Grognard good...grognard bad

[Neonchameleon]

Not sure, but it sure seems to whenever anyone suggests that they disagree with the designers........?

... people shrug and say that it takes all sorts. Or that the designers did indeed make some mistakes. *Cough*Skillchallenges*cough*

On the other hand, when people say that the designers designed things wrong. That's when you run into trouble. Because 4e is a good game that people have a lot of fun with - and from a mechanical perspective there's no rival out there that covers the same ground. So when you say 4e is a bad game you really are accusing people of having BadWrongFun.

 

[Herschel]

Is that a thread still going ... after two years? WTF... is there some legend behind it? Kripes thats insane.

Hell hath no fury like a fanboy scorned.

 

[Desdichado]

This is what happens when someone tries to define what is fun " for most people" in a game rules reference manual.

A Dragon magazine article published as an opinionated viewpoint could have made the same observations without being seen as tyrannical.

Or... it could have just not been seen as tyrannical in the first place. Does it really need to be explicitly stated that, "Hey, these examples are just examples. Clearly different people have different tastes, and some people may enjoy different things more than others." I kinda thought that wasn't said, because it goes without saying. It shouldn't need to be said.

Melan's screed, in that context, comes across as little more than, "ZOMG, they didn't specifically call out my tastes as potentially fun to some people! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!" Classic case of bruised ego. "Why won't WotC acknowledge me and my tastes already?"

Common sense would indicate that it's much more likely that they just couldn't cover all tastes, so they picked a few examples that they thought to be most common. Also, the idea of it being "tyrannical" if your tastes get left behind by the mainstream is just silly anyway.

I mean, I could go on and on about the tyranny of fun in the RIAA who've been trying to promote pop music like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Taylor Swift on me, rather than acknowledging that Depeche Mode circa 1986-7 or so was clearly the high point of Western pop music, and the more mainstream pop music deviates from that, the more they are contributing to the death of Western civilization, bad music in general, and the death of the entire musical industry. But I don't; I just listen to older music, and underground music that's more to my taste. If I were to seriously make that rant, people in general would just think I was an idiot.

Why that same rant applied to gaming is taken seriously by anyone is beyond me. I'd like to think that there's some interesting or valid points in there, but I just don't see them. All I see is a bunch of insane hyperbole that amounts to, "I don't like this game, and it doesn't cater to my tastes as well as some other, past games have done. People who like this game are bad people, and shouldn't be allowed to game."

 

[Scribble]

I mean, I could go on and on about the tyranny of fun in the RIAA who've been trying to promote pop music like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Taylor Swift on me, rather than acknowledging that Depeche Mode circa 1986-7 or so was clearly the high point of Western pop music...

TYRANT!

How can you not mention the importance of The Cure!?!

Your music tastes are obviously broken, and promoting a music culture that doesn't understand how much they really like angst.

 

[Diamond Cross]

This entire discussion reminds me of this song:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eagbog8_MGI]YouTube - Blue Man Group (feat Dave Matthews) - Sing Along[/ame]

 

[Raven Crowking]

(Shrug)

Pick two bands -- one you really like, one you really do not like.

Imagine that I buy the rights to the band you really like, decide that from now on the band you do not like is going to go by the name of the band that you liked. And I am going to market it as the same band. Moreover, I am going to cease sales of the material of the band you really liked. You know, the early stuff.

Then I am going to write in the liner notes of the new CDs that the stuff the old band didn't do well is "good music" and the stuff that it did do well is "ungood music".

If you honestly examine your response to that, you should understand why some folks are upset with what is happening to D&D now.

(Shrug)

I'm not upset -- I have the OGL and RCFG -- but I certainly understand why some people are.



RC

 

[Herschel]

AFAICT, the core of Melan's post is:

All in all, what we are seeing is the emergence of a philosophy that denies and stifles excellence while encouraging mediocrity and poor play. Attempting to "protect" gamers from their own mistakes will not result in better games - it will limit self-expression, the freedom of creativity and hinder the natural and easy learning process most of us have gone through. It will subtly, although of course not completely, shift roleplaying games towards more passive and consumption-oriented forms of entertainment. The roleplaying hobby will be poorer for it, and it can also be expected to experience slow and continuous shrinkage as it becomes apparent to people that passive and consumption-oriented forms of entertainment offer much better alternatives than sitting around a table and rolling polyhedral dice.
​

Which seems, to me, to be a valid concern.

There is no argument at all about the rules being bad; the argument seems to be about market forces AFAICT, and how they have influenced the presentation of the game. Far from claiming that 4e "isn't really what the customers want", it seems to be suggesting that "what the customers want" isn't necessarily what makes the best game.

The argument boils down to: "Lowering the bar for success perforce lowers the heights that can be attained." At least as I read it. And I would argue that this is, in fact, true.
RC

There are some HUGE holes in that argument though.

1. What's good for the game as defined by a stubborn fan of an older edition is not an objective measure for what's really good for the game. As far as we know, nobody plays forever and without new gamers coming in, the game itself dies. By that measure alone, what the market wants IS what's good for the game.

2. "The bar for success" as defined by a stubborn fan of an older edition is also not an objective measure of "success" in a game. What is "success"? Not getting your character killed? Or waxing the baddie? If it's the latter, than the newest edition RAISES the bar precipitously. No more "save or die" to abolish risk. Remember those first level wizards who had to run from random pieces of pocket lint? teh one thing they could stand up to was a kobold. Now that shifty little bastage can kick the fighter's backside.

3. There have always been mechanics for protecting player characters from their mistakes. Raise Dead/Reincarnate/Resurrection methods have been around if you think failing to roll a save is a "mistake". Increased durability in both characters AND monsters has happened as teh game advanced. Just look at the sample characters between 1E and 2E modules long before 3E and 4E.

I could go on and on.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Sure.

I didn't say he was right. I did say that "Lowering the bar for success perforce lowers the heights that can be attained" is true; I did not say that Melan demonstrated that the bar had been lowered.

I was responding to the idea that grognards want to play games that are not "fun". IMHO the set of people who want to play "unfun" games is either 0 or so close to 0 as to make no practical difference.

And that Melan's post was not an example of someone wanting "unfun" games, as was claimed upthread.


RC

 

[Ariosto]

Apparently, the purpose of this thread has become turning 'grognard' into an insult.

There is of course a clear and present need for such a rhetorical weapon in the noble project of waging 'edition war'.

 

[ancientvaults]

Apparently, the purpose of this thread has become turning 'grognard' into an insult.

There is of course a clear and present need for such a rhetorical weapon in the noble project of waging 'edition war'.

And it doesn't bother this grognard at all. People who get worked up over a particular edition of a game need to step outside for a while and enjoy the sunshine. Or just play the game that they like.