...The article looks utterly reasonable to me. Or rather.. it sounds great if you are creating an entirely new RPG and you want to explain your cosmology.
Exactly.
Of course, while many don't care if 30-year-old institutions of D&D are thrown out, many do (e.g. me).
I sincerely wish that WotC had tried harder to respect my sensibilities and biases a bit more (as a long-time gamer), rather than showing only contempt for them.
But they don't care about me -- they already have my money; they want money from new players. In the process, they may not get any more from me. My guess is it will work out fine for them :/
I may, along with others, be making a mountain out of a molehill. But it won't be a molehill to WotC/Hasbro if a bunch of older gamers take all their discretionary cash elsewhere. That may not happen, but if it does it will have been a provoked reaction -- as a D&D player from nearly from the beginning, in one fell swoop I'm losing the best two magazines in the business, important elements in the D&D universe, high-quality products from other companies (e.g. Paizo can only use OGL stuff now, and I use e-tools), and probably the last vestiges of Greyhawk support. They're not even trying to keep my business.
Sorry for all the ranting :)
I'm holding out hope that the train wreck that is 4e will fail quickly, so that 5e can get here sooner and right the wrongs.
Mona and Jacobs for 5e!
Of course, while many don't care if 30-year-old institutions of D&D are thrown out, many do (e.g. me).
Just to be safe, that's not a slam on others :)
I'm sure D&D 4/e will be a good game, and satisfy the needs of many. It's just looking like it's not meeting my desires (nor even trying).
I like the Great Wheel cosmology, but I'm not bothered by the changes. It sounds like an interesting new setup, and that's why it works for me (and why the Forgotten Realms cosmology doesn't, or at least wouldn't if I ever used that setting).
To me, these changes strengthen the case for a Greyhawk campaign setting which makes the Great Wheel the specific cosmology of that setting, or perhaps even a Planescape sourcebook.
I was wondering when you come around. That goes for KnightErrantJr. too.
The Devils and Demons article made it clear to me that what WotC is doing with 4E is creating an entirely new IP. The 3E SRD more or less "gave away the store" when it came to 30+ years of accumulated D&D story. With the exception of things like mind flayers, beholders, etc. (which were removed from the SRD after the initial release), pretty much all the iconic elements of D&D are out there for any company that wants to use them to do with as they please. I have absolutely no doubt that someone at WotC (or Hasbro, or both) looked at this and asked, "So what makes D&D, as a brand, distinctive anymore?"
The answer, of course, is very little. WotC needs a way to make D&D, as a brand, more than just a well-recognized name. They need distinctive IP that they won't give away this time, which is why I expect the 4E SRD will be even more vanilla than the 3E one. I also expect that the 4E Monster Manual will have many more new monsters in it and few, if any, of them will make it into the new SRD.
4E is a way to make Dungeons & Dragons 2.0, not merely a re-imagining of the concepts and ideas that have entertained us for 30+ years but, more importantly, a way to create an entirely new IP to exploit, IP that, unlike now, no one else can use in order to produce their own D&D clone, because it'll be impossible to do so under the terms of the new OGL/D20 STL.
I may be wrong and time will tell if I am, but I'm betting heavily that I'm not.
Of course, while many don't care if 30-year-old institutions of D&D are thrown out, many do (e.g. me).Just to be safe, that's not a slam on others :)
I'm sure D&D 4/e will be a good game, and satisfy the needs of many. It's just looking like it's not meeting my desires (nor even trying).
I understand your concerns as well. I too grew up playing D&D. I enjoy that history, the stories, the characters, deities, places, and everything that D&D is. I too find it odd that 4e is altering some of this stuff; that being said I feel oddly invigorated by the change, and that must be where we split.
Your opinion and many others like you makes sense. You definitely have the right to question WoTC as to why they did not take this segment of the gaming population (an important segment at that) as fully into account as they should have. Here is to hoping that you get an answer to that question or an explanation down the road.
Sorry to be difficult - what is IP?
Intellectual Property . . .I think.
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Don't get me wrong - I'm still fundamentally bullish on 4e. I will convert, but I am becomming less convinced wotc will persuade others to do so given how they are handling things.
I'm just so frustrated at their terrible, horrible, very bad PR. They should dispense with the illusion that 4e is still subject to change due to player feedback/playtesting. Even if it is true, the way they are communicating makes it sound like they're not taking responsibility for the choices and don't have a clear vision.
The previews should be focusing on areas where there is a consensus that change is needed. Magic items; combat options; multi-classing; etc.
They should not be focusing on the changes to the canon. They should not be wasting time with a blow by blow of a half-assed eberron playtest. Stop cancelling beloved magazines without launching their replacements and proving it is a change worth making. Don't have a countdown to your website crashing. Stop requiring log ins to read the free preview articles. Quit wasting our time and start telling us why 4e will rock, what 4e will fix, and why it will be the greatest thing since the d20.
Sorry to be difficult - what is IP?
Intellectual Property -- basically the store of ideas/concepts that WotC owns exclusively and others cannot use without a license. For example, the mind flayer and the beholder are WotC IP, since no other publishers can use those monsters without permission. On the other hand, most other 3E monsters are no longer exclusive WotC IP, since they were opened through the D20 SRD.
As for the article -- Devils are pretty much the same.
Demons have a more chaotic destructive bent, which to me sounds about right. I imagine they will be more fleshed out in the future, and in the hands of a good DM I am sure they will be more than just cannonfodder.
Without a doubt, there are elements of the article that could have been better fine tuned. The complete depiction of demons as engines of destruction should have been clarified..
You'll notice that the focus has been on the demons and not the devils? Less complaints about the devils.. What they (WOTC) should have conceded when they wrote that is that the urge for destruction doesn't have to be mindless or unintelligent.
There are all kinds of ways to be destructive. Destroying faith, family, community, relationships, trust, belief in government and social order. All of these lead to the annilihation of self-esteem and self-worth, and ultimately the destruction of the individual.
You can have an intelligent demon and still fit within the model they described in the reprinted article above.
The behavior of the Devil in Stephen King's 'Needful Things' was a good example, where they community tore itself apart in self-loathing. One can argue that the Devil was corrupting the individuals, but his end goal was for them to destroy each other.. for nothing much more than his amusement. He didn't appear to be gaining any other benefit.
The Devils and Demons article made it clear to me that what WotC is doing with 4E is creating an entirely new IP.
An insightful post. Thank you.
Watcher, you make a good point . . .hopefully as we see Demons fleshed out they take destruction like that into consideration.
They should not be focusing on the changes to the canon. They should not be wasting time with a blow by blow of a half-assed eberron playtest. Quit wasting our time and start telling us why 4e will rock, what 4e will fix, and why it will be the greatest thing since the d20.
I agree wholeheartedly. However, I fear that WotC is taking the approach they are because it's part of a plan. My gut tells me that this plan is twofold. First, announce all the big "story" changes early, so that, by the time May rolls around, most people will have accepted them, even if only grudgingly. They will no longer be shocking and people can instead concentrate on the rules, which are supposedly quicker and easier to use and fix long-standing problems. Second, this approach generates buzz and energizes the younger players who don't have the same attachment to the Great Wheel and succubi as demons that geezers like I do. WotC knows that it's the younger set who drive sales and are more likely to recruit new players than guys like me.
I think it's a sound plan -- on paper. It may have some unintended side effects, though, beyond alienating me and the older generation of D&D players.
I am *so* glad that both Fiendish Codex I and II already came out for 3.5.
The value of those tomes just increased exponentially.
Thanks Erik and James!!!!
Sorry to be difficult - what is IP?Intellectual Property -- basically the store of ideas/concepts that WotC owns exclusively and others cannot use without a license. For example, the mind flayer and the beholder are WotC IP, since no other publishers can use those monsters without permission. On the other hand, most other 3E monsters are no longer exclusive WotC IP, since they were opened through the D20 SRD.
Flippity-Flop-Flip-Flip-Floppity-Flip
Way to hedge your bet.
Sorry to be difficult - what is IP?Intellectual Property -- basically the store of ideas/concepts that WotC owns exclusively and others cannot use without a license. For example, the mind flayer and the beholder are WotC IP, since no other publishers can use those monsters without permission. On the other hand, most other 3E monsters are no longer exclusive WotC IP, since they were opened through the D20 SRD.Flippity-Flop-Flip-Flip-Floppity-Flip
Way to hedge your bet.
No fair - technical problem here. I was responding to Sebastion's last post.
Flippity-Flop
WotC knows that it's the younger set who drive sales and are more likely to recruit new players than guys like me.
I´m not so sure about that one. I definitely spend more money on RPGs these days than 20 years ago as a teenager, as I have more disposable income.
Stefan
The Devils and Demons article made it clear to me that what WotC is doing with 4E is creating an entirely new IP. The 3E SRD more or less "gave away the store" when it came to 30+ years of accumulated D&D story. With the exception of things like mind flayers, beholders, etc. (which were removed from the SRD after the initial release), pretty much all the iconic elements of D&D are out there for any company that wants to use them to do with as they please. I have absolutely no doubt that someone at WotC (or Hasbro, or both) looked at this and asked, "So what makes D&D, as a brand, distinctive anymore?"
The answer, of course, is very little. WotC needs a way to make D&D, as a brand, more than just a well-recognized name. They need distinctive IP that they won't give away this time, which is why I expect the 4E SRD will be even more vanilla than the 3E one. I also expect that the 4E Monster Manual will have many more new monsters in it and few, if any, of them will make it into the new SRD.
4E is a way to make Dungeons & Dragons 2.0, not merely a re-imagining of the concepts and ideas that have entertained us for 30+ years but, more importantly, a way to create an entirely new IP to exploit, IP that, unlike now, no one else can use in order to produce their own D&D clone, because it'll be impossible to do so under the terms of the new OGL/D20 STL.
I may be wrong and time will tell if I am, but I'm betting heavily that I'm not.
I am inclined to think you're correct as to their motivations (besides honestly making a more streamlined system). Clamping on to the IP.
In this thread about Pathfinder and 4th Edition
...on or around post 459 (some excellent posts by Erik too)...
I make a point that I am no longer buy rule sets for the rule sets themselves.. I am looking at campaigns that I might want to run, and the rule set is a means to an end. Another poster chimed in and agreed.
This might be something that might concern WOTC on some level. That someone else might make a lot of money with their brand.. and if they make a new IP, they can exert a lot more control over their own brand.
I don't take this as gospel, but I had a friend that was heavily into following the game industry. Back when 3.0 came out, his explanation to me was that the money seemed to be in the Core products, and less so in the Adventure material. It made sense at the time, because everyone buys their own books and only the would-be GM buys the adventure. Hence, with the OGL, WOTC could have a steady stream of adventure material written by other companies (with all the finanical risks), while they reap the income from the core products (and admittedly some high profile adventure material).
If that is true, what if that has not worked out quite the way they envisioned? Maybe they see companies doing quite well with the existing OGL, and that's prompted a desire for a new IP and OGL.
I´m not so sure about that one. I definitely spend more money on RPGs these days than 20 years ago as a teenager, as I have more disposable income.
This is true of me as well. What I meant was that WotC knows that sales will only continue to grow if they bring in new players, who will both a) stick with the game and b) convince their friends to play as well. Sure, you and I may spend more on RPG products than the average teenager, but I doubt WotC would be happy with a shrinking -- or even stable -- pool of old timers. They have their sights set higher than that and think the changes in 4E are a way to achieve their goals in the long term.
I don't take this as gospel, but I had a friend that was heavily into following the game industry. Back when 3.0 came out, his explanation to me was that the money seemed to be in the Core products, and less so in the Adventure material. It made sense at the time, because everyone buys their own books and only the would-be GM buys the adventure. Hence, with the OGL, WOTC could have a steady stream of adventure material written by other companies (with all the finanical risks), while they reap the income from the core products (and admittedly some high profile adventure material).
If that is true, what if that has not worked out quite the way they envisioned? Maybe they see companies doing quite well with the existing OGL, and that's prompted a desire for a new IP and OGL.
I don't know it for a fact, but I'm pretty sure your friend is dead-on regarding the motivations behind the 3E OGL/D20 STL. Likewise, you're correct when you say it didn't quite work out as planned. Almost immediately, there were companies who saw the OGL as an opportunity to beat WotC at their own game and started producing rules expansions that treated interesting material sooner -- and sometimes better -- than did the official books. I cannot help but think there are people within WotC (or Hasbro at least) who feel that the OGL was a mistake on this score. Thus, it'll be very interesting to see what the 4E OGL/D20 STL and SRD look like.
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I don't like it.
It sounds like we're being deprived of some nice options. No more long-term scheming demon lords, an abyssal lobotomy onslaught that spares only a few critters, some new brand new dogma about outsider looks that cuts out inhuman looking, brutish, feral pack devils and human disguising demons that use subterfuge.
I also don't like the idea of devils being fallen angels, imprisoned in planes they don't really belong to, or demons created by corrupting elementals - but these are just secondary factors.
It's dawning on me the idea that the 4.0 ruleset is a somewhat glorified, structured and revised collection of house-rules and homebrew setting options, focusing on high-powered play and slimming/streamlining of mechanics (as far as now, we can't really see the simplification, balancing or rationalizing aspects).
No Teenage Mutant Mighty Morphin Power Ranger Ninja Tieflings in my D&D, thank you (although I'm happy to have Ninja Tieflings).
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This is yet more proof that the only way I will be interested in 4e is if they publish a hardbound SRD, fully indexed and cross referenced, so i no longer need 5 books just to cover the basics (phb, mm, dmg, eph, ua).
Their fluff is uninspired and unexciting. Their "handling" perceived problems is by their own admission woefully inadequate as of yet.
Oh well, sign me up to playtest 6e... i need something to do for the next couple months...
when they speak of simplifying I think they mean streamlining useless rules or poorly worded or oddly mechanized rules.
see, I would love to believe that. I would like that very much, if that is what they did. It's what I'm hoping for. Unfortunately experience has taught me to not get my hopes up.
This is true of me as well. What I meant was that WotC knows that sales will only continue to grow if they bring in new players, who will both a) stick with the game and b) convince their friends to play as well. Sure, you and I may spend more on RPG products than the average teenager, but I doubt WotC would be happy with a shrinking -- or even stable -- pool of old timers. They have their sights set higher than that and think the changes in 4E are a way to achieve their goals in the long term.
I'm not following this whole gamble.
WotC is willing to lose the thousands of dollars folks like myself spend on each edition, in order to possibly hook a replacement who will stick with it a bit longer? What happens if the new guy pops in and buys only the three core books? They've made less than a hundred dollars, and I've got my fat gaming dollar being spent elsewhere.
Unless they market the hell out of 4e and get not only enough newbies to make up for those of us they shut out, there'll be a 5e in five years. And much like last time, there will be layoffs before then. And new blood will be brought in. And I'll bet the new blood sees that people still like prefer the long-running history of the game and switch back, ignoring the bulk of the 4e flavor changes. And they'll win back the lapsed gamers (like me).
It'll be 2e all over again.
This is yet more proof that the only way I will be interested in 4e is if they publish a hardbound SRD, fully indexed and cross referenced, so i no longer need 5 books just to cover the basics (phb, mm, dmg, eph, ua).
I hear Hero System's index is quite thorough and it essentially covers the PHB, DMG, EPH and UA. You would still need an MM. (evil grin)
4E is a way to make Dungeons & Dragons 2.0, not merely a re-imagining of the concepts and ideas that have entertained us for 30+ years but, more importantly, a way to create an entirely new IP to exploit, IP that, unlike now, no one else can use in order to produce their own D&D clone, because it'll be impossible to do so under the terms of the new OGL/D20 STL.
I should have realized that, seeing as how most of the people I know are in marketing in some form or other. that makes a lot of sense.
...I definitely spend more money on RPGs these days than 20 years ago as a teenager, as I have more disposable income.
I feel the same way, and I've said so (in more threads than I care to recall). I think WotC is risking alienating a significant portion of their market's biggest spenders.
Spenders who, given where they often are in life (jobs, families, etc), are more likely and able to walk away from the hobby and do something else -- I know I have lots of things competing for my time, and my wife wouldn't mind one little bit if I stopped buying $40 gaming books.
There's a good chance 4/e is going to make her very happy :P
I'm not following this whole gamble.
WotC is willing to lose the thousands of dollars folks like myself spend on each edition, in order to possibly hook a replacement who will stick with it a bit longer? What happens if the new guy pops in and buys only the three core books? They've made less than a hundred dollars, and I've got my fat gaming dollar being spent elsewhere.
A couple of things. They are hoping for exponential future growth, as these new players grow up and get more money. They hope that when these new players get on wow or play Halo they are gonna start talking D&D. Imagine if a mere 25% or so of the people who were probably lined up at midnight last night to purchase halo went out and bought D&D 4ed. That would be freaking huge.
Also marketing companies and commercials show us that there are only two groups worth targeting.I know I've mentioned this before but please bear with me as it is relevant. Those groups are babyboomers and Gen Y. Of those groups which would you target for buying a game? Sure a lot of oldschool gamers are boomers, but honestly, which market has the most growth potential?|
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I agree wholeheartedly. However, I fear that WotC is taking the approach they are because it's part of a plan. My gut tells me that this plan is twofold. First, announce all the big "story" changes early, so that, by the time May rolls around, most people will have accepted them, even if only grudgingly. They will no longer be shocking and people can instead concentrate on the rules, which are supposedly quicker and easier to use and fix long-standing problems. Second, this approach generates buzz and energizes the younger players who don't have the same attachment to the Great Wheel and succubi as demons that geezers like I do. WotC knows that it's the younger set who drive sales and are more likely to recruit new players than guys like me.I think it's a sound plan -- on paper. It may have some unintended side effects, though, beyond alienating me and the older generation of D&D players.
I guess I'll be crossing my fingers that (a) you're right and (b) the strategy is the right one. Even still, it really couldn't hurt them to have their website work and have their previews be accessible without logging in to D&D insider. I can understand the logic of wanting to get people used to using insider, but there current crop of previews are not cutting it.
I really worry that they're using the same marketing strategy as is employed with Magic. When new sets of cards are released, the preview weeks are full of teasers and sly misinformation games. It works because you digest magic cards in discreet little chunks and the basic game isn't changing. For 4e, I expect them to basically provide all the information that will be contained in the SRD prior to release or else I will be irritated. I don't want to be surprised by buying 4e, I want to know what's there and buy it because I like it and want it.
Hopefully, once we get to say, 15 or 16 weeks before release they'll do something intelligent and start previewing one race a week and then one class a week. I would think they could do something like that in the meantime, maybe preview the weapons and those oh-so-simplified-grapple rules or whatever. Just give some structure to the previews and provide a preview of the actual game rules being rolled out; quit taunting us with random Eberron crap and changes to canon.
I also lay awake at night dreaming that they'll start actually responding to the audience more. Occassionally they'll chime in and respond to the questions getting fired around the net, but not nearly enough. It'd be nice if they were more responsive to concerns and explained in detail why the changes to devils/demons were necessary rather than just dropping it out of the sky and saying "ain't that kewl!"
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I'm waiting for a 4th edition fan to post a video on You Tube defending WOTC.
I swear to god, Brittany Spears is doing a better job managing her career and fanbase than WotC.
They should get Miss Teen South Carolina as their spokesperson -- they wouldn't be any worse off.
For better or for worse, I don't see that people couldn't continue the Great Wheel cosmology fairly easily with what they are proposing. I mean the great wheel cosmology has been fairly well developed in previous publications. All you have to do is assign creature/demon/devil X to the Abyss/Hell/Gehenna and away you go.
But, again, this is such a minor part of the whole D&D experience. Why they seem to be focusing on this stuff is beyond me. I want to know how the mechanics are going to change -- and they are not dealing with that much at all.
I understand what they are saying in this article. I think that the worst part of the whole thing is that it implies that the Great Wheel will never be supported again in any of their future products. (Maybe they could give the liscensing of it to Paizo for a few years like they did with Dungeon/Dragon Magazines.)
The new and improved planar structure sounds way too much like the old and busted White Wolf umbra. I particularly hate that there are creation myths built into the core rules for the abyss/hells.
I've said something similar. It seems like they didnt learn WhiteWolfs lesson about metaplot and over-quantifying. Of course old wod had lots of stuff spread over several expensive books. To the point that if you didnt own everything, and build a rather large library you missed out. Hmmm I guess Hasbro could make lots of money that way. *shrugs*
oooh collectible rule books. Like action figures or miniatures but more expensive. "I got the special chromium cover Monster manual that actually HAS the stat blocks in it! Yay!!"
oops
*rant off*
What I meant was that WotC knows that sales will only continue to grow if they bring in new players, who will both a) stick with the game and b) convince their friends to play as well. Sure, you and I may spend more on RPG products than the average teenager, but I doubt WotC would be happy with a shrinking -- or even stable -- pool of old timers. They have their sights set higher than that and think the changes in 4E are a way to achieve their goals in the long term.
But if they alienate the old customer base and set their sights only on acquiring a new base, they might lose a steady (if possibly small) stream of revenue, and gain a new one. But the new one is not guaranteed to stay, given that there are MMORPGs and other stuff to keep the younger audience occupied. Seems a risky gamble to me, but I don´t know the numbers, of course. WotC will have done market research, I think. I just don´t know what came of that. And maybe they drew the wrong conclusions.
What´s more, the change to the demons and devils could as well be made within the old cosmology - the devils as tempters and the demons as savage beasts could well be placed within the nine hells or the abyss without having to change the whole background, it could have been one aspect of it all and be given as one of several choices to the discerning DM. So, it would be my choice as DM if I would rather use the Blood War or Tempter Devils and Demon Beasts instead (or even some other idea). So, I think the idea could have been executed better.
Stefan
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I also lay awake at night dreaming that they'll start actually responding to the audience more.You need to get out more.
Or lay off the hookers and blow.
(I do agree, it is fairly easy to put the Great Ring back into play after it has been removed, I had just been hoping I would get something better than the Great Ring. Now that it sounds worse, I'm less than thrilled. I really do think though that they will release a GH hardbound as their first non-FR/Eberron setting and that it will have all the traditional D&D fluff updated for 4e, including the Great Wheel).
Backtracking a bit. There will be no 4.5. WIth the new digital initiative we'll will have 4.0.1, 4.0.2, ......
It really doesn't matter if it is easy to put the Great Wheel back in the game on our own.
Having to rearrange the game to simply get it back to the way I've been enjoying it for the past 20+ years may not be worth my effort. The revision is supposedly all about making things simpler on DMs...well, how is forcing folks to reconfigure eveything to make it fit back to the status quo simpler?
It is clear that they are doing a reboot, and are willing to sacrifice the old-timers to chase new-timers. It may work great...it may be another New Coke. Time will tell.
All I know is that I was more than willing to drop another thousand plus dollars over the course of the next edition. Now I have no desire to drop a penny on it. If the core books are full of this new fluff, then I can just use the crunch-heavy, fluff-lite SRD to achieve the same results.
I can't speak for others, but waiting for the promise of a Planescape or Greyhawk setting book in three years at the earliest doesn't make me feel any better.
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Or lay off the hookers and blow.
I had that problem once.
I really do think though that they will release a GH hardbound as their first non-FR/Eberron setting and that it will have all the traditional D&D fluff updated for 4e, including the Great Wheel.
By the time they get around to it, though, they'll probably be ready for 4.5E.
Edit: I mean 4.0.1, 4.0.2, etc....
Oh wait, I forgot, this edition won't have to be updated.
But if they alienate the old customer base and set their sights only on acquiring a new base, they might lose a steady (if possibly small) stream of revenue, and gain a new one. But the new one is not guaranteed to stay, given that there are MMORPGs and other stuff to keep the younger audience occupied. Seems a risky gamble to me, but I don´t know the numbers, of course. WotC will have done market research, I think. I just don´t know what came of that. And maybe they drew the wrong conclusions.
Erik Mona posted in a different thread about WotC's initial strategy for 3E, which was "firing the audience," by which they didn't mean "firing up" the audience but rather ditching the old fanbase and "hiring" a new one. The idea was that, if 3E picked up at least one new player for every old player who left the game, they'd be better off in the long term, since new players would be both more amenable to changes to long-held "traditions" of the game and wouldn't have vast libraries of material to compete with newer products.
I fear that WotC is adopting that approach again with 4E.
So what's the deal with the poor Yugoloths?
I agree with a lot of what has been said. I don't particularly like or understand the purpose of the demons/devils article. Eliminating redundancy is fine with me and I don't really care about planar structure one way or another; unless I'm running a Planescape game, I don't bother with the planes that much in my games and none of my players really keep up with that sort of thing.
Why can't they work more on getting me excited about their new take on the base classes? Convince me how they've brought some fresh ideas to the old cliches, how much more interesting low level play will be (or how much more stream-lined and accessible high level play will be) with some specific examples and I'll start getting more excited. But giving me a playtesting report on an Eberron game that they've retconned for the new system (which, therefore, won't REALLY reflect the changes they've made all that well) and little bits of flavor I'll only use once in a while? Ridiculous.
I swear to god, Brittany Spears is doing a better job managing her career and fanbase than WotC.
LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE! ;)
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Erik Mona posted in a different thread about WotC's initial strategy for 3E, which was "firing the audience," by which they didn't mean "firing up" the audience but rather ditching the old fanbase and "hiring" a new one. The idea was that, if 3E picked up at least one new player for every old player who left the game, they'd be better off in the long term, since new players would be both more amenable to changes to long-held "traditions" of the game and wouldn't have vast libraries of material to compete with newer products.
I fear that WotC is adopting that approach again with 4E.
That would suck. I actually spent more time gaming with 3.5 then I did for the last few years of 2E. It revitalized the game. I even think they kept quite a few old players for the 2E to 3(.5)E switch, because many were actually clamoring for the rule changes.
This time around, such a strategy could backfire. There was, from my point of view, less clamor for an overall rules change, and very little clamor for a rewrite of major fluff.
Either way, it spells S.U.C.K for many of us.
On the one hand, I like the idea of mixing things up with some new cosmology and origins for the fiends. On the other hand, if the actual mechanics get in the way of the old cosmology, then I do have a problem. Other than the bizarre succubus/erinyes thing, I'm hoping the mechanics will allow using either cosmology and background. As long as the demons aren't chaotic stupid and/or feral, then I can live with it (the article can be read that way, but I don't think that's the only interpretation).
So, I think it's an interesting alternative that has plenty of adventure possibility, but when the 4e fiend stats are revealed they better not prevent the old view (which I somewhat doubt they could unless more than the succubus is switching sides).
Oh, and as for "there will be no 4.5 edition" being the same as "4E will be the perfect game with the perfect rules, capable of pleasing everyone. No errors or mistakes to be had.", I'll just point you to this CR 0 critter. :)
So what's the deal with the poor Yugoloths?Game over, man! Game over!!!
Oh God, not this thread too... ;)
I think everyone is missing the big picture here. The big question everyone has failed to ask. That is simply this.
Why is there a picture of Gorilla Grodd on that article? Or is that Ultra-Humanite? Don't tell me WotC has taken up the old DC comics decree of "A monkey (or ape)on every cover!"?
I guess there's nothing more fun than a barrel of monkeys, now is there?
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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I think everyone is missing the big picture here. The big question everyone has failed to ask. That is simply this.
Why is there a picture of Gorilla Grodd on that article? Or is that Ultra-Humanite? Don't tell me WotC has taken up the old DC comics decree of "A monkey (or ape)on every cover!"?
I guess there's nothing more fun than a barrel of monkeys, now is there?
That's a Bar-Lgura.
I think everyone is missing the big picture here. The big question everyone has failed to ask. That is simply this.
Why is there a picture of Gorilla Grodd on that article?
I assume that's a demon of some kind. Perhaps the bar-lgura?