The Guards at the Gate Quote

[TheAuldGrump]

1) Not excited or angry.

2)You accused me of interpretation. Then you went and interpreted something that's clearly not there.

Watch where you toss "reinterpret" around. You've done more than I to interpret anything. See above.

Fair enough. It's still hard to swallow, but I'll accept you at your word.

Clearly the people who dislike Wyatt's definition of fun see it in a different fashion than I do. I happen to think you are all reading your own biases into that statement, but it would then be blind of me not to acknowledge that I'm doing the same. I've noted that I've played in frequent games with unfun gate-guard-style encounters, which pre-disposes me to disliking them in general, and agreeing with Wyatt on principle. Gate guard encounters are overwhelmingly not fun. At least for me. I think giving new gamers advice on skipping them because they are not fun is good advice. Again, because that's been my experience.

Those of you arguing against Wyatt's statement all seem to enjoy gate guard encounters, and you find those fun. You see his statement as an attack on your fun. I don't think it's anywhere near as broad a statement as you do, but this is where personal experience colors everything. I wouldn't expect my first-year college students to be able to write a college level paper write off the bat, mostly because of experience proving to me that they are generally incapable of doing so. I also wouldn't expect GMs to be able to run a game that doesn't include basic errors with unnecessary encounters that are not fun, also because of my experience that they are generally incapable of doing so. I see "avoid boring encounters" as equivalent to "capitalize the first word in a sentence." To wit--basic information that theoretically should be known, but somehow is not.

Considering that I have been going from his direct quote I find it interesting that you accuse me of reinterpreting, while you are somehow not reinterpreting when you say that he did not mean what he wrote.

I interpreted once, when directly asked, by you to do so. You get upset when I did so, fine - but again, it is the only time that I read more into what he wrote than what he actually wrote.

Again - I think that Wyatt meant exactly what he wrote in that paragraph, when he wrote it. He was not referring to other parts of the book. He did not accidentally leave out the much needed 'if'.

He wrote what he wrote, nothing more nothing less, and meant what he wrote, nothing more, nothing less. I need interpret, or reinterpret, nothing.

At this point I am done, you have gone beyond where I am comfortable in the emotional quality of your responses.

The Auld Grump

 

[Mercutio01]

Considering that I have been going from his direct quote I find it interesting that you accuse me of reinterpreting, while you are somehow not reinterpreting when you say that he did not mean what he wrote.

I did not say that he didn't mean what he wrote. In fact, I said the opposite. He did mean what he wrote. I think you're reading it to be a universal case (avoid ALL gate guard encounters) and I'm reading it to be an individual case (avoid not-fun gate guard encounters).

At this point I am done, you have gone beyond where I am comfortable in the emotional quality of your responses.

I think you are reading emotion where there is none. You have tossed accusations of "reinterpretation" and indicated that I was being shifty and underhanded when I used Wyatt's actual words and what they meant. I did no such thing, intended no such thing, and was trying to point out that the reading of "An encounter" as "All encounters" is incorrect.

 

[El Mahdi]

...He does say to skip encounters that are not fun, and calls out the meeting with gate guards as an unfun encounter. I happen to think that is among the best advice I've read in the DMG. Skip the stuff that isn't fun.

I don't see anyone arguing that food supplies and encumbrance are fun, and yet he says to skip those, too. Do you also disagree with him on that point?...

Yes, I most certainly do.

You may not like long corridors, gate guard encounters, or tracking equipment and encumbrance. Personally I don't either.

But there are groups that DO!

They may not be posting in this thread, but I've seen many people on ENWorld talk about those very things and state their preference for them. That for them, the game just isn't D&D without those elements.

And that's the point. James Wyatt is saying that the games official stance is their preferences are not fun and should be avoided.

There is no other way to spin it or interpret it.

Calling your customers preferences and ideas badwrongfun, and then designing a game which excludes a portion of your fan/customer base is by any standard, absolute foolishness.

You don't remain a success by criticizing and marginalizing your customer base, and that's exactly what that quote does.

The reason it doesn't bother you is most likely because the things he calls unfun, are unfun to you also.

Put the shoe on the other foot.

Let's say he said: "An RPG designed as first and foremost, a "Game", is not fun. Realism is where true fun comes from. Skip the builds made from a game mechanics focus, and stick to characters based on a backstory and realistic life progression. Then pick only skills, feats and powers that support that background. Picking powers just for how cool they are is unfun in the long run. For you and your group."

That would have been just as wrong. Pissed off another large part of the RPG base, and alienated customers.

It's the exact same thing.

Any advice or instruction that marginalizes or disparages gamers play styles is not good advice.

A company centered around a niche hobby needs to be inclusive, for that's the only way they can remain successful.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Yes, I most certainly do.

You may not like long corridors, gate guard encounters, or tracking equipment and encumbrance. Personally I don't either.

But there are groups that DO!

They may not be posting in this thread, but I've seen many people on ENWorld talk about those very things and state their preference for them. That for them, the game just isn't D&D without those elements.

And that's the point. James Wyatt is saying that the games official stance is their preferences are not fun and should be avoided.

There is no other way to spin it or interpret it.

Calling your customers preferences and ideas badwrongfun, and then designing a game which excludes a portion of your fan/customer base is by any standard, absolute foolishness.

You don't remain a success by criticizing and marginalizing your customer base, and that's exactly what that quote does.

The reason it doesn't bother you is most likely because the things he calls unfun, are unfun to you also.

Put the shoe on the other foot.

Let's say he said: "An RPG designed as first and foremost, a "Game", is not fun. Realism is where true fun comes from. Skip the builds made from a game mechanics focus, and stick to characters based on a backstory and realistic life progression. Then pick only skills, feats and powers that support that background. Picking powers just for how cool they are is unfun in the long run. For you and your group."

You know, I think there is an old Vampire: the Masquerade book that says almost exactly that. in regards to picking merits/flaws, and backgrounds....

Ticked me off then, too.

That would have been just as wrong. Pissed off another large part of the RPG base, and alienated customers.

It's the exact same thing.

Any advice or instruction that marginalizes or disparages gamers play styles is not good advice.

A company centered around a niche hobby needs to be inclusive, for that's the only way they can remain successful.

I can't argue with that - it is why I think 5e has to be largely compatible with 4e. The hobby, as a whole, cannot afford to lose those players that are linked to 4e, its systems, and its assumptions.

It nearly lost a large percentage of the 3e players, thank the gods the OGL allows comparable systems, be it Pathfinder or Fantasy Craft, OSRIC or True20.

The Auld Grump, True20... that reminds me about another thread....

 

[Janx]

Let's say he said: "An RPG designed as first and foremost, a "Game", is not fun. Realism is where true fun comes from. Skip the builds made from a game mechanics focus, and stick to characters based on a backstory and realistic life progression. Then pick only skills, feats and powers that support that background. Picking powers just for how cool they are is unfun in the long run. For you and your group."

I don't have an offended reaction from that statement.

Let's say TAG is right that the quote above is akin to something in a Vampire book and our group is abou to consider getting into Vampire and I just read that statement.

My response is:
clearly the designers want to encourage realism and character, rather than maximizing and optimisation.

OK.

I will try that, but I'm still not going to make a sucky character if I can help it.

 

[haakon1]

The reason it doesn't bother you is most likely because the things he calls unfun, are unfun to you also.

Put the shoe on the other foot.

Let's say he said: "An RPG designed as first and foremost, a "Game", is not fun. Realism is where true fun comes from. Skip the builds made from a game mechanics focus, and stick to characters based on a backstory and realistic life progression. Then pick only skills, feats and powers that support that background. Picking powers just for how cool they are is unfun in the long run. For you and your group."

That would have been just as wrong. Pissed off another large part of the RPG base, and alienated customers.

It's the exact same thing.

Any advice or instruction that marginalizes or disparages gamers play styles is not good advice.

A company centered around a niche hobby needs to be inclusive, for that's the only way they can remain successful.

Excellent post, El Mahdi.

In my case, I would have agreed with that advice wholeheartedly (I think it's "what's best in the game"). I think I might be defending him along the lines of "Yeah, he didn't word it the best he could of, but his basic point is insightful: it's a ROLE PLAYING game. Game is in there, but role playing comes first. And that's why real RPG's like D&D beat dice roller combat games like WOW. We have so much more depth and pathos when we kill the orcs and take their stuff, because those Gate Guard encounters really make the world come alive."

 

[The Shaman]

[MENTION=37277]Mercutio01[/MENTION], that hole's not gonna stop diggin' itself.

 

[OnlineDM]

In case it helps people interpret the effect of Wyatt's infamous quote one way or the other, I'm a DM who really only started in RPGs with 4th Edition (I had looked at 3.0 years ago but never got a game going). I read the 4th Edition Dungeon Master's Guide cover to cover before I started running games.

I've now been running games regularly for about 20 months, and I think my players regard me as a good DM. I've run games for a wide variety of players - home groups, online groups, FLGS groups, convention groups. I've run pre-published adventures and adventures I've written myself.

I've absolutely included "talk to the gate guards" types of things in my games. Sometimes we've breezed right through them quickly or ignored them altogether, and sometimes the players have spent a lot of time getting into them. Both ways were fun for their respective groups.

All I'm saying is that I, for one, did not end up taking Wyatt's "no gate guards" comment at face value. I, being a DM who learned to run the game from the book in question, never walked away thinking that my adventures should not include the opportunity to talk to gate guards or explore big dungeons. I did walk away with the impression that I should skip over things that are likely to be boring for my players (and for myself) and get to the stuff that will be more fun.

So, here's at least one case study for a person learning to run the game from the book, who read that quote and did not take it literally but instead understood the spirit of what the book as a whole was trying to convey. And I think I'm a better DM for it.

 

[Mercutio01]

[MENTION=37277]Mercutio01[/MENTION], that hole's not gonna stop diggin' itself.

And the crap-talk violates board policy. Reported.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I think that it is time that this thread get locked - all and sundry have been repeating themselves, getting louder, and redder in the face.

At this point the only things that are certain are that some folks were offended by Mr. Wyatt's words, both in the DMG and elsewhere, and other folks weren't.

The Auld Grump