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WotC's Nathan Stewart: "Story, Story, Story"; and IS D&D a Tabletop Game?
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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7668031" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>And 5e as coke-classic? It's not a perfect analogy. </p><p></p><p>Coke wanted to change from sugar to corn syrup, because the latter is cheaper (in the USA), so they launched 'New Coke' with lots of corn syrup, then after most people hadn't tasted old coke in a while (and raged against the New Coke), they brought back 'Coke Classic' - with corn syrup, just less of it. The taste difference between sugar-sweetened coke and corn-syrup coke classic is subtle, but with New Coke to hate on, coke classic was good enough. In the process, they also won extra shelf space, which may or may not have been part of the the plan, but led to a proliferation of soft drink products for a while.</p><p></p><p>Corn syrup and sugar are both pretty bad for you, there's a perception, maybe a little evidence, that corn syrup is worse. So Coke sneaking it into their premier product for the cost savings is maybe a tad unpleasant.</p><p></p><p>But, the 'corn syrup' in this analogy is game balance. 4e was much better-balanced than other eds of D&D, and 3.5 had arguably become the worst-balanced ever (it's hard to say, since earlier eds were hard to evaluate). 5e, riding in after a 2-year hiatus, with 4e for contrast, looks like it's back to being really imbalanced, maybe even to the level of AD&D (though, again, AD&D was so often and heavily modded, it's hard to say what it was 'really' like - and 5e is meant to be that way, too), but 5e doesn't suffer from 3.5's bloat and power inflation, and isn't likely to right away, with it's slower pace of publication.</p><p></p><p>The analogy falls short because imbalance is bad for you game, and balance good, while sugar is bad for your body, and corn syrup possibly even worse - and balance is more expensive, not less. And, more to the point, because WotC didn't set out to insert balance, but to sell DDI and make MMO-like piles of money.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 7668031, member: 996"] And 5e as coke-classic? It's not a perfect analogy. Coke wanted to change from sugar to corn syrup, because the latter is cheaper (in the USA), so they launched 'New Coke' with lots of corn syrup, then after most people hadn't tasted old coke in a while (and raged against the New Coke), they brought back 'Coke Classic' - with corn syrup, just less of it. The taste difference between sugar-sweetened coke and corn-syrup coke classic is subtle, but with New Coke to hate on, coke classic was good enough. In the process, they also won extra shelf space, which may or may not have been part of the the plan, but led to a proliferation of soft drink products for a while. Corn syrup and sugar are both pretty bad for you, there's a perception, maybe a little evidence, that corn syrup is worse. So Coke sneaking it into their premier product for the cost savings is maybe a tad unpleasant. But, the 'corn syrup' in this analogy is game balance. 4e was much better-balanced than other eds of D&D, and 3.5 had arguably become the worst-balanced ever (it's hard to say, since earlier eds were hard to evaluate). 5e, riding in after a 2-year hiatus, with 4e for contrast, looks like it's back to being really imbalanced, maybe even to the level of AD&D (though, again, AD&D was so often and heavily modded, it's hard to say what it was 'really' like - and 5e is meant to be that way, too), but 5e doesn't suffer from 3.5's bloat and power inflation, and isn't likely to right away, with it's slower pace of publication. The analogy falls short because imbalance is bad for you game, and balance good, while sugar is bad for your body, and corn syrup possibly even worse - and balance is more expensive, not less. And, more to the point, because WotC didn't set out to insert balance, but to sell DDI and make MMO-like piles of money. [/QUOTE]
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