Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition: Initial Impressions

[Chibz]

Yes, but that's no reason to cut it on the people who actually USE this material. If/when my books get published (some day...) the strict rule will be: Material goes in. No material comes out. And nothing (NOTHING) will get moved around/altered at the whim of another.

You created a spiffy new race, but I'd need to change my setting? I don't care. *mimes tossing something away*

This doesn't work. I mean, jeez. Look at comic books.

Continually adding stuff to a fictional universe over the course of several decades without replacing or deleting anything results in a muddled, byzantine, patchwork setting. How do you expect new people to get into that? How do you expect writers to be cool and inventive when all they're allowed to do is fill in a few narrow gaps?

If you like Dis, you already have two or three books with write-ups of Dis in them. Do you really want to see another one with the same old stuff? Just so it can be counted as "canon" again?

...

For good or for ill, D&D is the gateway pen-and-paper RPG and will continue to be that for at least the next half-decade. I want it to be the best damn gateway game it can be. Most people playing D&D aren't twenty-year veterans who've been playing in the same campaign world since Clinton was in office. They're high-school kids who want to try out something that sounds fun.

The current edition of D&D needs to not alienate new players and it needs not to brain-damage them with stupid ideas about "how to role-play". That's all I care about. I don't need D&D to cater to me. I can go find another game I'll like. I don't think new editions should try to please the diehards and grognards, either. They already have a game they like: whatever older edition happens to be their favorite. If their established-fan tastes conflict with what works best for new players, well, fuck them.

-- Alex

The problem is that alienating your pre-established fanbase in exchange for new fans rarely works out well. Especially when you cut the role play... out of a role playing game.

What I said meant that I don't care how many new races I'm told to incorporate into my setting, I will never incorporate something that makes zero sense.

Nobody should.

And they shouldn't harm their setting in trying to do so.

 

[Alex_P]

4.0 is checkers, 3.5 is chess, the only thing they share is the board (dice in this case).

3.5 is not chess. 3.5 is fantasy football. You spend a long time coming up with a build but then there's pretty little strategy going on in play. Oftentimes the thing you should do round-to-round is pretty damn obvious.

-- Alex

 

[Alex_P]

The problem is that alienating your pre-established fanbase in exchange for new fans rarely works out well. Especially when you cut the role play... out of a role playing game.

Most people play D&D for a few years in high school and then college and then stop. That's the bulk of the fanbase.

-- Alex

 

[Chibz]

4.0 is checkers, 3.5 is chess, the only thing they share is the board (dice in this case).

3.5 is not chess. 3.5 is fantasy football. You spend a long time coming up with a build but then there's pretty little strategy going on in play. Oftentimes the thing you should do round-to-round is pretty damn obvious.

-- Alex

If you see it as all about numbers and "builds", maybe you're playing D&D for all the wrong reasons.

 

[imperialwar]

SOme big walls of text here, but a worthy debate.
I want to go on the record as having said the following:

Played AD+D, to complex, THACO was to abstract a thing for me and my group.
Played 3.0, loved the D20 DC rolls, made things so much easier.
Havent looked at 3.5, or 4.0.
Also i have the rule books for setting games in the Warcraft world. Being an avid WoW player I find these books worth their weight. I dont know on the specifics as may have been laid out in these replys, but all i know is this system works for me, and that's good enough.

 

[Chibz]

D&D 3.5 has very few adjustments to the D&D 3.0 rules. Things like heal, and how BAAAAAAAD rangers were alone were worth the update. The entire edition really could've (and should've) been a set of small pdf files sent to the players for free.

That's how small the change was.

 

[Alex_P]

If you see it as all about numbers and "builds", maybe you're playing D&D for all the wrong reasons.

Dude, you're just embarrassing yourself now.

You talk about flavor and canon, I respond with a post about flavor and canon.

Guy talks about game-mechanical tactical choices, I respond with a post about -- guess what? -- game-mechanical tactical choices.

-- Alex

 

[Chibz]

If you see it as all about numbers and "builds", maybe you're playing D&D for all the wrong reasons.

Dude, you're just embarrassing yourself now.

You talk about flavor and canon, I respond with a post about flavor and canon.

Guy talks about game-mechanical tactical choices, I respond with a post about -- guess what? -- game-mechanical tactical choices.

-- Alex

I'm pointing out that you are both playing the game for the reason entirely if you look at it in terms of builds or stats. Also, I think he was speaking not in the literal sense (in terms of strategy), but in how "similar" they supposedly are.

And the point still stands; D&D 4.0 is a RPG with the role playing dumbed down/almost removed in lieu of more "tactical" combat. Psh.

 

[Ieyke]

I RESENT that generalization, sir! I've been playing D&D almost since I was mentally capable of understanding the rules. Currently in four groups, two of them as the DM, two as players.

I compromised between 2nd and 3.x, if it comes down to using fourth or not playing; I'm not playing at all.

No offense, but I took that into account.

 

[Chibz]

I RESENT that generalization, sir! I've been playing D&D almost since I was mentally capable of understanding the rules. Currently in four groups, two of them as the DM, two as players.

I compromised between 2nd and 3.x, if it comes down to using fourth or not playing; I'm not playing at all.

No offense, but I took that into account.

Yeah, I honestly can't claim any more than twelve years of D&D experience. Then again, another person like me and a person who joined in 3.0 and you have 30 years of D&D experience right there.

 

[Alex_P]

I'm pointing out that you are both playing the game for the reason entirely if you look at it in terms of builds or stats. Also, I think he was speaking not in the literal sense (in terms of strategy), but in how "similar" they supposedly are.

And the point still stands; D&D 4.0 is a RPG with the role playing dumbed down/almost removed in lieu of more "tactical" combat. Psh.

Builds and stats are all that the 3e game mechanics have to offer you. D&D's actual "role-playing" stuff is largely based on setting fluff, a bunch of crappy advice in the book, and a shared culture among the player base that has rather little to do with what the books actually say or what the rules actually do. This all really becomes rather obvious if you start comparing D&D to other games.

The closest you get to game-mechanical support for "role-playing" is the old rule that gave you XP for each gp worth of treasure you got -- it's wacky and tacky but it's just perfect for the genre that old D&D was trying to emulate.

-- Alex

 

[Chibz]

I'm pointing out that you are both playing the game for the reason entirely if you look at it in terms of builds or stats. Also, I think he was speaking not in the literal sense (in terms of strategy), but in how "similar" they supposedly are.

And the point still stands; D&D 4.0 is a RPG with the role playing dumbed down/almost removed in lieu of more "tactical" combat. Psh.

Builds and stats are all that the 3e game mechanics have to offer you. D&D's actual "role-playing" stuff is largely based on setting fluff, a bunch of crappy advice in the book, and a shared culture among the player base that has rather little to do with what the books actually say or what the rules actually do. This all really becomes rather obvious if you start comparing D&D to other games.

The closest you get to game-mechanical support for "role-playing" is the old rule that gave you XP for each gp worth of treasure you got -- it's wacky and tacky but it's just perfect for the genre that old D&D was trying to emulate.

-- Alex

I fail to see how rewarding people for grabbing every bit of treasure they possibly can is rewarding good roleplaying.

 

[Alex_P]

I fail to see how rewarding people for grabbing every bit of treasure they possibly can rewards good roleplaying.

Look at the pulp adventure stories old-school D&D was trying to emulate. They're full of amoral grave-robbing hedonists. Greedily acquiring loot and then blowing it on drunken debauchery when you can't figure out how to spend it on anything useful fits perfectly. Attaching XP to the treasure -- which usually can't be used to power yourself up directly -- aligns the player's motivation with the fictional character's.

(Treasure-as-XP sometimes had the interesting side-effect of encouraging parties to try to bypass encounters with monsters, too. Often it had the even-more-interesting-but-play-breaking effect of encouraging PCs to try to steal from and cheat each other.)

-- Alex

 

[Chibz]

I fail to see how rewarding people for grabbing every bit of treasure they possibly can rewards good roleplaying.

Look at the pulp adventure stories old-school D&D was trying to emulate. They're full of amoral grave-robbing hedonists. Greedily acquiring loot and then blowing it on drunken debauchery when you can't figure out how to spend it on anything useful fits perfectly. Attaching XP to the treasure -- which usually can't be used to power yourself up directly -- aligns the player's motivation with the fictional character's.

(Treasure-as-XP sometimes had the interesting side-effect of encouraging parties to try to bypass encounters with monsters, too. Often it had the even-more-interesting-but-play-breaking effect of encouraging PCs to try to steal from and cheat each other.)

-- Alex

Granted, it rewards you to roleplay a particular type of character. I'll concede this point to you.

One in-game mechanic that (sort of) rewards gameplay has always been peacefully handled encounters. But I doubt they'd remove such a thing.

 

[Kais86]

My biggest issue with 4th ed. was that they gave abilities, generic things you or I could do (given proper training) all day long, until we got tired and decided we just wanted to kill our target, as special abilities, disarming your opponent is a once in awhile thing? Knocking them down, seriously? Were I to get into a fight with almost anyone and I decide I want to put them on the ground, I WILL put that person on the ground (with some exceptions naturally, but I'm already screwed if I picked a fight with someone I can't put on the ground). Another thing I found obnoxious was the ability of a fighter to inexplicably be able to walk up to a tower on stilts and literally force people to jump off, that these abilities had a "cooldown" was also VERY WoWish

 

[Chibz]

I agree whole-hearted on that point. Mundane abilities should NEVER have to cool down, or at least without well explained reasoning behind such a limitation. A swordsman (in real combat) doesn't magically "forget" how to disarm, or trip his opponent.

Why should my fighter? Are we all playing mental midgets?

What would've been preferable, at least in my eyes, would be to go back to the AD&D, Basic D&D model that worked so well.

The "Basic" D&D set would be useful as a more... accessible version of the "Advanced" set.

 

[McClaud]

Wow, is Alex_P ever the worthless Monty Haul player we were always trying to avoid if he believes that we should equate treasure with XP because the game is based on greed. There's a reason it's called a role-playing game - you role-play when participating in the game. Dur.

Look, I have one group that plays 4e and one that plays 3.5 (and one that plays MouseGuard, but that's neither here nor there). Out of both systems, I like 3.5 better, for various reasons. Yet, I can still play 4e with my other group. They love boardgames, and 4e is just a boardgame with an RPG stapled on top.

I know it sounds shallow like that, and maybe 4e is shallow comparitively. But it's bringing the other group of gamers who would never role-play into the game, and eventually, I plan to convert them into 3.5 gamers. My 3.5 group has been playing since 1987, when we were in high school. We learned to appreciate the ability to lose yourself in a game through role-playing. Atmosphere is the biggest part of that, and relying on a map with miniatures/markers was like secondary to our gaming experience. Now 4e wants me to make it the CENTER of my experience. They said, "No thanks, we'd rather run on our imaginations instead of counting out 1 inch squares."

In fact, maybe next week one of the 4e's who was actually thinking about the mechanics and said, "Wow, there is literally less freedom in what direction I can go as a Warlord," might join the grown-up 3.5 table.

 

[Chibz]

It's unfortunate that my days as a D&D player are dying. Once you've done everything, seen everything, "been everything". What else is there to do.

 

[McClaud]

It's unfortunate that my days as a D&D player are dying. Once you've done everything, seen everything, "been everything". What else is there to do.

Try a different RPG.

There's like literally thousands of them, and some of them are pretty good.

 

[Chibz]

My idea is that instead of playing them anymore, I could start ... designing them. Or at least the settings. There seems to be little interest around for Dark Heresy (a game I'm interested in). Maybe I'll start a thread...