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Do a experiment...if you ar right it should be cheap to do....go buy a car...drive it for a month...then take that car and see what the value is? Cunsumer desire is a factor in setting the price but to suggest that it is the only factor and that it can't be manpulated is just not true
Consumer value is exactly what is driving the value of my car one month after I've had it. Anything used has a lower value because the buy has no idea of the quality of care taken with it. This is also supported why, given a choice at a store between a product still factory sealed and one with the plastic wrapper torn away, we always choose the one with the intact wrapper. When I take that car back in, if it was produced in very small numbers and the demand, i.e. desire for it was just as high, if not higher, then I could demand a lot more when I returned it.
In your scenario, I become the seller and the dealer becomes the consumer. Their desire to obtain my item is what is driving the cost. They have a lower desire to buy back the car therefore, I have to reduce the price to a level where their desire (to sell it again) is quenched.
There is no change in the tangible value of the car 6-12 months after it hits the dealership. It hasn't degraded, the contents are of no lower quality them they were when it was built. So, why lower the price, arbitrarily, resulting in lower net profit?
The bottom line is, there is no incentive to lower the price on an item, unless the desire for it is reduced. The anticipation of the new year's model drives the desire down for the "old" model and therefore the price must be reduced to match consumer demand.
Yeah, having their contributors run around and tell people that were fine with 3.5 that they were incompetent. Great respect you contributors have there.Got me. Yeah, saying "having" wasn't what I was going for I should have said "letting", but I did say it. Still my point was the contributors were not being respectful. I agree I stated that poorly. It was pretty clear that I was address contributors specifically, the "you contributors" is the key to that. But yup, I did use having instead of letting. I still think you put words in to my mouth, but I will say that I did a poor job saying my statement that let you do it.
You got me.
*A* contributor. Not contributors. ONE contributor.
And he also never said that "people that were fine with 3.5" were incompetent.
The people who he claimed were incompetent were the DMs portrayed in an advertisement, and claimed that competent DMs of any area would have handwaved or adjusted.
He's not being disrespectful to anyone but bad actors in a bad video, and even then, "disrespectful"?? Gimmie a break.
It's not disrespectful to make a statement of fact that happens challenge the competency of someone who can't follow codified rules or Rule 0.
Woah, I have been summoned again!!!
Brian, Pres Man, I am here for you. Your love for each other warms my heart, feeds my soul, and makes me grow more powerful with each post.
Threadcrapping to protest a perceived threadcrap? Puerile.
Brian, we are back to you telling me I don't have a right to feel insulted. So would you agree that Scott is correct in to telling all these PF fans that felt insulted by 4e's advertisement that they were wrong?
And he also never said that "people that were fine with 3.5" were incompetent.
The people who he claimed were incompetent were the DMs portrayed in an advertisement, and claimed that competent DMs of any area would have handwaved or adjusted.
He's not being disrespectful to anyone but bad actors in a bad video, and even then, "disrespectful"?? Gimmie a break.
It's not disrespectful to make a statement of fact that happens challenge the competency of someone who can't follow codified rules or Rule 0.
He as said (note these are not in chronological order):
Now as in, now you are claiming that the 3.5 grappling rules are broken or overcomplicated.I'd say mostly "broken." I've been on the receiving end of them as a player, they're overpowered, and unless you've min-maxed your character to an insane degree, you're hosed. However, they're also overcomplicated in that there's an insane list of special circumstances for all sorts of actions attempted during a grapple which requires book consultation to make sense of.
A competent DM in any era would have said, "Oh, everyone knows that rule is borked. I'm handwaving over it or using this house rule in its place."
So, Kevin appears believe that (1)3.5 grapple rules were mostly "broken" or as he calls it "borked" and (2) a competent DM would have said so. So if I am a DM in one of those eras and I didn't say it was "borked", I must therefore in his view not be competent. Competent means "Having sufficient skill, knowledge, ability, or qualifications." Incompetent means "Unskilled, lacking normally expected degree of ability."
Now I can accept that wasn't the point he was trying to make, but I also can accept that 4e advertisement wasn't trying to make a point of insulting others either. That doesn't mean people didn't have a right to feel insulted by it.
I think all the talk about cars and pizzas and whatnot is obscuring that what we're talking about is art. Is the latest novel in a long series of novels the author's best book ever? Is the latest album by a band that's been around for ages with rotating band members necessarily their best?
Making fun of an era is like saying that a song sucked because it was recorded using a moog synthesizer and sold on 8-track cassettes. Moreover, what is meant as light-hearted can be perceived as mean-spirited and petty, and what's mean-spirited and petty will usually be defended as "light-hearted fun," even and especially when it was intended as mean-spirited and petty.
People love the games because of the fun that they had playing them and the stories they used them to tell, not because anyone liked calculating THAC0.
I'll confess that I've always been a toybox style DM. I look at the monsters, the magic items, the races and classes, the gods and goddesses, and see what I can use to tell a story. I only as much use for the mechanics as they help me tell the story, and the moment a mechanic starts getting in the way of telling that story, I pitch it out.
The mechanics and the story should also be intertwined. That was my philosophy for all the rules I wrote for MAGE--if a rule didn't have some portion of story springing out of it, there was no point in it, and the rules should never get in the way of the story.
With 4e? I found the rules modeling a sort of world and story I didn't much like, and also worked at cross purposes with itself. For example, while the base world was supposed to be generic, it worked in the story of the empire of Bael Turath, home of incompetent albeit prudishly chaste Satanists, with everyone supposedly knowing and accepting this story despite civilization having fallen to below the level of the dark ages. Huh? How does that work and how is it in any way generic? It sounds like something come up with by marketing as a way to have "edgy" devil-looking people (*cough* draenei *cough*)without anyone actually having sex with devils, which might lose them shelf space in Walmart.
Compare that to 1st edition, where the DMG actually has the "Random Hooker Generator." Okay, it's not called that, but there's a subtable of the random townsfolk generator which will tell you what sort of prostitute you run into, anything from the "slovenly trull" to the dancer "prostituting herself as it pleases her."
Looking at 1st ed's random hooker generator vs. 4e's descendants of incompetent albeit prudish Satanists? I know which sounds "edgier" to me.
Brian, we are back to you telling me I don't have a right to feel insulted. So would you agree that Scott is correct in to telling all these PF fans that felt insulted by 4e's advertisement that they were wrong?
No, I said he wasn't being disrespectful, not that you don't have a right to not feel insulted.
He as said (note these are not in chronological order):
Now as in, now you are claiming that the 3.5 grappling rules are broken or overcomplicated.I'd say mostly "broken." I've been on the receiving end of them as a player, they're overpowered, and unless you've min-maxed your character to an insane degree, you're hosed. However, they're also overcomplicated in that there's an insane list of special circumstances for all sorts of actions attempted during a grapple which requires book consultation to make sense of.A competent DM in any era would have said, "Oh, everyone knows that rule is borked. I'm handwaving over it or using this house rule in its place."So, Kevin appears believe that (1)3.5 grapple rules were mostly "broken" or as he calls it "borked" and (2) a competent DM would have said so. So if I am a DM in one of those eras and I didn't say it was "borked", I must therefore in his view not be competent. Competent means "Having sufficient skill, knowledge, ability, or qualifications." Incompetent means "Unskilled, lacking normally expected degree of ability."
No.
In this scenario, the competent DM is the DM who has a problem with the rule. He's not implying that those DMs who had no problem with the rules are incompetent.
It's not that a competent DM would agree the rule is broken. It's that he/she would handwave or houserule IF they agreed it was broken.
If the DM has a problem with the rule, and is additionally incapable of handwaving or houseruling, then that would make the DM an incompetent DM, because they're not only failing with the written rules, but their failing with Rule 0.
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It seems to me the main difference between the launch of 4e and Pathfinder was that Paizo did a much better job of marketing their edition change.
1) Paizo was seen as a victim of WOTC's desire to move everything in house; a company that had to find a way to survive in a changing market, with a proven track record of excellence of product and service. WOTC was seen as a big company grabbing back its assets, closing its previously generous licensing, and being very cagey about the content of their new edition.
2) The Paizo model of customer service, wherein Paizo employees take time to interact daily with their fanbase, from the CEO down, is something uniquely Paizo's and gives them an incredible competative edge of WOTC in terms of customer loyalty.
3) Paizo began with the idea that not only was 4th edition "not supportive" of their prefered style of play/writing, but because 3.5 was no longer going to be printed, they had an opportunity to "fix" some of the things people were "complaining" about in 3.5 while still maintaining "backwards compatablility".
4) By creating the "Open Playtest" marketing scheme, Paizo created a desire in their customer base to become personally invested in the new edition they were publishing. This allowed them to intoduce changes in a granular fashion (Alpha and Beta Playtests) and gain direct feedback from their fanbase while appearing to be completely open to fan-based changes. Comparing this to the "Our new game is great, you're going to have to trust us on this" from WOTC cemented the idea that Paizo was more in touch with their fan base. However, fans with a specific agenda Paizo was not interested in were told no, ignored, or worse. "Backwards Compatability" was the reason given in most cases. The vitriol some here have expressed for WOTC has been expressed in equal measure by those who feel Paizo had broken their trust during this time.
5) Paizo continues to use its formidable marketing strategies to foster loyalty and drive its market growth. WOTC is currently attempting a different marketing strategy for feedback on the game through Mike Mearls' column, but people are intrenched in the stew of their old opinions, and their vision is colored by their perception of WOTC formed during this previous period.
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Speaking of treating prior versions poorly, how did people feel about this scene?
Just another hint that the movie was going to be the horrible mess that it was.
Threadcrapping to protest a perceived threadcrap? Puerile.Woah, I have been summoned again!!!
Brian, Pres Man, I am here for you. Your love for each other warms my heart, feeds my soul, and makes me grow more powerful with each post.
It's what I do (blushes a darker shade of brown-green.)
So about 6 weeks or so, I played in a local mini-Con. I got a chance to play a session of PF and a session of 4e (originally I hadn't planned on playing 4e). In both cases I played GM-pre-made rangers, elf and bugbear respectively.
For PF, it was much easier to catch what I could do, due to the closer 3.5. Yet still there little differences and there was also worries about if something was different or not. For example, could I still use an arrow to attack with as an improvised melee weapon in PF (the GM had neglected to give my character any melee weapons)? Yeah, you can.
[I will give props to Paizo, having the prd online is freaken awesome. It is one of the things I like most about Paizo and PF. I don't have any foreseeable interest in purchasing the system, but it is good to know I can get into a game using the prd if I have to.]
Still the little differences can be annoying. I believe there was some confusion in that game when the barbarian got grabbed and then swallowed by some big beasty we were fighting.
For 4e, I got in to a game that had a couple of guys that play in one of my regular 3.5 games. None of us three had ever played 4e before, so we were total noobs. "I have to use one of my special attacks right. I actually have a normal ranged attack, no way!" Yeah it took me an entire encounter to realize this because I had thought powers were the only thing you could do anything from what I've heard on the webz. One of my players said something about how saves work. I pointed out that we could do that in 3.5, just add 10 to your save bonus and that is your save defense (or whatever 4e calls it). And then subtract 10 from the DC of the effect and that is the attack bonus for that.
3.5: Poison Fort DC 13, Character Fortitude Save: +6
4e: Poison Attack: +3, Character Fortitude Defense: 16
Seriously, it didn't feel not like D&D. It didn't feel like a computer game (though admittedly I rarely play video games anymore). Yeah, it is a bit wonky at first, but I didn't see what the whole "not D&D" thing was about.
Oh yeah, in the 4e game me and my players wanted to do some grappling. The DM, who admitted she was pretty noobish herself since her husband usually DMs wasn't sure how to do it. If we all would have had books, I imagine the seen might have looked kind of similar to the video for us. LOL, that is why I think the guys on that video just appear as total noobs.
Brian, we are back to you telling me I don't have a right to feel insulted. So would you agree that Scott is correct in to telling all these PF fans that felt insulted by 4e's advertisement that they were wrong?
And he also never said that "people that were fine with 3.5" were incompetent.
The people who he claimed were incompetent were the DMs portrayed in an advertisement, and claimed that competent DMs of any area would have handwaved or adjusted.
He's not being disrespectful to anyone but bad actors in a bad video, and even then, "disrespectful"?? Gimmie a break.
It's not disrespectful to make a statement of fact that happens challenge the competency of someone who can't follow codified rules or Rule 0.
He as said (note these are not in chronological order):
Now as in, now you are claiming that the 3.5 grappling rules are broken or overcomplicated.I'd say mostly "broken." I've been on the receiving end of them as a player, they're overpowered, and unless you've min-maxed your character to an insane degree, you're hosed. However, they're also overcomplicated in that there's an insane list of special circumstances for all sorts of actions attempted during a grapple which requires book consultation to make sense of.A competent DM in any era would have said, "Oh, everyone knows that rule is borked. I'm handwaving over it or using this house rule in its place."So, Kevin appears believe that (1)3.5 grapple rules were mostly "broken" or as he calls it "borked" and (2) a competent DM would have said so. So if I am a DM in one of those eras and I didn't say it was "borked", I must therefore in his view not be competent. Competent means "Having sufficient skill, knowledge, ability, or qualifications." Incompetent means "Unskilled, lacking normally expected degree of ability."
Now I can accept that wasn't the point he was trying to make, but I...
Brian Harris has my position correctly: I believe that a competent DM is one who can run a game for the enjoyment of his players, and if he runs into some portion of the rules which neither he nor his players can get to work quickly and efficiently, he needs to houserule, handwave or Rule 0 it to go on with the flow of the game.
Moreover, many DMs I've talked with, including ones who I consider far better rules-meisters than myself (and I've written game rules professionally), have told me that they consider the 3.5 grappling rules borked. The ones who hold this opinion also include both the designers of 4e and Pathfinder, since they both changed the 3.5 grappling rules.
That said, no one gets labeled "incompetent" or even "not competent" for not agreeing with me. If you have managed to get the 3.5 grappling rules to work for you in your games with no confusion or unhappy players, then bully for you. The bottom line is enjoyment for everyone at the table.
...Well said, friend.
Oops...it was a mispost meant for another thread I didn't get deleted in time. On the other hand, you are right, relatively speaking...
I believe that a competent DM is one who can run a game for the enjoyment of his players, and if he runs into some portion of the rules which neither he nor his players can get to work quickly and efficiently, he needs to houserule, handwave or Rule 0 it to go on with the flow of the game.
Which I think everyone can agree with. Though I would question the skills of any GM that claimed a rule was "borked" because they couldn't figure them out at that instant. Saying something like, "Hmm, not sure how this totally works. Let's do X for now, I'll look at it later." Now if the GM clearly understood the rule and decide the rule was just a poor rule and houseruled it, that would be a different issue. Remember the GM in the video didn't appear to know the rule himself, so any claim that he should have said it was borked, I have to wonder about.
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Compare that to 1st edition, where the DMG actually has the "Random Hooker Generator." Okay, it's not called that, but there's a subtable of the random townsfolk generator which will tell you what sort of prostitute you run into, anything from the "slovenly trull" to the dancer "prostituting herself as it pleases her."
Oh random whore table how i miss thee. :)
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Speaking of treating prior versions poorly, how did people feel about this scene?
Personally? I thought it was lame. I would have rather they have the little owl with them(especially with modern special effects) or have left it out completely.
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Just another hint that the movie was going to be the horrible mess that it was.Speaking of treating prior versions poorly, how did people feel about this scene?
I thought the medusa was pretty cool.
Dark Mistress: Agreed.
Can we please make up new labels for people who agree/disagree with KAM, then?
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I'd just like to clear something up: I am not attacking 4e, Dungeons & Dragons, or even WotC. Quite frankly I don't know anything about 4e and simply have an opinion about it. I loved D&D back in the day, it had some great settings and adventures, and if WotC was making product I could use I would likely still be buying D&D product. WotC was at one time my favorite RPG company, they seemed to have it all, but prior to 4e being released they made a number of decisions that angered me and cost them my loyalty. They are no longer my favorite RPG publisher but I wish them no ill will.
I suspect more then one person in this thread feels the same way.
What I am attacking is This ad. It was a terrible spot and I think it was likely a catalyst in the edition wars. I've already addressed my biggest problems with the ad but even if Mr Betts assertion that I'm somehow reading more into the ad then was intended were correct that doesn't make it a good spot. Clearly more then one of us has made the same conclusions about the ad. If Mr Mearls wants us to stop fighting and arguing they very least he could do is not make ads that seem to attack or poke fun at the previous editions. Doesn't seem like a difficult thing to do. If this ad had merely showed improvements instead of stressing flaws I wouldn't have had any issue with it.
The other thing is when you suggest that the game slowed down because of THAC0 you start to loose credibility. I can't remember one game where that was ever a problem. At the worst one player had another player do their math for them. If anything it seems the game has slowed down with all these complex maneuvering rules and miniatures.
That one didn't bother me, I thought it was fairly lame marketing, but didn't have a problem with it. My favorite one was this one.
That was one of the 4e ads i thought was well done. :) Just had to watch it again.
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Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrdddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggggggggggggggggggggggeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That one didn't bother me, I thought it was fairly lame marketing, but didn't have a problem with it. My favorite one was this one.
That was one of the 4e ads i thought was well done. :) Just had to watch it again.
I love that one. It doesn't inspire me to play 4e, but I love the gnome. I also love the follow up one.
"I'm a barbarian! Aaarrgggh!"
"Get him Francis!"
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That one didn't bother me, I thought it was fairly lame marketing, but didn't have a problem with it. My favorite one was this one.
That was one of the 4e ads i thought was well done. :) Just had to watch it again.
I love that one. It doesn't inspire me to play 4e, but I love the gnome. I also love the follow up one.
"I'm a barbarian! Aaarrgggh!"
"Get him Francis!"
I liked that one two. the one I posted and the one you posted I thought where good. The one I posted was one of the few ads they ran that made me want to try 4e with what the Tiefling was saying.
Pity all the ads hadn't been like those. They would have been much better. IMHO.
It's my opinion that, as Rob said, some games can have game mechanics that are NOT Dungeons and Dragons. Some of those games can even be sold and marketed as a "D&D" game.
Yes, they COULD be, but what would it mean?
I was at my grandpa's house once, and he had all these hot rod magazines laying around. In one of them, a guy was showing off all the work he had done on his Charger.
First, he had the suspension changed. Later, he dropped a new motor in. New wheels were added. All new upholstery. After awhile, he tired of the paint job, so he had the car stripped, then decided to have all new fenders formed, front and back. He replaced much of the frame. A new hood was added. Later, a custom grill and new bumpers. The latest style in headlamps was added.
The writer of the article then was forced to ask this question: at what point did the car cease to be the same car the man started with? The author was of the opinion that while the automobile shared the same basic shape of a Charger, it simply was not a Charger anymore.
I agreed. At some point a thing changes so much it is not the thing it once was. Two animals may share a common ancestor, and on he surface look similar, but still need different classifications.
Each of us has decided whether 4E is D&D, or to what extent it is similar. I personally think they should have called it what it was/is: Something Else. No longer the thing it began as. And if it is, and you acknowledge it, there is no shame in it. The shame comes from prostituting the name to sell copy.
I think a lot went on in the development of 4E. I think some of it was with good intentions, but my feeling is and has always been that there was also a lot of ego, a lot of arrogance, a good measure of greed, going on, and then the slick sort of "cool kid" rudeness in marketing it just didn't help.
That one didn't bother me, I thought it was fairly lame marketing, but didn't have a problem with it. My favorite one was this one.
That was one of the 4e ads i thought was well done. :) Just had to watch it again.
I love that one. It doesn't inspire me to play 4e, but I love the gnome. I also love the follow up one.
"I'm a barbarian! Aaarrgggh!"
"Get him Francis!"
Oh, I love the gnome and Francis as well.
If there'd be more of that and less of the other stuff, there wouldn't have been an edition war.
I'm still trying to get the anger over the grappling that can be constructed as anything but "No see, I hate WotC already, so..."
I mean, jokes about grappling's lameness have existed for plenty of time before 4e was ever conceived. DM of the Rings made a joke about it, and there wasn't any huge outcry. On the contrary, people leaned back and chuckled, "Hahaha, oh those grappling rules!" It seems like making fun of bad rules is ok until <company I dislike> does it.
Each of us has decided whether 4E is D&D, or to what extent it is similar. I personally think they should have called it what it was/is: Something Else. No longer the thing it began as. And if it is, and you acknowledge it, there is no shame in it. The shame comes from prostituting the name to sell copy.
No, 4e is D&D. You are factually incorrect.
Also, prostituting the name? AD&Dwoodburningkit.jpg. Seriously, 4e has nothing on how far reaching TSR tried to be.
That we're still having this conversation 3 years later is mind blowing.
Compare that to 1st edition, where the DMG actually has the "Random Hooker Generator." Okay, it's not called that, but there's a subtable of the random townsfolk generator which will tell you what sort of prostitute you run into, anything from the "slovenly trull" to the dancer "prostituting herself as it pleases her."
Looking at 1st ed's random hooker generator vs. 4e's descendants of incompetent albeit prudish Satanists? I know which sounds "edgier" to me.
Neither is "edgy," one is just depressingly casual in it's misogyny.
And Bael Turath has nothing to do with "incompetant albeit prudishly chaste Satanists."
Stop pulling things out of nowhere.
I mean for crying out loud there's a whole TV Tropes article devoted to making fun of grappling rules.
That one didn't bother me, I thought it was fairly lame marketing, but didn't have a problem with it. My favorite one was this one.
That was one of the 4e ads i thought was well done. :) Just had to watch it again.
I love that one. It doesn't inspire me to play 4e, but I love the gnome. I also love the follow up one.
"I'm a barbarian! Aaarrgggh!"
"Get him Francis!"
Oh, I love the gnome and Francis as well.
If there'd be more of that and less of the other stuff, there wouldn't have been an edition war.
Well, I dunno if I'd go that far, but I bet it would've been much weaker. Anyways, what annoys me the most of the first ad was the 2e game, where one guy was constantly saying, "Is it my turn now, how bout now, now?" While the other player spent maybe 15 seconds asking his DM what Thac0 means. That kind of thing is not something the matter with 2e, 3e, or 4e, that's the sort of thing that's the matter with an impatient player, especially since it didn't even take very long to figure it out.
Also, unless that was supposed to be someone who never played 2e before it doesn't make any sense to me, and if it is someone who never played before asking what Thac0 means, were they trying to imply that 4e would be less complicated for a new player? I dunno about the rest of y'all, but my first few 4e sessions were a nightmare of adding in Marking mechanics, 1 round situational modifiers, waiting for new players to figure out what a power did and then longer for them to try and decide what would be the most tactically sound thing to do at that moment. Compared to that, Thac0 was a breeze, so I thought it was a bit disingenuous to show a 2e player being annoying after 15 seconds of waiting while a new player(the guy who didn't know what Thac0 stood for) learns the game when 4e took even longer for a new player to act in a round.
Still, it didn't really offend me so much, all my offense was directed towards the "improvements" to the Forgotten Realms setting, and later at the pulling of all old .pdfs, for the most part I missed the ad campaign since I wasn't buying into a whole new edition until I could read for myself how the Realms panned out.
I dunno man, I've been in a 2e game for awhile and I still have issues with THAC0. I even started in 2e, but it ain't like riding a bike.
I find one round modifiers easier then having to keep track of the rounds, personally. Especially with a turn being ten rounds and rounds being a minute long (and then changed to 6 seconds in 3e) and etc etc.
That isn't to say 4e isn't complex - it is - but D&D has always had it's strange complexities.
Also pulling the pdfs was a way dumb move when it happened and remains to be a dumb move :[
I mean for crying out loud there's a whole TV Tropes article devoted to making fun of grappling rules.
Wow.
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I thought the medusa was pretty cool.Just another hint that the movie was going to be the horrible mess that it was.Speaking of treating prior versions poorly, how did people feel about this scene?
She was the most sympathetic character in the movie. Really, the most annoying part was the mishandling of the gods. Zeus = God, Hades = the Devil, Perseus = Pissed off Jesus.
Freakin' Apollo got more lines than Poseidon!
But I digress.
Nonsensical garbage that made me glad I still have the original versions.
I mean for crying out loud there's a whole TV Tropes article devoted to making fun of grappling rules.
That article makes me feel like Mayfair Exponential Growth System may just handle Grapple in a more consistent manner with the other mechanics of the game.
I am not saying its super effective mind you.
EDIT: removed snark...But.........
It would have been noticeable in this thread?
Those who see only hate for 4E seem to be missing the fact that the hate doesn't come from a single source or a single reason. I see 4E as being very similar to Vista in how its viewed by the public. Both systems were extremely dramatic departures from what had come before, and due to this were forced to rely on what could be considered moderately forceful marketing tactics that the companies involved were not accustomed to having to use. Specific complaints about individual changes and specific marketing attempts all got stacked on top of each other creating a body of complaints that took on a life of its own. I recall a thread about White Wolf's attempts at updating their systems that suffered the same thing. Had any of these systems been marketed with a different brand name not tied to the past in any way shape or form, they would have stood a much better chance of being judged on its own merits. As it was, the people marketing them were forced to find justification for why they changed so much so quickly, and the collection of those justifications was more than the PR departments involved, none of which had really had to deal with significant negative press previously, could manage.
Ok the Vista reference is a pretty much right on... I will say, I love 4th ed. I've played in a long running game (ok, two years) and since I've moved to a new city, the first game I've been able to jump into is a Pathfinder game. No worries, I've had a great time with it!
I've bought the HErolabs software and the Core rules. I very much enjoy PF and am content to stick with it.
I guess I like both systems for different reasons... I swear I had a point but i'm so tired I can't remember :P
I take great umbrage with this edition debate when people think that defeat is not an option. Win here and win there; picking a fight with a warlock. Now what? Is this the moment where a guy like crashes in the corner like, 'Oh my God, it's all my mom's fault!' Shut up! Shut up! Stop! Move forward.
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Whether people should have been offended by the ads, whether people should have been upset by various marketing and business decisions that wotc / Hasbro made, whether people should consider 4E to be a good game worth of the D&D name is all kind of beside the point.
The point is, some people (perhaps a fairly significant number of people) were offended, or were upset or don’t consider 4E to be good and/or D&D, whether rightly or wrongly. I do not know anything about the strength of the game, or sales numbers, or percentage of people who converted to 4E versus those who didn’t but, based on the vast majority of gamers that I know in real life, these reactions have led to a lot of lost sales for wotc. Now maybe they also generated enough new sales / customers to more than make up for the loss – I don’t know. Either way, it seems like a poor idea (at least in retrospect) to undertake marketing, business decisions and product design that lose you a not insignificant number of your customer base (whether due to rational or emotional reactions on their part).
Now you could argue that wotc / Hasbro could not have predicted the level of vitriol over some of these decisions (gamers having an emotional response to changes to a game they love – who knew?), but they probably should have predicted that many people react poorly to too much change too quickly. And I think that is one of the key issues with the 3.5 to 4E transition – there were too many changes too quickly, and not just to the game mechanic. Not only that, in some cases the changes were presented not simply as being good, but good because what came before (those games and products and resources and settings that a lot of people were emotionally attached to) was really not all that good.
Obviously edition wars and visceral reactions to an edition change are not a new thing – a lot of the same discussion was no doubt going on during and after the 2nd edition to 3rd edition change. But (and I can only speak of my own experience here, and people I personally know) it seems to me that ~most~ gamers (that I know) did end up changing to 3rd edition, whereas exactly 100% of those people (again, the ones I know in real life) have either stuck with 3.5 or graded over to Pathfinder. There seemed to be a general feeling amongst large sections of the gaming community towards the lead up to 3.0 that change was needed. I don’t think those feelings were quite as deep or as widely spread in the last days of 3.5.
The 2nd to 3rd change was of course huge mechanics-wise, games rules-wise. But the core classes and races were all familiar (from one previous edition or another). A class that could do x and fill y role in 2nd edition could still do pretty much that (and more!) and fill that role in 3rd. The initially released books were all familiar in terms of generally what you would expect to get in each core rule book, and their formats were pretty familiar. The presumed setting was a ‘lite’ version of an old favourite. The cosmology was familiar, drawing directly on what had come before. Those perennial favourites, Dungeon and Dragon magazines were around in much the same format, and were used to some extent to introduce and preview the new edition. The mechanics were very different, but the ‘feel’ and influences of the new game was similar to the old.
Very much of that was not true of the 3.5 to 4E transition. Very little was completely familiar, things were missing, things were new, people felt that traditions were not just not respected but trampled on. All those peripheral changes were a lot for some people to really deal with (or like) ON TOP OF a big change in rules.
Anyway ... hopefully for their sake, for the sake of 4E players, and for the sake of the future of D&D as a whole (because a strong current edition of D&D is, in my opinion, good for all gamers, no matter what system or edition you play), wotc / Hasbro has learnt from past ... well, lets not call them mistakes, let’s call them experiences. I want D&D to be a good and popular game (even if I’ll play Pathfinder from now on) and I want there to be more unity amongst gamers. I don’t want pen and paper role playing games and gamers relegated to being an old fashioned back water, or for such to slip too far back into geekdom and obscurity, or for a return to the bad old days of Jack Chick, concerned parents and religious/moral based persecution.
Now you could argue that wotc / Hasbro could not have predicted the level of vitriol over some of these decisions (gamers having an emotional response to changes to a game they love – who knew?), but they probably should have predicted that many people react poorly to too much change too quickly. And I think that is one of the key issues with the 3.5 to 4E transition – there were too many changes too quickly, and not just to the game mechanic.
It just seems like there's a lot of commentary floating around along the lines of WotC being bad because they provoked an emotional response, and not a lot of people stopping and examining whether they are being reasonable, responsible, or healthy about the way they choose to react. I'm not saying WotC shouldn't be held accountable, but why is it that the way WotC chooses to handle itself is the target of a firestorm of rage (a firestorm defended with the sentiment that WotC reaps what it sows) but the way we gamers as individuals choose to handle ourselves is often completely ignored, and when called into question immediately results in the redirecting of that same firestorm of rage to those who dare to call into question the conduct of the fans?
WotC receives criticism daily, and handles it pretty well - they usually stay silent, and probably even give some of it serious consideration. The fan community receives criticism every once in a while, and handles it like the Tea Party.
inb4 "We can act any way we feel like! WotC is here to please us!" which really only reinforces my point.
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As I said Scott, I think that whether people’s responses were appropriate or not is kind of beside the point as far as wotc is concerned. Quite possibly people’s responses were not logical, but who am I, you, or wotc to tell people that they shouldn’t have an emotional response to something? Or to really understand exactly where people are coming from and why they are having that response?
(I know where it’s gotten me in the past when I’ve told a girlfriend to ‘not get so emotional’ over something I’ve said or done ...)
People will, for better or worse, react the way they do, whether or not its responsible, reasonable or healthy. Sometimes they’re just being asses, sometimes they might be over reacting, and sometimes they might be right on the money.
My point is, that if wotc chooses to dismiss people’s (perhaps irresponsible, unreasonable or unhealthy) reactions to things that happened last time around, they are not really helping themselves. Ignoring a crazy person does not always make them go away. Sometimes it turns out the person is not really that crazy at all. Repeating something that provokes a particular response that has a negative impact on you (whether you feel that response is warranted or not) is just kind of ... dumb. Unless you're into that.
I am hoping that, if wotc is serious about gamer unity, they will address concerns raised, or at least not repeat past behaviour, even if they think that there has been an over-reaction.
If and when there is a new edition of D&D there will be people who get upset by it no matter what approach is taken. Wotc can’t control that. What they can do is look at what has come before and see what they can do to avoid provoking such a negative emotional response.
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If and when there is a new edition of D&D there will be people who get upset by it no matter what approach is taken. Wotc can’t control that. What they can do is look at what has come before and see what they can do to avoid provoking such a negative emotional response.
I SO wish this thread could end with your post...
It doesn't matter what post this thread ends with...
As I said Scott, I think that whether people’s responses were appropriate or not is kind of beside the point as far as wotc is concerned.
I don't believe that to be true at all. I've long seen the tabletop gaming community as one of the ugliest I've ever experienced, from a personal conduct standpoint (and, speaking as someone who has spent a lot of time in politics, that's saying something). Furthermore, I believe that the standards of personal conduct in the gaming community have been, historically and presently, a huge barrier to the expansion and mass appeal of the hobby. I think that, frankly, the community could use a stern talking to. Goodness knows I've been guilty of lapses in conduct myself, but I don't think there's any reason to be complacent about the whole thing and just say "It is what it is."
Quite possibly people’s responses were not logical, but who am I, you, or wotc to tell people that they shouldn’t have an emotional response to something? Or to really understand exactly where people are coming from and why they are having that response?
(I know where it’s gotten me in the past when I’ve told a girlfriend to ‘not get so emotional’ over something I’ve said or done ...)
I do, too. But if you're likening the reaction of the gaming community to the reactions of overemotional girlfriends, I think it's already clear that there both sides of each argument have their fair share of problems that need to be addressed.
My point is, that if wotc chooses to dismiss people’s (perhaps irresponsible, unreasonable or unhealthy) reactions to things that happened last time around, they are not really helping themselves. Ignoring a crazy person does not always make them go away. Sometimes it turns out the person is not really that crazy at all. Repeating something that provokes a particular response that has a negative impact on you (whether you feel that response is warranted or not) is just kind of ... dumb. Unless you're into that.
Right, WotC aside, I'm more concerned about what the gaming community can do to help itself become more reasonable. The word "nerdrage" is recognizably widespread for a reason. I think we could do with a lot less of it, regardless of whether we feel we're being "treated" any better as customers.