Quote from: jibbajibba;523411See I don't agree with that I think the fighter appeals to people who want to role play a figther.....

I don't make a decision of what I play based on meta data about how the class performs in play and the nature of what it does. I read a book with a guy in it like Whirrun of Bligh and I decide wow that woudl be a cool kind of guy to play in a game. ....

I hear you. That's a way of looking at it. I'm just describing what I experienced, and the type of people I saw enjoying the TSR fighter at the game table.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;523409And so am I

Indeed. That's what I'm talking about.

Quote from: Benoist;523381Well first, my wife isn't "humoring my bizarre hobby". She likes gaming, she's a gamer. Let's be clear about that. What I'm saying is that precisely, there are different types of gamers who are searching for different types of experiences playing a game like D&D. The game should acknowledge them. If the game doesn't please half the gaming group, it's just not played in favor of another game that will. So cattering exclusively to OCD gamers is a very, very bad idea for a game's design.

Second, gamers are growing older. They have families of their own. The demographics of the hobby are changing. Gamers DO game with their wives, children, neighbours. That's a new reality of gaming that is only going to grow from now on. It's about time for the game to acknowledge that and allow everyone to have fun around the game table. Not just the OCD type.


You're making a leap here that doesn't make any sense. It's not because you don't want too many rules that suddenly you don't care for those that exist, for the universe that is presented via the game itself, or don't care for games that could appeal to your sensibilities.

It's a nonsensical argument.

Okay your misses is a gamer cool

As for the rest ... no you miss the point. There are peopel that game as a social medium. Those people generally will not buy product. If there wasn't an OCD gamer type in their social group they would probably be watching a DVD, playing Poker or Monopoly or whatever.

The sad thing is that commerically you are better off selling 12 books to 20% the population that 1 book to all of them. That isn't complicated it's just sums.
That is the direction commercial gaming has taken because pursing fresh blood prooved difficult.
Like I said in other posts a game aimed at the 5-7 age range that took role play aspects and combined with a popular franchise, like Ben 10, Pokemon, etc might change that but again its moot.

My point remains valid which is that if you want a comerical product you need to find a market that will buy enough product to support your business.

Quote from: jibbajibba;523424My point remains valid which is that if you want a comerical product you need to find a market that will buy enough product to support your business.

Well, let's be clear about something: I am NOT saying that the game should completely ignore OCD-types or that the rules should be uber-rules-light throughout. I'm saying that it's a good idea to allow the game to appeal to different audiences, to have aspects of the game that can be played by people who do not give a fuck about "rules granularity" or whatever the fuck you want to call it, while have the bells and whistles there nonetheless to satisfy the OCD-type.

Quote from: Benoist;523056It was a foregone conclusion. These guys have to show up to defend their bankrupt ideas. People like me cannot be suffered to exist and actually articulate a cogent thought that would prove them wrong. Simulationism doesn't even exist, didn't you know? I'm delusional, I "build a story anyway", and I should wake up to join the ranks of the Gamists and Narrativists who are so deep and deconstructed the hobby for the plebeians like me to enjoy "coherent" games better, despite ourselves.

And I'm singled out as the elitist? LOL! Fucking losers.

"People disagree with me on a public forum, the entire point of which is discussion of views? I'd better get all pissy about it and use strawman after strawman to justify how I'm the better man!"

Oh shit I just summed up this entire site, didn't I?

edit: Oh wait I just remembered I didn't use enough made-up pejoratives about 4E and imply that everyone who says anything about 4E that could remotely be viewed as positive is a 4venger 4rrie 4something. Woops!

You are aware that internet contains free porn, yes?

Quote from: Darwinism;523451"People disagree with me on a public forum, the entire point of which is discussion of views? I'd better get all pissy about it and use strawman after strawman to justify how I'm the better man!"

Oh shit I just summed up this entire site, didn't I?

1/5, for the "effort" displayed typing this troll (my own teachers would have said: "for the ink" ).

Quote from: Benoist;523078But leave D&D, the game, the FUCK alone.

Dude, I think you overestimate a bit the impact of some random gamer's opinion.

Quote from: Benoist;523100Yes. This. Jesus Christ. I'm glad to see you guys get it.

It is not that is hard to get, Ben. Or to agree with you, by the way. It's is the intensity of your fury which maybe turns some people off.

Quote from: jibbajibba;523162We play a game of ever diminishing size, a hobby who's glory days are long behind it but one that we all love and have spent a massive part of our lives playing.

No one knows that for sure, and this is an argument old as shit, really.

QuoteYet here we are arguing about differences that an outside observer would consider meaningless.

I think its sad when people focus on the 20% of stuff they disagree on rather than the 80% of the stuff they have in common.

Now, this is golden.

Quote from: Imperator;523478Dude, I think you overestimate a bit the impact of some random gamer's opinion.

Professor Bat Penis was such a random gamer at one point. To quote bits of conversation earlier in this thread:

Quote from: CRKrueger;523119

Quote from: jibbajibba;523117but newsflash most people never even heard of the fucker [Ron Edwards]

Unfortunately for us, Rob Heinsoo and Jay Little weren't among them.

Quote from: Imperator;523478It is not that is hard to get, Ben. Or to agree with you, by the way. It's is the intensity of your fury which maybe turns some people off.

I've just grown tired of watching these pricks wreck perfectly good role playing games in silence.

Quote from: Benoist;523487Professor Bat Penis was such a random gamer at one point.

The guy (AFAIK) had an agenda since the beginning. And he pushed that agenda by publishing some games, creating a website and all that. I don't see Mark doing the same.

Long story short: yelling to a guy who has nothing to do with the D&D design process is useless. Go yell at someone who has some influence

QuoteI've just grown tired of watching these pricks wreck perfectly good role playing games in silence.

D&D is beyond that, actually. No one can wreck anything these days. Golden Age, indeed.

Quote from: jibbajibba;523365I tend to agree and certainly when i run games for my daughter I just use a very rough core where she chooses what she wants to do and I adjudicate.

However, the wives of gamers who might like to sit down occassionally to see their husbands and humour their bizzare hobby  are not a big market segment.
If you are selling games as a business then writiing games for people that don't want a lot of rules and have no intention of actually buying games is a poor marketing decision.
There are numerous independent games out there that are free. Players as casual as you identify, players who would never play unless their SO was playing, are not a viable market for RPGs, therefore if you are designing a comerial game you really can't consider them too much.
So by all means produce a traveller lite, or a D&D lite that a gamer can play socially with their non-gamer friends, there may be a market for that , but your core offering has to have enough rules and content that it will make an impact and will generate enough revenue from the 100,000 active gamers that it can make a profit.

I could write a viable fantasy RPG in about 30 pages, most people on this site could. But if you write a 30 page RPG and you sell it for $5 you will not support a professional company that produces RPG because the potential playbase is too small.

So yeah lightweight games with  few rules are good (I wrote an Amber mod for Star Wars - 2 sides A4) but I don't think they are comercially viable.

Quote from: an uncouth Hungarian?!Dear Angry People on the Internet,

I am genuinely sorry my and my friends' way of enjoying this hobby doesn't sustain your business model, conform to your finely crafted theories about game design, follow your ethical or moral stances, avoid insulting your hangups, get the correct demographic into/out of the hobby, or contribute to your on- or offline fame. Unfortunately, because we happen to enjoy this hobby for our own reasons and not yours, we cannot guarantee we are going to change our misguided and outright harmful ways. Sorry.

Yours, sincerely, forever,

The quote above is not necessarily directed towards you personally, but to that segment of the market that doesn't think that my financial support (or wife's) is important. We took our money, went home, spent it on stuff we like.

Because of the cottage industry that has grown recently, I have added several hundred dollars into our hobby; about the same relative amount from ten years ago. If only more people that prefer slick production values bought more of this current generation stuff there might not be a problem to discuss.

It seems to me that the people in an uproar are the ones suffering. I'm not. Support your industry in trying to bring us back into fold. If you or your industry doesn't want us, good; we have already pissed off.

I can see only one major financial benefit to having a company like WOTC in the industry. That is in development for the future of the hobby: incorporation of technology that benefits us. But they have had all this time, and all they have of any comparable value is a fucking character generator to usher us into the 20th-century. I am still buying print copies of Kobold Quarterly from my FLGS.

Quote from: Imperator;523493The guy (AFAIK) had an agenda since the beginning. And he pushed that agenda by publishing some games, creating a website and all that. I don't see Mark doing the same.

Long story short: yelling to a guy who has nothing to do with the D&D design process is useless. Go yell at someone who has some influence

Guys like Ron Edwards, Ryan Dancey and others are nothing without the legions of people who are either (1) sucking their dicks for reason X or Y, whether they like their bankrupt ideas or worse, because they'd like to get in on the action themselves, or (2) just not caring because well, they don't give a shit about it so ... the game might go down the trash, who cares?

Well. I do.

I'm sorry: it's not because you're not one of the big shots that I should give you some slack when you're saying something that I not only don't agree with, but think damaged the hobby in recent and not-so-recent years. I don't want to give a pass to that shit anymore. Live with it.

Quote from: Imperator;523493D&D is beyond that, actually. No one can wreck anything these days. Golden Age, indeed.

My gaming is secure whatever happens. I'd very much like for the D&D game to be a great game in its own right, however, and not some piece of shit New Coke brand cattering to the lowest common denominator out there.

No. Really: fuck that noise. I've had enough of that shit.

Quote from: Benoist;523430Well, let's be clear about something: I am NOT saying that the game should completely ignore OCD-types or that the rules should be uber-rules-light throughout. I'm saying that it's a good idea to allow the game to appeal to different audiences, to have aspects of the game that can be played by people who do not give a fuck about "rules granularity" or whatever the fuck you want to call it, while have the bells and whistles there nonetheless to satisfy the OCD-type.

And this is why I am looking forward to 5e. Maybe it can act as some sort of framework to bring different types of players to the same table again. The TSR editions showed that different types of gamers could play together because the rules did not really limit the type of enjoyment one could receive from the game. IMHO, 3e began the divide by forcing me to play one way, and 4e cemented that divide by forcing me to play in another. Once my wife and I were forced to play with a battlemat (a common element to both) we left.

We are just one spending data point. But I know about another dozen casual gamers that rejected 3e and 4e because of all the finicky bullshit. Based on past TSR spending habits that equals about three people they could have sold a set of core rules to if they were more rules-lite. Now those people would have never bought ALL of the splats that came out for those later editions, but they might have still been playing WOTC's game.

WOTC's real problem is that there does not seem to be a large enough community to support their business model. Again, their problem not mine.

Quote from: Imperator;523493D&D is beyond that, actually. No one can wreck anything these days. Golden Age, indeed.

Well, IMO, 4e was fucked, WFRP 3e is fucked, The One Ring is fucked, looks like the latest Marvel game is fucked.

One of the only games that i like that hasn't been poisoned is Rolemaster - thank the Lord.

I know for a fact that you are objectively wrong on 2 counts, I haven't played The One Ring yet, but it looks awesome. I don't care for superheroes, so I'll probably never find out about MSH.