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

[Doug McCrae]

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."

Me too. But I'm being 100% serious. After 6-7 years they'll be able to make major improvements to 4e for sure.

There is no contradiction in:

5 > 4 > 3

 

[Doug McCrae]

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.

Shut up! We're trying to have a hysterical panic here!

 

[Glyfair]

Me too. But I'm being 100% serious. After 6-7 years they'll be able to make major improvements to 4e for sure.

And given Scott's comment that they determined that 8-10 years is about the right time for a new edition, that means after that 6-7 years they can have a couple of years to develop 5e before that 8-10 years comes around (unless, of course, whoever takes over Scott's job has a different idea for the ideal time frame).

 

[Plane Sailing]

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...

I'm sorry you feel that way.

You know the rules. If you disagree with moderation feel free to email the moderators, but don't call them out in public. The result of that is a week ban for you.

You've been here a long time, you ought to know better.

 

[Vigilance]

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.

Since nothing is perfect, there will be some flaws in 4e to fix.

And in the course of attempting to fix the flaws of 4e, they will make all new bugs.

Change is a good thing imo.

 

[mhensley]

There is no contradiction in:

5 > 4 > 3

It's not a given truth either. Examples:

AD&D 2 !> AD&D 1
Alien 4 !> Alien 3 !> Alien 2
Master of Orion 3 !> Master of Orion 2
Traveller 4 !> Traveller TNE !> MegaTraveller

and so on...

 

[Maggan]

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.

I think WotC should stop looking for play testers, and instead start recruting post testers. They write a post, then run it past 100 post testers to see what they think is being implied, and then they can rewrite it to become even more bland!



/M

 

[Banshee16]

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.

Wow, you've opened my eyes, sir..

Banshee

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Banshee

Shouldn't that be "ban her" ?

 

[Banshee16]

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.

But the first page of the 3E PHB points out Rule 0. So rules-lawyering, and picking stuff apart to use against the DM only works if the DM lets it.

I've had to flatten players before, when they tried to abuse a loophole. It was a simple matter of insisting on logic and I guess "reasonable-fit" for the situation, rather than using the rules as written.

Obviously the math is important, but something I've been very dissatisfied with is that the game is beginning to feel "over-designed" to me. Looking at several prestige classes, for instance, as well as certain spells etc., I feel that they've been "tightened" too much in 3E.....so much so that we either have to house rule to ignore the core rules, or just leave that stuff out because it's too "engineered" and as a result just feels bland.

I don't know how else to describe it. Maybe a good analogy would be cars. Toyota's a popular brand. I've test driven them before, but never bought them, because, to me, they feel bland. In the drive to make everything smooth, and well-engineered, and reduce cabin noise, I find to me, that it feels like I'm not really driving a car anymore. I can't "feel" it. So, I drive a Mustang, and a Fusion. Personally, I find both more exciting to drive. From a technical perspective, maybe they're inferior cars. But I "feel" them in a way that I don't with any of the Toyotas or Infinitis I've tried.

I've been starting to feel that way about 3E....almost that it's getting *so* refined that it's kind of sucking the life out of it. I used to love collecting and reading my rulebooks in 1st and 2nd Ed. There was tonnes of cool stuff. Reading many of my 3E texts, with the exception of a few, has at times put me to sleep. Far too dry, too technical, and too "flat". I'm a little concerned that the trend will get worse in 4E....but I'm willing to wait and see. And maybe I'll get lucky, and find that my concerns are baseless, and 4E is more exciting to read.

Until then, all we can do is discuss, and I don't think there's anything wrong with dissenting viewpoints. These are *discussion* boards, afterall

Banshee