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4E is nothing but the results of changing what didn’t need to be changed, adding what didn’t need to be added, removing the core iconic features, taking the the fiddly bits in a rpg turned up to 11 while removing the role-play aspects of the game we all know and love.
I did my best to give 4E a fair shake.
- I did my best to overlook the power-gaming kewl elements of finally being allowed to natively play a dragon-born. Feel free to try to justify this in any aspect. As far as I’m concerned, coming to my table with some hokey “I want to have dragon heritage” character background ideas went out of style when we all left Junior High.
Yes, yes I know. This is simply a natural extension of the prestige class sorcerers and bards can ascribe to in 3E. Well, we don’t want me to get sidetracked too much on what’s wrong with that now do we? As an aside, I could go look up the paragraph in the AD&D DM Guide that addresses allowing players to play the roles of monsters, but I’m sure that would just elicit cries of old-school elitism or some idiocy like it. – KO
- I decided to try to ignore the obvious question of who decided elves need a new name. I mean, come on, when the unwashed masses think of fantasy role-playing I’m sure that over 90% of them think of dwarves, elves and humans battling dragons. Why change elves and not dwarves? What possible logic were you listening to when you decided this was a good idea? Who’s brainchild was this?
- I actually like the skill challenge methodology. It’s interesting, fair, and eliminates the coin-flip nature of success/fail that sometimes crops up in games. This part I can agree works.
So ignoring the obvious, here’s what really irks me about the rule set.
Once again I look at the nature of the rules as a whole and discover in a moment of pure brilliance that we’re back to the roots of D&D; namely Miniatures War gaming. Take a hard look at what aspects of the game they’ve chosen to highlight. My starter set comes with some nifty tiles to, I presume, take the burden of someone describing the world sufficiently enough for us all to imagine it properly… wouldn’t want to tax our imaginations too much now would we?
The rulebooks I have go in great detail to explain the hazards of terrain in a dungeon and how these things affect the actions of the participants. There’s rules for how many squares you can move and the like… this is starting to sound an awful lot like a boardgame to me. And I for one don’t like it.
There’s no real roleplay aspects to tabletop miniatures; no more than say Chess. But that’s where I think the rules send the players. The rules aren’t designed for players to imagine a person in a world with boundless possibility. They’re not playing the characters anymore, they’re playing the numbers. And the environment is playing the same numbers right back at them. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
That’s one major stumbling block to my immersion in the game. Let’s move on to the real fun-killer.
In essence I realized this morning that 4E essentially evens out the playing field, not by addressing what’s (in my opinion) wrong with the previous editions, but rather by compounding a long standing issue by applying it to everyone at the table. In the past only magic-users had to wonder if now was the right time to expend a certain (or their only) spell. Now everyone’s been saddled with that concern. Yeah, that’s fair… and fun too.
Here’s an idea, how about we make things easier for everyone at the table. I’ll just assign everyone’s powers and skills to cards and we’ll handle conflict resolution in duel format. You can draw cards at the beginning of the game, encounter, day, etc. and spend them when your turn occurs. That way you won’t be distracted by those things on your character sheet that don’t apply to the situation. How’s that sound? We can just play it as a card game.
To be fair, I’m not opposed to people enjoying this means of fun. If you like it, then more power to you. But I won’t be at the table when you break out a session. I’ve got better things to do with my game time than to wonder if this is the right time to use some special skill or power. If I want to play a boardgame I’ll do so. A card game disguised as a rpg? Feel free to deal me out.
Card game? Sure the powers lend themselves to card format and they are convenient but I fond 4th ed. more akin to MMORPGs; here are your powers these are the cool downs of those powers now spam two powers for 80% of the game. Or rather that’s how it could be, as with all roleplaying games there is the sliding scale of ‘improvised theatre’ to ‘miniatures boardgame’ – and in fairness the DMG acknowledges that – but the main issue is investment: Do players want to invest the time and money into the latest iteration of D&D. I can see if a player had invested time and a lot of money for 3.5 in terms of books they would be put off by 4th ed. Myself I’ve come back to 4th ed. after ignoring 3.0 and 3.5 D&D felt huge an unwieldy and now it has been heavily pruned. I think we are just now getting back to an intimidating stage with PH3 coming out soon. For me D&D is about the fun of a fantasy game without a computer spoon feeding me. But that’s probably down to me not playing any other Fantasy RPGs.
I honestly can’t tell if this is meant to be a satire or not. The way the first two bullets are worded really makes me think it is, but then parts of the rest almost sound serious.
@bloodwin: I concur wholeheartedly on the fun of D&D being the magic that no crpg can possibly hope to achieve. But at the core, 4E is in my opinion a direct return to D&D’s roots in war-gaming. Gone from the rulebooks for me are the shared imaginings of those around the table and replaced with the feel of a miniatures/card/board game.
@Swordgleam: Totally serious. All satire an unintentional result of the way I tend to get to a subject.
Not to wander onto your front porch and be contrary but… I’m going to be a little contrary…
Now I don’t think 4E is the perfect game, but I find your initial statement to be… flippantly pandering to anti-4E rhetoric. I believe the game has flaws (in particular the way magic items work stand out as something I’d change), but some of the changes were both useful and necessary IMO. I don’t know what iconic features were removed… I mean, it has dungeons and dragons and swords and magic and dwarves and elves… what’s missing exactly that is so iconic? The antagonistic GM? And as for RP being removed. What? Seriously? Did I miss the chapter about how RP isn’t allowed in 4e? I can’t help but feel that if you can’t RP with 4E, the problem is your frame of mind approaching the game.
I don’t really understand why people slag on the dragonborn so much. Are they are more magical, really, than the elves and dwarves and mages that throw fire from their hands that most people accept out of hand? Is it just because it’s not “traditional”? I honestly don’t get it.
As for the elf/eladrin thing. Eh. The splitting of elves into woodsy types and flouncy magic types isn’t really innovative. So they cam up with their own name instead of labeling them “Wood elves” and “High elves” or what not… again, I don’t see why this is particularly heinous.
The tiles are there as play aides… god forbid anyone would want to use something to aide their game! I mean, seriously, why are these bad? Is it bad to use figures at all, or does that hinder imagination too? How about drawing on a white board? Where is the point where people aren’t using their imagination correctly?
I don’t think people need to love the game, but I really find the “This game isn’t a role playing game” argument just… lame.
@justaguy: Feel free to wander on my porch, pull up a chair, and be as contrary as you’d like. Would you like a glass of lemonade while we chat?
While I’ll agree that “my initial statement may be pandering to anti-4E rhetoric.” I consider my reasons to be at least somewhat unique. I’m not saying that 4E is the WOW-ization of rpgs. Rather in an attempt to eschew all the rules that bloat the 3 and 3.5 pigs of rpgs, they kept the wrong parts.
I can role-play in 4E. But it strikes me that they way the game is now setup, most players aren’t going to be role-playing, they’re just going to be spending their time looking for ways to interject their skills and powers into the environment. That’s not role-play in my book. That’s opportunistic game interactivity.
The iconic reference was likely a bit harsh and a result of the renaming of elves. So let’s address those paragraphs in concert shall we? Here goes: Seriously, why change that? Of all the tings to change they chose to rename elves. Is that useful? Will it make the game more “new user intro” friendly? Or is everyone when faced with the question of what Eladrin are going to just say, “Oh yeah, those are elves.” And then just refer to them as elves? If so, then why change them?
Maybe it’s the old-schooler in me, maybe I’m jaded from power-gamers from my youth trying to one-up each other with “builds” instead of “characters.” But something about the dragonborn just irks the daylights out of me. Let’s just agree to disagree on this one. I know I’m being unreasonable. But I’m not going to change.
For the record I’ve used a whiteboard. My complaint isn’t about the tiles per se, but that they are so embedded in the rules as to be construed as intrinsic to a game that, to me, has taken a turn away from imagination and directly to visualization. Rest assured I’m not going to try to defend my post against a slippery slope argument with regard to defining where visual aids are appropriate and where they aren’t.
And lame though my argument might be, that’s how the whole 4E shapes up to me.
Now, can I get you another glass of lemonade?
“I’ve got better things to do with my game time than to wonder if this is the right time to use some special skill or power.”
That line alone tells me that the sort of game you are interested in is nothing like the sort of game my friends and I are interested in. Having to make interesting, tactical choices like that are part of what makes the game fun.
@Scott: Ok, that’s fair. I can accept that you and I may not play the same type of game, or find fun in exactly the same things. It’s a great big rpg-verse out there and we can all find a niche in our own locale. I won’t begrudge you that. In fact, I’m likely in the minority here. I accept that.
But consider this… Is having to make interesting tactical choices part of what makes a game fun? Or is choosing to make said choices part of what evokes the fun?
And before someone claims I’m playing semantics or splitting hairs, pay close attention to the changes that the intent and support of such a simple difference makes in the rules of a game. Which should be what we’re aiming for?
Don’t get me wrong; there’s some beefs I have with 4E; but at the same time I’ve had beefs with EVERY edition of D&D. This time, honestly, my beef is more with the implied setting than the actual mechanics.
But there’s one thing I want to comment on with your feelings towards it:
“The rules aren’t designed for players to imagine a person in a world with boundless possibility. They’re not playing the characters anymore, they’re playing the numbers. And the environment is playing the same numbers right back at them. Oh how the mighty have fallen.”
“I can roleplay in 4E. But it strikes me that they way the game is now setup, most players aren’t going to be roleplaying, they’re just going to be spending their time looking for ways to interject their skills and powers into the environment. That’s not roleplay in my book. That’s opportunistic game interactivity.”
I’m not going to argue how this would feel compared to, say, the Storyteller system or any generic or more abstract mechanics RPG. However, I don’t have these feelings any more in 4E than I did with any other edition of D&D.
Ever since there were racial favored classes, class favored stats and even Prime Requisites in AD&D which effected class performance (and spells per day), there has been “playing the numbers.” And personally, my players have been doing a good job adding depth to their characters outside of combat stats and skill rolls, and we haven’t seen any restraint or limitations by the rules that hasn’t allowed for them to think outside the “kewl powers.”
Yes, we use the power cards for reference material (seems no different than writing our spells on notecards last 3 editions), but that isn’t all they’re limited to. Devising plans, clever ruses, and experimenting with tactics where there are no set rules for (like leaping onto the backs of dragons and holding on) are common place in my game with no restraint other than maybe the occasional ability die roll.
Personally, I think d20/3.5 had more “playing the numbers” than 4E did (and I loved d20.)
And if players are going to be “Rollplaying” over “Roleplaying” then that sounds more like a problem with the players than the system.
You know what’s great – I mean truly GREAT – about 4e D&D?
It’s got people passionate about the game again.
@The good Rev.: Sure, most seasoned players can take a blind eye to playing the numbers. But what about those uninitiated? What are they to presume from what the rulebooks appear to make important? And while I feel that 3 and 3.5 with their bloat of rules was the wrong track for one reason, 4E misses the mark by a completely different one.
@greywulf: That’s a comment I can’t find a single thing to argue against.
If we play by what the rulebooks appear to make important, that means the DM is responsible for helping the players understand that they can make choices and actions outside of what is on their sheet. Greywulf actually had some good articles on his blog that could sum it up better than I could; but essentially all the “how to RP” stuff was in the second book.
And frankly, I think a complete newcomer to the hobby would have better luck learning that aspect from 4E than the last two editions. By that, I mean a newcomer today. Not saying the younger gen is stupid; but times are different and I honestly believe 4E makes a better “beginner” impression into the hobby.
But I will give credit where credit is due: I think Basic D&D was still the shiz for getting me and my friends into it as kids. They just need a return to box sets.
As a totally non-objective observation your question “But what about those uninitiated?” made me think of my group. And oddly, the two people with the least rpg experience (and thus least baggage) are the people who least look at the game as a numbers thing. When combat rolls around they can look at he cards to tell them what to do with their dice, but it has very little influence on the RP. I’d not thought about it till just now. Very interesting.
And yeah… at least you didn’t call it WoW.
We all have our individual hang ups I suppose. The “one ups manship” never really came in to play random groupings, and I still think Drizzt is cool (not having been directly exposed to the deluge of clones… though I never made my own clone, I’m a dwarf man myself) so them adding something “cool” to the game doesn’t bother me.
And I’m not to proud to admit it… I can’t quite wrap my head around “Is having to make interesting tactical choices part of what makes a game fun? Or is choosing to make said choices part of what evokes the fun?”. Are you asking “what is fun, making tactical choices or playing a game in which making tactical choices is part of the play style?”… if so, I don’t quite see a functional difference.
@justaguy: To clarify, I’m asking if “having” or “being required” by the nature of the rules is more fun than “being given the option of” because the rules don’t disallow it. I think the question bears merit in relation to how the rules present opportunity in different play styles.
@Rev and justaguy: It appears one of you has indeed confirmed that I’m mistaken about what the other has conjectured; namely that the newbies are getting it better than those of us who remember too many a revision. Though the sample set is small, I’m willing to consider conceding that point. Not yet perhaps, but the evidence is weighing in your collective favor.
@Kevin: If what you’re asking is if being required to make tactical choices is fun (as opposed to simply having the option of making tactical choices), I’d say “Absolutely, yes!” Part of a game’s appeal (any game!) is the dilemma of dealing with restrictions. Being required to make intelligent, tactical choices is just an additional layer of that. It’s a game. At its core, any game boils down to a series of decision points based on less-than-perfect information (whether this be the unknown of a monster’s AC, or the unknown of what number the d20 will roll).
@Scott: But should the rules in a rpg require such decisions be made to the extent that 4E forces? The reference I’m referring to is in regard to the imposition of day/encounter/etc. skills and powers that (again in my opinion) don’t really fix the problem of the (one shot) wizard class re vancian magic. Instead it just puts everyone at the same, albeit lessened, disadvantage. That’s not a fix in my estimation, it’s a way of blurring the issue.
Alright Kevin, you’ve told us that you think they kept in the wrong parts for 4e. You’re entitled to your opinion, it’s your blog, after all. But it’s damn easy to be against something. How about you tell us what you think SHOULD have been done. And something had to be done.
I have played D&D for 20 years, and 3e was the worst mess I’ve ever seen. I tried it a few times, and basically skipped it, because I found it functionally impossible to DM, and not much fun to play.
4e, though, I enjoy a lot. Not that there aren’t weak points. Magic and treasure distribution I’m not crazy about, and I’ve yet to really do a successful skill challenge, but I’m generally happy with it.
You seem to have given this a lot of thought, so tell us, what should they have done. And don’t say Pathfinder, it’s just 3e with some of the ugly moved around.
“You know what’s great – I mean truly GREAT – about 4e D&D?
It’s got people passionate about the game again.”
@greywulf… I could not agree more. As much as everyone complains about the “edition wars”, they have to admit it is nice that people actually care enough about the systems to argue, debate and discuss them.
That being said, I have to say that I am definitely on the anti-4e side. I came back to gaming in 3e and am currently enjoying Pathfinder. Is it perfect, no, but it has me excited about gaming again. The changes to the 3.x rules aren’t really drastic, but the address most of the issues I had in 3e. My players feel the same and honestly Pathfinder is “D&D” in my group and 4th edition is referred to as 4th edition.
I tried running a 4e game again recently and my group outright told me that they wanted to go back to playing D&D because they didn’t like 4th edition. Notice that the D&D they referred to was Pathfinder, and that 4e was never referred to as D&D just 4e. I know that technically it is the only one of the two with the right to the name,but that’s not the point.
Most of my players are fairly new to gaming and one of them actually joined our group right after 4e came out, and since the group had completely converted to 4e at the time, that is how he learned roleplaying. The first and only rpg system he learned is his least favorite and he is the most vocal about wanting to stay away from 4e. Overall my group had a good time with the 4e campaign I ran, but they just prefer and have more fun with the 3e rules.
We had no problem actually roleplaying with 4e so the statement that roleplaying is taken out of that edition doesn’t hold much water with me. Honestly we kind of threw out the miniature rules so the overall impact on how we had always gamed wasn’t drastic.
Still something about the system didn’t sit right with my group and they all agree that they want to stick with the 3e/Pathfinder rules. So while I am in definitely in the Pathfinder/3e camp, I think the argument that 4e is anti-roleplaying is kind of weak. The only thing that keeps a person from roleplaying in any system is the person, not the game.
Though I will concede that the 4e rules, as written, tend to favor mini-wargaming over roleplay. But they don’t inhibit it.
@Kevin: In my (pretty extensive, I think) experience with 4e, I’ve found that the idea of the 15-minute adventuring day is largely gone. While parties might find themselves encouraged to take extended rests after three or four encounters, they’re usually perfectly capable of taking on six or seven before they exhaust all their resources. Where in previous editions this would leave the spellcasters with crossbows praying for 20s, in 4e the party can slog on for those extra few encounters and still feel able to bring a significant amount of power to bear in each fight thanks to the way encounter powers function. No, they won’t have their daily powers, but I’ve never felt that daily powers were something I couldn’t do without. I might have a tougher time of it without them, but my party made do just fine – and none of us felt like we were getting the short end of the stick.
@Scott – I think the 15 minute adventuring day has become a bigger problem not less.
In earlier editions, the only people significantly limited in their use of abilities / powers were the spell casters who generally made up only a 3rd of a party. Now everyone is limited with some Daily Powers. This means it is more likely that someone in the party will be complaining they don’t have X power and need to rest.
The balance of the game has shifted. In earlier versions, only spell casters had mass killing abilities. This meant they very highly valuable and worth protecting and encourage casters to conserve their powers and push further into the dungeon so that you could deliver that killer Fireball at the right time. Now, they might as well expend their powers as fast as everyone else.
Finally, combat time and playing time. In an evening session, we were getting two 4e encounters done if we were lucky. It often made sense to finish the session by resting after those to encounters so we would start the next session fresh and raring to go. With earlier editions (though less with 3/3.5) combat was quicker and encounters smaller so we would tend to push on further.
My only 4e experience is playing all the way though Keep on the Shadowfell. As this is WotC’s introductory adventure, I considered it a good guide how they expect 4e to be played and we found that pushing on to a 3rd encounter was a real risky enterprise. Even if we had a larger party, 4 encounters would of been a real gamble because every combat was on a knife edge. We simply could not take the chance of continuing without a rest.
@Kevin “But should the rules in a rpg require such decisions be made to the extent that 4E forces? ”
The rules in 3E did. Casters were forced to make tactical decisions based on their spell loadout and the situation, and unsurprisingly casters were the most popular (and powerful) classes because of that- they were more fun to play. Fighters in theory also did thanks to the wide array of special attacks, although none of them were ever any use unless specialised for (e.g. trip fighter) and many were useless in lots of campaigns (e.g. disarm/sunder fighter vs monsters, bull rush/grapple fighter vs large creatures). 4e has simply replaced the fighter’s spread of fake choices with actual choices to make them as interesting and versatile as casters.
@wickedmurph: Touche. Fair enough. I’ll pull together some of the less chaotic and jumbled things I have in my head for what I would have done to fix the rule-set and try to quantify what I’d have done in 4E. This might take some time, so don’t expect me to just toss something out soon… I want to be sure that I don’t sound like a blithering idiot… or at least not MORE like a blithering idiot.
@Barry: But that’s just my point regarding limiting everyone just like the spellcasters. Whereas in the previous editions, only spellcasters were forced to make such decisions, now everyone has to do that. Just as Scott points out, a party can easily find themselves with the spellcasters of the cadre having to default to crossbows and prayers for 20s just to be involved in combat, now it strikes me that, while they’ve lessened that to a degree for the arcane of the group, they also imposed the same restrictions on everyone else.
As identified by Chris, I think we’ve all been there, either at the table or even playing the character, when we discover that someone no longer has X to deal with Y. I’m not saying this shouldn’t happen once in a while for good dramatic effect, but when the rules make it the norm for everyone, then I don’t believe that most players are engaged in playing the game as opposed to wondering where to interject their X.
I contend that the bulk of choices posed to the player (not the character) in a rpg should be encouraged, not dictated. In my opinion, 4E as written feels to me like it dictates too many choices to the player.
However, that said, I totally agree with your estimation that the countless (and arguably pointless) feats have been trimmed to a more interesting selection.
@Chris: Again, that has absolutely not been my experience in playing or running 4e. There have been times where I’ve played in games where we’ve gone 8 encounters without resting. There have been times where I’ve run 4e games where the PCs have blown through 7 encounters over the course of a single session. And I’m far from the only person with these sorts of experiences. If your combats are dragging, there are easy ways to fix that (using power cards, making sure players decide their actions before their turn arrives, rolling attack and damage at the same time, etc.). But put simply, the criticisms you have leveled are those typically heard from people who have not played with the game long enough for it to run smoothly. I guarantee you, your first couple of 3rd Edition games weren’t optimal either.
@Kevin: I think your perspective on 3e and 4e is kind of back to front. In 3e, it was fighters who were more limited. They had no choices outside of character creation, you simply wound them up and let them go like clockwork soldiers whilst you waited for combat to end so you could get back to using your 2 skill points per level in the noncombat section. The ‘spells per day’ limitation of casters faded away at medium levels and with wands, given the length of most combats and the 2-3 combat-day by level 5-6 you could always cast something every round. As a side note, the 2-3 combat day wasn’t necessarily a powergaming thing- unless you were just dungeoncrawling you very rarely ended up having more than 3-4 combats per day thanks to the natural flow of the story, most campaigns involving civilisation or wilderness travel wouldn’t have the space for more.
Now in 4e, wizards are liberated from the limitation of ‘expend resource or do nothing’ (the ‘forced choice’ you mention) at low levels thanks to at-wills and the exessive deluge of choices at high level by the 2aw/3encounter/3daily structure, and fighters are liberated from the limitation of ‘you can only do one thing’ thanks to encounters and dailies (although these limitations were removed partway through the life of 3e by Reserve Spells and Skill Tricks from Complete Scoundrel). Even if for some reason you don’t want to actively take part in combat Fighters can still click autoattack and sit there chipping away with one attack over and over and be moderately effective by marking.
Kevin,
Thanks for approaching my request seriously. To me, it means that you are seriously thinking about what it is you like and dislike about the various editions.
That being said, I’m getting a feeling that you are trying to have some of this argument both ways. Is limiting resources a good thing, or a bad thing? You seem to say that it’s good in 3e, but bad in 4e. Mages are fine in 3rd, but treating everyone like mages in 4th is a problem?
Running out of resources is really not a problem that I’ve experienced in 4e, I have to say. A while ago I ran an “encounter” that was really 5 standard encounters, but occurring all as one encounter on a very large map, with a timed objective. So, 5 encounters, no rests – no recharging encounter powers. I noticed absolutely no “I can’t do anything, so I’ll just” that I’m used to seeing in low-level parties. The at-will powers and combat actions meant that all players were meaningfully contributing to the entire battle.
Which to me says that what you are describing is not really a problem. It’s far less of an issue in 4e than previous editions, with their super-limited warrior classes and vancian magic.
Roleplaying is not something you find in a rulebook. It’s something that lies between the player’s ears. You bring it to the table. You can roleplay as deeply in 4e as in any rules-light indie game. The rules are very formal and mechanical – this saves our group from arguing about rules interpretations and lets us get on with roleplaying. There are plenty of reasons why this game is not for you, but don’t blame a lack of roleplaying.
@Philio: You say, “The rules are very formal and mechanical – this saves our group from arguing about rules interpretations and lets us get on with roleplaying.”
See that’s just the exact opposite of how I see role-playing encouraged. Role-playing in my group is stymied by heavy formal and mechanical rules. For some reason such a rule-set seems to hinder imagination rather than foster it. Hence my conclusion that the two are interrelated enough that the heavy-handedness of the one tends to kill the other for me.