D&D 4E Paizo and 4e - Vive le Revolution!

[Twowolves]

Saying "Any dissent in the "4th ed is teh bomb!" ranks is immediately pounced upon" is not a statement of opinion. It's a claim about the objective reality on these message boards, and thus it can be examined on a factual basis - either it happens, or it doesn't.

Now, does that sort of thing happen sometimes? I'm sure it does. And that's unfortunate. But to claim that every single time anyone says anything negative about 4E, they get pounced on for it, is ridiculous. It was proven untrue in this very thread, when you said something negative about 4E, and were not pounced upon for it.

Ah but YOU have pounced, and continue to do so. Once again, you continue to prove my point.

But if you insist, check out the first few responses to these threads:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=208849

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=208895

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=208826

And those are just a few on the front page of this forum. Some might call those trolling threads, but the viceral and immediate response is just a sampling of what I've seen so far.

The "bashing" of the 3.X rules did not come out of nowhere, overnight, right after 4E was announced, as you claim, and anyone who's spent any amount of time on these forums knows that.

So, despite the fact that I've spent over 3 years on this forum, my experience is wrong? "Anyone who's spent any amount of time on these forums knows that", and since I've spent years here and obvously don't agree, my opinion and perspective is invalid? Precisely the sort of thing I accused some proponents of the new edition of doing. Or am I also imagining how the developers at WotC were talking about how wonderful 3rd ed was this summer, then talking about how flawed it is as soon as they announce an new edition is in the works?

I've got a lot of respect for a lot of the developers both at WotC and at Necro, GR, Goodman Games, Paizo, etc etc. I disagree with a few things, and here comes the derision.

Ugh.

 

[Grog]

Ah but YOU have pounced, and continue to do so. Once again, you continue to prove my point.

Questioning your point is not the same thing as proving your point. Again, there has been no "pouncing" in this thread.

So, despite the fact that I've spent over 3 years on this forum, my experience is wrong? "Anyone who's spent any amount of time on these forums knows that", and since I've spent years here and obvously don't agree, my opinion and perspective is invalid? Precisely the sort of thing I accused some proponents of the new edition of doing. Or am I also imagining how the developers at WotC were talking about how wonderful 3rd ed was this summer, then talking about how flawed it is as soon as they announce an new edition is in the works?

I wasn't talking about the developers. They're constrained in what they can say, for obvious reasons. I was talking about the fans of the game, specifically the people who post on this message board. And many of them have been talking about the various problems with the 3.5 ruleset for years. It didn't all start right after 4E was announced, and yes, anyone with any experience on these forums knows that's true.

Anyway, this thread has been dragged far enough off-topic already, so that's it for me.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Perhaps, but most of the best adventure writing for 3.X did not come out of WotC, but out of other parties. Goodman games as got a good thing going with 3.X modules that in style could have been ripped out of the early '80's. I seriously doubt that interest in those is just going to dry up, and I'm willing to bet its the 'grognard' audience that has been thier primary buyers. Companies like Green Ronin, Necromancer, and Paizo were enormously influential.

I've got more GR material than I have from WotC, which increasingly seemed to not be interested in my concerns for the game and insisted on offering me alot of stuff I didn't want for every page of rules that interested me. It got where only about 5% of thier books material I would have used, which amounted to about $2 a page. It was alot easier to just put the book back on the shelf and steal the idea.

4e seems to be going even farther in that direction, offering to 'fix' alot of things I didn't feel were problems, ignoring alot of things I thought were problems, and making broad proclamations of how somethings I would like to see fixed will be fixed but providing zero evidence for it. Plus, lots and lots of new pages of flavor that just isn't to my taste. Couldn't they save that for a setting supplement?

There is definately room for a 3.75 updating of the rules. How about let's call it the 'Advanced Edition'.

And yet the 3.5 market is so dry that Green Ronin won't released Advanced Classes or Advanced Races as hardcovers as planned a long time ago.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Let me be completely clear about my position:

1) I'm convinced WotC is going to deliberately screw the third party vendors. Why do I believe this? Because if I was in charge of WotC, I'd do the same thing. From WotC's perspective, the only thing that was unsuccessful about the 3rd edition launch was that being open about the rules set very early on allowed 3rd party vendors to get a jump on them with high quality products that were in direct competition with thier product line up. Before they could blink, there were high quality alternative monster manuals and setting supplements coming out and getting prominent product placement along side thier material. As company, you know they couldn't have been happy about that. I wouldn't have been.
.

I see it from the opposite side.

Every book requires the Player's Handbook.


I'd say the real issue was that the early books, including the Creature Catalog, were crap. Some great fluff and ideas but horrid understanding of the rules which eventually taught people to skip 3rd party stuff entirely.

I'd want third party stuff to be top notch and to make the whole game better because it means more people will then be playing my game.

But that's just me.

 

[JoeGKushner]

D20 publishers have discussed this sort of thing for years. When we were debating what to do for Freeport, one idea was do a full on Freeport RPG that made the D&D rules more to our liking. I've also had conversations with several other companies about doing a joint project. For various reasons none of these ideas were implemented. (You can check out the Pirate's Guide to Freeport to see what we did do with the City of Adventure.)

I do agree that it is hard to plan without knowing more about the rules and how WotC will deal with the OGL and the d20STL. I need to get info on our major releases for next summer to the book trade in two weeks. Erik and Paizo are in the same boat. I wish I could make firmer plans right now and solicit some new books, but it just wouldn't be prudent.

Book of the Righteous done up like Freeport? Pretty please? With sugar?

 

[DaveMage]

I'd say the real issue was that the early books, including the Creature Catalog, were crap.

*ahem*

Point of order - that book was the Creature Collection, not Creature Catalog.

Now back to our show...

 

[Guild Goodknife]

Actually i have some problems understanding the merrits of a 3.75 Edition. Wouldn't the players who resent 4th Ed. want new third party products to be completly compatible with their game of choice (that would be 3.5)?? Why should they change to 3.75 for a handfull of new books? If a 3.75 Ed. would be completly compatible with 3.5, what reasons are there to make a distinctive 3.75 Ed. in the first place? Change for the sake of change? A grognard could argue that a semi-new Edition that differs to much from 3.5 would make all of his old books obsolete. (Actually i find it difficult to follow that logic but i see comments like that all the time on these boards)

Personally, i'm hoping for Paizo and Necromancer Games to provide me with cutting edge 4th Edition material.

 

[Dacileva]

But if you insist, check out the first few responses to these threads:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=208849

Unequivocally hostile, condescending and insulting OP. Definite troll thread.

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=208895

No "pouncing". Disagreement, but no hostility towards the OP in the first few responses. In fact, the very first response had an eminently reasonable explanation that the OP had clearly not considered.

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=208826

Exaggerated OP, and the first few responses were, again, disagreeing, but not hostile.

Where's the "pouncing"? Or are you defining pouncing as "Every thread in the 4e discussion forums that is critical of 4e ends up having people arguing in favor of 4e!" or "Every post critical of 4e has someone disagree with it!" (at which point the term 'pouncing' seems disingenuous)?

So far, nearly every thread in this forum has had both pro-4e and anti-4e people posting in it. This isn't "pouncing". It's "discussion".

 

[Twowolves]

Where's the "pouncing"? Or are you defining pouncing as "Every thread in the 4e discussion forums that is critical of 4e ends up having people arguing in favor of 4e!" or "Every post critical of 4e has someone disagree with it!" (at which point the term 'pouncing' seems disingenuous)?

So far, nearly every thread in this forum has had both pro-4e and anti-4e people posting in it. This isn't "pouncing". It's "discussion".

"Pouncing" as in the minute someone says something even slightly negative about the new edition, at least 5 other people jump in and say essentially the same thing over and over (my 5 points above). 5 on 1 isn't discussion, it's a dogpile. And it's usually not even discussion, as in "I see the merits of your point, but let me counter with this". It's more like, well, like I already described above.

Like I said, that was just 3 threads I picked almost at random on the front page of this forum. Had I time or inclination, I could dig deeper and give more specific examples of the kind of negativity I see, but since that would involve calling some specific people out on their comments (and thus appear to be personal attacks on them), I won't.

Anyway, this thread has been dragged far enough off-topic already, so that's it for me.

Here, at last, we agree. I'd much rather read the posts by the likes of Orcus or Pramas than drag this excellent thread further off-topic. I'll pack in my opinions until another time and thread.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Unless you hand out a script, folks are going to respond if they want to. I'm not sure this is worth anger or frustration on your part.