Disappointed in 4e

[CardinalXimenes]

Mmmm... Lord of the Rings, Stormbringer, Song of Fire and Ice, Harry Potter... to name a few

Lord of the Rings? I don't remember Gandalf doing much more than throwing lighted pinecones at goblins and self-rezzing. Grima Wormtongue is clearly bewitching Theoden's head, but neither he nor his boss threw any overt magic around. LotR is notorious for how _little_ D&D style magic ever happens.

Song of Ice and Fire, I'll have to plead ignorance on that one. I can't say I've ever been enticed to read it.

The Elric series... I can't remember Elric throwing around any fireballs, either. He has his pacts with the elemental kings and the lords of chaos, but his magic involves summoning them, and then they do their own particular hoodoo. He has one flavor of magic, and that's about it.

And as for Harry Potter, that's an Ars Magica game crossed with Tom Brown's Schooldays. With almost every consequential character in the book a wizard, I've got no qualms about magic being the go-to solution for everything. If every D&D character were a wizard, I wouldn't mind them being able to do everything with magic, either.

 

[Ourph]

In the second case, there's the recognition that lack of ongoing support means the decline of the game. I know people are still playing older editions, but go ahead and try to find players for those on a routine basis if your current gaming group breaks up or you move to a new town. That's not so easy. Depending on where you live, finding people for the current edition may not be that easy either. Whichever version of the game that is current is the one that gets the advertising, the shelf-space, the newly printed (or at least distributed) copies of the rulebooks. The older version is the one that sees copies destroyed via any number of mishaps without the means to replace them.

So what you're saying is that having books on the shelves that people want to buy is good for the players and good for the hobby?

Sounds like spreading the material that people want to buy out among several books is a really good idea that people should be suppporting then.

 

[Korgoth]

A charitable way to read Grimstaff's comment is "I don't recall that, please provide a link".

"We were told in a podcast" is the same as "we were told". You still haven't provided support for the claim. I don't recall it either.

I must be on more Ignore Lists than I thought.

D&D Podcast #16; question asked at 1 minute 52 seconds, like I said back on page 3.

 

[Grimstaff]

A charitable way to read Grimstaff's comment is "I don't recall that, please provide a link".

"We were told in a podcast" is the same as "we were told". You still haven't provided support for the claim. I don't recall it either.

They're referring to a flippant, joking comment made in the podcast, not any kind of officially stated business policy.

Its hard to be "charitable" when the folks are levellling the same tired, inaccurate dispersions over and over again, but I'll try.

 

[JeffB]

They actually said that they are (were) withholding some of the "classic" critters for future MM's so that we would see future MM's as "core" products..same for PHBs.

Thats pretty much a money grub in my book- i.e. they want us to not look at them as optionals, they will be considered to be necc.

 

[DaveMage]

They actually said that they are (were) withholding some of the "classic" critters for future MM's so that we would see future MM's as "core" products..same for PHBs.

Thats pretty much a money grub in my book- i.e. they want us to not look at them as optionals, they will be considered to be necc.

And that's the issue I have. (Well, one of them.)

In my opinion, the game went from:

1. Make a good game
2. Maximize profit

to:

1. Maximize profit
2. Make a good game

Granted, this is an over-simplification, but it's my perception.

 

[billd91]

So what you're saying is that having books on the shelves that people want to buy is good for the players and good for the hobby?

Sounds like spreading the material that people want to buy out among several books is a really good idea that people should be suppporting then.

How about having the core books available sale? Why would you assume it had to be important information spread about several books like with WotC's 4e subscription model?

 

[Psion]

They're referring to a flippant, joking comment made in the podcast, not any kind of officially stated business policy.

There is nothing joking or flippant in the statement in the podcast.

For those who might not have clicked on the podcast, the statement being analyzed here is (or starts with) the second question. It's about two minutes in.

The question is what criteria were used to determine what monsters made the cut.

The answer given was that certain creatures were saved until later monster manuals so later monsters manuals could be considered "core". He also announced they planned the same thing with respect to player's handbook.

And if designer statements about what criteria they used for the design don't count for you, I don't know what does.

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

I do recall that podcast, at the time I still had an interest in 4e

 

[Alzrius]

Psion is correct.

At 1:52 in the podcast, Dave Noonan asks (this is paraphrased) "What was the criteria for which monsters made the cut into the Manual?" to James Wyatt (head of the writing team for the MM) and Mike Mearls (lead developer for the MM). Below is James Wyatt's and Mike Mearls's response, transcribed by me:

James Wyatt: "So, one of the things that I thought a lot about, uh, when I was first putting together the outline for this book, which has grown considerably since then, but, um, it's [a] ... r-really important mindset that I want to try to train people into right away, which is that this is not the Core Monster Manual."

Mike Mearls: "Mhm."

James Wyatt: "We're gonna do some number of Monster Manuals over the life of the edition, and those are the cool-, the Core monsters for the game, just like we're going to do some number of Player's Handbooks that are going to be the Core Player's Handbook rules for the game. So...there are some monsters that I very intentional-, intentionally left out of this book, so that when they appear in Monster Manual 2, that will help communicate 'hey look, this is a Core Monster Manual! You don't have frost giants if you don't have Monster Manual...N!'"

As you can see, this comment is neither flip, nor joking. It is a very serious statement regarding design policy for the Core Rulebooks, and indicates that things WotC knew were popular were being held back for later books intentionally.