D&D 4E Comment about 4E designers loving D&D

[mmu1]

Not a class move, making sweeping insults against the current developers of D&D.

I'm going to ask you to keep out of this thread from now on.

 

[WayneLigon]

I do not share that kind of opinions. To me, Maths are meaningless. The game should be about something else. Give the players an adventure that is more than a battlemap for minis, with a PLOT, with serious villains, with ... adventure. THAT matters to me.

Without paying attention to and understanding the underlying math of the entire thing, though, you run a very real risk of creating huge numbers of unintended loopholes that could ruin the game. It's only recently that people have paid attention to such things, and it's generally resulted in better products that are harder for the rules-lawyers to pick apart and use as weapons against a GM.

The math may be meaningless to you, but understanding a game's underlying statistical makeup is vital to designing a balanced and robust game system.

 

[Sunderstone]

What, everything they say has to keep every fan happy AND the previous designers of D&D? Man, if I were them I'd just shut up now and not say a word until release.

Ah, wait, that won't be good enough either.

actually that would be better. Its one thing to be excited about your work, criticizing someone else's work isnt really needed. James Wyatt's opinion differs from mine as well.

On a slight tangent, why shouldnt people on these boards (like the op) be able to comment or criticize the designers of 4E? If the designers can voice their critique on how 3E is unbalanced or "broken", we should be able to voice our own concerns.

Theres a reason why people like Monte Cook, Bruce Cordell, Johnathan Tweet, Skip Williams, etc are considered great designers. They do some great work.

To have the up and coming folks of WotC (regardless of their contributions to past editions) say that the previous designs were broken and unbalanced seems like a slap in the face. If they could have done a better job on 3E, Im sure they would have been selected to be the rules main designers.

So in a way, yes, they should just stay quiet till the Core 3 are out at least.

 

[RFisher]

That made me think......the implication here is that the people who made 3.0 and 3.5 *didn't* love D&D

No, no, no. The clear implication is that if we don't like 4e that we must not love D&D.

(^_^)

Sometimes I think the word "implication" should be banned around here.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Of course! Monte hates 3e! He said himself that he thinks that it stinks and was written by a bunch of hacks!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

actually that would be better. Its one thing to be excited about your work, criticizing someone else's work isnt really needed. James Wyatt's opinion differs from mine as well.

On a slight tangent, why shouldnt people on these boards (like the op) be able to comment or criticize the designers of 4E? If the designers can voice their critique on how 3E is unbalanced or "broken", we should be able to voice our own concerns.

Theres a reason why people like Monte Cook, Bruce Cordell, Johnathan Tweet, Skip Williams, etc are considered great designers. They do some great work.

To have the up and coming folks of WotC (regardless of their contributions to past editions) say that the previous designs were broken and unbalanced seems like a slap in the face. If they could have done a better job on 3E, Im sure they would have been selected to be the rules main designers.

So in a way, yes, they should just stay quiet till the Core 3 are out at least.

But then you are missing that the same designers are also criticisizing their own work. Montes campaign features several house rules, and his latest blog posts look as if he is building his own personal D&D 4!

Sure, not everybody might know that. But the designers of D&D 4 are often familiar and sometimes even good friends with the designers of D&D 3 (if they weren't among them to begin with). I doubt that while Mike Mearls worked with MonteCook on Malhavoc products, they didn't talk about things they didn't like about D&D 3 and how they would try to make it better. So, when the guys at WotC now write the things they write, they never think about it as insulting "the old guard". Because they know that the original developers and designers think just as they do about the old system. They might even know why the limitations it has exist in the first place, but neither of the groups like them any better for it.

 

[Charlequin]

Theres a reason why people like Monte Cook, Bruce Cordell, Johnathan Tweet, Skip Williams, etc are considered great designers. They do some great work.

To have the up and coming folks of WotC (regardless of their contributions to past editions) say that the previous designs were broken and unbalanced seems like a slap in the face.

It is not an accurate assumption to treat the "designers of 3.0" and "the designers of 4.0" as two completely separate, unrelated groups. Bruce Cordell is working on 4e. James Wyatt (who has been with WotC for most of 3.x's lifespan) is working on 4e. Jonathan Tweet is still at WotC and very happy with 4e. The RPG designer world is a small one, and pretty tight-knit -- a lot of the people who worked on 3.0 but aren't with WotC anymore (Monte Cook, Skip Williams, etc.) still work and/or socialize with people who are still there.

 

[Shortman McLeod]

I like this quote today from James Wyatt-



3E is inherently unbalanced...

I wonder how the designers of 3.0 feel about comments like this?

The thing I'm looking forward to is about 6-7 years from now in the big lead-up to 5.0, when they'll be telling us, "4e is inherently unbalanced. We're fixing it because we love the game."

Barf.

 

[mmu1]

Well, this is the height of absurdity. I simply posted that I believe the people who designed 3E were more skilled and talented, in general, then the people who (as far as I know) are working on 4E and I get my post deleted for "insults" and I'm told to stay out of the thread so I can't even defend my point of view?

Let me guess - if I have a problem with this knee-jerk reaction, I should send a private message to you, so it can get ignored - right?

I'm sure you'll feel free to delete this and leave something insulting and patronizing in its place as well... Or will I be banned to make sure I can't talk back this time? Can't wait to find out...

 

[F4NBOY]

OMG it's just a blog entry. It's just the guy's thought at that moment, some passing feelings he had while writing his blog.

WOTC designers don't put up meetings to decides things like that:
-Ok we are here today to discuss the reason why we are making a 4E. I vote for "We are doing it better because we love it". Who votes for it? What do you think?


Don't take it too serious...