Quote from: Imp;507526This is just fucking terrible writing. There's nothing in here to capture the imagination at all. It's as if the writer isn't even having fun with it. "You're more interested in fighting hard than fighting smart?" Jesus fuck would you even pretend to step outside the cubicle for a minute. It's like a Powerpoint presentation aimed at stupid 9-year-olds. If you're one of those piggy twits who sees the word D&D and that's all you need for your dreams to take off, more power to your brand loyalty I guess, but this shit is redundant, boring, and witless. You're better off saying "do you want a guy that looks like this?", having the picture of your fighter, and cutting to the suggested powers. If you're not going to bother writing shit, may as well not have the text in there taking up space!

I agree that the writing isn't terribly evocative or clever. Flavor matters and I think WOTC underestimated its importance when designing 4E.

Quote from: Doom;507502Hey, it's great, and it works (although, damn, I must have read that combat superiority rules a 100 times).

I found the description of combat superiority et al terrible, but I persevered and finally understood it. With Wizards & other classes I have to confess I *still* don't really understand how they work! It takes so much effort to understand 4e classes, the only ones I grok are two I've played - Fighter & Essentials Thief. I also played a Barbarian but maybe I didn't understand it, since my PC sucked.

The good thing about 4e is that I can still run a successful campaign without understanding the rules for PCs. Running 1e again recently, I do like how everything in the PHB seems comprehensible, even all the stuff I choose to discard.

Edit: I'm planning to play a 4e Paladin soon, feeling pretty nervous! *eek*

QuoteI agree that the writing isn't terribly evocative or clever.

I think the main virtue of "Gygaxian" prose is not so much its quality (because he's not that great of a writer) but that it conveys a great deal of enthusiasm for the game being presented. You're reading somebody who's getting lost in the worlds he's presenting to you.

It doesn't have to look like Gygax-writing, but it does have to look like the writer's having fun.

Quote from: Ladybird;507468Those 4e flamewars weren't just 4vengers lashing out, after all, although Wizards fanning the flames before launch certainly didn't help. Both sides had some shitheads.

Actually, I wonder how well D&D4 would have been accepted if the initial communications hadn't been so antagonistic from WotC.

4E still would not have been the D&D I like to play, but I really think that WotC's antagonistic marketting approach and their encouragement of this antagonism in fans made 4E a far more bitter pill to swallow than it had to be.

Quote from: Imp;507531I think the main virtue of "Gygaxian" prose is not so much its quality (because he's not that great of a writer) but that it conveys a great deal of enthusiasm for the game being presented. You're reading somebody who's getting lost in the worlds he's presenting to you.

It doesn't have to look like Gygax-writing, but it does have to look like the writer's having fun.

Enthusiasm goes a long way. The 1E DMG is a pleasure to read because Gygax clealy likes writing about the topic. As a writer Gygax did have a some strengths though. The big one for me is his ability to fill in the nooks and crannies of the page. He can just keep going on an idea where another writer might leave it as a single paragraph or two.

Quote from: jhkim;507276While I think it did not succeed the way that Wizards wanted it to, I do have this to say:

Many new editions are "successes" by virtue of successfully marketing to the existing fan base - especially the hard-core grognards.  By retaining this core of their old customers, they have a guaranteed market and make money by selling them a boatload of new books.  However, by marketing to the grognards, it is inevitably a shrinking guaranteed market with each new edition - because pleasing the grognards is less likely to please new, younger players.

Ryan Dancey claims that 3e at its peak outsold 2e circa 1989.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Imp;507526This is just fucking terrible writing.

How 4E awful writing is almost never considered in these debates never fails to amaze me.

3E had an interesting, evocative style that just made you want to play - or even just to buy the book for the sheer pleasure of reading it.

I remember how the very first thing I ever read in 3.5E PH was the intro to the Cleric. It delved into what a fantasy cleric was, their importance in various cultures, "faith" and different interpretations of this concept in D&D world and so on.

In short, it already made this whole "cleric" thinghie an interesting concept to explore on multiple fronts before even giving a single rule about it. At that point the natural reaction was "Wow! Now gimme the rules!"

The same happened, for example, with the feats, a concept similar to GURPS' "advantages" mechanism: you could still choose an archetype for your character, but then feats gave you the opportunity to personalize him in a narrative way ("tough"... "diligent"...) before even starting to consider what the feats mechanically did.

And, as I often said, this almost uniform level of quality in the fluff across 3.X made me buy more supplements than I actually needed, just because I liked to read them and to let my imagination run wild. I can honestly say that, fluff-wise, 3.XE seldom disappointed me.

Now, let's see what happened with 4E. That the system was going to stink hard was a given, after reading the previews. However, system and fluff not always are of the same quality (just look at MERP) so I bought the 4E Forgotten Realms books...

...And I had to roll for disbelief. No, really: had anyone with any kind of FR experience ever considered what 4E FR said about 4E as a whole?? Well, someone did.

At the end, there is a reason why I have almost all MERP supplements ever published even if I never liked "Role Master-lite" as a system... I still have to find a single reason to own a single 4E book. The only thing 4E related I like and use is some of its very evocative art, and it is available for free on the web.

4e Failed because it made an enemy of me.

If 5e succeeds, it will because it has me as a friend.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;5075454e Failed because it made an enemy of me.

If 5e succeeds, it will because it has me as a friend.

RPGPundit

:rotfl:

Quote from: RPGPundit;5075454e Failed because it made an enemy of me.

If 5e succeeds, it will because it has me as a friend.

RPGPundit

Careful, pundit!  You'll dislocate your shoulder patting yourself on the back like that!

I think people are vastly underestimating (or depending on your view, overestimating) WotC.

They fired their old customers through an aggressive marketing campaign.
They pulled all support for older editons.
They designed a game specifically to bring in the young MMOG generation.
They created a MMOG on paper (and as such, it is a very good tabletop MMOG simulator), however, as Lord Vreeg said, they completely moved D&D away from what D&D was originally focused on.
They wrote a PHB that looks and reads like a Brady Guide to a MMOG.

Every single point here, all of this, was intentional.  It was by design.  The mistake wasn't in execution, it was in heading down this road to begin with.

Quote from: Imp;507526This is just fucking terrible writing. There's nothing in here to capture the imagination at all. It's as if the writer isn't even having fun with it. "You’re more interested in fighting hard than fighting smart?" Jesus fuck would you even pretend to step outside the cubicle for a minute. It's like a Powerpoint presentation aimed at stupid 9-year-olds. If you're one of those piggy twits who sees the word D&D and that's all you need for your dreams to take off, more power to your brand loyalty I guess, but this shit is redundant, boring, and witless. You're better off saying "do you want a guy that looks like this?", having the picture of your fighter, and cutting to the suggested powers. If you're not going to bother writing shit, may as well not have the text in there taking up space!

Dude, that's hardly the entirety of the class description, let alone the introductory 'sell me on this class' flavour text. It's a pretty straight forward instruction, appearing much later in the class' entry, on how to build your first great weapon fighter, and I offered it in exactly that spirit to people who claimed they had a hard time to follow these instructions, while they had no issue deciphering more terse entries in the 3.x PHBs.

I concur that the text I cited won't win any prices for flavourful, evocative writing, but to peg a whole edition's merits in flavour on the grounds of that text can't be taken seriously either.

Here's the opening paragraph of the class's entry in the Compendium:

QuoteFighters are among the world’s greatest warriors, having earned their status through hours upon hours of training and perfecting their fighting techniques. In battle, fighters hold the front line by slashing and striking in all directions, deflecting blows with shield or armor, and bashing anyone who dares take their focus from them. Fighters might be mercenaries, chasing after gold, thrill-seekers craving glory, nobles fighting for duty or honor, or brawlers throwing themselves into battle to experience the joy of combat.

Here for rogue:

QuoteThat rogues have a dubious reputation is no secret. They are a varied breed, after all, and include all manner of unsavory types. They are the cutpurses and footpads prowling the city’s seediest districts. They are infamous pirates whose daring is the stuff of legends. They are the bandits in the wilderness who prey on travelers. They are the tomb robbers, the archeologists, the fallen nobles, the dashing knaves, the bold heroes who fight injustice whatever way they can. They are all these things and more. And for every rogue who embraces crime, there’s another who uses his or her talents for good ends.

These are no match for S&W Complete's ranger entry, but I still find them rather accomplished. As for 4E showing some bad writing throughout, I've been rather verbose on that myself in the past. All I'm asking is that we align the goal posts and the exhibits in a fair minded spirit.

I have unfortunately read the whole thing, and the majority of the 4e PHB reads like the first bit you quoted about the heavy weapons fighter. Good lord, the powers section. I can't say enough bad things about it. A few decent perfunctory opening paragraphs aren't enough to make the whole book readable or look like it's a fun game, because that's not how books work, you can't say "here's a fun thing to read, now here's a bunch of boring things" and expect the reader to think they have read something fun about something that is fun.

That's why I hate the idea of "fluff" and "crunch" that has permeated RPGs for years. You can do both at the same time! You should do both at the same time! The most famously immortal part of the AD&D DMG is the table of city encounters! "Brazen strumpet!" "Haughty courtesan!"

Quote from: Imp;507569I have unfortunately read the whole thing, and the majority of the 4e PHB reads like the first bit you quoted about the heavy weapons fighter. Good lord, the powers section. I can't say enough bad things about it. A few decent perfunctory opening paragraphs aren't enough to make the whole book readable or look like it's a fun game, because that's not how books work, you can't say "here's a fun thing to read, now here's a bunch of boring things" and expect the reader to think they have read something fun about something that is fun.

Could it be that 4e failed because role-plays are whiners with a huge sense of entitlement? 4e plays a lot more enjoyably than it reads. And since when is reading rules the fun part of any game? I didn't swear off Ticket to Ride because reading the rules was dry and charmless.

Quote from: two_fishes;507572Could it be that 4e failed because role-plays are whiners with a huge sense of entitlement?

Doubtful.

Quote from: two_fishes;507572I didn't swear off Ticket to Ride because reading the rules was dry and charmless.

One of these things is not like the other, Ticket to Ride is a role-playing game like 4E?