D&D 4th edition

[antiquarian]

The big Internet meme seems to be that 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons borrows heavily from World of Warcraft, but that overlooks the considerable influence from Magic: the Gathering -- which the bit about simple rules with numerous exceptions makes all but explicit. And the descriptions of powers (maybe the trigger is the term "flavor text"?)

Comments

[nfnitperplexity]

I guess I really noticed it in the use of standard keywords throughout the books. "Radiant", "Close burst", "Marked", "Combat advantage", and so on.

It seems to me that "X times per day" powers were common in first and second edition, especially among monsters.

[qmrf]

I think one of Wizards' semi-vaporware online tools is a "power card printer", where you'll enter all of your character's powers, and it'll format up a set of reference cards for those powers. I've not yet heard anybody referring to tapping their daily power card - but that's certainly more elegant than marking off a little box on your character sheet.