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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ipissimus" data-source="post: 4207991" data-attributes="member: 41514">Now, let me be clear that I respect Gary Gygax enormously for creating the hobby. But he had a lot of very silly ideas. Like auto-death no-save traps with no clue as to what you were walking into. I respect George Lucas for creating Star Wars but look at the prequel trilogy. I respect the guy who created chess, but do you really think he could go up against a modern grandmaster and win? I respect Sir Issac Newton, but would he be of any use to modern physics?Gygax had his own play style. But not everyone enjoys that play style. In fact, a lot of us think his play style is daft and about as much fun as poking out our eyes with pointy sticks. Does that make us wrong, just because we disagree with him? No. He's not the be-all and end-all, in the 30+ years since roleplaying was created, the games have evolved and will continue to evolve for the better.Now, Game Mastery. I knew there was a reason I hated M:tG, but that's beside the point. The big problem with game mastery is that, eventually, every character is the same. Forget the dude who plays the same character since middle school, every wizard you ever play, every fighter, every rogue, every character will eventually fall into one of the optimal builds for the class. Every Wizard has magic missile and fireball. They also take Archmage with Mastery of the Elements as soon as possible. No fighter ever uses a 2-handed sword because TWF deals more damage. Everyone plays a human or elf because the racial benefits are optimal.This turns DnD into a bland experience, everything becomes the same. The new wizard you rolled up is exactly the same as the last wizard that was rolled up by a different player.BOOOOORING.We want individuality. We want our choices to matter and still be useable. I WANT to agonize over whether my new fighter should be sword and board or polearm and not just pick sword and board like every other fighter since the dawn of time for the mechanical benefits JUST to remain effective. I want my character's personality to be reflected in my choices and my tactics.Now, this isn't to say that I don't study the books. I do. I tinkered alot with 3E and character builds. As an optimizer, what I'm looking forward to in 4E is a real challenge and not the laughable, kindergarten school, game mastery that 3E offered. Think about it for a moment: all those choices OF EQUAL MERIT. Think about examining them, cross-referencing them with other options, building characters and NPCs that are completely different to one another but just as effective and rewarding to play in different ways. THAT is what I'm looking forward to.I'm looking forward to making a fighter, choosing a spear for x/y/z reasons, then selecting race, feats, class features, skills and powers that synergize and make him a brillient member of any advanturing team. Then I want to turn around and make a sword and board fighter that's different just for the nostalgia. Then I want to make a Wizard without Magic Missile that remains completely effective.But, to put all that in short, I want a system that I can create the character I want to play and I want that character to be a viable member of the party.If anything, I think that ENHANCES the appeal of going through and reading the books for me.Oh, and AtomicPope. I've been playing with a friend for the last 20 odd years who always plays the same character. He's still having fun and not one member of our group is sick of him at all. I'm sorry, but there really isn't a 'one true way' of anything, including roleplaying. You can wave Gygax around like a standard all you want but he doesn't really prove anything other than that we have different opinions. In fact, there is no way to prove anything any of us are saying because it's all a belief or opinion there are no facts. Gary Gygax had an opinion, his creating DnD is irrelevant.</blockquote>

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