Bedrockgames
Legend
I want a better game. Improving the system for a new edition is fine, but I want it to feel like D&D to me. This, like any other measure for the "quality" of the game is going to be subjective. What is D&D to you may not be the same to me. But they should strive to create something that both appeals to a large section of the gaming community and is still distinctly D&D. For me and many others, 4E feels like a different game. I is certainly bold and innovative, but it isn't what I think of when I say "that D&D feel".
I would just add there is no universal measure for what would make D&D better. For some people building on 4e and refining it would create a better game, for others trying to recapture some of the classic old school elements would be a better game. The only thing I can do is offer my opinions about what will make the game more enjoyable and hope wotc listens.
These discussions are important because they give us a sense of where different segments of the community are and what they want. We aren't building the game. It isn't our job to create ghe great compromise between us. We are just talking about what our desires are for D&D Next. Hopefully wizards is listening to online chatter like this to help get a sense of where they should take the new edition. They may listen to you, they may listen to me, they may take parts of what we both say and apply those to the design....in the end i expect them to do what they believe will attract the biggest audience to the game. And that is what they should do. But if the end result of that is a game that doesn't interest me, I am not going to waste my free time or my money playing it. In the mean time I will continue to give my opinion on what I hope to see.
Well 4e is also soon to be an older edition. Older doesn't mean worse. However this is not what I am asking for. I understand things will be streamlined and changed (their ideas for baking skills into attributes interests me...but the execution is critical if they want consistent and believable results, so will wait and see what it looks like). What we are getting will not be AD&D or 3E. That isn't what I expect, but I do expect the core system to have a much more classic design than 4E. So in that sense I do want something older I suppose (and if my tastes are old school to others i don't think I need to appologize for that).
I mean 4e never really appealed to me so naturally i am not going to be interested in 4e design components making it into core. There may be some things. While the way 4e did balance isn't my cup of tea, they are clearly taking a page from it with their three pillars approach (this still has a 4e underinnign to it but is a bit more flexible and broad from the sound of it). I expect we may see some 4e races and classes (though i do think the warlord will be a tough sell in core for pre 4e fans).
But this edition is going to be something of a reaction to 4e. The danger of that is they will go to far. I do think 4e was a reaction to 3e and went too farl when fourth ediiton was planned, I was excited because some of the balance issues and the emphasis on system mastery/optimization was bothering mel so I was very open to a more contained system. But 4e was so different, so focused on parity, and had so many parts that messed with my style, tthat I couldn't get into it. So while they should take a lesson from the excesses of 4e, perhaps where I agree with you is that lesson shouldn't be used to excuse the excesses of prior editions (i.e. 4e is too focused on balance, so any balance is bad).
