Quote from: Ancientgamer1970;507445Can you say, NERD RAGE?

No, what I can say is that insulting your customer base who have supported your product for 35+ years is a really stupid way to make money. It would seem that current events have proven this to be correct.

Quote from: Ancientgamer1970;507445I have not either.  I suspect it is one of those lame conspiracy theorists spouting off as usual.

Yeah, I know! Just like those lame fuckers who claim that they always play RAW with no problems! Both are just all fucked up!

Ancientgamer is the worst troll.

Quote from: jeff37923;507440I do not want to play a piss poor RPG simulation of an MMO

Well hey, I don't want CRPGs to be piss-poor simulations of tabletop ones, and yet I've had to deal with crappy baggage brought over from tabletop for years rather than getting games like Deus Ex: HR or Skyrim that understand the strengths of the medium.

Quote from: Peregrin;507451Well hey, I don't want CRPGs to be piss-poor simulations of tabletop ones, and yet I've had to deal with crappy baggage brought over from tabletop for years rather than getting games like Deus Ex: HR or Skyrim that understand the strengths of the medium.

I hate to point out the obvious here, but you could always just not play the games that you think suck.

I mean, it works for me.

Quote from: Windjammer;507402Except that the PHB was right, out of the gate. Unlike monster damage or monster defense scores, the PHB errata are mostly just a pile of steaming shit trying desperately to sell later classes ('Forget about the STR-cleric, here's our Runepriest (tm)!!!').

I agree with you that the 4e PHB classes are well designed.  I love the 4e Fighter. But the presentation is terrible, especially the core class abilities, like the Fighter's battlefield-control abilities (the presentation of the Powers is mostly ok).  I found it indecipherable. In 2008 I tried and failed to create 4e PCs, gave up for a year until the free character generator software enabled me to do it.

Also, more generally, the whole 'business briefing' style and over-fussy combat-centric artwork does not work. The 3e PHB was too dry too, but at least it made creating a 1st level PC very easy, with the default starting packages. Nothing like that in 4e PHB.

Quote from: Windjammer;507402So, the PHB was a stunning success by a lot of counts. While the presentation was hardly endearing on a first read, its functionality in play was undeniable.

But that's my point - the PHB is the first point of contact with the game for potential new players.  Its in-play functionality (which is good, and it's the one book I bring to every game) is irrelevant if people never actually get as far as playing the game.

Quote from: B.T.;507396P.S. Did you get the joke about incremental vs. excremental?  OY MY TALENTS ARE WASTED ON YOU LOT.

I got it, and thought it was very funny.

I think you've pretty much nailed it, but you didn't go far enough; there's a sizeable chunk of the roleplaying market that just hates change, and the internet gives them an opportunity to lash out even more, rather than just accepting "this is not for me, so I will let it's fans go and do it's own thing".

Those 4e flamewars weren't just 4vengers lashing out, after all, although Wizards fanning the flames before launch certainly didn't help. Both sides had some shitheads.

Actually, I wonder how well D&D4 would have been accepted if the initial communications hadn't been so antagonistic from WotC. Certainly there's plenty to dislike if you read the books, but I tought there was plenty to like, too (The game itself just wasn't a good fit for our group, so I got rid of my books years ago).

I'm still pissed we never got a D&D4 Tactics computer game, though.

Quote from: S'mon;507463I agree with you that the 4e PHB classes are well designed.  I love the 4e Fighter. But the presentation is terrible, especially the core class abilities, like the Fighter's battlefield-control abilities (the presentation of the Powers is mostly ok).  I found it indecipherable. In 2008 I tried and failed to create 4e PCs, gave up for a year until the free character generator software enabled me to do it.

Also, more generally, the whole 'business briefing' style and over-fussy combat-centric artwork does not work. The 3e PHB was too dry too, but at least it made creating a 1st level PC very easy, with the default starting packages. Nothing like that in 4e PHB.

This is one of the things I can't personally relate to or understand. For me it was the other way round - without the Dummies book, I'd have never been able to make my first 3.x character (try to understand what feats and skills are (for) on a first read through). But 4E had something very similar to 'default starting packages', by offering default power and feat choices for each class build, and giving clear indications how to arrange your stats. I agree, they left out automatizing gear, but that's as far as I understand the only thing the CB helped.

Quote from: 4E PHB, p.76Great Weapon Fighter

You’re interested in dealing out the most damage
you can. You prefer big two-handed weapons such as
the greatsword or greataxe. You’re more interested
in fighting hard than fighting smart. Your best ability
score is definitely Strength. A good Constitution
improves your ability to use high damage weapons,
such as axes and hammers. Plus, extra hit points
always help. Select powers that work well with two-handed
weapons to make the most of this build.

Suggested Feat: Power Attack (Human feat:
Action Surge)
Suggested Skills: Athletics, Endurance, Intimidate
Suggested At-Will Powers: cleave, reaping strike
Suggested Encounter Power: spinning sweep
Suggested Daily Power: brute strike

And what about the rules on char-gen on pp.14-18 + 30-31 was unclear?

I agree there were quite a number of details that took time to understand. Like the famous "[W]" abbreviation; the way that armor type interacted with magic armor bonuses to AC, and so on. But these were details of the sort that you might have missed a couple of bonuses here and there, nothing that meant you wouldn't have a playable character on hand after 40 minutes (20, if doing it for a third or fourth time).

I don't mean to write one of these 'you can't be right because your experiences don't match mine' posts, but I'd appreciate hearing a bit more from you (to the extent you recall) where and how you failed at 4E char-gen. I'm especially interested because I recall recently reading a post pretty much like yours by Abyssal Maw, and he was an LFR admin from the first minute.

I recall running into some issues on my first read through as well. It was all easily overcome through re-reading and conjecture but I think the clarity issues I encountered in the 4E PHB had to do with the succinct natue of the writing. As a writer myself I appreciate the art of phrasing things concisely. However with something as technical as an RPG system, it really helps to leave room for clarity. A few more examples, or restating the basic principle in other ways really helps. So the issue I noticed was if a passage was unclear,  I was stuck trying to figure out what they meant from that one small passage alone (no follow up elaborations). Going by memory of course, so take it with a grain of salt (last time I read the 4E PHB was December 2010.

Quote from: jeff37923;507452I hate to point out the obvious here, but you could always just not play the games that you think suck.

I mean, it works for me.

Its not that they suck, its just that they could've been so much better.

Quote from: JeffAll of the above.

4E just wasn't what I want out of D&D.

Jeff stringing together all those quotes was similar to where I was an am.  Because they all touch on my opinion, but none of them quite mirror it.

RPGs are written with a play style and a setting style they are optimized for.  When we talk about class or role balance, we are talking about the the critical rules fulcrum; where did the designers balance the game and how broad is that fulcrum?

I have spent time in other forums describing this from the point of design for 5e.    For 4w, my translation of many of the earlier explanations is that they moved the fulcrum of player-role balance to combat. The 4e rules were actually very well done in accomplishing what they wanted to do.  They just moved the fulcrum from where it used to be to combat.

Earlier versions of the game had role balance based mainly on exploration, and then later on the fulcrum moved over from pure exploration, to a bit of a widening of the fulcrum adding the longer adventure then adding the campaign to the fulcrum, with more and more emphasis being put on balancing the game in the long-term campaign.  (you really have to look at the experience charts, stronghold building, tithes, men at arms and taxes, as well as the RAW with spell components in the older books to relly get a handle on the care that was put inot this balance)

4e's biggest failure, in my estimation, is making a radical change to the fulcrum of rules balance to combat.  I have heard others make the same comment about it being an 'encounter-centric' game, but one needs to see where it changed from to understand how radical the change.  Striker?  Defender?  It was obvious from the first that the role balance had shiften this way.  In earler games, you accepted that your thief was going to shoot a lot of arrows and be second class in combat; but if you were smart and had a good GM, you were climbing walls, or hiding and scouting alot; or using your in-town abilities like picking pockets, and you had areas of you own you excelled in.  the same was true in every class.  yes, every notes that a high-level mage is a tough opponent in earlier games, but they get their stronghold much later, it's a lot smaller and provides less revenue....all part of where rules balanced the game.

Or, if you prefer, as viewed from a different lens; it went from being a game whose rules-fulcrum was in an area where a cpg could not match to a fulcrum where the tabletop game had a severe visceral disadvantage to a MMORPG.

Quote from: beejazz;507392That's a point you're going to want to expand on. Especially the first and third points.

On this I agreed with Abyssal Maw opinions. When you look at the 4e DM's Guide it has very good advice about roleplaying and give useful information to use when starting out with 4e. Nentil's Vale, Fallcrest, the math behind the system and so on. The combination in my opinion makes it the second best DMG in the history of D&D.

They had an adventure in there that was OK. Not good but not bad largely a set piece to illustrate how a adventure site looked in 4e. At the time I chalked it up to space limitations. I didn't think that was how the larger adventures were going to be.

But in the end that how the published adventures turned out. Which made them feel like elaborate Battletech, Star Fleet Battles, or any other plot heavy wargame scenario. In shore they were treating D&D as a board game.

Part of the problem is that the Wizard's team feel into a common trap. Back in the day many gamers in my area were unhappy with the abstract nature of AD&D. So they switched to Runequest, and other more detailed systems. And trap was that some referee's, myself included, let combat dominate the game to the point that it was a more a board game than a roleplaying game.

This happen because the game was new and shiny and you wanted to play with all the bits that made it different than AD&D. Combined with the fact that tactically detailed combat took longer to resolve meant that combat dominated the actual playing time. And it was very easy for us to wind up focusing on that.

This is what happened with the fans and designers of 4e. They didn't apply the correct techniques and didn't give the right advice to make sure that tactically detailed combat didn't overshadow the other vital aspect of a roleplaying game.

Quote from: jeff37923;507444Actually, that one deserves mentioning. I had gone into Nord's Games to buy some 3E items that had been discounted. I had about $50 worth of stuff at the counter and was about to pay when this 4venging shit behind the register began teling me how I was an idiot to be buying that and not 4E - so I just agreed with him and left the store without purchasing anything. Haven't been back since. Way to make a sale, 4venging fucktard!

Ah yes, I remember you telling us that story before.

They don't even realize, do they? I don't think they do.

Quote from: Windjammer;507477And what about the rules on char-gen on pp.14-18 + 30-31 was unclear?

.

Hey, it's great, and it works (although, damn, I must have read that combat superiority rules a 100 times).

The initial PHB is not why 4e failed. It was all the new stuff, including all the new chargen ways, that hurt.

Put the PHB down, go pay $20 or whatever it nowadays to use their online character builder to make that particular fighter. It's a mess, I had no idea how bad it was until I was making level 1 characters for some friends that wanted to try 4e a few months back.

My GF insisted on the character builder, while I just wanted to use the PHB. Anyway, you should have *seen* the struggling to just make that simple character using their online rules. You could make *a* character, but if you've a Luddite GM that wants to actually look it up in the books to see where it all comes from (this was also a problem with Red Box, where there was some chargen stuff that someone with only the PHB could never figure out), no way.

QuoteYou're interested in dealing out the most damage
you can. You prefer big two-handed weapons such as
the greatsword or greataxe. You're more interested
in fighting hard than fighting smart. Your best ability
score is definitely Strength. A good Constitution
improves your ability to use high damage weapons,
such as axes and hammers. Plus, extra hit points
always help. Select powers that work well with two-handed
weapons to make the most of this build.

Suggested Feat: Power Attack (Human feat:
Action Surge)
Suggested Skills: Athletics, Endurance, Intimidate
Suggested At-Will Powers: cleave, reaping strike
Suggested Encounter Power: spinning sweep
Suggested Daily Power: brute strike

This is just fucking terrible writing. There's nothing in here to capture the imagination at all. It's as if the writer isn't even having fun with it. "You're more interested in fighting hard than fighting smart?" Jesus fuck would you even pretend to step outside the cubicle for a minute. It's like a Powerpoint presentation aimed at stupid 9-year-olds. If you're one of those piggy twits who sees the word D&D and that's all you need for your dreams to take off, more power to your brand loyalty I guess, but this shit is redundant, boring, and witless. You're better off saying "do you want a guy that looks like this?", having the picture of your fighter, and cutting to the suggested powers. If you're not going to bother writing shit, may as well not have the text in there taking up space!