I've bought a lot of d&d books. One of my fondest memories is pouring through the 1st edition dungeon master's guide. So much esoteric information. Sure, the organization was lousy, but there was a charm to that. Also, the magic items section was so evocative. Many items had descriptions and interesting lore.
It seems like most of that has been stripped in 4th edition, and I miss it. The system itself seems fine, but I don't have the desire to pop open a book and reread sections like I used to in previous editions. It seems that in the interest of brevity and accessibility, a lot of lore and game inspirational text has been eliminated.
I was never a big fan of fluff. If I picked up a guide on races or whatnot, I'd skim over the background info and skip to the crunchy parts. What are the new spells, feats, abilities? But! It seems there are degrees of "fluff" for me. I didn't care much about how a halfling lives his day, but man...I miss paragraphs of text for items and spells. That was good reading. That was inspiration. That made me WANT to make a character.
I skimmed over the magic item book that came out recently, and there were pages of charts for items. Really? Is that what people want? Sure, I can see having useful charts in the back of the book, but throughout?
I understand what they are doing with 4th edition. They are reorganizing. Restructuring. Slimming down and trimming the fat. It's a lean, core system for DMs to build on. But! I miss my escapist descriptive text.
I know it's a balancing act. More crunch? More fluff? I think too much fluff would have been a mistake as well...but maybe a little more would have been enough to bridge the gulf between the editions and let me draw more parallels and feel more of a connection to the new edition.
After reading the core books, I had assumed (hoped?) that the core books were designed to be slim rules only, and subsequent books would expound and elaborate on the omissions. Unfortunately, it seems they are more of the same. It appears that the kind of writing I miss is now encapsulated within the online content. The problem is I have no desire to flop on my bed with a snack and read a pdf, or a website. I want my worn-with-use-dog-eared magazines or carefully bookmarked rulebooks.
I never thought I'd say it, but I miss the fluff.
I've bought a lot of d&d books. One of my fondest memories is pouring through the 1st edition dungeon master's guide. So much esoteric information. Sure, the organization was lousy, but there was a charm to that. Also, the magic items section was so evocative. Many items had descriptions and interesting lore.
It seems like most of that has been stripped in 4th edition, and I miss it. The system itself seems fine, but I don't have the desire to pop open a book and reread sections like I used to in previous editions. It seems that in the interest of brevity and accessibility, a lot of lore and game inspirational text has been eliminated.
I was never a big fan of fluff. If I picked up a guide on races or whatnot, I'd skim over the background info and skip to the crunchy parts. What are the new spells, feats, abilities? But! It seems there are degrees of "fluff" for me. I didn't care much about how a halfling lives his day, but man...I miss paragraphs of text for items and spells. That was good reading. That was inspiration. That made me WANT to make a character.
I skimmed over the magic item book that came out recently, and there were pages of charts for items. Really? Is that what people want? Sure, I can see having useful charts in the back of the book, but throughout?
I understand what they are doing with 4th edition. They are reorganizing. Restructuring. Slimming down and trimming the fat. It's a lean, core system for DMs to build on. But! I miss my escapist descriptive text.
I know it's a balancing act. More crunch? More fluff? I think too much fluff would have been a mistake as well...but maybe a little more would have been enough to bridge the gulf between the editions and let me draw more parallels and feel more of a connection to the new edition.
After reading the core books, I had assumed (hoped?) that the core books were designed to be slim rules only, and subsequent books would expound and elaborate on the omissions. Unfortunately, it seems they are more of the same. It appears that...
Aye, if you want to really get some fluff - and if you can dig the set up - try cracking open the 2e Encyclopedia Magicka. 4 ginormous volumes of magic item goodness, almost all of which have flavor text of their own. Some good, some not, some awful - but nonetheless, all described.
I miss fluff in 4e as well. I miss reading supplements and adventures just for fun. Now, they are largely just instructional manuals. Although the planar cant was over the top in some books, I still like to read the Planescape books just for entertainment.
But one of the silliest things I miss in 4e, but I can totally understand being gone? A handful of d6's for damage. That experience of one of the players borrowing d6's from everyone, rolling that pile of dice, and then everyone leaning forward to glance at how many 5's and 6's there were vs. 1's and 2's, while the player takes a minute to group them up for easy totaling. Mechanically, it's a very clunky system. But when dropping a fireball on that big bad guy and his minions... seeing all those dice tumbling out... the potential for mass carnage... those were always magical moments.
Of course, I don't miss it too much since one of my groups still plays 3.5 and probably will for years to come. :)
If you want a pile of d6s for damage, play a Rogue and Sneak Attack. :D
Some of the stuff I miss but mostly I'm happier putting a lot of the fluff in myself. The thing I would personally like to see is books where you have fluff and other books with pretty much no fluff- just info. Books like the 'Book of Vile Darkness' is a quality insight into the hells,abyss and the politics involved but I don't want that material in the Monsterous Manual.
Likewise with the Realms Material, why buy the new books, if it's only the updated feats and maybe a few Powers is it really worth it? I for one never plan on running a game with the 'New' timeline and the whole Godswar foolishness in it so would happily use my 2nd and 3rd ed books to run the world.
Thing is I still have a huge amount of old material(1st 2nd ed) with the fluff in it which I use with 3rd and 4th edition. Much of it can be gotten free on PDF or bought second hand which I will use for some time to come.
In fact I have been gathering old Basic D&D,AD&D adventures to convert to 4th ed to run of recent days which has been interesting.
I miss fluff in 4e as well. I miss reading supplements and adventures just for fun. Now, they are largely just instructional manuals. Although the planar cant was over the top in some books, I still like to read the Planescape books just for entertainment.
But one of the silliest things I miss in 4e, but I can totally understand being gone? A handful of d6's for damage. That experience of one of the players borrowing d6's from everyone, rolling that pile of dice, and then everyone leaning forward to glance at how many 5's and 6's there were vs. 1's and 2's, while the player takes a minute to group them up for easy totaling. Mechanically, it's a very clunky system. But when dropping a fireball on that big bad guy and his minions... seeing all those dice tumbling out... the potential for mass carnage... those were always magical moments.
Uh, you don't do this in 4E? I'll have to tell my Greataxe wielding Dragonborn player he's doing it wrong then. And my Eladrin Wizard player too. Who knew?
I don't know, I feel that the 4e Manual of the Planes, Draconomicon I: Chromatic Dragons, Open Grave, and the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide all contain lots of fluff. And for a book that is mostly a crunchy reference, Martial Power contains a fair amount of fluff in the paragon path descriptions and sidebars.
i dont miss anything because i still play 3.5. read the 4e phb and was bored by it and was even less entusiastic when i acually played it. so our group quickly ditched 4e but i agree that all the fluff was pretty much taken out. also the enyclopedia magica was a GREAT set of books.
Uh, you don't do this in 4E? I'll have to tell my Greataxe wielding Dragonborn player he's doing it wrong then. And my Eladrin Wizard player too. Who knew?
Hey, I'm still new to 4e and low level (various reasons including group reluctance as well as not wanting to change mid-campaign).
From glancing through the books, there wasn't any obvious 15d6 to 20d6 sort of powers. I see wizards max out around 8d6 with meteor swarm. That's a far cry from 16 or even 20 d6's. THAT is a handful of dice that is fun to see tumble onto the table. 8d6 just doesn't compare.
Even sneak attack mentioned above tops out at 5d6. But then again, I haven't played and deeply examined high level to see how many other things can stack up.
Fighters appear to max out at 7[W], which with a heavy flail or maul gets you 14d6 plus any other extra dice you get from magic items or whatever, if I understand correctly.
So, yeah apparently some of it lives on, and that's good. And I'm not even saying 20d6 is a reasonable mechanic to have in a game for damage (for one thing, the more dice you use, the more likely you'll just get average results). I'm just saying that seeing 20d6 physically crashing over the table, regardless of good or bad mechanics, is fun on a visceral level.
Mostly I miss the days of getting crunch value for the money. When I first played D&D out of the red and blue boxes, it was sturdy paper, black & white print and art, and lots of text vs. illustrations. Now it is all high gloss but less sturdy paper, art and color everywhere, and less text per page. But that just might be my stingy, curmudgeonly attitude.
I guess I look at RPG books like novels. I like to let my imagination do the illustrating. Granted if they have illustration of a bizarre monster or item, that is helpful. But I conjure up an image of a red dragon or an orc on my own.
Although the planar cant was over the top in some books, I still like to read the Planescape books just for entertainment.
Amen. I never had more fun reading a fantasy RPG than I did with Planescape, and probably never will again.
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Fluff: That's what Pathfinder is for!
Seriously, I have been converting 4.0 over to Pathfinder with great success.
Some of the 2.0 books were made from teh best fluff, and I haven't reall seen any writing yet that captured that spirit. The exception being Pathfinder.
There's a very good world for you and very ggod people liek scott Betts and myself who are always willing to chime in with our $.02 on stuff.
If you get a chance, check out Scott's conversion thread in the RoRL area of the boards. His blog rocks.