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

[Banshee16]

Shouldn't that be "ban her" ?

It could be, but, when I first picked the name, it actually wasn't based on the Banshee of Irish myth....or at least not directly. It was the name of one of the fighter craft in Wing Commander II or Wing Commander: Privateer, years ago, and I used it when I first started logging into local BBS'. Out of habit, it stuck

Obviously, they might have derived their name (and likely did) from the Anglicised Gaelic word for the mythological creature, but I didn't understand the root at the time.

Banshee

 

[Kae'Yoss]

It could be, but, when I first picked the name, it actually wasn't based on the Banshee of Irish myth....or at least not directly. It was the name of one of the fighter craft in Wing Commander II or Wing Commander: Privateer, years ago, and I used it when I first started logging into local BBS'. Out of habit, it stuck

Obviously, they might have derived their name (and likely did) from the Anglicised Gaelic word for the mythological creature, but I didn't understand the root at the time.

Banshee

Plus, most people wouldn't recognise "ben sídhe" when one screamed in their face. They'd die wondering why that girl is called ben.

 

[Banshee16]

Well, I take things at heart, including my hobbies, and flippant opinions from WotC employees regarding the direction of products that support my interests do not inspire me. They were enthusiastically pushing a good product for many years, now within the space of one month they say, in veiled language if not directly, that 3E is bad. Well many of us spent a lot of $$ on what we preceived was decent gaming material, and now we are made to feel that we made the wrong decision even have invested anything at all in 3E. At least, remarks like Wyatt's and Tweet's suggest to me they knew for years we were wasting our time and money (as DM I bought a lot of material - but not all)... The more I think of it, the more I question the sincerity of anyone from WotC working on D&D.

Ok, I'm tired. I gotta sleep...

Excellent articulation of one of the sentiments underlying my original post.

You never want to tell a customer that what you've been selling them for the last 8 years is crap. Because as a customer, I'm going to say "well, why were you selling me crap in the first place?" I'm not going to feel very good about having just forked out a bunch of money over the last 8 years on products that you're admitting were crap. And it'll make me take a much harder look at anything new you try to sell me. "So you want me to give you more money for this shiny new product....how do I know this one isn't crap, since you admitted the other one was? How do I know you don't just want my money?"

I've been in corporate sales for 7 years now, and I know when I see a sales pitch I don't like.

However, as others have suggested, it might have been a throwaway remark, with no intention to be read as anything other than what it is.

Something to keep in mind is that because the flow of information is so controlled, sometimes comments which might just be that, come across as being more....authoritative than intended.

I never really intended this thread to turn into what it became...it seems to have snowballed quite a bit.

Banshee

 

[Banshee16]

Plus, most people wouldn't recognise "ben sídhe" when one screamed in their face. They'd die wondering why that girl is called ben.

I recognize that now But I think it was like 1992 at the time, and though I'd read lots of Greek mythology, I knew very little about Celtic mythology.

Using a handle based on a bastardization of the name of a celtic spirit of a woman who died in childbirth isn't exactly a choice I'd make now. But after 15 years, it's kinda hard to change....habit and all..

I used Sliebhein Llyrandor over at the Against the Shadow boards, but that's about it.

Banshee

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

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.

Could you possibly lay off this insulting line of argumentation, please?

 

[Doug McCrae]

You never want to tell a customer that what you've been selling them for the last 8 years is crap. Because as a customer, I'm going to say "well, why were you selling me crap in the first place?" I'm not going to feel very good about having just forked out a bunch of money over the last 8 years on products that you're admitting were crap. And it'll make me take a much harder look at anything new you try to sell me. "So you want me to give you more money for this shiny new product....how do I know this one isn't crap, since you admitted the other one was? How do I know you don't just want my money?"

They're not saying it's crap. They're saying it has flaws. There is a wide, huge, massive gulf between those two positions. Crap means worthless, no good, in the bottom 10% of rpgs or whatever. Having flaws just means it's not perfect, and nothing is perfect. 3e could be the best rpg currently available and yet still have flaws. 3e could be the best rpg currently available and yet 4e, when it comes out, could still be an improvement.

This is more or less WotC's position as I see it:

4e > 3e > all other rpgs

Now how can they be saying 3e is crap, if they're saying it's better than everything except 4e?

 

[Irda Ranger]

That makes it your inferance. For the author to imply something, he must deliberately do so. What you infer from his words is what you infer, not what he implies.

Yes and no. Yes because what you say about inferences is true, generally; but no because it is an incorrect reading of both the quote and the OP's argument.

If the quote was "I'm working on 4e because I love D&D", it would be an (unjustifiable) inference that he also meant "I hate 3.x."

But the quote was "4th edition will be the best yet because the people working on the game, like the fans, love Dungeons and Dragons." The 'because' makes it a logical argument, and therefore subject to logical rearrangement of the terms to read that "3rd edition was not the best yet because the people working on it did not love D&D."

It's exactly the same as (1+1=2) being the same statement as (2-1=1). They are simply rearranged, not different.

Now, I don't think Greg meant it that way at all. I think it was just a mistake in rhetoric. That happens all the time, and I'm happy to give him the benefit of the doubt on that point. But I saw Banshee16's reading that way too; it is pretty obvious based on an objective reading of the words.

 

[Vigilance]

Yes and no. Yes because what you say about inferences is true, generally; but no because it is an incorrect reading of both the quote and the OP's argument.

If the quote was "I'm working on 4e because I love D&D", it would be an (unjustifiable) inference that he also meant "I hate 3.x."

But the quote was "4th edition will be the best yet because the people working on the game, like the fans, love Dungeons and Dragons." The 'because' makes it a logical argument, and therefore subject to logical rearrangement of the terms to read that "3rd edition was not the best yet because the people working on it did not love D&D."

It's exactly the same as (1+1=2) being the same statement as (2-1=1). They are simply rearranged, not different.

Now, I don't think Greg meant it that way at all. I think it was just a mistake in rhetoric. That happens all the time, and I'm happy to give him the benefit of the doubt on that point. But I saw Banshee16's reading that way too; it is pretty obvious based on an objective reading of the words.

No, you could also read it as: 1e was the state of the art in design at that time because the folks working on it loved D&D.

2e was better than 1e, and was the state of the art in design at that time, because the folks working on it loved D&D.

3e was better than 2e, because the folks working on it loved D&D.

4e will be the best D&D yet, because the folks working on it love D&D.

See how that works, when you interpret something in a way that gives the other person the benefit of the doubt, rather than gleefully trying to stir up trouble on the net by taking someone's words and twisting them into the WORST possible meaning?

 

[Charwoman Gene]

But the quote was "4th edition will be the best yet because the people working on the game, like the fans, love Dungeons and Dragons." The 'because' makes it a logical argument, and therefore subject to logical rearrangement of the terms to read that "3rd edition was not the best yet because the people working on it did not love D&D."

Given:
p = "4th Edition will be the best yet."
q = "The people working on the game, like the fans, love Dungeons and Dragons."

The quote is q -> p.
q implies p, or if q then p

Logical rearrangement of an implication does not allow one to introduce predicates like r ="3rd Edition was not the best yet" and s = "The people working on 3rd edition did not love D&D.

The best you get is the contrapositive, Which is "4th edition sucks, so Mike Mearls doesn't love D&D, not even with his pee-pee."

With a less formal logical analysis, p and r are not independent predicates, and q and s are semi related. I don't remember the proper formalism, but you wind up with functions whose truth value hold, but depend on the year the statement is evaluated. It's still not possible to draw your conclusion through the rules of logic.

 

[pemerton]

Why will this be the best game yet? Because the people working on it love D&D.

which can be rearranged into the implication:

If they love D&D, then it will be the best game yet.

Which has the following corollary:

If it is not the best game yet, then they do not love D&D.

If you read it that way, it implies that if there are any shortcomings in 3rd edition, it's because the designers didn't love the game enough. That conclusion is preposterous, and certainly not what the writer of the quote intended, but when the implication operator gets abused by sloppy writing these things tend to fall out. Of course, if we give the author the benefit of the doubt, it ceases to be an issue.

A number of other posters have pointed out that the "yet" introduces a time-dependent element into the sentences in question, which means that the above formalisation of the claim is not sound.

A further objection is the following:

Let P = "4e will be the best yet" and let Q = "The designers of 4e love D&D."

Then "P because Q" is not equivalent to "If Q then P". For example, "I have malaria because I was bitten by a mosquito" is not equivalent to "If I was bitten by a mosquito I have malaria". Statements of causation or explanation very often take the form of identifying necessary conditions, rather than sufficient ones.

"P because Q" is therefore quite consistent with supposing that the 3E designers also loved D&D, but failed to produce a good game for some other reason.