Open Letter to WotC from Chris Dias

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I do not have unlimited time in a day or week to work on an adventure for my group. If the fancy strikes me to buy a prepared adventure, then one that will require a minimum, if any, amount of conversion gets my interest whereas one that very likely would require a greater amount of effort will not.

Weren't you the one that agreed with another poster that you were able to convert in zero time, on-the-fly? I don't believe the fundamental concepts between the two systems are as large as you assume. Conversion of the crunch should be a snap for anyone who can accomplish it on the fly.

Sorry, no idea where I got the impression you were speaknig for more than yourself. No idea at all.

It gets tiresome typing "IMO" over and over when one has established that they are sharing their opinion already. Sorry for any confusion this may cause. From now on everyone can assume that IMO sits invisibly at the front of each sentence I type. When I state a fact I'll call it out. Reasonable everyone?

No, but if you can't convey the humor, don't even try. The fact that I had to ask if you were being snarky when you said, "Converting stuff to 3E is a bother. Check." But no, really my fault for thinking when you said were indeed being snarky that you were indeed speaking for more than yourself. My bad.

You've missed half of my tone though. I was serious in regards to my personal experiences with 3E. I was being snarky in the way I conveyed it. Sorry the joke hit a nerve.

I'm sure they don't care. And nice strawman you've erected, would you like me to give a match to light it?

I said if I purchased an adventure and I was only able to use one page from it (regardless of what's on that page), then it'd be a waste of my money.

I was reading past the hyperbole. Not many of us would buy an adventure we were only able to use one page worth of material from, too obvious. The flip side would be that you were saying that the fine products of ENWorld and/or Paizo (the specific products that were being discussed) only have one page worth of usable material to someone who does not use the edition the adventure was written for. I obviously disagree. I get alot of value from the storyline, which constitutes much more than one page worth of material.

Absolutely, just as converting a 3.5/Pathfinder for 4e would likely not be a minor undertaing. A point I very much agree with.

IME, it took me more time to ready an adventure written for 3.5 to use with 3.5 than it does for me to convert an adventure from 3.5/Pathfinder to 4E.

I guess I'm lucky. My players know I'm a great min-maxer and being the DM, I automatically win any arms race.

So we sit down and have fun without all the fussin' and a-feudin'.

I don't try to win against my players. I try to offer a fun evening of D&D. And I was no longer able to do that with the power gap that had occurred in 3E at our table. There were many solutions to "fix" this problem, but none of them were satisfactory for our group.

 

[Azgulor]

(One of ) Stated 4e Design Goals: Make it easier to DM

Standard GM Responsibilities: Running the game, creating campaign through framework of PCs, NPCs, adventures, & campaign setting.

WotC View on Adventures:
Don’t generate enough revenue to justify large focus in business plan.

Customer-base View on WotC Adventures: The ones that are published or released in Dungeon are not considered above-average (generally speaking)

Campaign Settings: Current business plan is targeted number of books and then move on.

WotC’s business plan provides limited support of two “cornerstone” RPG elements: Adventures & Setting.

Campaign sustainability, & by extension, 4e longevity & popularity requires adventures and setting.

Expecting the GMs to handle those elements on their own appeals to the homebrew-style GM, yet requires greater GM time investment. For many GMs, this now runs counter to the Stated 4e Design Goal cited above.

Unless WotC believes that the majority of D&D players opt for a beer-n-pretzels style “pickup game” approach to D&D, (which, like it or not, a large portion of the RPG fanbase views as a “shallower” RPG experience), it would seem that WotC should be doing one of the following:
1. Providing greater quantity and better quality support in terms of adventures & setting.
2. Encouraging 3PP to fill these two niches so they can focus on the game elements that best fit their business plan.

Tell me again how it’s not beneficial for WotC to have 3PP support?!?

 

[Obryn]

As I said, evidence in this case does not involve some kind of bizarre experiement on two alternate universes. The best evidence is going to be inductive reasoning based on an accumulation of facts. One solitary fact is not much evidence, but many facts make it possible to step beyond.

I could very well be a mutant eggplant, depending on how skeptical you are willing to be.

When the belief in two alternative viewpoints seems to relate with unusual frequency to some personal interest, that should suggest to the philosophic mind that the question is a prism of our biases.

Getting back to this, as promised.

It'd be silly to say that running a double-blind study is the only way to gain knowledge. But it's also silly to argue that the best available information is sufficient simply because it's the best information we have.

This whole debate is because you argued that a collection of anecdotes is the same thing as data. It's not, and never is. But there's also a range of options that adhere to more rigorous standards of evidence than collecting convenient stories from people you know. These standards of evidence are necessary precisely because of peoples' biases.

-O

 

[Obryn]

I think you are demonstrating my point here.

I think if you're ignoring the fact that gamers who have different purchasing habits are possibly quite different populations, that you're demonstrating my point that not enough people know about proper sampling when they're dealing with uncertain data.

Leaping to conclusions based on poor data isn't helpful. Nor is insisting on decent standards of evidence, denial of the obvious.

I agree that there is some, even significant, uncertainty around the data we have. My point is not that there is proof beyond any hint of a doubt.

But no one is even identifying "missing pieces". We have a collection of pieces that consistently point in the same clear direction.

Your strict absolutist standard drives the discussion deeply into the "lies, damn lies, and statistics" territory. There comes a point when reasonable conclusions may be reached. It isn't even a question of "prove/nullify" but rather a matter of degree of accuracy. Trying to argue that we are not enough "in the ballpark" to have a reasonable conversation seriously misses the forest for the trees.

There's pretty much always a point at which reasonable conclusions can be reached. The question is, which conclusions?

Frankly, though, there's a point at which a discussion is so vague as to be basically useless. I'd say we're at this point. If you want to talk specific data and specific conclusions, we can continue this line of discussion, no problem.

-O

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I don't think YB was talking about 3e to 3.5e, he was talking about same edition. Ex. a lot of the Paizo ones were meat grinders, very challenging encounters, very little opportunity to rest, and I loved them. However, my group would rate just below 1 on a 1-10 scale of optimization skill (not a one played a druid or wizard or cleric, just had a wand or 3 of CLW to heal up after fights) and so I had to cut, trim, delevel, etc. to make them work for my group.

My experience with 4e conversion has been similar to VB's, when I changed Kingmaker over, it took me around 1/2 hour to convert the entire module to my game, including fluff tweaks to fit my world. I know it took me much longer in 3e to do the same, even though it was the same edition. The e-tools help a lot.

Ah, 'kay. In that case I can understand, a difference in terminology.

I tend to use the term '3e' for 3rd edition, '3.5' for, well, 3.5 and '3.X' for the generic term.

I have heard that some of the Paizo Dungeon adventures were brutal, but then again they looked about right to me.... Kingmaker is looking awesome, and I can definitely understand converting it.

The Auld Grump

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I've never been able to run on the fly with D&D for some reason. I could do it with my eyes closed running Shadowrun though.

My problems compounded from my personal preferences. I *love* options. The more new options available the giddier I would get. The problem with those new options in 3E in the hands of my system masters was that they could create REALLY powerful characters. This wouldn't be a problem if my entire table was filled with system masters. The power gap between them and the rest of the group kept creeping toward the point where I felt like we were playing Rifts. The system masters had Mega-damage armor and weapons, while the rest of the group did not. To challenge the system masters spelled death for the rest. To challenge the rest lead to cake-walks dominated by the system masters. Neither way were the majority of the group having fun. And I wasn't having fun trying to balance such a wide gap. This isn't an edition war thing to me. I was ready to quit 3E before 4E was ever announced.

Heh, running on the fly is something that I just can't do, regardless of game or edition.

Conversion, no problem, but I need a framework to build on. So I am generally working on the next adventure while running the current one. The upside is that when I am done my notes are copious enough that I can run the scenario again years later. I can substitute, fake, and bend things, but I need that framework.

Improv is something that I just can't do.

I don't think that I have ever had anyone try to master the system, my players, gods bless 'em, want to play, not beat the game. Then again, a lot of my players used to be LARPers, so it is not unknown for an entire session in my Steampunk game to be spent on in character conversation and dining. Used to drive me crazy, now I do the cooking. (Lobscouse and dead man's arm anyone?)

The Auld Grump

 

[Matt James]

I love lamp.

 

[Shemeska]

I love lamp.

Huh?

 

[Dilandau Kale]

An open letter of a diffrent sort (but still related) happens in the following links

paizo.com - Error

Rite Designs: AN OPEN LETTER TO PAIZO: THANK YOU

Edit Ignore the fact the Paizo link says error

 

[ExploderWizard]

I love lamp.

Do you really love the lamp?

This whole thing should serve as a depressing wake up call to those who feel that a hobby should provide a secure living.