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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6092490" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think it's reasonable, at this point, to suspect that D&Dnext will not appeal to a certain type of 4e player - to put it very crudely, the sort of 4e player who is currently posting on the "Pemertonian Scene Framing" thread.The basis for that suspicion is that D&Dnext lacks any metagame mechanics to regulate or modulate pacing in challenge/encounter resolution, in scenario design, etc. Indead, as some of the current healnig threads have brought out, it seems at one and the same time (i) to be committed to balancing PCs acros the "adventuring day", but (ii) utterly lacking and seeminlgy actively hostile to the sorts of metagame constraints that would be necessary to achieving anything like a standard "adventuring day".I'm not one of those two, but our respective posting histories make me think we have some things in common in what we like about 4e.There are some parts of D&Dnext that I don't mind at all. Flat maths (and of course 4e is flat maths + regular scaling) - but they seem to be disrupting that with their magic item rules. A skill system based on stat checks and free descriptors (and a good thing about this is it can be approached either in an OSR way or an indie way).But there are what seem to be fundamental elements that are at odds with me enjoying the game - namely, is approach to pacing and player resources.In 4e all non-Martial essentials PCs have a common resource scheme: at-will, encounter and daily. And there is very strict regulation of the ability to regain resources (encounter or daily) during an encounter.As a result, in a given encounter every player is on a roughly even footing, resource-wise: they go in with what they go in with, including dailies retained since the last extended rest,plus encounter powers. And they can't get anything more until one way or another the encounter is resolved.When it comes to replenishing daily resources there is a lot more table variation. Some tables give players control over resting. Others give the GM control. Others (like mine) are slightly incoherently in the middle. But while different approaches here will change the play of the game, none will really break it. If it's all nova, all the time then every player can nova his/her PC. If making it through to extended rests is part of the challenge of play, every PC has a comparale suite of resources to manage in confronting that challenge.There are some excpetions to the above.Some PCs have more daily utilities, some more encouter utilities, but the divergences there are fairly modest. Healing surge differentials are perhaps a bigger issue - in a "players control the recharges" approach, the difference in surge numbers between (say) a wizard and a paladin can become less significant.But I still think the game more-or-less copes with this. Whereas D&Dnext is built around fundamentally (and deliberately) assymetric suites of player resources. And not only is there no metagame regulation to ensure a constant "adventuring day", it is mysterious to me where such a thing might be built in. Given this, I don't see how it will support 4e-style pacing and balance of resources across players.This is true but strikes me as tautologous. Of course if all gamers embraced the same game there would be no "split" in the player base. But this doesn't give anyone a reason to embrace D&Dnext or any other RPG, unless they think uniformity among gamers is more important than playing a game they enjoy. And personally, at least, I don't think that.</blockquote>

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