D&D 5E I think the era of 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons had it right. (not talking about the rules).

[Parmandur]

Do you not see where this is going yet? Your answer has enabled me to win the argument. You use Netflix because it provides you with a variety of shows and movies since you enjoy multiple genres. I'm sure you wouldn't be happy if Netflix took a survey and found that the most popular genre was romantic comedies so they decided to only show romantic comedies and will only show those but may release one movie from another genre every two months.

I don't like their AP's so I have nothing else except for the SCAG and then Volo coming up. Netflix gives you choices. D&D at the moment does not.

Your analogy is inapt; D&D is not like Netflix. Netflix is like my FLGS, D&D is one of the shows on Netflix: that's why DDI was a nonstarter, it's like paying for the Netflix service just for Romantic Comedies, absurd as you rightly state.

 

[Uchawi]

-2 + -2 = -4

Hmm, wait a minute!

He was absolute in that statement.

 

[Creamsteak]

That is strange, I thought WotC data said that it is not worth it for them to produce Adventures?

Just can not get the good data now a days.

That is what they said at one point, and they were probably right at that juncture. In 2e and definitely portions of 3e there was a lot of glut of campaign settings and modules. I think some things have changed though. A surprising number of people, though I'm not one of them, are playing in game stores and such and going through the adventurer's league and such. This has some bit of a "shared experience" that seems to be appealing to people. I can talk to someone about "Storm King's Thunder" and they probably know what I'm talking about and maybe are playing/running it. It's at least more ubiquitous in my experience right now (anecdotal as it is) than say Red Hand of Doom was in 3e days.

If you go way back I recall stories that Gygax at first didn't really expect modules to sell, he thought everyone would want to run their own worlds, create their own fantasy experiences, etc. And he's not wrong, but there's also something to be said for ease of use and that sort of shared experience thing.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Do you not see where this is going yet? Your answer has enabled me to win the argument. .

Anyone claiming to win an argument on the internet, especially one rooted in anecdotal subjective foundations, has in fact lost.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

GREAT NEWS!!!!!!

You have that RIGHT NOW with 5e. We've got the shelves lined with literally thousands of products for 5e between WoTC, DTRPG, DMsGuild, and your own imagination.

Before you come back with "But those aren't officially produced by WoTC directly", I'll point out that when you go into the supermarket, almost NONE of those items are produced directly by the store either. So either your analogy fails, or you do in fact have tons of options like you are wanting.



I will tell you right now that I will not watch shows like Arrow, The Flash, or League of Legends if I didn't start when they came out. They are all cross-overed for the most part, especially Arrow and Flash, and it's too much effort to figure out what and where and in what order to watch them.

It's also a reason why I haven't gone back to my comics from the 80s and not reread the Xfactor/Xmen/New Mutants because they constantly did cross over stories and it's too much a pain in the butt to try to figure out the order.

But to your point, you are 100% correct that I will often hesitate or not even bother starting a TV series if I know it's the same story that goes on for dozens of episodes. About 10 is my limit before I want a new storyline. And what you explain is exactly why traditional sitcoms were all resolved by the end of the episode.

Crossovers killed comics for me. Sure Secret Wars was cool, and Crisis On Infinite Earths. But then they became they yearly event that all Marvel tied into, or DC, and I found myself buying issues of Batman that had nothing to do with the issues before it, they were actually part 43 of the latest crossover and suddenly Batman was on Apocalypse when at the end of last issue he has put Killer Moth in jail. There would be a note in there saying to find out what happened to bet Bats to this point read all these other comics. No thanks.

and you aren't missing anything with Arrow and Flash*. I still watch since I've been there since the beginning, but unless you are dying for a lot of teenish angst and tears and relationship drama CW style you are going to be disappointing. Daredevil or Jessica Jones they aren't.


*And The team-up show is horrific.

 

[Shasarak]

Indeed, shocking, I know; but one of the main reasons it is better, is the lack of options.

I guess, if you take away all the crap options then surely what ever is left must be "better".

 

[Creamsteak]

If you turned up to play Pathfinder, why would you expect to have to know everything?

Do you have a character? Have you at least done the minimum work of looking at what abilities it has? Have you got some dice, or can at least borrow some dice?

Alright, now you are good to go.

This really depends on the table and the hypothetical player we are talking about. I've played most editions, Pathfinder up to a point, etc. I'm not intimidated to be thrown into virtually any RPG at some level. That said, if a group is driven by optimization as an example, you can quickly disensentivize other players that also might be optimizers, but if the amount of options they need to understand is too vast they may just say no.

Once again, I'm with you on your argument, if it were any table I was running I cater towards the people at hand, especially if they are new to the game. I'll pare back options and build the game around the expectations and goals of players that are here today, but that is far from every table. I was just reading some blog last night with a 25 year old man getting angry at a 9 year old at a public game store for trying to hug his enemies. If I hadn't seen that level of asshattery myself in real life (grown man angry at a kid for being a kid) I'm not sure if I'd believe it, but what I'm saying is a hedge my bets. Less game complexity just seems to win more people over more often in my anecdotal experience.

 

[Corwin]

Do you not see where this is going yet? Your answer has enabled me to win the argument. You use Netflix because it provides you with a variety of shows and movies since you enjoy multiple genres. I'm sure you wouldn't be happy if Netflix took a survey and found that the most popular genre was romantic comedies so they decided to only show romantic comedies and will only show those but may release one movie from another genre every two months.

Do you not see where this is going yet? Your answer has enabled *me* to win the argument. You use DMs Guild because it provides you with a variety of crunch and adventures since you enjoy multiple genres. I'm sure you wouldn't be happy if DMs Guild took a survey and found that the most popular genre was orc dungeon grinds so they decided to only offer orc dungeon grinds and will only post up those but may release one adventure from another genre every two months.

I don't like their AP's so I have nothing else except for the SCAG and then Volo coming up.

You are what's called anecdotal evidence.

Netflix gives you choices.

Correct.

D&D at the moment does not.

Proven false.

 

[Mistwell]

Your answer has enabled me to win the argument.

Oh, this might be the saddest post I've seen on EnWorld in the past several months.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

This really depends on the table and the hypothetical player we are talking about. I've played most editions, Pathfinder up to a point, etc. I'm not intimidated to be thrown into virtually any RPG at some level. That said, if a group is driven by optimization as an example, you can quickly disensentivize other players that also might be optimizers, but if the amount of options they need to understand is too vast they may just say no.

Once again, I'm with you on your argument, if it were any table I was running I cater towards the people at hand, especially if they are new to the game. I'll pare back options and build the game around the expectations and goals of players that are here today, but that is far from every table. I was just reading some blog last night with a 25 year old man getting angry at a 9 year old at a public game store for trying to hug his enemies. If I hadn't seen that level of asshattery myself in real life (grown man angry at a kid for being a kid) I'm not sure if I'd believe it, but what I'm saying is a hedge my bets. Less game complexity just seems to win more people over more often in my anecdotal experience.

Hey that kid was cheating at dice too!

Actually I wish I was a 25 year old yelling at a 9 year old kid...at least I'd be 25.