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Arivia
Great Reader

Canada
2965 Posts

Posted - 06 Dec 2017 :  14:26:15  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Diffan

quote:
Originally posted by Arivia

I'm most comfortable and familiar with the 3e Realms and ruleset there, so I'm not really interested in 5e stuff for 5e's sake. 5e is a really bad system, from an objective design



ah....no. Subjective til the cows come home through, sure we can work with that.



No, it's really not. Class design, the core math of the game, and the general design of the game are postively retrograde. It's a really, really sad step back from 4e and a lot of evolutions in RPG design since like 2003.

It's easier to play than 3e for new players, but that's honestly about all it has going for it. Mearls and his design group were postively lazy and pretty much phoned the entire edition in on shallow ideas of what "feels" like D&D.

Because 3e and 5e are objectively as bad from a game design perspective, I'll play 3e since that's what I'm used to and know already. That's where the subjectivity comes in.
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Diffan
Great Reader

USA
4425 Posts

Posted - 06 Dec 2017 :  15:23:37  Show Profile Send Diffan a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Arivia



No, it's really not. Class design, the core math of the game, and the general design of the game are postively retrograde. It's a really, really sad step back from 4e and a lot of evolutions in RPG design since like 2003.

It's easier to play than 3e for new players, but that's honestly about all it has going for it. Mearls and his design group were postively lazy and pretty much phoned the entire edition in on shallow ideas of what "feels" like D&D.

Because 3e and 5e are objectively as bad from a game design perspective, I'll play 3e since that's what I'm used to and know already. That's where the subjectivity comes in.



so please do tell, what isn't "objectively" bad from a game design perspective? What's the basis of your comparison. Because frankly, if the game sells exceptionally well and lots of people are buying it, enjoying it, making things from it, and sharing it then I'm gonna have to say that "objectively" IS pretty damn good. From a factual standpoint and all...
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire

USA
15724 Posts

Posted - 06 Dec 2017 :  16:56:05  Show Profile Send Markustay a Private Message  Reply with Quote
D&D started out as a wargame (miniatures rules) that evolved into a squad-based game with options into what was (supposedly) the first RPG. Of course, I could argue kids were playing 'lets pretend' since the dawn of time. Gygax & co. simply added rules to that (or rather, added the 'pretend' part to rules).

In 4e you could say D&D "went back to its roots", and you'd probably be fairly accurate. I don't know - I never got to play with the old Chainmail rules. But it seems to have come from 'little bits of dramatic play' between encounters, and that's what 4e felt like... TO ME (I realize everyone is going to have different opinions here). So when you argue that '5e took a big step backwards', I could further argue that 4e took a humongous step backwards. Part of D&D's flavor (unfortunately?) is that 'broken' feeling. The rules were slapped together over the years, with various systems having nothing in common. 3e fixed most of that... and then proceeded to hit us with gobs and gobs of bloat (thus breaking what I thought was 'perfect' in the beginning... once again, just IMO). I see Paizo, sadly, heading down the same path. When you spend more time studying the game and using it as a 'mental exercise' then actually playing it, well then, you have........ Candlekeep.

5e isn't supposed to be gobs and gobs of intricate rules - its supposed to be what it is - a set of fairly easy rules for a group of friends to get together and have a good time. If you are a 'power-gamer', then play a previous edition, or some other game - no-one is stopping you. But you can't expect the Nissan Sentra to be the tricked-out Ferrari (or whatever) with all the precise options you like. And you can easily add-in any options you like (but power-gamers don't like that, because that puts ALL the control in the DMs hands, and they can't rules-lawyer themselves into a godlike, broken PC).

Also, I am not understanding why people need the setting and rules to be on the same page - you can run any setting with any set of rules, just about. FR is FR, and D&D is D&D, and although they are more closely connected now than ever before (like GH used to be), you can still separate them. You can still play with 5e rules in the 1e/2e/3e era, or vice-versa. Do whatever makes YOUR group happy. But don't expect the rest of the world to be on the same page as you.

And that last sentence just described everything that is wrong with the world right now... people expecting others to agree with everything they say. That means you have the assumption you are always right, and that's ... well... this isn't the place for this type of conversation. Lets just say everyone should do what makes them happy, and stop worrying about what others are doing, or how they feel about what you're doing. Because it is none of their business... and their business is none of yours.

Now I have to go out the rest of the day, and that's probably a good thing, considering the mood I am in.

Ado

"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone


Edited by - Markustay on 07 Dec 2017 20:26:27
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
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USA
36779 Posts

Posted - 06 Dec 2017 :  19:57:51  Show Profile Send Wooly Rupert a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Some truth, there... Rule sets and eras of Realmslore share that common characteristic: what works for some does not work for others, and we should all respect that.

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Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
http://www.candlekeep.com
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Storyteller Hero
Learned Scribe

USA
329 Posts

Posted - 07 Dec 2017 :  04:09:56  Show Profile  Visit Storyteller Hero's Homepage Send Storyteller Hero a Private Message  Reply with Quote
I am seeing the words "objective" and "subjective" being tossed a lot on this thread, and not every use of it seems to be supported appropriately. I'll leave this here just in case.

Objective (adjective): (of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.
"historians try to be objective and impartial"

Subjective (adjective): based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.
"his views are highly subjective"


My personal take on 5e: It streamlines a lot of mechanics based on lessons learned from previous editions. There are a number of sacred cows that I felt could be done away with, like AC, but all in all it's not bad. It's not as hard to master/break as 3e, is more open to creative design work than the more rigid structures of 4e, and tries to keep a lot of things open to narrative like 1e/2e. The edition is an attempt at balance, for the sake of making as many people satisfied as possible; for the most part it seems to be successful, since books are selling well and the third party design community is growing.






My Blog: https://www.facebook.com/Johnnys-Tabletop-RPG-Design-Blog-1697026710539149/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel

My DMG Shop: http://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?x=0&y=0&author=Johnny%20Tek

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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
Moderator

USA
36779 Posts

Posted - 07 Dec 2017 :  04:29:19  Show Profile Send Wooly Rupert a Private Message  Reply with Quote
To be fair, the third party design community has been going strong since 3E came out and gave us the OGL. That was a huge boost to the gaming world, and the gaming landscape would be very different today, if not for the OGL.

Candlekeep Forums Moderator

Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
http://www.candlekeep.com
-- Candlekeep Forum Code of Conduct

I am the Giant Space Hamster of Ill Omen!
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Diffan
Great Reader

USA
4425 Posts

Posted - 07 Dec 2017 :  04:50:35  Show Profile Send Diffan a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Storyteller Hero

I am seeing the words "objective" and "subjective" being tossed a lot on this thread, and not every use of it seems to be supported appropriately. I'll leave this here just in case.

Objective (adjective): (of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.
"historians try to be objective and impartial"

Subjective (adjective): based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.
"his views are highly subjective"


My personal take on 5e: It streamlines a lot of mechanics based on lessons learned from previous editions. There are a number of sacred cows that I felt could be done away with, like AC, but all in all it's not bad. It's not as hard to master/break as 3e, is more open to creative design work than the more rigid structures of 4e, and tries to keep a lot of things open to narrative like 1e/2e. The edition is an attempt at balance, for the sake of making as many people satisfied as possible; for the most part it seems to be successful, since books are selling well and the third party design community is growing.


That's a pretty impartial review of the system, and I largely agree with your assessment. The thing is, a Role-Playing Game system can't really be "objectively" bad because "Bad" is in and of itself a subjective term. What's "bad" for some people (I'll throw out 4th Edition here) was "great" for other people (such as myself).

One could say that it was "Bad" at keeping D&D at the top in sales. One could say that it was "bad" for the Forgotten Realms community at large (due to the split and arguments, etc.) and one could even say that it was "Bad" at emulating some of the editions prior to it. Those all have factual evidence that sustain the notion of "bad".

Was the game actually good? Well yes, the design principals were exceptional. It helped create balance across classes that was pretty unparalleled without direct and constant modulation from a DM to "fix" it. It helped keep characters doing fun things throughout combat, had a pretty substantial option-base, continued to support Fantasy and the allowance of both Classic and Unorthodox characters. There's really nothing you can do in a previous Edition that 4E also can do in most capacities (with the end-all product mind you). Still, didn't change the fact that after 6 years they went with 5th Edition and a slight overhaul of the game (not a bad thing).

Edited by - Diffan on 07 Dec 2017 04:51:35
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist

USA
11686 Posts

Posted - 07 Dec 2017 :  13:51:43  Show Profile Send sleyvas a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay

I hated 4e, because it didn't feel like D&D to me. However, 5e feels much more like (old school) D&D than 3e did, to me.

I guess people who are stuck in 3e like the world-juggling, 37-PrC, "I can do anything an NPC can" powerPCs. AS a DM, I am glad that monumental overhead of purposeless design is gone (NO, you are NOT allowed to create your own artifacts, etc, and I don't have to write-up a 3 page NPC baddie for a 10-minute encounter). 5e is more about the play, then the encounters, which 4e went way too heavy on, IMO. Like I said, it seems like the perfect mix, and it put most of the control back into the DMs hands, as it should be (and as it was, in OD&D, 1e, & 2e).

I want to tell a story, and I want my players to be able live-through and affect that story. As Gygax himself is credited with saying, "The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules." 3e got away from that vision... ran amok, actually. 4e hacked a lot of the excessiveness out, but in the wrong direction (once again, IMO). Just give me a stage (my players are the actors), and I can write my own script. The dice rolling is just to give the players something physical they can hold on to*... we've never really needed it, and I've played in games where there wasn't ANY.


*the dice-rolling is a sham. Always was. I know thats going to annoy a lot of people, but NOTHING happens in a D&D game that a DM doesn't want to happen. Its a parlor trick - like what a magician does when he is trying to distract you from what he is really doing.



I'll somewhat mirror what Markustay is saying here. The only edition I've had a problem with was 4e, and that was mainly because they broke the classes and gameplay IMO. Secondarily, what they did to the realms itself was too vastly sweeping.

In 5e, they've got a good base... the problem is the development is too slow. Thus, DM's Guild. The one thing I do like about DM's Guild is that if you reference someone else's work, you can use it. So, if I want to put in certain monsters, I can pull their name from a previous edition and use it.... and I may or may not be able to reference someone on DM's Guild who has already done a conversion of said monster. Similar things with spells, magic items, class variations, etc.... Unfortunately, this means when I get my product complete I'm going to have a ton of references to other DM's Guild content.

Alavairthae, may your skill prevail

Phillip aka Sleyvas
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist

USA
11686 Posts

Posted - 07 Dec 2017 :  14:00:53  Show Profile Send sleyvas a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay

D&D started out as a wargame (miniatures rules) that evolved into a squad-based game with options into what was (supposedly) the first RPG. Of course, I could argue kids were playing 'lets pretend' since the dawn of time. Gygax & co. simply added rules to that (or rather, added the 'pretend' part to rules).

In 4e you could say D&D "went back to its roots", and you'd probably be fairly accurate. I don't know - I never got to play with the old Chainmail rules. But it seems to have come from 'little bits of dramatic play' between encounters, and that's what 4e felt like... TO ME (I realize everyone is going to have different opinions here). So when you argue that '5e took a big step backwards', I could further argue that 4e took a humongous step backwards. Part of D&D's flavor (unfortunately?) is that 'broken' feeling. The rules were slapped together over the years, with various systems having nothing in common. 3e fixed most of that... and then proceeded to hit us with gobs and gobs of bloat (thus breaking what I thought was 'perfect' in the beginning... once again, just IMO). I see Paizo, sadly, heading down the same path. When you spend more time studying the game and using it as a 'mental exercise' then actually playing it, well then, you have........ Candlekeep.

5e isn't supposed to be gobs and gobs of intricate rules - its supposed to be what it is - a set of fairly easy rules for a group of friends to get together and have a good time. If you are a 'power-gamer', then play a previous edition, or some other game - no-one is stopping you. But you can't expect the Nissan Sentra to be the tricked-out Ferrari (or whatever) with all the precise options you like. And you can easily add-in any options you like (but power-gamers don't like that, because that puts ALL the control in the DMs hands, and they can't rules-lawyer themselves into a godlike, broken PC).

Also, I am not understanding why people need the setting and rules to be on the same page - you can run any setting with any set of rules, just about. FR is FR, and D&D is D&D, and although they are more closely connected now than ever before (like GH used to be), you can still separate them. You can still play with 5e rules in the 1e/2e/3e era, or vice-versa. Do whatever makes YOUR group happy. But don't expect the rest of the world to be on the same page as you.

And that last sentence just described everything that is wrong with the world right now... people expecting others to agree with everything they say. That means you have the assumption you are always right, and that's ... well... this isn't the place for this type of conversation. Lets just say everyone should do what makes them happy, and stop worrying about what others are doing, or how they feel about what you're doing. Because is none of their business... and their business is none of yours.

Now I have to go out the rest of the day, and that's probably a good thing, considering the mood I am in.

Ado



Seriously, are you sure you aren't my brother... or cousin... or clone...

Alavairthae, may your skill prevail

Phillip aka Sleyvas
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Diffan
Great Reader

USA
4425 Posts

Posted - 07 Dec 2017 :  16:34:11  Show Profile Send Diffan a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas


I'll somewhat mirror what Markustay is saying here. The only edition I've had a problem with was 4e, and that was mainly because they broke the classes and gameplay IMO. Secondarily, what they did to the realms itself was too vastly sweeping.



I dunno if "broke" is the right word? 4e was tasked with fixing the myriad of problems and issues with 3rd edition. I'm not sure the avenue they took was necessarily wrong, without the pleasure of hindsight. The designers listened to all the problems people had with 3e: huge class disparities, god-casters, limited magical scope early levels, healing being the sole responsibility of casters, fighters and other "mundanes" having little to add late-game and overall poor class design ( subjectivity speaking) etc. Its not difficult to see why and how they came to make it the way they did.
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire

USA
15724 Posts

Posted - 07 Dec 2017 :  20:25:06  Show Profile Send Markustay a Private Message  Reply with Quote
yes, 'broken' is definitely the right word.

Growing up with every edition of D&D (except Chainmail - that was just before my discovery of D&D), I can say with all honesty and perhaps expertise that D&D is/was 'a mess'. In 2e, we had no less than THREE different systems for fatigue... none of them related. Things just kept getting pasted-on without some of the writers even knowing what others had already done (you know, like how we got both Duergar AND Derro, because of different adventures written by different authors). But that was part of its charm - no-one was ever really sure if their group was 'doing it right'. No two games were alike. Half the time, the DM just made crap up as he went along (I sure as heck know I did). Part of the fun was that it was so crazy.

I hadn't been playing D&D for like seven years (later part of the 90's), but when 3e came out I saw it advertised all over the place, and I picked up a copy of the PH and it was AMAZING. It was like a version of D&D I always dreamed about - one mechanic (D20) linking all the systems together, and everything working along similar paths (so no 'negative AC is better' stupidity). You didn't even need a DM's screen with boatloads of tables on them!

Then they realized they had done the worst thing possible - a company had created the 'perfect product'. That means once you've reached 'market saturation', your profits would plummet. So they decided to publish several hundred unnecessary (and mostly redundant) books with tons and tons of 'new rules', PrCs, monsters, races, etc., etc., ad infinitum. And the best part was, they KNEW they were breaking the hell out of the game, and didn't care - they needed to make another edition anyway (look up 'planned obsolescence'). Its kind of like a car company selling you a beautiful new automobile, and then sneaking over your house every night and beating it up with a sledghammer. Except that YOU were handing them the hammer.

The only thing they didn't foresee is people loving the new (now old) 3e system so much that they'd flee to other companies who were still supporting it (so the OGL came back and bit them in the arse... but that may have been planned as well, by people who had crafted a 'lifeboat' just in case the ship started sinking). When they turned on their own system and settings (rather vitriolically, in many cases), fans got angry and went elsewhere. It was simple as that. They had grown to love the system more than the company.

Now Paizo is systematically breaking the system it fixed so brilliantly (3P). I haven't been keeping up; they may have done so already. And just as people are tiring of Pathfinder and Golarion and looking elsewhere, D&D and FR have reemerged from the ashes. I wish I could say the timing was genius, but I think its just more serendipitous. The only downside to all of this is that we've 'lost' many of our luminaries during the 4e era, and right now is when we need them back the most. FR could potentially reach a peak of development and popularity unseen even during the 2e/3e eras, if only we had the right people still steering the ship, and making that happen. And to that end - if any of you are listening right now - it may be time to abandon ship (the one you're on). The captain no longer need go down with it - that's an outdated notion. The simulcrum of The Forgotten Realms has been fashioned - we just need the right people to come back and breath some life into it.

"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone


Edited by - Markustay on 07 Dec 2017 20:29:21
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Diffan
Great Reader

USA
4425 Posts

Posted - 07 Dec 2017 :  21:24:35  Show Profile Send Diffan a Private Message  Reply with Quote
I don't think I've ever considered 3E the 'perfect product'. Sure compared to AD&D 2E, an edition that I don't have too many good things to say about, it was more streamlined and had less problems in terms of resolution but it's showing it's age more and more the further I get away from it. At first I was like "Ah, cool these Feats are pretty darn awesome!" then... with System Master taking over and the inclusion of White-Room Analysis it was starting to become abundantly clear that even without tons of Supplements, the game was a total broken mess past 7th level.

I agree that people didn't want 4E's changes. That was apparent with the flight to Paizo. However it's a tad naive to think that there weren't people, in droves, complaining about just how bloated and broken 3.5 was and getting worse with each additional supplement that was put out. WotC painted themselves into a corner with 1) making 3.0 so terrible (yea, I think it's pretty terrible) then coming out with a revision just 3 years later and 2) the OGL basically allowing anyone to rip them off of their IP.

People wanted something different but it really couldn't be WotC to do it, lest they'd have ANOTHER backlash of people cursing them for money grabs. Had 3.5 went the Pathfinder route (rules and all) and been labled D&D by WotC, I'm just not sure how it would've fared? I think it would've lasted a few more years but then ultimately died. Why re-buy a system that's 95% the same damn thing? I haven't bought ONE Paizo product since 3.5 was disbanded. 1) because the vast majority of it is free on their SRD and 2) I'm not buying someone's Revised 3rd Edition for a 3rd time in a row. I think people had a choice (stick their finger in "Evil Empire's" eye and go with Paizo or don't play D&D at all because 4E wasn't to their fancy.

Edited by - Diffan on 07 Dec 2017 21:33:21
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Arivia
Great Reader

Canada
2965 Posts

Posted - 12 Dec 2017 :  17:23:56  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Diffan

quote:
Originally posted by Storyteller Hero

I am seeing the words "objective" and "subjective" being tossed a lot on this thread, and not every use of it seems to be supported appropriately. I'll leave this here just in case.

Objective (adjective): (of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.
"historians try to be objective and impartial"

Subjective (adjective): based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.
"his views are highly subjective"


My personal take on 5e: It streamlines a lot of mechanics based on lessons learned from previous editions. There are a number of sacred cows that I felt could be done away with, like AC, but all in all it's not bad. It's not as hard to master/break as 3e, is more open to creative design work than the more rigid structures of 4e, and tries to keep a lot of things open to narrative like 1e/2e. The edition is an attempt at balance, for the sake of making as many people satisfied as possible; for the most part it seems to be successful, since books are selling well and the third party design community is growing.


That's a pretty impartial review of the system, and I largely agree with your assessment. The thing is, a Role-Playing Game system can't really be "objectively" bad because "Bad" is in and of itself a subjective term. What's "bad" for some people (I'll throw out 4th Edition here) was "great" for other people (such as myself).

One could say that it was "Bad" at keeping D&D at the top in sales. One could say that it was "bad" for the Forgotten Realms community at large (due to the split and arguments, etc.) and one could even say that it was "Bad" at emulating some of the editions prior to it. Those all have factual evidence that sustain the notion of "bad".

Was the game actually good? Well yes, the design principals were exceptional. It helped create balance across classes that was pretty unparalleled without direct and constant modulation from a DM to "fix" it. It helped keep characters doing fun things throughout combat, had a pretty substantial option-base, continued to support Fantasy and the allowance of both Classic and Unorthodox characters. There's really nothing you can do in a previous Edition that 4E also can do in most capacities (with the end-all product mind you). Still, didn't change the fact that after 6 years they went with 5th Edition and a slight overhaul of the game (not a bad thing).



This is misleading. Sure, the personal opinion about whether a system is fun to play or preferable is a personal, subjective choice.

As you point out, we can talk about design decisions in context of game design as an objective discipline. 4e's rules were objectively better designed because they were well-balanced, with clear options, well-written language, and facilitated play (with clear choices in the game state for all participants.) 5e deciding to return spellcaster primacy, use "natural" (unclear) language in rules text, and deliberately leaving rules interactions opaque (under Mearls' "ask your DM" philosophy
) makes it an objectively worse game in terms of game design.

Sales or public opinion have nothing to do with a judgment of 5e from a game design perspective.
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
Moderator

USA
36779 Posts

Posted - 12 Dec 2017 :  18:41:57  Show Profile Send Wooly Rupert a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Nope, that's all subjective. Because some of us don't think that having all characters do the same damage at all levels is a good thing -- if I want that, I'll play one of the MMOs 4E was drawn from.

Part of the appeal of playing a wizard is those high-power, horde-slaying spells you get at higher levels... And the balance for that is that you're a one-shot squishy character at lower levels.

And my opinion is obviously not a unique one, since the advent of 4E drove enough people to an alternate ruleset that that alternate ruleset was outselling D&D for a while.

Candlekeep Forums Moderator

Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
http://www.candlekeep.com
-- Candlekeep Forum Code of Conduct

I am the Giant Space Hamster of Ill Omen!
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire

USA
15724 Posts

Posted - 12 Dec 2017 :  20:05:38  Show Profile Send Markustay a Private Message  Reply with Quote
I want to design a game that sells well, because, ummmm... I like money. Actually, my bosses like money. Lots of it.

I create game 'A' and it isn't all that popular. Sure, it sells, but my bosses aren't getting any richer. They don't like that. They don't like that a lot of people who used to buy our games are now buying other people's games (which strangely, used to be our games).

So I create game 'B', and folks love it. People are buying it like crazy. The customers we lost over Game 'A' are even starting to come back (in droves). "Yay! I've created a better game! My bosses think I created a better game! A lot of gamers think I've (finally) created a better game!"

But wait... someone on the internet is telling me I didn't create a better game. Despite the fact I still have a job, and that my bosses get to fly their private jets to Paris for lunch, and despite the fact that my sales are so damn successful.. i am a failure. A true and utter failure. I can't seem to please that random person on the internet. Even though - for the first time in almost a decade - my company's game is getting just as much (if not more) play-time at conventions (something that NEVER happened when I made Game 'A'), I feel I created a technically inferior game....

Because someone on the internet insists I did... despite how popular it is.

That's about the size of it.

EDIT:
Great RW example of this. The 'Pet Rock'. Yes, it was a real thing, and the guy made millions off of it.

At the end of the day, it was't really a very good pet. But that wasn't its purpose, was it?

"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone


Edited by - Markustay on 12 Dec 2017 21:39:50
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
Moderator

USA
36779 Posts

Posted - 12 Dec 2017 :  22:28:12  Show Profile Send Wooly Rupert a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay


EDIT:
Great RW example of this. The 'Pet Rock'. Yes, it was a real thing, and the guy made millions off of it.

At the end of the day, it was't really a very good pet. But that wasn't its purpose, was it?



I wish I'd gotten the USB Pet Rock when it was available.

Candlekeep Forums Moderator

Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
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Greymalkin
Acolyte

Canada
1 Posts

Posted - 23 Dec 2017 :  18:25:03  Show Profile  Visit Greymalkin's Homepage Send Greymalkin a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay

yes, 'broken' is definitely the right word.

Growing up with every edition of D&D (except Chainmail - that was just before my discovery of D&D), I can say with all honesty and perhaps expertise that D&D is/was 'a mess'. In 2e, we had no less than THREE different systems for fatigue... none of them related. Things just kept getting pasted-on without some of the writers even knowing what others had already done (you know, like how we got both Duergar AND Derro, because of different adventures written by different authors). But that was part of its charm - no-one was ever really sure if their group was 'doing it right'. No two games were alike. Half the time, the DM just made crap up as he went along (I sure as heck know I did). Part of the fun was that it was so crazy.

I hadn't been playing D&D for like seven years (later part of the 90's), but when 3e came out I saw it advertised all over the place, and I picked up a copy of the PH and it was AMAZING. It was like a version of D&D I always dreamed about - one mechanic (D20) linking all the systems together, and everything working along similar paths (so no 'negative AC is better' stupidity). You didn't even need a DM's screen with boatloads of tables on them!

Then they realized they had done the worst thing possible - a company had created the 'perfect product'. That means once you've reached 'market saturation', your profits would plummet. So they decided to publish several hundred unnecessary (and mostly redundant) books with tons and tons of 'new rules', PrCs, monsters, races, etc., etc., ad infinitum. And the best part was, they KNEW they were breaking the hell out of the game, and didn't care - they needed to make another edition anyway (look up 'planned obsolescence'). Its kind of like a car company selling you a beautiful new automobile, and then sneaking over your house every night and beating it up with a sledghammer. Except that YOU were handing them the hammer.

The only thing they didn't foresee is people loving the new (now old) 3e system so much that they'd flee to other companies who were still supporting it (so the OGL came back and bit them in the arse... but that may have been planned as well, by people who had crafted a 'lifeboat' just in case the ship started sinking). When they turned on their own system and settings (rather vitriolically, in many cases), fans got angry and went elsewhere. It was simple as that. They had grown to love the system more than the company.

Now Paizo is systematically breaking the system it fixed so brilliantly (3P). I haven't been keeping up; they may have done so already. And just as people are tiring of Pathfinder and Golarion and looking elsewhere, D&D and FR have reemerged from the ashes. I wish I could say the timing was genius, but I think its just more serendipitous. The only downside to all of this is that we've 'lost' many of our luminaries during the 4e era, and right now is when we need them back the most. FR could potentially reach a peak of development and popularity unseen even during the 2e/3e eras, if only we had the right people still steering the ship, and making that happen. And to that end - if any of you are listening right now - it may be time to abandon ship (the one you're on). The captain no longer need go down with it - that's an outdated notion. The simulcrum of The Forgotten Realms has been fashioned - we just need the right people to come back and breath some life into it.



Well met. I'm new here, and this seemed like the perfect place to weigh in for the first time because I just restarted an older campaign set in the realms I'd written 10-15 years back, and just got a chance to dive back into the lore and rules etc for the first time in years.

I think Markustay's post above sums up my feelings perfectly about 3e/3.5e. It felt much more approachable than AD&D/2e for new players (and a new DM at the time like myself). I started before 3e but it was only as the very occasional player. Getting back to it all now, I decided to use 3.5e dice rules because I can't afford a whole new set of books just yet. That said, there is a wealth of information online on sites like this one that one can use to get caught up on all the recent Forgotten Realms history. Lore has nothing to do with rulesets.

Getting back to the OP: There have been non-stop updates to the realms lore, geography, etc. Choosing your preferred dice rules doesn't mean you need to stay stuck in 1350 DR. My revised campaign may use 3.5e dice rules at first, but rest assured it's "present day" 1494 DR by my estimate.

I look forward to reading all Candlekeep has to offer. Thanks for your indulgence.

Regards,
-Greymalkin
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