When did I stop being WotC's target audience?

[Herremann the Wise]

There is a word for this, and it is badwrongfun. Saying this sort of thing is very self-centered, as if your opinion of what an RPG is is more important than others. Saying that 3E is better than 4E is one thing, I personally say the reverse. Saying that 4E isn't worthy of consideration as an RPG is something else.

Well said! A question though in regards to this thread.

What is fantasy to you and does 4E embody it?

I think a chunk of people (I'll include myself in this group) got into fantasy rpgs through a variety of mediums way back when including D&D. Firstly there are the books of which Lord of the Rings most likely stands at the front, although obviously there are a stack of others. For me you can include the Fighting Fantasy Game books (City of Thieves and Deathtrap Dungeon being standouts, Iain McCaig's illustrations too), Magician by Raymond E. Feist, but then some more recent and older expanded influences (Martin, Leiber, Howard, Erikson, Williams etc.). You can then include a whole heap of images and visuals - the AD&D Monster Manual II cover is a big one for me here, but there's a whole stack of others.

Previous editions of D&D have been able to be shoe-horned to fit this reasonably easily. Magical Items have been perhaps trivialised moreso than I like but that was easy enough to fix. 4E however presents a few basic issues for me in terms of fitting in with my idea of fantasy. Most importantly, where my suspension of disbelief sat has been forced to move. A lot of the simulationist elements of the game have been replaced, moved or just simply gotten rid of. I can hear Mike Mearls voice saying something like: "Some things that were in the game just weren't fun, so we got rid of them. Replaced them with things that we thought were fun." His interview with the Theory from the Closet guy was very interesting... and I suppose it did make me feel in a strange way that the designers were leaving my fantasy world behind for something different.

In terms of marketing the game, you could almost see the guys around a table looking at things from a GNS perspective and thinking: well every one likes games, games are cool so we'll definitely include that. Narrative is like story stuff, and that's kind of cool too. Everyone likes stories. Ah... guys... what about simulationism though? What do you guys think? [The table goes quiet for a minute before someone has a thought] You mean like the dudes who wear viking helmets to games, talk in elvish (Quenya or something) and dress up in armor and beat each other up with swords on weekends. Hmmm... way uncool... dorks even. Perhaps thats what D&D needs to get away from? And so that meeting went...

Unfortunately while I'm really enjoying the game that 4E is with my group, there is definitely a disconnect there with the fantasy I enjoy and the 4E rules as written - all hinged where my suspension of disbelief was sitting, and where it has been forced to move to. The logic behind the world that the game presents has scattered; been moved at the expense of cleaning up mechanics. I guess that for people in that "chunk" that I mentioned before, this is something that you can either accept and move on with (like I suppose I have) or it becomes something that you cannot accept. Something that I suppose means that your D&D journey has ended. And that's a sad thing people.

Some have mentioned that the 3E to 4E change is the same as the 2E to 3E change, it is just that people are forgetting the acrimony of the time, the pervasiveness of the internet now compared to then and all that.

I disagree.

The change from 3E to 4E mechanically speaking is in some ways much less than the mechanical changes from 2E to 3E. However, the ethos behind the changes is dramatically different. Is it just as simple as saying that 4E has left a lot of the simulationist baggage behind (and a chunk of people at the same time)? Or is it bigger than that? I have a bad feeling that it might be.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[HelloChristian]

This is another of those "don't speak the same language" things -- I saw the 3E PC/monster/NPC sameness experiment as a spectacular success.

-The Gneech

I'm with you on this. It's one of the things I like about generic systems, like GURPS. Monsters, NPCs and PCs are all built with the same toolkit. There a transparency and universality of 3.5 that I like.

 

[Windjammer]

Interesting and productive discussion, sir. This is a much more productive means to wage edition war

I'd just like to reciprocate that compliment. For many people*, the edition wars have been a wonderful if emotionally highly charged opportunity to get even clearer about how to decipher general design principles and match these with (or against) personal preferences.

* Or should I say, [ame=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OAvmLDkAgAM]"for us few, us happy few"[/ame]?

 

[Intense_Interest]

What is fantasy to you and does 4E embody it?

I think a chunk of people (I'll include myself in this group) got into fantasy rpgs through a variety of mediums way back when including D&D. Firstly there are the books of which Lord of the Rings most likely stands at the front, although obviously there are a stack of others. For me you can include the Fighting Fantasy Game books (City of Thieves and Deathtrap Dungeon being standouts, Iain McCaig's illustrations too), Magician by Raymond E. Feist, but then some more recent and older expanded influences (Martin, Leiber, Howard, Erikson, Williams etc.). You can then include a whole heap of images and visuals - the AD&D Monster Manual II cover is a big one for me here, but there's a whole stack of others.

Previous editions of D&D have been able to be shoe-horned to fit this reasonably easily. Magical Items have been perhaps trivialised moreso than I like but that was easy enough to fix. 4E however presents a few basic issues for me in terms of fitting in with my idea of fantasy. Most importantly, where my suspension of disbelief sat has been forced to move. A lot of the simulationist elements of the game have been replaced, moved or just simply gotten rid of. I can hear Mike Mearls voice saying something like: "Some things that were in the game just weren't fun, so we got rid of them. Replaced them with things that we thought were fun." His interview with the Theory from the Closet guy was very interesting... and I suppose it did make me feel in a strange way that the designers were leaving my fantasy world behind for something different.

In terms of marketing the game, you could almost see the guys around a table looking at things from a GNS perspective and thinking: well every one likes games, games are cool so we'll definitely include that. Narrative is like story stuff, and that's kind of cool too. Everyone likes stories. Ah... guys... what about simulationism though? What do you guys think? [The table goes quiet for a minute before someone has a thought] You mean like the dudes who wear viking helmets to games, talk in elvish (Quenya or something) and dress up in armor and beat each other up with swords on weekends. Hmmm... way uncool... dorks even. Perhaps thats what D&D needs to get away from? And so that meeting went...

Unfortunately while I'm really enjoying the game that 4E is with my group, there is definitely a disconnect there with the fantasy I enjoy and the 4E rules as written - all hinged where my suspension of disbelief was sitting, and where it has been forced to move to. The logic behind the world that the game presents has scattered; been moved at the expense of cleaning up mechanics. I guess that for people in that "chunk" that I mentioned before, this is something that you can either accept and move on with (like I suppose I have) or it becomes something that you cannot accept. Something that I suppose means that your D&D journey has ended. And that's a sad thing people.

Some have mentioned that the 3E to 4E change is the same as the 2E to 3E change, it is just that people are forgetting the acrimony of the time, the pervasiveness of the internet now compared to then and all that.

I disagree.

The change from 3E to 4E mechanically speaking is in some ways much less than the mechanical changes from 2E to 3E. However, the ethos behind the changes is dramatically different. Is it just as simple as saying that 4E has left a lot of the simulationist baggage behind (and a chunk of people at the same time)? Or is it bigger than that? I have a bad feeling that it might be.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

While I understand that you can be feeling like D&D is moving away from your personal idea of what fantasy is, you spent a thousand words without actually saying how this is so.

You need to spend less time being a politician / demagogue and actually contribute to the discussion by providing meaningful examples.

 

[I'm A Banana]

4e doesn't say all fighters are the same. They say fighters all have similar approaches to combat. But the character himself is left to the player. The fighter can be a highly skilled blacksmith, or a smooth talking military officer or a samurai warrior steeped in history and haiku.

Y'know, the same thing could be said about 2e and 1e, to a greater or lesser degree (and even to a great degree in 3e).

But that, for me, is a problem. That's one of the big reasons I don't frequently play 1e or 2e (or 4e).

Because by not providing me many rules for what my character is outside of combat, they have effectively made me (and everyone else at the table) disinclined to do many things other than combat.

It's like the "you can Roleplay Monopoly!" counter-argument. Sure, you can role-play during Monopoly, but the game doesn't really care if you do, it doesn't advocate it, and so if you do, you're kind of going against what the rules declare is the *point* of the game (to take all the moneys).

You can be a haiku-spouting fighter in 4e, but the game doesn't care if you do, it doesn't advocate it, and so if you do, it seems to be against what the rules concentrate on (to beat up the goblins and get their XP).

I want a game that *cares* about the fact that my fighter can spout haikus, and that does so without me having to add anything.

As far as editions of D&D go, 3e fits that need a lot better than 4e, because 4e doesn't really care about me unless I'm beating faces in (and then it seems to care WAY TOO MUCH about some very fiddly bits, but that's more of a rant about grid-based minis combat than about the wrought iron fence made of tigers).

 

[Shroomy]

I'm sorry, but how exactly does 3.x support a haiku-spouting fighter better than 4e? The Perform (Haiku) skill? IMO, 3.x would mechanically discourage this, given the Fighter's lack of skill points and the relevant skills not be class-skills. Its such an incidental thing, that 4e's open-ended, discretionary system would be better served (hell, a 4e style ability check + half level probably would work better if you really needed to roll for it).

 

[Toras]

I also like the idea of a unified rule system, such as the GURPs or Mutants and Masters minds based ones. Honestly, I would have loved to have D&D use something like that point based design with possibly something like modern's careers for backgrounds and templates for the classes.

 

[Halivar]

I want a game that *cares* about the fact that my fighter can spout haikus, and that does so without me having to add anything.

I'd rather find a *DM* who cares about my haiku-fighter.

In one of my old 3.x groups, we ran what could be best described as a PvP arena boardgame, simply because that was the nature of the group. The real "fun" there was the character min-max meta-game in between sessions. The game itself was merely the conflict resolution mechanic whereby we determined whether we had successfully broken the power curve more than the other players.

My Saturday 4E DM is a storyteller. Perhaps 4E is supposed to be a tactical combat boardgame; in which case, we are using it wrong, and happy to do so.

IMXP, it is not the rules that dictate whether there will be in-depth, immersive roleplay and diverse, interesting characters; rather, it is the people at the table with you.

 

[Fifth Element]

I'd rather find a *DM* who cares about my haiku-fighter.

Well said.

 

[billd91]

I'm sorry, but how exactly does 3.x support a haiku-spouting fighter better than 4e? The Perform (Haiku) skill? IMO, 3.x would mechanically discourage this, given the Fighter's lack of skill points and the relevant skills not be class-skills. Its such an incidental thing, that 4e's open-ended, discretionary system would be better served (hell, a 4e style ability check + half level probably would work better if you really needed to roll for it).

Craft (poetry) could, arguably, be used. Not cross class at all. And whether or not it's a worthwhile purpose is going to depend a lot more on the individual campaign. I could imagine a campaign in which craft (poetry) might be used more than ride, handle animal, climb, or jump.
There's nothing in the mechanics that discourages spending points on being a good poet. It's all a question of the campaign in which the character will be playing.