OK, we're gettng a little annoyed here!

[Doug McCrae]

I have doubts and concerns about several aspects of 4e but I never express them on this forum because:

1) There's far too much negativity as it is and I don't want to add to it.
2) It's 99% likely that someone at WotC made the same point at a meeting two years ago and the issue has been addressed but not publicised yet.

 

[HeinorNY]

2) It's 99% likely that someone at WotC made the same point at a meeting two years ago and the issue has been addressed but not publicised yet.

That's my personal Tao.
Yes, I'm a humble person.
Yes, I trust WotC.

 

[Remathilis]

I'm tempted to start a thread about "Is it okay to have an opinion?"

[snark] No. Thanks for playing [/snark]

[real_answer] The biggest thing I see on the boards is not pro/con, but the attitude from some that "I could have done that better".

Everyone who has ever played D&D has been encouraged to "tinker". Fix this, houserule that. No other game I can think of has as many homebrewed setting, houserules, and extensive rules-rewrites than D&D. Hell, D&D has ENCOURAGED it at various times (OD&D was chock-full of "make up your own rules" areas, even 3.5 has "Unearthed Arcana".)

This has lead many people to think of themselves not as players or DMs, but as "amateur game designers" The early d20 glut came from a lot of people who held that opinions (notice the only real surviving companies are helmed by *gasp* professional game designers?) So there are plenty of people who cobbled a version of D&D using whatever edition we like as a baseline and modified to suit their own personal/group preferences (both in terms of world-building and game design) who now look at 4e (with its own version of house-rules and homebrew implied setting) as nothing more than another designers attempt to supercede thier own "superior" material with this new, official bullocks.

Its obvious in every "I wouldn't have done THAT" post that appears down the pipes. Many are simply preference issues (I'd rather tieflings remained a monster and gnomes a PC race) but many of the most hateful, spiteful, and vile posts come from this attitude that "I know better than WotC, and if they don't develop the game according to my tastes, I'll quit make them pay!"

 

[The Little Raven]

Yes, I trust WotC.

Agreed. Which is far more than I could ever say about TSR. I have memories of a 13-year-old kid receiving a cease-and-desist letter with a familiar logo on it because he posted some D&D characters on a website.

 

[malladin]

edit *inappropriate location*

 

[Piratecat]

It would help if one group were stopped from being allowed to call the other's choice crap in the title of threads and then it wasn't just left. You wonder why there's problems and animosity!

Did you report the post?

If you see it as a problem, report it and a moderator will take a look. If you haven't reported it, it's sort of self-defeating to be annoyed that it wasn't addressed.

 

[malladin]

Sorry, don't know how to report. Will edit post but would appreciate info on reporting.

 

[Piratecat]

Sorry, don't know how to report. Will edit post but would appreciate info on reporting.

Fair enough! And thanks.

Take a look at the bottom left corner of my post. You'll see a button there that looks like an exclamation point inside of a triangle. Click it, and you'll be able to send the mods an email asking them to look at a specific post (or a thread) that you think is a problem.

This is by far the fastest way to address a problem when you see something weird.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

This has lead many people to think of themselves not as players or DMs, but as "amateur game designers" The early d20 glut came from a lot of people who held that opinions (notice the only real surviving companies are helmed by *gasp* professional game designers?)

Huh?

Fantasy Flight Games continues to thrive as a board game company, and is packed with full-time professional game designers, but is "dead" in the 3e sense.

Necromancer Games continues to thrive as a 3e company and is helmed by a full-time lawyer (and amateur game designer).

Moreover, the only quantifiable measure of "professional" game designer is someone who gets paid to design games. So your definition is somewhat self-selecting: if they are still making and selling games, they are professionals-- but if they stopped, they are not?

And congratulations if you can point me to a single 3e game designer with any formal "professional" game design accreditation.

The only things necessary for success in the 3rd party market are talent, enthusiasm, and committment. Necromancer Games' crew, for example, has these in spades.

Given those three things, the money will come, and "Poof!" you're a professional in the only sense that matters.

 

[Rechan]

When is an opinion like or unlike a discussion? When you can be swayed, or when you are open to talking about it. "I hate 4e and am never buying it!" -- yeah, lots of room for discussion there. (Again, just as much as "I love 4e and have already pre-bought every book WotC will publish!", but I don't see tons of those posts.)

What bothers me is that many people who have made up their mind to not go to 4e... are still here. They still feel the need to post in several threads "I've been left behind, WotC fired me as a customer, this isn't D&D, I am not switching." If the decision is made... why continue to draw attention to it? Just go on enjoying 3e to your heart's content.

It seems to me that most posters in the 4E forums feel that 4E is moving D&D away from them and the game they want to play, or toward it, although it oftens feels like both.

I don't disagree with this statement. I'm in the latter category.

And oddly, I've seen little to come down the pike with which I disagree with. I have a few concerns, but be it rules or fluff, it's stuff that I see and go, "Oh, cool", or "Huh, sure that works." It utterly stuns me the things that cause a huge blowup. Like the ever legendary quest card thing. I've grown suspicious that the 4e designers can do no right, with some - that, if WotC put out a box of free money, they would come to the forums complaining about the way the bills were folded.