The Official "4e Critique and Rebuttal" Thread

[shadzar]

The Points of Light preview by Mearls was what got me. The guy explicitly said "making a setting is hard" was the primary motivation for making PoL. I'm being told point-blank that the non-combat part of the game is being written expressly to be lazy, by the people whose job it is to write the damn game.

now now, Mearls is a idiot, we all know it, so lets not make fun of him for it. He wasn't brought into D&D because he was creative, but because he was an aging MMO player. He offer that old-school aged player that likes the new-school technological gaming perspective.

I would place the blame on those who hired him, rather than fault him for his obvious ignorance. He designed the mechanics based on MMO style gaming and that is why the game is a TTMMO. He did his job fairly well if you ask me, even though it fucked everything up in the long run in regards to a TTRPG.

[Windjammer]

[*] The ritual system. Since 4E rituals don't actually do all that much, here's an elegant solution to them. You can either pay the component cost to enact the ritual as a standard action (or whatever) or pay the amount of time to do it for free.

I've been looking at something like this for weeks, and you just nailed it. THANK YOU!

Goes straight into my houserules.

[Username17]

The Points of Light preview by Mearls was what got me. The guy explicitly said "making a setting is hard" was the primary motivation for making PoL. I'm being told point-blank that the non-combat part of the game is being written expressly to be lazy, by the people whose job it is to write the damn game.

Oh, the "making a setting is hard" essay was bad, don't get me wrong. It was lazy and stupid and promised a level of care that was both bogus and sad. But to a big extent it didn't really bother me. 4e D&D wasn't coming out in the absence of a setting - it was coming out in the absence of a new setting. It was supposed to still be D&D, and so supposedly you could still use one of the old settings that had been made in the last forty years. So from my perspective at the time, I looked at that essay and thought that they were going to make a worthless base setting that was every bit as small and underwhelming as Nentir Vale turned out to be. But I didn't care, because I figured that we still had Forgotten Realms and Mystarra if we didn't have our own D&D worlds.

That essay was so bad that I knew I wasn't going to like any setting book they made for the whole edition - and I stand by that assessment. But the "Monsters Only Exist In Combat" essay was the one that told me that the rules weren't going to be good for anything either.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

But I didn't care, because I figured that we still had Forgotten Realms and Mystarra if we didn't have our own D&D worlds.

To be absolutely fair, the Dark Sun 4E book was actually pretty rad. Unlike the Forgotten Realms and Eberron, it actually really needed a campaign setting book though. Not those oversized PHB-sized ones, but a CS book about the size of the player's guide. If they had, you know, introduced this at the beginning of the edition and made it to 4E as what FR was to 3E, I honestly think that they could've gotten a lot of mileage out of it. That ain't happening though, because as soon as it looked like it was about to catch fire they ditched it for their Essentials bullshit.

The introductory adventure sucks ass, but it's a Bruce Cordell module so what do you expect?

[A Man In Black]

That ain't happening though, because as soon as it looked like it was about to catch fire they ditched it for their Essentials bullshit.

Nevermind that they had already fired the author before the book saw print.

[hogarth]

No, you hear stupid shit like 'it's too much WoW!' or 'too much ROLLplay and not enough ROLLplay'. Seriously, go to any EnWorld or rpg.net thread that criticizes 4E. Most of the complainers get their asses handed to them. Not in a 'no criticism in our hugbox' way, but genuinely bad arguments that anyone could pick apart.

I don't think those two comments are bad arguments, per se; they're reasonable arguments expressed in the most inarticulate, stupid way possible. They're trying to encompass all of the "there's nothing outside of combat" and/or "everything outside of combat sucks" arguments in one phrase and failing.

[Doom]

Yeah, I think the asshanding, at least on RPGnet, comes for the asinine and craven moderation.

EnWorld it's probably just boredom. I mean complaining about 4e is pretty old now, the game's been dead since 2010, and nobody even cares enough about Essentials to complain about it (except on the WotC forums, which are pretty quiet, too).

[Username17]

Yeah, I think the asshanding, at least on RPGnet, comes for the asinine and craven moderation.

This is very true. If you make coherent arguments on rpg.net, you will be flamed. Admitting that nWoD or 4e D&D are on the way out is for some reason taken as a great affront to the hugbox. You can get banned for that shit.

As for the specific "This is WoW!" argument, it's basically two things:

• The authors made a set of rules that are built with the underlying assumption that you are playing an MMO. Monsters are written as if they spawned during combats and never even existed the rest of the time, interactions with the world are written with the assumption that you will always get the blue key to open the blue door and never do anything else.
• The authors specifically wrote in a lot of MMO flavor crap for the background, such as it is. The Eladrin are Blood Elves, they decided to try to get people talking about "roles" for their groups, and so on.

Now these are both preference deals. Either one can be answered with "I like WoW, 11 million people can't be wrong, STFU!" That's a valid response. It starts up the next chain of the argument "Why don't you just play WoW, then? I mean, it already exists." vs. the "I like to play in meatspace with actual people" retort.

But 4rries rarely go that route, probably because accepting the premise reduces the discussion to one of preferences where the original poster is therefore correct in not liking 4e (gasp). Instead it then usually falls to the 4rries to make bizarre claims about superficial differences (these are defenders, not tanks) or tone deaf attempts to relate 4e design choices to past editions of D&D to claim that it isn't copying MMOs because D&D was always like that (2E AD&D had 4 basic classes, which is obviously equivalent to the 4 roles even though Barbarians used to be a branch off Fighter).

You can't win an argument of "compare meaningless superficial similarities between games neither of us play" against a 4rry. You can prove them wrong with page citations about individual assertions, but the argument at that point is so esoteric that no number of points of minutiae will make any real difference.

-Username17

-Username17

[Windjammer]

To be absolutely fair, the Dark Sun 4E book was actually pretty rad.

Could you expand on that? I held off buying the two Dark Sun books because I thought the art direction lacked... direction. And I thought the content on the actual world was rather slim compared to all the other "Player's Guide" mechanics they had to accomodate in the Campaign Guide. But these issues aside, what do you think makes the CG and the Creature book good products?

[Koumei]

Wasn't the Dark Sun book a huge insult to fans of Dark Sun though? With metal and rivers and everything else that didn't exist?

-Username17

-Username17

You feel so strongly about this that you DOUBLE-SIGN it.

[A Man In Black]

The Eladrin are Blood Elves

No, they aren't. Stop saying this. It detracts from perfectly reasonable arguments when you include this misinformation.

Wasn't the Dark Sun book a huge insult to fans of Dark Sun though? With metal and rivers and everything else that didn't exist?

That was the shitty Bruce Cordell adventure.

[Psychic Robot]

With metal and rivers and everything else that didn't exist?

That was a generic bad 4e adventure that was repackaged for Dark Sun, if I recall correctly.

No, they aren't. Stop saying this. It detracts from perfectly reasonable arguments when you include this misinformation.

Look. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying that it can be difficult to tell the two apart.

[Previn]

The Eladrin are Blood Elves

No, they aren't. Stop saying this. It detracts from perfectly reasonable arguments when you include this misinformation.

If the shoe fits....

This is hidden behind the subscription stuff, but: http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... d/20090206

The Gnome, the Bad, and the Ugly. Design Excerpt by James Wyatt :

"I have yet to play another gnome in D&D, but there is another gnome in this story. A couple years ago, I created a gnome mage in World of Warcraft...."

"Basically, I was having fun playing up the comical aspects of the gnome race in WoW, and I had a sudden insight into the lasting appeal of the gnome race that had escaped me for so long."

[Sashi]

Eladrin aren't Blood Elves.

Eladrin are double elves.

Elves are magical? Eladrin are magic.

Elves are ethereally beautiful with shining eyes and hair? Eladrin eyes literally fucking glow.

Elves live in the forest, evoking a sense of spirituality and a oneness with the natural world? Eladrin live in the motherfucking Platonic Ideal of the forest.

Seriously. Eladrin are what happens when you're describing your elf and then Trevor comes in and tries to one-up everyone by pulling a "me too, plus a million".

[Krakatoa]

The Eladrin exist because the term 'Eldar' is copyrighted.

[Username17]

Eladrin aren't Blood Elves.

Eladrin are double elves.

Elves are magical? Eladrin are magic.

Elves are ethereally beautiful with shining eyes and hair? Eladrin eyes literally fucking glow.

Elves live in the forest, evoking a sense of spirituality and a oneness with the natural world? Eladrin live in the motherfucking Platonic Ideal of the forest.

Seriously. Eladrin are what happens when you're describing your elf and then Trevor comes in and tries to one-up everyone by pulling a "me too, plus a million".

1. That is already the backstory of the blood elves. They are the branch of elves that refused to give up being extra magic and living in the magical magic magic magic and now they have glowing eyes.

2. The original concept art for the eladrin is even in Blood Elf colors. They weren't even trying to hide the connection when they wrote Races and Classes, and all the designers were babbling about how much World of Warcraft they were playing while they were doing it.

Yes, Eladrin and Blood Elves have various differences. And yes, WoW and 4e D&D are different games. But the Eladrin are fucking Blood Elves.

-Username17

[sake]

Strictly speaking, they're actually Warcraft High Elves, which are even more generic Blood Elves without the demonic heroin addiction, fatalistic society, and high fantasy version of 1984 shit that sometimes actually makes them seem almost interesting when the writers can pull themselves away from making metrosexual jokes.

Frankly Eladrin are pretty damn redundant now anyway, since all the teleport cheese has been nerfed and the normal Elves have an int bonus and all the 'masters of the arcane' fluff crap back.

[A Man In Black]

Look. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying that it can be difficult to tell the two apart.

You have one WOTC image there from 4e. One of the images is a 3e retread which is (IIRC) older than Burning Crusade and another is ugly fanart.

If the shoe fits....

This is hidden behind the subscription stuff, but: http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... d/20090206

The Gnome, the Bad, and the Ugly. Design Excerpt by James Wyatt :

"I have yet to play another gnome in D&D, but there is another gnome in this story. A couple years ago, I created a gnome mage in World of Warcraft...."

"Basically, I was having fun playing up the comical aspects of the gnome race in WoW, and I had a sudden insight into the lasting appeal of the gnome race that had escaped me for so long."

Yes! Fine! Say this!

There are lots of things in 4e which are blatantly ripped off from WOW and it is perfectly reasonable to say this! But don't include bad apples with the good.

es, Eladrin and Blood Elves have various differences. And yes, WoW and 4e D&D are different games. But the Eladrin are fucking Blood Elves.

No, the Eladrin are the same Generic Fantasy High Elves that we've been seeing in RPGs and video games for decades now. They're Extra Magical Elfy Elves from the Magic Dimension and have no pretentions to being anything else. Blood Elves are Blizzard's attempt to make their own Generic Fantasy High Elves less boring (opinions vary on how successful they were), and WOTC didn't use a single one of the various things Blizzard did to un-GFHE their own elves. It's not a ripoff because they don't have a damned thing in common except for generic stuff that predates both by decades or the color red.

You're not ripping off someone's Like Elves, But... if you don't use a single one of the things that comes after But.

Now, if you want to point out blatant ripoffs, there are lots of them laying around even in the racial writeups, like how devas are draenei ripoffs. An otherworldly long-lived alien race with a unique connection to divine magic, a tendency to become corrupted and turn into demons, and purple skin is pretty specific and unusual.

[MGuy]

The Eladrin seem pretty much like a ripoff to me. Didn't DnD already have high elves that didn't look like WoW elves? I would think that if they suddenly decided to make them cosmetically similar to the WoW elves then some ripping off is most assuredly afoot.

[Username17]

The Eladrin seem pretty much like a ripoff to me. Didn't DnD already have high elves that didn't look like WoW elves? I would think that if they suddenly decided to make them cosmetically similar to the WoW elves then some ripping off is most assuredly afoot.

Yes exactly. D&D had High Elves that looked like the elves in Lord of the Rings, and the 4e designers came back from a WoW bender and made a new version of high elves with a different name and backstory whose backstory is more like the Blood Elves and who look a lot more like the Blood Elves.

Of course it's a rip off of WoW.

But this is exactly why "4e is ripping off WoW" is a bad argument to have. Because even in incredibly blatant cases like the Eladrin, you have people claiming it isn't a rip off because it isn't exactly the same. Even though Blizzard could just plain use a bunch of Eladrin pictures in WoW as Blood Elves and vice versa and no one would be able to tell the difference.

-Username17

[Psychic Robot]

I would think that if they suddenly decided to make them cosmetically similar to the WoW elves then some ripping off is most assuredly afoot.

This, this, this. Yes, doublemagicelves have always existed, but the fact that the 4e designers decided to push that angle while creating Eladrin character art virtually indistinguishable from Blood Elves is what makes Eladrin a rip-off of them.

[Krakatoa]

Rip-off is not the right word to use here. The art similarities, while problably intentionally, don't really make up for the fact that High Elves are an old, old trope that dates back at least to Tolkien, maybe furhter. Blizzard tried to do something unique by making theirs evil and addicted and whatever. WOTC is playing the trope straight and hoping the similar art draws crossover players.

[Starmaker]

Am I the only one to be annoyed by speshul sparkly shits having an alternate dimension all to themselves more than by their Blizzardiness? Seriously, that one worldbuilding decision is worse than everything else in 4e taken together. The D&D world *is* magical, outmagicking it without having a design intention other than "creatures live there" is dumb (to say nothing of Unicornfartland's crawling-in-my-skin goffik counterpart).

[sake]

Er... not really. The idea of there being some weird ass forest-y place filled with freaky woodland shit, elves, fairies, and creepy magic midgets is not exactly some brand new concept invented by 4th edition.

[Starmaker]

Sure, but in every implementation popular enough for me to be aware of it these places were either
(1) locations in a single world (here's a village of mundane hobbits where people shovel shit and smoke weed, and there's a village of speshul elves where people dance in moonbeams and talk to the stars),
(2) primary adventuring worlds, with the mundane world being a place to come from (bonus points for bringing useful modern appliances),
(3) Dimension-X in a monster of the week setup, a place where magical stuff comes from that you can visit occasionally.
Rokugan (at least what I gather of it) is a good example. A world of mundane humanoids (creature that look physically plausible to a preschooler: nezumi, kenku), a spirit world where obviously magical things come from, and a place for demons.
The D&D primary world already has all the magic you can eat and then some. It already has ghosts and dragons and cloud castles. Outmagicking it with a world that's "basically the same, but sparkly" is bad, bad, bad.