Opportunity Actions: Woot! Really? No, Really…

Looking at woot.com today for last-minute deals (didn’t really find any I could use, in case you’re curious), I found this little gem written by Randall Cleveland. Head over there if you like, but I’ll tell you: It’s a point-by-point breakdown comparing 4th Edition D&D to The Phantom Menace, and not exactly a glowing review of either. I am going to go through this, piece by piece, as I see the arguments to be paper-thin, and the logic grossly flawed. It should be noted that the writer seems to have little experience with D&D, and even less experience with 4th Edition. His opinion seems to be informed by a third party that has a huge anti-4E bias. It is also worth noting that I like 4th Edition (though I’m not an apologist), and (forgive me) I also liked The Phantom Menace more than most (though, again, by no means am I an apologist.) I have also played every edition of D&D since 1986.

*NOTE: I am leaving the criticisms of The Phantom Menace out of this post. That is a different debate, and does not serve my purposes here.

Argument #1

The whole thing is just a stupid ad for toys!

Quote:

• If you’re the type of DM or player who prefers to use miniatures, get ready for some smaller-in-scope campaigns. Thanks to the “innovative” and “not-at-all-a-screwjob-on-our-customers” strategy of packing miniatures randomly you’re going to need about 10 boxes to get the four skeletons you need for that dungeon crawl. Oh, the big final battle calls for NINE skeletons? Start saving now…

Minis. That’s what sucks about 4th Edition? Minis have been around since before D&D. You don’t need to use “official” minis to have an enjoyable D&D experience. You can use coins, fold-ups, non-randomized minis from other manufacturers, or even steal pieces from things like Candyland if you’re so inclined. Hell, in some cases, you don’t need minis AT ALL.

This point doesn’t even line up to the point that The Phantom Menace was a merchandising juggernaut. There was a Phantom Menace themed product in every department of every store throughout the country. Retailers were shoving so much STAR WARS down our throats that I swear I was crapping light saber beams for a month before the movie was even released. Conversely, I sometimes have to go on an extended search to find anything D&D related in a given store without the help of the Internet. I guess there is one thing, D&D merchandise has in common with Phantom Menace merchandise, though. Both are entirely optional.

Argument #2

It actually takes EFFORT to enjoy it.

Quote:

• Hey it’s time to make a character! Gone are the boring old days of “Thief, Mage, Elf, Warrior, Dwarf, Halfling, or Cleric.” Now you can be a Human-Elf Hybrid Warlock God Fragment Pact Breaker. Good luck keeping track of all those stats and bonuses, but at least you can use a computer to simplify things while you roll up your character’s stats! Oh, unless of course you don’t use Microsoft Silverlight.

Yes. Let us take pride in the days when Elf was a character class. One thing they’ve figured out over the years is that variety is good. If you want to be a “magic-type” in 4E, you can, and you’re given a bounty of ways to do that.

The example given isn’t even possible. A so-called “Human-Elf Hybrid” is more accurately called a Half-Elf, which has been around for as long as I can remember, unless you were playing the oh-so-limited Basic D&D, in which race and class were the same thing (see above). “Warlock” is a basic class, nothing spectacular there. “God Fragment” is a Paragon Path, which, when describing your character, either takes precedence over the term Warlock, or can be simply omitted as being under the umbrella of Warlock. “Pact Breaker”, to be perfectly frank, doesn’t even exist, so far as I know, at least not for a God Fragment Warlock. So, you’re left with a Half-Elf God Fragment Warlock, not nearly as complex. Furthermore, a character doesn’t even take on a Paragon Path until level 11, by which point one should have a reasonable grasp of the ins and outs of character design. As a result of that little tidbit, you can start the game with a Half-Elf Warlock, and the only additional decision you have to make, assuming you’re interested in playing a God Fragment down the road, is to choose the Vestige Pact.

The use of computers to aid in character building is also mentioned. We live in a computer-driven age. D&D has decided to adapt. That’s a good thing. The sideways talk of Silverlight is ridiculous. It’s an empty, meaningless argument since most of us are using Silverlight anyway. Unless a report surfaces that shows Silverlight to cause leprosy, there’s no need to even bring it up. In fact, using Silverlight instead of a downloadable Windows-only app has reduced the effective effort required to play D&D.

None of this speaks to the point that it takes effort to enjoy D&D. 4th Edition is the easiest edition so far to pick up and run with, and, with the emergence of Essentials, it’s even easier and more accessible.

Argument #3

Lots of everything, but nothing cool.

Quote:

• 55 Player Classes, 3,000 feats, 7,400 powers, 8,800 magic items. No Erol Otus.

This seems a bit absurd to me. We have many classes, feats, powers, etc., but no art by a guy that did a lot of art for previous editions. This is a reason to dislike the current edition of D&D? As I remember, there was no order to destroy every piece of fantasy art by Erol Otus when 4th Edition was announced. If that is something you need, look the guy up! His stuff is still out there. I don’t think it’s really the best art there is (give me a Vallejo or a Frazetta any day), but unless it’s buried with Jimmy Hoffa, you can find it.

Argument #4

They completely destroyed the narrative established in the previous incarnations!

Quote:

• Healing surges.

I don’t understand how this ‘destroys the narrative.’  There’s nothing narrative about healing surges. If anything, this once again speaks to the writer’s lack of experience/familiarity. He states earlier on that he was not a fan of his character dying so frequently. Healing Surges are an attempt to fix that problem, and they work.

In a photo caption, the writer says, “My Elf is actually the guy from Die Hard, so he’s healed up from that battle axe wound now.” Again, inexperience seems preferable to actually reading anything. To be technical for a moment, a battle axe by itself can do upwards of 10 damage, while even an elf fighter (the toughest class) has a healing surge value of 8. This means that once per enounter (that’s the limit imposed by Second Wind) an elf fighter, who is likely to have taken more than one hit from a battle axe wielding opponent, can heal 8 damage. That won’t even recover one solid battle axe strike, nevermind granting the elf a Die Hard like rate of recovery.

Argument #5

Why is there so much awkward dialogue?

Quote:

• Have fun attempting to use your useless History skill in every single Skill Challenge.

Here’s another point where the evidence doesn’t even address the argument. Using History in Skill Challenges has nothing to do with bad dialogue. If there’s a problem with dialogue in your D&D game, and you want to point to a skill, you might want to choose one that involves talking (the stuff of dialogue), instead of one that involves reading ancient texts (which is what a historian essentially does). More to the point, if there’s a dialogue issue in your D&D game, I hate to break it to you, but it’s YOUR FAULT. The good news is that it’s up to you whether or not to improve the situation, and if, after trying to fix it in a way that is fun for you, you STILL sound like a Cylon who’s low on batteries, it’s ok. You’re not likely to win an Oscar either way.

Argument #6

The character design is questionable at best.

Quote:

• There’s a 58-page forum thread on Wizards.com about whether Dragonborn females have breasts.

Once again, look at your argument before presenting evidence. This one gets close, but still misses the mark. The Dragonboobs issue has seen more play than Yankee Stadium sees before October (yes, I went there), but has little to nothing to do with character design. As above, if the design of your character is not to your liking, it’s YOUR FAULT.

Argument #7

The baddies are complete pushovers.

Quote:

• Powergamer Ranger characters can one-shot Orcus.

Finally, one I agree with. Yes, monster stats have been a sticking point for many. I’m not going to make excuses for that. This could actually have been the argument for it taking effort to make the game fun, if a challenging fight equals fun. That being said, there are a number of resources available online to improve the challenge of encounters. By the way, there hasn’t been an edition yet where a dedicated Optimizer/Power Gamer couldn’t figure out a way to wreck the toughest opponent at early levels.

Argument #8

There’s a myopic genius factor.

Quote:

• Mike Mearls gets the math right and creates a smooth-running, well-balanced game…just like Monopoly.

Here I take ‘myopic’, not the most clear (pardon the pun) word for its purpose, to mean narrow-minded. Monopoly, as we all know, was designed to play out the finer aspects of real estate trading. I met the parameters of the design very well. It is, however, unerringly dull. Unless you’re a cut-throat business type, and play the game on a track not suggested by the base rules, the game will end long before a winner is declared. D&D could, I guess, fall into the same bracket, except for the fact that encounters are rarely repetitive. Personally, I don’t see D&D as being so narrowly focused, in any edition, that you are not allowed to make the experience your own. To equate it with Monopoly, you’d have to boil it down so that everyone has to be a human fighter every time, they go into the same dungeon, and have the same encounter ten times over with the same group of goblins each time. Then, role-play goes out the window, and we’re stuck in a mechanical exercise.

Argument #9

Then there’s the lame follow-up to consider.

Quote:

• Hey, check out that new Gamma World game! Looks pretty cool, right? Can’t wait to buy endless booster packs just to get some basic character options. That’s normal, right? Every time you play a game you have to go spend hundreds of dollars on ancillary crap just to get the BASIC COMPONENTS NEEDED TO PLAY THE GAME?!

Gamma World is not a follow-up. It’s a separate game that uses most of the same rules. As anybody who owns or has at least seen a Gamma World set knows, the game involves a card mechanic. You get a stack of randomly assorted cards in the basic boxed set. After that, yes, there are booster packs available, but you don’t have to buy a single one. If you honestly are spending hundreds of dollars on something you don’t need to play the game (a point that negates the bolded text in the quote), as before, it’s YOUR FAULT. Still, if you want to point to a follow-up, look to the Castle Ravenloft board game, or the Ravenloft RPG due out next year (although it can also be used as a standalone, much like Gamma World). Regardless, much like The Phantom Menace, if you didn’t like it, you’re setting yourself up for failure if you shell out your hard-earned scratch for the ‘follow-up’.

Conclusion

• This has been a lengthy post. I must apologize for that. I just feel that this wasn’t something I could let sit. The main reason I posted it here is because I just couldn’t get my point across in the comments section and expect to be read.
• The funny thing is that my issues aren’t really with the writer not liking 4th Edition. The problem I have is that the arguments themselves are, at best, uninformed, and at worst, poorly supported by irrelevant evidence. That post read more like a blueprint for how to lose a debate than an honest examination of the issues.
• Randall Cleveland, this point is for you, personally. Try the game. You already own the books, as I gather, and you’ll only be helping yourself, for good or ill. If you like it, keep playing. If you don’t, at least your negative opinions will be informed. You might want to suggest to ‘Luke’, who it seems should have really written this post, that he play the game as well, since, if these are his observations, they’re way off base.

I hope someone over at Woot! reads this. I really do. I’m not asking for any action here. It would be absurd to suggest that consequences be dealt out for such a bad posting. I just hope that word gets back to Mr. Cleveland and his ghost written compatriot, and a better post can be written in the future.

Make sure you show up to a battle of wits armed, everyone, and, as always, watch your threatened squares.

IMAGE NOTES: The Image of Jake Lloyd as Anakin is from Star Wars Generation 1

UPDATE 1/13/11

The Infrequent DM Picked up on another juicy little tidbit I missed. Read his thoughts here.