/tg/ - Traditional Games

I'm bias because I really started gaming with D&D 4th edition. It was the first system I really ran and played a lot. I think while it has its flaws, its a great introductory RPG for normies and I had a lot of fun with it.

Fan of the Nentir Vale, not a fan of 4E, here. The setting was actually pretty brutal and old school as fuck. For all the flack I gave it early on, I reread it and came to like it. It's a real shame that the gazetteer was canned. Though, some folks on the Piazza D&D forums have slowly been making one of their own. Of course, it looks like it's stalling out and updates just aren't there. Fingers crossed though, because they'll probably do a better job than Wizards would have.

>>382192

>normies

That aside: I disagree on it being a good introduction. It's far too rules-heavy in my opinion for that. Normalfags don't want to read through a rulebook as thick as the 4E PHB. The best luck I've had is with systems that can be boiled down to essential 20 pages of text for players, at the absolute best. Also, while it doesn't necessarily need to, 4E is a game that encourages combat as the basis of advancement, rather than aspects such as exploration or treasure collection.

Having said that, it's a system that accomplishes what it does well enough. It's better than 3E/PF or 5E, that's for damn sure - and undeniably much better than 5E. I can't say I find Nentir Vale particularly inspired, but I suppose it's not the worst thing in the world.

Good setting, meh system.

all D&D editions are pretty shit ruleswise if we’re being honest.

>>382157

I blame D&D 4th for opening the way to shit design, welcoming people to the idea of impotent DM and raising a generation of idiots who ask simple and obvious questions on RPG forums without consulting Google or (a heresy!) the rulebook first.

As such, I think D&D 4th deserves all the hate and disgust.

>>382834

Your line is:

>I blame D&D 4th for opening the way to shit design

The statement:

>Opening the way

Implies that 4E was in some manner a beginning point for:

>shit design

When in reality 3.5, which is one earlier system, is even more poorly designed. Note that it is the only other shit design for a system, but that it is such an obvious example that it immediately discredits your entire point.

>>382852

So? There were plenty of bad ideas and choices in any given RPG. Not one prior to D&D 4th managed to open the proverbial "Pandora's box".

>>382857

> I don't want for D&D 4th to be treated as shit, even though it totally deserves it

This train has already left the station, Anon.

>>382854

>Not one prior to D&D 4th managed to open the proverbial "Pandora's box".

Yes, yes it did. RE: 3E

3E is an absolute dogshit system that did far more harm to the RPG industry than 4E ever did, and is directly responsible for all of the terrible ideas that we're still seeing in 5E. Except unlike 4E, which at least serves a purpose as a skirmishing game, the only thing 3E can be said to "do well" is build creation, which is the most autistic and cancerous thing to ever be produced for games. It's only marginally less awful than 5E, and that's for the simple reason that 5E doesn't do anything well.

>>382865

> Yes, yes it did. RE: 3E

> The lies people tell themselves to justify their shit choice of the game.

Of course, Anon, of course...

>>382859

>I don't want 6th edition to be shit because shithawks cant get over an edition war that they won

>>382943

>However, 4e's emphasis on combat

While in practice it became an emphasis on combat I really think that's a symptom rather than the disease itself which was Wizards trying to respond to two of the most enduring (if not most common) complaints about 3.X which were class imbalances and trap options in character progression. The way they designed the class powers and resource management approach to combat was actually a clever way of targeting those specific issues, people can say it's video-gamey all day long but if your design goal is to create balanced play for all play styles in as many situations as possible then what 4e did was probably the most elegant way to do it.

Of course "balance" is a lie, the classes are supposed to compliment each-other not compete with each-other, this was the entire point of the class system, the fighting-man is the guy who is best at fighting, if you want to be good at fighting play a fighting-man, the magic user casts the magic, the cleric blesses and turns undead (though they could get a little gonzo in 2e and started to look like a 3e caster if you knew what you were doing), the thief looks for traps and moves stealthily and climbs over walls and breaks into buildings,

4e is not a bad rpg, it's got a lot of neat ideas and it took full advantage of the mechanics that it introduced and it solved the problem people kept asking wizards to solve.What needed to have been done was for wizards to realize 3.X and the D20 system over all was a mistake and the path forward was in going backwards. Their failure to do this is exactly why the OSR has been so successful because that's the real solution to the 3.X riddle, Cut your losses and try again from square one.

>>382908

Second. Centering the game around the d20 does nothing but make the game a swingfest of random results, with basically no way to consistently do the things you're supposed to be good at without munchkining at every possible opportunity. This is why just about every other RPG on the planet uses some form of bell curve.

>>382946

You're right. Through their desire to create an equilibrium amongst the classes WotC created a mostly balanced system where each class got to focus on its role while offering some unique abilities to differentiate itself from other classes in the same role (warlords enabling vs clerics blasting). While many people glancing at 4e often balk at is the sameness of the powers format, its crudeness solves many of the interclass balance issues 3.5 had while still offering plenty of options for customization and party strategy.

4e does have the roles compliment each other and certain classes synergize further (warlord with fighters/rogues/barbarians), but the role differention often stopped at the end of combat. My biggest knock against 4e has always been the lack of utility/creativity character have out of combat; an experienced group can overcome this, but a group of newbies will often end up constrained, especially if the DM is new too.

>>382943

>Not sure what I should suggest instead at this point

Feng Shui if you want rules-light, Ironclaw if you can stand the aesthetic.

>>382953

The Paragon Path/Epic Destiny system, which was cripplingly bad until PH2 released, didn't help either. Your fighter could either be a weeaboo, a bad barbarian, or a bad warlord. Oh, did you want him to have a spiritual awakening and be a ranger-like dude? Sorry, that isn't in the rules.

Your point about crudeness is what breaks it for me (I played it in high school so I have some experience). Everything was crude to compensate for the characters being crude in combat: enemies were crude, monster templates were crude - hell, even skill checks outside of combat became mini combat encounters where the focus was on rolling dice instead of having a conversation in character.

The roll-for-everything cancer didn't start here, since 3.x had a fetishistic obsession with dice, but it was certainly enabled and codified. There's nothing I hate more than asking someone at the table a question and getting

>"uh, i roll for diplomacy to make you less mad"

as an answer.

NENTIRFAGS GET OUT!! AND TAKE YOUR TRASH BIRD GODDESS WITH YOU!!

>>382961

GETOUTGETOUTGETOUT!!!!!!! KELEMVOR > PIGEONSLUT!!!!!

>>382906

>>383006

>I don't care about what D&D is going to be in the future.

Same, honesty. Would have been better for the whole hobby if the game died off with 4e.

>>383009

I'd ask what the fuck is that, but I'm not sure I want to know.

>>383009

Even ignoring the poz and the way in which hipster subhumans have used the hobby as a vector to spread their cancer, D&D is a relic at this point. It's a ramshackle jalopy that's being pushed along by reputation alone. Some of its ideas and design decision may be worth saving, but it's about time that we just scrap the damned thing and stop letting lazy faggots ride the coattails of a pop culture phenomenon that ended decades ago.

>>383014

> It's old, therefore it has to go.

No.

> it's popular because of a reputation

You may bring a horse to a water, but you can't force him to drink. Unless he is thirsty, the water is good and there's nothing better to drink.

> We

There's no "we".

>>383015

It's old and the mechanics are clunky and lead to more shitty murderhobo players and rules lawyering, min-maxing faggots. It's popular because it has brand recognition and a place within the minds of most people who are connected with mass media. The fact that everyone who wants to start playing tabletop RPGs thinks of D&D isn't because of its present quality. It's because they've heard of it before.

>There's no "we".

I'll agree with you there. You can fuck right off back to cuckchan where you belong.

>>383022

> one would hope that they sat around all day playtesting their game so they could refine its systems, but I believe that hasn't been the case since the 80's or 90's, right?

Pretty much. I have the feeling people are releasing a separate RPG each time they want to tell some specific story, or play a specific scenario, rather than write an actual scenario for a system/setting already released.

>>383024

> It's old and the mechanics are clunky and lead to more shitty murderhobo players and rules lawyering, min-maxing faggots.

Boo-hoo, cry me a river.

> You can fuck right off back to cuckchan where you belong.

Ah, a new guy attempting to fit in, then. I knew the scent was familiar.

>>383009

>>383008

D&D hasn't been surpassed since the 70s. You can condense the entire rule-set of OD&D into a few pages, and then staple a page or two of your preferred house-rules on it, and have a system that accomplishes anything the newer systems do better than they do. You can trim it to something lighter in rules, or you can keep tacking things on. You can get B/X if you just want a complete game out of the box. AD&D books are all useful additions to pick and choose from, along with the assorted zines and other content.

The problem nowadays is standardization, and the assumption the average GM is too stupid to figure out how to run a game. Which is unfortunately the case - the 20 year olds of today are more inept than the 10 year olds of yesteryear. People nowadays just like to bitch about things missing because they lack the creativity to fill in that void.

>>383028

Oh look, it's the faggot who claims to be an oldfag, but can't seem to go a day without being an obnoxious retard.

>>383031

>There's no possibility for you to say or react in a way I didn't already see and dealt with.

And despite all that experience, you still fail on every attempt to convince anyone to see things you way.

>>383024

> It's old and the mechanics are clunky

What, are you bad at math or something? Can't remember simple formulas? Maybe role playing games aren't for you.

> lead to more shitty murderhobo players

It's a game about fighting monsters and bandits in jungles and ruins to steal their treasures. Do you even read fantasy fiction? That's what it's always been about from Edgar Rice Burroughs to Tolkien to Poul Anderson. Kill the bad people, take their stuff/earn the reward and love the beautiful women. It's the Ur-Story and it's good.

> and rules lawyering, min-maxing faggots.

It's a game, learn the rules and learn how to exploit them in order to play the game better. Do you hate baseball because the empire calls strikes or football because the referee calls interceptions?

> It's popular because it has brand recognition and a place within the minds of most people who are connected with mass media.

It's popular because before 3.X it did it's job extremely well and had an earned reputation for being a solid fantasy role playing system on top of having the prestige of pioneering the entire industry. You talk about brand loyalty as if it's a bad thing.

I bet a queer like you likes to play burning wheel.

>>383051

>What, are you bad at math or something?

Since 3.5, the current gaggle of faggots who keep trying to reinvent D&D and dumb it down in the process have been strictly trying to mimic some 'feel' that 3.5 had while trying to casualize it. The current incarnation of the system is an abomination of legacy mechanics that have lost all meaning. 4e was an especially bad instance of this mentality.

>Do you even read fantasy fiction? That's what it's always been about from Edgar Rice Burroughs to Tolkien to Poul Anderson.

Do you? Because the examples you listed do not feature heroes and protags who act the way the average D&D character does. The lean out from following classic fantasy fiction and copying of modern vidya is exactly why the murderhobo style still exists today.

>It's a game, learn the rules and learn how to exploit them in order to play the game better.

There's a difference between system mastery and rules lawyering. One is knowing the game well enough to make it do what you need it to do, the other is being an autistic shit who argues with the GM for an hour because they found a build online that says they can throw 36 katanas a round a make infinite daggers for infinite gold.

>It's popular because before 3.X it did it's job extremely well

Exactly. Before 3.5 it was a different and better system. What they are putting out now is the bastardized, kiddy friendly franken-system which is still banking on the good will built up by the previous editions. Exactly what was meant when it was said that current D&D is "riding the coattails of a pop culture phenomenon that ended decades ago"

>You talk about brand loyalty as if it's a bad thing.

Blind loyalty is stupidity. It's preordering games on hype and empty promises and buying books without even looking for a sample of the mechanics and rules. Being loyal to D&D and WotC at this point is the dumbest fucking thing you could do these days. They bank on idiots buying into their brand more than the quality of their product.

>>383061

4e is meh in comparison to the raw tactical prowess you can unleash in PTU. You try limiting players when they've got an answer to every situation literally in their back pocket and can steal monsters you throw at them. I am consistently tilting encounters in my favor just to challenge them and they always hit me with something new, it's great.

sage for off-topic

>>383051

>It's a game, learn the rules and learn how to exploit them in order to play the game better.

This is fucking terrible logic and the clear sign of a WotC-era player, or at best a 2E era player. Rules are meant to serve as guidelines for the game. Player skill is one thing, because it determines such things as, are you smart enough to solve this puzzle, or answer this riddle, or to outsmart the GM in one way or another. System mastery is pure autism and a symptom of the 'character building' in WotC-era D&D, and to a lesser degree in certain point-buy systems before it. It's exactly the reason why people who don't roll for stats are cancer. Furthermore, the simple fact is, every older guidebook made a point that the rules were a guideline for the GM to arbitrate off of. Arneson played everything by ear as it came up, making up rules or even taking a suggestion if he didn't have any better way to solve something. System mastery is nearly the opposite of actual player skill at the table - the former requires you to align your points in exactly the proper way, and know the full set of the rules, while the latter requires you to know nothing about the rules, and can be accomplished by a player with a Level 1 character just as effectively as Level 100.

>You talk about brand loyalty as if it's a bad thing.

It is. It's a fucking awful thing. Especially in the case where a brand name changes hands between so many people. You can't call the original Star Wars and nuSW the same thing, even if the brand is the same, because everyone involved is different. Most older role-playing systems are the same.

>>383058

I actually agree with the majority of the post. The only thing worth discussing is:

> Because the examples you listed do not feature heroes and protags who act the way the average D&D character does.

They do. It's just that a narrator of a story adds a drama layer to his characters' actions, while players don't give a flying fuck about adding some context over "kill, burn, pillage, rape". Also, observe that murderhobos are usually fucking efficient. They don't leave potential enemies alive, they steal whatever isn't bolted down to a floor, etc.

The problem is that we're playing RPGs, and the existence of that drama layer is expected.

>>383070

> You try limiting players when they've got an answer to every situation literally in their back pocket

Not familiar with the game. Can players die of thirst, find themselves separated in a place they can't leave, or have their accessories/stuff stolen?

>>383089

Heck, too drunk to write properly.

I mean that mastering a system and working within the mindset of any given ruleset might be often a rewarding experience on its own.

The best example of this would be in a FPS game, where players found out that launching a rocket under one's feet reduces his healt, but also makes him "jump" to a height otherwise unreachable.

>>383089

>>383091

>System Mastery

That's not system mastery, that's player skill. You can put a bag of holding and portable hole in any system and they would still maintain the same functions. You could give any two characters the same set-up, and have them accomplish it just as well, with only the player being the determining factor. System mastery is mechanical, Ivory tower design. It's "oh fuck, Toughness is a shit feat, so I better not take that".

Physics exploits like wavedashing or rocket jumping, those are potentially better examples. But they're also aspects of entirely different genres. Role-playing games are meant to simulate something - their physics engine is the same as ours, adjusted for a fantasy setting. Peasant rail-guns are funny, but they're also the symptom of a game with a shit-tier ability to emulate these things.

>Brand Loyalty

Brand loyalty is purchasing a product solely because of the name. If you continue to give money to an inferior product at the expense of the market, then that is always a bad thing. If you're only giving money to it when it is the best in the market, that's not brand loyalty, that's being a wise consumer.