4E Dungeons & Dragons - Verdict?

[beltaurb]

This is my first time chiming in on anything so first things first I will try not to offend anyone.

Second I admit I didn't read all the post on the subject so if anything is repeated sorry.

Here goes. I played the original D&D and AD&D, liked them very much. Why because of ease of use as a DM.

I've played 3.0 and 3.5 but didn't like them not so much as for the rules but because of what was always an overstated theme. As a Dm the designers always stated that your dungeons should make sense for the area, the monsters etc.... With the 1st two versions who cared how the Dragon got into the underground lair he was there and the players needed to get through him. With version 3 you had to figure out how he got his food, how he came and went and probably where he could go to the bathroom. It felt constricted.

Now with 4th edition it is somewhat similar but I now learned to ignore that. Third edition was a nightmare for DM's to make any NPC or Monster encounter with the endless info, now it is somewhat streamlined but still it can be a drag to make your own encounters. With fourth we have no problem in role playing, to use the rules are for combat and the occasional Skill Challenge (not good at this part as player or Dm). Combat takes forever but its tolerable. We seem to like it but we also are just really starting out after we just finished making our own Character program and as DM I have been mapping a heck of a lot.

[maxnichols]

Beltaurb: I find it curious that you found that theme in 3 and 3.5 to be such a burden. It is not reflected in the rules or the systems in any way; it's purely something that comes through in the writing and tidbits of DMing philosophy in the books. And I'd say that even those tidbits don't go nearly as far as you're describing. As long as your group doesn't demand such details, they can be completely ignored.

And if you have the sort of group that would demand such detail, they'll likely do it regardless of which system you're using.

[pickaboo]

Beltaurb: I find it curious that you found that theme in 3 and 3.5 to be such a burden. It is not reflected in the rules or the systems in any way; it's purely something that comes through in the writing and tidbits of DMing philosophy in the books. And I'd say that even those tidbits don't go nearly as far as you're describing. As long as your group doesn't demand such details, they can be completely ignored.

And if you have the sort of group that would demand such detail, they'll likely do it regardless of which system you're using.

I think the rules specifically say that the DM is free to omit any rule that he/she sees unnecessary. I like to use the detailed information to create a spirit of non-randomness in the world so that the game is not just an infinite gauntlet of monsters.. we tried that once and it wasn't very fun.

[beltaurb]

I agree with both of you but I guess I didn't convey totally what I was referring too. With dungeon and dragon magazines they stated quite often that your dungeons etc... should make a logical sense and what I meant was that every time I read that it stayed locked into my mind and psionically handcuffed me.

It's true that it always stated that you could ignore any rule you wanted and I have but what I meant in the above statement was that it creatively locked my brain from being (creative).

I agree that you can ignore anything in the books but then how come you see so many people complaining about 4th edition that it makes it hard to role play and it is too confining. The rules in the books are combat, pure, simple! The roleplaying comes from you and your DM.

[Redrobes]

I think I would disagree here. I havent played any 4e yet but this week I (a few of us here) have been rolling up some chars and gone with 4th ed. So I thought about my character and come up with a background and what he was going to look like, wear, what weapons he would choose and so on - THEN I got out the 4e PHB and started to roll up. And here's the thing - it basically would not allow me that character.

I went for a Dwarf rogue and he was going to use a big crossbow and you could have this character in the game but it is utterly mullered from the stats point of view. For a start theres no point in having a crossbow at all now - not that a thief can even use a normal one anyway in 4e. If you compare a long bow to a crossbow then its worse on every stat except that the cross bow is cheaper. A cross bow is cheaper than a long bow. C'mon.

You also have to choose between the prototype class of Artful Dodger or Brutal Scoundrel which has Charisma or Strength as the major stats. All the thieves skills use Dex or charisma and a bit of wisdom for perception but basically theres no point in having intelligence at all which my character background was dependent on.

Anyway - all this is not why I am finding it a bit odd. The things that are getting at me is a more fundamental one. In basic thru Ad&D 2ed the rules were strictly about handling events in the role playing with some balance. They were guidance on running a simulation. 3rd ed did not deviate from this very much either. It changed the way you did it but essentially it was a more simplified but range expanded way of running a fantasy simulation. 4th ed is distinctly different where you are most definitely playing a game and your options for the world are restricted and some of these rules are out and out bizarre from a simulation point of view. They make sense only from a game mechanic. Take healing surges. Its quite obvious that these are a mechanism to fix up the play rather than whats happening in the world. If my character can do a healing surge at one point in the day why not 100 times per day. What is a healing surge ? Its a fudge to make the game run better and thats why I think it detracts from the roleplaying. How as a DM am I supposed to say that your character grits his teeth, grimaces and forces a surge of mneh through him and some of his wounds non magically heal up. And its not just this one instance, its all over the place. Take light for example. I am a dwarf with low light ability and I took some torches because I have a lot of carrying capacity and the party might need it. If I light one up it sheds 5 squares of bright light... and how many more of dim light ? None I think. A candle has a 2 square dim light range. Non low light vision dudes cant see well in low light so for them firing up a candle is pointless and for me firing up a torch has no benefit to me. All light sources should have had a bright radius and a dim radius like ranged weapons. Here's another. Lantern burns 8hrs / pint of oil. How much is a pint of oil then ? Its not in the gear table. How much damage does lit oil do now ? Maybe I haven't found it yet but oil, hurled items, grenades are all not listed in the index. And some of the prices are bizarre. You can buy a whole wagon or 4 bottles of wine for the same money. Alternatively you can stay in an inn for a week and a half or buy that single bottle of wine. That's some vintage wine going there. Clearly the food and lodging prices have been fixed up. All the rules seem like a fudge to make a game play rather than as a simulation of whats going on. There were odd rules in every edition but 4e designers seem to have dropped all pretense of making a simulation now. So its down to the DM. Run it by the book and it could get pretty stale. Walk off the straight and narrow and its no different to previous editions in that respect. But unless you deviate wildly from the core in 4e and want to have characters that are designed by roleplay then your going to be at a bigger stat disadvantage for it than in previous editions.

EDIT - Tip to all medium level 4e characters with a by the book DM. Tell him your gonna hire some low level druids and set up a large vinyard and check out his reaction.

[Talroth]

The Character Builder lists oil as 1sp, and weighs 1lb for a pint. And lists it as coming from the player's handbook.

My books are away in storage, can anyone with a book handy check that?

[Greason Wolfe]

It's good to see this thread open and civil once more. Good conversation and expression is always a plus, even if we all don't particularly agree about some things.

In relation to a couple of posts . . .

I've played 3.0 and 3.5 but didn't like them not so much as for the rules but because of what was always an overstated theme. As a Dm the designers always stated that your dungeons should make sense for the area, the monsters etc.... With the 1st two versions who cared how the Dragon got into the underground lair he was there and the players needed to get through him. With version 3 you had to figure out how he got his food, how he came and went and probably where he could go to the bathroom. It felt constricted.

This is, of course, a thing of personal preference. Back when I first started playing, we were pretty much a hack-n-slash group with little to no concern about where the dungeon came from or who lived there as long as we got experience and treasure from the play. Then we (well, more like I) started to take things in a different direction and explored a more "logical" approach to things. Dungeons didn't exist in a void, and the monsters populating those dungeons were more than just a set of numbers to be defeated. In a nutshell, we started focusing on the story rather than the combat.

As for RedRobes' comments, I find myself agreeing with him. Although I haven't even taken a look at any of the 4E books, I've felt, since the release of 3E, that the whole system was shifting away from being a pen and paper attempt to tell a story to, in effect, a number crunching process. This was never more evident to me than when I purchased the Icewind Dale computer games. It was all about number crunching (as most computer based RPGs are), but IWD2 pretty much pushed it over the edge for me.

Again, though, such things are a matter of personal taste and preference. I rarely play table-top or computerized RPGs anymore and tend towards chat-based freeform play with friends. It's not about numbers, stats, hit points and the like. It's about the story. Not that numbers, stats, hit points and the like are bad things, they just aren't my cup of tea anymore.

GW

[Midgardsormr]

The Character Builder lists oil as 1sp, and weighs 1lb for a pint. And lists it as coming from the player's handbook.

My books are away in storage, can anyone with a book handy check that?

Since my PHB is within an arm's reach... No, oil is not listed on the adventuring equipment table.

[NeonKnight]

Redrobes, to address your issues of Light, Yeah, read over that part, and it makes no mention of dimlight. But, being a DM myself, I would 'house rule it' and say the dim light is half the same distance beyond, rounded down. In other words, if a Torch provides 5 squares of bright light, if it is necessary to know, then it provides an additional 2 squares of dim light.

I think on the whole most of this was 'skipped over' because if you are outside with a Torch, most times outdoors is DIM LIGHT at. Perfect? No, but then no game system attempts to detail every nuance of everything.

[loogie]

well... to many posts here to read em all, so I'll sum up my experiences and beliefs of DnD

In my experience (I KNOW that it has a lot to do with the DM, players etc) I've played 1st ed dnd (i'll admit i wasn't even in my teens) with my brother and his friends a lot and I loved it... then I used to play DND 2nd ed for a long time, but upon the release of 3rd I held back, mainly because I didn't have the cash to sink into new books. When I was still playing 2nd ed games I stumbled upon some friends, who ended up becoming my main in person roleplaying group, who loved rping as much as I did... They had a series of books, called middle earth role playing made by Iron Crown Enterprises... and I haven't looked back since...

I've played 3rd ed, and 4th ed enough to know that I prefer other systems better... I find that DND is extremely easy to pick up... and when you play with people who know the rules, is quick to play... but i find it closes doors for creative rpers unless you have a DM who is comfortable enough with bending the rules for specific things... dnd in itself is a very cookiecutter oriented game, and every group ends up having similar characters... To me dnd is something I would willingly suggest for beginners, because I think its something that is easy enough to pick up, and fast-paced enough to keep you excited... It benefits from being the game that EVERYONE has heard of, and therefore the game that people are most willing to play.
In the end the success of the game stems from the skill of the DM, which can easily be said about any gaming system... and not every system is so expensive to purchase the required texts... is it worth the money in the end?