D&D 4E What was Paizo thinking? 3.75 the 4E clone?

[Keoki]

Well, a response like that deserves a response like this:



Basically, I'm burnt out on 3e. I have worked around and overlooked the fundamental flaws in the system for a long time. But its just become too much work.

Will 4e be the answer? I don't know. I won't know until June. But the designers seem to be addressing every problem I have ever had. And that makes me very pro-4e.

Oh, I'm sure 4E will have its own set of flaws. But I'm excited about finding out what they are.

 

[Raven Crowking]

It's not as if Pathfinder were an entirely different game. It is, essentially, a soon-to-be-outdated edition of D&D, no matter what its name, and I'm quite certain anyone playing it will know this.

What, exactly, makes a game outdated? When Anti-Monopoly appeared, did Monopololy become outdated? Did Star Wars Monopoly prevent anyone from buying the classic edition? Games are not like software.

In releasing 4E, WotC is declaring it to be an improvement over 3.5.

Yes WotC is, but on what basis is it making that claim? So far as I can tell from what has been released so far, 4e is no different than any other edition of D&D in one respect: it sacrifices some strengths of previous editions to compensate for those edition's weaknesses, in some cases failing to compensate adequately, in some cases succeeding spectacularly, and in some cases creating new, unforeseen, weaknesses.

Of course, I don't buy that older versions of D&D carry stigma.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

New marketing information post 3.0?

Yes.

But that gets into a LONG speculative debate on company proprietary data that an never be proven one way or another on a web board.

Instead ask yourself this ...

Which company is better positioned to have access to the marketing data that reflects the consumer behaviors of the D&D gamers? WotC? Paizo?

Now, correct me if I am wrong, but isn't this precisely the kind of thinking that led TSR to believe that it knew what the gaming population wanted more than some upstart young company? Like, say, WotC?


RC

 

[Wormwood]

I just don't understand why so many people are jumping on the 4.0 bandwagon before it has been released.

Speaking solely for myself, it is because the overwhelming majority of information released about 4e indicates the game is moving in a direction that I prefer.

The crunch, the fluff, the design ethos, all of it.

Considering that I was effectively over 3.5 *before* the announcement of 4e, I am definitely *not* the target audience for Paizo's iteration.

 

[Firevalkyrie]

Fair enough, I apologise for the tone of my post.

I just don't understand why so many people are jumping on the 4.0 bandwagon before it has been released.

Because I've taken apart and put back together 3E in as many ways as I can think of, and none of the reconfigurations is particularly interesting to me. So a new version of the game that starts from "let's make sure the math works on all levels" appeals strongly to me.

 

[Aaron L]

Are you aware of any new marketing survey, after the one that brought us 3e?


RC

I'm glad someone said it, or I was going to; everyone keeps blathering on about "market research" and " gamer feedback" when I have seen absolutely NO sins of any kind of survey or concerted effort at gathering feedback since 3E was being compiled.

Now, I'm nor saying that 4E will be bad. I actually imagine it will have quite a few ingenious ideas in it. But the thing that REALL irks me is that, with each edition, the game has ottem more and more simplified at the expense of detail. What happened to my list of polearms from the nack og Unearthed Arcana back in 1E. How may types of historical armor were there in 1E? How many types in 2E? Haw man tyoes of pure fantasy armor were there in 3E? ANd now, finally, in 4E, how many types ofpurely fantasy armor are eft? Something like 6 types of armor?

That I DO NOT LIKE AT ALL. I am firm believer that in D&D, unless something is supposed to be be blatantly fantastic (fire-breathing dragons, Magic-users casting spells) that the core setting of the game should be based on simple old mundane Earth. That way we don't end up with any more abominations such as 15 pound two-handed swords, falchions that are two-handed scimitars, or Paladins summoning holy mounts out of thin air for so may hours per day. The more down-to-Earth the mundane aspects of the game are, the more believable it is, and the more fantastic the truly magical elements seem to everyone. When the game to to the point where EVERYTZHING is fantastic, and the players say "Oh, ho-hum, another 50 foot fiery demon attacking this tiny little peasant village, didn't this happen last week?" Then the game has lost all sense of verisimilitude, believability, credibility, plausibility, or whatever the Hell the current buzzword of the week you choose to argue semantics about to avoid the real issue. It turns the game into a cheap and tawdry rip-off of genuine fantasy and becomes ever closer to the incestuous "D&D basing itself on prior versions of D&D instead of the ancient myths, legends, and fantasy literature" that 1E was based on.



All in all, I see in the "streamlining" nothing more than "dumbing down." I truly hope I am wrong, but after seeing the armor list the alarms went off in my head and I got a migraine. While people may say "why do we need this sub optimal armor?" I say "because it existed in the history, myths, and legends that the entire damn game is based on!!!) I want my D&ED based on Le Morte D'Arthur and the Once and Future King and the Belgariad and Beowulf and Tolkien and the Wheel of Time and H.P. Lovecraft and Jack Vance (even Lewis Carrol for Gods sake!) and, most especially, ACTUAL frikking HISTORY!!!/i]; I certainly do NOT want my new D&D based simply on what came before in 3rd, 2nd, and 1st edition D&D with the "complicated" (IE, lowest common denominator pandering) things stripped out!




So, I guess, all in all, that if when I buy my 4e books and they look like some kind of Pokemon anime extract (and I LIKE anime, but some of the **"special power names are so over the top corny pseudo-anime I want I vomit Pikachu in chuncks all over the floor; it's like the designers saw a bad kiddie anime once and didn't understand anything about it, and thought it was only about flashy colors!) mixed with a few "D&Dish" references, I'll read through the books, shake my head, wipe a tear from my eye, and take them back to the store and politely return them for a refund, and end up quitting playing RPGs all together. Because, despite my greatest efforts, my group will play nothing but D&D, and has taken to naming characters things like Schweps Gingerale and El Anus, in a serious game (which makes me want to physically throttle the guy, except he has something like 270 pounds of fat trumping my 160 pound frame)) and even though I've been absolutely frothing at the mouth to run a CthulhuTech campaign I've been sitting on ever since I got the setting book in December, no one will even consider giving it a chance, simple because it isn't medieval fantasy or D&D of some sort. .

**My recommendation for the maneuver names for Fighters and such is either use real European and Japanese style names, which are already evocative enough if translated into English from their original German, Italian, or Japanese, or base the names on the sword forms fro,m the Wheel of Time; Cat Crosses the Courtyard, Sheathing the Sword, Parting there Silk! Stuff that actually SOUNDS like it was named by actual swordsmen, and not by some game designer trying to come up with over-the-top cool sounding names.



So what I guess I'm trying to say is that I REALLY, REALLY WANT to like Fourth Edition D&D, But I'm VERY AFRAID after reading some of the previews and some of the things the designers have said. Different rules for monsters and PCS? I though that was a BAD thing that was corrected in 3E, but not suddenly its a good thing again that 3E got wrong? I LIKED having the the same rules for both monsters and PCs. Everyone worked under the same laws of physics. There are some thigs you just cant d no matter how hard you try? I though we got rid of that has a horrible relic of 1e, and yet here it comes back again with the Trip "Power."

And now, with all that said I truly hope that all my fears are proven completely invalid, and that I will be happy to play 4E when it comes out in a few months. I am very much lookimg forward to the release date and am planning a trip with my friend to the nearest gaming store (which is an hour away from where we live, unfortunately) so we can go over the books together and bounce our impressions off each other.



Well, that's it; this is my last post on ENWorld, at least until 4E comes out; but judging by the atmosphere lately, it will probably be the last forever. I've been here since the beginning, but the bickering, sniping, bitching, vulgar attacks on others, and general vile meanness has been absolutely DISGUSTING lately, and add in this influx of new, callous, rude, insulting, and downright VILE new generation of posters, and I can't take it anymore. My real life is a living Hell, and I used to come to ENWorld to relax and unwind among fellow geeks and gamers and looked to forward to seeing how everyone was doing and getting jut a little relief from the living Hell of real life. Now, I come here and I get sick to my stomach and develope a migraine; it' even WORSE than real life around here anymore. And I can't take it. So goodbye, everyone. I want to leave while I can still remember the happy, fun, polite and cordial place ENWorld used to be like.



Goodbye ENWorld. I will miss the happy place you used to be, and all the wonderful online friends I had made here.

 

[Wormwood]

Goodbye ENWorld. I will miss the happy place you used to be, and all the wonderful online friends I had made here.

There's a lot more to ENWorld than just the 4e forum.

 

[billd91]

New marketing information post 3.0?

Yes.

But that gets into a LONG speculative debate on company proprietary data that an never be proven one way or another on a web board.

Instead ask yourself this ...

Which company is better positioned to have access to the marketing data that reflects the consumer behaviors of the D&D gamers? WotC? Paizo?

And Paizo can't run their numbers, check out market barometers, run survey's, and so on? WotC may know their own sales figures and expenses, but there's no real reason to think they've got more or better information than Paizo can get unless they come right out and tell us what kind of research they're doing.

The fact that there is a push to 4E is a sign that there is not only a market for a new product but that it is a profitable one as well from WotC. Due you really think for an instant that the corporate overlords in Hasbro release ANYTHING without marketing surveys? Every product that exists in the mainstream corproate world has a lot of "focus" testing and marketing these days before it ever sees the light of day.

On the other hand we have Paizo with a weak sauce toe in the water approach speculating about whether there is or is not ... or perhaps based on web hits they can extrapolate ... or feedback from free alphas they can estimate ... Put yourself in the role of an investor. Which company do your think knows the market?

Depends on whether or not WotC can make all of its decisions completely independently of Hasbro. I'd be willing to be Paizo knows the market much better than Hasbro. You can put a weaksauce spin on what Paizo is doing, but I don't see it that way. It's a public alpha so its rough. But it's not tentative.

 

[billd91]

Well, that's it; this is my last post on ENWorld, at least until 4E comes out; but judging by the atmosphere lately, it will probably be the last forever. I've been here since the beginning, but the bickering, sniping, bitching, vulgar attacks on others, and general vile meanness has been absolutely DISGUSTING lately, and add in this influx of new, callous, rude, insulting, and downright VILE new generation of posters, and I can't take it anymore.

Good thing he doesn't hang out on Circvs Maximvs.

Though it's true that there is a lot of hostility on ENWorld, particularly since the 4e announcement. I just don't agree that it's a particularly recent generation thing. There are plenty of low post-early join date postings that have been pretty rude too. Tensions are running high because we're all interested in the future of RPGs, whether in D&D or in some other shape or form. We just all have different ideas, different assessments, all based on different experiences and that leads to different conclusions. It's too bad that more people can express it constructively or, at least, non-snarkily.

 

[drjones]

Because there is something in the nerd soul that urges one to take things apart to learn how they work. For some folks 3.x has been taken apart and put back together many times.

4th is a brand new black box with who knows what kinds of crazy gizmos inside. I can't wait to take a wrench to it myself.