Quote from: Peregrin;366466So the general feeling I get, both from people here, and even some people who are into indie games/theory/whatever, is that 4th edition isn't providing enough "oomph" in terms of how you engage with the character or the game-world via the RAW or the playstyle (since taking away hard-coded mechanics nets you something quite different than 4e).  It seems similar to something I read over on the Alexandrian.

Basically, people who enjoy world emulation like engaging with their character through their interactions with the game-world (via the DM and other players).

People who enjoy story-creation can engage with their character through the narrative.

4e's most explicit way of engaging with your character is through "cool powers" and game-bits abstracted immensely, which can be extremely fun, mind you, but is not what a good portion of the RP community look for in a game.

4e's extreme focus on the game-bits seems to be creating a barrier for some people when it comes to engaging with the character, even for some people used to scene/high-level conflict resolution systems.  I'm not saying this to pass judgment on the game (as I've said before, I consider it to be good design in terms of what it does), just as a statement regarding certain types of players in relation to 4e's design.  It seems to be forcing a stance that a lot of players actively reject.  Some people who enjoy an immersive play-style that are more sensitive to meta mechanics keep getting batted out of the character's head (or from the viewpoint of being immersed in the story/game-world).  And honestly, it sucks when that happens, especially when you come to the game expecting what used to be one of the most flexible games in terms of play-style (as Pundit noted earlier) , and you find out it's really not working for you (even if you want it to).

If that's the case, then OD&D is a far cry from 4e, since it engages the player on completely different levels at different times.

Bingo, you've hit the nail on the head as far as my experience is concerned.

Quote from: Peregrin;3664664e's extreme focus on the game-bits seems to be creating a barrier for some people when it comes to engaging with the character, even for some people used to scene/high-level conflict resolution systems.  I'm not saying this to pass judgment on the game (as I've said before, I consider it to be good design in terms of what it does), just as a statement regarding certain types of players in relation to 4e's design.  It seems to be forcing a stance that a lot of players actively reject.  Some people who enjoy an immersive play-style that are more sensitive to meta mechanics keep getting batted out of the character's head (or from the viewpoint of being immersed in the story/game-world).

This is one of the two major reasons I don't like to play 4e. The other being the same problem I had with 3e, combat takes far too long and requires a level of interest in combat that I simply do not have. It the same problem I have with GURPS if anything but the basic combat system is used. 4e managed to capture two of the biggest RPG turn-offs for me in one game -- and make them central parts of the game.

QuoteIf that's the case, then OD&D is a far cry from 4e, since it engages the player on completely different levels at different times.

Exactly. Even 3.x feels closer to OD&D to me. I can play it by nerfing some of the combat systems to make it abstract and faster as the rest of the game has pretty much the same feel as the precious versions. 4e feels like a completely different game to me -- more so than any other version of D&D I have ever played -- and sadly, it's a game I have near zero interest in playing.

Quote from: RandallS;366481TI can play it by nerfing some of the combat systems to make it abstract and faster as the rest of the game has pretty much the same feel as the precious versions. 4e feels like a completely different game to me -- more so than any other version of D&D I have ever played -- and sadly, it's a game I have near zero interest in playing.

This is exactly how I feel about it as well.

Mmmph.

So let me talk about comfort levels one more time, since Benoist missed my point the last time and nobody else has remarked on that.

On the one hand, you have a game you've been playing for 25 years. It is second nature to you. Old, warm, comfortable sweatshirt.

On the other hand, you have a new game that is undeniably different. You don't know the rules, you have to look things up, and so forth.

You're engaging them on different levels. It's like saying that the T-shirt you bought yesterday isn't as soft as the one you've had since you were a teenager. And I'm sitting here saying "hey, guys, if you play it intensively for a couple of years, your opinion might change."

I am not saying you should! I'm not trying to convince anyone to play it. I'm just noting the difference that comes from familiarity.

Quote from: Thanlis;366537Mmmph.

So let me talk about comfort levels one more time, since Benoist missed my point the last time and nobody else has remarked on that.

On the one hand, you have a game you've been playing for 25 years. It is second nature to you. Old, warm, comfortable sweatshirt.

On the other hand, you have a new game that is undeniably different. You don't know the rules, you have to look things up, and so forth.

You're engaging them on different levels. It's like saying that the T-shirt you bought yesterday isn't as soft as the one you've had since you were a teenager. And I'm sitting here saying "hey, guys, if you play it intensively for a couple of years, your opinion might change."

I am not saying you should! I'm not trying to convince anyone to play it. I'm just noting the difference that comes from familiarity.

That's an argument well and truly past its use-by date.  The people who don't like 4E for the reasons Peregrin describes don't form some uniform cohort of grognards who've been playing a single edition of D&D since doomsday and can't deal with anything new.

On this site in particular, 4E isn't being compared just to previous editions of D&D, but to GURPS, Savage Worlds, Rolemaster and the many, many other game systems that get a run in these forums, and yet the same criticisms crop up continuously.  The critics aren't all hidebound D&D addicts, but players of many styles and systems with a wealth of diverse experience to draw on when critiquing 4E.

Trite clothing analogies intended to invalidate criticism don't mean much when the critics are gloriously naked and wearing jetpacks.

Quote from: Thanlis;366537And I'm sitting here saying "hey, guys, if you play it intensively for a couple of years, your opinion might change."

But why should anyone play anything they don't like "intensively for a couple of years"? That sounds more like going to a job you hate and aren't getting paid for than having fun to me.

Quote from: Thanlis;366537You're engaging them on different levels. It's like saying that the T-shirt you bought yesterday isn't as soft as the one you've had since you were a teenager. And I'm sitting here saying "hey, guys, if you play it intensively for a couple of years, your opinion might change."

I am not saying you should! I'm not trying to convince anyone to play it. I'm just noting the difference that comes from familiarity.

Except that some of us played it quite a bit over the past two years it been out and yet our opinion on it's faults haven't changed. Also you don't need to play it to see that the system has some immersion issues.

There is a simple test, make a 10th level non-combat character. Pick whatever profession or trope you like.

Before you say "Oh that unfair you can't do that in OD&D either!" Yes you are right.

The difference boils down to the fact that combat take a LOT longer in 4e to resolve than any of the older editions (prior to 3.0). So a 4 hour session is like roleplaying, combat, roleplaying, combat, roleplaying, combat, roleplaying, combat, roleplaying, combat, roleplaying.  While a 4 hour 4e session is more like roleplaying, combat, roleplaying, combat, roleplaying. With combat taking up 2/3 of the time. In older editions of D&D combat takes up a lot less of a session.

I know this because I played and refereed both system at home and at Con many times.

So it isn't a lack of familiarity that is fueling today's criticism.

Quote from: estar;366542So it isn't a lack of familiarity that is fueling today's criticism.

Exactly. When I said earlier that some of the points here are very much unchanged since 2008 I didn't want to perpetuate the old meme 'oh, you don't like 4E? have you read it? have you played it? have you played it enough? have you been keeping up with the latest product changes?'. It'd be also ridiculous to perpetuate it towards people who've been playing 4E a fair bit, like yourself.

Quote from: estar;366542There is a simple test, make a 10th level non-combat character. Pick whatever profession or trope you like.

I'd put it differently. I've explained this before. In D&D 3.5. character background was something you could emulate by a choice of class, skill ranks, and feats. In D&D 4E character background doesn't interact with the remainder of the system but is tacked on as an extra (like the flavour text that comes with the powers). I totally dig people saying they vastly prefer the former way of a ruleset handling background, but this is a very different point from saying that 4E doesn't have backgrounds.

By way of example, here's one of my recent favourites.

Quote from: Martial Power 2Background: CIRCUS PERFORMER

You were born into the circus and grew up among acrobats, performers,
magicians, and animals. In your formative years. you showed a knack for
feats of strength or dexterity, so you began learning from the performers.
Living among the members of the circus made you tolerant of people who had alternative lifestyles. Although you never received a formal education, you learned many useful skills from the motley members of the circus.
Your upbringing has left you with wanderlust, and it is this feeling that has
driven you to explore a life as an adventurer.

The background then gives people bonuses to skills (Athletics and Acrobatics here, irrc), so it even loosely interacts with the game's mechanics. However, it doesn't interact with the system at the full scale of what D&D 3.5 did in this area (as per the link earlier). D&D 3.5's skill specializations on Craft and Profession could cater to a lot of mechanic echos of background - and these were mercilessly removed from the 4E system. (An acquaintance of mine (he's one of the EU regional administrators for the LFR) counteracts this by implementing this houserule: at char-gen, people can MAKE UP a skill they are trained in. This skill then gets used in skill challenges etc. just like any other. So it's not hard to re-introduce Craft and Profession into 4E.)

System implementation of backgrounds aside, 4E's circus performer is a pure gem from a roleplaying point of view. And, that's just icing on the cake, it reminds me of this:

Quote from: estar;366542Except that some of us played it quite a bit over the past two years it been out and yet our opinion on it's faults haven't changed. Also you don't need to play it to see that the system has some immersion issues.

There is a simple test, make a 10th level non-combat character. Pick whatever profession or trope you like.

Before you say "Oh that unfair you can't do that in OD&D either!" Yes you are right.

The difference boils down to the fact that combat take a LOT longer in 4e to resolve than any of the older editions (prior to 3.0). So a 4 hour session is like roleplaying, combat, roleplaying, combat, roleplaying, combat, roleplaying, combat, roleplaying, combat, roleplaying.  While a 4 hour 4e session is more like roleplaying, combat, roleplaying, combat, roleplaying. With combat taking up 2/3 of the time. In older editions of D&D combat takes up a lot less of a session.

I know this because I played and refereed both system at home and at Con many times.

So it isn't a lack of familiarity that is fueling today's criticism.

I think you can also roleplay during combat. So for me it's just one roleplaying, roleplaying, roleplaying. Anyhow.

On your part, I can believe that it isn't lack of familiarity. There's no such thing as universal appeal. Some people like one game, some people like another.. in the end.. who cares? It doesn't matter, and it certainly doesn't affect things in any way. It affects things here, because basically you have the equivalent of a room full of people who would rather talk about their resentment than gaming. So that sucks. But does it affect D&D4, it's fans, the game in any way? No. It does not.

This is compounded by the fact that the criticism is largely empty and forgettable because the bulk of the criticism 1) always comes from the same people (you notice?) who are unable to talk about anything but their resentment of a game they apparently don't even play.  
And 2) a lot of these other guys only have about as much familiarity and insight as a passing glance at a stolen PDF (and intentional misreadings of WOTC website articles) two years ago could give them.

Quote from: Windjammer;366547Exactly. When I said earlier that some of the points here are very much unchanged since 2008 I didn't want to perpetuate the old meme 'oh, you don't like 4E? have you read it? have you played it? have you played it enough? have you been keeping up with the latest product changes?'. It'd be also ridiculous to perpetuate it towards people who've been playing 4E a fair bit, like yourself.

Agreed. But at the same time, I'm at least trying to explain the dichotomy. The thing that sort of frustrates me is that nobody's trying to wrap their minds around the fact that there are also plenty of people in my shoes. If 4e was as awful for roleplay as all that, how could someone with my background possibly be enjoying it?

Quote from: Windjammer;366547By way of example, here's one of my recent favourites.
[Circus Peformer stuff]

Which is fine. Which get that point out of the way especially considering when OD&D is just as devoid of any mechanics for roleplaying as 4e.

So what are the issues now? We have several apples to apples comparisons we can look at. We can look at OD&D vs D&D 4e. Also we can look at GURPS 4e vs D&D 4e.

OD&D vs D&D 4e
The main difference is the length of combat. The combat resolution in D&D 4e takes about 2 to 4 times longer to resolved than OD&D. If a combat takes 20 minutes in OD&D it will take about an hour in D&D 4e. The main reason is that combat in D&D 4e has a lot of mechanics that allow both sides to recover in the midst of combat.

The short combat time in OD&D means that more of the session is devoted to roleplaying activities. 2/3 of a 4e session can be devoted to combat while I will be surprised if more than 1/2 of any session I ran with OD&D has been devoted to combat. Indeed in comparison to many RPGs today OD&D combat mechanics are about as bland and boring as it gets.  

GURPS vs D&D 4e.
The full GURPS Combat system is every bit as time consuming as D&D 4e. The main difference here is that the GURPS mechanic directly reflect the authors opinion and experience with real life. If the rules call for a -4 to hit a hand than it is pretty certain it reflects the author's opinion on how much harder it is to hit the smaller hand target than the body.

This is in contrast to the 4e approach where the mechanics of a power  reflect a role, and is balanced in comparison to other powers of equal level. The roleplaying stuff is tacked on afterward.

I find with GURPS roleplaying is rarely an issue as everybody is visualizing exactly what their character is doing and more importantly the rules are written sensibly enough that they can extrapolate from what they know to do something they never tried before.

In 4e in contrast is completely arbitrary and the categories of powers only make sense in terms of game mechanics alone.  For example encounter and daily martial powers make no sense as to why they can only be done once a combat or once a day. They are what they are because the game says so.

My opinion after playing D&D 4e and OD&D back to back, is that abstract combat mechanics are not the problem. If your RPG is going to be based on them make the resulting combat resolved in a short amount of time. If you want long combat then make a system that reflect reality rather than be abstract. Otherwise you will wind up people playing a game rather than roleplaying.

Quote from: Thanlis;366555Agreed. But at the same time, I'm at least trying to explain the dichotomy. The thing that sort of frustrates me is that nobody's trying to wrap their minds around the fact that there are also plenty of people in my shoes. If 4e was as awful for roleplay as all that, how could someone with my background possibly be enjoying it?

Because it works for you?

The answer seems obvious to me. What works for me may not neccessarily work for you and vice versa. It doesn't need any more thought than that because it is a matter of personal taste.

Quote from: estar;366542Except that some of us played it quite a bit over the past two years it been out and yet our opinion on it's faults haven't changed. Also you don't need to play it to see that the system has some immersion issues.

There is a simple test, make a 10th level non-combat character. Pick whatever profession or trope you like.

Before you say "Oh that unfair you can't do that in OD&D either!" Yes you are right.

The difference boils down to the fact that combat take a LOT longer in 4e to resolve than any of the older editions (prior to 3.0). So a 4 hour session is like roleplaying, combat, roleplaying, combat, roleplaying, combat, roleplaying, combat, roleplaying, combat, roleplaying.  While a 4 hour 4e session is more like roleplaying, combat, roleplaying, combat, roleplaying. With combat taking up 2/3 of the time. In older editions of D&D combat takes up a lot less of a session.

I know this because I played and refereed both system at home and at Con many times.

So it isn't a lack of familiarity that is fueling today's criticism.

Sorry, I was out last night and missed much of this.
Kudos especially for Benoist keeping track of the threads direction and Peregrin's truly excellent distillation of the consensus up to this point.

I was going to get into the comabt time thing earlier, or actually the % of session time taken up per combat, but worked kicked my ass.  One of the original hypothesis of this thread was neither 0D&D and 4e have a lot of rules to support roleplay. so what's the big gap?  And this is one of the big differences between the two.  Both rulesests are primarily conflict resolution systems with a few fiddlies.  
( I like AM's take on adding roleplay to combat...That has always been a part of the game, but if your rules are making combat take more time, hell, make it an especial point to add the two)
The newer system has, as it has in many things, taken this portion of the game and expanded/codified it, without putting any more emphasis on the Roleplaying end, and has actually removed much of those rules that were inserted in the 'in between' systems.  So the 4e rules also feel like a move 'away from roleplaying' compared to what came before, whereas 0D&D was actually the continuation  of the move chainmail started towards roleplaying from Wargaming.
In other words, games and rulesets don't exist in a vaccuum, we see them for what they are and where they are in a movement.  4e feels like a shift back towards Wargaming in the process.


And the same thing holds true with me as others, from the opposite direction from Estar.  Though I've tried 4e, I left D&D decades ago; I am looking at the whole thing from an outside perspective.  I don't think either game is particularly good vehicle for roleplying.   In the games I like, you can make a 10th level non combat character.

Quote from: Thanlis;366555how could someone with my background possibly be enjoying it?

Because it is a fun game at least for the short term. After initially playing it my opinion is that while fun it won't have long legs. People will become bored of D&D 4e quicker compared to prior editions and either drop out of the hobby (bad for everybody) or move on another game (better but not ideal either). That the parade of PHB 1,2,3, etc will draw this out somewhat.

My "prediction" about the broad market of gamers. I not predicting how any individual gamer will do in the long term. Only that at the end of two year, four years, that you will have less gamer sin your area playing 4e than if Wizards had adopted a system that was simplifier to play, more grounded in realism, or promoted immersion in a setting.

Another factor mitigating the decline of 4e is how well the community is sustained around living Forgotten Realms.  The system can be utterly boring to a individual gamer but they will still come and play as long as they get to hang out with people they like.

Quote from: LordVreeg;366560In the games I like, you can make a 10th level non combat character.

Sure, that and customization is the whole reason my group moved from AD&D 1st to Fantasy Hero to end up with GURPS.  And why many in the 80s switched away from AD&D to system X for their fantasy. D&D at it's heart is abstract and many people liked a little more for their RPG.

Which is probably one of the reason why 3.0 worked so well initially because it successfully married D&D's simple level and abstract combat with extensive character customization. My feeling today about D&D 4e. Is that Wizards would have been better off retaining the core rules of 3.X. Fix the problem with too many abilities bogging down high level play, and came about with a two track rule system. One for the general gaming audience and the other for the living campaigns. It probably not need be two rulebooks but someway of designating that "that bag of stuff is OK for living campaigns where everybody's character needs to have a fair chance at success." And the rest are neat ideas to use at home.