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GeekNights 070821 - Tempus
Tonight on GeekNights, we review Tempvs: the game of sitting around thinking, making babies, and sending those babies off to war.
Scott's GeekBite - Super Metroid
Rym's News - Dungeons and Dragons: Fourth Edition
Rym's Thing - The Game is Masturbating
Scott's Thing - The First Person on Earth Ever to Dance
Scott's GeekBite - Super Metroid
Rym's News - Dungeons and Dragons: Fourth Edition
Rym's Thing - The Game is Masturbating
Scott's Thing - The First Person on Earth Ever to Dance
Comments
As of right now I am using the GC controller with it but I can not get a good button setup that works for me. I set A to fire and B to jump with X as run but I still find myself messing up. As a default A is jump and X is fire. The Z button works as select for changing weapons. I forgot about that button when I first played it and was like WTF, how do I change weapons???
So tell me, how many of the Metroid games use the same map as the original game?
Update: I was just reading the Wiki and it seems I already defeated Kraid and did not realize it.
Also, after seeing the Metroid 3 trailers on the Wii I now know that I will be unable to play the game. I was getting motion sickness just watching the trailers.
This is a good example of letting the hype die down before you purchase a game. I'm real glad that I didn't buy it right away. A BGG rating of 7.0 isn't exactly shabby, but a lot of people have been disappointed by this game. Maybe the expectation was just too high. A short civ game is the Holy Grail of boardgaming - at least according to the geeks at BGG.
I'd really like to get my hands on Age of Empires III. That seems to be holding up well after the hype.
You know... I'm starting to wonder if BGG is really a great thing for the boardgaming community. Too many people place too much stock in what a handful of reviewers say. Rather than opening up boardgaming, it just seems to have given a select few a bully pulpit. I like the site for raw data, but that's about it.
I suggest you see more of them - there is a brilliant no button boss battle on youtube.
I'll admit it's not the most deep or meaningful thing ever, but it's still good times.
The summary:
* 4th edition isn't out yet, so it's stupid to pass judgment. Scott was right; it's foolish to talk about games, movies, and whatever before it comes out, if there's nothing you can do about it. If you want to tell WotC how you feel about their ideas, go to their boards; they listen.
* The definitive site for information on 4th edition is enworld.org. They don't just link to wizards.com. If you didn't know this, you were hiding under a rock for the last 9 years, since they were also the definitive source for information on 3rd edition before it was published.
* 3rd edition had its flaws (don't I know!), but I learned after complaining about those flaws for 7 years to shut up and just play (and DM) a better game. Lo and behold, the game became more fun, even without special rules for resolving social disputes by rolling handfuls of dice. (Oh wait, didn't Whitewolf come up with years ago? Hmmm.)
* Burning Wheel is cool, but you're being fanboys. Your first experience with it was playing in a game at a con run by Luke Crane himself. Yeah, I think that's a little more memorable than your average weekly D&D session. Rym, your first experience with D&D was similar, and it resulted in years of loyalty to the system before you finally tired of its idiosyncrasies. The same will happen to Burning Wheel, and the next system, and the next one.
* The key to better roleplaying is better roleplaying. The ideas in Burning Wheel are good, but they are just ideas. There are plenty of alternate game systems which try to systemize roleplaying. Whitewolf is all over that idea. Rules do not make bad roleplayers good. Roleplaying is the opposite of rules; it's subjective, not objective. Converting it to objective allows for some interesting new non-combat scenarios, but it's not a magic bullet. I don't blame WotC for not trying to make an objective roleplay system. I don't think it's the right way to do it.
* Both of you have roleplayed very interesting characters in the past, despite being "hindered" by 3rd edition (or 2nd, in Rym's case). Elaith and Vlad didn't care what rule system they were using...why should you? Focusing on playing an interesting character, rather than a powerful character, is what leads to good roleplaying. Of course, it doesn't hurt if you're playing the gayest multiclass kit in all 2nd edition. (*ahemRymahem*)
* Both of you were cut off from regular D&D for a while, and you noted this on your show. Then, you were introduced to Burning Wheel, and soon you had a regular game going again. Is it possible you projected your opinions about D&D onto these experiences?
* It is narrowminded to judge something based on so little information. Your grunts and sighs of disapproval as you noted the various tidbits of information about 4th edition show a strong bias against something you know nothing about. You frequently proved your poor understanding of the factoids you were spouting to those who know more about it. To my ears, it was as painful as listening to Jack Thompson "explain" the evil truth about video games, or George Bush talking about why everything's just peachy. I can't stand to hear ignorance and narrowmindedness expressed to the public, and if there's anything I can actually do about it, I will.
* You two have more power than you realize. Years ago, it was just us. We all had strong opinions, and we all argued them with the same fervor you two do now. Unfortunately, your arguments are now one-sided; when you agree on something, there is no voice for the other side. With that, plus an audience, you can quickly find yourself overinflating the importance and validity of your opinions. Be careful. This is how the politicians and pundits got they way they are. This is how people lose touch. Remember that just because nobody can argue with you, doesn't mean you are right.
* I've known Rym since 1996 and Scott since 2000, and I can honestly say I find this trend disturbing. I left the community and the show once because I didn't have the heart to continue an uphill battle against narrowmindedness. I may be signing up for the same thing now, but, like I said, I care more strongly about trying to dispel ignorance than I do about my own comfort, and about how people feel about me.
* You don't have to give 4th edition a chance, but don't convince others not to just because you weren't happy with 3rd edition. If you are still playing a D&D game, consider examining your game experience to try to figure out what the DM and the players can do to make the game enjoyable before you consider changing the system. If you do decide to switch systems, there is no need for malice toward the old system. It didn't hurt you. Give D&D some credit for being in the market for 30 years and still being, by far, the most popular game of its kind in the world. Give it some credit for what it has done for your gaming lives, and realize that it did that not by providing the world's best rules, but by bringing you together every week or month with friends. We're not getting any younger, or any less geeky. That old ritual may remain one of the best parts of our lives for years to come. That's what D&D means to me, and that's what it will always mean, even if I'm not actually using the rules published by whoever owns the rights to the game at the time.
It's what brought the entire Front Row Crew together in the first place. (Okay, that and anime, but that's really neither here nor there.) Remember that.
(Edit: yeah, that really was the short version.)
2. Rym and Scott aren't the only Burning Wheel fans in the world. I believe that I was the first to post about the game here after Rym briefly mentioned it on the show quite a while ago. And despite not having the benefit of its creator to run me through my first session, I'm still excited about the game and what it means for roleplaying as a hobby.
3. Your defence of 4th edition (and D&D in general) comes across as quite fanboyish. I must admit, Dungeons and Dragons means a lot to me, it was one of the first RPGs I ever played. And yet, I have all but abandoned it in recent years. That's because the hobby is evolving away from it. 30 years ago, pen and paper roleplaying was the whole shebang. Now, computer roleplaying games, MMORPGs, hobby games, German board games and the like have split the market in multiple directions, each with their own pluses and minuses. Yet D&D remains, an anachronism and a throwback to those days, and largely unchanged. Burning Wheel represents another of those splits. It exists because there is a desire for that kind of game. Now, if you like your 3.0 or 3.5 D&D, keep playing. And if 4th edition gets you excited, that's great, but for a lot of people, the whole D&D concept is becoming tired and stale. Games like BW are what people like me need to stay interested and engaged with roleplaying.
4. Have you actually read the Burning Wheel rules? It's not that it has better rules, and thereby makes for a better roleplaying game. If anything, the rules are in some ways more complex than in D&D. What it does, is make roleplaying part of the rules - it enforces a style of play.
My questions to you, kenjura, are: what is "better roleplaying" (relating to your 5th point)? And why, when you acknowledge that D&D is flawed, do you persist with it instead of looking for a better system? Finally, why even bother using a rules system to roleplay if you just apparently press on regardless of the flaws in the system - why not just freeform?
I know what I've disliked about D&D for the past seven years, and I know enough about 4th edition to know that they are not addressing these concerns.
The definitive site for information on 4th edition is enworld.org.
I find that site poorly done to say the least. There is very little roleplaying press that I find to be worth reading.
3rd edition had its flaws (don't I know!), but I learned after complaining about those flaws for 7 years to shut up and just play (and DM) a better game.
3rd edition had its flaws, but I learned to just stop playing D&D and engage in more enjoyable activities.
...the game became more fun, even without special rules for resolving social disputes by rolling handfuls of dice.
D&D can't be fun for me as it is: it's just too broken in too many ways. It's really just an extensive and time-consuming combat system with some other cruft tacked on and called "roleplaying. If I'm going to ignore or remove much of those combat rules, or change the way so many other parts of the game work, why even bother with "D&D" in the first place? If the roleplaying is the important part, then why not just go diceless altogether?
Both of you have roleplayed very interesting characters in the past, despite being "hindered" by 3rd edition (or 2nd, in Rym's case).
At RIT, those interesting characters were not fun to play. Combat took so long that I fell asleep on the floor. Interaction with the system and rules become increasingly uninteresting to the point that I stopped bothering. At that point, I saw no further reason to use the system at all. With no handy alternative, I just disengaged myself from roleplaying games altogether.
As for Elaith, the character whom I've played more than any other in my life, that game benefitted from the fact that it was small. That style of roleplaying, which consisted of 80% in-character talk, is not condusive to a large (8-15 player) game at all. I also feel strongly that those games would have been a lot better had we NOT been using D&D.
T hen, you were introduced to Burning Wheel, and soon you had a regular game going again
Burning Wheel itself isn't the important part. What happened was simply that, by playing that game once, I remembered all the things I liked about D&D. I was startled to realize that NONE of those things had anything to do with the system itself. I never liked the D&D system: I just didn't know any better and never was terribly familier with the alternatives.
Burning Wheel isn't the end solution by far. It was simply the catalyst to make me realize that I've never liked the D&D system in any of its forms: I've only liked the roleplaying that happened outside of that system in good games.
It is narrowminded to judge something based on so little information. Your grunts and sighs of disapproval as you noted the various tidbits of information about 4th edition show a strong bias against something you know nothing about.
I read a lot more than we talked about on the show. The developers' blogs and preview bits served to validate my deepest feats of a fourth edition. The developers sound like fanboys. I'm fairly confident that 4th Edition D&D is nothing more than an extension of 3.5 and 3, neither of which I liked. If I didn't like the Burger, the Cheesburger, or the Bacon Cheesburger, why on Earth would I give the Double Bacon Cheeseburger a chance?
The key to better roleplaying is better roleplaying. The ideas in Burning Wheel are good, but they are just ideas.
Yes. Roleplaying is the crux of the issue. The system, be it D&D or Gurps or whatever, is nothing more than a system of arbitrary conflict resolution. The system serves to allow players to resolve their disputes in game, to determine success or failure, and to make the game non-deterministic. The game and story can (and should) end very far from where they started and very far from where the players expected. It's collaborative storytelling, and the system one uses is just a means of limiting and directing that story.
While we're using D&D 3.5 in our current game, we're more and more ignoring D&D rules or adding Burning Wheel ones. At that point, there's no reason in the world to use D&D.
You two have more power than you realize. Good. Hopefully we can use it to achieve our ends. ^_~
I left the community and the show once because I didn't have the heart to continue an uphill battle against narrowmindedness.As far as you have indicated in the time you've been here, your "battle" consists of being angry at the fact that we dislike Dungeons & Dragons and World of Warcraft.
You don't have to give 4th edition a chance, but don't convince others not to just because you weren't happy with 3rd edition.GeekNights is an opinion show, and our opinion of 3rd and 3.5th edition D&D is very low. All of the information available indicates that 4th edition will be
just as bad as far as our interests are concerned.
One of our goals is to give people who find that they have similar tastes to our own direction in finding new media/entertainment/productivity. It is our opinion that D&D is a garbage system for roleplaying, and that there are far better ways to roleplay.
We will give 4th edition a chance. We'll read the rulebooks and likely run a few short scenarios to see how it plays. But all of the evidence points toward it being a waste of time.
Give D&D some credit for being in the market for 30 years and still being, by far, the most popular game of its kind in the world. Give it some credit for what it has done for your gaming lives, and realize that it did that not by providing the world's best rules, but by bringing you together every week or month with friends.D&D gets credit for all of that in the same way that Atari gets credit for getting me into videogaming. Atari games were great when I didn't know better, and when I didn't have the opportunity to play or see something better. Had I somehow had an NES back then, I would have ignored Atari.
I can say pretty honestly that the ONLY thing I've ever liked about D&D is the people with whom I have played it. It's a lot like World of Warcraft in that sense. If the only thing I'll get out of it is the social or roleplaying aspects, and I have no use for the underlying system, then why even bother with the system?
D&D should have died a long time ago. It almost did twice.
Had I encounted a system like Burning Wheel before I'd seen D&D, I probably would have ignored D&D. I consider D&D to be a historical artifact at best these days, an archaic thing that was once enjoyable in my more youthful and ignorant days.
It's what brought the entire Front Row Crew together in the first place. (Okay, that and anime, but that's really neither here nor there.) Remember that.That's nostalgia bullshit. ^_~ An argument like that has nothing to do with the merits of the system at all; it's nothing more than an appeal to emotion and memory. I enjoyed Monopoly as a child. That doesn't mean that it gets a pass when it comes to a modern adult review. Monopoly is a shit game. Saying so doesn't take away the fun I had as a child, but at the same time it reflects my increased understanding of games and gaming in general.
D&D is fine for people who like that sort of thing. I personally want more. If I have to modify D&D to get more, then why not just use a system that starts as more.
In fact, you did not mention design goals, only specific factoids about the implementation, from so few of which it is impossible to extrapolate those goals. In all likelihood, they will achieve those goals to some extent. Burning Wheel or another system may yet be superior to this, but that ought to be a simple statement, not a venomous one.
It seems you are selective about your criteria for superiority. When arguing that the DS is superior to the PSP, you often note that, at large social gatherings, the number of DSs you see grossly outnumbers PSPs. Thus, it is more popular, thus it is better. Of course, you also have invested innumerable hours of gameplay into DS games; however, since you have not done so with PSP games, you can't really compare the two fairly, and you usually don't. The popularity argument was certainly convincing to me.
And yet, when it comes to other games, say, World of Warcraft or D&D, popularity is now bad. Sure, 8 million people are playing the game, but does that make it good? In fact, you imply that the popularity actually makes it worse! D&D is clearly more popular than Burning Wheel for now. Who knows, that may change, but as of this moment there cannot possibly be any doubt in your mind if you are reasonable. Nor is there reason to believe D&D 4th edition will not outsell Burning Wheel for the foreseeable future. I don't hold that against Burning Wheel, but you seem to want to hold it against D&D.
No, but Burning Wheel is superior because it is a better system! Well, the PS3 is technologically superior to its competitors, but that doesn't make it the best console. The PS2 is the most popular console, but is it the best? Personally, I think the Gamecube was a better console in general, but that's only according to certain, selective criteria, and I acknowledge that.
It is illogical to try to prove that any given thing, even something you dislike, is totally inferior because of inferiority on some level. D&D is the Windows of the gaming world; its only real advantage is that everybody already knows it. While surely a poor reason to prefer something, even you have given Windows some marginal credit for the very same thing.
Perhaps 4th edition, like Vista, will try to achieve many laudable things but fail on almost every front. If so, I will accept that, and gleefully lambaste their failure, as is deserved, while I use what good ideas they may have had, in addition to those of other systems, to write the system I truly prefer.
But it is also possible that it will actually achieve those goals, and be a worthy competitor to Burning Wheel and other good systems, in which case arguing that it is crap becomes nothing more than the prattling of zealous fanboys.
It is impossible to predict the likelihood of either of these occurrences. To try to guess the probability based on how well previous editions pleased you is absolute foolishness; every edition of D&D was made by a completely different group of people, for a completely different set of reasons, with a completely different set of goals. This one is no exception.
This argument continues to support the notion that your expressed opinion and prediction is illogical and misleading. It makes no effort to say that you are not allowed to have an illogical opinion, nor that you should play 4th edition, nor that you should have liked 3rd edition.
What D&D; is, and always has been, is a system of martial conflict resolution, with elements of storytelling. The title of the damn game gives it away: DUNGEONS and DRAGONS. That's what the books give you.
Because D&D; has no inherent roleplaying system, you are perfectly free to add your own, as we have done in Alex's current game. The core mechanics are D&D; through-and-through, but the Burning Wheel influences that we've brought in give it an entirely different feel.
That's why I've always contended that while Burning Wheel is a pretty solid system, it is not the system that makes it. It's a new perspective on roleplaying, one that tells you to skip the bullshit and get to the important bits. It has you codify your roleplaying with hard rules the same way D&D; has you codify your combat prowess with hard rules. The biggest thing BW ever did was tell you that a verbal argument could be as intense as the siege on Helm's Deep.
4th edition will be a system of martial conflict resolution. Personally, I've always found D&D;'s martial conflict resolution to be pretty well up to just about any in-game task. Actually, in a way, with a fuller martial combat resolution system like D&D;, a DM may have more free time to fully incorporate a robust roleplaying system as well.
Any given roleplaying system is simply a tool to assist you in storytelling, and different tools are suited to different things. D&D; is a giant toolkit designed solely for resolving physical combat; BW is a more varied toolkit that, while less robust in the combat department, is more well-rounded overall. Any tool is only as good as the person who implements it; you might say that D&D; is a crap system, but you can't deny that Alex has run some bad-goddamn-ass games with it. Good roleplayers know how to bend any system so it doesn't impede their storytelling.
BW has given a fresh perspective to roleplaying in general; I don't see it as a system killer, but rather a collection of ideas as to how to improve your experiences with your roleplaying system du jour. I really do have to agree that you and Scott have been somewhat charmed by Luke Crane's charisma; the man makes one hell of a sales pitch, and it definitely works very well. It's sort of like the guy who sells drugs to the man that just lost everything; you're in a bad place, you're hurting, and someone gave you a new way out. BW rekindled all the things you loved about roleplaying; just because it's squeaky and new doesn't mean that you can't now go back and have fun with the old way of doing things. Take the new things you learn and apply them across the board.
Because, frankly, if you just keep running to the next big thing, you're going to only get jaded at an exponentially increasing rate, until there is nothing left in roleplaying that you will enjoy. Effectively, you'll completely burn out your ability to enjoy roleplaying at all. You need to look for the applicability of new ideas, not embrace them wholly as some savior. You're awfully close to doing that with BW.
The glowing words of praise that Rym and Scott have for BW convinced me to purchase and read the books. So far I've read the rim of the wheel and the general bits of the character burner. I haven't had a chance to play it yet, but it is obvious that Luke Crane is onto something. I have played extensive campaigns in AD&D 2nd Ed., D&D 3e, and D&D 3.5e. I've also played/run a handful of sessions of Orkworld and Ninja Burger, and I've read GURPS Lite cover-to-cover several times. As far as my preferences in gaming are concerned, I've run the spectrum from gritty, crunchy wargaming to completely stat-less roleplaying. I've even put serious effort into writing my own system (do not worry: I failed). I am not the most informed when it comes to the ins and outs of roleplaying systems, but I am not a novice either.
Roleplaying Bits
With that said, I have found that the amount of fun had while roleplaying is unequivocally related to the people with whom you are roleplaying. However, when getting newbies into roleplaying, it is good to have a game mechanic that encourages them to take on roleplaying bits. Often, gamers who have been at it a while will take on these roleplaying bits implicitly, and the newbs don't pick up on that.
In my current campaign, I decided that my character was afraid of swarms of tiny creatures and, when in their presence, would need to make a Will save or be shaken until he got away from them. I never wrote this down, nor did I tell anyone but the GM. When my dude started flipping out and throwing his one and only source of light at a swarm of rats, all the new players were confused and wondered how my actions were helping fight the orcs around us.
In BW, those roleplaying bits are written out plainly for all to see, and each player has a list available to him during character creation. For this reason, I would recommend getting the BW books but not necessarily abandoning your current system.
In-game Conflict Resolution Bits
During my wargamer phase, I wanted there to be a roll and numeric modifier for doing anything. I wanted there to be 50 different ways I could attack my opponent and as many different modifiers to my attack roll. On top of an attack roll, I wanted there to be a "how painful was that?" roll and a "oh, crap! I hope I don't pass out!" roll. After playtesting a couple rules variations that supported that, I learned why they were just rules variations. Nowadays, I tend to prefer more abstract systems that allow you to do more with less rolls, and not just for combat. If I can have a diplomatic conversation with an NPC or describe in fine detail the preparations I'm taking to reinforce a door, I shouldn't need to roll to tell me I've succeeded or not. If I am forced to roll, I want to roll only once and with as few dice as possible.
With BW, it seems that though you should be making fewer rolls, you will likely be rolling more dice than with 3.5e or 4e. Also, the Duel of Wits looks like it unnecessarily complicates arguments and debates between characters. In the combat example (and skill example) for Star Wars Saga Edition, it seems that WotC is moving the d20 system towards less rolls and less modifier juggling (e.g. - no more saving throws, single massive attack as opposed to 4 or 5 regular attacks at higher levels, no skill points, etc). Please note in this paragraph my inordinate sprinkling of the word "seems," as I have read about but not played either BW or Star Wars Saga Edition.
Conclusion
Smart GMs and smart players are the best antidote to a stinky roleplaying system. Most rpgs note that while the rules were written for a reason, the GM has final say over each matter. While most GMs stick to the rules, the good ones know when to ignore them. Though of course, the better the rules the less frequently the GM will have to do so. Go buy Burning Wheel, if only for the character building ideas.
I misspoke (mistyped?), as I have only read Hub of the Wheel and Spokes. I have not yet read Rim of the Wheel where all the fine details reside.
It has become clear to me that the system is less important than the game. The "game" consists of the actual world with which the PCs interact; the "system" consists of the rules that govern that interaction.
The system can be too limiting, or not limiting enough; if adequate, it doesn't get in the way of the game, and that's all it needs to be.
Meanwhile, the game is what determines the enjoyment of the PCs and the DM. And there's the true problem; neither 3rd edition D&D nor any other competing system with which I am familiar actually has a game to go with their system.
In the old days, they did: the game was a vast array of disconnected adventure modules, to be assembled by the DM and enjoyed by the PCs. That worked fine for a while, but the modern gamer wants more; he wants a deep, interesting plot line (or many of them), and no DM can craft that by assembling disconnected adventure modules.
Perhaps that's why WotC didn't actually publish any (to speak of) until 2006 and later. Of course, they offered no alternative. Now, DMs had to craft absolutely every aspect of their campaign. They had to make every dungeon, every treasure haul, and every NPC, in a new, more complicated system. This is in addition to their regular duties of running the game, which themselves became more difficult with the new system.
Only those few DMs who innately understood that they must compensate by crafting their own campaign from scratch, with thorough attention to detail and consistent themes throughout, managed to thrive in this new world. Alex's two campaigns, Requiem and Ferath, were outstanding for this very reason. The system was an afterthought; we could have been using almost any RPG system, and it wouldn't have mattered.
DMs who didn't do this found themselves serving up half-baked ideas week after week, wondering why their large investiture of effort yielded such a disappointing result. It's because adventure design takes time--too long for most people to have a good one ready every single week. The fact that you can't really design them in advance, for fear the PCs will take the game in a different direction and negate your work, doesn't help much.
That I see as the primary problem with 3rd edition D&D. Sadly, it doesn't seem as if 4th edition will be much different, but I'll reserve my judgment until I see it.
I am not an expert on Burning Wheel, but as far as I know, there is no actual game content for it. I'm not talking modules or campaigns, I'm talking fully-developed worlds with content. If they can't offer this, then offer no solution to D&D's biggest problem. (If they do, I'll eat my words and switch today!)
Oddly enough, the only campaign setting I know of that is ready (or almost ready) to play is World of Warcraft. Not because the d20 version is so complete (though it's better written than every other 3rd edition campaign setting I've ever seen), but because it has a fully-developed world to fall back on.
Of course, I'm not all that interested in playing WoW as a pen-and-paper RPG. Hell, I haven't even played the online game in months. But the point still stands.
As for myself, I'm shifting my focus to making game content. Once you've made a world, populated it with men and monsters, and crafted campaigns to allow PCs to interact with that world...the system becomes secondary.
If I manage to complete such a world for publishing, expect it to support multiple systems, including d20 and Burning Wheel.
I think this issue bears a lot of similarity to the platform battle. Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X all have their ups and downs, but in the end, it's about the combination of the system and its applications. Mac OS X is a great system with awful apps; everything's either Apple or shareware. Linux is a mixed bag; even with modern advancements, some applications are so hard to get to work, because of the system, that you just want to use one of the easier OSs. Windows is an awful system, but the application support is top-notch, as it's always been.
To get around these problems, I like to use cross-platform software as much as possible. Firefox plus internet apps ftw. That way, my computing experience will be similar on all platforms, making the decision about the actual platform, rather than the applications.
Thus, I want to do the same thing with roleplaying games. Until we have cross-system games, we won't really know which is better on any objective level. I've certainly got my predictions, and things don't look good for WotC, but we'll have to wait until there are some serious cross-platform games out there...if there ever will be.