Quote from: Sigmund;366681You guys are apparently misinterpreting what I'm saying. The difference for me is not how it's played in an over-arching way. It's how the game plays using the rules it contains. 4e has powers for all characters that work in a very game-centric way. OD&D does not.

Can you give us an example from OD&D of what you're talking about?

Seanchai

Quote from: Thanlis;366688OK. Do you believe that the above statement is universal for all players, or is it a product of your reaction to the system?

In terms of relating 1:1 with the logic of a fictional world it forces people to step back and make considerations in regard to the system rather than the world.  Perspective psychologically limits what thought-processes and considerations are available to you and how you go about reaching a final decision.  Fact.

You can certainly "immerse" yourself in regards to the game, but it's a different type of immersion than what most people are talking about here, methinks.

Quote from: Thanlis;366673And if there's something that's already working for them, why should they try and make it work?

Fundamentally you are absolutely right, but as my and apparently Drohem's experience has shown, whether we like it or not, DnD is still the King of the RPG Hill, and therefore many players want to play the latest version of it and little else, so finding players, at least for me, has become much more difficult in the last couple years. In my case my "real" life has been undergoing massive changes and has required huge adjustments, so that doesn't help, but since I have seen others post basically the same thing I think I'm safe to assume it's not just me (and apparently Drohem).

Quote from: Peregrin;366693In terms of relating 1:1 with the logic of a fictional world it forces people to step back and make considerations in regard to the system rather than the world.  Perspective psychologically limits what thought-processes and considerations are available to you and how you go about reaching a final decision.  Fact.

You can certainly "immerse" yourself in regards to the game, but it's a different type of immersion than what most people are talking about here, methinks.

OK, we're probably not going to be able to have a useful conversation, since you're at the point where you're telling me I'm wrong about my personal experience.

Quote from: Thanlis;366697OK, we're probably not going to be able to have a useful conversation, since you're at the point where you're telling me I'm wrong about my personal experience.

No, he is telling you that your personal experience can't be extrapolated to the general population.

I'm not sure why that is controversial.

Quote from: Thanlis;366697OK, we're probably not going to be able to have a useful conversation, since you're at the point where you're telling me I'm wrong about my personal experience.

You're right, and it also doesn't help that immersion is a vague buzzword with at least a half-dozen meanings in regard to games, so continuing the conversation would most likely end up in an runaround argument, anyway.

To be honest, the conversation was going really well, and seems to have gradually deteriorated since about ... post 204 or so.
Still lots of good, constructive exchanges going on, but it's been going downhill since then.

There's a lady at my work who still insists on using Netscape Navigator. It's not nostalgia ( I don't think that term applies here), but it's what she knows. She can come up with a million reasons why she'd rather use Netscape Navigator than any newfangled thing out there. She's kind of an older lady, I guess it goes without saying.

She can't open certain websites anymore...

So we get around to this "immersion" word, and people use it like "here's this thing WE have and THEY don't have" as if they know one way or the other.

But they don't have any idea.

Quote from: Peregrin;366699You're right, and it also doesn't help that immersion is a vague buzzword with at least a half-dozen meanings in regard to games

THIS I agree with.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366701There's a lady at my work who still insists on using Netscape Navigator. It's not nostalgia ( I don't think that term applies here), but it's what she knows. She can come up with a million reasons why she'd rather use Netscape Navigator than any newfangled thing out there. She's kind of an older lady, I guess it goes without saying.

She can't open certain websites anymore...

So we get around to this "immersion" word, and people use it like "here's this thing WE have and THEY don't have" as if they know one way or the other.

But they don't have any idea.

Games are not technology. You're just spinning the latest "OD&D = Ford T" analogy, which is complete and utter bullshit. Just shut the fuck up: you crashed the thread. You got what you wanted. Game over. /thread

Quote from: Thanlis;366654Roleplaying for 25 years. Started out with Tunnels and Trolls, played AD&D 1st edition for a while. Didn't play 2e, did play a lot of 3e. I have played in lasting campaigns of Feng Shui, Champions, Amber, Unknown Armies, and Primetime Adventures. (Which last I did not like that much.) I have run lasting campaigns of Vampire: the Masquerade, Vampire: the Requiem, WHFRP (James Wallis version), Adventure! d20, and 4e. I've run and played one-shots of... lots of stuff. GURPS, Savage Worlds, Over the Edge, random con games of stuff I'd never heard of, you name it.

If I say "hey, I did not find it very hard to roleplay in 4e," it's probably not because I just don't know how good I'd have it with some other game, is all I'm sayin'.

Thank you for that. Honestly I was expecting a much more limited and brief experience. (That said, note: some of the people you're arguing with have been playing since the mid-70's. You began playing about 1985 if my math is right.)

Still, I wonder if the difference in perspectives might be related to the fact you didn't really have much invested in pre-3e D&D; at least it doesn't sound like you did. For some people who began gaming with intenstive, prolonged play of OD&D/Basic/1e/2e, I think there's a sense of D&D as a "way of life". They've modified and adapted it in a variety of ways that allows them to have a personal view of what D&D "is", and 4e clashes with that. 4e is newer of course, so the same thing could happen over time. But 4e is also a much cleaner and more integrated design (by most accounts), which among other factors such as DDI suggests that it's not going to be houseruled quite as widely. Not to mention that with lots of people choosing to simply play a different edition/game instead of working with 4e, there's less pressure from the remaining players of 4e to modify the game.

Quote from: Seanchai;366692Can you give us an example from OD&D of what you're talking about?

Seanchai

I'll try. I'll use the S&W version, since I don't have the OD&D books. When I played it, the game belonged to a guy named Mike who lived just down the street from me.... man that was a long time ago.

Anyway, a fighting man in S&W can wear armor and use a weapon of the player's choice. In combat the character can attack, using a ranged weapon if at long range or a melee weapon if at close range. How these attacks are played out is rolled for by the player and the results are described by the DM in whatever manner (s)he chooses. If the player wants to perform any special maneuvers or actions, then for the most part the DM will evaluate the action, assign modifiers to any chance to hit, and then the fight moves on, with the Dm describing any effects. The basic procedure is the same for all the other characters, with some variation based on each class' weapons of choice, so obvious the magic-using characters will often require a bit more time and creativity to apply and then describe the effects of their spells, but over all, for good or ill, the fight is usually over fairly quickly because players engage in much less tactical maneuvering, and there's much less opportunity for surviving a fight that goes bad due to less access to healing. On top of that, the lack of specific rules for a vast array of situations that can arise in combat and other challenges means that often a player will simply ask for the chance to perform an unusual action, the DM and player will negotiate a difficulty and possible effects, and then roll some dice. It comes across to me as much more "organic" and I prefer the sort of "flow" that the game enjoys with that kind of experience. In 4e, each time my turn came around, I had to look at my character sheet and think about what power I would use, making rules-based choices regarding what effect each power would have on the enemies and the battlefield. Sometimes, this choice was easy, and sometimes it was difficult, but it always involved a choice. It was never just "I try to hit it". Compound that by each character having the same procedure of choosing which power to use, where in the past it was mostly restricted to magic-using characters, and even then probably not as often because more spells would often be slotted that weren't directly useful in combat. If some sort of unusual action is considered by a player, the rules must first be consulted to see if they cover the action, or if a rule exists that is close enough to be used for the action, and if not guidelines are consulted to then create a chance of success if the action is permitted. I can see how some folks might like this, and I can definitely see how the 4e method would be preferrable for more formalized gaming such as in the RPGA, I really can. I don't prefer it myself, however.

Quote from: Benoist;366703Games are not technology. You're just spinning the latest "OD&D = Ford T" analogy, which is complete and utter bullshit. Just shut the fuck up: you crashed the thread. You got what you wanted. Game over. /thread

Games are not technology, and yet innovation does exist. Ideas can be improved upon, because that's part of their nature.

The MAYA principle guarantees that not everyone is going to see an innovation for what it is. But when enough people do, the tipping point is reached, and positive social reorganization occurs around a new idea.

Has positive social reorganization occurred? I think it has.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366701There's a lady at my work who still insists on using Netscape Navigator. It's not nostalgia ( I don't think that term applies here), but it's what she knows. She can come up with a million reasons why she'd rather use Netscape Navigator than any newfangled thing out there. She's kind of an older lady, I guess it goes without saying.

She can't open certain websites anymore...

So we get around to this "immersion" word, and people use it like "here's this thing WE have and THEY don't have" as if they know one way or the other.

But they don't have any idea.

This is why I try not to use the word very often. I know what I'm talking about in relation to it, but I've been trying to use other words than that to describe what I'm referring to when I do use that word. I think that so far we've all had a, for the most part, extremely civil discussion about our various opinions on the similarities and differences between OD&D and 4e, and I'm grateful for that. I've come to see how DMing 4e might be much more of an OD&D-like experience than playing it is, and how 4e might really be a big improvement for DMs over previous editions. As I've said before, I only wish I could get over my hang-ups regarding the experience as a player, but so far it's not happening. I'm definitely keeping my eyes on the Essentials though.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366701There's a lady at my work who still insists on using Netscape Navigator. It's not nostalgia ( I don't think that term applies here), but it's what she knows. She can come up with a million reasons why she'd rather use Netscape Navigator than any newfangled thing out there. She's kind of an older lady, I guess it goes without saying.

You should talk to someone in your IT department about upgrading her operating system.  If she is tech savvy enough to find and install Navigator (official support ended 1 Apr of 2008) it is strictly nostalgia.  For common web browsing tasks, which is the most likely activity for such a person, there is nothing to 'know' about Navigator that isn't the exact same on any current browser; ie, 'back', 'forward' and typing in a URL.  Because that is really all that about 90% of end users do.  I have serious doubts that this little old lady wants Communicator integration or is hacking on the source code, so it is unlikely she would have any kind of technically sound reason to keep using it.  I have further doubts the IT department is going to make any efforts to maintain that software on one system, unless that 'older lady' is the owner/CEO or some other high level executive.  I have worked IT; we are ruthless fuckers when it comes to that kind of thing.  And by 'that kind of thing', I mean 'employees who waste our time with stupid requests'.  If you mean 'she uses it at home', then she probably hasn't upgraded her computer in five to eight years, which has no bearing on her browser preferences, her computer probably just can't run a newer browser.  

In either case, your story would have been at least somewhat believable if you had used some other piece of software as an example, say Corel WordPerfect or something.  I was contracting for a government agency in 2005 or 2006, where they still had wide usage of WordPerfect, to the point that our contract specified limited support for that software, and they still wouldn't switch to Office.  No one even tracks Navigator usage separately anymore, it falls under aggregate 1.5% of 'other' users.

Stop saying stupid shit, and I will stop pointing out when you say stupid shit.