Ok, here's a topical example: the recent revelation by Mearls that for a while, they thought that the definition of controller would mean "doing damage to multiple targets at once." Only to have them later realize that that's not what 'controller' means or should mean.
More than a decade after fantasy computer games and MMO RPGs had established buffers, debuffers, mezzers, stunners, and so forth... and classes that, for the most part, just did those things and were light on the damage side.
All the while many pen-and-paper roleplaying games had for years encouraged or allowed non-damage, 'controlling' builds. You could build a character in systems like HERO or M&M that was perfectly viable with just powers such as Hypnosis, Snare, Stun or Illusion. Or even games like Vampire, which had several character archetypes that manipulated crowds with their voice or their mere presence, or were only strong in combat because they could stop someone that was actually dangerous in their tracks. Heck, even Werewolf, the game of biting things to death, had character types that were more about the manipulation of things than the killing of things.
Let alone that, in fiction, for decades (even centuries and millenia) you had characters, types of characters and things that weren't necessarily dangerous because they could chomp on you but because they could turn you to stone or lure you to your doom.
And finally, long, long after the English language gave us:
con⋅trol /kənˈtroʊl/ n-trohl
verb, -trolled, -trol⋅ling, noun –verb (used with object)
1. to exercise restraint or direction over; dominate; command.
2. to hold in check; curb: to control a horse; to control one's emotions.
3. to test or verify (a scientific experiment) by a parallel experiment or other standard of comparison.
4. to eliminate or prevent the flourishing or spread of: to control a forest fire.
5. Obsolete. to check or regulate (transactions), originally by means of a duplicate register.
Note the general lack of killing things in the meaning of the word.
I think that, on some level, I stopped trusting the judgment of (certain) game designers when they started designing with blinders on, as though they were the first ones to ever try to do something, or when they are trying to reinvent the wheel.
It's less a trust issue and more an "Are we speaking the same language?" issue.
For my example above, while it's probably true that Role (as in D&D4e) has never been so prominent and deeply rooted - or perhaps just as formalized - in the design of D&D, it's not like the concept of combat roles didn't exist previously. What they were trying to accomplish had been done dozens upon dozens of times.
So, for something that is not a new concept to millions of gamers, they for some reason had to figure out what the term meant and how to design it.
It boggles the mind. I mean, it takes a certain kind of "special" to take the word control, and think, 'damage several things at once.' The kind of "special" that usually involves riding in the little bus with all the safety padding.
But overall, I feel it's healthy to have a level of skepticism about everything. Historically, I never considered the issue of "trusting" a game designer. There were game systems I liked, and game systems where I thought, "ok, that's just ridiculous."
So it's not that I suddenly stopped 'trusting' game designers. It's more that I'm probably just more skeptical of some of the bigger RPG companies' abilities to speak the same language as the gamers. There have been a lot of "what were they smoking?" moments in the last couple versions of D&D.
Now, I respect the fact that he admits this. It answers a lot of questions and opens WotC up to a lot of potential criticism. But 'trust' isn't something I would apply as a term to 'someone who writes books.' I might decide whether or not to trust a doctor operating on my head... I don't really think in terms of 'trust' for roleplaying games. I don't know the person from Adam and I don't have to trust them, just agree or disagree with what the rules say. It seems bizarre to me that anyone would say they do or don't trust an artist in relation to his art. That said, if I think they've done something boneheaded or unfathomable, I'm going to call them on it. If they repeatedly do things that are boneheaded or unfathomable, I'll probably give their work a hairier eyeball than usual. But trust isn't the word I'd use to describe that. I tend to evaluate all rules regardless of who wrote them.
, but it's still a fair critique. I wasn't so much defending the quality of the books, even though I like them, as I was saying they aren't corporate driven filler solely intended to bring in revenue.
