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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chrono22" data-source="post: 5354300" data-attributes="member: 86638">I couldn't agree more with this assessment! Go DMs!I'd say, no. Many, many previous editions DMs felt disenfranchised with DnD 4e's direction. Many decided to get off the bandwagon and play other games. Which would have been fine, except that they aren't just enthusiastic DMs- they are enthusiastic gamers. Many took some or all of their "herd" with them. Now those GMers are advertising for other games and systems.But many did stick with it, and gave 4e a fighting chance. For many 4e is a hit, and its emphasis on balance is everything they could want in an RPG.Then where does Essentials come in? Simplified rules, fewer choices, and a smaller range of advancement options. You have a game that is tailor made to hook the casual player niche of gamers. With little investment required in a character concept or comprehension of the rules, Essentials enables even a casual player to try out the D&D experience.But essentials and other systems lack something CRPGs have: Accessibility. Affordability. All the effort in the world to make D&D the game of choice will be for naught so long as games happen once or twice a week. So WotC's solution is Encounters- walk in play. Casual players can get a mouthful at a time, at their leisure. But why doesn't this work? Because the people running it aren't casual players.Encounters leaves dedicated DMs in the lurch. Stuck in a series of one offs, with the same repetitive 2 dimensional casts and mechanics, and with no ability to make meaningful changes the published encounters or events... can you imagine? How boring. How uninspiring. How unfulfilling. Encounters may be attractive to casual players, but actually DMing it sounds repulsive to me. But then I guess the renown points system just seems like a gimmick to me, so that might be part of it.I'd say, the long-term dedicated players come from the friends of other long-term dedicated players. They aren't some elusive niche with a bizarre enthusiasm for technology and cheetos. Dedicated players can come from any walk of life- but all of them have friends who play. The people that walk into a gaming store, and start playing with a bunch of strangers, aren't (in my experience) the people that create a long-lasting personal connection to the game.So what WotC really needs to do, is something like Gamers Seeking Gamers. A way for the entire gaming community to seek eachother out. Constantly repackaging their rules and using Encounters (or Living Forgotten Realms) to advertise their lastest offerings isn't cutting it.I really wish DDI had produced the Game Table, as was advertised.</blockquote>

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