D&D 4E Is 4E winning you or losing you?

[GoodKingJayIII]

I'm looking forward to it. I started off cautious, but overall I like most of what I'm hearing.

If you're asking whether or not I was going to buy the books initially, well... I was always going to grab the PHB, at least.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I started out kind of non-plussed, but I'm moving in the direction of strong optimism. I'm thrilled to see that the game will be (theoretically) easier to run, and with a widened sweet spot. Reducing the importance of magic items is big plus (especially as regards monsters and NPC's). I'm happy to see the pile of sacred cows on the griddle, and am standing by eagerly with BBQ sauce and bib. I never cared for the Planescape/Great Wheel planar structure; its always been one of the very first things I throw out the window when creating a homebrew, since 1989 on. Planescape always bugged me severely on a metagame level, so I don't mind its not-so-terribly-sacred cows being led to the hungry carnivores.

There is still plenty of time for them to muck things up. I'm not 100% sold - I'll buy the core books for sure, but who knows after that? I'll be more careful and reserved in buying 3rd party stuff this time around. A lot will depend on what my gaming groups want to do; I'm not going to drag all of them along kicking and screaming if they don't want to go.

 

[drothgery]

I wasn't too surprised by the 4e announcement; it was a bit sooner than I expected, but I thought it was near-certain that 4e was going to be announced at D&D Experience in 2008, and I'd've been far more shocked by GenCon 08 coming and going without a 4e announcement than by the 4e annoucnement that we actually got at GenCon 07.

I've been fairly optimistic since then, because I'm still expecting largely SWSE-esque mechanics, and I really like that game (enough that I'm running my first tabletop game in 13 years of playing D&D and other RPGs with them).

A few fluff elements kind of bother me (I'm not one of those people who thinks dark, gritty, and/or evil PCs and settings are cool), but that's easy enough to ignore.

 

[Festivus]

I began in surprised, moved to shocked, and have generally regained my optimistic outlook.

Cheers!

Same opinion here. I started stating I wouldn't go... how dare they... those turkeys. Now, I am hopeful for a far more streamlined game and a dungeon magazine that gets fixed after it's printed (I only needed to re-read three faces of evil to remind myself why that is a good thing).

It didn't hurt that I gained some free amazon.com money thanks to doing some surveys for my health provider, so 4th edition PHB will be free to me anyhow.

 

[FreeXenon]

I am so stoked I think I am going to pass out....

I have similar concerns as Nonlethal. I am however completely stoked (since SW:SE) as I am an 'Edition Fanboy'. I am concerned about some changes, love some of them, but over all I wish it was out now because the wait is killing me.

I would, very much, like to see a full 12 classes in the PHB (one for each role/power combo). I know its not going to happen, but hey, it's a wish.

Things I'm not approving of: (Understanding that we don't know the details)
Potential changes to demons and devils
Potentially making Tieflings a PHB race without Aasimar
Mike Mearl's opinions that monster generation should be different than PC generation

Things I think are potentially cool: (Understanding that we don't know the details)
Folding some skills in with others
Potentially streamlining combat
Fixing grappling, AoO, and the like
Minimizing the impact that magic items have on a game

 

[dmccoy1693]

Add another to the positive column for me: The planes are revamped. Thank the gods.

 

[FreeXenon]

That is one change that concerns me; not so much for me or for the groups I play, but for those Planescape people such as Shemeska. They can skip the 4E cosmology altogether, of course, but they will not have official conversions of planar traits and so on, which will make running these games a a lot of work in the new edition. Plus there is a lot of history surrounding the planes and their organizations and hierarchies.

 

[Malhost Zormaeril]

I don't like killing sacred cows, so for this reason I am not afraid to say that yes, for me 4e is not like D&D has always been in many ways, and I don't care how many disagrees, it's just my own gut feeling.

That said, it sounds like 4e is going to be a perfectly viable RPG ruleset, therefore I am certainly interested to try it out (probably a few months after it goes out, hoping to possibly avoid the typical error-rich first print), in the same way I would be interested to try other systems if they seem good.

Note that I don't like killing even the sacred cows I personally dislike: I'd like them all to stay, but to have easy options to replace them IMC, without forcing everybody else to my own preferences.

The feeling I'm getting when discussing about it, is that every gamer has had at least a couple of things they always hated about D&D, and they would like the rest of the world to conform with them. Hence you get all these "kill the sacred cows" gospel chants But at the same time, everyone undoubtedly also have always had things they always loved about D&D, which are sacred cows as well, but obviously they'd want those others to stay...

That is basically the reason why so many rollercoaster feelings: excited/aroused by new changes, "kill them all"... until oops they've killed my pet cow too, I hate them!

Quoted For Truth

In just a few weeks of rumors, it seems that WotC is not only killing (or at least wounding) nearly all sacred cows, but they're going farther and change things that nobody was expecting (e.g. the elemental planes)... But at this point, having started the "killing spree", I am getting more and more satisfied if they keep going and change as much as possible for two reasons:

1. As I said, I don't think this D&D is already anymore the D&D we've known. Let's still call it D&D, but at this point perhaps OD&D+AD&D1e+2e+3.0+3.5 were the first era D&D, and 4e is the second era D&D. I've stopped thinking of 4e in comparison with 3e, and instead I'm looking at it as something totally new by itself. Once that is accepted, it doesn't matter anymore how much of the rest will be different compared to the past.

2. The more they change, the more likely every single gamer will dislike at least 1 of the big changes. That hopefully will mean that very few if any will have the privilege of 4e having done exactly what they wanted, and will put back a little balance (and friendship) within the D&D community

I agree with Point 1, except that I'd say that the first era of D&D is OD&D+AD&D1e+2e, and the second era of D&D is D&D3.0+3.5; whether 4e will inaugurate a third era or continue with the second is still up in the air for me. As for point 2, most people will get over themselves. You wouldn't believe how much vitriol I spit back in 2000 when:

• the Ranger's alignment restrictions were lifted;
• the Psionicist's powers changed from Science/Devotion based to 9 levels like the Wizards;
• Psychoportation discipline got a lot of properly-telekinetic powers to pad itself out, without regard to thematic coherence (or rather, changing the theme to a pedestrian "everything that has to do with travel" one);
• The removal of Creation spells from Evocation into Conjuration, leaving the former school with very little other than plain blasting and Contingency;
• Race/Class restrictions were lifted (nonhuman Paladins and Dwarven Wizards);
• The general loss of "specialness" of the Paladin, who looked like a mere variant fighter rather than the paragon of virtue in 2e (granted, this had a lot to do with the lackluster appearance of Alhandra more than anything substantive).

Boy, were there that many things I hated about 3e? Regardless, I moved on, and played 3e none-the-less. I'm sure that 4e, even though they complete the alignment restriction relaxation and at the same time removing every bit of "specialness" of the Paladin, will be able to stand on its own merits. There are very good things about 4e, just as there were lots of good things about 3e. And that is why I'm sold on it, I guess.

 

[malladin]

Taking a wait and see approach but generally not that optimistic.

Nigel

 

[Pazu]

I'm pretty much neutral on 4e, although I'm in a somewhat unusual position, I think. Despite having bought most of the 3.0 and 3.5 material as it was released, I've actually played in a grand total of ... 2 campaigns.

That's right; two campaigns since 3.0 was first released. And not even complete campaigns. The 3.0 campaign ended after 4-5 sessions because the DM moved away, and the 3.5 campaign ended after a few months because the DM lost interest (and that gaming group is pretty much defunct at this point). That's my sum total of actual playing experience for all of 3.0/3.5.

So I don't really feel ready for a new edition, although I freely admit this has more to do with my personal circumstances than anything else. Some of the changes look interesting, and I might pick up a PHB for the hell of it ... or I might not.

I kind of remember feeling this way when 2e came out. I'd played a lot of 1e in high school and a little bit in college, and I thought 2e looked kind of interesting, but I never really got around to picking it up. Maybe I'll just start a trend of skipping even-numbered editions.