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<blockquote data-quote="giant.robot" data-source="post: 5417001" data-attributes="member: 93119">The &quot;D&amp;D has to compete with them dang vidja games&quot; meme is really amusing to me. D&amp;D has had to compete with video games as long as I've been playing (20 years). If you think today's games are magically more attractive than games when I started playing D&amp;D you're fooling yourself. Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy, hell even the Gold Box D&amp;D games were engrossing time sinks. They competed for the same number of leisure hours that kids have today. Days are no longer than they were 20 years ago nor are school days shorter. Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and WoW might have better graphics but the number of available leisure hours are pretty much the same. It's not like kids and adults alike could play both pen and paper games and video games. I didn't afterall spend several hours yesterday playing Torchlight and several today playing Pathfinder.Comparing 4E to video games is silly anyways, it takes more cues from Magic: The Gathering and other CCGs than video games. The highly structured turn sequences, power sources, keywords, and discrete powers themselves all smack of ideas learned from Magic's development over the past two decades. 3E was largely a refinement of the AD&amp;D rules. AD&amp;D picked up a lot of detritus with the latter supplements like the Player's Options books. 3E folded these rules in and unified the D20 mechanic through the system. It didn't do much to make the system more approachable to new players.When Arneson And Gygax developed D&amp;D they were coming from miniature wargaming as were a lot of their friends and early D&amp;D players. Today's players are coming from WoW and Magic and have read Harry Potter and watched Lord of the Rings more times than they've read it.The game itself and hobby in general needs to keep up with the players' expectations or there won't be any new players. Because people today have played video games and CCGs they're not going to accept looking up all of their actions on some table on a player's screen when that should be easily referenced on the character sheet or power card. A game shouldn't make players do busywork.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="giant.robot, post: 5417001, member: 93119"] The "D&D has to compete with them dang vidja games" meme is really amusing to me. D&D has had to compete with video games as long as I've been playing (20 years). If you think today's games are magically more attractive than games when I started playing D&D you're fooling yourself. Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy, hell even the Gold Box D&D games were engrossing time sinks. They competed for the same number of leisure hours that kids have today. Days are no longer than they were 20 years ago nor are school days shorter. Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and WoW might have better graphics but the number of available leisure hours are pretty much the same. It's not like kids and adults alike could play [b]both[/b] pen and paper games and video games. I didn't afterall spend several hours yesterday playing Torchlight and several today playing Pathfinder. Comparing 4E to video games is silly anyways, it takes more cues from Magic: The Gathering and other CCGs than video games. The highly structured turn sequences, power sources, keywords, and discrete powers themselves all smack of ideas learned from Magic's development over the past two decades. 3E was largely a refinement of the AD&D rules. AD&D picked up a lot of detritus with the latter supplements like the Player's Options books. 3E folded these rules in and unified the D20 mechanic through the system. It didn't do much to make the system more approachable to new players. When Arneson And Gygax developed D&D they were coming from miniature wargaming as were a lot of their friends and early D&D players. Today's players are coming from WoW and Magic and have read Harry Potter and [i]watched[/i] Lord of the Rings more times than they've read it. The game itself and hobby in general needs to keep up with the players' expectations or there won't be any new players. Because people today have played video games and CCGs they're not going to accept looking up all of their actions on some table on a [b]player's screen[/b] when that should be easily referenced on the character sheet or power card. A game shouldn't make players do busywork. [/QUOTE]

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