[EDITION WARZ] Selling Out D&D's Soul?

[WizarDru]

No, I'm saying that the statement "engineered to be more fun" is a ridiculous statement written by someone who, despite his pedigree in games, has clearly lost any vision. "More fun"? More fun than what? People have played D&D since 1974, yet suddenly now by PURE SCIENTIFICAL RESEARCHOMATICS it's "engineered to be more fun"?

What kind of an idiot tries to quantify how fun something is or is not?

Dancey's point comes from a fairly amusing quote he mentions in Mike Mearls' blog:
"Dave Wise, who was one of my Brand Managers at WotC, and was a talented writer and editor for TSR, is married to the person who first made the observation, after watching his gaming group, that D&D seemed like 20 minutes of fun packed into four hours - which was her way of saying “shouldn’t this game be more fun, considering the work and time everyone seems to be putting into it?”"

Dancey wasn't trying to make a game that was 'more fun' so much as make a game that allowed you to get more time with what their research showed D&D players considered the 'fun' part as opposed to the parts that were perceived as necessary evils to play. The truth of that is left as an exercise to the reader, but I think it's fair to say that Dancey and the 3.X teams had the intent of streamlining the game.

One thing that WotC's research revealed was that most campaigns lasted about a year, for a variety of factors. Further, they learned that most campaigns didn't reach advance to the higher levels of D&D and that essentially, large portions of the rules were not actually being used very often. You can often see threads discussing how there isn't enough time to play all the campaigns you'd like, for example. Plenty of threads have commentary about how a game broke up and a new game has started, for a host of reasons. Monte, when discussing the advantages of a class-based system, discussed at length on his website how the level system is a variation of the carrot-and-stick, and why that was a good thing. They believed that designing the system to keep players interested and keep products moving (and therefore keeping the system current and in print) was a laudable goal, which I happen to agree with. Monte's opinion of 3.5 obviously was different, but he conceded that he understood the financial motivations that would eventually demand it's presence.

The current player line of thinking "If' it's not WotC official, it's crap" has begun to increasingly bug me, lately. It's not even WotC's fault, but it's an undercurrent that has increased over the past few years.

The problem is that the glut gave us a LOT of CRAP, and even the the cream has risen to the top, some folks were burned pretty bad. Also, WotC's material enjoys a level of distribution no other materials do, really. Getting Complete Mage won't be a problem, but getting Ptolus is more of a challenge, unless you're really into pre-ordering or online purchasing. The impulse buy is effectively dead for non-WotC/non-Green Ronin/non-Necromancer products.

 

[Melan]

Mearls' reimagining of the "Rubber Monster" (the one that added penalties to attack and damage temporarily) is not official, it's just a "what I would do if I were designing him from scratch."

It is, however, a fascinating glimpse into how a Wizards designer thinks about the game and where it should go. "Towards blandness" seems to be the prevailing though...

 

[Henry]

The impulse buy is effectively dead for non-WotC/non-Green Ronin/non-Necromancer products.

True - it exists in a pale shadow known as PDF purchasing.

However, part of the effect of the "non-wotC d20 is crap" phenomemon is that more and more people turn to WotC for ALL their rules, rather than look at other sources, or even design it themselves. In 2nd edition, we frequently gathered net spellbooks online, we made up our own spells, we suggested special abilities to add to our characters, we orchestrated with the DM to create special magic items, and he'd decide what we needed to collect to make them, etc. It felt like a lot more organic creation process in the game than gathering info from a supplement and asking the DM for a "yes/no" vote - and from conversations over on the Wotc Forums, some DM's don't even realize they get a vote to begin with!!!

Admittedly, in 1E we didn't know that such customizing existed, and often just stayed strictly within the rules. Hopefully, the newer crowds of players will realize this, and open their doors later to more than just cherry-picking from books just as we did.

 

[diaglo]

Admittedly, in 1E we didn't know that such customizing existed, and often just stayed strictly within the rules. Hopefully, the newer crowds of players will realize this, and open their doors later to more than just cherry-picking from books just as we did.

sucks to be you then, mang. you should have started with OD&D(1974) or done a bit more research into the origins of 1edADnD.

we always customized.

 

[Henry]

sucks to be you then, mang. you should have started with OD&D(1974) or done a bit more research into the origins of 1edADnD.

we always customized.

Did the people you first learned Wargames from first customize their rules when THEY started playing wargames? Everybody's gotta start somewhere, and until the advent of the internet, for me the beginning WAS the Moldvay Basic D&D set. There WAS no other set before this one.

(And, wierdly enough, I and my player DID customize that game, because we were so young we didn't know how to actually play it. We didn't even use a die roll until years later!) When playing with my second group, we played AD&D, but they were used to just using it straight out of the book.

 

[Kormydigar]

Dancey wasn't trying to make a game that was 'more fun' so much as make a game that allowed you to get more time with what their research showed D&D players considered the 'fun' part as opposed to the parts that were perceived as necessary evils to play. The truth of that is left as an exercise to the reader, but I think it's fair to say that Dancey and the 3.X teams had the intent of streamlining the game.

I understand that the redesign tried very hard to accomplish streamlining. If the goal was to increase the "fun" time then why did WOTC design a system that makes statting up NPC's such a labor intensive chore. When I played Basic or AD&D an NPC, even a higher level one, could be statted up in minutes. Designing plots and motivations is the fun part of adventure design for me, not spending hours on nuts and bolts.

 

[diaglo]

Did the people you first learned Wargames from first customize their rules when THEY started playing wargames? Everybody's gotta start somewhere, and until the advent of the internet, for me the beginning WAS the Moldvay Basic D&D set. There WAS no other set before this one.

Chess was my first wargame

 

[ThirdWizard]

And with a good DM, you never knew whether something was a RAW or a wing-it, nor had much reason to care.

Whether there's a problem or not isn't the point. The point is that ENWorld is made up of DMs and mostly old school gamers, so the viewpoints herein are going to be biased toward more power to DMs. Just because its popular oppinion among ENWorlders does not make it popular oppinion among gamers at large. It doesn't mean it isn't popular oppinion among gamers at large, either, but it does mean I'm sprinkling salt on it, as I advise others to do.

There is definitely more of a "DM versus player" vibe than "a group of friends all trying to have fun together" vibe from a lot of what I read online.

Dear lord man! You're forming oppinions about how people play based on what you read on the internet? The internet is frought with complainers, trolls, and angry angry people. Is someone more likely to make a post about a great gaming experience or a horrible gaming experience? The latter by a long shot. If you go by what you read on the internet, you get a very skewed version of reality.

The internet is a great place to get ideas for your own game, to debate interesting topics, and to joke around, but there are limits to the information provided on it. People are just more likely to rant than rave, and I don't think that behavior is limited to the internet either.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I understand that the redesign tried very hard to accomplish streamlining. If the goal was to increase the "fun" time then why did WOTC design a system that makes statting up NPC's such a labor intensive chore. When I played Basic or AD&D an NPC, even a higher level one, could be statted up in minutes. Designing plots and motivations is the fun part of adventure design for me, not spending hours on nuts and bolts.

It is still possible to stat an NPC up in minutes.

Just because it is possible to spend hours optimizing every stat point, feat, skill point, and gold piece alloted under the NPC wealth guideline does not mean you are obligated to do so.

It is pretty simple to cook up a standard feat progression or two for each class. Simplifying the process hurts the NPC a bit in flexibility, but so what? How likely is an NPC to live long enough to benefit from an interesting feat choice? Nearly zero. If it is not completely obvious which feat make sense for this NPC, then you are better off giving him Improved Toughness, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, or something simple like that and not overthinking.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Dear lord man! You're forming oppinions about how people play based on what you read on the internet? The internet is frought with complainers, trolls, and angry angry people. Is someone more likely to make a post about a great gaming experience or a horrible gaming experience? The latter by a long shot. If you go by what you read on the internet, you get a very skewed version of reality.

Good points, ThirdWizard.

Even people who engage in very nasty heated arguments on these boards would probably get along just fine sitting at a gaming table.