recent d&d deathwatch data

[Krakatoa]

I don't think you understand roleplaying. It's where you play a role. Like, the roll of the guy who CAN FLY TO THE MOON WITH HIS OWN MAGIC OR DESTROY A CITY WITH ONE OF HIS SPELLS.

...You know, I'd be perfectly willing to accept a DnD that allows this... as long as a Fighter of equal level can soak the damage of the city-destroying spell or a Ranger of equal level could fire an arrow through the heart of the wizard on the moon.

[For Valor]

I don't think you understand roleplaying. It's where you play a role. Like, the roll of the guy who CAN FLY TO THE MOON WITH HIS OWN MAGIC OR DESTROY A CITY WITH ONE OF HIS SPELLS.

...You know, I'd be perfectly willing to accept a DnD that allows this... as long as a Fighter of equal level can soak the damage of the city-destroying spell or a Ranger of equal level could fire an arrow through the heart of the wizard on the moon.

um... congratulations..?

News flash: I don't care. This has nothing to do with what I was addressing. My response was saying that 3e and 4e have different roleplaying, and talking about fighter balance in 3e has NOTHING to do with the compared roleplaying aspects of the two games.

[Username17]

Player agency is pretty much the entire reason I play a game. If the game requires 100% magical teaparty to perform an action, I need to be super drunk to enjoy the game. Münchhausen is an example of that. It's all MTP, I enjoy it, but it requires booze.

4e D&D is in a hard place for me. On the one hand, my character cannot do anything outside the combat minigame without resorting to full MTP. My powers do not do anything outside of combat, the ritual system is nonfunctional, the skill challenge system doesn't work at all, and that's the entire non-combat portion of the game itself. So when I want to do anything or make any choices, it's full narration - with no system in place to make choices in reference to. I might as well be "playing" a bishop or a rook. And since I've pretty much grown out of having adventures in the backyard with my stuffed animals, I have to drink in order to enjoy that.

But here's the problem: the combat minigame is incredibly fiddly. It's not exciting, it's actually really dull. I basically end up doing the same thing over and over again. Not because I'm drunk (although I am), and not because I am unimaginative tactically (which I am not), but because the characters seriously have very few abilities - and even fewer abilities that can be used more than once. And perhaps more importantly still, because the tactical situation really doesn't change that much. If I used Illusionary Ambush last turn because penalizing the enemy attacks was more valuable to me than thunderwaving them, this round I am probably going to do exactly that. Again. And I'll do it next turn too, and the turn after that. But there's a lot of -2s to remember. I'm putting one on some enemy or another every turn, and it has weird durations. And when I am drunk it is hard to keep track of that shit.

It's a bad intersection. If the game wants me to play fast and loose and magical teaparty adventure the whole thing, fine. But I also want a bottle of California Syrah in front of me while I do it. If the game wants me to figure a lot of little numbers, I want to be sober and I want to have deep tactical choices. It ends up with a game I simply can't enjoy drunk or sober, and since those are the two states I play games in, that is bad.

I have yet to find my perfect fantasy game, but if the design goals of 4E HAD been met, then it would probably hew pretty close to my ideal.

I think that's basically true of any game. Since the design goal is pretty much "be awesome" - then if you meet your goal, you win at RPG design. But beyond that, the vast majority of design goals they published are actually contradictory. This is true for any game. People say that they want finding a magic sword to matter, and they say that they don't want to be punished for not finding a magic sword. Those are incompatible goals, because the one is literally and specifically the opposite of the other. You can make some sort of compromise in your game design - and you will - but whether this is an acceptable or unacceptable compromise the fact remains that you have both goals and cannot achieve both of them. The best compromise I can think of is to have magic swords be rarish, set the game difficulty so that the assumption is that you don't have one, and then simply accept that your character is hitting above his weight class for the rest of the game if and when a magic sword shows up. But that's still a relative punishment for not finding a sword, even if the game defines that state to be "normal". The 4e compromise of assuming you had the right weapon all the time is the worst possible compromise - finding the sword doesn't feel like it matters because you're assumed to have it, and not finding the sword feels like a punishment because you are assumed to have one.

Such it is with every part of the game. For skill challenges, people want spontaneity and structure. They want creative skill use and they want explicit skill functions. And so on and so on. All of these design goals are just ends of a spectrum that your game cannot fall at both ends of.

Now Mike Mearls is very good at talking himself and his projects up. So he'll blithely tell you that he intends to achieve A and ~A at the same time. And the people will eagerly clap like trained seals in anticipation of him doing just that. Even though he has failed to deliver every fucking time for the last six years that he has been on the stage of fandom. But I seriously don't think he even understands that spontaneity and structure are two ends of a single line that you have to find a compromise point in between.

-Username17

[quanta]

The best compromise I can think of is to have magic swords be rarish, set the game difficulty so that the assumption is that you don't have one, and then simply accept that your character is hitting above his weight class for the rest of the game if and when a magic sword shows up.

How basically every computer RPG ever is designed makes me suspect that many people really do want to always have a magic sword in fantasy games. All the time. They just don't want to feel like it's required or that it's guaranteed. Rare magic swords are probably can lead to bullshit GM favoritism and bitching from the players who didn't get cool loot. But if you give everyone rare loot at the same time, the people who think it ruins versimillitude when every dungeon and enemy has a perfect distribution of treasure get bitchy.

Such it is with every part of the game. For skill challenges, people want spontaneity and structure. They want creative skill use and they want explicit skill functions. And so on and so on. All of these design goals are just ends of a spectrum that your game cannot fall at both ends of.

I disagree, some structures will allow for more spontaneity than other structures that they are no less structured than. It's only a spectrum in terms of ideal design. In reality, most systems probably fail at achieving getting the most structure or spontaneity they could get.

[Shazbot79]

Player agency is pretty much the entire reason I play a game. If the game requires 100% magical teaparty to perform an action, I need to be super drunk to enjoy the game. Münchhausen is an example of that. It's all MTP, I enjoy it, but it requires booze.

4e D&D is in a hard place for me. On the one hand, my character cannot do anything outside the combat minigame without resorting to full MTP. My powers do not do anything outside of combat, the ritual system is nonfunctional, the skill challenge system doesn't work at all, and that's the entire non-combat portion of the game itself. So when I want to do anything or make any choices, it's full narration - with no system in place to make choices in reference to. I might as well be "playing" a bishop or a rook. And since I've pretty much grown out of having adventures in the backyard with my stuffed animals, I have to drink in order to enjoy that.

But here's the problem: the combat minigame is incredibly fiddly. It's not exciting, it's actually really dull. I basically end up doing the same thing over and over again. Not because I'm drunk (although I am), and not because I am unimaginative tactically (which I am not), but because the characters seriously have very few abilities - and even fewer abilities that can be used more than once. And perhaps more importantly still, because the tactical situation really doesn't change that much. If I used Illusionary Ambush last turn because penalizing the enemy attacks was more valuable to me than thunderwaving them, this round I am probably going to do exactly that. Again. And I'll do it next turn too, and the turn after that. But there's a lot of -2s to remember. I'm putting one on some enemy or another every turn, and it has weird durations. And when I am drunk it is hard to keep track of that shit.

It's a bad intersection. If the game wants me to play fast and loose and magical teaparty adventure the whole thing, fine. But I also want a bottle of California Syrah in front of me while I do it. If the game wants me to figure a lot of little numbers, I want to be sober and I want to have deep tactical choices. It ends up with a game I simply can't enjoy drunk or sober, and since those are the two states I play games in, that is bad.

I think that's basically true of any game. Since the design goal is pretty much "be awesome" - then if you meet your goal, you win at RPG design. But beyond that, the vast majority of design goals they published are actually contradictory. This is true for any game. People say that they want finding a magic sword to matter, and they say that they don't want to be punished for not finding a magic sword. Those are incompatible goals, because the one is literally and specifically the opposite of the other. You can make some sort of compromise in your game design - and you will - but whether this is an acceptable or unacceptable compromise the fact remains that you have both goals and cannot achieve both of them. The best compromise I can think of is to have magic swords be rarish, set the game difficulty so that the assumption is that you don't have one, and then simply accept that your character is hitting above his weight class for the rest of the game if and when a magic sword shows up. But that's still a relative punishment for not finding a sword, even if the game defines that state to be "normal". The 4e compromise of assuming you had the right weapon all the time is the worst possible compromise - finding the sword doesn't feel like it matters because you're assumed to have it, and not finding the sword feels like a punishment because you are assumed to have one.

Such it is with every part of the game. For skill challenges, people want spontaneity and structure. They want creative skill use and they want explicit skill functions. And so on and so on. All of these design goals are just ends of a spectrum that your game cannot fall at both ends of.
-Username17

Player agency is pretty much the only reason people ANY game...but here I mean the TYPE of player agency.

The type of player agency that was present in 3rd edition, where having the right spell on your list allowed a spell-caster to circumvent any in-game challenge and regularly wallow in the niches of other classes, was bad for the game. It was bad for the game, because the tools to achieve this agency were automatic to some classes, while pretty much completely out of reach of the others. As much as people bemoan 4E's strides toward class balance, this balance is a necessary thing in a class-based game...that is, afterall, the point of classes.

Contrast this with the sort of player agency allowed by games like FATE, where the players essentially just make up whatever they to effect the game world and have it stick provided they can A) convince the GM that the action has logical merit, and B) roll high enough. This, to me, is the good kind of player agency, because it uses tools that are available to all of the characters and is not an automatic god mode option.

To this end, every RPG tries to strike a balance between structured play and magical tea party play...these two concepts are inherent to what a role-playing game IS. Too far on one end of the spectrum and you are no longer playing a game, too far towards the other end and the game becomes completely automated and you might as well be playing Chutes and Ladders. Therefore, fall somewhere on the line between these two points which do not intersect well. This doesn't mean that it can't be done...only that no one's found a way to actually do it yet.

Take your example with magic weapons...the assumption here seems to be that magic items should make a difference at all in the game math, +1 sword, +2 sword, +5 sword, etc. The best compromise that I can think of here, is to nix enhancement bonuses altogether and define magic items by what they can do, rather than defining them by their numbers. Design magic items in such a way where they grant a character more options, however the character still fights with the same overall level of efficacy without it.

4E failed where it did, in part, because the game still clings to assumptions of older editions...that the numbers should keep getting bigger as characters increase in level, that characters need a rigidly defined and standardized set of skills, that martial types need to be mundane, even when they've attained demi-godhood. It's not just that the design goal was "be awesome" and they fell just that short of awesomeness, it was the WAY 4E designers intended for the game to be awesome. It would have been great for me had they actually pulled it off what they said they wanted to do in the speculative period before the games release...unfortunately they fell short of the mark.

[mean_liar]

Publishing the spell lists which made roleplaying unnecessary in 3.X in lieue of simply having magic solve every problem in the world isn't a great argument.

I don't think you understand roleplaying. It's where you play a role. Like, the roll of the guy who CAN FLY TO THE MOON WITH HIS OWN MAGIC OR DESTROY A CITY WITH ONE OF HIS SPELLS.

That's an argument about powerful you want your upper echelons to be, not an argument about roleplaying. Under this metric, Synnibar > any game ever. I think a better way to state it is that while the rules of 3e and 4e really only deal with a narrow band of activity, that band is even narrower in 4e (see Lago's, "Batman spread out over 30 levels" insight). The true problem that I see is that almost the entire scope of 3e and 4e rules deal with small-scale tactical combat, and on top of that 4e simply lacks most of the higher-end scope.

If 4e had supported mass combat and rulership with a raft of powers similar to the class powers, then it'd be more robust than 3e simply for being able to support more interactions without resorting to Magical Tea Party. From my perspective, if they'd managed to make the Skill Challenge design guide and skill DC mechanics "work" (whatever that means), then 4e would clearly be a better mechanicaly RPG than 3e simply based on providing a better framework for non-combat than MTP.

In the end, don't mistake power for roleplaying. That's just mechanics. As it is, if you have a working-for-your-local-group version of the Skill Challenge system, 4e is a better roleplaying system than 3e simply because it encourages you to get involved in more situations (and therefore do more roleplaying) just by putting non-combat interactions on the map in a more meaningful way.

[Username17]

That's an argument about powerful you want your upper echelons to be, not an argument about roleplaying.

Only if you ignore the main thrust of the complaint. A character isn't different from another character because he does 3d6 damage instead of 4d4. Nor is he different because he uses an ax instead of a sword. A character is different because he can go places, do things, and solve problems. A 4e character can't do any of those things under his own power. If he wants or needs to go to [place] there needs to be a convenient portal or some other DM-fiat means to take him there. His own abilities will not suffice. Ever.

It's not just "going to the Moon!" it's also "going to the Island of Dread" or "going to the Abyss" or any other place you would want to go to. It's all hand waving. The DM thinks of a reason that your character can get there, you don't. And it's not just going places either. It's also doing things. Any things. You want to build a house? Make a pair of shoes? Skin a bear? Brew some beer? Cook some bees? Forge an invitation? Fast talk a guard? All of that is completely the province of the DM. Your character sheet doesn't tell you how easy any of that shit is, and doesn't even tell you if it is possible.

The MC controls the locations and dispositions of every single creature and object in the entire world except my character. If I have to ask "mother may I?" for every fucking thing, I might as well just read a fucking book. Seriously, I don't know why I am even there during a 4e Game.

-Username17

[shadzar]

Okay, I think I'm going to shut up after this because it's getting a bit tedious and I think I've already said this part:

The market is different than it was at 3.X's height.

The problem is where you are getting your info and where others are...so with so many people seeing data showing 4th edition is having BIG problems, they are questioning where you are seing it with a bright future.

Borders is closing or on its way out...the bigger non-FLGS type store to carry RPG stuff in most areas.

latest D&D products were off the shelf and didnt return in time for xmas. essentials/red box either sold out or were supplied/printed short. why print something short that is to introduce people to the game, and to fix things around the time when "buying toys and games" is the entire purpose of the holiday? (granted HASBRO could have wanted its other products to get a major focus for xmas)

4 or 5 products have disappeared from upcoming lists and have probably been canceled. new products are not numerous.

D&D team has been split into 2 groups one for RPG, and the other for things like board games....D&D board games?

silverlight character builder driving people away from DDI with its renting characters and characters held hostage. (some/many getting refunds for subscriptions)

dragon/dungeon becoming nothing but obsolete terms for things as they have little to no content.

people are reading the same signs that were read in 1999 and in 2006-7.

WoW hasnt lost many players in this downward economy.

people are just looking at how 4th is failing in so many areas and other things are doing quite well or at least better.

i dont know where you get your news and info, but you seem to have blinders on to some things whether intentional or not...

[Zinegata]

Publishing the spell lists which made roleplaying unnecessary in 3.X in lieue of simply having magic solve every problem in the world isn't a great argument.

I don't think you understand roleplaying. It's where you play a role. Like, the roll of the guy who CAN FLY TO THE MOON WITH HIS OWN MAGIC OR DESTROY A CITY WITH ONE OF HIS SPELLS.

That's an argument about powerful you want your upper echelons to be, not an argument about roleplaying. Under this metric, Synnibar > any game ever. I think a better way to state it is that while the rules of 3e and 4e really only deal with a narrow band of activity, that band is even narrower in 4e (see Lago's, "Batman spread out over 30 levels" insight). The true problem that I see is that almost the entire scope of 3e and 4e rules deal with small-scale tactical combat, and on top of that 4e simply lacks most of the higher-end scope.

What mean_liar said.

Replying with an entire spell list as proof of superior roleplaying support is pretty useless. That's like showing someone a set of power tools as proof that they're a wondefully deep person.

Adding on top of this madness by pointing out the most broken and overpowered portions of the spell list just demonstrates you don't know the difference between roleplaying and power level.

[hogarth]

That's an argument about powerful you want your upper echelons to be, not an argument about roleplaying.

Only if you ignore the main thrust of the complaint. A character isn't different from another character because he does 3d6 damage instead of 4d4. Nor is he different because he uses an ax instead of a sword. A character is different because he can go places, do things, and solve problems.

You have one good point: there are things that you can't do in 4E that you can do in 3E (or other games) that have nothing to do with power level. In theory, some (most?) of those things should be covered under the ritual system, but the ritual system sucks donkey balls.

It's not just "going to the Moon!" it's also "going to the Island of Dread" or "going to the Abyss" or any other place you would want to go to. It's all hand waving.

This is dumb. The only real difference between [Place 1] and [Place 2] is power level, as mean_liar noted. Fighting orcs in the Caves of Chaos and fighting rakastas on the Isle of Dread is the same damn thing (see: sword vs. axe). Fighting demons in the Abyss is different only because the inhabitants and environmental dangers are more powerful.

The DM thinks of a reason that your character can get there, you don't. And it's not just going places either. It's also doing things. Any things. You want to build a house? Make a pair of shoes? Skin a bear? Brew some beer? Cook some bees? Forge an invitation? Fast talk a guard? All of that is completely the province of the DM. Your character sheet doesn't tell you how easy any of that shit is, and doesn't even tell you if it is possible.

So 4E sucks because it doesn't have a robust bee-cooking system? That's an awesome criticism, dude.

[ScottS]

The MC controls the locations and dispositions of every single creature and object in the entire world except my character. If I have to ask "mother may I?" for every fucking thing, I might as well just read a fucking book. Seriously, I don't know why I am even there during a 4e Game.

I'm not going to argue that SCs are anything but too-structureless-to-be-interesting, easily-gameable MTP horseshit. But my experience DMing a full paragon tier over the course of a year, is that the ritual and item lists are broad enough (or eventually got broad enough) that you can sort of do old-school plot-affecting stuff, i.e. as a DM I'm reasonably confident that I can leave an open-ended not-solvable-by-normal-means problem in the story and a ritualist can find a way around it. (Part of that is due to Enchant Magic Item only taking an hour.) I'll spare the details unless people ask, but I think they got the most use out of Shadow Bridge, Phantom Steed, Enchant Magic Item (i.e. the entire item list), and Create Teleportation Circle/Linked Portal. Other stuff got used at various points. I think the issue is more along the lines of: decoupling those kinds of abilities from class mechanics made them boring and annoying, rather than impossible to do.

[Username17]

This is dumb. The only real difference between [Place 1] and [Place 2] is power level, as mean_liar noted. Fighting orcs in the Caves of Chaos and fighting rakastas on the Isle of Dread is the same damn thing (see: sword vs. axe). Fighting demons in the Abyss is different only because the inhabitants and environmental dangers are more powerful.

That is true only if you accept 4e's premise that you can't accomplish anything, and that nothing you do or don't do will stop the combat music from turning on or change the fact that when the combat music does come on that there will be a level appropriate encounter that you will then fight. In any role playing game worthy of the name, there would in fact be places that had enemies of yours, places that had strategic relevance, and places that had neither or both.

You shouldn't be fighting Orcs or Rakastas simply because they are level appropriate opponents, nor should you be in either the Caves of Chaos or the Isle of Dread if those areas have no relevance to whatever your character's goals actually are. By simply saying that it doesn't matter, you've basically conceded the right to call it an RPG at all. It's just a board game at that point. A series of tactical challenges, to be judged by how interesting they are as tactical challenges.

Let's consider a modern example. Shooting federal soldiers in Washington DC vs. shooting federal soldiers in North Korea. Tactically it's pretty similar: your opponents are all roughly man sized, reasonably professional, and armed with automatic weaponry. So it doesn't make any difference, right? Well, no. Obviously it makes a difference, because in one case you're shooting Americans and in the other you're shooting members of the army of Eternal President Kim Il Sung. That's extremely different in terms of what you expect to accomplish. But of course, in 4e you can't actually "accomplish" anything at all, whether you fight or not, because there is no persistent world or even a diplomacy minigame.

But it's also different in what you could expect to loot. American snipers carry Barrets, and North Koreans carry JeoGyeokBoChongs. So if you really were just going to a place to loot it, you might make some sort of choice of where to go based on what you wanted to take home in a bag. Which you will note has nothing to do with how things work in 4e, because there is no connection between what you are fighting and what drops for looting afterward.

And so on. The only reason it doesn't matter where you go or what you fight in 4e is because nothing you do actually matters. They can dispense with players being able to influence the course of events because the entire game is a waste of time.

-Username17

[Zinegata]

What your character does, and who your character is, are two different things.

If a character does the same thing but does it to different kinds of mooks, it doesn't really change who they are.

[shadzar]

The DM thinks of a reason that your character can get there, you don't. And it's not just going places either. It's also doing things. Any things. You want to build a house? Make a pair of shoes? Skin a bear? Brew some beer? Cook some bees? Forge an invitation? Fast talk a guard? All of that is completely the province of the DM. Your character sheet doesn't tell you how easy any of that shit is, and doesn't even tell you if it is possible.

So 4E sucks because it doesn't have a robust bee-cooking system? That's an awesome criticism, dude.

No Frank is saying that the system lets you do things because the DM lets you do it, you dont have control of choice for yourself, because outside of combat, there are no choices...there is nothing to do because the skill challenges system is a joke, as well the ritual system...which is all 4th edition has outside of combat.

DM fiat controls the game and there are no rules for it...

[hogarth]

Let's consider a modern example. Shooting federal soldiers in Washington DC vs. shooting federal soldiers in North Korea.

Strawmantastic!

Tactically it's pretty similar: your opponents are all roughly man sized, reasonably professional, and armed with automatic weaponry. So it doesn't make any difference, right? Well, no. Obviously it makes a difference, because in one case you're shooting Americans and in the other you're shooting members of the army of Eternal President Kim Il Sung. That's extremely different in terms of what you expect to accomplish.

Frank, in just about every goddamn RPG ever made, it's the GM's responsibility to create the campaign world. And that world will either have a totalitarian dictatorship within reach or not. The differences between teleporting away to fight the Korean orc king and taking a boat to fight the Cuban hobgoblin king are of the "sword vs. axe" variety.

[mean_liar]

Yeah, basically the most important thing I'm getting from Frank's above criticism of 4e is:

1. I forgot how shitty the ritual system is with regards to its costs. That needs fixing too and I do need to mention that in my laundry list of 4e complaints

2. Same deal for the lack of objective skill DCs. That shit is offensive.

Again, signs of unfortunate design but still not enough for me to think of the game as an unfortunate chore the way some do.


That puts my personal 4e-fix list at:

create objective skill DCs
increase access to skills
fix Skill Challenges, preferably Obsidian and group-specific house rules
lower HP/increase damage
deal with the Christmas tree and magic item acquisition
significantly decrease ritual costs

...and in the end, I'd be pretty close to 3e but with a different (and for me, more interesting) combat minigame.

[tzor]

I could probably live with all of that stuff, if combat didn't boil down to repeating the words "I use my at-will power" over and over again.

As opposed to "I swing my sword at it." This is a major problem of all gaming systems, and I would be impressed to find the person who solves it. Basically speaking you will take your best repeatable vanillia action and do it over and over and over again because you can. Limited actions are by that nature limited and thus are either used too early or never at all depending on the player.

[hogarth]

I could probably live with all of that stuff, if combat didn't boil down to repeating the words "I use my at-will power" over and over again.

As opposed to "I swing my sword at it."

Which is why I don't play barbarians (say) in 3E -- because there are other classes with more options.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Frank, in just about every goddamn RPG ever made, it's the GM's responsibility to create the campaign world. And that world will either have a totalitarian dictatorship within reach or not.

Yeah, and?

No, no DM is ever going to provide you with exactly the kind of choice that you want to do, same reason why Hollywood will probably never ever make a movie where you and your girlfriends are the protagonist and it follows you two on a boring date. Even so:

1) By agreeing to play a heroic fantasy hack-and-slash RPG, you have implied to the DM that there are a range of tropes and themes that you'd like to explore. This means that out of a choice of necropolises, totalitarian wizard kingdoms, holy theocracies, etc.. you're going to like one of the choices. Assuming that the DM made the campaign robust enough, of course. There should be at least one or two setting elements that vaguely interest you or at least a plurality of the party.

2) Even if not, the DM can adjust things on the fly to make things more your tastes as the campaign goes on. For example, introducing a zombie apocalypse conspiracy or your party attracting the attention of the Black Rose assassins.

The differences between teleporting away to fight the Korean orc king and taking a boat to fight the Cuban hobgoblin king are of the "sword vs. axe" variety.

Aside from the fact that this viewpoint is reductionist to the point of being hopelessly cynical, it's also blatantly incorrect.

For the first thing, even in 4E D&D teleporting and boating are not equivalent transportation modes. Boating is something available to 1st level characters and comes with its own set of challenges. You might get attacked by pirates on the way there. You might accidentally offend the sea elves on the way over and have to deal with them. Depending on the edition, you might be able to take along your own armies/hirelings if you choose the sea route. All of these things have real and meaningful differences from each other and will affect the outcome of the story.

Second of all, the kingdoms. I know you intentionally picked your kings to be similar to each other in a weakass attempt to obfuscate the difference, but it's not going to work. Even in 4E the races have some difference. A lot of orcs actually live in peace with the humans--if you go by the PHB2 and the Dragon supplemental material half-orcs and orcs are nowhere near as hated as hobgoblins. Meaning that as you march on the orc kingdom and defeat the king, there's actually a chance that you might be able to have the orcs listen to your human-centric party (if they are human-centric), which is just not an option for the hobgoblin one. And of course it will affect the random encounters you get on the way there; 4E orcs aren't part of a racial caste like in earlier editions, so the DM will have to pad them out with some other race while hobgoblins will have a lot of bugbears and goblins.

And furthermore, you CAN make the kingdoms different even beyond that. One kingdom might be living in temporary opulence from raids (and will have its soldiers decked out in full armor), while another might live in squalor. One kingdom might be xenophobic to the extreme, the other might invite in monster races. One of the kingdoms could even be an ally to one of YOUR allies--toppling the hobgoblin king will piss off the lizardmen and the dwarves, not so much with the orc king. So on.

There's absolutely no way you can say that the choices are similar to 'sword vs. axe'. They can be, in a poorly designed setting, but a DM with minimal competence can make the adventures and thus the stories feel decent.

[LR]

Frank, in just about every goddamn RPG ever made, it's the GM's responsibility to create the campaign world. And that world will either have a totalitarian dictatorship within reach or not. The differences between teleporting away to fight the Korean orc king and taking a boat to fight the Cuban hobgoblin king are of the "sword vs. axe" variety.

The PCs can also fight the US Human King, destabilizing the MC's carefully built campaign setting and seizing temporal power over the lands. You may not believe it, but that's actually a good thing. It means that the PCs are active members of the story instead of simple actors in the MC's play.

[Kaelik]

The type of player agency that was present in 3rd edition, where having the right spell on your list allowed a spell-caster to circumvent any in-game challenge and regularly wallow in the niches of other classes, was bad for the game. It was bad for the game, because the tools to achieve this agency were automatic to some classes, while pretty much completely out of reach of the others.

So you obviously don't actually know how to play 3e, and are just parroting the stupid generalizations you've heard about class disparity.

Is there any reason we should take what you say seriously?

[Bihlbo]

But here's the problem: the combat minigame is incredibly fiddly. It's not exciting, it's actually really dull. I basically end up doing the same thing over and over again. Not because I'm drunk (although I am), and not because I am unimaginative tactically (which I am not), but because the characters seriously have very few abilities - and even fewer abilities that can be used more than once.

Forgive me if I'm strawmanning, but this is no where near as big a problem in 4e as it was in 3.5 in which you could play the whole game from level 1 to level 20 with about a 25% change in options. Unless of course you played a spellcaster, in which your very-much-lamer-than-4e options at level 1 change to holy-crap-I-should've-majored-on-this-in-college options by about level 11. You hit this point in 4e by about level 27 or so with your 2 dozen or so options (yes, at level 11 you have strictly more than this, but most spells are never considered during combat). And they might not look drastically different than they ever did, but at least you don't feel like an idiot for thinking that fighter was a viable or remotely interesting option.

So I'm not disagreeing that it's fiddly. But I hope you aren't saying it's inferior to the fiddlyness of 3.5, because it's better. Again, if that's not your point, [insert flippant coprulalia].

[Kaelik]

The thing is, if you have 200 waste of space shitty classes, and 14 real interesting classes, that's still way the fuck better than having 14 mediocre classes.

Sure, the 4e fighter changes options more than a 3e fighter. But no one intelligent plays the 3e fighter.

[Blasted]

As opposed to "I swing my sword at it." This is a major problem of all gaming systems, and I would be impressed to find the person who solves it. Basically speaking you will take your best repeatable vanillia action and do it over and over and over again because you can. Limited actions are by that nature limited and thus are either used too early or never at all depending on the player.

Winds of Fate manages it, if you like that idea.
Any type of Rock/Paper/Scissors mechanic can also do it. Although, there you can keep swinging that sword, but it's going to be the worst decision often.

[Doom]

One thing still being missed in all this is how "not D&D" 4e is. WoTC couldn't even stop abusing the license a year later, making this atrocity