I was "booed" for even showing the 4e Core books

[GravyFingerz]

Did it never occur to anyone that they might have just been going, "Booo-urns?"

Close the thread, this guy won.

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

Just yesterday, I was reading Slashdot and someone had the following signature:

A geek is someone who will immediately upgrade every toy he owns to the next available version... with the only exception of his D&D game"

I thought it was meaningful, somehow...

-

In my real life experience, my best friend and main RPG accomplice is one of those people with serious resistance to changes. So of course he spent the second half of 2007 and the first half of 2008 claiming he was very happy with 3.5 and that there was no need to upgrade thankyouverymuch.

I got him the 4e core rulebooks for his birthday, which he politely thanked me for, but explained that, although he was curious about the new rules, he had no interest in playing them.

A month ago, he reluctantly joined my new 4e campaign, mainly because there are not too many people who play rpgs here.

Just yesterday, I got an email from him stating that he was going to convert his current campaign to 4e ...apparently his wife told him she was enjoying the new rules better, and he had to admit that he was having a lot of fun with them too.

 

[That One Guy]

I'm actually kind of flattered, and will take this as a compliment, even if you are just kidding.

And while I'm at it, I'll also accept a "you're an awesome guy" and "you're totally funny" and "kinda attractive", even though you didn't say those things. That's just the kind of guy I am.

Talath, you're a totally awesome and funny guy who made me laugh in class and have to close a window because I didn't want to get busted during a lecture.

Also, Synnibar. Mostly because I hadn't heard of it until this.


On topic? Okay.... in person I've only encountered people who liked 4e. I brought a player who had dropped D&D a few years ago back to the table. One of my gaming buddies moved a few years ago and is having an apparently amazing experience w/ 3.5 and didn't react well to me saying I had to play a 4e game w/ him some time (not that we even live in the same state or anything...). To be honest, I got more grief converting people from 2ed to 3.5. I got, "Oh, that's stupid people D&D", "D&D for people who can't do math", and "D&D for people who can't deal with addition AND subtraction."
In my opinion, 4e plays a really fun game. I know it's not everyone's speed. In fact, I really am cool with the idea of people giving it an honest shot and saying, "Not for me." I just am confused by people. 4e ain't perfect (and the books' errata is nigh' painful), but it has some solid stuff that I think gamers of all walks could enjoy or steal for their own games.
Granted, before I had come to ENWorld, I had heard about three things about 4e and said, "Well that sounds terrible." "Why would anyone do that?" "Totally not going to play it."

...which is hilariously awesome in retrospect.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I'm sorry....that's effed up

Apparently, it can't be about the rules, it is a... well... philosophical/moral decision? Well, I don't have to understand it.

 

[hopeless]

I don't like 4e but I wouldn't have booed, the worst I would have done is asked questions since I did buy the phb mostly because it was on sale and I had the day before succeeded in joining an online group playing 4e simply out of curiosity (and yes I haven't been playing any kind of d&d since Dec '06).
Picked up the KOTS simply because I was curious and had my own ideas about what they could have done was left perplexed because the players actually liked the changes and I was having difficulty udnerstanding why.
Still wouldn't have booed and whilst I probably wouldn't touch the 4e FR campaign setting the FR player's guide on the other hand sounds much more interesting.

 

[Nifft]

Which might be an interesting idea for a thread: What RPGs demo’d well but lost their luster after you lived with them for a while?

We've had a good "first contact" thread, so this is probably a good idea too.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Psion]

The whole thing reminds me of Windows "Mojave". For those of you who don't know, look it up. Microsoft decided to rename Vista into Mojave. They then asked people what they thought of Vista and if they would ever buy it. "No! Never. I've heard horrible things about it. It's a bad system." They then try "Mojave" and say, "I love it! This is everything that I've ever wanted. Cool stuff." There's a good look of shock on their faces when they realize that it's actually Vista.

OTOH, I've been using Vista for some time (I'm using it now) and it's proven to be such an annoyance that I decided to keep my XP desktop limping along and ressurect 2 xp laptops rather than buy another Vista machine.

Interesting parallel.

 

[lutecius]

I was "booed" for even showing the 4e Core books

serves you right!

More sad than hilarious. Really lads and lassies, it is just a game system, I believe the point is to have fun; a social event.

Precisely, it's just a game. If it was "all in good fun" like the op said i don't see what the problem is.
It's not like they mocked him for something personal. If he was a designer and had worked hard on 4e, i could see. No matter how tempting, even I wouldn't boo the 4e team.

4e came out 8 years after 3e. A higher number of gamers have NOT burned out on 3e. Thus they see 4e's release as premature and react accordingly.

There is more than that. I had burned out on 3e and was ready for a new edition way before it was announced. 4e is just not what i expected, or want from a rpg.

Conversely i switched to 3e without a second thought, even though i hadn't used most of my ad&d2 material.

 

[Fenes]

I haven't encountered that reaction to the new edition. Mostly what I have noticed is that people who don't care for the new edition essentially being told that they don't like it for some irrational reason, or if they give some more concrete reason, someone tries to convince them its groundless. Essentially, there's a small subset of 4E adherents that can't admit it has any shortcomings compared to 3.X, and these folks, being the vocal sorts, tend to aggrevate people who prefer 3.5, who then project their dislike of the antagonist onto 4E.

The missionaries are as bad a problem as the people who don't lose any opportunity to complain about the new edition.

 

[Cold Beer]

4e

I figured that I should chime in, since it's been a few months since our first adventure with 4e. A few people in our group picked up the 4e books when they came out and we decided to give it a whirl. I ran a really simple demo adventure for them one night. I haven't had such a generally negative reaction to a rule set in years. Opinions from the group ranged from a luke warm "this is kinda ok" to one player standing up mid game, tearing up his character sheet and pronouncing that he was finished for the night.

4e was a failure for us. From what I could gather from my group, they generally liked some of the rules, but there were a lot of wonky parts that they couldn't get their head around. The consensus was that it's "an ok miniatures/board game" but not an RPG. The feel was ... wrong.

It was weird. For the most part we're an adaptive gaming group. We've giving many different systems time in the sun, and even though they had problems, we soldiered through them. This time, was different for some reason I can't put my finger on.

As for the local gaming population, I have the feeling that 4e isn't as popular as some are saying, or at least it's as divisive a subject as the Vampire vs. D&D arguments of the mid 90s.

For what it's worth, my group is waiting for more supplements to come out before we give it annother try. We're hoping for some fixes that will change the minds of the majority of us...