Gamer's Limited Knowledge?

[fusangite]

Just to answer your question: It's a lack of funds. I own a $200.00 game. That's quite enough for me to spend. While I don't complain about lack of settings, magic items, and many other complaints you have singled-out, I do think that it is legitimate for people to complain that having spent $200.00+ on a game, they haven't even been given the tools to do these things for themselves or the tools they have been given hobble/hamper them in this pursuit.

Most weekly games in our society still meet around a $2.00 deck of cards and $20.00 worth of chips. So I'm not sold on the idea that I'm being petulant if I'm not prepared to spend $500.00+ to get an RPG that meets my needs.

 

[fusangite]

Then there's the issue of inefficiency. I considered buying Frostburn just so I could get 15 pages of rules about the effects of cold weather. But to do so, I would have needed to spend $41.95 plus tax for 15 measly pages because the rest of the book is taken up with new spells, feats and prestige classes. Let me tell you that getting any value for money whether from WOTC products or third parties is almost completely contingent on enjoying new prestige classes, feats and spells. I don't want to purchase those things -- for me, they have negligible value. They do nothing for me. And I will never buy a book sight unseen for fear that it will be like 90% of the books on the market and base its marketing strategy on appealing to power gamers with more prestige classes and the like.

If they published books of rules that either solved mechanical problems in the core rules or extended core mechanics to other environments and situations and didn't bundle them with 100+ pages of material I didn't want, maybe I'd be a little less reluctant to part with a significant portion of my monthly income to solve these problems.

 

[Nisarg]

Sadly the situation with third-party books is that powergamers will adore the bad ones, with poorly balanced feats or PrCs; and while D20 critics will point to that as evidence of how bad D20 is, they will refuse to accept the good 3rd party products that address the specific problems that they claim to have with the D20 system.

Like the one guy on a thread who said his big problem with D20 was hit points, and there was no good fix for them, claiming vitality/wounds was no good. He was pointed out damage saves, the grim n'gritty system, etc and just refused to acknowledge them.

Nisarg

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Actually, I think what they want is for their own preferred mode of play to be the dominant mode of play.

I know MY life would be a lot easier if there was a monthly magazine of Hyborian-age-style adventures, if E-Tools used a skill-based magic system, etc.

They want to re-cast the default assumptions in their own image, and I sympathise with their sentiment, even if I know it's not going to happen.

-The Gneech

I've seen this a lot. Everytime I see someone bemoan, for example, that D&D isn't skill-based (not to pick on your examples; it's just what I thought of off the top of my head), I always wonder why they just don't pick one of the umpteen RPGs out there that are. GURPS, for instance, has been around for a long time, and presumably has been extensively playtested "in the field" long enough for it to be a good alternative to D&D. It's like they're saying "I wanna play this game, and this game only, and I want it to be changed to suit my taste only." I don't think it's necessarily ignorance of games; I knew of a broad range of RPGs of every flavor long before the internet came along.

As for the "official" imprint perception, I've seen this also. Dang, I remember back when there were people I ran across who thought anything for D&D not written by Gygax wasn't "real" or "official." I'm sure this kind of attitude is still out there.

Plus, there are those who simply judge a book by its cover, or title, or the word of someone else. I dunno how many posts I've read online of people railing against, for example, Eberron, before they even saw the book. You can often see just how baseless the arguments of such posters are, when they go on and on about something that seemingly has nothing to do with the item in question. "I hate steampunk! No robocop characters for me!" was some of the criticism of Eberron I saw...umm, huh? To me, even a brief skim through the book would disabuse people of such notions.

Then there are those who always think they're gonna have to "fix" a game, sometimes even before they see it. I remember just after 3e appeared, seeing someone post that they'd already made 20+ pages of "fixes" and house rules before they'd even gotten the game.

By the way, fusangite, I agree with you about Prestige Class/Feat/Spell saturation; it's too bad your example was Frostburn, which is the only book of its kind in quite a while in which I've liked all that stuff!

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Sadly the situation with third-party books is that powergamers will adore the bad ones, with poorly balanced feats or PrCs; and while D20 critics will point to that as evidence of how bad D20 is, they will refuse to accept the good 3rd party products that address the specific problems that they claim to have with the D20 system.

Like the one guy on a thread who said his big problem with D20 was hit points, and there was no good fix for them, claiming vitality/wounds was no good. He was pointed out damage saves, the grim n'gritty system, etc and just refused to acknowledge them.

Nisarg

Yep. This is also something I've seen quite a bit. Sometimes it just seems there are people who want to complain, rather than hear solutions. I've seen posters who'll grouse about how they want alternatives to what they feel doesn't work in the game, but then when someoe points out that, say, WotC provided a whole book of such options with Unearthed Arcana, they say "not interested." So what the heck do they want? I think they just wanna complain.

 

[Turjan]

Sadly the situation with third-party books is that powergamers will adore the bad ones, with poorly balanced feats or PrCs; and while D20 critics will point to that as evidence of how bad D20 is, they will refuse to accept the good 3rd party products that address the specific problems that they claim to have with the D20 system.

A good point. The d20 publishers lost lots of ground by a big load of completely unbalanced products that came out during the starting days of d20. On one hand, we now have the situation that predominantly the better publishers survived. On the other hand, this comes a bit late in order to make up for the lost ground with the customers. This general distrust in third party mechanics is a widespread phenomenon.

Another part of the equation is that you do not only have to find the mechanics that you are looking for within hundreds of publications, you also have to be able to judge whether they are solid or not. Here, WotC has the reputation of better playtests. I'm not convinced that this is always true, but even for some of the d20 publishers that are still around I'm still very sceptical about this point (Note: I said some!). And that's just me, and I think I have at least a little bit of insight into the matter, because I read quite a lot of d20 products.

Like the one guy on a thread who said his big problem with D20 was hit points, and there was no good fix for them, claiming vitality/wounds was no good. He was pointed out damage saves, the grim n'gritty system, etc and just refused to acknowledge them.

Ah, thanks for reminding me. I was trying to remember what this recent "WotC only" thread here on EN World was about. A hopeless case.

 

[GSHamster]

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that there are several other people in the gaming group. This means that if you want to introduce something new, you generally have to get the others to agree. And this can be complex. Some people may just want to play "official D&D".

Very few groups have an "any book goes" policy. "Only WotC books" often represents a compromise between the people who just want to play D&D, and the people who like to actively go out and purchase new books. WotC books have the advantage that they are higher profile, and even if you don't intend on purchasing them, you've likely heard about them, and have some idea of what's in them.

So when someone complains that "there's no X", it means that there is no X in a source with enough reputation or authority for the other people in the group to accept.

 

[The Shaman]

Then there's the issue of inefficiency....Let me tell you that getting any value for money whether from WOTC products or third parties is almost completely contingent on enjoying new prestige classes, feats and spells. I don't want to purchase those things -- for me, they have negligible value. They do nothing for me. And I will never buy a book sight unseen for fear that it will be like 90% of the books on the market and base its marketing strategy on appealing to power gamers with more prestige classes and the like.

Yeah. What fusangite said.



I'd like to see more Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe, and less "6 new prestige classes! 12 new feats! 24 new spells!"

Personally I don't read a lot of RPG books, so I may be one of those folks that annoys JoeGKushner by liking books that are 'obviously inferior' - sorry 'bout that, Joe.

Perhaps this makes me pathetically lazy, but I don't want to go searching through dozens or scores or hundreds of gaming products looking for just the right rule. (That doesn't mean I don't do it - sometimes - but I don't feel good about myself afterwards.) I would like a game system that allows me to tell the voices in my head to sit down and shut up for awhile and turn the visions into settings and adventures.

Those settings and adventures don't always work within the constraints of a given rule system, which means either I need to go a-hunting (which tends to put me in a bit of a foul mood - I'm the guy scowling and grumbling in the stacks, in case you were wondering) or homebrew up a solution, which is often a lot of work and tends to result in a lot of broken pencils and swearing.

Either way, I may find myself venting about it on the Internet, and in so doing, I often get advice - some good, some meh, some - that makes my life a little easier, my game a little better, and gives the voices in my head something else to talk about for a little while.

So my sincere thanks to the JoeGKushner's of the gaming world - we who are too lazy and too poor and too frazzled by real-world time constraints like long hours at work and children to care for and spouses to...well, you know... ...salute you for being more efficient and more dedicated than we can ever hope to be.

Hat's off to you all!

 

[JoeGKushner]

Well, I don't know if it's all that. I have a girlfriend, I take care of my mother. I play D&D once a week or so.

I go to the next a bit, serf around and see what's out.

I see people complaining that X is not out and what they mean is that the X (sometimes multiple versions) that is out, is not the X they are looking for, and at the same time, too unsure of themselves to make X on their own.

 

[The Shaman]

I see people complaining that X is not out and what they mean is that the X (sometimes multiple versions) that is out, is not the X they are looking for, and at the same time, too unsure of themselves to make X on their own.

JoeGKushner, I'm not trying to be snide or rude in the slightest here, so please don't take offense, or if you do, please accept my humblest apologies in advance:

It sounds like you're annoyed that more people aren't like you.

Why does it bother you that some gamers (including me) aren't 100% satisfied with the material available, may not be conversant in every supplement and accessory on the market, and/or lack the confidence to tackle making up rules on their own? Again, I'm not trying to be rude or challenging - I'm just trying to understand.