What is the Deal with D&D Fandom?

[zafrod]

Okay, seriously. I have been playing D&D since Elf was a Class. I have played every version, and with the exception of that loathesome thing they called 4th Edition, I have worn the books down to nubs. I currently run two games of D&D 5E via Roll20 (which, if you're looking for real online P&P D&D, is where you should be looking). I effing love D&D.

That said, I find the level of D&D fan entitlement here not only mind-blowingly unecessary, but counterproductive. D&D is a game that people play in very different ways. From mindless dungeon hack-and-slash to high fantasy political roleplay, people get very different things out of it. Not every computer game that bears the name D&D is going to distill the wide-open P&P engine to exactly what you love most. And that's okay.

Honestly, this game FEELS like 5E hack-and-slash to me. It's obviously not a direct translation, bu the foundation is comfortably familiar. Proficiency bonuses, subclasses, scaling spells, simple characters early on becoming more complex as they level... It's not D&D 5E, but it's something similar boiled down to make for very fun fast-paced multiplayer combat. You may not agree. That's cool. It happens. But the anger over this is really problematic, and begins to explain why it's so damn hard to get people to develop D&D computer games.

Given the quality, breadth, immersion, innovation, and price-point of this game, there's just no way it deserves the heat it's getting here. If I were a developer considering working on a computer D&D iteration, the attitude here would turn me off in a second. Why bother trying to please people who can't be pleased? Angry, entitled grognards are not a very attractive demographic to target. As a fandom, we present ourselves as horrible people to make games for.

I hate feeling so isolated from an interest group I should be a part of. But D&D fandom has mystified this D&D fan for a long time, and a lot of the reaction to this game exemplifies why.

[zafrod]

Stranger の投稿を引用：

So lets make a Super Mario Hack&Slash. Some People may like it.

There are Super Mario RPGs. There are Super Mario racing games. There are Super Mario arena fighting games.

People DO like them. A lot. And the vast majority don't whine that it's "not REAL Mario."

I kinda envy the Mario fan base.

[Kus]

zafrod の投稿を引用：

Stranger の投稿を引用：

So lets make a Super Mario Hack&Slash. Some People may like it.

There are Super Mario RPGs. There are Super Mario racing games. There are Super Mario arena fighting games.

People DO like them. A lot. And the vast majority don't whine that it's "not REAL Mario."

I kinda envy the Mario fan base.

I knew that someone without soul will write exactly this. You clearly passed the word "originalty" Lets franchise dem all! Even Mario Kart feels more like "Mario" as this game does with D&D.

[robomagon]

Higgs125 の投稿を引用：

So funny reading the comments on here, the game is actually pretty good.

Glad you enjoy it.

[zafrod]

Stranger の投稿を引用：

I knew that someone without soul will write exactly this. You clearly past the word "originalty" Lets franchise dem all!

Terribly sorry to not disappoint. I'm happy Mario Kart exists. I love Smash Brothers. And I'm glad I can play video games that take place in a setting I feel connected to, like Forgotten Realms. Originality is great. But new riffs on existing IPs can be great, too. And, the thing is, some people actually play D&D as pure hack and slash, so it's not nearly as big a leap as you're making it out to be. Hell, up until AD&D 2nd edition, that was pretty much the point.

As others have pointed out, all computer adaptations alter the D&D ruleset to some extent. There's just an arbitrary, ambiguous extent to which it becomes TOO MUCH for some people.

[Kus]

zafrod の投稿を引用：

Statue の投稿を引用：

There's this thing called context, which you've disingenuously ignored here so that you can strawman to your heart's content (because, you know, nowhere does he say the thing you try to shove in his mouth about appreciating nothing but absolute perfection, and you know that too right?). I'll describe the context so your strawman looks like what it is. He responded with that line 'we deserve better' to a post suggesting that simply because we haven't had many tactical CRPGs during a period of time, we should be disproportionately grateful for anything called a tactical CPRG that comes along regardless of quality. Whereas no, he shouldn't, I shouldn't, you shouldn't, we shouldn't. There's no requirement to jettison our standards, and what we should do is judge any release in any genre on its actual merit. Doing that isn't entitled, despite you really wishing it was so you could call it that.

Secondly, you posit a ridiculous false dichotomy when you suggest that either we all have to be glad for fun but flawed D&D games or else our only other choice is no D&D games being made. That false dichotomy is as fallacious as your strawmanning before it.

Holy hell, I thought _I_ took myself seriously.

Good thing Mo had you around to tell me he didn't mean to say exactly what he said. "We deserve better" doesn't sound less entitled in context. It sounds entitled, in or out or in the murky middle-area of context you want to put it in. There's no strawman involved. "We deserve" is in no way synonymous with "we should expect". You can try to spin it that way, but that's not what he said, and in context, it's not what he seemed to imply. I see you've taken Rhetoric 101. You still only get a C+.

It's also not a "false dichotomy". It's an accurate representation of the state of D&D computer games. You might feel it doesn't need to be the case, but the fact is, in the past, what, ten years, you've had the choice of appreciating flawed games for what they are, or pounding bricks. That's just a statement of fact. I work in marketing. I recognize a miserable, unattractive demographic when I see it, and D&D fandom looks like that 98% of the time. Some days I feel really bad for WotC. They bought themselves a serious white elephant.

D&D is a very popular franchise. Under normal circumstances, it would be a highly desirable IP to license. There is a reason more games aren't made using the license. Sorry, there just is. I would NEVER recommend a client try to market directly to this fandom. It's an unwinnable battle, and in no way represents a likely sufficient return on investment.

But if i read your Stuff you would instantly ruin all games in exchange for some money. Empty Words to blow up your little thing called Ego.

Agree that some people frustrated about this game and some not. <- This is the whole point btw. You wont stop people to share frustration about 40 bucks that they invested in a (in their opinion) game that sucks or is just that what they saw like 100x times the past few month/Years.

[robomagon]

zafrod の投稿を引用：

Stranger の投稿を引用：

So lets make a Super Mario Hack&Slash. Some People may like it.

There are Super Mario RPGs. There are Super Mario racing games. There are Super Mario arena fighting games.

People DO like them. A lot. And the vast majority don't whine that it's "not REAL Mario."

I kinda envy the Mario fan base.

But they never claimed to be REAL Mario games. I absolutely love the Capcom arcade D&D games, but they never even tried or claimed to be REAL D&D. They just had D&D classes and were set in Mystara.

[Ragnarök]

zafrod の投稿を引用：

Stranger の投稿を引用：

I knew that someone without soul will write exactly this. You clearly past the word "originalty" Lets franchise dem all!

Terribly sorry to not disappoint. I'm happy Mario Kart exists. I love Smash Brothers. And I'm glad I can play video games that take place in a setting I feel connected to, like Forgotten Realms. Originality is great. But new riffs on existing IPs can be great, too. And, the thing is, some people actually play D&D as pure hack and slash, so it's not nearly as big a leap as you're making it out to be. Hell, up until AD&D 2nd edition, that was pretty much the point.

As others have pointed out, all computer adaptations alter the D&D ruleset to some extent. There's just an arbitrary, ambiguous extent to which it becomes TOO MUCH for some people.

Alter the rules, I can deal with. Bastadizing them is completely different. There is very little what so ever in this game that points to 5e. Sure the races are spot on. Classes have at least kept their names and a few minor aspects. But outside of that the D&D name was just taken so they could base it in the Forgotten Realms. Not really to use the 5e ruleset.

Maybe us D&D fans will get lucky and some Dev company will decide to actually make a D&D game that IS actually based off of 5e here in the future. I hear WotC is re-releasing Dragonlance in 2017.

[Kus]

robomagon の投稿を引用：

zafrod の投稿を引用：

There are Super Mario RPGs. There are Super Mario racing games. There are Super Mario arena fighting games.

People DO like them. A lot. And the vast majority don't whine that it's "not REAL Mario."

I kinda envy the Mario fan base.

But they never claimed to be REAL Mario games. I absolutely love the Capcom arcade D&D games, but they never even tried or claimed to be REAL D&D. They just had D&D classes and were set in Mystara.

Dont say that to loud. I guess he wont understand what that means. Dont even try ;->

[MoNKeZi]

robomagon の投稿を引用：

zafrod の投稿を引用：

There are Super Mario RPGs. There are Super Mario racing games. There are Super Mario arena fighting games.

People DO like them. A lot. And the vast majority don't whine that it's "not REAL Mario."

I kinda envy the Mario fan base.

But they never claimed to be REAL Mario games. I absolutely love the Capcom arcade D&D games, but they never even tried or claimed to be REAL D&D. They just had D&D classes and were set in Mystara.

It had Dungeons and Dragons in the title though. If that's anything to go by from this forum, then it must have all the spells in the players handbook, resting mechanics, all of the PHB races and classes, visible dice rolls and it better be as good or better than NWN and Baldur's Gate or we will give it a 0 on metacritic.

[robomagon]

MonkEZi の投稿を引用：

robomagon の投稿を引用：

But they never claimed to be REAL Mario games. I absolutely love the Capcom arcade D&D games, but they never even tried or claimed to be REAL D&D. They just had D&D classes and were set in Mystara.

It had Dungeons and Dragons in the title though. If that's anything to go by from this forum, then it must have all the spells in the players handbook, resting mechanics, all of the PHB races and classes, visible dice rolls and it better be as good or better than NWN and Baldur's Gate or we will give it a 0 on metacritic.

It had spells, 2 to 4 per spell level for both casting classes, on a per life basis. Though you could use scrolls to replenish them. They also refilled between levels where your party rested. I believe it did have all the classes. Fighter, Cleric, Magic-user, Thief, Dwarf, and Elf. Magic-user and Thief weren't in the first one though. Definitely no dice rolls though. It was a side-scrolling beat-em-up, after all.

[Ragnarök]

MonkEZi の投稿を引用：

robomagon の投稿を引用：

But they never claimed to be REAL Mario games. I absolutely love the Capcom arcade D&D games, but they never even tried or claimed to be REAL D&D. They just had D&D classes and were set in Mystara.

It had Dungeons and Dragons in the title though. If that's anything to go by from this forum, then it must have all the spells in the players handbook, resting mechanics, all of the PHB races and classes, visible dice rolls and it better be as good or better than NWN and Baldur's Gate or we will give it a 0 on metacritic.

D&D fans can be forgiving and accept a game for what it is, as long as there is an attempt to stay withing a rule set. No CRPG D&D game has ever been an exact copy except maybe ToEE. SCL clamed it is based on 5e then piced the races, class names, a few spells and a some specialtiy class names from the PHB then threw it away. As far as the skills go there is no comparison to 5e. The way spells are done no comparison. I can deal with the cooldown system, but ranking up a spell... really? 30% of your skill trees being shared with other classes? Hell, the whole skill system itself is bogus. If they would have kept it more toward the 5e ruleset instead of bastardizing it just so they could use the D&D logo to sell games, it would have been accepted.

Hell just changing how magic works would make many people happier. Give wizards their spellbooks and let them learn spells from scrolls like it should be. Give Clerics access to all their spell from their gods, not just spell they choose from a skill list that they have to open with points. Don't change the classes to fit your game, change the game to fit the classes.

[robomagon]

bones1011 の投稿を引用：

Hell just changing how magic works would make many people happier. Give wizards their spellbooks and let them learn spells from scrolls like it should be. Give Clerics access to all their spell from their gods, not just spell they choose from a skill list that they have to open with points. Don't change the classes to fit your game, change the game to fit the classes.

Finally, a good, reasonable to implement, constructive comment. I don't think I've seen one of these in days.

[Ragnarök]

SHODANFreeman の投稿を引用：

Oh no! A video game decided to use a skill tree for spells instead of a la carte! KILL IT WITH FIRE! Obviously a game can only be fun if you have ALL the spells!

Did I say anything about having all the spells? No. Just being positivly constructive. Much better than acting the fool on the forums by trolling a constructive post. Unlike some.

And by what I said about the Cleric. In DnD game terms they get access to all their spells by their gods. If some spells arent in the video game oh well. Just make the classes more how they should be. Now go back to your bridge.

[robomagon]

SHODANFreeman の投稿を引用：

Oh no! A video game decided to use a skill tree for spells instead of a la carte! KILL IT WITH FIRE! Obviously a game can only be fun if you have ALL the spells!

Maybe not all, but a bit more than the 5% we got.

[Horrorscope CC97]

SHODANFreeman の投稿を引用：

Oh no! A video game decided to use a skill tree for spells instead of a la carte! KILL IT WITH FIRE! Obviously a game can only be fun if you have ALL the spells!

DnD Online had Feats in it listed out more like in a manual for years. It was hard for people to visualize it one piece at a time. After a long while they thought to themselves, hmm... what if we just put it in tree view and spruce up some GFX. The did, much easier to see and plan and the same exact choices, just in a tree. A tree doesn't mean ♥♥♥♥ it is the content of it that does. A tree is an fairly good ui design.