[PURE THEORY] Low-Tech vs Fantasy-Tech

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Our paranoia is somewhat justified. For years people complained about the armor weights in 3e. TBTB said, "We'll fix it in Low-Tech." But the playtest draft of Low-Tech had the same incorrect weights. No problem, the playtesters fixed it but somehow the published book was accidently based on the pre-playtest draft and had the wrong figures. No problem say TBTB, we'll fix it in 4e. 4e came out and still had the wrong numbers! And Kromm says, "That's because, no one ever told me there was a problem. Don't worry, we'll fix it in Low-Tech." Only now there isn't going to be a Low-Tech.

Low-Tech didn't have a version-control problem. I was the Line Editor then and it was on my watch -- I know the facts. There were a few playtesters who recommended different changes to armor weights, and they didn't reach a consensus in time to affect the published book . . . and there were just as many people who wanted to leave the stats alone. The author couldn't do a lot with multiple, conflicting claims. I didn't read the claims; I simply declared that the book had to get to the printer and cut the Gordian knot by saying, "Too bad they couldn't agree. Leave things alone." Moreover, SJ Games doesn't keep ancient playtest archives. The results of that playtest were gone by the time David and I were drafting 4e, and it's unfair to imply that we were somehow aware of long-lost Low-Tech playtest reports and chose to ignore them. In fact, neither of us even read them the first time. The first genuine opportunity to fix certain items -- if they're indeed broken -- will be the book on low technology for 4e. And whether we title it Low-Tech, Fantasy-Tech, or Cabaret Chicks on Ice is wholly immaterial to the issue of whether we make fixes or not.

I'm quite open to criticism and suggestions, but please don't pass off theory as fact or suggest that we deliberately ignore input just because we can. That's unfair and incorrect. Armor weights were nowhere close to being a solved problem during the Low-Tech playtest, and the Basic Set, Fourth Edition wasn't a natural continuation of that playtest. For the most part, that playtest reached no consensus on armor and its lack of consensus wasn't exactly a great inspiration for David and I to revisit some zipped, 8,000-item news archive from a third party.