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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 5986304" data-attributes="member: 17106">I think that's the key point there. Much as when 4e was announced and suddenly 3e became "unbalanced". It seems to be a relatively small group of relatively loud people who have something to say when a new edition comes around. With 4e, they listened to the loudest complainers and no one else; hopefully WotC will cast a wider net this time.You and me both. (For the record, I was not born when you started playing.)I think that's where a lot of these kinds of attitudes come from. People have a bad experience, and they blame it on the game system (not the people at the table). The reverse is also true; people have a good experience, and they praise the game system. A lot of these debates are about people being unwilling to take responsibility for their own actions. To add to that:Yes. DMing is hard. There are not many people in this world who have leadership skills, creative vision, number-crunching ability, conflict resolution skills, introspective awareness, charisma, confidence, etc. etc.The basic role of DM posited by this game is extremely challenging, and I suspect many people either take significant time to learn a basic level of competence or simply fail at it. I know I've grown a lot over the past decade because of all the challenges of DMing, and I had to learn from abundant mistakes.Similarly, how many people have management positions but shouldn't be managers? How many of you have had a bad experience with a doctor who aced the boards but was a jerk (or who wasn't a jerk but was otherwise not up to the task)? How many teachers are actually good at teaching?Life is hard.Definitely feels that way.Well said.Very good point.I don't entirely agree with that; this has a lot to do with individual disposition of players and DMs as I talked about above.There is more to min-max in 4e than there was in 3e, more in 3e than in 2e, and probably more than in 1e. I think the real issue is less about the editions and more about the internet. The internet allows those people who want to engineer their PCs to do so more easily, and it allows the rest of us to hear about their exploits. I think that most D&D players don't really do this, but those that do have a very strong voice in the rpg community as a whole.No kidding.I'm with you. Charges that "4e is an MMO" because of its rules are, as you say, unfair. But, ignoring the editions and speaking in a broader sense, some elements in the gaming culture seem to be pushing away from the notion of D&D as a creative medium first and a game second and are trying to flip the two. I agree that this is contrary to the essence of D&D.When I explain to people what D&D is, I find myself having to defend against a number of judgmental preconceptions. No, there's no devil worship, but there's also no miniatures on a grid, no costumes, and no computers. At its heart, D&D is storytime around the campfire.</blockquote>

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