"Is this really so bad?" Taken with the context from the post prior to this one, the game is usually better as the version number gets higher. Therefore, "Is this really so bad?" Re-read the previous paragraph and the rest of this one.
it ain't so with D&D.
OD&D(1974) is the only true game. All the other editions are just plain crap.
Okay, who invited Circvs Maximvs over here?
I'm a dual citizen. :D
I miss the days of TSR...when the game was made for the sake of the game, not profit...anyone else here feel the same?
Well, I won't sing along with the quoir on bashing you, Razz, because I also feel this way regarding the game, only with two caveats: it'd have to be without the POG and they'd have to allow it to be OGL-like, and not hold it so close to the chest.
What they haven't done, at least to my experience, is show the disdain for playtester preferences that Sean K. Reynolds and Monte Cook readily blogged/commented on after the initial release of 3rd edition. Monte and Sean's mantra seemed to be, 3rd would have been better if we didn't have to listen to those pesky playtesters
Well, it's been more of "We listened and did what they asked, but those decisions proved to be incorrect ones once we had the perspective of hindsight." I suspect most designers feel that way about something they've done; I'd be surprised if that was not the case.
Given the things they mentioned (such as not letting monks and paladins freely multiclass like others), they shouldn't have listened to the playtesters on that one; getting rid of that rule is a very common house rule in games I've encountered and when you see many games all houseruling the same thing, that tells you something: the rule is a bad rule and needs getting rid of.
This kind of fresh designer blood is what is nessesary for you to continue having a D&D. You want designers who haven't been deep in the D&D trenches for a long time since they can see the flaws, recognize that they are flaws, and fix them. They will also have a better perspective on what gamers want.
"Is this really so bad?" Taken with the context from the post prior to this one, the game is usually better as the version number gets higher. Therefore, "Is this really so bad?" Re-read the previous paragraph and the rest of this one.it ain't so with D&D.
OD&D(1974) is the only true game. All the other editions are just plain crap.
When Races were Classes.
I wouldn't be so bestial when it comes to WotC and 4E if it were not for that fact. By killing so many sacred cows of the game, it's become unrecognizable. And by implementing so many MMORPG-styled mechanics, it's become even less of an RPG. Thanks to DI, it's now basically it's own primitive MMORPG.
OMG! All adventures are above ground and there are no dragons? I missed something.
How many times did you use the planes? That sacred cow was already slaughtered when the FR Campaign Setting came out. Look at the Cosmology.
If memory serves me correctly, you don't have to do anything you don't want. Big RPG companies and their nasty cigarettes! Don't give into peer pressure. Besides, my 2e FRCS seems to work plenty good. Use your imagination, not a book.
I doubt that WotC will come and knock on your door because you have Succubi AND Eyrene (or however they're spelled).
They have (yet another) Forgotten Realms campaign setting to sell you!
So, yeah, it's about the money. (Not that there's anything wrong with that per se, but I've had enough.)
It doesn't matter to me, I still use 2.0 Forgottn Realms Campaign Setting and the flood of books TSR produced. That is enough to keep my party wandering for the realms for the next 10+ years.
Razz, I really don't want to dump on you. It seems like for some reason you've become everyone's chew toy and I don't think that's very cool or even warranted.
I think I even get your point. Not that 3rd edition was some kind of conspiracy theory, but rather that they started planning the next edition no sooner than the old one had left the printers. I kinda' feel that way too, and it's a shame because 3rd edition and the whole d20 product is a mighty fine thing. There's a lot of stuff in 4e that I'm probably going to have to houserule and a lot of the changes they're planning are totally going west when I wanna' go east. That's the way it goes.
That said, a lot of the books you decry as being the testbed for the new edition are the best stuff I've seen put out for 3rd edition. Tome of Magic was incredible. Incarnum was awesome. I could really use a game chalk full of cool original ideas like this. Do I think 4e is going to be gentle and respectful of the old ideas behind D&D. Not at all. I think (or at least hope) it's going to chart a new direction and boldy go that way. They're working on a mandate for change and frankly I'd rather they do what they're gonna' do and go all the way with it rather than do some mamby-pamby halfway change.
I've had enough of WotC trying to take my temperature on things, trying to make books that try so hard not to make me mad that they don't actually SAY much of anything. The whole "do whatever you want to--it's your game" schtick is getting old for me. I like that there's gonna' be a book that says *boom* the default setting is like this. I like a new take with fresh blood that's come in with a mind to shake things up. New twists on old classes. Marginalized and unpopular classes brought up front and center as examples of what other classes should be like. It's got guts. 3rd edition had no guts. It was goopy watery playdough that you had to try really hard to make something definite out of. Frankly I'm getting happier and happier with the new stuff with everything I see. It's like they've decided to take a stand and make their own thing--take what's good about modern fantasy games and thinking and just run with it, and make their own thing out of it. I don't agree with a lot of it, but bless 'em for having the guts to do it.
Just a thought.....
Perhaps the reason certain individuals (myself included) feel that being told that their purchases made were intended to be a test run for 4th edition cheapens the feel of the purchase made. When one buys a D&D product, most want to feel like they just acquired the definitive, authoritive, final all say, on the topic matter.
To discover after the purchases were made that the company intended to use the book in order to hammer down rules for an upcoming edition weakens the position and opinon of the comsumer. If the company chose to inform the consumer in advance in a forthright manner that the product was intended as a test run most would choose not to buy it. Those that would buy the books are more likely to accept 4th edition because they knew in advance of the company's intent and may have felt that they are actively participating in the future of the game. WOTC did not take this approach primarily because of the overall negative impact it would have on sales. Most people would not make the purchase if they knew a 4th edition was coming out in a few months or a year.
If the company meets the middle ground of the overall consumer they will make the profit they are looking for. If they fall short of the middle ground sales will be reduced and they will have to take responsibility for their own decisions. We are the consumer. Each of us is an individual with different needs and desires. If 4th edition is a positive event for one person and a negative product for another, that's ok. There is no right or wrong person because it is opinons that are being discussed. Those who like 4th edition will buy it, those that don't will not purcahse it. If WOTC sales increase they made the correct decision from their viewpoint. If sales drop, they failed to make the correct decision.
I personally, chose not to buy for a variety of reasons. That is my opinon, choice, and decision. If someone else makes a different decision that's ok. It's their time, money, and ultimately, their game and entertainment.
Well, it's been more of "We listened and did what they asked, but those decisions proved to be incorrect ones once we had the perspective of hindsight." I suspect most designers feel that way about something they've done; I'd be surprised if that was not the case.
Given the things they mentioned (such as not letting monks and paladins freely multiclass like others), they shouldn't have listened to the playtesters on that one; getting rid of that rule is a very common house rule in games I've encountered and when you see many games all houseruling the same thing, that tells you something: the rule is a bad rule and needs getting rid of.
Um, okay. I think you really need to consider things that were changed after playtesting that were the right thing to do. If the game were the same as the early playtest documents:
1) All humans would have a flat 20% experience bonus2) Barbarians and sorcerers would only be available to classes as starting characters.
Further, remember what a mess the epic level handbook was? I know some of the playtesters. Most of the aspects of that book that are roundly criticized were known during playtest, given feedback, and ignored.
I think playtesting is valuable and you are foolish to dismiss its value.
Razz, I really don't want to dump on you. It seems like for some reason you've become everyone's chew toy and I don't think that's very cool or even warranted.
Believe me it's warranted. Ol' Razz has been banned from a few boards (did he tell you the one about threatening to pirate all of the 4E books in a post on the WotC forums?)
Sebastian has the right of it with that tinfoil hat thing. :)
To discover after the purchases were made that the company intended to use the book in order to hammer down rules for an upcoming edition weakens the position and opinon of the comsumer. If the company chose to inform the consumer in advance in a forthright manner that the product was intended as a test run most would choose not to buy it. Those that would buy the books are more likely to accept 4th edition because they knew in advance of the company's intent and may have felt that they are actively participating in the future of the game. WOTC did not take this approach primarily because of the overall negative impact it would have on sales. Most people would not make the purchase if they knew a 4th edition was coming out in a few months or a year.
Exactly one of my points. All games are built on by the previous version. D&D has been known to do this throughout history. 1e to 2e. Take the Wilderness Survival guide's skill system and put it with 1e, pretty much 2e. Combat Options and 2e to 3e. GURPS 3rd, Compendium 1 & 2 and the core are pretty much GURPS 4th. Silent Death: The Next Melenium, the original and supplemental information. I'm sure I could go on and on.
If every system started from scratch every time they put out a new edition, they wouldn't make it very far past the 2nd edition because all of their fans were alienated and need to learn a new ruleset. Introducing new product means it's enhancing the core. If those ideas are good, should they not be part of the core?
I'll have to disagree with the first sentance. WotC created 3e and 4e. TSR was going to do a 3e, but it was in a totally different direction (Fear the Boot interview with Ryan Dancey if I remember correctly).3e and 4e are the products of two completely different companies, and two almost completely different groups of designers.
3e originated around the gaming table, whereas 4e originated around the boardroom table. 3e was designed by gamers to please gamers, whereas 4e was designed to please old men in grey suits who think "gaming" means the blackjack table at Mohegan Sun.
That's what I think.
My point was that the WotC that created 3e and the WotC that's creating 4e are two very different companies. The main difference is that 4e WotC is under the thumb of a public corporation, where the goal is to please shareholders rather than customers.
The corporate attitude and philosophy of 4e WotC vs. 3e WotC is so vastly different, I have a hard time visualizing them as the same company.
Um, okay. I think you really need to consider things that were changed after playtesting that were the right thing to do. If the game were the same as the early playtest documents
I think playtesting is valuable and you are foolish to dismiss its value.
Your point? Just from what I remember PirateCat and a couple others on ENWorld saying, I'm very glad they bounced a lot of ideas off the playtesters to see if it would fly. A lot did not.
I didn't say that all playtesting was bad, just that playtesters sometimes get it wrong, too. Playtesting is a requirement to make sure that you're not working in the ivory tower, but I can also easily see a situation where playtesters say they like a rule but they are not reacting to how the rule itself works but to some nebulous 'It ain't D&D if we don't have this, even though it's cumbersome and out-dated' thought. That's the kind of stuff you have to watch out for.
Contributor
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I have to say that I'd be much more disappointed if they put out a new edition and didn't look at what happened in the previous edition to see what they wanted to fix.
Was 3E a playtest for 4E? Probably not. No more so than Combat and Tactics was a playtest for 3E. I'm almost certain that when the Book of Nine Swords was put out, they didn't look at each other and say:
"If the suckers buy this, we'll make it the core mechanics of the next edition! Mwa hahahaha!"
It was more likely that afterwards they said:
"Wow, people really like these classes way more than fighters. Maybe we should think about that..."
This goes double for the Warlock. When Complete Arcane was built, they liekly thought it was a neat concept. It has proved so popular they decided to put in the core rules.
Just my opinion, naturally, but it seems more liek these things are being included reactively rather than proactively.
Just a thought.....
Perhaps the reason certain individuals (myself included) feel that being told that their purchases made were intended to be a test run for 4th edition cheapens the feel of the purchase made. When one buys a D&D product, most want to feel like they just acquired the definitive, authoritive, final all say, on the topic matter.
Maybe I've been working in software (and buying it) too long, but I really don't understand this sentiment. When I bought Halo, I expected it to be complete in and of itself. But I didn't feel my purchase was invalidated or cheapened by the appearance of Halo 2.
I don't see an RPG being significantly different. The game designers learn, by watching and listening to customers, what is working and what is not working in the current game and use that information to refine the game in another iteration some years down the road. If the revised product works better than the first for most players, great. If it doesn't, then they have more information to chew on before the next iteration of the game in some more years down the line.
The main thing to think about is: the book that comes out in print (or the piece of software that gets released) is usually the best they can come up with at that time and for the resources they have to spend. If they come up with other ideas they'd like to incorporate into a later edition, even if they start day 1 after the release goes out the door, it doesn't bother me.
I have to say that I'd be much more disappointed if they put out a new edition and didn't look at what happened in the previous edition to see what they wanted to fix.
Was 3E a playtest for 4E? Probably not. No more so than Combat and Tactics was a playtest for 3E. I'm almost certain that when the Book of Nine Swords was put out, they didn't look at each other and say:
"If the suckers buy this, we'll make it the core mechanics of the next edition! Mwa hahahaha!"It was more likely that afterwards they said:
"Wow, people really like these classes way more than fighters. Maybe we should think about that..."This goes double for the Warlock. When Complete Arcane was built, they liekly thought it was a neat concept. It has proved so popular they decided to put in the core rules.
Just my opinion, naturally, but it seems more liek these things are being included reactively rather than proactively.
I'm definitely not of the opinion that 3E was just a big test run for 4E. However, I think that designers/developers have come out publicly and said that books like Book of 9 Swords were testing the waters to see how that sort of thing would be received by D&D players.
By that I mean that Bo9S wasn't just created with 4E only in mind. The people at WotC came up with a cool concept and made a book about it. Since it was well received we'll probably see a lot more of that sort of thing in the 4E core rules. If people hated the book when it came out then you probably wouldn't see any of it in 4E.
I don't think that Bo9S wasn't made as a beta test to work out the bugs in the system before putting it into 4E. I do think that the designers put it out there to gauge D&D players reaction to that sort of thing and that their reaction shaped the direction the designers took with the 4E core rules.
Olaf the Stout
The truth behind who killed JFK, the moon landing, and how the Pentagon was hit by a cruise missle.I see...
This tinfoil hat, does it still work if I were to wrap the tinfoil around a regular hat to make it more comfortable?
It depends you see. There was this guy we worked with. We'll refer to him as "Bob." Bob had some very...odd...thoughts. Which wasn't the problem. The problem was he voiced them. Frequently. Quite disturbing, actually, and it takes something really grotesque to put me off. I introduced him to the idea of tinfoil hats. So he made one. It seemed to help somewhat. Anyway, he eventually got a new job with another group, who also seemed to think he was a bit off. One day one of the guys Bob now worked with is talking to a friend of mine. He says, "This guy, Bob, he's a bit odd. And he has this tinfoil hat in his cube. Does he really believe in the whole black helicopters and orbital mind-control rays bit?" My friend explains, "You don't understand. It's not to keep the mind-control rays out. It's to keep his thoughts in." He replies, "Oh. That makes a lot more sense now." I think they started making Bob wear it in the office after that.
Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie. It just might save you too.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled playa' hatin'.
The difference with Champions is that with some very minor editing, I can take a FIRST edition character and make it functional in 5th edition hero System.
A 4th edition character is virtually 90 percent compatible as long as you rewrite some power groups.
With this 4th edition, there's no backwards compatibility. When my cat doesn't like something, she runs and hides under the bed. And then I say "Toffee don't like it."
Well, I have a feeling that "Toffee don't like it."
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I agree with Boxhead.
Bo9S, ToM, even the poorly received MoI and WoL were all test concepts. I don't begrudge their existance a bit. In fact I love Bo9S and want to use it more, my players are reluctant to take a new system on though. I'm glad to see the 4x fighter can have more access to such options. However, the 4x fighter appears to require these options/
My disappointment with 4x is it is too radically different from 3x. I'd hoped the 3x 'engine' (to use the gaming term) would be stable enough to build extensively on. It's apparently not, in WotC's opinion.
The fluff changes are just annoying especially when they change the core nature of a thing.
1e duergar = 2e duergar = 3e duergar != 4e duergar
2e tiefling = 3e tiefling != 4e tiefling
1e blue dragon = 2e blue dragon = 3e blue dragon ~ 4e blue dragon (TBD)
Nah - that was new fangled "basic" D&D.
Yes and no.
Yes in the sense that there were no classes in the little brown books called "elf" or "dwarf" or "halfling" (né hobbit), as there were later in Basic.
No in the sense that dwarves and halflings were limited to a single class (the fighting man) and followed the rules it with a number of notable exceptions, such as saving throws, along with additional abilities all their own, which effectively made them their own classes. Elves were funky because they could switch back and forth freely between fighting man and magic-user but otherwise conformed to the rules for those classes.
But are tieflings that popular? They're not as "cool" as half-fiends or half-celestials, IMO, either, so that wouldn't justify them being a core race.
I would argue that the two most common templated characters were "demony guys" and "dragony guys". The half-devil this and the half-green dragon that are staples in most home games. I think the designers thought they'd absorb that tendency into the basics of the new edition. I think liking the art did a lot to sell them on the final decision, but the core thinking was how to lump together as many of the different various races and templates into one thing in the new version.
I think the other idea was to skew the race selection in such a way that humans aren't necessarily the "coolest" choice. I've always felt a little disappointed at the other races. It's like human or elf (skinny, effete human with conciet issues) dwarf (short, cranky human with hair growth and rude body emmination issues) half-orcs (big even uglier, crankier, more rude versions of dwarves but with bat noses who dress like hillbillies) or the "short guys" (who are really little and generally cute and silly).
I approve of the move to port in tieflings and dragonborn, to axe some of the former options, and to stack the deck on the opposite side. Guys who are bigger and cooler than humans with a bit of a dark, savage edge instead of a gross body hair edge and harsher stat hits than everyone else. I like the choice, but only insomuch as they're making their new setting a place with an established niche for them. We'll see how they fit into the established settings.
The truth behind who killed JFK, the moon landing, and how the Pentagon was hit by a cruise missle.I see...
This tinfoil hat, does it still work if I were to wrap the tinfoil around a regular hat to make it more comfortable?
It depends you see. There was this guy we worked with. We'll refer to him as "Bob." Bob had some very...odd...thoughts. Which wasn't the problem. The problem was he voiced them. Frequently. Quite disturbing, actually, and it takes something really grotesque to put me off. I introduced him to the idea of tinfoil hats. So he made one. It seemed to help somewhat. Anyway, he eventually got a new job with another group, who also seemed to think he was a bit off. One day one of the guys Bob now worked with is talking to a friend of mine. He says, "This guy, Bob, he's a bit odd. And he has this tinfoil hat in his cube. Does he really believe in the whole black helicopters and orbital mind-control rays bit?" My friend explains, "You don't understand. It's not to keep the mind-control rays out. It's to keep his thoughts in." He replies, "Oh. That makes a lot more sense now." I think they started making Bob wear it in the office after that.
Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie. It just might save you too.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled playa' hatin'.
I'm still waiting for the Jiffy Pop upgrade for that Beanie. Protection from Mind Control and a yummy snack.
that seems like a weird thing to say, as I was under the impression that when customers are happy they support the product, which in turn increases its profitability and thus makes shareholders happy. How would having unhappy customers who don't want to buy the product make shareholders happy?
I'll have to disagree with the first sentance. WotC created 3e and 4e. TSR was going to do a 3e, but it was in a totally different direction (Fear the Boot interview with Ryan Dancey if I remember correctly).3e and 4e are the products of two completely different companies, and two almost completely different groups of designers.
3e originated around the gaming table, whereas 4e originated around the boardroom table. 3e was designed by gamers to please gamers, whereas 4e was designed to please old men in grey suits who think "gaming" means the blackjack table at Mohegan Sun.
That's what I think.
My point was that the WotC that created 3e and the WotC that's creating 4e are two very different companies. The main difference is that 4e WotC is under the thumb of a public corporation, where the goal is to please shareholders rather than customers.
The corporate attitude and philosophy of 4e WotC vs. 3e WotC is so vastly different, I have a hard time visualizing them as the same company.
Tell ya what, if things go as many fear, ask WotC this very question a year from now. They may well be able to answer it...But sales of 3E have been slowing so why not produce a new edition and get that new rules spike in sales? Sure its a risk, but compared to stagnation it's a risk worth taking.
The flaw in WotC's strategy here seems quite obvious to me.
They know they are alienating a huge percentage of the veteran gaming community by completely altering the system -- more than any other new edition in the game's history has done -- and getting rid of familiar elements of the game (i.e., "sacred cows") seemingly for no other reason than to make the game as different as possible.
Their obvious contempt for 3e and earlier editions translates as contempt for gamers who have spent 10, 20, 30 years or more playing and enjoying those systems.
They are, quite simply, firing their current audience. We're too old and too un-cool to be worthwhile to them anymore. We have mortgages and car payments and tuition and insurance to pay. Most 15-year-olds in the U.S. have more disposable cash than most 35-year-olds. Therefore, it's the 15-year-olds they're going after.
The problem is, 15-year-olds are already set as far as gaming goes. They do it online. Pay $15 a month, walk across your bedroom and log in and you're gaming. How many of them will trade that in for the opportunity to pay $100 for a new rules system, plus $40 or more a month for expansions, then have to find a gaming group, lug tons of books across town to get to the gaming location *if* they can coordinate a time...
Not gonna happen. Just not gonna happen. The new, younger gamers WotC is courting will not show up in enough numbers to replace the hordes of established gamers that are jumping ship with 4e. As a result, 4e will sell less well than 3e (though it may take up to a year for this to become apparent).
Hasbro is a corporation, and corporations don't care about "doing right by the gamers," they care about the bottom line and nothing else. In fact, they can literally be sued by their own shareholders if they fail to put the bottom line ahead of everything else. If 4e fails to outperform 3e/3.5 in sales, Hasbro will pull the plug on the game without a second thought. D&D is not a big part of their corporate plan. It's not even the major part of their plan for WotC. They will keep the D&D name because of its trademark value. They will not sell the game to some other game publisher to keep it going. D&D as a pen-and-paper game will stop at that point.
The days when "happy customers" = "happy stockholders" are gone. Most stockholders listen only to themselves and each other. That's why these supposedly intelligent financial players keep falling for one financial bubble after another...the Internet bubble, the housing bubble, the subprime lending bubble...that we on the outside could see coming from miles away. They get blindsided by one obvious scam after another, each one of which sends the market spiralling down and wipes out all the money our retirement plans earned over the past 12 months or so. It's a big, big problem and it's why the domination of today's economy by the stock market is a big danger to the future of our economy.
I don't really blame WotC for what they're doing. Hasbro is expecting them to pull off a feat that just isn't demographically feasible. The pen-and-paper RPG market is contracting and aging, and nothing can stop that unless some global EM pulse wipes out the Internet forever. When Hasbro realizes that, they'll pull the plug.
I worked for a dot-com startup. I know first-hand the feeling of desperately trying to convince yourself there's hope for your product when deep down, you know there isn't.
Some people, including quite a few on this board, will like 4e and buy it. But there won't be enough of them to offset the Great March of the Grognards -- maybe up to 50% of established gamers -- away from the new edition.
Yes, I know I'm a pessimist. But I'm also having a hard time envisioning how I could be wrong on this. Hope I am, but I don't think so.
Some people, including quite a few on this board, will like 4e and buy it. But there won't be enough of them to offset the Great March of the Grognards -- maybe up to 50% of established gamers -- away from the new edition.
Yes, I know I'm a pessimist. But I'm also having a hard time envisioning how I could be wrong on this. Hope I am, but I don't think so.
From my point of view, that's optimism, not pessimism. I hope 50% do walk away and someone (Paizo) gives us the D&D us grognards want.
A note on D&D changes with edition changes:
I started playing D&D in the early 80s with the D&D Basic set and within a year bought the AD&D rules. I enjoyed both sets of rules at that time, but preferred AD&D. I enthusiastically bought the 2e rules, but despite upgrading I viewed some of the changes with mixed feelings. When 3e came out, I once again enthusiastically bought the new rules and I don't have any major complaints even though the rules aren't perfect (an example of my happiness is that I had notebook of about 30 pages of house rules for 2e, but my 3e house rules fit on one side of ONE piece of paper).
Today was the first time I got a chance to view the OD&D rules from 1974 and the supplements which came out afterwards. Wow, it felt like I was reading designer notes for the AD&D rules! So, it's nothing new that supplements to the core rules are testing grounds for the next edition - the biggest problem for me is the huge jump in feel for the 3e to 4e edition change.
Just recently I converted the old Keep on the Borderlands adventure from the D&D Basic set for one of my 3.5 campaigns I DM and it was a piece of cake. All I had to do was swap out the stats for monsters to 3e stats and add in some DCs for skill checks and traps. That's it! Converting an adventure written more than 25 years ago was easy and felt familiar.
What I'm hearing about 4e doesn't give me that sense of familiarity and I want continuity - not a reboot.
What I'm hearing about 4e doesn't give me that sense of familiarity and I want continuity - not a reboot.
QFT
I do wonder whether a significant proportion of the rpg market doesn't contribute to messageboards. Maybe we're all (4E supporters and non-supporters) the odd ones out. Maybe the majority of people don't know and will just pick it up when it appears? Who's to say. I am becoming more and more convinced that those of us who spend a lot of tiem debating these sorts of things may be all a minority.
I do wonder whether a significant proportion of the rpg market doesn't contribute to messageboards. Maybe we're all (4E supporters and non-supporters) the odd ones out. Maybe the majority of people don't know and will just pick it up when it appears? Who's to say. I am becoming more and more convinced that those of us who spend a lot of tiem debating these sorts of things may be all a minority.
Very possible. However, when I spend some time to read the WotC boards or EN World I see much more support for 4e than I find here. My guess is that 'message board debater' vs. 'non-internet user' has little bearing on whether support is given for the 4e upgrade or not. I'm not sure why, but the 4e support seems low here on Paizo but decent on EN World and the WotC site.
Oh no, I wasn't trying to equate messageboard use to either preference, I just feel that the most vocal parties on both sides are minorities in the larger audience for rpgs. I'm pro-4E but I still reckon that people like myself as well as those who are anti are not representative of the whole (who by my guess are either not bothered or don't know about it).
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I do wonder whether a significant proportion of the rpg market doesn't contribute to messageboards. Maybe we're all (4E supporters and non-supporters) the odd ones out. Maybe the majority of people don't know and will just pick it up when it appears? Who's to say. I am becoming more and more convinced that those of us who spend a lot of tiem debating these sorts of things may be all a minority.
I have to agree with you completely, which is pretty cool since you and I are on different sides of the fence.
Two situations have proven the above perfectly: First, there are my friends. They all play 3.5, and have for a long time. They weren't pleased when 3.5 came out, but I was the one to have them cross over. Now that 4e is out, I'm the only one who keeps up on these things and puts in my two cents. For the vast majority of them (about 18 out of 20) it's a non issue. They're happy that 3.5 is done, because they get a rule compendium and get cheaper books on Ebay. The last one was really happy to convert to 4e until they changed Wizards.
As for the second, about a month ago at the World Wide DnD game day, I met with a group (about 12 people, give or take) who owned a nice little game store. They knew 4e was coming out, and were excited. When I started asking different things about what, they didn't have any idea of what had been released. Actually, they started out really happy about 4e, and after reading the stats cards for the monster that's given out that day, weren't too happy about some aspects. They still wanted to play, granted.
Oh no, I wasn't trying to equate messageboard use to either preference, I just feel that the most vocal parties on both sides are minorities in the larger audience for rpgs. I'm pro-4E but I still reckon that people like myself as well as those who are anti are not representative of the whole (who by my guess are either not bothered or don't know about it).
Yep, I misunderstood you. I do agree the message board frequenters are the minority and the real feelings about 4e won't be known until 4e is actually released.
I also think it's cool that we can agree on stuff. Actually I think it's awesome. :D
I recently read some info from the "Races and Classes" book released by WotC. Just more crap about 4E that I despise: arcane spell failure is gone for Wizards, magic schools are gone, alignment system is practically gone, and so on...it's so horrible.
Now, I'm not gonna say I'm pro 4e or anything (I'm neutral on the subject), but those key points you've outlined is everything I've hated about D&D from 1e to 3.5e. To each there own I suppose.
Razz:
Wow, no, I don't think 3E was just a playtest for 4E. That is such an odd asseration I'm not quite sure how to respond. As far as I can tell, 3E was a well-designed, sincere effort by players who love the game. If it was a play-test, I think they forgot to tell Monte Cook, Skip Williams, and Jonathan Tweet. ;-)
As far as the ENWorld WOTC "under the table" thing...I didn't get the impression it was under the table at all, nor that anything nefarious was afoot. I mean, THEY TOLD US about it before it happened...if they wanted to keep a secret, surely they could have?
No offense, but I think you're off base here.
I'm not anti-4e, even if it may sound that way. Frankly, I don't know enough about it to have an opinion of whether or not it will be a good system.
What I'm against is calling 4e D&D, when it basically throws out a large portion of what has defined D&D for 30+ years (the "sacred cows" that WotC keeps sacrificing in their attempt to entice the WoW market). Luckily, no matter what happens with 4e, the 3.x OGL is irrevocable and is available to provide the "classic D&D" feel for systems using it.
Some people, including quite a few on this board, will like 4e and buy it. But there won't be enough of them to offset the Great March of the Grognards -- maybe up to 50% of established gamers -- away from the new edition.
"Great March of the Grognards" I like it! We need a banner or something. Or at least a bumper sticker.
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So I've come to the realization that 3rd Edition was just a ploy by WotC all along to get 4E out. 4E SHOULD have been the 3E, pretty much.
Just figured I'd share this thought with everyone here.
Much as I hate 4e badly, ain't you going a bit far-fetched ?
They wanted 3e to make money initially, so they released good products. When that stopped working (at least as much as they wanted), they started releasing crap like ToB:Bons to pave the way for 4e.
Hasbro = Illuminati? It all fits so perfectly!