I played AD&D 2nd edition, collected a lot of books, but when 3rd edition D&D came out, it lost me as a dediceted player. Bought some books but didn't like the game for a few reasons. And most of it was linked to the promised freedom.
I have seen dwarven mages - and how the old lore was ignored - and seen builds with insane amount of classes. And how people picked up new classes by killing a few monsters. With this a wizard wasn't someone who learned for a looooong time and studied magic. A fighter had a good chance to become a wizard by killing a few orcs.
I seen people who choosen multiple prestige classes, and I wondered: Other people trained for ages with organizations to acquire some special skills, then others picked up the skills associated with multiple such organizations by killing a few enemies.
We heard about builds, and not characters. Builds used over and over...
For years I tried to explain a few things about combat system, with stories that described combat. From a way to describe damage in combat, to handling various advantages and disadvantages. But somehow "moving out of harms way" would always make more sense than "staying in harms way to avoid Attack of Opportunities", the later was a bit harder to explain.
With 4th edition some of these problems vanished, but focusing on "killing" and not on story / lore / how your character lives in the world and how the world reacts to the character made me less interested in it.
To me, a character isn't only numbers on a sheet, looks, behavior, story (including advancement) is a significant part of the character. Lore, stories, unique characters, freedom are areas where roleplaying games are better than any video game or wargame.
To have communities and community bases trying to have more players and more active members of the community is important. People who write stories.
To me, the most visible values of D&D 4 were "uninteresting".
But I am interested in one thing: How would WoTC try to sell the game to me? How would I hear a message in a few sentences that would make me interested?
To me it looks like Wizards / Hasbro marketing staff forgot about players who want to focus on immersion, roleplaying, unique and interesting characters. It looks like marketing is similar to what we see from companies where marketing staff doesn't know much about their products / target audience.
To me, the most visible values of D&D 4 were "uninteresting".
But I am interested in one thing: How would WoTC try to sell the game to me? How would I hear a message in a few sentences that would make me interested?
To me it looks like Wizards / Hasbro marketing staff forgot about players who want to focus on immersion, roleplaying, unique and interesting characters. It looks like marketing is similar to what we see from companies where marketing staff doesn't know much about their products / target audience.
The issue of Builds is something from the MMO generation, going all the way back to games like RagnarokOnline where you have no retraining option and every stat and skill point must be carefully allocated. Its actually no different from a Knights of the Dinner Table-style power gamer. They're just using the terminology of the day. The difference is that the MMO generation is much more competitive and (stupidly?) mathematical than prior ones. They don't just have the best character, but they also have a mind-bogglingly huge spreadsheet that "proves" it. So its not the game that's changed so much as the player base.
I'll bet none of them have tried writing their character's story as a novel, either.
Personally, the best response would be guidance for the DM. Emphasize story, setting, and theme over combat (although combat will still take up the bulk of game time, no way 'round that). Maybe WotC should update and reprint the late 1e/early 2e era Campaign Sourcebook & Catacomb Guide?
They often point out that "4E is more tactical" and as I see it often means: "You focus more on OOC tactical decisions instead of staying IC in encounters" and when you don't plan to roleplay encounters, and treat everything else as unimportant, then roleplaying became unimportant in a game that focuses on OOC tactics.
Which is a problem for me.
While you say 1E focused on these things, I remember I6 for example, also Dragonlance novels and modules, etc. 1E focused on how to turn a combat game with wargame background into a game that focuses on roleplaying. Later editions try to move in the exact opposite way.
From original D&D to late 2nd edition the game evolved with some values, goals in mind, and these goals were common for many RPGs, and in later times D&D took a sharp turn and made it disappointing for a lot of players.
Modules cannot force groups to roleplay. Roleplay comes from the group.
You are trying to argue three different things and none of it has anything to do with Community Business.
you make reference to the unknown "they" and seem to fail to understand that times change, attitudes change, concepts change. Nothing stops you from playing the older editions you can reuse your modules of yesteryear
In my experience, while Living Greyhawk they had special adventures for mariages, etc., in D&D4th edition, when I say "but people would react to the character differently based on their background" (who would want to make an order of knights angry? A common fighter isn't a problem...), they say in 4E that isn't an encounter that is a background scenery.
Where does it say that you can only get XP from combat encounters? Or that only combat encounters influence plot?
Ok I would remind you of how all the 2nd edition books seemed to be written with no real plan. Remember all the maroon colloured books with damn near no consisitency?
I would remind you of the mess that open license made of 3rd where every nut case with a word processor just had to write a manual. And now 3.5 is an edition so out of control, that yes, you can create PCs that can actually lift planets.
I would point out that 4th edition is not without gaffes and flaws. And that you will grow old waiting for a perfect RPG which might get here about the same time a computer game that needs no patches arrives.
I like the WAY the books are written in a uniform fashion. And no more open license means at least the glitches are all just from one source.
I don't mind the look of the game's combat and care not one bit if it looks 'unreal' specifically because magic isn't real at all. I prefer to leave my science books out of the game. I think the game has done a nice job delivering the 'fun' of gaming.
If YOU can't have fun with 4th, the answer to why not is in the mirror in the bathroom.
You are trying to argue three different things and none of it has anything to do with Community Business.
I strongly disagree there. First of all: The key for any strong game is playerbase and building up an active community that is attractive to potential players. And this is a key goal if we speak about community management work related to roleplaying games, and the topic deals mostly with these problems.
And you say "times change", and with times change we all see how the whole RPG industry is fighting with the problem of shrinking playerbase and shrinking active playerbase. This is an issue that is tied to how times have changed.
If the game (as is) and the community around games isn't attractive to masses of potential players who knows that tactical combat can be found in wargames, videogames, etc. and doesn't start to buy many RPG books for "being tactical", they would only buy books for deep lore, more freedom, more focus on roleplaying, saying they can go back to an old edition (they can't buy books for it) won't help to make the community grow.
@603: It doesn't say "you don't get XP for any of it" but it separates "encounters" and backdrops scenery and it only suggests rewards for "winning" encounters, and some of the developers explained the game is about killing monsters...
@TsukinoUsagi: 2nd edition wasn't perfect, I seen many bad products for it, and even when they tried to give it a fresh start with Player's Option line, it was pretty inconsistent. Yet it aimed for a goal I would share.
3rd edition with open sourcing resulted in a horrible game, and teached us a lesion why open source doesn't work. The reason is simple: We choose published games over homemade stuff or own house rules, because we can trust their quality. For the quality control. And uncontrolled open source releases and controlled quality doesn't work well together to say the least.
A lot of people play roleplaying games for roleplaying and immersion, the problem isn't: "Tactical combat rules are unreal", but "tactical combat rules means if you want a chance you should drop your In Character /roleplayed/ decision and switch to an OOCly designed tactic ignoring character knowledge" and if you "play the rules to win", that gets pretty close to rules lawyering.
I can ignore / replace 80% of combat rules, about 50% of character creation rules, award rewards entirely differently from the 4E approach, ignore points of light, etc... But why would I buy rules I have to ignore?
And if with both inconsistent 2e material and a lot of crappy inconsistent junk for 3E we see how a system we can trust is important, when you have to ignore / replace huge parts of system, then the trust is gone. The motive to use that system is gone. And if you see a lot of better systems around...
But going back to another point: if everyone plays 4E differently because they hand pick what rules they can use and what is ignored (since they don't trust most of them) then you see the playerbase, the community is fragmented, and supporting a fragmented community is tricky. And it turns homebrew systems into a strong competition.
Your post has nothing to do with either.
I'm sorry but in edition of D&D it has been stated that if you do not like a rule or want to change a rule to better fit your own gaming group, feel free to do so.
The designers know that they cannot please every group out there. It just cannot happen, groups play the game for different reasons. There can never and will never be a system created that will please everyone all the time.
We are all playing D&D the community is not fragmented. Just like sports. We can all like basketball and play differently even like different teams, but what we have in common is our like of basketball. That has been and will always be what ties D&D gamers together
I can ignore / replace 80% of combat rules, about 50% of character creation rules, award rewards entirely differently from the 4E approach, ignore points of light, etc... But why would I buy rules I have to ignore?
I've found the rules quite sufficient. When someone wants to do something that isn't covered by a power, I've got tables of common damage expressions, DCs, etc. on my DM screen to accommodate the player on-the-fly. Never had a problem with character creation and you haven't mentioned any problems yet, either. And there are whole sections of the DMGs (especially the DMG2, but even in the DMG) about non-treasure rewards and working in story-based rewards. Points of Light being a malleable concept, rather than a hard definition of the world, means that any world (even the established campaign settings) are all compatible with the PoL framework/idea. You're no more ignoring PoL than you're ignoring Eberron when you run FR or a homebrew setting.
But going back to another point: if everyone plays 4E differently because they hand pick what rules they can use and what is ignored (since they don't trust most of them) then you see the playerbase, the community is fragmented, and supporting a fragmented community is tricky. And it turns homebrew systems into a strong competition.
In the past (2e/3e, and other games like Shadowrun) I always felt compelled to homebrew, both settings and rules. With 4e I've found myself using more of the game as-written because I actually like it. But clearly there are people who liked the way things were in other editions/other games and make changes to 4e to make it more like, as a recent example, World of Darkness. The door swings both ways. However, I think before the prevalence of the Internet people were less aware that other people did things differently; kind of like how early paintings of Marco Polo's adventures in the orient depicted Asians the same as white people - the painters couldn't conceive of them appearing any differently!
We are all playing D&D the community is not fragmented. Just like sports. We can all like basketball and play differently even like different teams, but what we have in common is our like of basketball. That has been and will always be what ties D&D gamers together
The only difference is that we don't (usually?) get into drunken brawls over our favorite editions (teams).
Your post has nothing to do with either."
They might have chosen poor wording, but new blood and concerns about new blood is never NOT community business to some extent.
Part of me only comes here because there doesn't seem to be anywhere else I have felt comfortable with.
Part of me knows that part of the community here is actually not sympathetic to promoting 4th edition.
But 3.5 is yesterday, and Wizards has made it fairly self evident they only REALLY give a damn about product and activities that generate income reliably.
ascottbay: I think we should agree on one thing: We prefer different rules, different editions, because we want different things from RPGs. D&D 4, which is an improvement over D&D 3, focuses on a more tactical gameplay.
But the key requirement for tactical gameplay is: tactics should influence outcome of the combat. If you want to focus more on immersion, the key problem is: In character decisions and ideal tactical decisions would be different. And if you focus on immersion, roleplaying your character, your chances in the combat would end up on the low end of spectrum.
It is hard to keep combat (with designed encounter balancing mechanism) fun and challenging for fans of tactical gameplay and survivable and rich in in character decisions for fans of immersion.
What we seek in roleplaying games is responsible for part of the fragmentation of playerbase. Editions going in different editions are the other reasons. And we might end up with a fragmented community.
But this fragmentation is a smaller issue.
When you tell me, I haven't shown you problems with character creation, I think it would be offtopic there, but if you are interested I would summarize them elsewhere. I could write stories, character concepts based on existing D&D settings and the concepts linked to them, and they would be very hard (or impossible) to implement them in the game.
I know well that novels and the game is different in several areas, but I know that a lot of potential players read novels, want to have similar stories and have an imagined hero in mind. When we see how D&D characters are created we start with choices made within the system, and see builds. If you build a character by taking choices in the book and try to do the same thing differently, it can work. But if you start with a story, a personality, a skillset, etc. it wouldn't work at all.
"No, you can't do that, if you want a hero like that choose a video game..." type scenarios are bad if we want to see new players.
While old editions can have good ideas, concepts (which can be used in future editions) they aren't sold anymore, and they won't get new players. So no "pro 3.5" agenda would work.
But when I see that in 100 kilometers radius from my resisdence, I would look for a D&D party that speaks the same language as me, I would find only D&D 3.5 parties. And I wouldn't be able to start with D&D4. Which is a problem.
If after this problem, a new player would subscribe to D&D insider, and he would see that those dream character doesn't work, why would he stay with D&D? Or with RPGs at all.
But in recent times I seen a bigger problem: Lack of advertisement
It means people who might be interested in RPGs and would give RPGs a try don't see RPGs without actively looking for them. If potential players don't even learn much about RPGs, don't even understand what RPGs are, how would we expect to see them start playing?
My concern with most new games is simple: While 4E is better than 3.5E, claiming this won't attract any new players to roleplaying games. The question is: Why do we choose RPGs over video games and board games? Both in video games and board games we see pretty tactical gameplay. But RPGs are unique in stories and immersion.
Any gamer who haven't even seen RPGs yet, but seeks immersion (and plays GTA, CRPGs, MMOs, some action games, arcade games) are target audience for RPGs, but to get them into the game, you should advertise, offer more immersion, offer existing parties, and try to be present in their communities (with ads, articles, people, demo groups, etc).
The strengths of 4E are valid, since them made the game attractive to you, and you enjoy them. And while we want different things from games and would prefer different editions / systems / settings, I have no reason to say these advantages aren't valid.
But as you can see: my points try to explain why the market for RPGs are shrinking, and lack of advertisement, lack of focus on immersion (their unique quality), lack of focus on depth (players who seek immersion in other games also seek depth) are valid problems.
4th Edition core is pretty empty, but some of the campaign settings have overcome this and eberron seems to be one (realms didnt manage this).
So if i was going to advise anyone to play 4th edition, i`d tell them to read the Eberron setting first, and then to look at the phb as a set of rules to use with it.
In fact, I tell very immersive stories in D&D 4e all the time. For example: I have NPCs reacting to different PCs differently based on how they look and act. I tell stories that bring in the PC backgrounds. I have sessions with no combat whatsoever. And, here's the kicker, I do it without house rules.
As for character creation: I have been able to make a whole lot of different characters from other story telling mediums. My personal favorite was a medieval Han Solo.
So maybe you need to be more specific because I am unable to replicate the problem.
i have went to lfg games in e3 and took actions in combat that were purly motavated by rp and had nothing to do with tatics and to be honest i have gotten a moastly bad responce from it.
e4 is a lot more tactics driven combat if i am a cleric of an unknown god and offer to convert the BBG instead of attack on the first round the whole party suffers from it.
in e3 it was a small amount less noticable because of save or suck and save or die...could you imagine going to the char opp boards and telling them that you want to convert talk to the BBG after the first round of combat starts. or that you want to climb a tree in combat for no real advantage other than being in a tree because ur elf fills beter in a tree... maby i dont understand the argument in e2 it was perfictly acceptable and it seemed in my groups that many people did it in e3 if you climbed a tree the ghostfaced killer/ginsi would kill everything on the first round and i would look like i was on crack in a tree... so heres one vote for bracheon as the brokest feat ever next to dms gf
In fact, if I were worried about save or die, I would be more inclined to come in guns blazing rather than roleplaying a conversion. If the BBEG had a spell that instantly killed me, why would I be wasting time talking?
I don't really understand the tree thing... does the elf have ADHD or some form of autism? Is he a child?
but the point is that making suboptamal combat choices for rp purpose will most likely result in more difficult combat.
think conan if he were the striker and they were at the bbg and all the minions human and the bbg was a demon tacticly barb charge demon + ragestrike=short day but conan is afraid of demons so he would kill all the human underlings first charging around the battelfeild to take out humans and staying away from the demon because he is superstitious.
or storm from the x-men as the controler.she would never squeeze. less than a 5 foot coradoor and the party has to fight that dragon without a controler.
or even superman. a green rock=no defender aura 10
i would like to make this clearer for you just tell me how
the barb charging every minion befor even thinking about the bbg or the controler not engaging because of a squeeze or the defender makeing a huge circel around combat because of a featuer of the groun.
how can i make it simpler for u just tell me cartoons? anamie? stephen colbert stile rant? the only thing i am bad at is spelling so what kind of analige do u want?
Please understand, I'm not trying to flame you or win an argument here. I honestly have no idea.
but if you were playing conan and charged around the battelfeild killing minions the tactics would suffer badly.
or a charicter that watches his wife suffer a fatal blow in the midel of combat would rush to her side even if it was tacticly the worst thing he could do
he would probably embrace his wife regardless of the danger present tacticly
i kinda find it hard to beleave that you cant think of a situation whare a charicter would make sub optamal combat choices based on emotions or a charicter quark
I agree that characters will take foolish actions in combat due to realistic rp. I`ve seen it done a fair bit that characters go beserk or prioritise the protection of certain individuals over others due to their relations. I have seen characters with noted phobias abandon their colleagues at the sight of a giant spider or other danger.
My current exalted character is an honour bound duellist and that means fighting in a somewhat straightjacketed manner, to preserve honour and face. It's an rp weakness that can be exploited by enemies and its also an rp strength that lets my character gain respect from some foes.
I view the story as the main source of enjoyment. If, one day, bad guys trick my character into some horribly one sided duel and she loses, well, thats how it is. She will have died with honour.
i am talking about makeing sub-optamal combat choices based on optamal role playing choices and how far behind the curve that puts the party.
but if you were playing conan and charged around the battelfeild killing minions the tactics would suffer badly.
or a charicter that watches his wife suffer a fatal blow in the midel of combat would rush to her side even if it was tacticly the worst thing he could do
he would probably embrace his wife regardless of the danger present tacticly
i kinda find it hard to beleave that you cant think of a situation whare a charicter would make sub optamal combat choices based on emotions or a charicter quark
Thank you for the wife example. I now have an idea of what you're talking about. I don't understand how this is a problem with the game though. I think it would be a bigger problem if my character's choices didn't matter. So for instance, if my character were to run over and hug his dying wife while a battle was raging around him, that needs to have consequences. I need to feel like my character's actions effect the world around him.
So one more question (I apologize!): how is this a problem?
well...its not so much a prob with the game. the thred is about marketing in fact the only thing that i would change is maby a form of reward for emersive play. but that would be really hard to quantafy. the only real problem with e4 is marketing what they really need is a cartoon.
I disagree with nearly every one of your assumptions. To pick up on a big one: I don't think that tactical play and story immersion are mutually exclusive. Especially in D&D which, let's face it, has always been geared toward telling the stories of professional adventurers (who would likely be very good at fighting the monsters of their world otherwise they would be dead).
One thing seems to be clear for me: You don't try to roleplay in combat encounters. Why? Because if you would you would see the problem.
Lets see how can you describe combat. If you follow the link you will see a short story that describes combat in an Arena.
What would you notice first? "She enjoyed the situation for a few moments, but turned her back to the orc, and slalomed back to a wall. At the worst possible moment the orc thrown his axe. He missed the girl again, but the girl had no chance to avoid the numerous splinters of wood, as the axe hit the wall."
The combat situations aren't fixed on a grid, but centered around how individual characters (and the environment) reacts, we use "indirect hits" to describe attacks that cause low amount of damage, and the characters can react to environment.
This kind of combat is enhances immersion. The moment you stay on a grid for system related reasons while in real combat (or in a story) you would move out from harms way you won't make IC decisions. Your immersion is broken. The more focus you put into such scenarios the more significant this issue becomes.
And yes, this moment we came back to character creation problem. In a combat heavy game you often describe a character by his/her actions in combat. Not only about weapons, but also about stance, movement, choices, tactics. The moment you replace these differences with OOC tactical decision you removed some part of a character.
We can speak about dozens or thousands of characters that cannot be made in D&D 4, but you can say something else can be made. But such differences, how unique a character can be is a vital thing. We can speak about characters with a story that would make sense in a D&D setting but cannot be made as useful (to the party) characters in D&D4 without significant changes (even their mom wouldn't recognize them) and such issues, but as you see there is a deeper issue as well.
Useful, learnable, and ideal abilities aren't based on in character decisions, but based on tactical decisions and efficient builds. (And yes, the characters would be viable and effective from the perspective of the setting)
Not only because how the game works with some DMs, but because how potential players will see the game.
When it is hard to see new players coming to D&D from other kinds of games (CRPGs, MMOs) because immersion and freedom and in the past RPGs gained players that way, then saying we lost that stream of player is a bit more than just an assumption.
If people prefer tactical combat, they might prefer some computer games and wargames.
I would love to hear "selling points" for D&D. I would love to hear how would you try to attract new players.
But you seem to argue about things where you (or me, or anyone) cannot win. The "no mr customer you shouldn't be unhappy with the perfect hasbro product it should work well for you, and if it doesn't we don't care" way of arguments won't convert anyone. Such problems with immersion vs tactical gameplay led many people stay with 3e, stay with MMOs, stay with CRPGs and forget D&D. Even if we would all agree on anything else that wouldn't make them D&D players.
Where are the selling point for D&D? Who are the target audience? How would you have a chance to sell D&D to people who love fantasy novels? How would you sell Point of Light to the people who love lore, detail, depth in Bioware games (or in their favorite MMO)? How would you try to advertise D&D with Adsense ads? What would you name on a landing page? How would you add a "gameplay video" on a landing page that would convert one time visitors into players and fans? Answers to these questions are missing.
I am quite happy with the fact, you enjoy D&D, and it has enough immersion for what you, or your party prefers. It is a good thing.
Back in the old times, (A)D&D had a goal. A story that can work both as novel and module, where in game decisions and events in novels can be similar, and Dragonlance Chronicles was born, and a lot of gamers switched to roleplaying games, since it was something unique and that selling point was known to the target audience. It was visible to the masses.
Right now, even if you read novels, visit gaming sites, etc. you won't hear about anything like that. And so far such points weren't visible here.