Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366755I'm talking about this thing that has already definitely irrefutably happened, much to the dismay of a few.

And the shilling commences...

Quote from: jeff37923;366764And the shilling commences...

I don't know what to say to you, Jeff. Apparently reality itself hurts your feelings. I'm sorry D&D4 came out and it is as big as it is. I'm sorry that time only goes one direction. I'm sorry.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366766I don't know what to say to you, Jeff. Apparently reality itself hurts your feelings. I'm sorry D&D4 came out and it is as big as it is. I'm sorry that time only goes one direction. I'm sorry.

*SPRAY*

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366588I don't really believe that they have that kind of influence to change things.

They don't have any power they just are the loudest squeaky wheel that Wizards here. Plus it more effective as it is people talking to people not faceless individuals on message boards. (In reply to Seanchi's comment).

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366588So if there are non-organized not-RPGA ways to publicize and present this information, I'm sure everyone (Wotc or not..) would love to see it, because theory is bullshit once you have observed data.  

Wizards it getting multiple avenues of feedback. The most important is what their distributors and game store owners are telling them followed by what they hear talking to people (mostly at cons). The rest get thrown into the mix but not have a much impact.

I had experience with this process both recently as a author and publisher. Also as a owner of a LARP chapter. It also tracks with my experience developing software with the company I work with.

The result can be seen in what Wizard's is putting out. 4e is a game that very much optimized for organized play. Like Magic the Gathering the rules are built in as part of the powers which makes adjudication straightforward in combat (although other situations still needs the DM to make a ruling).

We know that D&D as a game has always been under pressure from the convention side of gaming starting with AD&D 1st (which was developed in part to standardized the game). With D&D 4th edition it come full flower.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366588The new guideline for 4E is called DM Empowerment (which is shorthand for allowing the DM to make changes and adjustments to the adventures as he sees fit) and it was pretty controversial to allow this, (apparently mind-blowing to some of the the people who came in during the 3E days).

The issue isn't about DM Empowerment. It about that sessions are dominated in time by combat. It about that the products put out by Wizards cater to the combat side of the game more than the roleplaying. By a wide margin. These factors and other cause the gaming culture surrounding D&D to those who enjoy combat a lot alienating many others.

The problem with this that this type of game has a lot shorter legs than a RPG that emphasizes a mix. The key to keep people playing for years and years is the "soap opera" effect or immersion. That always been the RPG's secret weapon and why the game will remain despite it now being a fad anymore.  

Alone D&D 4e abstract system is not an immersion killer. As they pointed out they have flavor text all over the place. But the abstract game, the products they put out, and the combat gaming culture is a major turn off to gamers trying to get immersed into playing D&D 4e.

Hopefully D&D Esstentials will start up a product that cater to the home table-top and focuses more on the roleplaying side. Since 4e is exception based by design the system can handle it without having to make a 4.5e.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366755Would you like to go into a typical weekly DMs workload in 3E vs 4E, then? I'm not talking about "everybody" or "superiority", I'm talking about this thing that has already definitely irrefutably happened, much to the dismay of a few.

If smaller weekly workload is the standard, then OD&D, BECMI, or even AD&D 1e are superior to 3.x by a country mile. Some are superior to 4e as well. All are superior to 3.x (as most played it) and 4e in that they require less set up time for a combat -- no need to find the right minis, draw on the battlemat (or worse yet timewise, setting up dungeon tiles), etc.  "Superior"/"inferior" in RPG design is in the eye of the beholder as there are no generally agreed upon objective standards (nor are their even likely to be).

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366763I live near Baltimore, sort of halfway between DC and Baltimore. I can't tell you what organization I work for (especially since I have a malicious stalker here), but "it's not the FCC" should be helpful.

Actual Government employees (GS series) in general get what they want in my organization.

Hell, I live just on the other side of DC from ya, around the Leesburg VA area, so maybe someday I can join a game and you can show me first hand how much better 4e is. As for the government thing, of course it's not possible to confirm whether you can or can't do what you say without knowing what it is you do for the government. I know she's a GS13.

Quote from: RandallS;366786If smaller weekly workload is the standard, then OD&D, BECMI, or even AD&D 1e are superior to 3.x by a country mile. Some are superior to 4e as well. All are superior to 3.x (as most played it) and 4e in that they require less set up time for a combat -- no need to find the right minis, draw on the battlemat (or worse yet timewise, setting up dungeon tiles), etc.  "Superior"/"inferior" in RPG design is in the eye of the beholder as there are no generally agreed upon objective standards (nor are their even likely to be).

Try not to get hung up on "superiority" (or perceptions of "inferiority" that anger you). This is your issue, your words, not mine. I'm still in the "Positive social reorganization" and "cultural change" topics. I swear, it's not that offensive, and as I was saying.. it's actually already happened. And it will continue to be happening, constantly, throughout our lifetimes. With each change there will be reactions, and you (yes you!) get to decide whether you want to be involved or not.

And that's all we really should talk about: the actual gaming you do.

Quote from: Sigmund;366792Hell, I live just on the other side of DC from ya, around the Leesburg VA area, so maybe someday I can join a game and you can show me first hand how much better 4e is. As for the government thing, of course it's not possible to confirm whether you can or can't do what you say without knowing what it is you do for the government. I know she's a GS13.

You are only an hour away! And even better you are only 30 minutes from Game Parlor, Chantilly and the Haven in Frederick. There's a ton of gaming in both of those areas.

If you get a chance to come up to Games & Stuff in Glen Burnie MD, I am there nearly every Thursday night (games go from 6-9:30 but we have signups so let me know before hand what night you want and I'll reserve a spot for you).

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366795Try not to get hung up on "superiority" (or perceptions of "inferiority" that anger you). This is your issue, your words, not mine. I'm still in the "Positive social reorganization" and "cultural change" topics.

As far as I can tell, those words don't have any meaning in a discussion like this -- at least no meaning everyone understands. We are talking about differences between editions of games and which ones we prefer. Neither social organization or culture have much if anything to do with which editions of D&D I like and which ones I don't like. Perhaps because all I need to play is a few players willing and able to show up for a game every week or two. What other groups want to play has zero social or cultural impact on me.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366795Try not to get hung up on "superiority" (or perceptions of "inferiority" that anger you). This is your issue, your words, not mine.

Christ. I'm sorry, I apologize to everyone in advance, but DAMN. I just have to say: you are such a disingenuous bastard when you start posting that way. Look:

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366550It affects things here, because basically you have the equivalent of a room full of people who would rather talk about their resentment than gaming. So that sucks. But does it affect D&D4, it's fans, the game in any way? No. It does not.

This is compounded by the fact that the criticism is largely empty and forgettable because the bulk of the criticism 1) always comes from the same people (you notice?) who are unable to talk about anything but their resentment of a game they apparently don't even play.  
And 2) a lot of these other guys only have about as much familiarity and insight as a passing glance at a stolen PDF (and intentional misreadings of WOTC website articles) two years ago could give them.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366579Pointing this out seemed to cause a furious uproar last time I did it, but maybe it's because it was me pointing it out.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366701So 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: Abyssal Maw;366766I don't know what to say to you, Jeff. Apparently reality itself hurts your feelings. I'm sorry D&D4 came out and it is as big as it is. I'm sorry that time only goes one direction. I'm sorry.

Contempt literally DRIPS from your posts, Pete. You're constantly trying to portray people who disagree with you as irrelevant, mal-adjusted, antisocial, non-gamers. And you're telling RANDALL, of all people, that he's just imagining himself as inferior, rather than you talking about your own superiority and belittling people constantly instead of actually bringing a rational, constructed, respectable argument at the table?

Are you kidding me?

Just the fact that you consider doing this is either funny because we'd all go up in arms about this, or that we're dumb enough to not notice what you're doing, should actually be quoted as an example of the definition of both contempt and disdain in the dictionary.

Jesus. And you have the guts to present yourself as a victim afterwards. Hypocrite.

You can be more intelligent than this. Heck. You are worth better than this. I've seen it in the last few days. Why the HELL are you going down that path AGAIN?

Quote from: Sigmund;366758What do you do for the government? I know my Girlfriend works for the FCC and she doesn't get whatever she asks for, and she's the one who maintains the FCC website, and was in charge of the DTV change-over. for the northeast to mid-atlantic section of the country.

Yeah, like I said before, the company I worked for was pretty clear about delineating support guidelines.  Some of their software we didn't support at all, they had internal IT for that.  Some of it that was supportable over the phone (like WordPerfect) we didn't support fully.  When they started bringing in thumb drives, we told them that wasn't on the contract and wasn't going to be supported either, even though we did have some hardware support for them.

No one in the government (except for the Secretary and Vice-Secretary of a Cabinet) just got what they asked for.  Even when they requested something, the software had to go through an approval process, and in 2004/2005 when I worked there, Navigator simply would not have made it through that process.  Among other concerns, security and network integrity are the highest; no one just barks and the IT folks scramble to get an install disk.

Quote from: Abyssal MawThe new guideline for 4E is called DM Empowerment (which is shorthand for allowing the DM to make changes and adjustments to the adventures as he sees fit) and it was pretty controversial to allow this, (apparently mind-blowing to some of the the people who came in during the 3E days).

Quote from: estar;366785The issue isn't about DM Empowerment. It about that sessions are dominated in time by combat. It about that the products put out by Wizards cater to the combat side of the game more than the roleplaying. By a wide margin. These factors and other cause the gaming culture surrounding D&D to those who enjoy combat a lot alienating many others.

Just to put this in perspective. Abyssal Maw rightly points out that individual DMs have more freedom to adjust 'Living' modules in 4E than they had in 3.5. What he conveniently forgets to mention, though, is that the guidelines for module authors have become so codified, with a hitherto unparalleled "must have 2-3 full combats in each module - for a 4 hour session" stricture*, that the result is that people DMing 'Living' modules are struggling to get a good amount of non-combat roleplaying into their own sessions more than ever.

AM even wrote a couple of brilliant and helpful posts to address this issue (i.e. how to lower the amount your LFR group spends on combat because there's frankly too much in it as per the time limit) so he's about the last person on earth to be ignorant of this fact.

*Read the section "Adventure in Failure" here, and follow the link to the WotC page. I'd be grateful to be informed that the LFR module guidelines have been drastically altered to reduce the amount each LFR session needs to compulsorily spend on combat.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366802You are only an hour away! And even better you are only 30 minutes from Game Parlor, Chantilly and the Haven in Frederick. There's a ton of gaming in both of those areas.

If you get a chance to come up to Games & Stuff in Glen Burnie MD, I am there nearly every Thursday night (games go from 6-9:30 but we have signups so let me know before hand what night you want and I'll reserve a spot for you).

I just got a new job, but I think the hours might allow for that one of these days

Quote from: Sigmund;366792Hell, I live just on the other side of DC from ya, around the Leesburg VA area, so maybe someday I can join a game and you can show me first hand how much better 4e is. As for the government thing, of course it's not possible to confirm whether you can or can't do what you say without knowing what it is you do for the government. I know she's a GS13.

Actually, it isn't all that difficult.  Anything below GS-9 / GS-10 or so isn't shit.  They are more or less standard salary-workers.  Between GS-10 and about GS-13, they start to have a bit of weight.  If I recall things correctly, your girlfriend is at about the limit of what she is going to get paid.  GS-14 and GS-15 aren't usually just higher pay grades, those people are in charge of larger departments.

Quote from: Windjammer;366822Read the section "Adventure in Failure" here, and follow the link to the WotC page.

Wow. Yeah. Reading the guidelines... definitely not my cup of tea.

As a side-note: "Finally, we come to the preview file for FR campaign rules, which includes the stats for drow and genasi characters and three levels of the spellsword class. I'm not going to go into the rules, because they're boring, but I will note that instead of the traditional fire, water, air and earth genasi, we now have firesoul, windsoul, watersoul, stormsoul and earthsoul genasi. I used to name stuff like that when I was 14. Then I grew up and realised how stupid it looks."

Ouch.