Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition: Initial Impressions

[Chibz]

3. Not the game's fault your DM was inept.

The game book's giving the GM tools and advice. You can't blame it for everything but it's definitely an important factor.

-- Alex

No number of tools, or level of advice can compensate for sheer ineptitude. Actually, tell me (pray, tell) how you managed to beat DC 123. I'd love to hear it.

 

[Chibz]

You're confusing roll playing with role playing.

Right there. Right there is where the distinction between D&D and role playing games is drawn.
The mechanics for role playing in D&D are SO BAD, that you have to go outside of them, determine and agree upon what is doable, rational, and what is illogical, and implement it yourself without having a power curve that puts wizards to shame*.
This, is 3.x. D&D, is not a role playing game. It's certainly a game where you can role play, but the actual role playing element in 3.x, is one you have to create yourself.


*I once diplomacy...ed the Tarrasque into joining us. That takes a very expensive rod, and knowing whatever language a terrasque might speak. But because of hand;e animal, I made it into a pet. That's roll playing, but because I was using a rod and handle animal, that was 3.x's idea of role playing.

Actually, no. Diplomacy doesn't work on beings with animal intelligence. Also, the Tarrasque doesn't HAVE a language.

1. Handle animal does not work on magical beasts'. Also, it involves rearing it (at least in 3.5E. I doubt you found a "baby Tarrasque".

2. That's your idea of role playing, not 3.x's

3. Not the game's fault your DM was inept.

So you're response was, "Nuh-uh, that's your problem". Are you going to make an actual case or are we done here?

I've made one. It's doubtful that DM has even read through the basic rules. A bad GM can make any RPG look bad.

Once again, you're ignoring my points, arguing foot notes, and all your "points" can be made shorter by simply saying, "nuh-uh, you're doing it wrong". I have been in my gaming group for more than five years now, we know the rules almost like the back of our hands, and in order to keep the game from going stale and being about nothing, we've had to home brew countless rules. We're most certainly doing nothing inherently wrong.
The point is that D&D is built around combat, with role playing always being optional. That is not a role playing game. A bad GM can make any RPG look bad, a smart gamer knows why the game is bad, and fixes it.
You have yet to back up your case with real facts that actually have anything to do with the discussion, so, we're done here. You've picked your nits in my statements, statements that actually had nothing to do with the discussion, and argued them. If you had any actual intent to an actual discussion, your statements would read differently. But as you've shown you have no intent to hold an actual discussion, you and I, are done with this one.

It's quite simple: You're clearly a wargamer who is trying to rationalize turning what is a mildly amusing RPG into yet another game of your preferred genre. or, rather. Defending the transformation of a RPG INTO a war game.

 

[Chibz]

It's quite simple: You're clearly a wargamer who is trying to rationalize turning what is a mildly amusing RPG into yet another game of your preferred genre. or, rather. Defending the transformation of a RPG INTO a war game.

I have never played a war game(unless you are conceding that D&D is a war game). So, there goes that one.

I'm saying that 4E is a war game, whereas 3.5E is an RPG with war game elements that have gone too far.

 

[Chibz]

I've yet to find a single "mechanic" in 3.x that was genuinely useless in every way.

 

[Chibz]

I've yet to find a single "mechanic" in 3.x that was genuinely useless in every way.

Of course not. Diplomacy is a great mechanic for completely ignoring role playing.

Which is why you use it in CONJUNCTION with roleplay, as opposed to allowing it to completely replace said aspect. Not difficult.

 

[Chibz]

Well, yeah. But you seem to think the solution is to abandon the role playing aspects of a game rather than fix them.

 

[Chibz]

Well, yeah. But you seem to think the solution is to abandon the role playing aspects of a game rather than fix them.

No, I don't. I'm merely pointing out that D&D is not a role playing game by any means other than it's genre's sake. D&D 3.x made mechanics for role playing, poorly. So poorly that by playing rules as written diplomacy becomes more powerful than Disintegrate.
If you have to fix a game mechanic, is it still a game mechanic? If you have to make your own rules because the rules are failing, does that make it a rule?
If resident Evil applied run and gun shooting style with chest high walls and a cover mechanic, would it still be survival horror? If it said Tactical Espionage Action on the box would you still classify it as such?
D&D does one thing well. Combat. Everything else, has to be worked out by the players.
Intent does not equal classification.

No, but you're still running along the premise that if something hasn't worked out "exactly as planned" it might as well be abandoned altogether as a concept. This is what WOTC has done, abandoned any attempt at role play and replaced it with a war game.

 

[Chibz]

Yes, well they completely removed anything that allows the implementation of role playing. Once again, a clear step backward.

 

[Kais86]

Necroswanson: were I a trained combatant and experienced explorer in a world full of weird crap like that, yes I imagine I could trip things like that, that wasn't the point I was getting at though. The point I was trying to make was that normal techniques like that shouldn't be on a "cooldown" that mechanic has an almost audible "clunk" to it. Those mechanics/techniques were done perfectly well in 3.x, you didn't need a card and an in-game timer to keep up with what abilities you can use, when, and where. Assuming the system feels like letting you, and you don't blow your roll.

If you were using dice rolls to determine things like diplomacy, you are probably doing it wrong, diplomacy as a skill should only be used in determining how much you could justifiably pull off, for example the roleplayer could be a really good diplomat but his character is a barbarian so he can't justifiably use all of his skill while in character, and vice verse, of course in this case it would require that the GM, or someone who does know how to use diplomacy, hold his hand through the process but most people can get by. The fact that diplomacy even has a chart is somewhat of an affront towards story telling and actual roleplaying in and of itself.

 

[Chibz]

Finally, someone who "gets" the diplomacy skill. People either never use it (and render the skill inert), or use it and make it the be-all and end-all (making role playing irrelevant). Bluff should be the same way along with sense motive.

Also, I'm still waiting on how you beat the DC over 100 with the Tarrasque.

 

[McClaud]

You're confusing roll playing with role playing.

Right there. Right there is where the distinction between D&D and role playing games is drawn.
The mechanics for role playing in D&D are SO BAD, that you have to go outside of them, determine and agree upon what is doable, rational, and what is illogical, and implement it yourself without having a power curve that puts wizards to shame*.
This, is 3.x. D&D, is not a role playing game. It's certainly a game where you can role play, but the actual role playing element in 3.x, is one you have to create yourself.


*I once diplomacy...ed the Tarrasque into joining us. That takes a very expensive rod, and knowing whatever language a terrasque might speak. But because of hand;e animal, I made it into a pet. That's roll playing, but because I was using a rod and handle animal, that was 3.x's idea of role playing.

Actually, no. Diplomacy doesn't work on beings with animal intelligence. Also, the Tarrasque doesn't HAVE a language.

1. Handle animal does not work on magical beasts'. Also, it involves rearing it (at least in 3.5E. I doubt you found a "baby Tarrasque".

2. That's your idea of role playing, not 3.x's

3. Not the game's fault your DM was inept.

So you're response was, "Nuh-uh, that's your problem". Are you going to make an actual case or are we done here?

Actually, he did. He told you that by the rules in 3.5, there is no way you could have done what you said you did without a homemade rule.

Granted, had you played with me, we could have worked out how you did that, but only if you actually role-played out the encounter. I tend to use less dice and more talky-talky. Dice are only there if there is a situation which:

1. Has doubt to the outcome. It adds some random element to the game, but I never let a random die roll kill anyone. Players die if they do something dumb or if the situation was epic. No need for senseless player character death.*
2. The player does not possess any real knowledge of how to go about doing something. Like a lot of players I know don't know a damn thing about diplomacy and how to conduct a negotiation. So they roll their skill/stat. But they still try to describe how they want to accomplish it, the desired outcome and their character's stance/attitude.

Again,

As several people have said before, if you don't like 4e, don't play it. This obsession some people have with making others dislike something just as much as they do, something that I will freely admit that I'm guilty of at times, just ends in redundant, circular arguments.

Not every game is going to be suitable for or even appeal to every person. My group, for example, is going to love 4e, because we're a 'beer and pretzels' kind of group that likes dungeon bashes and epic loot (they like more than I do, but that's a different story). Will they care that you can only use Brute Strike once a day? Probably not.

And that's the point at which I was getting at. I love 3.5, and am meh at 4e. But I still play 4e with a group because they like to play 4e because they like boardgames. I like boardgames, too, and I can tolerate it because I view it as a boardgame with a hint of role-playing introduced in there. I understand the people who like 4e, and I can't begrudge them that.

But as someone who has played as many editions of D&D as I have, and as many different RPGs as I have, I can honestly say what I like about my favorites and what I don't like about my least favorites. And 4e is not my least favorite RPG, btw - the new World of Darkness is. And 3.5 D&D is not my favorite - Spycraft Second Edition is.

I still like to tease the kids who like 4e, though, and tell them when they grow up, they can join us at the adult table playing another, real RPG.

* I remember at one point in the 80's where apparently, it was the DM's job to kill as many PCs as possible in one sitting. There's even a game called Paranoia created to parody that entire period of D&D where die-rolls are the ultimate, end-all when determining success or failure. And since Paranoia is (was, since the newest edition has different modes now) full of PCs with lower than average stats and worthless skills, they are almost always going to die a senseless, squishy death. And the DM (or Computer) is supposed to kill them as many times as possible during the game. But I'm beyond that petty stage in gaming now. Everyone wins when everyone has a good time - not if everyone survives or dies. No win conditions in true RPGs, really.

 

[Alex_P]

I have absolutely no interest in playing 4th Edition. I only care about it from the perspective of design and knowing what the hell most of the kids jumping into the RPG hobby are going to be experiencing as their first game. I looked at material about it and was like, "Hmm, this is not for me. Okay, bye, 4th Edition!"

In contrast, I played 3rd Edition for many years. That's why I hate it so much. It talks a good game but fails to deliver. Fundamentally, it's the exact same kind of tactical game as 4th Edition with a lot more fiddly bits during character creation and a thin veneer of support for other stuff. Play is slow and uneven and the whole system creaks because it's been stuffed to the gills with really random, incoherently stuff from previous editions.

So, which is better: a game that I don't want to play or a game that I hated playing?

From a design standpoint, I'm disappointed in 4th Edition. People keep talking about how much it changed D&D 3, but I look at it and see the same mistakes. It looks like the system designers aimed to tighten up character creation and encounters and did both of those things, but left everything else the same -- sure, there may be different rules for the thing now, but the design principles are the same. The game looks like just as much of a time-eater as D&D 3 was, and its approach to the core thing of an RPG -- creating fun fiction together in play -- is just as stilted and handwavy.

Like 3rd Edition before it, 4th reinvents a lot of the easy stuff -- the stuff that every homebrewer fiddles with -- but leaves the real deepest-seated problems where they lie.

So, thumbs down for the exact opposite of why everyone else is hatin' on it.

-- Alex