Take Two: Testing The Correlation Between Class Preference And 4E Love/Hate

[Thanee]

Definitely prefering spellcasting characters, and I do prefer 3rd edition (though I do like 4th edition also).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Wombat]

Neutral on classes; prefer 3e

Prefer at least slightly less emphasis on combat and some actual use for noncombat skills...

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

IMHO, a game should never make "smart play" be at odds with "satisfying play".

I absolutely agree with that.



I think there's also something wrong with making "smart play" focus on character creation. Creating a good character should be obvious, smart play (up to power-gaming) should be done at the game table. I think it is more satisfying all around.
But maybe that's just a preference thing.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I absolutely agree with that.

I think there's also something wrong with making "smart play" focus on character creation.

Me too. Remember the infamous Sense of Wonder rants?


RC

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Me too. Remember the infamous Sense of Wonder rants?


RC

I don't think I do. If it was a rant before the big 4E discussions, I probably missed it. I got a lot more active in the past year, I think.

 

[pawsplay]

Eyeballing it, I see no significant interaction: liking 4e or 3e does not appear to correlate with any kind of class preference.

 

[firesnakearies]

While I appreciate the attempt to make a poll based on the poll I originally wanted (and tried, and failed) to make, this poll really doesn't ask the essential question which I was trying to ask, at all.

And in response to some things said in the other thread, the one I created where I tried to make a poll but my answers were too long and I got timed out, I'm not trying to "trap" anyone or claim that anyone's preferences are "wrong" or anything like that.

I'm not even trying to say anything about powergamers versus non-powergamers.

Nor was my intended poll anything to do with 3E versus 4E per se, but merely the thoughts of people who played any version of D&D before 4E about certain aspects of 4E's design.

And even then, I was only trying to poll those players who already had a strong preference for one general type of characters over the other.

My original thought was that prior to 4E even existing, there were some players who almost entirely chose to play more or less pure spellcaster types, as that was the only playstyle which they considered especially fun. These players, which were not uncommon, felt that the Fighter/Rogue/non-caster types were boring, or useless, or whatever.

Conversely, there were also a good number of players who felt the opposite way, and nearly always played mostly non-spellcasting type characters, the more "Martial" sort of classes, finding them to be more fun than the more focused casters.

I wanted to know how those two subsets of D&D players, who had each played before 4E came out, and had a strong inclination towards either caster or non-caster characters, felt about the specific elements of 4E which most related to class choice, class versatility and options, and how the classes functioned in the game.

I just wanted to see whether or not the "I much preferred casters before 4E" crowd mostly liked, or disliked, the classes/powers system/resource management model in 4E. And whether or not the "I much preferred NON-casters before 4E" crowd mostly liked, or disliked, the classes/powers system/resource management model in 4E.

I couldn't figure out how to make an accurate poll asking that question specifically, at least not with the character limit in the poll creation system here. So the poll that did end up getting made was not, in fact, very much like what I was trying to test, at all.

My theory, though, is that the players who found that their strongly-preferred classes had suddenly gained a bunch of options in the new edition would be more statistically inclined to approve of the features of the new edition which related to that change. And then, on the other side of the coin, that the players who found that their strongly-preferred classes had suddenly lost a bunch of options in the new edition would be more statistically inclined to disapprove of the features of the new edition which related to that change.

This particular poll doesn't show that, but then, this particular poll really doesn't test that.

But the people who are claiming that the whole point of this question is to bash people, trap people, or tell people that they're wrong . . . well, they're off-base. At least, insofar as my intentions go. I can't speak for the other folks who got involved in this, including the fellow who actually took it upon himself to make this actual poll, based loosely on my own failed attempt to construct a poll.

I know that I, myself, had a very strong "Martial" bias before, and I love what 4E has done with those classes and the powers system. And I also know that the few players I personally know who had a very strong "magic" bias before are not so thrilled about 4E's changes in that area. Hence, my theory, and my desire to statistically test it.

 

[GQuail]

Well, polls have always to be taken with the usual grain of salts, but... I am really not surprised that there is no correlation. I always found the claim that people didn't like 4E because they loved playing their overpowered spell casters was nothing more then an unfair accusation, or worse (a thinly veiled or an open insult.) It was and never will be conductive to the discussion on the merits of 4E by claiming only powergamers or munchkins hate (or love) it.

Yeah, it's good to ask this question and find the answer is the far nicer one, that people are capable of liking or disliking things other than for reasons of Nerf-batting : although between you and me, I've met a lot of people in my time for whom that was a big factor, including Elf Ranger Chris, a man who judges D&D games exlcusively by how kicking his favourite race/class combo is. ;-)

one point is missing---if i remember right from another poll, most of us here are dm's. might have been more accurate/telling if it was directed at people who play 75% of the time rather than dm.

Yeah. I voted "class neutral, edition neutral" because, as the main DM of the group, I don't really do that much playing. But then, that's not what the poll's about really, is it? It's about people accusing others in edition war arguments of player-themed bias.

And speaking of people this poll probably isn't about...

You've missed a couple of editions there, in your poll options...please remember there's more to the game than 3e and 4e.

...to you and the other people who had to say "There's no older editions in this poll!", I'm afraid this may not be your battle to fight. Sit back, have some popcorn and enjoy the fireworks. ;-)

 

[GQuail]

Oh, I agree.

I once went on quite a rant about the problems of 3e.

Everyone told me they didn't exist/I didn't understand the game.

Then 4e came along, WotC promoted the same problems as existing, and Voila! suddenly almost everyone knew about them and had always known about them, even many of folks who denied their existence when I went on my rant.

Personally, I see the future as holding the same for 4e. All those problems that "don't exist" right now? Suddenly almost everyone is going to know about them and had always known about them, even many of folks who deny their existence now. All it will take is WotC addressing them in 5e, or in 6e.

While this is a phenomenon I've seen both online and, to some extent, in real life, I think it's important to add that it isn't always malicious or indicative of "impressionable people buying into advertising", which is the implication here. There's lots of reasons why people change their opinions, although that doesn't stop it being frustrating when you were trying to explain it to them before and got shouted down.

In the case of RPG system problems, sometimes they aren't observable (or aren't as pronounced) without playing specific types of characters, or playing at certain power levels - which, if starting at the bottom rung, can take months if not years of weekly play to reach. Sometimes the problems are accepted as part and parcel of something else but just wear down on you over time - possibly because you're so impressed at the solution to a problem in an older edition that you accept the introduction of other oddities. For example, 3E multiclassing has it's problems for some, but perhaps when they first saw it they were too busy comparing it favourably to 2E multiclassing's issues to really soak up the new problem - or had to try to play a Fighter 10/Wizard 10 to see where it struggles.

Sometimes the problem just flat-out doesn't bother you in play for some reason (we see plenty of threads here talking about whether or not a certain thing is broken, where GMs and players will go against the grain and say that a commonly accepted bad thing just doesn't bug their group - like how they just don't have the 15 minute workday) until one day it just does after a specific incident, or until it's explained in a way that clicks for you - Wizards article might just have used an example or phrase that did it for some people when a thousand message board posts didn't.

I don't deny your general theory won't hold out - that some people who are firm 4E fans now will one day be posting about how 5E/6E is a superior D&D product because of how it fixes 4E's problems. But I think it's a bit unfair to imply that it's all people buying into the hype of a game at the time rather than people actually finding it works until they've played it enough to see it break. In general terms, some problems can be seen just from a read through or a quick play: a friend recently bored me with graphs about why he didn't like CthulhuTech's dice system but it's only when you've actually done it week after week for quite some time that you can really speak with conviction about some role-playing game problems.

 

[Raven Crowking]

While this is a phenomenon I've seen both online and, to some extent, in real life, I think it's important to add that it isn't always malicious or indicative of "impressionable people buying into advertising", which is the implication here. There's lots of reasons why people change their opinions, although that doesn't stop it being frustrating when you were trying to explain it to them before and got shouted down.

Not trying to imply malice. Just reminding us all that our opinions today very likely won't be our opinions tomorrow. I have a higher opinion of 3e now, for example, than I had then. Perhaps when WotC moves on to 5e, I'll be a lone voice championing 4e.

You never know.


RC