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Old 06-02-2008, 08:36 AM   #17
Flyerfan1991
 
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Join Date: May 2007
Location: Cincinnati, OH USA
Default Re: First thoughts on D&D 4th edition

Quote:
Originally Posted by carllarson
It could be looked at thusly:

They've stripped out anything except the main interaction rules, by their lights. Anything/everything else is left to the DM and the challenge rules. Playing your role is now up to you, and not any game mechanic, leaving the idea of roll-playing to be made up by the gamers, not the game.

Which is perhaps the hardest part of designing the game, what to cover outside combat. And with all the debate about how to do that, I can see leaving it out as streamlining.

In summary, they took what they seem to do well, and focused on that, and left anything else up to the gamers.
The main issue I have is that this drew more from what gamers are familiar with (MMRPGs and CCGs) and less from the source material. With the D&D brand name, you expect certain things to be in place, and 4.0 is a significant break from the old system. (Think of it this way: you could at least convert characters from 2.0 to 3.X, but good luck trying to go from 3.X to 4.0.) To that end, they might as well have gone ahead and called it something other than D&D 4.0.

--Mike L.
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