Legends and Lore: What's With the Polls?

[ProfessorCirno]

I've nothing against the Essentials martial classes, I just think they're a bit boring and would rather play the regular types.

My gripe is with the thought that Essentials martial classes are all we're going to be getting.

Ideally they'd be like the psionics classes. Hey, cool, something that breaks up the Powers system, that's really neat! At the same time, it's a one time deal, and not the "new version" of things.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Very little of it /admits/ to the childish spite, of course.

To be honest it totally is "I am no longer a god GRRRRR" and it is out of spite - I have yet to encounter a single person who ever argues this that isn't upset they aren't more powerful than the mere "meatshield" martial characters.

Right here is where the conversation breaks down, as far as I can tell. You assume that anyone who disagrees with you is spiteful, childish, and deceptive (even self-deceptive).

Given that assumption, you don't have to take their ideas seriously.

But there are valid ideas, ideas that you should take seriously if you are interested in the design of D&D. Ideas like "Swinging your sword once per day for rules balance reasons makes no sense to me narratively or in the world." Ideas like "I find the powers system boring." Ideas like "I like how we used to play, back in the day."

Until you can take those ideas seriously, find the merit in them, and welcome them into D&D's big tent, I'm afraid the picture you're looking at is too small to be useful. Mearls is saying (as far as I can tell) that there's a reason D&D has a big tent: "At the end of the day, to me the polls show that we have a fairly diverse audience that wants a wide range of experience out of Dungeons & Dragons."

When you have a diverse audience, you have a need to address differing opinions with respect, not by simply dismissing them as emotional spasms of the uneducated and simple.

The Essentials warriors are clearly effective at what they do. The Essentials spellcasters do not unbalance the game. The game is made a more interesting and diverse place because of them, and if they're not for you, that should be okay. Some people don't like psionics. Some people don't like "dark" characters. Some people don't like dragonborks. Some people don't like elves. Not every game element is for every player. (In fact, given the assumption of one four-ish-hour session per week for 3 weeks per month, 95% of the game elements generated in the last 3 years are not something that will ever see actual play in a character you personally are actually playing.) WotC seems to understand that it needs to serve a large base and needs to support many different styles of play under the D&D umbrella.

When you say "People who don't like playing my way are really just spiteful and childish, no matter what reason they pretend to have," that kills the conversation.

 

[Aegeri]

But there are valid ideas, ideas that you should take seriously if you are interested in the design of D&D. Ideas like "Swinging your sword once per day for rules balance reasons makes no sense to me narratively or in the world." Ideas like "I find the powers system boring." Ideas like "I like how we used to play, back in the day."

Good, they can go play those systems and it is okay if 4E is not for them. In terms of 4E, they aren't valid ideas whatsoever and haven't got a place at the table of a balanced system. Martial characters need to compete with everyone else and fairly - not get relegated to standing in the corner of encounters where they won't be a bother while the "big people" do the work. Noting that this isn't what the Slayer/Scout/Thief do at all - but they are mechanically keeping up with spellcasters. But they keep up with spellcasters because 4E has inherently limited spellcasters to a large extent over previous editions. They're also not entirely "I just swing my sword" - even the slayer has rules subtleties that to get the most effectiveness out of you have to understand.

The point of the matter is that those people are still going to complain, because they still aren't winning every encounter all day like they used to. They won't tolerate 4E because fighters have powers and abilities matching casters (regardless of the essentials classes, nothing errata'ed the original PHB fighter out of the game whatsoever), why on earth do they get a pass on me tolerating their opinion? In the vast majority of these discussions, I have yet to meet one of these people who will not eventually go down to "Martial characters just shouldn't ever be equivalent to my wizard" as an argument. Well too bad, in 4E they are and you have to suck it up charlie. You're not a precious snowflake anymore.

The other thing is that I don't go to Pathfinders forum and complain that martial characters are still entirely rubbish compared with spellcasters. I can play 4E and I'm happy with it - so why would I want to change what a lot of Pathfinder fans already clearly enjoy (and people DO enjoy having spellcasters much more powerful than other classes). These people can go play Pathfinder and leave what I enjoy alone - yet for some reason I don't get the same courtesy about what I enjoy.

Again, it's pretty clear that many 4E fans are not happy with the current direction of the game - actually I'm not happy at all myself - so I don't think this "Clinging to the past" nonsense of bringing back design decisions from yesteryear is really working out that well. I really feel the poll results show that Wizards have been listening to the wrong people and the current direction is a real misfire.

But we'll see soon enough.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Ehhhhhhhhh

Certainly not all the "boo fighters!" comes down to childish spite and bitter, butter-flavored tears of sorrow that the nerdy wizard no longer reigns supreme over the jock-like fighter...

...But I think that it not only exists, it's downright noticeable.

"Fighters can't have nice things" is a meme because that's how a lot of people really do feel when you get down to it. For god's sakes people where screaming at Paizo over them nerfing wizard spells. And others screamed at Paizo for giving fighters and barbarians and paladins more widgets to play with, even though they still weren't as good as the spellcasters. The Paizo forums have had a couple of threads where people bemoaned their inability to make a cleric that was simply flat about better then a fighter, declaring the class useless.

The thing is, those people won't be brought back by Essentials. They won't be brought back at all. They want to sit in 3.x where wizards are "God wizards" and fighters are "Big stupid fighters." They don't want an Essentials Fighter because that fighter is still useful.

There are people in EN World in threads just a few forum spots up who loudly denounce the idea that wizards should not be better then fighters in every way. Ignoring that doesn't mean it ceases to exist. Some people just want the game to be Wizards and Wizards: A Wizardplaying Game.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Right here is where the conversation breaks down, as far as I can tell. You assume that anyone who disagrees with you is spiteful, childish, and deceptive (even self-deceptive).

Well, if you'd kept reading, I said:

It's really not even 'childish,' it's a legitimate simulationist issue. You're simulating fantasy, in fantasy, magic does wild, amazing things. If any schmuck with a sharppened bit of metal and chain-link jumpsuit can do wild, amazing things, too, then magic isn't magic, and you're not simulating fantasy.

You may be playing a 'balanced' RPG, but you aren't simulating fantasy anymore.

Given that assumption, you don't have to take their ideas seriously.

I believe I just did. Again. In case you missed it the first time.

But there are valid ideas, ideas that you should take seriously if you are interested in the design of D&D. Ideas like "Swinging your sword once per day for rules balance reasons makes no sense to me narratively or in the world." Ideas like "I find the powers system boring." Ideas like "I like how we used to play, back in the day."

Sure, some of those may have some basis in something other than childish spite. Maybe not the last one, so much, but some ideas of that sort.

But, while the ideas are OK on the face, you also have to consider the probable consequence of pushing those ideas. Take:

"Swinging your sword once per day for rules balance reasons makes no sense to me narratively or in the world."

Now, would the person making this statement expect that fighters be allowed to use Combeback Strike or Come And Get It or Thicket of Blades as at-wills? No. Obviously not. Would he expect that, were his view acted upon, that, rather, those abilities would be taken away from the fighter? Yes. What's taking away someone else's toys so you can have fun? childish spite.

So it's not a big stretch to get to the childish spite interpretation of many of these arguments.

Now, OTOH.

"Using an heroic ability only once per day for rules balance reasons makes no sense to me narratively or in the world."

Wouldn't be in the same category, at all. If the idea were to take the narrative flow of the game and make it more situational and simulationist, then there wouldn't be any spite involved (well, unless you got to some spiteful assertions about what you're 'simulating', anyway). The game could be made to work without the mechanic of dailies: lots of games do.

See the difference? One is "lets take cool powers away from the fighter, balance be damned." The other is "lets make the game reflect the narrative it's modeling more seamlessly, while retaining balance."



Now, the same aplies to the other side of the issue. Haters may feel righteously up in arms over the lobotomized fighter in Essentials, but, the point has been made that people at least claim to want to play such a thing. Most credibly, the claim is made that many players want to play much simpler characters than 4e provided. And, rather than call them all liars - and, especially if they'll buy a book containing one - catering to them makes sense. Saying "no, you can't play that sub-class, because it denigrates the awesome parent class I want to play!" is edging towards the childish and petty, or at least it's having a pretty big chip on your shoulder.

OTOH, pointing out how Essentials might have been done better could get the point accross more cogently.

For instance, if you wanted to give new players the classically easiest of all classes to play, it wouldn't be the Fighter. The Fighter was actually quite complex in 3.x, and is not tied to a really specific archetype - even the name 'fighter' is D&D jargon, and to a non-gamer, would conjure up a boxer or jet aircraft more than anything else. No, you'd want to give them the Barbarian. The big guy with the big sword and the big attitude. Who hits stuff. Familiar to fans and non-fans of Sword & Sorcerery since REH first penned a Conan yarn.

For another instance, if you wanted to create a simplified 'on ramp' to an existing game, you wouldn't do it by putting new systems into it that don't already exist in the game. You wouldn't even do it by taking them out. You'd put the more complex confusing ones 'behind the curtain' of some simplified choices, and, as players gained familiarity, they'd have to option to start using the more 'advanced' options in a relatively seamless way. That's exactly how the Warpriest was designed. It's not how any other Essentials class is deigned.

So instead of saying "Argh, Essentials killed my fighter (whose standing here looking only slightly confused rather than dead)." Say "Essentials got it right with the Warpriest, but the Martial Classes could have been done better." Or just lie and say "I'm *glad* there are now simpler classes for those who want them," and go on to say "and it really would defeat the point of a simple class if more material were released for them, so I hope we won't see any future additions to them."

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Well, if you'd kept reading, I said:

It's really not even 'childish,' it's a legitimate simulationist issue. You're simulating fantasy, in fantasy, magic does wild, amazing things. If any schmuck with a sharppened bit of metal and chain-link jumpsuit can do wild, amazing things, too, then magic isn't magic, and you're not simulating fantasy.

You may be playing a 'balanced' RPG, but you aren't simulating fantasy anymore.

I cannot disagree with this loudly enough.

I frankly and honestly hold to the opposite - if your martial fighter hero with a sword and armor is not doing wild and amazing things, then you are not simulating fantasy.

 

[Aegeri]

I cannot disagree with this loudly enough.

I frankly and honestly hold to the opposite - if your martial fighter hero with a sword and armor is not doing wild and amazing things, then you are not simulating fantasy.

It depends on what kind of fantasy you are trying to simulate.

Edit:

I felt the need to further comment on this point from Kamikaze Midget

The game is made a more interesting and diverse place because of them, and if they're not for you, that should be okay.

I don't mind the slayer and similar, I just dislike the core design that makes them. That design seems to be replacing newer classes, so we end up with a less diverse game where we have "on rails" classes - something that quite a lot of people by all indications aren't that keen on. So this is clearly a case of Wizards listening to the wrong folks IMO - it's okay to have your slayers/thieves/scouts but only when you still get your new AEDU classes as well. Current indications to me is that essentialized builds that are very on rails of previous classes are going t be the norm. That bothers me and a lot of others for various reasons. It's also that I see 4E picking up aspects that to me were the worst aspects of previous editions - like pointless racial penalties (something that 4E wonderfully did away with originally).

But you have to ask what the point of it is? Are they trying to win back the fanatic "I hate fighters having powers rar rar" lot? Because none of this changes anything about 4E. The original fighter is going to be there, ruining their immershuns with his come and get it - so it fixes absolutely nothing but annoys a whole lot of other people and divides the community. It also creates this silly divide, where now we have to pretend books are "essential" or "not-essential". This has the ridiculous definition of being if it has anything a previous class can't use then it's "essential" and a terrible blight. It doesn't matter that most of the original AEDU classes are getting several pages of stuff, because essential builds end up being their own little self-contained fiefdoms it apparently creates this divide. All the while nothing changes about those who dislike 4E anyway, because spellcasters are no better than anyone else and the thief arguably still outdoes your wizard for most things damage wise to begin with. Not to mention this direction has meant repeatedly recycling fighters/rogues/clerics/wizards AGAIN in 4E instead of genuinely new character classes.

I mean on thinking about it, I'd sooner have interesting experiments on the traditional design like Psionics than I would redoing the bloody fighter again for the sake of gutting its options. You argue it adds to the game, I would argue it subtracts from the game because it replaces what could have originally been a new concept to 4E. We don't need to bring back sacred cows that have been firmly slain for peoples sensibilities.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

It depends on what kind of fantasy you are trying to simulate.

And if you are simulating the genre of fantasy that is gritty and low magic, that means it is gritty and low magic, so pre-4e spellcasters need not apply.

Of course, 4e does gritty/low magic far better then 3e does, so it's a bit of a moot point.

The only style of fantasy that 3e "simulates" is the kind found in Ars Magica, and Ars Magica is better at it to boot.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Essentials also does not give spellcasters back the ability to scry-buff-teleport, fly indefinitely, or summon monsters that skew the action economy. Wizards are still firmly limited by the powers system to do things that are narrow and specific with their spells.

Essentials did give us the Mage, which is pretty much just a flat out better wizard, with extra goodies, and the capacity to learn extra spells. At the same time, it stripped martial classes of complexity, and saddled them with power strike, which is crap compared to decent encounter powers. You'll note that slayers and knights actually HAVE encounter attack and daily utility powers, so I dont get why they half-ass removed them to begin with! Its a step back towards "wizards rule, fighters drool" in an attempt to woo some back from Pathfinder/3.5's caster supremacy.

Hell, the people squawking the loudest for a simple fighter didn't even want to play one... it was always about getting someone else to play the grog to their magi.

 

[Dannager]

It depends on what kind of fantasy you are trying to simulate.

I think that this idea gets lost in the shuffle.

You can create a fantasy world with all its quirks and then try to fit a game to that fantasy world, but the game isn't going to be as awesome as it could be, because concessions will definitely be made for the sake of preserving the integrity of the setting. A lot of people take this standpoint - some of them because they like a particular setting and don't want game mechanics to alter their perception of that setting, and some of them because the above rationale is an easy way to justify their personal tastes regarding caster-over-noncaster superiority (the fighters-can't-have-nice-things crowd).

On the other hand, you can create a game that embraces the idea of a fantasy tabletop roleplaying game, and then create the setting with the game's design considerations in mind. This might take some explaining for the sake of clarity.

Wizards being stronger than fighters isn't something that follows its own logical course. It is not a tautology. Wizards have been stronger in previous editions of D&D because the collective wisdom was that it makes sense for wizards to be stronger than fighters from a setting standpoint. The people who are called wizards wield god-like powers and fighters swing swords.

There is nothing, however, preventing you from describing wizards and fighters differently. Wizards can still shape reality with mere thought, but nothing is stopping you from allowing fighters to do their own "wild and amazing things". When we step out from setting considerations and preconceived notions of how the classes should be stacked against one another, we can decide how we want the game to look.

This is what 4e does. It says "There's no good reason for fighters to be lackluster compared to wizards, from a game standpoint, and the settings can always just follow suit."

Certainly, there are some who would rather have their preconceived setting remain totally intact even if it means the game will be poorer for it (in the sense that common game design goals like balance, meaningful choice and roughly equal spotlight time will be negatively impacted). I believe, however, that D&D's foremost goal needs to be making the game fun.