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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5848172" data-attributes="member: 82106">Eh, again though, neither you nor I have any idea what these numbers mean. You have a presupposition and you look at something and decide it supports your viewpoint, but objectively neither of us knows how to interpret that. 4e sold more core books than any previous edition, how do you interpret that (this is based on a statement made by WotC, presumably it is true and can be treated as a fact). For all we know, and it is a reasonable extrapolation though not a fact, 4e is the most popular D&D edition ever. We don't know. I'm not claiming one way or another, but no fact you can access disproves that possibility. It just isn't a debate that is even worth having. So, then, you'd advocate not running out and panicking and dumping a new edition on the market in haste, eh? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Yes, well, it is also an edition that is extremely well-liked by a lot of them too. ALL of the people I play with like it, and while some of them played 3.5 the vast majority of us never touched 3.x and weren't active WotC customers before 4e. I've turned a pretty decent number of people onto D&D in the last 3 1/2 years. Of course I have no idea how that all swings, but there have always been the throwers of rotten tomatoes at every edition roll. If you have 'contempt' for something that's your issue. I see MANY really experienced DMs who post here running 4e. I don't think your contempt is either universal, typical, or should be a big factor in WotC thinking. There are plenty of people I know who dislike 3.x too, including myself. Notice, I don't go around crapping on it, nor did I ever feel it necessary to repeatedly insult people with different tastes as I have seen happen repeatedly over the last several years in the other direction. One wonders which group of fans is really the one that is worth hanging onto at times. Maybe those who are interested in having fun with new variations of D&D are in the end the ones that are worth keeping? I don't know. Heh, yes, they did do some advertising campaigns back when 4e launched. It sold more than any previous core books, so they obviously did something right. Beyond that they've done a huge amount of market development over the last several years. They launched Encounters, Lair Assault, the new LFR, etc. They've put D&D in places where it hasn't been sold in decades too. I'm not sure where you've been but D&D's profile seems to me to be higher now than it has been since the 80's. That's just my impression though.It is your assertion that they 'got it wrong'. FOR ME they got it quite right. Maybe not perfect, but nothing is perfect. In a million years I wouldn't have come back to playing 3.5 and I have no interest in PF. I'm not really an edition warrior and what other people like is their business, but the idea that they have a responsibility to get it right makes no sense to me. They have a responsibility to make money, nothing more or less. There is no other objective standard to hold them to. Of course anyone could make a starter set for any reasonable RPG. What's new? If the only goal was to make a starter set then they probably would have just done that. Clearly they didn't think that was enough.I listed some things which 4e modernized. The very fact that it is highly amenable to supporting things like DDI and incremental exception-based extension and modification ARE objective statements. I guess you can play semantics and question whether that is 'modernization' or not. At that point any discussion is pretty much meaningless though.It is AN argument. I find it to be rather dubious. Heck, I just helped a guy decide what books to buy to get into playing 4e yesterday. I had no problem recommending books and he looked at them and was quite happy. The guy has played various non-TTRPG games before, but 4e core books were quite appropriate for him. Of course there are people who would do better with a starter set. Of course WotC has one, so that's an option too. Not real sure what the issue is here.A 4e PHB1 ranger is dirt simple to play. A fighter isn't exactly rocket science either. There are also now Essentials classes, though that falls outside the core books. 4e is not all that hard to play. There are a lot less weird dark corners of rules to worry about and IMHO basic play is simpler than either PF or 3.5. Beyond that the 4e guy can play his ranger, fighter, or barbarian and not have to be playing a tier 3 or 4 class that won't keep up with the other PCs. I consider that an advantage. If said player wanted to keep up in 3.5 he'd be stuck at level up trying to work out how to arm twist the skill system and MCing pretty soon to stay relevant, or at least figuring out what feats would actually work well. IMHO 4e is easier.Sure, 4e has more options for your fighter or ranger or whatever. Since all of them actually ARE viable though you don't have to spend tons of time weeding out the sensible options from the bad choices. Overall I think 4e is more straightforward to understand and play. Not that I think 4e is perfect in this respect, but it clearly forms a good basis for straightforward playable options. Essentials pretty well demonstrates that. IMHO 3.x is just a hot mess. Figuring out good solid character options is a big PITA and requires a good bit of mastery. Of course you may differ there, but clearly WotC sees it that way or again they wouldn't have decided they needed to rewrite the game to fix it.</blockquote>

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