Why is the WoW influence a bad thing?

[outsider]

Other people do like WoW. So making their favourite RPG more like something they like qualifies as good.

I like WoW. Making D&D more like WoW could be either bad or good depending on how they are making it more like WoW.

Martial characters with a wide variety of special attacks? Sign me up. Fast paced advancement where I get to chose a new ability every level? I'm there. Finally giving fighters abilities with which they can actually protect weaker characters rather than relying on dm fiat? Great idea.

High level gameplay that consists of human resource management and basically amounts to nothing more than overglorified 25 man square dancing? No thanks.

 

[Goldmoon]

I think its past experiences that have jaded me. I have had DM's in the past try to make campagians more like video games. I had a DM who tried to make everything like evercrack and I hated it. I personally dont play WoW and Im not sure I ever will. I do play another MMO though and its FFXI. I wouldnt want my beloved D&D becoming more FFXI like and I dont want it becoming more WoW like either. I understand that WoTC needs to make money and they will change D&D to meet that goal but if they get chocolate in my peanut butter I'll probably stick to my beloved 2nd ed.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Personally, I think that the way Vancian magic forces players to consider resource management is virtually unique in RPGs now, and is part of the essence of the game..

And personally I hate it. Because playing a wizard, I'd rather memorize Grease and other more enjoyable utility spells, but then everyone looks at me weird when I say "Hey I didn't memorize Fireball, but I have Phantom steed so it's okay!"

Guess what I do.

I ignore the funny gazes and I have my PC memorize Grease, Phantom Steed or whatever I feel is appropriate to the PC & his situation. If they want someone casting fireball, they can have their PC learn it themselves.

In 30 years of gaming, not one of my PC spellcasters have memorized Fireball, Sleep, Fly, Teleport or Magic Missile. The closest I've come to using spells like that are Lightning Bolt and Invisibility.

I don't tell them to run Human fighters with a 2 hand sword and the Power Attack feat tree (or its equivalent), or to run a thief because nobody else is- they don't get to tell me how to run my spellcaster (or whatever).

"But what about killing lots of orcs in a single blow?" and the like?

Find a way appropriate to your PC to do so...if it is appropriate for your PC to do so.

Running a party without a blaster mage is not only possible but fun. Its just a different take on the challenge, just like being part of a party without a healer or a trapfinder.

And while we're at it...

Try running a 1E adventure without a cleric and see how far you get.

Sounds like Dragonlance to me. As I recall, that setting started off with the priestly classes being stripped of their spellcasting===>no magical healing.

Again, its just a challenge, not a bar to actually playing the game.

 

[hong]

I have to wonder why a ruleset that sets people up to be at odds with each other, when in the end they're supposed to be on the same side, is supposed to be a Good Thing.

It's not like we're talking about an in-character dramatic narrativist actor conflict thing. I mean, that would be INTERESTING.

 

[Grog]

#1) "Run Away!!!" or otherwise avoid a particular confrontation. Using your mind for sneaking & trickery is as important as anything else the PCs have at their disposal.

This isn't a solution, because if the party can't escape or their trick fails, we're back to a TPK.

#2) TPKs are never guaranteed- they may get captured or perhaps the dice will go their way. The foes may not be intent on killing. Also, see #1, above.

If the party has no spells, no healing, and just a few hit points left, a TPK is guaranteed if they run into anything even close to a CR-appropriate enemy. No amount of luck is going to save them. And, sure, the DM could decide to have the monsters take them prisoner instead of killing them - but this is just a variation on the deus ex machina solution I already mentioned.

#3) Plan ahead a little better...which may involve things like running away from an encounter earlier in the day, or letting the fighter finish off a foe instead of casting that additional Magic Missile.

First, casting that additional Magic Missile may in fact be the better choice. Say you don't cast it, the fighter misses the enemy he was trying to finish off, and on its turn, the enemy hits the fighter, doing damage that has to be fixed with a couple of healing spells. You can't know for sure how any given situation in combat is going to turn out.

But in any case, if you're talking about foolish decisions on the part of the players, I agree, that can, and should, lead to consequences eventually. What I'm talking about is that, even if the players play perfectly well, the 3.X D&D system requires them to rest after every four CR-appropriate encounters. Good play and smart tactics may be able to stretch this out a bit, but there is no way around the basic concept without either substantial house rules or the DM doing metagamey things like dropping in a cache of healing potions after every combat.

Just like real life, sometimes the game doesn't let you take time to recharge. Sometimes you, or in this case, your PCs, have to reach down deep and find something within themselves that they didn't know they had.

That's fine as a motivational phrase for real life, but how does it translate to a game with clearly defined rules and formulae for how play proceeds?

 

[Sigdel]

I find the spin that WotC is using to highlight 4E is the main cause of this comparison, regardless if welcomed by the community or not. By trying to reclaim some of the WoW audience, WotC are generating this similarity and we may have to make up our own minds on this.

Whoa. Hold on a sec, chief. Is their any hard evidence to indicate that that WoW has hurt D&D sales in any way? Or MMO's taking a bite out of the PnPrpg market? This just seems like a misinformed opinion. I could be wrong on this.

Let's take a step back for a second. I think that a lot of the community (including WotC) are failing to realise that it is less about a better or perfect system and more about the story the DM and the players are part of. In the end it doesn't matter what spin or what opinions people put on something. The number are after all, just numbers. My group will use whatever system my group chooses and no one will influence that. My group will either play 4E or they won't. The system is irrelevant.

If the system is so irrelevant, that why has Palladium been having such a rough time making sales for the past few years? Could part of it be that they have just not updated/upgraded the system?

This all seems like the same old paranoia that springs up whenever the hot new video game comes out. MMO's wont kill D&D because they cannot reproduce the same experience. And it will stay that way until we have Star Trek style holodecks or Matrix style VR machines. Until then I will remain unconcerned.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

That's fine as a motivational phrase for real life, but how does it translate to a game with clearly defined rules and formulae for how play proceeds?

I refer you to my original post.

Running away & other avoidance techniques (points #1 & #3) are ingredients in intelligent play. IME, too many players these days think that any enemy they encounter is one they MUST defeat right here & now. There is no concept of strategic retreat, so instead of trying to find a way around a situation, they head in like they were bulletproof. While they may indeed win THAT encounter, it is a pyrrhic victory- they have expended so much of their resources that they can't handle encounters they should be able to.

And in that case, a TPK result is their own fault.

As for guaranteed TPKs, I stand by my assertion. Not every foe is seeking to slay the party. And I've personally witnessed extremely unlikely die roll sequences- both good and ill, both as GM and Player- that drastically affected the outcome of an adventure or campaign, so you can't tell me that "no amount of luck" will save a party.

Of course, at some point, the PCs are out of resources and need to recouperate.

But does that mean that they should automatically get to "save game" wherever they please?

Of course not. Sometimes, the party chooses poorly the time and place to set up camp. This is not a description of bad play on their part- sometimes, they just don't know that the room they're camping in is the worst place in the world to be at that time.

If that is the case, they simply have to make do with whatever resources they have left, irrespective of "defined rules and formulae for how play proceeds" you seem to think are in the rules. (They're not there- at best, there are general suggestions about resource management.)

Do I, as a GM, feel badly for them at that point? Sure. But I'm not going to give them a pass- another form of deus ex machina (no better or worse than what you think I'm doing)- by not having the scripted event happen, or accelerate their healing, or slip them meta information to get them to change their campsite's location.

Can it result in PC death? Yep.

Can it result in a TPK? Yep.

But those possibilities are part of the game.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I refer you to my original post.

Running away & other avoidance techniques (points #1 & #3) are ingredients in intelligent play. IME, too many players these days think that any enemy they encounter is one they MUST defeat right here & now. There is no concept of strategic retreat, so instead of trying to find a way around a situation, they head in like they were bulletproof. While they may indeed win THAT encounter, it is a pyrrhic victory- they have expended so much of their resources that they can't handle encounters they should be able to.

Yes, retreat is a option rarely used these days.

But that might be because often enough, retreat isn't actually possible. Halfings, Dwarves, Gnomes and heavily armored characters are usually to slow to escape most monsters. If nothing in the scenario gives you the impression that your enemies will not chase you until your dead or to far away, this means retreat simply fails.

As for guaranteed TPKs, I stand by my assertion. Not every foe is seeking to slay the party. And I've personally witnessed extremely unlikely die roll sequences- both good and ill, both as GM and Player- that drastically affected the outcome of an adventure or campaign, so you can't tell me that "no amount of luck" will save a party.

Some foes will take prisoners. But will it be the foes of your next encounter? Many opponents in D&D are _monsters_ that sometimes don't have any intelligence or simply just like to eat flesh, even if it comes canned in a Heavy Armor. And others are evil cultists that like to sacrifice you to their dark gods. If you imprison your PCs, how do you ensure that their is a escape route for them? It's not like they will fight any better stripped from their gear and chained to the walls behind iron bars... (at this point it is worth noting that the reliance on magical items in D&D is clearly problematic in these improsement scenes...)

 

[hong]

I refer you to my original post.

Running away & other avoidance techniques (points #1 & #3) are ingredients in intelligent play. IME, too many players these days think that any enemy they encounter is one they MUST defeat right here & now. There is no concept of strategic retreat, so instead of trying to find a way around a situation, they head in like they were bulletproof. While they may indeed win THAT encounter, it is a pyrrhic victory- they have expended so much of their resources that they can't handle encounters they should be able to.

Of course, if you're going to retreat from the next fight and rest up, it might be smarter to do so _before_ you actually get to it and so avoid that whole messy hungry-pursuing-monsters business. Cf what Grog is saying.

 

[Li Shenron]

WoW is more popular than D&D. Hence, some people feel threatened by that, by the idea that their chosen activity may be "worse" or less fun than some other activity.

Thus, they seek to redefine WoW as the wrong kind of fun, and strenuously reject any ideas that appear to come from that source.

...or is it so that some see WoW as more successful, hence they redefine it as the holy grail and accept anything that come from that source? :\

For your information, I think you should know that probably the majority of people who play RPG also play some CRPG and probably like it.

But they two different games. In the past, computer games tried to recreate the experience of playing a RPG. It was never fully captured, but those CRPG could still be fun on their own. But OTOH it doesn't make sense the other way around, that the "little fish" tries to chase the "big fish". It cannot fully succeed (just as the opposite didn't succeed), but it can lose some of its own uniqueness. You like the big mac and you like ice cream, it doesn' mean that you'd like automatically like a big-mac flavored ice cream

Of course, I am not worried really, because older editions and other RPGs are not going to disappear because of that... If D&D becomes something very different, then I just have two different games to play with, and I can choose. Maybe I'll play 3.0 on saturdays and 4e on sundays... In fact, since I don't think that 3.0 needed any serious change but only some more options, I am probably going to prefer a 4e that looks significantly different and not a needless revision like 3.5. Still, it might be a very different game not just from 3ed but from D&D altogether, depending how far they go.