Too old for the first time?

[davethegame]

Like everyone else chiming in, my experience is anecdotal...

But I'm 25, grew up in science fiction and fantasy fandom with dad writing it and exposing me to the classics. I very briefly played WoW and used to love anime. I like what I've seen so far of 4e. I'm currently gaming with a group that is half experienced and half new. Most of the experienced players are WoW-heads and aren't especially looking forward to 4e. Most of the new players don't play WoW, but are looking forward to 4e, especially cleaning up rules that they still don't understand.

My current theory is that there is a significant division not based on age or other generalized notions of target audiences, but between DMs who have no problems planning their games, and those who do (whether it be due to lack of time, lack of experience with the rules, lack of stuff, etc.) If 4e is really pushing for the latter- and I hope it is- then the former group probably feels disenfranchised as they'd want a different focus for any refinements (or don't need them at all since things are working fine.)

Just a theory...

 

[Treebore]

I really don't get this. How can you possibly know?

22 years of playing RPG's, and knowing what I like. I also played/DMed 3E for almost 5 years. As for 4E, I'm pretty good at game mechanics, and guessing what they are likely doing for 4E. They definitely aren't simplifying it enough for me.

Like I told Ari, it doesn't mean I am going to ignore 4E, it just means I am not going to be buying much of it beyond modules and likely the PH. It still doesn't mean I won't play it. It just means I am very unlikely to ever DM it. The only thing it really means is I won't be buying nearly every book put out for it. Other than modules I only expect to buy the PH.

So thats the only real effect of my dislike for 3E and 4E.

 

[king_ghidorah]

I'm 39, nearly 40, and have been playing RPGs since I started with AD&D in 1980. And while 3E gave me some good games, it carries with it problems that make it totally unappealing to my mid-30s friends. And most of those are tied to the assumptions of very regular play and large amounts of prep time. My friends and I are busy people, with jobs, families (and in my case a full-time job, graduate school and planning a wedding in March.) 3E is built on assumptions that investment of time are the easiest commodity you have. Time to invest in play to get to heroic levels, time to invest in prep, time to review rules options.

At 39, 4E sounds appealing because it focuses on starting with heroic play, simplifying DM prep, making the game less bogged down and more active from the start. All of this appeals to me. The feel and style of the game, to be honest, includes some strong appeals to early D&D for me (the "points of light" setting) and some of the early experiences of gaming (the influences from things like the Arduin Grimoires that appear to provide what others see as "video-gamey" elements to the game, but which go back to my early teens at least.)

Now, what may provide a barrier to me buying 4E is the same thing that is killing my gaming right now.... lack of time. If I pick up 4E, it will be for simplified gaming (if it seems to present that) so that I can play some pick up games and get my 9-year-old nephew into doing something creative with his time.

But I do know that what 3.x edition demands means that if I play it again, I will have to make some massive modifications to streamline it, or I will end up playing something else altogether. If WotC wants my RP money, they need to offer something different than 3.5.

I don't really think there's anything objectively wrong with 4e--it's just that a lot of the apparent flavor and tone doesn't do much for me, the same way that most of the flavor from the last couple of years of 3.5e products doesn't do much for me. I like a D&D that evokes gritty, uncivilized swords-and-sorcery crossed with the pulpy weirdness of post-Tolkien fantasy. Moorcock camp is great; anime camp, less so. Player characters should remind one of the Conan novels, or at any rate Baldur's Gate, not World of Warcraft.

I think this is not an uncommon sentiment on the boards.

So Wormwood's post on another thread was illuminating for me.I'm about to turn twenty-six. I don't have nephews, and don't expect to have them for a very long time. (When I do have nephews--or children, for that matter--I doubt I'll game with them, or even introduce them to gaming.)

What's striking is that--for the first time, for a D&D edition--I'm not the target audience. I was nine or so when I got my 2e Player's Handbook (the first D&D book I owned)--I loved the image of the knight charging at the viewer through the canyon; I was charmed but a bit disoriented by the book's dreamy illustrations, the arbitrary characters and unfamiliar vocabulary, the wonky simulationist detail (with pricing for water clocks and sedan chairs!). (A year later, I was equally charmed by the 1e cover's demon and jewel thief when I saw it at my summer camp's library.) I was a senior in high school when 3e got released; I welcomed the bit of edginess and the elegance of the rules.

Now I think at least half of the 4e flavor is irredeemably lame (the other half seems pretty cool, though). I have no interest in playing it; if I had time to game, I'd probably want to do something with heavily-modified E6 rules in a homebrew setting. But what I'm really struck by is that my reaction is massively irrelevant--in fact, I'm glad that Wizards isn't aiming at me. They're aiming for--and should be aiming for--the kids who play the game at recess, and who go home and play it with friends from the internet. I mean, haven't people talked forever at the importance of building a next generation of fans? And shouldn't it be prima facie plausible that whatever appeals to the next generation of fans very well won't appeal to us grown-ups?

 

[Minicol]

Ultimately I think WotC is hoping that the flavor changes along with some of the mechanic changes will draw some new, younger gamers in, while the rules fixes, improved speed and preparation will interest the established gamers who are more likely to just ignore the flavor stuff anyway.

OK. That may be their intent, sure.

First, I am not so certain at this stage that 4e is going to run any faster. The drider post makes me think this may just be wishful thinking.

As for ignoring the flavor stuff, from what I can see in the groups around me, this is more like the reverse happening. Of course, this may be biaised.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

OK. That may be their intent, sure.

First, I am not so certain at this stage that 4e is going to run any faster. The drider post makes me think this may just be wishful thinking.

This might be a bit too much off-topic, but anyway:
There was an interesting follow up post of Mike on this matter - the Driders poison was made this way because all Drow adversaries used the same mechanic and its effects stacked well. It was more or less an adventure specific ability, and not something he would have done for a regular monster.

More on Topic:
It seems to me as figuring out the real identifying mark that distiniguishes someone liking D&D 4 and something prefering D&D 3 is not easy to find with general "demographics" (age, sex, literatary preferences).

Personally, I used to read a lot more when I was younger. Very few of it was Fantasy, and I am not familar with the "Great Classics" that keep getting mentioned on these boards. I loved Science Fiction, today I am not reading as much as I used too, and I guess my favourite authors are Terry Prattchett and Douglas Adams...