Will the real 4E please stand up?

[Oni]

What's with all this diplomatic for some it might be this, for other this, love your brother hippy crap (not that there is anything wrong with hippy crap)?

Where's the contention and proclamations of my game is better than your game, you had to pick my thread to start getting along.

Really I was hoping to hear a bit more about the various options out there and what people thought of them, and why they might model dnd better than dnd itself does.


...or some kind of terrible message board bloodbath.

 

[TerraDave]

Ah, edition wars, you want edition wars:

4E IS THE ULTIMATE EDITION 'CUZ:

-Easier to Play
-Has many, many interesting options
-Makes better use of classes
-Makes better use of races
-Makes better use of skills
-Makes better use of spells
-Makes MUCH better use of monsters
-Best combat
-Most support for non-combat situations
-Solid DM advice
-Solid supporting material
-Still D&D

 

[Irda Ranger]

4E IS THE ULTIMATE EDITION 'CUZ:

-Easier to Play
-Has many, many interesting options
-Makes better use of classes
-Makes better use of races
-Makes better use of skills
-Makes better use of spells
-Makes MUCH better use of monsters
-Best combat
-Most support for non-combat situations
-Solid DM advice
-Solid supporting material
-Still D&D

Oh yeah?!?!? Well, ...

Um...

Yeah, you're right.

 

[CleverNickName]

Ah, edition wars, you want edition wars:

4E IS THE ULTIMATE EDITION 'CUZ:

-Easier to Play
-Has many, many interesting options
-Makes better use of classes
-Makes better use of races
-Makes better use of skills
-Makes better use of spells
-Makes MUCH better use of monsters
-Best combat
-Most support for non-combat situations (heck, 3/4 of the game is non-combat)
-Solid DM advice
-Solid supporting material
-Still D&D

I accept your challenge, sir.

BECMI IS THE ULTIMATE EDITION 'CUZ:

-Easiest to Play
-Best default game setting ever (The Isle of Dread)
-Classes are distinctly different
-Makes better use of races
-Non-combat proficiencies instead of skills
-Spells are much easier to deal with
-No math-heavy monsters
-Best combat (no battlemat required)
-Most support for non-combat situations
-Solid DM advice
-Solid supporting material
-Was D&D long before anyone had even heard of "dragonborn."

Seriously though, it is hard for me to be objective about BECMI. It was the first version I had ever played, and I owe a lot of fond memories of my early teenage years to it. Pretty much any edition since BECMI is going to feel like a knock-off to me, even if it is still published under the same brand name. (shrug)

Clearly I am wrong...but that's the difference between data and opinion, right?

 

[Andor]

Powers aside, 4e reminds me more of 2e and 1e than 3e, so you could argue that 3e is the ugly cousin that got invited to the party by mistake.

Powers aside... 4e is a pamphlet. What else is there to 4e besides kewl powerzz?

I'd say 3e is the tre scion of D&D. Frankly 5th Cycle feels more like D&D to me than 4e does.

 

[DaveMage]

ah, edition wars, you want edition wars:

4e is the ultimate edition 'cuz:

-easier to play
-has many, many interesting options
-makes better use of classes
-makes better use of races
-makes better use of skills
-makes better use of spells
-makes much better use of monsters
-best combat
-most support for non-combat situations
-solid dm advice
-solid supporting material
-still d&d

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

 

[Lancelot]

I think 4E is the more polished younger sibling of 3E and true heir to the throne of BECMI.

Agreed. You can even see it in the art choices.

I'm sure someone has already remarked on this, but take a look at the Erol Otus covers of the Basic and Expert rules from, oh, way back in the early 80's.

Basic rulebook has a female wizard in red robes (on the right) and a male fighter with a dragon-winged helmet (on the left), in adventuring poses underground. 4e PH has a female wizard in red robes (on the right) and a male dragonborn fighter (on the left), in adventuring poses underground. Even the background is similar: natural caverns, as opposed to a more traditional flagstone dungeon/mine.

Expert rulebook has the same scene, witnessed by a wizard in a cloud of magical smoke. 4e DMG has the same scene, witnessed by a dragon in a magic orb.

I loved the homage (intended or unintended) as soon as I saw it. That Erol Otus piece of art was my first introduction to D&D 25+ years ago.

 

[RFisher]

Actually, C&C is a spiritual successor to AD&D 1e, not BECMI. Unless you are thinking of the Collector's Boxed set, which tries in evoke the spirit of OD&D in its presentation, but the rules and classes are definitely rooted in AD&D 1e.

I dunno. I set my C&C PHB between my RC and oAD&D PHB, and I have a hard time seeing it as closer to AD&D than RC. (Metaphorical “setting” and “seeing” of course.) It seems to pretty much split the difference to me.

Or, as I’ve often said, make a triangle with RC D&D, AD&D, and 3e at the vertices, and C&C will fall smack dab in the middle.

Or—another way to look at it—C&C is so amorphous that it can be realized as closer to any other edition you choose.

 

[M.L. Martin]

My own D&D taxonomy, which I'll admit is limited and heavily biased.


OD&D: The fons et origo of them all, and so loose a toolkit that all others can be said to descend from it.

Advanced D&D 1st Edition: The first stream of descent from OD&D, emphasizing expansion of the original game along with strong structure, codification and uniformity of basic systems across all games, and with a range from gritty low fantasy to epic high fantasy, although often tinged with amorality and ruthlessness. The systems start to focus around careful development, mechanical individualization, and balance over a character's or campaign's lifetime.
AD&D 2nd Edition: A descendant of and sidestep from 1E, with a bit more openness and considerably less grittiness.
D&D 3rd Edition: The penultimate expression of the AD&D "A Rule for Everything" sub-paradigm (cf. comments by Peter Adkison and Jonathan Tweet, Thirty Years of Adventure, pp. 257-258), with a deliberate return to 1E in many respects, both in flavor and in the desire for mechanical individualization of characters and standardization of rules across games, although mechanics cover considerably more space than they did in 1E, and balance moves less from a campaign scale to a level scale.
D&D 3.5: The ultimate expression of the aforementioned paradigm, although the standardization started to fail as the designers pushed the boundaries of the system.

Basic D&D: The second stream of descent from OD&D, distinguished at first for legal reasons, but serving as the expression of the looser side of the OD&D philosophy. Very much a game of loosely structured, free-wheeling high fantasy fun and adventure using mechanically archetypal characters, with very little worry about mechanical standardization beyond the basics.

Fourth Edition: The third stream, taking from everything that has come before but with the strongest influences from 3.5 in mechanics and BECMI in spirit, High fantasy adventure with a rigorous, standardized, uniform and transparent combat structure and a looser non-combat structure, focused on strong archetypes that contain high degrees of mechanical individualization within them and on giving every character the opportunity to shine in an encounter or adventure.

(A lot of this is drawn from the observations of others about the D&D family, especially Lawrence Schick's Heroic Worlds and Roger Moore's "The highs and lows of fantasy" in DRAGON #163.)

 

[Hussar]

I gotta agree with the sentiment that 4e hearkens strongly back to B/E/C/M/I. Both stylistically with the cover art and in tone and simplicity. Reread those old Moldvay Basic books and you'll see no quibbling about what the game is about - go thee to the dungeon and kill everything there.

4e is retro.