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Idiocracy: DnD 4E article/interview thingy

Vault Dweller

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http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/06 ... ragon.html

With the new edition, released Friday, D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast is launching one of the most ambitious attempts the tabletop-games industry has seen at redefining what it means to play an RPG. The rules are different, the mind-set is different, even the delivery system is different. At essentially every level, Dungeons & Dragons is being streamlined and simplified with one goal in mind: To get players together to roll some dice and have fun.
Why is "having fun" being associated with some dumb shit that requires no brain activity whatsoever. In fact, if you are thinking about something, you are not having fun and that must be fixed asa-fucking-p.

Same with games. Daggerfall? Too many options, not enough fun. Morrowind? Almost got it. Oblivion - pure fun. Fine print: death of brain cells during gameplay is purely accidental.

"From the beginning of the 4th Edition design process, we knew we wanted to make a rules set that was accessible and easy to use," said Bill Slavicsek, R&D director for role-playing games at Wizards. "We wanted to approach them in a friendlier manner, and not necessarily continue the 'dense textbook' style of past editions. I wouldn't say we were thinking 'mainstream gaming,' whatever that really means.
YEAH! TEXTBOOKS R FOR SCHOOLS! HALO STYLE DND FTW!

Anyway, we'll continue after the following mandatory hype program:

...it was a glorious experience.

At every level, mechanically, players and dungeon masters (a game's storyteller and arbiter) are freed to experience the game in ways they never could before. Characters now have special powers that assist them in combat, giving them real moment-to-moment choices in the heat of battle.
...

Spellcasters have similarly colorful abilities in D&D 4th Edition; where once they had hundreds of thematically similar spells to choose from, they now only have to make a few important decisions as they gain in power.
Well, hopefully important decisions will be completely eliminated in 5E.

Combat moves so fluidly now...
4E Combat: you won't believe it's not real time.

What D&D 4th Edition represents is the chance to have fun with your friends without a ton of hassle, to immerse yourself in a fantasy world without working at it.
Jesus Fucking Christ. Thinking is bad. Textbooks are bad. Numbers are bad. Decisions are bad. And now working is bad too. Why are we promoting that again? What kind of fucktards are we trying to raise?

:idiocracy:
 

JarlFrank

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Eh. This is stupid. The good thing with pen and paper is that you don't *have* to buy the newest product. You can still stick to 3E or use alternative systems. And most roleplayers will probably stick to 3E, especially those who've bought many of the additional books for it. I dunno what they want to reach with dumbing down though, pen and paper players actually *like* complexity and lots of numbers in their games, while the mainstream crowd still thinks pen and paper RPGs are too geeky.
 

Xi

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I think modern usage of "accessible" is a clever way of saying the developer put less time, effort, and sweat into the project. When you remove too many aspects of the soul, it's just a fraction of the original artistic vision anyway. This is just another great example, probably. I guess I will have to restrain judgment until I have played it, but since that's unlikely to happen, ever, I will just use my intuition.

"We put less work into this game so that it wouldn't be so cluttered with intellectual design. We designed it for kids and their grandparents. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to D&D 21st century, it's no longer satanism!"
 

Korgan

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But WHY?! How the sweet righteous fuck does this earn them any more money then 3E did?! There's NO FUCKING WAY they're reaching a wider audience, cause that's still not dumbed down enough for retards that only played mainstream videogames before, and way too dumbed down for anyone who could otherwise be converted by the new fluff (starpact warlocks are win, okay). Which has suffered some dumbing down too. D&D has NO market to expand to and remain D&D. They should've just faced this fact.
 

Surgey

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if you hate the new direction dnd is taking with 4e you're a big baby faggot, havent played it, or a combination of the two. 4e owns.
 

Surgey

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thanks for the counter argument Forums Poster "Edward_R_Murrow," any other incredible repartees from the rpgcodex chucklefuck peanut gallery?
 

MisterStone

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What D&D 4th Edition represents is the chance to have fun with your friends without a ton of hassle, to immerse yourself in a fantasy world without working at it.

I think that the general consensus is that they are trying to capitalize on the huge numbers of MMORPG players who had never heard of tabletop DnD before they became addicted to WoW. These are people who are used to having a computer do all of the "work" for them. So yes, like every other segment of the entertainment industry, the small, savvy and relatively intelligent and creative minority is getting kicked to the curb in order to court huge masses of dumbasses who are not only less discriminating but less careful with their money. Intelligent anything is always going to be a "niche market".
 

Zomg

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I haven't been following it at all. Is it like HeroQuest now or something? HeroQuest + the capacity for 3E-level spreadsheet autism for the aspies?
 

Raapys

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Is this serious? Sounds like a fucking joke, especially after all these other articles about dumbing down of Dungeon Siege and whatnot. What the fuck happened to the world?
 

Ismaul

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Dudes, overly complex rules != thinking or important decisions.

With less focus on rules, it becomes easier to think about other stuff, like roleplaying and story building. This is the huge fucking plus you guys are not seeing.

Oh noes teh rulz arn't complex enough! my brains r gonna melt!

Dumbasses. You want to use your brain? use it. The game isn't made to stop you from using it, unlike some cRPGs. You just have the opportunity to use for things that matter more.


I'm not saying 4e is good or anything, but this isn't the reason why 4e is worse or not. The complexity has shifted places. Great. Especially since it gives much breathing room to roleplaying. Instead of using my limited time on calculating what's someone's bonus on a dice depending on circumstances, I'll work on improving the story or my character's motivations. 4e has improved rules and options for that.
 

Raapys

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Complex character development system = good. Simple character development system = bad. Period.

Right now these RPGs are rapidly approaching Call of Duty 4, an FPS, when it comes to char development, and I really can't be fooled to see that as a good thing.

It wouldn't be so bad if it was only happening a few places, but the problem is that it's happening *everywhere*. Heck, it's even happening to MMORPGs. Before you had games like Anarchy Online and the old Star Wars Galaxies with complex char development & skill systems, now you've dumbed down shit like WoW, AoC, Lineage2, etc where you basically don't even have to do anything but place a single perk point when you level up.
 

Alex

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Ismaul said:
Dudes, overly complex rules != thinking or important decisions.

With less focus on rules, it becomes easier to think about other stuff, like roleplaying and story building. This is the huge fucking plus you guys are not seeing.

Oh noes teh rulz arn't complex enough! my brains r gonna melt!

Dumbasses. You want to use your brain? use it. The game isn't made to stop you from using it, unlike some cRPGs. You just have the opportunity to use for things that matter more.


I'm not saying 4e is good or anything, but this isn't the reason why 4e is worse or not. The complexity has shifted places. Great. Especially since it gives much breathing room to roleplaying. Instead of using my limited time on calculating what's someone's bonus on a dice depending on circumstances, I'll work on improving the story or my character's motivations. 4e has improved rules and options for that.

I don't think that a rpg needs complex rules to be fun. Heck, I had fun with dungeoneer and I think that Baron of Munchausen rpg should be lots of fun, even though I haven't played it.

Still, just because I can have fun with rpgs with simple rule systems, it doesn't mean that more complex ones shouldn't exist. The choice of rule system can, and most certainly will impact on the final playing experience. Saying that the rule system doesn't influence on the final result is like saying the art direction of comic book isn't important, only the story is. Using rules and setting wisely, one can use the rules to reflect story elements on them. For example, if we want to play on a terror setting, where monsters are supposed to be rare, fearful and mysterious, but the rule setting allows players to make minced meat out of the monsters easily, then the setting is weakened by rules choice.

I know that wasn't your argument Ismaul, but I have seem it used here and there and I wanted to make this clear before continuing. On to your argument, that less rules free up the GM to add complexities on other parts of the system, I will disagree. I acknowledge that more complex games have a harder learning curve, but I think that once you have mastered them, it is just a question of having easy to consult references when needed so the game flows smoothly. And while this is harder to do with a game that uses many rules (like the gurps system) grouping the rules by when you need them already makes consulting way faster.

And once you have a good mastery of the system you are using, you are free to add complexity to your story. The ability to make a complex plot isn't limited by using a complex rules system either, for while there is such thing as too much complexity, or unneeded complexity, I don't think the third edition was anywhere near that limit.

I think that the real problem here, however, is that all big companies seem to have this perceived need to simplify their system. If 4e was released like first quest was all those years ago, I would have no problem with it. The problem is that Wizards seem to think it is ok to release a product so different from the other D&D editions using the brand. Still, the rpg market is way more varied than the CRPG one. Even if Wizard stops 3e support, other companies may still support D20. And for 2e feel, there is still hackmaster, that while out of print will (hopefully soon) release a new edition. If you want something else, just take a look at this.
 

Lurkar

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From my experiences on playing 4e, it's not a bad game. Heck, it can even be a pretty damn fun game. But it's a dungeon crawl, and only a dungeon crawl.

Really, I think the game itself would be better if they stopped trying to shoehorn it into being a D&D game. You can see in a lot of places that it WASN'T designed to be such, but they tried to stuff it into that mold later.

That said, the business strategies being used are really shady. Minis are now declared to be more important then character sheets, DDI is actually neccesary to play the game if you want to use certain things, you get the idea.
 

Ismaul

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Vault Dweller said:
Spellcasters have similarly colorful abilities in D&D 4th Edition; where once they had hundreds of thematically similar spells to choose from, they now only have to make a few important decisions as they gain in power.
Well, hopefully important decisions will be completely eliminated in 5E.
Sure, choosing your combat options in an RPG is really important. I'm sarcastic by the way. I'm horrified I have to point it out.

Anyways, that's just seeing the bad side of it. Wizurd lost all ther opshuns! Actually, they balanced things out. Remember fighters that could hit, and then hit again? They took some of the wizard's gajillions options, and have more to do now. Every class does. I don't see that as a 'oh noes! were r my opshuns' but as a 'finally everyone gets enough combat options to have some variety'. It's not like you needed those 100 spells that did almost the same thing except for a difference in range or damage. If that's what is lost, then good riddance! Significant options is the word.

Did I say there are now rules that allow you to impact the battlefield/terrain? Whatever, right? Who needs more combat options.



Alex said:
On to your argument, that less rules free up the GM to add complexities on other parts of the system, I will disagree. I acknowledge that more complex games have a harder learning curve, but I think that once you have mastered them, it is just a question of having easy to consult references when needed so the game flows smoothly. And while this is harder to do with a game that uses many rules (like the gurps system) grouping the rules by when you need them already makes consulting way faster.

And once you have a good mastery of the system you are using, you are free to add complexity to your story. The ability to make a complex plot isn't limited by using a complex rules system either, for while there is such thing as too much complexity, or unneeded complexity, I don't think the third edition was anywhere near that limit.
D&D 3e was designed with a universal system in mind, PCs, NPCs and monsters using the same rules. Why? Maybe they deluded themselves in thinking that they were creating a coherent world. And let's face it, D&D always sucked at simulating a plausible world.

For the first time with 4e, D&D is designed with utility in mind, rules!= rules of the world. So monsters only have rules that are relevant to what they do. Of course some complexity is removed, but it was unneeded complexity, bloat. And this system still allows us to make complex rules, but they have direction, they are relevant. Complexity where it is needed, when it adds something. I see good there. Now execution is something else, but the shift in design, I don't see it as dumbing down. I see improvement.

Now I agree that a complex system does not stop you from making a good plot, but it can be a creative resistance, since ultimately your plot will be experienced using the rules. Remember the rules define what you can do in the world, and players bound by this are also actively participating in creating this collective story. If rules allow to do the same things but easier, all the better. A lot of actions/settings/plots weren't done before because they were a hassle to do. Think of the rules like an interface to your creativity. I want the rules to allow me to express ideas seamlessly, not stop to think about the rules and how they add up. I want to play the game (roleplaying), not the metagame (the rules system). Somehow I feel like an exception.


Lurkar said:
But it's a dungeon crawl, and only a dungeon crawl.
Nothing new. Yet we now get social challenge rules, that go beyond 'I gots me a Diplomacey skill, do I winz now?'


Oarfish said:
4e has improved rules and options for that.
Like removing non combat magic?
Like making a whole new system of rituals that take so long they can't be done in combat.
 

Shoelip

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I like playing fighters because they're not complicated... :?
 

Naked Ninja

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The heart of the matter :

Michael Zenke blogs professionally for Massively and recreationally for MMOG Nation.

So a guy who really loves MMOs really loves 4e? Surprise!!! Guess the target demographic. :roll:


Can I also just take this time to state that I hate that retraining talents/skills made it into 4e? Ugh. In fact, the whole thing looks like a write-off. The ritual stuff might be ok but as a whole they've taken it in a really crap direction.
 

Lord Rocket

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It amuses me greatly that, despite all the pissing and moaning in this thread, 4e is still an order of magnitude more complex than OD&D. Get some perspective, people.

Also, I had a complete humour bypass when I read this:

4E Combat: you won't believe it's not real time.

Go play some PnP, mate, before you start bitching about this.
Essentially, if some mong spends ten minutes considering his next move, everyone else will be sitting on their hands. No, that is not fun. By anyone's definition. There is a reason that many RPGs make it a priority to speed up combat between editions.

Oh yeah, 4e is still awful. The Monster Manual is without a doubt the most boring bestiary I have ever forced myself to read, not to mention the fact they ripped the heart out of the rule set. So don't get me wrong.
 

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