Poll: Dungeons and Dragons 4th EDon'tion

[Alex_P]

A good GM should never even mention the rules. A master artisan can create a master product using anything..... Hence the master.

Hogwash.

Part of knowing what you're doing is knowing how to pick the right tool for the job and use it well -- and, yes, sometimes that means picking no tool or more than one tool.

Good players and GMs know better than to waste their time doing easy stuff the hard way.

Ruleplayers are the lowest form of life.

Non sequitur. Simply using the game rules to create structure doesn't make you a "ruleplayer" any more than rolling dice to resolve a game action once in a while makes you a "dieplayer".

This kind of "I don't need rules, I'm a master roleplayer!" thing is pretty much invariably the result of playing a bunch of games loaded with crappy, useless rules.

-- Alex

 

[AmbrMerlinus]

Apparently, 4th edition is what's forcing R. A. Salvatore to write his latest books even worse than usual. (More dark! More gritty! More suck!) That's my beef with it.

 

[velcthulhu]

Now that my players can't just "make a bluff check" they actually have to speak out their dialog.
Now that they can't just "Make a diplomacy check" they have to formulate and speak a persuasive argument.
Now that they can't just "Check for traps (or invisible) traps) they have to purchase 10ft poles, and top the stones ahead of them to ensure the floor isn't going to fall away, or spikes won't shoot out of the walls.

If you let your players get away with that stuff in 3.5, you were doing it wrong. I will, however, concede the point on those three specific skills, 3.5 was far from perfect, but it was better than fourth. Checking for traps was stupid, yes, in fact traps generally didn't work well. Having skills for bluff, diplomacy, or anything else that should be roleplayed needs to be handled carefully. I will also concede that some features of skills are improved in fourth edition- for example, rolling swim, jump, etc. into a single skill, athletics. I will, however, point out that in all the 4th ed games I've played, no one besides me has ever attempted to use any skill other than the "lore" skills, which function as ways for the DM to feed information to the players. In a 3rd edition game, skills were a larger part of character creation, and players would deliberately make characters with high versatility of skills, even at the expense of combat viability. This led to characters who would look for interesting ways to achieve their objectives, trying to find ways to use their skills to their advantage. There are only two ways to achieve any objective in 4th edition: 1. talk to it, and 2. kill it. I, personally, find this boring.

 

[WinkyTheGreat]

My snip

your snip

I agree. It was not all Wizards fault. However, the DM we had did what he was told by the book and we ran around one town for about an hour only to end up at the same NPC whom we first spoke to. We made it through the first book because it did have a bit of variation once we started attempting to do things our own way (killing NPC's for getting sassy and such). In the end, the problems with the first book were the DM's failing and not Wizards.

Eventually, we skipped to the book that begins at level 17 (under a new DM). About 2 sessions in we were stuck in a never-ending cycle of battle, move to the next room, battle, move to the next room, solve a bad puzzle, and so forth. Eventually, the DM at the level 17 campaign added an extra NPC into the dungeon because even HE was bored of the crawl and there wasn't much room for role-playing inside of a dungeon of that size. We wound up stopping because a friend made a campaign and player made campaigns tend to be more open ended and therefore more fun.

As I said the main problem with the first book was the DM. But the latter was much more difficult to have fun with.

 

[Alex_P]

Yeah, my player's made a campaign better by skipping a significant portion of it.

I'd argue that could probably be true of most campaigns played by tabletop gamers. The prevailing wisdom, supported by game mechanics that involve slowly doling out "experience points", is that the ideal kind of TRPG storyline is a slow slog toward some distant big finish. I think most games played would be flat-out better if more gamers dropped the idea that belaboring everything the way that an 800-page fantasy novel does is really the right approach to developing compelling stories in a tabletop game.

-- Alex

 

[Altorin]

This is getting fucking ridiculous.

 

[JacobCO]

If you let your players get away with that stuff in 3.5, you were doing it wrong.

And yet I faced constant opposition because I was "Playing it wrong" and "The rules say I just roll this dice" Yeah, no thanks, If I have to fight the rulebook (And, thereby, the player's expectations) the whole way, I'll just use a different system, thanks.

I will also concede that some features of skills are improved in fourth edition- for example, rolling swim, jump, etc. into a single skill, athletics.

Alright, common ground. Total agreement here. It was balls that charaters with few skill points almost had to waste them on silly things that seldome, if ever, came into play (Swim, I'm looking at you!) or would just not have quite enough SP to complete their character concept (Thief-acrobats that will drown in more than 3ft of water)

I will, however, point out that in all the 4th ed games I've played, no one besides me has ever attempted to use any skill other than the "lore" skills, which function as ways for the DM to feed information to the players.

Again, I'd have to blame the players, for lack of imagination, and/or the DM, for not making time for skills in the game. Just like 3.5 had to have the option to use skills put in by the DM, so does 4th, if there aren't any chasms to jump, buildings to scale, or tightropes to walk Acrobatics is worthless. If there aren't any races to be run, What's the point of Athletics, or Endurance? If the entire game takes place in the Underdark, what's the use of Nature? Or Dungeoneering if it's all in a forest.

Player's not using skills isn't 4es fault. It's either the fault of the DM, for not putting any use of the skills into his game, or the fault of the players, for not noticing that such opportunities exist (or for not creating them)

In a 3rd edition game, skills were a larger part of character creation, and players would deliberately make characters with high versatility of skills, even at the expense of combat viability.

You can have your cake and eat it too in 4th. You can be a thief-acrobat (Acrobatics, Athletics, Thievery) without having to be a human and/or dump 16 into Int. Why should all tomb raiders be Indiana Jones? You Still can be, if you want to, but you don't need to artificially dump into INT or play a rogue to be a Skill-Monkey.

This led to characters who would look for interesting ways to achieve their objectives, trying to find ways to use their skills to their advantage. There are only two ways to achieve any objective in 4th edition: 1. talk to it, and 2. kill it. I, personally, find this boring.

So, without an arbitrary point system to tell them so, your players don't look for "out of the box" solutions to problems? Without a Climb skill, they don't attempt to set ambushes from atop cliffs? How is that 4es fault. If anything, 4es skill system liberates all players to choose such paths for their characters without having to invest "points" into it. My players are always doing the unexpected: Big Boss got your friends locked up? Kill/Talk? No, create a diversion (A goddamn festival) sneak in, break everyone out, and replace them with disguised peasants (Unwilling, of course) so the big-bad doesn't notice for a while.Or Sneak to BB's home, abduct his family, initiate hostage exchange.

You have to Let your players decide to do things other than Fight/Talk. How do you let them know such things are allowed? well, you could try telling them...
If they don't get the picture, you could always have BB do it as some kind of plot device. The more nefarious BS you pull, the more innovative your PCs will become. Circle of life.

 

[Pumpkin_Eater]

Better than wasting months of your life and hundreds of dollars on WoW before realizing it's bad and you're addicted.

Grow a backbone. If you're not enjoying your time on WoW, then stop.

I did. Do you really think a current player would shame glorious Blizzard like that?

 

[lostclause]

D&D'rs trying to be elitist about a streamlined limited game system when D&D was streamlined & limited.

Pot calling the kettle black. Rules DO NOT affect the quality of the game in anyway. If your having a 'bad' session vcause of rules your GM sucks ass.

Stop whining about innovation & play an actual RPG instead of a functional decades old POS. RPG's are about adventures & bold strides, people playing D&D beyond their first year of RPGing are about as adventorous as old grannies in zimmer frames.

Out of curiosity, you criticise people for not deviating from Dnd quite often. What do you play/recommend? (yes I'm one of those despicable people who only plays 3.5)

 

[Marcus Attell]

EDon'tion?

it was meant to be a play on edition but wasn't nearly as funny as I had intended

Haha, yeah, even I could tell that.

It's really all down to what you're used to. I assume the point of 4e was to gain new customers since everyone who was smart patient enough to use 3e or 3.5e would already have bought a sourcebook. By "dumbing it down" they were making it more accessible and thus potentially in the long run less "ubergeek" and more "charmingly nerdy".

This is a little like ragging on KotOR for its heavily pared-down use of DnD rules just because Neverwinter Nights folks had a lot of fun min-maxing tweaking their characters. Sure it's less control over your character but that ultimately means less to get in the way of you hitting stuff with lightsabers.

It's not like 3e is software, so even if it they stop supporting it you'll still be able to play online with your friends (or offline as God Gary Gygax intended).

EDIT: OP, consider changing your poll to be a little less hostile to those who don't share your views.

I don't know, when 3rd Edition came out, I was dead set against it. I knew the 2nd ed. rules backwards and forwards, and wasn't interested in playing the new edition at all. Then a friend convinced me to play a D&D session with the 3rd rules, and I fell in love with the possibilities. So, when 4ed came out, I thought that I would be open and give it a try. To be honest, the thing that detracts from the game for me is that it focuses more on the combat aspect of the game, and I don't like the division of the character classes into either A or B, which makes character creation predictable, instead of allowing your imagination take the reigns.

 

[j0frenzy]

Apparently, 4th edition is what's forcing R. A. Salvatore to write his latest books even worse than usual. (More dark! More gritty! More suck!) That's my beef with it.

I actually find that rather amusing if true because the apparent name of the game with fourth edition is that everyone is supposed to be good (or at least not evil).

My honest opinion has pretty much already been stated. It is simpler and given the right players and DM, it is just as good as 3.5 in the creativity spectrum. I would argue that the game feels a bit limited, which is weird because they are releasing a book a month. The problem is that they are set on expanding my character choices frequently while giving DMs little extra in pre-constructed tools. Monsters are fairly limited, made worse by the fact that on a hypothetical scale, you are not supposed to make up NPCs using character sheets ( I think, I have been meaning to experiment with this though). Traps are a huge joke. There is pretty much one for each level for a party to encounter and if it is not on flavor with what you want, forget you. I know DMs are supposed to be creative, but throw them a slightly bigger bone. Especially since my players have a tendency to wind up with near dead characters when I experiment with the rules on them.

 

[lostclause]

snip for length

I'll look into tracking a few of these down (my group seems to be getting a bit bored of 3.5). Hopefully they'll have made it to the colonies and thanks for your recommendations.

 

[JesterRaiin]

Meethinks...

Mechanics, world, supplements dealing with every thinkable aspect of living are of secondary importance.
Every rpg system is only as good as its scenarios. They define its quality and tone.
I don't see too many possibilities for rpging, ("tru rpging" i mean) in official adventures.
It seems that all one can and SHOULD do in current D&D ed is... to kill.
Really.
It is just Diabloish hack and slash and shouldn't be compared to old editions at all.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Bah, go back to Basics

And Keep on the Borderlands is still a damn good game, as I've ran it in Call of Cthulu and Cyber Commandoes.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Ahh CC worst mechanics ever, best idea ever My players spent about an hour playing with their hands

Then you'll need this:

Keeps the overall plot, makes it scary without being overly lethal, has relevant dice rolls and doesn't give any stats for the Gods.

That's how you play Cthulu

On a side note the original Games Workshop edition of Judge Dredd is about the slickest system Ive ever seen, totally integrated into the mythos & intent of the game.

*coughs and splutters*

You mean the 20+2d10 Drive skill which has to be checked every time you're on a Megaway or you DIE????

 

[Abedeus]

Where's the option "I didn't play the 4th edition or don't know how they changed it so people hate it"?

But I do love the 3.5 edition.

 

[Viruzzo]

Associating 4E with WoW makes the thread stupid. Sorry. Actually, even comparing different editions of D&D is stupd, because they are different enough that you will either naturally prefer one, or (if you are an illuminated person) you will like all of them because you understand that the ruleset is not what it makes a good evening of roleplaying.

Keeps the overall plot, makes it scary without being overly lethal, has relevant dice rolls and doesn't give any stats for the Gods.

He meant Cyber Commandos, not CoC (I think). And why would I want to run a game where I don't kill 2-3 PCs per adventure? Where's the fun in that???