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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TwinBahamut" data-source="post: 4836502" data-attributes="member: 32536">You know, I like this question far less than I like the World of Warcraft comparison, simply because it is far more nebulous and vague. Considering the incredibly diverse variety of videogames out on the market today, trying to compare different versions of D&D to "a videogame" with no other qualifiers is like trying to compare different versions of D&D to "a book", without even specifying what genre or period of books you are making the comparison to. And on that level, the only real comparison you can make is concerning the inherent differences between the mediums themselves, which are almost always absolute. D&D is a tabletop RPG, not a videogame, and those two mediums are inherently different in the way people experience them. Directly comparing the mediums themselves gets you nowhere.Still, on a somewhat more focused comparison between D&D and fantasy RPG videogames, I will say that I don't really think that 4E takes any more from videogames than any other edition. I mean, one of the most videogame-like things I have seen so far in D&D is the 3E Sorcerer. The original Final Fantasy was practically a direct rip-off of D&D (up to and including good dragon Bahamut, evil dragon Tiamat, six-armed Mariliths, and squid-headed Mind Flayers), but it used an altered version of D&D's Vancian magic in which mages had a limited number of spells assigned to different levels, and a number of uses per day for each level. In other words, the magic system in that game is exactly like the Sorcerer class introduced to D&D more than a decade later in 3E.Other than that sentiment, I will agree with Fanaelialae. The important thing is a general progression of what people think is fun and what is considered good game design. What 4E does is better described as an attempt to keep up with those ideas, rather than an explicit emulation of any videogames in particular. I will say, though, that I think 4E is a bit unusual compared to earlier editions in that regard, since I think earlier editions were less concerned with modern trends in game design (well, in the PHB releases, anyway, many 3E splatbooks like Incarnum and the Tomes of Battle and Magic got away from that a lot).</blockquote>

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