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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5464752" data-attributes="member: 54877">Another reason not yet mentioed why 4E is not as popular as it could have been: The designers gave up on some efforts as a lost cause. This managed to annoy all the people who didn't agree that the cause was lost, had another dog in the fight which this giving up undermined, or didn't understand the problem in the first place. And of course, when you give up a lost cause, you don't always have a clever solution that satisfies all the competing concerns, either. Major annoyance thus results. See, for example, "People think of wizards as Gandalf or Merlin. They are supposed to be better than everyone else. But Arthur and Aragon and Frodo and the young Galahad have to matter. So we'll make wizardry have a steep learning curve! Oops, tried that, some issues arose. We'll make Frodo critical to the story! Oops, tried that, some other issues arose. I know, we'll give Frodo and Aragon some equipment! Dang it, you guessed it! Aw hell, let's just chuck the whole problem. If someone wants Gandalf, they can give the wizard an extra 5 or 10 levels and be done with it." What was it Einstein said? That for every problem, there is a solution that is obvious, simple, and wrong. All of those prior efforts met that criteria. Finally, someone comes up with a solution that is rather simple, but not so obvious and certainly effective. But it takes guts to make it. Because you've just united in their cheezed off state everyone who liked wizards being overpowered at high levels, everyone who liked them being weak at low levels, who liked it being built into the rules that Frodo had to carve out a story niche to matter and that Aragon needed to be the king, and so forth and so on. These people don't even necessarily like or agree with each other, but they are all in agreement that your decision sucks. Note that there is nothing in the rules that says their group can't run the game to suit their preferences. But now they will have to ask for it, because there is nothing in the rules that validates their preferences, either. If they think that perhaps their group will not want to give them their desires, they are doubly cheesed. Making hard choices always makes you unpopular with some people.</blockquote>

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