsp; Kind of like WOW, where all you do is go from one place to another killing things, taking the treasure/rewards, and using the spoils to build up your character.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Shun, post: 4273124, member: 68049"] For the record, I'm not a 4E hater, but upon reading the PHB there were a lot of nagging similarities to video game RPG's. WOW is a convenient target but I think the idea applies to many more video games as well. The thing is, the similarities are difficult to articulate. But I would say that the homogenization of character abilities (ie. "powers") is a departure from the real differences you would find in characters from other editions. Granted I'm kind of old school, but when I played the most (AD&D) the classes were very, very different entities. And with this homogenization comes the way you "build" characters by putting powers, racial traits, feats and skills into boxes just like you would on a video game. There's kind of a template that applies to everyone regardless of class. (Side note: I'm just getting back into D&D with 4E and I find all of the verbiage on the boards like "character build" and "optimization" kind of strange. That stuff seems straight out of video games and not tabletop RPG's. In the old days, I always "made" or "developed" characters.) And finally, it's the way that the initial materials for 4E are super combat-focused. This is not a criticism of 4E because it's very easy to incorporate role-playing in the game w/o a whole lot of rules. But the predominance of combat rules leads people to think that the game is just about combat. Kind of like WOW, where all you do is go from one place to another killing things, taking the treasure/rewards, and using the spoils to build up your character. [/QUOTE]

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