The Overlord Welcomes 4e! Crunch Wins!

Please take this post with the necessary grain of salt. See my comment below the post.

Ahhh it’s been a long time now has it?

What? You don’t know who I am?

I am the dark power behind Chatty’s feverish prose. I’m his id, his darkest desires made thoughts!

While he tries real hard to be balanced, fair and open to such ridiculous concepts as ‘Shared-narrative’ ‘stories’ and other RPGs than D&D, I’m the honest one here.

It’s always been about mechanics, die rolls, power accumulation and so on. All in the name of ” The Rule of Cool” (Pfaa!)

For I am the Crunch Overlord, and I’m here to say that I won!

Mwa HA HA HA!

With the inevitable advent of D&D 4e, I can finally come out of the obscurity and announce that my plan was a rousing success. Crunch wins and fluff lost.

Even my Nemesis is, as we speak, working at a 4e adventure!

I mean, Chatty’s little Characterizations tips contest isn’t garnering much participation now is it? He offers a 50$ prize (you know you can sell it on Ebay if you don’t need it, right?) and it got a mere 8 entries after 4 days!

You want proof that Crunch won?

Here’s an example from the most overlordy of Cleric spells: Command!

In the 1st edition of the game (taken from the Old School Reference & Index Compilation)

Command:

By speaking a single word of command with the force of divine power behind it, the cleric may force a creature to obey the order. The creature must be able to hear the cleric and understand the language in which he utters the command. The command may be only one word and must be completely unambiguous. “Halt,” “Flee,” and “Sleep” are typical commands, but many others arepossible.

The command “Die” has the same effect as the command to “Sleep”.

Creatures with intelligence of 13+ and/or hit dice of 6+ gain a saving throw against the spell’s influence.

Bla bla bla!

Now in 3.x (From the d20 SRD):

Command:

You give the subject a single command, which it obeys to the best of its ability at its earliest opportunity. You may select from the following options.

Approach: On its turn, the subject moves toward you as quickly and directly as possible for 1 round. The creature may do nothing but move during its turn, and it provokes attacks of opportunity for this movement as normal.

Drop: On its turn, the subject drops whatever it is holding. It can’t pick up any dropped item until its next turn.

Fall:On its turn, the subject falls to the ground and remains prone for 1 round. It may act normally while prone but takes any appropriate penalties.

Flee: On its turn, the subject moves away from you as quickly as possible for 1 round. It may do nothing but move during its turn, and it provokes attacks of opportunity for this movement as normal.

Halt: The subject stands in place for 1 round. It may not take any actions but is not considered helpless.

If the subject can’t carry out your command on its next turn, the spell automatically fails.

Can you feel the restraints of game mechanics choking the flexibility out of the description?

Now in 4e (*):

Command:

Attack: Wisdom vs. Will
Hit: The target is dazed until the end of your next turn. In addition, you can choose to knock the target prone or slide the target a number of squares equal to 3 + your Charisma modifier.

Isn’t this the most beautiful, concise, description possible for this spell? And let’s face it, it’s what people have been doing with this spell for 30 years with the possible exception of forcing a monster from dropping it’s hand held weapon.

Any DM worth his salt could have argued that drop is vague enough as a one command word to be interpreted at least 2 ways (i.e. Fall down or Drop what’s in your hand).

So there you have it. Almost all of the PCs powers are for combat use and are explained with minimalist but oh so crunchy prose.

My Fluff-inclined minions (that I keep nearby to better watch my ennemies) have pointed out that there is flavour text for all of 4e’s powers, but seriously, who reads those?

In fact, D&D finally embraces it’s role as a Combat Roleplaying Game and that makes me so happy!

I’ve won dear Mr. Baur! See you at 5th edition’s launch in 8-10 years.

* Yes I’ve seen the Core Books, don’t ask me how because I won’t tell. I’m perfectly aware of how thin the ice I’m skating on is, I will assume the consequences if any. Buy the books!

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