Since others have replied regarding Pramas's substantial credentials, I'll respond to something else.
The new edition of D&D is the easiest iteration of the game to learn and understand. The list of improvements from 3.x to 4th is long, to long to detail here.
Do you seriously think 4ed is easier to play than the original game? If so, I have to ask, have you ever seen the original boxed set? No skills, no feats, no distinction between classes and race. Combat maneuvers consisted of: attack. That's it.
As for improvements, that's really a matter of opinion. In mine, the game evolved from Basic to Advanced to 2ed, 3ed and 3.5. Then, instead of fixing what was broken and expanding on what already existed, they burned the house down and built something entirely new.
Back in the 1e days I loved the work of Clyde Caldwell. His pictures really seemed like snapshots of a fantasy world to me. Extremely creative and life-like.
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
|
Perhaps... but at the same point, it's important to remember that not only has Chris been in the game design industry for over half a decade, he also was an employee at WotC for some time as well.
In fact Chris has been in the game design industry for something approaching 20 years, going back to Feng Shui and other independent stuff like that. His was one of only a small handful of companies to take advantage of the d20 license on day 1, he publishes the most popular superhero game in the industry (Mutants & Masterminds), and runs one of the most successful RPG publishers in the business.
|
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
|
WG7 was published in 1988, and is a good parody. Also, I think the deadly carpet is a tapestry. Right up there with Paranoia's Creatures of the Nightcycle, I'd say.
Not to threadjack, but no, not really, it wasn't a good parody.
It was a circle jerk by mostly blameless freelancers and a bunch of back-slapping douchebags at the office who thought they could do better than Gygax and subsequently ran the company into the creative and financial toilet.
It was unplayable, it was a slap in the face to the creator of the game, it was a bait-and-switch to a segment of the audience who had waited more than a decade for the REAL Castle Greyhawk, and it relied on the lowest sort of pun-based humor culled from the worst indulgences of the RPGA.
It was rubbish.
IMHO, of course. :)
OK .. thread's getting somber all over again. time for more trivia!
What adventure based in the planar city of Sigil featured the apotheosis of several NPC characters and a cameo appearance by the Lady of Pain herself? And who wrote this 2e Planescape gem?
Faction War? I could go check the copy on my bookshelf but that involves getting up (which I'm loathe to do, see ref: I'm lazy)
Cheers! :)
Just pulled out my copy of WG7. Some interesting names in there, including Paul Jaquays and John Nephew.
WG7 was published in 1988, and is a good parody. Also, I think the deadly carpet is a tapestry. Right up there with Paranoia's Creatures of the Nightcycle, I'd say.Not to threadjack, but no, not really, it wasn't a good parody.
It was a circle jerk by mostly blameless freelancers and a bunch of back-slapping douchebags at the office who thought they could do better than Gygax and subsequently ran the company into the creative and financial toilet.
It was unplayable, it was a slap in the face to the creator of the game, it was a bait-and-switch to a segment of the audience who had waited more than a decade for the REAL Castle Greyhawk, and it relied on the lowest sort of pun-based humor culled from the worst indulgences of the RPGA.
It was rubbish.
IMHO, of course. :)
What, you didn't like "Fluffy went down the drain?" Seriously, I would have to agree 100% on that assessment. WG7 was a travesty and an insult to anyone who took Greyhawk seriously and was looking forward to finally seeing the dungeons below Castle Greyhawk. When TSR came out with this, I stopped buying Greyhawk material for a very long time because they clearly didn't seem to care about the setting.
|
I love it. A respected rpg developer expresses his opinion and now HE is a moron and an idiot because he isn't suckling at 4E's teat too. Keep on trashing him and everyone else who tries to display an opinion that isn't in line with yours.
First it was 'don't make opinions until you hear more', then 'wait until you see the rules', then 'wait until you play a couple sessions, to give it a real chance', then I hear stuff like 'well once they get some splatbooks out' and other nonsense......
Is anyone ever allowed to make a decision to not like 4E and not be just an ignorant, stuck-in-their-ways, uneducated lout?
If Chris Pramas had come out saying that 4E was good he would be used as a hero, shining beacon, and a rallying leader for the 4E lovers' arguments.
Now he is getting his position assaulted and people are trying to undermine his opinion to make him look like he is either uninformed or just plain dumb to make a statement against 4E.
I wouldn't be upset if so many weren't trying to pull his statement apart to make themselves look better, smarter, more informed, more in touch with existing trends, or whatever else makes them feel better than anyone else.
The man is an RPG Developer. It's OK to disagree with him, (although I have been told on some of the 4E thread that I don't have the credentials to question WOTC's developers' decisions) but to sit here and pick his statement apart to try to 'spin' it in favor of 4E is ridiculous.
It's a little bizarre that I've gotten more hostility from 4E fans on the Paizo boards than on EN World.
Folks who read a little more of my blog might have noticed that I am trying out 4E right now. I'm running two groups every week, with a total of 13 players. Depending on what the GSL looks like, Green Ronin may also publish some 4E material. For the record.
Chris Pramas
Green Ronin
What, you didn't like "Fluffy went down the drain?" Seriously, I would have to agree 100% on that assessment. WG7 was a travesty and an insult to anyone who took Greyhawk seriously and was looking forward to finally seeing the dungeons below Castle Greyhawk. When TSR came out with this, I stopped buying Greyhawk material for a very long time because they clearly didn't seem to care about the setting.
Having been a big Greyhawk fan for years, I think Greyhawk can (and should) withstand a bit of satirizing now and then. I miss my copy of WG7 which I foolishly sold in a pique of gaming swag reduction years ago. The level with the other RPGs done in comedy fashion, I thought, was pretty entertaining.
Back in the 1e days I loved the work of Clyde Caldwell. His pictures really seemed like snapshots of a fantasy world to me. Extremely creative and life-like.
I was never a big fan of Caldwell's. I thought too many of his compositions looked stiff rather than natural. And I thought he relied too much damsels in distress and cheesecake.
I'm more of an Easley fan. First convention signing I ever got was Easley's autograph on my 1st edition Monster Manual 2. Too bad the binding sucked and it largely fell apart a few months later.
|
|
It's a little bizarre that I've gotten more hostility from 4E fans on the Paizo boards than on EN World.
Folks who read a little more of my blog might have noticed that I am trying out 4E right now. I'm running two groups every week, with a total of 13 players. Depending on what the GSL looks like, Green Ronin may also publish some 4E material. For the record.
Chris Pramas
Green Ronin
Dude - Your work rocks. WFRP 2e is far and away my favorite RPG ever. Fan boy stuff aside, I agree that 4e isn't exactly user friendly. I have always figured that any RPG is best learned from people that already play it. I hope WotC can pull of a solid intro product later this year, and I hope they take some of your observation into account.
D&D occupies a unique place in the RPG ecosystem. It was the first RPG and created the entire category it continues to dominate. It also tends to be the entry point for most people into the hobby. While there have been some alternate avenues, most notably Vampire: The Masquerade, most roleplayers get their start with D&D. Despite this D&D has a checkered history in attracting new players since the days of the original Basic Set. TSR and WotC after them have had acquisition strategies that were either confused or ineffective. When I heard that 4E was going to radically rebuild D&D, my biggest hope was that the new iteration would be good acquisition game. The hobby needs more roleplayers, plain and simple, and I hoped 4E might help deliver them.
My assessment after having the books for a few weeks: it fails.
I'd have to agree, but maybe from a different perspective. It would be interesting to know what percentage of new gamers begin playing with an older, "veteran" gamer. Back in 1981, I didn't have anyone to teach me how to play (I don't think the game had been around long enough). I bought the Moldvay Basic set (I was 11) and my 9 year-old brother and I sat down and tried to figure out how to play The Keep on the Borderlands with a couple of friends - so maybe it doesn't matter. But I'm in the process right now of teaching my kid to play, and I find myself drifting back to more simple game systems so things don't become too overwhelming (and interest dies). Don't get me wrong - I love 3.0/3.5 - it actually got me interested in D&D again. But what I've experienced in terms of new, younger gamers, is that they don't need all the video-game-like trappings of current game systems to keep their interest pegged - the social aspect (and a bit of wicked dungeon mastering) makes up for the "wow" effect that you find in computer RPGs. Or maybe I'm just really old - heck, "Zork" used to keep me glued to our old IBM family PC until the wee hours of the morning...
It's a little bizarre that I've gotten more hostility from 4E fans on the Paizo boards than on EN World.
Folks who read a little more of my blog might have noticed that I am trying out 4E right now. I'm running two groups every week, with a total of 13 players. Depending on what the GSL looks like, Green Ronin may also publish some 4E material. For the record.
Chris Pramas
Green Ronin
Well, I'd put the hostility down to the fact that the 3.5/4.0 schism is still pretty raw and that sniping still pops up now and again- all these bloodied sacred cows make for spiky debate at best.
I finally sat down and ploughed through the PHB and I have to concur- the product that WotC has has put out offers minimal support to new players and in addition, I've found reading it a bemusing experience- while the layout is clearer, the actual information presented feels clunky and often obtuse- a few more examples might have helped.On an unrelated note, I was very disappointed with the art- while it was solid and workmanlike, I found that the look was a bit homogenous- the amount of gaping dragonborn just got tiresome. If there was an attempt to ape the visuals of WoW, then it failed badly. I know WotC has access to many great talents, would it have killed them to mix it up a bit?
|
Folks who read a little more of my blog might have noticed that I am trying out 4E right now. I'm running two groups every week, with a total of 13 players. Depending on what the GSL looks like, Green Ronin may also publish some 4E material. For the record.Chris Pramas
Green Ronin
Can you run a PBP here?
P.S. Love your work on WFRP 2ed.
I'm going to go a little against the grain here and say that the 4e game, as it currently is set out, should play just fine for new and young players... with the assistance of an older veteran. The choices of 1st level powers are reasonably interesting but graspable, particularly with said veteran helping cut through the bulk of the rules to get to the important elements. A friend of mine, the man responsible for getting most of us gaming through Boy Scouts, is going fully into 4e for the fast DM prep time and ease of getting his younger kids playing.
Of course, this comes with trade-offs. The character gen is relatively simplistic with easier optimization of stats, skills barely need to be worried about, and gear cut down to general elements. In that sense, it is much more of a beginner game than 3e, or in some ways, even 1e.
It really is that block of dense character powers that will daunt and that's what the veteran will be most needed for when generating characters. But as I see it, that's the job of the DM. To be that 'veteran' helping the players through their choices, even if he's only owned the books a short time longer than the players.
The question remains whether or not the tactical issues of the powers will be within the grasp of newer players. They might for a few early character levels, but we'll see how things get with funky slides and shifts going on as the powers get more complex.
The adventure is probably Faction War, but Her Supreme Bladedness also appeared in Die Vecna Die to remake the multiverse DC Crisis style.
Actually the Planescape adventure I had mentioned was Harbinger House and its designer was Bill Slavicsek.
|
It's a little bizarre that I've gotten more hostility from 4E fans on the Paizo boards than on EN World.
Folks who read a little more of my blog might have noticed that I am trying out 4E right now. I'm running two groups every week, with a total of 13 players. Depending on what the GSL looks like, Green Ronin may also publish some 4E material. For the record.
Chris Pramas
Green Ronin
We're not worthy! We're not worthy! We're not worthy! We're not worthy!
I love it. A respected rpg developer expresses his opinion and now HE is a moron and an idiot because he isn't suckling at 4E's teat too. Keep on trashing him and everyone else who tries to display an opinion that isn't in line with yours.
First it was 'don't make opinions until you hear more', then 'wait until you see the rules', then 'wait until you play a couple sessions, to give it a real chance', then I hear stuff like 'well once they get some splatbooks out' and other nonsense......
... Who said that Pramas was an "idiot and a moron"? Or even barely implied it?
|
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
|
In my experience, D&D has always been a game that you learn from sitting at the table. I may be incorrect, but I don't think it's ever been a game where people say, "Hey that looks interesting. I think I'll be the books and figure it out." D&D 'spreads' by people who play inviting people who don't to check it out and sit at the table. I don't see 4e changing that.
I got the red boxed basic set and went through the simplified solo module. Then I got a friend and took them through the adventure that came with it. We probably butchered the rules from a million directions especially when we started introducing advanced stuff from dragon before we switched to advanced but we made it work.
... Who said that Pramas was an "idiot and a moron"? Or even barely implied it?I love it. A respected rpg developer expresses his opinion and now HE is a moron and an idiot because he isn't suckling at 4E's teat too. Keep on trashing him and everyone else who tries to display an opinion that isn't in line with yours.
First it was 'don't make opinions until you hear more', then 'wait until you see the rules', then 'wait until you play a couple sessions, to give it a real chance', then I hear stuff like 'well once they get some splatbooks out' and other nonsense......
Bad choice of words on Fake Healers part... but on the second page of this thread, a poster implies that a very respected and experienced RPG designer doesn't know what he's talking about and must be a 4E hater because he states his OPINION that 4E might be hard for newbies to get into. And states it pretty well. There was no reason for the poster to take a very skewed shot at Mr. Pramas.
Aside from his negative comment on the one-page Index (I write and develop reference materials for a living, and a one-page user-friendly Index is the Holy Grail of indexes), I completely agree with Chris that the 4E PHB is not the best vehicle to lure in new blood.
But that's not a very fair point to make to begin with. No book, no matter how well written or marketed, is going to be able to accomplish what Chris describes. If you're expecting any book to create a great D&D Renaissance you're going to be disappointed each and every time.
The fact is, it is up to the gaming community (that's you and me) to bring in new blood. If the hobby is going to truly grow, the community has to take the time to teach the game to new people - especially younger gamers.
Several of my players, their kids, and I are starting a kid's D&D game with the 4E rules. One of the new players is an eight year old, who has already read the PHB cover-to-cover and is very excited about playing his new dragonborn ranger. The other kids are aged 8-11.
This is the kind of support the hobby needs. The 4E books are just fine. It's up to us to spread the word.
Bad choice of words on Fake Healers part... but on the second page of this thread, a poster implies that a very respected and experienced RPG designer doesn't know what he's talking about and must be a 4E hater because he states his OPINION that 4E might be hard for newbies to get into. And states it pretty well. There was no reason for the poster to take a very skewed shot at Mr. Pramas.
I see, but it was a single person, and a person who I've never personally seen posting on the 4E boards; perhaps, a troll or someone being really ironical. Fake Healers gives the impression that it was a generalized behavior; and it's not, as almost all repliers who disagreed with Pramas were respectful and at least partially agreed with him. I can assure you that on these boards, I've read far less "respectful" things about 4E guys such as Bill Slacvisek, Scott Rouse or Mike Mearls.
Indiana Jones shooting the guy with the scimitar in Temple of Doom.[nitpick]That was Raiders of the Lost Ark.[/nitpick]
Oh wow.
Patrick linked me to an Airplane quote on youtube and I started up with my glue habit again.
It's all his fault.
The adventure is probably Faction War, but Her Supreme Bladedness also appeared in Die Vecna Die to remake the multiverse DC Crisis style.
Oh yes, she does appear in that! That's a nuts adventure... off the wall and ambitious.
|
|
I think a comment on his blog says it best:
" At June 15, 2008 11:58 PM , Blogger BlackDiamond said...
WOTC has let us retailers know that the launch of 4E is aimed at veteran gamers.
New players will be targeted in a separate marketing campaign in the fall, likely coinciding with the new starter game in November.
Reviews so far and my impression as a store owner and a long time D&D DM is that it's looking pretty darn good."
OK; now I'm confused.
Wasn't Keep on the Shadowfell supposed to be a starter edition of the game?A light version of the rules, a straightforward plot, and battlemaps?
Sounds like a starter set to me, just like the black box Basic set, or the FirstQuest for AD&D.
|
|
OK; now I'm confused.
Wasn't Keep on the Shadowfell supposed to be a starter edition of the game?
A light version of the rules, a straightforward plot, and battlemaps?Sounds like a starter set to me, just like the black box Basic set, or the FirstQuest for AD&D.
Well, kinda. This is the real starter product.
|
|
WG7 was published in 1988, and is a good parody. Also, I think the deadly carpet is a tapestry. Right up there with Paranoia's Creatures of the Nightcycle, I'd say.Not to threadjack, but no, not really, it wasn't a good parody.
It was a circle jerk by mostly blameless freelancers and a bunch of back-slapping douchebags at the office who thought they could do better than Gygax and subsequently ran the company into the creative and financial toilet.
It was unplayable, it was a slap in the face to the creator of the game, it was a bait-and-switch to a segment of the audience who had waited more than a decade for the REAL Castle Greyhawk, and it relied on the lowest sort of pun-based humor culled from the worst indulgences of the RPGA.
It was rubbish.
IMHO, of course. :)
You are not alone. Rubbish indeed. I actually ASKED for this product for my 16th birthday. I got my wish and regretted it ever since.
|
|
It's a little bizarre that I've gotten more hostility from 4E fans on the Paizo boards than on EN World.
Folks who read a little more of my blog might have noticed that I am trying out 4E right now. I'm running two groups every week, with a total of 13 players. Depending on what the GSL looks like, Green Ronin may also publish some 4E material. For the record.
Chris Pramas
Green Ronin
The Kool-Ade is special over here.
Well to be honest while I do agree with some of Mr. Pramas points of the new edition not being too friendly to new players. I can not complain about 4E not attracting new players because the books did something I have not been able to do in the 5 years of my marriage, it got my wife wanting to play. She picked up the PHB while I was reading over the DMG and started asking questions and reading about the different races. Now she wants to learn how to play. Something that the 3.5e could not due and god did I try. Now granted the artwork and the explanations for each of the races was what sold her I believe and she has not tried to read anything else about the rules. She says just teach me it is easier for me to learn by doing than reading it. If our group can get her into the game then she will start to read the rest she says.
Well to be honest while I do agree with some of Mr. Pramas points of the new edition not being too friendly to new players. I can not complain about 4E not attracting new players because the books did something I have not been able to do in the 5 years of my marriage, it got my wife wanting to play. She picked up the PHB while I was reading over the DMG and started asking questions and reading about the different races. Now she wants to learn how to play. Something that the 3.5e could not due and god did I try. Now granted the artwork and the explanations for each of the races was what sold her I believe and she has not tried to read anything else about the rules. She says just teach me it is easier for me to learn by doing than reading it. If our group can get her into the game then she will start to read the rest she says.
I agree. I don't think WotC ever intended to create a "dumbed down" version of the game that anyone could pick up and be completely proficient at by the end of the evening. It's NOT a board game. And, if someone is looking for this, perhaps they can grab the aforementioned Starter Kit or Keep on the Shadowfell (which I recommend for new players actually).
I think their intent was to create a version of D&D that reignited APPEAL from people that are new to the game as well as players that have lost touch with D&D. This would cause people to pick up the game and try and learn how to play it - possibly find someone who already knows - and/or teach themselves.
So, while 4th Edition may have a lot of in depth rules and seem daunting to something just perusing the book, I think 4th Edition has done a good job of appealing to people who might not have picked that book up in the first place in former editions.
|
|
I miss my copy of WG7 which I foolishly sold in a pique of gaming swag reduction years ago. The level with the other RPGs done in comedy fashion, I thought, was pretty entertaining.
Did they have a Wight Dwarf with a Warhammer?
How about two Runequest goat-people, having rampant sex next to a steaming teapot? When asked what they are doing, they reply "Making a Broo..."?
It was rubbish.IMHO, of course. :)
I actually bought that thing as a kid thinking it was a normal adventure. I think I have a pretty well developed sense of nerd-humor but that thing was shoddy as hell, mine was missing pages and the ones that were there were in the wrong order.
Still I tried to run my friends through it but it fell apart pretty fast and I never knew what the f' the authors were trying to get at.
It's a little bizarre that I've gotten more hostility from 4E fans on the Paizo boards than on EN World.
Folks who read a little more of my blog might have noticed that I am trying out 4E right now. I'm running two groups every week, with a total of 13 players. Depending on what the GSL looks like, Green Ronin may also publish some 4E material. For the record.
Chris Pramas
Green Ronin
Chris -
As a 4e supporter (and a Pathfinder supporter) I hope that you do. I really liked your Master Class supplements for 3rd edition and would love to see what you would put out for 4e.
- Ashavan
Contributor
|
It was rubbish.IMHO, of course. :)
I actually bought that thing as a kid thinking it was a normal adventure. I think I have a pretty well developed sense of nerd-humor but that thing was shoddy as hell, mine was missing pages and the ones that were there were in the wrong order.
Still I tried to run my friends through it but it fell apart pretty fast and I never knew what the f' the authors were trying to get at.
I had a DM try to run it straight as a serious adventure. It sucked. Individual levels were playable as humour-based one-offs, but there was no real way to connect them, and some levels w not even playable on their own.
In our game we got TPK'd in the second (IIRC) adventure. The one where the orcs are putting together a crazy ritual to summon Orcus or something. The thing is, there are basically unlimited orcs, so if turns into a combat against characters of appropriate level, they are hosed. We tripped an orc carrying dishes, and got attacked by waves of orcs. The DM decided that the orc spell-casters spell selections were crap, so he gave them tons of fireballs and stuff. So basically it was just a crappy DM twisting the intent of an already useless adventure.
It's been a long time since I looked at the original blue book that brought me into the hobby, but from what I remember, it was easy to understand, they only described the first 3 levels of each class,and you could get going with that info pretty fast. The quick start guide with Keep on the Shadowfell is rather similar. Currently, that is the only thing I would let a newbie see. There is no way I would drop the PHB for 4e on a newbie, just like I wouldn't drop 3e PHB or Pathfinder RPG alpha on them. I would love to play with all of them, though my gaming time is getting scarce.
Actually, that brings up an interesting question. Once PFRPG is finalized over the next year or two, should Paizo develop an intro kit specifically for newbies?
Not to threadjack, but no, not really, it wasn't a good parody.
It was a circle jerk by mostly blameless freelancers and a bunch of back-slapping douchebags at the office who thought they could do better than Gygax and subsequently ran the company into the creative and financial toilet.
It was unplayable, it was a slap in the face to the creator of the game, it was a bait-and-switch to a segment of the audience who had waited more than a decade for the REAL Castle Greyhawk, and it relied on the lowest sort of pun-based humor culled from the worst indulgences of the RPGA.
It was rubbish.
IMHO, of course. :)
There was a time when I bought anything with "Greyhawk" in the title without hesitation. I was fortunate that when "that module" came out, by the time I saw it, I had already heard warnings about it. Its sad, but after that, I didn't trust the Greyhawk label anymore because I was afraid it would just dishonor the feelings I had for the setting even more. If that hurt the sales of later Greyhawk products and then justified the abandonment of the setting, it makes that module even more of a disgrace.
If the GSL allows it, I would definitely hope for Mr. Pramas to design some products for 4E. He's an amazing designer and I know that he could use the 4E rules to come up with some very fantastic material.
I also hope that Mr. Pramas doesn't take the post of one member here as a sign of general hostility towards him. Paizo has some extremely intelligent and knowledgeable people posting here, both for and against 4E.
|
My assessment after having the [4th Edition D&D] books for a few weeks: it fails.That's just his assessment after "having the books for a few weeks." He needs to play and DM, then make his assessment, honestly. Having the books and flipping through them alone on the couch are hardly qualitative enough for serious analysis. The new edition of D&D is the easiest iteration of the game to learn and understand. The list of improvements from 3.x to 4th is long, to long to detail here.
Perhaps in a year, with some real data and some real experience, Pramas can make his declamations about what failed or what didn't. How can he honestly and genuinely know if anything related to 4th Edition failed to attract whomever after two weeks? He's just another angry voice in the vanity world of Internet opinions. The game is moving on without him, and he's just mad. Like so many haters out there, I bet he secretly likes it, and that makes him mad, too.
I was saying that 4E would be significantly more difficult for a new player to learn than the WotC previews were suggesting and the 4E "fans" on the WotC forums were "insisting" several months ago.
It was quite obvious from the various previews that the system was being set up with a great deal of situational complexity that would be overwhelming to anyone new to the hobby, and significantly confusing to any new players. Given the number of posts on the WotC 4E rules Q&A forum and their nature (they include some really basic questions about material that is easily found within the books, as well as a stream of questions about differences from 3.5) it is equally obvious that even experienced players are having issues adapting instantly.And so far most of the reasons for this have been as I predicted, including a significant number of those so-called "improvements". High among them is that most D&D players really do not like or understand an exception based rule system even though the game has been that from the beginning. Most players simply do not like a hierarchy of rules, but want every rule to exist in isolation, understandable solely by itself. Of course that leads into the organization of the books problem, as no matter how you structure things, there are just too many interconnections in the system to be able to put everything in one place and not require any cross-referencing. So you still have to flip through the books to understand and use several rules.
As for real data and real experience, who exactly is supposed to have this? The people writing favorable reviews? How long have they had the material? Oh right, the same amount of time. Hmmm . . .
The Kool-Ade is special over here.
Not really.
I, in no way, am joining in any Pramas bashing. The man deserves respect.
But there is nothing weird or provocative about 4E fans being harsher over here than over at ENWorld. I'd be shocked if they weren't.
(No offense Mr. Pramas)
In this neighborhood, a 4E fan has to be tough and thick skinned in order not to want push back at critique of the system. The rule set is constantly under fire by a majority of the community, and constantly on trial- with it's every shortcoming examined in excruciating detail and subjective analysis. Both directly, and passive aggressively. Note, I do concede it has shortcomings (along with the other two systems).
That's not a b!tch, a complaint, or a request for moderation on my part. It simply is what it is.
And this, to a degree, makes perfect sense. On these boards 4E exists in the shadow of Pathfinder RPG and 3.5. The fans of those systems are threatened by the notion that the new system might be successful, whereas theirs may not (or may be hurt by that), and that makes for an uncomfortably uncertain future.
Though it's nowhere as bad as it used to be.
Over at ENWorld there are those that don't like the system, but plenty who do. One doesn't need to feel isolated or alone in their perspective. You'll always find those that will feel the way that you do.. and that promotes a sense of security (and less relative troll like behavior).
So again, this wisecrack about Kool-Aid is missplaced. 4E fans get 'razzed' a lot more over here than they do at ENWorld. It's only natural that they're a little more sensitive.
And in case you didn't catch the disclaimer, I don't feel anybody really needs to beast on anybody.
Watcher - 4E Player, 3.5 and Pathfinder RPG GM
|
|
I have to say that I agree with Chris regarding the lost opportunity that WotC had as far as marketing the game to the new audience. The marketing has just been horrendous. The GSL bait and switch. DDInsider. Etc.
I'm ok with 4E but I'm coming from the other direction, I've got rules literally falling off my bookshelves.
For newbies, the PHB is still 300+ pages of daunting rules. The "quick-start" rules were sold as part of a (not so great) module instead of just given away as a free download.
I would have really liked it if they somehow had created a truly layered system that would have allowed for a 20-30 page *playable* version for teaching people the game. There was that opportunity and they passed it up.
|
|
I'd call shenanigans on the "exception based design is hard".
There's this little game that WOTC produces that seems to be even a better seller than D&D.
Exception based design is not hard - if you are used to reading, understanding, and using rules written according to that standard.
From what I have seen, on forums, in Sage Advice and the FAQ, is that most D&D players, despite the game actually being structured that way, are not used to any of that.Part of that is because the rules have never really acknowledged that concept before 4E.
Part of that is because despite that being the standard, the rules have never been organized very well according to that standard, from the beginning, up to and including 4E.
Part of that is because it requires a particular experience that has been missing from a majority of new players since the late 1970s when the last of the wargamers converted over.
Part of that is because of the lack of training in hierarchial structure analysis in basic school education.
Without any of that, exception based design rules are very difficult to comprehend.
Not to an experienced player of course.
Certainly not to a game designer.
Presumably not to a CCG player, if any crossed over.
Almost certainly not to a CMG player, particularly a DDM player, though again only if they crossover.
Definitely to a MMORPG or console game player though. Why? Because they rarely, if ever, see the exceptions in action. Most of them are subsumed by the program which modifies the effects without any external involvement.
And definitely to any new player, who at most deals with "explicit exceptions" from common family games like Monopoly, where they are either spelled out as completely separate rules, or ignored because they are too inconvenient to bother with.
|
|
I think Chris' article refers to those, who have alredy some inkling of what fantasy is.
These people might be
- WOW or other MMORPG players
- Readers of Fantasy books (somebody who wants to feel how it is to be Drizzt*).
- other hobbies who have overlaps with fantasy. Comic and Anime readers who see a WoC advert for example.
Lets take our FR Salvatore Reader. He/She is sweet 16 and has enough time to get going. He has also som friends who are willing to play.
Now he goes and buys the PHB (as there was an advert in one FR book).
And then we get the situation that Chris' refers to, i think.
Introduction of new players by old players can only generate a limited number of new players because
- every player only knows a limited number of persons who might be interested to play.
- of these persons only a limited number will stay with the game and invest in books.
*FR books are frequently read by non roleplaying readers.
Can't we all just get along?