Rebutting a fallacy: why I await 5e (without holding my breath)

[catastrophic]

We done with straw men now?

You're the one who said that anyting but perfomance may be irelevant. Ok then, everything but performance is irelevant, crack cocaine is a better rpg than any of the ones we talk about. After all, as you said, quite literally, everything but market performance is irelevant in that scenario.

You're the one who said it, not me.

The only issue is what design is more successful - and that's the one that meets the company's goals for it, which may include sales.

By this logic, is sales or return is the goal, the design who's pages are soaked in an addictive chemical is the best design. By this logic, the design that comes packaged with people's life insurance is successful in the only way that matters.

Sales are not the only goal of a product, and certainly any given product has many, many other goals as an adjunct to sales.

Moreover, the gist of my post was that all editions have strengths and that I believe the game as a whole is generally building on strengths to make a better and better game. If you read that and see only an opportunity to tear down one edition in "defense" of another, then I would meekly posit that you are missing a lot of the potential fun available.

Actually, i'm getting more fun, because the whole point of good design is to do that.

You are wroking from the assumption that game design is about fun gimmics that don't really mean anything. Hence, you can mash the gimmics from different games together, and have more fun fiddling with them and reading about them.

But in reality, design is about creating a game which is functional as a whole, not as a pile of gimmics. The idea that you can take a game, rip bits out and combine them with another game is popular amongst hobbyists, but actual game design takes a lot more care, even when adopting things from other sources.

You want to pretend that we can take good things from 4e, and then add bits of 3e to that. The problem is that a lot of the good things in 4e are the lack of things from 3e that make the game less fun, and replacement systems that work better.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Actually, i'm getting more fun, because the whole point of good design is to do that.

You are wroking from the assumption that game design is about fun gimmics that don't really mean anything. Hence, you can mash the gimmics from different games together, and have more fun fiddling with them and reading about them.

But in reality, design is about creating a game which is functional as a whole, not as a pile of gimmics. The idea that you can take a game, rip bits out and combine them with another game is popular amongst hobbyists, but actual game design takes a lot more care, even when adopting things from other sources.

You want to pretend that we can take good things from 4e, and then add bits of 3e to that. The problem is that a lot of the good things in 4e are the lack of things from 3e that make the game less fun, and replacement systems that work better.

Can you accept that some people are of the opinion that 4E may be well designed and mechanically pretty solid but that it still fails to capture the spirit of what D&D is to them?

I believe 4E is a great design for the playstyle it was written for. I tried to adapt it to my campaign style for a while but it was just too labor intensive to keep doing. I don't require the arms race or the math bloat of 3E or 4E to have fun playing. Older editions simply suit my more modest needs for fewer rules.

All change is not objectively improvement and not even all improvements are universally true for everyone.

 

[catastrophic]

Can you accept that some people are of the opinion that 4E may be well designed and mechanically pretty solid but that it still fails to capture the spirit of what D&D is to them?

Not if that 'spirit' involves joke fighters, absurdly overpowered wizards and clerics, deliberatly dense math, impossible to balance subsystems which are pointlessly varied in ways that render many classes simply a waste of time, and various other poor qualities of previous designs that must be removed if the game is to improve in any genuine sense.

I believe 4E is a great design for the playstyle it was written for.

Having the rope use skill does not inform a playstyle. Having one player dominate the table while the other's contribution is a running joke past a certain level does not make for good play in any style.

I tried to adapt it to my campaign style for a while but it was just too labor intensive to keep doing. I don't require the arms race or the math bloat of 3E or 4E to have fun playing. Older editions simply suit my more modest needs for fewer rules.

So how are we supposed to maintain wat's good about 4e, when you're after simply fewer rules? You've obviously speaking in very narrow terms when you define what's positive about 4e.

All change is not objectively improvement and not even all improvements are universally true for everyone.

The fact that human beings are so good at denying what is staring them in the face has never been a rebuttal of the facts they deny.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't require the arms race or the math bloat of 3E or 4E to have fun playing. Older editions simply suit my more modest needs for fewer rules.

I second this, as someone who is not much of a fan of either 3e or 4e overall.

Simply put, what I want a new edition to do is to largely be the game I already have, only better written and with new material being produced for it. 3e and 4e failed this test, as will any further edition that is not at least vaguely compatible with my current game.

Lan-"I'm easy to please - just do it the way I want it done"-efan

 

[ExploderWizard]

Not if that 'spirit' involves joke fighters, absurdly overpowered wizards and clerics, deliberatly dense math, impossible to balance subsystems which are pointlessly varied in ways that render many classes simply a waste of time, and various other poor qualities of previous designs that must be removed if the game is to improve in any genuine sense.

Hmm. Never heard of the joke fighter, it must be some 4E construct that damages enemies with stand up comedy. What are these waste of time classes? I have played every class in classic D&D at one point or another and none of them felt like a waste of time.

Having the rope use skill does not inform a playstyle.

Who exactly is saying that it does?

Having one player dominate the table while the other's contribution is a running joke past a certain level does not make for good play in any style.

I don't know what games you played in but that certainly doesn't resemble my experience with any edition.

So how are we supposed to maintain wat's good about 4e, when you're after simply fewer rules? You've obviously speaking in very narrow terms when you define what's positive about 4e.

By acknowledgement of the qualities inherent in the design. Just because they are not to my taste does not mean they are absent. For example say that you didn't like pound cake. A whole slew of people that you know say that they have found the best pound cake ever tasted and you gotta try some. You try it and just don't like it. That doesn't mean it isn't great pound cake to those that like it.

The fact that human beings are so good at denying what is staring them in the face has never been a rebuttal of the facts they deny.

To my knowledge I haven't denied any facts here. Try presenting some and we shall see where things go.

 

[Connallmac]

I think one factor being over looked in pre-3E editions was that warrior classes at higher levels gain followers which certainly balances out the power of higher level wizards and clerics. Same thing for the rogue classes. 20th level fighters in 2E were supposed to come to battle at the head of an army and 20th level thief should have the might of a thieves guild behind him.

Add on to that the fact that a canny fighter, regardless of edition, is not going to adopt the headlong charge at a high level wizard. Read a little Sun Tzu for cryin' out loud!

 

[TheAuldGrump]

At high levels in older editions everybody gained followers. Fighters just tended to get more of them.

Understandable, given the wargaming roots of D&D.

The Auld Grump

 

[Jack Daniel]

Okay, quick topic check here. It seems that the last few pages of this thread have been dominated by:

• Lots of people pointing out that 4e is a mechanically solid game but different enough from older D&D that it's lost some of the auld charm.
• The occasional (and irrelevant) "3e sux0rs, linear fighter/quadratic wizard" rebuttal.
• No discussion whatsoever regarding the original topic, which was (just to remind folks) that 4e, 3e, frankly any game that involves buying more than one hardcover book, are heavy and complicated games and not at all congenial to new or casual players.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Okay, quick topic check here. It seems that the last few pages of this thread have been dominated by:

• Lots of people pointing out that 4e is a mechanically solid game but different enough from older D&D that it's lost some of the auld charm.
• The occasional (and irrelevant) "3e sux0rs, linear fighter/quadratic wizard" rebuttal.
• No discussion whatsoever regarding the original topic, which was (just to remind folks) that 4e, 3e, frankly any game that involves buying more than one hardcover book, are heavy and complicated games and not at all congenial to new or casual players.

Or a handy box with dice (or chits) and a slim rulebook. (Lots of folks entered the fold with the old Basic sets.) The can still get the huge book(s) later.

I have hopes for Pathfinder's Beginner's Box. But, much as I love it, I will admit that the Pathfinder Core rulebook is intimidating.

However, given the nature of the beast, I very much doubt that 5e would be a one book wonder. For that, maybe True20? Fantasy Craft?

The Auld Grump

 

[Gizmoduck5000]

I have hopes for Pathfinder's Beginner's Box. But, much as I love it, I will admit that the Pathfinder Core rulebook is intimidating.
The Auld Grump

I don't. I have yet to see any evidence that the weasels at Paizo can actually write a game on their own. I imagine that the Beginner's boxset will just be Pathfinder -15 levels, flat-footed AC and all.

It would be nice to have a modern version of D&D that doesn't feel like I'm building a magic deck, so that I can actually stand to play it without popping Zyprexa like M&M's.

Unfortunately that won't happen because instead of producing fun, well designed games in multiple genres with carefully controlled crunch support and a metric asston of modules, WotC will just decided to take a giant crap in D&D's toilet again, so that we'll have ANOTHER bloated, cancerous mass of feats and powers that will have no business being there.