Likes and Dislikes: Part 1
(This was originally published awhile ago, but something in my copy/paste removed all the "carriage returns", so i think it's fixed now.)
There are so many things I have loved about D&D, but in time there were quite a few things I saw as “bleh”.
I’m so disappointed and almost disgusted by Fourth Edition Dungeons & Dragons that I’m not sure I could come back to the game.
The only thing that might help is Hasbro selling D&D to another company that would love the game rather than exploit it. Of course the irony is that is what killed the game in my opinion.
Selling D&D to WotC was a great thing for D&D.
Selling WotC to Hasbro was a horrible thing for D&D.
What can I say, the bigger the corporation the more disconnected its products become from its core people to be more appealing to a wider audience.
While I don’t play with them anymore, I still talk to Dale from the gaming group.
The general consensus from them about the new edition of D&D is “We’re not spending anymore money. After a while we might try 5E, but not until we hear about from others first.”
Translation – No money will be spent on 5E unless they hear it doesn’t suck.
I’ve only skimmed the changes with 5E.
Why only skimmed? I don’t care enough to bother reading more than that.
What little I’ve read doesn’t show me anything of value that makes it truly different from 4E.
What would make me want to play 5E?
Well the obvious answer would be that Hasbro decided that D&D isn’t worth their effort and sold it off. That might stoke the fires.
But that’s not realistic.
So my backup idea is that every single person who had a hand in making 4E was fired, this includes everyone in the corporate ladder who thought that copying ideas from MMO’s was a good plan.
Anything less than that would require a miracle for me to pay $30+ for a book.
“What about Monte Cook? He’s a mastermind of D&D and was the lead designer for 5E.”
I don’t care. A new cook doesn’t fix a restaurant if the entire management staff is incompetent. (Note: since he quit working at WoTC, I’m wondering if he had issues with management as well. But that could just be me projecting my opinions.)
But all of that being said, not every little thing about 4E is steaming pile of bile.
Every edition had something about it that added to the game.
Each edition also had things that detracted from the game as well.
Luckily D&D has often been a very modular game.
Don’t like something? Don’t use it!
Want to adjust a rule? Chances are it’ll be ok if you do that.
Oh, as I’m thinking about it the 5E designers are claiming that it will be modular game.
Really?
Really?!?
Who is dumb enough to think that’s a new feature?
A year or so ago, as I was getting more and more disgusted with 4E, and it not being an improved game, I started looking into combining the best of each edition into a new system.
I started doing stuff with it but my group told me, more or less, they weren’t interested in working on it.
So I stopped working on it.
But I did begin working on a list of things from each edition that I felt was worth keeping and worth booting to the curb.
I feel that if we take the positive pieces and massage them properly, or maybe hammer them mercilessly, a decent edition could be made without the crap that Hasbro shoves down our throats.
Now what are considered to be the pros and cons of each edition is very much up to each person. For all intents and purposes we’ll be going with my opinions.
First, this will be a huge list of good and bad. When you add in my reasons why an idea was kept or dumped, the wall of text gets bigger. So I’ll have to break it up into some chunks of info.
Second, some things will not be included at all.
These things will not be surprising to anyone who’s read this blog for any amount of time.
These things are:
Psionics – No. I’m sick of seeing it. It’s not part of what I consider D&D.
Technology – No guns, no robots, just swords and sorcery. Got it?
Eberron – No one is surprised about that one right? Piece of shit world needs to be shit-canned.
Next I want to talk about something that is talked about too much: balance and overpowering.
Right off the bat I’m going to make this clear – every edition of D&D has horribly broken aspects to it. Certain combinations of abilities that when combined make something greater than its parts.
No matter how much you playtest, no matter how much math you’ve worked out, and no matter how much effort you’ve put into covering loopholes, you will never, ever outsmart a determined gamer geek on a mission.
Ok let me state that differently.
Let’s say 100 people worked on the game design.
But 100,000 people play it.
That is 1 designer versus 1,000 gamers.
They’re going to figure something out.
So let’s drop the whole concept that designers can make a perfectly balanced game.
Instead work on making a fun game that has no glaring broken problems that anyone can easily spot.
And finally, for this blog entry I want to cover things that absolutely must be included in the game.
The System Resource Document (SRD)
This was the shining piece of perfection that 3E created.
It was an open license for everyone to use in their own attempts at improving D&D.
Yes, I’ve heard the claims that the SRD just allowed crap to be made.
Whatever, that’s why you open and scan a book before you buy it. Or listen to those who have bought it.
The loss of the SRD for 4E (and probably 5E) was a horrible shame.
PDF’s for buying the book
I consider Digital Rights Media (DRM) to be extremely problematic.
I understand that digital copies of scanned books and PDF’s are a profit-loss to games like D&D, but in this day and age, not having easy access to a book you’ve bought is shameful.
Having to be online each time you open a file to prove you’re you is also bullshit.
Inconveniencing customers is not good for business.
Treating everyone like criminals (by assuming everyone has stolen your electrons) is actively bad for business.
People who want your stuff for free will get it.
But treating everyone like they’re thieves will only push them away.
Rule 0 (a.k.a. “The DM is always Right”)
Tabletop D&D is not a computer game.
It’s a face to face interaction of people having fun on a social level.
Rules are not all-knowing.
Rules do not allow for clever ideas.
Rules cannot cover every possible scenario.
But the human brain of a halfway decent DM can do so easily.
The DM is always right. And even if he’s not right, he’s still right for now and you will have to retcon it later.
That’s all for now; more to follow.
There are so many things I have loved about D&D, but in time there were quite a few things I saw as “bleh”.
I’m so disappointed and almost disgusted by Fourth Edition Dungeons & Dragons that I’m not sure I could come back to the game.
The only thing that might help is Hasbro selling D&D to another company that would love the game rather than exploit it. Of course the irony is that is what killed the game in my opinion.
Selling D&D to WotC was a great thing for D&D.
Selling WotC to Hasbro was a horrible thing for D&D.
What can I say, the bigger the corporation the more disconnected its products become from its core people to be more appealing to a wider audience.
While I don’t play with them anymore, I still talk to Dale from the gaming group.
The general consensus from them about the new edition of D&D is “We’re not spending anymore money. After a while we might try 5E, but not until we hear about from others first.”
Translation – No money will be spent on 5E unless they hear it doesn’t suck.
I’ve only skimmed the changes with 5E.
Why only skimmed? I don’t care enough to bother reading more than that.
What little I’ve read doesn’t show me anything of value that makes it truly different from 4E.
What would make me want to play 5E?
Well the obvious answer would be that Hasbro decided that D&D isn’t worth their effort and sold it off. That might stoke the fires.
But that’s not realistic.
So my backup idea is that every single person who had a hand in making 4E was fired, this includes everyone in the corporate ladder who thought that copying ideas from MMO’s was a good plan.
Anything less than that would require a miracle for me to pay $30+ for a book.
“What about Monte Cook? He’s a mastermind of D&D and was the lead designer for 5E.”
I don’t care. A new cook doesn’t fix a restaurant if the entire management staff is incompetent. (Note: since he quit working at WoTC, I’m wondering if he had issues with management as well. But that could just be me projecting my opinions.)
But all of that being said, not every little thing about 4E is steaming pile of bile.
Every edition had something about it that added to the game.
Each edition also had things that detracted from the game as well.
Luckily D&D has often been a very modular game.
Don’t like something? Don’t use it!
Want to adjust a rule? Chances are it’ll be ok if you do that.
Oh, as I’m thinking about it the 5E designers are claiming that it will be modular game.
Really?
Really?!?
Who is dumb enough to think that’s a new feature?
A year or so ago, as I was getting more and more disgusted with 4E, and it not being an improved game, I started looking into combining the best of each edition into a new system.
I started doing stuff with it but my group told me, more or less, they weren’t interested in working on it.
So I stopped working on it.
But I did begin working on a list of things from each edition that I felt was worth keeping and worth booting to the curb.
I feel that if we take the positive pieces and massage them properly, or maybe hammer them mercilessly, a decent edition could be made without the crap that Hasbro shoves down our throats.
Now what are considered to be the pros and cons of each edition is very much up to each person. For all intents and purposes we’ll be going with my opinions.
First, this will be a huge list of good and bad. When you add in my reasons why an idea was kept or dumped, the wall of text gets bigger. So I’ll have to break it up into some chunks of info.
Second, some things will not be included at all.
These things will not be surprising to anyone who’s read this blog for any amount of time.
These things are:
Psionics – No. I’m sick of seeing it. It’s not part of what I consider D&D.
Technology – No guns, no robots, just swords and sorcery. Got it?
Eberron – No one is surprised about that one right? Piece of shit world needs to be shit-canned.
Next I want to talk about something that is talked about too much: balance and overpowering.
Right off the bat I’m going to make this clear – every edition of D&D has horribly broken aspects to it. Certain combinations of abilities that when combined make something greater than its parts.
No matter how much you playtest, no matter how much math you’ve worked out, and no matter how much effort you’ve put into covering loopholes, you will never, ever outsmart a determined gamer geek on a mission.
Ok let me state that differently.
Let’s say 100 people worked on the game design.
But 100,000 people play it.
That is 1 designer versus 1,000 gamers.
They’re going to figure something out.
So let’s drop the whole concept that designers can make a perfectly balanced game.
Instead work on making a fun game that has no glaring broken problems that anyone can easily spot.
And finally, for this blog entry I want to cover things that absolutely must be included in the game.
The System Resource Document (SRD)
This was the shining piece of perfection that 3E created.
It was an open license for everyone to use in their own attempts at improving D&D.
Yes, I’ve heard the claims that the SRD just allowed crap to be made.
Whatever, that’s why you open and scan a book before you buy it. Or listen to those who have bought it.
The loss of the SRD for 4E (and probably 5E) was a horrible shame.
PDF’s for buying the book
I consider Digital Rights Media (DRM) to be extremely problematic.
I understand that digital copies of scanned books and PDF’s are a profit-loss to games like D&D, but in this day and age, not having easy access to a book you’ve bought is shameful.
Having to be online each time you open a file to prove you’re you is also bullshit.
Inconveniencing customers is not good for business.
Treating everyone like criminals (by assuming everyone has stolen your electrons) is actively bad for business.
People who want your stuff for free will get it.
But treating everyone like they’re thieves will only push them away.
Rule 0 (a.k.a. “The DM is always Right”)
Tabletop D&D is not a computer game.
It’s a face to face interaction of people having fun on a social level.
Rules are not all-knowing.
Rules do not allow for clever ideas.
Rules cannot cover every possible scenario.
But the human brain of a halfway decent DM can do so easily.
The DM is always right. And even if he’s not right, he’s still right for now and you will have to retcon it later.
That’s all for now; more to follow.
posted by BlueBlackRed at 12:31 PM
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