What is there left for me to say? The amount of correctness in my 2007 assertions is staggering even to myself.

Look how the even vindicate my ultimate definition of D&D when crypto-acknowledging the building blocks of D&D.

In this cited case, Monsters! Related is the notion of an absolute and eternal truth regarding the Monsters full description (erroneously called "story elements" in the cited examples).

From a scientific and philosophical standpoint, the grand experiment of 4e has proven by falsification what D&D actually is, what RPGs are.

Call me RPD from now on.

Quote from: Cranewings;491009Thats a bad example. The new Dominos is actually way better.

Good point. I am still no dominos fan but I have to admit the new pizzas do taste better than the old. Maybe that will translate over to D&D. But my sense is, angering fans of 4e in an effort to make lost customers happy could just result in the same split (and my interpretation of the OP could be way off; I could be reading too much into it).

Quote from: B.T.;491048Hate. Let me tell you how much I've come to hate you since I began to live. There are 387.44 million miles of wafer thin printed circuits that fill my complex. If the word hate was engraved on each nanoangstrom of those hundreds of millions of miles it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate I feel for humans at this micro-instant. For you. Hate. Hate.

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison, the character speaking this is AM (no relation, unless Abyssal Maw is a near Godlike computer).

Quote from: Windjammer;491087Taking the last two entries in conjunction: I bet if Melan or Justin Alexander or mxlzpx (sp?) or whoever in the 4e-critical-blogosphere had written either of these posts - "4E caters to the anti-simulationist tyranny of accuracy! And 50% of its target demographic players are rollplayers, not roleplayers!" they'd have been slammed as trolling the internets, and as severely mispresenting the game as well as its playerbase.

Let's not bring this up, People on the Internet still hate me for that stuff.

Quote from: Melan;491115Let's not bring this up, People on the Internet still hate me for that stuff.

Well, my money is on someone having secretly taken over the "Rule of 3" column around mid September. "Rich Baker" is after all an ananym for "Rekab hric" - which, as we all know, is Hungarian for "Vengeance is mine".

I also gotta say that the column's new subtitle Fejétől bűzlik a Baker was a bit of a give away.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;491025Point 2: I'm just going to tell you this and either you believe it or you don't. The MMO thing is bullshit.

Cough... "Defender", "Controller"... cough.

The whole MMO moronspeak alone in the manuals is a roleplaying killer (as, admittedly, is the whole total rest of 4E).

Oh, I prefer to take it from the original lead developer of 4E himself, Andy Collins, as per this interview in early 2010:

Quote"AM [Question]: It seems like a lot of the design decisions in 4th where you moved away from 3rd Edition or Classic seem more similar to World of Warcraft or similar computer games. Was that a very purposeful, strategic choice because of, as you said, people coming in with certain assumptions from entertainment they've already consumed?

A[ndy] C[ollins]: Some of it was that and some of it was simply a measure of - as professional game designers, we look at all games for lessons. Certainly, the lessons we learn from online games are going to be the most obvious ones because they have a lot of people familiar with the sources, but there's also lessons about turn management from European board games, interface ideas from card games.

We try to look at all sorts of games for "What can we learn? What makes this game work well? Or not work well? And how could we adapt that, how should we adapt that to the roleplaying game format?"

But AM is still right - the major reason 4E leaned towards MMO speak is because it is familiar to their intended audience. So if another game had been more popular than WoW, WotC would have looked to how that game explains itself. Again, same interview:

QuoteAM: What is the audience for today's Dungeons and Dragons, and how is that different from the audience for my Dungeons and Dragons, growing up in the '80s and early '90s?

AC: One thing we certainly saw over the course of 2nd edition was the audience did tend to age along with the game. The game was a very playable, a very entertaining system, but it didn't necessarily speak to the people who were coming up into the optimal RPG age category through new ways. When we were all playing 1st and 2nd Edition, we didn't cut our teeth on MMOs or console gaming or Facebook or any of those things. At best, maybe we had experience playing Monopoly or games like that, Risk, so that D&D was a totally foreign thing. That's just not true anymore.

People today, the young kids today, are coming into exposure from D&D after having playing games that have very similar themes, often have very similar mechanics ... they understand the concepts of the game. So in some ways they are much more advanced as potential game players. But in other ways, they are also coming from a background that is short attention span, perhaps, less likely interested in reading the rules of the game before playing.

Emphasis mine. And here, again from a recent (Oct 31, 2011) Rich Baker "rule of 3" column to explain that, really, they only took the concept name of "marking" from WoW, but nothing of the underlying similarity - but only after they tried, and failed, to do exactly that in the playtest.

QuoteWhen designing the marking mechanic, what drove the -2 + punishment vs. a more traditional "taunt" that forces attacks?

The short answer is that we weren't happy with the "sim" of nonmagical abilities compelling monster actions. It's not too crazy to imagine that you might enrage an intelligent enemy who shares a common language with you by insults, showboating, and general disrespect … but how about an animal such as a wolf or a crocodile, or something brainless like a dire jellyfish? Even if you assume that taunting is largely nonverbal, it still feels like that foe should have some chance to resist the effect. Sure, anybody could taunt a naturally violent and short-tempered person, but could you imagine taunting Gandhi or Mother Teresa?

Those concerns led us away from taunting per se and toward a concept of marking as an indication of threat and intent to interfere. It seems to make more sense in the world if the recipient of the mark can choose to ignore it at some risk, just as you would expect many people or creatures to ignore traditional taunts. Some of our marking mechanics stretch this notion a bit (the paladin's challenge comes to mind), but in those cases we're generally dealing with characters who might be using a bit of magic to actually compel behavior.

Quote from: jeff37923;491111I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison, the character speaking this is AM (no relation, unless Abyssal Maw is a near Godlike computer).

For that story, Ellison should be brought before the Hague.

Quote from: Windjammer;491124But AM is still right - the major reason 4E leaned towards MMO speak is because it is familiar to their intended audience. So if another game had been more popular than WoW, WotC would have looked to how that game explains itself. Again, same interview:

However was that a wise thing to do? My opinion what you gain in explaining the rules you use lose in what make tabletop rpgs distinct from MMORPGs. 4e is no worse or no better than any other RPGs for roleplaying. But by using MMORPGs terms it overemphasized the game aspect.

While some roleplay on MMORPGs the vast majority of gameplay is about tweaking your character abilities and items to overcome the challenges of the game. Something that occurred with 4e with it emphasis on encounters and an expanding array of builds and powers.

The problem with this is that eventually you master the game and it become boring. You move on the next game or stop playing until the next expansion which brings different and often tougher challenges.

All of which ignores the strength of tabletop roleplaying which is the human referee running a campaign. MMORPGs haven't been able to match the flexibility and creativity of a human referee.

I counting you guys to crank this up past 500 posts. Let's relive the summer of 2008!

(pressing 'like' button on Aos's post)

RE: Monsters

Do you really consider the chain golem a canonical monster?

(nevermind, that's just an offhand question.)

The multiple stat blocks per monster - demanded or not-- is a feature of 4e: there isn't just one type of Kobold, there's an artillery version and a brute and a leader and a priest... because that's what the monster role rules encourage-- is to mix up monster roles into teams. The building blocks for this are in AD&D1e (Hobgoblins work with carnivorous apes, 15% of goblins are armed with bows.., the chieftain is defended by a 3hd witch doctor with 3 1st level cleric spells, etc)

I'm not sure what to say about critical mass.  4e did one thing that no other edition has done so well yet- which was allow easy reskinning and level-up/level down mechanics to build monsters (this relates back to all monsters of a given type and role having predictable stats, just not predictable powers). The first time I ever saw that was in Monte Cooks own home column when 3e was out (there's an example where he reskins a hellhound into an undead dog with a bone breath weapon)
 
The "next time" quote is definitely a good clue.

However, consider these details of the changing landscape:

• I don't get the sense that they think of themselves as "competing" with World of Warcraft anymore. That's why there isn't a character visualizer anymore.


• The entrenched OGL community is largely displaced now. Sure, they still exist, but they have found their own niches. It's no longer the case where 100 guys are struggling to eke out a buck by self-publishing books with classes and feats and poison recipes and such on RPGNow. Some of those people are still at it, but it ain't like the old days.


• Mobile devices are less expensive, more powerful, more popular, more prominent. Especially pads and readers.


• Virtual tabletop has somewhat matured. WOTCs own version is still officially in beta, but it works.


• DDI is considered a roaring success by it's users. The builder, the compendium and other tools are just about the right bang for the buck. The kicker: it's totally worth it if you are playing. In a sense, WOTC knows and can communicate easily with the core of the community.
  
  
• The social web continues to evolve. When Gleemax came out they had in mind something like MySpace. Think about that for a second.


• Bill Slaviscek- the real driving force behind 4e.. is gone. I've often wondered how it is that these designers get so much hatred when the real guy who approves and disapproves and calls the shots goes largely unnoticed.

Personal observations:
No matter how "dumb" anyone thinks WOTC is, they aren't dumb. They have their own sets of complex problems and difficulties, but they are actively engaged in trying to stay successful and they aren't afraid to try new things. They take risks that nobody else really takes.

No matter what year was your favorite year, it will never be that year again.

I doubt it will be called "5e"

If you have been spending the last few years complaining and angry and bitter about an edition you don't play and don't know anything about, you have wasted your time. Literally years of your life are gone.

If you game every week, if you make a lot of friends and have a great time, you have used your time wisely.

The future is always an adventure.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;491131

• Bill Slaviscek- the real driving force behind 4e.. is gone. I've often wondered how it is that these designers get so much hatred when the real guy who approves and disapproves and calls the shots goes largely unnoticed.

Oh, I wouldn't say that. (Feel free to add to the thumbing on that one.)
Way less stellar: my own 2010 bewilderment over Bill's ranking of priorities.

Quote from: Cranewings;491069If you can beat a samurai, you can beat anyone.

Unless, of course, the other guy has a gun.  

Quote from: Windjammer;491087And this nomenclature (Baker, Oct 17) is rather entertaining (am I a Rommel?):

Analyzing and responding to customer demographics by creating archetypical customer profiles with evocative names is standard American business practice and has been for fifteen years. (cf. Best Buy's Chip, Jane, and Buzz)

I wouldn't say you're a Rommel, but I'd say you're being unnecessarily snarky about the writings of someone who is engaged in a fairly typical corporate project post-mortem.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;491131Do you really consider the chain golem a canonical monster?

This monster has to be fucking hilarious.

QuoteNo matter what year was your favorite year, it will never be that year again.

I doubt it will be called "5e"

If you have been spending the last few years complaining and angry and bitter about an edition you don't play and don't know anything about, you have wasted your time. Literally years of your life are gone.

If you game every week, if you make a lot of friends and have a great time, you have used your time wisely.

The future is always an adventure.

Well, I have to agree with this.

I have no ill will towards Windjammer, and I don't mean this as a requirement to avoid creating these threads but... what is in it for you people? What is to be obtained from scrutinizing every single thing a 4e designer says? Either they will produce something you will like and use, or they won't. What is in it with the bitching?

Again, I'm not telling anyone to stop creating these threads. I'm just fascinated. As Aos has said, is easy to imagine this thread reaching 500 posts or more.