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SSGoW
2009-06-08, 03:43 PM
What (besides making it another edition completely) do you think should be worked on with 4e DnD? Like should they toltally redo a certain part?

Kurald Galain
2009-06-08, 04:02 PM
Well, there are a handful of mistakes and overpowered things or combos, but those are just details.

There are fundamental problems with skill challenges, and with rituals. Both appear to be rushwork added just before the deadline as an afterthought. Totally redoing both of those would definitely be helpful.

shadzar
2009-06-08, 04:31 PM
Honestly? They should remove the name D&D form it and resale it as something else, and it won't be a bad game. When people don't think of it as D&D, they won't have the same attachments to what D&D has been and think of it as a whole new game then it probably doesn't hold as many problems as people playing it thinking they are playing D&D.

This will remove any need for a 5th edition because you have put people in the right mindset and the trappings of D&D won't be included in it.

So the only thing that needs to change with it is removing the name and the mindset that it is D&D, and the things will work better.

Tiki Snakes
2009-06-08, 04:48 PM
Honestly? They should remove the name D&D form it and resale it as something else, and it won't be a bad game. When people don't think of it as D&D, they won't have the same attachments to what D&D has been and think of it as a whole new game then it probably doesn't hold as many problems as people playing it thinking they are playing D&D.

This will remove any need for a 5th edition because you have put people in the right mindset and the trappings of D&D won't be included in it.

So the only thing that needs to change with it is removing the name and the mindset that it is D&D, and the things will work better.

http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/0/77/214487-64148-judge-dredd_large.jpg
"I Knew You'd Say That."


Changes I'd like to see is more, well not support exactly, but more material geared to Evil characters, with or without 'Dm needs to approve' caveats.

NPCMook
2009-06-08, 04:51 PM
Honestly? They should remove the name D&D form it and resale it as something else, and it won't be a bad game. When people don't think of it as D&D, they won't have the same attachments to what D&D has been and think of it as a whole new game then it probably doesn't hold as many problems as people playing it thinking they are playing D&D.

This will remove any need for a 5th edition because you have put people in the right mindset and the trappings of D&D won't be included in it.

So the only thing that needs to change with it is removing the name and the mindset that it is D&D, and the things will work better.

The Same thing could have been said about 3.5 going from 2e, DnD has evolved over the years, just get used to it, games are going to change... a lot!

shadzar
2009-06-08, 05:14 PM
The Same thing could have been said about 3.5 going from 2e, DnD has evolved over the years, just get used to it, games are going to change... a lot!

That isn't what I meant that 4th was just a different game form past editions, but a different game form D&D ha been played.

When you look at 4th as though you are looking at D&D then everyone who has played D&D before carries baggage with them form things they look for from D&D.

When you look at it without those things form D&D, you only compare it to D&D as much as you would any other RPG you have played.

So looking at it as NOT D&D, then you don't get that baggage that automatically comes with the mindset of saying it is D&D.

If someone told you WoW was D&D, you would have certain expectations of it.

This is what has happened with 4th edition. When you look at it without those expectations you see the game differently.

Yes the games have changed, but this is a whole new game, and when you look at it like that you see that those things you carry a a player form D&D, really don't affect it that much, and you can look more closely at 4th edition for what it is.

So the only reason it needs things changes is to conform to your own ideals of what D&D should be, and when you remove those ideals then you may find that it needs less to be played and works fine on its own.

(Yes, I said 4th edition isn't a bad game, but is a bad game for playing D&D in. And even being a decent game, I still prefer D&D to it.)

So again 4th edition doesn't need any changes to it, other than the removal of the name D&D, and the mindset and expectations that come with that name.

Tiki Snakes
2009-06-08, 05:19 PM
Dungeons? Check.
Dragons? Check.
Adventuring parties kicking down doors and taking the inhabitants stuff? Check.
Skills, Feats, Wizards and Fighters, Monks and Barbarians? Critical Hits and a HP total? Six ability scores, with high as good? Check check and check et cetera.

In what way does 4th edition Significantly differ from the DnD IP as established in the previous editions as a whole?

potatocubed
2009-06-08, 05:29 PM
As Kurald Galain said above: skill challenges and rituals need an overhaul. Skill challenges are a neat idea but are nigh-impossible to incorporate into actual play. Rituals just need redesigning; I think the basic idea of take-feat-cast-spells is fine, but the rituals themselves don't work so well.

(Fortunately, the ritual design thing is kind of self-correcting. As the game continues and more supplements are released, the new rituals will be better designed. I hope.)

There are also mathematical problems with PC abilities scaling vs. monster abilities - not in the MMs so much, but according to the rules presented in the DMG for designing your own monsters.

The marking mechanic needs to be clarified, and then someone needs to explain how it works to the designers. There's evidence as late as Arcane Power that some of the writers still don't understand how marking is supposed to work.

There's also a number of things that I would have done differently, but they're more personal than anything else.

Kurald Galain
2009-06-08, 05:29 PM
In what way does 4th edition Significantly differ from the DnD IP as established in the previous editions as a whole?

Heh. If it were that easy, then WOTC/Hasbro would have sued every other RPG out of existence for plagiarism. It's like saying Harry Potter is the same as Great Expectations because they both have a school in them :smallbiggrin:

RTGoodman
2009-06-08, 05:35 PM
There are fundamental problems with skill challenges, and with rituals. Both appear to be rushwork added just before the deadline as an afterthought. Totally redoing both of those would definitely be helpful.

I think they've redone skill challenges in a series of articles in Dungeon Magazine, but I usually read Dragon instead and haven't kept up. I'll take a look in a bit when I get a chance and see how it goes. Not as sure about rituals, though - I've never really used them, so why do people think they don't work as they should?

Other than that, there's not much within the system that you could make big changes to. Edit a few feats, clarify some things, and stuff like that, mostly. Most of the other stuff that people will probably bring up are just personal things they'd rather see.

(And don't mind shadzar - he seems to show up to argue in every single 4E thread, no matter if his arguing is on topic or not.)

Thanatos 51-50
2009-06-08, 05:36 PM
Dungeons? Check.
Dragons? Check.
Adventuring parties kicking down doors and taking the inhabitants stuff? Check.
Skills, Feats, Wizards and Fighters, Monks and Barbarians? Critical Hits and a HP total? Six ability scores, with high as good? Check check and check et cetera.

In what way does 4th edition Significantly differ from the DnD IP as established in the previous editions as a whole?

Skills and feats are even as recent as third edition.

The base mechanic between 4 and 3 e are the same: Roll d20, add modifiers, beat a target number.

You're able to grapple, bull rush, charge, attack doors, kill monsters, loot corpses, defile tombs, move, attack, drink healing potions.
The four "classic" classes are present (Fighter/Mage/Theif/Cleric)

You have Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, and Cha.

You have saving throws, modifiable by your stats.

You have Weapon Proficencies

You have non-weapon profiencies (Although they're called skills)

You're set in a fantasy-mideval time period

You have a bunch of people sitting around a table slinging dice and eating pizza and drinking mountain dew.

I, too, am lost for the significant differance.


Heh. If it were that easy, then WOTC/Hasbro would have sued every other RPG out of existence for plagiarism. It's like saying Harry Potter is the same as Great Expectations because they both have a school in them :smallbiggrin:

I haven't read Great Expectations, but does it involve Wizards, Witches, & Wands? Is it centralised around the school? Is there a healthy dose of racisim? Does it centralise around one kid who is famous because his mum effectivly took a bullet for him?

You're over-simplifying his argument.
Also, you're ignoring Shadowrun, the WoD system, Exalted, et. cetera.

Tiki Snakes
2009-06-08, 05:39 PM
In reply to Kurald
Well, no? Because mechanically, though incompatible, dnd 4th edition still looks VERY similar to 3rd edition, really, to me. From what little I've seen, the difference between 2nd and 3rd was as big, if not bigger (especially as it co-incided with the whole tsr > Wotc thing).

Seriously, when people descrive 1st edition play, it does not sound at all like 3rd edition, at times. If 3rd edition is still DnD, how can 4th edition, which is much closer to 3rd than 3rd is to 1st, not be?

I mean, Elf was a class. >_>

If the sense of IP identity and traditions don't define an edition as belonging to it's precursors, what does?

lesser_minion
2009-06-08, 05:56 PM
4e is explicitly far more combat-orientated than Classic - noncombat aspects of the game have seen extensive streamlining to the point that some of them do feel like afterthoughts.

The design philosophy you are expected to adopt for monsters and NPCs is to essentially ignore every aspect of their identity outside of combat. Removing telepathy from demons because it has little bearing on how able they are to beat face.

This isn't necessarily a problem, but it still seems to have gone too far to be able to say with a straight face that this is essentially the same game.

I would probably prefer it if they actually wrote detailed entries for monsters which explained what they might do out of combat. Possibly a little more variety in what each individual kobold dragonshield might try to pull on you.

I'd also much rather see a monster manual with maybe one hundred entries, most of which are stunning, multi-page gems of pure, unadulterated kickass game design, rather than the short, sharp entries that the 4e MM actually gave us.

shadzar
2009-06-08, 06:00 PM
Dungeons? Check.
Dragons? Check.
Adventuring parties kicking down doors and taking the inhabitants stuff? Check.
Skills, Feats, Wizards and Fighters, Monks and Barbarians? Critical Hits and a HP total? Six ability scores, with high as good? Check check and check et cetera.

In what way does 4th edition Significantly differ from the DnD IP as established in the previous editions as a whole?

Youa re entirely missing the point and trying to turn the thread into an edition war. I can return your arguement and say then in what way with all those things present are other RPGs NOT D&D? Also D&D didn't always have feats and such as was added in 43rd.

The point is that even when you look at 4th you are bringing D&D mindset with you.

Why do skill challenges not work? Because you bring D&D tot hem because the name.

Now looka t them from outside of D&D ideals, and you will see the mechanic and system DOES work and works well. The problem is when you bring D&D ideals, they do not work to replicate what people wanted in past editions.

That is the problem with the D&D name on it.

It is a whole new game, and whole new game system, and its problems only stem from bringing the D&D name and mindset with it.

When you step out of the D&D mindset you see the skill challenges work.

You bring D&D ideals into the system and find you want to do things the D&D way, but D&D never worked that way, and won't. It doesn't mean there is a problem with the skill challenges, just that they don't work for D&D. Occum's Razor? Simplest explanation often tends to be the correct one. Ergo:

The system has nothing wrong with it, but the problem is the name and all the baggage the name brings with it. Your own expectations from the skill challenges in resolution of something in D&D are what is wrong with them.

If you stop thinking you are playing D&D, and play a new game that works like this because it works like this, then there is nothing wrong with them.

So the only problem with them is WotC tried sticking the D&D name, and its baggage on the system. People just aren't accepting the new system for what it is, but are seeing it AS something that doesn't work for emulating D&D. You can find the same problem and resolution in many other parts of 4th edition form healing surges, to the powers system.

Why long ago, I said it would have ben better for them NOT to name it D&D, because it isn't and people will be comparing it to past versions, rather than looking at 4th as a whole new game and system that it is. Yes, WotC screwed up, but not with the rules, they screwed up placing the wrong name on the rules.

So if people stop trying to play D^D with 4th edition, and just play 4th edition, they will likely find that either it isn't for them, or it works fine for what it is (which isn't D&D, since the correlation of past things in D&D don't fit with 4th edition.)

Can anyone play 4th without the mindset of D&D brought with them to see how it plays, and then say it doesn't work without making ANY reference to how something worked in a past rendition of D&D?

InkEyes
2009-06-08, 06:12 PM
Heh. If it were that easy, then WOTC/Hasbro would have sued every other RPG out of existence for plagiarism. It's like saying Harry Potter is the same as Great Expectations because they both have a school in them :smallbiggrin:

Great Expectations doesn't have a school in it. Well, unless you count Biddy teaching out of her house... It's almost like they work on a different school systems...

KBF
2009-06-08, 06:14 PM
*snip*



If the fact that something, somewhere in the system works differently is enough to name it another system as opposed to another edition of the system, there would be no editions. But a ton of outdated systems. That or, only like one or two per company that never get updated.

I don't think you have answered the question. What is so fundamentally different from 3.5, that demands that it should be renamed?

Thajocoth
2009-06-08, 06:25 PM
I disagree with skill challenges needing to be fixed. They're are great when done right. (Though, I don't follow the formula perfectly... I just count the successes and, if they're successful, I count it as ((successes-1)/2) monsters of their level. It works out to the same numbers they give, but allows much longer skill challenges to be possible and adds flexibility... But even without doing that, I still like the way WotC handles them.)

Rituals, definitely. (I'm adding an item to my campaign to try to help with this: They'll get this next session. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=113635))

Hybrid classes need work, but they ARE working on them.

Above all else though, what needs work is the fact that I can no longer buy digital copies of the new books. Physical copies of some books are good to have at the table... But for most books, it's better to print out the pieces I need than to take the whole book to the table, especially if I'm re-leveling a monster or giving a monster a magic item. (Which is how I give the players magic items. Let the monsters use them on the players first.) By not selling the digital copies any longer, they're encouraging us to pirate scans... And I really don't like that.

The New Bruceski
2009-06-08, 06:27 PM
Shadzar, I think you might have a few hangups you need to see somebody about.

"Skill challenges don't work because you're calling it D&D"? Really?

The name of a game doesn't make it inherently good or bad. Removing the name doesn't make it better. Just because you can't get past your feelings of what D&D "should be" doesn't mean it's a universal problem, and isn't really appropriate in a thread about the mechanical difficulties.

-----

On to the topic at hand, the problem with rituals is they were reigned in from the power of 3.x spells by multiple means, and those means interfere with each other.

--Less power.
--Longer casting times
--reagent cost

All those together take rituals from the 3.x level of "you shouldn't use anything but spells" to "why bother using spells". As a fix I've toyed with the idea of allowing players to modify rituals by making them fast, cheap or good. (values variable, I haven't had a chance to test it yet)
--Fast: 1/10 the cast time. Takes the full material cost due to slop.
--Cheap: 1/10 the material cost. Takes the full cast time because there's no room for error.
--Good: +4 to any skill check that's a part of the ritual.

If you try this, be sure to note "with exceptions", for things like item crafting, or anything that gets out of hand that I haven't noticed. The goal is to make rituals regularly useable, in combat as well, without making they the only worthwhile solution to problems.

shadzar
2009-06-08, 06:32 PM
I don't think you have answered the question. What is so fundamentally different from 3.5, that demands that it should be renamed?

:sigh: Since I really don't play 3.x, I couldn't tell you. But the entire concepts placed into 4th is what deserves a new name. Again, the simple reason you bring things from a former D&D mindset, and then find 4th doesn't play like you expect D&D to play, for those liking or disliking it; then you can come to the simplest conclusion that the name is the problem.

So in answering the OP, I don't think there is anything wrong with 4th, except it tries to be something it is not. No matter how many people classify it as having this that or the other and that is all they need for it to be D&D, then again those people must also think EVERYTHING that includes those things to be D&D, and should be discounted form the discussion, as they are generalizing a set of themes, ruleset, and all other thins to just the game include a few things.

So when you divorce the name of D&D form 4th edition, and look at it as though it was a completely different game, you too might see there is nothing really wrong with it, or any way that it works. The problems had are because your expectations brought by the name.

So what needs to be changed in 4th is the name, so that people CAN divorce their own D&D expectations from 4th so they can see the game for what it is rather than comparing it to D&D in any other edition.

Jarawara
2009-06-08, 06:35 PM
Shadzar, I understand what you are trying to say, but there's one problem to your thesis. You say that 4th edition is 'not like D&D of the past'... but whose D&D are you referring to? Yours. Not necessarily mine. Or the next guys, either.

Now I'm not going to go gung-ho defending 4th edition - of what I've seen of it, I don't like it much - but I've had several friends play it and say that it's (and I quote) "What D&D should have been from the beginning." I ask of them how different it is from 3rd, and they "completely, it's a whole new game"... and yet they call 4th edition D&D, and really don't see 3rd edition as D&D at all.

In fact, 3rd edition doesn't seem to fit my definitions of D&D very well at all. Encounters are supposed to be balanced to the party. Parties are assumed to be 4 members. Vary from that party size at your own risk. Wealth should be kept to a standard by level, or balance goes out the window. (WTF??) So I tell my tales of adventuring parties of 60+ members ranging from 1st to 6th level... No, that's not a typo, I said SIXTY or more members... taking on warparties of enemy troops, and then breaking up into strike forces to delve into various parts of the dungeon, with runners to alert the others and recombine in case of serious opposition.... and DM's and players today tell me that D&D as a gamesystem would just break down and fail if I tried that today. Well... that's because 3rd edition is just 'not D&D anymore'.

Except... there are people out there who were *always* playing the small party of adventurers, taking on the appropriate leveled encounters, to which D&D always worked for them. That's because *THEIR* D&D was different from *MY* D&D. And *YOUR* D&D is different from *THEIR* D&D (and *MY* D&D, and so maybe 4th edition doesn't work for you (or for me), but it does work for them, while 3rd edition does work for you, and not for me, and maybe/maybe not for others, and 2nd edition works for others, and so on and so on.

Here's the clue that links this all together:

IT'S ALL D&D.

Maybe it's not the kind of D&D you want to play, but it is what some others want. Maybe some will still hold out playing OD&D, but once again, it's all D&D for them too. In fact, I'd say that Rolemaster and Shadowrun and WOW is also D&D, just a wildly different version. But it's all the same stuff, with differing rules. The 'expectations' of the game are as varied as the number of players playing RPG's (ie, in the millions of variations).

Lord_Kimboat
2009-06-08, 06:51 PM
Shadzar, if your hypothesis is correct, then 3rd edition should not have been called D&D either; as all of the 2nd edition players would have brought all of their 2nd Ed baggage with them.

I agree that 4e is pretty much a completely different game and there are some things I don't like about it. Of course, there are some things I didn't like about 3e as well.

People do seem pretty spot on about skill challenges being hastily added. I don't find rituals to be that bad but I wouldn't mind them tightened up a bit. For example does 'Enchant Magic Item' really let you create any magic item in the book as long as you have an item, the material compentents and the time? This seems far more useful than say, 'Hand of Fate' which is the same cost but has hardly the flexibility.

I'm also growing a little concerned about 'book creep'. Every new race/class/power, etc. seems to be trying to be just a little more powerful than the last one as an incentive to buy the book. This will soon lead the original PHB races and classes to be too underpowered. This would be a pity because it seems that balance was one of the primary goals and more enjoyable aspects of 4e.

TheEmerged
2009-06-08, 06:54 PM
Going back to the original point instead of the inevitable edition war...

1> There is still too much campaign-specific material in the Player's Guide. This is a waste of paper IMO.

2> The skill-challenge system, at least to me, looks like it went through an edit late in its development. There is an EASY and OBVIOUS fix that has been done via errata, but this needs to be in print.

3> More explanation needs to be made in the books about moving the RP elements into pure RP instead of the combat system. I'm in the school of being glad that players no longer have to choose between combat effectiveness and "fleshing them out". This needs to be explained in print -- maybe instead of that nonsense about gods and religions that won't apply to every campaign?

4> The problems with monster defenses versus player attacks needs to be corrected. They clearly overvalued the attack bonuses of leader powers (failing to realize most of THEM have to hit to be available). In fairness, this isn't the CRISIS some people make it sound like but it is fairly obvious in moderate testing.

5> They need to do more with opposing race/class feat.

RTGoodman
2009-06-08, 06:58 PM
I'm also growing a little concerned about 'book creep'. Every new race/class/power, etc. seems to be trying to be just a little more powerful than the last one as an incentive to buy the book. This will soon lead the original PHB races and classes to be too underpowered. This would be a pity because it seems that balance was one of the primary goals and more enjoyable aspects of 4e.

I don't really see much of this happening so far. A few things in supplements have been overpowered (RRoT, Orb of Inevitable Continuance, etc.) or have been stealthy fixes to the core mechanic (Robust Defenses, [X] Expertise) but I don't think those are out of some incentive to move more books. Most of the stuff in Martial Power, Arcane Power, and PHB2 is about at the same level, or maybe slightly above, the stuff from PHB1. Either way, I think the stuff that's slightly better just comes from designers having seen what in PHB1 was good and what was weaker and trying to aim for higher than the weak stuff.

shadzar
2009-06-08, 07:19 PM
"What D&D should have been from the beginning."

Then I would ask those people why they ever played any previous edition if they didn't like what D&D was, and then if they didn't like what D&D was, why would they pick up yet another game with D&D on it? :smallconfused:


I agree that 4e is pretty much a completely different game

That is my entire point. If you look at it with the D&D glasses off then you can see that, then judge the game for what it is rather tan trying to compare this new game to D&D just because it has the name D&D.

There are things I don't like about it, but it isn't a game I would like to play by any name. But it works for what it does, I just don't like WHAT it tries to do. Other may, and there is no problem with that...but it just has to be looked at in the right way to judge it on its own merits, rather than being shackled to the name D&D and being compared to a 30+ year old heritage that comes with that name.

I think many people have that problem with the name. I have found very little wrong with 4th when you don't think in terms of it being a successor to D&D. Just it isn't the type of game I would play.

So that is why I asked people what do they see when looking at it as not D&D, but its own game, and thank you both for thinking about it from that standpoint, even if you don't agree with the view you saw as being the same one I do. :smallsmile:

Starscream
2009-06-08, 07:23 PM
The Same thing could have been said about 3.5 going from 2e, DnD has evolved over the years, just get used to it, games are going to change... a lot!

This is true, but I have converted 2e and 1e modules and monsters to 3.5 without any sort of difficulty. The mechanics change, but the basic idea is the same.

I can't say the same for 4e. A 4th edition Tomb of Horrors of Temple of Elemental Evil would be so different as to bear no resemblance to the originals.

The same goes for characters. There isn't a single race or class from the older editions I couldn't switch over to 3.5 with minimal difficulty. Classes in particular are endlessly frustrating to homebrew in 4e, because you need to create about 50 different powers for them.

Artanis
2009-06-08, 07:26 PM
For example does 'Enchant Magic Item' really let you create any magic item in the book as long as you have an item, the material compentents and the time?
No. You can only make magic items up to your level. That means that you aren't going to get any advantage from it other than convenience and being able to choose the specific form of your goodies (as opposed to whatever you happen to come across). You also have to remember that the material components are the same price as just buying the item outright, so it actually costs more than if you found it in a shop (due to the cost of the mundane item and the cost for learning the ritual itself).


I'm also growing a little concerned about 'book creep'. Every new race/class/power, etc. seems to be trying to be just a little more powerful than the last one as an incentive to buy the book. This will soon lead the original PHB races and classes to be too underpowered. This would be a pity because it seems that balance was one of the primary goals and more enjoyable aspects of 4e.

Like rtg0922, I don't see a lot of that sort of thing. Obviously, the simple fact that there's more options means that something is going to wind up a little stronger, but it isn't a systemic thing. Hell, Martial Power is downright insulting if you're making a shooty Ranger.

Plus, there's only so much support they can give the options in the supplements. I would not be at all surprised if Beast Mastery Rangers or Vestige Pact Warlocks were never mentioned again for the rest of 4e's life.

Colmarr
2009-06-08, 11:47 PM
Honestly? They should remove the name D&D form it and resale it as something else, and it won't be a bad game.

Oh... no.... Not again :smallannoyed:

shadzar
2009-06-08, 11:53 PM
Oh... no.... Not again :smallannoyed:

And Ollivander goes back form selling his wands to Harry Potter and helping Jodi Foster speak to aliens that look like her father galaxies away, and lies back on the counter of a diner in Spaceballs while saying this....

Did you read everything I wrote about it, or just the one sentence?

Tackyhillbillu
2009-06-09, 12:18 AM
Then I would ask those people why they ever played any previous edition if they didn't like what D&D was, and then if they didn't like what D&D was, why would they pick up yet another game with D&D on it? :smallconfused:



That is my entire point. If you look at it with the D&D glasses off then you can see that, then judge the game for what it is rather tan trying to compare this new game to D&D just because it has the name D&D.

There are things I don't like about it, but it isn't a game I would like to play by any name. But it works for what it does, I just don't like WHAT it tries to do. Other may, and there is no problem with that...but it just has to be looked at in the right way to judge it on its own merits, rather than being shackled to the name D&D and being compared to a 30+ year old heritage that comes with that name.

I think many people have that problem with the name. I have found very little wrong with 4th when you don't think in terms of it being a successor to D&D. Just it isn't the type of game I would play.

So that is why I asked people what do they see when looking at it as not D&D, but its own game, and thank you both for thinking about it from that standpoint, even if you don't agree with the view you saw as being the same one I do. :smallsmile:

Shadzar... I really want to know what the hell your definition of D&D is. Cause I have no idea.

SSGoW
2009-06-09, 12:31 AM
so... the idea is to call it something else... umm wow ... that cahnges nothing... i mean like sooo if i loved final fnatasy 8 ... but hated final fantasy 9 .... the reason is cause its called final fantasy...

anyways moving on...

Foryn Gilnith
2009-06-09, 12:35 AM
Don't waste time discussing something that's not going to happen. D&D has too much brand recognition for WotC to change. What would they change it to, anyway?

All I have to parrot is the same old song: Skill Challenges and Rituals. Multiclassing proper would be nice; but I play 3.5 for that

SSGoW
2009-06-09, 12:41 AM
Well i do like the multiclassing in 4e.. its like being a carpenter and seeing a electrician work... you can pick up on some of the things they do but not all and you are still fundamentally a carpenter. i've always felt that alot of multiclassing in 3.5 was a little odd like mages study forever to get theiir spells but a fighter can take a level of sorcerer?

anyways


i never got to play enough to use rituals :( (there are not that many DM's where i live )

Thanatos 51-50
2009-06-09, 12:57 AM
Shadzar, my mind is subconciously editing out and skipping over the entirety of your bloody posts for some reason. Maybe formatting and repetition?
Could I just get a clear thesis, as well as your definition of 'what D&D is'?

Please?

Anyway:
I, personally, think Skill Challanges are completely borked. They really serve no use except to make non-combats flow more like combats.

And the long cast time and component costs for rituals are okay, on the surface. I really have no issue with it taking ten minuetes per page for a mage to conceal what his spellbook says (Secret Page). Most rituals would have very little to no use in combats, anyway. BBEGs can cast them before time to prep the battlefield.
(IE: Teleportation circle to somewhere else, and rubbing out the runes on the other end work just as well as Teleport without Error for an escape plan.)
Some component costs make some rituals not very feasable. (Eye of Alarm and Tenser's Floating Disk would be great if they didn't drain your gold reserves if you use them with any form of regularity.)

But, that's just me.

Panda-s1
2009-06-09, 01:30 AM
Skill challenges and rituals. Or rather, how they are presented. Skill challenges can be awesome when done right, however people seem to have this mentality of "it replaces everything outside of combat, why is it so broken?" The fundamental difference between combat encounters and skill challenges is that losing a skill challenge means your life becomes more complicated. Losing a combat... raise the party?

I've noticed that there's much more lower level rituals, and fewer high level ones, and it seems to me that rituals represent "zOMG, magic!" on any level. Basically at lower levels, any ritual is gonna cost you a bit, but by paragon tier casting Tenser's Floating Disc is a drop in the bucket. Basically at higher levels I should be casting lower level rituals left and right as a means to make life for the party easier. Just my 2 cents on the subject.


4e is explicitly far more combat-orientated than Classic - noncombat aspects of the game have seen extensive streamlining to the point that some of them do feel like afterthoughts.

The design philosophy you are expected to adopt for monsters and NPCs is to essentially ignore every aspect of their identity outside of combat. Removing telepathy from demons because it has little bearing on how able they are to beat face.

This isn't necessarily a problem, but it still seems to have gone too far to be able to say with a straight face that this is essentially the same game.

I would probably prefer it if they actually wrote detailed entries for monsters which explained what they might do out of combat. Possibly a little more variety in what each individual kobold dragonshield might try to pull on you.

Y'know, as a DM, I honestly have to say that detailed monster descriptions can really hamper imagination.

I mean I look at it like this, if I read a class entry in the PHB that detailed everything that class did, would that make sense? I kinda feel the same way about super detailed monster descriptions. Maybe in some wayward Dragon article, and maybe they could've spared us a bit more info in the MM, but having it all at once is a bit much, and confining.

The MM says goblins live in the wilderness, or underground, or even sewers, and if I have enough sense I could very well plan out what a goblin settlement is like. It also helps if I'm making my own setting, 'cause having your players complain "The books says this!" at you is never fun.


More than that, I really don't see any benefit to the MM explaining what a monster does in it's "off hours." 'Cause at the end of the day, your entertaining a bunch of players, and the majority of them aren't gonna care which nut the goblin was scratching before they ambushed his poor ass for the sake of glory.

sonofzeal
2009-06-09, 01:39 AM
Skill Challenges. Seriously. I applaud the effort to get everyone involved... but forcing everyone to be involved just stinks. You can accomplish the same purpose in 3e already, with a good DM.

Asheram
2009-06-09, 02:39 AM
The thing I'm mostly annoyed about in 4e, is the big difference between your characters and commoners.

In third edition it was... so-so. Commoners were Weak, but that's how they are, low hp, generic stats of 10's.. But it's all quite imaginable that you've been one of them once.

In fourth edition though, it's laughable. Commoners (Human rabble) have 1hp like minions, weaker than the 3.5 edition and quite pathetic in any way.

Now, no big deal when you compare them amongst themselves. But when you compare them to a player... Then the hilarity begins.

Now, the 3.5 edition, a player and a npc commoner aren't that different. They work by the same rules and, well, You can relate to them. Sure, they still get killed by a cat if you're unlucky, but so can you if you're a L1 wizard.

While 4'th edition... Right... Say a rogue. Your character was once one of these, growing up on the street and learning skills the tough way. Then he found Papa-ji's school of "Becoming the Übermench" and "How to fight like an action hero"

What I'm annoyed at is the feeling that you get when looking at the commoners.
You should be able to relate to them. but instead in 4'th edition, if you want to look at them as vermin and exterminate them as such, you can!
Commoners should start to look laughably weak at Level 10, not at Level 1.

warrl
2009-06-09, 02:53 AM
As I see it, the character classes in D&D3.0 PHB (because that's what I have in paper form) are:

Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Wizard.

They differ significantly in combat. They differ out of combat. They can all DO things out of combat, that aren't even similar to combat, with support from standard capabilities and standard rules. In fact, aside from perhaps the Fighter, they can all go their entire lives and exercise most of their standard abilities without ever seeing combat.

Comparatively, in 4.0 the PHB1 classes are:

Fighter with minor magic, Fighter with moderate magic, Fighter with significant magic, and War-mage. (Total 8 classes, not evenly distributed.)

They don't necessarily differ much in combat, aside from the War-mages. (They CAN differ, no argument - but because of their players and their chosen abilities within the classes, not because of the classes.) They differ even less out of combat, because there's not much else that the rules and standard abilities provide any support for - aside from creating magic items, which all classes have pretty much equal access to.

Kurald Galain
2009-06-09, 04:32 AM
I disagree with skill challenges needing to be fixed. They're are great when done right. (Though, I don't follow the formula perfectly... I just count the successes and, if they're successful, I count it as ((successes-1)/2) monsters of their level. It works out to the same numbers they give, but allows much longer skill challenges to be possible and adds flexibility... But even without doing that, I still like the way WotC handles them.)
So what you're saying is, the rules for SC work even though you're actually houseruling them to something else... :smallbiggrin:


The name of a game doesn't make it inherently good or bad. Removing the name doesn't make it better. Just because you can't get past your feelings of what D&D "should be" doesn't mean it's a universal problem, and isn't really appropriate in a thread about the mechanical difficulties.
That's true, it's not about the name.

The main problem with a skill challenge is that it can report "success" when the task isn't actually complete, can fail to report "success" when the task is complete, and can report "failure" when the characters haven't screwed up yet.

For instance, if the challenge is "getting into the castle", good design requests that you allow a variety of checks, including e.g. dungeoneering and history to recall crucial facts about the castle layout. If three characters try to think if there was a secret passage in the past, and all fail to remember, then they have failed the challenge and are now unable to enter. Conversely, if three characters succesfully remember something useful, then poof, they are now in the castle. And on the third hand, if the party does something clever that gets them in the castle, but only requires one skill check, then they are inside but haven't passed the challenge yet, so they must roll a few more meaningless checks.

You'd be surprised as to how often these three come up. Oh yeah, a related issue is that a stealth check from the sneaky rogue somehow makes the clanky paladin more quiet, and that a jump check from the rogue somehow gets the clumsy wizard over the chasm as well.



All those together take rituals from the 3.x level of "you shouldn't use anything but spells" to "why bother using spells".
Precisely.

Kurald Galain
2009-06-09, 06:03 AM
1> There is still too much campaign-specific material in the Player's Guide. This is a waste of paper IMO.
Would you mind elaborating, because I find there's almost a complete lack of any setting-specific stuff in the PHB.


2> The skill-challenge system, at least to me, looks like it went through an edit late in its development. There is an EASY and OBVIOUS fix that has been done via errata, but this needs to be in print.
True, but that "easy and obvious" fix doesn't solve most of the fundamental problems in skill challenges.


4> The problems with monster defenses versus player attacks needs to be corrected.
They did that, and it's called Weapon Expertise (and Implement Expertise). I'm not convinced that this was actually necessary, though.



I agree that 4e is pretty much a completely different game and there are some things I don't like about it. Of course, there are some things I didn't like about 3e as well.
Oh, it does play completely differently. 3E can be played with a board, but was not written with a board in mind; indeed, the default is just to explain what you want to do, and let the DM figure it out. 4E is designed based on a game baord, and the default is that every turn you pick one of your select discrete powers to use.



I'm also growing a little concerned about 'book creep'.
Yes. This is definitely true for the Adventurer's Vault, and also for Arcane Power. I'm not really convinced that Martial Power or the PHB2 are power creep, though.



Basically at lower levels, any ritual is gonna cost you a bit, but by paragon tier casting Tenser's Floating Disc is a drop in the bucket.
Yes, but the GP cost is only the most obvious of the problems with rituals. The other two being the ludicrous casting time, and the many restrictions on the effects.

Saph
2009-06-09, 06:14 AM
I'm going to add yet another vote to "skill challenges and rituals". Skill challenges are clunky and annoying, rituals vary between outrageously good to pointlessly weak without much in between.

Other than that, it's a good system, for what it does.

- Saph

hewhosaysfish
2009-06-09, 06:33 AM
The 5 alignments.

Some people think that alignment is an out-dated, limiting, straight-jacket. They will mot br happy to still have 5 of them hanging around.

Some people think that the 9 alignments are an essential thematic component of DnD mythos. They will not be happy to lose 4 of them (nor about the apparent implication that Lawful Good is more Good than Good and Chaotic Evil is more Evil than Evil).

WotC think that they can please both of the above groups by meeting in the middle when all they'll achieve is to frustrated them both.
Yes, alignment is now sufficiently divorced from any mechanics (no Detect Evil, no Smite Evil, no Falling) that you can either reintroduce the dropped 4 or drop the remaining 5 as you please... but if that were the intention behind this move, shouldn't they have put a side-bar in somewhere to suggest these as optional rules (in the DMG possibly, if they didn't want to confuse newbies)?

Burley
2009-06-09, 06:52 AM
Well i do like the multiclassing in 4e.. its like being a carpenter and seeing a electrician work... you can pick up on some of the things they do but not all and you are still fundamentally a carpenter. i've always felt that alot of multiclassing in 3.5 was a little odd like mages study forever to get theiir spells but a fighter can take a level of sorcerer?


But, if a fighter is an effective fighter, Charisma would probably end up a dump stat.

I like your "carpenter and electrician" analogy. Remember, however, that if the carpenter watches the electrician and picks up some valuable tricks, then he can never go watch a plumber or a stonemason. Unless he isn't really a carpenter, and is actually a conman (bard), who can pick up tools from everybody.

Mystic Muse
2009-06-09, 07:10 AM
I much prefer the multiclass system in 3.5. you can learn things from another class while not learning from you're other one temporarily to get actually useful abilities. also you get to heal ONCE during an encounter? COME ON! and potions shouldn't increase your healing surge value unless you want it to. it should be able to HEAL you.

and Shadzar has a point. if you approach 4th edition as D&D after having played a previous version you AREN'T going to like it. if you approach it as a different game with some of the same mechanics it can hold it's own very well.changing the name would help. as I said it's a game that can stand well on its own but when you compare it to the others it doesn't hold up so well. I realise my opinion isn't everybody's I'm just hoping some of you will see my point.

I've played both and I prefer 3.5 because there are so many more options and there's a bunch I like about 3.5 more. I'm not saying 4th edition is horrible. I actually like it but if I though of it as something besides D&D I'd probably enjoy playing both equally. I know eventually 4th will have more options and all but right now it's not able to contend with 3.5 hmm. maybe I can convince a DM to allow me to play a homebrewed version of the hellreaver for 4.0 eventually.

mistformsquirrl
2009-06-09, 07:16 AM
Hrmm...

Keeping in mind that I've only somewhat payed attention and only have PHB, PHB2, MM and DMG (the latter 3 borrowed at that)

1) Monks. Unless I've completely missed it and they've come out at some point. If any rule set would be well suited to Monks, I think 4e would be it. Especially combined with...

2) Multiclassing in the 3e sense. 4e multiclassing is... eh... to me. It doesn't feel like I could take 2 disperate classes and fuse them together concept-wise into a new whole. I'm not saying that in 3.5e that thats always the best way from an optimization standpoint - but from a fluff standpoint (the thing I care about most); it was... well it was nice.

Even before things like the Thug fighter variant and the like, you could mix a Fighter and a Rogue and get something similar. Or you could use the same mix, and use bluff + SA and call yourself a Samurai (the SA being iaijutsu type stuff - this of course assuming just core)

Now, later in the edition when there are presumably a gajillion base classes out there - great, no problem. We should ideally have our bases covered at that point; albeit it's still going to feel restrictive to me. However that's going to take awhile; and by that time it may very well be time for a 5th edition. I mean maybe I'm wrong, and 4th will last for a long, long time; but I have my doubts. No system is perfect, and every company wants to make money. Eventually the sales will stop and... guess what time it'll be? *sigh* (The ciiiiiiircle of RPGs... hehe)

Sorry, grumpy tangent.

Mostly with 4e its a ton of minor things - I don't like a lot of the new fluff either; I can change it of course; but still, kind of annoying to have to re-purpose a lot of things rather than being able to use them out of the box. I hate feeling like I'm fighting the background, rather than being able to work it in.

Etc etc...

Still, it's not a bad system or anything, though I will add that I also get the 'doesn't feel like D&D' thing myself. There's just a fundamental shift of paradigm between 3.5e to 4.0e I think; and that shift is... well I'm not sure I feel it was the right way to shift it. I don't think it's bad, but it just feels like in some of the changes, movement for movement's sake, rather than movement for the sake of improving the game.

Blackfang108
2009-06-09, 08:48 AM
1) Monks. Unless I've completely missed it and they've come out at some point. If any rule set would be well suited to Monks, I think 4e would be it. Especially combined with....

They are CONFIRMED by Wizards for PHB3.

Psionic Striker. (Ki powersource has been scrapped per Mike Mearls)

There is a playtest version up, but it's DDI only.

Mystic Muse
2009-06-09, 09:05 AM
DDI was also a mistake. DEATH TO DDI!

Jayabalard
2009-06-09, 09:45 AM
Would you mind elaborating, because I find there's almost a complete lack of any setting-specific stuff in the PHB.If I had to guess, I'd suggest that he's probably referring to Dragonborn and Teiflings (and whatever the other set of elves are called).


Seriously, when people descrive 1st edition play, it does not sound at all like 3rd edition, at times. If 3rd edition is still DnD, how can 4th edition, which is much closer to 3rd than 3rd is to 1st, not be?

I mean, Elf was a class. >_>No, elf was a race in 1e. It was a class in Basic D&D.

Nor was it a class in OD&D as far as I'm aware (though my experience with that is sketchy and long ago)

Keep in mind that there were 3 different editions before 2e.


The thing I'm mostly annoyed about in 4e, is the big difference between your characters and commoners. This isn't so different from earlier editions of D&D. In 1e, commoners were 0 level creatures.

Decoy Lockbox
2009-06-09, 09:50 AM
The thing I'm mostly annoyed about in 4e, is the big difference between your characters and commoners.

In third edition it was... so-so. Commoners were Weak, but that's how they are, low hp, generic stats of 10's.. But it's all quite imaginable that you've been one of them once.

In fourth edition though, it's laughable. Commoners (Human rabble) have 1hp like minions, weaker than the 3.5 edition and quite pathetic in any way.

Now, no big deal when you compare them amongst themselves. But when you compare them to a player... Then the hilarity begins.

Now, the 3.5 edition, a player and a npc commoner aren't that different. They work by the same rules and, well, You can relate to them. Sure, they still get killed by a cat if you're unlucky, but so can you if you're a L1 wizard.

While 4'th edition... Right... Say a rogue. Your character was once one of these, growing up on the street and learning skills the tough way. Then he found Papa-ji's school of "Becoming the Übermench" and "How to fight like an action hero"

What I'm annoyed at is the feeling that you get when looking at the commoners.
You should be able to relate to them. but instead in 4'th edition, if you want to look at them as vermin and exterminate them as such, you can!
Commoners should start to look laughably weak at Level 10, not at Level 1.

Well, if my memory of my old 1e AD&D DMG holds, commoners also had 1 hp in that. I dunno man, if you are feeling the need to kill commoners because they have 1 hp, I think you may have caught the crazy somewhere along the line. Its not like you coulnd't easily kill scores of commoners as a level 1 character in 3rd edition. I mean, our playgroup even ran a game of "D&D commoner" where we all played level 1 commoners leading a rebellion against the fuedal lord who was opressing us. We had to tangle with fighters, adepts, warriors, the whole works. Let me tell you, the body count on our end was quite large. There isn't much of a difference between a 10Ac, 1d4hp-having guy, and a 10ac, 1 hp having guy.

I think the idea is that a normal, non-heroic person who is "hit" (i.e. takes a wound from an attack) will be generally incapacitated by it. Just think about a regular person taking a gunshot or a good knife stab. For this reason, when I run 4e games, all footsoldiers/conscripts have 1 hp. If you "miss" them, it represents their armor or shield blocking you. If you "hit", then you wounded them and they either die/are incapacitated, or "play dead", as was advised in the 3.5 DMG when it discussed the lower orders of soldiers (who guys with leather armor and spears if I recall). Then again, this might come from my experience playing Warhammer, where normal soldiers have 1 wound they can take before dropping, and more heroic personages can take 2, 3 or maybye 4 if they are crazy tough.

lesser_minion
2009-06-09, 09:51 AM
Overall, 4e is a reasonable quality ruleset with a few problems. Exactly what would have been expected. Reading through some of the designers notes actually left me with the impression that it would be much better, but the end result is still reasonable.

The most basic things I would have done differently include:

Tried to make skill challenges seem more 'natural' to the characters Possibly created more than one page related to doing the same for combat Made monsters more detailed. I don't like the way that most monsters have been stripped down to a tiny bit of flavour text and some combat abilities. A couple of utility powers, and a longer list of powers from which the DM can pick and choose would make the listings many times more useful without sacrificing the original goal behind streamlining them in the first place. Made more of an effort to hang onto the various shapeshifting rules (there are a few other things which WotC have written off as a lost cause even though they can do a lot to enrich a game, and weren't necessarily lost causes) I'm not really too sure if I see that much of a problem with rituals, but I'd at least like to see the majority of them be a bit more interesting, with the old utility spells reduced to, idk, consumable magic items usable by any character? I'm pretty sure I would have done alignments... differently.
Forgotten Realms fluff was sufficiently tied to Classic D&D that it might have been better to create something completely new as a flagship setting. Maybe even make FR contrast the basic 4e setting. Go back and rewrite the Jump skill so that it tells you the DC needed to perform a particular task using the skill. The 4.0 rules for this are an obscene hybrid of the 3.0 and 3.5 jumping rules which combines the worst of both worlds while still rejecting the best.

Jayabalard
2009-06-09, 09:56 AM
If the fact that something, somewhere in the system works differently is enough to name it another system as opposed to another edition of the system, there would be no editions. But a ton of outdated systems. That or, only like one or two per company that never get updated.

I don't think you have answered the question. What is so fundamentally different from 3.5, that demands that it should be renamed?1e and 2e material (characters and adventures) could be used together with virtually no changes. 2e and 2.5e and 3e stuff could be used together with fairly simple changes.

Converting to 4e from any earlier edition requires nearly the same level of effort as converting from D&D to the Palladium FRPG; you have to use the same methodology, converting from archetype to archetype and trying to find some sort of mold that your character can fit into.

Tiki Snakes
2009-06-09, 10:04 AM
Made more of an effort to hang onto the various shapeshifting rules (there are a few other things which WotC have written off as a lost cause even though they can do a lot to enrich a game, and weren't necessarily lost causes)

Wait, wait. You're missing the Shapeshifting rules? the ones that are consistently mentioned as one of the biggest reasons and sources of completely broken stuff in 3.5? >_>

Really? I mean, I respect the variety it allowed in 3.5, but they were hideously flawed.

lesser_minion
2009-06-09, 10:09 AM
Wait, wait. You're missing the Shapeshifting rules? the ones that are consistently mentioned as one of the biggest reasons and sources of completely broken stuff in 3.5? >_>

Really? I mean, I respect the variety it allowed in 3.5, but they were hideously flawed.

I said that I would have liked to have seen some effort to fix them, instead of what seems to have been "OK, this is a lost cause, move on".

I get the impression that things which proved to be broken in 3.5 were merely badly handled, and that the best solution in 4e would have been to look at them and make sure that they couldn't break so easily.

Perhaps they could have added a ritual that grants someone a few powers relevant to a particular creature, and gives them that creature's form, while they were writing one hundred stunningly well-crafted and brilliantly textured monsters (instead of trying to one-up the previous editions on number of monsters found in the first monster manual).

Although WotC seems to have abandoned the concept of quality over quantity for certain elements of their system.

Kaiyanwang
2009-06-09, 10:22 AM
I said that I would have liked to have seen some effort to fix them, instead of what seems to have been "OK, this is a lost cause, move on".

I get the impression that things which proved to be broken in 3.5 were merely badly handled, and that the best solution in 4e would have been to look at them and make sure that they couldn't have been broken so easily.


I really agree with this. IMHO, most of 4th edition "fixes" stay to 3rd edition flawed stuff like beheading stays as a remedy for headache.

Kaiser Omnik
2009-06-09, 10:31 AM
The thing I'm mostly annoyed about in 4e, is the big difference between your characters and commoners.

In third edition it was... so-so. Commoners were Weak, but that's how they are, low hp, generic stats of 10's.. But it's all quite imaginable that you've been one of them once.

In fourth edition though, it's laughable. Commoners (Human rabble) have 1hp like minions, weaker than the 3.5 edition and quite pathetic in any way.

Now, no big deal when you compare them amongst themselves. But when you compare them to a player... Then the hilarity begins.

Now, the 3.5 edition, a player and a npc commoner aren't that different. They work by the same rules and, well, You can relate to them. Sure, they still get killed by a cat if you're unlucky, but so can you if you're a L1 wizard.

While 4'th edition... Right... Say a rogue. Your character was once one of these, growing up on the street and learning skills the tough way. Then he found Papa-ji's school of "Becoming the Übermench" and "How to fight like an action hero"

What I'm annoyed at is the feeling that you get when looking at the commoners.
You should be able to relate to them. but instead in 4'th edition, if you want to look at them as vermin and exterminate them as such, you can!
Commoners should start to look laughably weak at Level 10, not at Level 1.

Please...how many times do players fight commoners (mobs aside)? Even in 3rd edition, my commoner/expert NPCs looked like this on my notes:
Mr Blacksmith
+5 Profession, +5 Craft

And commoners are minions in the MM because they are not supposed to be a threat to player characters, simple as that. It doesn't mean that everyone has only 1 hp before acquiring a player class. You should read on the theory behind the design of minions.

Yora
2009-06-09, 10:33 AM
AD&D 2nd Edition
http://www.larryelmore.com/images/paintings/elmore_p065al.jpg

D&D 4e
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/APower/21.jpg

THAT's the main reason 4e doesn't do anything for me.
If you had fun with AD&D, you could quite easily translate your character into the 3.5e rules, and continue your campaign, the only real change was that it was easier for new players to understand what they have to roll right now.
Of course, after about a year I guess, 3rd Edition took of into other directions which brought us other things, which finaly created Eberron and Tome of Battle. Both very good products, if you like the style, but it might not be everyones cup of tea. But if you liked your old AD&D campaigns, you could go on with them and just had to re-calculate NPC stats and roll your dice differently.
But with the release of 4e, the last ties to the old style were severed and the style of Eberron and ToB advanced even further into something completely different, from what D&D had been before. 4e is not THAT different in style from the very late 3.5e, so if that style was how you liked your D&D, there's probably not much wrong about 4e. But if you have an "old-school" image of what is D&D, you really don't find anything of it in that 4e game.
4e isn't a bad game. It's just not a new edition of AD&D.

Asbestos
2009-06-09, 10:36 AM
I said that I would have liked to have seen some effort to fix them, instead of what seems to have been "OK, this is a lost cause, move on".

I get the impression that things which proved to be broken in 3.5 were merely badly handled, and that the best solution in 4e would have been to look at them and make sure that they couldn't break so easily.

Perhaps they could have added a ritual that grants someone a few powers relevant to a particular creature, and gives them that creature's form, while they were writing one hundred stunningly well-crafted and brilliantly textured monsters (instead of trying to one-up the previous editions on number of monsters found in the first monster manual).

Although WotC seems to have abandoned the concept of quality over quantity for certain elements of their system.

I think that more Polymorph type stuff will come out in later books, Arcane Power has exactly one polymorph power... at level 29... as a daily... but it does let you change into a huge dragon. My guess is that more will come out as daily powers.

lesser_minion
2009-06-09, 10:42 AM
I hope it does get added. You're right - a lot of this material does seem to be seeing a reworking, rather than being completely abandoned. It still feels like they could have created it sooner - 3e was still doing well, so it wasn't like 4e had to be rushed out the instant 2008 came along.

While I don't dislike 4e, I'm not going to pretend that I didn't find it a disappointment in some respects.

Mainly because the way the designer's notes read, a decent-sized chunk of the changes they appeared to be making were actually changes I would have made, and aside from one thing, almost all of the remainder still sounded like very good ideas.

While they generally did make the changes they said they'd make, the end result was rather unexpected.

I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in believing that the game would be - or at least feel - very different to WotC's actual creation.

Oslecamo
2009-06-09, 10:52 AM
[B][SIZE="4"]
But with the release of 4e, the last ties to the old style were severed and the style of Eberron and ToB advanced even further into something completely different, from what D&D had been before.

OBJECTION!

Tome of Batle at least allowed me to spam my special abilities all day long. I could "gasp" throw sand at someone's eyes more than once every 24 hours!

As for Eberron, well, the only thing that actually went to 4e was the picture style. 4e lore is nothing like Eberron ever was. The classes, the items, the spells, they took a complete 180º turn degree in there.

Gralamin
2009-06-09, 11:23 AM
The main things that need to be fixed in 4e are:
1) Rituals
2) Skill Challenges
3) A Few Classes
4) Conditions

For 1) I have come up with an idea (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=113671) for rituals that address the "To much cost for to little effect" and also makes them sorta flexible.

For 2) I usually address it by making basic notes for a skill challenge (Worth X, XP, Rewards / Consequences, and what exactly it is), and then have Players approach it with no information in metagame of what it is. If they do something that I deem requires a check I'll ask them to roll one (Usually including what they said as a bonus if its a diplomatic skill). It seems to work well.

For 3) Is a bit harder to address. The specific classes that need help are things like Avenger (Good with multiclassing, but doesn't really stand on its own).

For 4) There mostly needs to be more, and less use of the very common ones (Daze, immobilize, etc).

Yora
2009-06-09, 11:52 AM
OBJECTION!

Tome of Batle at least allowed me to spam my special abilities all day long. I could "gasp" throw sand at someone's eyes more than once every 24 hours!

As for Eberron, well, the only thing that actually went to 4e was the picture style. 4e lore is nothing like Eberron ever was. The classes, the items, the spells, they took a complete 180º turn degree in there.
I don't object to that.
I think tome of Battle and Eberron changed how the designers feel what the style of fantasy is for D&D. And though I don't want to go into the gameplay aspects here, the style created for Warcraft 3 and adopted for WoW certainly also had it's part in this.

And I guess once you throw overboard what you think the game is about, you're getting very soon to think different about how the game is played.
Which I also don't like. But that's my personal oppinion.

RTGoodman
2009-06-09, 12:08 PM
The thing I'm mostly annoyed about in 4e, is the big difference between your characters and commoners.

That's the POINT of 4E - it's a game of Heroic Fantasy where you take the role of an adventurer, one of those rare folk who can stand up to the challenges of the world and face them head-on. In your first ten levels, you're already Heroic, after all. If you don't like the idea of your character being inherently special, well, 4E isn't the system for you.



Some people think that the 9 alignments are an essential thematic component of DnD mythos.

Tell that to Gygax's original Law, Neutrality, and Chaos...



and Shadzar has a point. if you approach 4th edition as D&D after having played a previous version you AREN'T going to like it.

I still disagree with this. I approached 4E as D&D and love it; most of my friends that I've introduced to 4E had only played a bit of 3.5 but after playing 4E said, "Man, this is cool - it's much easier and more streamlined than what I've played before." I guess it still depends on what your definition of D&D is, and that isn't really the topic here.



2) Multiclassing in the 3e sense. 4e multiclassing is... eh... to me. It doesn't feel like I could take 2 disperate classes and fuse them together concept-wise into a new whole.

Eh, that's still on it's way, too, just like the Monk. Hybrid character rules have been in the last two Dragon Magazines, and the full rules'll be out early next year in PHB3.


On that note, one thing I was thinking about and wondering whether it would cause problems is changing the multiclassing system thus:

-You can still only choose one class-specific multiclass feat, unless you're a bard. You can dabble in another class and even be relatively proficient, but you can't master several different paths in most cases.

-When you select a "power-swap" feat, you can trade out one power of each type (encounter, utility, daily) at Heroic tier, up to two powers of each during Paragon tier, and up to three of each during Epic tier.

Those, combined with more multiclass feats that give access to other class features (the Ranger one in PHB gives Hunter's Quarry, and one in MP gives two-handed ability) maan you're a lot closer to true multiclassing, but without having to deal with the Hybrid class stuff (which, frankly, I don't like).

lesser_minion
2009-06-09, 01:13 PM
I would probably re-write some of the explanations for certain mechanical aspects of the game as well. Healing Surges would be renamed something more like Fatigue Levels, to make it clearer that most healing in 4e comes at the price of tiring a character out.

Limited exploits would also get a little more explanation and a little re-working in the hopes of avoiding any serious strain being placed on suspension of disbelief (throwing eight daggers so skilfully that they all temporarily blind an opponent...)

Jayabalard
2009-06-09, 02:01 PM
That's the POINT of 4E - it's a game of Heroic Fantasy where you take the role of an adventurer, one of those rare folk who can stand up to the challenges of the world and face them head-on. In your first ten levels, you're already Heroic, after all. If you don't like the idea of your character being inherently special, well, 4E isn't the system for you.That kind of supports the "4e is a completly different game in a way that no other edition change was" argument.


Tell that to Gygax's original Law, Neutrality, and Chaos...The 3 alignment set up was only around for a couple of years. I'm also skeptical about it being Gygax's original 3, since I seem to recall that he's the one that pushed for AD&D which had the 9 alignment mythos.


I still disagree with this. I approached 4E as D&D and love it; most of my friends that I've introduced to 4E had only played a bit of 3.5 but after playing 4E said, "Man, this is cool - it's much easier and more streamlined than what I've played before." He said "previous editions" ... editions as in plural. So he's not really talking about people who've only played 3.5e, or 3.0e. This isn't to say that noone who's been playing D&D for a while is going to like 4e, but there does seem to be a fair trend of older D&D players disliking specific parts 4e.


OBJECTION!

Tome of Batle at least allowed me to spam my special abilities all day long. I could "gasp" throw sand at someone's eyes more than once every 24 hours!It's all well and good that you like it, but nothing here contradicts the text that you quoted... The point of which is that this is a substantial shift in the game.

Kurald Galain
2009-06-09, 02:10 PM
Tell that to Gygax's original Law, Neutrality, and Chaos...
That's Michael Moorcock, actually.

Asheram
2009-06-09, 03:11 PM
Please...how many times do players fight commoners (mobs aside)?
And commoners are minions in the MM because they are not supposed to be a threat to player characters, simple as that..

The point I were tying to make is; I can't imagine any of the characters once being a commoner.

There's no real step between the commoner and the "Adventurer Übermench" that stands before us.
Sure, I can imagine with a couple of years of extremely hard schooling, but.. atleast I don't want to be forced into that backstory for every character I have.

Artanis
2009-06-09, 03:12 PM
The point I were tying to make is; I can't imagine any of the characters once being a commoner.

There's no real step between the commoner and the "Adventurer Übermench" that stands before us.
Sure, I can imagine with a couple of years of extremely hard schooling, but.. atleast I don't want to be forced into that backstory for every character I have.

In this case, said objection really doesn't belong in a thread regarding changes that, as the OP says, do not involve making a whole new edition.

shadzar
2009-06-09, 03:13 PM
That's the POINT of 4E - it's a game of Heroic Fantasy where you take the role of an adventurer, one of those rare folk who can stand up to the challenges of the world and face them head-on.

And oddly the reason I played D&D is because it didn't force that mentality on you, and you could play a peasant earning his stripes in the world.

Otherwise I would have played Superman in medieval times for a hero fantasy.

Asheram
2009-06-09, 03:16 PM
What (besides making it another edition completely) do you think should be worked on with 4e DnD? Like should they toltally redo a certain part?

Well, totally redo a certain part. I do believe it fits into that.

Artanis
2009-06-09, 03:45 PM
Well, totally redo a certain part. I do believe it fits into that.

But you're not talking about redoing a certain part, you're talking about redoing the entire premise.

Asheram
2009-06-09, 03:55 PM
But you're not talking about redoing a certain part, you're talking about redoing the entire premise.

*smirk*
How about the name then? Changing it from D&D 4'th edition into "Paragon! Exalted, as imagined by WotC"

Kurald Galain
2009-06-09, 03:59 PM
*smirk*
How about the name then? Changing it from D&D 4'th edition into "Paragon! Exalted, as imagined by WotC"

"PhD your game"?

SSGoW
2009-06-09, 04:10 PM
Changing the name doesn't change the game though O_o

"a rose by any other name still smells as sweet"

shadzar
2009-06-09, 04:55 PM
Changing the name doesn't change the game though O_o

"a rose by any other name still smells as sweet"

But changing the name of 4th edition has a chance of changing people's expectations going into it.

A burger is still a burger whether it is a Whopper, or a Big Mac? Or is the name of each of those things carrying personal expectations from the name, as both are still burgers.

If you don't go into 4th edition expecting it to play like D&D you have played before, and it doesn't; then you may look at what it does with a more open mind.

Correct?

warrl
2009-06-09, 05:21 PM
Please...how many times do players fight commoners (mobs aside)?
I think the point is that the large majority of PCs presumably once were commoners.

Sure, you might find a few PCs who were raised (from a very young age) as fighters-with-magic or war-mages *by* fighters-with-magic or war-mages. But not all that many.

The rest? They started as commoners.

I can see some commoners (not large numbers) being swept into the military and sent into basic training to become competent men-at-arms: fighters, paladins. War-mages, particularly of the clerical sort, might apprentice with other war-mages. So they'd essentially be cloistered and protected for the long journey from an ordinary 1-HP commoner to a 15-or-more-HP first-level character.

But rangers? Rogues? Not likely. The large majority of both should be more than commoners but less than level 1. And there's nothing in between.

And for that matter, many medieval commoners with combat experience were spear-bearers - if they were lucky, spear-and-board. Their combat training took half an hour. That doesn't make them 4E first-level.

If it isn't feasible for commoners to become first-level characters, where (in-world) do first-level characters come from?

In 3.5, a first level character is not all that much better than a similarly equipped commoner. Better, yes. But not overwhelmingly better. It wouldn't take a lot of specialized, protected training and practice to cover the gap. For some classes, a mild bout of good luck might let them survive a nasty situation and get enough experience to qualify.

NecroRebel
2009-06-09, 06:25 PM
I think the point is that the large majority of PCs presumably once were commoners.

Sure, you might find a few PCs who were raised (from a very young age) as fighters-with-magic or war-mages *by* fighters-with-magic or war-mages. But not all that many.

The rest? They started as commoners.

I can see some commoners (not large numbers) being swept into the military and sent into basic training to become competent men-at-arms: fighters, paladins. War-mages, particularly of the clerical sort, might apprentice with other war-mages. So they'd essentially be cloistered and protected for the long journey from an ordinary 1-HP commoner to a 15-or-more-HP first-level character.

But rangers? Rogues? Not likely. The large majority of both should be more than commoners but less than level 1. And there's nothing in between.

And for that matter, many medieval commoners with combat experience were spear-bearers - if they were lucky, spear-and-board. Their combat training took half an hour. That doesn't make them 4E first-level.

If it isn't feasible for commoners to become first-level characters, where (in-world) do first-level characters come from?

In 3.5, a first level character is not all that much better than a similarly equipped commoner. Better, yes. But not overwhelmingly better. It wouldn't take a lot of specialized, protected training and practice to cover the gap. For some classes, a mild bout of good luck might let them survive a nasty situation and get enough experience to qualify.

Why do you think most PCs arose from commoners? We have no evidence for that, and you just cited a great deal of evidence that suggests that most PCs were never commoners.

If it isn't feasible for (most) commoners to become first-level characters... First-level characters come from the nobility! Or wealthy merchant clans, or, on very rare occasions, a character might just happen to be a Talent who is lucky enough to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

3.5e first-level chracters were, in fact, far above and beyond first-level commoners; a Fighter, for example, has multiple weapon and armor proficiencies that would take much more than an afternoon of training to learn, is vastly more durable, has access to training for skills (class skills) that no commoner does, and starts with more wealth than most commoners can save in a lifetime. The other classes in the 3.5 PHB, with the possible exception of the Sorceror, are even worse.

"A lot of specialized, protected training and practice to cover the gap," you say? I call that either taking a level in a PC class or leveling up. Yes indeed, level 2, 3, or 4 commoners can match a level 1 Fighter! Congratulations, you also described something that happens in 4E. Good job.



Adventurers, except in very rare cases, did not arise from the lower classes. Upper-middle and upper-classes are where adventurers come from.

Sanguine
2009-06-09, 06:30 PM
Adventurers, except in very rare cases, did not arise from the lower classes. Upper-middle and upper-classes are where adventurers come from.

That's absurd, they come from wherever the player wanted them to come from. My experience has shown no leaning toward the upper-classes. In fact it seem to lean toward the lower-middle class in my experience. And from an in game reasoning, why would the wealthy want to adventure? They have plenty of money so why risk there lives for money?

NecroRebel
2009-06-09, 06:49 PM
That's absurd, they come from wherever the player wanted them to come from. My experience has shown no leaning toward the upper-classes. In fact it seem to lean toward the lower-middle class in my experience.

No one ever said player reasoning had to be logical, did we? If we're going strictly for versimillitude, there must be some source for all the skills and equipment, and the logical explanation for their presence is an upper-class upbringing.

Not that I don't agree with you; most players will say that their characters come from a similar background to themselves, and most games are from a middle-class background. Perhaps the reason why the story focuses on them is because they're among those rare Talents I referred to, ne? :smalltongue:


And from an in game reasoning, why would the wealthy want to adventure? They have plenty of money so why risk there lives for money?

Kicks? Really, you've never read a story about a rich person wanting adventure? Hell, read old myths; essentially all of them (Gilgamesh, the Odysee and Illiad, Journey to the West, legends of Camelot, and others) involve someone who was extremely priveledged - kings, princes, lords, nobles - who went on adventures for various reasons.

And I'm sure no one has ever heard of the fine, upstanding citizens we call the wealthy ever doing things that would seem a bit silly just in persuit of more money. I mean, no one who has the connections to build up a ponzi scheme worth several billion dollars would build up a ponzi scheme worth several billion dollars in search of billions of dollars, right? :smallyuk:

Jarawara
2009-06-09, 07:05 PM
If you don't go into 4th edition expecting it to play like D&D you have played before, and it doesn't; then you may look at what it does with a more open mind.

Correct?


Correct.

And if you don't go into 3rd edition expecting it to play like D&D you have played before, and it doesn't, then you may look at what it does with an open mind.

And if you don't go into 2nd edition expecting it to play like D&D you have played before, again you keep the open mind.

And if you don't go into 1st edition expecting it to play like earlier versions of D&D, then again you won't get messed up with the expectations game.

And if you don't go into Bob's game expecting it to play like other games of D&D, then you can look upon Bob with an open mind.

And if you don't go into Christine's game expecting it to play like other games of D&D, then you can look upon Christine with an open mind.

And if you don't go into Teddy's game expecting... well, gods, I never know what to expect in Teddy's game. In fact, just don't go into Teddy's game, trust me. :smalltongue:


So what makes 4th edition so different that it needs a name change, while 3rd edition and 2nd edition and 1st edition and Basic and Original and Bob's game and Christine's game and even Teddy's game are all still called D&D?

I repeat: It's all D&D. D&D is what we make of it. And if you expect certain things, well, that's just you and your particular expectations, not necessarily the definitions of 'real' D&D.

Heck, I remember when Dave was so surprised that I didn't have Kender as a standard playing race. I told him I didn't have Kender because Kender were a Krynn-specific race, and I didn't want to be stealing from everyone else's worlds. He said, and I quote "But Krynn is the standard D&D world. It's the base, and everything else is the specific campaigns that you can borrow or steal from." Uhhh... no, Dave. Greyhawk and later Forgotten Realms were the standards. Krynn was a specific campaign world for Dragonlance. He remains convinced otherwise. To him, D&D *IS* Dragonlance.

We even see such differing opinions playing out right here. One poster says that D&D characters start as being commoners (and has trouble seeing how 4th edition can portray that), another says no, PC's are nobility and elites, and never were just 'commoners'. Two totally different mentalities, both having been playing the same game, probably for years and years.

It's all D&D. 4th Edition just caters to some better than others, and while I'm not particularly fond of it myself, it's as deserving of the name D&D as is any of the previous editions, and of editions to come.

Lert, A.
2009-06-09, 07:08 PM
What I would have truly enjoyed is if they used the same type of system as Star Wars Saga Edition. Smooth multiclasssing, more personal choice.

Each class gains talents and bonus feats in a linear manner. Different bonus feat lists and talent trees continue to make each class different, but a balance between the classes is maintained. Multiclassing to cherry-pick talents may make you more powerful but I have yet to see a truly overpowered character.

The choices of talents seems better that that of powers since you don't get to only choose from a certain list of powers at each level. I means that if you want to be a utility player with little to no combat ability, but still a skilled and valuable player, you can.

Recap (plus a couple of other points):

- better multiclassing
- more choice to be a combat character, utility character, or a combination of both
- like many others say, skill challenges
- again, a +1 to better rituals

shadzar
2009-06-09, 07:28 PM
So what makes 4th edition so different that it needs a name change, while 3rd edition and 2nd edition and 1st edition and Basic and Original and Bob's game and Christine's game and even Teddy's game are all still called D&D?

I repeat: It's all D&D.

You can repeat all you want, but that doesn't make things true. :smallwink:

What makes 4th edition so different is because there is no point of comparison. It is purposefully divorced from the other editions, so why wasn't it also divorced from the name? :smallconfused:

The only reason I have heard people say they kept the name is for the sake of money. They wouldn't have got as much to begin with killing D&D, and making a new game. New games are not something people would have bought up initially at the speed D&D is. So if you have anything else as a reason to keep the name, other than "the value of the name", then please tell me why it should be called D&D?

What if....I hate this type of thing but,....

What if they had named it something else, would people have been so receptive to it, and would it be doing as well, or bad as some say?

Reverent-One
2009-06-09, 07:33 PM
So if you have anything else as a reason to keep the name, other than "the value of the name", then please tell me why it should be called D&D?

Because it is D&D, simple as that. You've been asked at least once how exactly 4e is so different that it doesn't deserve the name D&D, and how exactly do you define "what D&D is" and have yet to answer those questions.

falconflicker
2009-06-09, 07:34 PM
- more choice to be a combat character, utility character, or a combination of both


The problem with that, is that a combat character is somewhat useless outside of combat, where as a utility character is somewhat useless inside combat. In that case, no matter what you play, you will always be bored during some part of the game, where as 4e D&D separates in-combat capacity and out-of-combat capacity, so that each character has an equivalent amount of each to each other character, making sure that there is no point at which the mechanics say your character is useless.

Lert, A.
2009-06-09, 07:40 PM
The problem with that, is that a combat character is somewhat useless outside of combat, where as a utility character is somewhat useless inside combat. In that case, no matter what you play, you will always be bored during some part of the game, where as 4e D&D separates in-combat capacity and out-of-combat capacity, so that each character has an equivalent amount of each to each other character, making sure that there is no point at which the mechanics say your character is useless.

True. But as others have pointed out, the game is very combat oriented. Giving a few more choices to gain utility powers (or an equivalent) can pull the game away from a hack-and-slash model. I would also mention that even a utility character can be of benefit in combat though aid another actions, setting up flanking, using items to benefit the rest of the team, without having to go to the point of "I hit the enemy with my quarterstaff, thus healing my ally."

Panda-s1
2009-06-09, 09:57 PM
So what you're saying is, the rules for SC work even though you're actually houseruling them to something else... :smallbiggrin:


That's true, it's not about the name.

The main problem with a skill challenge is that it can report "success" when the task isn't actually complete, can fail to report "success" when the task is complete, and can report "failure" when the characters haven't screwed up yet.

For instance, if the challenge is "getting into the castle", good design requests that you allow a variety of checks, including e.g. dungeoneering and history to recall crucial facts about the castle layout. If three characters try to think if there was a secret passage in the past, and all fail to remember, then they have failed the challenge and are now unable to enter. Conversely, if three characters succesfully remember something useful, then poof, they are now in the castle. And on the third hand, if the party does something clever that gets them in the castle, but only requires one skill check, then they are inside but haven't passed the challenge yet, so they must roll a few more meaningless checks.

You'd be surprised as to how often these three come up. Oh yeah, a related issue is that a stealth check from the sneaky rogue somehow makes the clanky paladin more quiet, and that a jump check from the rogue somehow gets the clumsy wizard over the chasm as well.

Honestly, I think you're looking at it the wrong way.

The DMG gives this advice: if your players need to know there's a secret passage to get into the castle, then they should already know, whether through hearsay, or they found a map, or maybe someone told them.

If say they succeed on a History check, then it's probably not knowing the way in, it's knowing of a secret passage way, which could either count as a success or gives them a really high bonus to their next Stealth check.

That's another thing: not every successful skill check has to give you a success on the challenge. In the example of "the sneaky rogue somehow makes the clanky paladin more quiet," it doesn't (and shouldn't) have to be the rogue making sure everyone is quiet. Let's say a crucial moment comes in the challenge where everyone has to be stealthy, then everyone could roll stealth. If the majority of them succeed, then the guards don't notice anything, but if they don't then the guards become suspicious and add a failure (and worse, might make further stealth checks harder).

Same with "a jump check from the rogue somehow gets the clumsy wizard over the chasm as well," everyone should make that jump check. Or maybe the rogue will get smart and construct a rope-bridge-thing to help the other players across, though honestly that doesn't seem like a good situation for a skill challenge.

But like I said before, skill challenges aren't the be all, end all for non-combat situations in 4e. They're not pass or lose situations either. I mean hell my personal belief is the only "game overs" in RPGs should either A) be dictated by the rules, or B) be the result of the entire party being dead or otherwise incapacitated (a belief I'm sure a lot of GMs believe). Skill challenges aren't "get over this chasm or die," or even "use proper etiquette at the king's ball, or you can't continue the adventure." They're "make it across the valley before the evil army amasses," or "spot the assassin at the king's ball before it's too late!" Failures for those could be "You've arrived too late, now you have to make it past a horde of bugbears to get to the evil wizard!" or "You notice the assassin at the last second as she's about to kill the king, now you have to fight her with the king in immediate danger!"

In short, like combat encounters, you need to be creative or it's incredibly flat, or impassable.

Colmarr
2009-06-09, 11:01 PM
Did you read everything I wrote about it, or just the one sentence?

To be honest, just that sentence.

Because I've seen and read the arguments before (including one in which Matthew, IMO the most literate and historically-versed D&D player on these boards) specifically disagreed with you about how close to (or far from) "D&D" 4e is.

Ultimately, it's a spurious argument, because D&D "is" different things to different people.

I read through basic D&D and AD&D when I was a kid, but never really played either. I also owned 3.0e D&D, but didn't really start playing until 3.5 was released. For me, 3.5e is D&D.

It's like arguing that "Aliens (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090605/)" is not an "Alien (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078748/)" movie, because it's a sci-fi war movie rather than a sci-fi survival horror movie.

But mostly I groaned because every time I've seen that argument come up it's sidetracked a thread that I was otherwise interested in, and would likely do so here.

As it turns out, I was right.

Panda-s1
2009-06-09, 11:07 PM
DDI was also a mistake. DEATH TO DDI!

Why death? DDI is pretty awesome! I should know, I... have a subscription ^^; Sure, it's stuff that's not in books, but isn't that what Dragon and Dungeon were all about? Not to mention I get two magazines with no ads. Hell, the last time I read a magazine that had no ads for entertainment purposes was when I was 8. Highlights for Children :smallbiggrin:


AD&D 2nd Edition
http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/7029/elmorep065al1.jpg

D&D 4e
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/APower/21.jpg

THAT's the main reason 4e doesn't do anything for me.
...Okay, so you're trying to say that 4e doesn't do anything for you because the art is different. Um...

Okay, how about this, I'll share my favorite piece of D&D art, ever.
http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/3506/elmorep012al1.jpg
Oh well what do you know, it's also by Larry Elmore (and 20 years old to boot). I can get into why I love it so much, but my main point is I don't see how art is a barrier. The 2nd ed. example I could very well see happening in a 4e game. Subsequently I could see your 4e example happening in a 2nd ed. game (minus the using an orb, but I don't understand 2nd ed. well enough to make that judgment). I mean hell, it's a mounted fighter, mounted paladin, a downed fighter, a bow ranger, and staff wizard fighting a red dragon on a snowy battlefield. That's bad ass, and quite honestly I feel inspired. And the 4e example, it's only a tattooed wizard casting magic missile at a swarm of demon bats on a tower in the middle of a thunderstorm, I can't see how that can't happen in 2nd ed. And hell, what if Larry Elmore did a piece for 4e? Does that create some kind of paradox?

On a related note, I feel like for every piece of 2nd ed. art I do like, there's one that I don't, either 'cause it's too cheesy, too abstract, or just outright sexist.


If you had fun with AD&D, you could quite easily translate your character into the 3.5e rules, and continue your campaign, the only real change was that it was easier for new players to understand what they have to roll right now.
"Quite easily"? What about all the skill points? And the feats, can't forget those? Even spells changed a bit, and ability scores scale differently between the two systems. I'm just saying, translating a character from any edition to another is doable, but it's not easy.


Of course, after about a year I guess, 3rd Edition took of into other directions which brought us other things, which finaly created Eberron and Tome of Battle. Both very good products, if you like the style, but it might not be everyones cup of tea. But if you liked your old AD&D campaigns, you could go on with them and just had to re-calculate NPC stats and roll your dice differently.
But with the release of 4e, the last ties to the old style were severed and the style of Eberron and ToB advanced even further into something completely different, from what D&D had been before. 4e is not THAT different in style from the very late 3.5e, so if that style was how you liked your D&D, there's probably not much wrong about 4e. But if you have an "old-school" image of what is D&D, you really don't find anything of it in that 4e game.
4e isn't a bad game. It's just not a new edition of AD&D.
Eberron was created by, well, not-WotC. I honestly do believe that Eberron was a definite catalyst for the creation for 4e 'cause it's very different from any setting before it. Then one thing led to another, and someone got the bright* idea of "Hey, let's try and make a new edition!"

'Cause this is what I find a little sad: Almost every supplement in 3.5 "corrects" something in the PHB. Clerics aren't using turn undead 'cause there aren't any undead in the campaign? Here's feats that let you do other things with your turn undead attempts! Running out of spells to quickly? Reserve feats will give you at-will magic!

What's more depressing is when you find out the majority of 3.5 material from 2006 until the release of 4e was based off 4e playtest material, i.e. they were trying to correct a system they already viewed as flawed. And I have to agree, especially when would-be 4e haters tried to push Complete Divine under my nose to make my straight-up cleric more effective.

Compare this to 2nd ed. where the majority of supplements are new settings, but the paradigm for that was "modify the system to make it work in this setting," thereby creating a new play experience with every new setting. Which is why I hate it when people say "Lol, you can't do Ravenloft in 4e!" 'cause hell you couldn't do it in 2nd ed. either! I mean geez, 2nd ed. in of itself cannot be used for Ravenloft, otherwise you wouldn't have to modify it!

*I'm using "bright" in the serious and sarcastic sense at the same time.

mrmaxmrmax
2009-06-10, 12:38 AM
and Shadzar has a point. if you approach 4th edition as D&D after having played a previous version you AREN'T going to like it.

Someone ninja'd me on this one, I believe, but man oh man, what a wrong statement. I like 4e and I played 2.5 previous versions. You statement is exactly as incorrect as this next one:

If you approach 4th edition as D&D after having played a previous version, you ARE going to like it.

Moving on, let Jarawara fill you in:



IT'S ALL D&D.


I grew up playing AD&D 2nd Edition in a public library. We were either awful players or our campaign was a meat grinder, but I never took a character past level four in nearly six years of playing. That's pkay, because we were all having fun. That was D&D whether you like that system or style.

I first played 3.0 in my first summer home from college. A friend from the previous group invited me to play in a sea of strangers. We were all looking at the books for the first time that night and we logged about eight hours (six hours of character creation, one of which was actual game play).

The only thing I remember being the same as what I played in high school was STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA. I was thrown for a loop with skills replacing non-weapon proficiences and feats jumping in as your kewl powers. That was D&D whether you like that system or style, because I remember that session nine years ago like I remember my public library time fifteen years ago.

I moved to Orlando from Japan and landed a job managing a comic book and gaming store. I started a role-playing group at the store because I wanted to recapture what I had in college and in high school. After one volunteer DM, the group collapsed and I picked up the best pieces I could to run a 3.5 module.

Working full time meant I couldn't do much more than plan hours in advance, so plot had to take a sideline. I called it the Open D&D Group and players came and went as time went on. We ran with as few as two players and as many as eight. Most of the time, we had a blast, even though I limited the players to the PHB for character building options. That was D&D whether you like that system or style.

When 4th edition rolled around, we ran an eight week event with prizes called "The [Store Name Erased to Avoid Plug] Arena" to teach the basic rules and encourage people to get to know 4th edition. My favorite player in the Open D&D campaign didn't join in. After the arena, the store's Open D&D Game switched from 3.5 to 4e with a volunteer DM. That player came back after a few months and started by watching a few sessions before jumping in to play.

Although he is with us every week, he has told me time and time again that he hates 4e. Twice, he told me that he hates it because "it's not D&D." The first time he said it, he explained by saying it was so different. He moved from 2nd Edition in the early 90's to 3.5, so I asked him how he felt when he jumped onto 3.5. His eyes lit up as he realized something. "I hated that, too!" he laughed.

The second time he said it wasn't D&D, he took it back within seconds. He doesn't understand how he can hate the system but have such a great time every Thursday night, but I think that is because D&D is much more than the set of rules you are using. I guess that is the end of my ramblings on that topic. Perhaps someone can glean whatever moral I was trying to get at.



What if they had named it something else, would people have been so receptive to it, and would it be doing as well, or bad as some say?

The rulebook for Pathfinder is coming out in August if I rmemeber my pre-orders correctly. My boss made a bet with me that he thinks Pathfinder will outsell whatever D&D products come out that month. We only bet sodas, so I don't have much incentive to push harder on one than the other. But, I can't see him winning; no matter what the system is based on, Pathfinder is not D&D. The name is worth something (as WoTC realized when they bought TSR). I fully expect Adventure's Vault 2 and Revenge of the Giants (or whatever) will win me a Pepsi by the end of August.

Shadzar, would you so eagerly jump into 4e topics to complain if it were named something else? Do you jump into Exalted and start edition wars there? And by start, I mean your first post in this thread where you ignored the OP's bolded qualifier "What (besides making it another edition completely) do you think should be worked on with 4e DnD?" (Emphasis mine) by suggesting that the edition itself was the problem?

Shadzar, I will repeat the call I've seen at least three times in this thread: what is your D&D? What is D&D to you? I think I caught you saying you don't play 3.5. I'd like to know where you are coming from.

Maxwell.

shadzar
2009-06-10, 12:53 AM
Shadzar, I will repeat the call I've seen at least three times in this thread: what is your D&D? What is D&D to you? I think I caught you saying you don't play 3.5. I'd like to know where you are coming from.

Maxwell.

And I answered that in one post which several have quoted by ignored that in the post itself. Maybe it was the other thread, but each time I ignore the question, as I have already answered it.

What I play is not the garbage above 2nd edition. That Player's Options crap is what started the wrong direction that got us to where we are today.

Would I post in a thread about Exalted? No, I don't know what that is. So if this 4th edition was another name, I probably wouldn't post about it either, as the rules are decent for a game, but just not a game I would play.

Thus why I only post in D&D, VtM (oWoD/Minds Eye Theater), and Rifts related RPGs. I have played and know a bit about them. :smallwink:

D&D is not just a name, or kicking down a door, killing something and taking its stuf with races and classes. All that can be found in the card game Munchkin (TM). :smallwink:

Myatar_Panwar
2009-06-10, 12:54 AM
The metagame and such aside, 4e remains basically the same game.

Get together with friends, roll some dice, have some fun.

SSGoW
2009-06-10, 01:00 AM
And I answered that in one post which several have quoted by ignored that in the post itself. Maybe it was the other thread, but each time I ignore the question, as I have already answered it.

What I play is not the garbage above 2nd edition. That Player's Options crap is what started the wrong direction that got us to where we are today.

Would I post in a thread about Exalted? No, I don't know what that is. So if this 4th edition was another name, I probably wouldn't post about it either, as the rules are decent for a game, but just not a game I would play.

Thus why I only post in D&D, VtM (oWoD/Minds Eye Theater), and Rifts related RPGs. I have played and know a bit about them. :smallwink:

D&D is not just a name, or kicking down a door, killing something and taking its stuf with races and classes. All that can be found in the card game Munchkin (TM). :smallwink:


so have you played 4e? or not? did you only read the rules or somthing?

Mystic Muse
2009-06-10, 01:14 AM
[QUOTE=Panda-s1;6257011]Why death? DDI is pretty awesome! I should know, I... have a subscription ^^; Sure, it's stuff that's not in books, but isn't that what Dragon and Dungeon were all about? Not to mention I get two magazines with no ads. Hell, the last time I read a magazine that had no ads for entertainment purposes was when I was 8. Highlights for Children :smallbiggrin:



what I meant was because unless your DM has it you can't use it because showing it to somebody who doesn't have it is illegal.

also I never said anything about AD&D. I've never played it and don't plan on doing so.

and last I shouldn't have said you won't like it. I should have said you MAY not like it and will probably give it a larger chance if you don't think of it as D&D. I prefer 3.5 and still like 4th but I'd like 4th better if it wasn't called D&D.

mrmaxmrmax
2009-06-10, 01:17 AM
What I play is not the garbage above 2nd edition. That Player's Options crap is what started the wrong direction that got us to where we are today.

Where are we today, Shadzar? Is someone forcing you to play the garbage? It seems like you see 3.5 AND 4e as a personal attack on you.


so have you played 4e? or not? did you only read the rules or somthing?

All we really know is Shadzar posts in a lot of 4e topics. Is his motivation to keep people from trying 4e? To keep AD&D 2nd Edition alive a little longer? To get back at WOTC for slights against the hobby in his eyes? His trouble seems to start with the end of TSR.

@Shadzar: I appreciate you answering my question on what you play. I searched through the last seventy-five messages you had posted and couldn't find reference to it until I read a little further in your post.

Could you expand on the question, though? You told us what D&D isn't to you: "just a name" or "kicking down a door, killing something and taking its stuf [sic] with races and classes." Could you tell us what D&D is to you?

I'll start. To me, D&D is an excuse for people to sit around a table telling inside jokes and having a shared fantasy experience that will be the basis for new inside jokes. I grew to like 3.5 less and less the more I played, but I never felt it wasn't D&D.

Maxwell.





what I meant was because unless your DM has [DDI] you can't use it because showing it to somebody who doesn't have it is illegal.


Speeding is illegal here in Florida, but I still get passed on the Turnpike. My DM lends copies of subscriber only DDI material to players from time to time. WOTC knows (most likely) that those actions (not speeding, sharing) serve to increase their mindshare. Two players in the Open D&D game have joined DDI since our DM started passing things around.

Maxwell (again)

Mystic Muse
2009-06-10, 01:23 AM
Where are we today, Shadzar? Is someone forcing you to play the garbage? It seems like you see 3.5 AND 4e as a personal attack on you.



All we really know is Shadzar posts in a lot of 4e topics. Is his motivation to keep people from trying 4e? To keep AD&D 2nd Edition alive a little longer? To get back at WOTC for slights against the hobby in his eyes? His trouble seems to start with the end of TSR.

@Shadzar: I appreciate you answering my question on what you play. I searched through the last seventy-five messages you had posted and couldn't find reference to it until I read a little further in your post.

Could you expand on the question, though? You told us what D&D isn't to you: "just a name" or "kicking down a door, killing something and taking its stuf [sic] with races and classes." Could you tell us what D&D is to you?

I'll start. To me, D&D is an excuse for people to sit around a table telling inside jokes and having a shared fantasy experience that will be the basis for new inside jokes. I grew to like 3.5 less and less the more I played, but I never felt it wasn't D&D.

Maxwell.

you probably don't care about my opinion but to me D&D is everybody getting together, having fun, lots of magic items of death, decent multiclassing, me being a paladin, homebrewing, being able to heal more than once in an entire combat and WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too many sourcebooks. oh and bad jokes combined with good snacks. and lots of monsters combined with allowing pikachu to be your familiar.

what? stop looking at me. *runs*

oh and the problem with showing other people DDI being illegal is you have to break the law to use something you pay 6$ a month for and don't actually own. at least with dragon magazine you could show it to somebody else without it being illegal and you actually owned it.

Myatar_Panwar
2009-06-10, 01:29 AM
what I meant was because unless your DM has it you can't use it because showing it to somebody who doesn't have it is illegal.


You seriously think this way? Seriously? Please stop.

With this kind of logic you can't even play the game if you don't have your personal rulebook.

P.S. Sharing is caring.

Mystic Muse
2009-06-10, 01:57 AM
as long as you haven't stolen that rulebook it's legal to use it or show it around. otherwise it wouldn't be legal for libraries to carry them. because of the conditions stated for DDI you can't legally show anything from your DDI subscription to anybody.there's nothing wrong with following the law. and this specific law you agree to when you subscribe.

sharing and breaking the law are two different things. sharing implies allowing another to use your property. breaking the law implies breaking the law

Myatar_Panwar
2009-06-10, 02:07 AM
Can you give me a quote from the user agreement saying all that?

Also if WotC were truly under the mindset of believing people would not show their DDI material to their fellow players and DM, then it would be a horrible business decision. Who would subscribe if everyone thought like you, where everyone in the group would have to subscribe in order to use the content?

They obviously want people to enjoy the game with the material they give you. Anything saying otherwise in the legal agreement is just precautionary measures.

And your right, there is nothing wrong with following the law. But there is also nothing wrong with breaking this one.

Oracle_Hunter
2009-06-10, 02:15 AM
as long as you haven't stolen that rulebook it's legal to use it or show it around. otherwise it wouldn't be legal for libraries to carry them. because of the conditions stated for DDI you can't legally show anything from your DDI subscription to anybody.there's nothing wrong with following the law. and this specific law you agree to when you subscribe.

sharing and breaking the law are two different things. sharing implies allowing another to use your property. breaking the law implies breaking the law
Libraries actually get special exemptions under US Copyright Law - not that this matters here, since you're not making copies of your hardcopy book.

DDI is different in two respects:

(1) It is digital, and therefore falls under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)
(2) DDI is also governed by contractual Terms of Service (TOS)

So yes, it is quite possible that "sharing" your DDI subscription is either a criminal offense (DMCA) or a civil offense (breech of contract); I haven't taken a close look at the DDI case specifically, but I apparently enjoy splitting hairs :smalltongue:

Panda-s1
2009-06-10, 02:34 AM
what I meant was because unless your DM has it you can't use it because showing it to somebody who doesn't have it is illegal.

also I never said anything about AD&D. I've never played it and don't plan on doing so.

and last I shouldn't have said you won't like it. I should have said you MAY not like it and will probably give it a larger chance if you don't think of it as D&D. I prefer 3.5 and still like 4th but I'd like 4th better if it wasn't called D&D.

Ugh, that argument again? I mean if you really took it at face value, but I don't, I just use the material. And I really don't believe the FBI is gonna come knocking at my door 'cause I showed my DM something from DDI, I've done it about like ten times now...

You do also realize that everything after Highlights for Children was meant for someone else, right? Unless Yora is a sockpuppet of yours...

Thanatos 51-50
2009-06-10, 02:50 AM
And I answered that in one post which several have quoted by ignored that in the post itself. Maybe it was the other thread, but each time I ignore the question, as I have already answered it.

I've ignored the rest of your post, here.
I'm one of those guys who asked for a description, and I've looked through what my poor brain wasn't editing out on it's own, and I have not seen such a thing.
You can at least link us a relevant description if not in this thread, and quote and bold said description for us if it IS in this thread.

ken-do-nim
2009-06-10, 07:26 PM
Could you expand on the question, though? You told us what D&D isn't to you: "just a name" or "kicking down a door, killing something and taking its stuf [sic] with races and classes." Could you tell us what D&D is to you?

I'll start. To me, D&D is an excuse for people to sit around a table telling inside jokes and having a shared fantasy experience that will be the basis for new inside jokes. I grew to like 3.5 less and less the more I played, but I never felt it wasn't D&D.

Maxwell.


It seems pretty clear we need to come up with a definition of D&D. Your definition encompasses every fantasy rpg on the market, including Tunnels & Trolls, Palladium Fantasy, GURPS Fantasy, Warhammer Fantasy, Rolemaster, Runequest, etc. It probably includes fantasy boardgames as well like Descent, Dungeon, Talisman, Magic Realm, etc. There should be more to the definition of D&D then WOTC slapping a name on a book.

I don't think I want to give the subject quite the amount of thought it needs, but I do feel like between the TSR versions of D&D and the WOTC D&D versions, a line was crossed that changed the game from exploration which includes combat to combats interconnected via exploration. Also, it feels like D&D went from a gritty, heroic game to a super-heroic game. In 3.5, levels 1-10 are more gritty, whereas levels 11 and up feel like a super heroes rpg. 4E is a super-heroes game in a fantasy setting from the ground up.

Tiki Snakes
2009-06-10, 07:54 PM
Also, it feels like D&D went from a gritty, heroic game to a super-heroic game. In 3.5, levels 1-10 are more gritty, whereas levels 11 and up feel like a super heroes rpg. 4E is a super-heroes game in a fantasy setting from the ground up.

I'd just like to say, while this is a valid opinion and I can see why you might hold it, sending a party of five 1st level adventurers against an sized group of the monster manual basic humans (other than the minion entry) is basically going to be tpk time. It's easy to over-estimate the power level of the pc's on account of the slightly flashier, more cinematic feel it tends to have for those classes who previously lacked it.

I will say though, that it's less a 'naturalistic' universe in some senses. The rules, rather than simulating a world, kind of simulate a story. Tropes and genre related stuff are more mechanically important than previously. Minions go down because everyone knows that some mooks will go down on a single hit. That doesn't mean that the common man is a minion, just that if you fight a mob of angry commoners, chances are that's how they'll be represented.

If you then assume that everyone in the town will have 1hp should you attack them, then you may be wrong. If it works for the story for the Blacksmith or the Shopkeeper to NOT be a glass jawed Mook, then they will probably fight back, rather than explode, when you punch them. But, yeah. Stuff. [/obvious]

The New Bruceski
2009-06-10, 07:56 PM
There should be more to the definition of D&D then WOTC slapping a name on a book.

Why? Different groups play the game differently. VERY differently in some cases. What right do we have to declare the "true" nature of D&D? Moreover, what chance do we have of agreeing what the "true" nature is?

TheEmerged
2009-06-10, 07:57 PM
and Shadzar has a point. if you approach 4th edition as D&D after having played a previous version you AREN'T going to like it.

I've played every edition since they could be bought in blue in pink boxes. I like 4e (I also liked 3.0, I didn't get to play much 3.5). And while I can only speak for myself, I doubt I'm *that* big of an exception...

Tiki Snakes
2009-06-10, 08:10 PM
Just for the the sake of interest, I checked some 'real world' creatures in the 4th ed monster manual, with the talk of the whole superhero thing.

A 1st level pc will have a hard time against a common grey wolf, 1on1. He'll be needing to use encounter powers at least. Throw in a party, and a wolf each, and things would get tricky. Hunting as a pack (read flanking for combat advantage) and they get to make with the tripping. Attacking with CA and they're doing double damage. 1st level pc's can win, they're just lvl2 creatures, but it would not be 'easy'.

Throw in an un-altered 'Cave Bear' (as one might expect to find in the wilderness) as the next encounter and the party is in reeeal trouble. An essentially 'mundane' bear is a level 6, with a huge hp total, and not terrible damage. With his recharging burst attack, he's going to cause a lot of trouble. On his own. Maybe, played smart, the party can get a lucky hit in and slow that brute down.

Maybe the bear eats them all.

Sure, as you go up in levels, you're going to get to feel a lot more powerful, and by paragon, your really not someone to be messed with. But even then, a Dire Bear is going to worry a lvl11 pc 1on1.

Of course, by level 20 your about to start your (sometimes literal) ascent to godhood, so, yeah. There's a real power curve. But that doesn't necessarily preclude any feelings of grittyness or mortality.

Even though 4th does veer towards the dramatic. :)

shadzar
2009-06-10, 08:58 PM
Why? Different groups play the game differently. VERY differently in some cases. What right do we have to declare the "true" nature of D&D? Moreover, what chance do we have of agreeing what the "true" nature is?

:smalleek: Why? Baby Ruth wrapper with that thing you see floating in the pool. Does that thing become a Baby Ruth bar? :smallconfused:

The foundation of the game should remain the same, meaning altering the system entirely, means you no longer have the same game.

Is the Monopoly card game the same as the Monopoly board game? they both share certain similarities, but if I expect to sit down and move around the board with the thimble buying up house, then the card game having the same name will offer me nothing of what I am looking for.

If all you are looking for is playing something with the name Monopoly on it, then you will be happy with the card game, and have lower personal standards and expectations than someone else may have.

While people could always remove the board form Monopoly and tried to play it without one if they so choose, it doesn't mean that changing the game from a board game to a card game will work for everyone.

:smallsmile:

So the same goes for altering the entire game called D&D to something else with only slight similarities, in that it can still be called an RPG.

Ergo, as I said before about changing the name to something else so those expectations of D&D do not cary over for anyone.

Would those who like 4th play it and bought into it right away without the name D&D on it? If so, then why did it need* to be called D&D?

(* Other than the fact WotC was told by HASBRO, they needed to start getting more money from D&D which has been proven on the WotC forums.)

Tiki Snakes
2009-06-10, 09:12 PM
There are plenty of Monopoly spin-offs. Starwars monopoly, Monty-Python Monopoly, numerous locational ones too. They are all 'Monopoly' on account of containing the same core concepts as well as being able to trace a clear lineage to the original. They are Descendants, no matter similar or different.

If you agree that there even CAN be new editions of a game or game system, then I don't really understand how you can claim the 4th edition has changed so much as to divorce itself, despite sharing it's core mechanics, core concepts, conceptual identity, market niche, history etc, with some or all previous editions.

Sure, if your normal edition of choice is AD&D(2nd ed. thing.), 4th edition is going to feel mighty different. But there have been (around or at least)two editions between then and now. When you compare 4 and 3.5, though seperate enough to warrant a change of edition number, they are NOT different enough to be unrecognisable or in any meaningful way divorced.

Poop jokes nonwithstanding. ;)

ken-do-nim
2009-06-10, 09:19 PM
Why? Different groups play the game differently. VERY differently in some cases. What right do we have to declare the "true" nature of D&D? Moreover, what chance do we have of agreeing what the "true" nature is?

The last poster brought up the Monopoly card vs board analogy which is very good, so I'll just take it to the ludicrous extreme.

D&D v5 comes out. Every player must buy a doll in order to play the game. When it comes to be your turn, you pull a cord on the back of the doll and it says what your character's next move is, in what the players presume is a randomized fashion. The dolls run on special batteries that are only sold by Hasbro. When your character goes up a level, you move a notch on the doll up, and that allows it to say some new things. The DM has special monster dolls which actually send out a wireless signal that the player dolls pick up, so that they react appropriately. The DM dolls, naturally, are sold in randomized booster packs. The rares have special flashing lights and sound to add drama. Unfortunately these special effects tend to drain the battery life even faster, and those batteries aren't cheap.

Well anyway, my question to you is would you defend D&D v5 as still a valid edition of D&D? After all, it has the name, and you can still sit around with your friends and drink mountain dew and make bad jokes. Only these bad jokes revolve around doing things with the dolls that the game designers didn't intend. Or did they...

shadzar
2009-06-10, 09:34 PM
There are plenty of Monopoly spin-offs. Starwars monopoly, Monty-Python Monopoly, numerous locational ones too.

Here is the problem. Those you mention are only changing the artwork and names of things. The game system behind those franchise cross-overs for Monopoly like Nintendo Monopoly, is the same. This would be true for 1st~3.x; save for the name change from AD&D back to D&D.

4th edition is the card game version of Monopoly. It has completely changed the way the thing has been played. It does not give the same experience. It IS a Monopoly product because HASBRO so chose to name it as such, but it is NOT Monopoly any more than McDonald's Monopoly is.

Monopoly has always ben based around a board game until recently. It had spin-off products related to Monopoly, but not claiming to be it until the card game, and the card game even tells you it is NOT the board game.

http://www.hasbrotoyshop.com/Files_Main/0000924783c5_Main400.jpg

http://www.hasbro.com/common/images/products/01723359349_Main400.jpg

Notice the new name.... Monopoly DEAL vs The board game stating they are different things.

DDM, likewise didn't just say D&D, because it wasn't.

So that is the problem. 4th edition is claiming to be something it is not, and there are people smart enough to recognize that.

It doesn't mean it isn't a good game, but it isn't a replacement for D&D, otherwise people wouldn't be suggesting it should have a different name, or that it doesn't play like D&D.

I dislike 3.x editions, but still can recognize them in some parts as D&D, even though the other parts I dislike, and the same goes for 2.5 (Players/DM Options).

4th just is not longer recognizable as what the name suggests it should be, and that was the intent of the design, but then also the problem with it.

Those saying things like previously mentioned such as : races, classes, dungeons, dragons, treasure, killing stuff; are being WAY too general about what they consider D&D to be and might as well be talking about any game that has these elements, but every game that has these elements is not D&D.

So do you see how the card/board versions of Monopoly fit with D&D and 4th edition?

4th edition is D&D, sounds like someone trying to say....

Monopoly is a board game, so all board games are Monopoly.

It doesn't work, and not less so because Monopoly is also a card game now. :smalleek:

The Glyphstone
2009-06-10, 09:38 PM
The last poster brought up the Monopoly card vs board analogy which is very good, so I'll just take it to the ludicrous extreme.

D&D v5 comes out. Every player must buy a doll in order to play the game. When it comes to be your turn, you pull a cord on the back of the doll and it says what your character's next move is, in what the players presume is a randomized fashion. The dolls run on special batteries that are only sold by Hasbro. When your character goes up a level, you move a notch on the doll up, and that allows it to say some new things. The DM has special monster dolls which actually send out a wireless signal that the player dolls pick up, so that they react appropriately. The DM dolls, naturally, are sold in randomized booster packs. The rares have special flashing lights and sound to add drama. Unfortunately these special effects tend to drain the battery life even faster, and those batteries aren't cheap.

Well anyway, my question to you is would you defend D&D v5 as still a valid edition of D&D? After all, it has the name, and you can still sit around with your friends and drink mountain dew and make bad jokes. Only these bad jokes revolve around doing things with the dolls that the game designers didn't intend. Or did they...

I hope I'm not ruining your point, but this sounds very entertaining for some bizzare reason. Maybe it's the fact that I really need sleep.

Artanis
2009-06-10, 09:43 PM
The last poster brought up the Monopoly card vs board analogy which is very good, so I'll just take it to the ludicrous extreme.

D&D v5 comes out. Every player must buy a doll in order to play the game. When it comes to be your turn, you pull a cord on the back of the doll and it says what your character's next move is, in what the players presume is a randomized fashion. The dolls run on special batteries that are only sold by Hasbro. When your character goes up a level, you move a notch on the doll up, and that allows it to say some new things. The DM has special monster dolls which actually send out a wireless signal that the player dolls pick up, so that they react appropriately. The DM dolls, naturally, are sold in randomized booster packs. The rares have special flashing lights and sound to add drama. Unfortunately these special effects tend to drain the battery life even faster, and those batteries aren't cheap.

Well anyway, my question to you is would you defend D&D v5 as still a valid edition of D&D? After all, it has the name, and you can still sit around with your friends and drink mountain dew and make bad jokes. Only these bad jokes revolve around doing things with the dolls that the game designers didn't intend. Or did they...
Does it have dungeons and dragons? Will you get sued off your ass by the publisher if you try to sell something else called DnD, or tried to sell a copy of it under a different name?

I wouldn't play it in a million years, but if the answer to those questions is "yes", then no matter how much I hate it, it is still, by definition, DnD.

Reverent-One
2009-06-10, 09:44 PM
4th just is not longer recognizable as what the name suggests it should be, and that was the intent of the design, but then also the problem with it.

Sure it is, I've played several different RPG systems, and while 4e may have the greatest amount of change from previous editions, it's still very recognizable as D&D.

Again, unless you're just picking an argument for argument's sake, you should specify what you think D&D is, and what it is that 4e changed so much to make it not D&D. And don't try that "I said it somewhere else, and I won't repeat myself" when you can't even remember where you said it. Expecting people to go searching through other threads to find the points of your argument is ridiculous (for example, the "[4e] Insults intelligence." thread is 15 pages long), and you've have no problem repeating over and over and over "4e isn't D&D", "4e isn't D&D".

ken-do-nim
2009-06-10, 09:51 PM
Just for the the sake of interest, I checked some 'real world' creatures in the 4th ed monster manual, with the talk of the whole superhero thing.

A 1st level pc will have a hard time against a common grey wolf, 1on1. He'll be needing to use encounter powers at least. Throw in a party, and a wolf each, and things would get tricky. Hunting as a pack (read flanking for combat advantage) and they get to make with the tripping. Attacking with CA and they're doing double damage. 1st level pc's can win, they're just lvl2 creatures, but it would not be 'easy'.

Throw in an un-altered 'Cave Bear' (as one might expect to find in the wilderness) as the next encounter and the party is in reeeal trouble. An essentially 'mundane' bear is a level 6, with a huge hp total, and not terrible damage. With his recharging burst attack, he's going to cause a lot of trouble. On his own. Maybe, played smart, the party can get a lucky hit in and slow that brute down.

Maybe the bear eats them all.

Sure, as you go up in levels, you're going to get to feel a lot more powerful, and by paragon, your really not someone to be messed with. But even then, a Dire Bear is going to worry a lvl11 pc 1on1.

Of course, by level 20 your about to start your (sometimes literal) ascent to godhood, so, yeah. There's a real power curve. But that doesn't necessarily preclude any feelings of grittyness or mortality.

Even though 4th does veer towards the dramatic. :)

Actually I didn't mean super-hero roleplaying just as a measure of how much your pcs can trump the opposition, super-hero rpgs can be quite deadly since you are up against super-villians. What I meant was the way you check your character sheet to solve every problem and pick one of your powers to use. For example, a 1st level character in OD&D through 3.5 knows that he doesn't have many powers and that he should go get some flaming oil as it is probably his best weapon.

mrmaxmrmax
2009-06-10, 09:52 PM
So that is the problem. 4th edition is claiming to be something it is not, and there are people smart enough to recognize that.

There's already a thread about insulting intelligence on the forum, Shadzar. What you seem to be saying here is that anyone who likes 4e is not smart enough to recognize that it is not D&D. The only thing I can't understand is why you are so gung-ho about being so mean to all of us.



I dislike 3.x editions, but still can recognize them in some parts as D&D, even though the other parts I dislike, and the same goes for 2.5 (Players/DM Options).

4th just is not longer recognizable as what the name suggests it should be, and that was the intent of the design, but then also the problem with it.


You were mad that I was so general. Be specific for us, Shadzar. What is makes a game D&D? What did AD&D have that 3.5 barely had and 4th edition doesn't have?

Maxwell.

Artanis
2009-06-10, 10:00 PM
Ooh, I found a good one:

This is the car that won the second-ever Formula 1 World Championship, in 1951: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alfa-Romeo-159-(1951).jpg

This is the car that won the 2007 Formula 1 World Championship: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:070616_Ferrari_F1_2007_01.JPG

So, shadzar, I dare you to go and say "you are not a Formula 1 driver" to Kimi Raikkonen's face :smallamused:

Panda-s1
2009-06-10, 10:06 PM
The last poster brought up the Monopoly card vs board analogy which is very good, so I'll just take it to the ludicrous extreme.

D&D v5 comes out. Every player must buy a doll in order to play the game. When it comes to be your turn, you pull a cord on the back of the doll and it says what your character's next move is, in what the players presume is a randomized fashion. The dolls run on special batteries that are only sold by Hasbro. When your character goes up a level, you move a notch on the doll up, and that allows it to say some new things. The DM has special monster dolls which actually send out a wireless signal that the player dolls pick up, so that they react appropriately. The DM dolls, naturally, are sold in randomized booster packs. The rares have special flashing lights and sound to add drama. Unfortunately these special effects tend to drain the battery life even faster, and those batteries aren't cheap.

Well anyway, my question to you is would you defend D&D v5 as still a valid edition of D&D? After all, it has the name, and you can still sit around with your friends and drink mountain dew and make bad jokes. Only these bad jokes revolve around doing things with the dolls that the game designers didn't intend. Or did they...

While it would technically be "D&D," at that point I'd have to say no, it's not really valid.

For one, D&D is an RPG. Your example is missing a lot of what RPGs actually do. I don't have some random pullstring decide what my character will do, I decide what I'm gonna do (most the time). Is there even books involved? I mean you don't really need a book to be an RPG per-sé, but you need rules written out in some manner. And the randomizing abilities before purchase is just a no-no, and really should be confined to collectible games.

Speaking of which, considering D&D had a miniatures game it's kinda the same idea. But I wouldn't call that an RPG, it doesn't even follow most of what an RPG is!

What if I played NWN online? Is that D&D? I mean it's kinda the same thing, but at the end of the day I can't go outside of what the system has given. And that's what makes tabletop RPGs awesome, I'm given rules, but there's no magical barrier that keeps you in the rules all the time.


...And there's all kinds of games I could play while sitting with my friends, while drinking Mountain Dew and making bad jokes, that seems like a moot point :smallconfused:

Tiki Snakes
2009-06-10, 10:06 PM
Here is the problem. Those you mention are only changing the artwork and names of things. The game system behind those franchise cross-overs for Monopoly like Nintendo Monopoly, is the same. This would be true for 1st~3.x; save for the name change from AD&D back to D&D.

Actually, Python Monopoly at the very least has it's own new rules. I'm guessing the others may also have their own variations. Not world-devouring ones, but it's not just 'art changes'.

The entire way you calculate attacks changes between first and ADnD, I thought? (Introducing THAC0). There are no skills, no feats, etc in first? So, your favourite version of DnD isn't DnD.

Because the Original DnD uses the Chainmail rules, and everything else is another game made by TSR to make money, (Those cynics!) with entirely different rules.

And most games aren't even DM'ed by Gygax, so how people can claim them to be DnD is beyond me! ;)


Seriously though, you've poo-pooed enough well written responses, I think we deserve to hear your definition of what DnD is, how it can be defined, described, identified. What does a Product Need to Posess in order for it to conclusively be DnD?

Be Specific, as you are apparently so definate in your opinions.

shadzar
2009-06-10, 10:52 PM
Does it have dungeons and dragons? Will you get sued off your ass by the publisher if you try to sell something else called DnD, or tried to sell a copy of it under a different name?

I wouldn't play it in a million years, but if the answer to those questions is "yes", then no matter how much I hate it, it is still, by definition, DnD.

No. It is by copyright/trademark D&D.

I have a frisbee, toothbrush, and pencil labeled with the D&D logo. Are these D&D?

When I ask someone if they want to play D&D, and break out my toothbrush, pencil, or frisbee, what do you think the response should be?

The name does not make something what it is.

Castle & Crusades, Lejendary Journeys, Hackmaster, Rifts, all have dungeons, dragons, classes, races; are they all D&D because they have those few things?

Your definition is too general.

If asked to define a chair to someone who has never saw one, would you limit your definition to something you sit on, only touching a part of what defines it?

Artanis
2009-06-10, 10:57 PM
OK then, let's do something that will let the discussion actually advance, rather than going around in circles like we have been: why don't you define what you consider DnD to be?

shadzar
2009-06-10, 10:58 PM
The entire way you calculate attacks changes between first and ADnD, I thought? (Introducing THAC0). There are no skills, no feats, etc in first? So, your favourite version of DnD isn't DnD.

Because the Original DnD uses the Chainmail rules, and everything else is another game made by TSR to make money, (Those cynics!) with entirely different rules.

And most games aren't even DM'ed by Gygax, so how people can claim them to be DnD is beyond me! ;)

First has THAC0 as was reminded to me when I forgot to turn my books sideways for Appendix E, and 1st was AD&D. :smallconfused:

3.x also has THAC0, just that it is stood on its head so the players don't have to stand on their own heads to figure it out.

After all these years, I am not going into the Chainmail/D&D thing again. I am too tired of explaining it. Seek Dragonsfoot.org or other forums to look into that.

Gary DMed for Lejendary Journeys so since he did, does that make it D&D?

Again. people aren't seeing the problem. It is approaching 4th edition thinking of D&D and how it used to be played, rather than looking at it as a whole new game, and brining those D&D expectations to it, when you cannot.

A name change is the simplest fix for the problem, since people will not accept that just looking at it as something other than D&D will suffice.

>>EOL

Artanis
2009-06-10, 11:02 PM
And you are not seeing the problem that we have no idea what you consider to be the required elements of a "true" DnD.

RebelRogue
2009-06-10, 11:28 PM
@Shadzar: I must say that I simply cannot see what it is that makes 4ed so clearly cut "not D&D" as opposed to earlier editions. It is completely above my head! Considering the time you spend bickering over this, I find it strange that you cannot quantify your objections more precisely. If is is so obvious, please show us!

I have played many editions of D&D, and while I like 4ed, I can see that some older editions may be more conductive/convenient for certain playstyles, but there's a great leap from that to concluding that 4ed is not D&D at all!

ken-do-nim
2009-06-11, 10:53 AM
No. It is by copyright/trademark D&D.

I have a frisbee, toothbrush, and pencil labeled with the D&D logo. Are these D&D?

When I ask someone if they want to play D&D, and break out my toothbrush, pencil, or frisbee, what do you think the response should be?

The name does not make something what it is.

Castle & Crusades, Lejendary Journeys, Hackmaster, Rifts, all have dungeons, dragons, classes, races; are they all D&D because they have those few things?

Your definition is too general.

If asked to define a chair to someone who has never saw one, would you limit your definition to something you sit on, only touching a part of what defines it?

Castles & Crusades and HackMaster absolutely are D&D.

SSGoW
2009-06-11, 12:33 PM
soo i'm just going to start ignoring shadzar on this... this has gotten way out of hand

changing the name wont change anything since 4e is its own system wither its called DnD or wootmyheadisonfire its still a system that i wanted to know a question about.... sigh