Attitude Towards 4e

[Caelic]

I think "It's not D&D" is a meaningless statement, because there's never been an objectively default aesthetic to D&D.  I started just before AD&D came out, and even back then, you had some campaigns that were very gritty and low-powered, and others that involved laser guns, power armor, and obscenely high levels of power.  One of the reasons AD&D was released was to try to "standardize" the game.  It may have done that to some extent as far as the rules go, but there was still so much variance in the feel of individual campaigns that "feels like D&D" doesn't have much weight.

A better summation would be "It's not my D&D."  Or "It's not the D&D I want to play."  Either of those is an entirely valid statement based on personal aesthetics.

[munin]

What I don't understand about the alignment system is why they did things halfway.  Retaining "Lawful Good" and "Chaotic Evil," but none of the rest of the structure that produced them, doesn't seem to make much sense when compared to a simple "Good/Unaligned/Evil" structure.

I think it's for compatibility with the Star Wars d20 products--light side always struck me as LG and dark side as CEish. 

More seriously, I suppose it's because they wanted to ensure that they could still have a reason to have the Abyss War going on, and had to counterbalance it on the Good side as well.

[Caelic]

What I don't understand about the alignment system is why they did things halfway.  Retaining "Lawful Good" and "Chaotic Evil," but none of the rest of the structure that produced them, doesn't seem to make much sense when compared to a simple "Good/Unaligned/Evil" structure.

I think it's for compatibility with the Star Wars d20 products--light side always struck me as LG and dark side as CEish. 

More seriously, I suppose it's because they wanted to ensure that they could still have a reason to have the Abyss War going on, and had to counterbalance it on the Good side as well.

I think they could have done that without the artifact of "lawful" and "chaotic," though.  Perhaps a spectrum of alignments thus: Angelic-Good-Unaligned-Evil-Demonic

[GawainBS]

That would imply that LG (Angelic) is more "Good", which I find absurd. (Same goes for CE & LE). I'm sure that are other people who liked the double-axis and the details/nuances it provided.

[PhoenixInferno]

I like the dungeon crawling, combat focused action-adventure game.  I can see that some people don't - but I no longer care about the "culture war" that's going on during the transition.  So I can say that 4E is 4ME.

[Caelic]

That would imply that LG (Angelic) is more "Good", which I find absurd. (Same goes for CE & LE). I'm sure that are other people who liked the double-axis and the details/nuances it provided.

Sure.  What doesn't make sense, to me, is to keep part of the axis and not the rest.   If you're going to scrap the law/chaos axis, scrap the law/chaos axis; don't do things halfway.

[MittenNinja]

That would imply that LG (Angelic) is more "Good", which I find absurd. (Same goes for CE & LE). I'm sure that are other people who liked the double-axis and the details/nuances it provided.

You can still use the old 9 part alignment system if you wanted, there's really nothing stopping you.

[highbulp]

I think the designers decided that "Lawful Good" and "Chaotic Evil" were key components of the game and so had to remain in some form *gag* The problem is, they screwed it up.

What they have now is
- Lawful Good
- Good
- Unaligned
- Evil
- Chaotic Evil

But what they mean is
- Good (lawful)
- Good (chaotic)
- Unaligned
- Evil (lawful)
- Evil (chaotic)

"Law" and "Chaos" are just different flavorings of Good and Evil. If you read the descriptions, "Good" is pretty much CG, while "Lawful Good" is LG. If they had just made lawful and chaotic subdivisions of Good and Evil (instead of trying to make Lawful Good and Good two different things), it would have been alright.

Though really, moving to a simple Good/Unaligned/Evil set of descriptions would have been best, IMO.

[GawainBS]

And there's nothing stopping me from keep on using 3.5, which is what I will do.
But this thread was about the attitude towards 4E, no?

[Alastar]

caelic, you reach my point exactly.

The thing is, is it necessarly bad that it looks like an MMO? No, of course not, i've played WoW, dark age of camelot, LOTRO, and am currently in age of conan.  I'm an mmo player.  The thing is, if i want to play an mmo, i will use my computer, and iw ill use my headset to speak to other players.

When i want to immerse myself in a rich and adaptable game like D&D, surrounded by close friends and in a humourous atmosphere, i will play D&D 3.5, not 4e.

Like someone said, 4E isnt the D&D I want to play.

[munin]

I think the designers decided that "Lawful Good" and "Chaotic Evil" were key components of the game and so had to remain in some form *gag* The problem is, they screwed it up.

What they have now is
- Lawful Good
- Good
- Unaligned
- Evil
- Chaotic Evil

But what they mean is
- Good (lawful)
- Good (chaotic)
- Unaligned
- Evil (lawful)
- Evil (chaotic)

"Law" and "Chaos" are just different flavorings of Good and Evil. If you read the descriptions, "Good" is pretty much CG, while "Lawful Good" is LG. If they had just made lawful and chaotic subdivisions of Good and Evil (instead of trying to make Lawful Good and Good two different things), it would have been alright.

Though really, moving to a simple Good/Unaligned/Evil set of descriptions would have been best, IMO.

Simplifying it down to simply Good-vs-Evil is all well and good, I suppose, but there are a lot of plots out there that take advantage of the conflict between law and chaos--conflicts that can't really be ported over to a straight good/evil system.

I'd really rather they'd left the 9 alignments in place.  It allowed for the sort of "strange bedfellows" plots that I really like.

[Straw_Man]

....

Honestly, I'm baffled by how anyone could deny that WotC made a conscious effort to emulate aspects of MMORPGs.  I'm also baffled as to why it's so important for some people to insist that they're nothing alike. 

Given that WotC has done everything but put a press release on their boards saying, "Yes, we wanted the game to be more like MMORPGs in order to make it more familiar to potential new players," I wonder if even that would convince some of the "They're nothing alike!" folks.

I, too, have been playing WoW for years--and online RPGs in general since 1989.  My experience tells me the opposite of what yours apparently tells you; to me, the parallels are glaringly evident, and the reasons for including them are both obvious and logical.

I once mentioned not enjoying the MMORPG like flavour of the game. Purely personal choice, and I made that clear, but evidently that still came across as a crack or snide remark. For some reason equating 4E and WoW is like pissing on your ancestors grave *shrugs*.

Comes down to the "MMORPG's kill roleplaying" meme that they don't want to tar 4E would be my guess. Again why it matters baffles me as well. If your cup of tean is a D&D game thats tactical and mostly about the action, why should it matter if its modeled after WoW?

[ShaggyShaggs]

I don't think 4E being like or unlike WoW is the problem a lot of people have.  I suspect what's causing a lot of static is that "WoW" is being used as the buzzword of choice in the setup for the latest war of the false dichotomy, sort of like the terms "roleplayer" and "rollplayer". *shudder*

I think some of the strong negative reactions to any claims about 4E that mention WoW are actually reactions to the buzzword and the pointless shitstorm behind it, rather than any real similarities and differences between the games.

[brislove]

I once mentioned not enjoying the MMORPG like flavour of the game. Purely personal choice, and I made that clear, but evidently that still came across as a crack or snide remark. For some reason equating 4E and WoW is like pissing on your ancestors grave *shrugs*.

Comes down to the "MMORPG's kill roleplaying" meme that they don't want to tar 4E would be my guess. Again why it matters baffles me as well. If your cup of tea is a D&D game thats tactical and mostly about the action, why should it matter if its modeled after WoW?

The problem with "it being modeled after wow" is partially that it's fallacious. Some things are WoW like, but primarily 4e is closer to 3e then it is to wow. Honestly I noticed a lot of D&D aspects in wow and other MMOs. Why is it that if wow takes an Idea, uses it, makes it hugely popular, then WOTC says "nice job" and prints the same shit that was there, just more clearly. Somehow that D&D idea has become a WOW idea, because wow made it famous. This is not always the case, but often times it is, and that is frustrating, for me at least, to read.

The other problem comes from forum goers main hate rally against 4e is that it's too video-gamy. They project this in a terrible light, similar to the COer aren't role players (ie stormwind fallacy) arguments. It's a red herring, it isn't based in fact, and people that have read the forums pick it up and run with it without even READING anything for themselves. I know a couple people that say "from what I have heard it's just like WoW" that refuse to even acknowledge that possibility that it's D&D.

Ultimately I don't like being told that something I like is terrible by people who won't even bother to read it.

[Ieniemienie]

Ultimately I don't like being told that something I like is terrible by people who won't even bother to read it.

I've read it and think it is terrible. Happy?

[EntropicShadow]

Ultimately I don't like being told that something I like is terrible by people who won't even bother to read it.

I've read it and think it is terrible. Happy?

While I can't speak for brislove, I pretty much agree with him on this account. 

And yes, I am happy that you think its terrible.  Because you read it and made an informed decision.  Just because that decision is different from mine doesn't make it bad. 

[Ieniemienie]

Ultimately I don't like being told that something I like is terrible by people who won't even bother to read it.

I've read it and think it is terrible. Happy?

While I can't speak for brislove, I pretty much agree with him on this account. 

And yes, I am happy that you think its terrible.  Because you read it and made an informed decision.  Just because that decision is different from mine doesn't make it bad. 

Good

Just because I don't like it doesnt mean I won't play it... other people in my group really like it, so I'll play along for a while and see if it changes my mind

[Alastar]

I agree with ieniemienie on this ( i agree with a lot of people it seems)

The fact that i do not like 4th ed does not in any way mean that i will not play it.

Some of my friends like it, and I've been asked to DM a campaign, so i'm doing just that.

[Ieniemienie]

I agree with ieniemienie on this ( i agree with a lot of people it seems)

The fact that i do not like 4th ed does not in any way mean that i will not play it.

Some of my friends like it, and I've been asked to DM a campaign, so i'm doing just that.

Beware: if you continue to not like it, just quit. there is no reason to sacrifice your own joy for that of others

[Sunic_Flames]

I've read it. It induced this feeling:

This one:

And this one:

With that said if you don't like it you aren't being forced to tolerate it. Doing something you don't enjoy and aren't forced to do simply breeds resentment, and I assume you don't want to end up resenting these people?