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

[Lanefan]

Firelance, wonderful rewording, even though I don't entirely agree with it. Well done!

Dungeondelver, you've about got it right with the "now now now" idea.

One other big difference is in how the party is "supposed" to be built. Older editions didn't seem to care if you had 4 or 14 characters in the party, or if each player played 1, 2, or 5 PC's at a time; there seemed to be more of a drop-the-puck and go to it mentality and the DM could figure out the rest. Now, the game is designed around a group of 4 players running a party of 4 characters, preferably one of each main class (Fi,Wi,Cl,Ro), having 4 or 5 encounters a day before resting...feels much more like prepackaged engineered fun.

Lanefan

 

[Kid Socrates]

It's simple, really. The game now has to appeal to people who are all about NOW NOW NOW GIMME GIMME POWER LEVELS and I'm entirely sure that if someone had figured out a way to throw in sparkly computer graphics that lit up your character sheet every time you level dinged, they'd have thrown it in.

The game is no longer about building characters over time. Hell, Dancey and his lot flat out said that "D&D 3 is engineered to be more fun". Think about that. Engineered. To be. More fun. Lunacy! Utter lunacy! The whole f---ed up CR system?! The bang-zoom XP chart? All created because a bunch of marketroids listened to a tiny segment of gamers and decided that after n sessions over n weeks that everyone should be x level because that was a more sound ENGINEERING decision. Don't believe me? Go look up what Sean Reynolds did about Drow weapons disintigrating in sunlight. It was nerfed because that's not FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIR. Just like the rust monster. Pfft. Well somebody CALL THE WAAAAAAAMBULANCE life in the dungeon is a little DIFFICULT.

So you're saying that they said that 3rd Edition was engineered to be more fun? They wanted to make a game that was fun? A game that would be enjoyable for those who played it?

I'm really not seeing the problem.

I'm really bad at first-person shooters. I don't buy Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 and Halo and Prey and Fear and Medal of Honor and Serious Sam so I can have a miserable time and get my tail kicked for hours on end. I don't buy them period. Instead, I spend money on games I enjoy.

Maybe that's why I have plenty of 3e books, and only Planescape books for story from earlier editions.

EDIT: Clarification! I am not saying that the earlier editions were not fun. I only played in one AD&D game and had a great time. I have put a -ton- more of my time into third edition because of its accessibility and mod-friendly nature. Just thought I'd clear that up. Moving right along...

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I take it you're not a George R.R. Martin fan?

Point.

Allow me to rephrase that: most books, movies, electronic games and other media lack disposable protagonists.

 

[thedungeondelver]

So you're saying that they said that 3rd Edition was engineered to be more fun? They wanted to make a game that was fun? A game that would be enjoyable for those who played it?

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?

Would Dancey point at a group of people laughing, having a good time, really enjoying a game of OD&D, AD&D, Basic/Expert (of any stripe) or 2nd edition and say "They're having less fun"? Could he? Could any proponents of d20 fantasy who follow WotC's party line and pay attention to the marketroids make that conclusion? Saying your brand of fun is more fun than my brand of fun is intellectual dishonesty. Despite the deepest desires of people who have tried to turn RPGs into pure numbers games, there is no one overriding FUN EQUATION. Period. Sorry to disappoint.

Oh and as for d20 being modable? Hah. You start pulling on one rule and the whole mess comes tumbling down, based on the way the whole system works. I as a DM for just about any previous edition of D&D can make a rule up on the fly or add stuff or take stuff away and as long as I'm consistent and fair, or at least am percieved to be by the players, it's all good.

That's just not so with d20. Muck with some part of the code and the whole application crashes, unless you're willing to rewrite the whole thing.

 

[Crothian]

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"?

It's a marketing statement. I really think you are looking at it to hard.

 

[Kid Socrates]

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?

Well, you can't market something new with, "Look, it's exactly the same as the old thing!" I don't think there's a lot of mileage in that one line.

Yeah, I know there's no "fun equation." But I do know that I, personally, have more fun in 3rd Edition than I did in the game I played of 2nd Ed, and the other people at my gaming table, three of which have been playing for years and years, feel the same. For us, and for more than a few others, it is more fun. For others, it's not.

But I guess to throw in my two cents all officially, I think D&D now is better than it ever was, because now I'm playing it and having a great time, whereas before I was not playing it because it did not appeal to me.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I take everything on this topic said at ENWorld with a grain of salt. ENWorld is a great site, but it's populated mostly by DMs. And, DMs who played in previous editions where they had more control over the game will probably be more put out by the more player-empowering / egalitarian 3e than Players. I have to wonder if oppinions would be the reverse in a mostly Player based community.

 

[crazy_cat]

But I guess to throw in my two cents all officially, I think D&D now is better than it ever was, because now I'm playing it and having a great time, whereas before I was not playing it because it did not appeal to me.

QFT.

 

[Son_of_Thunder]

Well, you can't market something new with, "Look, it's exactly the same as the old thing!" I don't think there's a lot of mileage in that one line.

Yeah, I know there's no "fun equation." But I do know that I, personally, have more fun in 3rd Edition than I did in the game I played of 2nd Ed, and the other people at my gaming table, three of which have been playing for years and years, feel the same. For us, and for more than a few others, it is more fun. For others, it's not.

But I guess to throw in my two cents all officially, I think D&D now is better than it ever was, because now I'm playing it and having a great time, whereas before I was not playing it because it did not appeal to me.

Conversly, my group and I have had "more fun" playing 1st edition than 3rd and we've played for decades as well.

I'll add my reasons why 3.x isn't D&D for me. The arms race with each new book. New feats, classes and cool abilities. Characters at a certain level should have this amount of magic and treasure for this CR encounter. The constant looking up in rule books to see if I'm doing it right (admittedly this would come with system expertise and familiarization).

My group and I just feel like we have more freedom to play our characters instead of focusing on what they can or can't do because of class abilities, lack thereof, or magic item dependency.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Oh and as for d20 being modable? Hah. You start pulling on one rule and the whole mess comes tumbling down, based on the way the whole system works. I as a DM for just about any previous edition of D&D can make a rule up on the fly or add stuff or take stuff away and as long as I'm consistent and fair, or at least am percieved to be by the players, it's all good.

That's just not so with d20. Muck with some part of the code and the whole application crashes, unless you're willing to rewrite the whole thing.

I have heard that sentiment voiced dozens of times, but no one has ever been able to cough up an example when challenged. Care to be the first?