Convincing 4th Edition players to consider 5th Edition

[Fifth Element]

4e is better game design because its target audience (3e haters) like it better than 3e? Isn't that kind of begging the question?

4E's target market is 3E haters? Isn't that kind of a false premise?

 

[billd91]

4E's target market is 3E haters? Isn't that kind of a false premise?

I think it very much is. That's one reason I'm having problems with TwinBahamut's post. I just didn't choose to address that aspect of it.

 

[HoolMarshes Dweller]

You are right to express your views, and have done so eloquently. There is a problem that whenever you get an 'edition war' scenario in gaming, the views get very entrenched and communication becomes impossible.

My perspective is that of someone who never bought into the 4th edition concept, that you have outlined here, but also didn't really go hell-for-leather over 3rd edition either. I guess you could call me an 'Old School' gamer, if you want a label, although I regard myself as more idiosyncratic than that!

Balance only really matters if you view the game in purely tactical terms. My first character was a fighter, and I enjoyed the simplicity of it. Other people want more options, which is fine, but I never regarded the class in terms of trying to balance it's 'powers' against Magic-Users. For me, Magic-Users are studying 'power' and so it is not controversial that they get to do things that Fighters cannot do. It is no more controversial than Fighters being allowed to use any weapon and armour, whereas Magic Users cannot.

The 'Balance' of earlier editions was largely contained in the notion that Magic Users start off weak, and take ages to level up. If a player survives the opening levels, then the pay off was power at later levels. On the otherhand, players who liked to roleplay would enjoy characterising their wizard with their own quirks and other aspects that wouldn't necessarily pertain to a tactical advantage, but was nevertheless fun to play.

The point when you say that no one character should dominate a scene relates solely to the notion that every scene is essentially a combat one, and that players cannot contribute unless their characters have powers. I refute this suggestion, as there are more things a character can do beyond special effects, and the more you define characters by powers, the less able players are of playing the game any other way.

Similarly, I don't actually want to play in a purely tactical game, where characters participate essentially in a 'team sport'. Sure, D&D evolved from wargames, but much of the D&D experience I had went way beyond that into more free form aspects of roleplaying. My feelings on later editions of D&D was that game designers wanted to regress the game back into a clearly defined tactical wargame (and largely ignore 35 Years of RPG evolution in the process). I don't roleplay in order to collect miniatures and play that type of game - not that I have moral issues against 'team work' or the like, but because I get my fun from other things.

For the game designers to say that they want to create an 'inclusive' game is not stating an unclear purpose. It's simply acknowledging that there is a bigger picture, in terms of the D&D fanbase, than the one that was apparently catered for in D&D 4th Edition.

Very well said. I think your explanation of balance in terms of pre-3.x editions is spot on.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Fair enough pemerton. I may have mistaken a statement meant to apply to 3e for a more general statement about flavor and mechanics. I am not going to sift through and double check but you are likely correct.

In terms of the dragon, i am not really a 3e booster and am not going to waste time checking my old 3.5 system about the dragon. What i will say about that system that i liked is there was a sort of sense to it in terms of size, abilities and types yielding some consistent mechanical effects. But i also dont think 3e excelled at believability (for other reasons).

For the wizard i really dont think having a spell book makes that much different

 

[Fifth Element]

I think it very much is. That's one reason I'm having problems with TwinBahamut's post. I just didn't choose to address that aspect of it.

Indeed. Using the fact that many people "hate" 3E as evidence that it's badly designed is silly. Many gamers "hate" 4E and AD&D and any other system you might care to mention. Gamers gotta hate sometimes, it seems. It's evidence of nothing.

 

[TwinBahamut]

If you're not throwing at least a bone to tradition and nostalgia, why push a distinct brand at all? Doing so becomes pretty much meaningless.

I would argue that you're the worst sort of market to target with any sort of trademark or distinctive intellectual property. So why should they try to point D&D in your direction rather than just come up with a different game entirely? Doing so and then slapping the D&D brand on it just weakens the identity of the brand.

There is a big difference between saying that it is bad to chase after nostalgia at the expense of good game design and ignoring the entirety of a brand's value. It is fine to make nods to tradition and it is important to build upon the past, but it isn't good to completely reject the new or to preserve clear flaws of past designs simply because the past as a whole is considered sacrosanct.

In other words, you are extending my comments beyond what I intended and are pushing things too greatly to extremes.

Also, I've got my fan loyalties, and regardless making attacks that I'm "the worst kind of fan" is just plain rude.

A game can be quite simple, but whether or not fewer rules are better than more depends on the design goals of the game. One Page Bulge has a lot fewer rules than Advanced Squad Leader, but they have very different design goals even though both may incorporate being able to play out the Battle of the Bulge.

Huh? Well, yeah, this is absolutely true. As I said, the quality of a game's design is based almost entirely on how well the rules suit the design goals. I don't know what you're trying to get at here...

You may be meandering here, but I believe you're also showing a very strange standard of game design quality. 4e is better game design because its target audience (3e haters) like it better than 3e? Isn't that kind of begging the question? 4e is better than 3e because people who came to not like 3e like 4e better? Then wouldn't PF (and by extension 3e if, as you say, PF is really not much about differences in design but in marketing) most likely be better than 4e because people who like 3e like PF better than they like 4e?

Again, I must say... Huh? You logic makes no sense. I'm not begging the question at all when I say that 4E's goal was to please the fans who had problems with 3E's klunkiness and lack of balance (and there were many throughout 3E's life), and that it did a great job of appealing to those fans. The rest of what you say is simply incoherent and nonsensical. I think you failed to understand my point.

I'll say it again. The quality of a game design is measured entirely by how well it pleases its target audience.

Frankly, I think your assumption of being able to objectively assess game design based on an aggregation of subjective opinions is faulty.

Do you honestly disbelieve the idea that objective measurement can be made of subjective thoughts and feelings? You do realize this means that you disbelieve in the legitimacy of statistics, polls, market research, psychology, sociology, linguistics, and medicine, correct? It isn't like the idea of measuring "fun" or "happiness" by adding up a bunch of subjective opinions is remotely controversial outside of places like ENWorld where people refuse to believe that game design is a real thing. People accumulate data like this all of the time throughout the world. How on Earth is it suddenly a questionable act when it comes to the tiny little world of tabletop RPG enjoyment?

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

I'll ask again (as no one's replied from upthread) - what do you think the +39 natural armour bonus of a Great Red Wyrm means in the fiction? Clearly that number has been assigned not based on any conception of the fictional toughness of the dragon's hide, but rather to make its AC reach a level that is deemed appropriate for a CR 26 creature.

See also: Why bigger critters have better saves than smaller critters.

In every single edition, a bigger critter has better saves than a similar smaller critter, simply due to having more HD (or levels in 4e). It makes sense for Fortitude, but there's no obvious explanation for Reflex or Will. [Insert analogous TSR saves.] What's the fiction reason for bigger critters being better at dodging stuff and resisting mental attacks?

Of course we can rationalize it all we want within the fiction, but the basic purpose is balance. Bigger critters are intended to challenge higher level PCs, so they need better saves.

 

[TwinBahamut]

4E's target market is 3E haters? Isn't that kind of a false premise?

How is it false? The term "hater" is probably flawed, but the idea is true.

3E had a lot of problems for many people. Terrible balance, monster rules and math that resulted in requiring tons of prep work for DMs, heavy magic item dependancy, classes that suffered MAD, rogues being sidelined in any fight against undead, and so on. Even among people who liked 3E overall, there were countless people who complained about these issues throughout 3E's life. 4E was created based on the feedback from these people. If you look at the 4E marketing that some here consider offensive, which focused on 3E's flaws, you see that 4E was trying to answer these complaints and create a game that would more strongly appeal to people who wanted D&D to be balanced, easier to prep for, and so on. And 4E did accomplish that. The only problem was that WotC may have misjudged the extent of a fanbase that didn't have those complaints for whatever reason, and reacted poorly to many of 4E's changes.

Still, I won't disagree that some of discussion there was a bit meandering and only loosely thought out. Probably a bit biased by the fact that I completely believe that 4E is better than 3E as far as core mechanics are concerned, and I kinda hate Paizo's shameless ripping off of 3E to create Pathfinder (even if it was legal, it was still shameless). Probably best if we all just drop the discussion, since I probably need more time to come up with a more eloquent description of the whole thing.

 

[Fifth Element]

How is it false? The term "hater" is probably flawed, but the idea is true.

Indeed, and that's largely the point. But although people who are not entirely happy with 3E (which it is possible to be without being a hater) would have been a part of the target market, so would people who are happy with 3E. It would have been silly to purposefully exclude those people, because when you stop supporting 3E their money will stop coming in.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I am not a fan of pathfinder nor did I feel their management of dungeon matched my tastes, but i do not see what is shameless about making a game for a system that has an open license and making it a huge success. I didn't like their adventures but clearly lots of people did and they turned that goodwill into gold. Good for them. I think its refreshing. There is nothing wrong or shameless with what they are doing.


Much rather be gaming in this environment than one where T$R was filing shameless lawsuits against anyone trying to make an rpg.