I wrote a brief rant about the whole thing back in 2008, shortly after 4th Ed. was released.
I'll just do a summary (Or you can read the whole thing here: http://the7ofswords.livejournal.com/ ):
History first: I've been an off and on Dungeons & Dragons player since 1981. I quickly jumped to AD&D. I really loved the Second Edition, too. It felt like a framework which a DM (and players) with a little imagination and ingenuity could use to build up any kind of fantasy story they desired and make the rules fit. I was a little apprehensive about 3rd Edition, but after my friends and I played it, we really enjoyed it, and we all switched permanently.
Eventually my regular gaming group sort of fell apart - how are you gonna pull people away from the ease of playing World of Warcraft, and get them around a table to play a game? (I'm sure this question was probably the guiding principle in 4th Edition's design.)
Upon first hearing about 4E, I was a little cautious. But I was also more than a little hopeful. After all, I had thought 3rd Edition was probably unnecessary, but I went into it with an open mind and was pleasantly surprised. I even found myself preferring it. Couldn't the same thing happen again? I planned to do as I had with 3rd Edition: buy a Player's Handbook first, and if I liked what I read, pick up the other books and maybe try to get some of my old group back together and give it a whirl.
So ... I guess the first thing is how "dumbed-down" it is - the way video games often are. Video games have to be dumbed down to accommodate the lack of real intelligence behind them. They have to be run by AI, which is just a bunch of mathematics that run different equations based on the players' input. The whole point of a table-top game is that you have a real, live, thinking person who will make intelligent decisions for the NPCs and/or monsters in any given situation.
Concepts like threat and aggro from the realm of MMORPGs represent the outcome of formulae that work behind-the-scenes in order for creatures in a MMORPG to react within some set of pre-defined parameters. This is what allows your main "Tank" to use specific abitlities that increase her threat to any given mob, so it will attack her, instead of the poor cloth-wearing mage who is doing a lot more damage. It's these behind-the-scenes formulae that determine the reactions - and it's these same formulae that players have learned to game in order to succeed. That's why it's vitally important, especially when going into an instance, to have a good tank (and a good healer) - you have to game the systemic formulae in order to make the monsters play to your strategy.
But, see ... this is a WEAKNESS in the video game world - one which developers are either constantly struggling to overcome, and make as transparent as possible, or which, in the case of WoW, they use as a tool in building abilities and classes within the game. Players are going to figure these things out anyway, so why not just make it part and parcel of the whole MMORPG experience? This is one of the things that annoys me about WoW - but it's something I can accept, considering the limitations of the medium.
So why, in the name of all that is good and right in the universe, would the developers of a table-top RPG take the biggest weakness of MMORPGs and incorporate it into their game? 4E is chock FULL of this kind of malarkey. They've even gone so far as to give each class a "role" to fill in combat ... Strikers=dps, Controllers=Crowd-Control, Defender=Tank, Leader=Healer. These aren't necessarily EXACT cognates, but they're pretty close. The new combat rules are pretty much ALL about managing aggro and threat zones - a concept which really shouldn't even EXIST in this setting! So, what - now the DM is supposed to pretend to be a computer AI?
Using dice to get your character's stats is so strongly discouraged? Again, I have to compare this with video games. It makes sense in a video game - especially in an MMORPG, or any game with an on-line component, that you want to level the playing field to a certain degree. This evening-out of the playing field was traditionally handled by a DM, but again, the lack of a human DM is the big obstacle to overcome in a computer game. So we use point-buy systems, or some such thing. But what's the point, again, of taking a system that is primarily a response to a weakness in one system, and moving it to a system that does not share this weakness? If a DM is afraid her players will cheat on stat rolls, all she has to do is make them roll their stats in front of her! Problem solved ... and, more importantly, UNIQUENESS of CHARACTER is maintained! With the systems that 4th Ed. presents and encourages, almost all Elven Wizards are going to have the same (or VERY close) stats! As will all Dwarven Paladins, or Tiefling Rogues, or whatever ...
Whatever happened to the DEX-based fighter who could dish out damage like no one else? Doesn't exist anymore. A Fighter is a Tank is a Fighter is a Tank, with only a few possible modifications. Trying to build a truly creative, unique character in 4E is nearly impossible - character creation feels as cold and impersonal as in WoW. Sadly, even the Neverwinter Nights character generation felt more organic. The beauty of D&D (or any table-top system) was that you could create and play something new and different - you weren't just playing another cookie-cutter hero (or anti-hero, or even villain).
What a framework rules set for an RPG should NOT do (unless it's set up for a specific milieu) is tell us what kind of world we're in. That's what campaign settings are for! "Points of Light in the Great Darkness" or whatever, is great for a specific setting ... but doesn't belong in the basic framework.
They also screwed up Alignment: there's no such thing as Chaotic Good (for example). So a person of my own personal moral persuasion can't exist in the D&D world. And no Lawful Evil? (I guess there are no Dick Cheney's in D&D either ... so maybe it's a fair trade.) I can forgive Unaligned, I suppose ... but in a sense, that's more of a Chaotic Neutral sentiment, a "who gives a crap about all this morality anyway" attitude, that actually is, in itself, a moral stand. Now, I was never a huge fan of the old alignment restrictions, except in specific cases, so I never used alignment languages or any of that - but I DID ask players to choose an alignment - not to punish or control their actions, but as a Role-Playing device.
Remember role-playing? Ostensibly, that's what the "RP" in "RPG (and even "MMORPG") stands for. But MMORPGs tend to break the mood of real RPing. There's too much "gaming the system" and meta-talk to ever really role-play. Even on RP-specific servers people are still talking about movies and shouting about selling their crap over the General channel and such - and discussing meta-game concepts. Again, this is a great weakness of the electronic versions of RPGs which should NOT be brought into a Table-Top realm.
I'm not saying that D&D 4E is anti-role-playing. Role-playing is something anyone can do with any game if one so chooses - though it's easier with some games than others. (Ever tried to behave like a millionaire real-estate developing shoe in Monopoly?) However all of the emphasis in the new PHB seems to be about combat and powers and "what can you do with your cookie-cutter hero character?" The "feel" of 4th Edition D&D is that of a specialized tactics game. Its emphasis is no longer on weaving together a story together - it's all about getting to the next Big Action Sequence.
I'm not saying D&D 4E is ALL bad, either. I just don't see this as D&D anymore. It's a small unit combat tactics game set in a medieval/fantasy setting, with video-game-type powers being used in Hollywood-Style Action Sequences.
I'm sure it'll be fun for what it is - and for the generation raised on XBox and MMORPGs, and movie versions of classic stories, I'm sure it will be a lot of fun. And if you enjoy it, good for you! I'm certainly not here to ruin anyone's good time.
But for me ... it's just not the same anymore. I dunno ... maybe I'm just getting old. Or I'm just old-fashioned. Whatever it is ...
YOU KIDS NEED TO GET OFF MY LAWN!!!
