D&D 4E Rant on the 4E "Presentation"

[broghammerj]

EN World has nigh 55,000 registered users. The last numbers i saw quoted for the overall player base was from data now nearly a decade old, but it in the 1 to 3 million range.

The other interesting aspect to this is that I would guess the majority of players have no idea 4E is coming out. If DnD insider, Enworld, and RPGA, etc. are avenues for communication and playtesting, one has to wonder are they effective.

As for your definition of intimate, it is all relative. The only feedback WOTC seems to get is via the internet. I suppose they talk to people at cons, but having never gone I don't know. I don't really know how they get much feedback on DnD to know what the consumer wants fixed in a new edition. There hasn't been a big consumer survey in some time. It's internet feedback that has gotten rid of things like Eberron world changes, tomes for magic users, dragon's tail cut, etc. That seems to be a relatively intimate relationship to me.

 

[broghammerj]

You know what happens then? We lose interest and stop paying attention to the designer blogs.

The problem is the designer blogs don't tell me anything so I have already stopped looking at them.

If anything it tells me to buy the core books and decide at that time. All I have learned from designer blogs is how super neato they are!

 

[Vigilance]

The problem is the designer blogs don't tell me anything so I have already stopped looking at them.

If anything it tells me to buy the core books and decide at that time. All I have learned from designer blogs is how super neato they are!

The blogs aren't the place for the super-secret reveals of mechanics.

Again, they have begun to release some pretty specific mechanics, like an entire monster stat-block.

Just because we aren't getting specific mechanics everywhere doesn't mean they're only giving us vague generalities.

A blog is a blog.

They're telling us how they feel, what the process is like.

 

[Umbran]

It seems silly to get upset that some people are upset....

These people are not upset in a vacuum. They are upset, and they bring it here, and it has a notable impact on the atmosphere of the EN World community. We mods have been fighting fires from upset people since GenCon. The upset of our fellow EN Worlders is not something we can simply ignore and still enjoy this place in the same way.

This is not to say folks are wrong to be upset. It is to say that this upset has an impact on others. Sometimes we ought to accommodate it, and sometimes we shouldn't. That's what sharing is about, you know.

 

[broghammerj]

The blogs aren't the place for the super-secret reveals of mechanics.

Again, they have begun to release some pretty specific mechanics, like an entire monster stat-block.

Just because we aren't getting specific mechanics everywhere doesn't mean they're only giving us vague generalities.

A blog is a blog.

They're telling us how they feel, what the process is like.

Chuck,

I find this interesting coming from you. I have watched your production of Modern 2.0 and the blogs related to it. I thought I got way more information as a consumer than I would have ever expected. Despite this "spilling of the beans" it got me fired up and interested about this product. I didn't go out and try to duplicate your game and in fact am planning on buying it.....in other words, the big reveals didn't cost you my business. I don't expect WOTC to be as revealing as you were, but there is some sort of middle ground.

Your blogs didn't also reek of overecstatic superfluous PR. You didn't tell me how great Modern 2.0 is. Instead you said these are problems I perceived with the game and here is how I fixed it. It's a huge difference from what we're getting now.

 

[BBQ]

Well, it's obvious none of you have ever studied/worked in marketing. In order to create a buzz about something, you toss little snippets out at a time. That's what they're doing with the next installment of Batman. "The Dark Knight" is being put forward with a series of cryptic messages and little bits and pieces of info. The reason they do this is to A) create a buzz B) the movie wouldn't be fun for you if they were to release the whole plot, complete with spoilers, and all.

As for the people who feel they've been "talked down to" by the game design team in the D&D Insider/R&D Blogs and such, I have this to say: you're either very insecure in yourself if you feel that a game design crew that hasn't ever met you, and who in all likelihood talk like anyone else, are talking down to you, or you are reading too much into what they are saying. These are just people expressing how they feel about their jobs, the project they're working on, and what they're thinking about. They are not trying to act better than you.

As for those who think tieflings and warlocks are somehow bastardizing the game, allow me to put it this way: tieflings have been around since 2nd edition. Warlocks may have only shown up really in 3rd edition, but look at those class kits back in 2nd edition. Wild mages and such? Come on! Warlocks are just another alternative kit for magic-users. The people who complain about warlocks are probably the same people who whined about sorcerers when 3e came out.

Finally, I wonder about these people who claim that WotC lied to them or that WotC is a criminal corporation attempting to gouge/nickle & dime them out of their "hard-earned money". I don't recall Wizards of the Coast ever coming out and specifically telling me "Hey! We're not planning any new products." Also, it's been almost 9 years since they released 3e. I remember it vividly. There is a new edition of the game roughly every 8-10 years, so quit complaining about that (2nd ed. had how many revised books?). If you haven't made around $120 of spare cash in 9 years, you're probably impoverished and shouldn't be spending your leisure time playing games.

P.S.: For the people who complain about the so-called "sacred cows" of D&D being changed/done differently, etc., let me say this: Some cows need to have medicine or they will die. Some cows get old and sick, their milk dries up, and they die.

 

[Vigilance]

Chuck,

I find this interesting coming from you. I have watched your production of Modern 2.0 and the blogs related to it. I thought I got way more information as a consumer than I would have ever expected. Despite this "spilling of the beans" it got me fired up and interested about this product. I didn't go out and try to duplicate your game and in fact am planning on buying it.....in other words, the big reveals didn't cost you my business. I don't expect WOTC to be as revealing as you were, but there is some sort of middle ground.

Well first, thanks.

But second, I can tell you that there was a lot of worry about people being turned off by the previews, worries about the way information was released, to make sure I was actually talking about the game's "selling points" and not just the aspects of the design that were consuming my day on THAT particular day.

Now think about the fact that I was talking about a 100 page book that I wrote over the course of 3 and a half months.

If I was working on several multi-hundred page books over the course of several years, my approach probably wouldn't have been the same.

Your blogs didn't also reek of overecstatic superfluous PR. You didn't tell me how great Modern 2.0 is. Instead you said these are problems I perceived with the game and here is how I fixed it. It's a huge difference from what we're getting now.

Well, again I think there are some differences based on the scale of the project.

If you look at some of the posts I have made since Modern20 was released, you'll see a little backslapping of "I'm proud of this game".

Now imagine that journey had been a multi-year marathon instead of a huge sprint.

One reason I'm cutting the designers a little slack for posting "this is AWESOME" is because I can imagine how they must feel after working on this for a long time.

Also, keep in mind that Wizards employees have responsibilties I just don't.

I am the #2 man at a company that has two full-time employees and a lot of freelancers.

Wizards employees could post something and get fired.

They also have financial responsibilites as employees of a publically traded company.

Also, again, my game was in development for 3 months.

I expect we'll be getting much more concrete information from Wizards when the books are three months out. They announced early because they HAD to.

This is again, the result of the fact that 4e is a much huger deal than my little 100 page reworking of Modern d20. Sure it was ambitious FOR ME. But it wasn't the sort of thing retailers needed to get ready for.

No one at my local game shop was setting aside money for a huge inventory push when I announced my book.

So I think the scale of the project, the size of the company and the type of company do and should affect the type of information that gets released.

Again, thanks for the praise, I appreciate it, but you're comparing a very, very small company like RPGO, that basically MUST be agile and work on crazy short timetables to a huge lumbering behemoth of a company that had to announce a game almost a year in advance, that they've been working on for several years (and are now in the midst of a sleep-deprived end run to finish), that's over 500 pages long.

Very, very different circumstances.

And again, we've now seen an entire monster statblock. I suspect we'll continue to hear a lot of talk, with more and more bursts of very concrete information like that monster write-up coming out in the next few months.

Chuck

 

[BBQ]

Well said, Vigilance. *hoists a stein to you*

 

[RigaMortus2]

The presentation wasn't all bad....I now feel a lot better about my own Public Speaking skills.

Yeah, it was that bad.... Let me guess... You liked the D&D Movie too, didn't ya?

 

[BASHMAN]

I was very much in the "Darn WotC! They aren't telling us diddly squat but a buncha' spoon-fed fluff" camp for a while. As soon as I saw that statblock for the Spined Devil, I was relieved. Actual, mechanical crunch to be reverse engineered from a stat-block. If they put out something like this every 2 weeks, I will be happy w/ WotC. Once a month, and I won't make a fuss about it any more.

I find that the more they tell us, the more I actually am interested in 4e-- (as I was in 3e w/ those black-pages) so hopefully that will motivate them to tell us more in the future.