I have played this game since 1st edition, changed system with it through 2nd and 3rd, including mainly the Forgotten Realms and Planescape lines. I consider myself knowledgeable about rules and even a considerable amount of the fluff produced for the game so far. I have been rather sceptical of what I've heard about 4th edition so far.
I recently read the 4th edition preview book Worlds & Monsters, and it surprised me that it made me feel better about 4th edition.
The book details the "key conceits" that were the basis for the work on 4th edition. Many of these were Eberron basics as well (no surprise there), such as no formal alignments, PCs are different, deities are more distant, and so on. Most of these, I agree with and have used to good effect in my campaigns. Others were things I had been thinking about for a good long while, such as No unnecessary symmetry (why an ooze mephit or a plane of ooze?). It is also a stated idea that fluff has a central place in the game, perhaps leading to fewer books containing only generic feats, spells, prestige classes and monsters.
Let's face it: Over thirty years, the game has accumulated baggage, in the form of odd decisions, stupid design elements, and weird rules. If they can change a bit of those, that should improve things. I was even more impressed with the ideas they presented regarding cosmology. Sure, the Great Wheel is gone, but if there is anything from it that you really want, it's generally there somewhere. Losing the erinyes is perhaps not the worst thing that could happen. Yugoloths are now demons, and should no longer lose out on coverage due to being Neutral Evil, not Lawful or Chaotic.
However.
It is entirely possible to lay a good foundation for a work with good principles, and then destroy it all in execution. And seeing what they have decided for Forgotten Realms, it seems to be the case. In effect, they are wiping the setting out, including most NPCs, with a 95 year time jump. Even so, they are keeping Elminster and Drizzt, Waterdeep and Cormyr intact, probably for business interest of those names. They even changed the FR pantheon to conform to the generic pantheon.
If this is the execution to expect from D&D 4th edition, it's a pile of dumb, as someone put it. If not, perhaps we can hope that in a few years, we sit in a web discussion somewhere and grumble about the upcoming 5th edition, swearing never to leave our beloved 4th edition.
From what you have seen, which scenario seems likely to you? And keep it civil. Extreme words have no place in a serious discussion.
I don't think it would be fair to judge wether or not the 4E game system is good by what you see in the changes that are coming for Forgotten Realms (which, as I believe Sebastion put it are indeed a 'big pile of dumb'). I have always considered the base rules and the settings to be fairly different and I think this will continue in 4E.
To illustrate this, look back to some of the campaign settings we saw in previous editions. Ravenloft vs. Planescape or Dark Sun vs. Greyhawk. They had VERY different feels from one another and yet shared the same base mechanics. If they were making the core world of D&D match with Dark Sun I would be pretty upset... but that wouldn't be the rules, but decisions about the worlds.
I guess my point is that I see the rules as seperate from the world, and I see the edition as reflective of the rules. It also seems that I am not the only one thinking this way.
Other posts from a WotC insider have indicated that there are at least two Rise of the Runelords campaigns running in 4E playtesting right now. Tough to do if the world was intrisnic to D&D since Golarion is a bit different than what is being described in Worlds and Monsters.
I am part way through Worlds and Monsters right now and while I find it interesting, I am not finding it actually has as much info and base concepts about the system itself when compared to Races and Classes. If you enjoyed reading the design concepts in W&M then I would recommend R&C as well. Interesting stuff... and like you, the base design concepts sound very interesting but I will remain open to see how they are executed.
Sean Mahoney
I think the core Points of Light campaign setting will be good, and mechanically I like a lot of what I've seen from the rules. I was never a big fan of the Forgotten Realms, but from everything I've heard, I don't forsee that changing anytime in the future.
I get the distinct impression that a lot of fans are going to pick up the Realms Corebook in the store, flip through it and put it back. I understand the logic behind why they'd change the setting so much - this both frees current DMs and writers from the *very* long history of the Realms and also will allow them to sell a book without hearing cries of "I already bought this! Twice! I don't need a third copy! I can just use my 2nd edition/3rd Edition/Grand History of the Realms book!" but I think the changes have gone a bit far for most people. Particularly the fact that the setting now seems to correspond to the Points of Light model.
Obviously time will tell, but I suspect that this time next year when they're trundling out Eberron, we'll see something much closer to the original material for the setting instead of something wildly different, based upon the sales (or lack there-of) for the Realms.
I think it's interesting that they've decided not to change Eberron, and not to advance the timeline, and they've even made a decision that events from Eberron novels will never mandate changes to the published Eberron setting.
Yet somehow, they seem incapable of realizing that this same approach could be applied to the Forgotten Realms.
I like the idea of a Points of Light campaign setting, but I think it should be its own, stand-alone entity, not something forced upon an existing setting. On the other hand, if they wanted to produce an optional POL setting adaptation for an existing setting, I imagine that would be a fascinating product and a big seller. For example, if they sold an Eberron book that hypothesized:
(1) On the Day of Mourning, Cyre was thrown into its own demiplane, or even into one of the remote planes (Xoriat, or a stable pocket within Dal Quor).
(2) Beyond the borders of Cyre is a nightmare-scape of the rest of Khorvaire, duplicated as it existed on the Day of Mourning, but everyone is dead and massive devastation has occurred (basically, an intact Cyre surrounded by a world of Mournland).
(3) Here are the maps of Cyre, and what things were like up to the Day of Mourning, including some enemy armies that were in the area.
Now that would be a scary POL campaign, and very cool. Particularly if it exists as its own entity, separate from the "main" Eberron campaign setting material.
All things considered, there is a certain amount of irony in the fact that Forgotten Realms 1st edition corresponded rather well with the points of light model (with the possible exceptions of Cormyr and Waterdeep). Now, they smash it all to make it conform to points of light, and still they keep Cormyr and Waterdeep. =)
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Here, as well as elsewhere, I'm dismayed at readign about the heavy influence Eberron will have on the 4E core game, but somthing that should be expected, I guess.
My group happily played Eberron for an entire campaign but when it was over we quickly moved back to the worlds that originally made D&D...D&D (ForgotteRealms/Greyhawk-ish). Eberron was a nice experiment but is not core D&D to us, it almost felt like a different game alltogether.
The new superhero element, "extreme" fantasy, and bizarre stuff shoehorned into the core world is a direction that I can't get excited about.
-DM Jeff
I don't think it would be fair to judge wether or not the 4E game system is good by what you see in the changes that are coming for Forgotten Realms (which, as I believe Sebastion put it are indeed a 'big pile of dumb'). I have always considered the base rules and the settings to be fairly different and I think this will continue in 4E.
To illustrate this, look back to some of the campaign settings we saw in previous editions. Ravenloft vs. Planescape or Dark Sun vs. Greyhawk. They had VERY different feels from one another and yet shared the same base mechanics. If they were making the core world of D&D match with Dark Sun I would be pretty upset... but that wouldn't be the rules, but decisions about the worlds.
I guess my point is that I see the rules as seperate from the world, and I see the edition as reflective of the rules. It also seems that I am not the only one thinking this way.
The core rules of D&D should flexible be able to run in a variety of different settings, with any changes detailed in the setting material. If the 4e rules weren't flexible enough to run in the Forgotten Realms (a sterotypical "high fantasy" setting) without blowing it up, then maybe they aren't flexible enough in the first place. I'm wondering how much of this has to do with the flexibility of the rules and how much is "rebranding" of the IP, though.
This also comes back to concepts vs. execution. Many of the concepts for 4e are interesting, but many times their execution either hasn't been released yet or completely invalidates the feel and history of the past 30+ years.
3.x is a very flexible system that can be played in a wide variety of settings and support many different gaming styles. 4e has yet to prove the same and the heavy-handed way that changes are being pushed do not fill me with confidence.
I'm not automatically against 4e, but I'm not going to endorse it without seeing it, either. Also, many of the changes seem to deliberately make 4e as different from previous versions as possible.
I think it's interesting that they've decided not to change Eberron, and not to advance the timeline, and they've even made a decision that events from Eberron novels will never mandate changes to the published Eberron setting.
Yet somehow, they seem incapable of realizing that this same approach could be applied to the Forgotten Realms.
Eberron is a 100% WotC developed setting, rather than something inherited from TSR (like the Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk). It's not surprising that there's a "don't hurt my baby" mentality for an in-house setting. Also, there's a tremendous amount of inertia behind long-running settings that make any changes (as opposed to expansions or filling in detail) to existing material a tough sell.
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Eberron is a 100% WotC developed setting, rather than something inherited from TSR (like the Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk). It's not surprising that there's a "don't hurt my baby" mentality for an in-house setting. Also, there's a tremendous amount of inertia behind long-running settings that make any changes (as opposed to expansions or filling in detail) to existing material a tough sell.
There is also the safety factor. Even though changes to the Realms will cause a stir it will be tough to drive people away because of the solid fanbase. Eberron is still too young and so changes are more likely to shrink the fanbase in a dramatic way.
Eberron is still too young and so changes are more likely to shrink the fanbase in a dramatic way.
True. If they change Eb now, fans will just wonder how long it will be before they change it again.
I liked the Worlds and Monsters book quite a bit and it took me a while to figure out that it was because of the flavor. There was a lot of interesting stuff in there and it got the wheels turning in a nice way. One of the things I HATED about 3E was the reduction in flavor text. Some good third party publishers kept a nice balance of flavor with their crunch, but the level of crunch to flavor was just far to high for my tastes. I remember reading the old 1E and 2E MMs just for FUN. Lots of interesting tidbits were in those books, in the flavor text, and I'm glad it's making a comeback. It doesn't have to all be used, or even treated as gospel, but it's useful and entertaining and interesting stuff that makes the book more than just a cookbook. Er, ramble over.