Pramas on 4E and New Gamers

[I'm A Banana]

When given two extremes, the best option is inbetween them Now, if only we can make that the case...

It seems that D&D is viewed as the RPG most newbies get into yet also not naturally welcoming of said newbies.

Yuppers. Those manuals take a long time to digest.

But rather than in between them, I'd kind of like to see a game that is both extremes. At it's most fundamental, it is easy peasy, even simplistic. At it's most complex, it is intricate and exacting.

 

[SSquirrel]

I don't care. Its not for me. I glanced through some of the pages (must have been the class section) and all the colors for the title of the powers made my eyes hurt. Mind you I was with my 5 year old daughter so I didn't have long. That is some poor layout. Color should make the words go pop, not make the eyes go pop. If I had flipped through the pages, it probably would have given me a seizure.

The little I read made my brain go numb. It confirmed my negative predisposition to the game. So, no I have no intention of giving 4E a playtest run. Poor marketting, poor layout. That's enough for me.

Funny, I have grand mal seizures and had no problems. YMMV I suppose. I guess a dark red, medium green and black could make someone's eyes hurt. All the titles are actually written in white w/those colors as backgrounds.

Supposedly, the reason there is a dearth of indexes is due to the time it takes to compile them, but jeez.

And on the topic of organization, I did find it troubling they stuck the advancement chart all the way in the back of Chapter 2, where you have to hunt for the damn thing.

I guess they would prefer to be criticized for a lack of an index than endless jokes about "see page XX" like White Wolf still gets after almost 20 years. The spot they put the character advancement chart is about 2 pages before the races and classes. Seems a reasonably sensible place for it.

 

[billd91]

So what is the gateway game?

For tabletop RPGs, it's still D&D. Nothing else has the same exposure or recognition. I know too many people who play online RPGs who don't believe the gamer label applies to them to consider WoW is a gateway game.

I think one major difference between gateway games of past years and now is the number and variety of gateway board games like Ticket to Ride and Settlers of Catan.

 

[Twowolves]

I think you mean "literally an exercise in 3rd grade arithmetic," but I'll give you the rest.

As for being a textbook... HERO 5e is well organized, has a good glossary, uses very little jargon.....

*boggle*

I guess your group didn't have very many AVLD RKAs from OIFs then, right?

 

[Intense_Interest]

I don't agree, at least so far as my own personal preference is concerned. If you give people a book that supports levels 1-10 in a complete and detailed fashion, I'd personally far prefer that to a game that tries to do 1-30, does none of them very well, and leaves you hanging for the "make your own trap" rules and a bunch of popular races and classes and monsters, so you have to buy more books to complete the game anyway.

Ah. I believe I found the philosophical difference between our positions:

I don't believe that graduating from Kolbold to Teen Red Dragon fighter is at all a complete game. A "complete game" entails going from Ratcatcher to Godslayer.

Paying the ferryman to go from Orc to Drow is, in my estimation, more silly than having to pay for new features (Value Added!) like Gnome or Barbarian. Further, not everyone designs new traps in their campaigns- but everyone gains levels.

I have further issue with the whole efficient page-count bugbear (traps 1-10 is traps 21-30 with some new colors), but I mostly feel that our positions are entirely opposed.

 

[SSquirrel]

I started playing HERO with 4th edition... I literally picked it up in the store after reading the description of Energy Blast and going, "Man, that's easy! I wonder why more superhero games aren't like this." Later on, I discovered there was more to it than I thought, but the basic framework was intuitive, even simple.

Simple basic framework is why I completed my Aberrant collection Ditch the setting if you don't like it, w/a few minor tweaks I can make 95% of all the non demigod and up power level guys from Marvel. Probly plenty of the ones from other companies too, but I'm most familiar w/Marvel.

The complaints I always see mentioned about 4E being too simple are things like Trip not being a combat option. But it is. Str vs Reflex. pg 42 DMG for the stunt system. Swing from a chandelier to kick someone. Dive under a table and kick it out from under 2 guys who are fighting on it. This actually puts adjudication back in the hands of the DM, which is amusing considering I've seen people complain that 4E just made them a ref not a DM.

Traps have plenty of examples in the DMG and its not hard to approximate something similar. Pg 86 even has a bit of advice on winging it w/a trap

 

[Hussar]

So what is the gateway game?

I believe I answered this, although Rounser disagrees. I think the gateway games are things like Magic and DDM.

Sold in FLGS', and often played there as well, you've got the sort of Brownian motion thing going on to draw people into D&D.

And, now, the added bonus that the DDM player doesn't have to relearn the combat rules. They're pretty much the same.

Nothing will replace active gamers drawing in new blood. I think that's a given. But, now it's much, much easier to do so. You can sit down with a group of 15 year old DDM players, and start playing pretty much in a very short period of time.

 

[SteveC]

I think you mean "literally an exercise in 3rd grade arithmetic," but I'll give you the rest.

As for being a textbook... HERO 5e is well organized, has a good glossary, uses very little jargon, and provides numerous examples, both walk-thrus and finished products. So yes, it is like a textbook... informative, accessible, helpful, and enlightening, if perhaps a little dry to digest in one sitting.

Power Frameworks are not something I would inflict on a new player without reason, and it's easy enough to hand-hold someone through it.

I started playing HERO with 4th edition... I literally picked it up in the store after reading the description of Energy Blast and going, "Man, that's easy! I wonder why more superhero games aren't like this." Later on, I discovered there was more to it than I thought, but the basic framework was intuitive, even simple.

I find this sort of comparison tiring as well, but as a long time HERO fan, it's what I expect. One thing that earlier editions of HERO did, and that the Basic Edition of D&D did as well (from the BECMI series) was include a solo adventure that stepped you through the basic game resolution system and had you go through a combat. With a game like HERO that is heavily grid based, that was no mean feat!

The thing is, Chris is right about what he's saying here, in that the core rulebooks aren't newbie friendly, and they aren't targeted at a new audience. At this point in time, we will have to wait for the new intro set to come out to move us in that direction.

If you're wondering what a "newbie friendly" version of D&D would look like, head over to RPGNow and pick up a copy of the old Basic set. It is extremely user friendly, but also organized in a radically different way than other D&D products. I don't think the core books would have worked if they were done this way, but a product like this is important to bring new people into the hobby.

--Steve

 

[Doug McCrae]

So what is the gateway game?

Chainmail

 

[hong]

So what is the gateway game?

World of Warcraft.