Quote from: Peregrin;366664For the record, I don't think the core game of 4e being focused on the game bits is necessarily bad for the game itself.  D&D, by 'theory-standards', has been a game-sim hybrid for a long time.  Chucking out a lot of the sim aspects addressed issues that were important to a significant subset of D&D players and maybe created a better game for them.  However it's also made it less attractive to a whole 'nother subset (also a significant one), which is why I think we're seeing the rejection of 4e from a lot of long-time players and one of the biggest splits in the fanbase in a long time.

As much as I also hate rejecting something for the sake of rejecting change, I think in this instance we're honestly seeing people who don't believe the game speaks to them on a fundamental level.  I don't think it's so much a matter of comfort levels as it is that the game just doesn't work for them, and it may never, regardless of how much they try to make it work.

You are on a roll. Obi Wan taught you well.

Quote from: Peregrin;366676They shouldn't.  But you also implied earlier that ability to immerse has to do with comfort levels.  I don't agree with that, and I think that the mechanics of 4e discourage immersion for a larger number of people than previous editions due to design choices.

Whoa, red flag. Really? You don't think it's easier to immerse in any given game once you've got the rules really memorized?

Quote from: Thanlis;366678Whoa, red flag. Really? You don't think it's easier to immerse in any given game once you've got the rules really memorized?

It is, but I think that specific design choices limit the ability to immerse once that point has been reached.

Quote from: Peregrin;366679It is, but I think that specific design choices limit the ability to immerse once that point has been reached.

OK. Which ones?

Quote from: jgants;366646Whereas I mostly agree with Seanchi - D&D has always been one of the most gamist RPGs out there, has always been focused on the dungeon crawl / hack n slash style of playing, and has never been great about supporting non-combat activities.

The way I'm playing 4e now is not all that different from how I played BD&D back in 1985, or AD&D 2e in 1995, or D&D 3e in 2005.  Through the decades and with all kinds of different people, I've always found D&D to play more or less the same way.  It's an action-adventure game about people going off to kill monsters and get treasure.

Kind of like the complaints with the modules - as far back as I can remember, sample adventures and modules for D&D always were heavy-combat / exploration affairs with a tiny bit of role-playing and heavy hand-waving to get to the setup (remember how many modules started with your PCs already assumed to have taken a job or wake up captured or whatever?).

4e is certainly more over the top than ever.  But it's always been an over-the-top kind of game.  It's like complaining about how action movies of the 2000s are too over-the-top these days while talking about how much more realistic "Rambo First Blood Part 2" was.

You guys are apparently misinterpreting what I'm saying. The difference for me is not how it's played in an over-arching way. It's how the game plays using the rules it contains. 4e has powers for all characters that work in a very game-centric way. OD&D does not. So when I sit down at the table and start rolling dice, the way I'm interacting with the experience of playing an RPG is vastly different between 4e and OD&D. At the most basic, quite often in S&W or LL or even back in the day playing BECMI or AD&D we didn't use any kind of mat or miniatures, simply writing our marching order on a piece of paper and having the battlefield described to us. It wasn't until 3.x that I started using a mat and miniatures for every fight. 4e relies much more on the tactical experience than OD&D does, and so a mat and miniatures are much more useful for 4e than OD&D. In previous versions of DND, my fighter characters basically just used their weapon and swung at enemies until they died or my character did. 4e is different, the fighter has a number of different things it can do besides just "swing a sword", and these things are firmly based in the game itself, with apparently not much thought given to whether they make sense in the game world. In older versions of DnD, my wizard would use more magic outside of combat than in it, to help overcome non-combat obstacles or remedy non-combat problems. In 4e, my wizard rarely ever usied anything but Mage Hand outside of combat. Just about everything about the actual experience of playing the two games has been about as different as you can get, even while we were technically engaging in the same activity of "dungeon-crawling". I don't know how much plainer I can make it for ya'all. I'm truly glad you guys can overlook the differences and enjoy the game for what it is, but don't try to tell me there's little to know differences. I've played the damn games and I know better.

Quote from: Thanlis;366678Whoa, red flag. Really? You don't think it's easier to immerse in any given game once you've got the rules really memorized?

Wouldn't that make OD&D a LOT easier than 4e in that regard? :hmm:

Honestly, though. I don't think it is either here nor there. It depends on what the rules are exactly. I'll just reiterate my point earlier: to me, it's not about the amount/page count of advice or the proportion of rules vs. non-rules, it's about the nature of these rules and advice, how from there they are put into play. The specific game play they create or encourage, in practice.

Quote from: Thanlis;366680OK. Which ones?

Powers, for a starter.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366671We take this at face value but you know what? I think it's also not true.

I can't speak for anyone else, so the bit about how significant a split has been created in the fanbase aside, everything else Peregrin posted is true for me.

Quote from: Sigmund;366626So are you saying the actual play doesn't depend on the rules used?

I think actual play is informed by the rules used, but doesn't depend on it.

Quote from: Sigmund;366626What you seem to be saying here is that I'm wrong, the rules are just rules and how the game is played is independent of them.

I'm saying if you're not enjoying a game, it doesn't necessarily mean there's anything wrong with the game.

Seanchai

Quote from: jeff37923;366683Powers, for a starter.

That's just a matter of personal taste.

Quote from: Thanlis;366680OK. Which ones?

QuoteThat's just a matter of personal taste.

Personal taste with regard to how one engages/relates with the game-world and/or character.

Most obviously, the power system as a resource cycle.  It doesn't correspond to any game-world conventions the player could relate to via the character, it forces them to engage with the game at the game level -- high contact between system and players.

Pushes/Pulls/other heavily abstracted movement in combat.  While OD&D had extremely abstract combat, it was never built around explicit movements that could be repeated (or not repeated) based on game-economy ("round" level conflict resolution rather than abstract task resolution).

Those are the two big ones off the top of my head (and are significant, since the game is more focused on encounters).

The main difference I see between 4e and older editions is that to play effectively you cannot always think in terms of your character, you have to think of your character as a piece.  A character doesn't think "Oh, well, I already swung at their legs once, I can't try again today!", a player does.  This forces pawn stance and it does not work for some people because it forces you to treat the world as a game and your character as a piece rather than engaging on deeper levels with the fictional characters/events.  That's not to say you can't engage with deeper aspects of the game-world, but you're doing this in spite of the system rather than the system explicitly encouraging it.

Obviously these complaints can be applied, at least somewhat, to 3e, and I agree, but I think 3e, at least in its early days, had a better balance between design aspects that jived for a lot of people.

Quote from: Peregrin;366687Most obviously, the power system as a resource cycle.  It doesn't correspond to any game-world conventions the player could relate to via the character, it forces them to engage with the game at the game level -- high contact between system and players.

OK. Do you believe that the above statement is universal for all players, or is it a product of your reaction to the system?

Quote from: Thanlis;366686That's just a matter of personal taste.

Most exchanges on a gaming forum are a matter of opinion and personal tastes. Now, some people will explain the reasons/rationale behind their opinions and personal tastes, and others won't. Some people will relate to these reasons/rationales, and others won't. It's what gaming discussions are mostly about.

Quote from: jgants;366646Whereas I mostly agree with Seanchi - D&D has always been one of the most gamist RPGs out there, has always been focused on the dungeon crawl / hack n slash style of playing, and has never been great about supporting non-combat activities.

I wouldn't say that games themselves are gamist or whatnot. I'd say people's preferences and behavior are. They way they use games can be in a GNS type fashion.

Along with what you've said about, I think since OD&D or BD&D and players' choices really opened up, players have been thinking about said choices instead of thinking about the roleplaying aspects of their characters. For example, the fighter who carried [insert your own bizarre weapon here] not because his character would, but because of [insert your own bizarre weapon here]'s weapon speed, damage versus armor type, etc..

Seanchai

Quote from: Thanlis;366688OK. Do you believe that the above statement is universal for all players, or is it a product of your reaction to the system?

Excluded middle. It may be the case for some people, and not for others. It doesn't have to be "only Peregrin" or "everyone".