Some interesting insight from Mark Rosewater (Magic's Head Designer)

[Giltonio_Santos]

You misunderstand. Disney has made a crystal clear choice of who their audience is. They cater to families. A young single guy looking to hook up would *hate* a Disney cruise./quote]

I disagree with your premise. The point is having something for everybody willing to come aboard: parents, teenagers or children. A young male single looking for a cool date may have a hard time in the Disney cruise; if playing games is not a pastime you look forward to be in, D&D is not your choice as well. It's all about what you expect and what will be given to you.

If I love games, consider myself a great D&D fan and want to be part of the D&D experience, but Wizards decides that they don't want (or need) D&D to fit my playstyle, I'm not the single in a Disney cruise, I'm a parent which looks around and has nothing to do while his children are having fun with various scheduled activities.

What I believe Mark is trying to say is: if you're going to have parents, teenagers and children aboard, you need to have something to each of them.

Cheers,

 

[MrMyth]

What I find really interesting about the article, though, is how he talks about the things they're aiming at while creating the game, and I see such a great difference between that and the strategy that seems to be used by the D&D team. The same company, two real different ways to look at things!

I agree that I found it a great article, but I don't really agree with your portrayal of the decisions used by the D&D team.

Mark talks about how it's important to have something for each one in your audience. I find this interesting, because we know that some of us felt like D&D left us behind with the focus on creating the best tactical experience possible. While one of the games tries to suit all its fanbase, the other made a crystal clear option.

Except that I'm confident the designers of the game are out to create the best Roleplaying game they can. I suspect they very much feel they have done so. Some gamers disagree, sure, just like many will disagree about how successful Magic is for casual or professional play.

Now, there are some elements that can't be combined in the same system, and so there are specific elements that will be missing in the game in order to make it (what they consider) better in other ways. But I don't think they set out to actively abandon anybody, or create a game devoted to tactical gaming alone. I think there is a lot of the game that support non-tactical elements, and the argument otherwise was disproven quite some time ago.

He also writes about how details really matter. Now, not everybody is connected to details, but I remember seeing a discussion around here about spine colors in books and how they were a mess for someone who cared about it. One more time, what seems to be an important part of making magic means nothing to the D&D team.

"Means nothing"? That seems to be a harsh claim from a single piece of evidence. Having the names of iconics from 3rd Ed crop up in unusual places would seem an example of attention to detail. Many of the more obscure references in the planar cosmology would be the same. The production of the recent PHB1 and PHB2 bundle with slip case. The delineation of player and DM content and the focus on several distinct lines of products.

Sure, there may be areas where they could make better design decisions - more uniform spines for the books, for example. I'm sure there are many others. I suspect examples could be found for Magic, as well - it is pretty much impossible to always anticipate everything, and produce the perfect game for every player.

It may well be that Magic does a better job at this than D&D. But I think the claim that attention to detail "means nothing" to the D&D designers is completely baseless.

Another interesting point is the "find solutions for problems, not reasons", which I connect with another recent discussion around here: the problem of magic items that are not cool at all, and why Wizards cannot publish cool magic items because they'll mess with the careful balance achieved in the tactical aspect of the game.

I'd say there are a good number of cool items in the game. I find it unlikely that, if WotC feels there is room for a category between basic items and artifacts, that they won't work hard to find a way to include that in the game. I'd say that the presence of regular errata, as well as innovative new mechanics in supplements and DDI, are pretty strong signs that they are more than willing to find solutions to what they feel are lacking in the game.

I think that these are all good elements to have in the design of the game. I see them there all the time, in play and in the support the designers provide for the game.

You certainly don't need to enjoy the game - everyone is welcome to their opinion on that. But claiming that the designers don't care about the details or about finding solutions to problems, or that they aren't interested in including any elements outside of tactical play... that seems to be making some very large (and potentially insulting) assumptions about the motivations of the designers, and ones that aren't supported by my experiences at all.

 

[MrMyth]

That's complicated. To me, the fact that the Character Builder doesn't support new classes/races/powers/etc is a detail, which take nothing from the usefulness of the tool, but it seems to be a deal breaker to some poeple around here.

I'm really not trying to just disagree with everything you are saying here, but I again don't think that this criticism remotely connects to the designers "not caring about details". I'm pretty sure there are serious reasons for them not providing that level of customizability in the Character Builder - legal reasons, programming resources, concern over how easy it would make it to distribute existing WotC content.

They may or may not be good reasons, but I'm sure they exist, and that is a far different thing from the claim you seem to be making - that they just don't care.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I disagree with your premise. The point is having something for everybody willing to come aboard.

If I love games, consider myself a great D&D fan and want to be part of the D&D experience, but Wizards decides that they don't want (or need) D&D to fit my playstyle, I'm not the single in a Disney cruise, I'm a parent which looks around and has nothing to do while his children are having fun with various scheduled activities.

What I believe Mark is trying to say is: if you're going to have parents, teenagers and children aboard, you need to have something to each of them.

"Everybody willing to come aboard" is not selecting a target audience and is not the methodolgy used by Disney. There are many different kinds of people that are willing to come aboard a cruise ship. Disney has decided to focus on families and cater to them. Wizards has made a similar decision with 4E D&D. They've done their market research and decided to cater to the audience they consider to be the largest potential market. Saying that you like D&D isn't good enough. Each edition of the game has been mechanically different and/or had different design goals. Just because each has the D&D name on it does not make it the same game.

 

[SSquirrel]

I don't think that's a fair comparison. Magic is a card game with very clear rules, and as such there actually is one right way to play it. Your audience is therefore very self-selecting. So he's looking at subsets of a group that enjoys playing a certain type of card game in a certain way.

The fanbase for D&D is much more broad. People play it in a great variety of different ways. The designers decided that rather than try to be everything to everyone, they'd focus on a certain playstyle that they thought would appeal to the greastest number of players.

Firstly I do have to give some respect to Mark Rosewater. He's an excellent designer and he's been sharing his design thoughts for years now, all the way back to Duelist magazine. Always an interesting read, even if it has been years since I regularly played Magic and kept up w/all that stuff.

Magic may have set rules, but I would dispute there being a single correct way to play it. Turn sequence (Untap, upkeep, main phase, etc), yes, that is rock solid. The question becomes how will you defeat your opponent? Hordes of small monsters? Fast decks full of Goblins and direct damage? A combo engine designed to deal a super amount of damage/life loss/deck loss? Countering everything they do and using a lone creature or 2 to eventually defeat them?

In D&D you have similar questions. Do I want a Fighter or a Wizard? Would I rather be a DW Ranger or an Avenger? Monk or Warlock? Maybe I should pelt the enemy with dirty limericks as a Bard. Sub-categories of each class as well as different gear you can use.

Both games are played by the very young up to the very old. The Magic Pro Tour even gets shown on ESPN 2 heh.

 

[arscott]

A young single guy looking to hook up would *hate* a Disney cruise.

If he were a passenger, yes. But I imagine our hypothetical guy might do very well to join the cruise staff.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

It's fun to look at this thread two years later, with 5E in the works. An interesting read, indeed.

Cheers,