I don't *know*, hence it's called a prior. However, there is plenty of of auxiliary information about the quality of the system FATAL. It is not published professionally, the designers have no track record, there is no one in the whole wide interweb speaking positively about the game and it is very unlikely that I am ever going to be in a game of FATAL.
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I don't *know*, hence it's called a prior. However, there is plenty of of auxiliary information about the quality of the system FATAL. It is not published professionally, the designers have no track record, there is no one in the whole wide interweb speaking positively about the game and it is very unlikely that I am ever going to be in a game of FATAL.
D'ja ever see the "Its a good life" episode of The Twilight Zone with Billy Mumy as Anthony Freemont? Did it scar you for life?
Given the lengthy 4Ed rollout with multiple leaks and sneak peeks and preview books, I'd have to disagree with the amount of info available prior to purchase of 4Ed vs FATAL. We were positively blitzed with info.
Ditto to a slightly lesser extent the 3Ed rollout- which was presaged by...what, a year's worth?...of articles in Dragon magazine.
In contrast, there are RPGA, RPGnet, GameWyrd and other reviews of FATAL plus a few others. A quick search revealed @ 49k hits, many of which were blogs, threads and simple quotes of the major ones...
At worst its a wash, at best, advantage WotC.
Wulf Ratbane
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It's ridiculous to suggest that the only way to determine if you will enjoy a ruleset is to play it.
That suggestion has some merit with respect to the game mechanics, but it assumes (quite incorrectly, absurdly and embarrassingly so) that gamers don't have the ability to judge mechanics with a read-through:
And the suggestion has absolutely no merit whatsoever with regards to any one of a thousand pet peeves one might have with the design and/or the theme:
To suggest that you need to play the game first is to suggest that such personal preferences are invalid.
If that's the point you're trying to make, say so.
That suggestion has some merit with respect to the game mechanics, but it assumes (quite incorrectly, absurdly and embarrassingly so) that gamers don't have the ability to judge mechanics with a read-through:
You don't need to play to realize that that "max damage on a crit" does not play the same as "double damage dice on a crit."
And the suggestion has absolutely no merit whatsoever with regards to any one of a thousand pet peeves one might have with the design and/or the theme:
No amount of play will make tieflings and dragonborn (drawn by Wayne Reynolds or whoever your least favorite artist may be) disappear from your core books. They're always going to be there, on the cover of every book and every adventure you buy.
To suggest that you need to play the game first is to suggest that such personal preferences are invalid.
If that's the point you're trying to make, say so.
And D&D has great production values (art, technical, supplements, marketing...). Is this what defines to be of the best designers for an rpg? The capital of Hasbro? Are rpg systems of such a technical and advanced technology that depend on financial investments?
Or should we rather try to define a designer in terms of actual design? But to do so you must understand design. Some people do, some not so much.
There are flawed designs and then there are quality designs. This means that non flawed designs can come with various qualities. Universally the most you can do with the system in less time the higher the quality. But some designs are specialized and focused and tend to sacrifice overall quality for specific qualities because they are aiming for a specific use rather than general use.
This is what rpg design is about more or less. So can you accept now that some people can understand a game's design just by first contact?
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I disagree. After nearly 100 games, I can say that I have never found one that played better enough than it read for me to find enjoyable.
Whether or no this is true is highly subjective, imo.
Yes, and as long as nothing else changes, it is easy to predict what the outcome of such a change would be. However, the more of the system changes, the harder it becomes to predict how much this rule affects actual gameplay. So discussing such a detail out of context may not provide much information about the game.
This rule is actually a good example. In 3.x such a critical hit rule would make crits meaningless at higher levels, as basically all the damage is due to boni. On the other hand in 4th edition it can make crits on encounter or daily powers very exciting as most of the damage for these powers is due to the die roll. and there are even more ramifications.
If I ever sounded like I was trying to say that I apologize. Everybody's opinion about a new system is valid. All I was saying is that it may be more influenced by emotion and initial impressions than by pure vulcanian logic. And you using the word "pet peeve" seems to imply that your dislike of these elements is not entirely rational.
And as we are talking about something we are doing just for fun, any reason to dislike a game or an element in a game are valid.
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Prior information is not the same as an informative prior. I don't think individual snippets of information, especially in the way they were rolled out by Wotc gave any idea about how 4th edition plays. Especially as we all assembled that information in a 3rd edition context, it was really difficult to understand these new fragments. I remember being massively underwhelmed when the 2 phb-pages with the wizard spells leaked. Come to think of it, WOTC may have actually done themselves something of a disservice by the way they did the rollout this time, and i am not speaking of the hypercritical attitude they displayed towards 3.x.
My point there was that if a lot of money and expertise is invested into a game it is less likely to be terrible, as opposed to most fan productions. So it warrants a second look. It may of course still be pretty bad after that second look.
No, but I do believe that some people think that they understand the intricacies of a new design by first contact. After all 3rd edition had some of the finest designers working on it and it still took us years to find out where it worked and where it did not.
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It is your belief that they were the finest designers. Now, regarding time needed to understand the game: At first contact those who know can understand the feel and scope. They also can understand what the system can easily accomplish and what not by just seeing the parameters it follows and how they connect. 3e was doomed to have problems because they built it on sacred cows of previous editions but wanted to do without half of a mechanism that was necessary for those sacred cows to work: the existence of a range of random events while adventuring -with dire consequences being a possibility. If they wanted a different game -and they did want a different game on this matter- they should have left behind many of the sacred cows first place. They did not and this created problems. But 3e was a product of elaborated systemized fluff that impressed people. People did not immediately see problems because the main problematic behind it is one of many solutions each one altering the game in a different way and you understand that thinking about such a choice is not simple. Because that would be the end of D&D as known so far. And people just wanted to play D&D.
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