Why 4th edition isn't our favorite?

[TheElf]

When we see the brand new Players Handbook we can see many changes, some of them are good, some of them are bad, but our feelings about the 4th edition isn't determined by these individual changes. In fact our oppinions about other games and earlier editions aren't determined by such small details either.

Some would say, there are three approaches at Roleplaying games: Gamist, Narrativist and Simulationist. While that would be true, most of us could argue: For a good game you need a good balance between these approaches and values. And to a certain extent I have to agree.

When we made our policy and agenda here, we were and we are still against too much of gamism. Yes, there are exceptions to that rule in our staff, I would have to think: zergnase is happy with the gamist approach. But one thing wasn't explained: Why I would prefer the other ways?

I think, there are many products and services out here that compete for our time and money. Books, Music, Movies, Sports, Video Games, Board Games, Restaurants, Tea Houses, Clubs, TV and various hobbies. Roleplaying games doesn't only compete with each other, but also compete with other forms of entertainment.

And if we look at gamism: You want to do what is in the rules to solve challenges, you don't need freedom, but you prefer if your game is easy to use. But can you say, roleplaying games will be your prime choice? There are many competitors from Board Games, to CRPGs and MMORPGs, many would prefer to play Munchkin! others would prefer to play Diablo or World of Warcraft. From a purely or mostly Gamist point of view both computer games and board games can be excellent choices.

In fact building your armies for Warhammer, or playing a tactical miniatures game is more balanced, challenging and requires less preparation, and we could point to computer games as well. What is good in Gamism is strong in these games.

Before 3rd edition was released the designers said they want the simple dungeons of the old edition, yes, they wanted gamism. While some smaller changes to the system helped other approaches the goal was to move towards gamism. And it is often difficult to judge individual changes fairly.

If I would seek narrativism, I would seek a lot of good old point and click adventure games, or would look for similar interactive DVDs, and of course I would have many other good choices. And any "continue the story" type games would be just as good, same with acting. Ohh, and I could go to a cinema.

The moment I look for simulationist approach, and I would also seek freedom with it I would find that ANY computer game, or board game is severely limited, and in this area Roleplaying Games are realy strong.

One of the first major system to ignore this was Storyteller system by White Wolf, which was mostly focused on narrativism, had some gamism, and even less simulationism, it wasn't my favorite game for this. I often said: I have to work extra to overlook the limitations of the system, and often I feel ignoring it would be better.

As it ignores equiment, as the character creation is desined from a gamist perspective, and it is hard to make a life like character based on a story, and stay somewhere close to the rules.

When D&D 3 was released and they announced they want to promote 1st edition feel, simple dungeons, simple predesigned adventures and challenges, it was an instant turn off for me. When I seen community limits and other not so important rules it was equally negative, but the most negative part was related to character creation.

You design builds, and make the optimal, to have a good chance against the challanges built to be "fair" for adventurers of similar levels. Such character building is pure gamism, and with the gamist goal, with he gamist view on character creation, I felt it isn't that great, and looked for places where it can be bad.

Multiclassing changes? The old way was successor of racial classes, and when you interpreted it in a simulationist way, you could explain it: An elf spends more time learning things before their "suggested starting age" and they aren't stupid or slow learners, maybe their schools are teaching a more versatile set of skills. And the same could continue in the most cases. In D&D 3 it vanished. And we got gamist builds instead. And not only that: We got "instant learning" of classes, which looked like gamism as well.

Even if no more level limits and other changes helped the system, it was enough for me to dislike the system. Ok, it IS useable with reasonable effort, but it is a step in a wrong direction.

Not because I don't like it, or because I don't like such gamist approach at all. Not because it can be called more gamist than 2nd edition. As I said minor details, feelings can be argued, and I have to admit: It fixed some old problems, and how you see it depends a lot on what would you want from it?

Early Planescape setting with its look and feel? Good details about races represented in the rules? Flexibility of Players Option Rules? It wasn't that good. Easy Forgotten Realms adventures? Some Greyhawk games? It could be better.

Deciding about taking up healing abilities or some wand for healing is perfectly valid thing in a tactical game, but when you speak about a priest who follows the God of Healing, having no access to Healing spells would be bad. Having them would mean your characters can be weaker than good builds, weaker than others, the adventures designed for "well built" characters would be probelamatic for you. It was realy bad for me. But it was realy good for some people.

But as I said: with gamist approach it tried to copy values of computer games, board games, collectible card and miniature games. We can point to some products from the miniatures game, to the need of buying more and more "content" for better builds ONLY. They were a good source of money for Wizards, and offered good values for people who wanted gamism. And there are many people who prefer gamism.

Enough to be a trend setter, even if some games converted back to their old system, it had attracted good amount of existing players, and made a lot of companies follow the example. And when Shadowrun 4th edition was released, "streamlining" was a word that made me a bit unhappy. When I seen the game, I seen what happened.

They fixed a lot of "problems", but the game lost a lot of freedom, and became a gamist paradise. Up to 3rd edition it was good for simulationist, even if we had to accept a few flaws in how matrix worked, we got used to it and it worked without a problem. But we could run games on metaplanes, we could run gang wars, we could run detective games, we could treat the game as a place where the PCs are living beings in a living world.

Adding cataclysm to change the world and provide grounds for a new balance isn't good. Why?

Because the new crash didn't make old matrix fixed, the limitations of it was still part of the history, and still part of the setting. It just replaced it, to make the system more modern. With the changes we lost a good amount of continuity.

If we would say, the new matrix is result of new interfaces and SOTA noone would say anything bad. But with the changes, new limits, simplicity, gamist values, etc. everything that once defined Shadowrun vanished.

With gamism promoted this way there was only one bad thing: if you want gamism video games, board games, etc. are better. And if you say they are better and try to copy their values, good amount of people will try them instead of trying RPGs. You see the problem? It can win good majority of players and make sure you will have a big market share, but it would destroy the market for roleplaying games.

We got to a point where video games competed and other sources of fun and entertainment competed against RPGs and they won most of the battles. Even for hard core fans. If Diablo and WoW wasn't good enough, GTA: San Andreas was. It was good for story, good for immersion, and it offered more of gamism, narrativism and simulationism than most modern RPGs.

I knew that RPGs are losing popularity, and you seen it, and you could guess the reasons: it was a lost battle against the video games market. We could point to many reasons, like people not reading that much anymore. But we forgot, that Harry Potter series changed the trend a few years ago, and it doesn't help. We could say Video Games are evolved and point to the records set by GTA IV.

But the most important thing is: We lost because the publishers were unable to communicate why RPGs are better.

If we accept what some publishers think, and say they aren't better, then I see no reason to play, or buy any RPG products, and I don't see a reason that would make RPG players to play.

And with gamism and narrativism there are better options. So our chances are at simulationism, freedom, imagination, and it can be communicated if you do it well.

But some would say: People bought the gamist values when the marketing department of Hasbro promoted them, so they like that way, noone would like simulationism.

There are three problems with that:

• A good marketing department can promote these values as well
• They haven't tried yet
• And there is proof to suggest otherwise

At first, computer games copied roleplaying games where simulationism was strong. But that is just a historic example, some weak proof. But if we try to understand why GTA series is better than similar games, we can see the values it has. And some of them are tied with simulationist approach.

No background music but radio, placing minigames where you can find games in the game, dating in an action game, odd mix of challenges instead of a straight focus on what a target group prefers to do, etc... All comes pretty to simulationism.

And GTA fans speak about these values and the same fans tend to say: if I have to buy a box (an XBOX 360 system) with it, that means GTA is more expensive than usual, but it is still the best choice and worths every cent of the price. And with that most fans would point to those simulationist values.

And I think GTA 4 isn't an old story. Its success cannot be questioned, and if we compare it to Driver or other series, we would see the differences suggest that GTA series has a more or less simulationist approach, and people gladly choosen this series, even if its graphics wasn't superior.

And with an RPG we can make simulationism better. We can make setting design better. And this is an area where RPGs could excel. And I haveto say: These values are still popular, even if Hasbro invested a lot of money in campaigns that tried to make gamers forget about them.

At 3rd edition I said, it is bad, but not bad enough to make majority of people notice the problems and can have some success, but even an inch more in that direction can risk players "waking up" and crying bloody murder after noticing which direction the game is going. Maybe they will think 3rd edition was different, maybe they will understand that 3rd edition moved in the same direction, it might depend on the individual. But moving more towards gamism can result in disaster.

4th edition moved miles towards gamism.

If you prefer CRPGs over RPGs you can see it as an improvement, but you should still just start your favorite CPRGs instead. But you can like 4th edition better than other RPGs.

If you prefer gamism there are better options than 4th edition or roleplaying games, so we can't expect new players, it is "doomed" in this sense.

And this is why 4th edition is so bad, and this is why I point back to the 3rd edition when I speak about it.

[tauknight]

Nice article. Id like to point out a few things:

1) Warhammer isnt balanced, only the preparation phase is challenging, and preparation can take way longer than making a character in DND4e(assuming you want a good army, and even DMing if you're into hack and slash games since its so easy now [which is an improvement for gamists])

2) RPGs are becoming less popular because the average IQ is dropping on a yearly basis and promoted stereotypes on roleplayers :|. People prefer MMORPG's over good roleplaying games because 1) flashy graphics 2) huge advertising power.

[TheElf]

I think MMORPGs have other advantages as well.
And I think in a strategy game, everyone starts equal, how well he will perform is determined by his choices, and maybe by the amount of money he can spend on the game.

[tauknight]

Not really Elfy. Not even in Chess. In chess, you need to play many many games before it is truley balanced between two similar skilled players.

[TheElf]

If the results of game is determined mostly by skills it is balanced.

[tauknight]

Warhammer fantasy isnt balanced however. Certain races are stronger than others. Gamesworkshop are not good at balancing their games.

[TheElf]

Choosing a race, considering your options is part of the game, choosing a weaker race in a strategy game can be a mistake, or it can be a compromise.

Game balance in an RPG is different because you don't choose character concepts because they are "stronger".

[tauknight]

Every class in an RPG should be more or less good at something, be viable, and have a role within the party.

DND3.5 failed at this miserably -

1) Forced to have int 18 rogues (or 16 int humans) so he can use neccesary skills, overwise he is unneccesary.
2) Cleric > Fighter in melee and > most archer type builds at ranged.
3) Druid > Most of party at everything, depending on the number of books used.
4) Wizard had too many broken spells (instant death spells, polymorph etc)
5) Figher levels useless past level 4, and debatably level 2, and didnt have a proper role in a party (barbarian was nearly always better, for grinding enemies with high damage). Now 4E fighter has a more distinct purpose (close area denial, defender).


So yes, in terms of balance and potential gameplay options (once 4E has more books), 4E is > 3.5e. If you're looking for a good ROLEplaying (as opposed to a ROLLplaying game) D&D isnt really an option in my opinion.

And in Warhammer, being forced to pick only a handful of possible armies out of the many available, or only a few cheese army lists just to win makes a game competitively bad, if its a quality strategy game you're looking for.

[TheElf]

As you see it in my blog, it can be interesting to make the classes different in "complexity". If core classes are easy to use een for new players and DMs, and later classes can add more complexity and depth to the game and the core system is designed to work with it. This is how you can make more useful classes without increasing the party size, etc.

[tauknight]

Thread should be renamed "Why 4th edition isnt my favourite." Or maybe something less pessimistic...

"our" would assume mutual agreement, which there is not yet.