Could Wizards ACTUALLY make MOST people happy with a new edition?

[Windjammer]

What about older games and the flaws they have? There are some tenements of game design that need to be remembered here. No game can ever be all things to all people. I can easily point out the flaws of other versions of D&D (Pathfinder) and make the same argument you are making. It's not really a fair argument to undertake.

But 4E is slightly different, in that the emphasis both in the pre-release marketing and the end product itself was very heavily on 'we are going to fix the math'. That's the eminent design goal, I'd say. It's certainly very mechanis oriented edition. I could also throw in Wolfgang Baur's remark (a propos his review of PHB 2), "Ah, well, flavor is not a 4E strong point, but we’re heading into the realm of comedy this time out." I agree with this - flavour was never a forte or selling point of most of 4E. Streamlined gameplay was. And if we are to reduce D&D combat to a D&D Miniatures engine, then we might as well critique a) whether that reduction produced more interesting gameplay and b) whether the execution of that reduction was well done.

See, I'm not even jumping on a), which has caused way way way more edition wars. I'm just pointing out b), that a major selling point of 4E didn't come to pass and was not fixed by any of the people officially working on 4E for three years now. Actually makes me wonder what 4E's selling point will be once it's a legacy edition. 1E has the old school vibe, 2E has the most interesting settings, 3E has a rule for everything and very good OGL support, 4E ... well 4E is the game where it's about dynamic combat, yes?

Only time can tell. Personally I see my group playing and enjoying 4E many years beyond its expiry date, because the modules and PC powers just cry out for slapstick parody and goofy fantasy Vietnam, the type of gamestyle which works well for my current group, and which, to me at least, actually comes quite close to what you see portrayed in 'The Gamers' film.

So when Wolfgang Baur said that 4E's PHB 2 "heads into the realm of comedy", I see that as one of 4E's strongest selling points. 4e is so hilarious in its language, so over the top in its portrayal of coolness, that once you stop to take it seriously it's a heck of a enjoyable game. You know, like that Kung Fu Panda opening sequence* with the quote, 'He's so awesome, his enemies went blind due to exposure to his awesomeness'. That wouldn't at all look out of place in a 4E splat, and I wouldn't put it beyond WotC' free lancers & co. to write these things with something other than a straight face.

* Link: [ame]www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk2dYOFZPt4[/ame][ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxLeh_HSEDY"][/ame]

 

[BryonD]

No, what I did ther is to show the "you can't repeat the same thing and expect different results" truism.

That may be true and it still doesn't contradict that you repeated the fallacy.

The RPG industry _IS_ small. WotC wants it to be bigger. Therefore, they can't keep doing the same things that have kept RPG as a small industry for 40 years. Sure, they might *fail* in their attempt. If they do, they'll be a small insignificant industry in the next decade. However, if they don't even try, they WILL be a small insignificant industry in the next decade, for sure.

They can be the 800 lb gorilla in that small industry or they can be the kid with his hand stuck in the cookie jar.

There is a reason to expect they'll be playing tabletop tomorrow: they have appeal for games, they have appeal for fantasy, they have appeal for pretending to be an elf hero. They just don't have appeal for current tabletop gaming system. That *might* change if you make a different tabletop game system that *does* appeal them. Before Facebook existed, there were a billion people in the world wich was *not* interested on Myspace. However, lot of those changed opinion becouse
A) facebook was better
B) Facebook was popular.

with A) having influence on B).

There is a lot more reason to think they won't.

Again, I can't prove it, but I can wait and keep saying "I told you so."
WOW and tabletop RPGs are apples and oranges and the equivalence of pretending to eb an elf hero is superficial AT BEST.

WOW actually has "RP" servers. And they are routinely mocked on the big servers. The great majority of fans don't want to actually pretend to be an elf in anything approaching a RP sense even if they are anonomous at a computer somewhere. They really have no interest is doing that sitting around a table with other people.

Again, I had these same debates 2 - 3 years ago and people promised me that the massive growth of 4E would show me just how wrong I was. I wasn't wrong then. I'm not wrong now. "I told you so."

 

[MortonStromgal]

What I'm looking for is a centralized, cloud-based character creation and campaign management system, one where for one minor monthly fee gamers can have access to the basic materials needed to play or run a game. Then using a modular system, gamers who want advanced materials or extras can can spend a small monthly fee to access them. Done properly, that should be more attractive then spending up front $100 or more.

This is exactly what I don't want... Come on, when I was 12 we did most of our RPG playing while camping... Not exactly internet friendly.

So...I can choose to spend money to get the game materials in a format that is not as easily searchable, and that is nearly impossible to read on my smartphone? One which requires me to lug an expensive computer around?

...

Welcome to 2011. Any download is full of spyware or malware until proven safe, and that goes doubly so for executables.

...

Ideally, I want a cloud-based rpg system where I can access all character and gm functions from an android or iphone,

...

Boy I don't even know where to begin on your other post. On the first thing I quoted, the down sides of PDFs would then be the same downsides of DDI. On spyware, malware, android, etc etc. Well something like 89% of most infections these days come through the webbrowser, java being the biggest offender followed by flash. Smart phones are the next big things for virus writers, the infamous android botnet was demonstrated earlier this year because theres no protection from malicious code on smart phones. Cloud computing does not make you more safe, if anything it makes you less safe because I only need hack your cloud provider (like the big Amazon thing earlier this year) then everyone who uses that cloud gets my malware.

 

[Sonny]

WOW actually has "RP" servers. And they are routinely mocked on the big servers. The great majority of fans don't want to actually pretend to be an elf in anything approaching a RP sense even if they are anonomous at a computer somewhere. They really have no interest is doing that sitting around a table with other people.

Again, I had these same debates 2 - 3 years ago and people promised me that the massive growth of 4E would show me just how wrong I was. I wasn't wrong then. I'm not wrong now. "I told you so."

True, even people on WoW RP servers who actually do role-play have already done some kind of table-top rpg gaming, so it's not like it's creating a new customer for Wizards or Paizo to sell to. The rest, as you said, just don't care and were never going to be table-top customers anyways.

 

[variant]

If they got away from what they did in 4E, I would consider buying 5E. I am still wondering why they didn't use a modified Star Wars system.

 

[BryonD]

To my mind there are a few facts that need to be accounted for in the next edition if it is to appeal to as wide a base as possible: D&D no longer rules the roost; go *forward*, not backward; innovate to stand apart; use the social network to its fullest; provide quality electronic tools.

Which of these are you calling "facts"?
I mean, they may all be good ideas, but "facts" is the wrong word at a minimum.



And, of course, I absolute agree that they need to go forward, not backward. However, the first step in that is to turn around.....

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

On spyware, malware, android...

...Donner and Blitzen?

 

[BenBrown]

"go forward, not backward" is a nice catchy phrase, but what does that actually mean in terms of game design?

 

[pemerton]

I think the 4e rules were largely a designer-driven reaction to the weaknesses of d20/3e.

<snip>

I think there's a temptation when redesigning something like D&D, to go too far and lose what's familiar.

<snip>

And 4e actually magnified the problem by making a bunch of flavour changes (planar structure, dragonborn etc) that really just seem to be largely unnecessary (certainly un-asked for) from a game experience point of view

I think that 4e's changes to the fiction of the game are, in many cases, closely connected to the mechanical changes. Worlds and Monsters discusses some of this, though not all (but it does make inferences to other aspects of what happened easier, I think).

One mechanical aspect of 4e that is very central is the idea of the encounter as the core unit of play (and the combat encounter as the paradigm encounter, although I think skill challenges are also an important part of the game). A lot of the mechanical changes are intended to support this.

But the changes to the story elements are also, in my view, intended to support this - nearly every story element of 4e is itself located within, and expresses some sort of position on, a conflict that players also buy into by building their PCs. There are a few exceptions (kruthiks and ankhegs as monsters; Avandra as a god; halflings as a race) but not that many.

And this helps encounter-centric play, because if nearly every story element speaks immediately to some conflict which the players are related to via their PCs, this makes each encounter matter, in play. Which supports the idea of the encounter as the core unit of play.

 

[pemerton]

I seriously doubt that it was a designer choice to limit fluff

<snip>

the Pathfinder rulebooks inspire me greatly, just by leaving through a chapter I get all kinds of cool ideas and I actually want to read the rules.

<snip>

a properly redesigned core rulebook set would change a lot after the other issues are resolved, something that doesn't feel like a textbook/manual

To me this is illustrative of a big difference between 3E and 4e, and the approaches to play that they are intended to support. It also reminds me of this comment from Vincent Baker:

Invention - creating setting, character, nifty toys, potent powers - invention can happen before the game or during the game. . .

A game where the invention happens mostly pre-play would be one where there are maps, characters, factions, technology, societies, interests, all in place when the game begins. I can't think of a good example of this in fiction - maybe Babylon 5? - but clearly lots of roleplaying happens this way. Look at all the dang setting books!

. . .

Similarly, meaning:

A game where the meaning happens mostly pre-play is one in which somebody or everybody has something to say and already knows what it is when the game starts. . .

My goal as a gamer and a game designer is to push both invention and meaning as much as possible into actual play.

Problem: the hobby, represented by the books in your game store and the conventional habits of most gamers, prefers the pre-game over the game. . .

The solution is to design games that're inspiring, but daydreaming about how much fun the game will be to play seems pointless and lame, and you can't create extensive histories or backstories because that stuff's collaborative -

- so you call a friend.​

I think that 4e is designed more along the lines that Baker advocates, than is 3E. When 4e came out, I remember a lot of people saying that it plays better than it reads, as if this was something for which an apology was required.

From my point of view, this feature of 4e is a virtue. I want the game to be written as tightly as possible to support play. If it's a good read for daydreamers, then something has gone wrong - it's become a novel, or a guidebook to an imaginary world, rather than a text to support RPGing.