The End of 4e D&D.

[Wyzzard]

So your against fluff?

If the fluff makes various options more interesting for players, and they therefore use more of the different options available to them, thats a net win, even if they don't understand the mechanical reasons behind it.

He's not Against Fluff, he's For Options.

If you have Auto Attack and Ai Wen's Leaping Octopus Death Maul Technique (that works just like Auto Attack), then that's not fluff, it's bullshit.

[Wesley Street]

In the long run Wizard's paradigm shift will probably pay off, if they hold onto the D&D license. As time goes on D&D won't be the gateway RPG, it'll be the RPG that WoW leads you to.

Pushing edition wars, OldSkool gamers and what 4E does wrong aside, I don't understand the idea that 4E must be viewed as either a transitional stepping stone from video games into RPGs or the traditional starter RPG; but it can't serve as both.

[malak]

If you have Auto Attack and Ai Wen's Leaping Octopus Death Maul Technique (that works just like Auto Attack), then that's not fluff, it's bullshit.

Too bad the example he actually used was grappling, not auto-attacking.

[TheFlatline]

If you have Auto Attack and Ai Wen's Leaping Octopus Death Maul Technique (that works just like Auto Attack), then that's not fluff, it's bullshit.

Too bad the example he actually used was grappling, not auto-attacking.

It's the same concept.

I don't mind fluff where it's warranted. But saying that your auto attack fills your enemies with the dread of a thousand vanquished empires while making your fingernails glow hot pink, and the game mechanics are that you strike your opponent for D8 damage and push him back one square, that's not an option, that's bullshit to make a ho-hum ability seem cool and exciting.

Which is what WoW does pretty much consistently.

Pushing edition wars, OldSkool gamers and what 4E does wrong aside, I don't understand the idea that 4E must be viewed as either a transitional stepping stone from video games into RPGs or the traditional starter RPG; but it can't serve as both.

It's both, but there's a clear fellating of the WoW cooldown timers/macro bar approach to your character in 4th edition. Hell Wizards even sells decks of cards so you can create your own power bar across the bottom of your "screen". It's clear with 4th edition they were intentionally courting WoW players. Which means that Wizards sees WoW as the way of the future and a gateway game into RPGs.

D&D is still a "gateway" RPG, but it's clear who their intended new audience is: People who play MMOs, specifically WoW. It's geeky enough that it primes the addicts... er... players for tabletop. However, certain expectations due to MMOs are ingrained into the gamer, and Wizards is trying to deliver on those expectations.

If this is a smart business move or not depends on how many WoW players are actually willing to get out there and *try* tabletop, because for every veteran gamer you lose due to a shitty new edition, you need at least one new gamer to break even, and two to expand your market.

[Crissa]

Flatline, I think you should re-think your position.

There is nothing inherently bad in having attacks that are named (fluff);
There is nothing inherently bad in having a series of options which have special effects;
There is nothing inherently bad in having your options on a series of cards in front of you.

What is inherently bad is if those mechanical bonuses don't do anything:
Pushing back one square? But there is no different between walking a square or two and attacking or standing still.
Doing N amount more damage? All classes do that.
Getting a +1 bonus? Classes do not have enough options to cycle through before +1 becomes meaningful to a single battle.

You need options which have a result of there mechanics.

Faerie Fire in WoW not only reduces the target's armor a statistically important amount, it stops characters from using Stealth maneuvers or burns up their limited Counterspell abilities. (it does damage, also, but not a meaningful amount: Any damage cancels stealth. So they do that instead of having a separate 'cancels stealth' program call.)
Maul/Strike is bonus damage to auto-attack... Pretty bland, but you can only use it when bloodied in the last round (Rage ability). It also doesn't consume an action, so it stacks atop any damaging abilities you are also using.

These are two WoW abilities which are basic and really bland. But they both do more than pretty much any at-will in 4e. And both of these aren't limited to one an encounter.

In designing a game, you need to make sure that the bonus that you are making the player do math (takes time, player effort to care) will matter in every battle - so the battle needs to be long enough for it to matter. a +1 needs a hundred rolls before it'll be noticeable.
You need to make sure that the action the players are doing for has meaningful fluff - pushing a character back a square had better have a result, like spoiling full-attacks, if you're going to put it in. Elsewise, it really is fluff.
And you need to make sure players have enough choices that they will not use all of their abilities or options before the end of an encounter. This is the opposite force from the rule that encounters need to be long enough for bonuses to be meaningful. You don't even want players to run out of cards to play. Ever.

-Crissa

[DragonChild]

As much as I dislike 4e, I hate the "4e is WoW" meme.

It's both, but there's a clear fellating of the WoW cooldown timers/macro bar approach to your character in 4th edition. Hell Wizards even sells decks of cards so you can create your own power bar across the bottom of your "screen".

Is Tome of Battle "fellating WoW cooldown timers" ? Are the printable cards just for WoW?

[areola]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/5298753-post35.html

"PRODUCTS REQUIRED TO PLAY
Each table participating in the D&D GAMMA WORLD Game Day will need the following products, in addition to the materials provided in this kit:

One (1) D&D GAMMA WORLD roleplaying game boxed set – the DM uses the rulebook and tokens from the set during play.

Two (2) D&D GAMMA WORLD booster packs for each player participating in the game. Players should purchase these booster packs at their local
game store prior to sitting down to play."

Yeehaah!!

[Crissa]

...Gamma World? Didn't it get the worse sales of any d20 product?

-Crissa

[Lago PARANOIA]

As much as I dislike 4e, I hate the "4e is WoW" meme.

I dislike the meme too, mostly because it's used to disparage the good or value-neutral things 4E tried to implement, but sadly there's more truth to this meme than snark.

Here are eleven reasons why 4E completely deserves the '4E is WoW' slur. Yes, eleven. Because why do ten, when you can do eleven?

1) Completely destroyed any semblance of anything but a video-game economy.
2) Requires people to upgrade their equipment to an extent not seen in any other tabletop RPG before or since.
3) Took out nearly every innate ability for players to affect the world outside of combat and then charged a punitive surtax on abilities that did. After nerfing them.
4) David Noonan admitted to shoehorning roles just because he played an MMORPG that did.
5) Punitive and constant errata as if this was a video game where it can be done painlessly.
6) A stable of stock 'damage + minor effect' powers consisting of more than 80% of powers.
7) A vastly shrunk combat field in all three dimensions.
8) Intentionally embracing 'points of darkness' as a setting design element because the authors didn't feel like worldbuilding and also to facilitate dungeon crawling.
9) A treasure system that only serves to give people combat or skill bonuses; the rare few treasures that don't are far too restrictive to be worth the time.
10) An intentionally treadmilly and low-powered advancement scheme that added 50% more levels but also reduced the top-end of the power limit.
11) Intentionally making NPCs a gigantic pile of 'not-sense making' because they just exist as stats to be conquered.

[Username17]

I think that "X is like Y" is in general a rather poorly crafted complaint, especially if Y has a large number of fans. However, one has to realize: 4e really did dump a lot of admittedly World of Warcraft (an EQ) inspired bullshit into the game on the grounds that the designers liked those MMOs. Seriously, they said that.

The 4e implementation of "Roles" was seriously intended to be a rehash of MMO hate management systems. That was the actual stated goal. Worse, David Noonan came out in public and admitted that he couldn't think of a single example in history, fiction, or tabletop gaming that actually worked like that, but he was going to do it anyway because he liked MMOs! That's not other people making fun of him, that's his own story, on his own damn blog.

The 4e implementation of "Quests" was literally modeled on the WoW quest system. As conceived, you were actually supposed to go skin eight sarlacs and then have the quest ding and give you some XP and treasure. And then you'd go talk to another green dot and get another "quest." They backed off from this one in the last year or so, because it is fucking insulting, but that was the original concept.

The 4e implementation of "enemies" and "allies" is seriously based on the Red Dot/ Green Dot concept of computer games. They even acknowledge that it doesn't make any sense, and their response is to ask you to not abuse it.

So with all kinds of honestly atrocious ideas being ported into the game from computer games, and most of them being specifically being from MMOs, and Mike Mearls babbling like a dizzy chickenhead about fucking WoW, people are honestly well within their rights to say "This is shitty because it is a WoW clone." That might not be entirely fair, since I'm sure you could potentially port lots of ideas from World of Warcraft to the tabletop and have a game that wasn't made of dick. But they didn't. They made a new edition where they added a new kind of Elf that looked exactly like a Blood Elf for no reason and they reimagined the Tiefling as a Red Dranei for no reason and they made a game that was fucking terrible. And people are well within their rights to conflate those two facts and condemn 4e on th grounds that it is "like WoW."

There are plenty of good ideas in WoW. But there are also plenty of irrelevant ideas an terrible ideas as well. And the 4e designers hurt the game by adding enough of the very incongruous and thus extremely visible shitty elements that the connection is now permanently made. "This game has WoW elements" is now a fucking insult, and there is nothing you or anyone else can do about it.

-Username17

[areola]

Thing is, we all know that 4e was influenced by MMO and intended to attract the MMo crowd, but why are those 4e hardcore fans still deluded and think 4e is the best thespian rpg ever?

[Lago PARANOIA]

Because the worse the rules are, the better it is for ROLEplay not ROLLplay.

This is hilariously true of both combat-heavy, non-combat light rules-sets (earlier versions of D&D, WHFRG) and the reverse.

Where have you been for the last thirty years, areola?

[Crissa]

#6 isn't really a WoW comment. #7 seriously isn't.

But mostly I don't like the argument because it's lazy. There's dozens of things they could've brought from MMOs to a table top game to add, not distract, from the experience.

-Crissa

[Lago PARANOIA]

So with all kinds of honestly atrocious ideas being ported into the game from computer games,

To be absolutely fair, Frank, 3rd Edition's idea about using money to buy magical items is an order of magnitude worse than any of 4E's WoW-fellating except for action items 3 and 11. And that was directly ported over from the dumbass Wizardry and Final Fantasy and Gold Box and Baldur's Gate videro james.

[Username17]

But mostly I don't like the argument because it's lazy. There's dozens of things they could've brought from MMOs to a table top game to add, not distract, from the experience.

-Crissa

Meh. They ported in the WoW implement system for mages. Fuck, the original release of the Wizard was going to have Tome/Staff/Wand/Orb as their base implements, until people complained that was too much like WoW and they delayed release of the Tomes for a few books.

And the 4e equipment system is fucking awful. And it's a direct rip of World of Warcraft. So people coming out and saying "4e's equipment system is an insult to gods and man because it's a direct rip of World of Warcraft." is not wrong. Sure, correlation does not imply causation, and it is entirely possible that the jackasses they had writing 4e would have driven the equipment into the ground no matter what they did. But there is pretty strong evidence, like with 100% of our experience, that putting WoW ideas into the core D&D experience makes things insultingly shitty.

Seriously, let's count the ways:

• WoW style "implements" Shit!
• WoW style "item drops" Shit!
• WoW style "instant crafting" Shit!
• WoW style "vendors" Shit!
• WoW style "NPC resale" Shit!

So seriously, while I objectively understand that there are probably some ideas in WoW that are portable to table top in a positive manner, you have to understand that you are are making a serious Black Swan argument here. The 4e crew implemented a lot of WoW ideas an they have all been unmitigated disasters. To argue that implementing something from WoW might ever, or indeed could ever be a good thing, you need to make the Hume argument against inductive empiricism. You know the one:

Just because the sun has risen every day in your life does not mean that the sun will rise tomorrow.

And while such an argument is logically sound, you'd be fucking retarded to think that people aren't going to laugh in your fucking face if you try to make it seriously.

WoW elements into D&D is a dead issue. The people have been... displeased.

-Username17

[DragonChild]

So with all kinds of honestly atrocious ideas being ported into the game from computer games, and most of them being specifically being from MMOs, and Mike Mearls babbling like a dizzy chickenhead about fucking WoW, people are honestly well within their rights to say "This is shitty because it is a WoW clone." That might not be entirely fair, since I'm sure you could potentially port lots of ideas from World of Warcraft to the tabletop and have a game that wasn't made of dick. But they didn't.

This is basically where I'm disagreeing with you with. You're about the only person I've heard make a rational "4e took bad stuff from WoW" argument. Instead, the usual BS I hear is "The warlord is just like a raid leader!" (when the warlord, IMO, is a good idea for a class - at least a "leader of men" is), or "The warlock is just like a WoW warlock", or even bullshit like "They made fighters do interesting things like in WoW". It's just kinda BS all around, and basically only three out of however many people who use the argument do so intelligently, and even then it doesn't mean what the majority of your readers will think it does!

[Lago PARANOIA]

Well, the D&D is WoW meme has traction for three reasons.

1) People just don't like WoW. People have made a few threads on these boards blaming MMORPGs for causing the slow death of roleplaying. By comparing WoW to something else they hate, it like doubles the hate! Or something.

2) The WoW ports to the game are really obvious in parts. It's very easy and convenient to point to WoW as the game that they don't like's inspiration as opposed to Final Fantasy or WH40K (which you would have to do some reaching to). WoW is more of a target by proxy rather than a object of hate in its own right.

3) It's just a general common sense complaint about things in the first place. You could just as easily say 'they fucked up professional wrestling by making it more like anime' or 'they messed up The King's Quest Series by making it more like a FPS'. The complaint in this case rests upon the recipient realizing that 'they' are dumb a priori by mixing up two things that aren't meant to go together.

[Zinegata]

People don't hate WoW Lago. They just hate someone trying to apply WoW to a format it doesn't work well with.

[Lago PARANOIA]

People don't hate WoW Lago.

No, Zinegata, I am the hater.

I even made a World of Warcraft Hate thread that got hijacked by Kaelik and Crissa less than a page in. Fucking jerks.

[Zinegata]

People don't hate WoW Lago.

No, Zinegata, I am the hater.

I even made a World of Warcraft Hate thread that got hijacked by Kaelik and Crissa less than a page in. Fucking jerks.

You're not "people" .

[Crissa]

Actually, a WoW character has a wider choice of weapons than a 4e character. Three of nine classes can specialize. That's it.

• WoW style "implements" Shit!
• WoW style "item drops" Shit!
• WoW style "instant crafting" Shit!
• WoW style "vendors" Shit!
• WoW style "NPC resale" Shit!

• Actually, a WoW character has a wider choice of weapons than a 4e character. Three of nine classes can specialize. Mages don't specialize in wands or staves or swords or daggers or books.
• In WoW, item drops include trash (stuff the mobs could be carrying) and since you're expected to kill many, a standard chance to get something crafting/quest related. Magic items are actually based upon the zone you're in, and there's global drop charts as well. It's more like the random tables in 2e than in 4e. There are also 'mark' drops which may be traded at the expert in town (who is peak level and better than you) turning a 'relic item' into a usable item; or a certain number of marks like currency.
• ...In WoW, the time to craft is based upon the collection of materials, not the finishing of the product. As well, an expert craft person is only allowed to process a certain amount of high-end material in a day or week. I'm not sure 4e even has these features.
• ...In WoW, vendors don't sell anything you want except food. Vendors that do sell what you want are limited to barter. 4e doesn't do that. See drops.
• Resale... I don't even know how this is like WoW at all.

-Crissa

Why the heck is there so much extra space at the end of lists?

[areola]

You guys know that they are labeling the items into common, uncommon and rares now right?

[ScottS]

Individual D&D trash fights take as long to resolve as entire WoW instances. If I'm a hypothetical gamer coming over from WoW to 4e, what am I supposed to be getting in return for giving up on anything resembling a real-time, exciting combat?

[magnuskn]

Since when do WoW mages need some sort of Orb/Rod/Dildo to cast spells?

[Starmaker]

...using money to buy magical items ... was directly ported over from the dumbass Wizardry and Final Fantasy and Gold Box and Baldur's Gate videro james.

Nitpick: I have played almost every gold box game in existence. Magic shops are very rare and the useful stuff they stock amount to a couple of magic user scrolls. I mean, potion of healing? Wand of magic missile? +1 magic crap at the end of the game when my party is already decked out in win and awesome? Dart of Hornet's Nest? These take up backpack place like whoa and it's just one dart per character action anyway; you'd better off shooting (two arrows, three darts), stabbing (darts are close-range) or casting magic missile. The really good stuff was mostly found in treasure caches and occasionally picked up after major battles. Since enemies dropped their actual equipment to the point that if you procrastinated and they shot a couple of arrows, you'd get that fewer arrows - no sprites here, sir!, spotting these required Detect Magic initially and just a plain sharp eye in later games. And even when you were level 30 and everyone and their mom dropped +1 underpants, you'd still be hard-pressed to locate a magical underpants shop.

All in all, the general uselessness of money and the absurdity of hauling enemy equipment back to town to sell was very clear in gold box games. I mean, they even had some semblance of market economy: a particular vendor started giving lower prices after you hauled in yet another pile of scale mails.
/end rant

If I'm a hypothetical gamer coming over from WoW to 4e, what am I supposed to be getting in return for giving up on anything resembling a real-time, exciting combat?

Nothing, except possibly hanging out with friends face-to-face, but since 4e doesn't come packaged with new friends and you have to provide your own, nothing at all.

[*]...In WoW, vendors don't sell anything you want except food. Vendors that do sell what you want are limited to barter. 4e doesn't do that. See drops.
[*]Resale... I don't even know how this is like WoW at all.

Vendors have craft and spell ingredients, mounts and whatnot. They also repair stuff.
Resale: vendors paying a very small percentage of item price (like, Atiesh used to cost 25 gold - I think it can no longer be sold now, I may be mistaken). In WoW, it encourages trade. In 4e, it is utter shit.

Since when do WoW mages need some sort of Orb/Rod/Dildo to cast spells?

Since the beginning. Phat lewt gives stat increases.

Shameful note: if I were twelve, I'd wet my pants with excitement over playing a blood elf. The average D&D fan > me > 4rries. I think it was Tempest Stormwind's rant that vaccinated me for life. Funny that as I'm now googling the exact quote, all I get is WoW.