"Its like using dice to determine wandering monsters.. or floor plans, big meh. I remember the meandering pointless tunnels with monsters there because the dice said so... dice have been used as a short cut tool in place of thinking an aweful lot."
You may be the unluckiest person in the world. Talk about DM's, you're afraid of bad ones...because it sounds like that's all you had. Talk about dice, you're afraid they'll do something bad because they did something bad in the past. I think I probably don't use dice the way you do/did when it was so horrible. I've never had these horrible experiences. You must be a magnet for "suck" or something because almost everything you run into is somehow the worst possible incarnation of it.
"Its like using dice to determine wandering monsters.. or floor plans, big meh. I remember the meandering pointless tunnels with monsters there because the dice said so... dice have been used as a short cut tool in place of thinking an aweful lot."
You may be the unluckiest person in the world. Talk about DM's, you're afraid of bad ones...because it sounds like that's all you had.
Became a DM so that I didnt have to deal with problems like a DM that wouldnt let my Cleric of Odin carry a spear (same damage as a staff but because the flavor text didnt match that of the cleric).. I did actually get ummm turned off on being a "player" because of it... this latest is perhaps the first edition of D&D I have been excited to do that.
Talk about dice, you're afraid they'll do something bad because they did something bad in the past. I think I probably don't use dice the way you do/did when it was so horrible. I've never had these horrible experiences. You must be a magnet for "suck" or something because almost everything you run into is somehow the worst possible incarnation of it.
Hey I never ran in to an explicitly Monty Haul DM? Though I did meet players whos characters had bags of holding with multiples of ALL the items from the DMG.
Since it's the story which pulls players in, and not just a collection of XP, GP, magic items, and abilities, wouldn't WotC's money be better spent giving DM lessons at fantasy gaming stores across the country? Just set your goal to be to train 10,000 young DM's over the next 3 years, and watch your book sales surge. I know this is kind of a lateral suggestion, but the 4e books are actually pretty good.
We really need a new rules system like we need another hole in our heads. Ok, the alignment system from AD&D 1.0 was FINE and didn't need to be changed; some DM's used alignment more, others used it less, which is how we customize our campaigns to our party's style of play. By and large, I've been impressed with 4e's materials. I just haven't bought many adventures because I prefer to tell my own stories. But dang I own a lot of 4e books. Too many to carry to gaming night, hence my investment in an iPad and PDF copies of said books. THAT'S the reality - players need their tools with them in an electronic form.
Alas, the online character builder produces AWFUL character sheets. This is the biggest complaint from my thursday night group, aside from how combat drags on forever with 7th-level and above characters, reduced to at-wills after the first several rounds. We're willing to forgo new powers from the online content in order to use the old XP-compatible character builder, whose character sheet layout was pretty near perfect.
My absolute greatest fear for this edition, for lack of a better place to express my sentiment (and lack of desire to read this thread to chime in with a QFT) is the apparent suggestion of crowdsourced design.
A lot of people here are good at emulating and approximating effects within the context of established rules but as far as game system design goes the vast majority of players are incredibly shortsighted. It only sounds worse than it is, if everybody could design a game what would we be buying D&D for, right?
Example: I think 4e magic items are terrible. Not only are they boring, but they failed at one of their own design goals which was to make character building less reliant on magic. Instead they made character building intimately tied and dependent on magic items. I would like to see a return in philosophy to 1e/2e D&D, in that I would like to see magic items as unnecessary and very special "gifts" to the players. Keeping the 4e ideas of making sure items don't break game balance, and having levels and rarity is great too. I definitely like the 4e artifacts and concordance rules. I would also like to see magic item scaling. Elric didn't throw away Stormbringer as he progressed in experience and power, characters shouldn't either.
I keep seeing this as a theme in this thread. Our weekly group also held the 4e magic item requirements to be one of the top things that we felt needed to be addressed.
I'd be curious to hear from people who liked how it was done in 4E give some reasons. I'm interested to know if this is something that can be solved with a modular approach. Not everything can but a most things can as far as I can tell. I wonder if this is an outlier.
Hmmmm, I'm not going to say that I exactly 'liked the way it was done', but I think there are things about the way it has been perceived that are odd. For one thing MANY of the items really are not much different from their incarnations in earlier editions. Take the Flaming Weapon that is in IIRC the PHB1. It is basically identical to the old 1e flametongue. The mechanics are virtually identical give or take a 4e-ism (IE there's no list of specific creatures it does extra damage against because we have keywords and vulnerabilities now, which takes care of that). Yet I recall a whole thread where someone complained bitterly about how 'bland' it was. What accounts for that? The item isn't any different, so that points to something else.
Another thing is people talking about "having to throw away your weapon to upgrade", yet AV1 contained complete rules for auto-updating weapons (and it was frankly such an obvious concept that most of the people I know who play had already invented exactly the same procedure anyway). Somehow it seems like 4e presented MANY things like this, but in practically all cases they just sort of sat by the wayside while people lament the lack of the very things they brought to the table. Again, what accounts for that?
The core oddity here though is the oddity of "not knowing what we were wishing for". Many people said they wanted items to be non-critical. 4e basically delivered that. Again, DMG2 provided a systematic rule that made them UTTERLY optional, but fundamentally items don't play much of a role in 4e characters. Yeah, you have some plusses you need, but that's trivial, in essence just built in bonus progression. What did people THINK would happen if items were optional? Obviously they couldn't be big dramatic things that have a big effect on the game or else they'd HAVE to be factored into the PCs power progression. The game would have to either assume you had them or assume you didn't. The very 'blandness' that people complain about is the result of getting what people wished for.
I don't know what factor it is about the organization, presentation, player mindset, or whatever other factor it is, but there is a real theme here. Somehow there's a gap in perception that isn't crossed with this particular game. The horrible part is when you start to really dissect the game and analyze what it is and what you would do, you don't find much. Its hard to actually come to grips with what separates the actuality of the game from what people see.
Example: I think 4e magic items are terrible. Not only are they boring, but they failed at one of their own design goals which was to make character building less reliant on magic. Instead they made character building intimately tied and dependent on magic items. I would like to see a return in philosophy to 1e/2e D&D, in that I would like to see magic items as unnecessary and very special "gifts" to the players. Keeping the 4e ideas of making sure items don't break game balance, and having levels and rarity is great too. I definitely like the 4e artifacts and concordance rules. I would also like to see magic item scaling. Elric didn't throw away Stormbringer as he progressed in experience and power, characters shouldn't either.
I keep seeing this as a theme in this thread. Our weekly group also held the 4e magic item requirements to be one of the top things that we felt needed to be addressed.
I'd be curious to hear from people who liked how it was done in 4E give some reasons. I'm interested to know if this is something that can be solved with a modular approach. Not everything can but a most things can as far as I can tell. I wonder if this is an outlier.
Hmmmm, I'm not going to say that I exactly 'liked the way it was done', but I think there are things about the way it has been perceived that are odd. For one thing MANY of the items really are not much different from their incarnations in earlier editions. Take the Flaming Weapon that is in IIRC the PHB1. It is basically identical to the old 1e flametongue. The mechanics are virtually identical give or take a 4e-ism (IE there's no list of specific creatures it does extra damage against because we have keywords and vulnerabilities now, which takes care of that). Yet I recall a whole thread where someone complained bitterly about how 'bland' it was. What accounts for that? The item isn't any different, so that points to something else.
Another thing is people talking about "having to throw away your weapon to upgrade", yet AV1 contained complete rules for auto-updating weapons (and it was frankly such an obvious concept that most of the people I know who play had already invented exactly the same procedure anyway). Somehow it seems like 4e presented MANY things like this, but in practically all cases they just sort of sat by the wayside while people lament the lack of the very things they brought to the table. Again, what accounts for that?
The core oddity here though is the oddity of "not knowing what we were wishing for". Many people said they wanted items to be non-critical. 4e basically delivered that. Again, DMG2 provided a systematic rule that made them UTTERLY optional, but fundamentally items don't play much of a role in 4e characters. Yeah, you have some plusses you need, but that's trivial, in essence just built in bonus progression. What did people THINK would happen if items were optional? Obviously they couldn't be big dramatic things that have a big effect on the game or else they'd HAVE to be factored into the PCs power progression. The game would have to either assume you had them or assume you didn't. The very 'blandness' that people complain about is the result of getting what people wished for.
I don't know what factor it is about the organization, presentation, player mindset, or whatever other factor it is, but there is a real theme here. Somehow there's a gap in perception that isn't crossed with this particular game. The horrible part is when you start to really dissect the game and analyze what it is and what you would do, you don't find much. Its hard to actually come to grips with what separates the actuality of the game from what people see.
Well, I think the simple answer is that people see what they want to see and don't see contraindications. That much is probably certain. They're looking for something to complain about in many cases (not all, but many).
But I think you speak to a bigger issue. Do you think it's possible that the very thing people wanted (speaking generally about alot of the improvements in 4E, but also specifically about the magic item implimentation) ended up making the game less desirable for them?
Also, not to nitpick and I've certainly never made this complaint, but the 1E Flametongue was significantly cooler than the Flaming Weapon. And very different mechanically.
1. It could burst into flame on a secret command word or phrase and be used as an everburning torch. The 4E Flaming Weapon....not so much. The flavor text mentions something like this but the only corresponding mechanic is for typing the damage. No out of combat utility is mentioned. (As a DM, I would allow it but I've seen this very thing not allowed in a public play scenario) 2. It also had a FOUR stage gradient of bonus to hit and damage, depending on what you were attacking. The 4E version has a single static to hit bonus regardless of whether or not the enemy has the vulnerable fire keyword. So, whereas the flametongue increases your ability to hit the baddies who don't like fire, the Flaming Weapon does not. In this regard, the wielder of a flametongue loves nothing better than to seek out those who don't like fire, because he would be MUCH more likely to hit them. The 4E Flaming Weapon has none of that feel. 3. The Flametongue was a CONSTANT ignite risk, meaning it could always cause ongoing fire damage (assuming the wielder had instructed it to ignite), whenever it came into contact with something that could burn, including enemies. The Flaming Weapon can only set an enemy on fire (cause ongoing fire) damage once per day.
Again, I'd never think to complain about this because, well, who cares, but honestly, the Flame Tongue is way cooler.
"Its like using dice to determine wandering monsters.. or floor plans, big meh. I remember the meandering pointless tunnels with monsters there because the dice said so... dice have been used as a short cut tool in place of thinking an aweful lot."
You may be the unluckiest person in the world. Talk about DM's, you're afraid of bad ones...because it sounds like that's all you had. Talk about dice, you're afraid they'll do something bad because they did something bad in the past. I think I probably don't use dice the way you do/did when it was so horrible. I've never had these horrible experiences. You must be a magnet for "suck" or something because almost everything you run into is somehow the worst possible incarnation of it.
Nothing is perfect. I will toss around a couple dice just to see what they tell me, and I don't think randomness is always a BAD way to spark some creativity. OTOH I know where garthanos is coming from too. I ignore as many die rolls that the rules say should mean X as I do toss a die to decide something for me. Dice are good when you need to decide something like a hit because nobody is impartial about it. Other times its more of a mixed bag. I can riff though, maybe not everyone can. I can just close my eyes and start with whatever comes to mind and half the time it totally surprises me already, and its usually fun. Anyway, we're all a bit different so its cool if there are a variety of tools for tapping into the old imagination. I know a lot of people that love all the old 1e DMG tables. I used a few of them here and there, but not a lot.
Well, I think the simple answer is that people see what they want to see and don't see contraindications. That much is probably certain. They're looking for something to complain about in many cases (not all, but many).
But I think you speak to a bigger issue. Do you think it's possible that the very thing people wanted (speaking generally about alot of the improvements in 4E, but also specifically about the magic item implimentation) ended up making the game less desirable for them?
Also, not to nitpick and I've certainly never made this complaint, but the 1E Flametongue was significantly cooler than the Flaming Weapon. And very different mechanically.
1. It could burst into flame on a secret command word or phrase and be used as an everburning torch. The 4E Flaming Weapon....not so much. The flavor text mentions something like this but the only corresponding mechanic is for typing the damage. No out of combat utility is mentioned. (As a DM, I would allow it but I've seen this very thing not allowed in a public play scenario) 2. It also had a FOUR stage gradient of bonus to hit and damage, depending on what you were attacking. The 4E version has a single static to hit bonus regardless of whether or not the enemy has the vulnerable fire keyword. So, whereas the flametongue increases your ability to hit the baddies who don't like fire, the Flaming Weapon does not. In this regard, the wielder of a flametongue loves nothing better than to seek out those who don't like fire, because he would be MUCH more likely to hit them. The 4E Flaming Weapon has none of that feel. 3. The Flametongue was a CONSTANT ignite risk, meaning it could always cause ongoing fire damage (assuming the wielder had instructed it to ignite), whenever it came into contact with something that could burn, including enemies. The Flaming Weapon can only set an enemy on fire (cause ongoing fire) damage once per day.
Again, I'd never think to complain about this because, well, who cares, but honestly, the Flame Tongue is way cooler.
Just sayin.
I don't know about looking for things to complain about. I think people just don't very often know how to articulate things. I don't think they very often analyze what it is that's bothering them. I think 4e magic item implementation shows a few things. First of all, while the leveling items were a logical concept, it just added a lot of clutter. In some ways it was good, but there were too many items that weren't really all that different. Clearly enhancement bonus should just go away. I doubt it will, but it really should. There should be less items, like with powers, the more you have the less distinctive each one is. Less can be more. If 4e has a cardinal sin it is just too cluttered with minor variations of things.
There are no really significant differences in mechanics between the 4e flaming weapon and the flametongue though. The '4 gradients' was unworkable because it listed a small list of specific monsters that Gary happened to think of when he wrote it down, and the chances you actually were fighting that monster was pretty slim. Having that many distinctions wasn't all that useful anyway, the "its flammable or it isn't" approach in the 4e version works because splitting hairs just isn't that distinctive. The difference between a +2 and a +3 is to piddly to be worth all the trouble that looking it up every time was worth.
I also don't understand why you discount the flavor text in 4e, yet basically the same flavor text in the 1e version is 'cool'. Of course fire sheds light, there's no way you can have fire that doesn't do that, the OD&D "Monsters & Treasure" description of a flametongue didn't mention light either IIRC and nobody had any problems realizing that fire sheds light or else you couldn't see it at all... I honestly don't recall anyone ever using any of the command word rules. Nothing would suck more than getting a magic item and having the DM tell you that you didn't know the command word, lol. It could be story hook, but here again is a difference that I liked with 4e, it didn't dictate that kind of story thing. You use a minor action to ignite it, well, what are you doing with that minor action? Its up to the players/DM to decide. Again, saying some command phrase should be such an obvious possibility it really doesn't need to be spelled out. Also, the whole thing with doing more damage isn't a 'one time thing' with 4e either, all your attacks are fire attacks, so anything vulnerable to fire always takes fire damage. It is just a more robust way to do the same thing as the 1e version, and the 'damage boost' power is a whole extra bennie, you can do extra damage to ANYTHING once a day/encounter (whichever it is).
Anyway, it illustrates something that I observe a lot these days. People seem to need every little thing spelled out. The most amazingly obvious things, like 'fire makes light' or 'you can upgrade an item and call it a treasure parcel' seem to escape people. I don't know if there was something different in the water back in the day or what, lol.
The whole "everything for everybody" approach is going to be very difficult to achieve and playtesting has the potential to be a giant mess unless it's handled properly.
I disagree. After reading through this forum, I've come to the realization that WotC can NEVER reconcile the hurt feelings after players spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on a game system, only to see it scrapped in 3 years. No matter how much Pathfinder codpiece you kiss, you're not getting those players back - they've already made their investment in a new system. The ONLY path for WotC's continued success is to bring new players to the game - which points back to my suggestion earlier today: don't focus on rules, focus on teaching DM's to be better storytellers.
Since so many people complain about the "flavor" missing from 4e magic items, is it the DM's fault for not building a story around these items? or WotC's fault for putting magic items in the Players' Handbook, and expecting them to be handed out with the frequency of Pez candy?
The BEST thing I've gotten from attending DDXP and GenCon is to play many, many games of 4e with different DM's of all stripes and colors. In one game, my DM and I were a party that got TPK'd. The DM for that game apologized, but all 6 players at the table THANKED HIM for running an awesome game that kept us on the seat of our pants. It encouraged my DM to take the kid gloves off and throw trickier challenges at our party. [At higher levels, some DM's stop using minions. This is a mistake. Push your players to their boundaries. Be fair, not mean, and force them to use their heads to think through situations so it's not just a splatterfest]
You can have a fun time playing any edition of D&D. The most important thing to remember is that this is a GAME and you're supposed to have fun. With my group of experienced gamers (half of us are in our 40's) we've spent entire evenings roleplaying with 4e rules, yet never needing to roll dice for a single encounter. Not all new players and DM's could do this, I'm certain, but since we're all working together to create interesting characters and even more interesting stories, I'm not sure how changing something as unimportant as the ruleset would encourage us to play more D&D or buy more books. This has taught me that the thing D&D needs most is not new books and a new system of rules for us to learn. No, we need more DM's who understand how to bring their friends together, or even strangers, and teach them how to ROLE PLAY. Don't forget that the 4e book Players Strategy Guide talks not just about min/maxing your characters, but about using your imagination and creativity.
And feel free to tack on the Wil Wheaton quote: DON'T BE A (substitute name for Richard). That's a message that far too many gamers don't take to heart (along with the positive effects of the regular use of soap).
Do you think it's possible that the very thing people wanted (speaking generally about alot of the improvements in 4E, but also specifically about the magic item implimentation) ended up making the game less desirable for them?
This is really exactly what happened. 4e is a necessary iteration in game development that consists basically of smashing everything in the face with a bat until it's balanced. Lots of people don't like the extremely even-keel gameplay that results at this stage. The good news is that the next step is to return to step 1 and add more flavorful features back in now that the base is nice and balanced.
Psychology shows again and again that humans are tremendously bad at predicting what we want, it wouldn't be surprising at all if that's the case here and I think it almost certainly is.
