D&D General Why is tradition (in D&D) important to you? [+]

[Dire Bare]

I guess you missed the 4e teaser that lampooned earlier editions? Elementary marketing boner there - don’t imply criticism of your own product. If they had just said that 4e was the best D&D ever, people wouldn’t have been so down on their marketing. But they didn’t…

Nope, didn't miss it.

EDIT: Trying to stick within mod guidelines from @Umbran.

There's no doubt that 4E was a huge departure from D&D tradition, lots of changes, all at once . . . and that didn't sit well with lots of folks. What irritated me back in the day . . . and I guess still today . . . is that some fans conflate this break with tradition as an insult to earlier versions of the game and fans of those versions. WotC's decision to deliver a 4E very different from what came before, and market it as the best thing ever . . . was just not insulting in any way, shape, or form to existing fans, despite the upset from some of those fans. Even with some jokey pokes at older versions of the game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Nope, didn't miss it.

EDIT: Trying to stick within mod guidelines from @Umbran.

There's no doubt that 4E was a huge departure from D&D tradition, lots of changes, all at once . . . and that didn't sit well with lots of folks. What irritated me back in the day . . . and I guess still today . . . is that some fans conflate this break with tradition as an insult to earlier versions of the game and fans of those versions. WotC's decision to deliver a 4E very different from what came before, and market it as the best thing ever . . . was just not insulting in any way, shape, or form to existing fans, despite the upset from some of those fans. Even with some jokey pokes at older versions of the game.

To be fair, it sounds like you weren't insulted. I'm sure WotC didn't intend to offend some people, but its undeniable that they did. You cant tell people they shouldn't be offended by something, even if it doesn't bother you.

 

[HammerMan]

I guess you missed the 4e teaser that lampooned earlier editions? Elementary marketing boner there - don’t imply criticism of your own product. If they had just said that 4e was the best D&D ever, people wouldn’t have been so down on their marketing. But they didn’t…

the funny part is everyone in my groups except 1 laughed at the whole "How do you grapple" thing... and thought the chezzy 'remain the same' accent was dumb, but only 1 player took any of it as insulting... until the internet started.

People who were supper pumped for 4e (and as part of my group had moved apart from 3e) somehow got won over by PF (again except the one guy who was already rules lawyer extrodianair in 3.5)

in my experience there was a vocal "They destroyed the game" both in 3e, and 4e, but some of my group got cough up in the 4e one and it broke the group...

 

[Thunderfoot]

Sooooo back on topic... Tradition
Tradition is more than just a happy feeling in RPGs its a stable of what it means to be a human. Using the D&D races as an example; elves just live long enough that they can verbally relate what happened 500 years ago. Dwarves while slightly less long lived hammer theirs into clan law. Humans are but a whisper on the world in the span of geological time (thank you Neil) and as such it is tradition that relates as to 'WHY DOES THIS EXIST'. Okay, sacred cows aside, AC, HP, level and class/race are tradition. Period. So much so they have inundated the industry as a whole. Don't believe me, pull out any RPG style adventure game and look for the correlation.

Abilities and skills have slowly become tied to the system and are traditions in their own right. At the end of the day, when I crack open a book from any era there are things that tell me it's D&D... even 4e (ugh).

But with all the differences we have, and it takes only a few minutes reading any of the forums to see they are multitude, it is the simple things that make us the same...dice, friends, game. That's tradition. Play on!

 

[billd91]

the funny part is everyone in my groups except 1 laughed at the whole "How do you grapple" thing... and thought the chezzy 'remain the same' accent was dumb, but only 1 player took any of it as insulting... until the internet started.

Well, that 1 player in your group gets multiplied by thousands when the internet gets involved. The point here is one of your fellow players in your group did think there was something insulting about it. I'm guessing that even 1 person makes up a significant enough proportion of your group that you don't want to just ignore them and their feelings.

People who were supper pumped for 4e (and as part of my group had moved apart from 3e) somehow got won over by PF (again except the one guy who was already rules lawyer extrodianair in 3.5)

in my experience there was a vocal "They destroyed the game" both in 3e, and 4e, but some of my group got cough up in the 4e one and it broke the group...

We had 2 players super pumped about 4e (out of 7), one of us was skeptical (that's me - I had been excited about it when it was first announced but didn't like the way things were going based WotC's articles about it and its design) - but all of us were willing to give it a go. Most of us, including the super pumped players, were fed up within 9 months and we returned to D&D 3.5. Now, we're all big fans of 5e.

 

[HammerMan]

Had WotC not wanted to enhance their bottom line with new-core-release sales boosts, would 3.5 and-or 4e have seen the light of day as soon as they did, if ever?

It's an open question, as speculation in hindsight always is, but I very much doubt it.

how can you separate ANY item for sale from it's need to make money...

I mean is there ANY reason to put out ANY rpg if you don't want to sell it for money?

 

[HammerMan]

This relates back to the topic in that you can call that "look and feel" of D&D tradition if you want. However to me it was the difference between creating a new game with a lot of similarities to D&D that has new structure and creating a new edition that evolved and refined the game. My first 5E PC was an homage to one of my first PCs from back in my 1E days. The new PC, a dual wielding dwarven rogue, was the grandson of that old PC. While things obviously worked a lot different, in play the new PC felt much the same. The beats and rhythms were the same even if I always wanted to roll high, my new PC was a rogue instead of a thief and I did sneak attacks instead of backstabs. I took a half-hearted stab at doing the same thing in 4E and just couldn't make it work and gave up.

what was so hard about making a dwarf thief? that seems to be such a basic concept that any RPG (D&D or not) could handle it...

I can't imagine making a 4e reinterpretation is any harder then a 3e or 5e, you just didn't like the system.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It's an open question, as speculation in hindsight always is, but I very much doubt it.

I'm pretty sure at least 4e would've happened eventually. Keep in mind, in the lead-up to 4e, you had people openly cheering the removal of Vancian casting and various other changes. Notably, changes that some people (a few of whom were even in the previous cheering group!) had nothing but scathing criticism for.

Hell, even I--now an avowed 4e fan--was turned against it not through knowing anything about it, but by friends who hated it without ever playing it, solely because it wasn't 3rd edition. (I can say this with confidence because I still remember the gist of that particular friend's argument: that it was solely a cash-grab, that it was stupidly overpowered, and that it was actively hostile to the best parts of 3.5e. To this day I still somewhat regret having listened to that person on this subject.)

 

[Oofta]

what was so hard about making a dwarf thief? that seems to be such a basic concept that any RPG (D&D or not) could handle it...

I can't imagine making a 4e reinterpretation is any harder then a 3e or 5e, you just didn't like the system.

It was a fighter/thief and the structure of taking feats just to get a power or two just didn't work for me. The 5E version ended up being pretty close. It was just a completely subjective judgement call. Same way that while I played 4E from when it was released until the 5E starter set came out it never really felt like D&D to me. YMMV of course.

 

[HammerMan]

Hell, even I--now an avowed 4e fan--was turned against it not through knowing anything about it, but by friends who hated it without ever playing it,

the misinformation campaign lunched (and I have my own tinfoil I wont spread it hear theory) against 4e is one of the most successful ones I have ever seen outside of politics. The number of false stories and false 'facts' that have been and are still considered 'common knowledge' amazes me...