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Originally Posted by Evan Waters
It must just be something that gets passed back every edition. By the time a new edition comes out, people are used to the old enough that they can comfortably roleplay and improvise and tweak things. 4e has yet to be "broken in", as it were.
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No, and 'breaking in' has nothing to do with the criticism on roleplaying. I suspect it's more of a matter of how many other RPGs are written these days: with reams of detail on the world being described, along with advice for stepping into a character's shoes. Where this differs from D&D of any edition is that the focus of the game isn't simply combat, which D&D emphasizes above any other consideration. In combat, the focus is a lot more on mechanics. Complicated mechanics don't make roleplaying impossible, but thinking in terms of them does tend to make thoughts of 'what would my character do now' fade into the mind's background. This is where the idea that rules-light is better for roleplaying ultimately comes from.
As for the idea of 'wearing in', it's somewhat true for old players, but this edition was (supposedly) created to bring in new players rather than to cater to the old. Where are they going to learn about roleplaying? The DMG has some great advice on the subject, but it's mostly aimed at the DM, and it's questionable how much help such advice would be to someone getting into the hobby on the ground floor.
Any first-time players or DMs feel like testifying on this one, preferably in detail? Hear ye, hear ye! Open call! Stand and be heard! Come one, come all!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Evan Waters
I will say, though, that the books themselves have a lot more "flavor" than the 3.x volumes. The text isn't as dense and there's more world stuff that crops up now and again, like references to the Feywild and the Shadowfell. That sorta thing gets my imagination going- it really feels like a fantasy game.
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I'm dubious about this point because these places are only referred to by name. They are never
described in any useful way (the descriptions in the DMG are so general and short that they're meaningless). They're rather evocative words, but the flavor they add is pretty empty when you realize that that's all they really are.
Which is to be expected, because there's really not a world connected to the core books. There are a few suggested trappings that could be used in one, but trappings alone do not a world make.
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Originally Posted by Susanoo Orbatos
That's what I thought, there's a bunch of "this is how race X acts" and snips of their assumed history, various references to places, gods etc. I don't see how this is less than 3.x in any fashion...
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Those snips of history and 'how they act' bits aren't very common, actually, and the references to gods and places don't tell you very much, mostly because little is said about the gods and the places themselves. Trappings alone do not a world make.
Granted, 3.X only had that much in the PHB. I expect that, like 3.X, there will be racial, faith, and world sourcebooks to fill in the blanks in the future.
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Originally Posted by Susanoo Orbatos
and definately more than Gurps assumes..
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Hear that knocking? That's the Relevance Police at your door. Bashing an undiscussed system (and an actual universal system at that) in no way makes your point stronger.