Quote from: BedrockBrendan;544182The problem I encounter is as soon as I state this, or offer possible reasons for why it never quite worked for me, it is an immediate inquisition followed by endless debate on minor points and attempts to desconstruct the language I am using. I find it very frustrating to communicate with such people. Possible I and others are unfairly projecting this sort of experience onto others who are merely passionate about 4E but not as ornery. But I do think there is a legitimate reason you see this issue raised again and again. And I do think these sorts of posters have really mired down discussions in a lot of places (there is almost no point in posting in certain sections of enworld now).

These people may act the same way if you tell them you are not a fan of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3?  Their anger/ADHD gene sets them right off.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;544222This is the heart of 4E's problem I think. If it was just some new game or D&D side project, it would have found an audience and folks like us wouldn't have cared one bit. However it was D&D and it was an edition of the game that seemed to be built with a small group of the play base in mind. So it created waves, not because it was too ahead of its time or too new, but because it was not what many wanted from D&D.

...and that's where the "4venger hate" comes from.  People were voicing opinions about how fundamentally 4e had changed and were shouted down, mocked, tied up in intellectually dishonest arguments, accused of edition warring, dismissed as a grognard etc...  Discussion about the game itself was deliberately locked down. Every.Single.Time.Every.Single.Board.

I think WotC is stupid flushing 4e down the toilet because 5e sure as hell isn't going to support the focused play at RPGA that they want.  Look at the media blitz for this Rise of the Underdark, drow stuff across all game lines, even the MMOG and FB game.  Tell me 5e with a move away from encounter-based adventures is going to support this MMOG-like "expansion wave" as well as 4e?  No way.  If they really want to keep making money, they should keep 4e alive as D&D Tactics or something.

Still, due to the vehemence and venom the 4vengers have used I wouldn't feel bad if 4e went away completely and they were left totally out in the cold - they do deserve it.

Halo 3 suxxx! The BR iz br0ken!

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;544225These people may act the same way if you tell them you are not a fan of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3?  Their anger/ADHD gene sets them right off.

Could be. I don't really know. But what I do know is I keep running into them on rpg boards and I have never had this kind of trouble participating in discussions about D&D. I don't like pathfinder one bit, can't stand the whole adventure path concept, but I haven't had a pathfinder fan perform the sort of linguistic gymnastics 4Evengers are so fond of in any discussion I have had. And I haven't been dog piled on by pathfinder fans in the way 4vengers do. As I said before I could be projecting some relatively isolated events onto too broad of a group. I just think this isn't arising out of thin air. People are complaining about it for a reason.

QuoteIf they really want to keep making money, they should keep 4e alive as D&D Tactics or something.

This should be done. You're correct in thinking it would be a good money maker.

Quote from: Benoist;544188That's what these guys are railing against. They're railing against actual D&D.

FWIW I think that the design jump from AD&D2e to D&D3e is larger than the design jump from D&D3e to D&D4e. D&D4e is IMO very much the delivering on the promise that D&D3e contained. It was the natural progression of that line of development and not something entirely new that came out of the Forge (sure there were some new elements obtained from there).

As such, I don't see these guys as "railing against D&D" but "railing against moving back down the path that D&D3e began and D&D4e improved on". That is not to say that the path taken in 3e/4e is either the right one or a good one as that is a matter of preference. But I see the logic of the kinds of posters refered to is more about continuing to advance D&D by using all the lessons learned to date rather than winding the clock back and starting again. It only becomes "railing against D&D", if you arbitrarily define D&D as everything up to D&D3e.

These aren't really new or unusual positions in arguments about many things. There always seems to be those who want to build on everything that has come before now and those who want to go back to some other point in time and build on from there.

What if they bolted modules and shit onto 5e to create that D&D Tactics experience though?

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;544230Could be. I don't really know. But what I do know is I keep running into them on rpg boards and I have never had this kind of trouble participating in discussions about D&D. I don't like pathfinder one bit, can't stand the whole adventure path concept, but I haven't had a pathfinder fan perform the sort of linguistic gymnastics 4Evengers are so fond of in any discussion I have had. And I haven't been dog piled on by pathfinder fans in the way 4vengers do. As I said before I could be projecting some relatively isolated events onto too broad of a group. I just think this isn't arising out of thin air. People are complaining about it for a reason.

What it has really done that is bad for all of us isn't the edition warring but the absolute insidious seepage of political correctness at every board. TPB is just the worst of it.

Quote from: Skywalker;544233FWIW I think that the design jump from AD&D2e to D&D3e is larger than the design jump from D&D3e to D&D4e. D&D4e is IMO very much the delivering on the promise that D&D3e contained. It was the natural conclusion of that line of development, and not something entirely new that came out of the Forge (sure there were elements obtained from there).

As such, I don't see these guys railing against D&D but against a move back down the path that D&D3e began and D&D4e improved on.

That is not to say that the path taken in 3e/4e is the right one or good one. But the logic of these kinds of posters is more about continue to advance D&D by using the lessons learned rather than winding the clock back. It only becomes an argument against D&D, if you define D&D as everything up to D&D3e.

I have heard this argument before, and I don't buy it. the move from 2E from 3E was no where near as big as 3E to 4E IMO. 4E was a response to 3E, not an evolution of 3E. It was created as a reaction to many of 3E's excesses (problems with builds and optimization for example). Just because they field tested some of the 4E mechanics during the 3E era, that doesn't make it a natural extension of 3E. With 4E you have a complete restructuring of the game, and a pure kind of class parity around combat we just never saw before.

Quote from: Benoist;544234What if they bolted modules and shit onto 5e to create that D&D Tactics experience though?

I'd have to see the complete game and see if they do the modules correctly. If so why not? It would be far more economical for them.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;544230Could be. I don't really know. But what I do know is I keep running into them on rpg boards and I have never had this kind of trouble participating in discussions about D&D. I don't like pathfinder one bit, can't stand the whole adventure path concept, but I haven't had a pathfinder fan perform the sort of linguistic gymnastics 4Evengers are so fond of in any discussion I have had. And I haven't been dog piled on by pathfinder fans in the way 4vengers do. As I said before I could be projecting some relatively isolated events onto too broad of a group. I just think this isn't arising out of thin air. People are complaining about it for a reason.

You're not wrong, and it's not isolated to RPGs.  In many MMOGs you have people who just play the game as a cRPG, then you have people that attempt to roleplay.  Trying to explain why being a Paladin of Camelot and seeing a Necromancer named Massengill Getzdastinkout dragging an undead creature behind him through the court of Camelot might just fuck with immersion into your character is met with the same type of derision, scorn and organized opposition.

In the MMOG community there is a large number of anti-roleplayers who are not live and let live, they are actively hostile to the idea of roleplayers in a MMOG and attempt to be actively disruptive on RPG servers.

Remember this is the key 4e audience (by the designers own admission), MMOGers.  The people who love the tactical gameplay of MMOGs moved to the tactical gameplay of 4e and they brought their hated of roleplayers with them.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;544236I have heard this argument before, and I don't buy it. the move from 2E from 3E was no where near as big as 3E to 4E IMO. 4E was a response to 3E, not an evolution of 3E. It was created as a reaction to many of 3E's excesses (problems with builds and optimization for example). Just because they field tested some of the 4E mechanics during the 3E era, that doesn't make it a natural extension of 3E. With 4E you have a complete restructuring of the game, and a pure kind of class parity around combat we just never saw before.

I am sure that its a matter that is never going to be quantified or agreed on.

FWIW I do agree that the result of 4e was a mental shift which was greater than between 2e and 3e. But the design of the mechanics itself IMO is less of a shift. 4e is very much a lesson of be careful of what you wish for

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;544236I have heard this argument before, and I don't buy it. the move from 2E from 3E was no where near as big as 3E to 4E IMO. 4E was a response to 3E, not an evolution of 3E. It was created as a reaction to many of 3E's excesses (problems with builds and optimization for example). Just because they field tested some of the 4E mechanics during the 3E era, that doesn't make it a natural extension of 3E. With 4E you have a complete restructuring of the game, and a pure kind of class parity around combat we just never saw before.

Correct. 4e was a direct result of a subset of the playerbase that craves literal class balance and really hated the QW/LF. It's all they can talk about even currently. 3e didn't help itself because fact is, it wasn't balanced. Removing all the limitations of magic users turned that up to 11.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;544236I have heard this argument before, and I don't buy it. the move from 2E from 3E was no where near as big as 3E to 4E IMO. 4E was a response to 3E, not an evolution of 3E. It was created as a reaction to many of 3E's excesses (problems with builds and optimization for example). Just because they field tested some of the 4E mechanics during the 3E era, that doesn't make it a natural extension of 3E. With 4E you have a complete restructuring of the game, and a pure kind of class parity around combat we just never saw before.

Correct.  While some elements of 4e were floated early at the end of 3.5, 4e was a reactionary design, not an evolutionary one.

Quote from: Marleycat;544235What it has really done that is bad for all of us isn't the edition warring but the absolute insidious seepage of political correctness at every board. TPB is just the worst of it.

Political correctness is a seperate issue I think. I find outside of TBP few gamers really spend much time worrying about either side of that debate. Believe me if they did, we would have been slammed for putting out Terror Network. Not saying this stuff never comes up...I just don't think it is related to the edition wars (though I can see how people at TBP might have somehow tied the too together). I see the 4E versus pre-4E divide being more centered around legitimate playstyle and expectation issues, not about use of the male pronoun.