[Forked Thread: How Important is Magic..?] 5 things you need to know

[Ariosto]

What we need is some 13-year old kids, a case of JOLT Cola, and a lab to do some studies, I suppose.

For a start: Paint & Play Club

 

[RefinedBean]

For a start: Paint & Play Club

Nah, those kids already seem to be pretty big into geek-dom.

How about we round up some of those Amish teens on their Rumspringa and see how it goes.

 

[Ariosto]

Record of Lodoss War is nifty, all right, and so are lots of other things. Heck, an awful lot of folks in 1975 thought The Lord of the Rings was just THE ULTIMATE "evah".

That D&D was not a "Tolkien game" did not keep them from having fun, whilst letting those who wanted to play Dungeons & Dragons get D&D. The framework can easily accommodate TLOTR or ROLW, as something specifically fine-tuned to that subset of fantasy could NOT so readily cater to other tastes.

 

[Ariosto]

Nah, those kids already seem to be pretty big into geek-dom.

Just "predisposed", I think, as I was when I happened to encounter Wells, or later Gygax & Arneson.

Seriously, do you really think these kids are grooving on China Mieville?

 

[Mallus]

Just "predisposed", I think, as I was when I happened to encounter Wells, or later Gygax & Arneson.

Not to blaspheme or anything, but reading Gygax's prose usually made me want to read the writers who inspired him instead. Vance, for instance. Now's there's a man who had a way with obscure words.

Seriously, do you really think these kids are grooving on China Mieville?

I don't think that's the point. D&D should use good, imaginative fiction as a source of inspiration, and Mieville's done good, imaginative work.

 

[Ariosto]

D&D should use good, imaginative fiction as a source of inspiration, and Mieville's done good, imaginative work.

I agree -- but that is not the premise of this thread, is it?

 

[Cadfan]

Just "predisposed", I think, as I was when I happened to encounter Wells, or later Gygax & Arneson.

Seriously, do you really think these kids are grooving on China Mieville?

Not Mieville, but probably Rowlings, Paolini, Pullman, Lackey, Cooper, Jacques, McCaffrey, or Yolen.

 

[Saracenus]

I figured the whole At-Will, Encounter, and Daily Power thing just seems to be more intuitive out-of-box than the concept of spell slots, iterative attacks, etc.

I could be wrong. What we need is some 13-year old kids, a case of JOLT Cola, and a lab to do some studies, I suppose.

Actually I ran a test on a 30 year old RPG virgin at the last World Wide Game Day for the Player's Handbook 2. My wife's friend had never played anything outside of traditional boardgames and the occasional card game. So, her first D&D game was of course 4e.

At the Game Day, the DM handed everyone their 11th level PCs and away we went. After a shake down during the first combat (the wife and I hadn't played 4e either) we all dove right in. Our friend not only had fun but was right in the thick of it with little help from us or the other players. Could I have replicated this experience in my 3.5 home game, not even close with 11th level characters.

As it is 4e help bring in a new player to the fold who is having fun playing in LFR and is pestering me to up gun my Greyhawk campaign to 4th Edition...

So, yes if 4e design goals where to make entry into the game easier for new players it has succeeded in my book.

I will say that my wife (a 30 year RPG veteran like me) thinks that 4e is a completely different game than the D&D we grew up with but fun in its own way. This impression of course is from just playing it, not deeply reading the rules where you can see the evolution of the game. So, I split the difference and say it is mechanically related to previous versions but plays differently from what came before.

My Two Coppers,

 

[Mallus]

I agree -- but that is not the premise of this thread, is it?

Damn, it's not, is it?

 

[Cadfan]

Actually, yes, Mieville. My bad, the dude's written young adult fiction.