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<blockquote data-quote="Jay Verkuilen" data-source="post: 7762676" data-attributes="member: 6873517">I've used the term &quot;uncanny valley&quot; for this before, too. It really lines up with the idea that a genre is a family resemblance, uncanny being when something is in between families, like Planet of the Apes apes, who are too human to be apes and too ape to be human. 4E was an RPG but it fell into the &quot;uncanny valley&quot; by virtue of putting so much detail in terms of novel mechanics, setting shifts, etc. As I have said before, there were a lot of good ideas in 4E despite me not liking it that much overall (playing was OK; I hated DMing it). Well I think the general mechanism is that when you end up with a game that's &quot;neither fish nor fowl&quot; people don't quite know what to make of it. 4E was a good example of this. There were just a ton of changes from prior editions, and many of the changes were in the direction of pushing players towards miniatures and maps and the power cards just pushed people towards the obvious conclusion of minis game/CCG influences. I noticed longtime players thinking this way and becoming more like they were playing that kind of game, being much more focused on their characters enumerated powers. The original 4E adventure design philosophy was also very much in the minis game mode, too.Now if it had been a totally new game without the &quot;family history&quot; of being D&amp;D people might have said &quot;oh, interesting minis game and CCG elements... OK&quot;. Of course it wouldn't have sold super well because basically no other game but D&amp;D really sells, but there it is. I think there were similar issues with shift between old World of Darkness and new World of Darkness, but the fact that World of Darkness players weren't nearly as vehement about mechanics and nWoD didn't make for a notable mechanical shift. The fact that D&amp;D tends to be the &quot;only game in town&quot; for a lot of people changes its status, too. Again, this doesn't mean it's a bad game! An analogy might be having fine dining experience at a place that's supposed to be a bar and grill.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jay Verkuilen, post: 7762676, member: 6873517"] I've used the term "uncanny valley" for this before, too. It really lines up with the idea that a genre is a family resemblance, uncanny being when something is in between families, like Planet of the Apes apes, who are too human to be apes and too ape to be human. 4E was an RPG but it fell into the "uncanny valley" by virtue of putting so much detail in terms of novel mechanics, setting shifts, etc. As I have said before, there were a lot of good ideas in 4E despite me not liking it that much overall (playing was OK; I hated DMing it). Well I think the general mechanism is that when you end up with a game that's "neither fish nor fowl" people don't quite know what to make of it. 4E was a good example of this. There were just a ton of changes from prior editions, and many of the changes were in the direction of pushing players towards miniatures and maps and the power cards just pushed people towards the obvious conclusion of minis game/CCG influences. I noticed longtime players thinking this way and becoming more like they were playing that kind of game, being much more focused on their characters enumerated powers. The original 4E adventure design philosophy was also very much in the minis game mode, too.Now if it had been a totally new game without the "family history" of being D&D people might have said "oh, interesting minis game and CCG elements... OK". Of course it wouldn't have sold super well because basically no other game but D&D really sells, but there it is. I think there were similar issues with shift between old World of Darkness and new World of Darkness, but the fact that World of Darkness players weren't nearly as vehement about mechanics and nWoD didn't make for a notable mechanical shift. The fact that D&D tends to be the "only game in town" for a lot of people changes its status, too. Again, this doesn't mean it's a bad game! An analogy might be having fine dining experience at a place that's supposed to be a bar and grill. [/QUOTE]

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