Wizards R&D Seminar at GenCon 2007

[ashockney]

(I always felt that way too much effort was put on finding ways to make different monster types playable as PC races. Hopefully with 4E that will be as much a DM call as pricing homebrewed magic items.)

Eric, this is almost a direct quote from Andy Collins. You'll definitely want to at least give 4e a glance. It sounds like your thoughts and theirs are pretty close.

 

[ashockney]

That, coupled with the earlier "One Setting Book a Year" might actually mean we get a Greyhawk setting book...

I sat in on the first 30 minutes of the next seminar (which was based on Eberron), and Keith Baker was ADAMANT that there would be more Eberron support than EVER before during 4e because the "constraints" of a paper magazine were being lifted by moving to the D&D Insider format. He said you could expect a significant amount of "official" updates through the websites, and that they would be consistent and regular ongoing articles. They definitely implied that this would be true for all the major D&D worlds.

They also directly implied there would be NO Eberron races in the core PH.

 

[ashockney]

Living Greyhawk – will be coming to a triumphant close next year, and they will be starting fresh with a new batch of characters and players. This will be discussed tonight or tomorrow

Whoa. Starting fresh...with new PLAYERS? This tells me LG is done done or am I confused?

Done, done.

They want to hit the "reset" button on all the "Living" campaigns. They are integrating all this stuff, MUCH MORE DIRECTLY into the play experience of 4e. I believe that Organized Play will be tied directly to characters that are built and updated online through the DI, and that Living campaigns will be much more easily "portable" that way. I also have a feeling they will expand the "LIVING" format to include more organized play, and possibly push the organized play right into the living rooms (not just gaming stores) of 4e D&D players.

 

[ashockney]

Given the focus on "we found upgrading didn't work well before" POV, I imagine they want to avoid all that nastiness and are just going to wrap things up and start over.

This is almost a direct quote from Rich Baker. He referred to the 3rd Edition "conversion guide" as an unfufilled promise. They said that was a mistake they would not make again.

They laughed about putting out "Exemplars of Evil" and "Ancient Ones" which is essentially a book of the biggest, baddest nasties (all Tarrasques) right before 4e came out. From Bill, "Really! We're NOT giving your DM all the tools they'll need to wipe your 3rd Edition characters out right before 4e comes out. We SWEAR it!" (said with great sarcasm, then followed by a wickedly evil grin)

 

[ashockney]

But August 2007 is the last issue of both Dungeon and Dragon magazines?

Are they now going to take them back in house after spinning Paizo out originally to publish them?

Both Dungeon Magazine and Dragon Magazine will be a direct part of the DI component of 4e. There will be new releases three times per week on the DI, every week.

 

[Alisair Longreach]

For those who might intereseted, I found a 4E seminar summary over at the Gleemax forum.

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=13457928#post13457928

 

[ashockney]

ashockney, I'm in the rightmost chair of the second row. If your are at the 6PM seminar and see this please see me. You're better at news article posting than I am, I'd rather work with you on getting notes on on the 6 PM OGL / 4e seminar in line please

Michael, sorry I missed you. I wasn't kidding in my earlier post when I said I literally drove over from Columbus to find out about 4e. I left on Friday at 7am, arrived at 10am. Did the dealer room/lunch until 2pm. Did this seminar until 4pm. Dinner with friends, drove home.

The baton is officially passed!

 

[Mortellan]

Done, done.

They want to hit the "reset" button on all the "Living" campaigns. They are integrating all this stuff, MUCH MORE DIRECTLY into the play experience of 4e. I believe that Organized Play will be tied directly to characters that are built and updated online through the DI, and that Living campaigns will be much more easily "portable" that way. I also have a feeling they will expand the "LIVING" format to include more organized play, and possibly push the organized play right into the living rooms (not just gaming stores) of 4e D&D players.

Sounds all spiffy and everything. It should make book keeping easier for the Living campaigns but I'm still skeptical as it smacks of MMORPG's. Namely won't anything updated through the DI will cost you money and be property of Wizards to reuse? AFAIK living greyhawk never cost anyone a dime to play before, I bet that changes.

btw, I don't play Living-anything. Just a concerned Greyfan.

 

[ashockney]

I'd have prepped a page of handwritten text with the neccessary details, and winged the rest. I find it hard to see how a new edition is going to remove the monster prep.

From a development standpoint, they're indicating to us that they have "simplified" the monsters so that they all play certain "roles" in an encounter. Further, they will fully flesh out and detail everything you need to know to run the encounter in one place, using their new format, that will keep these details to one (or two) open pages. Further, everything will be "pre-supported" through the DI, for example you can use their digital tabletop, and have the ACTUAL maps right from the encounters/books/Dungeon Magazine, built right into the program. Zero map prep-work for the DM.

 

[ashockney]

The 2008 PHB thread has some information from the Israeli distributor of what books to look for in 2008. Arcane magic, melee combat, dragons and some other stuff all get books. Unless gnomes will be in the arcane magic splatbook, reappearing in "an early supplement" might mean 2009.

Honestly, I hope that whatever PHB races they axe shows up, in at least draft form for 10 levels or so, on D&D Insider.

The design guys were adamant that between the initial release books and the D&D Insider, none of the "standards" would be missed. If you've played 3rd Edition xyz race + ABC character, you'll be able to do it in 4e quickly, just not necessarily in April/May.