D&D DMing is not playing chess against the players!!

[Scribble]

Unless they're making sales with some kind of subscription model, they can't really infer much if a number goes up or down. Maybe they can infer that someone who bought x product didn't buy y product. Of course, that can be wrong. What if the people buying x and y are largely different subsets of the customer base? Maybe all the sales figures are telling you is that the subset who bought y is smaller than the subset buying x. That's part of my point. Even if the numbers go way down, what do they know? That sales weren't the same. And that's all they know. They don't know why. So, ultimately, not buying the product tells them very little of use. A whole lot less than actually buying the product does, I'd say. At least then you can say that X customers, barring a few scattered weirdos who might have used to the product to balance out the wobble on their dining room table or somesuch, thought the product was appealing enough to buy it for the price offered.

Not sure I ever argued that whether or not people bought something was the main or only source of info a company should/would go by?

My original comment was that buying something was not the only way to send a message with your wallet... (As people were saying they couldn't send a message because the product they wanted was out of print.)


I just also feel it's better to give them more info about you want by actually talking about what you want, as opposed to continuously talking about what you dislike until they randomly come up with a combo you approve of.

Um, my point is that not only do I not like that style myself, but I think it's a damn bad attitude if it gains widespread use by others who may not have had the experience of RPGs like older folks have, and it becoems a dominant way of playing D&D
this is best discouraged by showing better ways to play, by grumbling to bring the topic up, etc, not by a boycott!!

If they're having fun playing the game they're playing, I say they're playing it correctly.

What makes one way to play "better" then another? It's a subjective opinion.

If you enjoy a particular style of play, I think it's better to talk about it with people who also enjoy said style of play- Garner other people's interest through your own enthusiasm rather then attack what they feel is fun.

 

[Umbran]

Um, my point is that not only do I not like that style myself, but I think it's a damn bad attitude if it gains widespread use by others who may not have had the experience of RPGs like older folks have, and it becoems a dominant way of playing D&D

I thought it had already been adequately shown that age has little to do with it (the style having been present since at least 1e AD&D).

I think you'd be hard-pressed to come up with non-anecdotal evidence that it is not already a dominant way of playing D&D (or any other RPG), one that's been around for a long time, even. If its presence is fairly steady-state, there's not much to worry about.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Um, my point is that not only do I not like that style myself, but I think it's a damn bad attitude if it gains widespread use by others who may not have had the experience of RPGs like older folks have, and it becoems a dominant way of playing D&D
this is best discouraged by showing better ways to play, by grumbling to bring the topic up, etc, not by a boycott!!

Gains widespread use? Are you familiar with the history of D&D at all? DM vs Players (and players encouraged to screw each other over - see the advice for the Thief class, or the 1e Barbarian class) have been a steadily reducing part of D&D for longer than I've been alive. Hell, it is in many ways close to what Gygax himself preached (plus utter pixelbitches to kill players, a sphere of annhiliation hidden in a statue's mouth, etc.)

And as for D&D as chess, D&D's very roots are a tactical wargame. This stuff isn't even slightly new.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Gains widespread use? Are you familiar with the history of D&D at all? DM vs Players (and players encouraged to screw each other over - see the advice for the Thief class, or the 1e Barbarian class) have been a steadily reducing part of D&D for longer than I've been alive. Hell, it is in many ways close to what Gygax himself preached (plus utter pixelbitches to kill players, a sphere of annhiliation hidden in a statue's mouth, etc.)

And as for D&D as chess, D&D's very roots are a tactical wargame. This stuff isn't even slightly new.

Agreed - challenging the players and playing "chess" against them is definitely as old as D&D itself. In fact, the older gamers in my gaming group over the past three years definitely tend to have more of that "me against the DM" mentality than the younger players who did not play 1E or 2E. And, I have had about ten players over those three years, about half are veterans of 1E days and others got into D&D around 3E.

I feel monsters and bad guys should use tactics based on their intelligence, though, and unless they have reason to fight to the death, most sentient monsters and bad guys will run away/give up rather than be killed.

 

[Beginning of the End]

Email Wizards or something, or just make a single post on the forum or something.

You make a good argument. So I would assume, since you've made one post stating that you like 4E, that you will never, ever post that opinion again here at ENWorld?

 

[Aegeri]

You make a good argument. So I would assume, since you've made one post stating that you like 4E, that you will never, ever post that opinion again here at ENWorld?

Actually it's somewhat on the point, because I usually don't bother posting it in irrelevant threads that aren't on that topic (or just generally in threads I post in). The actual point though, that you seem to have completely missed there is if I decided to post "I hate psionics" in every 4E thread. Is it relevant to that thread? No it's not. Is it arguably threadcrapping/derailing/trolling to just post that in every single 4E thread even if it has nothing to do with it? Why yes, that would be the case and the point I made.