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

[Dragonblade]

You are consistently assigning motivations to other people. This, to me, is worthy of villification regardless of topic, and the fact that the motivations are insulting (by implying an irrationally emotional motivation to explain a simple opinion difference) makes it worse.

Now, as one of the many folks who simply isn't yet impressed with 4e and gets labeled a hater for it, I do find one part of your story very interesting. If I understand you correctly, you have stated the intent to simply end 3 different campaigns (maybe 4, the status of the Saga campaign isn't clear to me) all at once, just to switch rules. So this player is losing three characters (if your group does only one character per campaign) that he may have been enjoying the stories of, potentially three different mechanical builds he was exploring and three different campaigns that he may well have been interested in the outcome of. All because you guys have decided, sight unseen, to start over within a new ruleset which we know will not support all the character types currently playable in 3e until we've waited a year or so and bought even more books. If he was enjoying all those campaigns, why wouldn't he develop a bit of a grudge against the system whose release is causing this?

Folks keep mocking 4e doubters, saying that "the game police aren't going to steal all your game books and arrest you for playing 3e, why do you care about 4e?" But it looks like for at least one guy out there, the release of 4e really is the trigger for taking his games away. I feel for the guy.

I'm trying to understand his motivation and opinions, not assign them.

Bob only plays in one of the games. That game is a Dungeon magazine Adventure Path and will continue under 3.5 rules until it reaches its natural conclusion. We are around level 13 now and that game should go until about level 20 or 21 if I recall.

We aren't artificially ending the game prematurely or anything. However, when it does end, the DM of that game intends to start a new campaign using the new 4e rules that will run in the same time slot as the existing game. We're hoping Bob will continue playing with us when that new 4e campaign starts up.

Now if I wasn't clear, I apologize. I mentioned the three different games just to provide some background. I would certainly understand Bob's position if we were just suddenly ending the existing games to switch over. I wouldn't care for that notion myself and I'm looking forward to 4e.

 

[Dragonblade]

I've been reading through this thread and I have a question for you, Dragonblade. Answer it only if you want because it might be too forward: how old is "Bob"?

And before someone begins calling me names let me explain that I'm in charge of Spanish Translations for D&D and we're experiencing more or less the same issues amongst Spanish-speaking players. There's a sizeable bunch of avant la lettre 4th. Ed-haters and I'm trying to ascertain whether this is an across-the-board attitude or it can be associated with a given age group.

I'll say that Bob is in his mid 30's. Bob is the oldest player in the group. Not counting Bob, our ages range from 25 (the youngest player) to about 32. Most of us are around 30-32.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

I've been reading through this thread and I have a question for you, Dragonblade. Answer it only if you want because it might be too forward: how old is "Bob"?

And before someone begins calling me names let me explain that I'm in charge of Spanish Translations for D&D and we're experiencing more or less the same issues amongst Spanish-speaking players. There's a sizeable bunch of avant la lettre 4th. Ed-haters and I'm trying to ascertain whether this is an across-the-board attitude or it can be associated with a given age group.

zjordi, just the man I want to talk to!

I am an American running an English-Language D&D game in Buenos Aires. My players, all Argentine, say that they prefer to play in English, and use English rulebooks, in spite of the fact that Spanish is their native language.

Why? They complain that the D&D 3.5 translations suck. For example, that the names chosen for feats are often words that don't mean what they should.

Now, I don't speak enough Spanish to judge this. But these are six players that I recruited basically at random (off a spanish speaking RPG messageboard) here, and they all agree with this.

Ken

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I'll join the chorus of people who have stated that the love for 4e at this point can be just as irrational. I'm looking forward to 4e based on what I've seen so far, but I would not be making plans to switch before I see the complete rules.

 

[atom crash]

Dragonblade, to me it seems the biggest source of frustration is that you're looking for rational excuses from "Bob" why he doesn't want to switch to 4E, so that you can counter them, but it's pretty clear from what you've posted that "Bob" either doesn't have any rational reasons or he just doesn't want to give you any so you can counter them. Maybe he's made a subjective decision based on personal preference; you're not going to convince him otherwise, and to continue to try will just force him to dig in his heels even more, and he may end up resenting you for it.

You see this as a 3E vs 4E issue, which you think can be discussed in a rational manner, but really what it boils down to is a matter of personal preference, which often can't be rationalized.

Here's a couple examples to illustrate my point.

I love olives -- black olives, spanish olives, they're all good. My wife doesn't like olives at all. I can't imagine anyone not liking them, because to me they just taste great, yet she doesn't like them. No matter how much I might try to tell her how good they taste in salads, on pizzas, on sandwiches, by themselves, she's not going to eat them because she's already decided that she doesn't like them. It's not something we can rationally discuss, because it's based on personal taste. I ordered pizza a few weeks ago and forgot to specify no black olives, and I sat there watching her pick them off. I was thinking, "It's only a few olives, just eat them already." She was thinking, "I hate olives and don't want them on my pizza. Did I get them all off yet?" If I did try to force her to eat olives, she'd get mad at me and we'd have a big fight. Plus she'd probably make sure I never get to enjoy olives again. As it stands, I leave her alone about it, because she doesn't like them, and every once in a while she remembers to order a pizza with olives on half or she picks up a small jar of olives for me to keep in the fridge for pizza and salads.

Another example, closer to the current topic: I have a good friend who really really wanted to find a girlfriend who was a gamer, but the girl he fell in love with wasn't a gamer. She had no interest in gaming -- though incidentally her interests include a lot of things we normally associate with gamer interests, like fantasy fiction, Manga, etc., and she loves all things vampire -- though she understood how important gaming is to him and doesn't begrudge him spending time on gaming. He tried to get her to try gaming a few times, but that always ended in a fight. Not fun for either of them. He'd say, "But you like Buffy. You like Heroes. You like this or that; you'll love gaming." She'd say, "I don't want to try it." He tried inviting her over while we were gaming, so she could see how much fun we were having and want to join in. She'd sit there on the couch while we gamed and read a book. He tried telling her that Vin Diesel is a gamer; hey, if it's good enough for Vin then it's good enough for anyone, right? Still, she wasn't interested. I told him to let it go, my wife told him to let it go, but he was still having a hard time with it. Finally my wife told him, "Look, if you force the issue she won't ever want to try; in fact, she's likely to associate gaming with you nagging her and come to resent gaming and the time and money you spend on the hobby." So he finally accepted the fact that his girlfriend wasn't going to be a gamer, and he learned to let it go. At least his girlfriend was supportive of his hobby.

Fast forward several months; now they are engaged. One night during a gaming session -- she still comes along with him and sits on the couch reading while we play -- she makes a passing remark that Ravenloft sounds interesting and she might give gaming a try if another member of the group was running a Ravenloft campaign. So my friend goes out and buys the Ravenloft hardcover for our other friend to run, we roll up characters for it and we play a few sessions. She seems to enjoy it, so we have a sporadic Ravenloft campaign she plays in.

The point is, she had to decide on her own that she wanted to give it a try, and no amount of "convincing" on his part was going to change her mind. It would have had the opposite effect.

It's not irrational to not want to participate in a discussion about things you hold strong feelings about if you know that the other people in the discussion also have very strong opinions that differ from yours. At the end of the discussion it's highly unlikely that one person is going to say, "Your reasoning makes a lot of sense; I'm completely changing my opinion on this one." It's even worse if he knows he's the only guy who feels the way he does, so he may fear that any discussion on this topic is likely to end up with everyone else "teaming up" against him.

So my advice is to let it go, and either he will decide to switch to 4E to continue playing with you guys or he won't, but nothing you say or do is likely to change his mind at this point. Just give it time, keep being friends, and in time anything can happen.

 

[Roman]

I don't think that 'like' ("love") or 'dislike' ("hate") of 4E D&D are irrational at this point. It is true that we do not know the totality of the ruleset yet, but we know enough by now to judge the direction the game is taking with some confidence. The design philosophy behind 4E has now been mostly revealed, so depending on if one agrees or disagrees with said philosophy, it is feasible to rationally like or dislike the fourth edition.

For example, if your friend is more of a simulationist than a gamist, he might "hate" the new edition for that reason. On the other side, those in your group with more gamist inclinations can already be relatively confident that 4E will be for them.

Sure, new revelations could still theoretically change even the overall 'design philosophy' picture, but that seems less and less likely with each new article that comes out.

 

[Arnwyn]

Refusing to even to participate in a discussion about 4e is irrational, IMO.

An interesting opinion... However, not wanting to participate in a discussion is not irrational, nor does it even imply irrational behavior in any way.

What would you do?

Leave him alone. (And try to better gauge what "hate" and "irrationality" really are.)

 

[Dragonblade]

Again thanks for the advice, everyone. I edited the title to be less confrontational and to more accurately describe the topic.

 

[Umbran]

Refusing to even to participate in a discussion about 4e is irrational, IMO.

Hm. I think in the business world, what you are seeing would be terms a "failure to get buy-in from the various stakeholders"

We weren't there, so there's a lot of information about the nature of these discussions that we are missing, so our ability to comment is limited. However, failure to take part could be in part due to those specifics. Like where and how they happened, and what the other people were saying - if folks leaped very quickly from "Will we move?" to "How will we move?", he's apt to have felt the move was a foregone conclusion, and thus not worth his time. And that's merely one example.

There could be any number of other issues - for example, has it occurred to you that failure to be able to afford your own books can be embarrassing? It is very generous of you to offer to provide them, but this would not be the first case where someone refuses such a gift out of personal pride.

mattcolville, above, made a remark above that has some relevance, but phrased it in highly prejudicial words. Many people are not interested in change. Your player has a game he already likes. Changing involves both work and risk, and so resisting it really isn't all that irrational. If you want him to do it, you may have to make it very clear to him that there will be more than adequate reward for the effort.

In the business/management world, there is a book entitled, "Who Moved My Cheese". While full of a lot of trite and occasionally nonsensical stuff, it contains a solid core concept. If you set someone up with a known way to get what they want (like setting a mouse up with a known source of good cheese), they will resist and resent attempts to change it (like moving the cheese, thus the title). Perhaps the new cheese may be better, or the way to the cheese may be shorter, but the mouse does not know that at the outset. At first, all he notices is that someone is trying to move the cheese - and the replacement may not be better, or may be harder to get.

 

[Mirtek]

Refusing to even to participate in a discussion about 4e is irrational, IMO.

Maybe he has read some of the 4e "discussions" on this board and sees how fast it get's ugly once people disagree whether the new thing that 4e changed was a "design error that had already survived two decades too long just because it was a sacred cow" or actually was "a total awesome D&D design that made a lot of fun and 4e makes D&D less D&D by abolishing it"