WoTC Interview with Rob Heinsoo

[MerricB]

Because 4e has made fighting monsters more fun than pretending to be an elf.

Glorious! Have some XP!

I don't actually agree... well, I prefer pretending to be wizards than elves anyday... and I think 4e still has flaws with its combat... but it's a great comment that may actually be true for some people.

Cheers!

 

[Branduil]

Because 4e has made fighting monsters more fun than pretending to be an elf.

Heh... is this the opposite of damning with faint praise? "Blessing with soft criticism"?

 

[Jack99]

The conversion issue provides a fairly objective measure of difference. I can take a module written for any major pre-3E version of D&D and use it with any other -- with few (if any) substantive changes. Introduction of a "foreign" player-character may entail a bit more work, but conversion is largely just a matter of noting race, class, level and ability scores, then applying game factors derived from those in the rules set at hand.

Conversion between AD&D and 3E can be a bit tricky, especially as levels get higher; I find it easier to go from 3E to AD&D than vice-versa. How about conversion between 3E and 4E? As I recall, the advice from Wizards was strongly to start with all new 1st-level characters rather attempt to convert a campaign from 3E to 4E.

The acid test: How about conversion between AD&D and 4E?

Conversion of modules is just as easy (if not easier) than it was before. Sure, you might run into a few issues with space, but NPC conversion? Please, it's 100 times easier, simply because the NPC's/Monsters only obey very few basic rules, and are not slaves to the HD/save/skill system.

 

[Treebore]

Wow, it seems this turned into a "what i dont like about 4e thread." Who could have foreseen that?

I like 4E, its easier to convert to C&C than 3E is. Well, the modules are. So I like 4E modules, especially the Punjar modules by Goodman.

 

[Ariosto]

Theoretically, easier conversion to C&C should also mean easier conversion to AD&D.

I should clarify that in the pre-3E context, I don't need familiarity with a particular edition. The rules are so similar that the differences between one and another are in my experience no more than the differences in house rules among campaigns using the same set as a basis.

More to the point, the actual data in a module can for the most part be used directly, with no actual "conversion" required.

Going backwards from 3E, I'll usually either swap in stats for kobolds or whatever from the "host" game or convert stats knowing, for instance, how AC works in 3E -- while ignoring the bulk of the "stat block" that is gibberish from a non-3E perspective. At higher levels, it becomes increasingly important to take some account of the 3E complications, and increasingly problematic to do so on a simple algorithmic basis.

I can see how the greater immediate utility of 4E stat blocks could ease the process. However, the simple resort of "swapping in" seems to me less likely to be so often satisfactory given the great variety among monsters of a given basic type. Also, instead of Hit Dice there are Hit Point listings that depart widely from expectations in the older games (but I wonder how well level corresponds).

I have not actually tried any 4E to AD&D conversions, but again my main point is how relatively incomprehensible (or lacking, if going from pre-3E to 3E or 4E) a write-up for one is on a basis of familiarity only with the other.

Actual play in another edition introduces the host of differences that are the biggest selling point of new rule-books in the first place.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I've just looked at three pages of thinly veiled edition wars and some pretty snarky comments all round. Not very good going.

Either the thread gets back on track or it gets closed.

Thanks

 

[Cadfan]

Even "on track" isn't the nicest place, since its kind of a flamewar for or against Heinsoo.

How about this:

It is the right and the duty and the job of a game designer to do things that this forum calls badwrongfunning people.

Any game designer that tried to make a game that was fun while simultaneously never communicating what he or she felt was NOT fun would, by definition, be a quisling and a failure.

And because every geek community is an echo of every other one, if you go into other genres and read fan discussion of design diaries, you see the same things you see in this thread. Designers of popular games identifying what they felt were flaws in previous games of their own design or in genres they wrote. Fans freaking out, and insisting that the items identified as flaws are actually good- they LIKE it if fighting games have at least one character that's too weak to use, because that gives them the pleasure of not picking it! They LIKE it if a game that's theoretically pure strategy has a high APM tax expressed through click rate, because strategy games should be won through manual dexterity and physical endurance. Etc. And yet the designers ignore them, and change these features, and more often than not produce a better, more popular, more widely acclaimed product.

The only difference is that ENWorld is a forum that merges fans of many different RPGs, while most gaming forums tend to be game specific. So ENWorld has adapted an ethic of non judgment. Which works great when it comes to things like, "should a game detail every aspect of castle construction, or should it streamline it and make it take a few minutes at most, so that casual players can have an awesome castle without spending a lot of game time on the nuts and bolts?" Because both sides have their advantages.

Unfortunately it means we have to take seriously arguments like, "I like it if my character is forced to be mechanically ineffective in comparison to other characters, because RPGs are open ended, and being screwed over by the game system encourages me think outside the box. And my character has to be forced to suck, because I won't do it to myself voluntarily." We have to treat that as a playstyle difference, and act like Robert Heinsoo wasn't allowed to say "characters shouldn't be forced to suck."

The benign turns into the controversial.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Even "on track" isn't the nicest place, since its kind of a flamewar for or against Heinsoo.

How about this:

It is the right and the duty and the job of a game designer to do things that this forum calls badwrongfunning people.

Any game designer that tried to make a game that was fun while simultaneously never communicating what he or she felt was NOT fun would, by definition, be a quisling and a failure.

And because every geek community is an echo of every other one, if you go into other genres and read fan discussion of design diaries, you see the same things you see in this thread. Designers of popular games identifying what they felt were flaws in previous games of their own design or in genres they wrote. Fans freaking out, and insisting that the items identified as flaws are actually good- they LIKE it if fighting games have at least one character that's too weak to use, because that gives them the pleasure of not picking it! They LIKE it if a game that's theoretically pure strategy has a high APM tax expressed through click rate, because strategy games should be won through manual dexterity and physical endurance. Etc. And yet the designers ignore them, and change these features, and more often than not produce a better, more popular, more widely acclaimed product.

The only difference is that ENWorld is a forum that merges fans of many different RPGs, while most gaming forums tend to be game specific. So ENWorld has adapted an ethic of non judgment. Which works great when it comes to things like, "should a game detail every aspect of castle construction, or should it streamline it and make it take a few minutes at most, so that casual players can have an awesome castle without spending a lot of game time on the nuts and bolts?" Because both sides have their advantages.

Unfortunately it means we have to take seriously arguments like, "I like it if my character is forced to be mechanically ineffective in comparison to other characters, because RPGs are open ended, and being screwed over by the game system encourages me think outside the box. And my character has to be forced to suck, because I won't do it to myself voluntarily." We have to treat that as a playstyle difference, and act like Robert Heinsoo wasn't allowed to say "characters shouldn't be forced to suck."

The benign turns into the controversial.

That's an interesting view, and I tend to you think you might be right.

Mustrum "Wonder how 3D Shooter forums would like my preference for round-based shooters?" Ridcully

 

[Storminator]

Wow, it seems this turned into a "what i dont like about 4e thread." Who could have foreseen that?

Someone should have predicted this on page one...



PS

 

[I'm A Banana]

It is the right and the duty and the job of a game designer to do things that this forum calls badwrongfunning people.

Any game designer that tried to make a game that was fun while simultaneously never communicating what he or she felt was NOT fun would, by definition, be a quisling and a failure.

Not really. A game is designed to meet certain goals -- "fun" isn't really a good goal. It's nebulous and subjective and entirely marketing language; there's nothing concrete about "fun." You can't design a game to be "fun." You have to puzzle out what exact things people might really want out of the game. Those exact things you can talk about, without condemning other ways of playing.

It's easy to talk about individual goals without saying "doing it differently isn't any fun." You can say "We wanted to give the wizard something magical to do every round, because D&D is a game that magic plays an important part in" without saying "New people don't ever have fun in games where wizards run out of spells." The first is discussing the goals of the design, the second is BadWrongFun. I'm sure WotC KNOWS this. The designers all play other games that D&D can't hope to really do. Presumably, they have some fun doing so. 4e is not the only way to have fun playing a game, but it does (try to) meet certain goals.

This isn't a flamewar against Heinsoo, it's an argument against "I know what's best for you and your game" condescension. Instead of telling me if I'm having fun or not, how about you tell me what ends you tried to accomplish with your design, and I'll tell you whether or not I want that in a game?

Unfortunately it means we have to take seriously arguments like, "I like it if my character is forced to be mechanically ineffective in comparison to other characters, because RPGs are open ended, and being screwed over by the game system encourages me think outside the box. And my character has to be forced to suck, because I won't do it to myself voluntarily." We have to treat that as a playstyle difference, and act like Robert Heinsoo wasn't allowed to say "characters shouldn't be forced to suck." We have to treat that as a playstyle difference, and act like Robert Heinsoo wasn't allowed to say "characters shouldn't be forced to suck."

Of course, that's not what anyone said.

Presumably, WotC is designing their game for a wide audience -- at least as wide as ENWorld, possibly as wide as "anyone who thinks dragons are cool." Why should they take a position of judgment against what one group of D&D players finds or might find fun?

They can talk about how their goals differ -- even WHY they differ, if you want -- but to argue that they are somehow inherently superior is goofy. And when someone says something as dumb as "No one has fun playing a wizard that runs out of spells," they entirely deserve to be called on their BS.

If that person were to say "We wanted wizards to always be able to do something magical, because magic has been important to D&D," then the fans could argue if magic had been important for them or not, but they wouldn't be able to say that the design was wrong. They might say that it didn't accomplish what they wanted, however, and that's a fairly useful conversation, because then we can discuss why that change might have been made, and how to change the dissenter's game to give them what they did want.

"You didn't have fun that way, anyway" is just shutting down conversation, as if there can be no argument, as if "Fun" is a trump card that wins all arguments and can silence all opposition.

"Oh, well, I guess if it's FUN, it has to be OK!'

That does not fly.