In fourth edition, the skills scaled automatically with level. This meant that a "useless" skill got a virtual point every other level. So, a high level character had a bonus despite not being specialized in a skill. It's a good feature overall
It also had another problem, though IMO it was more a problem of horrible descriptions than the actual rules: the skill challenge rules could be read as meaning that the difficulty of certain tasks varied with the level of the character. The sensible interpretation is that the difficulty of tasks represent the level of the challenge, so a level 20 lock (being rune-locked enchanted adamantium) was harder to pick than a level 1 lock, but plenty of people seemed to interpret it as being based on the level of the character.
Yeah that would be the logical interpretation, but the majority of anti-4E critics just try to read every rule in a way that makes 4E look bad. You know despite the fact that you can throw level 15 monsters at a level 13 party, it's totally unheard of to toss a level 15 skill challenge at them. Every lock has to be 13th level apparently.
Guess what? If retroclones/old style 70s garbage was any good, you wouldn't be here - you'd just play them.
The goal of Next, insofar as I understand it, is a 1e feel with the modern mechanics of 3/4e, as well as a game system unified enough that players of the different "eras" can enjoy it.
Characterizing modern bits as "shiny" as you did implies they have little substance, unlike your great old traditional game, which is just as much sniping as the post you quoted.
More actually. I was very careful about how I phrased my original post. The fact is that a lot of stuff got DROPPED from most TRPGs in the 1990s for good reasons, and there are a number of gamers that don't want to go back. For those that do, that's fine. There are plenty of OSR/Retro games for you.
-Polaris
And you can stick with 4E.
Of course you'd consider my objections to your original post as worse. You have both inferred something I didn't consider with the word 'shiny', while throwing out phrases like 'the bad old days of pre-modern gaming' and '70s garbage'.
Polaris, you played D&D with all of the versions. I'd be curious to know how you made it though the previous 25+ years wading through such poor games and why you didn't turn to a different hobby. I completely understand if 4E is your favorite edition and I respect that - I just don't see why it's necessary for people here to continuously attack other editions.
Not speaking for Polaris here, nor really voicing my own opinion on "why people attack other editions", just throwing something out there to see how well it sticks...
Consider this observation: a 4e player, has payed, and is paying for 4e products, and that is their preferred edition. Now WotC seems to have decided that non-4e players, people who are NOT paying WotC for a damn thing lately, deserve a new edition. An edition that basically makes the 4e player's investment moot. Most of those 4e players went through this once already when 4e itself came out. There was signficant backlash at WotC back then, and to some extent there is again now. SOME non-4e players seem to have developed a sense of entitlement when it comes to WotC owing them something (design considerations in 5e), because once upon a time, they purchased WotC products. SOME 4e players have this sense of entitlement as well, and/or SOME 4e players have a sense of betrayal towards WotC for effectively cancelling the edition that they liked and paid for. It certainly doesn't help matters when the non-4e players might not even become 5e players when all is said and done.
Conclusion: Perhaps some of the attacks are just frustration, (mis?)directed at a group of people (non-4e players) who're being given the world (5e ) with (R&D) dollars the 4e players spent. Somewhat like taxpayers (4e players) lashing out at people on welfare (non-4e players), even though the purpose of the welfare system (5e) is to get those people back to being taxpayers (giving WotC money)...maybe I should have called this the convoluted conclusion...
WotC is taking a big risk here, and while I applaud them for their efforts, I'm just not sure 5e is the best way to get non-4e players spending money on D&D again, especially if they lose the 4e players and their money in the process.
And yes, I know that there are non-4e players who have spent a lot of money on 4e products as well. They're crazy, but they're out there .
Snofox you are right on. Perhaps now maybe alot of people that had their favored play style researched, developed, and supported in 2008 will understand why there was such a bad reaction to it.
I actually started buying 4e products once next was announced. I figured if they were making the game I want, or at least would probably want, I might as well start supporting them again. Even if I am sceptical.
CAMRA preserves and protects real ale from the homogenization of modern beer production.
4e has an objectively better: - Skill System - Monster Statblock System - Traps - Combat Balance - Magic Item System
I will give you Combat Balance. THat is all. Skills and Magic ITems are not even better let alone objectively better.
An AD&D monster stat block was easier to use.
Magic Items were reduced to plug and play bonuses. Sometimes you would get a power. But the magic item bonuses were woven into the system that you absolutely had to have them. SO they had to be plug n play by design.
The skill system is one reason I did not buy into 4e. Pathfinder's skill system is much better.
CAMRA preserves and protects real ale from the homogenization of modern beer production.
In fourth edition, the skills scaled automatically with level. This meant that a "useless" skill got a virtual point every other level. So, a high level character had a bonus despite not being specialized in a skill. It's a good feature overall
It also had another problem, though IMO it was more a problem of horrible descriptions than the actual rules: the skill challenge rules could be read as meaning that the difficulty of certain tasks varied with the level of the character. The sensible interpretation is that the difficulty of tasks represent the level of the challenge, so a level 20 lock (being rune-locked enchanted adamantium) was harder to pick than a level 1 lock, but plenty of people seemed to interpret it as being based on the level of the character.
This was clearly a failure of description in the Skill Challenges section. They were never meant to be read that way, but unfortunately, they were. Which is a shame, since Skill Challenges are the second-best idea (after Healing Surges) from 4e.
This may be true, but when my group is deciding whether or not to adopt a game, and it is presented so poorly as to cause a group to avoid it, where does the fault lay?
I was never under any obligation to try the system long enough until it works. Played in 2008 from june to THanksgiving. That is when we concluded we can play Mutants and Masterminds until Pathfinder was released.
CAMRA preserves and protects real ale from the homogenization of modern beer production.
This was clearly a failure of description in the Skill Challenges section. They were never meant to be read that way, but unfortunately, they were. Which is a shame, since Skill Challenges are the second-best idea (after Healing Surges) from 4e.
I just shot coffee out of my nose. I think this illustrates the different play styles as you just named in my opinion the two most ridiculously stupid concepts ever presented in a role-playing game in 30+ years across all games and all genres. I actually found it insulting to be honest with you, it says "hey role-players are just a bunch of munchkins, lets just skip all this reality and role-playing crap and let them kill monsters and get through the boring bits quicker".
Guess what? If retroclones/old style 70s garbage was any good, you wouldn't be here - you'd just play them.
The goal of Next, insofar as I understand it, is a 1e feel with the modern mechanics of 3/4e, as well as a game system unified enough that players of the different "eras" can enjoy it.
Characterizing modern bits as "shiny" as you did implies they have little substance, unlike your great old traditional game, which is just as much sniping as the post you quoted.
More actually. I was very careful about how I phrased my original post. The fact is that a lot of stuff got DROPPED from most TRPGs in the 1990s for good reasons, and there are a number of gamers that don't want to go back. For those that do, that's fine. There are plenty of OSR/Retro games for you.
-Polaris
And you can stick with 4E.
Of course you'd consider my objections to your original post as worse. You have both inferred something I didn't consider with the word 'shiny', while throwing out phrases like 'the bad old days of pre-modern gaming' and '70s garbage'.
Polaris, you played D&D with all of the versions. I'd be curious to know how you made it though the previous 25+ years wading through such poor games and why you didn't turn to a different hobby. I completely understand if 4E is your favorite edition and I respect that - I just don't see why it's necessary for people here to continuously attack other editions.
Not speaking for Polaris here, nor really voicing my own opinion on "why people attack other editions", just throwing something out there to see how well it sticks...
Consider this observation: a 4e player, has payed, and is paying for 4e products, and that is their preferred edition. Now WotC seems to have decided that non-4e players, people who are NOT paying WotC for a damn thing lately, deserve a new edition. An edition that basically makes the 4e player's investment moot. Most of those 4e players went through this once already when 4e itself came out. There was signficant backlash at WotC back then, and to some extent there is again now. SOME non-4e players seem to have developed a sense of entitlement when it comes to WotC owing them something (design considerations in 5e), because once upon a time, they purchased WotC products. SOME 4e players have this sense of entitlement as well, and/or SOME 4e players have a sense of betrayal towards WotC for effectively cancelling the edition that they liked and paid for. It certainly doesn't help matters when the non-4e players might not even become 5e players when all is said and done.
Conclusion: Perhaps some of the attacks are just frustration, (mis?)directed at a group of people (non-4e players) who're being given the world (5e ) with (R&D) dollars the 4e players spent. Somewhat like taxpayers (4e players) lashing out at people on welfare (non-4e players), even though the purpose of the welfare system (5e) is to get those people back to being taxpayers (giving WotC money)...maybe I should have called this the convoluted conclusion...
WotC is taking a big risk here, and while I applaud them for their efforts, I'm just not sure 5e is the best way to get non-4e players spending money on D&D again, especially if they lose the 4e players and their money in the process.
And yes, I know that there are non-4e players who have spent a lot of money on 4e products as well. They're crazy, but they're out there .
Snofox you are right on. Perhaps now maybe alot of people that had their favored play style researched, developed, and supported in 2008 will understand why there was such a bad reaction to it.
I actually started buying 4e products once next was announced. I figured if they were making the game I want, or at least would probably want, I might as well start supporting them again. Even if I am sceptical.
It is not unique to feel betrayed when D&D had a new edition. I saw plenty of this when 3E came out and was part of it. I played 2E for years after 3 and 3.5E came out, but finally switched to 3.5E about two years before 4E came out. I bought almost all the books for 3.5E. Then 4E came out and I was back at it and did not want to change editions again. The difference this time is I did not like 4E or much of anything they did, so I have never switched from 3.5E. I suspect there were other people that felt the same way between Basic, 1E, and 2E, but those were similar enough for me not to have this problem.
The main thing to take from this is this feeling of betrayal and resistance to a complete system change is not new, so welcome to the club 4E fans. The real question is whether DDN will be good enough to make a large percentage of current D&D gamers, of any edition, switch editions AND bring in new gamers.
I am still on the fence about DDN. It looks pretty good at low levels, but I have a hard time seeing this scale well for higher levels. Also, the game as I have seen it does not make me want to change from playing 3.5E and spend more money on the new edition books. Maybe the later play tests will change my mind on this.
I will most likely buy the DDN player's handbook and make a final determination from that. If the edition is good enough, I may start buying more of it in a few years, after enough additional books are out to see the vision for the game.
Once he's hit level 20, a fighter has killed hundreds of monsters, found thousands of GP in gems, watched the party rogue disarm dozens of traps, and wrestled with demigods. And yet, he is no better than a 1st level character at identifying monster weakness, distinguishing quartz from diamond, spotting simple pit traps, or swimming.
Is it really so hard to put skills into those things if you want them?
Once he's hit level 20, a fighter has killed hundreds of monsters, found thousands of GP in gems, watched the party rogue disarm dozens of traps, and wrestled with demigods. And yet, he is no better than a 1st level character at identifying monster weakness, distinguishing quartz from diamond, spotting simple pit traps, or swimming.
Is it really so hard to put skills into those things if you want them?
BUT BUT BUT... DON'T YOU SEE, FIGHTERS ARE WOEFULLY UNDERPOWERED IN SKILLS, AND NONE OF THEM EVER HAVE HIGH INTELLIGENCE SCORES, AND CROSS-CLASS SKILLS SUCK TO TRY TO ADVANCE IN, AND EVEN IF THEY DID THE ROGUE WOULD OUTSHINE THEM SO ITS POINTLESS AND AND AND.... /sarc
Hey, just trying to take the responses you're likely to get to their logical conclusion.
It is not unique to feel betrayed when D&D had a new edition. I saw plenty of this when 3E came out and was part of it. I played 2E for years after 3 and 3.5E came out, but finally switched to 3.5E about two years before 4E came out. I bought almost all the books for 3.5E. Then 4E came out and I was back at it and did not want to change editions again. The difference this time is I did not like 4E or much of anything they did, so I have never switched from 3.5E. I suspect there were other people that felt the same way between Basic, 1E, and 2E, but those were similar enough for me not to have this problem.
The main thing to take from this is this feeling of betrayal and resistance to a complete system change is not new, so welcome to the club 4E fans. The real question is whether DDN will be good enough to make a large percentage of current D&D gamers, of any edition, switch editions AND bring in new gamers.
Just deserts perhaps?
I know how I felt when I posted in these forums after playing 4e for the first time.
I am still on the fence about DDN. It looks pretty good at low levels, but I have a hard time seeing this scale well for higher levels. Also, the game as I have seen it does not make me want to change from playing 3.5E and spend more money on the new edition books. Maybe the later play tests will change my mind on this.
I will most likely buy the DDN player's handbook and make a final determination from that. If the edition is good enough, I may start buying more of it in a few years, after enough additional books are out to see the vision for the game.
I agree, but if it fails to work for my style of play I'm gone for good.
) with (R&D) dollars the 4e players spent. Somewhat like taxpayers (4e players) lashing out at people on welfare (non-4e players), even though the purpose of the welfare system (5e) is to get those people back to being taxpayers (giving WotC money)...maybe I should have called this the convoluted conclusion... 
