Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366950Dude, go back and read who started down what path. I enjoy retard farming as much as the next guy, but I'd much rather talk about gaming.

Post #204. The discussion was awesome until that post.
You can go ahead and check it out.
Spoiler? It was your post. This post:

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.

So don't start giving me your victimization shit again. That's enough.
Just. Enough.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366941Here's some more proof:

http://countingku.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/weekend-in-the-realms/

Here's some real world examples of people avoiding combat in LFR.

Quote from: The First Paragraph of The Fucking Blog You Just Linked ToWhen people think of Living Forgotten Realms, they think combat. It is a fairly accurate stereotype. While authors are getting better at including more story in their work, the type of gaming tends to preclude a deep, overarching campaign storyline.

In your hissy-fit, you just proved the point you have been trying to counter.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366941Yeah, good luck with that. Your circle of squealing whiners grows ever tighter. I'm merely here to explain how this all works.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366950Dude, go back and read who started down what path. I enjoy retard farming as much as the next guy, but I'd much rather talk about gaming.

*SPRAY*

Quote from: Benoist;366951Post #204. The discussion was awesome until that post.
You can go ahead and check it out.
Spoiler? It was your post. This post:


So don't start giving me your victimization shit again. That's enough.
Just. Enough.

I stand by the post. We DO have a bunch of people (and theyre the same people every time) who would like nothing more than to derail any conversation about 4e- including the ones they start- once it starts to become a conversation and not a howling session for the gamers of yesteryear. I DO doubt there's any insight going on. And I think everyone wuld be better off if they actually knew what they were talking about rather than insisted on focusing on their various resentments.  Inevitably I have to play whack-a-mole with the same six or so dudes who chose this as the final fallback bunker, but I dunno. At the end of the day.. it's a wash.

And I admit the contempt. It's hard to hide.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366953And I admit the contempt. It's hard to hide.

Good. Now, I know what remains to be done.

*SPRAY*

If you've given up on talking about the actual gaming part of the subject, all you actually have to do is leave... This isn't about your feelings.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366955If you've given up on talking about the actual gaming part of the subject, all you actually have to do is leave... This isn't about your feelings.

Ah. You'd like that, heh? Me leaving and everything.

No. I've not given up talking about gaming. I've just given up on talking TO YOU about gaming.
I enjoy the place well enough, and I happen to not be the one who is constantly complaining that people stalk me. You could always heed your own advice, but I'm not holding my breath - I honestly don't care if you stay or not. I'm just not going to bother with you in the near future.

All the best, mate. I'm done answering to you.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366953I stand by the post. We DO have a bunch of people (and theyre the same people every time) who would like nothing more than to derail any conversation about 4e- including the ones they start- once it starts to become a conversation and not a howling session for the gamers of yesteryear. I DO doubt there's any insight going on. And I think everyone wuld be better off if they actually knew what they were talking about rather than insisted on focusing on their various resentments.  Inevitably I have to play whack-a-mole with the same six or so dudes who chose this as the final fallback bunker, but I dunno. At the end of the day.. it's a wash.

And I admit the contempt. It's hard to hide.

That's an interesting viewpoint.

People certainly do have their viewpoints, some less forgiving and more set-in-stone than others.   Some more combative than others.   And some of these viewpoints are better supported than others.

I guess you could call it whack-a-mole, as kind of the conversational equivalent of Custer bragging about teaching the indians a lesson as they tear the scalp from his head.

Quote from: AMIf you've given up on talking about the actual gaming part of the subject, all you actually have to do is leave... This isn't about your feelings.

and yet you are the first (this thread included) to go off topic and away from actual gaming, bashing people and ideas.  And then blaming everyone else for dragging a thread down to your level. I'm the first one to give you credit for having a valid viewpoint, just stick with the gaming and stop trying to convince me that Justin Timberlake is better than the Beatles because he uses later generation technology.

Quote from: LordVreeg;366959I'm the first one to give you credit for having a valid viewpoint, just stick with the gaming and stop trying to convince me that Justin Timberlake is better than the Beatles because he uses later generation technology.

My main argument centers around the Beatles being better than some Ozark Mountain Jugband, and that's a perfectly valid explanation of why they have waaaaay more fans.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366939Including a combat doesn't mean you can't make it avoidable or optional.

Very good point. The question though is how much this approach makes it to the groups playing LFR and the actual guys writing actual modules for the LFR. I appreciate your follow-up point where you linkify a real life example. However, as Jeff rightly pointed out, what the link shows if anything is that the people writing+DMing+playing in LFR modules are all but unaccustomed to avoiding combats. There's a saying which I used to hate, and it goes 'the exception proves the norm'. What it means here is that if a guy writes a blog post to show how he startled everyone by avoiding a combat this doesn't exactly prove the point that avoiding combats is par of the course when playing LFR.

That said, the blog entry and stuff in your own blog is ample evidence that there are people active in the LFR to encourage players to interact more creatively with potential combat situations by avoiding them altogether or just 'solving' them in a way other than 'let's deplete all the monsters to 0 hp'. I have an immense appreciation for this sort of encouragement, and I hope it helps to set a trend. It's not a trend I'm seeing so far, though. Which gets us to this point:

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366939Ready for Checkmate?

Those guidelines are only for adventures that get submitted for official adventures. And the reason for that is they are also checking to see if the writer even understands how to write for D&D4.

And Double Checkmate: MyRealms doesn't follow any of these rules anyway.

I don't think making the same claim twice qualifies for a double checkmate. Of course MyRealms is excempt from LFR module guidelines. How that interacts with a discussion on the guidelines of official modules is beyond me. Plus, see the earlier point as to what modules actually get written for LFR. Mearls is on record for saying that the RPGA has received negative complaints about LG modules being 'hack and slash only' for years. I'd like to get references to LFR modules which statistically show that the trend setting off this spade of complaints is dated now, no longer current. Linking to blogs where the occasional DM and occasional player fight against that current and outright say that the hack'n'slash stereotype is "accurate" doesn't help that case. At all.

Just to steer my post here in a constructive direction, and engage you at the level of actual details. I know that at the opening of Beneath Haunted Halls (to the others: that's a 2008 LFR module) the players can avoid the first combat if they succeed in a skill challenge focused on Diplomacy. How frequent is such stuff in LFR modules these days? I'd like to know. I haven't looked at LFR modules for some time.

Quote from: LordVreeg;366959I'm the first one to give you credit for having a valid viewpoint, just stick with the gaming

Just to say I echo this sentiment. AM used to say that he mainly writes argumentative posts in 4E discussions to clear up (accidental or deliberate) mispresentations of the game for the benefit of potential lurkers eaves dropping on the discussion in such threads.

I see no parallel benefit of engaging (in 4E threads) people purely at the level of ad hominems*, and consider such 'engagement's a complete waste of everyone's time. As others have pointed out before, it's contradictory to proclaim the activity as a waste of time and then engage at it at such length, repeatedly.

*If at all, that sort of behaviour might reflect badly on the author in the perception of the aforementioned lurkers.

Quote from: Sigmund;366710In 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.

I'm sure you felt like you had to, but I'm not sure that's actually the case. It seems to me that it's a bit my like grandmother and cell phones. She's convinced that every time she tried to call a cell phone, she has some kind of problem. It's all very real to her, but it doesn't indicate some kind of objective problem with cell phones for every one else.

If you don't like 4e for how you feel it forces to you play a character or approach playing a character, that's cool. You're certainly entitled to that. I don't disagree or disbelieve that's how 4e makes you feel.

What I have a problem with is folks attributing this to the system rather than the person.

Seanchai

Quote from: estar;366785It about that the products put out by Wizards cater to the combat side of the game more than the roleplaying.

Because we've shown WotC we're interested in that type of product. I don't know if you remember, but Sean Reynolds pulled back the curtain a bit in the 3e days and tried to convince the gaming populace to start buying fluff because WotC didn't see it selling. It continued not to sell and WotC continued to narrow their focus on trying to sell mechanics.

I asked myself when I read your comments what a product that catered to the roleplaying side of things would look like. At first I thought it might be system-less, such as some of the Freeport offerings, then I realized people just take system-less materials and add a system to them. Then I thought it might focus on advice on how to roleplay a character, provide examples for various types, etc., but then I wondered just how much advice people actually need and want along these lines and how much such advice you could put in a product.

What do you see a product that caters to the roleplaying side of things looking like? What's it's function? How would folks use it?  

Quote from: estar;366785Alone D&D 4e abstract system is not an immersion killer.

Immersion has just become a nigh meaningless buzz word. First it was dissociative, now it's immersion.

Quote from: estar;366785...and the combat gaming culture is a major turn off to gamers trying to get immersed into playing D&D 4e.

Who is responsible for the "combat gaming culture," however? Answer: your fellow gamers. Who are the only ones who can change it (if the desire a change, which I doubt): your fellow gamers.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;366964I'm sure you felt like you had to, but I'm not sure that's actually the case. It seems to me that it's a bit my like grandmother and cell phones. She's convinced that every time she tried to call a cell phone, she has some kind of problem. It's all very real to her, but it doesn't indicate some kind of objective problem with cell phones for every one else.

If you don't like 4e for how you feel it forces to you play a character or approach playing a character, that's cool. You're certainly entitled to that. I don't disagree or disbelieve that's how 4e makes you feel.

What I have a problem with is folks attributing this to the system rather than the person.

Seanchai

That's your problem. I'm not saying it's not the person, what I'm saying is it's the person (in this case me), and the system both. It's not the way I want my games to work. I don't like it. It's my personal point of view. I've never claimed otherwise. The reason I know it's also the system is because I don't have this problem with the GD3 system, or the True20 system, or the 3.x, AD&D, BECMI, S&W, LL, M&M, AO, or BRP systems. What I have a problem with is people like you trying to infer I'm somehow unable to cope with the "new tech". 4e isn't a machine, it's a game. One that I and many others (judging by their comments along these lines) don't like. The tools it offers don't provide the experience that I'm looking for as a player in an RPG. What the flying fuck is so hard to understand about that? This is how I know for a fact that 4e is nothing like OD&D in the area of how the game plays. I've played them both, and applying the rules of each provides a vastly different experience. I know it first hand. I'm not relying on anyone else's experience. I played each of them myself. More than once.

Quote from: Seanchai;366964I'm sure you felt like you had to, but I'm not sure that's actually the case. It seems to me that it's a bit my like grandmother and cell phones. She's convinced that every time she tried to call a cell phone, she has some kind of problem. It's all very real to her, but it doesn't indicate some kind of objective problem with cell phones for every one else.

If you don't like 4e for how you feel it forces to you play a character or approach playing a character, that's cool. You're certainly entitled to that. I don't disagree or disbelieve that's how 4e makes you feel.

What I have a problem with is folks attributing this to the system rather than the person.

Seanchai

Wait a minute, are you saying the 4e system does not actively encourage (since no game can force anyone to do anything) thinking about what power to use, and making rules-based choices regarding what effect each power would have on the enemies, (your teammates), and the battlefield?  I mean if it doesn't, what exactly in your oppinion do the rules actively encourage or steer a player towards in combat?

Edit: I'm not saying that this is a bad thing, as I think it can be enjoyable if I'm in the mood for a game like 4e... but I do think the game does exactly this to players in combat.

Quote from: Seanchai;366964I'm sure you felt like you had to, but I'm not sure that's actually the case. It seems to me that it's a bit my like grandmother and cell phones. She's convinced that every time she tried to call a cell phone, she has some kind of problem. It's all very real to her, but it doesn't indicate some kind of objective problem with cell phones for every one else.

If you don't like 4e for how you feel it forces to you play a character or approach playing a character, that's cool. You're certainly entitled to that. I don't disagree or disbelieve that's how 4e makes you feel.

What I have a problem with is folks attributing this to the system rather than the person.

Seanchai

And since that personal taste is one of a person not liking Your Favorite Game, then you feel obliged to attack them by insinuating that they are so inept at gaming that they cannot handle Your Favorite Game. This is just the absurdity of the No True Scotsman fallacy applied to 4E.

Pull your head out of your ass.