Community

Howdy folks,

While the original post of this thread is insightful and discussion worthy, we're seeing a lot of edition bashing and warring going on in the rest of the thread.

Please try to stick to the topic.  The thread will be closed if the edition warring continues.

Thanks.

The matter is one of image.  I do not personally believe that D&D 4th edition is like WoW.  I do believe, though, that D&D 4th edition took on, in many ways, the image of a videogame and that people have a tendancy to say WoW because it is among the most popular and accessable fantasy Video Games

1) Focus on competitive balance
No one said balance was a bad thing... well, maybe someone did, but I don't think that it is.  Balance is good, but I think many people see balance being made at the expense of versimilitude.  You can have it both ways -- a game that is balanced can have versimilitude, and a game with Versimilitude can be balanced.  I do not personally feel 4th edition managed: it failed in the opposite direction that 3rd did.
Why People Scream "WoW": WoW maintains a competitive balance of its classes
Why They're Wrong: And Warhammer maintains a point-for-point balance across its armies.  Balance is a factor of game design, albeit one that's more seen in the digital world thanks to constant patches and tweaks
But I hear this bad response all the time: "You just want casters to own everything again!".  No.  I'd like versimilitude as well as balance, and given the choice between balance with a comparitive lack of versimilitude and versimilitude with comparitive imbalance, I chose versimilitude.  Why?  Perhaps my players just aren't twinks, or perhaps I realized as DM I can tailor encounters to create balance in an imbalanced system (Golems...).  Or perhaps I just took my prefrence.  Does that mean I hate balance?  No.  It's what 4e lost that bothered me, not what it had.

2) The Power System Makes People Play Too Similarly
This is probably one of my biggest beefs with Core 4th edition (essentials was better about it) -- there was a lack of uniqueness to individual characters.  They had their distinct features and flavors, but ultimatley the mechanics themselves were not flavorful (If you want an earfull about Flavor and Design, and mechanics having flavor on their own, read articles over on the Magic site, specifically "Making Magic" by Mark Rosewater).  This was a major turn off for me, and I think it hurt the opinions of others as well
Why People Scream "WoW": Warriors, Death Knights, Rogues, *shudder* Feral DPS -- the Melee classes of World of Warcraft have as much to keep track of as the casters, if not more
Why They're Wrong: I suspect these people have not played WoW.  One of the things that World of Warcraft does very well that I honestly thing D&D *might* stand to learn from is that different people care about different resources: A rogue's energy, a warrior's Rage, and a Mage's mana work differently and managing them takes a different tactical approach to the battle.  If you really hate WoW comparisons, you could learn the same lesson about resources from Magic: the Gathering, but it wouldn't be as obvious.
But I hear this bad response all the time: "You hate Martial characters and want them to be boring!".  No.  I want them to be different.  I want them to be a distinct tactical and role playing experience from arcane characters or divine characters.  The 4th edition system largely fails at that for me -- things are too homogenized.

3) "It's just a kitchen sink of cool... which isn't cool"
I put this one in air quotes because I don't agree.  I can take exception to Dragonborn.  I can dislike the Nentir Vale.  I might question their design choices but I don't think any of those are really out of line with D&D.  Perhaps things have gotten a but more exaggerated and weird... Oh right, Dungeonland and Beyond the Magic Mirror -- I think we've been weird from day 1.  "Dungeon Punk" is a little bit new and different, but we were seeing it in 3e too.
Why people Scream "WoW": Wow's prety darn kitchen-siny-ish itself.  Like a fantasy trope?  It's probably somewhere on Azeroth or Outland.  It's also got some dungeon punk around the edges, at least.
Why they're Wrong: See my intro paragraph
But I hear this bad response all the time: "If you don't like it, don't use it in your game."  For those people who take exception to 4th's presentation, I would not begrudge them their exception.  How would the rest of us like it if all the art was done in crayon?  How would the dungeon punk fans like it if the core setting was more "dung ages".  Not very much.  The fact of the matter is that the presentation of Core and the presence of elements in it does matter, and is a legitimate reason for someone to buy or not buy an RPG product.