WotC "dumbs-down" stuff? What's bad with it?

[molonel]

I've heard 1st and 2nd Edition grognards complain that D&D is too easy to understand. It's no longer a niche hobby with convoluted rules to keep the barbarian hordes at bay.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

I didn't like it cause I was use to the old format and was pretty good at using it. The new format didn't really feel like an improvement, just different. And change for change's sake is a bad thing.

Where as for me, the old format was disorganized compared to the new one so the change for me was a good one and certainly not change for change's sake.

Lord Tirian,

In terms of dumbing down, please don't confuse simplification with streamlining. A streamlined element is meant to closely approximate the function of what it is replacing/improving but in a more elegant package. To me this is a good thing and what I perceived WotC were doing - making things more useable. Am I wrong with this perception?

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

*Shrug* Simplicity is good. Streamlining is good. Eliminating options is bad. The trick is to balance flexibilty and options with a simple, streamlined system. WOTC has done an OK job -- they have added unnecessary complexity in places, and removed it in others.

Personally, I don't feel RPGs should be complex, arcane, or inaccessable to the uninitiated, but there are those who think that way.

 

[Shadowslayer]

I think you'll find that the main dividing line in opinions about this lies between guys like to cook their own stuff up, and guys who have no problem just using stuff as is.

Myself, if I need a statblock for 4th level orc fighter and a map of thief's stronghold, I'm happy to yank them out of a book. The less figuring I have to do, the better. I never looked at my DMing as an art. I think of it more as a craft. And I'm happy to buy my parts from WOTC. (as long as they're good parts) The play's the thing. Who cares how you got there?

So, what one guy says is "dumbed down", another guy sees as "ready-to-use"

I sure won't cry if they keep putting encounters, sample NPCs, stat blocks and maps in the books. I even like the stats for variations on traditional monsters in the newer MMs. So sue me.

 

[Psion]

What kind of person says these things?

Therein lies your answer, probably.

Indeed. "Dumbing down" is just a rhetorical bludgeon, chosen to make you feel guilty/inadequate for liking what you like and not what the speaker likes. If it had any real merit, I don't think there'd be as much need to couch it in such terms.

 

[DaveMage]

Anyone who thinks D&D is in any way "dumbed down" is most certainly far too intelligent to waste time playing RPGs...

 

[Ranger REG]

People like to think of RPGs as something smart people do thus meaning they are smart since they play. Making the game simple enough for everyone defeats this. There is an elitist attitude with gaming that seems to rather common no matter what the system being played is.

QFT!

P.S. And you know who you are, elitists.

 

[Korgoth]

I've heard 1st and 2nd Edition grognards complain that D&D is too easy to understand. It's no longer a niche hobby with convoluted rules to keep the barbarian hordes at bay.

Is my sarcasm meter broken, or do you mean that seriously?

Almost every grognard I've ever seen has complained that 3E is too complicated, bloated and slow.

 

[Ranger REG]

Almost every grognard I've ever seen has complained that 3E is too complicated, bloated and slow.

What you expect from the rulebooks being co-written by Jonathan Tweet? The guy comprehends at a higher plane of intelligence.

 

[XO]

Admiration & Grogne

I've heard 1st and 2nd Edition grognards complain that D&D is too easy to understand. It's no longer a niche hobby with convoluted rules to keep the barbarian hordes at bay.

I admire a man who knows that he belongs in with the barbarians and can admit it (JUST pulling your leg)

Here's the nature of my complaint: the "dumbed down" version has not improved the game in any way, but it has made the books unpalatable, boring, tasteless, bland, obnoxiously dull and otherwise uninteresting. So do permit this grognard to "grogne" a bit (since it means growling or grumbling discontent).

Let alone the fact that the dumbing down has resulted in inflationary volumes of overly large text spreading ever more onto more and more discombobulated pages. In essence, the wizardlings have wrought naught but a mess. Who, then, shall set this matter aright by publishing a consolidated this, and a fully compended that?