Is D&D (WotC) flaming out?

[Stormonu]

Interesting take. I have heard it argued before but before today I have never been compelled to agree.

I would instead like to see players get creative before picking up the dice. That mostly applies to dungeon settings though and the knowedge checks I hate those.

Definately. If there were as many options to choose tactics when interacting with others as we had options for combat, that would go a long way to making those interactions interesting, even though you're rolling dice. Details are always good, expecially when those details can have a mechanical effect.

Player 1: I'm addressing the Baron with the proper address, that'll give me a +2 bonus. I'll open with Emotional Plea, telling him how his peasants are suffering from the taxes he's leveling.

Player 2: Forget that. I'm going to interrupt and make an Ad Homonin attack. Let's see how he likes that!

DM: The Baron howls in indignation. He's going to try and use Intimidate to make you back off.

Player 1: Hey, can I use Soothing Words to try and calm the Baron back down?

etc....

 

[BryonD]

This thread has taught me the following:

4e is stale and doesn't have enough innovation
4e is changing too much and too rapidly
4e is changing just the right amount but is still doing it wrong
4e has way, way too many products coming out
4e has way, way too few products coming out

4e needs to be like 3e and have more rules
4e needs to be like 2e an have less rules
4e needs to be like 1e and have almost no rules
4e needs to have a smaller release schedule like TSR (LOLS.)
4e needs to have a more robust release schedule like 3e
4e needs more splats.
No less splats.
No the same splats but better.

So in summary, it is difficult to pin down, but every agrees there is a problem....

Oh, and every single one of those is why 4e is doomed to day any day now, just like it was doomed to die when it first came out years ago.

Nah that isn't going to happen, but on the other hand, the chances of it undoing the massive fanbase fracture it created seem to have moved from slim to none.

 

[JeffB]

So in summary, it is difficult to pin down, but every agrees there is a problem.....

I'd wager the real answer is gamers are never happy

 

[Dice4Hire]

So in summary, it is difficult to pin down, but every agrees there is a problem.....

I agree, but I think the problem is with the gamers, not the games.

WOTC probably went on vacation Dec 22 or so, and has been on vacation ten days. Look at all the threads that have been up since then. We have gone through 3 generations of nerd rage in that week ,and WOTC has been enjoying their free time.

Who is odder?

 

[Korgoth]

I, myself, like to do a bit of acting to RP conversations and stuff, but I've got a couple players in my group who are uncomfortable or tend to put their foot in their mouth when speaking to NPC's, and for them, rolling is better than trying to act things out (though they do try at times). Forcing these folks to RP everything out would be like forcing me to don full plate and swing at target dummies with a sword to determine if I hit and what kind of damage I'm doing in combat.

If we were in the SCA and you suggested rolling dice instead of putting on armor and swinging your weapon, then we'd have that discussion.

What I'm trying to say is this: Old School is about saying smart things, New School is about rolling hot dice. They cannot get any more different than that. In Old School you succeed or fail based on your ability to make clever inferences about the game world and/or say things which count as clever within the context of that world. But it's basically a test of the cleverness of the player. New School, on the other hand, is a test to see whether you can roll high. If you roll high, you win. Those are very different games.

 

[Odhanan]

Any printed adventure *must* to some extent be a railroad.

Absolutely wrong.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Old School is about saying smart things, New School is about rolling hot dice.

If this is a true statement, then Old School is New School's merely slightly older twin- I've seen both those styles played side by side since 1977.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Absolutely wrong.

Not really.

 

[Ariosto]

Rules for finding traps did not exist until Supplement I. The rules for finding secret doors does not change that fact.

Well, the fact is that we were finding traps (and reading and climbing and sneaking and hiding) without the Thief class -- just as our characters were not falling off their horses for want of the Cavalier! It was not something that "required significant adjustment" for us.

The fact is also that there were:
1) Dwarves that "note slanting passages, ☆Traps☆, shifting walls and new construction in underground settings"
2) Cleric spell of ☆☆☆Find Traps☆☆☆
3) Sword Primary Power of ☆Trap☆ Detection
4) Wand of Secret Doors and ☆Traps☆ Detection

There were plenty of other spells and magic items that could also be useful, but they did not have a specific "Traps" reference. Neither, of course, did a 10' pole, 50' of rope, a large sack, a quart of wine and a Hobbit.

This attitude of needing a special rule for everything is in my view ruining the game by reducing "everything" to umpteen rules for shifting a piece one space on a square-gridded board. We already had that kind of thing up to our ears before D&D came along!

A general rule is not "no rule". A fundamental, common sense general rule is that our imaginary people in their imaginary world can do the same things that real people can do in the real world. We don't need a line in a book to specify that they can LOOK at things and thereby SEE them -- much less a rule for each specific case (Look in Box, Look at Rocks, Look at Bagel and Lox ...).

D&D by its nature is not conveyable in a text of comprehensive prescription. We cannot play it without the ability to extrapolate from exemplary description and carry on with our own imaginative and rational faculties. Anything less is something else.

If you want something else, then you want something else -- but so do people who dis D&D because they prefer Old Maid or Scrabble. Trying to make everyone's favorite dishes at once in the same pot just ends up producing a mess that nobody finds palatable. An actual buffet of different dishes -- or different games -- lets people choose what they like.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I proudly belong to the "rolls hot dice and roleplays" master race.

If you ain't rolling, you're freeforming and having a tea party.

If you ain't roleplaying, you're solving math problems.

In all seriousness, I'm not a fan of the whole "Just describe what you're doing!" Typically it leads to a game of Mother May I. "Well, you didn't prod the third cobblestone from the right in the fifth layer? Guess the trap activates."

Then you have the problem of players thinking their speech is really cool and DMs not being impressed, or vice versa.

Dice don't replace roleplaying. What dice do is serve as the objective mediator and ref. Some people love playing as ref in their games, and that's awesome. Others, like me...ehhh, not so much. As DM I'm there to make a cool setting and help the players make their cool story, not play as Divine Keeper of the Holy Rules, like some kind of strange god who refuses to hand out ten commandments but just says "Look you'll know when I disagree."