Arguments in favor of 4th Edition

[MartinHarper]

In actual real life, there is stuff that has a second hand value (which is often a tiny fraction of its value as new) and there is stuff that does not. In the 4e default economy, non-magical non-artwork stuff that contains no valuable gems or materials has no second hand value, and everything else does. I know that in the olden days folks used to strip the marble off the pyramids and the lead off church roofs and the like. I was under the impression that this happened as the stuff was required, rather than having a band of thugs strip the entire thing in a few weeks and then sell it all to the local village lead and marble shop. Could be wrong, though. Thugs have always been a popular form of local business.

[Doom]

Oh, PR, that's hardly the only thing that ticks off Dungeons and Dragons fans.

The whole "DnD4.0 is the same thing as D&D always has been. See, it still has Magic Missile, which has only changed an eensy bit" mentality is also rather annoying.

Toss in throwing out pretty much every idea that's been developed and worked on (good and bad) for the last 30 years, and instead introducing a completely different game wearing a D&D mask, and now you've got even more folks annoyed.

If WOTC had just given DnD4.0 an original name, rather than defraud and mislead people, much would have been different, I believe.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

Hasbro would have made less money too; that's the problem.

It's kinda like tv shows that don't feel that they have enough of an audience so they make the characters do crazy stuff or add in new sexy cast members to increase ratings. And, it looks like 4e's gambit has failed after seeing a great amount of resistance to it here and elsewhere.

[Lago PARANOIA]

It's kinda like tv shows that don't feel that they have enough of an audience so they make the characters do crazy stuff or add in new sexy cast members to increase ratings. And, it looks like 4e's gambit has failed after seeing a great amount of resistance to it here and elsewhere.

This never works. Ever. Well, maybe Battlestar Galactica. But that's it.

[RandomCasualty2]

And that's where the 4e hate comes from. Many of us want rules that make sense. We want the game world to live and breathe, and we want rules governing how it works. 4e says, "Fuck you" to us, and it embraces a videogame paradigm, where you don't care that only chemists can use potions because it's just how the game works. It's a mindset that I despise, personally, but for the average gamer, it's great.

Well yeah, we all want rules that make sense. Only for me, 4E made more sense to me than 3E did.

How an economy in 3E can exist AT ALL is surprising to me, when you have shit like wall of iron and fabricate that genius IQ wizards can cast. You can also planar bind shit for infinite gold, yet the game totally fucking ignores that and allows you to sell and buy magic items to your heart's content. And not to mention profession skills let you make tons of gold working as a barkeep or stableboy. Nothing about the 3E economy even remotely made any sense.

The 4E economy is at most a simplification, but at the very least, it doesn't have infinite wealth loops that destroy the entire economy.

The 3E system was much much worse as far as verisimilitude. All the published settings didn't even make sense.

Frank is absolutely right that gold==power should have been dumped. But lets not kid ourselves and pretend like that paradigm ever worked. At least in 4E, the economy may be stupid and nonsensical, but it could technically exist. The 3E economy has certain factions with unlimited gold and that pretty much means that an economy can't exist. In fact the Tome series had to invent the wish economy to house rule away all the stupidity so some 5th level guy with a candle of invocation doesn't just power wish his way into epic level items. Because that's the basic rule!

[Psychic Robot]

Oh, PR, that's hardly the only thing that ticks off Dungeons and Dragons fans.

The whole "DnD4.0 is the same thing as D&D always has been. See, it still has Magic Missile, which has only changed an eensy bit" mentality is also rather annoying.

Toss in throwing out pretty much every idea that's been developed and worked on (good and bad) for the last 30 years, and instead introducing a completely different game wearing a D&D mask, and now you've got even more folks annoyed.

If WOTC had just given DnD4.0 an original name, rather than defraud and mislead people, much would have been different, I believe.

That's true. It's very strange how 3e resembles 2e and 1e, but 4e really has little in common with them. It's almost as if the developers went overboard in removing traditional elements of D&D--those elements that make D&D into D&D--in hopes that they were making revolutionary steps forward.

Oh, well. Here's to 5e. Or 6e. Or whichever edition goes back to getting things right.

[Gelare]

And not to mention profession skills let you make tons of gold working as a barkeep or stableboy. Nothing about the 3E economy even remotely made any sense.

Fabricate and Wall of Iron and Flesh to Salt and so forth are all totally economy-breaking, but I never really bought the argument that the profession rules would make you crazy wealthy. I do (must) acknowledge that it is possible within the rules to be a first level elf and spend a hundred years farming to make piles of cash - who the fuck does that? I mean, we're all okay with a certain level of abstraction and glossing over details - the three day trek through the woods is shortened to, "You arrive," - but to envision my character save up money for a hundred years and then blow it on some hardcore adventuring gear, rather than, say, having used it to live his life for the past hundred years, breaks the suspension of disbelief bank for me.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Frank is absolutely right that gold==power should have been dumped. But lets not kid ourselves and pretend like that paradigm ever worked. At least in 4E, the economy may be stupid and nonsensical, but it could technically exist.

What?! How??

How could what we see of this economy possibly exist? Hats that add a +2 bonus to a skill that cost hundreds of thousands of gold pieces? Shit the fuck?! This makes no goddamn sense in a world where it says you can buy anything you want without much effort from a neighborhood merchant and the price for oxen is a few gold coins.

The only reason why it looks sensible is because they fucking refuse to reveal the stats behind it. And what we see of the economy right now makes no fucking sense whatsoever. That's why I hate 4E so hard, because they're acting like the Republican party or young earth creationists right now; they say they have a better system than their opponents but refuse to reveal the whole deal. And when we do get a peek at it what we see is so goddamn pitiful that they decide not to release the rest of it in hopes of not being laughed off of the stage.

So after they realized what they do have is worse but they still need to claim that their system is better? Go on the attack anyway and hope that pointing out the holes in their opponents' plan will somehow validate theirs. After all, in theory a deeply flawed system is still worse than no system whatsoever.

[RandomCasualty2]

How could what we see of this economy possibly exist? Hats that add a +2 bonus to a skill that cost hundreds of thousands of gold pieces? Shit the fuck?! This makes no goddamn sense in a world where it says you can buy anything you want without much effort from a neighborhood merchant and the price for oxen is a few gold coins.

It's not a heck of a lot different from the real world where most of the wealth is disproportionally divided. Yeah, most of the peasants are living in squalor, but you do have people who can afford to drop hundreds of thousands of gold pieces on a hat. We have militaries in real life that drop hundreds of billions on expensive tanks and shit. But in D&D instead of buying tanks and stealth bombers, you buy magic items, because heroes are your army.

And I don't see anything wrong with that.

3E had the problem of literally allowing you to conjure money out of thin air. But unlike real life, printing money had no effect on the 3E economy. Costs to buy shit were fixed and static, and inflation never happened, even if you did happen to create trillions of gold coins. And presumably you can still buy expensive magic items even from guys who for all purposes should have infinite gold. I mean that made absolutely no sense.

4E tends to fail remarkably less so at world building stuff only because ti's simpler and just doesn't give you world changing effects. So the world tends to be more stable.

The little nitpicks like the economic system aren't even good reasons not to play 4E. But really, most RPGs have horribly bad economies. Even Shadowrun has the logical problem of how some supposedly poverty stricken SINless shadowrunners can afford to drop hundreds of thousands of nuyen on state of the art cyberware.

The real reason 4E sucks is quite simply that it's a bad combat game and it's a bad adventuring game.

[Username17]

It's kinda like tv shows that don't feel that they have enough of an audience so they make the characters do crazy stuff or add in new sexy cast members to increase ratings. And, it looks like 4e's gambit has failed after seeing a great amount of resistance to it here and elsewhere.

This never works. Ever. Well, maybe Battlestar Galactica. But that's it.

Seven of Nine kept Voyager from getting canceled. Well, that and the fact that Seven of Nine episodes were generally better written.

It's not a heck of a lot different from the real world where most of the wealth is disproportionally divided.

Yes it is.

They will purchase a magic item from you for 20% cost. They can break down a magic item into Residuum for 20% cost minus some residuum to break it down. That right there is broken, because the value of the resdiuum is less than the price they'll pay you for the components.

But it's beyond that, they'll sell you Residuum or other ritual materials for list price, but they can get double that just by using it themselves. In short, the enchanters who make ritual components will sell it to you for half of what it is worth to them.

The little pieces we are allowed to see of the 4e economy make no sense. Given how valuable ritual components are, there should be a markup on them - but there isn't.

---

Now I flat don't buy most of your supposedly game breaking scenarios. For one thing, 3e actually had limits on how much money you could make by dumping items in an area. There's a limit to how much iron you can make and fabricate in a day of labor. It's just a job. It's a well paying job, but in 4e so is Rust Milking. So whatever.

-Username17

[Draco_Argentum]

Land is fluff text. It doesn't /do/ anything, at least not anything you care about. So you're trading gold fluff for land fluff... Great, except it still has no function.

So the story portions of a co-operative story telling game have no function. Roflé

---

RC, I want goddamn cities of gold in the game. If the looting rules don't support that then they can fuck off. Explain how 4e works with that or stop defending it.

[angelfromanotherpin]

That's true. It's very strange how 3e resembles 2e and 1e, but 4e really has little in common with them. It's almost as if the developers went overboard in removing traditional elements of D&D--those elements that make D&D into D&D--in hopes that they were making revolutionary steps forward.

The original 3.0 design team said they'd have done a bunch of things differently if they'd known how open people would be to change. Some of the stuff they mentioned was very small, like better hit dice for arcane casters, but for a few people that d4 is a sacred cow.

[Roy]

I have noticed a large number of Roy's more recent posts have literally nothing to say in them. Either that or he doesn't explain things well enough and I have to guess and check against how others react.

Roy'll probably just call me stupid, but surely it is a good thing for more people to come to the Den and making sure that one at least outline things at least once per thread would mean that more people understand what is going on and not be put off by jargon.

Correction: I'm not insulting people by stating the blatantly fucking obvious, since I am after all using several other people's own words and techniques against them. Yet somehow, when Frank or whoever goes on about Murdering Hobos and their killing things (and taking their stuff) and so forth, it's all good and everyone understands him and doesn't start questioning him. When I start practically quoting this shit verbatim, suddenly people don't get it, or do get it and start whining about it, or just want to attack me over it.

Since the ideas are exactly the fucking same, intentionally and they are presented in much the same way, this means the offending people don't even give a fuck about what the message is, just who it is from.

Which means they have failed my test, by engaging in exactly the fucking same kind of Fail present in WotCtards and similar such idiots.

This experiment has been concluded. Have a nice day.

[Psychic Robot]

This experiment has been concluded. Have a nice day.

It was a social experiment.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Voyager should've just embraced the stupidity of episodes like Threshhold and Macrocosm and just gpme fully 60's-style Ed Wood/Hal Warren-style So Bad It's Good.

Justifying Edit for anyone thinking of clicking Psychic Robot's link: Encyclopedia Dramatica is an extremely NSFW website filled with all manner of ultraviolent/obscene images and bilious amounts of sexism, racism, homophobia, and self-indulgence. People have also have had major problems with malware on that site in the past. You have been warned.

[Roy]

Fail. Also, Obvious Troll is Obvious PR.

[Username17]

Yet somehow, when Frank or whoever goes on about Murdering Hobos and their killing things (and taking their stuff) and so forth, it's all good and everyone understands him and doesn't start questioning him. When I start practically quoting this shit verbatim, suddenly people don't get it, or do get it and start whining about it, or just want to attack me over it.

Since the ideas are exactly the fucking same, intentionally and they are presented in much the same way, this means the offending people don't even give a fuck about what the message is, just who it is from.

Heh. No.

See, your ideas are not the same. It's subtle perhaps too you, but you'e already admitted to having genuine theory of mind problems. But the fact is that many of us have been saying for years that rewarding someone mechanically for running around as a hobo who stabs people in the face is a bad thing, on the grounds that there are actually things we want to do in the game that are incompatible with being a face stabbing hobo. That's the key turning point. The part where we actually have goals and stories we want in the game.

Your claim that getting numeric bonuses is the only thing that matters because no goals or stories are worth anything is not similar to that argument except in the most cursory manner. That you believe these two statements to be equivalent is actually kind of horrifying. It makes me wonder whether you can tell the difference between someone saying that you are stabbing them with a knife and want you to continue and them saying that you are stabbing them with a knife and want them to stop. The mimicry is only cursory similar on the surface, the comprehension of motive or social structure is completely absent from your analysis.

I genuinely hope you get help. You clearly need it. We are an abrasive, but shockingly patient lot. We can be here to explain some of the differences between motives and actions, but I genuinely think that you're going to need more than we can possibly provide. Seriously, you seem to be at a stage where you need people to draw pictures and give you tangible demonstrations with dolls - and we can't do that for you because we are on line and not in person.

We aren't going to turf you out, because we don't turf anyone out. But you do have needs that we can't provide for you and I hope you get them else where. Understanding, or at least admitting that other people have real goals that are distinct from yours is something you're going to need to do at some point. I can't make you do that, but I can assure you in no uncertain terms that other people are real, and they do have motivations. Indeed, very often when people around you act in a manner contrary to how you would, this is attributable to people having different motivations than you, and not complete irrationality on their part.

Your behavior with regards to the discussion here is worrying. Not because you're wrong, in an objectively, demonstrable, and well documented fashion - although you are. But because your dogged insistence on continuing in the face of mounting evidence coupled with your repeated claim that there is no difference between your claims and those made by people arguing from completely different value sets indicates a shocking degree of social maladjustment that you desperately need to do something about.

-Username17

[Psychic Robot]

"Wealth=Power" only can break the game if you can freely buy magic items.

And if you can't, you no longer have any reason to care about loot. Congrats, nearly every reason to play is gone.

This is when the thread was derailed. Can we ignore the side argument and go back to 4e's sprites and dissolving equipment?

[RandomCasualty2]

RC, I want goddamn cities of gold in the game. If the looting rules don't support that then they can fuck off. Explain how 4e works with that or stop defending it.

Honestly, it probably doesn't work well with that. Unless you just want gold plated cities, which are possible in some epic scenarios. a few astral diamonds worth of money could probably gold plate a city. But to make every brick of a city out of gold would be difficult.

But by definition, you can't have cities out of valuable material and have a coherent economy. You can go and say that gold has no value, but that's a house rule. Even 3E doesn't do that. Because 3E damn well says you can trade gold for powerful magic items.

So cities of gold don't exist anywhere without breaking the game.

I'm really not sure what your point is.

They will purchase a magic item from you for 20% cost. They can break down a magic item into Residuum for 20% cost minus some residuum to break it down. That right there is broken, because the value of the resdiuum is less than the price they'll pay you for the components.

But it's beyond that, they'll sell you Residuum or other ritual materials for list price, but they can get double that just by using it themselves. In short, the enchanters who make ritual components will sell it to you for half of what it is worth to them.

The little pieces we are allowed to see of the 4e economy make no sense. Given how valuable ritual components are, there should be a markup on them - but there isn't.

Does 4E even say you can buy straight out residuum, I didn't think you could? And I thought markup theoretically existed for everything as an optional rule (since markups itself is a variant).

[Orion]

"Wealth=Power" only can break the game if you can freely buy magic items.

And if you can't, you no longer have any reason to care about loot. Congrats, nearly every reason to play is gone.

This is when the thread was derailed. Can we ignore the side argument and go back to 4e's sprites and dissolving equipment?

Why? I know you really enjoy your masturbatory 4e bashing, but was anything new being said? Anything at all?

[Psychic Robot]

Nope, but it was more interesting than psychoanalyzing Roy, which is retarded.

[Murtak]

But by definition, you can't have cities out of valuable material and have a coherent economy. You can go and say that gold has no value, but that's a house rule. Even 3E doesn't do that. Because 3E damn well says you can trade gold for powerful magic items.

So cities of gold don't exist anywhere without breaking the game.

I'm really not sure what your point is.

The point is that some people do want a city of gold, a breastplate made out of gems or a ruby the size of a grown man's head. As you said, as soon as you allow that wealth to turn into real power the game breaks. There are several ways to handle the problem:
- wealth does not translate into power (2nd)
- there is wealth but noone would turn it into power! Look, an elephant!! (3rd)
- there is no wealth (4th)

4th edition removes some stories from the game. 3rd requires everyone to look away whenever someone offers them power for money. And 2nd edition wealth ... just works.

[Amra]

"Wealth=Power" only can break the game if you can freely buy magic items.

Most of the games I've played in, magical items are only freely available up to a certain power level. On the one hand, it keeps a lid on craziness but on the other hand it's back to DM fiat, which means we're playing Magical Princess Tea Party again with respect to magical items.

The point is, if the bad guys is on a gold throne then Gold McNuggets are on the menu. If the DM doesn't want that sort of money given out, he shouldn't be sitting the guy on a solid gold chair.[1] Things that are described should exist. If they don't exist, don't describe them. If some rich bugger has valuable paintings on his wall, I should damn well be able to trick or sneak my way into his household and make off with them, whether or not the paintings are part of his treasure parcel.

Otherwise, it's like being sat on and repeatedly punched in the face by some toothless fat guy named Bubba[2] who's bellowing "It'th... *thump* jutht... *thump* a... *thump* game... *thump* nothing... *thump* ith... *thump* real... *thump* you... *thump* thtupid... *thump* prick!"


[1] Although, I admit, I have put some guy *apparently* sitting on a solid gold throne that turned out to be made of lead - magicked up to look like gold - into one of my adventures for comedy value. But that's not the point.

[2] I don't know. It just seemed appropriate.

[Fuchs]

DM fiat is a fact of RPGs. Between filchers, rust monsters, Disjunction, Sunder and numerous plot opportunities the DM has a "veto power" for any magic item in game.

I personally prefer up front asking ("Hey, DM, I want that thing here (shows book). Can you make that available?") to trying to buy something, and having the DM throw some hurdles up ("Trader hasn't it in stock... NPC wizard can't build it... NPC Archwizard was creating it, but then he had to save the world... courier with itme was robbed" etc.) instead of vetoing it outright.

[Murtak]

"Wealth=Power" only can break the game if you can freely buy magic items.

Most of the games I've played in, magical items are only freely available up to a certain power level. On the one hand, it keeps a lid on craziness but on the other hand it's back to DM fiat, which means we're playing Magical Princess Tea Party again with respect to magical items.

Why can't there be guidelines as to how much/many magical items a character should have at a given level and wealth does not translate into power? Or better yet, if everyone is supposed to have a Ring of Protection +3 at level 10, why don't we just erase all Rings of Protection from the game and hand out a +3 bonus to all resists to everyone at level 10?