Recent content by theuglyamerican

I have to disagree with you on this. D&D isn't a game (or at least it's not solely a game), it's a brand. I'm not telling you anything you don't know when I point out that OGL games can't use the D&D brand, or even mention it. Even the biggest of the competitors (Pathfinder) doesn't get the...

Except it's not. At all. The RPG hobby as a whole needs D&D to succeed. We -- as roleplayers -- need new people to come into the hobby from outside, because otherwise the hobby dies. I don't know about you, but when I tell someone outside the hobby that I'm a roleplayer, I get a dead-fish...

I've bolded the problematical part of your questions. When 1E came out, some people didn't like the changes and kept playing their older versions. When 2E came out, some people stuck with 1E. When 3E came out, and with it the OGL, a considerable number of people stayed with older versions...

The one thing that really seems worth resurrecting from 1E -- in a module, most likely, rather than core -- was the baseline assumption that you would hire hirelings, some of whom might become henchmen if you treated them nicely, and then when your character was ready to become a playa and...

As a brief explanation, played D&D, adopted 1E when it came out, moved to 2E, and then abandoned the game for other systems until the advent of Pathfinder, when I returned and found myself delighted by the plucky underdog poking Hasbro in the eye with a sharp stick. So I missed the rollout of...

I'm not asking whether it's technically possible to produce a new edition (obviously it is). I'm not asking whether the new edition can be a good game (it can be). No, what I'm asking is whether it's even remotely possible whether the new edition can achieve the main goal set for it by the...

Wow, thanks for the feedback! There's obviously a lot of good ideas in 4e that deserve to be carried forward (even if the terminology and details are changed to smooth the edges and avoid offending the sensibilities of the easily offended). The reason I started this thread is that I'm a...

Forgive my ignorance, because it's just that and not a troll. What makes it easy to prep, specifically?

I suppose it's pointless to ask for people to refrain from flaming or trolling, but what the hell, I've always enjoyed tilting at windmills. NO FLAMING OR TROLLING! With that out of the way, nobody's going to get everything they want in a compromise, gestalt edition like 5e. Therefore, I'm...

The goal Hasbro has set is the goal Hasbro is set, whether it's idiotic or not (and it is idiotic, Jebus is it idiotic) and D&D has to meet it or get pulled, in all likelihood. Now, I haven't seen anyone in this thread saying that Pathfinder is better than 4e because it's outselling 4e. What I...

Well, yes, this is very much true. It's equally true that 4e enthusiasts aren't enough to carry D&D -- the brand needs both 4e enthusiasts and 3.x enthusiasts to succeed. If that weren't true, then we wouldn't be seeing 5e right now. 4e enthusiasts can feel very confident that their interests...

Precisely, and this is the realistic problem with the whole project. People who like 4e still have 4e to play; why should they switch to another version of the game less to their liking? Likewise, Pathfinder players such as me have Pathfinder, a game that's already pitched to our preferences...

Well that's the core of the problem, isn't it? The fact is that 4e has a cadre of enthusiasts so large that ANY publisher of RPGs except Hasbro would love to have them, and the game is good enough to support that enthusiasm for many years to come (the fact that it's not my cup of tea is...

For me, the issue isn't a belief that my voice won't be heard or that they won't be willing to incorporate feedback. The issue is that, as of now, there's nobody who's coming at this from a full-throated 3.x perspective, but lots of people coming at it from a 4e perspective. What that means is...

Will it? As a 3.x enthusiast (in the form of Pathfinder), I'm not seeing anyone on the design team who will be a champion of my preferred version of the game. I'm not suggesting that nobody on the team is willing to incorporate features from 3.x. Rather, now there's nobody on the team who...