D&D 4E Is my friend's unwillingness to try 4e irrational?

[Greg K]

I'm sorry, what were we talking about, again...?

Sorry grimstaff. I was editing my post. Cadfan's point seems to be that Bob was unreasonable, because it is more important Bob to suffer through an evening playing a game that he will not enjoy just to keep the crew together.

I disagree.
A real friend would accept that their friends don't always share all the same interests (it's nice when it happens). Now, if, it was a one shot only deal, I don't think it would be unreasonable to ask Bob to try 4e for one evening. However, if it is to be a regular thing or if he refuses to play a one-shot, they would be real friends by accepting that Bob doesn't want to play and find something else to do with him at another even if semi irregularly, because of time constraints. Or better, find something everyone can enjoy.

Expecting Bob to take a hit for the team every week just to keep the crew together, as I read Canfan's point to be, is not being a friend. It is being selfish.

 

[Set]

Why is he the one being unreasonable and not they? Seems to me the door swings both ways.

The entire thing seems like badgering to me. The OP lists four seperate rebuttals from the guy, and then goes on to say, 'Oh, we only brought it up twice. We aren't badgering him.'

Yeah, only saying that he's irrational and crazy for not wanting to switch to the new system and asking him over and over and over and over why he won't switch. That's not badgering, by crack-dealer standards, anyway...

Yeesh. If he doesn't want to play the new edition, big freaking whoop. Contrary to the marketing hype, 3rd edition didn't suddenly become unplayable and the designers of it, playtesters of it and hundreds of thousands of players of it weren't all complete nincompoops for ever thinking it was a good game.

Maybe it would be easier to talk about this kind of stuff if you didn't leap to the conclusion that anyone who doesn't agree with you about how awesome something *none of us have seen yet!* is crazy.

 

[BradfordFerguson]

Heh, it's cool that we can all discuss this topic in this fashion

The key difference between the girlfriend "upgrade" and the game system "upgrade" is that if you switch around, the girlfriend is gonna be hurt, but your game books will not. I can see the GIAG argument and I agree that resisting it is the key to happiness.

I realize that a lot of gamers don't have a ton of money, but the concept of spending money to get more enjoyment out of leisure is not foreign. Leisure time has value, otherwise people would always work two jobs (if leisure was indeed "free"). Leisure is not free. If you flip burgers and could work a second job of flipping burgers for $5/hour, BUT CHOOSE NOT TO, then your leisure time is worth MORE than $5/hour, otherwise you would take the second job.

Therefore, while no money exchanges hands, the act of WATCHING TV IS NOT FREE (OK, people are gonna quote me out of context, but I don't care). You are costing yourself the money you could make at a second job. You are costing yourself the time of looking for a better paying job.

Since leisure isn't free, it pays to make it more enjoyable, AND people do this everyday with HDTV, TIVO (increasing enjoyment value per hour), etc. If I could play a RPG where combat takes 1/2 the time (and is still as exciting) and DMing takes 1/2 the prep. I would pay for that.

Leisure is not free, especially if you're with your girlfriend of 4 years

ALL THIS SAID, I think enjoyment of a game boils down to a DM's presentation and the players he/she have to work with. Any system could work. I most care about D&D and if 4E is better by leaps and bounds (who knows?) I will pay for that.

 

[Cadfan]

Why is he the one being unreasonable and not they? Seems to me the door swings both ways.

Sorry grimstaff. I was editing my post. Cadfan's point seems to be that Bob was unreasonable, because it is more important Bob to suffer through an evening playing a game that he will not enjoy just to keep the crew together.

Using the friend line of reasoning, what kind of friends are you guys to leave him behind?

Its not like they used to get together to watch football games, but now they want to get together and engage in ritual cutting and self mutilation. They're exchanging one RPG for another. Its not that much of a change. Maybe I'm not enough of a Mighty Edition Warrior, but I can't manage to see this as any different from the DM announcing that he's kind of burned out with D&D, and wants to run Mutants and Masterminds. My group would probably react like this- everyone would play, and if they weren't getting enough of a D&D fix, someone else would DM a game of D&D on the side.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Sorry grimstaff. I was editing my post. Cadfan's point seems to be that Bob was unreasonable, because it is more important Bob to suffer through an evening playing a game that he will not enjoy just to keep the crew together.

As opinionated as people are here, I highly doubt many people are going to "suffer" when playing 4e. Do people really vehemently despise their time playing any RPG (with a few notable exceptions)? If I'm not running the game, I'm willing to play almost anything (again, notable exceptions). I can understand someone not wanting to run 4e or run 3e or run GURPs or whatever. But, not wanting to play them? It just doesn't seem that big of a deal.

 

[DonTadow]

Heh, it's cool that we can all discuss this topic in this fashion

The key difference between the girlfriend "upgrade" and the game system "upgrade" is that if you switch around, the girlfriend is gonna be hurt, but your game books will not. I can see the GIAG argument and I agree that resisting it is the key to happiness.

I realize that a lot of gamers don't have a ton of money, but the concept of spending money to get more enjoyment out of leisure is not foreign. Leisure time has value, otherwise people would always work two jobs (if leisure was indeed "free"). Leisure is not free. If you flip burgers and could work a second job of flipping burgers for $5/hour, BUT CHOOSE NOT TO, then your leisure time is worth MORE than $5/hour, otherwise you would take the second job.

Therefore, while no money exchanges hands, the act of WATCHING TV IS NOT FREE (OK, people are gonna quote me out of context, but I don't care). You are costing yourself the money you could make at a second job. You are costing yourself the time of looking for a better paying job.

Since leisure isn't free, it pays to make it more enjoyable, AND people do this everyday with HDTV, TIVO (increasing enjoyment value per hour), etc. If I could play a RPG where combat takes 1/2 the time (and is still as exciting) and DMing takes 1/2 the prep. I would pay for that.

Leisure is not free, especially if you're with your girlfriend of 4 years

ALL THIS SAID, I think enjoyment of a game boils down to a DM's presentation and the players he/she have to work with. Any system could work. I most care about D&D and if 4E is better by leaps and bounds (who knows?) I will pay for that.

But are you really going to get more pleasure out of this game? YOu're taking a risk, and he doesn't want to do that. Half your group is very suspect about it. Why cause so much disention in a stable group.

I don't want to get on the cost and business aspects of the game, the thing is, right now, February 12th, you have no idea what 4th edition is. In June 4th edition can be released and be little more than a spit shined 1e and you've already kick out one guy in your group and strong armed the other two. Does anyone else picture a mob/mafia mentality here.
As a responsible DM, you should listen to your players, all your players. Even the one who says different stuff from the other ones, because I've found out, that's probably the one player whose going to be honest with you. The one who will tell you when your descriptions sucked and when the plot is getting railroady.

Dm'n should be an unbiased job, and it seems because you and two of your players agree, you're alienating this player.

Really this boils down to you, not him. Do you want to play this new toy so much that you're willing to loose a player/friend? Is 3.5 so broke that you can't play it for a fw months until you all can discuss this again with more information?

 

[DonTadow]

Its not like they used to get together to watch football games, but now they want to get together and engage in ritual cutting and self mutilation. They're exchanging one RPG for another. Its not that much of a change. Maybe I'm not enough of a Mighty Edition Warrior, but I can't manage to see this as any different from the DM announcing that he's kind of burned out with D&D, and wants to run Mutants and Masterminds. My group would probably react like this- everyone would play, and if they weren't getting enough of a D&D fix, someone else would DM a game of D&D on the side.

But it might as well be ritual cutting and self mutalization. For a second, I thought yeah lets all switch to 4e. But its not that easy. YOu're learning a completely new system. One that is very different than pervious ones. Everyone isn't an rpg head like us who devours systems. They know how to play one way and they like it and reading through another 300 pg book does not sound pleasing to them. I get where this guy is coming form because i had a DM flat out tell me that he was not going to be able to help me out in my RPG tournament at gencon if we used 4e and he told me because he just doesn't have the time nor want right now to learn a new system. I completely got it. I was so caught up in the newness, and all the mechanical stuff that I forgot everyone isn't an enworlder and rpghead. Everyone doesnt want to learn a new system. YOu can't forcefeed it to people who are trying to enjoy a hobby.

To take your thing, its like going over to watch football every sunday and then all of a sudden everyone wants to watch tennis. Then they tell you you're lame and want to force you to watch it with them. YOu don't understand tennis nor have an inkling too. YOu are in 3 fantasy football leagues and just want to watch the game. They all want to watch the game too but tennis is the latest craze everyone's into.

 

[Raven Crowking]

ALL THIS SAID, I think enjoyment of a game boils down to a DM's presentation and the players he/she have to work with. Any system could work.

If this is true, then spending $35, plus the time and effort required to learn a new system, is a mook's bet....unless you have a strong reason to believe that it will pay out.

You believe that it will pay out, so you see it as reasonable to try. The other guy doesn't feel he has strong reason to believe that it will pay out, so he sees no reason to invest time and money into learning a new edition.....especially when simply waiting will provide the means to hedge his bet one way or another at no cost to himself.

Neither one of these is an unreasonable position. However, claiming that the opposed position is unreasonable is an unreasonable position. (IMHO, at least. )

If you really believe any system would work, and you really believe that this person is your friend, then the obvious choice is to play the old system with him and tell him what you think of the new system from your own playtests. If, after a couple of months, when the "shiny-newness" has worn off, you are singing 4e's praises, he might change his mind. However, at that point, you might instead discover that you are returning to 3e, or making a mash out of the two systems.

Who knows?

RC

 

[Dragonblade]

I think some of you are really reading a lot of ill intent and hostility into this that just isn't there.

We had two conversations with Bob on two separate game days specifically about him switching. Thats it. We play twice a month or so. Since 4e's announcment in August that's 5 months and about 10 sessions. I wouldn't call that badgering. However, we all share a private e-mail list and discussion about 4e in our group has been ongoing for months now. Bob has been privy to all those discussions but has not participated. I suppose we could have asked him to, but than that would have been badgering.

Its not like we had him under the hotlight and demanded to know his whereabouts on the night of the 5th!

 

[Raven Crowking]

I think some of you are really reading a lot of ill intent and hostility into this that just isn't there.

Dragonblade,

I'm not jumping on the "strongarming tactics" bandwagon, but it does seem obvious to me that (if possible) you should consider playing 3e with those who want 3e, and playing 4e with those who want 4e. I can understand your eagerness to try the newest edition, but that doesn't mean you have to abandon the old game, does it? After all, if you are like most of us, you should have massive amounts of still-unused 3e materials.

If nothing else, you will certainly learn whether or not 4e preps significantly faster than 3e.

If there is group crossover (as there clearly would be in your case), it is likely that whichever game is actually the best for your group will eventually win out. Probably.

(But the answer to your initial question is No. Your friend may not be rational, but not wanting to switch editions is not evidence of irrationality.)

RC