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

[Belorin]

I had decided to ignore 4E entirely as I have more than enough 3.5 stuff for years of gaming,
but then I heard that the RPGA was switching to Living Forgotten Realms for 4E.
That piqued my interest as I have been running the Realms since it's inception, so I looked in on the WotC site and started reading up on the changes being made.
Everything I've seen to date, yes even the wizard TRADITIONS, has increased my curiousity till I an actually looking forward to the previews this winter, they will be the deciding factor on whether or not I do pick up the core rulebooks.

Just my 2 coppers,

Bel

 

[Clavis]

Count me out of the 4th edition love party.

I'm one of those that initially had had high hopes for 3rd edition. I figured I could deal with the system changes as long as the brand was re-invigorated, and it became easier to get new players.

Boy was I wrong. What I got was a overly-complicated system that totally didn't work with my more free-wheeling DMing style. The more I tried to run it, the more it became obvious that this just wasn't the D&D game anymore, but a totally new game that I didn't like. 3.5 edition made everything much worse, by making characters expect a style of game play that I was completely unwilling to provide. I simply don't have time to spend 8 hours prepping for a 4 hour game. When even the game designers can't get their stat blocks to add up, you know something is really wrong with the rules.

So, now WOTC admits that 3.5 is impossible to prep for adaquately, and takes much too long to run. So what's the solution? Not return the game to its roots and admit that they were wrong to screw with it. Instead, they're going to alter the game still further, until even the veneer of continuity that existed in 3rd edition is gone. The game is dying and will soon be dead, at least under the name of D&D. People who don't like D&D are now in charge of the future of D&D. If I wanted to play GURPS, or HERO, or Runequest, I would just go and play those games.

I'm not saying the old rules had no problems. They should have been streamlined and lightened, not added to and made more complicated. D20 was actually a good idea, but the implementation has been really bad. These days I'm playing C&C, and it feels like what a 3rd edition D&D should have been. Judging from the comments by a certain inventor of D&D, I see I'm in good company with that opinion.

So, 4th edition promises to be disaster, and one that will need to be fixed by the inevitable 5th edition (featuring even kewler ways for your PC to be an unstoppable machine of death). Of course, the fact is that the single biggest factor governing the success of an RPG is whether its called "Dungeons & Dragons" or not. 4th edition will get bought, simply because its got the iconic name. It could feature pink teddybears as a PC race, and have mechanics that depended on player flatulance, and it would still sell. Oh well.

 

[PhantomNarrator]

Started out annoyed that Hasbro pulled the trigger, then I learned about the ditching of Vancian magic and became incensed. After I calmed down and learned more I find myself completely underwhelmed - and apparently most of my group feels the same way. All eight of us have hundreds invested in 3/3.5 and no one is excited by 4th edition. Several are openly hostile. Good luck to Hasbro keeping any of us grognards, I guess they think they can lure enough of the kiddies to replace us.

It may be called 4 edition, but it hardly looks like D&D anymore.

 

[Vlos]

Started out excited about it, but every other day it drops more and more. I think I am now at the point of not even bothering...

Biggest Issues:
- D&D Insider Subscription
--- Additional Content only available to DDI
- Yearly republications of Core Books.
- Skill based?
- Major Changes to spells and magic system


When I buy something I want to own it so I can continue to play it. Subscription, legally you cannot. So ANY content released under DDI you can no longer legally use once you unsubscribe from it (unless they put it in the SRD). The $100-120 a year I would rather put into hard cover books or Magazines that I would own. (I still have all my 1st Ed , 2nd Ed stuff I reference from time to time.

 

[Cadfan]

Winning.

Not enthused about the Digital Initiative, since I don't intend to pay a monthly fee, and I'm jealous of any content that might be on there that I won't be able to access.

Its not really a rational response, because I never had a Dungeon or Dragon subscription, and rarely borrowed a friend's. But there you go. I'll want the stuff on there because I'm used to getting online D&D stuff for free, and I'll be unhappy when I don't anymore.

 

[TroyXavier]

Losing. It was bad enough removing my favorite race and class, but it seems every couple of days they're adding stuff I hate more. Like...we can't put gnomes in there, but hey let's put in 3 elf races. Sighs...at least I still have Mutants and Masterminds.

 

[Clavis]

Losing. It was bad enough removing my favorite race and class, but it seems every couple of days they're adding stuff I hate more. Like...we can't put gnomes in there, but hey let's put in 3 elf races. Sighs...at least I still have Mutants and Masterminds.

And lets not forget the half demons that are apparently going to be everywhere...

Gives new meaning to picking up some tail at the local bar...

 

[Jackelope King]

I was mad at first. I didn't like having 4e sprung on me after months of, "No, we're not working on it! Honest!"

Then I was cautiously optimistic. Maybe I'll like it. Mearls is there, and he's a guy I can trust with my gaming dollar, usually.

I took a few steps back with some of the numbers they were tossing around and the implimentaiton of the D&D Insider. I wanted a one-stop virtual tabletop, and now it sounds like I'll have to subscribe for it and it won't even do nearly what I wanted.

As of now, most of the crunch-related announcements have me happy. Fluff... fluff I don't much care about, but what I've heard I liked. This has the potential to really be a good game, but I have other favorite games at the moment. So I'm cautiously optimistic again. I don't think it'll change enough for me to make it my top game again, but I am more excited than I was before about getting my hands on it.

And as for sacred cows...

 

[Korgoth]

People who don't like D&D are now in charge of the future of D&D.

You just blew up the Death Star there, Luke. My feelings exactly.

First, people of highly questionable creative and business talents ran TSR into the ground. But fear not: WOTC swooped down and proposed to save the day by mating D&D with GURPS (Jonathan Tweet? You mean of Ars Magica and Everway? Monte Cook? You mean of Rolemaster and Champions? And just what do they know about D&D?). But that was a disaster: the game bogged down, taking hours to prep, hours to run combat and became more about character optimization than about dungeons and the dragons therein. So much so that, iirc, even WOTC people started saying D&D was "20 minutes of fun packed into 4 hours of gaming", or somesuch. And their latest marketspeak has been bagging on 3E since 4E's announcement.

So the solution? "OK, we shouldn't have tried to turn D&D into GURPS. We should have tried to turn it into Exalted." But turning D&D into D&D? Perish the thought!

Now, some folks have admitted that they thrive on change. Surely some people are just simply tired of looking at D&D, and want something completely different. Are those the people who are going to pay WOTC's rent for the next half decade... people who thrive on change? Is WOTC really going to gamble the brand on a group significantly made up of people who didn't really like the brand in the first place?

It's like making Coca-Cola into hibiscus iced tea. For those who love hibiscus iced tea already, they'll rejoice in the streets and maybe a few of them will consistently purchase it. But all the people who like the flavor of Cola? Eventually, most of them will stop caring that their beverage comes in a red and white can.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

The rules and mechanics are winning me, but so far, the Realms are losing me. I'll have to see whether the Realms can't be salvaged after all, and whether unsalvagable Realms will make me turn away from all Wizards stuff in disgust.