D&D 4E DnD 4E DOA?

[The Shaman]

The game is geared toward miniature wargaming now...

I understand the point you're making, Narfellus, but I would differ with you slightly on this: OLDER editions of D&D, which recommended a scale of 1" = 10' for adjudicating tabletop play, had a miniatures wargaming feel. Wargamers use tape measures and model bases to determine movement and "attacks of opportunity," not grids.

The current edition has more in common with checkers in that regard.

 

[cmanos]

People don't seem to understand, if you aren't happy with 3.5, you probably won't be happy with 4.0. Gaming companies are all on edge and need to sell sell sell. Sometimes they only way they can come up with new product is to make a new edition.

Personally. I'm going to get what I can with 3.5. If 4.0 come sout. it can stay right on the shelves. I will not touch it. I enjoy 3.5. I get what I want out of 3.5.

 

[Navar]

For me closer to 5. I would like to see the Sorcerer replaced with the warlorck (and the warlock "fixed" flavor wise so he isn't so niched.) (by that I mean DR can go away, alignment can be fixed, the "Dark Speech" stuff and the connection to evil/chaotic forces mostly just flavor stuff though to make it more "base class friendly." And to get more support for it in future books.) I think that a couple of other things could be fixed as well. Maybe a magic system more like AE (with arcane and divine seperation still, but with the enhanced and lowered effects that is the hallmark of the system) Overall I am good with 3.5 though.

 

[Nisarg]

I'm pretty sure that's the big reason. Everyone feels burns by the 3.5 release, and the fact that WotC is owned by Hasbro doesn't help. I think D&D gamers have a strong distrust of corporate suits who manage the game which goes back to the post Gary days at TSR.

Not "everyone" feels burned by 3.5; a lot of people feel it was a necessary change or a good addition. I strongly disagree with them, but they do feel that way.

But my original point was that even those people are inclined to feel suspect of the idea that Wizards will wait till 2010 for another edition, just because history has shown otherwise.

Nisarg

 

[Nisarg]

There will be a revolt amongst the half hearted gamers. This revolt would be small....coomparable to the "revolt" of gamers not picking up 3.5. The so-called "long time fans" will suck it up and buy the books....myself included.....

Well it depends.

The fact is that 3.x is fairly popular. If you make serious changes that seem contrary to what D&D players are comfortable with (touching the "sacred cows", etc) or if the new edition panders to an interest group outside the fandom (be it miniatures players or the religious right or computer gamers), you might see a big exodus of players, just as you saw way back when 2nd edition came out. Likewise if nothing is really changed, or it seems in some other way to be done for purely greedy motives and not for the real benefit of the customer.

Wizards would have to decide if whatever changes they planned to make would be worth the loss of the people they would piss off in doing said changes, which would only hold true if the people they gain end up outnumbering the fans they lose.

Nisarg

 

[Nisarg]

There are certain PR companies that are paid to get threads started as if they were customers in an attempt to steer the conversation to a company's purposes. Call me a conspiracy buff... but I sure have seen a lot of threads about 4th edition lately. I think we could all learn something from Shadowrun 3rd edition, in that another edition is not always a good thing for the customer or the manufacturer's revenues.

Was Shadowrun 3rd a big flop or something? I wasn't aware of that...

Nisarg

 

[Nisarg]

Another person here, who won't be touching 4E in any form. I would rather go the way C&C or Blue Rose.

Having now played my first session of Blue Rose, I can safely say that I consider it to be the epitome of what "D20 Fantasy" (ie. Fantasy using D20 that is NOT D&D, in that it drops all of the D&D sacred cows) ought to be.

Nisarg

 

[Nisarg]

I skipped 2e; might as well skip 4e just to establish a pattern.

Is D&D the anti-Star Trek movies? As in, every even-numbered edition sucks? I guess we'll see...

Nisarg

 

[Bastoche]

I stil play DnD because my fellow players are not willing to try anything else. I'm ready for something new and if 4E going out would encourage my fellows to try something else, then I want it now! I'll never buy anything wotc related ever.

 

[teitan]

I don't think WOTC is running out of stuff to do with 3e. Yeah, if they focus on nothing but variant rules, sure but what about setting books etc? That is what 2e THRIVED On (1e thrived on excellent adventures) and kept it going for all those years. WOTC seems focused on just providing variant rule after variant rule and I am kind of sick of it. Lets see some more setting books for Eberron and the Realms and some adventures thrown into the mix. They certainly are not doing enough of any of that for the fans of the settings or for people with full time jobs etc (and yeah, Dungeon exists but not everything in Dungeon is useful and most third party 3e adventures are 3.0 and need a lot of conversion work done). WOTC is STARTING to drop the ball on us.

Jason