For those NOT converting to 4E in June, how did you react to the 4E announcement?

[Black Dow]

All DMs are evil wrote:

Ever since they pulled the plug on the Dungeon and Dragon magazines and took them on-line, I have fell out of love with Wizards.

For my 2 coppers worth I felt exactly the same on this one - slightly frustrated and very dissappointed by Wizards...

When you topped that off with the announcement of 4E and the subsequent info and insights on the system and its changes, it became more and more apparent that this wasn't the game I've loved playing since the Basic set and I wasn't the kind of person Wizards saw playing it...

[poizen37]

The moment I learned it wasn't backwards compatible (not without heavy conversion), I knew immediately I wasn't going to buy it. Since then, I haven't bothered to learn too much about 4E. In my mind, while the developers I've come to love have always succeeded at making me happy with their changes, it comes down to one thing:

Money.

I've reached a point in my life where I realize that the rules are a small part of the game. It's the combined story that is created between you and a group of friends that matters.

Don't get me wrong, *Adding* to my collection with new Pathfinder stuff excites me in a way I haven't felt in a long time. To be able to watch it develop over a full year before I can gleefully run home with the official hardbound edition? Boo yah, baby. I can officially say that the last time I was this excited over a new game, it came in a Red Box.

But ADDING to my collection with a few backwards compatible rulebooks is a lot different than walking over to my VERY full bookshelf and dumping it over as obsolete. Frankly, I've spent way too much on 3.5 material to even consider 4E, even if it turns out to be the best system ever printed.

[Katowice]

I took one look at the announcement and then my bookshelf full of 3.5 and OGL books, then I LOL'd. After that, I bought all the True20 books that I could (prior to Paizo's announcement about 3P).

Sorry, no 4E for me.

[daedel, el azote]

I was very disappointed at that time because I discovered that 4th edition was closely related to the end of Dungeon and Dragon magazines. I also thought as many others that it was too soon for a new edition. But I decided to be calm and cold and to decide in the future what to do according to the info provided by Wizards.

Future is now. I don't like at all nearly everything I've read about 4e. And I like much what I've read about Pathfinder RPG. Given the fact Forgotten Realms is gonna be in just a few months something completely different and absurd, I am gonna NOT be buying 4e and I'll keep on enjoying the improved 3.5 Paizo version. And of course, I'll be DM in Varisia. Or Varusia. Or Verisia. Whatever.

daedel, el azote.

[Sunderstone]

poizen37 wrote:

Don't get me wrong, *Adding* to my collection with new Pathfinder stuff excites me in a way I haven't felt in a long time. To be able to watch it develop over a full year before I can gleefully run home with the official hardbound edition? Boo yah, baby. I can officially say that the last time I was this excited over a new game, it came in a Red Box.

My thoughts exactly as to the being excited about gaming again. My last excitement was the grey box Forgotten Realms. Before that was my discovery of AD&D, and before that was the Red Box and the Blue Box. :)

Im really excited about Golarion as a setting and the Pathfinder RPG, Im in for the long haul and ill soon be upping my number of subscriptions.

[BPorter]

Disappointment, annoyance, and concern. 3e had a lot of life left in it, but WotC aside, my biggest concern was how the 4e announcement would impact, and potentially hand-cuff, 3rd party publishers.

Fortunately, I've still got my Conan RPG, my d20 Modern library is essentially complete and is largely supported by 3rd parties anyway, and the new crown jewel: the Pathfinder RPG.

With the announcement of the Pathfinder RPG, any remaining vestiges of curiousity (there was never really interest) regarding 4e are gone.

[LazarX]

I'm still holding a lot of interest in 4th edition. And the plain fact is that there is no right answer as to whether Pathfinder or 4E is going to be a better game. Pathfinder is mainly a shelter against change, like the folks still looking to run Mac OS 9 when that operating system was staked by OS X years ago.

Most of the perceived problems with 3.5 will NOT be solved by Pathfinder, but Pathfinder will be perfect for those who feel that those problems simply did not matter to them, such as the balance issue between casters and non-casters as the game progresses to high levels. And the almost certain need to multi-class for some classes like the sorcerer. But I LIKED creating my Arcane Trickster and on that face 3.5/3/75 is an okay system for me.

On the other hand, I throughly enjoyed the Book of Nine Swords and saw it as an illumination on how things could be made better, but those were advancements that were singularly limited in the context of 3.5. I intend to buy both and will probably play both, but what we are seeing is that D+D has grown enough so that we have large camps of people with differing play styles and tastes.

I trust that there is enough that remains of the pre-Hasbro WOTC that 4E will be a heck of a game when it comes out and goes through it's inevitable growing pains. I am not interested into getting into one of those 4E vs Pathfinder debates. I've had more than enough of that during the Mac vs. Windows war years. Ultimately which system is for you, (or possibly both) is going to be a matter of taste.

Besides you don't need to preach about Pathfinder here. After all, we ARE here. Just as there are those that vehemently reject 4E once they've looked at it, we've already had folks who've done the same with Pathfinder. and that's okay... it's an expression of choice and I think the presence of both game systems is a competitive win for us.. the game player no matter which one we play.

[Russell Akred]

As a ex-Living Greyhawk player I was unsure until they said they were killing LG for Realms. On top of that obliterating Realms and restarting with a clean slate there. To tell us the books we been buying from them for years had a bad system made me even more upset. They sold us that then they called it junk. Typical marketing manipulation. That great computer you bought last year is bad buy our new one. From the announcement on I have refused to purchase any other Wiz products. Paizo listens to their users and I feel respected. Don't treat me like a cash machine and I will stick with you.

[lastknightleft]

I'm probably gonna shock you here, I was truly excited with the announcement of 4E. The fluff changes that they announced at first were interesting and exciting. I particularly love that they are designing monsters now to be fought in groups and not one on one as the 3.5 system never really got that right, but as more and more info came out, I slowly started being less excited. Really skill points gone, that is single handedly my favorite mechanic as a player. and then came the dnd experience and I printed out the character sheets from it online, and since then I just haven't been able to get excited, the 1st level characters really are 5th level characters. I loved playing levels 1-5 before getting to the sweet spot, if a character made it that far I always felt like I had done something right. Now its all about gimme gimme, races with no negative drawbacks, lots of powers, no need to really worry because it will never come down to the roll of a single die. Now I'm just really interested in DMing Paizo adventure paths and am hoping they'l release a rise of the runelords box set I can pick up.

[The Bibliophile]

I started out really curious about 4E, moved to excited and ended up ... unexcited. Now, don't get me wrong my books are still on pre-order and based on the talent working on it I think it will be very good. Probably a wonderful tactical, high combat fantasy game. No complaints.

But just not D&D to me. Like many long time players I carry a lot of baggage of the past of my D&D playing with me. I'm not a D&D fanboy. Within the last year I've bought a ton of White Wolf (new World of Darkness), snagged the one book I was missing for my Unknown Armies collection, enjoyed the heck out of the new edition of Shadowrun and so on.

But when I play D&D I don't just want a good fantasy RPG I want something that feels like D&D to me. And its a nebulous thing. It may feel like D&D to others and just not to me. Yeah, I want gnomes. Personally I hate gnomes but they're a part of D&D. I want 9 levels of spells. I want magic missile to always hit. I want Wish, as horribly broken and abused as it may be at times. Those stories of DMs trying to reign Wish in are as much a part of my D&D background as the battles. And its hard to innovate while still keeping that feel but so far Pathfinder, for me, is doing that.

So, still curious to see 4E. I may play it. I'm sure it will be good. But when I get the itch to play D&D right now its looking like Pathfinder will be what I will reach for.

[Michael Donovan]

Shadowborn wrote:

Michael Donovan wrote:

Then there's this: Saving Throws...

This, precisely, is how the system can interfere with good heroic role-playing. The concept of hidden DM saving throws is invaluable and removing such from the system can dramatically influence or even disrupt carefully crafted campaigns.

*blinks*

By the hells! I'd never even thought about that. One of the best things about being a DM, being able to maintain a story, totally sunk by a mechanics change. What a trainwreck...

Thanks, Michael. You just highlighted the dealbreaker. This alone would be enough to convince me 4e wasn't for me, even if all the other drudge hadn't swayed me by now.

Yeah - a lot of people kept insisting that the system can't affect the role-playing aspect. This is just one of many examples of how it indeed can, and is perhaps the most significant. I ran this scenario by one of the owners at our FLGS and he turned white as a sheet in an "Oh my, what have they done?" kind of way. Any interest in 4e beyond something he was obliged to (now grudgingly) put on his shelf vanished immediately.

[Winterwalker]

"There is no 4E."

I shunted my mind to an alternate universe where the announcement never happened.

[Zuxius]

Vindicated

I told everyone that they were switching and gearing up for 4.0. They told me I was "just another guy ranting that 4.0 was coming, DOOM!". They pulled so many licenses, Code Monkey, Margaret Weis Productions, Paizo among others, that you had to be a fool to think they would proceed with 3.5. Everyone told me they would be getting someone to do in-house software for the game, but I said there would be no "in-house software for this edition". I could not believe that they thought it was remotely possible that WotC and some partner software company could backward engineer rules to software in 3.5 (with as many exceptions that exist).

Anyway, being right sucked, because I believe the potential to create companion 3.5 software (to assist DMs, ME) was doable. When WotC announced that their energies would go to 4.0, I knew that I would have to turn into some kind of scribe for my 3.5 books, while a freckled face teenager would have all that info at a push of the button.

I am not talking about the commonly found SRD progs that are already out there, but something for my entire D&D 3.x collection.

Pff

[Michael Donovan]

Zuxius wrote:

Vindicated

Anyway, being right sucked, because I believe the potential to create companion 3.5 software (to assist DMs, ME) was doable.

I am not talking about the commonly found SRD progs that are already out there, but something for my entire D&D 3.x collection.

Pff

Patience. I'm certain there are dozens of crafty gnomes like myself at work on such gizmowhatsits as we speak.

I came up with a quip about a data supplier I have the displeasure of working with who by their very incompetence caused me to create many safeguards to protect our systems. The quip seems to adequately fit the general situation created by WotC:

"If necessity is the mother of invention, WotC got her drunk and pregnant."

Paizo and others have stepped in to raise the child properly. :)

[pres man]

Zuxius wrote:

Anyway, being right sucked, because I believe the potential to create companion 3.5 software (to assist DMs, ME) was doable. When WotC announced that their energies would go to 4.0, I knew that I would have to turn into some kind of scribe for my 3.5 books, while a freckled face teenager would have all that info at a push of the button.

I am not talking about the commonly found SRD progs that are already out there, but something for my entire D&D 3.x collection.
Pff

Yes, it would be nice if someone put together an item you could use to build Heroes with. A builder item that you could Forge all their details. Sadly I know of nothing that can do that. ;)