Mearls' Legends and Lore (or, "All Roads Lead to Rome, Redux")

[ShinHakkaider]

I think if not for Pathfinder lots of the old 3rd ed crowd may have eventually given in to 4e, or at least a sizeable portion of them would have.

NOTE: This is not an attack on you Mournblade. Just want to make that clear at the outset.
And this was another one of my pet peeves from the 4E supporters at the beginning: "Stop your griping, you'll be playing 4E eventually anyway!"

As if it were the ONLY game of value in town. If there were no Pathfinder, I'd be playing 3.5 with Trailblazer mods. Or I'd have moved to FantasyCraft. Or FantasyHERO or maybe gone full time back into Supers Gaming. But I would NOT have gone to 4E any more than I would have gone to Palladium Fantasy, WHFRP or any other RPG that I've tried and didn't care for.

Bottom line, I would probably be playing something. But it wouldn't have been 4E.

 

[pawsplay]

Bottom line, I would probably be playing something. But it wouldn't have been 4E.

Maybe some GURPs. I like GURPS.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

I agree- the only edition of HERO I can think of that most players hate was the FUZION version.

Wow I just recently got rid of the last of my HERO Fuzion stuff, I was still thinking about running a Psionic/Mecha game using Mekton and HERO Fuzion but gave up on the idea.

ESPERS! Psionic Battles! Psionically powered SUPER MECHA! GALAXY BUSTING AWESOMENESS!!!

not so much now...

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Maybe some GURPs. I like GURPS.

I have a crap load of the books!

Not enamored of the game itself though. To be fair the last time that I played a game of GURPS was near the end of High School back in 88 - 89.

 

[CuRoi]

*Walks in, looks around, squeezes through the crowd*

So THIS is where everyone went!

Bottom line, I would probably be playing something. But it wouldn't have been 4E.

Yep.

I think many of us can agree 4e has its merits. Through some other threads where I tried to discuss without "edition wars" I even got some insight from people that have had great results with the system. It modified my opinion a bit about it, but I'm still not really into it. Like you, I'd move on to a different system to get the feel I want at a table before trying to force 4e into that same type of game.

It wasn't what I was really hoping for with a new edition. I tried it several times and never got into it, enough said. So I do think it merits a lot of discussion, no matter how painful it may be. Anytime you get a fair amount of players making their own rules systems to avoid using your new product, a widely successful clone of your old product, or customers presumably buying other systems at a faster pace than yours, well, you'd think WotC would be curious why.

It might be a knock down drag out to figure out the "why" but it doesn't have to be IMO. I think you can cite reasons why players went one way and why other players stayed behind without calling it a "war". But for whatever reason, people just take it personally. To me its important to know that 4e combat feels like a board game and 3e combat feels like a rules fest. I won't get offended cause I want to find the middle ground there.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Bottom line, I would probably be playing something. But it wouldn't have been 4E.

Count me and my group of 10+ as well. We have an active 4Ed game going, mostly on the strength of friendship- the 4Ed DM is a cool dude and we're giving the current 3.5 DMs a break.

But to date, I'm the ONLY guy in the group who even owns any 3PP variant of 3.5Ed. The rest really aren't all that interested.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Double Post.

(No, I'm not bragging.)

 

[HolyMan]

I tried 4e like a kid who tries brussel sprouts

One bite and that was that. I instantly thought the modules would be great converted to 3.5 and went that route, never looking back.

Here at EnWorld I gave 4e another try and it's not for me. Would I play it if I had no other system to choice from. Heck yeah I'm a gamer! - but I would have made it my own.

HM

 

[Mournblade94]

NOTE: This is not an attack on you Mournblade. Just want to make that clear at the outset.
And this was another one of my pet peeves from the 4E supporters at the beginning: "Stop your griping, you'll be playing 4E eventually anyway!"

As if it were the ONLY game of value in town. If there were no Pathfinder, I'd be playing 3.5 with Trailblazer mods. Or I'd have moved to FantasyCraft. Or FantasyHERO or maybe gone full time back into Supers Gaming. But I would NOT have gone to 4E any more than I would have gone to Palladium Fantasy, WHFRP or any other RPG that I've tried and didn't care for.

Bottom line, I would probably be playing something. But it wouldn't have been 4E.

I was not exactly speaking for myself. I for one would not have gone to 4e. For one thing I did return to Warhammer, but that changed edition. I would in all likelihood have stayed with 3rd edition Forgotten Realms for fantasy, Star Wars saga for saga, and Alternity for my sci fi gaming.

Seriously on that one, I struggle between using Traveller or Alternity for sci fi engines. I have used alternity for so long, and Traveller is supported. But I somehow just feel like I can do more with Alternity right 'out of the box'.

 

[BryonD]

I think if not for Pathfinder lots of the old 3rd ed crowd may have eventually given in to 4e, or at least a sizeable portion of them would have.

Well before PF was announced, I was already helping Wulf Ratbane work on "3.75" (which eventually became "Trailblazer" AFTER PF was announced, for fairly obvious reasons).

I actually had also bought some new GURPS and Warhammer stuff, just looking around at options.

4E was off the table. And, as much as I LOVE to argue about it, I've also quite truthfully stated on numerous occasions that I consider 4E to be a perfectly "ok" game. The most common reaction I hear from people I talk to is "4E sucks". I am "hostile" to certain comparisons that get made between 4E and 3E. But I'm just "meh" on the game itself. And yet, long before PF came along, I knew I was not going to be playing 4E. I don't think people who are more hostile to the game itself are any more likely than I to "give in".

People are not choosing 3E over 4E because Paizo made Pathfinder.
Paizo made Pathfinder because it became very clear that people wanted to choose 3E over 4E.

Yes, there were a lot of other reasons as well. But this specific variable is the question at hand.

Also, as has been pointed out, a significant number of 3E holdouts don't really care for Pathfinder. If the fact that Paizo is supporting the old edition was the only thing keeping people from giving in, those people would all be picking dailies by now.

Far and away the number one reason people are not playing 4E is, quite simply, they don't want to. Anything else is just a kind of wishful thinking.