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4E - My review!

Started by Abyssal Maw, March 02, 2008, 04:58:23 PM

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Caesar Slaad

Quote from: Dirk RemmeckeAt the same time, the new system allows you to take the players from one level to the next without ever having to swing a sword. Not that you'd necessarily want to, but all of a sudden courtly intrigue and puzzle quest heavy campaigns are just as viable XP wise as straight hack and slash. And it's all based on the same simple mechanics."

So there's some diamond in the rough.

But after I already house ruled the 3e xp system, this seems a little johnny-come-lately to me.
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jibbajibba

It is a bit odd. I mean we were giving out xp for completing plot stuff back in 1982 (when we binned 1gp loot = 1 xp as it happens) and saying its borrowed quest based xp from WoW is a bit steep. But this does seem like a good idea and maybe there are a few mechanics to support it.
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jrients

I still think Mearls is a hell of a game mechanic man.  And I have no doubt that he and his team will produce a hell of a game.  My only concern is that I see an opening gulf between what I like about earlier editions and what is being highlighted and emphasized in 4e.
Jeff Rients
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Zachary The First

Quote from: jrientsI still think Mearls is a hell of a game mechanic man.  And I have no doubt that he and his team will produce a hell of a game.  My only concern is that I see an opening gulf between what I like about earlier editions and what is being highlighted and emphasized in 4e.

Well, I think you have to separate what we as gamers want (here I am speaking of those with objections to 4e developments) vs. what's being made.  4e might be a great game--just not to us.  It doesn't mean Mearls is suddenly Satan, it just means we just might not like the empasis or direction of the game.

I didn't like Bo9S, but enjoyed a lot of his earlier stuff.
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Abyssal Maw

Quote from: Zachary The FirstWell, I think you have to separate what we as gamers want (here I am speaking of those with objections to 4e developments) vs. what's being made.  4e might be a great game--just not to us.  It doesn't mean Mearls is suddenly Satan, it just means we just might not like the empasis or direction of the game.

I didn't like Bo9S, but enjoyed a lot of his earlier stuff.

The three significant/influential items for me that Mearls did pre-WOTC:

1) Belly of the Beast (I think) - which is a module with an interesting take on encounters that I have been using ever since. What it describes is an "alert level" of the encounter area that changes the encounters. I never played the adventure, but the idea became one I've incorporated into every campaign since then.

2) Monsters Handbook - this book was a 3.0 handbook for redesigning, customizing, and kitbashing monsters. It also had a lot of good ideas for layering an encounter with more than one type of monsters, and so on.

3) Iron Heroes - for stunting and cinematic tactical gaming. I thought it was cool, but I didn't like the tokens part. This one gets touted as a favorite often, but I have to say I like the idea behind it a lot more than the execution in this particular book.
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Settembrini

The funny thing is, I liked Book of Nine Swords.
For three months.

Now I hate it.

It has made my participation at the table irrelevant.
If there can\'t be a TPK against the will of the players it\'s not an RPG.- Pierce Inverarity

Consonant Dude

Quote from: Abyssal MawThe three significant/influential items for me that Mearls did pre-WOTC:

1) Belly of the Beast (I think)

Yeah, it is indeed that one. As far as I'm concerned. it's the only Mearls contribution I really like. A really good module! I have to scratch my head when people praise him as a designer. I think he's a fine roleplaying author. He's got lots of ideas too.

But to be a fine designer you must build fine mechanics and I have never seen something that really impressed me in that department. Then again, I don't like Monte Cook either and I think Mearls comes from the same school: whenever you think of something, just bloat everything up.

I'm weird that way but I like to think most of what I appreciate from the D20 engine comes from Jonathan Tweet and the originators (Gygax and co.)  

As far as as the Gaming Outpost, I wasn't there but when looking at all those names and what they ended up doing, I think it's really impressive, even if it's not all to my tastes. Must have been a fantastic community at the time!
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Blackleaf

I think 4e looks like a great game. They just got the genre wrong.  

I think a super hero game based on some of these ideas would be so much fun!  Healing Surges, tons of powers, knocking enemies around the map, teleporting all over the board, not worrying about running out of basic blast attacks, special power stunts you can do once per battle -- it's all good!  I'd push some of these things even further -- 0 hp means a K.O. (and no risk of character death at all), WAY more powers, lots more ways to move and control enemies on the board.

If there were some of these mechanics behind a Teen Titans or Legion of Superheroes game, it would be so much fun! :) (and fun in the way everyone understands that source material is supposed to be)

It's just not the style most people associated with D&D over the years.  Look at any pop-culture references or parodies of D&D -- they don't have the superhero vibe.

But an actual superhero game using similar game mechanics?  Awesome.

jeff37923

Quote from: Dirk RemmeckeAt the same time, the new system allows you to take the players from one level to the next without ever having to swing a sword. Not that you'd necessarily want to, but all of a sudden courtly intrigue and puzzle quest heavy campaigns are just as viable XP wise as straight hack and slash. And it's all based on the same simple mechanics."

Um, this was already in as far back as 3.0, in the 1st print run PHB with the 16 page "2000 Survival Kit" in the back of the book. This is nothing new to the game, although it looks like it is new to the reviewer.
"Meh."

estar

To be a little pessimistic. Isn't 4th edition where D&D would be headed anyway regardless of who at the helm. The form may have been different but the new edition still would have more "Cool stuff to do with your characters".

Ironically the clearest example of this may be 2nd Edition AD&D. I remember getting the 2nd edition books and saying OK there is a lot here that makes sense and streamlined over AD&D. But I was a GURPS player by then so never really followed what went afterwards.

A couple of years later I was involved in NERO Live-action. For those of you don't know it is a sophisticated version of D&D in the woods. There is a large number of tabletop players in the NERO group I was part of.

I remember around 1998 or 1999 sitting at a table working on some modules I was running at an event. I look over and saw a stack of AD&D 2nd books (black style) along with Powers and Options and bunch of other support books. There was character sheets on the table as well.

A group was working on new characters for a tabletop game being run at one of the player's house. Looking over their sheets I couldn't really get what they were making. I saw some familiar stats but the rest didn't really make sense. When I  asked about it they explained that later options books allow a lot more customization of the characters. I went away thinking, "This is not the AD&D I used."

However I was also struck of how excited those players were about using AD&D options and powers. The sheets I saw were very much grognard worthy with a lot of scribbles and erasing as they try to optimized their characters.

Then 3rd Edition came out which had a better system than the options  of AD&D 2nd. Several years later it now a crazy quilt of different feats and class abilities. 4th edition looks to streamline that.

So there may be more than the pressure from MMORPGs going on here. Maybe the trend for the most popular RPG on the planet is to give players cool powers and simple ways of customizing their characters.

jormungand1

First post here.  I was also at DDXP and got to play in one of the delve games, but not any of the longer games.  I thought the delve was fun, but there were a few things that stuck in my craw.  The first one is directly related to Jeff's comment here:

Quote from: jrientsI still think Mearls is a hell of a game mechanic man.  And I have no doubt that he and his team will produce a hell of a game.  My only concern is that I see an opening gulf between what I like about earlier editions and what is being highlighted and emphasized in 4e.

What I thought while I was playing (the Paladin character) is that it seemed like the game mechanics came first in the design of the game.  Like they sat down and said, "OK, this Paladin is a 'defender'.  That means he needs to do d6+3 damage at 1st level  with "at will" powers and it needs to scale such-and-such way.  In addition, he needs to be able to help other characters defend, so one of his powers should give an ally a boost to AC."  Also, because he's in the front line, he needs the most healing surges per day."  Then, AFTER they had this big list of powers (based on perfectly balanced modifiers and effects) they tried to figure out how to explain it with flavor text.  "We should call this one that does extra damage and boost an allies AC, 'Shielding Smite' --- that sounds like a Paladin to me!"

I think that early D&D game design was the complete opposite: they decided that Paladins from the Charlemagne stories (like Roland) were cool and came up with the game mechanics to fit the concept.

It seems to me that the 4e approach might lead to better game mechanics -- having everything balanced, etc. - but it doesn't necessarily lead to a more fun game because too many things seem so random.  Plus, they'll eventually run out of things that sound even remotely reasonable ("Shielding Smite") and start naming things stuff like "Golden Wyvern Adept"

-Paul
 

Blackleaf

Quote from: estarA couple of years later I was involved in NERO Live-action. For those of you don't know it is a sophisticated version of D&D in the woods. There is a large number of tabletop players in the NERO group I was part of.
"Go raise an army and bring them to me immediately!" :woop:

blakkie

Quote from: Abyssal MawYou seem to be getting Chris Pramas (cool Green Ronin guy) mixed up with Bruce Baugh (Gamma World defiler).

although I'm given to understand they both have.. beards?
Does anyone in the RPG industry NOT have a beard?  It was definately Chris Pramas that said 4e didn't play like D&D, it's up on his blog. He also says that people think it's copying MMOs are smoking a big fat one.....which frankly has been pretty obvious if you carefully read what has come out and have a sniff about what happens in an MMO. :rolleyes:
"Because honestly? I have no idea what you do. None." - Pierce Inverarity

jibbajibba

Quote from: jormungand1First post here.  I was also at DDXP and got to play in one of the delve games, but not any of the longer games.  I thought the delve was fun, but there were a few things that stuck in my craw.  The first one is directly related to Jeff's comment here:



What I thought while I was playing (the Paladin character) is that it seemed like the game mechanics came first in the design of the game.  Like they sat down and said, "OK, this Paladin is a 'defender'.  That means he needs to do d6+3 damage at 1st level  with "at will" powers and it needs to scale such-and-such way.  In addition, he needs to be able to help other characters defend, so one of his powers should give an ally a boost to AC."  Also, because he's in the front line, he needs the most healing surges per day."  Then, AFTER they had this big list of powers (based on perfectly balanced modifiers and effects) they tried to figure out how to explain it with flavor text.  "We should call this one that does extra damage and boost an allies AC, 'Shielding Smite' --- that sounds like a Paladin to me!"

I think that early D&D game design was the complete opposite: they decided that Paladins from the Charlemagne stories (like Roland) were cool and came up with the game mechanics to fit the concept.

It seems to me that the 4e approach might lead to better game mechanics -- having everything balanced, etc. - but it doesn't necessarily lead to a more fun game because too many things seem so random.  Plus, they'll eventually run out of things that sound even remotely reasonable ("Shielding Smite") and start naming things stuff like "Golden Wyvern Adept"

-Paul

Welcome, and I agree muchly. Barbarians when they turned up were way too tough because they were trying to replicate what Conan could do. Now they woudl be built to a defender template with a bunch of powers that make them much interchangeable with a paladin
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Jibbajibba
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Cult&Hist-1 (Anthropology); Computing-1; Admin-1; Research-1;
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estar

Quote from: Stuart"Go raise an army and bring them to me immediately!" :woop:

Bah! The beholder trick is nice but we did better. We built a dragon suspended on a pvc framework. The skin was duct tape and this putty gunk that was able to be shaped but tried to a rubbery texture so it was safe to hit someone with it.

The dragon took five people to operate.

One held it's head and operated the mouth. The head was used like a giant club. For safety we never swung it very fast so it was easy to dodge. We had a water based fire extinguisher that we can hand pressurize. There was a hose running from the fire extinguisher to the mouth. The Fifth person stood behind the head guy and did all the role-playing and operated the extinguisher. The 3rd and 4th person operated the fore legs which were wielded like polearms. The 5th person operated the tail, another polearm. Everyone was under a See through fabric tent mounted on a pvc framework that could be moved.

We have a video shot of one player rounding the rock out cropping we placed the dragon behind and his mouth literally dropping to the forest floor. It didn't end there. The fella was one of the most physically talented of the people playing the chapter at the time. He does this rolling jump thing and dodges the head, breath weapon, the forearms and gets into the dragon back. Where he promptly met Mr. Tail. Mr. Tail proceeds to beat him silly.

We have a shot of a group rushing the Dragon. One poor sap was right in front of the head. You see the head come down and hit the guy once, twice and then a third time. The head rose up and "breathed" on him soaking him with "acid". Needless to say that guy was down and dead.

Finally all the silly costumed people in the woods jokes aside. NERO and other boffer style games should be of interest to many old school gamers. While the limitations of live-actions results in bad costumes, and cheesy props. The same limitations surprisingly results in a game a lot like OD&D.

Terminology Notes: An event is one or days, event comprised of modules, modules are comprised of encounters.

Because it's "live-action" Modules often have a lot of traps, puzzles and other encounters that require you to use your wit rather than roll. Because it is a bad thing to halt the action to resolve a call or situation the rules are much simplifier than tabletop and designed for fast play. All of this is very much feel like OD&D and we are lucky in our site we can even get the old dungeon crawl going.

Finally real hook of NERO style live-action is that you are there not some paper or minature  on a table in front of you. It you in the bushes hoping that the posse of goblins will miss you as they run pass. It is you that execute a good ambush or snips the right wire to win the treasure. The immersion factor is unbelievable. Also it is a cheap form of entertainment compared to other hobbies.