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Message: <blockquote data-quote="catastrophic" data-source="post: 5594188" data-attributes="member: 81381">This is not a constructive thing to do when the argument is about how games should be made. Mike Mearls is over on the wotc website doing his regular colum in which he basically kisses up to grognards, talking up the kind of ideas edition warriors have as if they were legit goals for design.  But they're not.  Most criticisms of 4e from the edition warriors simply aren't well argued, well supported, or legitimate. For example, 4e is not less narritive than previous editions in any real, concrete sense- it's just one of the ways people are rationalising their edition war angst.  That's fine if it's preference, and i'm the first to say that around the table? In a game? Somebody's whim or feelings or enthusiasm is totally concretly relevant if everyone is going to have fun. If somebody is bummed out about 4e for whatever reason, they're not going to have fun playing it, no matter how well it's designed. But this is not about play, this is about design. When it becomes a design goal to try and serve those demands? That's a recipie for a crappy game, and a clear step backwards from the progress made in 4th edition.  One example. 4e is not less narritive-oriented. That criticism is simply not legit, and it not being argued on a rational basis. A designer trying to appease the people making that criticism cannot suceed in doing so through design, because the criticism is not a legit criticism of design.  What they can do by trying is make a crappier, less well designed game, with a bunch of sacred cow baggage and appeasement for grognards.  Treating all opinions on design as equal is a recipie for disaster when people pretend that their preferences, whims and edition war angst are linked to real, rational design issues.  There are any number of flaws in 4e, and there are even cases where for instance, the out-of-combat systems like rituals should be fixed to give more suport to that play.  But it doesn't matter what the 4e ritual system looked like, most of the people bitching about 4e being too combat oriented would be doing it either way. Their critiera is not rational, it never has been.</blockquote>

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