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[Very Long] Combat as Sport vs. Combat as War: a Key Difference in D&D Play Styles...
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5828178" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>Yeah, my feeling is that there was a level of miscalculation there at WotC. First they seem to have had a hard time coming to grips with exactly what the strongest points of and best ways to use the 4e toolset actually ARE themselves (witness all the terrible adventures). THEN perhaps they also didn't understand that 4e is different enough in specific ways from previous editions that there are a bunch of things that should have been stated up front. I mean if you go through the 1e and 2e DMGs they NEVER say anything about 'digging the PCs into a hole' or any similar thing. It is just that there is a long familiarity amongst DMs with what the game does and how it works and how to use the tools, clunky as some of them are. A lot of things can go unsaid there (and LOTS of people never got it in AD&D either, it is just that they've carved themselves some sort of comfort zone with it over the years). I think nobody thought to conceive that you would need to have a DMG section that said "you should play tough on your party and get them in it up to their neck" or other techniques that 4e really can support well that aren't obvious in the advice they did give. In a way I think they overplayed the "here's how to make a nice balanced encounter" sort of advice and people just never thought much beyond what was in the books. AD&D just sort of tossed you in the shark tank and let you swim or not. Some people got eaten, the rest have forgotten that they were ever in that boat. I'm not real sure what sort of advice 3.x DMGs gave there since I have never read them, but I suspect it was pretty much similar to the AD&D advice, not much at all. </p><p></p><p>So now we have this weird perception that 4e is only good for making these 'sporting encounters' where everything is always balanced in a certain way, and the best tools in the game gather dust or at least everyone is just using their nice 3 axis milling machine as a drill press. lol.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 5828178, member: 82106"] Yeah, my feeling is that there was a level of miscalculation there at WotC. First they seem to have had a hard time coming to grips with exactly what the strongest points of and best ways to use the 4e toolset actually ARE themselves (witness all the terrible adventures). THEN perhaps they also didn't understand that 4e is different enough in specific ways from previous editions that there are a bunch of things that should have been stated up front. I mean if you go through the 1e and 2e DMGs they NEVER say anything about 'digging the PCs into a hole' or any similar thing. It is just that there is a long familiarity amongst DMs with what the game does and how it works and how to use the tools, clunky as some of them are. A lot of things can go unsaid there (and LOTS of people never got it in AD&D either, it is just that they've carved themselves some sort of comfort zone with it over the years). I think nobody thought to conceive that you would need to have a DMG section that said "you should play tough on your party and get them in it up to their neck" or other techniques that 4e really can support well that aren't obvious in the advice they did give. In a way I think they overplayed the "here's how to make a nice balanced encounter" sort of advice and people just never thought much beyond what was in the books. AD&D just sort of tossed you in the shark tank and let you swim or not. Some people got eaten, the rest have forgotten that they were ever in that boat. I'm not real sure what sort of advice 3.x DMGs gave there since I have never read them, but I suspect it was pretty much similar to the AD&D advice, not much at all. So now we have this weird perception that 4e is only good for making these 'sporting encounters' where everything is always balanced in a certain way, and the best tools in the game gather dust or at least everyone is just using their nice 3 axis milling machine as a drill press. lol. [/QUOTE]
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