Escapist Article RE: 3.5/PF/4E

[Person_Man]

You should check it out, because it's an interesting read. Key points:

• Gamers are "less likely [to be] interested in reading the rules of the game before playing. I'm not just talking about younger players now, but anybody. We've been working to adapt to that, the changing expectations of the new gamer." ~Andy Collins, frequent contributor to 3.5 and 4E PHB
• "4E put too much emphasis on the battle grid and not enough emphasis on the world outside of combat. That, in combination with the sacred cow-killing, made it feel like a whole different game to a lot of people, including me," ~Erik Mona, publisher at Paizo/Pathfinder.
• "Mona was surprised at how well the beta version of Pathfinder sold, and how it has grown into a multi-million dollar enterprise."
• "There were a lot of folks who thought [the idea of OGL] was a disaster, and that the result would be a failure of 3rd edition, but they kept their opinions to themselves and to the watercooler chat. When 3rd edition didn't fail, but instead wildly succeeded, most of those folks came around to seeing it at least as a neutral, if not a net positive." By the time that 4th edition was developed, even the people who begrudgingly accepted the OGL had left their positions at WotC, and it was killed. How this was handled pissed off a lot of people. ~Ryan Dancey, the VP of RPGs at Wizards until 2001, and the guy who came up with the OGL idea.
• Permutations on older editions of the game such as Swords & Wizardry, Castles & Crusades, and Lamentations of the Flame Princess are experiencing a renaissance.
• It's unclear how well 4E is doing, although there is anecdotal evidence pointing in both directions. Since firing Andy Collins in May 2010, they've moved towards simpler D&D variants which seem to be selling well, such as D&D Essentials and Castle Ravenloft.

Discuss.

[Yora]

Well, I think it all sounds quite true. Nothing too new or spectacular, if you had had an eye on these things in the last years.

I think the first two points are the most interesting. But I agree with them. Having complex rules for a wide range of situations is not a bad thing, but ideally players would be introduced to them gradually as they play. Instead, you very often have the case where you have to learn everything before you can even start to think about what kind of character you want to play. In the games I run, we usually get around that by me making all the descisions which rules I teach the new players and which ones I will introduce to the game at a later time.
However, this does create the new challenge of still allowing players to do what a character should be able to from the very beginning. Telling them "sorry, but you can't punch someone with your bare hands until you're third level" just doesn't work.

But even when you look at 3.5e and PF, the way the basic rules are written, there's no idication which parts are essential and which ones are optional. Grappling, tripping, and concealment are all things you don't have to know for your first few games. But AC, armor check penalty, and Skills are. Presenting things in a way that lets new players distinguish between basic rules and advanced rules would not be a bad thing that I would like to see a lot more often.

And yes, competing with MMOs is nonesense. MMOs do what they do and do that well. The point of PnP is not to emulate these things in a way that is not as good as the real thing, but about all the things that MMOs can't do. That's what PnP games should focus on. Instead of putting as much as possible on a battle grid, pnp games have their greatest strength outside the fights. When you have a GM whom you can ask to add and change things as the game progresses. In computer RPGs, you are bound to what the developers offered. In a pnp game, you have the freedom to completely change the direction things are taking. That's the charm and the strength of pnp games, and that's what marketing should focus on.
Who needs slow and clunky turn based combat, when all it does is imitating an action that runs so much smother when run on a computer?

[Thinker]

I think that when they talk about just playing the game, rather than reading the rules, they're really talking about accessibility. Games should be accessible. I agree that it shouldn't take me hours of study in order to start playing a game. Still, I think that the system should support having my character be able to do anything I want. It seems like consistent, streamlined rules can go a long way toward that end. If they included a cheat-sheet with the game, which is basically the rules condensed to a page or two (with page number references), they could have both an immersive game and one that would be easy to play.

[Vitruviansquid]

It annoys me endlessly when people go around saying 4e's adoption of videogame mechanics was either a good thing or a bad thing.

It's not a thing.

You can't make 4e more like video games in a generalized way. You *can* rip specific ideas from video games that end up making your RPG either a more or less compelling experience. It makes a lot more sense to talk about 4e's videogamification in terms of the specific ideas they decided to rip - whether or not you liked its impulse toward balance, whether or not you liked the birth of "tanks" and "DPS," and so on. Once you get away from making the game as fun as possible and go into something like adapting to "the changing expectations of the new gamer," of course you're going to get people complaining that the game is less fun - you stopped intending to make it fun to begin with!

[erikun]

I should probably point out that, in my experience, people did not generally sit down and read through all the rules before playing earlier editions either. Mostly they sat down, were told about specific abilities their character had, and the DM was expected to be familiar enough with the system to gradually introduce things to the character or interpret the players' actions into game mechanics. In fact, part of the early design opaqueness was likely due to this reason: so that new players wouldn't be overly confused or overwhelmed by the system.

I don't know of many, if any, RPGs that have assumed everyone playing has read through and memorized the entire ruleset. Perhaps a few ultra-light, under-ten page systems, but that's probably it.

[Yora]

Yet the GM has to know the entire system well enough to teach it to everyone else and be able to run the game. I think there's lots of room for improvement.

[Tyndmyr]

[*]Gamers are "less likely [to be] interested in reading the rules of the game before playing. I'm not just talking about younger players now, but anybody. We've been working to adapt to that, the changing expectations of the new gamer." ~Andy Collins, frequent contributor to 3.5 and 4E PHB

I disagree heartily on Andy about this. People have ALWAYS played without really reading through all the rules. A substantial subset of the RPing community has always relied fairly heavily on the DM/more experienced players to give them the rules instead of reading them themselves. Some things, like the belief that skills can be critically successful/failed are sufficiently widespread that it's quite clear that close reading is not something we all do.

That said, people who play RPGs tend to be more literately inclined than the average gamer. So...it's likely that at least someone in the group will gleefully read the book from cover to cover, and relay interesting bits to the rest of the folks.

It annoys me endlessly when people go around saying 4e's adoption of videogame mechanics was either a good thing or a bad thing.

It's not a thing.

You can't make 4e more like video games in a generalized way. You *can* rip specific ideas from video games that end up making your RPG either a more or less compelling experience.

Well, you can. Making a trend of doing this IS videogamification. The designers explicitly stated this was their intent. So...yeah, they adopted videogame style mechanics by copying things from video games. Good, bad...that's rather more subjective, but the fact that it's a thing really isn't.

[erikun]

Yet the GM has to know the entire system well enough to teach it to everyone else and be able to run the game. I think there's lots of room for improvement.

Oh, that's definitely true. And there were certainly people who were interested in reading through all the rules before starting their first game; I was someone who poured over the core AD&D 2nd ed books even before my first game.

However, I've noticed that a lot of people on this board specifically seem to assume that a large number of books should be available by default. Tome of Battle, Magic of Incarnum, five or six different Complete books, and any time it comes up there is mention of using one or two additional Monster Manuals. Thats a dozen different books, counting the core three, and an incredible amount of reading for anyone new to the hobby - compared to that, needing three PHBs, two MMs and a DMG for fourth edition is practically system-lite.

I'm not quite sure what you are referencing with room for improvement, though. If you mean D&D 4e's production methods, then yeah, I would have to agree with you. It seems like WotC tripped up a lot on making 4e. If you mean keeping the system small and easy to read through... I'm not sure that I would agree. Lite systems are very nice and have their place, but D&D was never really a lite system, and cutting it down into one would probably change it far more than a lot of people would like.

[Tyndmyr]

However, I've noticed that a lot of people on this board specifically seem to assume that a large number of books should be available by default. Tome of Battle, Magic of Incarnum, five or six different Complete books, and any time it comes up there is mention of using one or two additional Monster Manuals. Thats a dozen different books, counting the core three, and an incredible amount of reading for anyone new to the hobby - compared to that, needing three PHBs, two MMs and a DMG for fourth edition is practically system-lite.

That's a preference. Core-only games are...not uncommon at large. Sure, I have and allow almost everything from literally every book, and MANY people have additional books, but core-only is quite doable, if not ideal. The SRD is often mentioned as a good way for new players to get into the hobby.

[Yora]

However, I've noticed that a lot of people on this board specifically seem to assume that a large number of books should be available by default. Tome of Battle, Magic of Incarnum, five or six different Complete books, and any time it comes up there is mention of using one or two additional Monster Manuals. Thats a dozen different books, counting the core three, and an incredible amount of reading for anyone new to the hobby - compared to that, needing three PHBs, two MMs and a DMG for fourth edition is practically system-lite.

That's because people who regularly frequent a forum for a 12 year old game are not a representtive sample of all players. These are the pepople who spend a lot of time and effort into learning about everything the game has to offer.
This isn't a forum to talk about family cars for commuters, this is formula 1 level. So it's no supriese that so many replies are based on a very high level of optimization. Though personally, I think such a style of playing is common for 5 to 10% of all groups at the most.

[Jerthanis]

This isn't a forum to talk about family cars for commuters, this is formula 1 level. So it's no supriese that so many replies are based on a very high level of optimization. Though personally, I think such a style of playing is common for 5 to 10% of all groups at the most.

And I don't think even a majority of the posters here really play with everything at all times, it's just that when someone asks, "I want to do X" they'll get a half dozen different suggestions and angles to come at X because each poster wants to add something to the discussion.

It's not like in order to play a knight who admixes extra-normal powers to augment his normal fighting prowess requires a Warblade/Hexblade/Magic of Incarnum/Weapon of Legacy/Races of the Dragon build... you could do it as a Paladin 20, but people are going to suggest the more complex one because the obvious are already there for the person to take, and reading the bibliography of these build design documents will lead you in the right direction in your research.

[Endarire]

I echo the sentiments of "Make it approachable!"

3.x and Pathfinder aren't.

Just making your first character on your own is a daunting task, with no great indication of how things truly work. Dodge and Weapon Focus may seem more useful than they are just because the new player doesn't understand the importance of initiative.

The first time I read the PHB classes, I made note of which classes got the most stuff on their tables. The Druid and Monk were close, but the Druid won because he had spells.

What, then, does a player new to 3.x need to know about the rules to make a character? What else should he know?

[Yora]

Pathfinder recently got the Beginners Box, which I think was meant to do that. I have no idea how, but most reviews seem to have lots of praise for it.

[Psyren]

We've been discussing this whole series in the 5e thread.

However, I've noticed that a lot of people on this board specifically seem to assume that a large number of books should be available by default. Tome of Battle, Magic of Incarnum, five or six different Complete books, and any time it comes up there is mention of using one or two additional Monster Manuals. Thats a dozen different books, counting the core three, and an incredible amount of reading for anyone new to the hobby - compared to that, needing three PHBs, two MMs and a DMG for fourth edition is practically system-lite.

We don't "assume" that you have them. We ask. Every single "help me build X" thread I've seen that doesn't specify available sources has someone ask "what books are available?"

And like it or not, it's fair for us to ask that question. WotC printed those books because they wanted them to be available at your table. And the more books you have access to, the better your options are for realizing a particular concept with a minimum of homebrew.