D&D on CNN!

[mudbunny]

Well then either the game is NOT the same and the ad copy is full of crap or the game IS the same and the spin is full of crap.

Which is it?

That all depends on what pair of glasses you are looking at the game through, and what biases you are bringing to the looking.

 

[Scribble]

I think Shemeska was pretty clear in pointing out it is not just about the internet. And that was my angle too.

Yeah but aside from being a place to vent one's rage and frustration, the internet also allows people to see more easily that others are raging and venting, which in turn fuels their own rage and frustration. (YEAH WHUT HE SAID!) Which then boils out to your non internet activity as well.

Whereas before, even though you might have been frustrated, and angered by the change, it wasn't as easy to see that some other guy miles away in Topeka Kansas was ALSO raging along... So you vented a bit, then moved on to something actually fun.

And without the voice of the internets you might not have even known to really bring it up as a thing to be really upset about.

"Man this new edition sucks..."

"Yeah... oh well."

but now...

"Man this new edition sucks!"

"Yeah- did you see that new website IHATENEWEDITIONSCUZTHEYSUXORS.Com???? It's a place where people like us gather and tell eachother how much it sucks."

"Wow other people in the world finds stuff sucky that I also think sucks??? Stuff must really suck!"

"Heck yeah! Lets go online and talk about how much stuff sucks!"

"Suck buddies forever!" *



* Line stollen from Penny Arcade.

 

[ExploderWizard]

"Man this new edition sucks!"

"Yeah- did you see that new website IHATENEWEDITIONSCUZTHEYSUXORS.Com???? It's a place where people like us gather and tell eachother how much it sucks."

"Wow other people in the world finds stuff sucky that I also think sucks??? Stuff must really suck!"

"Heck yeah! Lets go online and talk about how much stuff sucks!"

"Suck buddies forever!" *



* Line stollen from Penny Arcade.

Hahaha.

I gotta spread some around.

 

[mudbunny]

Hahaha.

I gotta spread some around.

As must I.

 

[Mark]

I think Shemeska was pretty clear in pointing out it is not just about the internet. And that was my angle too.

Yeah but aside from being a place to vent one's rage and frustration, the internet also allows people to see more easily that others are raging and venting, which in turn fuels their own rage and frustration. (YEAH WHUT HE SAID!) Which then boils out to your non internet activity as well.

Whereas before, even though you might have been frustrated, and angered by the change, it wasn't as easy to see that some other guy miles away in Topeka Kansas was ALSO raging along... So you vented a bit, then moved on to something actually fun.

And without the voice of the internets you might not have even known to really bring it up as a thing to be really upset about.

Yup. That's part of my point. To elaborate, as a gamer since the early seventies, I can say that although I got around to a number of gamestores and conventions even back then, and played in multiple groups and in game clubs, I would guess that over the span og twenty-five years or so I didn't interact with even a few percent of the people with whom I interact in a month or so in this day and age. That number began going up with Usenet and the advent of the Internet and has taken off incredibly (and continues to do so). Sometimes I will speak with Young Adults or burgeoning adults (early twenties down to teens) and I get the impression that there is little understanding of the kind of relative isolation that existed not more than twenty or just a dozen years ago. It's amazing to think that even one hundred and fifty years ago the first US transcontinental telegraph system was still a year away from being officially established and the Pony Express was still the order of the day. Can you imagine running a Play-by-Pony-Express game or rallying an edition war fervor via telegraph? Anyway, . . .

Sure, you might argue that if we had the volume of comments in 2000 that we have in 2010 we might have seen more of a continuity in edition warring. What I tried to point out was the rapid diminishing returns on edition warring in say, 2003, compared to what happens now.

That might have as much to do with the ability to find like-minded persons and easily establish your own communities rather than having a limited number of established gathering points and folks jockeying for control of those as opposed to striking out on their own. Probably a bit of both and even more.

There's a better argument against my case which is the possibility that people might have just gotten older and tired of trying to fan the flames of 3Ev2E, while the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed crowd of today proceeds full steam ahead with 4Ev3.X/PF.

It's a different argument but I don't agree that it is better. Do you have any reason to believe that there was a smaller percentage (note this choice of words) of younger players ten years ago than now?

 

[Scribble]

Can you imagine running a Play-by-Pony-Express game or rallying an edition war fervor via telegraph? Anyway, . . .

Heh- or being a Pony Express rider risking life and limb to be sure the ontime delivery of... the results of your perception check.


"Attention Mr Martin Merryweather of Merryweather Incorporated. Stop.
Your game suxors. Stop.
Old Game forever! Stop.
Love, Angry Fan11!1!!Leet! Stop."

 

[nedjer]

Nice typo.

The thing is boardgame audiences DWARF RPG audiences. By an order of magnitude. The first run of Trivial Pursuit sold in the tens of MILLIONS of copies. If you were to put all the D&D sales in a bag, for all D&D products ever, you might equal the sales of that one game.

And you want to compare it to things that are even smaller run? Like the Fighting Fantasy books (sales in the tens of thousands)?


ROTFLMAO!!

Oh, wait... are you actually being serious here? Really?

Hope you checked there weren't any tacks on the floor first.

Of course I'm being serious. Give me five minutes and I'll go find out why . . . ?

 

[Odhanan]

Cool. If it attracts people to the hobby, it sure will make them sooner or later wish for varying gaming experiences. I'm not into 4e, but I'm likely to see a benefit from the game's exposure so... it's win-win, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[El Mahdi]

deleted

 

[ExploderWizard]

That all depends on what pair of glasses you are looking at the game through, and what biases you are bringing to the looking.

It is actually pretty cut and dried.

"The game remains the same" = fantasy roleplaying game.

" Its like a board game" = not a fantasy roleplaying game.

Making no judgement calls on the relative merits of these two types of games what kind of glasses would one need to make that a matter of bias?