D&D 4E, Split from The Great CGL Rumors and Speculation Thread Options

[Cheops]

D&D 4E works just fine out of combat as long as someone isn't kicking and screaming about how the game is all about combat and is willfully sabotaging the out of combat gameplay. You just think up what your character could do in a situation and the GM has enough guidelines to tell you what to roll to see how it works out. The limit is really your imagination.

Just because some people play D&D 1E, 2E, 3E and even 4E for combat, does not mean D&D is about combat. In SHADOWRUN it is called playing a pink mowhawk game. Should we run around screaming about how shadowrun is all about combat because some people run pink mowhawk games? Of course not, that would be silly. It is equally silly to make those accusations against D&D.


Now, D&D 4E does things differently than Shadowrun, in that they made the decision that having players taking turns dominating the spotlight doesn't make a good team based game. Combat for example is about the party working as a team to be successful instead of one or two players with absurdly over the top combat monsters destroying everything without using any sort of teamwork.

In reality, the D&D4E 'team effort' model respects the idea of 'you've got to respect a mundane with a gun' better than SR4 does. In D&D4E your characters that are "bad" at combat (i.e. a controller or a leader), won't put out as much damage or absorb as much damage as a striker or defender, but they can do well enough to be dangerous, or they can lend support to the combat characters. So you can have your leader face that is "bad" at combat run around and hide and shout out warnings, and fire off shots with your "dude its a gun, you point it that way and pull the trigger" training (which in the SR setting is supposed to be enough to be dangerous), while tricking attackers into chasing you or tricking them into falling back, or confusing them, or hacking their communications and smart links, or any number of "I'm not a gun fighter" activities that you can do during combat.

Roleplaying games are group activities, why do people want to set a group of people down at a table and then not cooperate as a group? It seems very strange.

QFT.

You can make Clerics in D&D that have no offensive combat ability whatsoever. They either heal all combat or else provide bonuses to other team mates. They still have a function and a value in combat that is equal to everyone else -- without them people would do less damage and die more easily. But they are not good at being the one to actually hit and kill the enemy.

As far as absolutely refusing to participate in combat that it is a matter for tete and his table to discuss. If combat has 0 value for him I fail to see how a balanced combat rules system hurts him in the slightest (-1*0 = 0). For those of us who like both D&D4 is wonderful. So essentially for tete he is no worse off with D&D4 -- he can still shine out of combat and can avoid combat just like he always did in SR4. For those of us who like a balanced combat where everyone can participate without it being instant death D&D4 is better. So, no one loses out in the equation and some people gain.

Being good at combat in D&D4 in NO WAY limits your ability to make a good character in non-combat aspects -- you just use your character options on non-combat stuff instead of combat stuff like the Sam. It won't be your focus but you will still be competent at combat.

[Dwight]

D&D 4E works just fine out of combat as long as someone isn't kicking and screaming about how the game is all about combat and is willfully sabotaging the out of combat gameplay. You just think up what your character could do in a situation and the GM has enough guidelines to tell you what to roll to see how it works out. The limit is really your imagination.

The limit is crappy support. Someone above mentioned the poor differentiation between characters. Further that skill test for extended conflict resolution is half-baked. The designer has acknowledge that. It's an interesting germ of an idea, a work in progress. Maybe for 5e? The difference when you use a system that very actively supports what you mention, and goes even further, is stunning. Plus, and SR 4e is short here too which was a large reason for me going beyond it, supporting verbal conflicts to the level of combat conflicts. Then those matrix/electronic ones. I can't really speak about SR 4e outside the core as I haven't really delved into Unwired but the core is half-baked...which is sad because it had potential.

...or they can lend support to the combat characters...

That boating trip mentioned above wasn't a picnic. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) D&D really only manages it because it defines every character in a 'combat' centric manner. Every character is a 'combat character'.

...the D&D4E 'team effort' model respects the idea of 'you've got to respect a mundane with a gun' better than SR4 does....

I think D&D does emphasize team more directly in overt combat actions (I mentioned that earlier as a positive it had going) and Initiative in SR has always been problematic with allowing contributions from around the table. SR 4e was certainly an improvement. Slim, with no Init/IP boosts could choose to fire at key points and he was a decent attention sink. Still, team action tactics, really tactics at all, isn't SR's strong point. It was very much a top design goal I aimed at *cough* when designing the CQC combat sub-system.

But the latter part of your statement entirely misses, in a number of ways. "Mook with a shotgun" is about danger, about how much larger the force multiplier for a firearm is compared to the force multipler of melee weapons. How that person can directly kill you. See Omar's fate in The Wire for an example. Back in d20 days there was a bunch of messing around with critical hits and stuff to try jigger something together but in the end it required what was effectively a rewrite of the system front to back so that the product wasn't even d20 anymore.

Further the use of space is all wrong. Starting with firearms being largely vector weapons.

[Dwight]

You can make Clerics in D&D that have no offensive combat ability whatsoever. They either heal all combat or else provide bonuses to other team mates. They still have a function and a value in combat that is equal to everyone else -- without them people would do less damage and die more easily. But they are not good at being the one to actually hit and kill the enemy.

Combat character doesn't equate to "offensive combat ability".

[Particle_Beam]

Slim had no implants so he did not need to worry about reported quality of implants.

Also, James Bond improvises all the time with things/vehicles other than his own r33t Q supplied goodies. Maybe you haven't seen anything other than trailers?

Or maybe you can't even understand that James Bond doesn't roll anything... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

I tire of your circular logic. Conflict must be resolved by combat, so combat is the central skill. Combat is the central skill so conflict must be resolved with it. :/

Conflict situations where people are shooting at you is resolved by combat. That is so obvious, I speculate that you're being dense on purpose.

The scene in "The Terminator 2" where they break into Cyberdyne Systems Corporation and the resulting shootout with the police is what Shadowrun is all about. Not James "I'm working solo because that's what agent flicks are all about" Bond.

And of course, James Bond is a beast in combat with high combat skills. 2070, in Shadowrun, his equivalents walk with Deltaware-cyberware around and can shoot stun bolts with his mind if they go the extra mile. 1950 to 2010, the only implants his enemies have are metalic teeth and cardial pacemakers if at all. Ooooh, how terrifying.

[Dwight]

Or maybe you can't even understand that James Bond doesn't roll anything... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

I'm talking about how it looked. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) The excuse the writers use. Further, to address your missing the point down post, not the whole format of the movie as having one central character (though Bond does share the screen with teammates occasionally they are a lot like he use to be with women, going through them like a hay fever sufferer goes through kleenex).

Conflict situations where people are shooting at you is resolved by combat. That is so obvious, I speculate that you're being dense on purpose.

Bigger picture, how did the situation where shooting arose happen? The GM just skipped to there?

The scene in "The Terminator 2" where they break into Cyberdyne Systems Corporation and the resulting shootout with the police is what Shadowrun is all about. Not James "I'm working solo because that's what agent flicks are all about" Bond.

One part of the break-in sequence is what you are focusing on. *facepalm* The combat monster vs combat monster part.

Round-round you go.

[nspace]

One part of the break-in sequence is what you are focusing on. *facepalm* The combat monster vs combat monster part.

Round-round you go.

Acting like Terminator 2 has one combat scene, and that none of the other characters participated in the combats is absurd. I'm finding your accusations of circular logic to be fallacious.

Taking the terminator thing further, the Sarah Conner Chronicles were very 'shadowrun', and they got into combat all the time, and they all participated in it despite basically having their own cyberzombie on the team.

[Dwight]

Acting like Terminator 2 has one combat scene, and that none of the other characters participated in the combats is absurd.

Which is why I am NOT doing that. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif) You, however, were cherry-picking...yet in the process showed off the very uneven level of combat skills across that "team".

[Bull]

I'll tangent this thread slightly... I have always felt, and still feel, that D&D doesn't need to rely on skills and rules outside of combat.

RPGs have always been little more than a game of Let's Pretend. And as kids, we certainly didn't need a bunch of rules to tell us how to pretend. And that's all roleplaying is. Pretending you're something or someone else.

Honestly, I think 3.X made D&D players lazy in many ways. THe game became about the math, and how to put together a character in the best or most interesting way, about what you were going to do 10 levels from now, what prestige class you were taking, what magic items you needed to best be whatever. It was never about who you were, it was about what you were.

And this make Baby Jesus cry.

It used to be, if you wanted to be a "Prestige Class", you simply were that prestige class. Except, you know, we just called them characters. I had a 1/8 Hill Giant Barbarian in 2nd edition D&D, playing just with the core 2nd ed books. If you look back at 2nd ed, there was no Barbarian in the main book (Ok, I'll be honest, I'm only about 90% sure there wasn't. It's beside the point here). There were also no rules for being "Giant Blooded" or anything like that. I was a straight up fighter. I rolled old school for the character, 2d6, assign em in order. I had an 18/37 strength and a 7 Intelligence. So I came up with a backstory that involved his grandparents, a potion of giant growth, and a love afair between a man and a demi-attractive hill giantess. His name became Brawnar, often called Brawnar the Dense. Sometimes called Brawnar of the Hill People.

Brawnar was an amateur taxidermist and an amateur armorer. He would often attempt to make armor out of monster trophies (He had a helmet fashioned from a minotaur helmet and a shield made from the scale of a white dragon). He was illiterate, but the groups Swashbuckler (A by the book rogue who liked to leap around in combat and swing around by any rope or chandelier that happened to be nearby) taught him to "reed and rite", poorly. He had a great affinity for horses, and when he cooked he could even burn water.

D&D was always great because you were only limited by your imagination. We didn't need a sense motive skill, or a diplomacy skill, or a bluff skill. We could talk to the NPCs in character and do our best to roleplay what we were attempting to do. Any competent GM would work with us, accepting our efforts for what they were, and deciding whether we succeeded or failed based on our merits and our effort to succeed. Sometimes, if that wasn't enough, you could role a die. A d20 role would suffice, and you could roll and simply add an attribute modifier vs a TN set by the GM, based on difficulty, how we usually played our characters, and how well the GM thought we were doing based on our roleplay, or you could roll against your attribute, attempting to roll under it, again with modifiers based on your actions.

I take it back. D20 didn't just foster lazy players. It fostered lazy GMs too.

I'm not saying 2nd ed was all sunshine and roses. Overall, 3rd edition was a vast improvement in the rules set, simplifying things like saves and armor class, and for the core classes, balancing out the power levels a bit better. But third went way too far, IMO, and added way more crunch than was really necessary, and I think it was detrimental to the game.

The rules themselves should be focused on combat, and that's where 4th got it right, more or less. YOu ened rules to arbitrate combat situations. That was always the weakest point of "Lets Pretend". It was easy enough to decide that you and your cousin were going to be Han and Chewie, and that your brother and other cousin were going to be Boba Fett adna STormtrooper. THe problem always came when you both pulled out the sticks you were pretending were guns, shot each other, and then had the tradition "I shot you first! No, I shot YOU first!" arguement.

The rest of the rules? Not that necessary. Any half decent GM should be able to come up with a ruling on the fly and be at least semi-consistant. YOu use yur stats as a general guidelines. And roleplay out the rest.

I even think that applies to Shadowrun a little bit. The very best gaming sessions I've ever had, both as a player and GM? THey involved little to no dice-rolling. Because dice weren't necessary.

Bull

[Cheops]

<Bull fully understanding what is good about old school D&D and how 4th is more like that>

This is exactly what we are talking about. Combat is the one and only place where you can and should have universal rules for an RPG. It is the place where characters are the most likely to die so having a good set of mechanics to simulate this danger and to ensure that the Table knows how it should go down is essential.

Here's a mind blower -- SR4 is no better and no worse than D&D4 at resolving out of combat activities. It can't be. Or else you'd end up with the most messed up, 2000 page rulebook you've ever seen (FATAL anyone?). There are essentially an infinite number of possibilities outside of combat (limited to imagination) and no game system has ever gotten close to a true mechanic for resolving ALL of them. The simplicity of the D&D4 mechanics and its focus on combat allows each individual Table to decide how it wants to make believe -- well written, exciting, and balanced combat make sure that every table has fun in the deadliest portion of the game.

So I guess the question comes down to how much rules cruch do you want interfering with your game of cops and robbers -- D&D4 is more rules light (options heavy) whereas SR4 is rules heavy (options heavy)?

[Cheops]

Just wanted to comment on something Bull said in the Rumors thread. Specifically it is about lack of resources.

The awesome thing about the Encounter/Daily set-up is that it is very easy to modify to be any length you want. In fact, Silent7Seven Games has done just that with a product called Rugged Adventures. Now they made theirs pretty defined with a Short Rest now taking 6 hours (instead of 5 minutes) and an Extended Rest taking 2 days (instead of 6 hours). For those who aren't D&D4 literate, this means it takes a full night's rest to recover your Encounter powers and a full weekend of rest to recover your Dailies and Healing surges. It makes for a slower paced, more resource management system.

Okay, let take the changability of this system and instead of placing hard time limits on it let's instead place plot limits on it.

The team has just finished a run and is going into down time. The group gets an Extended Rest before going into downtime but is only given a Short Rest at the end of it because it is 2 weeks and they aren't sure when they'll get work. The Street Sam's player loves combat and for shits and giggles gets into a bar fight thereby using 2 of his healing surges. Everyone else plays it more moderate and uses their various feats to build/repair stuff using a modified Ritual system (I was using it for everything like Forgery, Vehicle Modifications, Spirit Summoning, Ritual Spellcasting, etc -- Martial Practices kind of gives a guideline for this). So when the call goes through from the Johnson they have all their powers but the Street Sam is out 2 healing surges going in.

The story is this: the team is hired to extract a kid from an MCT facility. They get the kid back to their safehouse where they soon discover that he has weird abilities to control machines with his mind. They foil a couple of his escape attempts while waiting for the heat to die down. The moral dilemma is that he has been experimented on mercilessly (first aid reveals that his head has been opened multiple times) and that he says if the team doesn't let him go he will only suffer more at the hands of new scientists. Let's say, for the sake of argument that the team has some moral fiber and decides to help the kid out. They meet the Johnson and tell him they won't go through with it sparking a fire fight. They then have to dodge the Johnson's strike forces while trying to get the kid to a safe haven in SSC lands. The story ends with them placing the kid in protective custody in Bellingham.

Breakdown is this: accepting the job, extraction, escaping the heat, escape attempts by the kid, convincing the runners, refusal/fire fight, chase scene, setting up the safe haven, crossing the border, ambush in the forest, arrival in Bellingham.

Armed with that knowledge of the scenes the GM can now decide how tough he wants it to be in resource management. Let's say he wants the post refusal part to be difficult resource management but not killer. So he makes all the combats from the fire fight to Bellingham be at level or level - 1 (normal or easy not tough). But he doesn't let them have any extended rests and only a short rest after crossing the border. He also decides to call the extraction a dungeon with the kid as the treasure parcel at the end. Thus no extended rests while doing the extraction. So, using the pacing and naming of a play, here's the scenes of our 1 act Shadowrun:

1) Accepting the job, extraction (extended rest) -- remember the Street Sam is down 2 healing surges until after the extraction now
2) Escaping the heat (extended rest) -- can make this one a really tough encounter since they get an extended rest afterwards
3) Escape attempts (extended rest)
4) Convincing the runners (extended rest)
5) refusal/fire fight, chase scene, setting up the safe haven, crossing the border (short rest), ambush in the forest, arrival in Bellingham (Extended rest, likely downtime)

I can guarantee you that the 5th scene will be really hard for the team. Of course, unless the GM is being a total dick he should forewarn the players about how this will all go down: "Okay guys, we are starting an extended action scene. You won't get a short rest until you are across the border and no extended rest until you deliver the kid." Street Mage: "Guess I won't try to end this fast by using all my Dailies then." Street Sam: "This is going to hurt..."

[Cheops]

Sorry, heavy index finger (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Dwight]

I'll tangent this thread slightly... I have always felt, and still feel, that D&D doesn't need to rely on skills and rules outside of combat.

As long as you understand the deepest conflicts, the crux of the resolution, was combat. It is the kill things and take their stuff game.

Honestly, I think 3.X made D&D players lazy in many ways. THe game became about the math, and how to put together a character in the best or most interesting way, about what you were going to do 10 levels from now, what prestige class you were taking, what magic items you needed to best be whatever. It was never about who you were, it was about what you were.

I'm not going to argue that, to be sure I will never sit at a D&D 3e/3.5e table again (yes, never is a long time, and if the zombie of Dave Arneson rose out of the grave and said "hey, want to sit in a 3e game I'm running" I'd still turn him down....and not because he might just snicker-snack on my brains the first time I failed a saving throw). Except D&D 4e still isn't about who you are, it is now how can you synergy with others in combat. Which is interesting, for sure. I like a lot of what 4e has done. But the interludes become cut scenes, relatively speaking, as...

The rules themselves should be focused on combat, and that's where 4th got it right, more or less. YOu ened rules to arbitrate combat situations. That was always the weakest point of "Lets Pretend". It was easy enough to decide that you and your cousin were going to be Han and Chewie, and that your brother and other cousin were going to be Boba Fett adna STormtrooper. THe problem always came when you both pulled out the sticks you were pretending were guns, shot each other, and then had the tradition "I shot you first! No, I shot YOU first!" arguement.

I argue that was just the symptom of unresolved disagreements. It fell down the rungs until combat became the 'solution' and then it failed there too because there was no framework for resolving it in combat, either. Putting lots of rules in for combat but anemic support upstream just re-enforces players behavior to head to combat when you really want something done (or whine/bluster/screw with peoples, primarily the GM's, head).

The rest of the rules? Not that necessary. Any half decent GM should be able to come up with a ruling on the fly and be at least semi-consistant. YOu use yur stats as a general guidelines. And roleplay out the rest.

Ah, the false dichotomy of dice and roleplaying.

I even think that applies to Shadowrun a little bit. The very best gaming sessions I've ever had, both as a player and GM? THey involved little to no dice-rolling. Because dice weren't necessary.

Yet where was the conflict? If I and the other people around the table all agree then we could stay at home and write out our fanfic. You could chalk it up to "art through adversity" I guess. With the dice there as grease you can push harder, farther, deeper. You discover things that you didn't know, nobody at the table knew. I've seen those emotional moments without dice but the most sterling examples, certainly the most consistently delivered, are when roleplay included the dice.** They were the grease between the two forces of nature (AKA players) headed at each other in opposite directions.

Certainly as the GM it is much easier to push hard, to bring a challenge. Otherwise constantly with a "well how would this happen, with no uncertainty?" and "am I being fair here" tying one arm behind my back. Can't bring the A-game heat when you are holding back on the pitches.


** Note: No, I am not talking about D&D 3e or 3.5e. It has rules bulk with little to no support via an extendable framework. I would hazard a guess that the most disappointing, empty feeling, "incorrect" feeling result on a social roll I can remember was a Diplomacy roll made in D&D 3.5e.

[Dwight]

I loath my ISP

[tete]

As far as absolutely refusing to participate in combat that it is a matter for tete and his table to discuss. If combat has 0 value for him I fail to see how a balanced combat rules system hurts him in the slightest (-1*0 = 0). For those of us who like both D&D4 is wonderful. So essentially for tete he is no worse off with D&D4 -- he can still shine out of combat and can avoid combat just like he always did in SR4. For those of us who like a balanced combat where everyone can participate without it being instant death D&D4 is better. So, no one loses out in the equation and some people gain.

Its a conceptual thing, not a play thing. In every edition of D&D even if you pick the wizard your ability to hit goes up with new levels regardless of if you ever have pulled a knife. I know that at level 10 my wizard will be better with a dagger than he was at level 1, even if he has never used a dagger in combat. In contrast with skill systems I either get to spend my points where I want or only on things I use (Call of Cthuhlu for example). If the same thing happend in Shadowrun as D&D then my firearms may go up even though I never have used a gun. This breaks certain concepts, I can still chose never to enter combat but my points were spent for me in a way that has nothing to do with my character. It would be the same as if your Street Samurai suddenly got better after 100 karma with sorcery even though he has never cast a spell. Sure he doesnt have to use that ability but if you concept is a street sam who doesnt trust magic users... your concept was just smashed by the rules.

This is exactly what we are talking about. Combat is the one and only place where you can and should have universal rules for an RPG. It is the place where characters are the most likely to die so having a good set of mechanics to simulate this danger and to ensure that the Table knows how it should go down is essential.

That depends on how focused your game is on combat. Look at something like Vampire where when my social character can beat your combat character by telling him to go for a walk in the sun when you attack me and if you fail your "will save" combat is over and you go for a walk in the sun. I mean that was literally 2 or 3 die rolls and combat was over. Unknown Armies is another great example where you dont want to get into combat because one shot from a gun and its time for a new character. These games tend to spend less time on their combat rules because combat is not what the game is about.

[Cheops]

Its a conceptual thing, not a play thing. In every edition of D&D even if you pick the wizard your ability to hit goes up with new levels regardless of if you ever have pulled a knife. I know that at level 10 my wizard will be better with a dagger than he was at level 1, even if he has never used a dagger in combat. In contrast with skill systems I either get to spend my points where I want or only on things I use (Call of Cthuhlu for example). If the same thing happend in Shadowrun as D&D then my firearms may go up even though I never have used a gun. This breaks certain concepts, I can still chose never to enter combat but my points were spent for me in a way that has nothing to do with my character. It would be the same as if your Street Samurai suddenly got better after 100 karma with sorcery even though he has never cast a spell. Sure he doesnt have to use that ability but if you concept is a street sam who doesnt trust magic users... your concept was just smashed by the rules.



That depends on how focused your game is on combat. Look at something like Vampire where when my social character can beat your combat character by telling him to go for a walk in the sun when you attack me and if you fail your "will save" combat is over and you go for a walk in the sun. I mean that was literally 2 or 3 die rolls and combat was over. Unknown Armies is another great example where you dont want to get into combat because one shot from a gun and its time for a new character. These games tend to spend less time on their combat rules because combat is not what the game is about.

Wow. You haven't ever played D&D4 or else you don't play at a table with much imagination. I've found that lack of imagination is the primary reason why tables latch on to sub-par core mechanics and also why they don't tend to encounter the problems with said faulty core mechanics. You realize you get skills and feats on top of combat ability and you get to pick where you want to put said skills/feats?

[hobgoblin]

i think his main issue is that of the BAB, and how it goes up with class, not with how skill(point) deployment.

btw, CoC's basic system only allows a skill to increased if it gets a good roll during play. So no skill use, no increase.

[Dwight]

i think his main issue is that of the BAB, and how it goes up with class, not with how skill(point) deployment.

Also known by nicknames such as The Rambo Philosopher. Present in varying degrees through out the history of D&D.

[Warlordtheft]

My main issue wioth 4E D&D is that unlike 3.0 and 3.5 is that it seems at the 3000 foot level of combat, everyone does the same thing. One thing the got rid of was mind control spells, IIRC. The other point I'd make is that the system is basically designed for running dungeon delves. Which if that is your thing. go for it. THe minitures rules supports this. It is also of the heoric type (which while fun at times, does lessen the challenge), this means PC death is rare and that mooks are insignificant.

In the end I picked up just a few of the 4E books, even ran a few RPGA events, but ultimately lost interest. Part of that is that I have 2 groups that I play shadow run with, one where I am the sole GM and the other where I am a player. THough we have 4 people that are the same in both groups.

[tete]

Wow. You haven't ever played D&D4 or else you don't play at a table with much imagination. I've found that lack of imagination is the primary reason why tables latch on to sub-par core mechanics and also why they don't tend to encounter the problems with said faulty core mechanics. You realize you get skills and feats on top of combat ability and you get to pick where you want to put said skills/feats?

i think his main issue is that of the BAB, and how it goes up with class, not with how skill(point) deployment.

btw, CoC's basic system only allows a skill to increased if it gets a good roll during play. So no skill use, no increase.

What he said...

My problem with D&D isnt the out of combat stuff, it is with the combat stuff. Its a conceptual thing rather than a rules thing. D&D (any addition) forces you into a combat roll because as you level you automatically get better at combat, you can ignore going into combat but your character sheet still shows the improvement.

I wish I had recordings of my groups "sub par" imagination for you... I think you would be shocked at how little we roll dice and how much improv acting goes on. For instance in our Halloween game we played for 12 hours all in character and we had one die roll as a PC was confronted by a vampire and got off one shot (the one roll) before he died. The rest was all investigation, it was a modern day haunted theater game. I suppose you would say Ars Magica is a sub-par system because has a terrible combat system, but the game isnt about combat its about being a wizard and researching spells so who cares if the combat sucks your never going to use it. Its like adding a combat system to settlers of catan, its never going to come up so why bother.

[edit] I'll admit some systems can be sub-par.I think that as long as you are not throwing in house rules its ok to be sub-par. Why? because the game didnt really need those rules if the situation comes up so rarely that you don't care about sub-par rules. D&D doesn't need to spend 20 pages on how to properly craft a sword because it doesn't come up that often. I could say it has sub-par rules if I want to run a game around crafting or... I could pick a system with more intricate crafting rules. I dont want Shadowrun to become D&D 4e because now I'm being force to take my non-combat style game and use a system designed around combat or choose a system that better fits my style of play. D&D 4e is great at what it does but what it does well is not a game I'm interested in playing. And yes I have played several games of D&D 4, even with some of the guys over at WOTC (Thanks guys it, much like the 3e games you ran for me are always enlightening into the mechanics), and I will say the dynamic combat was really well done and amazing, skill challenges are interesting (need some work on them though) and all it all its a well designed game, its just not for me.

[edit2] Shadowrun 4e already forced a few character types (and I will admit most were more obscure ones) to vanish as playable characters while taking others that were as obscure if not more so and pushing them into almost the norm. I just don't want this slide to continue further because it at some point will force me to only play older edtions and not buy new books and that would be a sad day seeing how I've been playing SR since 1e.

[Grexul]

My groups have always played D&D and SR for different reasons, in D&D regardless of edition it was for the thrill of battle and the new and shiny stuff that could be gained from it, including advancement.
In SR it was for the run, gathering intel, assembling gear and trying to avoid combat so I could collect those Karma points.

Grexul

My screenname is missing an 'x'.

[Kovu Muphasa]

I will keep it simple and only talk about 3 of my players
I love 4eD&D
Player 1: Loathes it and hates getting hit in combat. [They are doing it just to make my last 20+ years of playing worthless and whines and take it personally when he take more than 10 points of damage].
Player 2: Has not played in 15+ years who walked right in and loves it.
Player 3: Who is Apathetic to the System, he just want to Bash Monsters.

The same basic group is part of our SR game.
Player 1: Dislikes SR, but it is the only game in town for him [There is not enough combat for him and we don't loot the bodies for treasure]
Player 2: Has been enjoying it.
Player 3: I bad at SR4 Characters building, but has come up with some good chatacter concepts.


As far as D&D I think player 3 has is right. It is Dungeons and Dragons not Barmaids and Blackmiths. Yes you can play a non-combat campaign, heck 4e makes it possible to make it to 30th level and never get into a fight. But that not the point of the System. You could also run a SR game where you spend 10 minuets getting and planning the mission and the rest of it is firefights.

As a friend of mine puts it.
D&D Adventures are Home Invasion Robbers.
Shadowrunners are professional Jewel Thieves

A D&D version SR4 should play more like Black Hawk Down than The Kingdom.

To the Reverse a SR4 version of D&D should play like Ladyhawk rather than LotR.

[Wesley Street]

It is Dungeons and Dragons not Barmaids and Blackmiths.

*bing!*

Or Potters & Ploughmen. D&D is, has always been, and always will be... a gateway RPG game. No more, no less. Hit the monster, get the loot. Easy. 4E took a simple concept and stripped the BS to permit accessibility. Which was the right move.

"But... but I could do so much more with previous editions!" the nerds doth protest shaking their Tomes of Horror in the air.

"No," I reply. "No you really couldn't. At least, not within the rules as written. Everything you think was great was actually what you accomplished through improvisation and imagination, not RAW. Which is the bloody point."

D&D has always been the RPG equivalent of a chain restaurant. Tastes fine, perfectly filling, but not particularly challenging to the pallet or inspired... though once in awhile something unusual will be introduced that will make you sit up and take notice. D&D has the power of THE BRAND and funds to hire professional illustrators. That is all.

I enjoy 4E. It's fine. But D&D is not the best RPG product ever created nor even the best fantasy product. There are many current and out-of-print products that I could hold up as contenders; games that actually, by RAW, utilize large lists of craft skills extensively, etc. etc.

I played 2nd edition. It was terrible and I felt like I had wasted my time and money. I was brought back into RPGs by a friend who wanted to try 3.5. It wasn't terrible but it wasn't particularly great. D&D 4E isn't great either but it's definitely not terrible.

If you can accept that D&D is and will always be a flawed game with a simple and fun premise, you can begin to enjoy life a lot more.

[Kovu Muphasa]

The other thing to remember:
The System is Unimportant
The System is all Important

That a mean with this is they system is important to how the game feels.

Modern/Cyberpunk
If you want gritty realism like Blackhawk down, d20 modern isn’t going to do it, the PCs will have to many HP and will feel invincible. If you are planning on running the A-Team, it works perfect.
I am currently running a Modern Sci-Fi/Horror Game. I started with Twilight: 2000 than went to SR2. about 3 months in SR3 came out. Then d20 Modern came out and to get “Player #1” involved I went to it. Now I am back to SR4a. It is working good, but for a few small thing like the one players “Horn of Vahalla”.


The same goes with Fantasy
For Lord of the Rings you want something like GURPS or Roll[Rule]-Master.
If you want Hawk the Slayer D&D is the way to go.

Personally I want my Fantasy games to be quick, deadly [for the monsters] and a little over the top and D&D 4e fits that bill perfectly.

[rumanchu]

DISCLAIMER: as I post this, I haven't read any other posts in this thread (I'm moving a reply that I was going to make in another thread here, as this thread is more relevant. I apologize if I repeat anything that anyone has said so far here)

The few games of 4e I've tried have made me want to stab my eye due to the pedantic obsession with movement and rules lawyering. (I know, ironic since I argue about rules all the time.)

One of the things that I like about the way that the rules are set up in D&D4E is that (in theory) there is always a "broad" rule that applies (this, in fact, is the basis of two of the "Three Basic Rules" laid out on p.11 of the PHB)...as opposed to SR4, which lacks such an assumption. There are at least three extremely opinionated (rules) arguments that I have seen in the past few weeks based around the fact that there is only one "rule" that can be cited in SR for something that happens to be an arguably limited scenario. The argument then degenerates to a he said/she said debate over whether the rule cited is the "default" rule.

(As an example -- the printed rules for stacking armor in SR are pretty much limited to the passage on SR4A p.161: "If a character is wearing more than one piece of armor at a time, only the highest value (for either Ballistic or Impact) applies." Now, one point of view is that this rule means that the default rule is that any non-worn armor stacks. Another point of view is that, since the only way that someone can gain Armor in the core rulebook (without using something that explicitly states that it stacks with worn armor) is to wear armor, the default rule is that armor does not stack.)

Of course, one needs only spend the barest of time perusing the official D&D forums to see that they are rife with arguments about rules...which, as you pointed out, tend to be pedantic as hell. D&D4E rules arguments tend to boil down to what is or is not a "specific" rule.

I won't even get into comparing D&D4E movement with SR4...mostly because the movement rules in SR are such a mess (as rules); the SR movement rules are perfectly serviceable as storytelling devices.

Still, I'd just hate to see Earthdawn -- a wonderful fantasy setting first and foremost -- get reduced to grids on a map and worries about which daily or encounter power to use at any given time. Especially since the 4e rules take little, if any, consideration into non-combat activities.

Personally, the more things that a game system requires that I put points into or roll dice for outside of confrontations, the more limited I feel as both a player and a gamemaster. While I certainly don't think that *every* character should be able to write Oscar-worthy films while winning Top Chef, the Pulitzer, and the Nobel Prize for Physics, a player whose character is a former chef shouldn't have to be constrained by die rolls to take a job as a short-order cook to fill the time between runs.

(Or, to go to an example where the game-world fiction failed when game rules were applied: there was no way (using D&D rules) for Bruenor to forge Aegis-Fang until D&D4E was released (and, based on how the character has traditionally been statted out, even then you had to wait for Martial Power 2 to have an entirely "mundane" version of Bruenor that was able to craft a magical hammer. In this case, we're talking about a major character is (arguably) the most influential set of D&D novels that violated the game rules for 20+ years; yes, he only ever crafted the one item, but...someone hung up on the rules wouldn't have let him).

"Never let the facts get in the way of a good argument." -- P.T. Barnum, 1875

[Tanegar]

Personally, the more things that a game system requires that I put points into or roll dice for outside of confrontations, the more limited I feel as both a player and a gamemaster. While I certainly don't think that *every* character should be able to write Oscar-worthy films while winning Top Chef, the Pulitzer, and the Nobel Prize for Physics, a player whose character is a former chef shouldn't have to be constrained by die rolls to take a job as a short-order cook to fill the time between runs.

I feel exactly the opposite. From the time I first started playing D&D4, there was something about the character sheets that made me deeply unhappy, and it took me a little while to figure out what it was: almost every single thing on it pertains to combat. Although, in the specific example you give (a PC who is a former chef taking a job as a short-order cook) I would not require die rolls, and would disapprove of any GM who did, I emphatically do not subscribe to the school of thought which holds that every single interaction other than combat should be handled purely through roleplaying. I believe that clear rules for non-combat activities richen and deepen the game. Roleplaying is certainly good and desirable, but if I, the socially awkward player, am playing a slick-as-oiled-glass con man, I definitely don't want to have to rely on my own (nonexistent) fast-talk abilities to sway an NPC. That's what dice are for.