playtesting feel

[delericho]

No. Nostalgia has little to do with it.

I disagree. I think that nostalgia has a significant role to play. Certainly, speaking for myself, I know it makes no logical sense that I should want to play the latest edition of a game called "Dungeons & Dragons" just because of the name... and yet I do.

Of course, I don't consider that nostalgia is particularly a bad thing, either.

- In television, the seasons before "jumping the shark" are better then the ones after "jumping the shark".

In my experience, the 2nd and 3rd seasons are almost universally the best, while the 4th almost invariably represents a massive drop in quality.

The thing is, with the 1st season, the writers are working in the dark to a large extent - they don't know what the audience will like, what characters will become favourites, and what just doesn't work. So, they have to throw a bunch of stuff out there, and hope it sticks.

With the 2nd season, they get to refine their concept in light of feedback - doing more of what works, dropping what doesn't. And the result is a generally tighter show, and the better for it. This often continues into the 3rd season, which is often very good indeed.

But then comes the 4th season, at which point the writers have used up all of their really good ideas. So, they either continue in a rut (which starts to look tired), or they promote their not-so-good ideas (which reduces the quality). Or, in a lot of cases, they try to "change the game" - Buffy goes on to university, or the Fringe team find themselves in an alternate timeline, or whatever. The problem is that rebooting the series like this is risky. Sometimes it works, but more often it just splits the fan base.

Shows that make it to a fifth season generally fix up some of the mistakes of the 4th season, but they very rarely make it back to the same heights of the earlier seasons. And beyond that, they start to get increasingly tired, as the original premise is all but worn out, but they can't make any truly radical changes.

Any parallels between "fourth season syndrome" and 4th Edition are, I'm sure, entirely coincidental...

 

[Neonchameleon]

In my experience, the 2nd and 3rd seasons are almost universally the best, while the 4th almost invariably represents a massive drop in quality.

The thing is, with the 1st season, the writers are working in the dark to a large extent - they don't know what the audience will like, what characters will become favourites, and what just doesn't work. So, they have to throw a bunch of stuff out there, and hope it sticks.

YMMV. In an awful lot of shows (the textbook example being Veronica Mars where it was a one season mystery), the first season is great - particularly the second half of the first season. They're in the grove and are using all the 'A' plots. Season 2 is where they are scrambling around with the ideas left on the cutting room floor of S1. Technically more proficient, but lacking the charm and enthusiasm that it had when everything was fresh. Season 3 is the make or break season when they see what else can happen.

For authors, this goes double. Everyone has one book in them. The second book is, often as not, a rerun of the first book (see Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets), and the third book is when you find out when the author knows how to write, or just how to tell a single story.

 

[Scribble]

Simple + fun = memorable.

Sometimes I think people get hung up on the flashy bits and options in games at the expense of it just being fun to sit down and play.

 

[Dimitrios]

Nostalgia may play a role, but I don't think it can be the whole story.

I was around 30 when 3e came out. If my preferences were entirely nostalgia driven, I should have rejected it because it wasn't the game I spent all those hours playing in high school. Instead, I enthusiastically started up a new campaign using 3e.

3e certainly has it's issues but IMO, "doesn't feel like D&D" wasn't one of them. At least not at the beginning (the more people started to exploit the rules to their full potential the less D&D-like it started to feel, honestly).

 

[Pickles JG]

I couldn't disagree more here. Complex games are seriously in fashion. Total War makes Advanced Squad Leader look simple. People just give the heavy lifting to computers to do these days, meaning that Fantasy Flight Games is, I think, the only company making american-style boardgames on a large scale at present.

Nothing makes ASL look simple. FFG are one of many making "Ameritrash" games - good components simplish rules dice &c. There are also a number of wargame publishers making classic american style hex & counter games as well as card driven games & area games & stuff.

I am not sure how I can disassociate experiencing a game system from the social event it represents. I am a huge neophile myself as initial first romances inevitably turn into abusive relationships so I am not much for recapturing stuff.

 

[Aehrlon]

I am not sure how I can disassociate experiencing a game system from the social event it represents. I am a huge neophile myself as initial first romances inevitably turn into abusive relationships so I am not much for recapturing stuff.

Agreed; I'll bow to your knowledge of abusive relationships as I've avoided them like the plague, heheh! Actually, the social aspect of gaming, D&D in particular has been one of the most fun and memorable parts of the game. We players (normally) are all working together for a common goal... against who is hopefully a memorable enemy or obstacle. If your group is lucky, you'll have a DM who challenges you regularly but who is also rooting for you. I've DMed a little less than I've played (& have played a CRAP-TON since 1983) and that's how I always tried to be. If you're really lucky, your D&D group is composed not of strangers, but of friends. And you can also make new friends...