Vigilance said:
Huh... so are people really reduced to saying Mike Mearls doesn't know how to run D&D now?
That he doesn't respect the designers of 3e? Including Monte Cook? A guy he used to work for?
C'mon guys, stop being jerks.
Who is truly being a jerk, the people who have been continually bashing 3E for the sake of marketing, a lot of which
has indeed been bordering (or crossing he border) on disrespectful of the 3E designers, or the people getting sick of it and pointing out the flaws in one of the factually incorrect bashing sessions?
Their complaints come off
not as if they think they have some better ideas for the system, but as if 3E were designed by idiots and anyone who ever liked it was just as stupid.
It IS possible for one thing to be better than another, without the first thing being flawed.
I swear, these blog posts remind me of nothing more than a political mudslinging match. It's like each designer is trying to outdo the others in making 3E sound like a system designed by morons (and that is
exactly the impression I get every time I read one of these things.)
I really like almost everything I have heard about 4E, when they actually take the time to TALK about what will be coming in 4E. But too often they don't, but instead bash on 3E. That is very bad form, and it is making me more and more angry.
So, by this point,
this is the message I have gotten from these blog posts (and the 4E introductory video):
I've been an idiot for playing 3E for the past 7 years.
3E (and indeed, every previous version of D&D) was an awful, awful game, but I should forget about WotC's past track record (for some reason) and believe that THIS game is going to actually be good.
The designers of 4E are absolutely brilliant people and are completely baffled at how stupid the 3E designers were to make such rules.
They have all come off as incredibly insulting, arrogant, and rude. Yeah, I KNOW it's marketing, but it's possible, and MUCH classier, to actually extol the virtues of YOUR product without denigrating the virtues of SOMEONE ELSE'S product. Emulating political commercials is a VERY POOR way to do advertising, people!
Saying "My product is GREAT because that other guy's product SUCKS!" is circular logic, and utterly useless as anything but chest-thumping grandstanding.
4E sounds really neat, from what I've heard about it so far, but the "company line" 3E bashing is just making me annoyed. How about you start telling us how good 4E will be and showing us why, instead of continually giving us dubious reasons why 3E was so horrible?