Quote from: J Arcane;730930Who said this?

there seriously needs to be like, a reverse grogs.txt for quotes like this. Like all those Twitter _TXT accounts.

Strangely enough, the Goon called Neonchameleon.

Quote from: One Horse Town;730932Strangely enough, the Goon called Neonchameleon.

On SA, or somewhere usefully linkable?

Can we pick this apart?

Quote from: Neonchameleon by way of One Horse Town;7309284e is D&D.

It's got "Dungeons & Dragons" on the cover, I'll give him that.

Quote from: Neonchameleon by way of One Horse Town;7309284e is what D&D had been claiming to be for 25 years and then cruelly disappointing the people who tried playing it who wanted to play the game that was promised.

4e came out in what, 2008? That would mean that D&D "had been claiming to be" what 4e is since 1983?

1983 would be the year the AD&D 1e books got reprinted with Jeff Easley covers, and the "straight" or "classic" or "basic" D&D game saw the re-release of the Basic set as the classic "red box" and the Expert set as "blue box". There were merely trade dress changes and the text of AD&D and B/X D&D remained the same.

The sole new "core" product was the Companion set, which did introduce quite a bit of novelty into B/X D&D... but of a very different sort that 4e would bring 25 years later.

Pity the author of this tirade didn't bother posting somewhere people might actually disagree with him and conduct an exchange in good faith. Because as it stands, I have a hard time understanding what is it that the game "promised" him 25 years ago, that it took D&D 4e to pull it off.

Quote from: One Horse Town;730928This isn't edition warring. No sir.

At the heart of edition warring, I think, is the idea that one version of D&D must be Objectively Better because one likes it better than the others. Which is, again, a way of saying that one is a smarter and more sophisticated gamer than the mass of stupid and undiscerning sheeple playing other editions. Or a variation on the ever-popular theme of why wasn't I consulted (as defined by Paul Ford on the linked article).

This is why I don't believe edition warring leads anywhere. I could be playing freeform with my friends (one of the guys from my old group is doing this with his kid) and we'd still be chugging beer and wine and eating snacks and having fun; I choose to employ a ruleset because good rulesets offer interesting constraints, non-zero-sum conditions, randomizers, unforeseen consequences and a load of other gimmicks that enhance our experience.

The sole purpose of the hobby community and industry is to enhance your experience at the game table.

All the bitching about 3.0e and 3.5e in the world didn't contribute one iota to what happened at my game table. It was with Castles & Crusades, followed closely by the first batch of retro-clones, that things started to get really interesting. Sure, there were people putting out old school material at Dragonsfoot (which I didn't know about) and Vaults of Pandius (which seemed far more focused on Mystara as a setting, than on BECMI/RC D&D as system), but it was circa 2006-2007 that things seemed to really pick up.

Likewise, it was other people's enthusiasm towards Savage Worlds that got me to try it, rather than bitching against GURPS or Hero or whatever. The same sort of enthusiasm got me to try Fate, and when it didn't work for me, instead of bitching about it, I went off to read and play other games.

I do not think all games and gaming material are created equal. I am not advocating that we cease criticism of that which we don't like. I merely ponder that criticism is not the same as bitching. Feel free to vent your anger at 4e, or OD&D, or Savage Worlds, or Fate; I may even get a good laugh out of it. Just don't fool yourself, even for a second, that it substitutes or even equates to an objective and balanced critical look at what makes a game work, or not, for you.

Contrary to popular belief, I don't find it hard at all to remain objective as we look into something we don't like. I find it very easy not to make sweeping statements and ill-advised assumptions about authors or fans of the games I don't enjoy, because they bear no relevance to the game's performance at the table. Which quite frankly is the on ly things that matters.

*reads the Butcher's post*

Yup.

I can kind of see where Neonchameleon's coming from. A lot of what I wanted out of D&D as a kid ("grand epic quests like LotR!") wasn't the sort of stuff that the rules were the best at delivering. Hell, a lot of the 2ed-era was flailing about trying to get a sort of gameplay that didn't mesh with the rules well at all and 3ed rules produce a list of unintended consequences as long as your arm.

A lot of the history of D&D has been one long effort to pound a square S&S peg into a round High Fantasy hole. With 4ed they finally got around to sanding the peg down until it's nice and round.

Whatever else you can say about 4ed it knows what it wants to accomplish and makes rules that do that.

Quote from: Daztur;730953I can kind of see where Neonchameleon's coming from. A lot of what I wanted out of D&D as a kid ("grand epic quests like LotR!") wasn't the sort of stuff that the rules were the best at delivering. Hell, a lot of the 2ed-era was flailing about trying to get a sort of gameplay that didn't mesh with the rules well at all and 3ed rules produce a list of unintended consequences as long as your arm.

A lot of the history of D&D has been one long effort to pound a square S&S peg into a round High Fantasy hole. With 4ed they finally got around to sanding the peg down until it's nice and round.

Whatever else you can say about 4ed it knows what it wants to accomplish and makes rules that do that.

I guess it's a matter of taste then.  Because the "grand epic quests like LoTR" were more about the story and accomplishments and overcoming challenges and character growth than the actual focused combat piece.  And in older D&D, I was able to better easily progress in those epic campaigns because I wasn't spending 8 hours resolving 4 encounters, or spending 90% of my game play during combat.

Quote from: One Horse Town;7309284e is D&D. 4e is what D&D had been claiming to be for 25 years and then cruelly disappointing the people who tried playing it who wanted to play the game that was promised.

This isn't edition warring. No sir.

But it is edition warring to point out that 4E was designed to please people who were cruelly disappointed with earlier editions. It truly is bizarro world over there.

The 4E system-wanks and mods on TBP gleefully savage D&D Next and threadcrap every single mention of the game. Then they accuse anyone who says anything that could maybe, in an uncharitable light, be interpreted as criticism of 4E of being a fanatical edition warrior. On the bright side, the fierce antipathy of its mods to the current edition of the world's most popular RPG will only accelerate the decline and marginalization of the site.

Quote from: Daztur;730953I can kind of see where Neonchameleon's coming from. A lot of what I wanted out of D&D as a kid ("grand epic quests like LotR!") wasn't the sort of stuff that the rules were the best at delivering. Hell, a lot of the 2ed-era was flailing about trying to get a sort of gameplay that didn't mesh with the rules well at all and 3ed rules produce a list of unintended consequences as long as your arm.

A lot of the history of D&D has been one long effort to pound a square S&S peg into a round High Fantasy hole. With 4ed they finally got around to sanding the peg down until it's nice and round.

Whatever else you can say about 4ed it knows what it wants to accomplish and makes rules that do that.

4E does what it does well. It's a very slick and well-designed game. But it was designed with two core goals:

• Completely rework the mechanics from the ground up in the service of mathematical balance.
• Support a virtual tabletop.

Turns out the one goal was fixing problems that weren't really problems for most players, and the fixes made the game too unfamiliar to many.
And the tactical play designed to support the virtual desktop was more of a niche taste than WotC anticipated.

Doesn't mean it's a bad game. It's a very good game. But it's a niche game. And WotC wants D&D to be a broadly familiar and accessible game.

Quote from: The Butcher;730938Because as it stands, I have a hard time understanding what is it that the game "promised" him 25 years ago, that it took D&D 4e to pull it off.

That's easy, a game that isn't D&D.

Quote from: Benoist;730944*reads the Butcher's post*

Yup.

But where are the rules and mechanics for imagination?

How can I play dnd without a rule for thinking?

Quote from: Bill;730975But where are the rules and mechanics for imagination?

How can I play dnd without a rule for thinking?

You don't. The minute you start thinking it's no longer D&D, it's MTP.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;730956I guess it's a matter of taste then.  Because the "grand epic quests like LoTR" were more about the story and accomplishments and overcoming challenges and character growth than the actual focused combat piece.  And in older D&D, I was able to better easily progress in those epic campaigns because I wasn't spending 8 hours resolving 4 encounters, or spending 90% of my game play during combat.

Sacrosanct almost never says anything I would agree with, but there's something here, something in the core of this statement that I think is quite true.

There are certain people -- let's not call them "4e players", or players of any specific edition, because I have no idea how common they really are in any given edition -- but there are these players who say they want "grand epic quests like LotR", but they don't seem to understand what a grand epic quest like LotR is. They seem to identify "grand epic quest" with grand epic toe-to-toe battles with Big Bads.

Something which, in fact, hardly occurs in LotR or other epic fantasy works at all. You've got maybe two battles between badass personalities: Gandalf vs. the Balrog, and Eowen vs. the Witch-King. Maybe you can toss in Aragorn on Weathertop and Glorfindel at the river near Rivendell. Almost the entire story of LotR is hiding, running, fighting off hordes of enemies long enough to escape, struggling against the elements, or some kind of moral struggle or struggle of personalities. I suppose you could include the major epic *army* battles, but those really don't involve individual badass-vs.-badass toe-to-toe battles, except for the Eowen/Witch-King confrontation already mentioned. Epic battles aren't events where you get to display your superpowers, they're moments of crisis where you fight off the enemy and hope you don't get ganked.

So, either these people have mistakenly reduced all of LotR to a couple of scenes and a handful of pages, or they aren't really thinking of LotR at all. Perhaps they are thinking of comic book superheroes? Perhaps this is where the 4e:anime comparison comes from (this and the ridiculous glowing weapons and ultra-spikey armor?)

Quote from: talysman;730983Sacrosanct almost never says anything I would agree with, but there's something here, something in the core of this statement that I think is quite true.

There are certain people -- let's not call them "4e players", or players of any specific edition, because I have no idea how common they really are in any given edition -- but there are these players who say they want "grand epic quests like LotR", but they don't seem to understand what a grand epic quest like LotR is. They seem to identify "grand epic quest" with grand epic toe-to-toe battles with Big Bads.

Something which, in fact, hardly occurs in LotR or other epic fantasy works at all. You've got maybe two battles between badass personalities: Gandalf vs. the Balrog, and Eowen vs. the Witch-King. Maybe you can toss in Aragorn on Weathertop and Glorfindel at the river near Rivendell. Almost the entire story of LotR is hiding, running, fighting off hordes of enemies long enough to escape, struggling against the elements, or some kind of moral struggle or struggle of personalities. I suppose you could include the major epic *army* battles, but those really don't involve individual badass-vs.-badass toe-to-toe battles, except for the Eowen/Witch-King confrontation already mentioned. Epic battles aren't events where you get to display your superpowers, they're moments of crisis where you fight off the enemy and hope you don't get ganked.

So, either these people have mistakenly reduced all of LotR to a couple of scenes and a handful of pages, or they aren't really thinking of LotR at all. Perhaps they are thinking of comic book superheroes? Perhaps this is where the 4e:anime comparison comes from (this and the ridiculous glowing weapons and ultra-spikey armor?)

I tend to agree. The more crunchy game systems (in play crunch, not frontloaded crunch) push people toward attention to mechanics. I prefer to have a rules lite system that fades into the background.

I'd rather hear a warrior say "I try to take off the ogres head with my Axe!" than "I use power attack and now my damage bonus is +9, better vs the ogres DR, and I hope my secondary attacks at -5/-10 still hit...blaa blaa blaaa"

Quote from: Daztur;730953I can kind of see where Neonchameleon's coming from. A lot of what I wanted out of D&D as a kid ("grand epic quests like LotR!") wasn't the sort of stuff that the rules were the best at delivering. Hell, a lot of the 2ed-era was flailing about trying to get a sort of gameplay that didn't mesh with the rules well at all and 3ed rules produce a list of unintended consequences as long as your arm.

The problem is not with OD&D, the problem is too many people read ONLY LotR and thought that was "fantasy."  I like LotR just fine, but I'd rather tread the jeweled thrones of earth beneath my sandaled feet than throw Sorhead's Ring of Doom into the Zazu Pitts of Fordor.

Quote from: talysman;730983So, either these people have mistakenly reduced all of LotR to a couple of scenes and a handful of pages, or they aren't really thinking of LotR at all. Perhaps they are thinking of comic book superheroes? Perhaps this is where the 4e:anime comparison comes from (this and the ridiculous glowing weapons and ultra-spikey armor?)

Selective memory.  It's part and parcel with "Nobody died in Lord of the Rings, I don't want my character to die."  Forgetting the fairly high body count among named characters, and also forgetting that Thorin's company in "Hobbit" took 20% casualties.