D&D 4th edition rules and what we can learn from them...

[Harvey Walters]

Originally Posted by soltakss

My old RQ group used to play very high-level D&D and they had great fun with it, including spending 5 game-years researching the "Turn Stone into Blamanche" and turning an opponent's castle into a wobbling block of blamanche.

Sure, but I bet it still couldn't play tennis.

Michael Hoxie

[Centaur66]

I wonder when 4.5 D&D is due out...?!

[Ars Mysteriorum]

Originally Posted by Centaur66

I wonder when 4.5 D&D is due out...?!

Let's look at the trend. There's been a dramatic shortening in the sequence of releases...

I say three days after release. No, six. And rest on the seventh day. We'll make it biblical.

[frogspawner]

Originally Posted by Enpeze

A third example is that each class has a defined role on the board. There are tanks, strikers, AoE and Leaders (healers) like in my beloved WoW MMorpg. Btw. I play WoW also not as a roleplaying game.

Originally Posted by Nightshade

Given the number of posts I see by people trying for niche protection in other games, however, I fail to see how a defined role in combat makes roleplaying impossible.

Of course you can role-play in any game, the question is just how well a given game supports RP.

But from the "roles" being defined for combat in 4E (tanks, strikers, etc), I fear WotC are trying to "move the goalposts" on roleplaying - they are trying to redefine what RP is. They seem to be saying: 'if your character performs their allotted function in combat then you are playing your role' - but that's not what I call role-playing.

Originally Posted by Ars Mysteriorum

I will state simply, *I* don't consider D&D as an RPG as it's designed. To me, it seems to work less under the assumption that players will be acting out the role and playing the persona. Just my opinion.

Yes, it's the persona that matters for real RP. It seems to me 4E is eroding that, or even trying to supplant it entirely. (So they can continue to claim "RPG" status for their new, personality-free D&D).

A related worry I have is the "Two year jump in story time line" that is mentioned for 4E. Does that mean there'll be no conversion of existing 3.x characters? If that's true, then goodbye to the character-continuity requirement of RP! Also, are they seeking to dictate what happens in every D&D GM's personal setting? Or are they asserting there is only one world (or a few) for D&D play - and it/they are the property of WotC?

[kustenjaeger]

Greetings

Originally Posted by frogspawner

Yes, it's the persona that matters for real RP. It seems to me 4E is eroding that, or even trying to supplant it entirely. (So they can continue to claim "RPG" status for their new, personality-free D&D).

A related worry I have is the "Two year jump in story time line" that is mentioned for 4E. Does that mean there'll be no conversion of existing 3.x characters? If that's true, then goodbye to the character-continuity requirement of RP! Also, are they seeking to dictate what happens in every D&D GM's personal setting? Or are they asserting there is only one world (or a few) for D&D play - and it/they are the property of WotC?

Wizards are entitled to claim what they want - the chance of 'supplanting entirely' the persona led element across the industry is, I believe, non-existent given the large number of other products out there.

I think the two-year jump in story line is probably for Forgotten Realms. Wizards can do what they like with their own setting.

Given we are all aiming to support BRP, I am not sure what this thread is actually adding - decrying a Wizards product that has not been released is a little pointless in the context of this forum isn't it?

Regards

Edward

[deleriad]

Originally Posted by kustenjaeger

Given we are all aiming to support BRP, I am not sure what this thread is actually adding - decrying a Wizards product that has not been released is a little pointless in the context of this forum isn't it?

Exactly. Sadly, there are those out there who feel an emotional need to trash D&D which tends to undermine threads like these. Personally, I like looking at other games and seeing what new ideas they come up with and then, if I like them, seeing how to adapt them for my purposes. What's interesting to me about D&D4e has less to do with the mechanics - which haven't changed that much - but the implementation. As far as I can tell, you could implement BRP in exactly the same way that they have chosen to implement D&D. In fact, RQ4:AiG, did exactly that by writing the combat mechanics explicitly from the perspective of figures on a grid.

The other thing that strikes me is that the game rules are explicitly written so that every character can be involved in every action. Combat is the clearest example. Now, to simplify, a mage can attack with a blast spell that does about the same damage as a bow and as frequently as a person with a bow can do. Relatedly, it takes more than one hit to take down a beginning character because they can keep bouncing back up for a while.

Clearly, the new edition has been written in the context of MMORPGs and mini games and draws on what has made them popular. Although I've no interest in playing D&D of any edition, there's a lot of insights to steal from it.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by frogspawner

Of course you can role-play in any game, the question is just how well a given game supports RP.

But from the "roles" being defined for combat in 4E (tanks, strikers, etc), I fear WotC are trying to "move the goalposts" on roleplaying - they are trying to redefine what RP is. They seem to be saying: 'if your character performs their allotted function in combat then you are playing your role' - but that's not what I call role-playing.

In a game that is heavily focused on combat, it _is_ what I'd call niche protection however. Given that D&D is far from alone in a heavy influence on combat, I just can't see how that makes it not-a-roleplaying-game unless "roleplaying" is only considered present if combat isn't the main focus of the game--which would include some other genres in general. There's only ever been one class that wasn't primarily about its combat role, but that's just about as true of most superhero games too.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by deleriad

Exactly. Sadly, there are those out there who feel an emotional need to trash D&D which tends to undermine threads like these.

I'm really less bothered by that than the need by some to apparently stake out the turf of "roleplaying game" to only those run in the style they happen to like. I'm pretty damn sure that a lot of BRP games aren't in practice being run as roleplaying games by these people's standards, and I'm not sure there's anything about their design that makes them better about this than even 4e from listening to their objections; in some cases "better game balanced" sounds like it translates into "not a roleplaying game".

[Dredj]

I stopped at my FLGS today, and asked why there wasn't much in the way of rpgs on the shelves, anymore. The employee there said they pretty much just sell D&D style products and there's really not much demand for anything else. So I asked him about D&D number 4. He heard that it was designed more for convention play, as they found that people at conventions like to go from table to table and play their miniatures--without having to do too much role playing. But he admitted that it was hearsay, and he hadn't actually looked at the rules yet. However, he heard that people who are into D&D (and got to play some of it) LOVE the mechanics of the new edition.

This is a bit off topic, but i realized just how much the artwork of an rpg can make people really want to buy it. There was a bunch of books for "Castles & Crusades" and the artwork was really good. I almost bought a supplement for it because of the maps and the art. The employee at the store said he heard the gameplay of Castles & Crusades was ok, but when it comes to fantasy role playing, D&D is pretty much the only game that people really flock to.

Basically, BRP will probably never be seen on the shelves of my FLGS, because more and more people are going for miniatures games

[Harshax]

On the other hand . . .

you have Games+ in Mount Prospect, IL.
While they have a significant shelf space of D&D stuff, they still stock tons of other games. RQ Monster Coliseum still commanded rack space there not just a few months ago. They even have HarnMaster supplements.

It all depends on the storekeeper