106 réponses à ce sujet

[bussinrounds]

The 1st and 2nd editions were the sht !! Bioware needs to get back the d&d licence, and make some new "old school " games based on these, PLEASE. I know it's not gonna happen, i just had to say it though.

Modifié par bussinrounds, 01 janvier 2010 - 09:47 .

[Lovecraft22]

I think it was great that Bioware went with a new system. I have always thought the story has driven any RPG and that is something that doesn't depend on a campaign world.

Having said that I have owned and played nearly every DnD game since 1st Edition. I presume Kalcalan was referring to a system such as morrowind for skill development which worked quite well in that game.

[BlarkW]

Skellimancer wrote...

Maviarab wrote...

Agreed Blark,

WotC have ruined it beyond redemption. kudos to Bioware for making their own unique system.

Yeah, standing still for 5 seconds for full HP/MP recovery is much better!

You actually wait for that to refill. I look at that as sort of along the lines of metagaming. I could care less. After the fight I clean up and get on my way.

[Killian Kalthorne]

If Dragon Age was 4th Edition I wouldn't have gotten it. I will not be buying any 4th Edition products.

[Joseph Silver]

My players roleplay quite fine in 4e, thank you very much. In fact, roleplaying in 4e is easier since the game basically encourages you to freeform RP instead of requiring you to have a skill or a feat to be able to do anything (like in 3.5). Yes, you can freeform RP in 3.5, but the game discourages you from doing so. Anyway, 4e was written from the gamist point of view, which means that it is a game first and foremost. 4e does not attempt to simulate a "realistic" fantasy world, instead encouraging DMs to handwave such minutiae and focus more on what's fun: roleplaying and combat.



Simplicity is beauty. I find it quite odd that the fans of a game of elegant simplicity such as Dragon Age can be so harsh on D&D 4e, another game of elegant simplicity.

[Killian Kalthorne]

When a Rogue plays like a Warlock then something is very very very WRONG, Joe.

[Joseph Silver]

Your statement demonstrates that you don't really know a lot about 4e. Rogues play VERY differently from warlocks. First, rogues deal a LOT more damage than warlocks. Rogues basically focus on taking the enemy out ASAP while warlocks are played as highly-mobile debuffers who can deal decent damage on their debuffs.



Anyway, I noticed that you also posted in my thread about RPG backgrounds. Let me make it perfectly clear that you can't change my opinion on 4e, no matter what you do. So please, stop bashing 4e and let us agree to disagree about the game. I like 4e, you don't. Let it end there.

[MerinTB]

Killian Kalthorne wrote...

When a Rogue plays like a Warlock then something is very very very WRONG, Joe.

This is true.

Something is very wrong.   Either the person playing the Rogue or the person playing the Warlock are doing something (probably many somethings) very wrong.

[Killian Kalthorne]

Fine fine fine. I just get a little disgruntled at the direction that WotC went with 4e. Every class plays the same to me. All the unqiueness and differences between the various classes have been bled out. There are good aspects, like the story aspects of 4e in the various campaign settings and the fact that it takes very little time to set up an adventure. I probably head back to DnD to see the changes brought with 5th edition, but until then it is Shadowrun. Okay, I have diverting enough from the topic as it is.

[MerinTB]

I'll fire up my Character Creator (yay, awesome software from WotC) and stat out what I would see some of these characters being in 4E.

[Raven-sb]

Offtopic a bit to address all the D&D 4th edition bashers. Speaking as someone who has played all of the D&D versions ever released (yeah I'm that old) I have to say that every version of D&D had it's problems. Also some of the criticisms against D&D 4 Ed being expressed in this thread are wrong.  It's not WOW, it's not 'rule's focused at the cost of character depth' and it's not  'dumbed down'.  It's D&D and as such it's what the DM makes of the rules. 

I am running a homebrew D&D 4h Edition campaign.  I've created my own world, the races and monsters have been custom created by me using the D&D rules as 'guidelines'. Each character has their own unique background, their own personal quests and plotlines in the ongoing story we create together.  Roleplaying and combat both play a balanced part.  Basically I've taken the D&D rules and used them to create my own world, monsters,  and races, and then worked with my players to create an ongoing story.  There is nothing to stop other DM's from doing the same.

The problem with D&D is when the DM depends too heavily on the source material. Doesn't create things themselves, only runs pre-created modules (and doesn't spend time customising them for their group).  This isn't a D&D 4th ed problem so much as it's a D&D problem. 

Back on topic, stat wise I've no idea what the NPC's would be. Mechanic's wise the tank would be able to control mobs a whole lot better through use of 'marks' which would penalise the monsters if they tried to rush past the tank to focus on the mage/healer at the back of the group.  Other then that their are a lot of similarities between D&D 4th Ed and DA:O. 

Modifié par Raven-sb, 02 janvier 2010 - 12:54 .

[Arasaka]

I've been playing D&D in all its incarnations since 1986, and I have to say that 4e is the best edition f the game so far. Which is not to say that it doesn't have faults (it does), but they're far more tolerable in this edition.



As much as I enjoyed BG1 & 2, IWD, the Gold SSI games (especially the series in Krynn), PS:T, I just can't reinstall and play them because the old 1e/2e mechanics drive me insane, and rob the fun out of the games for me.

[Sylixe]

MerinTB wrote...

Abriael_CG wrote...

But i'm not surprised D&D went downhill. WotC didn't have any interest in expanding it's popularity, it was an hindrance to their silly card game, so they swallowed it and destroyed it's core to make it even more niche than it was.

Ok, I'm not a fan of WotC buying TSR (but, then again, TSR was about to go bankrupt so...) and I've stated I don't like 3rd Edition -

but WotC INCREASED D&D's market share, and it sells more now (3rd and 4th) than it did prior.

Whether that's because you have the players garnered by the earlier editions (minus some attrition) plus new players just coming to the game or not, I couldn't tell you.

But I do know that D&D outsells the next 3 game systems combined.

The reason 3rd and 4th sell so well is because they mass marketed them and dumbed them down for the WoW kiddies to play.  They are extremely structured and point you along the way with little flexibility, especially in 4th edition.  They are certainly good products if you are just interested in the whole crawl and loot kind of adventures.  Of course you can get the same experience from Descent at a much cheaper price.  I look at it as a way for WoTC or more realistically Hasbro to turn TSR into a profitable company and not the relic it was when it was dying. 

If i want a good game of PnP D&D i play 2nd edition with a GM that can handle a lot of work on their end to provide a robust RPG experience for an evening.  That doesn't involve having a fight against a dozen monsters every 15 minutes. 

Raven-sb wrote...

Offtopic a bit to address all the D&D 4th edition bashers. Speaking as someone who has played all of the D&D versions ever released (yeah I'm that old) I have to say that every version of D&D had it's problems. Also some of the criticisms against D&D 4 Ed being expressed in this thread are wrong.  It's not WOW, it's not 'rule's focused at the cost of character depth' and it's not  'dumbed down'.  It's D&D and as such it's what the DM makes of the rules. 

I am running a homebrew D&D 4h Edition campaign.  I've created my own world, the races and monsters have been custom created by me using the D&D rules as 'guidelines'. Each character has their own unique background, their own personal quests and plotlines in the ongoing story we create together.  Roleplaying and combat both play a balanced part.  Basically I've taken the D&D rules and used them to create my own world, monsters,  and races, and then worked with my players to create an ongoing story.  There is nothing to stop other DM's from doing the same.

The problem with D&D is when the DM depends too heavily on the source material. Doesn't create things themselves, only runs pre-created modules (and doesn't spend time customising them for their group).  This isn't a D&D 4th ed problem so much as it's a D&D problem. 

Back on topic, stat wise I've no idea what the NPC's would be. Mechanic's wise the tank would be able to control mobs a whole lot better through use of 'marks' which would penalise the monsters if they tried to rush past the tank to focus on the mage/healer at the back of the group.  Other then that their are a lot of similarities between D&D 4th Ed and DA:O. 

Hate to tell you this but you are basically playing 2nd edition D&D with a thin veil of 4th edition thrown in.  Hasbro WANTS the DM to rely on all that source material and such so they can keep revenues high.  They are doing what TSR could never do and created a corporate model in the P&P genre that is continuously profitable.  Now there's nothing wrong with that because you know they are in business to make money.  However don't insult the older gamers intelligence by telling us that this is new way to play D&D is a better RPG experience.  They looked at the formula WoW uses and they adapted it to their system in order to get a piece of that pie blizzard is gobbling up.  Oddly enough it works and more power to them for recognising the potential.

Modifié par Sylixe, 02 janvier 2010 - 02:18 .

[Schneidend]

Oh good lord. Trust Bioware forumites to turn this thread into a ridiculous Edition War. 3.5 and 4th Edition both have their merits, all right? Grow up and accept that not everybody enjoys the same types of rule sets.

[LeStryfe79]

4thed was created and marketed specifically for WotC to implement a virtual tabletop.

F. A. I. L.

It's as simple as that. Also, I know at least 50+ tabletop players personally and every single one of them who prefers 4thed is a bad roleplayer. I can't stress enough how big the ball WotC dropped is. I will, however, add that the 4.0 monster manual works marvelously well in 3.5 campaigns.

Sten

Str 16
Dex 13
Con 15
Int 10
Wis 12
Cha 8

Modifié par LeStryfe79, 02 janvier 2010 - 03:12 .

[Raven-sb]

Sylixe wrote...



Hate to tell you this but you are
basically playing 2nd edition D&D with a thin veil of 4th edition
thrown in.  Hasbro WANTS the DM to rely on all that source material and
such so they can keep revenues high.  They are doing what TSR could
never do and created a corporate model in the P&P genre that is
continuously profitable.  Now there's nothing wrong with that because
you know they are in business to make money.  However don't insult the
older gamers intelligence by telling us that this is new way to play
D&D is a better RPG experience.  They looked at the formula WoW uses
and they adapted it to their system in order to get a piece of that pie
blizzard is gobbling up.  Oddly enough it works and more power to them
for recognising the potential.

First off, check your facts. WOW didn't invent the tank/dps/healer model it's been used by MMOs for ages. WOW just popularlised it. Second don't tell me what it is that I am playing thank you very much. I'm playing D&D4th Ed and having a blast with it.  Is it perfect  no, does it have problems yes. But then again as I said in my inital post, every version of D&D has problems, don't insult my intelligence by suggesting that they don't. 

With regards to  AD&D 2ed, I've played in games where it was solely combat with 15 or so monsters one after the other in a dungeon hack and slash fest. Actually I've played that way in every version of the game.  I've also played (and in the case of D&D 4th ed and the Basic/Expert/Companion/Masters version) DMed games where Roleplaying took the fore. It's not the ruleset so much, as it what the DM, and to a lesser extent the players, do with the rules.

Note, I am not saying D&D 4th ed is better than/worse than any other version of D&D.  Edition wars bore me, it's all just D&D to me and the goal is to have fun.  You obviously like the other versions of the game, more power to you. I doubt I will post again in this thread as I can't see it producing anything productive.

Modifié par Raven-sb, 02 janvier 2010 - 04:16 .

[Sylixe]

Raven-sb wrote...

Sylixe wrote...
Hate to tell you this but you are
basically playing 2nd edition D&D with a thin veil of 4th edition
thrown in.  Hasbro WANTS the DM to rely on all that source material and
such so they can keep revenues high.  They are doing what TSR could
never do and created a corporate model in the P&P genre that is
continuously profitable.  Now there's nothing wrong with that because
you know they are in business to make money.  However don't insult the
older gamers intelligence by telling us that this is new way to play
D&D is a better RPG experience.  They looked at the formula WoW uses
and they adapted it to their system in order to get a piece of that pie
blizzard is gobbling up.  Oddly enough it works and more power to them
for recognising the potential.

First off, check your facts. WOW didn't invent the tank/dps/healer model it's been used by MMOs for ages. WOW just popularlised it. Second don't tell me what it is that I am playing thank you very much. I'm playing D&D4th Ed and having a blast with it.  Is it perfect  no, does it have problems yes. But then again as I said in my inital post, every version of D&D has problems, don't insult my intelligence by suggesting that they don't. 

With regards to  AD&D 2ed, I've played in games where it was solely combat with 15 or so monsters one after the other in a dungeon hack and slash fest. Actually I've played that way in every version of the game.  I've also played (and in the case of D&D 4th ed and the Basic/Expert/Companion/Masters version) DMed games where Roleplaying took the fore. It's not the ruleset so much, as it what the DM, and to a lesser extent the players, do with the rules.

Note, I am not saying D&D 4th ed is better than/worse than any other version of D&D.  Edition wars bore me, it's all just D&D to me and the goal is to have fun.  You obviously like the other versions of the game, more power to you. I doubt I will post again in this thread as I can't see it producing anything productive.

I NEVER said WoW invented those classes or RPGing for that matter.  If anything WoW has ripped off more games than vreated anything themselves.  What i DID say was that blizzard uses a formula to make such games trivial and easy for even the simple minded person to understand.  That is what they have done with D&D in 4th edition.  If you look at every complex and tedious aspect of D&D and compare it to their new forth edition .  You will discover most or all of it has been removed to streamline it and make it less complex for the average person.

That's perfectly fine that you choose to use D&D as a hack and slash vehicle for your own enjoyment.  I can see exactly why 4th edition is highly appealing to you.  It doesn't change the fact that they removed the smaller and more intricate aspects of the game in order to broaden their market appeal.  

I will say that some of the 4th edition combat rules are  little more appealing for an encounter situation.  My group has actually adapted a few of those rules to make our combat a little more fluid.  However for the pure roleplaying aspect 2nd edition and some 3rd is still the way go to. 

[TheMufflon]

Sylixe wrote...

I will say that some of the 4th edition combat rules are  little more appealing for an encounter situation.  My group has actually adapted a few of those rules to make our combat a little more fluid.  However for the pure roleplaying aspect 2nd edition and some 3rd is still the way go to. 

And what, exactly, is it that makes 2nd edition better than 4th edition for roleplaying? How about 5 concrete examples?

[MerinTB]

The arguments that ANY edition is better for "acting in character" role-playing is sheer lunacy, IMO.

Honestly, there are no "rules" on how to act in character. Some supplemental books (Campaign Sourcebook for 2nd ED was a favorite of mine) do delve into how to run a game and how to encourage acting in character and such - but guess what, the DMG2 for 4th ED is heavy on this, too.

It's personal favoritism that lends to all the arguments that role-playing is better under 1st, 2nd, or 3rd Edition. The "acting in character" part of the game depends on the players and the person running the game, NOT the game rules. You point me to the rule in a 2nd ED book that says "Make sure to fully act as your character", or the set of guidelines in the 1st, 2nd or 3rd ED PHB or DMG that state how a party should play In Character or how a DM should role-play NPCs - and I'll show you an equal amount of material in the 4th ED PHB and DMG.

It is up to your group to RP or not, not the rule set.
No book can make your group or campaign start or stop RPing in whatever way you consider "right."


And this is really silly here -

The reason 3rd and 4th sell so well is because they mass marketed them and dumbed them down for the WoW kiddies to play.

Ultima Online is arguably the first popular, big MMO. Yes, many existed before, but UO is arguably the first biggie. It came out in 1997, the year WotC bought TSR. Ultima Online was very similar in game-play to the existing Ultima games and I doubt was much of an influence on WotC (anymore than the Ultima series in general may have been.) 3rd ED was released in 2000 after 3 years of development - again doubt UO had much influence - 1 year after the release of Everquest. Everquest was much closer to 2nd ED D&D than 3rd ED was to Everquest, and, again, I doubt Everquest had any real influence on 3rd ED.

Now did MMO's have an influence on 4th ED? I think it's pretty obvious that, yes, MMO's did. Does that mean it's meant for casual gamers who like simplified gaming? Look, I'm about as far as you can get from a fan of the MMO without actually refusing to try them - but MMO's are not SIMPLE, and are not for casual gamers. Did 4th ED simplify the rules and character creation and balance out races and classes in a very MMO way? Sure, you can argue that. Is that bad? That's a matter of opinion -
me, I hated playing 3rd ED specifically because there'd always be at least one player in any group I tried to play in who'd have access to all the books and would min-max his character in such a mixed-up mess that would make no story sense but would be "killer" in combat that the game would either be way to easy for his character or way to hard for those, like me, who had more fun building character concepts than elite killing machines.

The ONLY argument I think that can be made about 4th ED taking away from "acting in character" (and I use that instead of '"role-playing" because, to me, playing combat as your created character is part of role-playing) is that they have simplified combat rules and structured them in a way that makes using maps and mini's make sense, to the extent that the powers and abilities rely more on the placement of mini's than the previous editions (which all, also, were RULES WRITTEN TO PLAY WITH MAPS AND MINI'S - all the way back to Chainmail, a Warhammer like game that D&D grew from) and therefore it "takes away" from strictly using your imagination to "see" the battlefield and the DM's imagination and descriptive skills (and patience) to explain the combat scene and answer questions on where people are, where cover is, what terrain features are around, etc. That, however, is also not "acting in character" or "role-playing" - that is more "imagining" versus using physical models and visual aids.

You can prefer spell memorization, THAC0, having any race be limited in what classes it can take or having any race able to take as many classes as it has levels, 1st level characters that can be killed by 1 hit by a kobold, having to sleep for 8 hours as a mage after casting your 1 (or 2) spells - it's fine if you do. You can prefer being able to build characters who are really overpowered compared to characters who are so weak they can't survive a stiff debate - all at the same "level of experience" - and that is fine.

But you are stating preferences.

I remember when 2nd ED came out and the uproar at the changes, and the people swearing they'd only play AD&D 1st ED. I remember the same when WotC (those CCG game people - what do they know of "true role-playing") "destroyed" D&D and the TSR proponents swore they'd never buy another D&D product. And now it's happened with 4th ED - it only SEEMS bigger because the internet let's groups of like-minded people congregate in larger numbers.
Some point down the road, whether 3 years or 5 or 10, when the NEXT version of D&D comes out, just as many people will scream about how it's horrible compared to 4th ED - and there will still be those Basic D&D fans out there refusing to accept that an elf or dwarf can have a class.

Modifié par MerinTB, 02 janvier 2010 - 06:24 .

[Lovecraft22]

I don't know, being level 10 after a couple weeks play never seemed right to me.

Good luck to Wotc and I hope they can produce a game on par with DAO or Oblivion (but somehow I doubt it)

[Killian Kalthorne]

The minis aspect isn't the problem I have with 4e. I have used minis since 2e. My main problem is that all the classes basically play the same. The only real difference is the flavor text and that is it. That and they took crafting away.  I love playing crafting type characters.  Hell, my fighter/wizard in the Eberron campaign I was in made his own weapons and armor, then enchanted them.  You can't do that in 4e.  There is no Crafting skill.

Modifié par Killian Kalthorne, 04 janvier 2010 - 02:21 .

[Kalcalan]

Lovecraft22 wrote...

I think it was great that Bioware went with a new system. I have always thought the story has driven any RPG and that is something that doesn't depend on a campaign world.
Having said that I have owned and played nearly every DnD game since 1st Edition. I presume Kalcalan was referring to a system such as morrowind for skill development which worked quite well in that game.

I was thinking about pen and paper RPGs which use such a system (FlintlockJazz named a few). Talking about CRPGs Morrowind is not such a bad example. If you've played Might and Magic VI the Mandate of Heaven you may remember the existence of trainers who could be hired to teach you how to improve your skill mastery. That wasn't such a bad way to handle this.

Modifié par Kalcalan, 04 janvier 2010 - 03:10 .

[MerinTB]

Killian Kalthorne wrote...

The minis aspect isn't the problem I have with 4e. I have used minis since 2e. My main problem is that all the classes basically play the same. The only real difference is the flavor text and that is it. That and they took crafting away.  I love playing crafting type characters.  Hell, my fighter/wizard in the Eberron campaign I was in made his own weapons and armor, then enchanted them.  You can't do that in 4e.  There is no Crafting skill.

How could this possibly be fixed?

It's not in the rulebook - argh, how could I make my own armor?

Could I ask my DM about letting me be able to do it - and the DM either just rules that after spending so many resources (money and materials) and time in-game (the hours to make a sword or what-not) that you have succeeded, or maybe making you make a role based on Dexterity plus Intelligence or some such, OR home-brewing rules for your specific instance (one that is not the majority, but I'm sure there's a sizable minority who like crafting, or sewing, or boating, or whatever activity the rules don't cover) that there is now a Crafting Skill.

Let's review the editions, and I'm going to just stick with the PHB and DMG here and not any supplemental books here - 1st ED, why, no skills AT ALL outside of spells, combat, and the race or class specific abilities like picking locks or detecting slopes in dungeons.  2nd ED introduced OPTIONAL rules (labeled repeatedly as such) for Proficiencies, both weapon and non-weapon, which included stuff like Weaponsmithing, Armorer, Bowyer, Cobbling, etc. - which I remember we all mostly ignored as players because in the one game where a DM forced us to use them if we didn't have the proficiency we couldn't do it (we fell off horses, couldn't swim, etc) and we all preferred assuming our characters could do things that seemed "basic" for an adventurer (climb, jump, swim, ride, tie knots, etc.) but that was our preference, and the rules did say OPTIONAL so it wasn't even house rules.  Even so, the "crafting" as you want was like maybe a paragraph for each skill, and basically you usually just auto-succeeded at doing what you wanted unless the DM decided it was "difficult enough" a task to have you roll, and then you rolled a D20 and tried to role UNDER your Proficiency number (with a 20 always being a failure) - yeah, add sometimes having to roll high or low to things like negative AC being better and the whole THAC0 formula, this was certainly "better" than 4E.  Now, yes, 3rd Edition had Skills as set rules and Craft was a skill with DCs and all that, so this is probably what you are REALLY liking since 2nd ED didn't do crafting without some later book or house rules.

As far as all classes playing the same, I again say that if you are playing a Warlock like a Rogue or a Warlord like a Fighter, you are doing something seriously wrong on your end.

I remember my second 4E campaign I had a guy playing a Warlord and he tried to play him like a Fighter and kept getting his ass handed to him.  He learned that Leader wasn't the roll he wanted and played a Warlock next time, this time staying back and using his Curse to it's best effect.  My first 4E campaign I had a friend who was used to playing Star Wars who was playing a Rogue, and the rest of the party got in the habit of yelling at him to position for flanks and to use his mobility instead of it getting to be his turn and just rolling a D20 (which is what he honestly does in Star Wars and can get away with as he says "I shoot one of the guys left" and with no minis and no map it works while combat is still going - whee, fun.)

It may not be the game system for you, but to complain about it just because it's missing a skill (that you can EASILY house rule back in without changing the game's rules AT ALL) and because you think all classes play the same because they all now use the same mechanic (At Will, Encounter, Utility and Daily powers) instead of just all using the same die (really, 3.5 was "roll a D20" for EVERYTHING, so all played the same, right?)

[Sylixe]

Actually Marin WoW is a super casual MMO which is why it is so popular and has such a large subscription base. Everything in the game is achievable with a few hours of play a week. Just think back to UO and EQ and compare the two and you can see where the casual gamer has influenced the genre.



The best analogy i can think of without quoting numerous online articles about how bad 4th edition is would be this. In 4th edition dying is nearly impossible unless the GM decides to just bring out the finger of death and kill you dead on the spot. There is no sense of possible death to your character in the least bit the way the rules are setup. It's the same way with almost all MMO's now that have copied blizzards formula of making an MMO. There are no consequences to worry about and all you are doing is just collecting new loot with no regard for skill. Granted if you have a complete moron playing a Character/class totally wrong they will invevitably find a way to get themselves killed. However that has more to do with them being a bonehead than the game itself.



There is also very little diversity in the classes and multi-classing is all but extinct. Trying to achieve perfect balance just makes everything boring on a large scale. What you end up with is exactly what 4th edition offers. You get encounters for the sake of an encounter that provide no real challenge because the script won't allow for you to be killed. Feels like an MMO session where i am just standing there grinding on mobs with no chance of dying. Again the GM could intervene and just arbitrarily kill you but you could do the same thing to a min/maxed character in an older version.



I agree mini's don't ruin the game since most of us have been using them in some fashion or another for a while. Fourth edition just embraces that more than previous editions and helps boost their mini sales at the same time.

[MerinTB]

Sylixe wrote...

Actually Marin WoW is a super casual MMO which is why it is so popular and has such a large subscription base. Everything in the game is achievable with a few hours of play a week. Just think back to UO and EQ and compare the two and you can see where the casual gamer has influenced the genre.

Casual gaming is many Wii games.  The Dance Dance games, the Guitar Hero games, the puzzle games like Peggle.  A casual game is Plants Vs. Zombies, or The Sims.  Maybe a fighting game.

A massive-multi-player online game, where you create a character, have to learn the game rules, class builds, find a guild, organize times to meet, go on epic raids that can take hours to complete - yeah, that's not what your non-gaming relatives would call "casual" -

any game where you can spend as much time on hair styles, costume designs, and/or skill and power choices as another person can win a casual game (I had a friend who spent as much time designing what his character looked like in City of Heroes as it took me to win Street Fighter IV with three different characters) is not likely a casual game (I'm sure there are exceptions - Sims, perhaps, but if you are that deep into Sims, you aren't playing it casually anymore.)

Get your definitions right.  It might seem "more casual" to you than another MMO, but WoW is not a casual game.  For MMO's the developers consider casual gamers the ones they have to design content like the 15 minute door missions in City of Heroes for, the people who don't have hours a day, multiple days a week, to commit to a game.   Any game where the majority of players LIVE on the game at least as much as they go to school or work (or both) is NOT a casual game, it's a game lifestyle!

The best analogy i can think of without quoting numerous online articles about how bad 4th edition is would be this. In 4th edition dying is nearly impossible unless the GM decides to just bring out the finger of death and kill you dead on the spot. There is no sense of possible death to your character in the least bit the way the rules are setup. It's the same way with almost all MMO's now that have copied blizzards formula of making an MMO. There are no consequences to worry about and all you are doing is just collecting new loot with no regard for skill. Granted if you have a complete moron playing a Character/class totally wrong they will invevitably find a way to get themselves killed. However that has more to do with them being a bonehead than the game itself.

My first campaign ended in a TPK three encounters in.  My second campaign was a TPK five encounters in.  Those were both off of modules, with 5 member parties with balanced roles.  My third campaign didn't TPK, but it was of my design and I treated the 6 party group as if it was 5 players for encounter design, and only gave them encounters that were their level or lower.  These groups were largely all veteran players (the "newbiest" of the games had that Star Wars player in the first campaign, who had been playing Saga for a year or so; my wife in the third campaign, who hadn't RP'd since high school (so 2nd ED D&D) but had played quite a bit with me back then in various groups.)  These weren't morons - these were table-top vets (with the Star Wars exception, but he was only in the first campaign.)

The game experience is different than what you might read on paper.  Sure, mages can't be one-hit killed at 1st level anymore.  But without a Defender blocking for them, they are going to go down in probably three rounds.

As for everyone copying WoW - seriously, WoW didn't invent timer-regenerated abilities, it didn't invent "roles" for different classes (or even the Tank, Controller, etc., terminology), it didn't really invent any of the things that you probably find annoying.  It just happens to be the Everquest of the day - it's the big dawg that will give way to the next big dawg at some point.

There is also very little diversity in the classes and multi-classing is all but extinct. Trying to achieve perfect balance just makes everything boring on a large scale. What you end up with is exactly what 4th edition offers. You get encounters for the sake of an encounter that provide no real challenge because the script won't allow for you to be killed. Feels like an MMO session where i am just standing there grinding on mobs with no chance of dying. Again the GM could intervene and just arbitrarily kill you but you could do the same thing to a min/maxed character in an older version.

We'll just have to disagree here.  I find 4th ED far more satisfying, especially character creation, than 3rd.  All those options and multi-classing KILLED D&D for me, personally.  Absolutely killed it.  Being able to take a level of every class, to me, is fraking ridiculous.  But here we clearly disagree.

Again you go on about how you cannot be killed in 4th ED.  Somehow there's a script stopping this?  Uhm, listen to the 4th ED D&D podcasts where the Penny Arcade/PVP party is TPK'd once, and almost a second time except a goblin comes to the rescue to help them, in the first campaign.  The second campaign sees the entire party but Wil Wheaton fall in the last fight and he just wins.  The 3rd campaign has Wheaton's eladrin die in a pit of acid trap.  They are often running out of healing surges, the cleric is unable to heal people, the dwarf only survives the 2nd campaign because the DM bends the rules on death saves . . .

Then there are my experiences in 3 campaigns with different players.

Your experiences (if they exist outside of your theoreticals and reading of articles online) may vary, but you can very easily die in 4th ED - and very often the DM has to fudge die rolls to keep the party alive, like any other edition.

And if you believe a Revenant Assassin is too similiar to a Goliath Warden that is too similar to a Tiefling Warlock that is too similar to a Human Warlord MC'd to Wizard, I envy how broad your definition of "little diversity" is.

I agree mini's don't ruin the game since most of us have been using them in some fashion or another for a while. Fourth edition just embraces that more than previous editions and helps boost their mini sales at the same time.

More than 3rd Edition?  Really?  Hmm.

If you mean that WotC, due to cost consideration, did away with the mini-only D&D game and refocused their mini's for the RPG, sure, it's more focused.  But only so much as WotC produces mini's to be used with the game.

1st ED had the assumption that you were playing with miniatures - all combat rules and spell ranges used "inches", and that didn't mean that your Fireball only reached 30 inches from your mage's finger tips and exploded in a miniscule 2 inche sphere.  You had to actually CONVERT  RANGES if you DIDN'T use a map with 1 inch squares.
2nd ED lists under "Required Materials" on page 9 of the PHB, section The Real Basics, having the rule book, dice, graph paper, character record, scraps of paper for notes AND miniatures to represent your characters (even suggesting that some people use "chess pieces, boardgame pawns, dice, or bits of paper" for minis.  Movement for characters is in numbers like 9 representing 90 feet per round because 1 inch squares represent 10 feet and 9 squares is then 90 feet - though 2nd ED did change spell ranges and such to feet and yards instead of inches.  3.5 PHB, page 4, has a section titled "Three Dimensions" that discusses using minis and battle grids, and on page 5 under "What You Need To Play" it lists: a battle grid, miniatures to represent each character and monsters that challenge them.

The fact that many players played 1st, 2nd and 3rd ED often without minis is due to them ignoring the design of the game and the rules (much like how many players ignore encumberance, or how most of the groups I played in used some kind of spell points (mana) system instead of "number of spells memorized per day" mechanics.)

All 4th ED did differently was to really tailor skills and powers to work more with positioning and flanking, using Blasts, Bursts, etc.  They gave more incentive to have maps and mini's out as many abilities become hard to use if you are relying on the DM's description and everyone's imagination to know the layout of the battlefield.
BUT all editions of D&D were written assuming you were using maps and mini's.  All of them.

Modifié par MerinTB, 04 janvier 2010 - 07:48 .