# We're back to AD&D1



## Joe Sala (May 28, 2008)

Yesterday I spent two hours with the core books at a friend's place.

The rules are completely different, but *the game’s philosophy goes back to AD&D1*. The “role playing” part of the game is downgraded compared to 3E, and everything is around combat, combat and more combat (the famous “character roles” are exclusively defined by it). The “noncombat encounters” chapter in the DMG gets only 17 pages and includes puzzles and traps.

Even the artwork is different compared to 3E. Everything is grandiloquent, over-the-top. All depicted characters are fighting or with their weapons (or powers) ready. No one is smiling, relaxed.

Because of the game’s philosophy, I can’t imagine many D&D3 campaign settings being played with D&D4. Again, it’s too combat oriented. For example, it would be very difficult to play Freeport or Midnight with it.


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## Moon-Lancer (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> Yesterday I spent two hours with the core books at a friend's place.
> 
> The rules are completely different, but *the game’s philosophy goes back to AD&D1*. The “role playing” part of the game is downgraded compared to 3E, and everything is around combat, combat and more combat (the famous “character roles” are exclusively defined by it). The “noncombat encounters” chapter in the DMG gets only 17 pages and includes puzzles and traps.
> 
> ...




two words. neo classical. a renaissance if you will.


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## pogminky (May 28, 2008)

Sounds fine to me.  I liked AD&D.  I only need rules for combat and action stuff, anyway - the role-playing we can do without any rules.


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## Joe Sala (May 28, 2008)

Just a paragraph I couldn't avoid writing down from the DMG:

"Memorable nonplayer characters are best built on stereotype. The subtle nuances of a NPC’s personality are lost on the players. Just don’t rely on the same stereotype for every NPC you make"

1980 or 2008?


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## Njall (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> Just a paragraph I couldn't avoid writing down from the DMG:
> 
> "Memorable nonplayer characters are best built on stereotype. The subtle nuances of a NPC’s personality are lost on the players. Just don’t rely on the same stereotype for every NPC you make"
> 
> 1980 or 2008?




And this proves your point because...?


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## D'karr (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> Just a paragraph I couldn't avoid writing down from the DMG:
> 
> "Memorable nonplayer characters are best built on stereotype. The subtle nuances of a NPC’s personality are lost on the players. Just don’t rely on the same stereotype for every NPC you make"
> 
> 1980 or 2008?




It was true in 1980 and even more true today.


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## Moon-Lancer (May 28, 2008)

dungeons and dragons arcade for the win!!!


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## vagabundo (May 28, 2008)

So we DONT like ADND 1e today, huh?

gotya.

More seriously: You can role play with nearly any system, the mechanical systems are at the option of the DM. If you run a mechanics lite campaign and fill it up with character interactions and story then great. The core 4e system is small and efficient, the rest of the stuff is fairly modular and the maths predictable.

In short, I believe, 4e will allow you to run with more play-styles than 3e.


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## blalien (May 28, 2008)

I will agree with you that 4e gameplay _feels_ more like a video game than 3.5.  I think it's how powers are structured that do it for me.  But yeah, good role-playing should be independant of any set of rules.


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## Falling Icicle (May 28, 2008)

After having played with the social combat rules in Exalted, I much prefer a system that mechanizes roleplaying as little as possible. 4e seems to me to have just enough rules to justify skills like diplomacy, but no so much that it actually interferes with the roleplaying it is trying to promote.


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## Rechan (May 28, 2008)

blalien said:
			
		

> I will agree with you that 4e gameplay _feels_ more like a video game than 3.5.



That's because there's not a processor big enough to compute all the rules for 3.5.  I mean there's a rule for _everything_. It'd be a game where you could do anything, interact with anything, somewhere it's programmed to let you do that.


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## WhatGravitas (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> "Memorable nonplayer characters are best built on stereotype. The subtle nuances of a NPC’s personality are lost on the players. Just don’t rely on the same stereotype for every NPC you make"
> 
> 1980 or 2008?



That's good advice. Stereotypes (or archetypes) are so popular, because they have traction. I mean, many characters in films, even good films, are based on archetypes/stereotypes!

Subtle nuances GET lost, unless you have prolonged and repeated contact with the NPC. Starting with an archetype is a pretty good base to get an impression with the PCs. Fleshing the character out is something that will arise from play and the underlying motivations of the NPC.

Cheers, LT.


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## med stud (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> Just a paragraph I couldn't avoid writing down from the DMG:
> 
> "Memorable nonplayer characters are best built on stereotype. The subtle nuances of a NPC’s personality are lost on the players. Just don’t rely on the same stereotype for every NPC you make"
> 
> 1980 or 2008?



If you need advice in the first place, this is good advice. If you feel competent enough to role play nuanced, complex NPCs then you don't need the advice in the DMG.


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## hong (May 28, 2008)

4E is 1E, with the addition of skill challenges. Which I wager will get more people more involved in noncombat interaction than either 1E's retarded (literally!) nonweapon proficiencies or 3E's unfocused menagerie of skills ever did.


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## Pinotage (May 28, 2008)

Yip. 4e has many similarities to 1e, but like others have said in the past, it's mainly the good similarities. Nothing wrong with being like 1e - it was a good game. As long as it doesn't make the same mistakes 1e did.

Pinotage


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## Aeolius (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> The “role playing” part of the game is downgraded compared to 3E, and everything is around combat, combat and more combat...




meh

   From the way WOtC has presented 4e, it seems more like 2e to me; options have been removed and the rules have been "dummied down".


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## Piratecat (May 28, 2008)

Aeolius said:
			
		

> meh
> 
> ...options have been removed and the rules have been "dummied down".



Actually, that's what many people originally said about 3e! I read that exact statement over a hundred times here on the earliest edition of Eric's boards and on rec.games.frp.dnd. Since I don't feel that's what happened in 3e, I'd be cautious about reaching a conclusion before having a chance to play for a bit.


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## PeelSeel2 (May 28, 2008)

4E feels like BD&D and a little 1E to me.

Roleplaying or Roll playing?  You can Roleplay with any system.  You can Rollplay and pretend your roleplaying with system with heavy rules for doing so.  I am glad 4e has steered clear of touching rules for rollplaying and let the DM develop the story for roleplaying.

I know if you ask my players about roleplaying, they will say their is plenty in KOTS.  At the Dragon grave yard, they decided on an unconventional approach.  It involved a lot of roleplaying.  The 'lead' character bluffed his way into camp and was 'leaving' with them when the party ambushed.  How much rollplaying was done?  very little.  The rest was pure roleplaying.  Yeah the Gnome had kinda of a cliche personality.  But my players will talk about how they bluffed their way into that camp and remember it for a long while.  That is what makes a campaign.  Rarely are combats remembered, unless they are ones that have had a lot of history and roleplaying building up to them.


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## Gargoyle (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> Yesterday I spent two hours with the core books at a friend's place.
> 
> The rules are completely different, but *the game’s philosophy goes back to AD&D1*. The “role playing” part of the game is downgraded compared to 3E, and everything is around combat, combat and more combat (the famous “character roles” are exclusively defined by it). The “noncombat encounters” chapter in the DMG gets only 17 pages and includes puzzles and traps.




The thing is, I don't need professional game designers to tell me how to roleplay.  I need them to help me resolve things like combat quicker so I can have more time to roleplay.  

So I think 4e promotes roleplaying.



> Even the artwork is different compared to 3E. Everything is grandiloquent, over-the-top. All depicted characters are fighting or with their weapons (or powers) ready. No one is smiling, relaxed.




Matter of taste...



> Because of the game’s philosophy, I can’t imagine many D&D3 campaign settings being played with D&D4.




I can because DM's are tired of spending so much time preparing.  



> Again, it’s too combat oriented. For example, it would be very difficult to play Freeport or Midnight with it.




I'm not familiar with those settings, so I'm curious why that would be.  It seems to me that the DM still determines which encounters have combat and which are purely roleplaying, so I don't see how the setting matters.


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## phloog (May 28, 2008)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Actually, that's what many people originally said about 3e! I read that exact statement over a hundred times here on the earliest edition of Eric's boards and on rec.games.frp.dnd. Since I don't feel that's what happened in 3e, I'd be cautious about reaching a conclusion before having a chance to play for a bit.




I'm not going to question your recollection, but I see this a lot:  

"That's what hundreds/thousands/millions of people said about [prior version]" 

- - I guess if I multiply [topics being complained about] times [prior versions that came out for discussion], it seems like there must be no room on any boards anywhere for discussions of any other type.

As far as not reaching a conclusion before having a chance to play a bit, I can understand where you're coming from, but I'm a Small Town Dude (TM), and so to get a chance to play a bit, I would need to buy a set of Core Books, sinking a substantial amount of cash into a game just to try it.

My other option is to get KOTS - which I did at the cost of $30, and frankly I hate what I've read....and NOW of course I assume everyone's retort to my dislike for aspects of KOTS is 'well, it's really more of a combat demo and not how the game will really play out'....so I'm back to buying all the books to really 'get it', or just ignoring 4e.

I think they really dropped the ball (with ME) by releasing an ADVENTURE for $30 that (if these forums are to be believed) gives no clearer picture of 4E than reading forum rants.


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## Fobok (May 28, 2008)

I agree with some of the others. I used to be the kind of DM and player that preferred rules for every little thing, from haggling to sailing to riding a horse. I've long since abandoned that approach since it gets in the way of true roleplaying. You can't explore a story if you're busy rolling dice. Combat? Sure, that needs rules, and 4e looks like it provides good ones. The skill challenge system I like too, for more complicated situations, but most of the time, just leave us be to roleplay.


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## Aeolius (May 28, 2008)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Actually, that's what many people originally said about 3e! I read that exact statement over a hundred times here on the earliest edition of Eric's boards and on rec.games.frp.dnd. Since I don't feel that's what happened in 3e, I'd be cautious about reaching a conclusion before having a chance to play for a bit.




   Fair enough. I do have the 4e books on order

   I remember the day 2e was released. I drove the the game store, got the 2e PH, and drove to a local watering hole to peruse my purchase. On that day, I decided to stick with 1e.


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## mhensley (May 28, 2008)

You guys keep saying it's like AD&D but I get the feeling you have no idea what you're talking about.


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## Orryn Emrys (May 28, 2008)

phloog said:
			
		

> My other option is to get KOTS - which I did at the cost of $30, and frankly I hate what I've read....and NOW of course I assume everyone's retort to my dislike for aspects of KOTS is 'well, it's really more of a combat demo and not how the game will really play out'....so I'm back to buying all the books to really 'get it', or just ignoring 4e.



Is this true?  Was the first adventure released for 4E intended primarily (or even solely) as an exploration of the new combat rules?  I suppose I can see the rationale, but I didn't get this from any of the descriptions I read advertising the adventure.  I was still entertaining the idea of purchasing it, despite the imminent release of the core rulebooks, but I haven't really been able to put the money aside just yet.

Maybe that's for the best....


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## lutecius (May 28, 2008)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Actually, that's what many people originally said about 3e! I read that exact statement over a hundred times here on the earliest edition of Eric's boards and on rec.games.frp.dnd. Since I don't feel that's what happened in 3e, I'd be cautious about reaching a conclusion before having a chance to play for a bit.



I don't know what people said about 3e, but *my* first thought was that it was a huge improvement over ad&d, roleplay wise. Not because it had role playing rules, just because the rules made more sense 'in game'. I still feel that way even if 3e turned out to have playability issues.

I may be wrong this time, but 4e seems to be all about playability and tactics. Fluff justifications look like an afterthought. A good example is all the "successful hit = cool but completely unrelated effect" powers.
I don't think i will find them less annoying when i see them in play. To me it's not going back to AD&D1, it's going back to whatever wargame D&D came from.


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## Orryn Emrys (May 28, 2008)

Aeolius said:
			
		

> I remember the day 2e was released. I drove the the game store, got the 2e PH, and drove to a local watering hole to peruse my purchase. On that day, I decided to stick with 1e.



*grins*  I didn't even have to go through that kind o' trouble.  I was psychic enough to know that I had absolutely no interest in the new edition.  I don't think I even touched a 2E handbook until about 1992, after I'd moved to a new town and hooked up with a group that was playing it.

Mind you, I eventually came to like it, and ran 2E games for several years.  So when 3E came out, I decided to embrace the idea from the beginning and keep an open mind.  And it was good.

I'm trying to do the same thing now, and I've got the books on order... but sometimes optimism can be quite challenging.


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## Fifth Element (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> Even the artwork is different compared to 3E. Everything is grandiloquent, over-the-top.



Heh. We get this complaint the day after we get complaints that some of the 4E core rulebook artwork is recycled from 3E.

One of the most common complaints about 3E artwork is that it's grandiose and over-the-top (WAR armour and weapons, for instance). Compared to earlier editions, 3E artwork is the same as 4E artwork. I really don't see a significant difference.

I'm one who agrees that it's more like AD&D in a good way. 3E suffered from rules bloat, which 4E _seems_ to be avoiding.

And no, you don't need rules to roleplay. That's what imagination is for.


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## Morrus (May 28, 2008)

I'm confused; what "role playing" rules were you hoping to see in the books?  What role-playing rules were in the 3.x core rulebooks but absent from these?


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## Fifth Element (May 28, 2008)

Orryn Emrys said:
			
		

> Is this true?  Was the first adventure released for 4E intended primarily (or even solely) as an exploration of the new combat rules?  I suppose I can see the rationale, but I didn't get this from any of the descriptions I read advertising the adventure.



I'm not sure if that's the primary intent, but that's the way it's likely to play out until the core books are released. Before we have the core books, we're limited to the pregen characters. Pregen characters are no way for players to get involved in the game - they have no attachment to them. Play the adventure with characters the players have created themselves, as part of a larger campaign, and it will not seem like a combat demo.


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## Dausuul (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> Just a paragraph I couldn't avoid writing down from the DMG:
> 
> "Memorable nonplayer characters are best built on stereotype. The subtle nuances of a NPC’s personality are lost on the players. Just don’t rely on the same stereotype for every NPC you make"
> 
> 1980 or 2008?




See, that's the sort of thing that makes me very hopeful that the DMG will actually have good and useful advice.  It's practical, it's usable, and it's down-to-earth.  It's also true for every game I've ever played in.  We're not writing great literature, here.


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## bonethug0108 (May 28, 2008)

Morrus said:
			
		

> I'm confused; what "role playing" rules were you hoping to see in the books?  What role-playing rules were in the 3.x core rulebooks but absent from these?



I would like to see these two questions answered, please.


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## william_nova (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> Yesterday I spent two hours with the core books at a friend's place.
> 
> The rules are completely different, but *the game’s philosophy goes back to AD&D1*. The “role playing” part of the game is downgraded compared to 3E, and everything is around combat, combat and more combat (the famous “character roles” are exclusively defined by it). The “noncombat encounters” chapter in the DMG gets only 17 pages and includes puzzles and traps.
> 
> ...




I find moments like this too amusing.  Its like the parable of the blind men and the elephant.  

For me, 3e was a huge step backward in terms of complexity and completely squished role playing under a heavy load of rules, more rules, and yet more rules.  People I knew who kinda sorta role played were now so completely focused on mechanics and all the cool crunch that they all began to more and more resemble the rules lawyers we always had to keep on a tight leash in game.  People who were more heavy role players were so turned off by this frenzy of power gaming they just up and left for greener pastures.

Now to me 4e seems tighter and more focused on combat, yet does not eschew story at any point.  Time and time again in the books there are references to collaborative story telling, getting off the page, trying new things, with DMs being encouraged to adjudicate on the fly based on the core mechanic.  

I personally think this is a return to the older method, and its one I welcome.  To be perfectly honest if you need a set of rules to role play you are not in my opinion role playing.


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## Jer (May 28, 2008)

Morrus said:
			
		

> I'm confused; what "role playing" rules were you hoping to see in the books?  What role-playing rules were in the 3.x core rulebooks but absent from these?




I'd like to third Morrus and bonethug on this.  What "role playing" rules have been eliminated in the transition from 3e to 4e?  And what "role playing" rules were you hoping to see?  I'm not be flip about this - what have they eliminated from the system that you were hoping to see.

(Frankly, what I've seen of skill challenges and rituals gives me a lot of hope that a few of the "roll playing" straight-jackets from previous versions have been lifted from the mechanics of the game.)


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## Plane Sailing (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> The rules are completely different, but *the game’s philosophy goes back to AD&D1*. The “role playing” part of the game is downgraded compared to 3E




That seems like quite an unusual comment, because often in the last eight years I've heard people complain that 3e was more 'roll playing' and less 'role playing' than 1e was (e.g. by having deterministic social skills, strong focus on combat, faster levelling etc).

To be honest, I saw a lot more role playing and a little less tactical play in my 1e days compared to my 3e days (depending upon DM of course).

So when I read "the games philosophy goes back to AD&D1" my first thought is "Oh, he thinks it promotes more roleplaying, more descriptive adventuring etc".

I'm curious about how your observation and your assertion match up.

Cheers


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## Dr. Strangemonkey (May 28, 2008)

Orryn Emrys said:
			
		

> Is this true?  Was the first adventure released for 4E intended primarily (or even solely) as an exploration of the new combat rules?  I suppose I can see the rationale, but I didn't get this from any of the descriptions I read advertising the adventure.  I was still entertaining the idea of purchasing it, despite the imminent release of the core rulebooks, but I haven't really been able to put the money aside just yet.
> 
> Maybe that's for the best....




I would say that it isn't true.

It is a dungeon crawl and it does have an introductory rules set.  In either of those genres combat rules are going to take up the majority of the piece, but...

the setting is well put together and the monsters and encounters are interesting.  There's plenty in there that isn't that combat focussed and even a really cool (IMO) primarily narrative sub-plot.

It's a good adventure with some really cool setting and adventure hooks, if a little kobold-centric.


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## william_nova (May 28, 2008)

Aeolius said:
			
		

> meh
> 
> From the way WOtC has presented 4e, it seems more like 2e to me; options have been removed and the rules have been "dummied down".




By "non dummied down" I'm guessing you want more complexity, and by "more options" I'm guessing you mean "more rules," which is precisely the thing that inhibits role playing.  Anybody who has seen the Forge inspired indie stuff knows exactly what I'm talking about.  Those games are always very light on rules, yet heavy on story and role play.

On the other extreme, you could try role playing in Champions or some other variant of Hero, that is, if you could ever get the nerds to stop arguing about the rules and put their damned calculators and spreadsheets and character generator computer programs away long enough to actually play.  Or stop arguing with the GM about just what kind of world they want to simulate.

I think like it or not, heavy rules crunch brings out the grognard in all of us, even those of us who swear to God we are not.   We all are, I think.  We wouldn't be playing RPGs if we didn't all have some of that mentality at the core.  I think it's best not to encourage our inner grognard by tempting it with layers of rules that are in the end, just more attempts at lame simulation of "reality" and have nothing to do with having fun; unless having fun is like my old game buddy who rolled up character after character for hours on end, min maxing and trying to find the "win" strategy.  He did this under 1e and 2e, and he was the biggest proponent of 3e I personally knew.  But if you got him away from his OCD like obsession with rules lawyering he was a good roleplayer.  He just needed to have his inner grognard trimmed down a bit.  

Personally I think WotC has trimmed down the fat, and the inner grognard in all of us can and should be a bit uneasy, but ready to make the leap.


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## Holy Bovine (May 28, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:
			
		

> That seems like quite an unusual comment, because often in the last eight years I've heard people complain that 3e was more 'roll playing' and less 'role playing' than 1e was (e.g. by having deterministic social skills, strong focus on combat, faster levelling etc).
> 
> To be honest, I saw a lot more role playing and a little less tactical play in my 1e days compared to my 3e days (depending upon DM of course).
> 
> ...





This was my exact thought as i read the title of the thread.  It is possibly the first time I have heard of 1E being described as a combat only role play light game.


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## Aeolius (May 28, 2008)

Orryn Emrys said:
			
		

> Mind you, I eventually came to like it, and ran 2E games for several years.




   I will admit that 2e had some excellent supplements; Of Ships and the Sea, Sea of Fallen Stars, The Sea Devils, and the Van Richten Guides come to mind.


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## vagabundo (May 28, 2008)

What I hope for 4e:

The feel of 1e: the scope of infinite imagined universes without the rules getting in the way.

The character build options of 2e/3e: I liked all the kits, I really did.

Without: 3e mechanical overload, too many similar sub systems or complex mini games. 

A simplified core with modular accessories,  I'll build my own DND, thanks.

Anyway, I'll soon know how it turns out, from the previews and KotS I'm optimistic.


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## Aeolius (May 28, 2008)

william_nova said:
			
		

> By "non dummied down" I'm guessing you want more complexity, and by "more options" I'm guessing you mean "more rules," which is precisely the thing that inhibits role playing.




   I disagree. One can role-play in a game of Monopoly, if one so chooses. 2e seemed as if it was designed for and written for a younger audience than 1e. TSR admitted as much, long ago. It's hard to put my finger on it, but for me the core 2e rules lacked that "creative spark" that 1e had. 

   I was a dedicated 1e old-timer when 3e was announced and yes, I was opposed to the change, back then. But then I got the 3e core rules.

   3e brought the spark back.

   As for 4e being more combat intensive, I see that as a serious defect. I've run whole sessions without a hint of combat. I prefer the adventure, exploration, interaction of PCs with one another and NPCs, descriptions of vast uncharted realms, and sense of wonder that D&D offers. Maybe I'm DMing the game wrong.


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## phloog (May 28, 2008)

Orryn Emrys said:
			
		

> Is this true?  Was the first adventure released for 4E intended primarily (or even solely) as an exploration of the new combat rules?  I suppose I can see the rationale, but I didn't get this from any of the descriptions I read advertising the adventure.  I was still entertaining the idea of purchasing it, despite the imminent release of the core rulebooks, but I haven't really been able to put the money aside just yet.
> 
> Maybe that's for the best....




I actually don't know if that was the (sole) intent or not, but what I was on about was that often when someone does point out an issue with KOTS, or talks about how it didn't really do much for them from a roleplaying standpoint, others will defend the module by saying that it wasn't meant to do much other than act as a demo of the combat.  

My opinion was whether it was the intent or not, it seemed to be the end result, which makes it tougher for me to evaluate 4E.

I'm not suggesting that there needs to be endless chapters in the core books on 'how to role play', but that for me to understand how the MECHANICS support the play, I would need to know more about the non-combat mechanics than KOTS was able to give me...and now with $30 sunk into 4E, the suggestion (which may be true) that annoys me is that I STILL can't get a feel for the 'real' 4E without trying the rest of it, which (for me) would require another 40-100 outlay.


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## Ghaerdon Fain (May 28, 2008)

med stud said:
			
		

> If you need advice in the first place, this is good advice. If you feel competent enough to role play nuanced, complex NPCs then you don't need the advice in the DMG.




AMEN!

Creativity doesn't need a dice role and DMs rely on dice far too much for role playing.  Let it flow, be the environment, go zen if you must, but to say 4E is not a real role playing game or too focused on combat is silly. Combat needs rules or else we're back on the field as kids with finger guns going pow pow your dead, no I'm not, yes you are.  We need extensive rules for movement and combat.  For role playing, not so much.  Good on the Dev Team for letting the DMs be imaginative again.


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## phloog (May 28, 2008)

An additional thought on roleplaying, 3E, 4E, and earlier...

In my opinion, a large amount of the roleplaying gets muddled as soon as you pull out those damnable grids.  While I like 3E for what it is, and vastly prefer it to what I've seen of 4E, in truth I remember far more roleplaying and creativity when we were playing the game primarily in our heads, and only resorting to minis when there was absolutely a requirement to know where everyone was.  

Call me a grognard if you will, but there was a lot more roleplaying when the conversations were like this:

"Well, he's quite a long way away from you, so that shot will be at...um...minus 4"

than there is now that the conversations are often:

"Okay, I take a five foot step to flank the kobold, and then the wizard can reach the gnoll six squares away with his spell - do I draw an AoO from the troll or has he already used his for the round?"

I'm still having a great time with 3e, and I think people will have a ton of fun with 4E, but I think that regardless of version, the more time you spend moving pieces of metal/plastic about on a battlemat, the less roleplaying will go on regardless of the specific rules set.

The same, I believe, is true for non-combat -- the more specific rules for interactions, the more we fall back on 'my character does that thing it says I can do on Page 229'...this is sadly true for ANY version of any game.

Even so...the lack of good explanation of how any of the non-combat stuff is setup to work in KOTS is why I remain hesitant/reluctant.


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## Mercule (May 28, 2008)

Goes back to 1e AD&D?  Yay!  Huzzah, even.

My homebrew world was created in 1e, with more than a few BECMI elements.  I've found it difficult to evoke the same flavor in 3e because of the mechanical expectations on balance and other rules interaction.  If 4e is going for the 1e feel, but with refined rules, I'm so sold, it ain't even funny.


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## phloog (May 28, 2008)

Ghaerdon Fain said:
			
		

> AMEN!
> 
> Creativity doesn't need a dice role and DMs rely on dice far too much for role playing.  Let it flow, be the environment, go zen if you must, but to say 4E is not a real role playing game or too focused on combat is silly. Combat needs rules or else we're back on the field as kids with finger guns going pow pow your dead, no I'm not, yes you are.  We need extensive rules for movement and combat.  For role playing, not so much.  Good on the Dev Team for letting the DMs be imaginative again.




As noted in my ealier post, I disagree with the idea that it's an absolute REQUIREMENT to have 'extensive rules for movement and combat' for a roleplaying game - - I think this is an artificial requirement.


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## Aeolius (May 28, 2008)

The whole premise of this thread is misleading...


1e AD&D had flumphs


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## Ranes (May 28, 2008)

Fifth Element said:
			
		

> 3E suffered from rules bloat, which 4E _seems_ to be avoiding.




You have got to be kidding. The accuracy of that assessment is on a par with that of the beagle in the tobacco factory, who thought its human handlers had never done it any harm.

4e is not about avoiding rules bloat; it's about scheduling massive doses of it for years to come.


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## phloog (May 28, 2008)

Okay...now I'm a thread hog.

thoughts

It feels like some of my players now believe that extensive rules, lots of feats and options and powers, etc., are required...one main driver of this belief is that by sailing the vast sea of splat books and expansions, they are able to create very detailed characters who are unique - my fighter is unlike your fighter in almost every way.  Awesome.

The problem is that this is a mechanical solution to the need for uniqueness.  

If I think back to 1e games I ran, I can still describe in great detail how Stumpy the dwarf warrior was COMPLETELY different than Valdor the human paladin who was COMPLETELY different from Mermok the human paladin etc. etc. etc.

They had no feats.  They had no long list of skill choices.

But they were played differently.

I would suggest that all roleplayers that are worth their salt want to create a unique character.

Given a system with few mechanical differentiators between Character A and B, two players can either:

1) Create a cookie cutter character and not have the differentiation they really want, or

2) Create differentiation in the only way left to them, via roleplaying (backstory, weapon of choice, alignment, religion, goals, attitude, etc.)

It is completely possible to roleplay well and have fun in a game with lots of options/feats/powers, but I believe the tendency is to express uniqueness via mechanics when that option is there.

And I have noticed (and might well be completely alone) that sometimes it is harder to remember the differences in 3E characters than it was to remember them in earlier characters....because with this mechanical crutch, we too often DON'T flesh them out in other ways.  I can remember that Stumpy was swept up into adventure unwillingly, and was always looking to retire and return to his blacksmithing...but I can't always remember that Fighter 26 was really cool because he had Improved Overrun.

It sounds like I'm slamming 3e, but I do love it and it's what we're playing now...I just don't see any signs that the 'streamlining' that took place for 4E moved us away from stats and battle maps, and further made mechanical the differentiators.


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## joela (May 28, 2008)

*roleplaying*



			
				vagabundo said:
			
		

> So we DONT like ADND 1e today, huh?
> 
> gotya.
> 
> More seriously: You can role play with nearly any system, the mechanical systems are at the option of the DM.




So folks who use the HERO system -- one of the most popular number crunching systems out there -- don't roleplay? Uh, huh. Though I only played demo games of 4th edition so far (unlike you and your friend who benefited from BUY.com's incompetency), I easily incorporated both touches of roleplaying during combat and outside of it. Do you actually need a game mechanic for your dragonborn to ask a passing human if he tastes like chicken?


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## scadgrad (May 28, 2008)

I don't know about back to AD&D, I'm pretty much already there w/ my current ToEE campaign (the original using C&C meets AD&D) and I don't see 4E approaching the abstract models that we work with. I can see how it might be trying to strike a happy medium though and I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I do think it seems to be focusing on keeping the DM's job manageable, a problem that in 3.X eventually drove me away. WotC and Necromancer lost quite a bit of my gamer coin over the past 3 years, but I can be lured back. I remember very fondly the 1st few adventure path stories (Sunless Citadel, etc.) as well as Necromancer's wild and wooly early mods. Those were loads of fun and I'd like to go there again. I won't be doing so if I find the 4E rules to lean more toward "Building the Perfect Battle Mech so I Can Beat the DM" rather than "Let's Make the Game Also Fun for the Time-strapped DM." Obviously, I'm hoping for the latter, but I can see Ranes' point. There comes a point in the progression of any edition, be it 1E, 2E, etc., that every DM has to say enough is enough.


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## scadgrad (May 28, 2008)

*hoping for the best*

double post


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## william_nova (May 28, 2008)

Aeolius said:
			
		

> 2e seemed as if it was designed for and written for a younger audience than 1e. TSR admitted as much, long ago. It's hard to put my finger on it, but for me the core 2e rules lacked that "creative spark" that 1e had.




I think this is a very important bit.  "Creative spark" is absolutely non qualitative, and as such it's entirely possible what inspires one can completely disenchant another.  



			
				Aeolius said:
			
		

> As for 4e being more combat intensive, I see that as a serious defect. I've run whole sessions without a hint of combat. I prefer the adventure, exploration, interaction of PCs with one another and NPCs, descriptions of vast uncharted realms, and sense of wonder that D&D offers. Maybe I'm DMing the game wrong.




I would say based on that description you are doing it completely right, however you are managing to do it.      I'm just not entirely sure what it is about the rule set of 3e that inspires this in you and your players, to myself and obviously to many others here, the "feel" 3e brings does just exactly the opposite. 

But to be honest, some days I'm not entirely sure that any of the editions really do encourage or discourage anything in and of themselves by simple virtue of their rule set.  Perhaps it's this "spark" you mentioned.  What they represent to us.  Something abstract we're trying to rationalise.  Maybe the spark is all we need to get things rolling, and the rest of it just subjective.

It is true there are many people who, like me, are inspired by 4e and "see" something there that excites them, and perhaps its this excitement we are linking to our memories of our best games.  By extension, it is possible that those whose best memories and games that lay in the province of 3e simply see the exact opposite.

I know this is a little reaching, but it's just a thought.  I personally find this whole debate on the merits of the editions fascinating, for what they mean to us may lie beyond the rules, and point toward something much more internal.


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## Mort_Q (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> The “role playing” part of the game is downgraded compared to 3E, and everything is around combat, combat and more combat (the famous “character roles” are exclusively defined by it). The “noncombat encounters” chapter in the DMG gets only 17 pages and includes puzzles and traps.




The less rules they have for "role playing" the better.  You're not going to get people to agree on what role playing actually is, let alone what the right way to do it is.  Let individual gaming groups decide that on their own.


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## phloog (May 28, 2008)

...and of course the thought that just made me chuckle was based on the fairly wide amount of AGREEMENT here (with some exceptions) that you can roleplay regardless of the rules system...that thought was:

"...and so the sales pitch for me to buy the new set of books is what, exactly?"

(admittedly being a bit facetious there)


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## Fifth Element (May 28, 2008)

Ranes said:
			
		

> You have got to be kidding. The accuracy of that assessment is on a par with that of the beagle in the tobacco factory, who thought its human handlers had never done it any harm.



No, if I was kidding I would have added   .

Option bloat is not the same thing as rules bloat. 4E _seems_ (can't be sure yet) to be built such that all powers etc. use the same basic system. So later books with bunches of new feats and powers don't actually add any new rules, just new options for use with existing rules. 3E suffered from rules bloat in the sense that later splat books introduced entirely new subsystems to fix perceived problems (Bo9S, warlocks, etc).

But thanks for being so dismissive. It _always_ helps.


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## WayneLigon (May 28, 2008)

Fifth Element said:
			
		

> 3E suffered from rules bloat in the sense that later splat books introduced entirely new subsystems to fix perceived problems (Bo9S, warlocks, etc).




Since this has happened to every single RPG that ever produced books beyond it's basic line, why do you think this will not apply to 4E?


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## Zinovia (May 28, 2008)

I can see where eliminating 3E's "A rule for everything, and everything by the rules" philosophy will help, rather than hinder, roleplaying.  The best roleplaying is done without rules anyway, as it amounts to acting and storytelling.  Those are usually the most memorable parts of the game. 

Once I see more details on skills challenges I'll be able to judge how those work, and how difficult they are to run as a GM.  From what I've read here my initial impressions are favorable.  It sounds like a good method of getting the players to think creatively and to all become involved, rather than having one person make the single diplomacy check and be done with it.  Not that we actually ran diplomacy encounters just on a single die roll.  They were roleplayed out, with the skill check as a modifier.  

What I do feel is lacking somewhat are secondary skills, or background skills.  I'm all in favor of dropping many of the truly excessive number of skills from 3.5.  Come on, who really took the Forgery skill?  Even with a rogue who had a 16 int, I found myself often having to pick and choose among the rogue skills that I could take.  There just weren't enough points to take everything I needed to have, much less optional stuff for the sake of roleplaying (even though I did it anyway).  Too many skills, too few skill points. 

For the next campaign regardless of whether it's 3.5 or 4E, my thought was to come up with some simple means of choosing what skills your character knew prior to becoming an adventurer.  Were you trained as a scribe, a ship pilot, a blacksmith, a chef?  I don't care so much about the numbers, but having that information about your character's background helps in fleshing out your character to make them seem more real.  It provides a sense of who they are as well as encouraging players to make use of that background in game.  The reason for making it subject to any rules at all is that I want to avoid the mid-game revelation "Oh, by the way, my character is a master jeweler, so of course I'll be able to get that diamond out of the setting without damaging it" problem.  

I may have them choose a single profession and a couple of hobbies, or secondary skills for those who were not wealthy enough to indulge in hobbies.  I don't care how *well* someone can sail a boat, only whether they have some experience with it.  If so, the rest can be done on the fly.   

So yeah, I feel the lack of secondary skills a bit with 4E, but they didn't work right anyway in 3.5, so I'm all in favor of the change.  I just have to graft on a couple house rules, but I was going to do that in 3.5 anyway.


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## Doug McCrae (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> "Memorable nonplayer characters are best built on stereotype. The subtle nuances of a NPC’s personality are lost on the players. Just don’t rely on the same stereotype for every NPC you make"
> 
> 1980 or 2008?



Good advice, that you would never have found in the 1e DMG. The main purpose of 1e NPCs is to provide obstacles to the PCs.

I don't know many rpgs that have rules for roleplaying, though it depends what you mean by that. If you mean acting, speaking in character, that's something you don't need rules for, they'd just get in the way. The acting side of things is people sitting around a table jawing freely. All a rule is going to do is interrupt the flow by telling a player he can't talk when he wants to or restrict what he says.

Advice, rather than rules, is what you need.


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## buzz (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> The “noncombat encounters” chapter in the DMG gets only 17 pages and includes puzzles and traps.



Well, that's 17 more pages than any other edition of D&D.


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## Ghaerdon Fain (May 28, 2008)

Ranes said:
			
		

> ...
> 
> 4e is not about avoiding rules bloat; it's about scheduling massive doses of it for years to come.




Yup 3E ran it's lifespan and Hasbro wanted more money... 4E is their money maker, let's hope it's more Leopard than Vista ;-)


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## Ranes (May 28, 2008)

I like the analogy.

FF, when I said, "You've got to be kidding," I knew you weren't.

People started talking about 3e rules bloat when the optional books began to appear. My point is simply that there's no reason to suspect the same language won't be used again in 4e's lifespan.

In 3e's time, when people complained of 'rules bloat', there were always responses to the effect that you could stick with the core books. I can see that argument repeating itself.

Plus ça change...


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## PaulofCthulhu (May 28, 2008)

Having played both 1e and 3e, I prefer 1e. I guess I'm just not a big fan of tactical combat. I will be giving 4e a go in a couple of weeks but from reports, it may not suit my personal preferences?


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## Fifth Element (May 28, 2008)

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> Since this has happened to every single RPG that ever produced books beyond it's basic line, why do you think this will not apply to 4E?



I would probably dispute your assertion, but the reason 4E _might_ be different is that the system was designed in a way that could avoid it. I don't _think_ it won't apply to 4E, I _hope_ it won't apply. The designers' intent seems to be to design a system that can avoid this. So I just hope they succeeded in doing so.


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## DeusExMachina (May 28, 2008)

Ghaerdon Fain said:
			
		

> Yup 3E ran it's lifespan and Hasbro wanted more money... 4E is their money maker, let's hope it's more Leopard than Vista ;-)





Well, according to some people the WoW starts now... so I guess it's more like Vista....


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## phloog (May 28, 2008)

Zinovia said:
			
		

> ...I'm all in favor of dropping many of the truly excessive number of skills from 3.5.  Come on, who really took the Forgery skill? ....




A bit off topic, but my current rogue has SF: Forgery, maxed out ranks in it, and has also maxed out Craft: Woodcarver and Profession: Scribe.

While it doesn't always come up in an adventure AS WRITTEN, in any session that doesn't take place 100% in a dungeon, it's up to ME to figure out how to make it useful...and our DM is good enough to handle it when I do.  Also, working with the DM I actually GAVE up Sneak Attack in return for fighter-like bonus feats (with the restriction that any bonus feats taken had to deal with skills or stealth)...so I stink in combat, but I'm playing the character I wanted to play...maybe that's why I'm currently so snippy about excessive combat rules.


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## Zinovia (May 28, 2008)

phloog said:
			
		

> A bit off topic, but my current rogue has SF: Forgery, maxed out ranks in it, and has also maxed out Craft: Woodcarver and Profession: Scribe.



And mine has Fletching and Play instrument: drum (to accompany our bard when we perform - I even have a membership in TAG - the Tavern Actor's Guild  )  I like non-combat skills but don't necessarily feel that the actual numeric values will matter much in the course of roleplaying.

My rogue 10 / psychic warrior 5 is extremely combat oriented, but is still the skills-monkey for the group, so I have to buy all those ranks in Search, Spot, Listen, Disable Device, Open Locks, Balance, Climb, Jump, Appraise, Sleight of Hand, and Tumble.  That leaves nothing to spend on any charisma based skills (my character has a very low Cha), Forgery, Use Rope, Escape Artist, or anything just for fluff, especially given the ranks I didn't take for my PsyWar levels that I am making up for.  But I took a few fluff skills regardless. 

In any case, 4E has rolled a ton of skills into far fewer, but I don't know how the system will play out yet.  As long as I add something covering background skills then I think I'll be happy with it.  I really like it when characters can make use of their fluff skills in the course of the game, but 3.5 made it hard to do that by actively discouraging you from "wasting" points on those things.  There were just too few skill points, no matter what class you were.


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## Zinovia (May 28, 2008)

DeusExMachina said:
			
		

> Well, according to some people the WoW starts now... so I guess it's more like Vista....



Meh.  WoW has zero, zip, zilch roleplaying.  There's a reason many people in my WoW guild play D&D.  We enjoy both games because they are *different*, yes, even 4E.  

Yeah, I know better than to respond to the 4E= WoW, Anime, Video Game stuff, but sometimes the temptation is overwhelming.


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## Joe Sala (May 28, 2008)

Hey, I'm the one who started the thread a while ago   

When I talked about "roleplaying", I wasn't thinking in social skills. In fact I tend to avoid using them and I make my players talk.

My opinion is that D&D4 is heavily combat oriented: kill the monster, take the stuff, increase your level. I know this has been the game's main philosophy, but maybe I expected a bit more. For example:

Background and origin feats, to better define the character.

More subtle powers for the wizard (where are the illusions? the enchantments? the knowledge spells?)

Advice about how to run mystery or horror games.

Adventures less based on encounters (you play A, then B, then C... one per hour of game play)


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## Doug McCrae (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> More subtle powers for the wizard (where are the illusions? the enchantments? the knowledge spells?)
> 
> Advice about how to run mystery or horror games.



Here's some advice on running mystery games - don't let the PCs have enchantment and knowledge spells. Why talk to NPCs or look for clues when magic can solve all your problems?


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## Joe Sala (May 28, 2008)

Doug McCrae said:
			
		

> Here's some advice on running mystery games - don't let the PCs have enchantment and knowledge spells. Why talk to NPCs or look for clues when magic can solve all your problems?




Sorry, I don't buy it.   Many less combat-oriented games have this kind of spells, and it's the DM's work to balance them with the mistery plot. And I'm sure the decision to avoid subtle powers is NOT related to investigation adventures.


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## Darkwolf71 (May 28, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:
			
		

> That seems like quite an unusual comment, because often in the last eight years I've heard people complain that 3e was more 'roll playing' and less 'role playing' than 1e was (e.g. by having deterministic social skills, strong focus on combat, faster levelling etc).
> 
> To be honest, I saw a lot more role playing and a little less tactical play in my 1e days compared to my 3e days (depending upon DM of course).
> 
> ...



Pretty much my thought exactly. The groups I played with 20 years ago roleplayed ALOT.
My current group roleplays as well, but it' really not something that the 3.5 rules encourage. 
~YMMV


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## Thasmodious (May 28, 2008)

Methinks you need to actually read the DMG, Joe.  The chapter specifically on noncombat encounters is 17 pages long.  This is true.  But your implication that the rest of the book is filled with combat is not.  Looking at the ToC, we have a chapter on How to DM, one on Running the Game, which includes subheadings on chronicling, narration, pacing, and improvising.  The chapter on Combat Encounters is one page shorter than the chapter on Noncombat Encounters.  There are chapters on building adventures, campaigns, and the World in general (cosmology, civilization, the wild, etc.).


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## Joe Sala (May 28, 2008)

Darkwolf71 said:
			
		

> The groups I played with 20 years ago roleplayed ALOT.
> My current group roleplays as well, but it' really not something that the 3.5 rules encourage.
> ~YMMV




Well, I have a completely different experience. When I started gaming 20 years ago, all sessions were about killing monsters and improving the stats. Now we never play this way: we enjoy developing our characters (I talked about personality and background), creating complex plots, interacting with well-defined NPCs...


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## billd91 (May 28, 2008)

william_nova said:
			
		

> By "non dummied down" I'm guessing you want more complexity, and by "more options" I'm guessing you mean "more rules," which is precisely the thing that inhibits role playing.  Anybody who has seen the Forge inspired indie stuff knows exactly what I'm talking about.  Those games are always very light on rules, yet heavy on story and role play.
> 
> On the other extreme, you could try role playing in Champions or some other variant of Hero, that is, if you could ever get the nerds to stop arguing about the rules and put their damned calculators and spreadsheets and character generator computer programs away long enough to actually play.  Or stop arguing with the GM about just what kind of world they want to simulate.
> 
> ...




Heavy on role-play is an approach that can be taken with any set of rules, whether rule-light or rule-heavy. I completely fail to understand the zero-sum impression that some people have about rules vs role-play.
Rules-light games don't inherently encourage role playing any more than rules heavy will, but they will encourage more off the cuff arbitration of actions by the GM.

I also have to ask just what you think a grognard is? It's not a rule lawyer or someone just involved in number crunching.


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## Korgoth (May 28, 2008)

When it comes to rules vs. role playing, I want the game to give me solid, simple and fun rules for combat, magic and exploring.  And that's basically all I want from the rules.  That is an old school approach and it seems present in 4E as well.

One of the big mistakes of 3E was to try to handle incidental skills the same way as it handled other skills.  So if your bildungs-boy was a farm yokel destined to rise to greatness as a master thief... to justify your background you might feel the impetus to put points into the Farm Yokel skill.  Which means you're not putting those points into skills like Whup@ss and Clobberin' Time.  And since combat is where your character lives or dies (as opposed to farming montage scenes)... you're penalized for having a backstory.  There are times when a failed Search roll, a failed Move Silently roll, a failed Disable Device roll, a failed Tumbling roll, etc. could _kill_ you.  So scratch that "farm yokel" background.  My character's parents were killed by bad stuff while he was really young (like, 4) and his whole life since then has been a single-minded quest to be the toughest hombre possible so that he can... do whatever he does with ruthless efficiency.  Just like the rest of the party.

Whereas, if we say that all non-combat skills are officially handwaved, I don't have to feel like having a back story means shooting myself in the foot.  I just write "Former Farm Yokel" in the notes section and I'm good to go.  If there is ever a part of the adventure that involves evaluating a wagonload of turnips, we can safely assume that my Farm Yokel powers kick in at that point and I make a good call on the turnips.  Likewise, "The Vagabond", wandering Half-Elf sellsword and magical dabbler, doesn't need to sink his precious skill points into Play Lute.  You wanna play the lute, pal?  Knock yerself out.  Can he sing us up some free lodging from time to time? Sure, why not?  Just because it makes a difference in the game doesn't mean that it should be dissected and balanced within the rules framework.


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## Majoru Oakheart (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> Background and origin feats, to better define the character.



What are these supposed to do?  If given the choice between a feat that gives you +2 damage with all your attacks or one that gives you the ability to say "I was a farmer when I was young, so I can till fields.", a large majority of players will choose the damage one because it will be useful in almost every round of combat while the other feat will be useless as little as 0 times in some campaigns.

If you are putting a feat or power into the game it has to have a purpose in game.  Something that you will use on at least a semi-regular basis.  Since the average D&D campaign is about dungeon delving, monster killing, and adventuring all the powers and feats in the book are useful for those activities.



			
				Joe Sala said:
			
		

> More subtle powers for the wizard (where are the illusions? the enchantments? the knowledge spells?)



Here's where we get into...what game effect does making an illusion of a chair have?  If you cast it during a combat, do the monsters avoid it?  If you create an illusion of a dragon, does it have the ability to have all of the powers of a real dragon?  Can it do real damage?  What are the limitations of your illusion spells?  If you make yourself look like the King and create an illusionary retinue does that mean you can convince the local lord to give you control of his army and give you all his magic items?

If that isn't complicated enough to try to adjudicate as a DM then we'll go back to a game balance standpoint.  The wizard can summon an illusionary army out of thin air in order to scare away the 200 orcs who are ready to assault the town.  And the fighter can....look menacing?

On to enchantments...they have a similar problem to illusions.  If you can charm the local lord you can convince him to do almost anything.  Certainly, the loan of his Longsword +5 would be reasonable, right?  If you can charm monsters, then you have the ability so suddenly gain HUGE power.  Charm a dragon to fight for you?  Perfect!  That power is WAY better than the ability to do 2d6 damage with one of your attacks.  It's way better than the level 29 Dailies in the game.  And that's only the ability to charm a level 3 dragon.

Knowledge spells completely negate the usefulness of skills.  Why have knowledge skills if you can cast a spell and know the answer to anything?  Why investigate a situation by talking to people when you can cast a spell and know the answer?  Not having these spells actually promotes roleplaying.  Players need to come up with plans to figure out who the murderer is instead of asking the gods.


			
				Joe Sala said:
			
		

> Advice about how to run mystery or horror games.



This might have been useful.  Still, these are all about setting the tone.  And skill challenges are perfect for mystery games.  Horror games can mean almost anything.  A standard game with all of the descriptions made horrifying can be a horror.


			
				Joe Sala said:
			
		

> Adventures less based on encounters (you play A, then B, then C... one per hour of game play)



Encounters are the easiest way to organize the concepts of an adventure into manageable chunks for DMs.  Almost any adventure you come up with can be broken down into encounters, even if you don't think of them as encounters.

Especially if you are planning a plotline.  It is easiest to write in terms of encounters.  For instance:

Encounter 1
The PCs get to a town, the people all appear to be scared.  They have a chance to explore the town and eventually figure out that there is a ghost that haunts the town and they are all scared for their lives.

Encounter 2
The PCs meet an old man who tells them the story of the ghost, how it came to be here and what it wants.  But he tells them it in poem form.  It is mostly just hints.

Encounter 3
Lured by the old man's clues, the PCs likely go to the graveyard where the body of the ghost is buried.  There, they are attacked by zombies.

Encounter 4
The PCs explore the graveyard, find the body of the ghost.  They figure out they need to destroy the body to get rid of the ghost.  The ghost attacks them as they start digging and they are forced to fight him off, destroying him temporarily while they work.

Encounter 5
The PCs destroy the corpse and find a strange box buried with the body.  They likely take it.  On the way back to the town proper, they are attacked by some men who try to take the box from them.

Simple enough, easy to run....and I think I just wasted a good adventure idea on a message board...but oh well...


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## Joe Sala (May 28, 2008)

billd91 said:
			
		

> Heavy on role-play is an approach that can be taken with any set of rules, whether rule-light or rule-heavy. I completely fail to understand the zero-sum impression that some people have about rules vs role-play.
> Rules-light games don't inherently encourage role playing any more than rules heavy will, but they will encourage more off the cuff arbitration of actions by the GM.




The main point is time organization.

My game sessions usually last for three hours, and I never run more than one combat (my players think that it's boring). So if I need two hours for the combat, I have less time to play the other things. As simple as that.

Also games where the PCs statistics are completely related to combat tend to obsess my players. They are very concentrated on tactics and checking what they can do, so they forget to roleplay.

Maybe I have a weird group.


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## Joe Sala (May 28, 2008)

Majoru Oakheart said:
			
		

> Since the average D&D campaign is about dungeon delving, monster killing, and adventuring all the powers and feats in the book are useful for those activities.




We have a point here. IMHO, D&D should offer much more than this.




			
				Majoru Oakheart said:
			
		

> Here's where we get into...what game effect does making an illusion of a chair have?  If you cast it during a combat, do the monsters avoid it?  (...)  If you make yourself look like the King and create an illusionary retinue does that mean you can convince the local lord to give you control of his army and give you all his magic items?




You really are a power gamer, don't you? I don't want to create an illusionary chair to distract a monster chargint at me: I would use it to humiliate a NPC that I hate (he tries to sit down and falls to the ground...   ). And convincing the local lord to give me his magic items? Come on, we are not 12 years old! Do you still kill the hireling to get XP?



			
				Majoru Oakheart said:
			
		

> Encounters are the easiest way to organize the concepts of an adventure into manageable chunks for DMs.  Almost any adventure you come up with can be broken down into encounters, even if you don't think of them as encounters.




I thought everyone hated railroaded adventures, but I see I'm wrong.


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## phloog (May 28, 2008)

Just my thoughts on a few of  Oakhearts points:

"What are these supposed to do?  If given the choice between a feat that gives you +2 damage with all your attacks or one that gives you the ability to say "I was a farmer when I was young, so I can till fields.", a large majority of players will choose the damage one  (SNIP #1)"

Agreed...I'm fine with a system that lets you 'handwave' backgrounds to some extent, but then how do you know how good the ex-farmer is at evaluating turnips - I am therefore more in favor of a system that allows a roll for background skills...if I'm a woodcarving counterfeiter, I need rules for how well I can create a fake seal for my forged document.

"Here's where we get into...what game effect does making an illusion of a chair have?  If you make yourself look like the King and create an illusionary retinue does that mean you can convince the local lord to give you control of his army and give you all his magic items?"

I snipped some of your examples, but is your argument that a wizard should be incapable of making an illusionary chair because it's hard to adjudicate?  And why shouldn't my wizard have at least some CHANCE convince a local lord?  (EDIT: This applies more to the enchantment than illusions - sorry)  I think that you're creating a false issue based on a HORRIBLE DMing example...does this lord not have faithful servants who would attempt to stop him/you?  Would they not try to snap him out of it?  Would he not get more saves and bonuses to those saves as you attempt to force him to do the ludicrous things?  Would there not be potentially a military rebellion by those who realize the lord's will has been compromised?  To me what you're citing as an instant and overpowered end to an adventure is the beginning of more trouble for the party.

"If that isn't complicated enough to try to adjudicate as a DM then we'll go back to a game balance standpoint.  The wizard can summon an illusionary army out of thin air in order to scare away the 200 orcs..."

I guess I'm not seeing this as a problem...would all 200 fail their saves?  If not, would the fighter not be required to dispatch those who made the saves?  At what level can a wizard (even in 3e) create the illusion of an army that would instantly crush 200 orcs?  Wouldn't some be dumb enough to fight the army, and thus gain new saves?

"On to enchantments...they have a similar problem to illusions.  If you can charm the local lord you can convince him to do almost anything."

(See notes on the military above)

"Knowledge spells completely negate the usefulness of skills. " 

No.  Absolutely not.  Knowledge spells do some harm to the usefulness of skills...however, I have never seen an occasion where a WIZARD player says 'I'll not take an extra [damaging spell] so I can take this other spell that does what another character can already do with a skill'...they don't want to waste the memorized slot.  For SORCERERs maybe it's different, but I've never seen a sorcerer use their rare known spell slots on a spell that lets them ride a horse well or find traps...it's rare enough for them to even take spells that add to hiding.

This is a good discussion, I just don't know if I've gone too far off topic here.


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## Majoru Oakheart (May 28, 2008)

billd91 said:
			
		

> Heavy on role-play is an approach that can be taken with any set of rules, whether rule-light or rule-heavy. I completely fail to understand the zero-sum impression that some people have about rules vs role-play.
> Rules-light games don't inherently encourage role playing any more than rules heavy will, but they will encourage more off the cuff arbitration of actions by the GM.



That's not entirely true.  When the rules tell you "You can make a Diplomacy check and if you get 35, someone will do whatever you want them to no matter how dangerous or stupid it is for them." then a player faced with that ruleset can simply say, "I tell him to shoot himself.  I made a 40, he'll do it."

If there are no rules for convincing someone to something, then you'll be forced to have your character say whatever you think is most convincing and let the DM decide if it works or not.  In one aspect, it encourages roleplaying.  If the words your character says has a direct effect on the game in some ways, it makes you reach into yourself and try harder to come up with better words.

The same thing happens with a lot of other rules as well.  If you have a spell in the game that says "This disables all traps within 30 feet of you automatically" then you can just say, "I cast the spell, if there are any traps, they are disabled." vs having to come up with a plan to search for and possibly disable the traps.  If you are forced to describe exactly how it is you manage to cut the trip wire without pulling on it or letting it lose, both of which trigger the trap, then it requires a lot more thinking than if there is a skill that says "If you roll about 15, you disable the trap...don't worry about the details."

Now, there are good things and bad things about both ways of doing it.  I'm not saying that one is completely better than the other(in fact, I believe a mix of the 2 is the best way to go).  However, the less rules there are the more you have to "make stuff up", which in most cases tends to be called roleplaying by a lot of people.


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## drjones (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> Hey, I'm the one who started the thread a while ago
> 
> When I talked about "roleplaying", I wasn't thinking in social skills. In fact I tend to avoid using them and I make my players talk.
> 
> My opinion is that D&D4 is heavily combat oriented: kill the monster, take the stuff, increase your level. I know this has been the game's main philosophy, but maybe I expected a bit more. For example:




I have been hearing 'D&D is not a real roleplaying game, you just kill stuff and level up, X system is so much more supportive of roleplaying and telling interesting stories' Since I was playing AD&D back in 1990.

People just need to face reality, 4e d&d is not a 'hardcore' roleplaying game, it is a 'fun' roleplaying game.  You can make it more than that if you and your players want to.  

My players are all older lapsed dnders with lots of disposable income and little desire to spend their limited free time pretending to be anything but guys having a good time.  We have played several 4e preview games and so far they all love it.

Now if I could just get them all in a room at the same time more than once a month..


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## phloog (May 28, 2008)

drjones said:
			
		

> ....4e d&d is not a 'hardcore' roleplaying game, it is a 'fun' roleplaying game.  You can make it more than that if you and your players want to...




Yep...and I have tried not to imply that what is fun or a 'good' game for me is fun or good for others - I'm just discussing those things about 4e that are keeping me from diving in and tossing $100 toward books.  I firmly believe that people will have fun with 4e, and I think that my group COULD have fun with 4e...I just don't see us having MORE fun with 4e than we're having with other systems.  I've successfully played my woodcarving counterfeiter/bluffmeister for months now, using 3rd edition rules, and even though I'm essentially USELESS in most combats (no sneak attack!), my character is who he is, and I have a great time.  While 4E claims to have 'fixed' a lot of things, it sure doesn't look like it makes it any easier to play this character, so the extra $$$ for 4E doesn't seem to (at this point) get me anything other than slicker more minifiggy combat rules.


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## Mallus (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> ...interacting with well-defined NPCs...



Hey Joe... there's nothing contradictory about desiring/creating well-defined NPC's and this: "Memorable nonplayer characters are best built on stereotype".

As general writing advice goes, it's terrific. A DM (or screenwriter or playwright) typically has a limited amount of time to capture their audience's attention. Starting with broad characterization places audiences on familiar ground. Once the audience is engaged, then you can deepen the characterization as needed. Trying to portray a complex and multilayered individual from the get go is tremendously difficult (or undesirable --for example, consider opera-- or impossible). It's far more effort than it's usually worth. It's more economical and effective to take advantage of the viewers (err, players) already-established response to and understanding of well-known stereotypes "Hey, I _get_ this character" and move on from there.


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## Blackeagle (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> I thought everyone hated railroaded adventures, but I see I'm wrong.




Encounter based adventure design does not necessarily mean railroaded.  There can be a huge number of alternate paths to the goal through different sets of encounters (though once you get beyond one or two paths it's best to flowchart it out).  I think the 3e _Expidition to Castle Ravenloft_ was a good example of this.  It's heavily encounter based, but the players always have a large number of options when it comes to what to do next.


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## morgul97 (May 28, 2008)

It would seem to me that how easy a game is to role-play has as much to do (if not more to do) with the setting than the rules themselves.  If a game has a setting that is well developed, interesting and easy to build upon, this would seem to go a long way toward creating an environment condusive to role-playing, regardless of the rules.  If the setting is bad or underdeveloped, why would anyone want to create a story in that setting.  In terms of 4e then, a lot will depend on a) how good the WOTC and third-party settings are, and b) do the rules that are there (ie DMG) provide enough good info to create a quality setting.


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## Mallus (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> Come on, we are not 12 years old!



I'd argue that in several important --though non-chronological-- ways most gamers *are* still 12 years old. This is meant as a compliment. Also as a reminder that there's the inescapable hint (note: I'm understating here) of adolescent power fantasy in D&D, no matter how you play it. 

Unless, of course, you're actually playing Mansfield Park: d20...


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## TerraDave (May 28, 2008)

While I have no problem calling 4E retro, I am also left wondering what 3E, or 1E, you are refering to.

If anything, you could argue that it was the 1E DMG that offered better support for roleplaying...it just had all that _stuff_ in there, and you were bound to get some ideas from it. 

But back to 4E...we know there are non-combat challenges, rituals, all the social skills of 3E (plus most of the knowledge skills actuallly used), more ways to use more skills to get around obstacles...

...but I would emphasise something else. Faster moving combat: with less resource managment and practically no buffing for the PCs, and super simplified (but still interesting) opponents for the DM, this can move much faster. And this leaves you more time for role-playing. 

Case closed.


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## AllisterH (May 28, 2008)

Um, not to be rude but I think I need to say this...

What ARE you guys talking about? The first 25 pages of the PHB are the most role-playing specific set of guides I've ever seen in a PHB (coming from 1E to 3.5 PHB)

Seriously, how is it that 4E is "LESS role-playing" centred when the first 25 pages talk about things like PC-NPC interaction, ask players to consider Background questions like "Do you stay in contact with your family" and has things to make players think about their character's response in specific situations like Dire and Decision points?

You don't even actually start "roll-playing" assigning stats until AFTER these pages

Yet, previous editions that had NONE of these or had it so that you had ONE page at the end of a chapter are editions that actually ENCOURAGE roleplaying? 

What am I missing here people?


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## phloog (May 28, 2008)

AllisterH said:
			
		

> Um, not to be rude but I think I need to say this...
> 
> What ARE you guys talking about? The first 25 pages of the PHB are the most role-playing specific set of guides I've ever seen in a PHB (coming from 1E to 3.5 PHB)
> (SNIP)
> ...




Having not read the books myself, I can't say that you ARE missing anything...but what I will suggest is that even if the first HUNDRED pages were about motivation, background, desires, etc...this would all likely be meaningless if the mechanics of the game are oriented around making all characters battle-focused, or if we're so busy (not specifically a 4e complaint here) figuring out how many squares I shift the kobold, those initial pages might have little impact.

The argument for some would seem to be not that there needs to be an introductory set of guidelines for good roleplaying, but that all the other elements of play must support that philosophy, and not undermine it...again, I have no idea if 4e is doing this any more/less than 3.x, it's just my belief that these sort of detailed mechanics and such can lead to this when you're oriented around the grid.


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## SuperGnome (May 28, 2008)

Let's see if this helps Joe, but it probably won't.

I keep trying to tackle a similar issue, and it gets pulled into the roll vs roleplaying bit.  What I can't stand is that everything we've seen (and continues to be shown true by folks who've seen the books) is 4e is pretty much all about combat.  Case in point is the Rogue.

4e says the Rogue is a striker.  Why are they defined by their combat role?  Why don't they describe a rogue in an archetypal fashion, about the stealth, cunning, traps, locks, backstab kind of way?  Why not set the scene instead of boiling the class down to a combat role?  Yes, they still do the theivery skill stuff, but why is the language so combat oriented?

I agree that everyone should have a place in combat, but the color/flavor is just not there.  I don't care how many arguments are made that the core rulebooks are for crunch, I disagree that's their exclusive purpose.  I think inspiring players to play the game is as important as the cruncy rules (not page for page, but in general).  Every ability/power I recall (save rituals) is for combat.  Look at the example Rogue for KotS and check his abilities.  None of them enhace any thiefly ability (locks, pick pockets(slight of hand), stealth).  

This is one example, but it's repeated over and over.  I don't see any examples to put my mind at ease, where some non-combat ability shows up in the at will\encounter\daily list for those guys.  I can't imagine they're hiding that part of the game until the full core is released.  I don't think it's in there.


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## Scarface6174 (May 28, 2008)

pogminky said:
			
		

> Sounds fine to me.  I liked AD&D.  I only need rules for combat and action stuff, anyway - the role-playing we can do without any rules.




QFT!


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## Blackeagle (May 28, 2008)

AllisterH said:
			
		

> What am I missing here people?




4e is new and different, and therefore bad.  It will be bad until 5e comes out a decade hence, when 4e will suddenly become everything that was good and true and right.


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## ProfessorCirno (May 28, 2008)

> Rules vs roleplaying




That's got to be the stupidest thing imaginable.  Rules don't limit roleplaying, nor do they neccisarily give birth to more roleplaying.  Claiming "the more rules you have, the worst your roleplaying!" is stupid.  Not every RPG can be Baron Munchausen, nor SHOULD it.


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## Majoru Oakheart (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> We have a point here. IMHO, D&D should offer much more than this.



I hate to say it...but, why?  I have had a lot of fun killing things and taking their stuff for years and years.  Why would I suddenly need more?  I mean, I like to have the chance to play a cool character, I like to have an interesting plot and reason why I'm killing monsters.  I like to feel heroic so I like thinking that the killing of monsters is helping people.

It's the game I've loved playing for 15 years now.  I've destroyed evil cultists, rescued people from drow, traveled through time and space, explored new worlds....and killed the stuff there.  But still, it's fun.



			
				Joe Sala said:
			
		

> You really are a power gamer, don't you? I don't want to create an illusionary chair to distract a monster chargint at me: I would use it to humiliate a NPC that I hate (he tries to sit down and falls to the ground...   ). And convincing the local lord to give me his magic items? Come on, we are not 12 years old! Do you still kill the hireling to get XP?



No, I'm just used to dealing with players who will take ANY advantage they can get.  Print it in a book and they will find a way to interpret it in such a way that they can use it to WAY more advantage than it should have.

Sure, it's fairly funny to use an illusion to humiliate an NPC you don't like.  And that's a fairly harmless use of that power...and worth being a 1st level power.  However, the question becomes what happens when people take that power and use it in a combat situation?  What happens when one of my players sees a spell that says "Make an illusionary object any size up to huge" and thinks "What if I made it look like a dragon?  That should scare away the orcs, right?"?

Then, I have an adventure with a big climax where the players fight the Orc chieftan and his elite guard.  And it has to be decided by my interpretation of whether or not the monsters fall for the illusionary dragon.  Not very fair for the players.  And if I decide that they run away from the dragon...it is rather anticlimactic.  You run into the room filled with the most powerful Orcs in the tribe after fighting your way past their vast hordes, you finally stand before their leader.  Then you make him run away with an illusion of a dragon.  The end.

From a balance point of view, the question becomes: Why is it that I should give a power that can defeat all the monsters in an encounter to one person but not to the fighter?  The player of the fighter shouldn't feel like he picked a weak class.



			
				Joe Sala said:
			
		

> I thought everyone hated railroaded adventures, but I see I'm wrong.



These are the sort of adventures WOTC SELLS to people all the time.  They not only like them, they pay money for them.  I know, since I volunteer to help edit and write adventures for the RPGA(for both 3rd and 4th Ed).  I mean, this is about average for Living Greyhawk adventures and I've heard numbers as high as 200,000 as to the number of people who play in the campaign.

I've mentioned this in another thread...but most people like to have an interesting plot in a game.  I know, if left entirely to my own devices I can wander around in a game world and amuse myself for about 2 hours before I get bored.  I've come pretty close to timing it.  After that, I want a plot of some sort to reveal itself.  I want a villager to be attacked and I have to defend him or I want a mysterious cloaked man to offer me a job.  And I want those things to be part of a larger story that I have to discover.

And as soon as you put a plot into your game, you need to railroad, at least a bit.  After all, by having a plot you need to make sure the players stay on it.  You need to give clues in order to lead people to further parts of the adventure.  If they follow those clues, there is now a rail of sorts.  Heck, the best adventures ARE railroaded.


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## ProfessorCirno (May 28, 2008)

Blackeagle said:
			
		

> 4e is new and different, and therefore bad.  It will be bad until 5e comes out a decade hence, when 4e will suddenly become everything that was good and true and right.




Alternately, 4e is new and different, and therefore good.  It will be good until 5e comes out in a decade hence, when 4e will suddenly become everything that was horrible and wrong with society.


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## Joe Sala (May 28, 2008)

SuperGnome said:
			
		

> 4e says the Rogue is a striker.  Why are they defined by their combat role?  Why don't they describe a rogue in an archetypal fashion, about the stealth, cunning, traps, locks, backstab kind of way?  Why not set the scene instead of boiling the class down to a combat role?  Yes, they still do the theivery skill stuff, but why is the language so combat oriented?




*AT LAST! *This is what I wanted to say! Thanks my gnome friend!   

(BTW, If have problems writing my ideas or some of my sentences look weird it's because English is my third language, and not my first)


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## Thornir Alekeg (May 28, 2008)

Oh dear, the rules emphasize combat.  

Here I was hoping the books would contain multiple pages about how to roleplay a dwarf in ways other than just giving him a scottish accent.  Perhaps I will cancel my preorder.


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## Thasmodious (May 28, 2008)

SuperGnome said:
			
		

> 4e says the Rogue is a striker.  Why are they defined by their combat role?




They are not defined as characters by their role.  The role defines their, get this, role in combat.  Nothing else.  It doesn't define the character.  Seriously, what is so hard for some people to grasp about that?  The rogue may or not be a striker in the sack, he could just as easily be a controller or a leader, its up to the player.  A character, as always, is defined by the player.  

The rules deal with task resolution because that is what the rules are needed for.  You don't need the rules to adjudicate the party sitting around a tavern fireplace swapping tales with a bard and the locals.  You need rules when the rogue wants to climb a tower or the fighter wants to hit things with large, sharp objects.  Or when the cleric needs to convince the high priest of his church to give magical aid to the party.    

What the 4e books do provide is a lot of information on roleplaying, building characters, designing campaigns and building game worlds.  But even after someone details the 25 pages on roleplaying that open the PHB and I detailed earlier how the bulk of the DMG is about world building, DMing, crafting stories, NPCs, skill challenges, and other such things, some of you will remain unconvinced because you want to.  You've built a belief system around an idea formed through a complete lack of information and now won't let anything interfere with your perfectly good, baseless belief system.


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## Mallus (May 28, 2008)

Thornir Alekeg said:
			
		

> Oh dear, the rules emphasize combat.



Why that goes against 30 years of D&D tradition!


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## Morrus (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> My opinion is that D&D4 is heavily combat oriented: kill the monster, take the stuff, increase your level.




How was 3.x NOT an xp-for-killing game? 



> Background and origin feats, to better define the character.




I personally dislike those.  Roleplaying aspects should not have limiting or defining mechanics.  If you want your character to have a abckground, just give him one.



> More subtle powers for the wizard (where are the illusions? the enchantments? the knowledge spells?)




Agreed - the Wizard class is more specialised than it was.  Those powers come in PHB2, apparently.



> Advice about how to run mystery or horror games.




Eh, I don't want to pay for advice.  I appreciate some people might. 



> Adventures less based on encounters (you play A, then B, then C... one per hour of game play)




You lost me there.  What adventures are you referring to?  There's only one (KotS).  You know you're supposed to write your own, right?  That means they're exactly how you want them.  That has nothing to do with the core rules.

Basically, the rules define how the mechanics work in your game (combat, climbing, swimming, riding).  The rules deal with the _physical_ world.  Your_ imagination _ deals with the roleplaying side of it, not a rulebook.


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## Silverblade The Ench (May 28, 2008)

Thornir Alekeg said:
			
		

> Oh dear, the rules emphasize combat.
> 
> Here I was hoping the books would contain multiple pages about how to roleplay a dwarf in ways other than just giving him a scottish accent.  Perhaps I will cancel my preorder.




*speaks in an authentic Glaswegian accent*
_"If it's not Scottish, it's CRAAAAAAAAAAAAP!"_

Roleplaying dwarves as Scottish in D&D is traditional AND logical *points to hairy wee Scots meanies who do terrible things to sheep and wear badgers as posing pouches!*

_"We've got cheap lawyers, and we're no afraid tae use 'em!"_
lol


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## Knight Otu (May 28, 2008)

Your class is what you do, not who you are. A thief might be a Rogue (and the Rogue is best suited for that), or he might be a Fighter with some off-class training. A priest may be a Cleric, or an inspiringly pious Warlord. An inquisitor may be a Paladin, or a religiously trained Rogue. Some combinations are harder to pull off, of course.


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## Doug McCrae (May 28, 2008)

phloog said:
			
		

> Agreed...I'm fine with a system that lets you 'handwave' backgrounds to some extent, but then how do you know how good the ex-farmer is at evaluating turnips - I am therefore more in favor of a system that allows a roll for background skills...if I'm a woodcarving counterfeiter, I need rules for how well I can create a fake seal for my forged document.



I don't think we ever need to know how good at farming a PC is. Seriously, Baron von Evil isn't going to murder the princess unless the PCs can do some really good crop rotation.

Stuff like that is fluff, not crunch, it doesn't need to be part of the system at all.

Counterfeiting should be evaluated because it can be a useful skill in urban adventures. Woodcarving, not so much.


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## Majoru Oakheart (May 28, 2008)

Thasmodious said:
			
		

> What the 4e books do provide is a lot of information on roleplaying, building characters, designing campaigns and building game worlds.  But even after someone details the 25 pages on roleplaying that open the PHB and I detailed earlier how the bulk of the DMG is about world building, DMing, crafting stories, NPCs, skill challenges, and other such things, some of you will remain unconvinced because you want to.  You've built a belief system around an idea formed through a complete lack of information and now won't let anything interfere with your perfectly good, baseless belief system.



The thing is, some people will look at the rules and say "You get the ability to hit a monster for X damage, the ability to hit a monster for Y damage and stun them, the ability to hit 10 enemies for Z damage, but where's my power that says I get to fast talk anyone by rolling a 10 or above on a d20 or the one that says I can steal any one item without being seen?"

They want to see a mechanical benefit to enhance their role playing.  Which, iin 4e is entirely covered by the skill system.  You want to fast talk someone, make your skill check.  Want to pick pocket someone, make your skill check.

But people would like to see a list of "flavorful" miscellaneous bonuses from their class.  They can't just be a rogue unless at 4th level they get a +2 to pick pocket attempts.  If they don't see these things in the rules, then it means the rules are obviously meant to model combat only.


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## The Little Raven (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> When I talked about "roleplaying", I wasn't thinking in social skills. In fact I tend to avoid using them and I make my players talk.




I consider the "use character stats for physical, use player capabilities for social" mentality to be poor roleplaying, since you aren't adhering to that role when you're using your own strengths/limitations rather than the character's strengths/limitations.


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## Joe Sala (May 28, 2008)

DELETED (double post)


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## Joe Sala (May 28, 2008)

Thasmodious said:
			
		

> What the 4e books do provide is a lot of information on roleplaying, building characters, designing campaigns and building game worlds.  But even after someone details the 25 pages on roleplaying that open the PHB and I detailed earlier how the bulk of the DMG is about world building, DMing, crafting stories, NPCs, skill challenges, and other such things, some of you will remain unconvinced because you want to.  You've built a belief system around an idea formed through a complete lack of information and now won't let anything interfere with your perfectly good, baseless belief system.




First of all, I posted my first message here when I actually saw the books. So I had no preconceptions, nor I participated in endless discussions about rumors. I just say that I was a bit disappointed with what I saw.

In my opinion, the core books emphasize too much one kind of adventure, forgetting many other options, and you can notice it from the text and the pictures. If 95% of the powers (I don't say it's the right amount) are combat-oriented, then you are leading the readers to play in a certain way.

The DMG says it clearly: "The rules and story elements in the D&D game are built around a set of core assumptions about the world" (it's ancient; monsters are everywhere; magic is natural; civilized races band together). Other options are briefly discussed, but the whole text pushes you in a certain direction.

I read once a core book (I don't remember which one!) where 10 pages or so where a discussion about the fantasy genre, its sub-genres (urban, high fantasy, gritty fantasy...), the type of histories you could play and many literary references.

If I buy three expensive books, I want to be aple to play Freeport, Midnight, Dark Sun, Conan and Perdido Street Station. But D&D4 just offers me The Malazan Book of the Fallen.


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## Sashi (May 28, 2008)

Majoru Oakheart said:
			
		

> The thing is, some people will look at the rules and say "You get the ability to hit a monster for X damage, the ability to hit a monster for Y damage and stun them, the ability to hit 10 enemies for Z damage, but where's my power that says I get to fast talk anyone by rolling a 10 or above on a d20 or the one that says I can steal any one item without being seen?"




And other people will look at the rules and say "You mean there's _dice_ involved in talking to someone? There's _no way_ this is roleplaying!"

This is literally a battlefield upon which there can be no winner, as nobody will even agree they're standing on the same one.


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## Serendipity (May 28, 2008)

Um....rules are needed to rp?  Huh?  *scratches head*


On the flip side, though, I can see people who start gaming with 4e not "getting" the role playing aspects of things if it's not strictly spelled out in the rules set.  
I say this, but I learned to RP just fine and dandy with OD&D and AD&D 1e so...


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## Scribble (May 28, 2008)

I don't have the main books yet, but armed with KoTS and the experpts and articles so far I can partially agree... Personally it feels like the designers decided to take the good parts of O-2e and mix them with the good parts of 3e shook it up a bit then carefully polished the result..

I like this very much.

It has pre-3e idea of that the game/story should come before anything else. Rules should only jump in when rules are specifically needed, not to give you justification to do something. 

It also has the 3e idea that when rules exist they should be consistent and logical, as opposed to whatever works in the moment. 

It still has the well thought out math of 3e, but keeps it on the backend. I like this.


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## SuperGnome (May 28, 2008)

Thasmodious said:
			
		

> They are not defined as characters by their role. The role defines their, get this, role in combat.




You missed the point right there.  The rogue class, as all imformation I've found attests, is presented exclusively by their combat role.  Look at Wizards Presents Races and Classes (if you have it) and it's entirely about combat role.  

I don't mind that there is a combat role.  What I mind is that's all Wizard's talks about.  I'm not asking for role playing tips, or pages of info on this and that, which I hoped was clear this time around. 

*I'm not trying to jump all over you, but almost everyone derails over this on similar posts.  Try this...  all I read about is vanilla vanilla vanilla, and you're saying I'm to assume there is chocolate in there somewhere?  All I'm reading is combat combat combat, and I HOPE there is some color and life in tehre somewhere.


----------



## IanArgent (May 28, 2008)

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> Since this has happened to every single RPG that ever produced books beyond it's basic line, why do you think this will not apply to 4E?




I know SR4 is a strong counter-example, and the previous versions are weak counterexamples; and I'm reaosnably sure GURPS is a weak counterexample.

(to the statement that all RPGs suffer rules bloat - SR has generally released sourcebooks rather than rulebooks, and I believe that's the same for GURPS)


----------



## phloog (May 28, 2008)

Doug McCrae said:
			
		

> I don't think we ever need to know how good at farming a PC is. Seriously, Baron von Evil isn't going to murder the princess unless the PCs can do some really good crop rotation.
> 
> Stuff like that is fluff, not crunch, it doesn't need to be part of the system at all.
> 
> Counterfeiting should be evaluated because it can be a useful skill in urban adventures. Woodcarving, not so much.




The farming was a bit of a goof but someone had mentioned turnips....my point was simply that I think that there HAS to be some rules basis to adjudicate MOST actions, including those that are based on 'background skills' - - I don't necessarily need to have a number that says his background was a 33 on the tough-life-as-street-urchin scale, but for skills I need some way to deal with them, and often a stat leads to less issues than DMing with what might often seem to be arbitrary rulings.

The issue with the second part of your reply is the 'Woodcarving not so much'...the character I created is not only good at forging someone's handwriting, but realized early on that a lot of documents contain seals and such, so he has become highly skilled at doing detailed carvings of things like the images on signet rings.  So Forgery CURRENTLY seems to be defined as primarily handwriting and 'official-sounding language' - my character is SO focused on deception that he has developed incredible skill at woodcarving...is it ridiculous?  Probably to most, but it's what we enjoy, and I prefer to have a mechanic/roll to determine the success or failure of his forgery than have the DM say "Yeah, you didn't do well enough carving that signet so they're attacking you to subdue and jail you"

As always, this is not an indictment of those who would enjoy a game where all stats have a combat application...but without such mechanics there are often issues...as a DM (my role 99% of the time - - DM/Controller, I guess) I realize that while I am comfortable deciding from a story standpoint whether or not something succeeds, the players like to roll the dice in this game and have that degree of 'control' over their destiny.

Also, I might be the weirdest DM ever, but if I had a big Orc Chieftain and his troops set up as the BBEG climax, and the players did something so unexpected that my whole delightful story was derailed....hurray for them...I'm a DM and as such I LIKE it when the story doesn't end as planned....it's not fun for me personally for the story to always roll out as I planned, with the only surprises being the particular stick that they chose to pummel the orc with.

At one point, I had a group hit a lich - a lich, for goodness sake, with a powder that they had found that had as its only effect that it put you in a clown suit...I rolled a 1 for his save....Evil Clown.  The party ran away rather than fight, leaving the lich to stew until he could dispell the clown garb and plot his revenge.  No fight...just fun.


----------



## Mallus (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> But D&D4 just offers me The Malazan Book of the Fallen.



Odd example... the Malazan books contain a multitude of different kinds of stories that vary a lot in terms plot, style, and local genre fidelity ("Hey, it's a Conan parody", "Look, now it's G.K. Chesterson novel", "Wait, is this satire about _economics_ and _colonialism_?").

And that's just Midnight Tides.


----------



## AllisterH (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> In my opinion, the core books emphasize too much one kind of adventure, forgetting many other options, and you can notice it from the text and the pictures. If 95% of the powers (I don't say it's the right amount) are combat-oriented, then you are leading the readers to play in a certain way..




This is handled more elegantly with the ritual system and skill system than ever before. When "out of combat" magic was only the purview of the wizard, it didn't ENCOURAGE roleplaying. In fact, it did the reverse. Let's say you have two players, one a 3E fighter and the other a 3E wizard. The fighter LITERALLY was useless out of combat not only because of the lack of skills/spells but the fact that the other classes basically capitalized on them. If you're the DM for this group, how much roleplaying can you do when *mechanically* the fighter offers nothing?

Compare this with the 4E fighter. He gets access to the non-combat stuff along with everyone else. He's no loner punished in social situations (his social skills like Bluff and Diplomacy automatically scale) and he can actually take part in those non-combat spells like "hallucinatory creature" (yes Virginia, there are illusion rituals)

The ritual system by divorcing itself from the magic user has actually ENABLED roleplaying mechanically. If a wizard can't simply "I'll use this TRUMP spell to solve X" it actually encourages the players to come up with actual plans that don't involve "Scenario X, Solution: Spell Y".

You always played the wizard didn't you  


			
				Joe Sala said:
			
		

> The DMG says it clearly: "The rules and story elements in the D&D game are built around a set of core assumptions about the world" (it's ancient; monsters are everywhere; magic is natural; civilized races band together). Other options are briefly discussed, but the whole text pushes you in a certain direction.
> 
> I read once a core book (I don't remember which one!) where 10 pages or so where a discussion about the fantasy genre, its sub-genres (urban, high fantasy, gritty fantasy...), the type of histories you could play and many literary references..




That's nice but a list of "books to read" do diddly to help with actually running said sub-genres. Please show how previous editions did it better because I'm looking at the DMG and the use of the skill challenge mechanics and how they can be used for an "investigation" style campaign and I'm hoenstly wondering which edition of D&D focused more on roleplaying than 4E.



			
				Joe Sala said:
			
		

> If I buy three expensive books, I want to be aple to play Freeport, Midnight, Dark Sun, Conan and Perdido Street Station. But D&D4 just offers me The Malazan Book of the Fallen.




You do realize that the ritual system and the skill system actually allow for more variants easily than the 3E system right?


----------



## Blackeagle (May 28, 2008)

phloog said:
			
		

> The farming was a bit of a goof but someone had mentioned turnips....my point was simply that I think that there HAS to be some rules basis to adjudicate MOST actions, including those that are based on 'background skills' - - I don't necessarily need to have a number that says his background was a 33 on the tough-life-as-street-urchin scale, but for skills I need some way to deal with them, and often a stat leads to less issues than DMing with what might often seem to be arbitrary rulings.




I think it's pretty easy to handle this in 4e, thanks to the simplified skill system.  If a character has some sort of background skill that doesn't fall under an existing skill (woodcarving, sailing, etc.), the DM can just treat it as a trained skill and let them make a check.  Ridiculously focused on that skill?  Give them skill focus as well.


----------



## drjones (May 28, 2008)

Sashi said:
			
		

> And other people will look at the rules and say "You mean there's _dice_ involved in talking to someone? There's _no way_ this is roleplaying!"
> 
> This is literally a battlefield upon which there can be no winner, as nobody will even agree they're standing on the same one.



Exactly, I am still uneasy about the Diplomacy skill.  And that is what, 8 years old?

The _problem_ all over the internets is peeps projecting their dislike of everything under the sun onto the 4e rules.  There are plenty of things to be nerd-upset with wotc about: DDI, Dungeon cancellation etc. etc. but if you take the rules away from all that mess and sit down at a table to play it it is not bad at all.


----------



## Counterspin (May 28, 2008)

I don't understand why anyone who wanted to play a roleplay centric campaign would use any of the versions of D&D that I've seen (2,3,4).  D&D has always been a tactics RPG.  If you don't want the tactics, there's lots of systems with vastly simpler combat systems out there that would give you what you want(I'd go with Unknown Armies if I were you).  This is not a change from prior editions.


----------



## Henry (May 28, 2008)

phloog said:
			
		

> As always, this is not an indictment of those who would enjoy a game where all stats have a combat application...but without such mechanics there are often issues...as a DM (my role 99% of the time - - DM/Controller, I guess) I realize that while I am comfortable deciding from a story standpoint whether or not something succeeds, the players like to roll the dice in this game and have that degree of 'control' over their destiny.
> 
> Also, I might be the weirdest DM ever, but if I had a big Orc Chieftain and his troops set up as the BBEG climax, and the players did something so unexpected that my whole delightful story was derailed....hurray for them...I'm a DM and as such I LIKE it when the story doesn't end as planned....it's not fun for me personally for the story to always roll out as I planned, with the only surprises being the particular stick that they chose to pummel the orc with.




I don't see where the first and second concepts are necessarily in conflict, though. You can have both combat and roleplaying applications to most things, without them being exclusive. Maybe you want to use that "SUPER-DUPER FIGHTER STRIKE" to smash through the support beam that brings down the tent canopy, trapping the thief runnign away with the crown jewels; or you want the Thievery skill to represent the time that Jodo the Rogue spent forging Dean's Letters in the College of Magic before he was expelled. I've used a Crusader's Divine Surge in a Book of 9 Swords game to burst through a wall before to impress a rival. No combat, just intimidation.

I don't know what magic items the 4e books will have, but we may well have a return of some interesting items, if the Magic Item Compendium was any judge, instead of just "plus items, all the time" - maybe even some magic powders that turn people into clowns...


----------



## billd91 (May 28, 2008)

Majoru Oakheart said:
			
		

> That's not entirely true.  When the rules tell you "You can make a Diplomacy check and if you get 35, someone will do whatever you want them to no matter how dangerous or stupid it is for them." then a player faced with that ruleset can simply say, "I tell him to shoot himself.  I made a 40, he'll do it."
> 
> If there are no rules for convincing someone to something, then you'll be forced to have your character say whatever you think is most convincing and let the DM decide if it works or not.  In one aspect, it encourages roleplaying.  If the words your character says has a direct effect on the game in some ways, it makes you reach into yourself and try harder to come up with better words.
> <snip>
> ...




Then it sounds like 4e is hardly different from 3e in this regard since it has rules of this sort as well, written up a bit differently, but present nonetheless. 
Ultimately, the deciding factor is how the table approaches the rules and how it wants to handle role-playing. At my table, we can role-play the heck out of the situation and still fully use the rules to decide the outcome. We'd be able to do the same with a minimal rule system as well. As GM, I'd just be making more of it up... which isn't necessarily role-playing either, particularly when the stuff I'm making up has little or nothing to do with behaving the way a particular NPC would behave.


----------



## Scribble (May 28, 2008)

everlasting peanut?


----------



## Thasmodious (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> First of all, I posted my first message here when I actually saw the books. So I had no preconceptions, nor I participated in endless discussions about rumors. I just say that I was a bit disappointed with what I saw.




Ahh, so you were deliberately misleading in your first post then when you complained that the DMG "only" had 17 pages devoted to noncombat stuff.  You failed to mention that the combat encounter chapter was only 16 pages and that the rest of the book is filled with nothing but advice on all aspects of DMing and world fluff like deities and cosmology.  

So, just to be clear -

The PHB begins with a 25 page explanation of roleplaying and ends with a chapter on rituals, none of which are for combat application.

The DMG is 220 pages, 16 of which are on combat encounters, the rest (other than 17 pages on noncombat encounters) are on DMing, adventure design, world design, and monster/NPC design.



> The DMG says it clearly: "The rules and story elements in the D&D game are built around a set of core assumptions about the world" (it's ancient; monsters are everywhere; magic is natural; civilized races band together). Other options are briefly discussed, but the whole text pushes you in a certain direction.




Gee, you mean the definitive fantasy RPG pushes you in the direction of...fantasy?  How dare they!

You can run any type of world your imagination can cook up.  If you can't imagine it without someone else spelling it out for you, then its probably not a game world you should attempt.


----------



## Joe Sala (May 28, 2008)

Thasmodious said:
			
		

> The PHB begins with a 25 page explanation of roleplaying and ends with a chapter on rituals, none of which are for combat application.




False. The first 25 pages are the basic introduction and character creation. There's no discussion about roleplay and storytelling.



			
				Thasmodious said:
			
		

> The DMG is 220 pages, 16 of which are on combat encounters, the rest (other than 17 pages on noncombat encounters) are on DMing, adventure design, world design, and monster/NPC design.




False. I was not saying that the DMG only talks about combat. I was saying that specific information about non-combat encounters only has 17 pages, compared to the enormous quantity devoted to combat in the three books.



			
				Thasmodious said:
			
		

> Gee, you mean the definitive fantasy RPG pushes you in the direction of...fantasy?  How dare they!




Please read my messages more carefully. I'm saying that D&D only addresses one sub-genre of fantasy, and it should include more, specially if it's "the definitive fantasy RPG". As I said, I want to play Conan, A Game of Thrones, Viriconium, Malazan, Perdido Street Station, The Wheel of Time, The Black Company, Dragonlance, Ravenloft and even Discworld.


----------



## Joe Sala (May 28, 2008)

Anyway, I'm not attacking D&D4. I'm not saying it's a bad game. I don't want to convince you that you shouldn't buy the books.

I'm just telling that I expected more from the game, and the people writing "D&D4 is not D&D" are wrong. That's it.


----------



## Thasmodious (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> False. The first 25 pages are the basic introduction and character creation. There's no discussion about roleplay and storytelling.




So I'm imagining the sections on roleplaying.  Is the table of contents imagining them, too?  How about pages 18-24, are they imagining that they themselves are about roleplaying characters?  Is the roleplaying section only fooling itself when it begins:

"The DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game is, first and foremost,
a roleplaying game, which means that it’s all
about taking on the role of a character in the game.
Some people take to this playacting naturally and
easily; others find it more of a challenge. This section
is here to help you out, whether you’re comfortable and
familiar with roleplaying or you’re new to the concept."

That tricky roleplaying section, always up to shenanigans.  





> False. I was not saying that the DMG only talks about combat. I was saying that specific information about non-combat encounters only has 17 pages, compared to the enormous quantity devoted to combat in the three books.




The rules are devoted to task resolution.  Again, thats what you need rules for.  Much of the task resolution of a D&D game involves combat.  That's the game type.  If you want to plan Conan as he sits in a dark room and scribes poetry by candlelight, by all means, do so.  Just don't demand that the system books include rules to determine the rhyme scheme and meter.



> Please read my messages more carefully. I'm saying that D&D only addresses one sub-genre of fantasy, and it should include more, specially if it's "the definitive fantasy RPG". As I said, I want to play Conan, A Game of Thrones, Viriconium, Malazan, Perdido Street Station, The Wheel of Time, The Black Company, Dragonlance, Ravenloft and even Discworld.




No.  It addresses fantasy.  D&D is about a certain type of fantasy and always has been.  The DM has always and is still quite free to tweak these core assumptions to model some other game world.  The DMG even has information on this.  You can design a gameworld based on any of those worlds without the DMG needing to pat you on the head and give you permission.  A core world model is provided to give novice DMs a solid start.  It is not required that you use said model to play D&D.  The DMG also tells you this.  

The DMG would not have the space to give detailed world descriptions for every subgenre of fantasy.  That's what published settings are for.  At least respect the market.


----------



## AllisterH (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> False. The first 25 pages are the basic introduction and character creation. There's no discussion about roleplay and storytelling..




Hmm? Perhaps we have a different idea as to what is a discussion about roleplaying.

Character creation doesnt start until page 25 with the 3 options about choosing your stats while beforehand, the PHB asks players to consider questions such as 

"How does you character react to X" 

With a list of possible traits to answer this and then the PHB asks the player to consider their background and how it affects them currently with questions such as

"What was the worst day of your character's life? What was the happiest?"

What would you consider "discussions about roleplaying"?




			
				Joe Sala said:
			
		

> False. I was not saying that the DMG only talks about combat. I was saying that specific information about non-combat encounters only has 17 pages, compared to the enormous quantity devoted to combat in the three books.
> 
> .




Again, the ritual system and the skill system ENCOURAGE more roleplaying than ever before. What exactly are you looking for specifically since I've tried showing WHY the 4E system encourages roleplaying more than ever but you basically say "oh, no it doesn't"

The actual combat chapter in the PHB is 30 pages which includes a listing of all status conditions as well as what would be considered the opening pages of the spell chapter from previous editions.


----------



## Joe Sala (May 28, 2008)

Since the thread is becoming bitter, this is my last post. And I hope my position is clear enough. When I read about the fourth edition, I thought one of the designer's goals was:

"We'll offer many more possibilities"

But this one was discarded. Instead D&D4 is simply:

"We offer exactly the same but much better"

Which is good, but not enough for me.


----------



## SuperGnome (May 28, 2008)

Haven't seen the books yet (on order though), and I'm curious.  

What are the first two sentances in the Rogue entry?  I ask anyone who has access to the books.

Thanks in advance!


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## Counterspin (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> Since the thread is becoming bitter, this is my last post. And I hope my position is clear enough. When I read about the fourth edition, I thought one of the designer's goals was:
> 
> "We'll offer many more possibilities"
> 
> ...




Is it to much to ask that when you claim that other people misled you that you at least site how you were misled?  You read it, it's still on the internet, give us a link.


----------



## Joe Sala (May 28, 2008)

SuperGnome said:
			
		

> What are the first two sentances in the Rogue entry?  I ask anyone who has access to the books.




Ok, one more post   

"Rogues are cunning and elusive adversaires. Rogues slip into and out of shadows on a whim, pass anywhere across the field of battle without fear of reprisal, and appear sudenly only to drive home a lethal blade."


----------



## Amphimir Míriel (May 28, 2008)

pogminky said:
			
		

> Sounds fine to me.  I liked AD&D.  I only need rules for combat and action stuff, anyway - the role-playing we can do without any rules.




This.

Really guys, do we really need anything else to roleplay than some character creation and conflict resolution rules?

If you need colorful descriptions of NPCs, locales, cultures... buy a campaign setting!

I usually make that all up myself... my players seem satisfied


----------



## Snooper (May 28, 2008)

Amphimir Míriel said:
			
		

> (snip) If you need colorful descriptions of NPCs, locales, cultures... buy a campaign setting!
> 
> I usually make that all up myself... my players seem satisfied




I agree. Think of D&D as a generic fantasy game guide with a bunch of races, classes, and monster that you pick & choose for your own campaign. I think 4e is better in this as they are no longer shoe-horning you into a high magic only game, but that is a separate discussion.


----------



## SuperGnome (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> Ok, one more post
> 
> "Rogues are cunning and elusive adversaires. Rogues slip into and out of shadows on a whim, pass anywhere across the field of battle without fear of reprisal, and appear sudenly only to drive home a lethal blade."




Thanks Joe!


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## thc1967 (May 28, 2008)

pogminky said:
			
		

> Sounds fine to me.  I liked AD&D.  I only need rules for combat and action stuff, anyway - the role-playing we can do without any rules.




Ding! Winner!

I can't for the life of me imagine a single rule I could create for role-playing beyond, "Act the part".


----------



## Aeolius (May 28, 2008)

Snooper said:
			
		

> I agree. Think of D&D as a generic fantasy game guide with a bunch of races, classes, and monster that you pick & choose for your own campaign. I think 4e is better in this as they are no longer shoe-horning you into a high magic only game, but that is a separate discussion.




   What if your own campaign includes both succubi and erinyes, the ethereal plane, robust aquatic rules, the World of Greyhawk, and minimal time spent in combat?   

   When Apple released the latest iLife Suite for Mac OS X, they had completely redesigned the iMovie application. It featured a new interface and a fraction of the options available in the prior version. Some people, myself included, were not amused. Some people, myself included, continue to use the more feature-laden prior version of iMovie.


----------



## Aus_Snow (May 28, 2008)

Funnily enough (I'm not a 4e fan, to put this in some kind of relevant context) I'm totally in agreement with those saying that 'rules for roleplaying' are for the most part unnecessary. Worse than that, IMO, they - more often than not - create 'clunk', inhibit roleplaying per se (the playing of roles) and frequently simply enforce players' adherence to whatever RP preferences the game-in-question's creator(s) happen to've had at the time of making.

Um, oh yeah - 4e as 1e-ish. Well, the covers actually have pictures on them! And no, I honestly think of that as a good thing too. I was advocating it years before 4e was announced.


----------



## Cheesepie (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> Since the thread is becoming bitter, this is my last post.



Guys, I'm right, you're wrong, and I don't want to talk about it anymore! *stomps angrily out of thread*


----------



## rethgryn (May 28, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> Yesterday I spent two hours with the core books at a friend's place.
> 
> The rules are completely different, but *the game’s philosophy goes back to AD&D1*. The “role playing” part of the game is downgraded compared to 3E, and everything is around combat, combat and more combat (the famous “character roles” are exclusively defined by it). The “noncombat encounters” chapter in the DMG gets only 17 pages and includes puzzles and traps.
> 
> ...




I am sure that they will eventually release Dungeons and Dragons, Asperger's Edition that will carefully and in great detail describe rules for basic social interaction such that they need to be carefully adjudicated with rules.


----------



## Scribble (May 28, 2008)

Roll to see if I'm getting drunk!!!


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## Joe Sala (May 28, 2008)

Cheesepie said:
			
		

> Guys, I'm right, you're wrong, and I don't want to talk about it anymore! *stomps angrily out of thread*




I'm not angry, but when someone said that I was "voluntarily misleading people", I understood that something was going wrong in this thread. I just gave my opinion about what I saw, I never said I had the truth.


----------



## Agamon (May 28, 2008)

I don't see how the combat orientation of the rules and inability to use them in a less combat oriented setting correlates.  When combat's not happening, roleplaying is happening.  When combat is happening, there's some damn fine rules to use.

And correct me if I'm mistaken, but doesn't the character creation section go more in depth with how to develop a PCs personality than the 3e PHB did?

Am I missing something?


----------



## Henry (May 28, 2008)

rethgryn said:
			
		

> I am sure that they will eventually release Dungeons and Dragons, Asperger's Edition that will carefully and in great detail describe rules for basic social interaction such that they need to be carefully adjudicated with rules.




REALLY uncalled for. Let's please everyone get a lot less hostile to fellow posters.


----------



## silentounce (May 29, 2008)

Henry said:
			
		

> REALLY uncalled for. Let's please everyone get a lot less hostile to fellow posters.




I don't see how what he said was hostile.  I actually thought it was amusing in a kidding sort of way.  But maybe that's because I have Asperger's.  Truthfully.


----------



## Thasmodious (May 29, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> I'm not angry, but when someone said that I was "voluntarily misleading people", I understood that something was going wrong in this thread. I just gave my opinion about what I saw, I never said I had the truth.




What would you call it, then?

You said in the OP that the 4e books were combat, combat, combat.  Then said that there were only 17 pages in the DMG devoted to noncombat encounters - clearly implying to anyone reading your post that had not seen the books, that the other 203 pages of the DMG must be devoted to the "combat, combat, combat" you were going on about.   Then you followed it up by flat out denying that there was a section in the PHB on roleplaying, when there is, in fact, a rather long one right at the beginning of the book.  I can't help but notice you left that one alone after I quoted from it. 

I would call that deliberate, willful, biased, misleading, dishonest... take your pick.

And don't mistake my bluntness for hostility.  There is no hostility.  I thought the remarks about the roleplaying section being up to shenanigans would have made that clear, but humor doesn't always translate well over these tubes.


----------



## Raduin711 (May 29, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> Yesterday I spent two hours with the core books at a friend's place.
> 
> The rules are completely different, but *the game’s philosophy goes back to AD&D1*. The “role playing” part of the game is downgraded compared to 3E, and everything is around combat, combat and more combat (the famous “character roles” are exclusively defined by it). The “noncombat encounters” chapter in the DMG gets only 17 pages and includes puzzles and traps.
> 
> ...




I felt the same thing in the transition between 2e and 3e.  And for me, 3rd edition was the death of role-play (it wasn't, obviously.).  A diplomacy skill?  Scandal.  Social interaction was being reduced to die-rolling.  Completely.  End of story... and we were wrong.  Which is what makes me chuckle a little when people describe 3e as the paragon or role-play, and 4e is going to smother it all in crunch.  

If anything, I am ecstatic that the rules seem to be getting out of the way of role-play.  The less rules inform roleplaying the better the roleplaying.  

And as for the art... coming from 2nd where the art was drastically different than 3rd edition art, I can't honestly see it.  The green dragon has a horn on his nose.  Same diff.  About the most significant thing I have seen is how Tieflings have tails now, instead of just Lee Press-On Horns.  Plus ca change...


----------



## M.L. Martin (May 29, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> Please read my messages more carefully. I'm saying that D&D only addresses one sub-genre of fantasy, and it should include more, specially if it's "the definitive fantasy RPG". As I said, I want to play Conan, A Game of Thrones, Viriconium, Malazan, Perdido Street Station, The Wheel of Time, The Black Company, Dragonlance, Ravenloft and even Discworld.




  What about the two pages on subgenres in the DMG, which address Horror, Intrigue, Mystery, Swashbuckling, Sword & Sorcery, War, and Wuxia campaigns? It's not exactly _Fantasy Hero 5th Edition_, but it's about two pages more than any other DMG has devoted to the subject.


----------



## CrimsonNeko (May 29, 2008)

Just want to commit really quick....how was 3rd ed NOT like a video game?  I mean, for goodness sake, did any of you play neverwinter nights?  Excellent showing of breaking down everything in 3rd into video game format.  And you know what?  Even with everything automated, if you wanted to do more than basic attacking, combat STILL took forever.  Sorry to rant a tiny bit, just getting sick of the BS "WTF 4e is Final Fantasy WOWz and dragonkin are weeaboo hahahaha" crud.

I fully agree with the commit by Raduin.  3rd ed hurt RP skills alot.  Let the players do the talking, not the dice.  It's roleplaying, NOT ROLLplaying.  Besides, it isn't like there aren't ANY noncombat skills....look over the rogue and lock.  Lots of skills that seem worthless if you look at them from a combat perspective, but are awesome for noncombat.  Rituals help alot with this too.  Just because talking isn't broken down to a DC 15 roll doesn't mean there aren't noncombat rules.  You darn kids and your diplomacy checks....back in my day, we made elaborate houserules for all the noncombat situations....during a blizzard!  And we liked it, gosh darn it!


----------



## Raduin711 (May 29, 2008)

Matthew L. Martin said:
			
		

> What about the two pages on subgrenes in the DMG, which address Horror, Intrigue, Mystery, Swashbuckling, Sword & Sorcery, War, and Wuxia campaigns? It's not exactly _Fantasy Hero 5th Edition_, but it's about two pages more than any other DMG has devoted to the subject.




How exciting.  I can't wait to get my DMG.


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## Thasmodious (May 29, 2008)

Matthew L. Martin said:
			
		

> What about the two pages on subgrenes in the DMG, which address Horror, Intrigue, Mystery, Swashbuckling, Sword & Sorcery, War, and Wuxia campaigns? It's not exactly _Fantasy Hero 5th Edition_, but it's about two pages more than any other DMG has devoted to the subject.




Haven't you even bothered to read this thread?  Any examples taken directly from the 4e books that contradicts Joe's assertion that such things are not in the books, aren't really there.  We have been victimized by illusions, which have also hidden themselves from view in the PHB.


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## Raduin711 (May 29, 2008)

Thasmodious said:
			
		

> Haven't you even bothered to read this thread?  Any examples taken directly from the 4e books that contradicts Joe's assertion that such things are not in the books, aren't really there.  We have been victimized by illusions, which have also hidden themselves from view in the PHB.




Poo.


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## The Little Raven (May 29, 2008)

CrimsonNeko said:
			
		

> Let the players do the talking, not the dice.




The character's social skills and limitations are not the same as the player's social skills and limitations. To pretend that they are the same thing is poor roleplaying, in my estimation. All roleplaying should be a reflection of the *character's* traits, not the *player's*.

This whole "rules are fine for some representations of character traits and limitations, but not for others" strikes me as silly. It's okay that Johnny can't fight his way out of a wet paper bag, because we have combat rules, and it's okay that Johnny can't actually use spells, because we have magic rules, but if Johnny wants his character to be smooth, then Johnny himself has to be smooth, because character socialization rules are "rollplaying, not roleplaying?" That's just ridiculous.


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## Fobok (May 29, 2008)

Mourn said:
			
		

> The character's social skills and limitations are not the same as the player's social skills and limitations. To pretend that they are the same thing is poor roleplaying, in my estimation. All roleplaying should be a reflection of the *character's* traits, not the *player's*.




And there's rules there to judge social skills. However, a lot of that comes from creative use of social skills. There's no reason to have half the book dedicated to such situations as to have rules to judge such situations that don't get in the way of creativity have to be simple. There's no need for social powers (though there might be utility powers that boost social skills, thought I saw someone mention that somewhere) or anything like that.


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## 2eBladeSinger (May 29, 2008)

I think this is a great thread.  (Also, not to draw the ire of the moderators, but I thought the Aspergers comment was funny more than rude as well).  One thing I find interesting about threads comparing the various editions of D&D is that often one edition is meant to seem inferior to another.  I think this is rather silly.  I realize that not everyone has played through the various editions (two copper pieces to anyone who can guess where I started) but that’s probably more a case of posters having been too young to have played them than that they were inferior editions.  D&D in any incarnation is fun, it’s supposed to be fun or  else we wouldn’t have been playing it and this website wouldn’t exist as it is.  It’s not like we’ve been eating rotten beets this whole time and suddenly WotC has figured out how to give us pudding and pie.      

I don’t think role-playing and combat are mutually exclusive.  Part of role-playing is describing actions, giving spiels when your character calls out his enemy or calls upon the favor of his deity.  How much this is done in each game, and to what level of detail is purely a group preference as is the amount of time and detail the characters spend gathering information from the Duke’s courtiers or investing in their own backgrounds.  IMO 3e and 4e are much more detailed in terms of actions, position, etc that make that type of role-play a little different, but not irrelevant – instead of describing an attack as a series of thrusts and parries _that clank against the iron mesh of the Orc’s armor_, we have to think about how to describe a cleave or a shield rush (or whatever it’s called now).  Personally, I find the opportunity to point my character’s longsword at the throat of the next Hobgoblin War Chief and cry aloud_ ‘If you want him, you’ll go through me first!” _ (i.e. marking) pretty neat-o.   Ultimately, D&D has always been, kick duff, take stuff add fluff.  How much fluff will now as it always has been, be determined by the group playing the adventure.


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## The Little Raven (May 29, 2008)

Fobok said:
			
		

> There's no need for social powers (though there might be utility powers that boost social skills, thought I saw someone mention that somewhere) or anything like that.




So, again, it's that Johnny doesn't need to know how to fight (or even know the particulars of fighting styles in order to be creative), nor does he need to actually know anything academic for the mental challenges he may face (since Knowledge skills represent that), but he has to be socially adept or clever in order to be successful in social situations. Thus, in all situations you are testing the *character's capabilities*, except in the social arena where you are testing the *player's capabilities*. If we're not going to test a player's ability to throw a punch, swing a sword, cast a spell, or recall an esoteric fact about the local history, then why should we be testing the player's ability to socialize? Some seem to think that ignoring social traits in social situations is "good roleplaying," while I believe that is "poor roleplaying," since in that situation you are not playing the role (your character), you're just being yourself. It seems that the "game" part of the RPG equation is tossed out on it's ear in social situations.


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## rethgryn (May 29, 2008)

Mourn said:
			
		

> So, again, it's that Johnny doesn't need to know how to fight (or even know the particulars of fighting styles in order to be creative), nor does he need to actually know anything academic for the mental challenges he may face (since Knowledge skills represent that), but he has to be socially adept or clever in order to be successful in social situations. Thus, in all situations you are testing the *character's capabilities*, except in the social arena where you are testing the *player's capabilities*. If we're not going to test a player's ability to throw a punch, swing a sword, cast a spell, or recall an esoteric fact about the local history, then why should we be testing the player's ability to socialize? Some seem to think that ignoring social traits in social situations is "good roleplaying," while I believe that is "poor roleplaying," since in that situation you are not playing the role (your character), you're just being yourself. It seems that the "game" part of the RPG equation is tossed out on it's ear in social situations.




Its no different than 3rd edition in this regard really. I routinely play characters who have values and attitudes that I do not believe in or agree with. I don't need a number to tell me how to do so.


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## phloog (May 29, 2008)

Matthew L. Martin said:
			
		

> What about the two pages on subgenres in the DMG, which address Horror, Intrigue, Mystery, Swashbuckling, Sword & Sorcery, War, and Wuxia campaigns? It's not exactly _Fantasy Hero 5th Edition_, but it's about two pages more than any other DMG has devoted to the subject.




Actually this would be a great bit of praise for the 4th edition, if it were true.  

Well, I guess you could quibble about what is meant by subgenres of 'fantasy', but the FIRST edition DMG, if I recall correctly, had multiple pages (at least two, I believe) on other genres, and specific rules for some amount of conversion between D&D and other games, I think Metamorphosis Alpha, I KNOW Gamma World was in there, and I think even Boot Hill had some space.

Are they subgenres of 'fantasy'?  Could be argued in the each case, but if you're including horror as a subgenre of fantasy, I think a game with mutated bunnies firing laser cannons could count as fantasy.  Heck, pretending to be cowboys is a fantasy...for anyone who isn't actually a cowboy.

My point is though that I disagree that 4E has the first DMG to ever talk about other genres/subgenres...I might have to pull out my old books to confirm the details.


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## Vorhaart (May 29, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> I'm saying that D&D only addresses one sub-genre of fantasy, and it should include more, specially if it's "the definitive fantasy RPG". As I said, I want to play Conan, A Game of Thrones, Viriconium, Malazan, Perdido Street Station, The Wheel of Time, The Black Company, Dragonlance, Ravenloft and even Discworld.




   The problem with that is that very few, if any, of those licenses are owned by WotC, and with the current state of copyright law in the US (where the game was primarily developed), they could find themselves in some very hot water if they reference any of that material. I'm not a lawyer, but methinks that any corporate lawyer worth his salt wouldn't allow a book to be published that would paint a big red bulls-eye on the company's flanks. And remember, the bigger the product, the bigger the bulls-eye; 4th edition is looking pretty big nowadays...

   So they have to find a way to describe the archetypal settings that gamers love, without actually naming any of the people, places or major plot points that characterize them. Ever try to describe the Conan setting without mentioning Conan himself, or Cimmeria? You have to use broad strokes, it's not easy, and ultimately most players will just skip it entirely. I really can't blame them for sweeping the mess under the rug.



			
				Matthew L. Martin said:
			
		

> What about the two pages on subgenres in the DMG, which address Horror, Intrigue, Mystery, Swashbuckling, Sword & Sorcery, War, and Wuxia campaigns? It's not exactly _Fantasy Hero 5th Edition_, but it's about two pages more than any other DMG has devoted to the subject.




   Two pages is not a whole lot, and I'd like to see more than that about such an important topic, but I would think that by the time a player is mature enough (in a player sense, not necessarily in an age sense) to be able to adapt an engine to a different setting, they no longer need much help in working out the intricacies of their game world. More cynically, the less on settings in the core books, the better the opportunity for expansion books later on. Simple economics.

   From the sounds of it, 4th provides a framework for what has been traditionally been the meat of most D&D games; exploration and fighting monsters. There's a reason it's called "_Dungeons_ and _Dragons_". Attempts to mechanize the social aspects of roleplaying often become too unwieldy or fall prey to exploits. Best to stick to providing a solid mechanical foundation for combat and let the gamers adjust things to match their own playstyle. Fewer rules outside combat = more freedom in roleplaying situations.


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## Korgoth (May 29, 2008)

I put the following things (there could be more, but I'm looking at these) under player skill:

1. Tactics (how he chooses to fight the monster)
2. Cleverness (how he chooses to overcome traps, hazards, puzzles and "sticky situations" of all kinds)
3. Prudence (his general skill at making good choices)
4. Social skills (his ability to express himself verbally)

Some players don't have the skill to play some characters.  For example:

1. A guy who couldn't win a Go match with a 150-stone handicap wants to play a Warlord named "Sun-Tzu Yun-Fat".  Nope.

2. A complete dolt wants to play a dashing rogue operative in the vein of Ethan Hunt.  Nope.

3. A guy who can't even successfully purchase groceries wants to rule a mighty nation in a Birthright game.  Nope.

4. A guy who breathes through his mouth and has spontaneous biological reactions when within 50 feet of the opposite sex wants to play a smooth-talking lothario and bard.  Nope.

Decent verbal skills are just part of the skill required to play D&D well.  If you don't play it well to begin with... you'll probably get better with some practice.  But when you're a total n00b, you stick to the Bunny Slope.


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## erisred (May 30, 2008)

Mercule said:
			
		

> Goes back to 1e AD&D?  Yay!  Huzzah, even.
> 
> My homebrew world was created in 1e, with more than a few BECMI elements.  I've found it difficult to evoke the same flavor in 3e because of the mechanical expectations on balance and other rules interaction.  If 4e is going for the 1e feel, but with refined rules, I'm so sold, it ain't even funny.



Well, I never played AD&D, 1e or 2e. I didn't like the complexity then, even less now. I played/DM'ed BD&D (the BEM of BEMCI, I guess) for years and years, stopped for even longer, and then 3e came out. Too many rules, too many fiddly bits for me, but the simple basic mechanic let me ignore a *lot* of the crunch and run with roleplaying.

If 4e sees a return to more flexibility and less ruleplaying, *much* less rollplaying, and more room for roleplaying I'll like it. OTOH, from the previews I've seen and KotS I am not in love with the very gamey feel (even video gamey) I've seen so far. 

Waiting for more pre-order from Amazon to get here. Hopeful, but worried.

IAC, I guess I can fall back on  a rules lightened C&C if 4e doesn't work for me.


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## erisred (May 30, 2008)

Mort_Q said:
			
		

> The less rules they have for "role playing" the better.  You're not going to get people to agree on what role playing actually is, let alone what the right way to do it is.  Let individual gaming groups decide that on their own.



Well, IMO, the less rules they have...period...is probably the right way to go. Yes, yes, I know we have to have some rules, but just a few go a long way. I think, for me anyway, rules mostly get the way of roleplaying.


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## CrimsonNeko (May 30, 2008)

To say that a player can't play a lower cha than there own is an insult to their roleplaying skills.  And a player who couldn't talk there way out of a wet paper bag (I am aware that doesn't quite make sense) shouldn't play a character based on smooth talking.  It really breaks the mood when you go to the noble, and the guy who never talks and always wants to fight things says "I talk to him" rolls a dice, and that's it.  There needs to be some roleplaying.  I'm fine if the dice reflect the roleplaying, but in 3e they replaced it.


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## AtomicPope (May 30, 2008)

Joe Sala said:
			
		

> Yesterday I spent two hours with the core books at a friend's place..



Sweet!  All indepth analysis of any complex system is best accomplished by skimming and making assumptions based on preconceived notions.



			
				Joe Sala said:
			
		

> The rules are completely different, but *the game’s philosophy goes back to AD&D1*. The “role playing” part of the game is downgraded compared to 3E, and everything is around combat, combat and more combat (the famous “character roles” are exclusively defined by it). The “noncombat encounters” chapter in the DMG gets only 17 pages and includes puzzles and traps.



You must have missed all of those other sections:
Chapter 1 - How to be a DM: says nothing about combat mechanics, just defines the roles of a DM and the Players.
Chapter 2 - Running the Game: says nothing about combat mechanics, give helpful information about Planning, Pacing, and Running a game.


Only Chapters 3&4 are strictly associated with combat.  That's two chapters out of 11.  Chapter 11 is a sample town that provides DM's with a venue for noncombat roleplaying and how to execute the Plot Hook for adventure.  The Chapter Noncombat Encounters is LONGER than the Combat Encounters Chapter.  Most of the DMG is about running the game, keeping the players motivated and happy, and creating an interesting story.  It's easily the best DMG ever published.  You clearly don't DM so you can't see the value in a structured approach to campaign design.



			
				Joe Sala said:
			
		

> Even the artwork is different compared to 3E. Everything is grandiloquent, over-the-top. All depicted characters are fighting or with their weapons (or powers) ready. No one is smiling, relaxed.
> 
> Because of the game’s philosophy, I can’t imagine many D&D3 campaign settings being played with D&D4. Again, it’s too combat oriented. For example, it would be very difficult to play Freeport or Midnight with it.



Artwork cannot be grandiloquent unless it's literary, but then it's not lumped with art.  Stop inflating your diction.  Fourth edition uses very clear, plain English as is required in technical writing.

But you're wrong about no one smiling or relaxed:
DMG pg 33 Female rogue with hand crossbow
DMG pg 117 Female rogue with whimsical smile
DMG pg 119 Elf warlock performs ritual
DMG pg 123 smiling guardienne points the characters away from  the temple
DMG pg 149 Characters staring in awe at the fantastic landscape
DMG pg 196-197 Characters haggling in the Bizaar

Clearly you're seeing only what you want to see.  D&D is a game of adventure.  This is not an adventure at disneyland.  It's a dangerous place where characters need to fight and kill to get the job done.  If there were no harrowing scenes then D&D would be misrepresented.


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## The Little Raven (May 30, 2008)

rethgryn said:
			
		

> Its no different than 3rd edition in this regard really. I routinely play characters who have values and attitudes that I do not believe in or agree with. I don't need a number to tell me how to do so.




We're not talking about values and attitudes. We're talking about social skills.


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## PeterWeller (May 30, 2008)

The 4E PHB also happens to be the first to have exploration and travel rules precede combat rules.


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## Lanefan (May 30, 2008)

All I can say here, after lots and lots of reading, is that if 4e ends up playing the least bit like 1e I'll jump for joy...and then eat my hat, because it just ain't gonna happen.

4e looks quite playable...very playable, in fact...for one-shots or tournaments.  Not sure if it'll stand up to the rigors of a 10-year campaign even if the level advancement is slowed down; this is one thing that 1e could do, and has done. (see my sig)

From all I can see (discolsure: I don't have the books yet, but do have KotS and W+M) 4e is going to be really really good and really bad at the same time.  The good comes from the open-ended role-play aspects mentioned previously here; the bad comes from some deal-breaking twists on in-game reality and believability (best example here is the huge unfilled gap in abilities between a commoner/minion and a 1st-level character/skirmisher).  So, time to plunder.

What happens if you try mixing 1e character-design with 2e setting and 4e role-play?  Throw in 4e monster design except for hit points, which can use 3e or 1e or whatever the DM needs at the time; and plunder the adventures from anywhere that'll give 'em.

I swear that if we took the 4 editions apart, looked at all the component parts, and started kit-bashing we could come up with a damn fine game! 

Lanefan

p.s. who says the Fighter has nothing to do outside of combat?  All you gotta do is give him some character and then keep talking even when the "diplomats" tell you to shut up.  Worked for me for 10 levels and 20 years...


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## dungeon blaster (May 30, 2008)

After DMing 4 or so encounters from KoTS, I've decided that 4ed is not for me. Granted, it does a lot of things right. The monsters are interesting and feel unique. A goblin and a kobold play differently (mechanics-wise), which is something you can't say about 3e. The kobolds, with their constant shifting, were a royal pain in the *** for the players and a lot of fun for me  Yet something didn't feel right, and only now do I know what is wrong with this game for me. So here it is.

4e feels like a wargame with role-playing interludes loosely connecting the all-important tactical battles. It's the absolute need for a grid and minis. It's the cool exploits/powers/prayers/spells that eradicate my suspension of disbelief. When in combat, it doesn't feel like I'm participating in a story, it feels like I'm playing a board game, albeit a fun board game. With 3e, I didn't need a battlemat. Sure, it helped with a lot of things, but it wasn't necessary. I can't imagine playing 4e without a grid; I doubt it's possible. But it seems like half the powers shift/push/pull/prod yourself, an ally, or the enemy.

I really wish I wasn't disappointed in 4e. Before 3e came out, I initially had a negative perception of it, but tried it out and really liked it. With 4e the exact opposite has occurred. I hope others enjoy the game more than I do.


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## silentounce (May 30, 2008)

Korgoth said:
			
		

> I put the following things (there could be more, but I'm looking at these) under player skill:
> 
> 1. Tactics (how he chooses to fight the monster)
> 2. Cleverness (how he chooses to overcome traps, hazards, puzzles and "sticky situations" of all kinds)
> ...




Just because they don't have "skills" doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed to play them.  It's supposed to be a fantasy roleplaying game, let the players play what they want, within reason.  And the reason should never be, that character is too much different than you, that character is too much smarter than you, etc.  This is supposed to be about fun, right?

Anybody you've kicked out, okay, well you probably didn't kick anybody out.  But anybody that wanted to play those characters in situations above that you said "no" to is allowed in my game.  If you can make it to Cleveland once a week.


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## billd91 (May 30, 2008)

silentounce said:
			
		

> Just because they don't have "skills" doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed to play them.  It's supposed to be a fantasy roleplaying game, let the players play what they want, within reason.  And the reason should never be, that character is too much different than you, that character is too much smarter than you, etc.  This is supposed to be about fun, right?




Agreed.

I might steer players away from characters they won't like because they have a tough time playing them, but that's in an effort to make sure people have a good time. To think of barring someone from playing a character just because they're nothing like that character? I'd think that's partly what RPGs are for! Playing a role that, specifically, isn't yourself.


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## jeffh (May 31, 2008)

Lots of people in this thread seem to be confusing roleplaying with acting. In fact, everyone who's discussed the subject here seems to be suffering from this to one extent or another, save Mourn. I've had a fair bit to say about this elsewhere, which I repeat below.

(Formatting is from the original post (on a different board) except the passage I've coloured, which represents newly added emphasis.)

=================

Roleplaying, for me, is taking on the viewpoint of a fictional character in the world in which your game takes place. That character may or may not resemble you personality-wise and certainly a lot of the situations in which he or she finds him- or herself will bear little resemblance to any you have encountered. You are _playing _that _role _if you make decisions on the basis of what that character would do in that situation, as opposed to the many other reasons you might make such decisions.

(Some examples of the latter: what is tactically optimal [though any character without a death-wish will have some concern for this], what seems "cool", what will make for the best story, what you think the DM wants you to do, what you think the DM doesn't want you to do, what will most entertain the group, what will make the quieter players feel included, what will get the current scene over with the soonest. There is a legitimate place for all of these things, but when you do them you're not roleplaying, and all else being equal that is a point against them. It's not always a _decisive _point against them, though.)

Notice what I *haven't* mentioned, and that's acting out in-character dialogue and so on. That's nice when it's done well, but it's not the same thing as roleplaying. By the above definition, you can roleplay without acting and you can act without roleplaying. The player who has a charisma 8 character but uses _his own_ forceful personality to constantly dominate every scene with dialogue will usually claim he is the main roleplayer in the group. He is wrong. He is doing lots of *acting*, but virtually no *roleplaying*. He is making no serious attempt to play the character that's written on his character sheet, or is doing so only when it is convenient for serving some other agenda.

Similarly, pressure is often put on more introverted gamers to "roleplay more" when they may, by this definition, already be doing more roleplaying than the more extroverted players doing the admonishing. Having said that, the more overt voice-actor types can be more entertaining to have around. But this is by no means a universal law. Watching someone with no talent for it constantly try their hand at such voice-acting is more painful than stepping on a d4. And being constantly pushed around by the one guy who is good at it is worse still.

Roleplaying, so defined, is not the be-all and end-all of gaming. But it's what seperates D&D from DDM, and RPGs from wargames and boardgames more generally. It does not require talking in a funny accent, but it does involve getting into a slightly different mentality than most other sorts of games call for. I think it's a big part of what makes the hobby so rewarding, though there are places (I've listed several in the third paragraph) where doing an end-run around it is jusfified. There is nothing wrong with killing things and taking their stuff, but it's more fun to kill things and take their stuff _in a context_, and while roleplaying as most people define it may or may not serve that end, roleplaying as defined above is the very thing that makes it possible.


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## Zalgarde (May 31, 2008)

Jeffh's stuff about roleplaying really hit home,  I hadn't thought about it too much, but I almost feel like I suddenly feel less comfy with 3e than I did a few minutes ago, and still uncomfy with 4e.

3rd ed saw us doing all SORTS of tactical actions waaay smarter than our characters just because our characters GOT all those feats (or well maybe some of us worked our way to having them).  "If my fighter has power attack, combat reflexes and knockdown, wouldn't he know when to use them?" was actually said at some point.  And none of EVER thought to say "uhh no, just be cause he spent all day knocking over combat dummies on pullies doesn't mean he's an expert tactician when the goblins rush"  and maybe its because we each had our respective "knockdowns" and "power attacks" that we liked using.  Obviously we all had fun, but I think maybe we (my group that is to say) DID get further away from the role playing than in earlier editions.  I remember making the dm stop the game while I figured out cool ways to use burning hand s, but thats because characters int was 17 (17!)  he's supposed to have all the answers and tricks, so I'd even ask my friends how they would do it.   And we definitely used to say "wait not what I just said, that sounds retarded, can I make a wisdom check? I know my characters better than that" a LOT more.

I don't know if 4e fixes this stuff, but on the other hand, by not covering it, I think they leave it more open to fixing.  Its a lot harder to convince newcomers to your group, or even your long time friends to "ignore chapter 7, they did it horribly, even though none of us have played this system yet", than it is to say "here's this packet of rules and  noncombat stuff you get in addition to the stuff in the book, since they didn't cover it".

Again its all just my group and I, though, and since I've never managed to juggle more groups or hit events, I'm living in a tiny little self contained RPG vaccuum for the most part.


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## Primal (May 31, 2008)

hong said:
			
		

> 4E is 1E, with the addition of skill challenges. Which I wager will get more people more involved in noncombat interaction than either 1E's retarded (literally!) nonweapon proficiencies or 3E's unfocused menagerie of skills ever did.




Wrong, Hong! (Sorry, I just couldn't resist typing that! ) 1E didn't have any sort of feats or powers, unless you count the few class abilities. In feel and thematics 4E may be closer to 1E than 3E, and the like the OP posted, the art is more "violent" in nature, but it's way better and consistent in quality and more evocative than the art in most 3E books. 

I don't agree with your "unfocused menagerie of skills", although 4E's skill list is more "compact" and indightful, it may be a bit too focused on adventuring and action. 

Yet there's something which 4E does better than any other edition and it is to offer a game that thematically and mechanically focuses on story-flavoured cinematic action. If you like that, you'll absolutely love 4E. If you don't, you'll probably like PF or 3E better.

Yet in no way is it a boardgame or "the return to AD&D".


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