7 Years of D&D Stories? And a "Big Reveal" Coming?

goldomark said:

Anyway, maybe those who were vocal about their disatisfaction with 4e just do not care about 5e and D&D and have gone elsewhere?

Click to expand...

The good news is, much to my surprise, those who like 4E see no difference whatsoever between 4e and 5e.
Everything in the mechanics that anyone could possibly claim to "hate" is right there in 5E in the exact same measure.

So 5E has 100% of 4E fans plus all the H4ters who've been tricked into liking the new game. Woo Hoo!!!!!

Poe's law!

Hussar said:

The truly ironic thing is, so much of 4e appears in 5e without the slightest quibble, despite causing huge outcry in 4e.

Click to expand...

I also hang out on another board with a large proportion of 4E fans, and they do not agree that your examples are faithfully translated 4E mechanics. In fact, the very things you mention are large parts of the reason why many of them have not taken to 5E--they feel that 5E took perfectly good mechanics from 4E and bastardized them for no good reason. They'll tell you that the 5E mechanics only look, on the surface, like the 4E counterparts but they don't fit into the game in the same way. The Battlemaster's maneuvers and hit dice replacing healing surges are two particular sore spots.

jayoungr said:

I also hang out on another board with a large proportion of 4E fans, and they do not agree that your examples are faithfully translated 4E mechanics.

Click to expand...

They are wrong. Hussar will be there forthwith.
Have no concerns or trepidations.

Mark CMG said:

You really don't if you ever thought and still think that . . .

Because this is the mark of someone who doesn't get it and doesn't want to get it.

Click to expand...

I can accept that you think I don't get it, but that I don't want to get it? That's a big and pejorative assumption that isn't at all useful for dialogue.

Mark CMG said:

Most folks I have spoken to about 4E basically agree that 4E was seemingly designed as a set of Minis Skirmish Combat rules with aspirations of appealing to CRPG and MMORPG gamers then squeezed into a very thin tabletop RPG skin. And as a skirmish game, it's okay but there are many that are better. But as an RPG, it just doesn't do a very good job at all and used a couple / few of patches to try and fix that, like the oft mentioned Page 42 and Skill Challenges.

Click to expand...

All of which I agree with and have said as such, in this very thread as well!

Mark CMG said:

I know this doesn't fit your narrative as well as the folks who don't like 4E, the ones you might describe as two word posters on the comments section of a pro-4E articles (back when 4E was still being published). It's likely most of them even had reasons they just didn't deign to share. But the reality I have seen regarding the opinions on 4E is very different and very much grounded in the opinions of a lot of people who know quite a bit about RPGs. I'm not saying everyone who will be at the convention this weekend has an opinion. Most simply don't care or know much about 4E. What I am saying the ones who do have an opinion are quite rational indeed.

Click to expand...

Honestly, Mark, I think it is a mixed bag. I have also spoken to many people who had strong and negative opinions about 4E that was not at all based upon experience, just hearsay. I mean, I hear what you are saying and agree with it to some degree, and thus do think I "get it." I think you are assuming that I am some gung-ho 4E fan, which is strange considering my post on the "three camps" - which presumably you didn't read. One of those camps loves 4E, one hates it (often irrationally), and one tried it, was ambivalent or liked it a bit, but eventually moved on; I consider myself in that third camp. But it seems you are ignoring that second camp - which I think had a strong role in the edition wars through incessant and often nasty (and irrational) bashing of 4E.

Mark CMG said:

But what I don't need is for many others to like it, nor do I need everyone who doesn't like it to agree that they are being irrational if they don't like it, for me to feel okay about liking it myself. And that's really what you still don't get. You can like things that other people don't like without their not liking it having to be a personal attack on you or what you like. So, really, when you post . . .

. . . I have to wonder why you need to believe this, still, and why you can't just let it go and move on already?

Click to expand...

You're taking one sentence out of context, and out of a larger perspective - in other words, I think you read one line and got upset about it and the made a strawman out of me. Hey, its the internet. But these aren't the droids you are looking for, Mark! Perhaps I should have written "a large part of the Edition Wars was due to the irrational hatred of 4E." And I stand by that. You're right, it isn't (necessarily) the "largest part" - but it was a significant factor, at least from the countless threads I've read, and quite a few people I've met.

I also think you are subtly and falsely equating the edition wars around 4E and why it wasn't more widely adopted. The two aren't necessarily the same, especially in light of my three camps schema.

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], here's a question for you: Why do you think there was such vitriolic edition warring around 4E? What is your explanation? Or do you question the assumption that 4E was particularly prone to edition warring?

Hussar said:

So, yeah, when Mercurous talks about the irrational hatred of 4e, I think he has a pretty strong point. The fact that 5e is getting pats on the back for stuff that got 4e vilified shows just how irrational a lot of the criticisms really were. People didn't hate the mechanics of 4e. They just hated 4e and used the mechanics as a scapegoat.

Click to expand...

I hate to disagree with someone agreeing with me, but here goes ;-). Well, I don't fully disagree but would merely point out that adopting some of the rules of 4E isn't the same as adopting all or even most.

But what is more interesting is asking the question, why did they "just hate 4E"? If it wasn't logical or reasoned, or wasn't only or fully logical or reasoned, what was it about 4E that inspired such hatred?

In truth, I think it is a combination - and of course it really depends upon the individual. As I said to [MENTION=10479]Mark CMG[/MENTION], I agreed with his assertion of people having reasoned dislike of 4E, but also say a lot of irrational dislike - which usually turned towards "hatred." And "hatred" is a pretty strong word. I mean, one usually doesn't "hate" something that they dislike for logical reasons - like a game system. Hatred implies an affective aspect, that it goes beyond both rationality and preference - it often implies feeling slighted or personally offended in some way.

It is very tempting to try to over-simplify these questions and come to quick and easy, one-sided and/or reductionist answers. I think that is the norm. But I'd like to see more nuance brought into the conversation, more of an ability to hold contradictory truths. For instance, I think there are two general areas in which people didn't care for 4E (to whatever degree): 1) the game itself, the rules, how it played; 2) the vibe of the game, the aesthetic, how it "feels." In a way, it is the analytical and aesthetic aspect of the game, or intellectual and emotional. Some people disliked it purely for 1, some for 2, and some a combination of both. But I think there were large camps on both sides - and to reduce one to the other is missing an important part of the picture.

There's also the well-worn phenomenon of judging one's own group (however that is identified) by its best actors, and judging other groups by their worst actors.

Mercurius said:

Perhaps I should have written "a large part of the Edition Wars was due to the irrational hatred of 4E." And I stand by that. You're right, it isn't (necessarily) the "largest part" - but it was a significant factor, at least from the countless threads I've read, and quite a few people I've met.

Click to expand...

I'd like to ask: would it be fair to say that virtually none of the people not playing 4E were irrationally motivated, but once people have developed an opinion, the debates become emotional and the content of an emotional debate quickly becomes irrational.

In other words, irrational edition wars is one thing, but lack of completely rational foundations for why people take their positions is quite another.

Irrational edition wars existed.
Not playing 4E for irrational reasons did not (significantly) exist.

Mercurius said:

(. . .) the largest part of the 4E edition wars was due to the irrational hatred of 4E

Click to expand...

Mercurius said:

That's a big and pejorative assumption that isn't at all useful for dialogue.

Click to expand...

You understand the irony of suggesting that? The difference is that I only need to be right about one person and you need to be right about the "largest part" of the people who don't like 4E. Even if you only broad brush to "large" it is absurd to assume that most folks don't have rational reasons even if you consider their actions to be irrational (like posting two words in a comment without giving reasons, essentially using shorthand). You don't get it.

Mercurius said:

But what is more interesting is asking the question, why did they "just hate 4E"? If it wasn't logical or reasoned, or wasn't only or fully logical or reasoned, what was it about 4E that inspired such hatred?

In truth, I think it is a combination - and of course it really depends upon the individual. As I said to [MENTION=10479]Mark CMG[/MENTION], I agreed with his assertion of people having reasoned dislike of 4E, but also say a lot of irrational dislike - which usually turned towards "hatred." And "hatred" is a pretty strong word. I mean, one usually doesn't "hate" something that they dislike for logical reasons - like a game system. Hatred implies an affective aspect, that it goes beyond both rationality and preference - it often implies feeling slighted or personally offended in some way.

Click to expand...

I'm more inclined to believe that the person painting so many others with the broad brush and tagging them as irrational haters has some sort of persecution complex. You're looking for a way to explain a sweeping feeling you have regarding people who didn't (don't?) like 4E. You're going out of your way to open old wounds you have and in the process purposefully insulting people with whom you disagreed in the past. That is what you don't get. Let it go, man.