What 4e Needs Is Greywulf
Posted: April 8, 2009 Filed under: D&D 4e, News, RPG 35 Comments »This is a weird post, as you can see. It will also be a controversial post. Except maybe for Greywulf. I’m sure he’ll be happy.
I’ve been asked if there was anything that led to the creation of my last post, the one about breaking 4e. A lot of people saw the primal fury and indignation behind the oh so subtle humor there, and thought maybe a certain forum, or a certain post, had set me off. Why yes, loads of things had set me off by then.
*Warning, the following is apparently an attack on all 4e players, because I hate them just like I hate 4e. Old SkOOL 4everz*
Generally, I’ve become very disappointed with 4e players on forums to the point that I no longer really go to any forums except to troll or whore links out. And I fear that the wider 4e gaming hobby is becoming tainted with these virulent ideas, though thankfully the blogosphere is a last bastion in a sea of shit.
I said it on my twitter, I think they’re a bunch of pussies and they constitute an opinion which has bothered me, and which bothers others I know, and which likely bothers the wider D&D hobby as a whole. Hell, the wider RPG hobby as a whole.
It feels like most 4e players hate homebrew, hate imagination, hate change. They hate when others have fun unless the fun is exactly the same as theirs, which is exactly the same as it says on the book. They’re not rules lawyers, they’re the rules supreme court, and they always vote for orthodoxy. They’ve been given a system that promised to be balanced, oh lord balance, and they treat it like a brittle pearl. Nobody touch, it’s bad to do so. You’ll make Jesus angry.
While some 4e experiments seemed silly to me at the time, like Greywulf’s old school 4e, now I see it differently. I think we need more Greywulf. We NEED things like that. We need weird homebrew, we need houserules, we need variants, we need new adventures, less standard formats and more wild stretches of the imagination. Because it’s like most 4e players I meet are becoming like these colossal twats who are on forums telling other people not to be imaginative or daring. Because it’ll break the game. Oh lord breaking the game! Armaggedon is nigh, black horses will come down from the sky wielding spears of Diabetes.
Quick, everybody play H1 through to E3, it’s gaming the way God intended it.
I have contributed to this myself, and seeing others do it I regret having joined in.
Does 4e need houserules? No, god damn, I’m not saying that.
What I’m saying is that if somebody makes a houserule, or plays a variant, fucking let them have fun. I don’t care when somebody plays by the book. I care when that is thrown as an excuse to stifle creativity.
This won’t do anything because forums are full of shit, and I’m the last person to be offering anybody advice given the shallow pool of a reputation I have, but god damn this annoys me. My generally bad mood has only gotten worse lately. Somebody make a forum that isn’t full of twats, please.
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Can I gladly point you to here?
http://chattydm.net/forums/index.php
Somebody make a forum that isn’t full of twats, please
Didn’t you already do this?
You are hanging out on some shitty forums, my friend. I certainly don’t think ‘most’ 4e players are like they, just that 4e players that post on the big forums have been rather defensive because they are constantly under attack from the haters for daring to play and enjoy 4e in the first place. People who’ve never played it or read it spend hours daily trashing it and trying to pick apart the system from internet conjecture and misinformation. It’s quite wearisome. I’ve houseruled a couple of things so far and will many more as I go. I’m working on an XP system now, which I do with about every edition, I just have my own needs there that the standard systems don’t quite fit.
As for forums, I’ll also pimp the one where I spend all my time –
DnD Adventure
Small, but not too small friendly community that has been together since about 2001. A series of technical problems with the shitty Ikonboard led to the entire database being corrupted and we had to reboot the forum with new software in January and everyone had to reregister and start fresh.
More of me? Oh lordy. That’s it. I’m blushing now
Seriously though, you’re absolutely right. Not about 4e needing more of me, oh no. That would never do. I mean about imagination and building a bigger box. Question the rules because they’re not the rules – you are. Bend ‘em, tweak ‘em, shine the spotlight on certain things (I’ve got one scenario in mind entirely based upon the Cleric’s Lance of Faith power) and cross-genres like a genre-crossing mad thing. Maybe your orcs are 1960s-style Indians from the dodgy Westerns of your childhood, Gnolls are sinister shadowy figures who haunt the local docks and Beholders are all Avatars of Blind Io, the God with a Thousand Eyes. All, incidentally, ideas I’ve used in the past.
D&D is, despite all appearances to the contrary, first and foremost a game of imagination. YOUR imagination.
Oh, and the Microlite20 forums are pretty good, I hear
Really, it’s good advice for any game. You don’t have to have a *need* to house rule and tinker. That’s half the reason I game!
Maybe you should broaden your selection before drawing statistics. There are a LOT of converging demographics in 4e. You’ve got organized play people (that’s where you’ll find the most resistance to home-brew). Then there are the TCG crossover players. I don’t want to lump them in with the MMO folks, but both groups are generally looking for a break from the codified MMO & TCG style games. 4e plays in a way similar enough that those folks “get it”. The 3e migrants who chose not to go Pathfinder. They generally like custom elements. Then oddly, there is a resurgence of 2e players who skipped 3.x entirely. I’ve talked to a number of these people who are trickling back to D&D out of nostalgia, attracted primarily by the streamlined rules.
I haven’t done a study on this (if that’s even practical), so like you, all I have is an opinion. But I’d say the majority of 4e players want to first understand the rules, then diverge from them (to some degree) in a home game setting. Most people rightly fear custom game elements for organized play however.
So maybe you’re on the wrong forums, maybe your selection of players is skewed one way, or maybe your glass is half-empty.
Of course I could be wrong, but then again I’m an admin for Living Forgotten Realms who’s also running a home-brew campaign in the City of the Invincible Overlord using 1e, 2e and 3e sources and the 4e rule set. Oh, and I play in a Pathfinder campaign. So what category am I in?
See the thing I love about 4e is how open it is to interpretation. Flavor is widely left up to the gaming group, for example.
But, I can see what you mean by a lot of players being adverse to homebrew to some extent. RAW raising its head again? I think in large part this may have to do with the whole (and I hate this term) “Edition Wars” that raged on forums across the internet. Players were put into situations (willingly, though they’d deny it) where they had to defend their choice of edition to play. I am sure from this spawned a concept that muddying up the game with homebrew rules concedes some measure of defeat in the face of the 3.5ers who, doubtless, are less sensitive to the concept of homebrew rules being a natural part of their edition as they had a few years to tinker with it and accept that tinkering.
Meh.
?
I say we all build our own box.
There was a great quote – Voltaire I think? Something like, “In my life’s experiences, I have found most men to be good for little more than turning perfectly good food into shit.”
I say this applies here. While the lowest common denominator in ANY segment of the ppulation are fun to poke with sticks and such, don’t let your general disillusionment with those ‘tards color your perceptions of the rest of us
And yeah, always being on the defensive for having fun with a game does get old.
@Questing: Thank you, soul-brotha.
@Helepolis: I am archdictator of a small country lacking twats, yes.
@Thas: Giant In The Playground and RPGNet are admittedly extremely shitty. ENWorld has a haven within their 4e Homebrew section, thankfully. However, I’m not talking about one forum. I’m talking about forums. You have these people everywhere, and they know who they are. They just happen to proliferate better in certain areas.
I’m sounding a little like RPGPundit on the Swine, but I’ll take that risk.
@Greywulf: I knew you’d like it.
@Mike: I edited your name because I don’t think you need your title waved around in two places in the same comment, it kind of bugs me. As well, organized play is an element I rarely consider, mostly because of its arcane and regulated nature. I certainly don’t cover it on this blog. But thank you for stopping by, I will consider developing a flowchart and a few advanced 3D graphics and submitting my theory to a journal.
@Last: Perhaps
@Kaeos: !
@Donny: Definitely.
Somethings wrong with the comments section, I’ve been trying to pimp my blog out, I think it has something to do with the links posted. well if you click on my name my blog has a few house rules that we’ve been using in our 4e sandbox game. I’m working on more but the ones up are either playtested, or going to be playtested at our next session. We also have a campaign site up on obsidian portal that can be found on the blog.
I’m not really sure I understand your point. Some people want to enjoy DnD as a board game. Some people want to play a game of nearly pure imagination. I agree with you on the concept of not pushing one views or gaming styles on others, but it seems like you are against game balance, and are saying that without house rules, you’re doing it wrong. I think the point is to make it less intimidating to newer players, more accessible. 4th Edition is the Wii version of DnD. If your group wants to change something, and agrees on it, change it. Have fun. That’s the point.
About the internet forums being filled with ne’er-do-wells:
“Someone is wrong on the Internet”
Kaeos: I think you may have used a word that is on my spam blacklist somewhere, thus your posts all got caught in my spam filter. My spam filter is very nazi (it has to be, because I’m swarmed with morons) but I make an effort to rescue posts from there.
TheTrev: If you think I’m against game balance, you really did miss the point of the post. I urge you to read it again. Because, you do definitely agree with me, you just don’t know it yet it seems. The point IS not pushing your views on anybody. I do this by pushing my views on everybody. Ain’t it poetic.
The best counter to one-true-wayism is to ‘brew.
Living Forgotten Realms at least, is not arcane. There are minimal rules to encourage fairness. Essentially the same kind of rules you’d come up with if you shared any campaign between multiple DMs. You need to standards for that, or rewards and expectations will bout out of balance. The adventures have to be vetted by WotC, but DMs are free to make changes and run the adventures however they want. Otherwise it plays exactly like any other 4e.
I’d never call it a replacement for a home game, but LFR is definitely very easy to play (just show up with a character). And like any D&D, the quality is entirely dependent on the players and DM.
In my initial reply I was only suggesting that 4e players don’t “hate homebrew, hate imagination, hate change”. I think that’s more related to a type of player, rather than an edition of the game. But I was assuming that your post was a serious response to a real issue. As that, your post is uninformed. But as an angry biased rant, it works exceptionally well.
I know, it’s my specialty. Some would say it’s a gift.
But yeah, if you’re a nimrod, I suppose my post would seem extreme to you and a complete attack on all players of 4e…I wonder why Zach, Greywulf, and the others got it!
Is there any point in time in which you’ve been content, Mr. Salazar?
Anonymous.
The day was August 27th, 1999–
No. There isn’t.
Lord, butthurt RPGA players.
Keep on doing it for the lulz Wyatt. Soon you will be the James Raggi of the new school.
“Soon you will be the James Raggi of the new school.”
…
You know, maybe I SHOULD rethink things…
Yup, being referred to as the James Raggi of anything is a backhanded compliment at best. I love reading his stuff, but mostly in a “lets see how bugfuck this guy can actually go” sort of way.
I’m a little boggled by why ANY rpg’ed would be against homebrewing, house-ruling or customization. That’s the cool thing about RPG’s – you can tweak to your heart’s content. I’ve been staying off the forums since the early days of 4e, though – my brain hasn’t really recovered from that trauma yet.
“I’m a little boggled by why ANY rpg’ed would be against homebrewing, house-ruling or customization.”
From reading the comments here, one thing I hadn’t put into consideration (mostly because the notion is utterly ridiculous to me) is the APPARENTLY touchy area between “want to houserule” and “need to houserule” due to the Edition Wars.
Personally, since 4e came out, I’ve been houseruling, because I rarely play my games straight. When I started 3.5, I was already thinking “man, I want to do this and that” without the rules to support it. It’s the same way in other RPGs. When Cthulhutech came out, I set out to make rules for playing Dhohanoids, because you couldn’t with the base system (though you’ll be able to in later books). When I got Maid: RPG, I made a custom table of random events for play.
I don’t do it because the game needs it, I do it because it’s fun.
I guess when you’re a rabid 4e zealot fighting wild 3eaboos showing any hint that the core game can’t handle hookers and booze like the old game is a sign of weakness.
Or maybe it’s the RPGA’s fault. They’re always an easy target.
> I’m a little boggled by why ANY rpg’ed would be against homebrewing, house-ruling or customization.
I know for those who see D&D through organized play (RPGA), custom anything is a threat to fragile game balance. Typical D&D campaigns have one DM (or a rotation), and that DM acting as a “judge” can veto anything that makes any one PC too powerful. There’s no way to verify open custom rules in a Worldwide campaign like LFR, and you might even have one DM giving something to a PC, and the next taking it away.
Unfortunately some people get locked into this view that EVERYTHING needs to be by the book. Deviation becomes a slippery slope into chaos. The truth is that a smart player can exploit and break 4e…”by the book” if that is his prerogative. But I’d say this is the minority of players.
Most RPGA people either travel and play RPGA because it’s the only way they can play (not enough players in-town for a game), or they play in addition to a home game.
Honestly, RPGA is Hercules the Legendary Journeys to your home game Lord of the Rings Trilogy. But if you enjoy that, you enjoy it for what it is.
I suppose the game balance does become infinitely more fragile in the RPGA, which has regulations against “borrowing” treasure from another player for more than a session.
> I suppose the game balance does become infinitely more fragile in the RGPA, which has regulations against “borrowing” treasure from another player for more than a session.
In the way-back days of Living City (RPGA) characters could give each other items, and magic items had certificates. It led to people selling item certs for real money, and passing high-level items down to low-level characters.
There’s been a real effort to remove the meta-rules from RPGA events, but some rules are required or the whole thing becomes a farce.
That’s rather frightening. Like selling WoW gold.
I believe I came down a bit hard on you Mr. Lee, thank you for staying around and being a good sport in spite of everything.
> I believe I came down a bit hard on you Mr. Lee, thank you for staying around and being a good sport in spite of everything.
No worries. I knew I was walking into live fire when I first posted.
Now that we’re being nice to each-other, this reply thread is suddenly a lot less interesting.
I like it this way.
RPGA is people too.
OK, so even if you don’t like RPGA/organized play. Even if you think the adventures are canned (actually some really good quality adventures in LFR specifically), and the patrons are low-bred gamers. You can STILL take advantage of the RPGA, and they are happy to serve you!
Join the RPGA so you can log in and order events. -Stay with me here. Then order and download, LFR adventures and other RPGA events. The RPGA is completely free. The adventures and all content is completely free.
Now use the LFR adventures for ideas, or even run modified versions of the adventures and report that you’ve run/played the adventures.
If the same players are going to be playing in a group together, you can use whatever rules you want to run the adventures. If the players want to take characters to a convention or public game-day, they will have to conform to the LFR guidelines, but this is not likely the case, so you can play LFR however you want behind closed doors.
Twice a year rewards are mailed out. Players get cards that can be used in LFR games (little situational bonuses), and possibly minis. DM rewards are changing. In June if you’ve run five adventures you get exclusive Dungeon Tiles Ships and a D&D binder. Those are likely rewards.
And you can report D&D home games for RPGA rewards points too.
RPGA is good people.
It seems to me that 4E has lead to a polarization of most D&D players (between 3.5/PF and 4E) and groups on either side of the line aren’t really willing/able to listen to the others’ viewpoints. This occurs both in the blogosphere and in the forums: You simply can’t express an opinion nowadays without someone shouting “Amen!” while someone else is telling you to “fuck off and die.” Nobody wants to be wrong about their choice after all – Cognitive dissonance probably has something to do with the phenomenon.
The “old school” movement isn’t nearly as close-minded, although many in the other two camps seem to think they are – the general perception seems to be that “old school” players are just stuck in the past & hate anything new which, I think most of them would tell you isn’t really the case; it’s just that they don’t really want/need every rule and part of the game & setting defined in black & white, mechanical terms. They’re also the most open to home-brew & house rules.
>>Unfortunately some people get locked into this view that EVERYTHING needs to be by the book. Deviation becomes a slippery slope into chaos. The truth is that a smart player can exploit and break 4e…”by the book” if that is his prerogative. But I’d say this is the minority of players.
It’s a large minority I think. I live on a small island and half of the players I meet are like this unfortunately…
>>This occurs both in the blogosphere and in the forums: You simply can’t express an opinion nowadays without someone shouting “Amen!” while someone else is telling you to “fuck off and die.”
And when you try to discuss things rationally on an even and unbiased level you get ignored. The reason is a simple one I think and it’s because most people won’t bother to comment unless it’s to either bitch, cry or say fuck yea!
>> The “old school” movement isn’t nearly as close-minded, although many in the other two camps seem to think they are
I think the irony of it all is that a lot of what is going on in the old school movement is going on in all other editions and games….
To be honest I’m sick of all the old school newschool 4etards bullshit. It’s at the point where I’m over sitting on the sidelines, nowadays if I read a post bitching and griping about bull shit I’ll say fuck it and take a side.
My side. The side with no labels and no bullshit. The side that says fuck all you whiners if I want to play 4e and use random tables and it gets your panties in a bunch fuck you. If I want to roll my ability scores down the line fuck you. If I want to not use save vs. die traps and give the players a fair chance and you’ve got a problem because it’s not hardcore enough then fuck you.
If you have to get the last word in and think that the obviously moronic point you made with your post about the SUPERIORITY of your chosen edition of the game is still right then fuck you. If you think that using old school rules in 4e makes me a grogtard fuck you.
But if you play to have fun, and frequent blogs and forums to learn more and spread knowledge, if you don’t get into half hour arguments over interpreting a rule, if you don’t shit on someone’s parade etc. etc. etc… then you’re okay with me.
I can do this for at least another hour or so but I’ve got to clean house for tonight’s game.
I hope this doesn’t hit the spam filter.
hm… can’t believe that didn’t hit the spam filter hahahahaaha
anyways, fuck labels, fuck edition wars, and fuck whiners, bitchers, exploiters, jerks, elitists and complainers.
Also note to wyatt: Those eff yous are NOT aimed at you.
“Players were put into situations (willingly, though they’d deny it) where they had to defend their choice of edition to play.”
It was never my choice to have every thread where we were discussing 4e invaded by Mongol hordes of 3.xers going “derpa derpa derpa ur playin an MMO! lol World of Borecraft suckitedition!”
I think you cast a bit too narrow a net here, Wyatt.
There are players who do the same in every edition, and in every RPG system I’ve ever encountered. They’re equally obnoxious no matter which system they use.
The 4e ones just seem prominent right now because it’s currently the most popular edition. And it’s made worse because 3.5 is still very popular, and the most rabidly vocal of each group feed on each other, basically.
@MJ: “The “old school” movement isn’t nearly as close-minded, although many in the other two camps seem to think they are” … no, I think the old school movement is more or less exactly as close-minded, proportionately to its numbers. It’s not a system problem, it’s a people problem.
The “old school movement,” I think, suffers from being a banner that’s been co-opted by any number of groups – the “old school” aren’t just people who were basement dwellers when Chainmail or whatever first came out, it’s also got people whose first rpg was 3.5e and think that Paizo’s Pathfinder is the pure, legitimate successor to D&D while 4e is the flawed, monstrous clone from some science fiction horror story.
I mean, I think there’s more jerks in the “old school movement” because it’s an easy flag for the complete utter fucking morons to latch onto, which paints all of the guys who’re just tooling around with stuff and having a good time and not being any more hostile than “no thanks, friend, newer editions just aren’t my cup of tea, but by all means enjoy!”