Has lack of an insider account kept you from playing 4E?

Tequila Sunrise said:

What, buying actual books isn't good enough anymore? WotC needs to dangle even more carrots for us to buy a monthly service that may or may not be completely rebooted with 5e?

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Look around you. Your internet's a subscription. Your TV is probably one or more subscriptions (cable/satellite, Netflix, TiVo, etc). Your video games are built with only so much replay value, so that you'll come back and buy more...

As a business model, having you pay once just isn't all that great. So, when the company has to measure their invested resources against all those other media and entertainments that have you subscribing and buying over and over... no, just buying a book really isn't good enough any more.

True, but any given person's budget and psyche can only manage so many subscriptions. Personally, my tolerance for e-media is pretty low.

A few periodicals (like my local newspaper and Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine) and FIOS is about the only subscription service I have right now, and I recently cut out all of my movie channels. My cellphone is basic- I don't even have a texting plan.

I have never purchased a subscription for any of the online RPGs, and I never will.

When a magazine goes 100% digital, I cancel.

I've never purchased a music download or a ringtone.

In fact, I've never even had a subscription to Lexis/Nexis for my law practice.

Long story short- if you want to go 100% digital, that's fine...but you're probably not going to have me as a customer.

Umbran said:

Look around you. Your internet's a subscription. Your TV is probably one or more subscriptions (cable/satellite, Netflix, TiVo, etc). Your video games are built with only so much replay value, so that you'll come back and buy more...

As a business model, having you pay once just isn't all that great. So, when the company has to measure their invested resources against all those other media and entertainments that have you subscribing and buying over and over... no, just buying a book really isn't good enough any more.

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Amen.

For all the complaints about wotc (deserved or no) I gotta say I'm very impressed they managed to pull off ddi.

I use it more or less exclusively now, and the number of books I'm purchasing has gone down (3rd party products are waaaay out).

Now my game money is still flowing, but into mini's, terrain, flipmats and what not (ironically, my patronage to paizo has increased ten-fold).

I don't think dnd could survive or really grow without ddi, and the CB.

Here's to 5e using hologram-projecting-pogs and rules being cited by voice-detecting-ipod-aps!

--

I suppose after this much bragging, i'm going to have to pony up for a community supporter account...

unan oranis said:

Amen.

For all the complaints about wotc (deserved or no) I gotta say I'm very impressed they managed to pull off ddi.

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agreed.

I use it more or less exclusively now, and the number of books I'm purchasing has gone down (3rd party products are waaaay out).

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Never bought much 3rd party stuff but DDI is my exclusive channel for WoTC stuff except for fluff books. I do not spend as much as before but that is because I do not have to money. I bought some of the early books but I now I am more interested in setting info I can loot.

Now my game money is still flowing, but into mini's, terrain, flipmats and what not (ironically, my patronage to paizo has increased ten-fold).

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minis definitely and if I could figure a good way of storing them I could see myself getting back in to tiles. That or project a map.

I don't think dnd could survive or really grow without ddi, and the CB.

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Here's to 5e using hologram-projecting-pogs and rules being cited by voice-detecting-ipod-aps!

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At that point I liquadate my assets and put them into a fund and upload myself into the holodeck. I then play D&D until the next financial disaster wipes the fund and my account is terminated

Tequila Sunrise said:

How we do what particular things?

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I don't know, in particular. The little things that can enhance my own DMing, if I can ever get myself on the other side of the screen. For example, I once saw a DM write down character's names on index cards and lay them out on the table beside the mat in initiative order. Nowadays, I fold little pieces of index card over the DM screen to track it. It's an idea I never would have gotten on my own, and it only occurred to me because I got the chance to play every once in a while.

Tequila Sunrise said:

I can tell you that I don't ban anything based on source, even though I don't get DDI. I've heard some of it is cheesy, but nothing game-breaking has popped up at the table yet. I love being able to say "Anything goes!" and be fairly confident in the game's balance.

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Well... I don't ban things on the source they come from, per se. But I certainly expect a player to be reasonable about me vetoing new content if it isn't appropriate for my campaign. "Unbalanced" or "powerful" options aren't the only criteria. My homebrew setting has no halflings, and orcs are extraplanar creatures. In a game where the major theme is taming the savage frontier, for example, I might want to restrict the number of primal characters. In a game where the party is assumed to work for a guild of magicians, I might require the party to contain at least two characters that draw on the arcane power source. I have noticed that many 4E players have a perception that everything should be allowed, there should be no restrictions in regard to character generation, and that I'm "cheating" them by not allowing them to play a certain race, class, or whatever.

Umbran said:

Look around you. Your internet's a subscription. Your TV is probably one or more subscriptions (cable/satellite, Netflix, TiVo, etc). Your video games are built with only so much replay value, so that you'll come back and buy more...

As a business model, having you pay once just isn't all that great. So, when the company has to measure their invested resources against all those other media and entertainments that have you subscribing and buying over and over... no, just buying a book really isn't good enough any more.

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Yeah, Insider makes all kinds of sense once you start considering how to sustain a reliable stream of income for your business. I do think that many people that don't work in a creative field don't appreciate the fact that you have to turn a profit to stay in business. Even people who work in "dream jobs" have to pay the mortgage and get a sammich. But the old chestnut about "sellouts" being motivated by money remains a popular one. Another topic that gets under my skin, but I digress...

unan oranis said:

For all the complaints about wotc (deserved or no) I gotta say I'm very impressed they managed to pull off ddi.

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Yeah, so am I. For all that I don't personally find it useful, it's an accomplishment of unprecedented scope to push out as much content as often as they do at the quality they do. The fact that it's going strong and people are paying for it is a testament to the acumen of the D&D staff in several fields of expertise.

Umbran said:

Look around you. Your internet's a subscription. Your TV is probably one or more subscriptions (cable/satellite, Netflix, TiVo, etc). Your video games are built with only so much replay value, so that you'll come back and buy more...

As a business model, having you pay once just isn't all that great. So, when the company has to measure their invested resources against all those other media and entertainments that have you subscribing and buying over and over... no, just buying a book really isn't good enough any more.

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Damn, pragmatism strikes again.

Dykstrav said:

I don't know, in particular. The little things that can enhance my own DMing, if I can ever get myself on the other side of the screen. For example, I once saw a DM write down character's names on index cards and lay them out on the table beside the mat in initiative order. Nowadays, I fold little pieces of index card over the DM screen to track it. It's an idea I never would have gotten on my own, and it only occurred to me because I got the chance to play every once in a while.

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Something I've recently started doing, after getting the idea from someone on this very forum I believe, is writing monster defenses on index cards and then clipping those cards on the players' side of the screen. I've noticed my group waste a surprising amount of time with clarifying attack rolls and defenses, and this method seems to be helping. Now the players just roll, look at the proper card and tell me whether they hit.

It might seem metagamey, but after the PCs fight a monster for a few moments, they should get a pretty accurate idea of its defenses. Besides, smart players can work out monster defenses after a few rounds anyway.

Umbran said:

Well... I don't ban things on the source they come from, per se. But I certainly expect a player to be reasonable about me vetoing new content if it isn't appropriate for my campaign. "Unbalanced" or "powerful" options aren't the only criteria. My homebrew setting has no halflings, and orcs are extraplanar creatures. In a game where the major theme is taming the savage frontier, for example, I might want to restrict the number of primal characters. In a game where the party is assumed to work for a guild of magicians, I might require the party to contain at least two characters that draw on the arcane power source. I have noticed that many 4E players have a perception that everything should be allowed, there should be no restrictions in regard to character generation, and that I'm "cheating" them by not allowing them to play a certain race, class, or whatever.

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Yeah, this sense of entitlement does seem to be growing with 4e, no doubt thanks at least in part to the CB.

Chainsaw said:

One of the several reasons I don't play 4E anymore is the implication (in a local group) that I was a luddite (or worse) for actually buying physical books and filling out my own character sheet by hand (you do what?!?!?!) rather than using Insider and Character Builder. Of course, when we gained a level mid-session, I was the only person that knew how to calculate any of my new statistics without relying on a computer. We usually had to stop the game for an hour and let people rotate through the host's PC. Fun.

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I'm not much of a Luddite but I'm totally in sync with this.

I do in fact use the character builder, mostly to tinker with things and get a better understanding of how the rules work -- (as well as discover parts in which the builder doesn't handle them) -- but I've always relied on pen and paper to write down my own power cards and fill in all the stats.

For one thing, it's a waste of printer ink to keep printing new iterations of your character, when very few items on the official sheet changes from level to level. (i.e. defenses/atk rolls go up every two levels, surge value/hit points every level, and a new power card thrice every four level ups...) On the other hand, printed versions don't have much pencil room for anything other than tracking your hit points and usage of resources.

That aside, I do think that while the character builder makes things 'easier' at some point players should also learn to manage aspects of their character in order to understand how parts of the rules works. I don't know how many times I've lost session time to people trying to figure out why their basic attack rolls don't hit as well as their at-wills or why a given weapon power's damage doesn't match the modifier to their STR.

Let me throw out the opposite extreme:

At my table the campaigns start with PHB1 only.

Anyone using "official" character sheets is mocked and provided with a 4 page Word template, a 3x5 card Word template, and a piece of 1/4" graph paper.

Additional books are added only when the DM approves, which is as they make sense in the campaign and as characters die.

Also, more and more of the games that I run are based on my damn small version of the fourth edition of our favorite game. I call it DS4E. It drives 4E rules lawyers nuts, but old school guys, especially beer and pretzel, kick-down-the-door and win the princesses heart after sessions of political intrigue guys love it.

I **have** to type DS4E up and post it here one of these days.

ourchair said:

For one thing, it's a waste of printer ink to keep printing new iterations of your character, when very few items on the official sheet changes from level to level.

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Ahh, the unspoken extra cost of ddi... it is a huge waste of ink. After the initial shock though, it feels kind of bling drenching a sheet with class.

Thick, black, chunks of class.

ourchair said:

That aside, I do think that while the character builder makes things 'easier' at some point players should also learn to manage aspects of their character in order to understand how parts of the rules works.

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I go with the CB math, even if it misses some weird combo.

Kind of ironic to have a house rule to follow the "rules as written", as it were.

ourchair said:

I don't know how many times I've lost session time to people trying to figure out why their basic attack rolls don't hit as well as their at-wills or why a given weapon power's damage doesn't match the modifier to their STR.

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Ultimately this is what it's all about, the value of session time.

If you *like* filling out your forms by hand, calculating it yourself etc, then the CB might not be great for you.

But for those of us that find that stuff a chore, the CB adds more precious dnd minutes to the clock.

While I love DDI, as it's a fantastic tool (hellooooo monster stat blocks), I'd never dream of making it compulsory for everyone, so long as they had a good knowledge of what they were doing with their character (i.e. not holding up combat by looking stuff up every turn).

That said, unless you're on a Mac or Linux PC without Windows, it's not a bad investment to pop for a few months of DDI just to get the character builder. To my knowledge, it still works fine after you've cancelled your subscription.