NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ronnieramone" data-source="post: 4935898" data-attributes="member: 85437">schism and age 35I think the schism has more to do with the similarities that 4e has with WoW, and the fact that most younger gamers experienced WoW first, as opposed to the other way around for us older folks.  Speaking as a rare individual who hardly ever plays video games at all (I'm not counting Solitaire), I can't say that I'm happy with the new edition, particularly its breakdown of combat into chapters that resemble levels in a video game, complete with "boss" monsters.  Sure, there have always been arch-villains in D&D, but were they ever really just "boss monsters" to kill and loot for treasure?  I remember playing in Ravenloft and knowing that I would never really defeat the villain for good, but I could maybe foil his or her plans to a degree.  We always had enemies in town that thwarted us, but we couldn't raise a sword against them without the law siding with them against us.  Also, the concept of the wizard as little more than an energy blaster with every spell the same but for the type of energy it uses is sort of a video game staple.  Sometimes taking out loopholes (like summoning a mount twenty feet above your opponent's head and watching them get squashed as it falls on them) also takes a little bit of the charm from the game as well.  It starts to feel like the villains are all the same: this is a minion goblin, this is an elite goblin, this is a boss goblin... whatever, we're sick of frickin' goblins!  Does anything else live in this cave?  I'm getting way off-topic here...If the younger generation grew up on video games, why not give them a pen and paper RPG that builds on what they already know from video games, complete with a monthly membership?  WotC made the right call, for their business and their desired target audience.  Do the younger players buy more books?  Certainly, if we're talking about a new edition that requires a lot of books to play effectively and still have any decent amount of options.  They are also more likely to succumb to a monthly membership fee than those of us more used to just picking up Dragon magazine a couple times a year when it has something we can use in our game.  WotC knew that many of us older players wouldn't bother with the D&D Insider, and we would have too much invested in our existing 3e libraries to abandon them altogether for new books.  So they deliberately went after a completely different audience, and they found it.  I think they knew exactly what they were doing, and yes, they abandoned the older players.  That's business.  MTV doesn't want you anymore, go watch VH1.Now, I think the Pathfinder game will tell the real story of which age group buys more books.  Will the Pathfinder Bestiary outsell the next 4e monster book?  Maybe, maybe not, but I am damn glad somebody remembered that older gamers still want and are willing to buy new books.----------------------------------"I don't understand video games these days.  two hundred buttons?  and all this online play!  When it comes to World of Warcraft, I'll just have to pass.  But give me two flappers and one ball bearing and I'll kick your ass!"- Gerbils 2.0, formerly Jenn and the Gerbils</blockquote>

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