Pramas on 4E and New Gamers
- Thread starter CaptainChaos
- Start date
People keep mentioning that veterans will be the ones to attract and introduce to the hobby new gamers. But I have to cast a doubt since 4e is as hardcore gamist as it can be. If it were simpler, I could imagine people's curiosity could get along with the introductory process. But at hardcore levels such as this one it seems a bit hard.
Btw world of warcraft will launch a miniatures-skirmish game. If it reaches mainstream market and is a success, the irony is that this could manage to introduce more new blood to d&d 4e than d&d itself.
Btw world of warcraft will launch a miniatures-skirmish game. If it reaches mainstream market and is a success, the irony is that this could manage to introduce more new blood to d&d 4e than d&d itself.
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
Pramas is speaking from a solid base.
What's interesting to me -- in a perverse kind of way -- is that if 4e were to be more accessible to newbies, it would have to jettison EVEN MORE than it already has. Thus alienating even more fans of previous editions (probably). The things that are attracting new people (new cosmology, simple powers descriptions) are the things that a lot of people are crying the loudest about.
I mean, 4e is MORE accessible...(especially the DMG does a great job on this front)....but it still might not be good enough in that respect, if Pramas is accurate.
I do think that part of that might be the intense focus on tactical combat as the core of the game. The powers, the minis, the characters, the monsters, the NPC's....D&D has too many "moving parts," and these mostly relate to combat resolution, which has always been the heart of the game.
Perhaps the one sacred cow that 4e didn't wind up slaying that it maybe should have killed is D&D's fixation on combat as the core experience?
...interesting ideas...
What's interesting to me -- in a perverse kind of way -- is that if 4e were to be more accessible to newbies, it would have to jettison EVEN MORE than it already has. Thus alienating even more fans of previous editions (probably). The things that are attracting new people (new cosmology, simple powers descriptions) are the things that a lot of people are crying the loudest about.
I mean, 4e is MORE accessible...(especially the DMG does a great job on this front)....but it still might not be good enough in that respect, if Pramas is accurate.
I do think that part of that might be the intense focus on tactical combat as the core of the game. The powers, the minis, the characters, the monsters, the NPC's....D&D has too many "moving parts," and these mostly relate to combat resolution, which has always been the heart of the game.
Perhaps the one sacred cow that 4e didn't wind up slaying that it maybe should have killed is D&D's fixation on combat as the core experience?
...interesting ideas...
Just an observation on organization of information:
- alphabetical order, as per dictionary or encyclopedia, is superior for large quantity of elements. "Large" - as in "Too many to remember".
- ordering items by category (or by several categories) allows for faster access than that of alphabetical ordering, but it requires reasonable familiarity with categories and sufficiently clear rules on presenting categories.
Rechan here has probably both good knowledge of the contents of PHB, so categorical ordering is more useful to him. However, people with less experience or with worse memory will probably find alphabetical ordering significantly more usable.
Finally, in my opinion, PHB should provide alphabetical index for powers/feats/class abilities (all lumped together, as it's fairly unlikely for the names to overlap) along with page numbers (for quick reference), class/level information (for mnemotechnical reasons - looking several times through the index, one will eventually memorize additional information). The index should be placed at the end of the book and should be separate from general index (specific and general indices should be kept separately).
Of course, it's easy to make if you have SRD in electronic form.
Regards,
Ruemere
- alphabetical order, as per dictionary or encyclopedia, is superior for large quantity of elements. "Large" - as in "Too many to remember".
- ordering items by category (or by several categories) allows for faster access than that of alphabetical ordering, but it requires reasonable familiarity with categories and sufficiently clear rules on presenting categories.
Rechan here has probably both good knowledge of the contents of PHB, so categorical ordering is more useful to him. However, people with less experience or with worse memory will probably find alphabetical ordering significantly more usable.
Finally, in my opinion, PHB should provide alphabetical index for powers/feats/class abilities (all lumped together, as it's fairly unlikely for the names to overlap) along with page numbers (for quick reference), class/level information (for mnemotechnical reasons - looking several times through the index, one will eventually memorize additional information). The index should be placed at the end of the book and should be separate from general index (specific and general indices should be kept separately).
Of course, it's easy to make if you have SRD in electronic form.
Regards,
Ruemere
IanB
First Post
Kamikaze Midget said:
I think that would be a huge mistake. Over the years, as I've dealt with a lot of new players, the one thing they all seem to latch onto first is the combat system. Things like actually talking in character, roleplaying out encounters, stuff like that makes people very self-conscious and often nervous the first time they do it and they really need something else to bring them into the game.
Combat is concrete and more like a boardgame and just generally easier to understand what the goals are. I'd say with 95% of the new players I've dealt with over the years, combat is the main fun thing for them at least at first, whereas the roleplaying part stays intimidating for quite a while.
Wisdom Penalty
First Post
Anyone find the amusing irony in the fact that 4e gets some grief for being too complicated, and then gets some grief (often from the same folks) for being too simple?
Yep, yep - I knew you did.
Wis
Yep, yep - I knew you did.
Wis
