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Dead Monky

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« Reply #15 on: <12-03-10/1847:51> »
I've never understood the rabid hatred some people can have toward game editions.  So pointless.

Kot

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« Reply #16 on: <12-05-10/1319:14> »
Well, it's pretty much the same as Humanis's ravings, so i don't even bother trying.
Mariusz "Kot" Butrykowski
"Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and good with ketchup."

The_Gun_Nut

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« Reply #17 on: <12-06-10/1340:49> »
Most of the hate and/or love for D&D4E comes from the radical overhaul of the game mechanics.  Similar to what happened from 2E to 3E: some folks embraced it, and others were repulsed by it.  While I find that 4E has its place and can be used for some kinds of gaming, it's not what I want to play in general.

Truthfully, though, if someone gave me the choice of D&D4E or Shadowrun, I'd pick SR every time.
There is no overkill.

Only "Open fire" and "I need to reload."

etherial

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« Reply #18 on: <12-06-10/1428:44> »
Truthfully, though, if someone gave me the choice of D&D4E or Shadowrun, I'd pick SR every time.

So would I. 4E is the version of D&D I hate the least.  ;)

inca1980

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« Reply #19 on: <12-06-10/1447:22> »
It just seems to me that a session of D&D 4e with no combat at all would be pretty hard to imagine, correct me if i'm wrong?  I haven't played much DnD4e, but in SR it's easy to go a long time with no Combat.  It's not Call of Cthulhu, but it supports that kind of game-style.  You could just be detecting, illusioning, charming, con'ing, intimidating, stealthing, hacking all day long and complete a whole shadowrun and never have drawn a gun and it's just as fun or even funner.

The_Gun_Nut

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« Reply #20 on: <12-06-10/1455:28> »
Very true.  SR, as well as many other games, can do just fine without combat, or even die rolls at all (the auto-hit mechanic is great for that).  D&D4E rules are laser focused on beat-downs, or the other die roll intensive "skill challenge" that seems to be the substitute for, well, anything not combat related.  It's just not my thing.
There is no overkill.

Only "Open fire" and "I need to reload."

FastJack

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« Reply #21 on: <12-06-10/1509:16> »
It just seems to me that a session of D&D 4e with no combat at all would be pretty hard to imagine, correct me if i'm wrong?  I haven't played much DnD4e, but in SR it's easy to go a long time with no Combat.  It's not Call of Cthulhu, but it supports that kind of game-style.  You could just be detecting, illusioning, charming, con'ing, intimidating, stealthing, hacking all day long and complete a whole shadowrun and never have drawn a gun and it's just as fun or even funner.
Hell, look at our game. Took us twenty pages before we even thought of an initiative roll.

Kot

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« Reply #22 on: <12-06-10/1513:13> »
As for DnD, the game was always combat oriented and lacked any storytelling advices. As for me, DnD is for hacking, slashing and fireballing countless monsters. It can be fun, but still, i'd play ED or SR anytime instead.
Mariusz "Kot" Butrykowski
"Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and good with ketchup."

Dead Monky

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« Reply #23 on: <12-06-10/1536:27> »
Quote
Most of the hate and/or love for D&D4E comes from the radical overhaul of the game mechanics.  Similar to what happened from 2E to 3E: some folks embraced it, and others were repulsed by it.
The way I look at it is, D&D had to change.  It had been largely the same game for what?  Thirty years?  I mean, yes, 3E changed a lot, but it was still fundamentally the same tired old stuff.  Oh well.  No system is perfect and none will ever satisfy everyone.  (If you manage to make one everyone agrees is perfect you are clearly a sorcerer.)  Eh, whatever.  I'll just continue to sit back and laugh at people and their crazy, pointless hate.

The_Gun_Nut

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« Reply #24 on: <12-06-10/1541:49> »
The system changed radically.  Did it need to change?  It needed some fixes and tweaks here and there, but 4E is a major overhaul of not only the system, but the metagame of the, well, game.

Pathfinder is closer to a fix or a patch than the big change that 4E brought about, and I like it more.  It doesn't focus on combat so much that most every thing else needs to be handwaved or crammed into the skill challenge framwork.  It feels more coherent to me.

But, like I said, 4E has its purpose on my gaming shelf, but it isn't my go-to-wanna-play game (Shadowrun still holds that distinction).
There is no overkill.

Only "Open fire" and "I need to reload."

Dead Monky

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« Reply #25 on: <12-06-10/1601:23> »
*shrugs*  For me, it did.  I hated 2nd Ed and was largely indifferent to 3rd.  (I've never played 1st.)   I understand the reasoning behind most of the changes done in the 4Ed.  And I think a lot of the changes done with $th Ed were simply done to simplify the game.  I think what I like most about it is that it made a lot of the classes more interesting or useful (rangers, fighters, etc) and got rid of some of the more annoying and redundant features (negative levels, fast healing/regeneration, etc.)  I definitely understand what you're saying about it's over-focus on combat, though.  I simply modify the system a bit with house rules and it works just fine.

I generally prefer EarthDawn or ShadowRun to D&D myself.  I like D&D mostly because it doesn't have a preformed world.  I like making my own.  (Yes, I realize I could, potentially, make my own for ED or SR, but it wouldn't feel right.)


inca1980

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« Reply #26 on: <12-06-10/1636:12> »
That is a good point you make though, D&D leaves the world totally open if you're not using a preset universe and that has it's advantages.  I guess I would say that since SR is an extrapolation of our present RL world into the future, even though there is a lot of fluff material, it's still quite wide-open because of the diversity and vastness of RL earth.  I could just use a city map for the city I live in and just tweak it a little, and BOOM i have a whole city map.  I guess the same COULD be done in D&D, but medieval cities just never got to the size of our modern day ones. 

However having fluff written that you don't personally like can be a bit annoying because then you feel like you're not on the same page as everyone else who plays SR4e in the world.  But i've found it's easy to kind of maneuver around fluff because fluff usually just paints a macroscopic picture of a place and it's up to the GM to define the microscopic culture, history and atmosphere of a location which is what truly matters. 

Dead Monky

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« Reply #27 on: <12-06-10/1701:09> »
You know, you can get plenty of maps for smaller towns and villages online.  And numerous ancient cities were the size of modern ones.  At its height, Rome had millions of inhabitants.

Chaemera

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« Reply #28 on: <12-06-10/1736:15> »
As for DnD, the game was always combat oriented and lacked any storytelling advices. As for me, DnD is for hacking, slashing and fireballing countless monsters. It can be fun, but still, i'd play ED or SR anytime instead.

Read the 4E DMG & DMG2, they put a lot of emphasis into non-combat this time round.

Yes, the game is built from the perspective of "combat first, everything else second". However, when I look at people's character sheets for SR, WoD, and Exalted (and I'm sure others), the overwhelming majority of the sheet is dedicated to... combat and combat related gear (okay, so if you're the hacker, it might be Matrix combat, it's still combat).

Whether or not a game is combat oriented is a factor of the GM and the players. I can see SR being nothing but "you get the run, you go in, guns blazing, kill the corp bastards, take the loot and flee." I wouldn't have fun doing that, but it would fit the mechanics. It would butcher the game world, sure. But, you could do it without any serious game mechanics issue. Nothing in SR except the setting and the lethality really do squat to stop it from being combat monkey.

Same for WOD, same for Exalted.

Very true.  SR, as well as many other games, can do just fine without combat, or even die rolls at all (the auto-hit mechanic is great for that).  D&D4E rules are laser focused on beat-downs, or the other die roll intensive "skill challenge" that seems to be the substitute for, well, anything not combat related.  It's just not my thing.

That's because the rules are built to be accessible to everyone. Specifically, there is a rule for everything and everything has a rule. Thus, game balance is easier to determine, difficulty is efficiently scaled. Does it suck for the creative types? Hell yes. That's why the first thing the DMG covers is the importance to make the rules fit your game. If you think that die rolling instead of roleplaying is unique to DND, ask yourself why you have a "negotiation" skill. What is that if not a method to substitute die rolling for non-combat roleplaying?

The trick is, just like with SR4 & every other game I've seen, you ignore or change the rules that impede the fun of your game. If that means the bulk of the rules, ask yourself why you're using the system.

It just seems to me that a session of D&D 4e with no combat at all would be pretty hard to imagine, correct me if i'm wrong?  I haven't played much DnD4e, but in SR it's easy to go a long time with no Combat.  It's not Call of Cthulhu, but it supports that kind of game-style.  You could just be detecting, illusioning, charming, con'ing, intimidating, stealthing, hacking all day long and complete a whole shadowrun and never have drawn a gun and it's just as fun or even funner.

You're wrong. Frequency of combat in any game is a direct function of the GM and the players. I've had DnD sessions (in 3e, 3.5 and 4) that have been nothing but combat after combat. I've had sessions that were intensive planning, snooping, B&E, conning, negotiations for passage, and spelunking.

DND is geared towards high-fantasy swords & sorcery, so yes, by default, the look / feel / rules are geared towards resolving a problem with the local "evil-bad-man" by combat. The GM and players then tweak as much towards or away from that underlying "theme" as they like.

SR is geared towards gritty, cloak-and-dagger themes. So, combat is made more deadly (and then a pile of optional rules are presented to negate the deadliness), infiltration, stealth and negotiations are emphasized. And the GM and players can then tweak as much towards or away from that underlying "theme" as they like.

Despite comments that everything in DnD boils down to a die roll, the same is true of every game if you follow the RAW. Every one of these games is about having a character, represented in the abstract by a set of numbers interacting through a set of rules and a random-number generator (dice) to determine success or failure. This is true for every action in the game world for nearly every RPG.

Frankly, my group has to roll more dice and remember more rules for SR than it ever did for DnD. But, SR is so much more fun because I love the themes & setting. And we haven't figured out the rules we want to ignore yet.
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FastJack

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« Reply #29 on: <12-06-10/1853:12> »
OKAY, STOP.

No edition wars on these boards.