Just a couple of questions

[KingCrab]

Gold is precious.
Wyverns are kinda like dragons.
Adepts have a certain degree of skill.
You are a Gold Wyvern adept.
You can shape spells.

There's a gap in this train of thought somewhere.

Very well said.

 

[KingCrab]

1. Warlord as a class name.

I voted for marshal. I'm not strongly against it though I don't think it is the best name.

2. Dragonborn as a race name.

The name isn't the issue for me as much as having a race of dragonpeople. This race doesn't fit in to any setting I've created, and I don't think I want to create a setting where I would have them as a major race. I can get around the issue pretending they are lizardfolk or something less draconian. Again, not the biggest deal.

3. Golden Wyvern Adept.

This is obvious to me. It sounds like it came from mhensley's humorous generator: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=212967

The things you mentioned aren't things that have me in the anti 4ed camp. I don't like the idea of quest cards (not that they can't work, but because I think they would lead to bad role playing in many situations). I don't like that the combat rules seem very slow with much to keep track of (with just what we've seen of terrain and mecanics it seems to me that 4ed will be much slower with combat).

I wanted to discuss your perception about the anti 4ed people here. I don't think the majority of them go around posting "IT SUCKS!" like you claim. Most people have been explaining their reasons for their 4e concerns in their threads. Most people have been polite. Certain people from the pro 4e camp have not been polite. At least one rude pro 4e poster has been banned. Anything but "I hate 3.5 and I love everything about 4ed even though we don't know much yet" seems to provoke an argument.

When you post saying something along the lines of "Could you guys please just explain why you're upset" it seems to me that you haven't been reading a lot of threads, because I see a lot of people explaining what they don't like, explaining what they do like, and discussing how things could be done better.

 

[loseth]

I thought Warlord lost to Marshall in the one on one poll.

It did. 'Marshall' easily beats 'Warlord' in a head-to-head competition. A likely explanation is that about 1/3 would take 'Warlord' as their first choice and about the same amount would take 'Marshall' as their first choice. However, about 2/3 would prefer 'Marshall' to 'Warlord.' To put it another way, I would guess that 'Marshall' and 'Warlord' are roughly equally liked, but 'Warlord' is far more widely hated.

The poll is here.

 

[TheSeer]

The things you mentioned aren't things that have me in the anti 4ed camp. I don't like the idea of quest cards (not that they can't work, but because I think they would lead to bad role playing in many situations). I don't like that the combat rules seem very slow with much to keep track of (with just what we've seen of terrain and mecanics it seems to me that 4ed will be much slower with combat).

Personally, I don't like and will probably never use quest cards either. Of course, they aren't something that you have to use, it was presented as an idea that people could use in their game to make it better. I don't belive that it was stated that quest cards would be in the official rules.

I wanted to discuss your perception about the anti 4ed people here. I don't think the majority of them go around posting "IT SUCKS!" like you claim. Most people have been explaining their reasons for their 4e concerns in their threads. Most people have been polite. Certain people from the pro 4e camp have not been polite. At least one rude pro 4e poster has been banned. Anything but "I hate 3.5 and I love everything about 4ed even though we don't know much yet" seems to provoke an argument.

When you post saying something along the lines of "Could you guys please just explain why you're upset" it seems to me that you haven't been reading a lot of threads, because I see a lot of people explaining what they don't like, explaining what they do like, and discussing how things could be done better.

Actually I have been a LOOOOONG time reader. Been here since it was Eric's page. And I didn't say that a majority of people would be posting that it sucks, what I asked for was that this thread be about discussion. If all that someone had to say was that it sucked, this wasn't the thread for them. The responses so far have been very well thought out and I think the discussion has been very illuminating so far. And in no way, shape, mannor or form is the rabidness of the postings only been on the anti-3E side and I didn't imply that there was. The reason I posted this as a list of questions rather than just a rant against anti-3E people is because I wanted answers about specific things, which I addressed in my post. I wanted to know why the people who were upset WERE upset because in my point of view I didn't see a problem and thought if there was a discussion there could be a meeting of the minds. Of course, I had hoped that during that discussion some might come around to my point of view, but then again, that's true of any discussion

 

[TheSeer]

It did. 'Marshall' easily beats 'Warlord' in a head-to-head competition. A likely explanation is that about 1/3 would take 'Warlord' as their first choice and about the same amount would take 'Marshall' as their first choice. However, about 2/3 would prefer 'Marshall' to 'Warlord.' To put it another way, I would guess that 'Marshall' and 'Warlord' are roughly equally liked, but 'Warlord' is far more widely hated.

The poll is here.

Hmm...weird...if you go here http://www.enworld.org/index.php?page=4e , the main Unofficial Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition Info Page you see the poll started by Morrus - here is the link for the discussion on that poll http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=210411
and just so you can see what the results were:

View Poll Results: What would be your preferred name for the Warlord class?
Warlord 1350 32.41%
Captain 223 5.35%
Commander 327 7.85%
Soldier 245 5.88%
Tactician 434 10.42%
Marshal 1314 31.55%
Other 272 6.53%

This is the poll I was referring to.

 

[loseth]

Hmm...weird...if you go here http://www.enworld.org/index.php?page=4e , the main Unofficial Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition Info Page you see the poll started by Morrus - here is the link for the discussion on that poll http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=210411
and just so you can see what the results were:

View Poll Results: What would be your preferred name for the Warlord class?
Warlord 1350 32.41%
Captain 223 5.35%
Commander 327 7.85%
Soldier 245 5.88%
Tactician 434 10.42%
Marshal 1314 31.55%
Other 272 6.53%

This is the poll I was referring to.

Exactly. If you give people many choices, they'll probably be able to find something that roughly fits their first choice (in fact, it looks like only 6.53% couldn't). This first choice seems to be 'Marshall' or 'Warlord' for about 1/3 of posters each. However, if you give them only two choices and ask 'Which of the two do you like better?' instead of 'Which (of many) do you like best?', then the widespread dislike for 'Warlord' becomes clear. There are, I think, a lot of people in the 'anything but Warlord' camp.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

I'll go in order

1.) Naming the class Warlord doesn't bother me. Marshall probably would have been better but to me at least it's no big deal.

2.) No problem with Dragonborn at all, the name is a little uncreative but it's just a single element that can easily be altered or replaced. Nor do I have a problem with the race itself, I've made far more out-there races core to the majority of the campaigns I've run.

3.) At least for myself the problem is I worry I'll run into the Exalted problem in D&D. So far D&D has been the most flexible, easy to modify ruleset I've ever encountered even in its less mechanically coherent earlier editions. It usually ends up being the basis of any hombrew I create because it's so adaptable for modding. Like many WW games Exalted's mechanics are so inextricably intertwined with it's setting you can't really separate them. And since I believe the D&Ds staying power and popularity are largely a factor of its adaptability and ease of modding the potential for that to go away makes me worry for the future of the game as a whole.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I1) First off, all of the furor about Warlord and why WOTC didn't listen to the public about how much the name is disliked and many a poll was started to come up with a new name. People didn’t seem to like the connotation Warlord for a 1st level character and also thought that it was too close to Warlock. But, if you take a look at the poll on the 4th edition info page, you will see that Warlord just slightly edges out all of the other choices, which means that a majority of your peers considers it an OK name.

That's not a majority. A majority would be 50 percent plus one. A majority of gamers don't like the name Warlord, it's just that the largest plurality of all gamers choose it over the stated alternatives. And, it should be noted, Marshal (the 3E name for the class) beat Warlord for most of that poll's lifespan.

2) Why the fuss about Dragonborn as a race name? It’s descriptive and brings an image to mind of what the race is.

It's a pretty meh 3E race.

Sure, but then again, everyone accepts Halflings who really aren’t Half of anything, but that’s their name and most people never had a problem with that.

They do? It is? They don't? Not in my experience.

3) Golden Wyvern Adapt. I have been playing D&D for 25+ years. When I first started playing my first character’s class was *Elf*. I primarily adventure and run games in the Realms and was really confused as to who Mordenkainen and Bigsby because they certainly didn’t reside in the Realms. The same goes for Pelor. He was no god from the Realms, but there he was in the Players Handbook.

He was 25 years ago? Are you sure? I don't remember seeing him show up before 3E. I've played since 1979.

In that vein, why is a metagame thing such as a name of an ability or class or race a problem as far as the flavor of a game a problem?

Here we agree.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yes indeed. Call themselves the "hin".

Greenwood used that name in Mystara's Five Shires supplement first! Rassin' frassin'!

 

[DM_Blake]

Hmm...weird...if you go here http://www.enworld.org/index.php?page=4e , the main Unofficial Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition Info Page you see the poll started by Morrus - here is the link for the discussion on that poll http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=210411
and just so you can see what the results were:

View Poll Results: What would be your preferred name for the Warlord class?
Warlord 1350 32.41%
Captain 223 5.35%
Commander 327 7.85%
Soldier 245 5.88%
Tactician 434 10.42%
Marshal 1314 31.55%
Other 272 6.53%

This is the poll I was referring to.

You do realize that 32.41% is not the majority of our peers, right? In fact, it looks like the majority of our peers would be the 67.59% who chose something other than Warlord.

As for me, givin this list, I think both warlord and marshal have the same problem: they both sound like someone who is at the top of a military command, leading armies into battle. Not at all what the class is about (or at least not what it's about during the heroic levels). Captain and commander have the same problem, but they're middle level military leaders. Soldier is basically just a synonym for fighter, with the added expectation that he's enlisted in some military group, so if it renames anything, it should rename the fighter.

That leaves Tactician. Given what little I know of the class, and its ability to be a leader and to control movements of the enemies, this sounds like a very fitting name. It descirbes the class well. And it can be applicable at first level in the same way that fighter, rogue, and wizard are also applicable at first level.

So from this list, Tactician is the superior choice for the class. YMMV.