Tuesday, March 10, 2009

more on yesterday's fiasco

Guess what I found in the inbox today next to the 20 new responses to yesterday's post?

Amazon.com recommends "Dungeons and Dragons Core Rulebook Gift Set, 4th Edition"

Thanks for the hot tip, Amazon!

My Prussian homie offers this little tidbit from one of the androids at Wizards*:
It might have been more accurate to call this editorial, "When your group tries to jump the shark but doesn't make it."

I might catch some flak for this one, but recent events compel me to talk about something that every DM has to contend with: party suckitude.

First, no offense to my players or anyone who's had a rough day in the dungeon. The best groups have off sessions. Sometimes they forget to use their encounter or daily powers. Sometimes they spread their attacks too thin. Sometimes they race around an encounter area like poodles on a 24-hour caffeine bender.

Sometimes, they do all of the above, and then some.

You know where this is going. What do you do when your group just shanks it? Sucks rocks? Can't pull it together? They can't blame it on the dice this time. They're not coordinating, communicating, or thinking tactically.

This happened to me recently. I'm running my group through "
The Shadow Rift of Umbraforge" from Dungeon #158, and the group is at the third encounter under The Happy Beggar -- the one with all the wraiths. It's a tough encounter, I'll be the first to admit. It comes right after a fight against the shadar-kai witch, dark creepers, and shadow hounds, which is no walk in the park, either. But wraiths are insubstantial, which means they take only half damage, and they regenerate 5 hp a round.

As soon as the fight started, the mistakes started piling up. One defender charged a wraith near the portal. The second defender charged … a different wraith. The rogue charged a third. If you do the math on expected damage for a 4th-level PC, you'll find that half damage is around 5 or 6 points -- about what a wraith regenerates. Against regenerating monsters, spreading out your attacks is a losing game.

The mistakes didn't stop there. The party striker got distracted by a dark creeper skulking in the corner, so one of the best characters for hurting regenerating foes wasn't attacking the wraiths at all. And that dark creeper wasn't even attacking anyone. It was after something the PCs had and was trying to figure out who was carrying it.

What's a DM to do? Some might "punish" their players by letting the dice fall where they may. That's not my style, especially when the group is having a bad night. I think the DM's first job is to make the game fun for everyone, even if that means compensating for the players. That's right, I cheated … in their favor. I dropped the wraiths' regeneration to 2. I put a secret button on the portal which created a radiant energy zone that shut down their regeneration altogether. I made some gentle tactical suggestions. Finally, I left a clear line of escape open.

It's important to keep some contingency plans for these occasions in your DMing pocket for when things go south -- really south. A TPK, as much as we toss the event around in gloating terms, isn't good for anyone. You lose campaign story continuity. Everyone is bummed. You might even lose players.

We'll see what happens. The session ended mid-fight, with lots of anxious and frustrated faces. I hope they pull it out, or at least run away to try the encounter again later. Most of all, I hope that next month, I'm not writing about how to jump start a campaign after a TPK. What about your campaigns? Got any stories of encounters gone horribly awry?
Just to sum up: the 4e boosters keep saying that making characters is easier in 4e, everything is more balanced thanks to chucking out all those dang sacred cows, and fights go much faster than in the previous WotC edition. Yet the dude is scared a TPK is going to drive away players, he has to fudge mid-fight with this preciously balanced system, and he couldn't get the combat done in one session so they had to hit pause. Did I get all that right? This is the slick new edition Amazon is ready to sell me for 66 bucks, being run by one of the game company staff, and he's facing a basic problem that has plagued DMs for years.

I like happy players just as much as the next referee and it seriously breaks my heart when someone wants to quit a game. But if a TPK is going to make someone leave my table then all I can do is wish them luck in their next endeavour. As a longtime D&D and Call of Cthulhu guy let me state this unequivocally: if you are doing your job right you can kill every damn PC in the campaign and the players will pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and start rolling up new PCs. I'm not saying look out for opportunities to make this happen nor should you gloat when the whole party is dead. My point is that an entertaining game run by a referee with his wits about him for fully engaged players can survive a total party kill.

Now I am not dogmatic nor am I perfect. There have been situations where I'm sitting behind the screen and I think things like "Uh oh. I screwed the pooch designing this encounter. I better tone down that shaman's spell list." But I'm running one of those crappy old editions that aren't as precisely balanced as the flavor of the month, I expect to hit some rough spots like that. Part of being a good DM is rolling with issues like that.

On the other hand, I'm not sure I like the general concept of invisibly adjusting the game to account for player incompentency. Android Chris calls this attitude "punishing" players. I prefer to think of it as "not teaching them they can slop their way through encounters and still win". Some of the best sessions I've ever played started out with the PCs doing a half-assed job of exploring the dungeon, getting the crap kicked out of them, and then returning another day with their "A" game. It's extremely rewarding for the players to be able to say "Yeah, the Vampire Lord chased us out of the dungeon last session, but we got the bastard this time!"

BTW, that's the plot of like half of the Spider-Man comics I've ever read: some bozo like the Scorpion hands Peter Parker his ass in the first act, later Spidey gets his shit together and when they tangle the second time our hero is victorious. I know a couple ways a GM can make that happen in a game. One is to be a railroady prick who cheats the first encounter by making the villains unkillable. Another is to not mollycoddle the players and just let it come naturally.

*Note that I don't actually use the word 'homie' in conversation nor do I think Wizards employs androids.

74 comments:

  1. Jeff, I love your blog, I've been reading for a long time. But this railing against fourth edition is starting to sound like nonsense.

    I'm a relatively new gamer, but I play a lot and I read even more. I love playing both 4e and the retro-clones (which is the closest thing I can get to OD&D), and I mix what I learn from one freely with the other.

    With that in mind, I think that in the past few posts you're not separating the game from the DM. A good DM can take a game as simple as Land of Og and turn it into a great evening. A bad DM... well, this post may have a better example than I can offer. My point is that you shouldn't mix the DM and the game in the same basket.

    Fourth edition has a lot of offer an old-schooler like yourself. Sure, it has more rules than old-school games do, but you're fully free to ignore them as you wish. When I run it, I run it as if it were an old-school game. Someone wants to do something unexpected, like swing from a chandelier? Sure... let me just roll the dice to see if you succeed. How is that any different?

    Try other games (not necessarily fourth edition) and bring your play style with you. (It'd be hard not to, come to think of it.) I guarantee you'll have fun, even if you end up playing Og for the night.

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  2. As much as I loathe some of the basic design decisions in 4e, the fact that player decisions can actually still matter enough that they can lose an encounter that wasn't intended to be unwinnable should probably count in its favor. And the divide between "let the dice fall where they may" and "the GM's gotta be able to fudge" is as old as the hobby. I'm not surprised that a GM of the latter school has to wrestle with the 4e rules; 4e players seem somewhat schizo to me about wanting story-telling-game style outcomes to fall out of battlemat & miniatures skirmish style rules.

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  3. Anonymous9:31 AM

    "As a longtime D&D and Call of Cthulhu guy let me state this unequivocally: if you are doing your job right you can kill every damn PC in the campaign and the players will pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and start rolling up new PCs. I'm not saying look out for opportunities to make this happen nor should you gloat when the whole party is dead. My point is that an entertaining game run by a referee with his wits about him for fully engaged players can survive a total party kill."

    Preach it, Brother!

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  4. Anonymous9:31 AM

    Especially as they destroyed everything else to have this tactical-sub-game.
    Now, the game itself is invalidated.

    They should be playing Wushu.

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  5. Not to fan flames... OK, maybe a bit to fan the humor.. but this post about a review of 5E kinda fits what you just posted: http://www.gamegrene.com/node/971

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  6. @Aeolien: Fourth edition has a lot of offer an old-schooler like yourself.

    I've played and read through the 4E core books. May I ask what you think it has to offer to an old school player who has OD&D and the like?

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  7. Good stuff, yup. I used to see the "second time victory" a lot, back in the day. 1e AD&D players knew when to run!

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  8. I guess one thing I don't get is why the GM was so concerned about a TPK. Is the slog from the respawn point in the nearest graveyard really that much of a hassle? Or is it that he's worried the wraiths will camp the corpses? I mean, if that's the case, he can just rule that they de-aggro and return to their original spawn point, right? That's what being GM means...

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  9. @jamused - my head just a'sploded.

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  10. @Chgowiz:

    As much as I'd like to answer that question... I can't. It depends entirely on you as a gamer. Nowhere am I suggesting you give up old-school gaming, just as I will continue to play retro-clones. They are an awful lot of fun!

    My point is more that anything new broadens your experience. You're guaranteed to learn something, whether its how another game handles, or its something about you and your players. It opens your eyes a bit.

    What do you think?

    @jamused: Nice one. :)

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  11. @Aeolien - I've learned, being an engineer, that I learn more from my failures and from negative feedback than positive feedback/successes - usually.

    Having said that, I learned more about what I don't like about RPGs and the direction of today's games from 4E than actually learning anything new that I did like. Now that sounds completely negative, and I guess it is? I know that what I learned from 4E is that it's not the game for me. I learned more about what I like/appreciate from 1E and OD&D. Having said that, I would play 4E again with friends, but it would be more about being with them than enjoying 4E. Case in point - I remember when I tried to play a Dwarf Cleric who wouldn't heal people because he thought they were wimps and wouldn't fight as lustily as he... and I was told that I was not playing "real" 4E because I wasn't fulfilling my "role". Uhhh... that was a light going off in my head that this was not the game for me. I have a feeling that with friends, we could play tiddlywinks and end up having fun.

    So no, nothing there that I don't already have in the many sources already. I guess that's just me?

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  12. I remember when I tried to play a Dwarf Cleric who wouldn't heal people because he thought they were wimps and wouldn't fight as lustily as he.

    Oh, man, if that's not the greatest character concept I've heard in a long while. That's just inspired. Love, love, love it.

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  13. I agree with Aeolien. The DM's decision to totally fudge the encounter was a DM decision and had nothing to do with the core rules or module they were playing.
    I tend to give my players a break when I know that poor planning on my part has caused them to be in a dire situation. When they have put themselves there, if a TPK happens, it happens. Roll new characters and don't be so stupid next time.
    Plus, in a game like D&D where is the sense of accomplishment if you know you can't fail?

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  14. @Chgowiz: And that's a totally valid response! Trying it and realising you don't like it is great! I'm not asking you to like it. I am sad that a bad experience soured you on the game, but that happens. I've played a few games at my FLGS with poor groups that left me with a bad taste in my mouth, but it helped me learn what style of game I do like to play, which means I have more fun now! I hope you learned something similar.

    Let me ask you this, because I'm curious. In an OD&D game, if your group were in a fair fight against a bunch of dire rats, you were the group's sole front-line fighter, you refused to draw your weapon because that was too barbaric, and as a result there was a TPK... how would your group react?

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  15. I heartily endorse this blogpost.

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  16. @Aeolian - if you're trying to draw parallels between your example and what happened with my Dwarf cleric, I would need to fill in a lot which would show that these are different situations.

    To answer your question at it's face value, I would expect to get gakked the next time expedient, but then I would accept that as a natural outcome of the play I was in. I also most of the time play with people who I like to game with.

    In the case of my Dwarf Cleric, I was a newbie 3E/4E player with an experienced group who looked at play through those lenses of 3E/4E. Clearly, refusing to heal up a few HP after a combat, or fending off players who wanted to drag me back so I could use my at-will and encounter powers to heal them, which went against my declared religion and character, didn't play into their way of gaming. That's OK, that's their game, but after seeing that those types of games are more common than not using 3E/4E, I've concluded it's not the game for me.

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  17. Cool! Thanks for your clarification. I really wasn't trying to feed the troll at all... I hope I communicated that effectively. I have nothing against what you did at all, in fact, I've done something similar. I played a cleric back in 3E who would only cast healing spells a certain number of times a day, because he didn't want to ask his god for too much. My other players raised their eyebrows when I told them that, but they agreed that that might be fun to play. I guess it depends on your circumstances.

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  18. I really, really, REALLY do not get this.

    I get a "story-telling" game.
    I get that the end of the story is foreordained victory.
    I get "plot protection."
    I get invincible, invulnerable characters.

    I don't get 800+ pages of rulebooks and tons of dice-rolls...

    only to cheat/fudge/whatever.

    It is NOT too damned hard to design a game fit for the job. Or simply to choose one.

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  19. Chgowiz: 'I remember when I tried to play a Dwarf Cleric who wouldn't heal people because he thought they were wimps and wouldn't fight as lustily as he... and I was told that I was not playing "real" 4E because I wasn't fulfilling my "role".'

    That's not a 4e thing, that's a D&D thing. Most AD&D groups would dump a cleric who refused to heal. D&D classes have always implied roles, more recent iterations just speak of it more openly.

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  20. >like half of the Spider-Man comics I've ever read: some bozo like the Scorpion hands Peter Parker his ass in the first act, later Spidey gets his shit together and when they tangle the second time our hero is victorious<

    Same in wrestling, too.

    I've been moddycoddling my players lately, and really regret it. They are running roughshod all over the place. I'm not being true to my world or my NPC's. Time to bump it up a notch!

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  21. @Stan - such has not been my experience, especially when I'm not talking about witholding healing all together, but that I was being told to stop fighting and go "do my job." Nobody appreciated role playing, rather they wanted XYZ to happen and the character concepts went out the window. No room for Dwarf clerics of the God of War...

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  22. Personally I alternate between 4th ed and BECMI, and OD&D. I never bothered with the wish lists, and believe me any one who played through Keep on Shadowfell Knows the value of a good strategic retreat.

    It took some time to get used to the ideas of miniatures and powers, but once I did I found I really enjoyed 4th ed. I really enjoy having page 42 for guidelines on improvised actions, and the simplified open ended skills. I like that unlike third ed characters don't take an hour to create. 4th ed has been my favorite edition of AD&D so far, even if it has strayed a bit from it's roots.

    I'm not saying 4th ed is perfect (other wise I wouldn't be playing OD&D now would I?) I'm just saying that it is enjoyable. As with all games it's value is going to depend the tastes of you and your group.

    For me 4th ed is the perfect game for Sword and Saddles Epics, while OD&D is better suited for grittier pulp fantasy, but that's just my style.

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  23. ... Sorry about the rambling thought pudding there. I really should learn to wait until I wake a bit before I start posting.

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  24. Jeff, I love you man.

    Y'know, in a two-guys-who-went-to-war-together-night-out-with-the-guys-didn't-tell-my-wife-what-we-did-at-that-girly-bar kinda way. Nothing weird.

    I am not know to have many PC deaths in most of my campaigns. This can be attributed to three factors. First, I play in systems and genres where the heroes aren't going to buy it unless they're really, really off by a significant margin(Star Trek, Star Wars, Superheroes). Second, I give a three adventure learning curve grace period(the first three sessions are a 'tutorial', an idea which I'm surprised the MMO inspired 4E doesn't use). In these initial get togethers my players get to learn how I GM and I get to see how they play. Lastly, I've been very lucky to have a creative and varied collection of players over the years.

    I don't go easy on them, they get smart on me.

    AD

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  25. Our only hope is to go Galt! We can live freely, roleplaying as we like, without their rules tying us down! Watch as the Roleplaying Empire collapses under the weight of its WoW-envy without the One True Sons to drive the creative energy!

    The sheep will know who runs this world when we are gone, brothers!

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  26. Jeff, I love your blog, I've been reading for a long time. But this railing against fourth edition is starting to sound like nonsense.

    If you trully tink it is nonsense then the solution is simple: stop reading reading it.

    Fourth edition has a lot of offer an old-schooler like yourself. Sure, it has more rules than old-school games do, but you're fully free to ignore them as you wish.

    So Jeff should aquire and play 4th Edition while tossing out the rules he doesn't like?

    I'm confused...surely it is easier and cheaper just to run the older editions?

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  27. "Our only hope is to go Galt! We can live freely, roleplaying as we like, without their rules tying us down! Watch as the Roleplaying Empire collapses under the weight of its WoW-envy without the One True Sons to drive the creative energy!

    The sheep will know who runs this world when we are gone, brothers!"

    - Can I give the 300 page soliloquy(sp)?

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  28. > Lastly, I've been very lucky to have a creative and varied collection of players over the years<

    Me too. Keeps me doing it. In the past I was lucky enough also to be able to cull lots of players from groups of people I know (just like the early days). I've never had to go to cons or hang out at game stores (as an adult) to get my players, so rarely got a bad apple. I still have a player who started in my games about 20 years ago, and she helps keep my game world consistant (can't make too many retcons, or she'd get wise).

    As far as player death, I'd say only about one in 5 characters in my games end up dead (and more often at the hands of other players). I don't let a character die at level one, I allow max hit points at first level, do some molly coddling till the mid-levels...

    I like the world to be dangerous, but I really am on the players side when it comes to avoiding the killing fields. Hope they appreciate it, the poosers...

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  29. Jeff, I've followed your blog for a long time and have really enjoyed reading about your re-discovery of early D&D tropes, but the tone of the comments in the last two posts made me feel like commenting. I've been giving 4e a try now for 10 months now, running a homebrew. The group just reached 14th level and is having a blast, although we've had one combat encounter--about a half-hour in real time length--in the last two sessions and they haven't seen a single piece of treasure since 11th level. The players have been on the run, in a sense, for a while, and will soon face an encounter which will so vastly outclass them, not retreating will spell doom for them.

    I freely admit that I am perhaps more of a narrative-style DM, and I've never been a big fan of random "encounter" tables, though I sure like random tables. I perfer to think of my groups style as telling communal stories at the table, with my players running their protagonists and me running the antagonists. I also like to place serious choices before my players, so that the decisions they make change the adventure or their characters, and sometimes, the setting.

    Players are certainly welcome to discuss treasure with me (as I was willing to do way back in the "ol' days of the 80's"(!), but it is similiar to disucssing character development: what you want might run counter to the flow of the game and what the villains have planned.

    I ran Moldvay/Cook like this. I ran 1e like this. I ran 2e like this. I ran 3e like this. I am running 4e like this and we're having a lot of fun.

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  30. Anonymous6:56 PM

    I don't DM to punish players. It's a game, not a moral lesson. The TPK is in general a sign that you are doing something wrong.

    My players make their characters carefully with an eye to a wide story, they write background pieces and they develop their characters to work together. They don't expect to die randomly or easily, and we have a tacit agreement - they put in an effort to develop their characters and I create challenging stories where they fight to achieve their goals. I have run multi-year campaigns where no-one ever died but the characters were in a state of near-constant terror.

    Casually "getting over" a dead character and just rolling another one and rejoining the game seems to me to be a sign that your players aren't interested in the role-playing bit, or aren't expecting to get around to it. Maybe it's a style thing, but regardless of the system you use, this seems like the very computer-gaming style which most critics claim makes 4e bad. Why not just introduce spawn-points and be done with it?

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  31. Anonymous8:13 PM

    Sheesh.
    Heaven forbid someone doesn't like 4E.
    Get over it people. Play what you like, allow others the same privilege.

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  32. Anonymous9:35 PM

    How is this a problem with 4E?

    I mean, take him to task if you want for fudging. But DMs have been fudging like this in every version of D&D.

    Chris

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  33. Anonymous1:24 AM

    I'm no big fan of 4ed but it seems that again and again I run into complaints about 4ed that have nothing too do with 4ed mechanics.

    For example what in the world does:
    A. Party does something stupid.
    B. GM fudges to keep people alive.

    Have anything to do with 4ed rules?

    Similarly on rpg.net there was a big thread in which the OP complained about his 4ed group not letting him play a cleric with 5 wisdom (which he made to "prove a point"), which again has nothing to do with 4ed rules.

    If you're going to complain about 4ed, stick to complaining about the rules and not the people who play it.

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  34. Anonymous2:54 AM

    Oh and same point with the dwarf cleric who refused to heal people and people not liking that. How the hell does it have anything to do with 4ed rules?

    In ALL RPG game systems if a player does things on purpose that are mechanically counter productive for the rest of the group because of their role playing style then some people will be cool with that and some people will be annoyed (either on an IC or an OCC level) that another party member is doing things that greatly increase the chance of their getting killed. I'm not seeing how this has ANYTHING to do with 4ed rules. I'm sure there were people back in the late 70's playing OD&D that would've gotten pissed off if the group cleric had refused to heal them when they needed healing.

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  35. Anonymous3:34 AM

    Rotten & morally corrupted.

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  36. More than a problem with 4e, it seems to me that Android Chris is a really bad DM. In any campaign with any game system, if the players act like idiots they simply deserve an ignominious death!

    Antonio

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  37. I can only guess, but the real culprit here sounds like a railroaded plot and a fight that the players were not supposed to be allowed to fail.

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  38. Anonymous6:49 AM

    K. Bailey: as I said, it´s rotten to the core. The article is wrong on so many levels...

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  39. Oh and same point with the dwarf cleric who refused to heal people and people not liking that. How the hell does it have anything to do with 4ed rules?

    Go back and read the further comments, Bosh. That was answered for you. It comes down to the way the game is now played, the mechanics and the concepts/play-type that is encouraged and enforced by the mechanics. It's not the game for me.

    In ALL RPG game systems if a player does things on purpose that are mechanically counter productive for the rest of the group because of their role playing style then some people will be cool with that and some people will be annoyed

    There are some games that encourage a more free-form approach, and some games that encourage specific roles and little deviation from that role, in both mechanics and philosophy.

    Maybe it's the games I've played, but the vast majority of 3E/4E games do not allow for variation.

    So the fact that my hammer-swingin' war cleric was told to go back and be a walking, talking healing potion rather than taking lives for his god was rather odd. It was even more odd when nobody was near death. I was bluntly told that my place was not to be fighting unless party members were already down.

    Now we could split hairs till the end of time on specifics, but my experience in this case echoes very similar observations and experiences I've made in the vast majority of 3E/4E games that I've personally been involved in. That type of thought, where "role playing" becomes secondary to "role fulfillment", isn't for me. That type of game isn't for me.

    That's "what the hell" it has to do with 4E. To me.

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  40. For example what in the world does:
    A. Party does something stupid.
    B. GM fudges to keep people alive.

    Have anything to do with 4ed rules?


    I guess part of my issue is that I don't understand the point of putting so much mechanical emphasis on tactical crunchiness and game balance if you are going to throw it all away at the first sign of trouble.

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  41. Anonymous8:37 AM

    Me, personally, I LOVE the fact that a well-designed level-appropriate 4E combat encounter usually results in either: 1) an easily winnable fight if the players play smart, or 2) a TPK if they foolishly ignore tight teamwork and good tactics.

    Hate on Chris's decision to spare the party their well-deserved fate all you want -- I believe in logical consequences for player actions, myself, and do all my die rolling on the front side of the screen -- but don't confuse it w/a flaw in the game system.

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  42. Anonymous9:21 AM

    I believe one of the concerns of a GM facing a TPK is that level based RPGs don't offer a good TPK recovery method. If the group dies, the campaign resets to 1st level. This impacts the players' fun a lot more than the GM's.

    Old school GMs may think this is perfectly acceptable because this is the way it's always been, but they started gaming when D&D had almost no competetion for consumers who have a taste for fantasy adventuring. I can understand the viewpoint of a GM who is running a game looking over his shoulder at World of Warcraft or other videogames. If he wipes his group and then tells them to go back to zero, he's competing with a rival GM who is available 24/7 and who will gladly let them die and then restart the game at the same level with a tiny penalty of time and ingame funds.

    I believe it was Chris Rock who said a man is as faithful as his options and most GMs probably feel the same way about their players.

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  43. Anonymous9:33 AM

    Doug, that would imply gaming culture is rotten to it´s very core in the US these days.

    Man, I´ll defend G.W.Bush and those who voted for him any day, but 4e? No, that´s the collapse of everything American Gaming stood for.

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  44. @Doug - if you believe that, then you're making a big mistake using a system that makes it possible to get a TPK if the players are unlucky or unwise. There are plenty of systems out there that either explicitly give the PCs resources to get out of predicaments like that (Hero or Fate points), or are designed so that involuntary death is impossible. That's what I mean about 4e players being schizo; they seem to want tactically crunchy skirmish battles that reward player skill...but they regard failure as a campaign-ending catastrophe. So the GM struggles with making them win despite ineptitude by secretly nerfing the monsters...

    You could say the fault is using 4e in a manner that it's not intended for, but it seems like a really common desire among 4e players. At some point you start to suspect that it's not well-designed for its player base.

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  45. @Jeff: I wouldn't trust Amazon's recommendations too much. Case in point:

    Link

    Or does that validate their selection method? :)

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  46. I really like what you are doing here, Jeff. I think it is very effective. Pulling out singular examples of a behavior or situation you find objectionable and then using that to paint broad, negative strokes over an entire group of people is something that has worked really well in the real world for centuries.

    I think it's great when people generalize, compartmentalize and dismiss whole swaths of people that they can loosely group together because of a single trait.

    If you keep this up, you could destroy WotC forever, one handpicked example at a time.

    There is just one small problem. I once played with an old school DM who ran every adventure, day after day, exactly the same. The group started in some terrain and were attacked by some monsters. After winning, even though some of us would usually die, we'd make our way to town, which was always square and had a magic item shop and a tavern. The rogue would go off pickpocketing and usually end up nicking a dragon or superhero and getting killed. Some of the group would get drunk and try to pick up harlots. Some of the others would express boredom and try to get everyone to go to bed so we could actually advance the adventure beyond this point, which sadly never happened. Since we were playing 1e, clearly 1e is a system that encourages this kind of gameplay and is therefore terrible, and by extension, so are all who play it or participate in retro-clones based around these awful gaming concepts of 1e. Nevermind that we were all around 10-12 years old and that we eventually matured and evolved our game. Nope, that has nothing to do with this, in my handpicked example of why 1e is terrible.

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  47. >There is just one small problem. I once played with an old school DM who ran every adventure, day after day, exactly the same. The group started in some terrain and were attacked by some monsters. After winning, even though some of us would usually die, we'd make our way to town, which was always square and had a magic item shop and a tavern. The rogue would go off pickpocketing and usually end up nicking a dragon or superhero and getting killed. Some of the group would get drunk and try to pick up harlots. Some of the others would express boredom and try to get everyone to go to bed so we could actually advance the adventure beyond this point, which sadly never happened<

    D...dude! How did you know the scenario for my session tonight! Shit, now I'm getting scared.


    Really,that sounds either like a shitty DM, or a great DM running what his knucklehead friends like. So you were 12 - your games would have been that great with 4e?

    1st e, 4th e, why split geek hairs? Either way, it is kind of childish (I'm a big kid, aren't you?). Anyone who calls somebody an idiot for doing something that they think sucks is a complete douche. We are all gamers. We run/play what we like.

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  48. Dude, I'll be the first to admit that my two examples are anecdotal evidence. They happen to be the only two examples of 4e play I've read in weeks (months? like I said, I don't follow this stuff normally) and one of come courtesy a member of the Wizards staff (which suggests to me that the odds are high that he didn't screw up the rules too badly). But I don't deny they're only two data points.

    And when you say I'm characterizing "an entire group of people" then you're reading something that I didn't write. I disagreed with exactly two dudes here: Chris and Trask. Anybody who wants to play 4e and have a good time with it is aces in my book. I count them among the grand tribe of We Who Game. But I still think it's damn peculiar that to sell a new edition of D&D so much that I like about the game needed to be dumped. And I still don't get why so many fans of the game seem to be cheering that shift. It's like Kiss announcing they they're going start singing barbershop quartet and the entire Kiss Army proclaimed "Goddamn, it's about time." I don't understand why I'm in the freakin' minority that wants to Rock & Roll All Night (& Party Every Day).

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  49. "And when you say I'm characterizing "an entire group of people" then you're reading something that I didn't write. I disagreed with exactly two dudes here: Chris and Trask."

    But you really didn't. You used both examples to highlight things you perceived to be problems with how 4e is and how modern D&D is. That's the way it comes off anyway. I don't think you were concerned with letting everyone know that you believed there was an unbridgeable gap between you, Jeff, and Trask, but between the "old school" and the "new school". And Chris described something that is as old as gaming, whether to be a softy or not when the players just have a crappy moment. There is nothing old or new school about that. There is nothing inherent to 4e that leads to taking a position on that situation. Its the same age old situation, just dressed in 4e clothes, being a 4e game.

    As for why you're in the minority. That's an easy one. Things change. Generally, if the changes are remotely workable, the new largely replaces the old. There are some people who prefer antique toasters to the modern ones, I am sure. There are undoubtedly websites and social circles devoted to antique toasters and a group of grognards who loudly proclaim that their toasters are better than the modern, plastic contrivances, with their safety features and technology to avoid burning. They are proud that it takes a bit of skill to toast your bread just right, without burning it. They think, the design was never broken, why try to improve on it? And, it's an opinion. Maybe they like the skill required, or don't want to mess with a bunch of fancy "options" or they just don't like change for what they see as changes sake (to make money).

    These traits describe many a D&D grognard. Some just don't like change. This is fine, great even. As I said before, I've played and loved every single edition of D&D when it was the "new hotness". Most people don't think that the perfect version of something is the first one to come out. The first toaster wasn't the best way to toast bread and the first version of D&D wasn't the best one. Years of experience from both the playing community and the designers who come from that community (and are not androids, but fellow gamers) inform the landscape and things are learned. Some prefer to keep what they learned close to the chest and keep playing what they've always played, and tweaked, and tweaked, and tweaked. And that's great. It certainly makes an already cheap hobby loads cheaper. But the majority of gamers are going to move on at each new iteration. That doesn't make anyone "right" or "wrong", its just the nature of things.

    I move on each time because I know there will be things i think are solid improvements, informed by modern ideas in game design, and I also know there will be things I don't like, either things that were changed or things that weren't, but I know I have the freedom and experience to tweak the shit out of it until it is a system to reflect my preferred gamestyle and DM style.

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  50. >Generally, if the changes are remotely workable, the new largely replaces the old. There are some people who prefer antique toasters to the modern ones, I am sure<

    Back in the day I didn't go to cons, or hang out in hobby shops (as an adult), but although I used AD&D 1st e. for almost three decades, my approach to games and the scenarios gradually changed in similar ways the D&D in general did independant of me.

    Slowly, I ran less dungeon-centric adventures and let player's actions and history have big impacts on the world.

    Scenarios started taking place in cities, towns, and various mostly above ground areas. There was some sandboxing, some storytelling, some railroading, and everywhere in between. I just used less of the cheesy elements.

    I've been referring to myself as Grognard, but am I? I love the old tropes, but actually playing in a game where my biggest worries are a bug shooting into my ear when i listen at a door, or a weird monster is going to rust my metal items because the DM gave me too much treasure, just doesn't sound like a lot of fun.

    I guess the perfect D&D for me would be somewhere between OD&D and 4th e.

    I fer sure don't wanna buy a whole new pile of books though. The thrifty Scot in me.

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  51. I used to be a proponent of GM fudging.

    But as a player, I dislike the fact that GM fudging takes away my sense of accomplishment. Did I really accomplish that? Or did the GM just fudge the rolls?

    And as a GM, I learned that taking away that sense of accomplishment (and, simultaneously, taking away consequences) deflates the significance of the choices the players make.

    And since the significance of choice is, for me, the essence of roleplaying... Well, that's a problem.

    Of course, the reason I originally supported fudging was because -- at the time -- I was a strong Dramatist. I put a high premium on the story being told.

    What I've learned, however, is that fudging is just as likely to destroy dramatic moments as it is to create them. For example, I've related the most memorable sequence of events to ever take place at my gaming table in In the Depths of Khunbaral. If I had still been a fudger, that never would have happened.

    With that being said, plenty of people have fun with fudging. But I'll admit I'm not sure I understand the point of designing this super-rigorous, time-consuming tactical simulator in the middle of your game... and then fudging the outcome so that it's all meaningless.

    Stan wrote: That's not a 4e thing, that's a D&D thing. Most AD&D groups would dump a cleric who refused to heal.

    AD&D2 and D&D3 both featured clerics who literally couldn't heal -- they just flat-out didn't have that ability.

    Regarding the "fighter who won't fight" thing... I've been running an OD&D group through the Caverns of Thracia. In the last session, the group was joined by an elderly gentleman who presented himself as a worldly and experienced knight.

    Unfortunately, it turned out that he was actually the chef from the local inn. He'd seen the gold rush adventurers profiting left and right and wanted in on the action. The truth came out the first time they faced combat... he panicked and cowered like a child.

    The whole group applauded that character as the highlight of the evening. (He eventually died upon bravely taking the line when one of the other characters was knocked out of combat. Tragic, but awesome.)

    With that being, said there was always a segment of the D&D community that would say, "We need a healer." That's because that was the one essentially indispensable role in previous editions.

    4th Edition has extended that. Everybody has a very specific role they're supposed to be fulfilling, and if they do it "wrong" then my character is less effective, too.

    3rd Edition identified the "cleric = healbot and nothing else" as problematic and worked to minimize that problem. 4th Edition, OTOH, went in exactly the opposite direction and exacerbated the problem.

    Jeff Rients actually said (back when 4th Edition first came out) that the importance of CharOp had been minimized... but the importance of GroupOp had been ramped way up. And the dark side of group optimization is that it creates precisely this type of incentive for negative peer pressure: In order for my character to play the way I want it to, your character needs to play the way I want it to, too.

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  52. Anonymous6:13 AM

    I call mechanical shennanigans on 3e making the Cleric a "healbot".

    Wand of CLW!

    Having played a non-healing Cleric to level 23 in the AoW AP, I can assure you, 3e actually freed the Cleric from being a healbot.

    A cleric become anything you want him to be, except an Arcane Caster, matching the diversity of Religions in the late D&D multiverse.

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  53. In order for my character to play the way I want it to, your character needs to play the way I want it to, too.

    Thank you for mentioning that. That is exactly how I felt with the 3E/4E games that I've played.

    I don't think it can totally be blamed on the edition by itself. I think that type of play is reflective of the way people at conventions and who are used to Multiplayer online games (as far back as I can remember) have played. As I've said here and elsewhere, our games (and the mechanics of editions released) reflect the way we see society and the way we want to play.

    That's not to say there's never been a degree of cutthroat in ANY game - I was amused (and participated in) the wholesale looting of bodies even before they hit the ground in Jeff's LL game at WW39. However, the expectation was far different in these days than previously. Maybe it's just the people I've gamed with prior (and am gaming with now) are different than the people who I gamed in 3E and 4E with.

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  54. Anonymous11:07 AM

    Most people don't think that the perfect version of something is the first one to come out. The first toaster wasn't the best way to toast bread and the first version of D&D wasn't the best one.

    Thing is, though - and this is a reflection on the Costal Wizards, not on players - is that I feel I'm being told that I don't, in fact, want toast at all and I'd rather have an English muffin, and, furthermore, I shouldn't put butter on it but rather Vegemite.

    I know what I want, guys. 4th Ed ain't it.

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  55. "I know what I want, guys. 4th Ed ain't it."

    That's fine. So what. There are plenty of choices out there for you. Where I get my panties in a bunch is with people like you telling legions of D&D gamers that 4e, or any other edition, isn't D&D. It is. It just has some things in it you don't like. Again, so what? But knock off the disrespectful, insulting bullshit of "it's not REAL D&D". You're attacking legions of fellow gamers with that nonsense.

    I've played every version of D&D in the era it was THE version (or one of THE, with the D&D/AD&D split), and they were all D&D and they were all awesome and I had a great time playing each one. I continue to have a great time playing the current version and I am sure I will have a great time playing 5e and whatever versions follow up until my inevitable death. As long as D&D is made by gamers, it's legacy is safe, as far as I'm concerned. Interpretations of specifics will change and shift, just like house rules do within any one version from game to game. That's just how it is.

    But really, isn't it time to let all this edition war nonsense go and quit acting like WotC came to your house and molested your puppy in front of your children? We're all gamers, we should be comrades not divided and compartmentalized by silly things like what edition or what game one plays.

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  56. This is starting to take on Usenet-style tropes. Jeff, I'm waiting to invoke Godwin's Law. I see it comin'.

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  57. Anonymous1:31 PM

    But knock off the disrespectful, insulting bullshit of "it's not REAL D&D".

    oooooo-kay. I preceded my comment with "it seems to me" and "it's not the players". I thought it was a rather mild and diplomatic statement. But I'm afraid this drives the last nail in the coffin.

    Based on everything I've read, from the snotty attitude of the WotC writers in the 4th pre-release books to their attempt to force companies to stop producing anything for any previous edition to the knee-jerk "YOU HATEZ US YOU CRABBY GROGNRDZ" any time someone brings up an objection to, well, it seems anything related to how 4th Edition is different... well, I will never, never buy *anything* associated with 4th Edition, and neither will I play it. I haven't seen anything from any adherent of 4th to make me want to even contemplate shelling out almost $100 for a game completely frickin' incompatible with anything I already own, and I see nothing from the Costal Wizards to prompt me to give them my hard-earned pazoors rather than, say, the guys who produce "Fight On!".

    "So play something else"? Why thank you, I think I will.

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  58. "I remember when I tried to play a Dwarf Cleric who wouldn't heal people because he thought they were wimps and wouldn't fight as lustily as he."

    As a fellow player that wouldn't sit well with me in any edition of D&D. If the other PCs are free to kick your PC out of the group, or kill him and take his stuff, fine I guess. But I'd resent sharing XP with a PC who was deliberately not pulling his weight.

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  59. BTW I don't see how it's possible to play a 3e Cleric who can't heal? Surely all the standard Cleric spells, including healing ones, are universal in 3e? Even if you can't spontaneously cast healing spells, you can pray for them.

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  60. "But knock off the disrespectful, insulting bullshit of "it's not REAL D&D". You're attacking legions of fellow gamers with that nonsense."
    What, after WotC game design and its hardcore fans have been attacking core D&Disms like random character generation, spell memorisation (scratch that, the entire goddamn Wizard class, and, actually, aren't spells just "daily powers" and whatnot now?) or anything that didn't fit their cookie-cutter definition of fun for years?

    Goddamn right it is not real D&D! And you know what? Most of the new edition's more vocal fans like it that way - just open any random thread about these disagreements on ENWorld or Gleemax, and you will find folks who will say (although not always in these precise words) that they never liked these things anyway. It's right there, in plain English.

    So hoorray, you got what you wished for, enjoy. However, those of us who actually liked the game, and liked not "in spite of" and "for the player base", are taking an exception with this nonsense. That's just how it is, deal with it, and these poor "legions of fellow gamers" can stuff it.

    There, I hope I was being constructive and all that. :)

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  61. Your analogy, to put it simply, is bunk. Roleplaying games are not technology, and are therefore not subject to evolution (in the "things advance" sense).

    Nice try, though.

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  62. Melan 1 : Thasmodius 0


    Good going Melon! A masterful rebuttal of an idiotic, ageist and pompous insult. :)

    I would say Thamodius has a chip on his shoulders about the fact that not everyone will gasp and fall to his knees overtaken by the awesomeness of 4th Ed...on second thought make that a whole plank instead of a chip.

    He's also an ageist cunt from what I can deduce of his comments so far.

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  63. Edsan, I am rather old myself and love all editions of D&D. I started with OD&D when I was a kid and moved on to DM BECMI and play in many a 1e game before eventually abandoning BECMI for AD&D altogether. I and my group eagerly picked up 2e right when it came out and played it for many happy years. I ended up on a gaming hiatus around the time 3e was released, school and work schedules never meshed, no one had any time, and we picked up playing again right after 3.5 came out and played that for many happy years until the day 4e came out, where we are now happily playing it.

    I was not being ageist, I was mocking melan for saying that discussion of mechanical changes equates to vicious attacks on old school D&D players.

    "I like point buy and didn't enjoy 3d6 in order because I don't like the game system telling me what kind of character I can play" is not a rabid attack on old school gamers. It's an opinion on mechanics in a discussion.

    Otoh, telling an entire group of people that their version of D&D isn't "real D&D" is exactly a rabid, reactionary attack and one that will always get a 'fuck you' from me.

    And games do advance and evolve. OD&D was the first. The first of anything is rarely the best by nature of being the first and not being informed by years of experience, testing, and input from thousands of users. The world's first philosopher wasn't the best, the world's oldest religions aren't even still around, the world's first cardgame is not the best.

    Experience and feedback inform things like game design. That is not to say that every progressive numbered version of every game is an improvement, but that a general trend of evolution in game design is a simple, evidenced fact. You may be perfectly happy with OD&D, and that's great, but gaming has evolved since OD&D came out.

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  64. That is just incorrect. Rule and design changes do not signify evolution (again, evolution towards “more advanced” forms), and there is nothing quantifiably and measurably superior in later editions except perhaps the increased efficiency of task resolution (e.g. formulae vs. matrices), but even rules are much more than that. If anything, it comes down to designer fiat, and that’s as subjective as it can be: witness the change from 3e, where standardisation and elaborate stat blocks were championed over 2e’s oh-so-clunky solutions, to 4e, where marketing is again pushing “exception-based design” and a general simplification of monster and NPC stat blocks. Evolution in action? No, subjective preferences wrapped up in hype and self-congratulatory designer rhetorics (spontaneity carefully engineered courtesy of the sales department and the charming Mr. Rouse).

    As for the “is it still D&D?” question – that question could have merit if the last few years weren’t spent tearing down most everything that differentiated D&D from other fantasy roleplaying games. Just a few points from 4e, really:
    1) Shoehorning classes into “roles”, while it is good niche protection, has nothing whatsoever to do with the traditions of D&D; rogues as strikers and wizards as controllers are particularly outstanding departures. Moreover, these roles are uniformly focused on a certain form of tactical combat, while traditional D&D’s classes represented different approaches to playing a game even outside the combat mechanic – for example, a wizard/magic-user would have to plan carefully to acquire spells and deploy them effectively, while a fighter was all about simplicity of use and direct engagement in combat, or a thief about playing outside the game rules as long as you could to minimise risks.
    2) The racial selection is another break with D&D’s traditions, and has wide consequences on the implied setting. Half-satans and megalo-pangolins, in particular, would have been completely unimaginable in almost any standard AD&D or even 3e campaign.
    3) Magic retains very little of D&D’s heritage beyond a few superficial resemblances: memorisation/preparation (functionally identical concepts) were entirely replaced by the power system, while the list of spells has been radically pruned down. By the corebooks, only 27% of all 1st to 3rd level cleric and wizard spells are of the non-encounter type; from OD&D through 3.5e, this figure ranged from 51 to 67%. Spells were altered to strip them of ambiguity (bad for WotC’s pre-eminent focus group, the RPGA) and non-combat utility. As an example, command is now ”You utter a single word to your foe, a word that demands obedience. You can choose to drive the foe back, order it closer, or cause the foe to throw itself to the ground. Hit: The target is dazed until the end of your next turn. In addition, you can choose to knock the target prone or slide the target a number of squares equal to 3 + your Charisma modifier.” Yeah. Slide the target a number of squares. That’s 4e. It’s not just spells, of course, since fighting classes (now including rogues) also get a lot of boring-ass powers that are mostly concerned with sliding your target a number of squares, doing x [W] + y modifier damage, or moving an extra few squares in fancy ways. The rogue has 17 powers named some sort of “strike”, and all are about the same thing. The paladin has 20 varieties of “smite”, and they are mostly differentiated by SFX, such as the decidedly un-paladinic Piercing Smite: “Silvery spikes cover your weapon, punching through your foes’ armor” . This might be cool until the age of thirteen, assuming you aren’t insulted by base pandering. But it is not D&D.
    4) The changes are also reflected in the magic item selection. In the 4e PHB (note, no time previously had magic items been listed in the PHB), I counted only 14 magic items whose uses weren’t combat-oriented; of these 14, 6 are related to movement/travel, and 3 more are storage devices. Simultaneously, new types of magic items were introduced with power increments based on the philosophy of MMORPG design, and others were altered to fit the encounter-oriented philosophy. Yeah, and use limits by level. Not D&D. Residuum. Not D&D (it provides a decent resolution to the “rust monsters eat your magical hoo-hah” dilemma, though, and that’s apparently Very Important for the people who would leave a game campaign if they didn’t get the magic bling they are entitled to). The costs of the magic items. Way off the scale of any D&D edition, and 1e was silly with its thousands and thousands of gold pieces in its treasure. “Neck slot items”. Heh.
    5) Hit points have gone from random hit dice to level-based fixed amounts plus a basic kicker. Not D&D. Bloodied values and their inverse for your dying threshold. Not D&D.
    6) Saving throws have gone from static to dynamic. Not D&D (although, FWIW, 3e has already introduced significant changes here with Fortitude–Reflex–Will).
    7) Milestones. Not D&D. Action points. Not D&D. Healing surges. Like hell not D&D!
    8) Rituals. Not D&D, although they would be neat (if nothing new) in another game.

    I could go on, but it’s a pretty thankless task, since if this evidence doesn’t convince you, it is useless digging up any more, and it’s quite depressing, really – a mostly lacking DMG and a waste of a MM. 4e walks roughshod over whatever D&D used to mean before WotC’s game designers decided it wasn’t the right kind of fun for their focus groups and made a new game that happens to have the same brand name. None of 4e’s changes build on D&D’s traditions, and most actively break with them. You may say it fits you better. You may say you find it more enjoyable. Fine. But when you say it is D&D, you are simply incorrect. It is that simple. At this point, the Palladium Fantasy RPG is more D&D than the edition Wizards of the Coast is producing and selling. Which is actually a pity because a light, fast and popular form of D&D could have just as easily been built on the actual principles and heritage of Dungeons&Dragons. You know, by people who actually liked D&D, for people who actually like D&D.

    So there. Frankly, I’ll be surprised if this evidence isn’t just conveniently avoided or countered by parallels to edition changes far less significant (which is all the others), but then it serves me right to get involved in this shit again instead of doing something productive with my time.

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  65. No. It is correct. I double checked. Ideas do indeed evolve. D&D was founded on the evolution of an idea. Arneson was using Chainmail to run a group of individual heroes instead of a units, the idea grew from there. Even as soon it coalesced, through trial and error and many different ideas for rules in OD&D, they began work on supplements to expand the idea. When those were out, they began on work to create new editions... Yes, ideas evolve. This is a basic fact. Human civilization began with some proto-dude realizing that there was an "I" and it went from there, evolving over many centuries. Eventually people realized they could pretend to be other people in costumes and roleplaying was born... Ideas evolve. Deal with it.

    See, here's the trick that you don't seem to understand. You don't define D&D. Neither does any of the extremely splintered grognard community (OD&D, BECMI, 1e, retroclones, etc). D&D is defined by those who play it and it has evolved based on how people play it over the years. 3d6 chargen gave way to 3d6 7 times, put in order, or 4d6 drop lowest because thats what gamers in general wanted and how people were playing the game. Things introduced in supplements like thieves, became core because thats what people wanted. The changes you see today reflect how the game of D&D is being played today. You don't get to define it. As for your paltry list of changes that you neither understand or present well -

    1 - We've always had roles. The 1e PHB talks about the "tank", the controller (wizard), the healer and the skill monkey. 4e has changed it so that roles are more rigid inside of combat, and everyone has something to do, and less rigid outside of combat with their flattened skill numbers. Evolution.

    2 - Every edition has a different set of races that are presented in the core book. Half orcs, their in and out, in and out. Hell, the OD&D racial entries tell the player that they can really play anything as long as the DM approves and works out a progression, and gives the example of playing a dragon that starts off young. You also have your "facts" very wrong here, as usual, since both tieflings and a variety of dragon-ish beings, including half dragons and dragon disciples were a big part of 3e.

    3. Your numbers are bullshit, in part because you exclude rituals which is ignoring the facts of the design (that powers are supposed to be combat oriented and rituals are outside the encounter). Also, wizards still memorize spells and have to prepare them and have spellbooks with which to do so. Also, less ambiguity is a good thing. "I don't understand" being replaced with "oh, this is clear and well explained" is always good. It's also evolution.

    3a. martial powers are boring? Are you retarded? What is so exciting about "I swing my sword." "I swing my sword." "I swing my sword." "This round I'm going to change it up...no, not really... I swing my sword."? That's every other edition. I'd say tumbling past your foes, bringing especially mighty blows down on them, striking multiple opponents with a sweep of your hammer is exactly NOT boring. I've never actually heard anyone refer to 4es martial powers as boring compared to older editions. It can't even possibly make logical sense. But then, neither do you.

    4. Oh, its in the PHB now! You got me there. That completely destroys all things D&D. Disenchanting came about in 3e, btw, and draining magic from items has been around since the early days in various forms. Neck slot items are cloaks and amulets, always been around. Not hard to figure out. Slots for items have been around a long time too. You can't wear 20 magic rings, 4 belts, boots over your boots, etc. Nothing new there. Just better realized in the mechanics, ie evolution.

    5. You hit on a real change here, congratulations. Still doesn't mean its not D&D. There was a time when a great many things weren't D&D, but things change and EVOLVE. Plus, you can use something that is very D&D if you don't like static hit points and that's the houserule.

    6. Things going from static to dynamic is generally a good thing. And its still D&D. D&D is not a tiny set of mechanics. The mechanics of D&D have been constantly changing and EVOLVING since the basic idea first popped into Arnesons head. Every single edition has introduced a wealth of mechanical changes from small tweaks to wholesale changes (BAB, infinite positive AC, wizard schools and specialization, domains, whole new classes like paladin, illusionists, cavaliers, warlords, scouts...) Change defines D&D. Gygax even said as much in a rather famous quote of his.

    7. Milestones are no different than things happening every hour, or per day, or after several encounters, or every three turns or whatever else. It's just a minor mechanic. Action Points introduced before in Unearthed Arcana, which is D&D. Healing surges - a much better evolution of the endless CLW wands of 3e and the "lets rest for three days in this same spot so the cleric can get enough healing spells to heal us all up after that beating we took" of previous editions. The 15 minute adventuring day being a thing of the past (thanks to surges and milestones) - definitely EVOLUTION.

    8. Are D&D. Ritual magic has been introduced in several editions. Ritual spells with long casting times have always been around - like Find Familiar for an easy example.

    9. You fail at trying to make points. You fail hard. The only evidence you have presented is that D&D has changed yet again. It's why the number before the title is 4th. Each edition has changed things a bunch, that's why they were whole new editions. Each edition has undergone significant change within the edition thanks to supplements. This includes OD&D radically expanding it's character class options by adding thief and 3e's every other supplement attempts to band-aid the hemorrhaging problems of caster-melee imbalance and caster multi-classing. D&D is defined by change, 4e is no different. Play what ever edition you want, I know I do. But you take your pathetic attempts to brand D&D to your own personal definition and shove them up your ass.

    Good day, sir.

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  66. Good grief Thasmodius, stop venting your mind-farts in our general direction and wasting so much bandwidth.

    Just accept the fact some of us don't agree with you and neither have the time or interest to read your overlong essays about issues we think you're wrong.

    Good day to you too, sir.

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  67. extremely splintered grognard community (OD&D, BECMI, 1e, retroclones, etc)

    As compared to the cohesive 3E/3.5E/Pathfinder/4E new-school community?

    C'mon - we're all an incestuous lot of gamers who love to argue, razz, rant and rave. I hardly think that our little niche is so big that it warrants the definition of "extremely splintered" when we're all basically doing the same thing?

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  68. OK, the guy is kind of an ass, but he does sound pretty smart, and has some good points (here and there).

    Talking about how you can acrobat around tumbling and trying to hit a bunch of guys with one swing, trying to power up a weapon attack somehow - this is always stuff that gave me a headache during old school gameplay, and only seemed to slow down play and piss off other players. Some jerkoff always wanted to do that in games - looks like they have finally accomodated all those jerkoffs.

    >extremely splintered grognard community<

    Maybe better stated as "not wanting to take it up the ass from WOTC's peckers."

    I got back into gaming after several years off, and was suprised to see all the conflict over editions. It mostly seems that the 4th e. guys are the most defensive about the "debate."

    I never did cons or hung out in shops (as an adult), so during the 80's and 90's I culled groups from friends and such. Worked out pretty good, but after taking a look at 2nd e. back in the day, I just realized I would stick with
    1st e. AD&D for my fantasy gaming.

    OK, maybe also cause I had multiple copies of the 1st e. books and didn't want to ditch them for something new entered into it. Just like math textbooks, I figured the changes were mostly being made just so you had to buy new editions for no other reason than they want to soak more money out of you.

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  69. @ Chgowiz: That's my whole point man. This back and forth started because I dared to say that all versions of D&D are valid and awesome, for which I was attacked. I'm not saying old school gamers are fiercely divided and "new school" gamers are all peace and love. I don't even buy the old school and new school bullshit. You can play like you did in the 80s with the new games and you can play in the manner of the "modern game" with old editions. We've always tweaked the game to do what we want and always will.

    My point is that ALL of us, old school, new edition, grognards, the 2e White Wolf crowd, 3tards and 4ons, we're all doing the same thing. And it's all good. If thinking that somehow makes me the asshole, well, I'm fine with that. I just get pissed off at idiots trying to tell other people that what they are enjoy isn't "real" or valid. I really dislike judgmental, egotistical blowhards who think they are in a position to make such determinations and will call them out on it.

    And edsan, my "waste of bandwidth" was in response to a "waste of bandwidth" (your vacuum tubes still acting up? Text doesn't take up much bandwidth) daring me to reply to his mounds of "evidence" against 4e being D&D. You could take any edition of D&D, line out the changes and scream "thats not D&D!", but its pointless and stupid. It is D&D and it's ALL good. If you can't deal with that, you have the problem, not me.

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  70. Okay...

    See, here's the trick that you don't seem to understand. You don't define D&D.
    No, I don't. D&D is legally defined by its trademark holder, but conceptually, it is based on 30+ years of accumulated tradition. On one hand, it is a generic fantasy adventuring game (a concept which it defined and pioneered); on the other hand, it is also defined by several differences from its imitators - such as armour that makes you harder to hit, classes and levels, the memorisation system (which the current powers no longer represent), or smaller elements like fireballs doing 1d6 points of damage per level and longswords doing 1d8 damage. Once you depart from enough of these concepts, or introduce enough foreign ones, the game is no longer D&D beyond a superficial similarity. Arbitrarily redesigning the game does not change this simple truth.

    1. Cite, please. Especially on the "tank".

    2. The OD&D rules do propose the idea to play a dragon (or, in earlier printings, a balrog). However, this particular point was promptly dropped by the D&D tradition in favour of a limited number of races, some core, some included in only some editions. At no time were tieflings, dragonborn or eladrin a playable race in the core.

    3. The number of rituals available to low level characters is severely limited, so no point. Second, the entire list is far, far below the range of utility spells previously available in the "advanced" line. Moreover, rituals themselves are foreign to the D&D tradition any way you cut it.

    Ambiguity is the spice of variety, and allows to accommodate different play styles, so you are also incorrect on that point.

    WRT martial powers, they are mindnumbingly devoid of interesting variety. Tactical combat itself may be interesting (I personally enjoyed laying out the miniatures for 3e, although currently don't use them - using a more abstract combat system where tactics and advantages are dependent on player ideas and DM fiat), but here, what we get is three or four ideas per class copied over and over and over with the names and sometimes SFX changed. It's not the way to spice up combat.

    4. "Magic items in the PHB" definitely changes the philosophy of the game; from a DM-regulated and sometimes unknown resource, they become a plannable commodity in character optimalisation. Quite a big change, even if magic item entitlement was already around before, and became especially prominent in 3e.

    "Neck slot items" are simply a telling visual description. A fictious person, even a player character, doesn't have slots, he or she has a GODDAMN NECK. ;) This issue is also trivial to adjudicate using common sense (I know, I know, the current party line is "neither common, nor sensible"), although, yeah, the 1e DMG spelled it out that no, you can't wear two cloaks on top of each other. Surprise, surprise. Evolution what?

    6. While D&D has indeed been more than a tiny set of mechanics, some of those mechanics are fundamental, and are at the core of D&D. PC power divided into levels, to hit rolls on a d20, static AC and saving throws (and again, the changes in saving throw types were already a significant departure from D&D's traditions - both mechanically and conceptually, i.e. going from effect-based to avoidance-based)... Rhetoric suggests the game is "changing and EVOLVING"m, but that's the talk of laundry detergent advertisements and cosmetics companies. If things going from static to dynamic were really an unambiguously good thing, design would have implemented active defense in combat in lieu of static ACs (to cite just one example), but they didn't. It's change for change's sake, which shows that the designers in charge of the new editions cared fuck all about D&D's identity.

    7. Your major point here is the reference to the 15-minute adventuring day, and it is telling that this is identified as a design problem in D&D - since, like basically all of the solutions thought up to counter it, it remains a departure from D&D's focus on resource conservation, which had been there since day one - and where burning out your resources under 15 minutes was unambiguously identified as a major strategic error. So, no longer D&D.

    8. Wrong again, mutant.

    ****

    All in all, your response has not falsified my theses, only demonstrated that D&D's identity (established over more than 30 years of existence) does not matter to the 4e community, and in fact, this community prefers game design concepts which are foreign or even opposed to this identity.

    Enjoy your non-D&D game; after all, it is not bad by itself. But it is not D&D whichever way you cut it. It could have been done differently, in a way that respected and built on D&D's identity, quirks and traditions. But all of that was casually tossed aside to make an entirely new game. Telling.

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  71. I said - Good Day, SIR!

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  72. Anonymous8:45 PM

    Well said Melan. You, sir, have won the internet.

    BBEG

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  73. Thasmodius -- right, let's bury this. I'd rather do something positive with my time, and I guess so would you.

    And a good day to you.

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  74. Melan, my congratulations on your victory. You put Thasmodious right where he deserved and prooved 4th Ed is D&D in name only.

    Part of me pities him though...the poor guy couldn't make good insults if his life depended on it.

    "Vacuum tubes" indeed, Ha ha ha!

    Ageist, 4th Ed zealot and cursed with a lack of imagination...tsk, tsk.

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