D&D General Why is D&D 4E a "tactical" game?

[Staffan]

This is true. But I always thought it a shame that it didn't break enough with 3e. You can't win 4e in character creation but I still think the most important choices you make are all in creation and advancement.

Those choices still overshadow the choices you make in the moment in regard to how your character plays.

(Gamma World for 4e somewhat addressed this but not in a very satisfying way).

Yeah, perhaps it's better to say that making good choices in character generation/advancement in 4e are necessary but not sufficient to "win".

 

[Oofta]

It got to the point I started thinking of 4E as a tactical card game. You had cards (aka powers) you could play every turn, once per encounter, once per day. Some cards could be spent out of your turn once per round to counter a power. The monsters had similar structure.

When I say cards I mean that literally. I would print out my powers, cut them up and put them in color coded sleeves people use for baseball cards and flip them over after use (except for at will cards of course).

Pretty much every PC I ran was more complex at mid-to-high levels, the fighter I built especially was much more complex to run than fighters in other editions. Whether it was a better game, more exciting, engaging, whatever, is in the eye of the beholder.

 

[beast013]

This is true. But I always thought it a shame that it didn't break enough with 3e. You can't win 4e in character creation but I still think the most important choices you make are all in creation and advancement.

Those choices still overshadow the choices you make in the moment in regard to how your character plays.

It was more of tweaking the party to be in tune with each other and fight as a whole. Having played in multiple D&D Encounter sessions, I watched parties get schooled because they were not a cohesive fighting unit. I played on teams that were tuned/cohesive and they were much more successful. Use your strengths and mask your weaknesses.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

4e (IMO) is not for the casual role player - designed more for a wargamer.

I would respectfully suggest that you are dead wrong here.

Yes, it required more engagement, but it's bad misunderstanding to think that means wargamers are the audience. On the contrary I think boardgamers were. To a wargamer 4E isn't that different from other editions in terms of engagement, but to a boardgamer, it's a much big jump in engagement.

If you look at my group, the two most casual players absolutely adored 4E. Seriously. One of them still grouses that we aren't playing it. This was a guy who was never previously a serious, engaged, tactical player, he was very much casual and about style. But 4E unleashed the beast and he loved it. In fact the two people who liked it least were the ones most keen on wargames, so there's that as well.

But even just my casual players proves that what you're saying isn't right re wargamers.

 

[beast013]

I would respectfully suggest that you are dead wrong here.

Yes, it required more engagement, but it's bad misunderstanding to think that means wargamers are the audience. On the contrary I think boardgamers were. To a wargamer 4E isn't that different from other editions in terms of engagement, but to a boardgamer, it's a much big jump in engagement.

If you look at my group, the two most casual players absolutely adored 4E. Seriously. One of them still grouses that we aren't playing it. This was a guy who was never previously a serious, engaged, tactical player, he was very much casual and about style. But 4E unleashed the beast and he loved it. In fact the two people who liked it least were the ones most keen on wargames, so there's that as well.

But even just my casual players proves that what you're saying isn't right re wargamers.

I disagree as my experience was with seasoned wargamers who saw 4e as a wargame within an rpg.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, perhaps it's better to say that making good choices in character generation/advancement in 4e are necessary but not sufficient to "win".

I don't even thing "good" ones are necessary; just not making bad ones. That may not seem like a difference, but it is; if you have 12 options, chances were at least 10 of them would be okay and leave you with a functional character who would hold up their own in play, and the gap between the worst of those 10 and the best was rarely dramatic, with a couple exceptions.

You could not say either of these with 3.0/3.5.

 

[Charlaquin]

I would respectfully suggest that you are dead wrong here.

Yes, it required more engagement, but it's bad misunderstanding to think that means wargamers are the audience. On the contrary I think boardgamers were. To a wargamer 4E isn't that different from other editions in terms of engagement, but to a boardgamer, it's a much big jump in engagement.

If you look at my group, the two most casual players absolutely adored 4E. Seriously. One of them still grouses that we aren't playing it. This was a guy who was never previously a serious, engaged, tactical player, he was very much casual and about style. But 4E unleashed the beast and he loved it. In fact the two people who liked it least were the ones most keen on wargames, so there's that as well.

But even just my casual players proves that what you're saying isn't right re wargamers.

I disagree as my experience was with seasoned wargamers who saw 4e as a wargame within an rpg.

So we’ve established that different people have different experiences and like different games for different reasons.

 

[Raduin711]

The two things that do it for me are

1) Theatre of the Mind is greatly disfavored in 4e. Movement and positioning is baked in to so many abilities that you are doing a disservice to the game in TOTM.

2) Putting character abilities into discreet powers, rather than generalized abilities feels more tactical and less narrative. (Not to imply these are mutually exclusive concepts.) For instance, compare a Utility power that lets you Climb X Squares for a move action, to a class ability that gives you an equivalent bonus to climb checks. If the thing the player wants to do falls out of the terms of the Utility, he can't use it. A bonus to climb checks has much broader utility, and more narrative value.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

2) Putting character abilities into discreet powers, rather than generalized abilities feels more tactical and less narrative. (Not to imply these are mutually exclusive concepts.) For instance, compare a Utility power that lets you Climb X Squares for a move action, to a class ability that gives you an equivalent bonus to climb checks. If the thing the player wants to do falls out of the terms of the Utility, he can't use it. A bonus to climb checks has much broader utility, and more narrative value.

My favorite part on this kind of things is the treatment of illusions and other mind affecting spells: they tell you exactly what the effect is. No need for interpretation or DM-may-I.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

IMO (so take with a grain of salt):

4E was very much trying to appeal to the card-players. I also did what @Oofta did - I printed my powers onto cards and put them into sleeves, and as I played encounter or dailies, they would get put aside.

Folks have also mentioned that powers worked together. I think this is key and also part of the attempt to appeal to card players - there were "combos" of different powers that could be used to devastating effect. This of course didn't appeal to everyone; but I really liked it. I like 5e plenty, and I REALLY like that a ton ton of people are playing, and that I can now say at work that I'm going to play D&D over the weekend and almost no one gives me the side-eyebrow-arch; but 4e was a great system in its way. I don't have a group to play with right now, and I really miss the 4e character builder Wizards made (it was so-so but critical for all the various powers and magic item build-ups); but if I had a group that said they wanted to play, I would be in like flynn.