Quote from: Benoist;385032Well, I got mine here, the French boxed set with Character Law, Arms Law and Spell Law, and total page count of the three softcover books isn't anywhere close to anything ressembling 3e or 4e, for that matter.

The "complexity" of Rolemaster is IMO highly overrated. It's a matter of having a minimum of organization in actual play, particularly when using Hit and Critical tables in combat. If you've got a binder with the PCs weapons, organize yourself with stickers and bookmarks and shit like that, it's not anywhere near as complicated as people think it is.

It's a myth propagated by word-of-mouth ever since the glory days of RM.

I took a look at my Rolemaster books.  It seems like the "complexity" is in figuring out which tables to look at, out of the zillions of tables.

With all the bookkeeping that 4E requires, I can see it being just as complicated as Rolemaster, albeit the complexity is in keeping track of all kinds of temporary stuff in combat.

Not quite an apples-to-apples comparison between 4E and Rolemaster.

Writing down all the frequently cited information and keeping copies of the relevant tables on hand, would make things run easier and faster in Rolemaster.

In the case of 4E, I just wrote down the temporary stuff.  The other players didn't always write the temporary stuff down, like conditions which required saving throws.

RM character creation is a pain. My first (and only) character took 3 hours to create and felt like homework. Boring, repetitive homework.

In-play the system's OK, I guess.

I'm not familiar with "Rolemaster Express" but if it's anything like the old MERP, I might give it a try.

Quote from: Hairfoot;385076BTW, great thread title, Benoist.

It's the title of Ari Marmell's blog post, actually. Render unto Caesar...

Quote from: The Butcher;385181RM character creation is a pain. My first (and only) character took 3 hours to create and felt like homework. Boring, repetitive homework.

True. That's something I didn't think about. I imagine creating a character would require significantly more time with RM than it would with 4e the first time around. That's a good point.

In actual play, the system is smooth and works really well, IME.

Quote from: The Butcher;385181RM character creation is a pain. My first (and only) character took 3 hours to create and felt like homework. Boring, repetitive homework.

When 4E was first released, character creation by hand wasn't too difficult.  The choices were relatively limited at the time in the 4E PHB1.  (Martial Power 1 wasn't released yet at the time).

I suppose now if one tried doing the same thing without the DDI character builder, creating a character can take up more time with the proliferation of options from the Power books.  With enough options, something like "analysis paralysis" can come into effect for some people.  (Multiclassing and hybrid classes compounds the problem even more).

With that being said, 4E overall is probably still easier to create characters than Rolemaster ever was.

Quote from: ggroy;385187With that being said, 4E overall is probably still easier to create characters than Rolemaster ever was.

All other things being equal, i.e. either taking both games without any supplements, or both games with all the shitload of supplements that could come with them, I would agree. There's significantly more bean-counting in RM's character generation, but that's all the bean-counting that doesn't happen in actual play afterwards. 4e is almost the reverse in this regard. You get to play fast, but have lots of stuff to keep track of tactically in game.

Quote from: Hairfoot;385015Who would bother being negative about an edition of D&D if they didn't really want to like D&D and cared about the brand - the best-known, shorthand-for-RPGs brand in the world?

Because that's how people work. They're nasty and vicious for the sake of being nasty and vicious. Consider, for example, the behavior of people here. How many people flame and attack each other just to do so and vent their spleens, when away from the keyboard they don't know or give a damn about the target of their attacks (much less really giving much of a damn about the issues they're attacking over)...

Quote from: Hairfoot;385015If 4E had been released by a different publisher, or by Hasbro under a different title, the people who like what it is would be playing, and D&Ders wouldn't give a shit.

Exactly. It's not about 4e being a bad game, it's about people finding something to bitch about...

Quote from: Hairfoot;385015That's why Hasbro does give a damn about the widespread and trenchant criticism of 4E...

I think you're confusing vocal with widespread. Or chattered about on the Internet with widespread.

Quote from: Hairfoot;385015Shout about it all you like, but the extensive, accurate criticism of 4E has more significance for a publisher than the reflexive support of people who'd buy a dog turd if it had "Wardark Hellhound Log, for use with Dungeons & Dragons 4E" on the label.

First, where's the extensive, accurate criticism coming from? If there's some to be had, it's coming from the folks who know and care about the game. That's not the folks shouting obscenities from the sidelines.

Second, companies have built empires on the type of reflexive purchasing you're describing. Listening to customers, rather than observing their preferences and behavior, has led to fiascoes such as New Coke.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;385190Second, companies have built empires on the type of reflexive purchasing you're describing. Listening to customers, rather than observing their preferences and behavior, has led to fiascoes such as New Coke.

An article which attempts to argue this exact point, which led to the demise of the 1970's wargame publisher SPI.

http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/JCGD_Volume_4/Gamer_Enemy.html

Quote from: Benoist;385188All other things being equal, i.e. either taking both games without any supplements, or both games with all the shitload of supplements that could come with them, I would agree. There's significantly more bean-counting in RM's character generation, but that's all the bean-counting that doesn't happen in actual play afterwards. 4e is almost the reverse in this regard. You get to play fast, but have lots of stuff to keep track of tactically in game.

An excellent observation.  If there is going to be complexity to the game, do you front-load it, or back-load it?

(duplicated - discard)

Quote from: StormBringer;385197An excellent observation.  If there is going to be complexity to the game, do you front-load it, or back-load it?

The logic behind the two games, regardless of actual success in terms of game design, is quite different:

• RM is definitely aimed at the hobbyist first, the guy who's played a few RPGs before, most probably AD&D or something similar, and wants a different approach on the concept of Fantasy role playing, while still playing on the same sort of tropes. No risk then in front-loading the complexity of the game, while the actual play results might be smoother in the end (consider that RM started at first as a series of gaming aids that could be plugged onto AD&D and similar -read "D&D"- systems).
• 4e has the overt goal of bringing new blood to gaming. It first and foremost tries to "hook" new gamers by lifting up the prep load for its users: relatively fast character generation, especially with online tools, relatively fast DM prep, especially with online tools. The logic here is that the crux of the game as far as the rules are concerned is the actual play itself. It thus loads its complexity and gradual bean-counting upon it (power management, healing surges, marking, tactical effects of powers and abilities, etc etc).

Quote from: ggroy;385194An article which attempts to argue this exact point, which led to the demise of the 1970's wargame publisher SPI.

http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/JCGD_Volume_4/Gamer_Enemy.html

From this article:

We have a sobering precedent to consider. Back in the 1970's a company called SPI rejuvenated the flagging board wargame industry and sparked a boom in the business. For five years, SPI rode high with a series of impressive designs. One of SPI's secret weapons was its feedback survey. The principals at SPI paid close attention to those survey cards, and as a result, the SPI games grew progressively bigger, more complex, and more obscure. Introductory level games grew rare, and game rules manuals became longer and longer. Unsurprisingly, SPI began a long downhill slide, finally collapsing in 1981. The board war-games industry didn't die, but it never regained the luster of its heyday in the mid-70s. There were many reasons for the decline, of course, but catering to the aficionados was one of them.

The impression I keep getting from WotC on this front is that they talk the talk, but do not walk the walk. They keep saying that they want to appeal to a larger public, the Silent Majority and the world at large, but the design of 4e matches up this intent in appearances only.

Consider DDI, for instance. Sure, it makes the game easier to manage on both sides of the screen, but who's likely to shell out the money for a subscription in the first place? The aficionado. Are 4e rules catering to the Silent Majority? Not really. People bitching at the way Grapple worked in 3rd ed were the aficionados, not the silent majority. The guys bitching about the "Christmas tree effect" (consider the origin of the meme itself)? Same thing, aficionado.

The Essentials line, targeted at the Silent Majority? Judging by the cover (cough cough), I have my doubts. It seems to be about bringing back the disillusioned aficionados first, with maybe the happy consequence of bringing new people to the hobby too.

In practice, 4e's squarely designed for the Vocal Minority of people who kept whining during 3e's run. It doesn't break with tradition in this regard. It's a very conflicted game, at best.

I really don't buy that quote as being accurate.

Hard core wargaming was always a niche market, only people insterested in them played them in the first place, so it makes all sorts of sense to give that niche exactly what they want. You can't kill yourself catering to afficionados.

Consider those 'Civil War' re-enactors that go out every few months in full uniform and try to match the battle maneuvres and recreate the battlefields of well over a century ago. These people just get more and more and more serious about the authenticity of their reenactments...there were poeple like this 50 years ago, in the 70s, in the 80's, and even today. Even though the 'buy in' just gets higher and higher (authentic civil war gear isn't getting any easier to acquire), re-enactors are still around, because there just isn't any other way to do it.

Something else happened in the 80's that 'hurt' hard core gaming in a way SPI just couldn't match no matter how complicated they made their board games. Computer games (a top seller from this era is Kampfgruppe, 1985--does that sound like an 'easy, intro' title to you?) came on the market, and there was just no way a boardgame could have the complexity the niche wanted, while having anything like the playability of a computer run game.

SPI didn't die because they catered to their fans. They died because something else (computers) catered to those fans in a much better way. A similar thing happened with typewriters--30 years ago, everyone had them, and now, completely gone, since computers just blow such devices away.

Which is why it's important to stress the strengths of RPGs (social interaction, creative outlet) rather than try to over-design for the aspects that can be replicated (and often work better!) on a computer (world-emulation, "crunch" based tactical battles, etc.).

Wargames can be a social activity, but are not intrinsically tied to the social experience and an infinite, shared creative canvas in order to make the game "go".  I think the reason RPGs are still kind of crawling along is that there hasn't been a computer game that allows a group cooperative experience that also acts as a creative outlet for the participants' imaginations.  At least not with the depth that most RPGs offer.

Quote from: Benoist;385207The Essentials line, targeted at the Silent Majority? Judging by the cover (cough cough), I have my doubts. It seems to be about bringing back the disillusioned aficionados first, with maybe the happy consequence of bringing new people to the hobby too.

Sounds like a strategy of treading water.  :pundit: