Bunnies! Look, over there!
What an awesome image! Where it that from? Sorta looks like a choose your own adventure / lone wolf sort of thing.
The Guards at the Gate Quote
- Thread starter GSHamster
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What an awesome image! Where it that from? Sorta looks like a choose your own adventure / lone wolf sort of thing.
jonesy
A Wicked Kendragon
You're new in this thread, aren't you?
It's the Port Blacksand guard from City of Thieves of Fighting Fantasy.
El Mahdi
Muad'Dib of the Anauroch
As to inferiority: I would think that a game made by the leader in the industry, that purposely and officially excludes certain types of gamer styles, officially disparages and marginilizes those styles, and did this profusively throughout it's mechanics and products, as well as throughout it's marketing and the games release, is by definition making an inferior game.
The industry leader, the 800 lb. Gorrilla, making a game and marketing it in a way that alienates a majority of it's potential customer base... A game designed with a narrow style focus (and by default, a narrow customer focus), but being marketed with an expectation of broad acceptance...
Absolute Foolishness.
From a business standpoint, Exclusiveness (at least without an exclusive pricepoint), is Inferior to Inclusiveness. A game that can be all things to all gamers, and excites the majority of it's potential customer base, is quite obviously superior to one that doesn't. If they had made that game, and treated their potential customers in that manner, I highly doubt we would have seen problems on the magnitude of what happened...problems that continue to plague WotC.
As to whether it's silly for people to be offended or not: people were, and James (and WotC at large) could have avoided it completely with a little forethought and reason. Whether one believes such offense is reasonable is moot. Nobody is going to change human nature by extolling how much these offended readers shouldn't feel this way. If one wants to be successful in marketing a new product, then one must acknowledge and work with such factors as this...or suffer the blowback (as WotC undeniably has).
As to whether it was bad advice or not: the release of the last D&D edition has shown us that predominantly, people come into the game by being introduced by those who already play. Also, most groups tend to play the system that their GM prefers. Putting advice in the DMG, that quite obviously signals to GM's that if you don't play by this specific style you are not going to like this game, was beyond foolish. Turning off the majority of the people that are going to be selling this game to their groups... I find that actually goes beyond simply calling it bad advice, and takes it into the realm of foolishness, arrogance, and fiscal suicide.
As to moving on: that seems to be exactly what the majority of the fan/customer base did.
Hopefully, the new class at WotC has learned from the mistakes of the past and their predecessors, when designing and releasing the new edition.
P.S.: I think it's also important to note for the subject of this discussion, that James Wyatt's quote did not occur in a vacuum. It occured in an environment where:
- the game was being marketed by criticizing that which came before it (alienating customers that liked what came before it)
- customers were being told that their feedback as concerns products (specifically including high res, unlabled maps in adventures) were silly and they really didn't want it or need it (alienating customers that initially bought in to 4E and DDI, but when treated like this told WotC to get stuffed)
- pdf's of older editions were pulled with a voiced explanation that customers simply couldn't be trusted to not pirate, and generated suspicion that they were pulled as a business decision to make 4E the only game in town
- (and finally) in an environment where promises were made as to DDI support of the game that did not materialize when promised, and to a large extent still hasn't materialized
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Brainwatch
Explorer
You will answer my question! And understand this: how you answer is just as important as correctly answering...
Does this armor make my butt look big???
"Turn around and let me see."
<guard turns around>
"Hmm, let me see you walk it in some."
<As the guard starts walking, the sound of someone running away can be heard>
These aren't bad (at least in my view) because they don't involve peripheral encounters with gate guards. They're bad because the actual encounters they present are failures - little thematic content, little integration with player interest as expressed via their PCs, etc.
He did say it's a "crashing bore for most participants" (DMG p 92). He also said that equipping the PCs "should be done before play begins, for it is time consuming, and the readying of a party can require several hours if there are more than six characters involved" (PHB p 107). As I read it (and I've reread it to try and ensure against misreading) this is both (i) a diagnosis of a particular playstyle as unfun, and (ii) an instruction to leave something out. No RPing through 6 hour shopping trips at the 1st ed AD&D by-the-book table!
I'm not objecting to his advice (at least with respect to Monty Haul - personally, I follow it, but I've known groups who didn't and who nevertheless have fun). I'm trying to rebut the contention (express or implied by some (many?) of the critics of Wyatt's advice) that the 4e DMG somehow crosses a new line in D&D by trying to prescribe a playstyle based on a conception of what makes for a fun game.
I'll let you start that thread, but am happy to participate - I have some views! (And I think there are very interesting differences between Moldvay Basic, which I started with, and Gygaxian/Pulsipherian AD&D.)
But I'm not here trying to critique Gygax. I'm just pointing out that he did the same thing as Wyatt does, and hence that giving playstyle advice and prescriptions is not new to 4e.
I've never been a big one for running pure colour "encounters" (I'm using inverted commas because, in 4e's sense of the term, these aren't encounters, and these days - with fewer and shorter sessions - even less so. I do sometimes use "encounters" which are not (in 4e's sense) encounters in order to frame or prelude or perhaps foreshadow events.
I have very little pure exploration in my game.
I'm happy to concede - as I've frequently contended in other threads in the past - that big chunks of the 4e DMG could be better written. But the quote from Wyatt isn't - in my view - any where near the worst example, and it's general thrust (especially in the context of the other advice in the DMG and the PHB) is pretty clear to me, and I would imagine to most other intelligent readers.
My advice if you want to see an interesting movie this summer in Australia (I'm not sure what the release schedule in the US is): Lars von Trier's Melancholia. Or Almodovar's The Skin I Live In.
For some people those movies may not be fun. But objectively speaking, they are well-made movies by leading directors with good actors and interesting themes and plots. Even if you happen not to like those films, my advice is not, in any objective sense, "terrible advice". Neither of them is a stinker.
And non-exporation-focused, situation-based RPGing is not inherently flawed or "unfun".
The real issue is whether Wyatt's advice is bad advice for actual and prospecive D&D players.
I'm one of those who has never found D&D to support these multiple styles very well. AD&D isn't very pluralistic in its text (as I've quoted upthread). I don't remember 3E being pluralistic in its text, but am happy to be reminded!
So for me it seemed not a narrowing of focus but just a change of focus, from exploration (especially dungeon exploration and adventure-path-plotline exploration) to situation. If that's a "terrible" change of focus, the bad-ness consists not in the change in aesthetic focus per se, but in the miscalculation of market consequences. (Which is how I read [MENTION=59506]El Mahdi[/MENTION]'s post above.)
JamesonCourage
Adventurer
The first quote is qualified with a "for most participants". That is, he allows for exceptions (though it's definitely a somewhat debatable point). The second is advice on pacing, as far as I can tell, not a comment on what is or is not fun.
From your two quotes, above, it looks like he did something different than what Wyatt did. Gygax qualified his statement of what is fun to applying to most people, leaving room for exceptions. Additionally, he gave his view on pacing, which is not an objective value judgement on what Fun is.
Then again, you didn't say "documentaries aren't fun, don't watch them" or the like, did you? In fact, you said "for some people those movies may not be fun" and allowed the possibility to exist. Wyatt didn't. Wyatt didn't say "this play style will result in a satisfying and compelling style of situation/encounter-oriented gaming" or the like. He said something wasn't fun. You're comparison is off, in my opinion.
That's definitely a different take on it. I mean, if any of those players would have fun talking to that guard with nothing on the line, he's given terrible advice. Because, by following it, it'd be actively hurting their enjoyment.
The 3.5 DMG, under Style of Play on page 7, talks about "Kick in the Door", "Deep-Immersion Storytelling", "Something in Between", "Serious versus Humorous", "Naming Conventions", and "Multiple Characters". Later, it goes on to talk about Motivations on page 43, where it talks about "Tailored or Status Quo" "Event-Based Adventures", "Site-Based Adventures", and the like.
And, I think I can safely say that many people have played all editions of D&D in many different styles, and found that it met their play style just fine. You may not think it supports those styles well, but obviously you'll get people who disagree.
The change of focus isn't terrible, calling people's fun "not fun" is terrible advice, because it'll make the game worse for people he's leaving out. He's not saying "these things are not fun for most players" (which would be debatable enough already). He's saying "these things are not fun; skip them and roll some dice! That's what's fun!"
I feel like you keep trying to shift this to play style, but that's not the objection. Some people object to one style being put forth, yes, but not this particular style. You don't need to defend it. I object to his "this isn't fun; don't do it" advice because it's objectively wrong for some groups, and saying so will detract from their play experience if they follow his advice. El Mahdi thinks that it was a very bad idea to excluding some of the player base from a business standpoint. Pauljathome doesn't like one style getting explicitly supported without support for other styles.
Nobody, as far as I can tell, is saying "a situation/encounter-based style is not fun" in this thread (but please correct me if I'm wrong). I don't think you need to defend it. I don't think, however, that Mr. Wyatt's quote is very defendable from where I stand, though. As always, play what you like
BryonD
Hero
Please clarify. Are you saying that "An encounter with two guards at the city gate isn’t fun." is a de facto true statement in your games or not. That was the question and your answer is a little cagey.
Hey, again, you are playing a bit of bait and switch. I made no claim that this was the only example or that it was even the worst. Frankly, I wouldn't consider myself adequately expert in every detail of what is written in 4E.
What I DID say was that you can't defend THIS quote without turning it into something that isn't actually there and THIS quote also speaks directly to what many people find really lacking in 4E overall.
I certainly agree strongly with your first paragraph. He said what he said.
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