D&D 4E 4E: Manufactured Excitement

[Gallo22]

In my experience, quite a lot of people have found that 3rd edition wasn't better D&D at all. Every player and DM I am in regular contact with has been frustrated by its awful combat system, pointless and obsessive detailing of monsters that are supposed to be killed, and tedious character generation (it can take longer than doing your taxes for chrissakes).

I have no fears or worries about 4th edition, though - I'm sure they'll f**k it up as badly as 3rd edition.

And quite alot of people loved 3rd edition. Hence it's great sales...

 

[Wormwood]

Of course I have. But my comments are usually along the lines of "I hope that turns out to be as cool as it looks." I'd like to think that I can tell the difference between a preview and an actual movie.
There's a difference between saying "i hope 4E turns out to be as cool as/ better than advertised" and saying "4E is da bomb/ da anti-christ."

Let's torture this analogy some more with some excluded middles:

"Wow! I have seen a number of trailers and every one looks very good. In fact, the more I see of this sequel, the more I want to see the completed film!"

and

"Hey, did you guys see that! What do you think?"

edit: film forums, film magazines, even theater lobbies are filled with speculative talk. Film geeks and game geeks are closely related species, after all.

 

[Umbran]

Instead of venting your hostility on the forums, here's an alternative way to spend your time. March your self-righteous attitude back to your local organic privately-owned coffee house, sip on your cappuccino, tie back your dreadlocks so you can read your 3e books, and feel impressed with your own unconventional, nonconformist lifestyle.

Not very Affable. Your attitude is no less self-righteous, and is escalating tensions in this thread. If you were not new to these fourms, you'd now be resting out a three day ban. Please go review The Rules you agreed to before posting on these boards again. Thank you.

Next person to be insulting or otherwise escalate gets a ban. Play nice, or don't play.

 

[hazel monday]

If you knew the director for one film was Uwe Boll, with Polly Shore and Keanu Reeves as the leads, and another film was directed by Peter Jackson with Johnny Depp and Christopher Walken, I'm certain you would approach both of them neutrally, not anticipating the quality, right?

Hey man, of course I'd have different expectations. But they'd still be just that... expectations. I think what's bothering the OP (and to a lesser extent myself) is that in this analogy, the movie hasn't come out yet. And a lot of people are complaining that it hasn't gotten an Oscar award already.
Another confusing thing about your analogy is...
If 4th edition is Christopher Walken, does that make 3E Keanu reeves?i think that's a pretty unfair comparison. (assuming we both hate Keanu Reeves, and I think we do.)

 

[WizarDru]

I can promise you, there are employees of Hasbro reading these threads, even if some small amount, to obtain product analysis and to see what we think about their new product, whether pro or con. Is this a bad thing....of course not! They would be foolish not to! But don't think for a moment that Hasbro does not have a hand in some of these threads in some fashion or another...

No, I'm not paranoid or think there is some conspiracy going on, it's just plan simple marketing.

Your point being what? We have numerous WotC employees, current and former, who post here. We also have numerous Hasbro employees here, current and former. In fact, someone who works with Hasbro posted in this very thread! GASP!

Beyond that, I'm not sure what your point is? That anyone expressing a positive view towards WotC or Hasbro is a shill? That MerricB is a marketer, secretly trying to TRICK US into buying 4e? Is that seriously what you're suggesting? Or that by posting to ENWorld, RPG.net and similar locations that somehow he or others are attempting to keep us interested in a product that we otherwise wouldn't be talking about? Did you notice what forum this thread is in?

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Personally,even if I'm excited about the prospect of it, I've never talked about how good or bad a movie was before I've actually seen it.

You've never said "wow, that looks awesome" from a preview? By and large, thats what most of us are doing. We're excited by the tid bits we get. I'll actually be a lot more informed by the time 4th edition rolls out than I was about the last few movies I saw in the theatre. Even if I decide not to play it, I'll probably pick up the PHB... I like kit bashing and fiddling with new systems enough to get my 20 bucks worth.

 

[GVDammerung]

. . . WOTC wants to make more money. That's their job; they make money. As a company, that's is their goal. Fine. To do this, they have decided to release 4E.

As gamers, and consumers, we know why they are doing this: again, to make money. It's not because our 3.5 games suddenly became unplayable. It's not because we were clamoring for 4E (the majority of gamers in most polls on this site didn't desire 4E for a number of years yet, if at all). It's not because WOTC really wants to make the game more fun for us; if their new release manages this, that's a bonus.

The bottom line is money; they know they can make a huge profit out of 4E, and that's why it is being created and released. If it's a great game, that is icing on the cake.

{I'm sure many WOTC people are working hard to make it a great game. But 4E is going to be release when the business people say, not when it is honed into "greatness." }

So, honestly, why is everyone getting so excited/crazy about this?

Well, 3x was not the bee's knees as it turns out. As Wotc folks are now saying, it had the issues many said it had. Wotc folk just could not admit that as long as 3x was the status quo. So, I think a good deal of the excitement is genuine.

At the same time, the 4e information we've seen so far has some folks nonplussed. They are excited for just the opposite reason. Their excitement is genuine too, IMO.

So far, I'm not seeing much evidence of manufactured excitement. I am kinda wondering, however, when Wotc will begin to try to manufacture excitement (in a positive sense) because it seems so many 4e announcements are greeted with as many groans as cheers. This kind of split reaction from the fanbase can't be what Wotc hoped for.

 

[Rechan]

Hey man, of course I'd have different expectations. But they'd still be just that... expectations. I think what's bothering the OP (and to a lesser extent myself) is that in this analogy, the movie hasn't come out yet. And a lot of people are complaining that it hasn't gotten an Oscar award already.
Another confusing thing about you analogy is...
If 4th edition is Christopher Walken, does that make 3E Keanu reeves. i think that's a pretty unfair comparison. (assuming we both hate Keanu Reeves, and I think we do.)

1) I wasn't comparing 3e to 4e or anything. Just saying that you'd be forming an opinion based on Who was in it, who's directing it, and what studio they're doing it for.

2) No, the way I see it, it's like X-Men or Spiderman where a new tidbit gets leaked and those steeped in the canon of the comics begin running around saying "WHAT, Rogue didn't absorb Marvel Girl's powers? She doesn't fly around? This utterly ruins X-Men! THIS IS GUNNA SUCK!"

 

[JohnSnow]

You want to know why we're excited? Okay, assuming this isn't a troll, I'll actually try. By way of background, I started with a PHB, the monster manual, and D&D basic. I ran a hodgepodge that probably felt a lot like OD&D. I bought lots of AD&D supplements, 2nd Edition, tons of 2e supplements, 3e, 3.5e, and tons of supplements for both. I also own a fair amount of third-party stuff - from Green Ronin, Malhavoc, and Fantasy Flight.

There are things that nag me about 3e. It takes a significant amount of time to prep. You can't run a game without a cleric. Low-level play is lame. High-level play is a tedious exchange waiting until someone rolls a 1. Balance-wise, the game depends on rich characters armed to the teeth with magic items, which doesn't always work thematically. The magic system only models properly fantasy where magic functions the way it does in the works of Jack Vance.

As a result, I was using LOTS of 3rd-party supplements to get the flavor of game I wanted. Iron Heroes, Elements of Magic, True Sorcery and the like were getting more use at my table than the Player's Handbook. I liked the magic system and class balance in Midnight better than what was in the PHB.

Then, after getting Star Wars Saga Edition, I started to want a game that would play faster - the way it seems Saga will. But I still want to play fantasy more than I want to play Star Wars - it's more open-ended. So then I was starting to houserule my Iron Heroes game...

And while it still felt like D&D to me, quite honestly, something bugged me about the fact that I wasn't running "real" Dungeons & Dragons. Add that to the fact that I feel like I have to tinker extensively with the system to get something I enjoy...I was even writing my own magic system, for god's sake!

That's why I'm excited about 4e. Because, from what I know about the designers and developers and what they're saying, it looks more and more like the game I'd design if I had the time to devote to really doing D&D "the way I want it."

Mr. Gygax's game was great - in 1974. But it's not 1974 anymore. AD&D consolidated all the variants and made some things better. Then Second Edition came along and cleaned some things up. It did a pretty good job, but some things stayed quirky. But Third Edition was a HUGE improvement over second (although I played a lot more 3.5 than 3e). Then the supplements came out and improved a lot of things even more.

Why, I wondered, couldn't the ranger be more like the scout? Or the fighter more like the Warblade? And 4E is making that stuff happen. A lot of things have changed over the years, and I don't see why anything Mr. Gygax decided in 1974 should be left alone simply because "That's how EGG decided to do it."

That's the way the game has ALWAYS been:

Release edition.
Add Stuff until the options get ridiculous.
Re-consolidate into a new edition and improve clunky elements.
Repeat.

By way of full disclosure, I bought an iPod at full price. I knew the price would drop and the phone would improve inside of a few months. It happens with all new releases (computers, phones, etc.). However, I wanted to have the phone back in June, rather than waiting until September, and I was willing to pay a premium to get it THEN.

And you know what? It was worth it.

Just like I'm sure 4e will be next year. I like the designers. I trust them. Andy, Rob, Mike, James, Greg, Bruce, Rodney and the rest have all earned a measure of trust. On top of that, they've got Jonathan Tweet doing playtests. Just about the only thing that would make me more confident is if they brought in Will Upchurch, Ari, or a couple of other folks here...

My only regret is that I won't have the rules until sometime next year. (Still crossing my fingers and hoping they'll ask me to do some form of playtesting).

So, does that answer your question?

 

[Jedi_Solo]

I think what's bothering the OP (and to a lesser extent myself) is that in this analogy, the movie hasn't come out yet. And a lot of people are complaining that it hasn't gotten an Oscar award already.

To be completely fair there are a lot of people on the other end that are ...

Hmmm... How to place this into the analogy...

That are claiming 4e is worse than Highlander 2.

Or (for those that aren't familiar with the Highlander series) that 4e has already come to their home and killed their pet.

Both are very much extremes.