Give me a competent arguement that WotC is "changing rules for the sake of change"

[Christoph the Magus]

Wayne Lion said: "And they do need changing."

In your opinion, which is of course not shared by everyone.


"If money was the only thing, they could easily continue to put out a Monster Manual, an adventure, a Realms sourcebook of some type, a rules heavy book, a themed book on a monster type, etc and repeat that every six months for the next three or four years before they exhausted - really exhaused - the potential subjects they could cover."

Except that we all know that the highest selling books of any D&D line have always been the 3 core books. Yes, they can pump out supplement after supplement (as we have seen), but none of them ever sell as well as the three core books required to play the game. The D&D line eventually comes to a point where it just isn't economically feasible to keep making new supplements because the profit margin continues to shrink.

Is money the ONLY thing? I doubt it. But I'd venture to guess that money is the PRIMARY thing. And really, what's wrong with that? They are a company that has to survive, and I, as a consumer, need to decide if what they're offering is worth my $. In the last 2-3 years I've bought nothing from WOTC (the few gaming purchases I've made have been in the secondary market). To have any chance of getting a couple of bucks out of me they HAVE to come out with a new edition, and I doubt that I'm the only RPGer out there in the same situation.

 

[pemerton]

First, before we can even have this discussion, you'd have to stop treating the claim like a straw man.

<snip long analysis of the dynamics of debate between "rules liberals" and "rules conservatives">

Neither side really cares about the question that the other side is asking.

This was a really thoughtful and intelligent post.

 

[pemerton]

The (Strangely, the only class every race could progress in to unlimited levels was thief/rogue.)

In 1st ed AD&D Half-Orcs were limited to 8th level as Thieves (but could go all the way to 15th (maximum) level as Assassins).

 

[pemerton]

"Vast empires are boring."

"The game, especially in 2nd edition, implied peaceful fantasy kingdoms, and yet armed mercenaries were also supposed to be able to go rooting around in people's basements, killing intelligent beings and looting the bodies without reprisal. The latter is the important part of the game. Let's change the former so that the two make sense together by default."

What he said. Also, as I think one of the designers said, "points of light" makes it very easy for a GM to come up with setting on the fly, because there is no pre-existing social or political structure that they have to take account of or incorporate.

There's also a precedent in essentially every game world but FR for not having a lot of planetouched running around. Even in FR, they're rare.

I think they are interested in recruiting new players. If this requires old settings to bend to reflect contemporary market tastes, that's how it will be.

 

[Imaro]

For the same reason that dark elves are called drow: a distinct cultural name that immediately tells you what type of creature it is.



Not so confusing as the wood/wild distinction, not the gray/high distinction, nor does it explain why they specifically call a subrace "drow" in 95% of all instances, instead of dark elves, which is what they are.



How is it difficult to say "There are three kinds of elves. Regular elves, eladrin, and drow. Elves are woodsy, eladrin are wizardly, and drow are eeeeeeevil."?



Drow are a distinctly D&D-only race. The only other media that have drow have it because they ripped it off. There's no examples of a whole lot of things that will remain in the core books that have no examples outside of D&D, because while D&D draws on a lot of sources, it still leave it's own distinct touch.

And still I ask why Eladrin. Even given that I admit there was a need for "intelligent" elves to have a totally different name...why use a name that has throughout D&D meant something totally different? Where is the reasoning behind that as opposed to creating a new name? Basically you still haven't answered what are the specific reasons for making them Eladrin, notice I didn't say changing their name. (though I really feel it's a totally unnecessary way to create a brand "new" race for 4e...only it's not new.)

 

[Nahat Anoj]

And still I ask why Eladrin. Even given that I admit there was a need for "intelligent" elves to have a totally different name...why use a name that has throughout D&D meant something totally different? Where is the reasoning behind that as opposed to creating a new name?

How do we know that 4e Eladrin aren't basically similar to what they were in 3e? Indeed, I believe it was Ari Marmel (aka Mouseferatu) speculated that the PC Eladrin were weaker members of their race. There existed other, more powerful Eladrin that could be called titles like "Ghaeles." A WotC person responded to the post saying "You're a smart man Ari" or something like that. So while Eladrin may incorporate something from the Gold/High Elf archetype, they may still retain their essential Eladrin-ness.

EDIT - Here's the link.

 

[Eric Tolle]

Mialee has a mullet for the same reason she wears that slashed tan flap-dress thing: she's an elf nerd with no fashion sense.

And well, she DID have Charisma listed as a dump stat. I actually find it interesting that people insist that all elves should look identical- like 1970's Californian porn starlets. Why NOT have an ugly elf for a character, especially when elves don't get a charisma bonus, and there's nothing in the race description that says they're all attractive.

Really, if one wants a game where all elves are supermodels, Shadowrun, not D&D should be the game to turn to.

 

[Lurks-no-More]

And well, she DID have Charisma listed as a dump stat. I actually find it interesting that people insist that all elves should look identical- like 1970's Californian porn starlets.

Tangentially, one of the great things about 3.* edition was the way it made elves, dwarves and halflings look like races of their own, not just "big-haired people with pointy ears", "short big-headed people with beards" and "short, dumpy people with big bare feet" that are drawn differently by every artist.

Why NOT have an ugly elf for a character, especially when elves don't get a charisma bonus, and there's nothing in the race description that says they're all attractive.

Mialee's a good example of where your charisma penalty comes from: a combination of geeky wizardry ("Listen about this great spell I discovered!"), lack of interest in looking good, and good old-fashioned elven snootiness.

 

[Hussar]

Where you asked?

Did you get a poll Email from WotC?

Have you seen a poll link on the WotC site?

I absolutely assume that WotC has had small polls and/or surveys in RPGA events, even though I am not an RPGA member. I do not know this for a fact, but it just makes sense.

However, RPGA is a small subset of DND players. They have this massive Email database, they have this web page, why no polls with them? Why no surveys?

I can't be the only person who remembers the poll that popped up at the WOTC boards about a year ago?

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Goes to motivation Your Honor.

Things change. D&D changes too, both from one edition to the next and over the lifespan of a given edition. New rules are added or old ones removed or changed. People react to the new rules and changes, and then we see reactions to those reactions. Some of the changes are hard changes - as might be exemplified with moving from 3.0 to 3.5 - but more often they're seen in options, supplementary rules books, magazine articles and stuff found on web pages. These, too, are changes in the game - even if they are not "official" changes.

It was mentioned that the design philosophy for 4E was to "Look at how the game is ACTUALLY played and then MAKE that game." That is a process that does NOT just begin when it gets decided to do 4E. That is a process that is inevitable and constant. It is also a process that is NOT just perpetrated by game designers - gamers everywhere are constantly looking at how THEY play the game and then MAKING that game for themselves. They make up their own changes or use those proposed by others - other consumers or by game designers writing new splatbooks and articles for Dragon or their own websites.

It was also the design philosophy behind 3rd Edition even if it wasn't stated that way. WotC performed the first meaningful research on how people played D&D, what they liked/didn't, what they used/didn't when creating 3rd Edition. That is something that TSR had FAILED to do and was intimitately tied to their downfall.

Now, AFTER the decision to make a new edition is made, CHANGE WILL HAPPEN. Official change. The extent of that change will, and rightfully should be fairly extensive or there isn't much point to it BEING a new edition. Is that then change for change sake?

Not all change is good, clearly - but not all change that is made simply for the sake of change is BAD either. What then NEEDS to change in a new edition?

We've now seen some discussion about market research and/or lack thereof - looking at how the game is ACTUALLY played. Can anyone deny that how the game is actually played HAS changed? Opinions may vary as to whether that change is good or bad but it HAS changed, yes? Some of that change was prompted by the rules themselves naturally, and not all of it would have been anticipated or generally thought of as good. And of course in changing how we play we alter how the rules continue to affect how we play, as well as what kind of future rules changes are proposed in reaction.

For example, if a new version of the rules makes basic fighters a less interesting, less attractive option we naturally will play fewer basic fighters. But this is unlikely to have been anticipated by the rules so HOW WE PLAY THE GAME will have changed. The proposed rule changes that we then see will be more likely to try to improve fighters, not make them even LESS preferred. How we play thus affects what kind of new rules are in turn directed back at us.

Or races. 3E definitely opened up the ease with which players can have characters of monster races as PC's. Result - we play more monsters as PC's. Consequence - we see more problems with the rules with monster PC's. Result - we change how we play monster races as PC's, whether that be by limitations on what we allow, or otherwise seeing more house rules or game articles. Consequence - when the next version of D&D is produced we see changes in rules on how monsters can be used as PC's (in this case some limitations on what monsters are INTENDED to be used as PC's, if I read it correctly).

It was also mentioned previously, and rather casually, that D&D has always grown from people making stuff up that they thought would be fun. That is not trivial, that's significant as regards this topic. Change for its own sake is not necessarily BAD. Even though it ain't broke, don't mean it MUST NOT be changed.

Can't the game designers change things, not because they NEED to be, but because this is an opportunity to at least TRY something different? The intent might be to make it better even though what's being changed wasn't a problem. Even if that sort of thing fails I'm not going to fault anyone for simply attempting it. Certainly not when there is no proof that the motivation behind it is malicious, or borne of callous indifference.