First thoughts on D&D 4th edition

[Flyerfan1991]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

I think the attempt to emulate an MMORPG is a mistake. Why play a knock-off MMORPG at the table when you can play a real one on-line? They would probably be wiser in concentrating their effort on things where MMORPGs don't shine, such as character interaction and role-playing. But I also think SJ is right when he says anyone who enters the RPG business is making horsewhips - sure, they may be very good horsewhips, but the automobile is making its entrance...

Then maybe the person who develops the MMORPG with a good amount of real roleplaying will have made the Holy Grail of computerized design.

-Mike L.

[Pmandrekar]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

I think the attempt to emulate an MMORPG is a mistake. Why play a knock-off MMORPG at the table when you can play a real one on-line? They would probably be wiser in concentrating their effort on things where MMORPGs don't shine, such as character interaction and role-playing. But I also think SJ is right when he says anyone who enters the RPG business is making horsewhips - sure, they may be very good horsewhips, but the automobile is making its entrance...

QFT.

Years and Years ago, I spent part of a sweaty Saturday afternoon, playing for hours and doing all of the turn by turn decision-making involved in playing the original Star Fleet Battles.

10 years later, I was doing the same thing, essentially, but with the ease of clicking and moving sliders around to shift power between shields, and weapons became available in accord with the rules, as the computer worked out the timing.

There were so many of the accounting decisions taken over that I could pretty much command an Enterprise Class warship in Starfleet Command III in real time.

My argument to my gaming group, the last time someone proposed playing D&D 3.0 to run a Dungeon Crawl, where you do nothing but kill your way through hordes of monsters, while teamed up with friends was:

"Uh, why don't we all just log in to Neverwinter Nights for the PC? Let the computer figure out what all we're allowed to carry and to handle leveling up?"

Most of my RPG Campaign concepts are not something that someone has a computer game to do yet.
-P.

[Pmandrekar]

Originally Posted by Flyerfan1991

Then maybe the person who develops the MMORPG with a good amount of real roleplaying will have made the Holy Grail of computerized design.

-Mike L.

I don't think that will happen. There's a lot more craft, and interest (to me) of the *Human* interaction, the face to face emulation of different characters that one can encounter than a computer can *ever* be programmed to do, not for a long time, anyhow.

The very format of sitting behind the computer to do the same thing is contrary to one of the things I get by not being behind the computer.

-P.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Flyerfan1991

Then maybe the person who develops the MMORPG with a good amount of real roleplaying will have made the Holy Grail of computerized design.

-Mike L.

He'll need a superb AI as well...

[Flyerfan1991]

Originally Posted by Pmandrekar

I don't think that will happen. There's a lot more craft, and interest (to me) of the *Human* interaction, the face to face emulation of different characters that one can encounter than a computer can *ever* be programmed to do, not for a long time, anyhow.

The very format of sitting behind the computer to do the same thing is contrary to one of the things I get by not being behind the computer.

-P.

Of course, I didn't think that a WoW would do what it does about 10-15 years ago, or that movie CGI would be anywhere nearly as good as it is now, either.

Although I think that it won't end up exactly like what I envision, I'd rather not be on the side of betting against that.

--Mike L.

[Jonathan Willis]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

I think the attempt to emulate an MMORPG is a mistake. Why play a knock-off MMORPG at the table when you can play a real one on-line?

I've seen people make this utterly silly statement many times. The answer is simple - even with these changes (which I agree make it more like a MMORPG) a PnP game still offers a lot which a MMORPG doesn't. It will continue to do so for the forseeable future.

A big one is variation of content. The first time you level a character on WoW is far and away the best. You can only be amazed by discovering things once, so second and subsequent characters lose out on a lot. Endgame is even worse; new instances come around once, maybe twice a year, so you'll do the same dungeon over, and over, and over. Or farm the same monsters, over, and over, and over. D&D avoids all that. The GM designs the world. They design the dungeon. You can have that first time levelling experience for every character you play, new dungeons and worlds to explore all the time.

Another advantage is a changing world. Sure 4e is not set up for simulationism, but characters can permanently alter the world around them. If they kill the bandit king or rescue the princess those events become part of the campaign's history, unlike the eternal statis of a MMORPG where everything has to stay the same so future players can do the same quest.

And of course as Pmandrekar mentioned there is the physical setup of it - actually getting together with friends. Online chat and teamspeak programs are great, but they still can't totally replace actually sitting around joking together. D&D 4e still has this every bit as much as GURPS or any other RPG.

[ed_209a]

I'll just add another data point here...

I played D&D4 at a gamesday/release event/mini-con that my local gaming club held. On the whole, I liked it, but I'm not sure it's D&D anymore.

I played games in all the previous editions back to the red & blue boxed sets. They all felt like evolutions of the same game. Mechanics changed, sure, but it still felt like D&D.

Through a lot of different things, D&D4 feels like WOTC made a new fantasy game system that just reminds me a lot of D&D.

I still like it though. I think it will do well.

[Stormcrow]

People keep talking about how "this D&D was designed to be more fun!" Essentially what they're saying is that D&D now has its fun programmed into it, so that pushing on the various buttons the game provides will jolt fun into you, instead of having to come up with it yourself.

D&D used to be a game that provided you with a framework in which you had fun, not a system that sent fun into your brain through electrodes. Note that I include the "third edition" in the list of games that try to program your fun for you.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

People keep talking about how "this D&D was designed to be more fun!" Essentially what they're saying is that D&D now has its fun programmed into it, so that pushing on the various buttons the game provides will jolt fun into you, instead of having to come up with it yourself.

Um, No. Mostly, what they're saying is that a serious effort was made to get rid of the fun-killing aspects of 3e.

[Suriyel]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Um, No. Mostly, what they're saying is that a serious effort was made to get rid of the fun-killing aspects of 3e.

The big disconnect, I would wager, is that the average GURPSer considers fun what the average not-as-crunchy-system fan considers fun-killing.

The un-fun-ness of 3.x drove me to systems like BESM (and Risus is looking promising). While I *REALLY* wanted to hate 4E, it does seem to have taken care of some of the major fun-killers of 3.x and to my chagrin I find myself starting to like it.