Upset about another edition!

[Consonant Dude]

A lot of us felt like 4e improved on everything that made D&D successful and threw out a lot of things that got in the way.

A lot? Not nearly enough. In 32 years, I've never seen so many people refuse categorically to play an edition of DnD. I've never seen such a hard line between two editions and I've never seen WotC do such a 180 degree turn.

Which brings me back to my original point: People got upset with WotC not because WotC told them what was fun, but because they disagreed with what WotC told them was fun.

But like I said, you have an added responsibility. You have an amazing franchise that has been played millions of hours and you have to honor that. You have to correctly distill what was fun about that before adding your own touch. The line between putting your thumbprint on the brand and completely missing what it is about can be fine. And I agree, differences of opinions on what is essential or not will differ. But it seems WotC crossed that line by about a mile.

Every edition of DnD has tried new things. None were perfect. Over time, you backtrack about a few things while you retain the new elements that work. In the case of 4th edition, it seems WotC now acknowledge how far off the mark they were. Fortunately, there are still interesting features I hope to see ported to 5th (Rituals being the main one) but it did more damage to the brand than good.

When a small fry competitor copy-pastes almost verbatim your previous version, adds some clutter on top and challenges you to the top position with a 12-year old design , you have to ask yourself some serious questions.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Ah, but I am the one who is happy to criticize 4E! 4E has plenty of its own problems: classes are too rigidly stuck in the same powers progression, the "every character should be free to attack every turn" philosophy has led to classes like the cleric having completely unnecessarily fiddly and annoying powers, and I openly admit combat can be a little long. I have no problem whatsover with people pointing out these problems; heck, WotC should be pointing out these problems. If they don't point them out, then I start getting worried that they haven't learned from past mistakes.

I am honestly worried about the possibility of WotC being too timid to come out and openly talk about the design issues of previous editions. If the designers at WotC were to talk freely with what they considered the prime design issues of previous editions, we would have a much better understanding of what direction they will take 5E.

This really is the heart of it. 3E is a deeply flawed game. 4E is better, but it is still a deeply flawed game. Nobody benefits from WotC pretending to ignore these flaws. I won't be sold on 5E until WotC does address all of these flaws and shows that it is making an honest effort to improve upon them.

Heck, the fact that, so far, WotC has been dreamily pretending that all previous editions of the game are worth pulling ideas from, and that ideas are fine to use just because they were in older editions, is the thing that is most making me worried about the direction of 5E. The fact that they are dodging around criticizing stuff is a problem with their marketing!

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Interestingly, we seem to be seeing a lot of the same kind of flawed thinking.

"We think 4e is better than 3.5!" somehow becomes, "3.5 isn't any fun!"

"We think we can bring all D&D players together with a new edition!" somehow becomes, "4e failed miserably!"

It's like there's absolutely no room for nuance or understanding allowed. Any opinion that takes longer than ten seconds to hash out just isn't worth bothering, apparently.

Because over and over WotC, often in the voice of Mr. Wyatt, did say 'this is not fun'.

We heard what they were actually saying, reading what they actually wrote. Those words were not interpretations, it was what they put in print.

Trying to say 'that isn't what they meant' is flying in the face of their own books. Over and over again they repeated that the game we were playing was 'not fun'.

They wove the rope, they tied the noose, and they hanged themselves.

The Auld Grump

 

[SKyOdin]

Because over and over WotC, often in the voice of Mr. Wyatt, did say 'this is not fun'.

We heard what they were actually saying, reading what they actually wrote. Those words were not interpretations, it was what they put in print.

Trying to say 'that isn't what they meant' is flying in the face of their own books. Over and over again they repeated that the game we were playing was 'not fun'.

They wove the rope, they tied the noose, and they hanged themselves.

The Auld Grump

Do you have quotes? Or links to quotes?

 

[Dannager]

A lot? Not nearly enough. In 32 years, I've never seen so many people refuse categorically to play an edition of DnD. I've never seen such a hard line between two editions and I've never seen WotC do such a 180 degree turn.

I don't know what your standard for "enough" is. I'm glad 4e happened, and I think that the community response to it was enlightening.

When a small fry competitor copy-pastes almost verbatim your previous version, adds some clutter on top and challenges you to the top position with a 12-year old design , you have to ask yourself some serious questions.

I agree. The first of which being, "Which questions should we be asking ourselves?"

 

[Dannager]

Do you have quotes? Or links to quotes?

Not going to happen. You might get links, but they won't be saying what TheAuldGrump wants you to think they said.

 

[TwinBahamut]

On the topic of strawmen - there are a lot of fans of 3e on this site who have witnessed scathing criticism of 3e since day one. We're not afraid of seeing it criticized and we'll argue when we don't feel the criticism is valid. 3e is probably the most highly criticized edition of D&D on this site.

But we may come to have a low opinion of the critic, we may not want to play with them because they have such different views of the game. Isn't it possible that we may even come to the point where we do not not want to buy things from them?

The second paragraph does not follow from the first. You're omitting a key assumption required to make that logic work. That assumption pretty much has to be "we just don't like people pointing out problems with things we like". It isn't that the critic is inherently wrong. It is that you just don't like critics, regardless of how right or wrong they are.

Not wanting to buy things from WotC is totally fine. The problem is saying they are terrible people who need to apologize because they dared to criticize the game.

 

[billd91]

Insulting 4e by saying it "feels like a video game" is not and never will be a valid complaint about it, for all kinds of reasons. I hate that idea with a burning passion, and the last time I got into that argument I probably came within an inch of getting banned, and ultimately deleted my ENWorld bookmark and stopped visiting this site out of raw disgust until the 5E announcement. I have no sympathy for people who feel that way in the slightest.

Ugh, that trauma aside...

Then I take it this a bad time for me to say that 4e makes me think of City of Heroes - still does? And that I don't find that flattering to 4e?

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Do you have quotes? Or links to quotes?

Dude, it has been quoted dozens of times in these forums - from the prelude books to the DMG.

Look it up yourself. Get out your books or just search these forums. If you have not seen those quotes then it is because you have not been looking.

Many come from Mr. Wyatt - including the guards quote and the fairy ring quote. WotC might have been well served in the development of 4e by giving him cement booties and throwing him in the Sound.

And he made those comments both in official WotC material and on their forums.

Look it up yourself. I have already done so more often than I care to.

The Auld Grump, heck, just looking for 'auld' and 'wyatt' will lead to links on some of those quotes...

 

[SKyOdin]

Dude, it has been quoted dozens of times in these forums - from the prelude books to the DMG.

Look it up yourself. Get out your books or just search these forums. If you have not seen those quotes then it is because you have not been looking.

Many come from Mr. Wyatt - including the guards quote and the fairy ring quote. WotC might have been well served in the development of 4e by giving him cement booties and throwing him in the Sound.

And he made those comments both in official WotC material and on their forums.

Look it up yourself. I have already done so more often than I care to.

The Auld Grump, heck, just looking for 'auld' and 'wyatt' will lead to links on some of those quotes...

All I recall are general criticisms that I agreed with at the time, and still do. I don't remember anything even close to a general "3E wasn't a fun game". Those criticisms were also the very things that got me excited about 4E in the first place, so I would call them a marketing success.

Edit: And should you really be suggesting that they should have killed their spokesman? That isn't very funny, even in jest.