What Did You Want Fourth Edition to be Like?

[Wormwood]

If WotC had fixed the half dozen things that people often site as being seriously wrong with 3.5 and put it out as 4th edition, then people would be griping that it really is just 3.75 and not a truly "new edition."

*raises hand*

Yep. I'd have been first in line with that gripe, and such a move would undoubtedly have killed any interest in D&D for my groups for the foreseeable future.

 

[Vegepygmy]

If WotC had fixed the half dozen things that people often site as being seriously wrong with 3.5 and put it out as 4th edition, then people would be griping that it really is just 3.75 and not a truly "new edition."

So instead, they made radical alterations, and just as many people griped that it was no longer D&D and not a truly "new edition" of D&D. Same result, just different people in the disappointed group.

We'd have twice the griping that we had when 3.5 came out regarding Wizards just wanting to take money from people, etc.

And instead, we got at least twice the griping about 4E that we had when 3.5 came out.

When talk of a Fourth edition came out, most people around here said they thought it was too soon, but those who thought they had been ripped off to a large extent with 3.5 said they would be cool with it if it the new edition was truly different. That's what it is. It's the same core principles, only it's different and in many ways more modern. What's wrong with that? That's what people said they wanted.

"What's wrong with that" has been exhaustively discussed around here. "People" (not everyone, of course, just some people) said they wanted something "truly different." The problem is, everyone wanted different true differences, and 4E has only satisfied some of those people -- and judging from what I see around here and in my own gaming circle, they satisfied only a little more than half of the people. I guess that's better than a little less than half, but it's hardly great.

 

[Imaro]

I can't believe this thread is really happening.

Is there something to be said here that hasn't been said ad nauseum on countless speculative 4th Edition big-disappointment threads?

I can't believe someone forced you to enter and read a thread you had no interest in... then went even further and forced you to threadcrap in it, withut actually contributing anything... Wait no one did, did they?

To the OP... I would have been much hapier with something along the lines os SWSE modeled more for fantasy than space fantasy.

 

[Desert Hare]

I would have liked to see a d&d saga edition.

To the op... I would have been much hapier with something along the lines os swse modeled more for fantasy than space fantasy.

Ahem:

Have you checked out the gneech's sword & sorcery system?

 

[Imaro]

Ahem:

I downloaded it awhile ago...

 

[Desert Hare]

I downloaded it awhile ago...

I believe it's been updated recently.

 

[Sadrik]

If WotC had fixed the half dozen things that people often site as being seriously wrong with 3.5 and put it out as 4th edition, then people would be griping that it really is just 3.75 and not a truly "new edition." We'd have twice the griping that we had when 3.5 came out regarding Wizards just wanting to take money from people, etc.

When talk of a Fourth edition came out, most people around here said they thought it was too soon, but those who thought they had been ripped off to a large extent with 3.5 said they would be cool with it if it the new edition was truly different. That's what it is. It's the same core principles, only it's different and in many ways more modern. What's wrong with that? That's what people said they wanted.

I don't disagree with you about the griping, everyone cannot be happy with everything.

3e had run its course and needed to be reset. This is a very valid thing and people who wanted to basically stay at 3e and not switch is fine. People still play 1e and 2e (albeit not many - relatively). Games get bloated, 3e especially because the crunch is what their marketing said was the thing that sold the best. If you release 3 books a month for 8 years you will get a little too crunchy and ugly things will pop out. This is very much like MAGIC THE GATHERING They have arcs of cards so that you do not have every option available, if you did, it would be uncontrollably unbalanced. When they release a new arc, they do not re-write the game from the ground up. They add rules and take away rules and get a new mix of the same game. Magic players would be unhappy if a new arc was released and it played like a different game. Variability is fine but at a cost of dissociating core play feel. It can cost some players to rebel, it has.

Look at new coke of years ago arguably the worst marketing flop of all time. I don't want to put D&D in this category because it is not there but it is an interesting case study. New Coke beat out old coke in every taste test they ever did. When they released it though the public reviled it. So the old coke was invented and brought back by public demand in the form of classic coke. There are times when brand identity are just associated with a "feel" one of those nebulous things that you cannot quite put your finger on. I don't know but D&D could be suffering from that "bright shiny newness".

 

[RangerWickett]

I'll follow Kamikaze Midget's lead a bit.

The rituals were a wonderful solution to a "wizard can do anything" problem.

Evening out The Maths and introducing a new save system (and getting rid of most save-or-die effects) solved the swingy combat problem at high and low levels.

The skill system needed consolidation.

The monster-building system needed streamlining.

The "conditions" are great and consolidated (especially simplifying grappling). Ability damage needed to stop the massive cascading effects that it triggered.

The "20 minutes of fun crammed into 4 hours" was (and STILL IS) a legitimate problem.

What I didn't really want, or need, was a re-examination of what D&D was. I knew what D&D was, for me and my players. I had been playing for years with the style I wanted. I had brought on many, many newbies. I didn't need to be told that the simulationist and narrativist elements I loved were getting in the way of ALL FIGHTING ALL THE TIME, which I didn't even like that much in 3e because of the grid-based nature of it. I didn't need to have this tremendous wall of accessories, time, and space between me and my D&D game. I didn't need the Vancian system to take possession of my game like some Cthuloid horror of universal class symmetry (I didn't LIKE wizards in previous editions, dudes!).

What I needed was a way to play my game better, not a way to play WotC's minis combat game.

I really liked Star Wars SAGA. The Jedi were, as usual, overpowered, but the game ran quick. I really dislike attack powers in 4th ed. They slow things down.

When I heard about class powers, I figured you'd get class abilities, akin to 3rd ed., but I hoped that instead of you having to take 10 levels of fighter to get a 10th level fighter ability, you'd be able to just take a level of fighter, and if you were at least 10th level you could pick a 10th level fighter power.

I dislike the heavy emphasis on grid-based measurements, and how classes really are just different ways to kill stuff. I wanted the first part of the PHB to be about heroic archetypes, then a quick overview of the types of characters you can make at different tiers, and then a long guide of how to design a character who'll be interesting for you to play and for your friends to adventure with.

Then you'd have two sections, one on character classes, and one on custom characters. The default of the game would be that you can pick whatever abilities you want as you level up. Classes would just be pre-made suites of abilities, designed to fit classic archetypes.

 

[ferratus]

What I didn't really want, or need, was a re-examination of what D&D was. I knew what D&D was, for me and my players. I had been playing for years with the style I wanted. I had brought on many, many newbies. I didn't need to be told that the simulationist and narrativist elements I loved were getting in the way of ALL FIGHTING ALL THE TIME, which I didn't even like that much in 3e because of the grid-based nature of it. I didn't need to have this tremendous wall of accessories, time, and space between me and my D&D game.

I like to think of myself as a narrativist DM, and I can't think of anything that I've lost in terms of non-combat story arcs. My characters still forge weapons, sneak around, survive against the elements, attend masquerade balls, interact with NPC's and monsters. I have yet to find a non-combat player action that can't be accomplished easily in 4e. I certainly don't fight all the time, as the minis stay put away for the other 50%. Sure most of the rules revolve around combat, but that's true of every single edition of D&D, even OD&D. The reason for that is very simple, because combat is the only thing that really determines the "end" of the game for the player.

As for minis, I'll freely admit that I love minis. Aside from loving things in a minature scale in general (such as models), I love the tactile sensation of moving it around the board. It is the same reason I prefer to play chess on a board instead of over the computer. I like the rules on how the pieces interact with each other, and the specific monster and NPC abilities which make each combat different.

I'm wondering if the split between 4e and 3e has to do with the consumption habits of different people. I only bought 2 rulebooks outside the core 3, but I bought a lot of miniatures and every issue of Dungeon magazine, along with some other assorted adventure modules.

In contrast, it seems that the people who most reject 4e in favour of 3e heavily invested in rulebooks, and derived a great deal of pleasure specifically in how the rules worked and viewed the experience of their play experience specifically around how those rules worked. Changing the rules to a unified powers based system rather than a to-hit/spells system was much more shattering to how they viewed the game experience than it would be for someone like me.

 

[RangerWickett]

Not I. In 3.5, I bought the core books, Eberron, and I think the XPH. That was it. I'm actually pretty fine with the 'roleplaying' side of 4e's rules, since no version of D&D has ever had good roleplaying rules. I just really don't like the aesthetic, both visually and in the writing.

The PHB's layout emphasizes that it's page after page of combat powers (combat powers which I think are too fiddly and mini-based, honestly).

I didn't ever want tons of sourcebooks. I wanted a game that felt like the fantasy I like. 3e did that pretty. 3.5 got a little too rules heavy for me to like it as much.