Pramas on 4E and New Gamers

[Banshee16]

I really don't think that being to complicated will stop the next generation of gamers from getting in to 4E. Competition from other activities is another story, but people who take to this kind of activity are bright and tend to be a bit obsessive .

But WotC came right out and said that a lot of the simplifications that have been made in 4E are because the game was too complicated, and it made it more difficult for people to play and/or join.

Banshee

 

[Darrin Drader]

But WotC came right out and said that a lot of the simplifications that have been made in 4E are because the game was too complicated, and it made it more difficult for people to play and/or join.

I feel that with one or two obvious exceptions, 3.x was not too complicated to play (yes, grappling sucked, and using attacks of opportunity as a balancing measure for every special attack also sucked), but the real problem area, in my experience, was the amount of prep time involved. It took a long time to build NPCs that would last for one encounter and then be forgotten, and there were other elements that were hard, though not impossible, to simply wing in-game. Now personally, I cheated quite a bit of the time. I would come up with an NPC concept, fake the BAB, AC, saves, and skills. I'd add a feat or two if I thought it would be useful, and I rarely bothered with skills, because they are rarely used in combat. This worked to an extent, but that's only because I didn't have players who were trying to reverse engineer my NPCs in-game most of the time (I have had some players who would do just that, however). 4E makes NPC generation and monster leveling a snap. It is one of the main reasons I've been itching to start a game, even though I'm currently playing something completely different.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Simple and gets the job done will make D&D appeal to far more people than keeping it complex

The key is, as Cadfan says, and as WoW's success shows, to start simple and grow more complex over time.

The simple hooks em in, the complex keeps em interested long term.

 

[Doug McCrae]

3. No Newb Class: If Pramas believes that Newb Classes are a feature, then I question his judgment. Newb classes are a moronic design choice. This is a hill I am willing to die upon. Newsflash, people- D&D is played over a long period of time. If you start someone in a newb class, they'll be stuck there long, long, looooong after they've ceased being a newb. And if you make the newb class fill a decent, worthwhile role, you've just forced anyone who wants to play that role into playing the newb class. Lovely. A GOOD game design would make newb LEVELS, not newb CLASSES.

Agree 100%.

4e has learned the lesson WoW is teaching. Pramas hasn't.

 

[Treebore]

I agree that those criteria help, but you still have to ask yourself if you would be interested in a tabletop RPG if you were a sixteen year old kid, even if you accomplish all of the above. I think you might get a few, but more than likely they're only going to find any amount of love for it if they're introduced to it by someone who already plays.

As for your assessment of 4Es strengths and weaknesses, I agree on all but point 4. The DMG does offer a lot of suggestions for how to resolve issues not specifically covered by the rules. The thing is that with 4E, you're back to actually listening to what the DM has to say rather than trying to overrule him in your attempts to powergame.

The problem with the DMG is its page count. I am guessing its over 200 pages, right?

How many people even read the rule booklets that come with the video games? My kids don't. There is such a high degree of ease and modularity they pop the game it, create the character, and learn as they play.

So a 200+ page book isn't going to help anyone learn anything since most people aren't going to bother to learn a game where they have to read 200+ pages to get just an idea of how to play.

If WOTC, or any RPG, is going to draw in new blood they are going to have to do good "quickstart rules". One that is about 30 pages long, preferably even shorter. One that tells the DM what they do and tells them how to tell the players what they can do.

Crucible of Freya by Necromancer Games was a good attempt at this. This basic concept needs to go a lot further though.

Use these "Quickstart Adventures" to give two hours of " A great game to play with your friends". Use them to get people to try out "role playing" at a table and face to face. Get them to experience the difference between it and a video game. Get them to like it enough they might decide to try and read the 200+ page rulebooks for the "full RPG game experience".

Plus WOTC should not just limit themselves to fantasy. They should make such adventures for a wide variety of genre, and then provide full fledged books for those who decide to become full fledged table top RPG gamers.

Attracting new players to the game can be done, it just needs to be done.


Now I would like to point out something I find humorous. Chris' critiques of the 4E books can be applied to Mutants and Masterminds and True20 in spades. Well, I haven't read True20 Revised yet, so maybe he applied his ideas to that version. Amazon hasn't shipped it to me yet. It takes a month or two for them to ship True20 Revised.

 

[Treebore]

The key is, as Cadfan says, and as WoW's success shows, to start simple and grow more complex over time.

The simple hooks em in, the complex keeps em interested long term.

Yep, which I outline one way to do so in my post prior to this.

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

Get rid of the complexity of combat.

That's the sacred cow that could make the game instantly easier to grok right off the bat.

Add a "miniatures handbook" or something for a more detailed combat system later down the line.

Keep the core system neat and elegant and quick and easy with a minimum of "moving parts." They should be interesting, but limited in quantity.

For some reason I was reminded of the "World of Darkness: Combat" book that was the cause of much wailing and gnashing of teeth some time ago.

Much of the criticism was that the Storyteller games did not need so much combat complexity, thank you very much, and that games should not try so hard to become something they were not.

I think D&D should remain focused on tactical combat and have elves, dwarves and wizards kill monsters to take their stuff...

Of course, lots of us have campaigns where no one pulls out a sword and political intrigue runs rampant... but it would not be D&D for me if the majority of the book were not combat oriented.

D&D should not try too hard to become something that is not.

 

[hailstop]

The man speaks the troof.



This was my experience as well.

My eyes glazed over too, and I've made a point of just reading one class a day. That said, my eyes glazed over at the Cleric and Wizard spell lists in 3e too.

Still, I don't think there's been a good entry intro to D&D since Basic.

 

[rounser]

Newsflash, people- D&D is played over a long period of time.

Yes, which makes me wonder why the whole Basic-Expert-Companion-Masters paradigm was jettisoned.

What if you had a PHB, DMG and MM for levels 1-10, and did it really really well? Spent that page count without having to worry about the other twenty levels?

The Great Wall would disappear. The game would seem much simpler. There would be more monsters, more magic items, more PC options, less for the DM to get their head around.

WOTC would sell many 1-10 books, less 11-20 books, and even less 21-30 books, but probably more books overall.

Surely this must have been considered, and then ditched...probably for reasons of not confusing new players? Maybe if you named the 11-20 and 21-30 books in a way that didn't mislead people into thinking they were buying the core of the game...hmm.

 

[Hussar]

Honestly, I think the mistake that's being made here is that D&D is the gateway game. Has it been the gateway game for a long time? Personally, I don't think so.

I think the evolution of gamer goes something like this: MMORPG, Card Games (probably at around the same time), DDM (or something similar) then into RPG's.

By the time someone gets around to picking up a PHB, unless they're being inducted into the game by an experienced gamer, they're likely fairly familiar with most of the mechanics that you find in D&D. If they come from Magic, they have a rough idea of how spells work. If they come from DDM, they know most of the combat mechanics.

Heck, the fact that D&D combat mirrors DDM so closely is hardly a coincidence. DDM and Magic, are both very successful. Being able to draw on those communities for new players is a pretty decent idea.

D&D as an entry game into TT RPG's hasn't been true for years. Other than the B/E/C/M/I series, which ceased to exist about twenty years ago. And, let's face it, back then there wasn't any other options for getting into RPG's. There was no DDM or Magic, or MMORPG's to teach the basics. So, you needed a basic set. But, anyone who's played MMORPG's will likely immediately grok 4e.