Lair Assault (And Haters)
Par for the course, haters are going to hate.
Apparently this information is being levied as--to put it loosely--evidence that 4th Edition is for min-maxers. Weren't haters already proclaiming this before 4th Edition was even released? In his favor, he does fall back on the MMO comparison, which is to say he brings nothing new to the table that wasn't already argued to death three years ago. I guess it was alright to build a character with little to no thought given to character development "back in the day", but later editions are expected to enforce this otherwise traditionally optional and vague creation step. I would point out that there are pages to developing a character's personality and motivations in Player's Handbook (and other books and articles), but he wraps up the post by stating that he is not willing to entertain anyone's comments that disagrees with him. That's fine, he sounds like the kind of guy that would just run off with the goalposts anyway.
I did find it funny that he "predicted" that content from the cancelled line of D&D books would be used in Fortune Cards. The fact that he can actually sit there and congratulate himself tells me that he has both never used (or even looked at Fortune Cards), and that his predictions are as accurate as Harold Camping's. Seriously, nothing on any of the cards I own features material that looks like it came from a class or magic item, and none of them have advice or instructions on character-building. This is not exactly rocket science; glancing over a few cards would suffice.
Classic grognard trolling. He does not like the new game, and so irrationally jumps on everything he can and tries to shove it in your face as "proof" that the new game is a board game/skirmish game/MMO-on-paper, and that whatever edition he happens to play is the real deal. I remember reading the OD&D books a year or two ago; there wasn't any rules for towns or social interaction of any kind, and you just kind of started in front of the dungeon. Presumably if you died, you rolled up a new character and ran in again. Sounds like digital game re-spawnage to me.
Edit: The best analogy that I can find for their bat-shit logic is that because WotC creates an optional, minor program to cater to a crowd that may want to engage in hardcore character optimization from time to time, that D&D is now a game for people that want to engage in hardcore character optimization. If they add in optional cards that you can choose to use, or not, it is now a card game? WotC has not changed the rules or removed any content. It is not unreasonable to think that people who play D&D play other games, and might enjoy varying styles of play.
Going off this (bat-shit) logic, why wasn't 2nd Edition labeled a card game when they made the Blood War card game, or Spellfire?
Misery loves company right? As far as why Blood War did not label 2e as a carde game is because there was no internet. I think this instaneous information has created a quick outlet for trolls. I wonder if this guys still lives in mommys basement? Of course that makes me just as bad as him :) The whole Lair Assault is the veterans version of Encounters. I think it will be intresting to see how it really is and I look foward to trying it out as player or DM.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the sentiment of your post - hating isn't cool. I put up a post today along the same lines.
ReplyDeleteI will say, though, that the tone of this post starts to sound like hating the haters - which is still hate. Using terms like "trolling" and "bat-shit logic" when referring to another post... well, I worry that the hate will just keep on rolling.
I agree with your sentiment, but I worry about some of the specific words.
You need the haters gonna hate gif in this. Yea. Hating sucks.
ReplyDelete@Wally: I think that Lair Assault simply caters to an audience that has been around at LEAST since OD&D. As I said, not everyone only plays games one way: sometimes players want to shake things up and try something new. My group largely plays games with overarching plots, but having played LA Noire I'm thinking of starting up a mystery-oriented Eberron campaign.
ReplyDelete@OnlineDM: Yeah there's snark, but then reading snarky stuff gets me in a snarky mood. It isn't that the guy hates 4E that bothers me; it is the flimsy and tenuous reasoning that he comes up with to try and justify and prove his point.
@Shinobi: Not a bad idea. :-)
onlinedm, textbook concern troll. Or tone troll. I always get those two mixed up.
ReplyDeleteI read the blog in question because he does post some interesting stuff from time to time, but... ugh. This latest was pretty nuts.
Yeah, classic edition-troll. He does have a point when he says that the Lair Assault is a skirmish game. However, just because you can play 4e as a skirmish game, doesn't mean that every 4e game is a skirmish. 3rd edition worked pretty well in skirmish style play, too!
ReplyDeleteDirect quote:
ReplyDeleteNot "character development". And there will be "tactical puzzles" (as in "how do I get my figure 7 squares away from the creature in the pool, and still stay within 9 squares of the leader on the ledge in order to use my super-duper daily power on him?") rather than actual puzzles and problem-solving.
Response: I like how the guy creates a completely nonsensical distinction between 'actual puzzles and problem solving' and a mechanical description of the former.
And by like, I mean I think he's ridiculous. That's like saying the mechanical repositioning of 3x3 colored squares on 6 surfaces on a 3 dimensional axis isn't a puzzle or problem solving even if it's called "Rubik's Cube" and is widely acknowledged as one of the most complex puzzles in the world.
But hey, if expressing things in mathematical terms is automatically 'min-max' then God, let's stop using science to min-max our world, cause that's soooo munchkin of humanity.
@mygirlfriendisadm your response started reasonable, and went too far. Hyperbole works to a point.
ReplyDelete@Moranar: I seriously have no idea what I was on when I wrote the last paragraph.
ReplyDelete