Civility

[Stormonu]

Maybe it's just been the threads I've been involved in, but most folks have seemed to remain civil. Considering the philosophical split I've seen between 3E/4E, I'm rather surprised people aren't tearing each other's throats out over which direction 5E should go. It's been lively, but so far most folks have been rationally presenting what they want to see in the next edition (as I've said, in the threads I've visited so far).

I guess we'll see the real infighting begin though when the 5E rules start showing up.

And despite other comments, I do hope WotC's listening to this frackus. Late 3E, me and WotC took off down different roads. I'd like to catch the bus again, and I hope their listening how they could get back to me.

 

[pemerton]

I am not unable to see how 4e can be played as a role-playing game. It is my opinion that it works better as a miniatures based game.

Well, it's combat resolution mechanics are miniature-based (or token based - in my case, I use the plastic coloured tokens from old board games).

It's what I took to be the suggestion that 4e is a skirmish game in disguise that I'm responding to.

4e for many players came too soon and stripped away too many elements of the game that many consider essential to D&D. If this were not true they wouldn't be announcing the next iteration right now.

<snip>

Simply publishing a 4.75e isn't going to bring back those who left the game.

I don't think that any of this is in dispute.

I honestly don't see how the elements of 4e that are different from all other editions of the game can be brought into a "unified" game.

Nor do I, although I'm not a game designer (or any other sort of technical designer). [MENTION=29358]Crazy[/MENTION]Jerome has some interesting ideas, though.

But if the game doesn't support 4e-style play (which I think of as simulation-light, metagame-heavy), in what sense is it a "unified" edition? Does WotC think that players who like 4e will follow them into a 3E or AD&D-style game? Why would that be, when players of 3E didn't pick up 4e?

Maybe WotC is planning to tackle PF and the OSR games on their own turf, but that would not be a unity edition. A unity edition has to be capable of supporting 4e-style play.

 

[MoxieFu]

But if the game doesn't support 4e-style play (which I think of as simulation-light, metagame-heavy), in what sense is it a "unified" edition? Does WotC think that players who like 4e will follow them into a 3E or AD&D-style game? Why would that be, when players of 3E didn't pick up 4e?

Maybe WotC is planning to tackle PF and the OSR games on their own turf, but that would not be a unity edition. A unity edition has to be capable of supporting 4e-style play.

I don't think it's possible for 5e to support 4e style play in its core. I think it will have to come in a supplement. That's the only way they will be able to get enough of 4e into the game without it feeling too watered down for 4e fans. Either that or they will have to spin it off into its own game, that way the designers won't have to worry about compatibility issues with previous editions. Maybe a slimmed down version of 4e that replaces the Miniatures rules. This way 4e does continue to exist as a living game in some form.

What I am somewhat expecting when the playtest rules come out is a game that at its core has the level of complexity of AD&D, but with the elements of 3e that streamlined the game (ascending AC, BAB) but did not increase the level of complexity (feats, AoO's) and add in a dash of simplicity of BECMI (ability score modifiers), but not where it differed from AD&D (race as class, 3 alignments, etc.) In other words, I am expecting (hoping) that the core resembles Castles & Crusades but with more elements of 1e, 2e, and 3e.

If it's not vaguely similar to that, I expect it to be something completely different that absolutely blows me away. I think they have good people working on it and they do stand a chance of pulling this off.

But If it does turn out to be some Frankensteinesqe mashup of 3e and 4e, I'll be disappointed. I would have to take a long, hard look at it to see if it has any appeal to me whatsoever.

 

[MoxieFu]

Managing expectaions

I don't know if it's possible for the next iTeration of the D&D game to please most fans of OSR, 3e, 4e, and Pathfinder. Maybe the best they can hope for is making a game that is everybody's second favorite edition. It's not everybody's favorite version of the game, but at least its one we can all agree on.


Yay mediocrity!


(sorry)

 

[jbear]

I'm a very strong advocate of keeping things civil, respecting the opinions of those who see things differently to me, and I would love the idea that we could make these discussion into something productive rather than destructive.

I remember being really annoyed at all of the fighting that went on when 4e was released, especially as I had found Enworld because of 4e, and suddenly felt like I was in the middle of a street brawl. Do we want other new/old/returning players that the announcement of 5e has brought here to Enworld to walk into world war 5? I don't. I want to welcome them and dwell on the warm fuzzy feeling tickling my toes as I imagine the hobby growing, swelling and spreading throughout the earth to spark the imaginations of children worldwide ... ehem ... sorry about that.

Where was I?

Ah, yes. Constructive... why can't we aim for every thread/discussion to become a constructive creative process. We are a bunch of people who all LOVE using our imaginations to play games. That's a great place to start. A great thing to have in common.

So why can't we let our differences in experience, taste and preferences send us down a path where we come up with some cool ideas.

Given, at the moment til we see the 'base/core' WotC has come up with, it will be a largely recreational activity. But as my history teacher used to say, you have to find the diamonds in the bucket of .... oh you know, the bucket of ... the stuff that was in the bucket in the 20ftx20ft room ... the one with the goblin with the bucket in the corner full of ... with the key at the bottom? You never been in that room?

So this is me, advocating finding diamonds in the bucket. And being chilled, friendly, open and self-critical while we do it.

And no ... lets not settle for mediocre.

 

[MoxieFu]

If we are being uncivil in our discussion I think the mods would have said something. I have to agree with Stormonu above. The thread has been pretty much civil. Civil does not mean we don't disagree.

 

[LurkAway]

I understand that there was a study done in which a few pieces of garbage in a public space results in more and more litter being dropped over time. I guess people who see a bunch of garbage lying around assume it's normalized and are less likely to hesitate to drop their own litter.

Bad aggressive behavior can spark the same in others. I think we have been quite good at not littering our emotional garbage around Enworld. And the mods have been exemplary at imposing fines on littering.

However, I admit I haven't been reading all the threads lately. It's more and more time consuming to stay on top of it all.

 

[avin]

Civility must be kept on EnWorld.

(But I find edition wars a heck of fun and will look for some dripping blood boards just for the fun )

 

[Will Doyle]

I'm hoping this new edition brings fans of the game together and mends some of the rifts that exist in the community. For that, I'm willing to let go some of my own "sacred cows", and swallow my pride about some preferences I may not personally agree with.

What Wizard's need is some D&D-friendly celebrity - ideally Vin Diesel, but I'll accept Wil Wheaton - making a clarion call to the community to kill the edition wars and stand strong, keep an open mind, and come together around the hobby we all love.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

And yet they are often the right words to describe the perceived problems. Well, except for 'video game' - I really do not think of 4e as video gamey, though I do think of it as a tactical combat board game. Heck, if it had been marketed as such then it would not have annoyed me.

I honestly think that 4e did not need to compete with 3.5, and could have been marketed as a related property instead.

It's things like this that cause the problem. Of course WOTC wasn't going to market a roleplaying game as a board game. It isn't a board game, there are rules on diplomacy, non-combat conflict resolution, exploring dungeons, traps, treasure, running a long running campaign, setting up villains as long term enemies, coming up with plots, what kind of terrain and politics to find in the Feywild, and so on and so forth. All things that aren't needed and don't work in a board game, but do in a role playing game. Like D&D.

Yes, it's combat mechanics resemble a board game. But not that much more than 3e or 2e. The only real difference is the format the rules were written in. When our group made the switch from combat in 3.5e to 4e, what we were doing in combat changed almost imperceptibly. On each of our turns we were spending a move, minor(swift), and standard action to move our character on a battle map and attack the enemies, looking for the best tactical location to be in. When we attacked, we rolled a d20 and tried to roll a high number in order to hit the enemies and then rolled some damage.

The only real difference is that in 3.5e, we were saying "I attack with my sword" and in 4e we were saying "I use Cloud of Daggers".

There is so little actual difference between 4e and 3.5e, I'm always surprised people hate it so much.