Will D&D ever get better?

>same mechanical style
>GURPS

lol

>Risus
>Satisfying tactical combat
You what?

Play first or second edition.

Play with good players and a good DM

Stop complaining about your games being bad when you can't even put in a minimum amount of effort.

>3d6 vs d20

Yea so different

Oh and m&m 3e is great for high fantasy.

>Ugh.
BBEG

So you have no ability to assess design priorities, got it. Then again, I guess it makes sense, you are a GURPS player.

M&M is a solid system but has a very different combat dynamic, with a lot less focus on teamwork and less actual tactics, since via extra effort you can generally pull whatever you like out your arse.

But you see my original post said nothing about having to have similar design strategies, DF blows 4e out of the water.

These all read as if you've not actually played the game yet.

>all these people bitching as if 4e is gone forever
You're 100% your own problem on this front. Just...go play the game you like instead of shitposting about it. It is not a hard problem to solve.

But if they're not even trying to do the same thing then why the fuck would you compare them? It's nonsense, more a statement of 'I prefer this playstyle' than anything to do with the systems themselves.

>BBEG
Ugh.

>Ugh

4e is a dungeon crawling tactical game

DF is a dungeon crawling tactical game.

The only difference is that DF works better, and can also run anything from low fantasy to magitec sci-fi.

So you have no ability to assess the design priorities of systems, got it. Fucking GURPS players... Just because your pet system pretends to have no implicit flavour or design priorities doesn't mean others don't, or that they don't matter.

is this loss

Came to post this, basically.

You realize dungeon fantasy certainly has design priorities. It's to be a gurps version of d&d.

Your whole argument is "no that's not better because I say so."

That you're blind and ignorant doesn't mean other people aren't.

Hint- 4e is notable for being very different to standard D&D.

Not that user, but every edition of D&D has wildly different design priorities, so "GURPS version of D&D" is a meaningless assessment.

Yea 4e is built to be a class based tactical combat system.

DF is a class based tactical combat game.

The only difference is that DF doesn't have the flaws that 4e and it does tactical combat better.

If your whole argument is "4e is built to do this so it's better" then I don't know what to tell you. If your specialized system loses to a generic system, doesn't that make it even worse?

>alignment on the character sheet

Why is this a problem? Anyway just play GURPS or something.

>dnd still uses binary d20 rolls
as opposed to warhammer Degree of success or FFG narrative dice?
the former can be fiddly and the latter needs special dice, not to mention skubtastic
>dnd still encourages dump stats
there really isnt much you can do about this, since its almost always more efficient all their points in whatever is most important, other than giving them fixed stat scores
>dnd still has classes that you might as well take a nap while playing noncombat encounters with.
this mostly depends on the DM for coming up with encounters that make use of the fighters extra jump distance
>dnd still has casters as objectively superior compared to martials
the gap is small enough, especially at lower levels, that normal people wont experience it
having people not munchkin out their ass goes a long way
>dnd still doesn't have interesting combat
it is pretty fun, if it drags its mostly either the DMs problem, or the players forgetting about class features or the "use ability" action

and DnDs combat is infinitely more interesting than "we all died to a single volley from a tommy gun" seen in CoC
>dnd still has alignment on the character sheet
it is mostly for the players benefit, since it has no mechanical benefit or easily ignorable ones
it gives most players a rough indication of how they act, while the player fills in the nuance for himself

That you have no understanding of the difference, or why it's important, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. GURPS in any form is not comparable to 4e.

This is something I've noticed before. Systemic tone, and how that influences the experience of playing the system, is something GURPSfags always seem completely blind to. Which probably explains why they're capable of playing GURPS, which I've always found to be intolerably bland and flavourless.

I I was playing d&d for the "flavor" I'd have played 3.X.

You present that 4e is mechanically superior, while true in comparison to the rest of d&d isn't when compared to GURPs

Remarkable how you base your arguement on feelings.

...It's not about feelings. Jesus, you really have no idea, do you?

Systemic tone is the idea that core mechanics and system structures can influence the experience of playing a game. That a different set of core mechanical ideas, built from the bottom up, will create a distinct experience. This is why GURPS is not comparable to 4e. GURPS completely lacks the systemic tone and implicit traits that make 4e 4e, which is why it's not comparable.

Leaving aside that 'mechanically superior' is entirely subjective. I vastly prefer the mechanics of 4e to GURPS. Fuck, I'd take 3.PF over GURPS. At least the mechanics actually have some texture to them, unlike the bland, flavourless paste you're expected to manually shape into a facsimile of the genre you want.

I don't even have anything against GURPS, it's a solid system if not one for me, but jesus its fans are the most obnoxious cunts.

So your whole argument is that d&d is built to be a dungeon crawling game whereas gurps isn't therefore gurps in inferior?

You do realize that dungeon fantasy is built to be a dungeon crawl right?

...No. Not at fucking all. Why are you so dense?

D&D is an incredibly cleanly made dungeon crawling RPG.

I really don't get all the hate for it beyond contrarian arseholes hating what's popular. Other games exist for other things but nothing does D&D as well as D&D.

Most of the hate is because of 3.PF, or from fans of 3.PF.

You say that 4e is built to run d&d which is fine.

But df is built to run !d&d.

So your whole argument is that gurps is boring. What a stupid argument.

That is not it at all.

GURPS is being used to emulate D&D. Emulation cannot replicate implicit systemic tone that is present in core mechanics.

Also, as noted, 'D&D' is a vast and ephemeral notion which varies massively from edition to edition, making your whole argument ludicrous.

>4e is built from the ground up for heroic, high fantasy RP
>gurps is not
>4e is built from the ground up for tactical, yet stylish, combat performed by big damn heroes against all manner of monsters who can also do similar actions if smar
>gurps is not
>4e is built from the ground up with implicit assumptions of the genre and teamwork due to a more narrow setting and tone that gurps is fucking not
I have just jumped into this thread, why is this so hard to understand.

4e's powers/abilities system was shit

There were aspects of the system that I liked but I hated the way it played like a video game

To play any class requires creativity to do well, more so for martial characters at high level but with 4e it just plays like a video game with cool downs and nonsensical powers

And?

So you are saying I can't possibly understand because d&d is a nebulous concept that I can't actually understand despite have played every version past 2.

I evoke death of the author. Judge the systems without the authors intent.

You just kinda say, I don't like gurps. That's your whole argument.

Warhammer fantasy RPG is the true solution

What you mean is 'It didn't suit my playstyle and preferences'

Also that you apparently don't play videogames, since 4e didn't play like any videogame I'm aware of.

Protip- Having predefined options does nothing to stop you 'being creative'.

whats nonsensical about X/encounter powers?
unless you do something like make 2 seperate encounters 5 seconds apart, its a lot like X/short rest powers

But gurps is. It has each and every one of those in present in gurps.

It's just that those aren't the core of gurps. And you can play without those.

Gurps has tactical combat, gurps has high fantasy, gurps has magic, gurps has summoning.

What the heck.

While you might be entirely blind to it, systemic tone is an important part of systems to many people, even if you remain belligerently ignorant of it.

Also

If you played core 3.5 and didn't go out of your way to be a cunt it was also fine as a system and had a lot of improvements over AD&D.

Because a system being built from the ground up to support them creates a different quality of experience to a system being used to emulate them.

...Yeah, no.

I played a fighter in my first game of D&D. Another new player played a wizard. He made me irrelevant by accident and it was a while before we figured out how to fix it, and even then it was hard work with the system constantly going against us at every turn.

If both systems can do the same things but system 2 does that thing better, then system 2 is better.

Gosh.

How did a level 1 wizard make your level 1 fighter irrelevant exactly unless the DM was letting you rest for 8 hours after every single fight ?

D&D lives on because of it's nostalgia factor and brand recognition. Sure, other games may do it better, but people have so many warm and fuzzy feelings associated with D&D: with saitting around with your friend playing a human Fighter who has simple as dirt compared to the other guy's elven Wizard who has pages worth of spells and uses spell slots to cast Magic Missile and then you both fight Dmegorgon- who is a two headed tentacled armed monster and then the Fighter gets a +2 Sword and Gauntlets of Ogre Strength.

D&D doesn't change or get fixed because doing so would generally mean getting rid of a lot of stuff that people fondly remember about playing D&D. They'll feel that the improved/fixed version did away with that and doesn't feel like the D&D they know and love and instead feels like another game.

If you wanted a better game or knew a better game existed, you wouldn't be playing D&D. You're playing D&D because it gives you the warm fuzzies/connection to something bigger or because your friends refuse to play something else because D&D gives them the warm fuzzies/connection to something bigger.

That and they can't be arsed to learn another RPG system because they're comfortable enough with D&D- but that goes back to not knowing about better games.

Jesus christ, if you don't want to play d&d, don't fucking play it. If your friends only want to play d&d, find some new fucking friends. If you can't do that, kill yourself.

I agree with explain further. Unless you're gonna say something like "all the enemies stood in a 15ft cone waiting to be color sprayed, and didn't take their AoOs, and also all failed their saves" then I'm not seeing how he is doing it at level 1.

Are you really entirely blind?

Right, an example. Say there are two systems. In one system, flight is an option you can include. In the other, flight is an innate part of the system which every character is assumed to have.

In system one, you can play a game with flying characters. In system two, because it is an assumed part of the system, it will inform the design, and all the mechanics will be tuned to support it and based off it. Although you could run the same game in both, because it is an implicit part of system 2 the quality of experience will be different than the system where it is simply an option.

This is why systemic tone matters, and why GURPS's attempts to emulate are not directly comparable to a system built from the bottom up.

Even if the DM did let them rest after every fight, a level 1 fighter generally shits all over a level 1 wizard. A level 1 fighter is gonna be slapping people's shit for like 2d6+3 every round. Whereas the wizard has 1d3 acid splash and 1d4 cone of burning hands.

>Yea 4e is built to be a class based tactical combat system.

COMBAT went that direction.

Outside of combat, D&D was still the same "I wanna do X," at which point the DM would ask "Do you have any special abilities related to X?" and you would tell them what abilities you did/didn't have and make relevant rolls and then see what happened.

But D&D has always had more complex combat rules than many RPGs. 4e just moreso.

Outside of combat, I stood around occasionally rolling my low skills to not much effect, while the wizard was often able to use his spells to creatively solve problems. And I was that cool! It made me wish I played a wizard.

In a fight, I would roll to attack every so on, sometimes getting more than one, doing okay damage and killing the occasional monster. The wizard would cast spells that rendered entire encounters a non-threat, disabling enough of them that there was no danger to us. I wasn't the mighty hero fighting monsters. I was the cleaning guy tidying up the wizards mess.

We didn't spend long on level 1, to be fair. The GM wanted to see what the system had to offer so we levelled up every couple of sessions for the first while.

However gurps has rules for flight as well. I can play 4e without ever leaving the game and that is wrong because 4e is built with flight in mind.

But in gurps I can choose to never leave the ground and the system has rules for that.

Are you saying that being pigeonholed into a playstyle is better gamedesign?

Not the OP, because I swear it's the only game that people play that interests me. Every other game that I want to play just simply doesn't have a player base.

Yes. That is exactly what I am saying. A system being more limited in scope can be a good thing, because it means all its mechanics will be designed with that in mind. The intended tone, themes and genre of the experience is implicit in the assumptions of the system. And this is something I consider a strength of 4e.

But likewise you must realize that being able to do whatever you want is a quality that you want?

Especially that gurps takes each individual quality to a level that specialized games do while remaining generic.

>dnd still uses binary d20 rolls
This hasn't been strictly true outside of to-hit rolls since 3.5. Degree of success/failure are both supported by and encouraged by the rules.
>dnd still encourages dump stats
Not really. The standard array forces you to dump something, but people only get away with min-maxing when the game is 100% white room combat encounters (which I'm sure happens with a lot of shitty DMs). The fact every stat has a corresponding save now also helps with that.
>dnd still has classes that you might as well take a nap while playing noncombat encounters with.
This is actually retarded. Everyone in the party is an adventurer. You don't need a special skill to address every challenge. Also every character access to a much broader range of skills with the background system. Try being creative.
>dnd still has casters as objectively superior compared to martials
Objectively superior in every single way? Superior to the point where you don't even need the rest of your party? No, not remotely. Are you sure you're not reading the 3.5 PHB?
>dnd still doesn't have interesting combat
No system has more innately interesting combat than another. This is entirely based on mentality and creativity.
>dnd still has alignment on the character sheet
Not everyone is a moral subjectivist edgelord. Maybe you should stick to jacking off to 90s comic books instead of playing RPGs.

And in doing so it loses that implicit systemic tone which is a strength and an asset of specific systems which generic systems cannot emulate.

You seem to be having a really hard time seeing past your personal preference and biases, but even putting aside your entirely subjective point about mechanical quality that I'd highly disagree with- Being able to do whatever you want is a quality that You want with a system.

I prefer a system that focuses on a single goal and doing it well. That you cannot make a non-combat character in 4e is a feature. That you cannot make a character who is self-sufficient, and are inherently reliant on teamwork to function and survive, is a feature.

Your point about combat is utter horseshit. You can fluff in any system, but some systems have actually interesting and satisfying combat mechanics, while others do not.

In some games, combat is barebones and only really present as a placeholder, with no value in and of itself beyond conflict resolution.

In other games, you could box and package the combat as a board game and it would be an enjoyable experience in its own right.

How many encounters did you face between each long rest? Wizards are weak as fuck without spell slots, and they get jack shit spell slots at level 1.

This is literally retarded.

If I can do everything a specific system can do what's the point?

GURPS is both better as a game, and as a roleplaying system. If I want to have a focus on speech I can.

Simply put you seem extremely biased. You've accepted that gurps can do everything 4e can do, and then say that because it's generic it's instantly worse than a specific system, despite evidence to the contrary.

It was over a decade ago. Not many, I think? Probably just as a side effect of the GM being inexperienced and not wanting to make too much work for themselves. Although as I mentioned, I don't think we stayed level 1 beyond the first session.

If you didn't like any of the previous editions you won't like the next one. What do you want me to say?

Fuck, I give up. You are not only blind to systemic tone, you seem utterly incapable of realising why other people consider it a valuable part of their experience. You 'win', in that I've realised there's no point talking to you anymore. Take it as a victory if you like.

D&D did get better, but it made neckbeards so upset that the next step forward was actually two and a half steps backwards.

Goddamn dude, alright. As another person who plays GURPS, let me walk you through exactly why someone might pick 4E over GURPS

While GURPS is flexible in taking optional rules modules and layering different amounts of complexity at each different table, it will still run combat in an extremely specific style. I will be worrying about hit locations, readying my weapon after attacks, stun penalty, going for limb-cripples, worrying about DR by location, and being able to take one action per turn (be real, moving and attacking is a mugs game). Each turn will be extremely quick, and unless the GM is handing out free HP like candy, most players will feel fragile unless wearing full, heavy armor head to toe, which will drastically lower mobility. The various powers you can purchase to represent spells, supernatural abilities, etc, will be priced very differently. GURPS has decided teleporting even a short distance at 100% reliability is incredibly expensive, for example. This will heavily skew what your average adventuring party will look like in a GURPS DF game compared to DnD.

Meanwhile, DnD 4E requires less optimization in character generation, contains packages of pre-built powers that usually involve a more varied approach to spacing, playing with spacing, and inherently synergistic powers, while not pricing new powers more expensively. Instead of your combat options being a vanilla part of the system with your skills and attributes determining how likely you are to succeed at using those core options, each character (so long as they are from a different class) will have a unique suite of abilities that, even if they share one or two with another class, will feel part of a completely different playstyle. The Controller Wizards battlefield manipulation will feel different from the Striker Barbarians raging nonsense. The Leader Warlords constant buffing and support will feel different from the Defender Fighter.

True. 4e is greatly underrated.

There are plenty of games that TRY to have interesting combat mechanics. But there is only so many ways to add bonuses to dice rolls. It all boils down to using tactics to increase your odds. D&D supports that. The only differences are fluff, granularity, and complexity, with the latter two adding the least effect to the experience for anyone without autism.

Continuing; if you cannot see why someone would prefer one experience (Quick, bloody, visceral combat with a focus on crippling injuries, death spirals from HP/FP loss penalties, and always being terrified of a single bad blow vs Disgaea/FF Tactics-esque square-counting, synergy-stacking resource-management combat with clear party roles) over the other, you're fucking blind, stupid, or willfully ignorant. There'll be days I want GURPS, there'll be days I want 4E. GURPS, for all its talk of being "Universal and Generic" is actually quite good at one specific way of handling any genre/time period, and if a party doesn't want that specific take, they don't fucking want it.

If you like playing a Diablo 3 board game.

Oh fuck you. It's impossible to enjoy game mechanics without being fucking autistic. All you're showing is that you have no understanding of what's actually involved in a good combat system. There is significantly more to it than just more numbers.

Please stop repeating memes and lies

It's not Diablo 3, It's a Tactics game, you mouth-breathing mongoloid. If you're going to spew your video-game MMO meme bullshit, get the right video game.

>Diablo 3
>Not Pillars of Eternity

>GURPS, for all its talk of being "Universal and Generic" is actually quite good at one specific way of handling any genre/time period, and if a party doesn't want that specific take, they don't fucking want it.

Man, my first experience with GURPS was horrible due to that. It was being used for a high power superhero game and the GM pointed me at GURPS magic and didn't inform me just how fast people can gib in the system when superhero attacks start getting thrown about...that didn't go well.

i totally understand this, however his arguement of specific > general was totally stupid and not a legitiment argument

There literally isn't, you fucking retard. Mechanics = numbers. Complex systems just mean more numbers being added up. You still end up with a certain chance to cause something to happen.

If you were taking the piss trying to get him to explain himself better, I can understand that; the other 4E defender going "if you don't understand you just don't" got me so riled up I had to vomit up that angry diatribe

Only if you're being the most wilfully ignorant moron, since mechanics also involve different things happening. And creating interesting decision making is the heart of fun mechanics.

Except that wasn't the argument

He was arguing that specific has advantages over generic, which isn't really wrong. It could be argued better but he's not really wrong.

Ah, it’s nice to see 4rries will edition war with other systems entirely let attempt fights with all other D&Ds. Quick, I heard someone say it’s good game design for Pathfinder to give wizards more feats and spells and powers!

Lots of video games give you powers you can only use once per combat

When a fighter is as powerful as a pre 4e wizard you don't really need to be that creative. Wizards end up being shit and relegated mostly firing pot shots via atwill spells as soon as they blow their loads

So yes, you have no idea how anything works. Good to know.

>Wizards end up being shit and relegated mostly firing pot shots via atwill spells as soon as they blow their loads

...isn't that an accurate description of Pathfinder and 5e Wizards? When you are out of spells, you've just got your infinite use cantrips?

>Lots of video games give you powers you can only use once per combat

Which ones? Most video games I can think of use a cooldown-based system or one that's recharged by your own actions.

You have way more spells in any other system

I think 4e really dropped the ball when it came to its power system. Each class shouldn't have had the same ratio of at-will/encounter/utility/daily powers. Even though the classes played differently, when reading the book the dryness of the power blocks gave the impression of every class feeling samey.

Yeah but in other systems you don't get any of those back every encounter. Once your level 1 wizard has used his 3 spells, he's done for the day.

Eh, I'd disagree with that. You really fuck with the 'over the course of an adventuring day' balance by doing that. It's the issue with saw with Essentials, where essentials classes borked the balance by making most of the power tied to basic attacks.

More stuff like the Monk and other Psionic classes would have been nice though.

Here's the thing: in 4e you have 5 dailies at most ever. This means blowing your load is always going to drop you to a relying on lower power spells more often. Meanwhile in PF, the wizard gets between 36 to 45 spells per day at level 20 before getting into Int bonus and the 5e wizard gets I think...30 spells per day?

In most metrics now to be fair, it would be better to rely on comparing the top 2-3 spell levels to the 4e wizard's dailies. The PF wizard will have 12-15 spells per day (before Int bonus) at levels 7, 8 and 9.

The 5e wizard has 6 spells per day of levels 7, 8 and 9.

So its more accurate to compare the 6 level spells and below as the rough equivalent as an encounter spell once the caster has 9th level casting.

But that's not fair either, since that single big block of spells includes combat and non-combat options, while in 4e you also have access to rituals.