I have been meaning to post this for a few weeks actually, but with the recent thread about a 4e player's impression of Swords & Wizardry I figured that I would share with you my perceptions as a Swords & Wizardry player who has been playing 4e.  About 6 months ago I was invited to play in weekly D&D 4e game by my younger brother and several of his friends.  My brother had never actually roleplayed before, but he played a lot of Battlelore with these guys and the DM had an idea of combining a D&D campaign with some bigger battles using Battlelore.  So I signed on and with some curiosity have been playing since.  We started at 1st level and just leveled up to 4th at the end of our session last week. I suspect that the campaign is winding down for me, so I have been reflecting on the game and what I liked and didn't like about 4e in particular.

As some background, D&D was my gateway drug into roleplaying (probably about 1983) and specifically the Moldvay Basic version.  Eventually we upgraded to AD&D 1e which we played throughout high school.  My tastes in games pretty soon broadened and I played less and less D&D.  The last actual D&D campaign that I played in before discovering Swords & Wizardry a few years ago was a Forgotten Realms campaign using 2e rules sometime in the early 90s.  2e left me cold, and frankly I pretty much ignored D&D through the introduction of 3e, 3.5, and eventually 4e.  I would browse the new versions at the game store with little real interest.  I had in my mind moved on from D&D in my gaming life.

And then the OSR happened and I read this.  It literally almost blew me away.  I had never thought about older editions of D&D in that way, and it set my imagination on fire.  I started looked at the retroclones and came to the conclusion that to get the game I wanted I needed to go back to the roots of the game - 1974 OD&D - and make up the rest for myself.  I was hooked on the idea of the game as a toolkit to be shaped in my own hands to get the exact thing *I* wanted.  I had a fucking blast and put together a weekly game with three of my friends using Swords & Wizardry.  The campaign lasted for almost a year and was one of the best RPG experiences of my life.

To say that I was a fan of the minimalist approach of Swords & Wizardry is an understatement, but the roots of the appeal of this for me goes back a long way.  I have always gravitated to "rules lite" games and even rules heavy games like HERO and GURPS got stripped down to bare essentials when we played them.  The RP action was the juice for us, not the game itself.  Any mechanic that got in the way of the flow of our creativity or that slowed down the game was discarded.

So approaching 4e was an interesting process for me as it promised to be the exact opposite experience from that I found that I enjoyed.  It is not exactly rules heavy in the same way that some other games are, but it seems to be so proscribed.  I didn't know if I would like it.  I wasn't going into it blind.  I had played maybe 2 or 3 games of 4e Essentials some months before at the insistence of another friend of mine who was testing out some modules for D&D Encounters at an FLGS.  My read on 4e Essentials (and this would prove true for straight 4e too) was that it wasn't a bad game, but left something to be desired *for me*, at least.

So here are some of my thoughts on 4e after a half year of weekly play.  Firstly, it really seemed like a miniatures game to me a lot of the time, rather than an RPG.  This is an odd criticism coming from me in many ways, because my other big hobby is miniatures wargaming, and the roots of OD&D were miniature wargaming for christsake.  You would think that I wouldn't mind a crunchy tactical system in my RPGs, but it turns out that the sometimes fiddly, metagame tactics of 4e kinda took away from my enjoyment of the game itself.  It often seemed to be a series of miniature wargames with some RP in between, as compared to my OD&D experience in which combat was not as central (or at least didn't take as long).  And I grew to miss the creative element of making shit up during a fight to get crucial advantages instead of scanning my character sheet for which encounter power to use this time around.

I also had an interesting time absorbing the very proscribed nature of the rules and how characters and powers work.  In many ways I think that 4e does a very good job of portraying very specific things.  For example, I played an Envoker character.  I found that it fit my idea and fit the campaign idea very well.  The character was essentially a librarian channeling the divine power of a god of knowledge.  It worked and was kinda cool in an epic way.  But I found myself in character creation having to mold my concept of the character around the rules rather than the other way round.  And I didn't see much room to use 4e for gritty low fantasy or swords & sorcery without a lot of stripping down.  It seems to be optimized for epic-style play even at low levels.  My character was channeling a god for fucks sake, so even at first level it seemed pretty epic.  This is not bad out of hand if that is the feel you are looking for, but it does mean that I don't think 4e is very flexible.

A few random notes, as I fear that this post is getting too long already.  

* Hit Points and Healing Surges - Hit points seemed crazy inflated to me as a player of pre-3e D&D.  Does it really serve any purpose other than to prolong the time it takes to resolve the combats?  I am sure it has some other purpose, but it seems eclipsed by the fact that combats seemed to take quite a while as a result.  Healing surges felt kinda weird to me.  I can see a "second wind" effect, but so many surges just created a different play feel than I was used to.  On the other hand, I liked the Minion rules.

* Detailed and Proscribed Powers - I mentioned this before, but it bears repeating.  The character powers being so specific works well if that is what you are trying to play.  I think that it is kinda restrictive, however, and if you weren't looking for that epic fantasy feel it would be a challenge to make 4e fit even at low levels.

* Skill Challenges - We had these about every other session.  I have mixed feelings on how they turned out.  I like the concept, but the actual process seemed very clunky.  They did have an impact on character development, however.  On several occasions we choose skills or powers that were designed to boost our abilities in skills challenges at the expense of optimizing for combat.  That alone is a mark in favor of skill challenges in the game.

In the end, this is not intended to be a swipe at 4e or the people who play it.  Frankly it is my experience that the quality of the people you play with are much more important in determining how much fun you have than the rules that you use.  I wouldn't choose to use 4e for any games that I run, but understand that it scratches an itch for many people that is scratched by Swords & Wizardry for me.  I prefer the openness and flexibility of OD&D, but I had a fine time playing 4e with some very fun and creative people.

Let me know if you have any questions for me, and I will try to answer them as best I can.  I was not inclined to study the 4e rules in depth, so please feel free to add anything if I have missed some nuances.


-TGA

What was your opinion of magic in 4e, especially the magic items?

Quote from: Rum Cove;499851What was your opinion of magic in 4e, especially the magic items?

Great question.  It seemed really flat to me.  Magical powers were functionally the same as any other kind of power, and it all felt the same.  No wonder or awe to it.  The separation out of rituals helped a little, but it didn't fix the issue that magic felt the same as anything else.

Not that the Vancian magic from old editions of D&D didn't have problems, too.  I always thought it was too much like technology - it always worked and had a specific number of "shots".  In my own games I really play down magic as something for the PCs to mess with, which fits with the more swords & sorcery style that I like.  Magic is mostly the province of powerful NPC wizards who wield terrible power (offstage), but who can also be run through by a sword if you get close enough.

As for magic items in 4e I don't have too strong an opinion.  Frankly we just got our first batch of real magic items at the end of last session!    I will report back once we get a chance to use them.


-TGA

Interesting post.

Quote from: The Good Assyrian;499849As some background, D&D was my gateway drug into roleplaying (probably about 1983) and specifically the Moldvay Basic version.  Eventually we upgraded to AD&D 1e which we played throughout high school.  My tastes in games pretty soon broadened and I played less and less D&D.  

So, what game or games were you playing more and more while you played D&D less and less?  What did those games do that caused you to favor them over AD&D1e?  Were you already into miniature wargames when you upgraded to AD&D1e or did that come sometime after?

So in your thread you describe the crunch-but there's not much detail on the stuff that really interests me: what did you guys do? What character did you play? How many people did you play with? What was the game about? if you feel like relaying that, I'd be interested in hearing it.

Quote from: Ram;499911Interesting post.

So, what game or games were you playing more and more while you played D&D less and less?  What did those games do that caused you to favor them over AD&D1e?  Were you already into miniature wargames when you upgraded to AD&D1e or did that come sometime after?

I diversified my gaming interests from the very beginning.  We started with Basic D&D, but were soon playing Gamma World, Star Frontiers, Twilight 2000, and especially FASA Star Trek in middle school/high school.  Looking back, I think it was more that me and my friends were just much more interested in sci-fi gaming than any real problem with AD&D as a game.

As for miniature wargaming, I would say that I really got into that at roughly the same time - the early high school years, although the roots of that hobby go back to earlier years of playing something akin to HG Wells' "Little Wars" with plastic army men.

My journey to favoring "rules light" games really took hold in college, where I was introduced to a gaming group that was very creative and free-form.  We often used HERO, but it was *very* stripped down and streamlined.  Those campaigns were some of the best I have ever played in, but again it was the people and not the game that made it so.  At the same time I played in the D&D 2e campaign I mentioned.  It even contained several players from the my regular HERO group, and it just fell flat for me.  I kinda wrote off D&D at that point, and it wasn't until Swords & Wizardry came along that I gave it another chance at my gaming table.


-TGA

Quote from: Serious Paul;499913So in your thread you describe the crunch-but there's not much detail on the stuff that really interests me: what did you guys do? What character did you play? How many people did you play with? What was the game about? if you feel like relaying that, I'd be interested in hearing it.

No problem!  I can certainly provide some more background about what we actually did with the game.

The basic setup is pretty simple.  There are 4 players and a DM.  Each of us has a single character that started out at 1st level.  There has been no PC deaths, but there have been some close shaves (my character in particular has had several close runs in combat).  As I mentioned we have just leveled up to 4th.

The campaign is pretty straightforward.  The four of us work for "The Guild", a mysterious group of sages that gather knowledge for Ioun the god of knowledge and protect the world from existential threats.  We were troubleshooters sent out to deal with the increasingly worrisome things happening on the periphery of human settlement, like kobold and orc raids, etc.  We stumbled upon a plot with had Vecna's handwriting all over it and have been on a rollercoaster ride of planar travel, raising an army to defeat an orcish host, building a fort to disrupt the devious plans to dig up something very bad, walking into a Moria-like place filled with evil creatures and bluffing orcs into accepting our leadership, and last session, freeing a gold dragon from magical captivity.  All in all a pretty cool run.  The DM is a super creative guy, so although things can be a little scattered at times, it is always fun.

The party consists of:

Galfrid (Human Envoker) - That's me.  He is a librarian who worked finding rare manuscripts in ancient ruins and the like for the Guild, so he was not a stranger to adventure.  On one of these expeditions he was possessed by the power of Ioun.  The character ended up being the party "faceman" because he was the only human and had a good mix of social skills.

Bubastis (Deva Runepriest) - My brother's PC. He is big, purple and detached from the interests of mortals.  He is a worshiper of the Raven Queen and showed up at the Guild about 25 years before without much of a memory.  He and Tysiph had a religious spat as the result of some of the foreshadowing of the gold dragon affair.

Tysiph (Wilden Battlemind) - A wilden who was found as a newborn and raised by the Guild.  He possessed an amulet that was found with him, and which turned out to be the key to the big story arc that we just completed - ie the gold dragon.  He is a worshiper of Ioun and a rash, overconfident fighter.  As far as he knows he is the only wilden in existence.

Xeloth (Drow Sorcerer) - A mysterious drow who showed up at the Guild several years before.  He is a worshiper of Corellon, so he has the whole self-hate thing going.  


-TGA

Cool, thanks! One of the things I like the most is seeing how other people do it. Gives me ideas, and plus it's just interesting!

Quote from: Serious Paul;499987Cool, thanks! One of the things I like the most is seeing how other people do it. Gives me ideas, and plus it's just interesting!

Agreed.

I get more out of this than I do from mindless cheerleading.

I've been thinking about getting into a more 'rules light' system so reading your posts in this thread have been interesting.  I have also kept an eye on the thread you referenced in your first post.  So, two questions and then two comments.

When you play S&W do you use a battlemap and miniatures?  (I am assuming you did used them when you played 4E.)  Either way, this is an important point to shed light on where you are coming from.

What is it you missed "making up" during combat when you played 4E?

Concerning health... I actually like that 4E upped character health at first level.  I always found it limiting to have a first level character be on death's door the moment they entered combat.  To the extent that you have noted that 4E is not gritty enough for your tastes, this is obviously a conscious choice made by wotc.  It takes some additional work to play 4E with a different tone from the core assumption.  This is true for any system.  (And the more generic the system, the more groups have to do some additional work.)

Concerning detailed powers... Your point here is also really applicable to most systems.  They all have a sweet spot.  No system can do all things for all people.

Quote from: Ram;500011I always found it limiting to have a first level character be on death's door the moment they entered combat.

It is limiting. Intentionally so - it makes it so that directly confronting monsters is a very, very bad idea at 1st level.  And at 2nd level. And really, also at 3rd level. You're supposed to avoid the monsters, if you possibly can.

The first thing you have to do to D&D if you want to switch it from being a game 'about' adventure to being a game 'about' combat - first and foremost - you have to raise the number of hitpoints.

It's the first step in the shift from an adventure game where you'll probably fight some monsters to a monster-fighting game where you might have an adventure.

Having a ton of HP turns every encounter into a combat encounter - it's just the easiest way to deal with things. Which I find more limiting than starting with 1 hp.

Quote from: Serious Paul;499987Cool, thanks! One of the things I like the most is seeing how other people do it. Gives me ideas, and plus it's just interesting!

I am glad that you found it interesting!  I agree that it is useful to see how other people do it.  It has been a while since I played as a player (I have been primarily GMing for a couple of years) so that was a nice change of pace.  As I mentioned, the DM is a very creative guy (bordering on gonzo) so that was also a treat.


-TGA

Quote from: Ram;500011I've been thinking about getting into a more 'rules light' system so reading your posts in this thread have been interesting.  I have also kept an eye on the thread you referenced in your first post.  So, two questions and then two comments.

When you play S&W do you use a battlemap and miniatures?  (I am assuming you did used them when you played 4E.)  Either way, this is an important point to shed light on where you are coming from.

Good questions.  When I ran S&W I did not use miniatures for combat.  Usually we used rough sketches of the situation and relied upon narration and description to work out interactions.  We use miniatures for 4e play. I honestly don't think that you can play 4e without miniatures and a grid map.

By the way, as a bit of background of what kind of fantasy gaming that I gravitate to I would suggest taking a look at this thread. As you can see in the first post I am not wed to S&W exclusively for fantasy gaming, but it has come closest to my ideal for sword and sorcery.

Quote from: Ram;500011What is it you missed "making up" during combat when you played 4E?

Part of it was the off the cuff description and setup of the situation.  In the 4e game we used pre-printed battle maps, so the terrain, relative situation, etc were already defined.  I suppose that we could use maps of our own creation or a flexible marker map, but the DM and group have taken the path of least resistance at the expense of having the combat situation defined for us by the map used.

The other part of it is the character's interaction with the combat itself.  In S&W it is very much open to interpretation what each combat action represents.  What exactly is an attack?  A single blow, or a lengthy exchange?  I always encouraged the players to describe their tactics and gave them combat advantages for good ideas.  

I suppose that this is a bug and not a feature if your players are not really creative or are interested in the tactical crunch, but I preferred the looseness of S&W over the rigid menu of choices of 4e in combat interactions.

Quote from: Ram;500011Concerning health... I actually like that 4E upped character health at first level.  I always found it limiting to have a first level character be on death's door the moment they entered combat.  To the extent that you have noted that 4E is not gritty enough for your tastes, this is obviously a conscious choice made by wotc.  It takes some additional work to play 4E with a different tone from the core assumption.  This is true for any system.  (And the more generic the system, the more groups have to do some additional work.)

I have mixed feelings about the hit point issue.  I agree that 1st level characters in older editions of D&D were very vulnerable, but I think that the hit point inflation of 4e is too much in the other direction.  4e characters even at 1st level don't have to think much about whether to engage in combat - the default assumption is that you should attack, and the game and challenge rating system serves to buffer players from disaster.  The very limited pool of hot points for low level characters in older D&D meant that players had to be careful, even if the deadly effects of a bit of bad luck could be frustrating.

The S&W solution is to modify the system to suit your needs.  Want 1st level characters to be tougher?  Solutions can run from the simple (all PCs start with max hit points) to the more complex (hit points represent luck and regenerate quickly, and constitution damage represents physical damage - PCs die only after being reduced to 0 Con).

I have also considered the simple solution (suggested by Melan and others) of starting PCs out at 3rd level rather than at 1st.

Quote from: Ram;500011Concerning detailed powers... Your point here is also really applicable to most systems.  They all have a sweet spot.  No system can do all things for all people.

Oh, there is no doubt about that.  I wouldn't argue that there is a universal system, even for my own gaming.  As you say, each has a sweet spot.  For fantasy I happen to find S&W satisfying for what I want to accomplish.


-TGA

Quote from: Kaldric;500098It is limiting. Intentionally so - it makes it so that directly confronting monsters is a very, very bad idea at 1st level.  And at 2nd level. And really, also at 3rd level. You're supposed to avoid the monsters, if you possibly can.

The first thing you have to do to D&D if you want to switch it from being a game 'about' adventure to being a game 'about' combat - first and foremost - you have to raise the number of hitpoints.

It's the first step in the shift from an adventure game where you'll probably fight some monsters to a monster-fighting game where you might have an adventure.

Having a ton of HP turns every encounter into a combat encounter - it's just the easiest way to deal with things. Which I find more limiting than starting with 1 hp.

Great analysis, Kaldric.  I agree.


-TGA

On the subject of combat in RPGs - I am a firm believer that any GM worth his salt will give you always an alternative to it, unless you had been on a string of a terrible decisions that landed you in a shithole that you dug out and filled with goo.

Which is why I generally avoid the systems where the combat is too easy for the PCs, as it becomes, as you put it, the default answer.