The Impasse

[Scribble]

One thing ripped from MMORPGS? Fighters now have abilities *similar* to World of Warcraft tanks abilities to hold aggro from mobs.

He said without the designer looking at an RPGs unique elements when implementing the rules.

So yeah, the defender ability might have been inspired bya concept they saw working well in MMOs, but it wasn't just riped and added. They saw that they couldn't just make it: A monster attacks the defender (and take the ultimate choice away from the DM.) They took the concept, Defenders draw attacks away from squishier pcs, and pu the RPG bend on it, by making the CHOICE to attack them more sound.

Changing 4E structure for a recommended 5 man group comes right from Wow.

Are you sure? Or is it that both designers realized that most game groups seem to concentrate around 6 people alltogether?

 

[Obryn]

No, plese read what I posted. If you defend something with one reason, and then make a 180 turn around just because WotC did, then you're a blind defender.

If say today you say "system mastery is bad, so WotC is right, I know that", and tomorrow WotC changes their view and you say "System mastery is good, so WotC is right" then you're a blind defender.

Chaning your opinion is most desired. Changing your opinion in sync with WotC makes you a blind defender.

You're unfairly interjecting a lack of cognition on the person making their decisions. You're also assuming that someone has changed their mind "just because WotC did" without any evidence to back up your position. You're trying to categorize, but not acting rationally in your categorization. Ironically, you're "blindly categorizing" based solely on perceived behavior, while ignoring any thought processes behind that behavior, and your own biases in perceiving that behavior.

Let's take the skill challenges example. I liked them very much at first, as written. I thought they were a great mechanic when I read them in the DMG, and the math looked fairly solid at first blush. I came up with a lot of ideas on how to fit them in the game.

Then, Stalker0 posted an excellent thread about how the math behind them was just plain insanely wrong. I read his arguments, and changed my mind - he made a compelling case with indisputable math supporting it.

Does that make me a blind follower of Stalker0? Or is it only WotC who can have blind followers?

-O

 

[xechnao]

No, actually, I really don't.

You're still treating peoples' tastes as things that are somehow incompatible with one another - that is, if I like one thing I cannot also enjoy another thing. Or, that liking something means I'm somehow overlooking its flaws. Or, that discussion of something's strengths necessarily entails a denial of its weaknesses.

Heck, I know that I can even enjoy two things which are exactly opposite one another. Say, a 4e game with the older skill challenge mechanics vs. one with the new ones vs. one which uses Stalker0's system. Each work in a certain way and it's possible that each has strengths and flaws.

Just because I can find things to both like and dislike about any given game/behavior/rule/system doesn't make me a blind anything.

And, as a side note, just because some folks are desperate to stick people into categories which begin with the adjective "blind" (thereby denying any potential rationality or the action of preference in their decisions) doesn't mean that the categorizing itself was done with any degree of rationality or objectivity.

-O

What you are saying makes sense. You may like and dislike different things at the same time. And something may have its strengths as weaknesses. At this point what matters is the standard of strengths or weaknesses that is put in place. If you defend something that regarding a certain standard of strength what we have is a weakness then you are convicted as a follower or blind defender. The question now remains on agreeing on the different standards we need to put.

If we do not do this but continue do things as you are saying we will never be able to criticize anything. We will end something like the myth of babel.

 

[Shazman]

Of course the designers were being sly about the new edition. Much like in the world of technology, tipping your hand early can completely kill business. I don't blame Apple when they don't tell me about the new iPod before it's ready, and I don't blame WotC when they keep their cards to their vest until <1 year before release.

What's more, I would find it hard to believe that a single 3pp would have wanted WotC to announce the development of 4e all the way back in 2005 or what-have-you. Really, there is an entire (small, but actual) industry for publishing D&D-compatible products - and that industry was still doing decently well back in 2005.

So here's what a 3-year early announcement would have gotten us and WotC:

* More time for their competitors to put out a competing Pathfinderesque product
* Less development and playtest time for the new edition of D&D
* 3pp's hemhorraging money as the entire d20 market starts to tank many years early
* Fewer sales and less revenue for WotC on its d20 books, leading to less income, leading to even less development and playtest time

Even as a customer, I'd be less than thrilled about these. I also don't live in a rose-tinted world where every corporate decision is thought to be public knowledge...

...and going back many pages...


So if I thought 3.0 was the cat's pajamas, and then later loved 3.5's changes, and even later yet enjoyed 4e, that clearly makes me a blind defender because I like different things at different points in time for potentially different reasons.

Got it. From here on out, I will never admit I was wrong, change my thinking about anything, or issue a statement that I like something in fear that my tastes will change later. My tastes and preferences are officially frozen in time as of now.

-O

Well, the statement was made in 2007, not 2005. They also said (unless I am mistaken) they had 3.5 products planned through the end of 2008. I'm not saying that they should have announced 4th edition immediately when asked about it, but there are many ways they could have answered the question without deception. They could have said, "We aren't prepared to answer question about a new edition at this time." "No comment." We will let you know about 4th edition when the time is right." etc. etc. There are many ways they could have gone about it without half-truths or outright lying. There was going to be rampant speculation about 4th edition no matter what they said, so what was the harm in just avoiding the question?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

One thing ripped from MMORPGS? Fighters now have abilities *similar* to World of Warcraft tanks abilities to hold aggro from mobs.

I don't recall that on any P&P RPGS (assuming, of course, I didn'ty play all of them).

Changing 4E structure for a recommended 5 man group comes right from Wow.

Guys, if you wanna defend 4E, that's fine, it's a very fun game, I DM and defend it myself... but using chosen words to avoid MMORPGs comparison is blind, and you know that... hehehe...

The question is not if there are common elements, it's not even who influenced whom. The question is was the "transplant" done without a look at the medium?
WoW has an Aggro-Mechanic. That is nothing like the 4E implementation for Defenders. So they didn't just transplant a mechanical idea, they thought about how to make it work with a RPG.

I will give it a try.

The specific example is the gaming (gamist?) challenge they have put as the basis of 4e.

In MMO games are about two distinct things. An arcade part (which is the technical skill of hand-eye coordination) and tactical part (which is the knowledge of the secrets of the game and their mastery: being able to remeber them). You have to be successful in both but usually there is some space to compensate for non optimum performance in one if you perform perfectly in the other and still achieve an optimum overall result.

In tabletop rpgs there is no way for the arcade part to be transplanted -unless we start tossing darts to a target instead of throwing dice- but certainly there is a way to transplant the tactical part. And this is what 4e did. It made its way in transplanting the tactical design of MMOs. And lets assume for the sake of the discussion that it did a fine job, so fine that we could call what 4e achieved in this aspect a work of art.

Even in 3e there were tactics to master. Now lets assume for the sake of this discussion that they did not reach the artistic status of 4e's design on this matter. But 3e was not build with only this in mind. It was rather build with the possibility of giving the tools for running a world or setting through the various possibilities that one may have. So in 3e there was a possibility to toss out the deep tactical choices and buy more ways or possibilities of interaction with the setting-world and still be able to achieve optimum results but from a different approach -one of breadth. The problem with 3e now is that it lacked a basis to guide you on tracking how these things work together* -and it was solely left on the dungeon master. I agree that this is not enough. In practice it is extremely weak for the tremendously heavy logistics of 3e -and generally of D&D. This begs another question: why D&D builds so heavy logistics. Well this is a commercial thing and a design thing: it helps add content and drive sales. Would it be better a different approach? IMO yes, but this is a different matter entirely.

*as for example in MMO the arcade mode works together with the tactics mode

Now lets take a step back and return to 4e. As I said above what 4e did is create a perfect structure of tactics regarding depth. BUT one should have to pay notice in this endeavour to not choke space for another quality to supplement it with- this quality should most preferably be the one tabletop rpgs have: the options of the verbal input we can have. Of course this is something neither 3e has built upon. I am not talking about making voices here -that should be something arcade (karaoke anyone?). I am talking about expressing choices that we can understand how they reflect personal or social relationships. Because the medium is personal and social on tabletop rpgs. To build a mechanic structure that can respect and run this well it must not be chocked by (incompatibility with) another mechanism that needs to be respected -one such as the balance structure of 4e's tactics.

And you still haven't given me an example. You say that they took tactics from video games (as if they had never existed in RPGs before 4E, except that even you note that 3E had this aspect!) 4E did not implement the tactical part. What you denoted as "tactical" is something that happened in various forms in many role playing games, including previous editions. (Most notably 3E with its introduction of both system mastery - e.g. understanding the "tricks" of the system to create your optimum build - and tactical aspects like flanking and all the miniature related rules)

But after you noted this, you went on to a different topic that is not related to tactics. You talk about running a game world. You seem to be trying to make a connection to the tactical component, but I still don't get how this connection is supposed to work. At the moment I think it's immaterial to what you are actually talking about (without this lessening the relevance or interestingness of what you are talking about. It just doesn't make it any easier to understand what you are talking about.)

I am trying to get what you are talking about when you talk about "verbal input" or personal or social relationships?
Are you talking about mechanics that model something like "NPC x is my nemisis?" or "I seduce the Princess" or even "I am in love with the Princess and I have a personal stake in anything regarding her well being and her relationship to me?"

Generally I would say that no game constraints things it doesn't describe, of course it doesn't facilitate it either. But 4E design doesn't choke anything of this aspect. And it actually has - with its Quest Mechanic tools to describe social or personal relationships. Quest: "Kill Nemesis" and Quest "Marry the Princess" are of course very simple, but the few games I know in this regard have actually pretty similar concepts. If the player spends time on one of his "stakes", he gets mechanical benefits. (In some games, these are Hero Points or Possibilities, in 4E it's XP).

 

[avin]

Are you sure? Or is it that both designers realized that most game groups seem to concentrate around 6 people alltogether?

After all those D&D years they just realized it? "It's copy and paste from Wow, period." *hyperbole*

Groups with clear DPS, tank and healers? Come on guys, let's get the thing straight.

4E is frankly MMORPG inspired. That's not bad per se, just is.

 

[Shazman]

Not to get too political here, but actually, they did. This "blame the consumer" nonsense is white noise from those that got us into this mess through staggering greed and unrestrained gambling. Read up on the credit default swaps market.

Blaming undereducated Dave the factory worker because he believed his banker when the banker said "we've got the perfect program created just for families like yours!" is ludicrous. These programs were designed by the best and brightest highly educated financial minds in the world for the purpose of handing out high risk credit then trading and speculating with a balloon of fake wealth backed by air. At one point, the value of the default swaps exceeded the combined GDP of every nation on the planet. The more risky credit the banks handed out, the more "bets" they could place on default speculation, which they would then trade amongst themselves creating an artificial, completely unregulated market of fake wealth. Uncontrolled, rampant corporate greed, and the world governments that allowed this to go on (principally, but not solely, the US government) are where exactly all the blame lies.

Sorry to get "political" in the thread, but this "blame the blue collar worker for wanting to own his own home and trusting the slick banker in his 3-piece suit and for not being an expert on international finance" thing really pisses me off. It's a smoke and mirrors act engineered by the people responsible for this mess to try and redirect blame, and disseminated by people who still believe an unregulated market is self-correcting. That's been soundly, terribly, and abruptly disproved. Unless by self-correcting you mean - spirals out of control until it bursts, plunging the world into an economic crisis that was easily avoidable with a bit of regulation.

Back to your regularly scheduled thread... um, WotC good. Fire bad. As long as D&D is made by gamers, we are in good hands, as far as I am concerned.

That is interesting. You make some good points and are obvioulsy more knowledgable about it than me. I know that the corporations had a hand in the creating the financial crisis, but I also know that a number of factors combined to create a "perfect storm" that led to our current situation. Of course, I am by no means an expert on economics. I do agree that D&D is in good hands as long as it's made by gamers as long as those gamers like and respect D&D, realize they are making the game for millions of fans and not just themselves, and aren't being pressured by the suits to make it more "market friendly" at the cost of quality. Unfortunately, I believe that the developers of 4E do not meet any of those criteria apart from being gamers. I do believe that the developers of Pathfinder meet all of those criteria which is one reason it is my D&D now.

 

[Scribble]

After all those D&D years they just realized it? "It's copy and paste from Wow, period." *hyperbole*

Realized, vrs researched?

I don't know for sure, maybe it WAS a concept they took from WoW for some reason?

I DO know speaking for my own experience, my original 3e group consisted of about 8 people. That was WAY too big.

That campaign ended and I started a new one later on a different day with 4 players, as per the book. It never seemed right. Not mechanically, mechanically it was spot on... It just felt like a weird gathering of people.

When it was at 5, it felt right for soem reason. Not too big to handle, but also not so small it felt weird. When we added a 6th player, it started to get overwelming feeling again.

Which is why, based on my own experiences, I think maybe they just realized the average group of dorks tends to flock towards 6? (5 players 1 DM?)

 

[Obryn]

Well, the statement was made in 2007, not 2005. They also said (unless I am mistaken) they had 3.5 products planned through the end of 2008. I'm not saying that they should have announced 4th edition immediately when asked about it, but there are many ways they could have answered the question without deception. They could have said, "We aren't prepared to answer question about a new edition at this time." "No comment." We will let you know about 4th edition when the time is right." etc. etc. There are many ways they could have gone about it without half-truths or outright lying. There was going to be rampant speculation about 4th edition no matter what they said, so what was the harm in just avoiding the question?

Seriously, how the heck would this have helped anything?

If they are saying "No, No, No" and all of a sudden they're saying "Maybe!" or the functionally-identical-in-this-case "No Comment" they might as well just come out and say it.

You're championing a very naive view of the whole development process. When you weigh "Giving a statement open to misinterpretation" or "Answering questions in an evasive fashion" as a bigger sin than "Contributing to the potential collapse of D&D as a a product line and/or unemployment of most of WotC's staff and several third-party publishers" and weigh them evenly... well, I think you have some blinders on.

See the Osborne Effect for the general line of thought here. Note, though, that even though it's called the Osborne Effect it may not have actually been what killed the Osborne's market share. A better, modern-day example might be the Sega Saturn... Its successor was announced prematurely, sales of the Saturn tanked, games were cancelled as a result, and it all spiraled out of control until all of these factors helped make the Dreamcast flop.

-O

 

[Shazman]

Seriously, how the heck would this have helped anything?

If they are saying "No, No, No" and all of a sudden they're saying "Maybe!" or the functionally-identical-in-this-case "No Comment" they might as well just come out and say it.

You're championing a very naive view of the whole development process. When you weigh "Giving a statement open to misinterpretation" or "Answering questions in an evasive fashion" as a bigger sin than "Contributing to the potential collapse of D&D as a a product line and/or unemployment of most of WotC's staff and several third-party publishers" and weigh them evenly... well, I think you have some blinders on.

See the Osborne Effect for the general line of thought here. Note, though, that even though it's called the Osborne Effect it may not have actually been what killed the Osborne's market share. A better, modern-day example might be the Sega Saturn... Its successor was announced prematurely, sales of the Saturn tanked, games were cancelled as a result, and it all spiraled out of control until all of these factors helped make the Dreamcast flop.

-O

Exactly how do you get "maybe" from what I said. Do you really think that just saying we are't going to talk about a possible new edition of D&D right now would have destroyed WotC and D&D? D&D is a very small part of WotC, and 3.5 products continued to sell fairly well after the announcement and release of 4E. Which one of us has the blinders on?