Thoughts on 4E

[Finarvyn]

I started playing D&D back in the 1970's and have enjoyed it as it has evolved through the early 2000's when I got tired of skills and feats in 3E and mostly abandoned the D&D product line. I've purchased several of the 4E books because my son thinks the game looks cool, but I've never actually played the game. Having said all that, here's my take on 4E:

4E is a game of exceptions. The basic rules are pretty simple, but every character gets to break the rules in certain ways, and this forms the basis of the powers lists. Each class gets certain exceptions, and there would appear to be potential for dozens of classes. As there would be no end to the ways to break rules, it would appear that there can be more and more Player's Handbooks and that this trend might never end.

Fundamentally, this would seem to follow the Warhammer model from Games Workshop. You buy a WH or 40K rulebook and it tells you how to play the game. Then you buy a special codex for your particular type of army and it tells how how you can break the core rules. All about exceptions. The way the Games Workshop model runs is that you master your army but really don't need to know about the rest. That keeps the complexity of the game somewhat reasonable. It also reminds me of a lot of Collectable Card Games, where each card has the potential to break the rules since the card trumps the core rulebook.

However, the D&D model has (prior to 4E) never followed this pattern. Players have been expected to understand the basics for all classes and races because there haven't been so many choices before. I think that this explains why old school gamers struggle so much with 4E, because they expect to master the entire game instead of a small slice of it. A single race or class takes several pages of rules to explain, even if that race or class is limited to low levels. Putting race and class together tends to double the quantity of exceptions that one needs to be familiar with, and complexity grows and grows as higher and higher levels are achieved.

Anyway, that’s my take on it.

[tavis]

Another way that 4E is like Warhammer is that it (and 3E before it) caters to hobbyists and not just players. As Matt Colville points out, Games Workshop sells you a lot of stuff that you can enjoy doing before, or instead of, getting together to play the game. It's also like building a deck in a CCG.

The better you put together your deck, or point-buy your 40K army, or build your 4E character, the better you'll be able to do at the competitive aspects of the game.

Comparing combat performance can be a competitive activity in 4E because of the design goal that all classes will be balanced in combat, and because the random element in character creation is removed. In AD&D, if a character did much better than mine in combat, it might be that my PC class wasn't meant to excel in combat (e.g. druid), or it might be that my rolls were poor but someone else got lucky (or more likely cheated) to get an 18/98 Strength. In 4E, if my character does poorly in combat, it has an objectively demonstrable relationship to me Doing It Wrong as a player.

Now, mind you, you'd generally have to run an exhaustive statistical analysis to see the difference (across more sessions of actual play than most PCs will ever see) between a perfectly mechanically optimized character and one where I just picked stuff that looked cool. But the fact that the difference is real and related to player skill causes people to get very into a superiority struggle that, although common enough in the people who used to play old-school games back in the day, is not facilitated by the design of older editions the way it is by newer.

[EdOWar]

I haven't played 4E yet either, though I did buy the PH when it first came out and read that. When I read about 4E in other forums, particularly about character builds, they use jargon that is very similar to, if not identical to, jargon used by MMORPG players when discussing character builds in those games. I think 4E even uses party roles similar to MMOs: tanks, healers, DPS, etc. The terms may be different, but the concepts are mostly the same. I can only guess that Wizards made a conscious decision to mimic MMOs in an effort to attract younger gamers, particularly WoW players. Whether this was a good idea or not, I don't know.

On a side note, it seems to me that most games, possibly all games, are basically a set of rules and then a set of exceptions to the rules ( though 4E may take this to a greater extreme than any previous edition of the game).

[vladtolenkov]

The one other major exception based design that I think influenced 4E is WOTC's own Magic: The Gathering. In both cases the core rules are relatively straightforward, but the exceptions add in variation and complexity.

The MMORPG connection with 4E is often mentioned, and I agree that WOTC tried to take what was useful in games like Warcraft and bring a little of that to the table. However, I'd like to point out that lots of video games and MMOs (Warcraft in particular) are essentially based on D&D.

[capheind]

Another way it mirrors games workshop, is that Hasbro is slowly trying to make the game about cards, and miniatures, and other little trinkets because they've seen Miniatures and card games manufacturers succeed where classic RPG publishing houses have largely failed. The Big RPG companies, such as Fasa and TSR are now dead, their properties and game lines picked up cheap by smaller companies like wiz kids and WoTC. In the case of some of of these lines this has been good, I just picked up Metamorphasis Alpha 1st ed, and Shadowrun 1st ed at DriveThruRPG for under 20 bucks.

Something tells me that in later editions buying a Hasbro miniature will be an essential part of character generation, a line will read something like "Take the stats from the Hasbro whatever Miniature and transfer them to your character sheet" I'm not saying that would automagically make it a bad game, I'm just saying its not the game I'd like to play.

[capheind]

Mar 5, 2010 5:46:45 GMT -6 vladtolenkov said:

The one other major exception based design that I think influenced 4E is WOTC's own Magic: The Gathering. In both cases the core rules are relatively straightforward, but the exceptions add in variation and complexity.

The MMORPG connection with 4E is often mentioned, and I agree that WOTC tried to take what was useful in games like Warcraft and bring a little of that to the table. However, I'd like to point out that lots of video games and MMOs (Warcraft in particular) are essentially based on D&D.

Yeah, but the urge to make every character badass, and cool looking, and "not your Daddy's Minotaur/darkelf/gnome, Har Har" comes strait from MMORPG's where your paying them, and you don't want the avatar your paying money to play to be anything less than supercool.

Of course not restricting players by race or class in any way, to my own personal preferences, is dull. Having a thousand non-human player race options means that, by default, the game is likely to be largely, or entirely, non-human. One Drizzt is interesting, the armada that followed was dull as dishwater.

The disturbingly standardized artwork, the rules that treat the game master like a computer (do any 4e GM's actually have fun?), and a style of play which seems (at least by my reading and what limited playing I've done) to result in mostly roll playing with interspersed bits of reality-tv-ish drama Just kinda screams Dice and Minis WOW..

All that said... The Taddol would be redeeming, if only they had a third arm...

[tavis]

Mar 5, 2010 10:07:51 GMT -6 capheind said:

do any 4e GM's actually have fun?

Until recently the fun I had with 4E all followed the pattern: as a freelancer, imagining cool moves that could be written up as powers that could fit into gaps in the interesting formal design space > as a DM, creating a game world that followed its own dynamic logic > as a player, using the powers that had already been written to affect the world in ways whose consequences felt pretty tamped down by the structure of the system and the not-terribly-sandboxy approach of the DM.

However, I recently played in a really good 4E convention game. Some of what made it awesome was edition-independent, like doing good voices and characterization for NPCs. However, the fact that the 4E system is so mechanical contributed to the pleasure in two ways:

- less interestingly, there was the pleasure of mastery; everyone at the table knew the rules really well, so it was satisfying just to participate in this complex group effort of using the rules to express character intent and judge the outcome

- more interestingly, there was the pleasure of overcoming crisply defined resistance. I also played in the indie game Time and Temp with the same GM; the thing that was missing there was that in 4E we knew exactly how difficult it had been to overcome the various obstacles. The looser resolution system of Time and Temp didn't quell my doubts about "did we just win because the scenario requires it" the way that beating all those skill check DCs and knocking down all those HPs had in 4E.

Some of the most memorable moments in my OD&D campaign have come when the situation has added a little more rigorously defined rules than usual, like the Dexterity check to avoid falling off the rope bridge when attacked by bats in the Caverns of Thracia. A great thing IMO about OD&D is that it's easy to add those extra mechanics in when you want 'em and take them out when you don't, whereas that would work directly against the pleasure of mastery players expect from 4E.

[geoffrey]

I looked through a 4E Players Handbook, and I didn't see where it says how many hit points are regained through resting. Does anyone know?

[tavis]

A six hour extended rest restores all your HP and the healing surges that are the mechanic that controls regaining HP between extended rests.

A five minute short rest doesn't restore HP directly, but it does refresh the "second wind" ability that all PCs have for healing themselves a number of HP equal to 1/4 their max. A short rest also restores encounter healing powers, so as long as PCs haven't run out of surges a 4E party can usually restore itself to full HP without spending any resource other than surges by resting for 15 mins or so.

Once a party runs out of surges, there are very few things that will let them regain HP except for taking an extended rest. A healing potion, for example, requires you to spend a surge; if you've got no surges it doesn't benefit you.

[codeman123]

Well i had high hoped for the game initially and even went out bought all the books (the day it came out!) and even tried to run a few games. I found it way.. way.. too much to keep up with and really hated how they basically removed alot of the core concepts of d&d that we all know and love, hell it even made me appreciate 3e more!

[geoffrey]

Mar 5, 2010 12:16:06 GMT -6 tavis said:

A six hour extended rest restores all your HP and the healing surges that are the mechanic that controls regaining HP between extended rests.

Wow. So regardless of how many hit points you've lost, all your hit points will be regained after 6 hours of resting?

[tavis]

Mar 5, 2010 14:38:52 GMT -6 codeman123 said:

hell it even made me appreciate 3e more!

4E made me appreciate even more just how many AD&Disms had made it into 3E, like the fact that the 3E DMG sample dungeon is the same as in Gygax's, or that the "golf bag" of special weapon types (mithril, adamantine, etc.) comes from a foot note of his about what +2, +3, +4 etc. armor is made of.

4E also made me realize how little of that stuff is in all the lines extending from Basic D&D. Between that and the fact that they preserved a more central role (if only by stripping away the Gygaxian verbiage that obscured it) for Blackmoor campaign-derived stuff like wilderness exploration and barony building, there really is something true about each of the two creators having their own lineage in TSR publishing (even if it's also true that it was an unwilling response to a legal decision).

Mar 5, 2010 14:53:06 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

Wow. So regardless of how many hit points you've lost, all your hit points will be regained after 6 hours of resting?

Yes, the only game-defined resources you need to manage over multiple days are magic items and gold pieces. You really only need to manage hit points within an encounter, and healing surges within a day.

[capheind]

Well again, why should the GM/game designers be creating "feats" To me the whole idea of feats seems a bit silly, I prefer the OSR method of just describing what you do, the GM giving you odds, and you rolling a die. I'm just starting to worry that the new games are going to breed an entire generation who "rout" in every battle and have no clue what a rout actually is.....

[Falconer]

Feb 28, 2010 10:58:27 GMT -6 tavis said:

In AD&D, if a character did much better than mine in combat, it might be that my PC class wasn't meant to excel in combat (e.g. druid)

Incidentally, when my old group had all reached name level or thereabouts (AD&D 1e), we pitted the PCs against each other in what-if scenarios. There were grand melees, one-on-ones, you name it. Well, the Druid never lost, but won every battle he was involved in.

Now granted, AD&D combat isn’t typically every-man-for-himself, it’s the party vs. the world. And there Fighters (and their subclasses) and Magic-Users cause the majority of the damage hit-point for hit-point. But the Druid definitely pulls his weight.

Of course, it may have been because he was the most clever player. He is a very good friend who started the campaign with me, and typically was elected caller. After I moved away, he took over DMing for the group. Regards.

[aldarron]

Feb 28, 2010 10:08:06 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

However, the D&D model has (prior to 4E) never followed this pattern.

There's something about 4e that I think a lot of us old timers ought to see right away but seem to miss. The same may be said of 3e and 3.5, but 4e doubley so. Okay, follow me on this.
Triumph was an innovated British motorcycle company arund the turn on the 20th century. They branched into car manufacturing in the 1920's. The great depression slowed the company and WWII ended it. After the war, a large conglomerate of car makers bought the name and the patents and began making a whole new line of cars. None of the employees, none of the designs, none of the manufacturing locations, nothing aside from an engine design had anything to do with the pre WWII Triumph, but most folks assumed they were buying a product related to the Triumphs they had know and the company they were familiar with. In the 1990's the whole thing happened again. The new Triumph went out of businees and a few year ago another company bought the logo and began slapping it on their motorcycles. Again, there was no connection whatsoever between new and old. Triumph motorcycles now may be very fine machines, but they and the company they come from owe nothing to the Truimph of a hundred years ago. They could just as easily be named Victory motorcycles or you name it. The name is a meaningless label.

Okay that story was to say this. Dungeon and Dragons 4th edition is likewise a meaningless label. It might be a fine game to some and a terrible game to others but its connection to D&D is entirely a matter of logo ownership. There is no heritage, in personel, location, or anything tangible whatsoever between the game and the company that produces it and the game and company that originated the name 40 years ago. Wotc, and now Hasbro have the right to the name and any of the material they want to use but they have no more realistic claim to produce "authentic" new editions/products of the original Dungeons and Dragons than Peryton or Labrynth Lord. At this point, its just a name Hasbro paid to use for their RPG.

I might like to buy a new Triumph motorcycle, but if I did so I would be under no illusions that there was any connection to the Triumph of old.

[tavis]

I agree that it can be helpful to see 4E as a different game that just happens to have the D&D label, but I think the Triumph analogy is inappropriate because:

- your description suggests that the subsequent makers just bought the rights to name a car Triumph but not the patents for the innovations that made it unique; the carrion crawler is an example of a piece of intellectual content that WotC bought along with the name and continues to use in the product under that name. (That's a trivial example but one we were just talking about here.)

- the impact of the fact that what the subsequent designers at other companies saw themselves as doing was "making a Triumph" is hard to quantify, but I don't think it's meaningless.

[aldarron]

Mar 10, 2010 11:56:08 GMT -6 tavis said:

I agree that it can be helpful to see 4E as a different game that just happens to have the D&D label, but I think the Triumph analogy is inappropriate because:

- your description suggests that the subsequent makers just bought the rights to name a car Triumph but not the patents for the innovations that made it unique; the carrion crawler is an example of a piece of intellectual content that WotC bought along with the name and continues to use in the product under that name. (That's a trivial example but one we were just talking about here.)

- the impact of the fact that what the subsequent designers at other companies saw themselves as doing was "making a Triumph" is hard to quantify, but I don't think it's meaningless.

<shrug> The post WWII Triumph did have at least some of the earlier patents, the "intellectual property". The Triumph sportscars used a modified 1930's Triumph tractor (as in farm tractor) engine. I dunno about the most recent acquisition.

My point is that, in my opinion anyway, people like Peryton, and Labrinth Lord etc. are producing games that have as much claim to being "authentic" new versions of D&D as what Hasbro may put out. Having a corner on the name doesn't make it a true lineage, likewise, lacking the name doesn't mean theres no lineage. I tend to think of Pied Piper pubishing to be the closest thing to old TSR these days. Point taken though regarding the other bits of intellectual property, but that kind of stuff to me is usually just a matter of verbiage. Can't use Hobbit? okay we'll call it a Halfling, etc. Still, I can see how some would regard the continuation of specific monsters/treasures/settings as a strong connection with the past regardless of who was in control of the material.

[Mr. Darke]

I have finally played 4e and my thoughts are mixed. 4e is a well put together and thought out game. The core mechanics are simple and easy to grasp and it can be quite fun to play. Overall I do find certain aspects of 4e and improvement over 3e.That said, the reliance on grids and minis to play, saving the better abilities for later books and feel of a mini's combat game is a major turn off.

While I have enjoyed playing 4e I will not buy or run 4e. My table is going to remain S&W/OD&D for some time and I will not seriously look at D&D again until 5e with hope they move away from what they have done in 4e.

[pineappleleader]

Apr 2, 2010 10:09:25 GMT -6 Mr. Darke said:

I have finally played 4e and my thoughts are mixed. 4e is a well put together and thought out game. The core mechanics are simple and easy to grasp and it can be quite fun to play. Overall I do find certain aspects of 4e and improvement over 3e.That said, the reliance on grids and minis to play, saving the better abilities for later books and feel of a mini's combat game is a major turn off.

While I have enjoyed playing 4e I will not buy or run 4e. My table is going to remain S&W/OD&D for some time and I will not seriously look at D&D again until 5e with hope they move away from what they have done in 4e.

I took a look at the 4E Starter Set. My first impression was that it was a tactical miniatures game and too fiddly for me.

I had fun with 3.0E and 3.5E as a player. But thought that the information overload would drive you nuts as a referee. Just too much stuff to keep track of.

3.5E is the illogical conclusion to 1E AD&D. It is a wonderful resource. but ultimately too much. You really need a HAL 9000 to run the game.

4E seems like it could be fun with the right group. But it is just not my game. It does seem to be a completely different game compared to OD&D, 1e AD&D or Five Box D&D.

[Deleted]

Mar 10, 2010 11:23:06 GMT -6 aldarron said:

Okay that story was to say this. Dungeon and Dragons 4th edition is likewise a meaningless label. It might be a fine game to some and a terrible game to others but its connection to D&D is entirely a matter of logo ownership. There is no heritage, in personel, location, or anything tangible whatsoever between the game and the company that produces it and the game and company that originated the name 40 years ago. Wotc, and now Hasbro have the right to the name and any of the material they want to use but they have no more realistic claim to produce "authentic" new editions/products of the original Dungeons and Dragons than Peryton or Labrynth Lord. At this point, its just a name Hasbro paid to use for their RPG.

I played AD&D in the old days. Never played any other edition after that.
But last year I stumbled across 4th edition D&D. I love all of it, and when I play it, I am often reminded of my old university days playing D&D.
Fighters, wizards, clerics, bards, paladins; trolls, gnomes, gelatinous cubes and ropers; +1 swords, bags of holding and Tenser's Floating Disc; levels and races and dungeons; miniatures and graph paper and every sort of funny-shaped die.

Very different from the other roleplaying games I have enjoyed: Pendragon, Call of Cthulhu, Powers & Perils, Runequest, Werewolf, Mage.

[Deleted]

my thoughts on 4e..... VideoGame on pencil & paper.
I grew up on 2e and after playing 4e for about a year, got bored with it and decided to back to 2e.