When did I stop being WotC's target audience?

[thecasualoblivion]

The counter argument to that would be that some 4e fans are nervous because 4e is not a huge success, and thus afraid that more negative "press" on boards like these will create problems for 4e in the long run. That Pathfinder will be bigger than D&D etc.

Show of hands: How many 4E fans are nervous because they think 4E is not a huge sucess?

(begins to count chirping crickets)


How many 4E fans believe internet opinion on message boards is largely a load of horse**** and doesn't really mean anything in the real world?

(personally raises hand)

P.S. Pathfinder being bigger than a game called D&D? I think even most 4E haters can admit this isn't a realistic possibility, no matter how much people may want it to be.

 

[Jack99]

Show of hands: How many 4E fans are nervous because they think 4E is not a huge sucess?

(begins to count chirping crickets)


How many 4E fans believe internet opinion on message boards is largely a load of horse**** and doesn't really mean anything in the real world?

(personally raises hand)

P.S. Pathfinder being bigger than a game called D&D? I think even most 4E haters can admit this isn't a realistic possibility, no matter how much people may want it to be.

I never said it was a valid argument to me, merely that I know that some people on these boards use that argument.

 

[Ycore Rixle]

But do you think it will hinder the exploration approach?

Yes, absolutely, and for the same reason that spending money on cheeseburgers means I won't have as much money to spend on pizza. The design time, word count, and play time per session are all fixed quantities. What is spent on one topic is perforce not spent on another.

I agree with what Psion said. I also think there are specific cuts and changes that have been made to the game because of the focus on combat. Space and time warping whenever combat starts, for instance (1.4x = x, aka 1-1-1-1 instead of 1-2-1-2). This hinders exploration because when players explore the dungeon, they can never be sure which rules of physics apply, even in the absence of magic. How can they map? How can they use logic to solve puzzles, deduce motives, unmask ruses if self-consistency is tossed out the window? Can the warforged survive in the inhalable poison gas room? Yes, if he's not fighting; no, if he is fighting. That inconsistency - the bending of normal physical, chemical, and biological behaviors in the name of combat - hinders exploration.

The biggest reason that a combat-over-all focus hinders exploration is this: if there is no consistency to the world, what is there to explore? Not a world. Just a facade.

Who wants to explore a facade?

 

[Rel]

It's not a matter of difficulty, it's a matter of focus. The central hallmark of what I thinking of here is how the class abilities have become principally about, and balanced around, combat.

EDIT: Simon Atavix and Andor also reflect perceptions I share.

I get what you are saying. My first impression of the game was not terribly different than yours. I'll be one of the first to say that the page after page of powers in the 4ePHB seem to be where a lot of the focus is.

What changed my perception was putting together some characters for my wife and daughter and playing the game some*. My understanding came to be that the Powers, which really only function in combat, were not the vehicle by which the exploration portion of the game came about. Exploration is largely handled via other subsystems in the game (mostly Skills and, to a lesser extent, Rituals).

The games I ran felt incredibly similar to my 3.x games when it came to the exploration part of the game. Sneaking, picking locks, searching for and disarming traps, forcing open stuck doors, figuring out riddles, all of that stuff that comes together in my mind as "exploration" worked nearly identically to 3.x.

It was really in combat where I could see most of the differences. And, to me, these differences were mostly to the good. It felt as though the powers were really just a more codified way of doing a lot of the stuff that was done in a standard 3.x combat (i.e. damaging, penalizing, incapacitating or moving an opponent, healing or buffing your allies as well as things like altering the battlefield in small ways).

Looking at your example of the Thief/Rogue, I still see them performing all the same original functions of that class in terms of the whole picking locks/disarming traps kind of dungeoneering. Just with the added benefit of being able to do more damage in combat than many other classes. I think the focus of the class is still enough on the idea of dungeon exploration for my tastes.

Anyway, I'm by no means trying to talk you (or anybody else) out of your position. Only saying that it took me a long while to grasp the fact that, with 4e, I could really run just about any game I wanted that earlier versions of the game could run. The tools are there for me, regardless of what parts of the classes take up a bigger page count.


*Don't interpret this as me saying that if you made characters and played the game that you should have come to the same conclusions as I did.

 

[Tetsubo]

I don't get this. What did they do to suddenly eject you from their customer base so forcefully? Is there something about the new edition of the game that you find completely abhorrent, or what?

Yes. I fundamentally don't consider 4E to *be* D&D. I consider it a tactical miniatures game with a fantasy expansion pack tacked on. WotC got D&D *right* with the 3.5/OGL model. It wasn't perfect I admit. But it needed a bit of a tune-up, not a rebuild.

Essentially 4E is the first edition of a brand new game that bares little resemblance to D&D. They kept the D&D identity for marketing purposes. I understand why of course, it's a valuable brand name. But the game is too far removed from what I consider the most perfect version of D&D.

Thankfully with the OGL there is always the possibility that others will keep the game alive. It saddens me that future gamers who are introduced to D&D as a new game will see 4E as D&D. Which I don't think it is.

We few grognards will have to school these younglings.

Long live 3.5!

 

[Banshee16]

Since the release of 4E, and most recently in some threads about the upcoming change in the D&D miniatures lines, I've read many times (not always in direct response to me) that "you aren't WotC's target audience, so they don't really care what you think."

I bought every 3.5 book WotC ever released. I bought multiple cases of most of the miniatures sets. I bought the dungeon tiles.

Now I buy almost nothing from WotC. I'm not interested in 4E. The 4E cross-pollination with DDM means I dropped the skirmish game and cut way, way back on buying the minis. (I am still buying the dungeon tiles.)

When did I stop being WotC's target audience? And why? Why did WotC decide to forego the money I was giving them? Are people like me so rare that WotC actually can't make a profit from us? Considering how much I spent on a monthly basis, I find that difficult to believe, but I guess maybe ...

It seems very, very, very (yes, three verys) odd to me that I was a WotC completist for eight years, and then -- bam! -- I'm no longer their target audience. How can it be that the division between "consumer" and "irrelevant" is so sharp? Is it because I turned 40 in May?

It really seems to me that "you aren't WotC's target audience, so they don't care what you think" has the cause and effect backward. I stopped buying WotC's stuff because it became clear that they didn't care what I think. So why and when did they stop caring?

I've had that question as well, given how loyal a customer I've been. I'm sure that I've spent more than their average young customer.

Given I was purchasing a good amount of their books, I'd have thought I *was* who they'd want to market to. But since the advent of 4E (and the months leading up to it, when there weren't many real products), my purchasing budget has gone to almost $0. And because I'm not changing, my players aren't changing either, so they've lost 5 consumers, not 1.

The feel of the game is just changing too much for me to be excited about the new edition.

Looking at books like the new FR campaign, with the much larger type, bigger spacing, and greater use of large images, I can tell when I'm getting charged more for far less content, and that's adding to my inability to get excited about what they're doing with the game.

At this point, they money that I was spending has gone more towards electronic entertainment, at this point. I guess if WotC is happy with that.

Banshee

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Let's just say, I see that in the absence of particular leaning of the group, 4e will produce a different style than 1e-3e*.

I don't remember if it was this thread or another one, but I recall someone recently posting to the effect that when creating a rogue for 4e, they almost felt like a different sort of character than they had when they created rogues in prior editions. The "reason" you need a rogue in 1e was principally because you needed someone canny in lock and traps. The reason you need one in 4e is because you need a striker.

True. As far as I understood, The Thief/Rogue backstab ability was hard to pull off in earlier editions then 3rd. Trapfinding being a rogue-only ability (aside from a few PrCs and later classes) was certainly the primary thing keeping Rogue close to this base.

Since I have always been into this "encounter" mindset (and really, not just since D&D - when I played SR, I didn't like Deckers since they would not share the majority of their action and instead head their own mini-game), I appreciate the changes from 4E.

4E still gives a reminder that its Rogue that search the traps, since its their class skill, but it lost all exclusivity.

I'm a fan of class based systems, but the reason I am so is that classes inform what the game is about. A change in the focus of the classes is tantamount to a change in the focus of the games AFAIAC.

Yes, I can see that point.

In a way, 4E is a "quickly rotating spotlight" system. Every encounter requires and allows every player to contribute (and it's not just combat. Skill Challenges basically allow you to add your own PCs abilities to it and at least aid your allies.). Something like "Now I am playing the trap-finding game and you watch me do my thing" or "Now I am doing the face thing and talk with the Mayor" are gone. I prefer it this way, but there are certainly drawbacks to it - if you're not careful, you lose a certain degree of intensity.

* - I will admit here that this transition was already underway under 3e.

The CR/EL system was definitely heading the way for the transition. I suppose those "Wands of Cure Light Wounds" where also game changers.

 

[justanobody]

I don't get this. What did they do to suddenly eject you from their customer base so forcefully? Is there something about the new edition of the game that you find completely abhorrent, or what?

For some it is the simple matter of no backwards compatibility, rendering all previous product bought useless with the current system. May not be the case for that person, but for many it is.

All the older fluff can be used as long as you discard the new fluff in some instances, but all the older crunch is rendered useless with the totally new system. Like the problems 3rd gen gaming systems had to start with mass market because they were not backwards compatible, and not every can just abandon something that works and isn't broken and still usable just for the newest thing.

Even though it has been in use for half a century people still don't like planned obsolescence.

This smacks of "sure, you can do it wrong, if you want." The implication is either that he's blind, or willfully ignorant.

4E is D&D at his table. And mine. And bunch of other people, too. We are not calling a bidet a toilet. We are not "doing it wrong." 4E doesn't capture the same game you've been playing previously. We get that. It does for us, though, and it would be more helpful to the discussion if the non-switchers would accept that and stop telling us we're living in La-La Land.

Then why generalize? You are calling a bidet a toilet, by not distinguishing between the two. Why say you play D&D and that be all, like it means the same thing to all people/editions?

Why not just say I play D&D 4th, 4th edition D&D, several editions of D&D, 3rd edition D&D, etc.

Are people so lazy that they have to be so vague or generalize?

Most thread on this forum use the class system to tell if a thread is an older grouping of D&D, 3rd/OGL, 4th/GSL, or D&D in general (edition neutral stuff). So why can it not be done in everyday speaking?

So all editions of D&D are not the same, and it can easily confuse people learning what the game is, just like a bidet is not used the same way a toilet is. They may have similar shapes, but the functions are very different!

 

[Simon Atavax]

I see people discussing the specifics of what they like or don't like about 4E and everything goes fine. Its when people come in with the 4E hate buzzwords (too WoW, combat skirmish game, boardgame, pushing plastic) that imply that those who enjoy the new edition are playing the game wrong that the edition wars erupt again.
.

How is it a "hate buzzword" to describe 4e as being closer to a combat skirmish game and/or boardgame than previous editions?

If someone posts here and says, "4e is DAH sux. It's all about POWRZ!!" then yes, call it a hate buzzword.

If someone posts here and says, "You know, 4e isn't doing it for me. It seems more like a combat skirmish game than a dungeon exploration RPG," then I don't see where "hate" comes into it.

 

[Andor]

the biggest reason that a combat-over-all focus hinders exploration is this: If there is no consistency to the world, what is there to explore? Not a world. Just a facade.

Who wants to explore a facade?

qfgt