The GM makes, and can change, the rules.

Every 5yo to ever tackle Monopoly knows that the ‘house rules’ make a big difference.

I can assemble a campaign using 4e, and then I can tweak the guidelines *offered* by the 4e rulebooks to suit my game, my players and my overall campaign.

No MMORPG can do that.

I honestly don’t think that 4th edition has moved away from the roleplay that I’ve talked about. They haven’t provided as many concrete rules to use for these kinds of things, but that just leaves it up to the players and GM to resolve it through roleplaying and whatever generic checks are appropriate.

However, I can see why you and others might see the game as more “WoWified”, given the way they’ve done class powers and tried to pigeonhole each class into a predefined role. I don’t think this is the case though. There are always ways to break out of a role, whether it’s through multiclassing, playing against type, or simply challenging yourself with that Thieves Guild group you mentioned above. It may take more effort with 4e, but I’m willing to bet you could still do it successfully. Whether that effort is worth it or not to you or anyone else is another story entirely.

Either way, the main point wasn’t to say that 4e is perfect, or even as good as 3.5 or other gaming systems. The main point was that 4e is still a roleplaying game, and comes with the same flexibility other roleplaying games have. As such, it’s still much more at home with tabletop rpg gamers, and perhaps wargamers, than it is with the MMO crowd. I still prefer 3.5 to 4th myself, I just feel like saying 4e is WoW is doing the game an injustice.

The point is that 4th edition moved away from facilitating the sort of roleplaying you praise, which is exactly what the “It’s too much like WoW crowd” are complaining about. Try running a Thieves Guild (all-thief) party with 4th edition. AD&D2 and D&D3.x could do that easily, 4e… not so much.

I totally agree that number crunching can be fun too. Sometimes my friends and I will go through a bunch of crunching to see how we can make an uber character of awesome, especially in 3rd edition D&D with all the extra source books.

One of those friends even joked you have to love math to enjoy WoW because of all the numbers involved.

I’m not really sure what two things you’re asking about being different though. If you meant crunch vs. roleplaying and story, while they can certainly be intertwined, they are definitely different, though certainly complementary as you said. Otherwise, maybe you could clarify what you were asking?

As well, what there is to complement number crunching can definitely make or break a game for any given person or group of people. And that’s one of the reasons people look at different games and types of games in different manners.

Before the first expansion, there was a lot of wiggle room in how players geared. After the release of The Burning Crusade, that was thrown out the window. You have to look for the right things to compliment the crunch. There’s an intrinsic value in crunching numbers. People want to be the best at what they do.

I ask this from an evolutionary perspective: Are the two so different?

You’re quite right about the teleporting thing. Looks like I flubbed that one. I should pay more attention to the specifics on some of those rituals. Though you could always work it into the game somehow if you wanted to.

As far as flying goes, it only takes a minor action for a wizard to sustain flying, and though that does limit the wizard a little bit since there are some pretty cool spells that can be done with minor actions, it’s not a huge hindrance as minor actions are the least versatile of the three types. Also, very cool that they’re adding mounted combat in WoW.

Your point on WoW having an epic story at parts is true from what I’ve read, and I certainly won’t dispute it. I know Blizzard does a great job with their games, and I trust they would have a good story to go along with it. I was more trying to play up the fact that it’s a static story that doesn’t change based on player actions. I certainly wouldn’t expect it to, just trying to make the point that having a dynamic story is something that can be done much better in a tabletop RPG, in the case of this post, D&D 4e.

Neither does 4th edition. Unless you know the rune pattern for the enemy fortress, you can’t even attempt a teleport entry until L28.

-Want to have a battle from dragonback, with a wizard flying alongside you for support? In WoW, mounts are only for transportation.

Also difficult in 4th edition, the wizard will spend most of his effort maintaining his flight, rather than supporting you. Also, come Wrath of the Lich King, vehicle combat in WoW is implemented.

-Want to have meaningful interaction with other characters, both PCs and NPCs alike? Look at chat in WoW sometime and try to find meaningful interaction. The computer controlled NPCs won’t help you out either.

Agreed

-Want to have a meaningful impact on the world that will effect everyone else in the world as well? WoW can’t do that.

Agreed

-Want to participate in the creation of a unique, epic story? Oh right, WoW is scripted, and goes where the developers say it goes.

Agreed, though some parts of the WoW story, particularly those pertaining to the Ashbringer are pretty epic.

-Want to jump through the glass roof, swing from the chandelier, and kick the sword from the emperor’s hand just before he slays your best friend? WoW can’t even begin to figure out how you might do that. Of course, you might fail that in a D&D game as well, but at least you can try… and you still might succeed too.

Agreed,

While I do like to rip on WoW and other MMOs, because really, they just aren’t my thing, I’ll acknowledge that they do have their own benefits over a game like D&D. One of those benefits, as you mentioned, is much less legwork in learning all the rules. You’re also absolutely right that a GM can, and often does, make or break a game of D&D, or any other tabletop rpg for that matter. With a good GM though, the players usually have a fair amount of input into the game as well.

With this post, I was trying to point out that 4th edition has the same advantages over MMORPGs that any other tabletop rpg has, even if it may apply some of those advantages differently. This is because a common complaint about 4th edition is that “it’s too much like WoW.” So, in this case at least, I wasn’t actually trying to rip on WoW so much as point out the things that can be done with a tabletop rpg.

As you say, there are also good things about WoW that a tabletop game can’t touch… I’m just writing from a biased position.

Also, since you say you’d like to try D&D sometime, I hope you get your chance soon. Good luck, and I hope it goes well when you get a chance to try it out.