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Everyone I know who actually saw it loved it to pieces, including the people who had no interest but were dragged by friends/S.O.s. On the other hand, there's a large population of people who seem to hate it with the fury of 1,000 irritated army ants, but didn't actually see it. Weird sort of...

Aside from the usual non-game geek drama incumbent upon nerds in middle school, the weapon-wielding wizard was the largest point of contention I can remember in my first gaming group. Oh, wizards carried and even used weapons, but they never stopped complaining about it. And if forced to use a...

I'm probably sounding more vitriolic than I am. I'm just sort of disappointed and irritated, not actively agitated, if that makes sense. I was hoping for something simple enough to let the nephews pick up and play without micromanaging their class choice that would also retain for all classes...

Also, the companion to the person who "just wants to hit things" is the person who "just wants to blow things up." Where's the essentials class for that guy? I've seen more of those people by an order of magnitude, frankly. Dear god, they are legion in MMOs. Recruit 0.5% of them to D&D and...

I have been careful to stipulate that in almost every post I've made. Doesn't hurt me. I've got a perfectly fun Fighter class to play. First one ever made for D&D, for all of me. But this change does bias the starting experience for the new player. This strikes me as relevant, if "new"...

Agreed. And I was looking forward to it for when I teach my nephews the game. But I didn't expect to be looking at a situation where maybe the older brother can handle a caster without help, but I better make sure the younger one plays not merely one of "the newbie classes" but "the newbie...

Don't deliberately trim quotes to straw man what I said. It's dishonest and irritating. They are "creating options" whereby people with swords automatically have less resource management and seemingly fewer mechanical and tactical options than people with spells. This is NOT a case of "no...

Isn't it enough that they're re-introducing the dreadful D&Dism that martial classes r dumb? ;) I'm only kidding a very little bit there. "Play a Fighter if you don't want to manage many resources or have many tactical options" has always irritated me. The 4e Fighter and Warlord finally made...

JohnSnow, there's no need to specifically emphasize places where I've wandered off into opinion land. I think it's pretty clear in the text. :) Heck, "feel" was the operative word in the part you bolded. I'm not trying to pass off my experiences for data. But, until I see some data, I'm...

Sure. Especially so if they also have pre-existing PnP experience that worked differently. But my money is on the majority of WoW players (for one demographic example) taking to 4e mechanics like ducks to water, but to 3e mechanics like sea birds to crude oil. I've seen it too many times to...

Right. And the question at hand remains.... who are those people? Is this a specific target audience? In the absence of their resources, I can only work from my experience as a gamer (D&D and otherwise), and my experience in cognitive psychology. My experience tells me that the target...

There's a pretty significant difference between a "stat block" and a "monster write-up." The latter can include anything you want in addition to the stat block. While the ecologies are usually painful and more groan-worthy than usable for a biologist like myself, they sometimes spark ideas...

Sure. But again, we're back to dueling anecdotes and IME here, but... IME, the best sources of new PnP gamers are people who are accustomed to using powers, cooldowns, etc. They are completely aware that D&D is a game, and many games work that way for a variety of reasons, mostly having to do...

Not sure if I'm lumped in with those people or not, but I want to make a subtle distinction. It may well acquire plenty of new gamers. The presentation, vis a vis box, price points, etc is clearly aimed at the actual newbie. But that is quite distinct from the rules changes. In my mind...

WoW players. Particularly WoW raiders, who are generally of a sociable bent. I watched every member of a guild who happened to live in Boston all get sucked into a set of D&D games together. Sometimes made me wish I lived in Boston so I could get in on the act. You spend between 4 and 20...

Don't have time to respond in detail, but taking one example you mentioned.... You don't think the D&D magic schools are clunky and unintuitive? Ye gods, those have always been working at cross-purposes to building anything that matches the typical flavors in the vast bulk of fantasy...

I was referring pretty specifically to rules questions, but you can kick up more dust by inflating that into some sort of accusation of anti-corporate tin-foil-hat-ism if you wish. I'm sure it's helpful.

I didn't mean to imply intent to mislead, but there is definitely an effect in that direction. They may not have wanted to obscure, but that's the effect we're seeing. The previews raise more questions than they answer, IMO. This kicks up dust on this and other boards which hinders discussion...

Aye. What confuses me about it is that they're selectively giving up for some types of classes the features that have made 4e so much more accessible to the new new players (including kids), IME. Not at all. In fact, it's the opposite. The new generation seems to handle the rules that are...

Not only to the quality, but to the actual content. My beef with marketing aside..... In principle, I agree. However, there isn't enough actual information to have a legitimate discussion yet of what Essentials actually bring to the table, AFAICT. And in a vacuum of information, the internet...