Why 4th edition is better

I just finished my monthly role-playing game session and now I need to make another list. This one is why I personally think Wizards of the Coast (c) game Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition is better that their previous incarnations of the game, and why all the 3.5 (3.0, 2.0, etc) fanboys are wrong (well, I guess it's just my opinion, so I'll not say they're wrong, it's just their opinion thats wrong).

Oh yeah, by the way, in case there was some doubt before this post, I'm sure this makes me some particular kind of nerd, so now the world knows it.

And for all the non-nerds, DnD is a table-top based game with dice, made up fantasy characters (like elves and dwarves and wizards), and the kinds of elements made popular by games like World of Warcraft (which incidentally I don't actually play).

So here are my reasons:

1) No more skills bloat. I don't have to have 15 points in equestrian-knot-tying-in-melee just in case I need it sometime. How many skills were there in 3.5? Including the expansion modules, the dragon magazine stuff, and the non-core rulebooks? Like 72?

2) Everyone can do something. Previous versions of the game featured fighters who could swing a sword 27 million times a day, and spell-casters that could cast their spell once (or only a few times) and then become amateur dagger-wielding melee fodder (or the people who huddled in the corner hiding from the bad guys). 4th Ed gives everyone at-will powers, or in other words, something they can do at will or any time.

3) Standard combat procedure. It used to be, if you were a cleric, or a warlock, or a wizard, or a fighter, you all had completely different procedures for doing your combat 'thing' - some rolling attack checks, some rolling difficulty checks, some trying to overcome an enemies Armor Class, some just trying to Touch the enemy for their effect. Unfamiliar with what these words of nerd-dom are I just used? Imagine the learning curve for the uninitiated into this game, or trying to remember what your own character does after not playing for a week.

4) Less monotonous repetition. In the previous releases, while battle options were as recondite and arcane as the spellbooks the wizard characters carried with them, most of the battle consisted of player characters 'attacking' the monster. You would do this by uttering the sanctioned phrase "I attack the (insert monster name here)". Now, you don't just attack. You call down divine wrath, or you enter blood-seekers rage, or you perform a ruinous assault, or a blood-spike sweep, or use desperate fury, or ready skirmishing stance, etc. and etc. - you're not just doing some undefined, generic thing with the monster. You're specifically trying to kill it a certain way. And what's genius, none of this makes combat complicated - it's the same procedure no matter what your character, built right into the different powers you have.

5) Variation in kinds of combat attacks. In earlier versions of the game, if you were a fighter you could attack an enemies AC. Is the enemies AC too high for you to hit? Too bad. In 4th ed, you have at least the option to take powers with more variety in attacks, since every character has 4 defense scores instead of 1. Is their AC too high? Use a power that targets their fortitude. Or their reflex, or will.

6) Strategy and representation of characters count. In 3.5, it was possible to get away with a game that didn't involve any specifics of place or time. You could get into a battle with a monster, attack it, defend yourself, etc, without necessarily having to know any spatial relationships between you and the monster - you just needed to know how far away you were and how hard to swing to hit it. In 4th ed, spatial relationships are vital. You need to have strategies, you need to work together as a group, and the environment frequently plays a part in the combat. This could be a drawback if you want to play a generalized, non-specific combat encounters kind of game, but for everything else it can really help to add to the narrative and immersion of the game.

7) Better abstraction. A lot like doing away with skills bloat, 4th ed does a better job of dealing with game mechanics and abstractions - for example, I no longer need to try and figure out the real-world probabilities of being able to perform some obscure task in the /rain/cold/rough terrain/while on fire/while drunk/ from /around a corner/under a table/floating in the air/upside down/another characters shoulders/ while /attacking/grappling/singing/meditating/dying/ and then arguing my case why my probability seems rational. In 4th ed, difficulty and skills are abstracted. The game is internally consistent, not a weak and fractured fabrication of supposed real-world equivalents (I might still have to figure out those probabilities, but they'll be based on in-game elements, not real-world ones).

8) Character races and classes are different. In 3.5, a human fighter and a dwarf fighter, while seeming different at level 1, had only insignificant differences at levels 20, 30, and 40. Several kinds of 'fighter' classes (ranger, barbarian) were also not much different from each other the higher the level. In 4th ed, characters are unique at every level of play.

9) Streamlined combat and mechanics means more involved storytelling. When less of the game is spent dealing with judgement calls about how a particular rule applies to the game, more time can be spent in delving into the storylines and plot points. Simultaneously, players can be more invested in their characters than the game mechanics themselves.

10) Explicit character roles. Characters role in combat is much more defined by their powers now. In earlier games, everyone was a 'fighter', but only the character class called a 'fighter' was defined as such. In 4th ed, everyone fights. What makes different kinds of fighters is what role they play in combat. Some classes focus on doing damage (strikers), while others distract the enemy (controllers), others try to take the damage (defenders), and so forth.

11) Skill based encounters. Combat isn't everything. In earlier versions, out of combat game elements were very free form, relying on the game master to craft (and they still can be). But 4th ed gives us another structure for presenting puzzles and story elements that don't involve combat: skill challenges. These are very adaptable, and allow the players to role play their characters while also rolling dice and using their abilities to progress the story.

My summary: more elements for role play possible, more clear and universal combat procedure, more variation in classes and races without the class-explosion of 3.5, and easier set-up and running for a DM. In reality, these are just a few of the things done better in 4th ed than other versions, and why I find it to be overall a better evolution of the Dungeons and Dragons system.

Stamp Collecting

I was reminded recently of the Ernest Rutherford phrase about all real science just being physics, and everything else being equivalent to stamp collecting. I've always found this to be such a self important and arrogant approach to science, as well as a misguided one (it seems to imply that physics is wholly objective, or pure ontology - ignoring that all science including physics is subject to fashion, and ultimately grounded in human consciousness).

So, I thought I'd make a list of non-trivial things that physics either could not deal with, or would be completely ridiculous to even try (mostly in defense of other sciences, but maybe some things outside the realm of science in general). [By non-trivial, I mean that it's pointless to say that physics could never produce an equation that would tell me George Washington's middle name, because George Washington's middle name in this case is a trivial kind of fact about George Washington - I'm talking about the kinds of things that have internally consistent structure.] But of course, my list will not be extensive. So maybe anyone who reads this can add things via comments.

List of things non-derivable from any physics equation:

1) How to determine the major 5th of a particular key (or some other music theory computation).

2) The optimal method of creating a difficult maze.

3) How SHH and BMP affect the cells of a human developing in the womb (or any other mammal).

4) The structure and interactions of the pathway from the retinal cells in the eye (through the LGN) to the primary visual cortex, and back out to the temporal and dorsal regions of the brain, etc.

5) The underlying differences between Indo-european languages and Altaic ones.

6) How a democratic republic functions differently from pure democracy (the non-trivial version of this problem).

7) The fastest way to solve a Rubix cube.

8) The most efficient solution to the traveling salesman problem.

...

n-2) Human consciousness.

n-1) What happens to our consciousness when we die.

n) Most likely, the universe itself. Turns out, there's never going to be a physics theory of everything (you could have asked Godel about that - no formal axiomatic system can be complete AND consistent - and Gregory Chaitin showed that there are infinite fundamental and irreducible 'axioms' in any formal system). But then, that's kind of the point of my post here.

I'm not actually trying to 'physics-bash' - after all, I was spellbound reading Einsteins 1905 paper on special relativity when I was sixteen. I don't want to crush anyone's enthusiasm for learning, I just find it odd when amateur-physicists are so enamored with being able to explain photons that they think everything in the universe breaks down to a couple of equations. What do you think?

Help Forum

98.2% of the help & support forums on the planet (I made up company names):

Shoelaces etc Forums:

User Needs Suppoort:
Hi, I'm posting to this shoelace tying forum, because I'm about to run in a race and I'm required to wear lace up Conserve shoes with a right handed loop. But I can't remember or don't know how to tie laces right handed. Since this looks like the forum for it, can anyone help me?

Someone else:
Oh yeah, what you need is some velcro man. That's what I use, it's great!

Another person:
Dang, who uses shoes still? I've been shoeless over a year! Bare feet are awesome!

The doublechecker:
Are you sure your shoes need to be tied? They might be a different kind of shoe. Or the coach might be wrong. Try tying them again a few times to be sure. Or try checking what kinds of shoes they are. Make sure that you even have shoes, too.

User Needs Support:
Um, what I wrote was that I'm required to wear Conserve, the kinds with laces. Does anyone here know how to tie shoelaces? Because the coach needs me to tie it the right way.

Adminuser support:
We only tie Mikeys, we're not affiliated with Conserve shoes. For just $234 you can have one of our support specialists come and show you how to use the Mikey's shoes shoelace tie-er. There's probably a local store near you, if you set up an appointment they can be out to you in just a few months from now. Do you have the serial number on the bottom of your Mikey's shoes?

User Needs support:
No, I don't have Mikey's shoes. I just need to know how the laces go.

Lost person:
I have green laces, and they work fine. Maybe you need some new laces, I know that green ones work great. They're the kind I've always used. I wear them everyday.

Some guy:
If you're having problems with your laces, you should try replacing them like the person above me said. Laces can wear out, and usually getting new ones solves that issue.

Good guy:
I think he just wants to know how to tie the laces. Go to this website www. some-kind-of-technical-website .com/ fakeurland/ fakepage.html and they can show you how to make a left circle. Everyone uses that, so it should work for you.

User Needs Support:
Thanks, that was helpful, but like I said I need to know the right handed loop. It's probably similiar, but I'm required to do this a certain way. I'm sure someone can show me how this is done?

Wandering troller:
Conserve shoes are stupid, nobody buys them. Mikeys have some really great pre-tied shoes you can get. I know lots of people who use those and they've never had to tie their shoes!

Knowitall:
I always buy dark shoes, and I've never had any problems with the laces. It sounds like your problem is your shoes aren't dark enough, not that the laces aren't tied. Heck, my shoes don't even have any ties!

Almost useful person:
What you can probably do is buy some pre-tied shoes, then cut the laces out and sew them into the shoes you have, some guy in his garage mumbled out something about how to do that on this document on the web: www. someguysgarage .com / mumblings/incoherent.html. I havent tried that, but a couple of people got it to work once.

Forum user:
Hey, I need to know how to do this too. Except, not with the laces, but with the soles. Mine aren't staying in. It's kind of the same problem, so I thought I'd post here too.

Random dude:
Everyone needs to use flipflops. They let your feet breathe!

Trolling flamer:
Dude, it's so easy to tie shoes that way. Just hold both strings, double one of them, then circle around on the left, and you're done. There complete directions on www. mikeys-shoes .com/idiot-help/ totally-obvious-but-useless-directions.html

User Needs Support:
I think that's the left circle, not the right loop. Also, those are for mikey's shoes, which are all flat-tops and in-threaded. Conserve are high-tops and out-threaded. I can't seem to find clear directions that make sense for these shoes.

Moderator:
Mikey's shoes does not support right handed loop lace tying. This thread has been closed.

And there you have it. Apparently, there are no littering laws on the 'information superhighway'.

Good Times

How long is long enough to banish oneself from a blog? I suppose two years ought to be good. Really, after packing up and moving back to sactown, posting on my blog seemed... unnecessary. What would I post about? 'Today I worked. Then I came home and vegged out. Then I got ready to do it again tomorrow."

So, yeah. Don't get me wrong, life's been decent, but somehow writing on here seemed dishonest or something. And then as time went on, I'd have to come up with a better and better reason why more and more time has gone on. Well, I don't have one. So there.

I'm back in Berkeley. I work a lot. But that's much better than not working, and still having to eat, and pay rent, and all that. And now, I'm going to rant. Because, after all, what else is a blog for?