An open letter to Randy Buehler

[rounser]

Except the concept of 'builds' in RPGs, at least what they represent, have existed in RPGs forever. What do you think your 1E Fighter with the 18 strength, the 16 Con and the 8 Int and Cha?

I've already responded to this:

It's a death of a thousand cuts. No, 3E and 4E didn't invent min-maxing, but they have made it much more of the central focus of the game for the reasons I've mentioned before. We didn't have "builds" back in 1E, or at least, not anywhere near what's about now. You can rail against this by splitting hairs, but it still doesn't make it any less true.

But it's all the same to you, isn't it? It's like the frog in a pot of boiling water, who won't jump out because he doesn't notice the temperature has only increased gradually over time, and is now being parboiled.

The degree is irrelevant here; the concept existed.

If you paint things in black and white, then of course you'll miss the point. That's wilfully ignoring the evidence. It's shades of grey, and things have got one heck of a lot shadier.

Your argument involves an equal level of hair splitting in its 'wizards might not have much control over what spells they find' (situational, at best), and then spreads a delicious icing of childish edition war insult hurling on it, so perhaps you are not the best one to make credibility an issue.

You cannot compare a wizard loading their spellbook (which they have little control over if the main source is "found spells") with the entire forums dedicated to maximising splat. It's just utter nonsense. The step from a PC choosing fireball to Pun-Pun the all-powerful kobold build is a huge one, but you 4E bodyguards want to pretend they're equivalent!

And as far as credibility goes, at least I like a good deal of 4E, and admire some of the changes. I'm not all black or white in my opinion of it.

 

[AllisterH]

I stand by my belief.

Please find me a more "this book panders to munchkins" than 2E's Complete Book of Elves.

re: Randy Beuhler

Of course he gets a lot of flack. He and Rosewater were arguably the most public face of M:TG but are you denying that he wasn't responsive and would explain his reasonings?

 

[Kishin]

But it's all the same to you, isn't it? It's like the frog in a pot of boiling water, who won't jump out because he doesn't notice the temperature has only increased gradually over time, and is now being parboiled.

Your tone is incredibly patronizing.

If you paint things in black and white, then of course you'll miss the point. That's wilfully ignoring the evidence. It's shades of grey, and things have got one heck of a lot shadier.

I don't see how the increased complexity in builds has changed anything, other than the fact that their are now more variables to consider. Its still the same concept. I'm distilling it down to its base elements, here. There's no need to read nuance into the objective nature of the thing.

You cannot compare a wizard loading their spellbook (which they have little control over if the main source is "found spells") with the entire forums dedicated to maximising splat. It's just utter nonsense.

Why not? Because there wasn't a forum telling you how to make optimal choices?

The step from a PC choosing fireball to Pun-Pun the all-powerful kobold build is a huge one, but you 4E bodyguards want to pretend they're equivalent!

Pun-Pun isn't an argument for anything but bizarre and exploitable interactions across sourcebooks. I'm sure the Serpent Kingdoms folks really sat around and balance-checked Sarrukhs against the entire D&D product line.

 

[Goumindong]

No, they don't, but they also don't always impact eachother. Budgets for individual products are usually kept entirely separate from eachother. We've seen no evidence that the DDI's delays have impacted the budget or development cycle for D&D, so I don't see what purpose it serves to imply that it has.

It is physically impossible that budgets within the same company do not impact each other. The money had to come from somewhere.

 

[Jack99]

Look, you did make that comparison. It might not have been what you meant to say, and that's fine, but it is what ended up in your post.

Compare: "I want to have a discussion too, but I want to correct your English more than I want to have a discussion.

Cheers, -- N

Saying I rather have X than Y doesn't imply that I have to choose. It means that if I had to chose, I would choose X. At least in every language I know.

Maybe you guys in NY have your own meaning. I have never taken a course in "New Yorkan" (although I did pick up that apparently it is "he don't", if going by many of your actors gives any indication), since, to the best of my knowledge, it has never been available.

 

[Maggan]

Not so. Regardless of HP, compared to your average card game or board game, an RPG is extremely specific. It's only if you compare it to other RPGs that you can make the case that D&D might be abstract.

Wait ... wait ... wait. Are you saying that your opinion is that D&D is not an abstract game?

I'm getting confused here.

/M

 

[rounser]

I'm getting confused here.

Very much doubt that, think you're just trying to imply that I'm being inconsistent. I'm not. Here's my point again:

D&D, like most RPGs, is very specific. You don't name your character in Monopoly, Talisman, or Magic: the Gathering, or worry about what he's wearing. In D&D you do, and have to specify details like what he's saying, or how the weather is today. Compared to your average game, that's extremely specific.

BUT

D&D is not the most abstract of RPGs. There are RPGs which are both more abstract (e.g. Tunnels & Trolls and it's combat resolution) and less abstract (e.g. Rolemaster and it's combat resolution and aftermath) than D&D. You can get a lot more specific than hit points. You can also get a lot more abstract than hit points. This doesn't really matter when comparing an RPG to a collectable card game, unless you have a REALLY abstract RPG.

Comprende?

So Mourn saying HPs are abstract, and implying that therefore D&D is as abstract as M:tG, is a sleight of hand which amounts to a load of otyugh droppings, IMO.

 

[Maggan]

Very much doubt that, think you're just trying to imply that I'm being inconsistent.

I'm sorry you feel that you need to mistrust an honest question. I will not bother you again.

/M

 

[functionciccio]

However, without an overview for the DM, it's just another collection of random adventures, no different than any other adventure in Dungeon.

Actually, it's worse.
If I'm deliberately using a collection of random adventures to create a campaign, I'm the one who is creating the plot. I'm creating my own AP, knowing pretty well what is going to happen in it.

With the Scales of War AP, I'm still using a collection of random adventures, but someone else is creating the plot, and he's not going to tell me about it.

As a DM, avoiding the "What? The bartender is the Thrall of Orcus? The party killed him ten sessions ago!" problem is my n. 1 priority.
Without an overview, I'm not really interested in this AP.

I will probably use it as a mining ground for monsters/traps/skill challenges, but, for me, it's not going to be a selling point.

I find it funny (as in odd, not in ha-ha) that a lot seem to focus on the overview issue, when the modules themselves are quite sub-par, even for WotC.

True. But this is another problem.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

As a DM, avoiding the "What? The bartender is the Thrall of Orcus? The party killed him ten sessions ago!" problem is my n. 1 priority.

And what will avoid this happening if you have the overview? The Overview might want you "this guy is important", but that doesn't protect him from your player characters. And if you give him statistics to match that overview, all you get is the risk of a TPK if the parties want to kill him anyway.

I will not elaborate on this particularly example, but generally speaking:
Why do we assume that an overview would fix any of this problems.

The only real advantage of the overview is that we can see where the story is going and that we can decide we like it. Ultimately though, the overview is irrelevant. What matters is if the individual adventures are good or not. And if they are not, the best overview of the world will not make them better.

And our worry that the story-line will not be good, that there will be surprises that are wrecked by player interaction, all show just one thing: We don't trust WotC to get it right. And this trust can't be established by an overview. WotC has to do one thing first, and the rest is irrelevant: They have to give us good adventures. If then the entire AP still goes into a direction you don't care for, jump off the boat. If it goes interesting places, keep running it.

And as gamers, we only have to consider: WotC is not a faceless entity that's just out to get our money with no regard to its fans. There are designers and developers at work there that are part of the community. They have played D&D and other games for a long time. And it is them (plus freelancers, that are equally part of the community) that are creating the adventures. Not some corporate executives, not a marketing expert, not a Hasbro CEO.
Let's not forget this. We should give them some trust - like that they know how players can wreck plots, and that they hear us complaining about lack of overviews and lack of adventure quality, and that they will try to address them.

Instead of complaining about "Do they want to define fun for us?", address the things that help us all to figure out what we want and what they might be lacking. Didn't like the first two adventures in the path - Why? Were the BBEG boring or to clichéd? Didn't you like the skill challenge in scene Y? Did you miss a big map of the dungeon area? Was the hook disappointing? Were some of the monsters broken or boring? Where the encounter setups uninteresting? Was the basic story idea weak? How would you improve on the flaws? What was missing?