A reason why 4E is not as popular as it could have been

[shadzar]

Seeing this as "insulting" is silly. Really silly. You're being told, by people (real people, just like you!) that they designed their game to be fun, and this is what they think is fun and what they think isn't fun.

In no way is "Minutiae is not fun," an insult. In no way. Unless your name is Minutiae. Then it might be. The fact that you disagree with that statement doesn't suddenly make it an insult. This is fairly ridiculous oversensitivity. Similarly, other statements about things that are fun and things that are not fun are not insults, nor should they be perceived as insulting even if you disagree with them.

Crazy gamer overreaction leads to sad examples like this thread. You should not want to be like that.

Silly when that is an insult at people saying "4th edition isn't D&D to me", but not silly when you have a person, or group thereof trying to tell EVERYONE ELSE in the world what isn't fun.

That is a very insult to personal opinion, if not an attempt at oppression.

"4th edition isn't D&D to me", doesn't deny others to think it is or isn't.

"X isn't fun", tries to define for everyone what is an isn't fun. You trying to think for me, is insulting.

Not once in the instance of "Minutiae is not fun, for us at WotC". They just tried to blanket claim and define for all what fun is and is not.

Well it is insulting, but I can only be insulted by it until it hits me what pathetic people are trying to define fun for others and must laugh at and pity them for being so ignorant as to think they can.

They never commented once that if was "for WotC", while that can be inferred by being produced in a WotC product, it doesn't even say "in D&D" and tries to include for ALL games and activities what is fun.

Maybe they should qualify their statements up front "The views and opinions expressed in this book are those solely of WotC in regards to its D&D product design." Or just say at each case "Minutiae is not fun, for us at WotC".

 

[Herremann the Wise]

...But don't make the mistake that basketweaving profession formulae are going to draw new people into the hobby.

Hey get it right: it's Craft(Basketweaving) and that relied on intelligence. There's no such thing as Profession (Basketweaver) and it would be wisdom related if it did exist but it doesn't!!!


[Aside]I honestly think that zero people would think such an inclusion will draw new players into the hobby so in all honesty with what you are saying, you are preaching to the converted brother. Essentially, no one is making this mistake.[/aside]

If anything, minutiae like that have been shown time and time again to impart a level of senseless complexity that make the new player experience that much harder to make work.

Really?! You hand a new player the player's handbook and they kind of gloss over races, skills, feats, combat, attacks of opportunity, lighting rules, poofteen thousand magical effects and then they come to craft(Basketweaving) and look up at you and go... "Dude, this craft(Basketweaving) is like blowing my brain...".

I think not.

Let me be clear: being "inclusive" in the sense that you want to make the game easily accessible (which you should focus on as the entry point to the hobby) is not the same as being "inclusive" in the sense that you want to cater to everyone's tastes at the same time, especially if that jeopardizes the focus and coherency of your game.

But alienating a goodly section of your customer base by being "inclusive" has not been that great either as this thread has highlighted. As for the minutiae unfun line, it is not an insult but it is clearly a rejection from the designers to a section of the now-previous customer base.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[pemerton]

Now you have confused me. You don't want organized worship but do?

I didn't say I don't want organised worship in the gameworld. I said that playing out organised worship is not a big part of my game.

What is the liturgy of the gnoll demon workers? I don't know, and I don't especially care. The gnolls are important in the game not because of their liturgy, but because of their metaphysical, mythical and moral standing.

I'd make a comparison to LotR: what is the liturgy for worship of Sauron? We're not told, and are never given an example of worship of Sauron, or the Witch King. It doesn't mean that LotR has no mythic depth - just that it's not a story about organised religion.

The thing is in either case, YOU envision the game as W&M said, and that and probably JIT works for you because that is the type of game you were looking for. It doesnt work for others looking for a different type of game than you. Your JIT style works, because your players agree with you and don't want to witness the citizens actually worshiping anything or need that kind of continuity.

Why would there be no continuity because at the game able we don't play out worship? At your game table do you play out urination? If not, does it follow that your PCs don't have bladders? Or is this just something that is assumed to happen "offscreen"?

My game isn't about urination. Nor is it about organised worship. It's about the players actually engaging with gods, and demons, and gnolls, and spirits. Not pews and missals and the details of liturgical practice.

You seem to play an out of sight out of mind kind of game. If that works for you, then great.

If you mean that not all the details of the PCs' lives are actually played out at the game table, then yes. If you mean that the players ignore the existence of organised religion, then no. The player of the paladin of the Raven Queen frequently mentions the performance by his PC of various prayers and rites. But most of the time there is no need to play these out - so religious practices that one might imagine are taking half-an-hour or more in the gameworld take maybe a minute or so to resolve at the table.

As I said in the other thread, your playstyle works for you and your players and that should be all that matters to you, but you must accpet that kind of playstyle isnt popular with everyone

What makes you think that I don't accept this? Like I've posted multiple times upthread, I think that WotC made a mistake in taking a punt that Ron Edwards was right about what would make for a popular RPG. In particular, they seem to have underestimated how many players actually do want to play a world-exploration game.

If you are happy with it, what do you care what industry/genre name it has been given?

I don't care what it's called. I've got no stake in the "D&D to me" issue, and have no special emotional attachment to the D&D brand. The only RPG that evokes that sort of response in me is Rolemaster, but that game is now in such a torpor that I've more-or-less let it go.

This is the exact thing. You are looking for a much different depth that others are. Some want that richness provided in the details.

Are you really meaning to assert that the Hobbit and the LotR lack richness of detail? Or that the best - or only - path to richness is via detailed gameworld economics?

Dungeon Crawls, hack-n-slash, dungeon-basher, tactical simulation, all of these CAN include other parts, but their primary focus IS, like 4th edition, the combat format.

The combat is where the story is just like in movies.

<snip>

So how you are feeling insulted by people viewing 4th edition as a tactical skirmish game

<snip>

With comments like this you seem to want that tactical skirmish game, so what is so insulting about it?

Insulted would probably be too strong, but I'm irritated by being told that my game that I play fortnightly is a tactical skirmish game, with nothing but a random series of encounters, and no depth or consistency, just because it uses non-simulationist mechanics and doesn't pay a great deal of attention to ammunition expended by the archers.

If that's all you see when you look at 4e, well, that's your problem, not mine. It's when you project your apparently limited vision of what an RPG can be onto me that I get annoyed.

In particular, how could you thing that what I want is a skirmish game when I've been contesting that very proposition for the whole thread? What I want is a game of epic, mythic proportions like the one I described in the PC sacrifice thread.

As for dramatic pacing in combat - why would you suppose that someone who like dramatic pacing in combat is primarily interested in a tactical skirmish game? It's wierd for two reasons - first, are you saying that you prefer boring and non-dramatic pacing in the combats in your game? and second, most tactical skirmish games aren't espeically aimed at dramatic pacing at all, because they're not games trying to evoke an emotional experience. The concern with pacing is a distinctive marker of RPGing, I think.

 

[pawsplay]

That you think I would rate 3E and 4E equivalently in terms of simulating an imaginary world is already wrong, and so everything you say after this is increasingly off the tracks. They have very different facades. But they are both facades (and very roughly equivalent in the degree of the facade, as the chart indicated). You just happen to find the 3E facade more useful, satisfying, whatever.

The difference between us is that I can see that you find the 3E facade useful, and not assume that there is no "there there." You are having a hard time returning the courtesy. This problem is not with me.

The difference is that I think we disagree, whereas you think I agree with you but am too stubborn to admit it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

As for the minutiae unfun line, it is not an insult but it is clearly a rejection from the designers to a section of the now-previous customer base.

While I did consider it an insult at the time, now I take it more like you phrased it.

IOW, we weren't so much insulted as dumped. Still hurts, though.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

The difference is that I think we disagree, whereas you think I agree with you but am too stubborn to admit it.

No I think there is a gap in your understanding of how I play, that is so wide that you could drive a Mack truck through it. Which by itself, is no problem whatsoever. Different strokes and all that. It's the conclusions that you leap to about how I play that are the problem. Or rather, the inability to refrain from sharing them, when it would be better not to.

I believe a few posts up pemerton used the phrase, "project your apparently limited vision of what an RPG can be onto me." Note the "can be". Not "is for all folk at all times". Not "is at your table". Not even "is preferable to most people." Merely "can be."

 

[shadzar]

Are you really meaning to assert that the Hobbit and the LotR lack richness of detail?

Yes, as an RPG I do, because it is books and movies. Not intended for the viewer to participate in any level, but solely to observe.

I assert that the Hobbit and LotR offer a dire lack of detail as a game because it is NOT made to be used in that manner.

I see this as the reason D&D was created, to move away form playing out a book, historical battle, etc and following the script.

The things not required or held in the books and movies, are what makes makes the difference between a game and the books and movies.

I am hoping you see that. There wasn't mention of the money used in the LotR movies. I doubt there will be much in the Hobbit either. The movies don't require that to tell the story.

That kind of story is great for the book, but when applying it to an RPG, people can get what the books and movies miss. The rest of the world. Be that part of the world the economics, who does the basket weaving, whatever.

TTRPGs are not bound by the scripts of movies or books, nor are they bound by the limitations of computers for CRPGs and MMOs.

The only limitations a TTRPG has is the imagination of the players and GM.

Reading and watching LotR and the Hobbit is vastly different from assuming you are a person in them.

Those very limitations of books and movies is the reason D&D existed to break away from and give the full spectrum to, IF you want to use it. For those that do not, then 4th edition is obviously likely to be a popular choice. For those that do want those things, 4th edition is most likely not popular as it DOES lack the richness and play they may be seeking that goes beyond what is held/constrained in the books and movies.

Insulted would probably be too strong, but I'm irritated by being told that my game that I play fortnightly is a tactical skirmish game,

As long as you use 4th edition, anyone viewing 4th edition as a tactical skirmish game, then your game will fit within the definition they have for 4th edition. You just have to come to terms with it and accept it.

You enjoyment isn't in question, just the system itself. So don't try to defend the system, but just learn it isn't you being targeted. Your association to the system and use of it isnt the cause of the statement. You are just a casualty of the system as viewed by those people.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

While I did consider it an insult at the time, now I take it more like you phrased it.

IOW, we weren't so much insulted as dumped. Still hurts, though.

I said right after launch that a great deal of the furor with 4E--well, at least the intensity of it, was not because of what was changed but the pretenses that were dropped. It wasn't just dumped, it was dumped at the party, with a "I'm just not into that anymore".

I don't see how they could have kept the design as they did and softened this blow much. In fact, I think some of the PR spent on trying to soften the blow was probably counter-productive.

 

[pemerton]

Maybe most people weren't looking for a focused tool but were instead much happier with the swiss army knife type approach of previous editions.

This is an interesting point.

In my view the previous editions weren't Swiss army knives, but also had a focus. Look, for example, at the advice for players in the last section of the 1st ed AD&D PHB. Not a game about basket-weaving. A game about operational play. If you don't actually play out your dungeon-scouting in 1st ed, you're not playing the game that Gygax is talking about.

Or at the list of sample scenarios in the Moldvay Basic rulebook. Also not a game about basket-weaving, but similar in some ways to Gygax's AD&D although a bit more light-hearted.

On the other hand, earlier editions of D&D don't particularly support hero-questing play - that is, a game in which the heroes travel back into mythic history in order to rewrite myth and therefore change the world - because (i) the structure of the planes tends to be treated as fixed independently of the gods, (ii) the gods tend to be treated as unkillable, (iii) the history of the gameworld is not generally presented as having a mythic aspect, and (iv) there are other reasons as well, of a more mechaincal nature, that can be elaborated if desired.

I know not everyone agrees with me on this. Some people think that a simulationist ruleset can be plugged into any world. But that is not my experience. In my experience, a simulationist ruleset tends to create its own pressure to prioritise some, and subordinate other, aspects of the gameworld in the course of play.

 

[LostSoul]

Maybe 4e placing "by far the most design effort on that focus of any edition to date." is exactly why it isn't as popular as it could be. Maybe most people weren't looking for a focused tool but were instead much happier with the swiss army knife type approach of previous editions.

I think AD&D 1E and B/X are just as focused as 4E is. Different focus, but still.

edit: Scooped by pemerton!