Dungeons & Dragons 4.0, Part 1

Dungeons & Dragons 4.0 was released on June, 6th. I did not pre-order the gift set, but I still think it arrived by post no later than August, 11th, possibly a bit earlier than that. Now, six weeks later, I have still not read anywhere all of it. I have actually read most of the Player's Handbook, and skimmed the parts I felt I could read in greater detail later, and read half of the Dungeon Master's Guide. I will probably just skim the Monster Manual, once I finish with the DMG. In general, I've had other things to do these last weeks, and also have been in no particular hurry. Our little fellowship, never particularly big to begin with, is severely decimated, and I think it unlikely that we will actually see any significant play on this side of 2010, if at all.

Since I have yet to finish the DMG, I don't yet feel comfortable commenting on the rules, although I have already formed some opinions about some of them. Today's post will therefore be about something I feel I can justifiably talk about, and that is the general feeling I get from the game. And if you read my previous post, I suppose you can guess what the general tone of this post will be.

In short, I must admit that I am disappointed in 4.0. Not because of the rules, which I will get into later, but because it feels like the most commercialized of all Dungeons & Dragons editions so far. This feeling can probably by no means be called objective, but it is very real for me. As you can probably tell from my previous post, I am a firm believer of that a good product will sell itself. And that, of course, is not the truth. Crappy products continue to sell well due to excellent marketing, and superior products are shoved aside because they do not have the financial backing the marketed products have. But I want to believe. When it comes to me, I've played (admittedly to and fro, but played none the less) D&D for more than 25 years and it will probably always have a special place in my heart, if only for sentimental reasons. I want it to be good. And maybe it is. But the truth is, I think 4.0 could have been better. The goal, it seems to me, has not been to produce the best game you could and then make money of it, but to make money from producing the best game you could. Hence, commercialism takes precedence over quality, and design decisions are influenced and restricted by how much money the final product will bring the company.

You have no doubt heard of the extras that are now required (or at least useful) to play D&D, so I won't go into them in any greater detail. None the less, when the rulebook itself lists D&D Dungeon Tiles (granted, a more generic battle grid is also suggested as an alternative), a Dungeon Master's Screen and D&D Miniatures among the requirements to play, you know you have come a long way from the (paraphrased) all you need, apart from this book and the included dice, is paper and pencil of the 1st Edition boxed Basic Rules, or even the generic battle grid [... and] miniatures of 3.5. The continuous references to the subscription-based D&D Insider also get old fast.

Some of the sections feel extremely truncated. 4.0 has eight classes as opposed to eleven in 3.5 (or ten, if you consider sorcerer and wizard to be variants of each other). The 4.0 class descriptions average fourteen pages, while 3.5 averages three... which sounds like an improvement, until you factor in 123 pages of spells found in 3.5. Magic Items are covered using 33 pages in 4.0, while you find 79 pages in 3.5. As a specific example, 4.0 has nine rings, and 3.5 has 46. True, a lot of the stuff in 3.5 was not particularly useful... but don't tell me it was impossible to find 79 pages of useful items for 4.0, from all the accessory books Wizards has released over the years--if you do, you are either a) lying or b) making a rather damning comment on the general quality of the material released by Wizards. But of course, this way there will be more material that can be released later.

So what about the stuff that is there? Well, as I am writing this, Wizards have already released official errata. On August, 11th, all three books received updates and fixes... so about by the time I had the physical books in my hands, they were already outdated. Seriously, what's up with that? And they aren't any small fixes, either--the PHB has nine full pages, the DMG has about four and a half, and MM four full pages. Neither are they all minor, by any means--the Stealth skill has been almost entirely replaced (almost one full page of errata on its own) in the PHB, and in the DMG skill check difficulty guidelines have had DCs decreased by about five, ditto for all listed diseases (in some cases DC has been decreased by nine) and the rules for skill challenges have been significantly altered.

What I'd like to know is how did stuff like this, in particular the DCs that affect the game all over the board, get through playtesting and/or quality control, or editing, or wherever Wizards wants to place the blame? To be blunt, I find it sloppy, and sloppiness tend to be a hallmark of a product rushed into production, not a hallmark of a quality product. My second question is, now what? Does Wizards expect me to cover the relevant parts with PostIt notes, or cut and glue the errata into my books? Or should I just suck it up? Or maybe I'm expected to subscribe to D&D Insider to get access to corrected digital versions? Maybe buy the 4.0 Beta books when they are released, for another suggested retail $34.95 each (35€ if I get them from my local store)? I realize I sound whiny when it comes to these errata, but goddammit, we're talking about immutable physical products here, not a game for which you can just release a patch. I'm stuck with these books that have been discovered to be significantly flawed about two months after their release, and so is everybody else. That's pretty damn weak for something that is hailed as a milestone in roleplaying games, unless of course you significantly lower your expectations of what a milestone is.

And how does Wizards react to criticism? With stuff like The Red Dragon's Interview. Ah, don't think I don't realize that it is meant to be humorous and tongue-in-cheek. And it is funny, it has its moments. Yet, at the same time, it sends a message to people who point out the weaknesses and flaws in 4.0, and that message tells you what Wizards thinks of its potential customers. Instead of dealing with the issues that are raised in a responsible and respectful manner, Wizards chooses to ridicule those that give them feedback they do not like. Very classy, very mature.

Don't get me wrong, I think I'll like D&D 4.0 a lot, once I get to play it (and more on that in later posts)... but Wizards could have done a much better job with it, on a general level. What's done is done, but now, for starters, how about giving free access to corrected digital versions to everybody that has bought the physical books? Personally, that is something that I feel you should have done from the start, rather than attempt to make some additional money from it. Let everyone that want Dragon and Dungeon magazine pay subscriptions for them if they want to, but spare the customers that have already purchased your product from having to go over it with a red pen, correcting your mistakes as they go. In the end, you're only hurting yourself.

On Consumerism and Quality

I know I said my first new post would be about D&D 4.0, and this is evidently not that. There's a reason for this, though--this post is, in a way, a lead-in for my first D&D post. (Yeah, I said first. I've decided to split the D&D post into several, and each of them will deal with a separate aspect.) So...

I read this post on Slashdot a few weeks back. In brief, a family gets a cell phone bill for $19,370, because their son used the service 21 times to send some photos and e-mails from abroad. The family argues that since their bill normally is $250 to $300, it should be their cell phone company's responsibility to contact them when the charges suddenly grow multiple times larger than usual. You know, if for no other reason then because the cellular device might have been stolen. I believe many credit card companies do something similar. They also say that they were never told anything about (extra) international fees, which is interesting because the device is marketed using phrases like Stay connected whether you are traveling across town, the U.S., or the world (emphasis added).

Some people may say (and some people do say) that the family only had itself to blame, they should have known better, or they should have read the fine print, or the company is under no obligation to be a nanny for its customers. And they may be right. I personally tend to hope that people who say that will, at some point, find themselves in a similar situation. It would surprise me if their attitudes would not quickly do a 180--degree turn in that case, as is often the case with people who take joy in other people's misery. But I don't want to talk about them today. Nor do I want to talk about this particular family, who may or may not at this point have resolved the matter with the company in a way where they do not have to pay something that approximates one year of wages, for 21 e-mails. Neither is the point, and nor is the cell phone companies or unreasonable fees in general.

Instead, let me direct you to a particular post made in response to the topic mentioned above. Contract or not, this isn't a business game, it's a game of gotcha with customers. When I read that, I felt I knew exactly what that person was talking about. Not this specific case, although it of course very much applies to it, but in general. The rest of the post was just icing on the cake.

I had this conversation with a friend once, where I said that business has stopped being about providing the best service possible (if it ever was) and thereby ensuring customer satisfaction, and from a business perspective, eventually also customer loyalty. Instead, I argued, business has turned into a con game, where the salesman attempts to trick the customer into buying the lowest quality stuff the salesman can get away with, all while charging a premium price for it. All shops are used car shops nowadays, and all sales are final. My friend answered that the law prevents salesmen from ripping you off. We didn't talk more about it. Back then, I thought my friend really did not get it. It does not really matter what the law says, as long as the salesman doesn't pull out a gun and rob you, in which case you have more pressing problems. Even if you think you were conned, and even if you were conned, you also need to prove what happened, and probably additionally convince people that you were conned, and you need to be ready to endure a lot of trouble and spend a lot of time to do all this. There will never be any police ninjas dropping down to save you if you are ripped off. You're on your own.

So what is reasonable nowadays? Look around; everything is getting more expensive, and endurable quality is a thing of the past. Brand clothes come pre-worn, so that they won't last as long, and we pay extra for them. Consumer electronics aren't made to last, because they will be replaced in a year or two anyway. Software that previously would not have been thought fit for alpha status is pushed onto the supermarket shelves, and in some cases down the customers' throats whether they want it or not. Food is being genetically modified to be cheaper to manufacture but prices go up. The computer you bought yesterday will be outdated tomorrow. Every movie out of Hollywood is worse than the previous. And so on. There's money to be made, and if you manage to get someone to buy your crap today you can tell them to fuck off tomorrow. Now and for ever. Amen.

So what is reasonable nowadays? Is it really OK that Microsoft stops selling Windows XP in favor of Vista, when people seem not to want Vista at all? Is it OK that when I buy Spore, I can only install it three times total, before it turns into a coaster? Should I have really to read through maybe fifteen pages of EULA in order to start using the software I just bought? (And if I don't agree to the EULA, what then? Do you think they will think me an enlightened consumer if I take the software back to the store, or will they think I'm crazy?) If EULAs aren't really legally enforceable anyway, why does everything and their mom come with them, each more absurd than the previous? Do I have to be fluent in legalese in order to access the iTunes Music Store? If I want to prevent my new iPod's screen from getting scratches, is almost 10€ a fair price for the cheapest screen protector that I can find, although it really amounts to nothing more than a single 2.5" piece of overhead projector sheet with some Post-it note glue on one side, something that can't cost more than 0.10€ in itself (and far less to produce)? Can I really not open my PC's case and install some extra memory without voiding the warranty? If I buy an Mac Mini and want 2GB memory rather than 1GB, why does the RAM module cost twice as much as it should and require me to pay a 50€ installation fee, just because ol' Steve thinks it's a good idea to prevent me from installing it myself? When I buy a game, is it really OK that it is so buggy that just keeping it running is a chore (assuming it starts in the first place)? Do I have to check all the expiration dates on everything I buy, just in case the shopkeeper doesn't mind selling several months old crap? Should I really have to read all the fine print of the unlimited service plan I'm paying for, in order not to be hit with a $20K phone bill?

I dunno. I currently make more money than ever before, but at the same time I am more dissatisfied as a consumer than ever before. Is that really as it should be? Why does some people work so hard to prevent me from wanting to be their customer?

Zero Post

Tell me if you've heard this one:

If anybody has been reading my blog (hah!), then you may have noticed that the older posts have disappeared.

This is no... oh, you have heard this before.

Well, it is that time of the year again. Or something. Either way, I still have not been satisfied with what I've written. While I've written some stuff that I have wanted to write, I've also still written stuff just in order to write something. Still been going on about boring stuff. Boring and long winded. The fact that I haven't felt like writing just about anything for several months makes it painfully obvious that I'm missing the mark, whatever it is.

So. Another reboot. The stuff I wrote in Crisis in Infinite Posts are still mostly true, though. Some older stuff might reappear in a modified form. Or maybe not. I'll try to write only stuff that I actually want to write. I guess there will be more rants, for one thing. Maybe shorter posts and more often. At this point, I can't really say.

One thing that I've been wanting to write about for a while already is Dungeons & Dragons 4.0. It's been out since June 6th, making it over three months old already. So I think that my first post-Zero Post post will be about that. (Yeah, I'm really proud of that sentence.) But not today. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week? We shall have to wait and see...