Quote from: hedgehobbit on August 24, 2021, 04:21:51 PM
This would just move the "Mother May I" onto character generation.

GMs normally say what sources are available before players make PCs, so no not really.

Not being able to do things you don't have a Feat for is much more a 3e thing I think. The 4e Powers are more about being able to auto-succeed (1/encounter or 1/day) at some cool trick, that otherwise would require a die roll, probably Athletics or Acrobatics vs monster Fortitude or Reflex defence, or maybe Bluff vs its Will defence. So there's the normal adjudication type system there (only much more streamlined than in 3e), but the (super) Powers let you not roll and just do it.

Quote from: Chris24601 on August 24, 2021, 11:29:54 AM

Quote from: S'mon on August 24, 2021, 10:32:49 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on August 24, 2021, 09:55:49 AM
This has been my experience as well. There have been entire sessions of 4E where dice haven't even been needed because the PCs are too busy with social interactions to actually head out on an adventure. The fact that those sections were free form and essentially rulings not rules meant all sorts of interesting things could happen.

And, yes, I think a big part of why things leaned that way was that they felt safe enough in their PC's ability to survive that forming attachments that extended beyond the immediate was worth the investment. You could begin a relationship (romantic or otherwise), go have an adventure and reasonably expect to pick it up again after the adventure was done.

It's honestly why PCs in 4E felt much more well-rounded than in prior editions of D&D. You weren't as worried about immediate survival and so could basically move up that whole "hierarchy of needs" chart into the emotional and intellectual levels.

Yup (sadly IME 3e with non-powegamer players is the reverse, with lots of sudden shocking perma-death even of high level PCs).
I'm certainly no fan of RPGnet and I hate their phrase "Mother May I", but there is something about the way a 4e PC can just do stuff without any need for GM adjudication, that many players find very empowering. "I leap in front of her and take the Troll's blow" "I run up the Gargantuan Carrion Crawler's back, plunging my swords into its neck" - in 'real D&D' that would be "I attempt to..." "Roll... Athletics"; in 4e there is no GM adjudication, the PC is using a hardcoded power to get the result. This has a significant psychological effect on the player IME, they start to feel like superheroes, not hardscrabble adventurers in Fantasy Fucking Vietnam. This is so even when the 4e PC is objectively weaker than the eg 3e PC.  And this then feeds into how they play the character out of combat; they start acting like Black Widow or Thor or Iron Man (if Iron Man couldn't fly, but still had a mean power suit).

PC's just do stuff... and how. One of the things my own system (that started as a spiritual successor to 4E since no one at all seemed interested in actually supporting that niche*) focuses on with its backgrounds (which aren't 4E or even 5e backgrounds but rather everything non-combat about a class in prior editions) is providing special abilities for outside of combat (though some can also be used in combat) akin to those 4E provided inside of combat.

I found in my experience the PCs only did stuff that was written down on their action cards.

Which usually involved about 5 minutes of looking through said action cards to see if they had anything applicable.

Quote from: Chris24601 on August 24, 2021, 09:55:49 AM

This has been my experience as well. There have been entire sessions of 4E where dice haven't even been needed because the PCs are too busy with social interactions to actually head out on an adventure.

I am overjoyed that you and your players have enjoyed this kind of game.  I sincerely hope you continue to as well.  However, I can't imagine a lower circle of RPG-hell for me than this.  Thank God I have never had a gaming group that inclined that way!  They want to roll some dice and kill some shit...

In general, I really did not enjoy 3e and I played a lot of D20 games before just tossing them aside completely.

Except for True20. I found that enjoyable and the best version of the D20 ruleset, and I'd happily play that again in the future if somebody sharp ran it.

Quote from: S'mon on August 24, 2021, 10:32:49 AMthere is something about the way a 4e PC can just do stuff without any need for GM adjudication, that many players find very empowering."

I like 4E, but PCs "just doing stuff," isn't exactly how I would characterize it. What a PC can do is pretty defined in 4E and if it's not on a powercard... Well, then it's down to how your group & GM runs the game.

Worse is that most of the stuff you can "just do" on a powercard has an attack roll with baseline 50% chance of failure.

3E was a multiplayer (more than two) skirmish wargame disguised as an rpg and 3.5 was similar.

4th was a less fuzzy skirmish wargame that homogenized the characters somewhat  and baked hp recovery into the fighting and tried to set up more party synergy and told the GM's warband how to act so the GM didn't have to worry about anything, just follow the "ai" directions for bloodied or player has fire or whatever.

I also liked True 20 a lot as it was like 3rd with a lot of barnacles knocked off but I never did more than the player's manual and don't know what the splats were like. I also had a good experience with D20 Modern, and I also liked playing Castles and Crusades quite a bit though their support products didn't do that much for me.

I always saw 3e as more a game of 'Combat as War' as compared to 4e as more a game of 'Combat as Sport'

Quote from: Zelen on August 26, 2021, 10:24:01 PM
I like 4E, but PCs "just doing stuff," isn't exactly how I would characterize it. What a PC can do is pretty defined in 4E and if it's not on a powercard... Well, then it's down to how your group & GM runs the game.

Worse is that most of the stuff you can "just do" on a powercard has an attack roll with baseline 50% chance of failure.

I meant you can just do the feats on the powercards, which are like superhero signature moves. Certainly at high level they tend to include a lot of auto success (Effect) like the Ranger who could run up huge monsters. But even the 3rd level Brawler Fighter IMC last week could automatically swap places with the Wizard and take the hit herself, saving the wizard from being killed by the Troll.

Baseline hit success - typical 4e PC attack vs AC is Level+6 (though it's often better, my 4e Fighter-1 has +10 to-hit) vs monster AC Level+14, or 8+ to hit, 65%. Deduct 2 for attacks vs F/R/W.

My Fighter-1 is optimised to hit, +10 vs AC 15 gives an 80% chance to hit (roll 5+) and he has 1/Encounter Heroic Effort, +4 to hit after die roll, so effectively only misses on a natural 1.

Quote from: Shasarak on August 27, 2021, 12:02:17 AM
I always saw 3e as more a game of 'Combat as War' as compared to 4e as more a game of 'Combat as Sport'

3e you tend to win it in the character build, and then in the pre-fight spell buffing. 4e is very much CAS and emphasises team synergy, yup. Neither is very CAW, pre-3e D&D is much more CAW.

Quote from: S'mon on August 27, 2021, 03:06:23 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on August 27, 2021, 12:02:17 AM
I always saw 3e as more a game of 'Combat as War' as compared to 4e as more a game of 'Combat as Sport'

3e you tend to win it in the character build, and then in the pre-fight spell buffing. 4e is very much CAS and emphasises team synergy, yup. Neither is very CAW, pre-3e D&D is much more CAW.

Pre-3e the emphasis was on trying to by pass the fighting altogether.  You got much more of your XPs from the treasure and less chance of insta death (interestingly not a zero chance of instanta death from your treasure)

Not saying this is the only difference or even critical, but one advantage that 3E has over 4E is that 3E comes after 2E while 4E comes after 3E.  Which means that the background knowledge of how to play older D&D is more present in the audience for 3E than 4E, despite the fact that neither game does a very good job of communicating it. 

This is most noticeable when getting into discussions with GMs and players that started with 3E and have never looked back at earlier editions at all.  Their frame of reference for 4E and 5E is different than those who started earlier.  This is true regardless of dislike or like of 3E, 4E, or 5E.