When did We Stop Trusting Game Designers?

[Herschel]

I think it is a few things:

1. When an edition change happens and rules are changed from what you like or are used to.

2. When new artwork really goes against "traditional" artwork some had pictured things to be (Are Kobolds bi-pedal canine cousins or lizards?!??!?!? What's with all the steroids?)

3. When WotC and Hasbro took over, it lost that "personal" touch to many. It then became a 'corporate project/product'.

4. When 3.5e followed so quickly after 3.0e's messes. That broke a lot of confidences. Some of the same problems with 3.0e reared their head in DDM 2.0 which wasn't necessarily the fault of the designers themselves (see point #2)

5. When 3rd Edition made rules for EVERYTHING it did feel like the game was taken away from the DM and its foundations to many. House rules used to be pretty common, 3rd Edition seemed to be trying to negate them (or the neeed anyway) for good or bad.

6. Whiners in a culture of spoiled victimization. Sorry if it sounds harsh, but it sure appears this is the case at times.

7. On the other hand, some times internet rants are cathartic and fun. And entertaining to read and laugh with.

8. A culture where 'pwning n00bs' or "winning" with loopholes or rules bending to show up others is encouraged and flourishes rather than just "fun".

There are more, but I'll stop there. Like most things, any combination of the above in whatever ratio happens to exist in the person at the time of said feelings can lead to those feelings.

Human nature, isn't it fun?

 

[BryonD]

I also find that the older I get, the more I tend to realize that mom and dad were generaly right. They don't have the ability to "tell me what to do" anymore, but I find that their ideas and advice are usually based on experience.

This is kind of how I view game designers. (Not all of them.)

When I was younger I would read something like that and think: Man don't tell me how to play my game.

Now that I'm older, I see it less as them telling me how to play, and more of an experienced player passing on what they've found works. If I'm changing a rule these days, it's usually only after I've at least tried using the "official" rule and found it honestly doesn't mesh with our playstyle.

I completely agree with you. Of course, your point is quite at odds with the OP point.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

It seems to me that nowadays is the only time I've ever actually seen any idea that you should "trust" game designers! From the very earliest days everything got modded, pronouncements were laughed at if we disagreed and embraced if we agreed purely on their merits, and regardless of who wrote them.

So if I could invert your question, I'd ask "when did (people) start trusting game designers" as against just looking at stuff and taking what works and not taking what doesn't work?

n.b. The closest thing to internet forums in the old days was probably the APAs such as "Alarums & Excusions" and "The Wild Hunt" in the US and "Trollcrusher" in the UK. Sorta like slow-motion forums, but not much different in terms of discussion topics and tone in some cases.

This.

I would only add that TSR initially had forums on AOL that were very active. I personally also found the usenet group rec.games.frp.dnd to be a good sounding board for quite a few years. Other than that, however, communication between gamers, or with game designers/manufacturers was pretty well limited to snail mail. For my own part I only saw a few letters each month in Dragon or perhaps White Dwarf to get any feel for the gamer-in-the-street's opinions. I tend to discount whatever communication took place at cons because there just weren't that many gamers who attended same much less engaged in extensive discussion about meta-game aspects and then acted as intermediaries with the gamer community at large.

 

[Scribble]

I completely agree with you. Of course, your point is quite at odds with the OP point.

Possibly?

 

[Prisoner6]

People probably stopped trusting game designers around the time that games were designed by companies, not people. It's a bit of a different mindset to think about one guy writing a book describing what he does for fun, versus thinking that a corporation spent millions of dollars playtesting, editing, revising, studying focus groups, and writing a book.

I came here to say the same.

Specifically, I think it was sometime during the era of second edition D&D, when WotC/TSR (whatever they were back then) started printing handbooks for each and every class (The Complete Book of .... ). These pretty much uniformly struck me as useless supplements whose only purpose was to generate revenue for WotC. Some guy in a suit decided to get D&D players to buy 9 more books by making a book for each class, and then content was created to fill the books.

Previously, when TSR published something, it was a collection of stuff that one of the game designers - who was also a player - thought was a real cool addition to his game. It didn't actually matter if it was cool, mind you, but that the designer honestly thought he had a cool thing to offer. Yeah, lots of times the new rules didn't work out, but that was ok - we were smart enough to ditch the stuff we didn't like.

In other words, the content was created for an actual game, and then compiled into a book because the the author wanted to share. Compare this to some guy in a suit deciding to get D&D players to buy 9 more books and then content being created to fill the books.

 

[Scribble]

Compare this to some guy in a suit deciding to get D&D players to buy 9 more books and then content being created to fill the books.

Who is that guy anyway?

 

[Hussar]

Couple of points here.

Firstly, the examples I picked were just that. Examples. I picked them, pretty much at random, because they had come up on the forums in the past week or so and a fairly random thought struck me.

As far as disagreeing with my point, well, what would you say my point was? The only thing I did was ask a question. I see people being FAR more vehement in their disagreement with designers than they were before. Look at the reaction to Mearl's (to pick another example, not to sanctify Mearls) conversion of the Rust Monster. That drew all sorts of reaction.

Yet, we have examples in earlier editions where the designers flat out dictate your world to you and they are applauded for it. Heck, in the Where Has All the Magic Gone, we've got Delta quoting chapter and verse of the 1e DMG about treasure allocation: Here.

The rules are dictating your world to the point where they actually TELL you where to put treasure.

Now, it's more than true that we pretty much ignored most of this when we played. I know we did. I'm not saying that we didn't.

I guess I agree with the point that it's simply an artefact of the Internet. Had we had the Web back in the 80's, it would be exactly the same.

In any case, BryonD, I'm not quite sure what point you thought I was trying to make, but, whatever it was, it wasn't that. I was simply making an observation and putting it to the community to see if anyone else had noticed the same thing. No value judgements (other than possibly disliking the level of vitriol) attached.

Believe it or not, not EVERY one of my posts is a defense of 4e.

 

[garyh]

I came here to say the same.

Specifically, I think it was sometime during the era of second edition D&D, when WotC/TSR (whatever they were back then) started printing handbooks for each and every class (The Complete Book of .... ). These pretty much uniformly struck me as useless supplements whose only purpose was to generate revenue for WotC. Some guy in a suit decided to get D&D players to buy 9 more books by making a book for each class, and then content was created to fill the books.

Previously, when TSR published something, it was a collection of stuff that one of the game designers - who was also a player - thought was a real cool addition to his game. It didn't actually matter if it was cool, mind you, but that the designer honestly thought he had a cool thing to offer. Yeah, lots of times the new rules didn't work out, but that was ok - we were smart enough to ditch the stuff we didn't like.

In other words, the content was created for an actual game, and then compiled into a book because the the author wanted to share. Compare this to some guy in a suit deciding to get D&D players to buy 9 more books and then content being created to fill the books.

The 2e Complete series was completely TSR. Say what you will about WotC from 3.e onwards, but the splatbook trend started with TSR.

 

[Fifth Element]

Previously, when TSR published something, it was a collection of stuff that one of the game designers - who was also a player - thought was a real cool addition to his game.

The implication here is that the current designers are not players. That is demonstrably false.

In other words, the content was created for an actual game, and then compiled into a book because the the author wanted to share.

If that was the reason, why weren't the books sold at cost?

Compare this to some guy in a suit deciding to get D&D players to buy 9 more books and then content being created to fill the books.

Please, tell us who this guy was so we can harangue him. I find it difficult to get upset at a hypothetical person.

 

[Hussar]

Just to head off any further accusations.

I'm NOT trying to prove any point. I have no particular horse in this race other than curiousity. I'm NOT bagging on Gygax, nor am I trying to start any sort of edition war here. I am NOT curious in discussing the actual differences between rules.

What I am interested in is how the reaction to game designer pronouncements has changed over the years. Prisoner6 makes a perfect test case example of what I'm talking about. The view, that I've seen espoused more than a few times, is that previous designers were "talented amateurs" who were only interested in producing a "good game experience" while current designers are only interested in hammering your pocketbook as hard as they possibly can.

I'm simply curious when this shift occured. Has it always been that way? Have people always viewed designers in this way, but simply lacked a forum in which to air their views? Or have we, as a community, become far more suspicious of designers goals?