RangerFlecha wrote:I just had a look to this interview with Mike Mearls and Rich Baker:http://www.neuroglyphgames.com/essentia ... rich-bakerThe people of WotC at the interview put tons of boring uninteresting verbiage to justify themselves... a sign that even they don't know what this new product is useful for, or worse, they know is useful for nothing, besides redundant. So yes, maybe this is just another marketing campaign to sell people what they already have, twice.Besides, the boxed set comes with something additional: power cards. So they're using it to introduce another redundant element to the game that will be sold, I predict, in random packs, like those of the new Gamma World. Another crappy unnecesary thingy for the game, so they can get more unwinned money. Seems they learned a lesson after Fantasy Flight did it in advance with the new edition of Warhammer Fantasy rpg.
Mike Mearls wrote:Mike: So you look at the Fighter… and if you want to play a Fighter, you can play a Knight or a Slayer. And you could say to a beginner: ‘do you want to be a tough warrior, who wears heavy armor and protects your friends, or do you want to play a warrior with a huge axe or a sword, and can cleave through dozens of kobolds at a time?' And for a beginning player that doesn't know anything about the game, they can tell you which one appeals to them.
I had to admit that I had already witnessed the charm of the "Red Box" hard at work at this year's GenCon. On Thursday, I had spent a few hours in the Sagamore Ballroom, where all the D&D events were being played, and watched a whole family of four playing D&D Essentials at the "Learn to Play D&D" tables, and having a great time.
MetamorphosisSigma wrote:What if I want to play an effete aristocratic dandy who has more money than martial prowess, full of bluster but secretly afraid of engaging in combat, and see where that takes me over the course of a level or two...? No, thought not .
MetamorphosisSigma wrote:EDITed to increase sarcasm.
Keith the Thief wrote:A family of four playing D&D, in 2010? Are they saying Essentials is on the verge of being a mainstream game?
I cannot find anybody in middle or high school who plays D&D. I have asked parents at soccer games, and at cocktail parties.The question is met with blank stares or sneers.
College students never mention it, yet talk about Force Unleashed with abandon. In the presence of women.Good looking women.
Maybe my area of the country is an outlier. Maybe D&D has caught on again in the NE, Midwest, out on the West Coast...?I hope so, but I'm very skeptical.
MetamorphosisSigma wrote:Yes, that's what they're saying, or trying to say. After all, it WAS a mainstream game back in '83 when the old red box came out. However, undoubtedly the family of four was hired just to be seen by this mercenary (or at least very easily swayed) blogger.
Pipswich wrote:Mobile has plenty of younger gamers. Almost all the bookstore clerks at Books a Million and Barnes and Noble, for instance. And, many of the kids at the Math Science magnet school. Quite a few dad's are running groups, etc. I think one local high school teacher or principle did a thesis or dissertation on the positive effects of role playing on social development of talented and gifted children. At the flea market last month, I bought a stack of 3.5 edition stuff from a 60+ man who said he got into fantasy about ten years ago because he could play EQ, DDO and related games with his grandkids online. He then started buying d&d fiction and rpg's, etc. Nothing is dying off, as best I can tell. It's simply just as marginalized by mainstream pursuits as ever. D&D had a mainstream point in time, long ago, but clearly has more staying power than pet rocks or some of the other phenomenal items of the era. Maybe, they erred in trying to provide a die rolled answer for every possibility. But, the dm has to make the story work.
Pipswich wrote:Maybe, they erred in trying to provide a die rolled answer for every possibility. But, the dm has to make the story work.
ExTSR wrote:(Cloning a comment I made on Piazza...)I don't care for 4e. To me it's like the difference between a yummy heavy-set woman (3.5) and those last few pounds that turn her into a distasteful fatty with too much makeup.And I'm afraid I'm starting to like RS Conley.
MetamorphosisSigma wrote:I'm actually not that big into "role" playing as such (I've always preferred puzzle-based dungeon delving sprinkled with hack-n-slash for emphasis), but for me at least this is exactly the problem with 3x-onward D&D--there's way too much reliance on mechanical resolution. In my humble unstudied opinion, and I gather this coincides roughly with the OSR attitude, anything that can be adjudicated without resort to dice ought to be. This most definitely includes diplomacy, fast-talking, intimidation, "social" skills in general. The Assignment of a "skill" to every possible action, in effect operationalizing everything that a character can try to do, moves the game toward something that might as well be played on a computer, with a computer as the referee.
ExTSR wrote:(Cloning a comment I made on Piazza...)I don't care for 4e. To me it's like the difference between a yummy heavy-set woman (3.5) and those last few pounds that turn her into a distasteful fatty with too much makeup.
Badmike wrote:I just look at it as more cushin' for the pushin', Frank!Mike B.
