Maybe different versions just have different goals, and that's okay.

[Hussar]

No, that's not what I meant. I don't care about what's on the cover. I care about what's a core race and class in the PHB. You're misunderstanding (perhaps on purpose).

The cover thing was just an example of the branding thing I think that they're trying. That's all.

I think you're simply letting this fetish about dragonborn color your perceptions.

What campaign can you play in 3e that I cannot play in 4th? Or, any other edition for that matter? Could I not play Keep on the Borderlands in every single edition of D&D? Would it be an incredible stretch to make Isle of Dread playable in every edition? How about World's Largest Dungeon? Can I do that?

Slave Lords? Temple of Elemental Evil (in various incarnations?)? Red Hand of Doom? Serpent Amphora? What campaign setting can I absolutely not play in 4th edition?

Since you are claiming that 4th is so much more narrow in focus and scope, it should be easy to find campaigns that I can no longer do. you are claiming that homebrewers will have a much more difficult time doing "generic fantasy" with 4e, so, enlighten me. What campaign of the past can I absolutely not do in 4e?

I'd point out that Efreet and The City of Brass both existed long before the 1st ed DMG. Not so for Dragonborn.

Pre-existence =/= generic. After all, King Arthur has been around for a very long time, but, is Arthurian fantasy now considered generic? Look at the huge numbers of completely made up monsters that make up D&D - stuff that is considered pretty much bread and butter of D&D now. It's never been the bland, generic stuff that's defined the game, it's been the weird stuff, chests that eat you, cubical monsters that disolve you, wizards with bizarre names that are usually anagrams. That'S what defines D&D.

Look, I listened to the Penny Arcade podcasts of that session they played on the WOTC site. It was funny. I enjoyed it. But, I defy anyone to listen to that podcast and then try to claim that they are not playing D&D. Same geeky humour, same crap happening, dice being rolled, expletives being uttered. Those guys were playing 4e and they were playing D&D.

 

[rounser]

What campaign of the past can I absolutely not do in 4e?

With enough effort and hacking around, anything is possible in any edition. But for me the will is no longer there, because the flavour and artwork no longer makes me willing to suspend my disbelief, and it's all in the core, so it's difficult to ignore.

I know you may scoff, but these details matter rather a lot. I don't want to think about so-called-"warlords" and dragonborn, nor eladrin teleports, nor the name "eladrin" at all, nor WOTC's tiefling flavour, and these things are staring out at me every time I open a PHB. I don't want to have to ban them, pretend they don't exist (in the sense that the book is pretending they do exist, yes I understand the irony) - the core shouldn't contain stuff that I want to ban each and every campaign I ever run or play in. They actively annoy me.

This is a first. An edition of D&D that leaves me totally cold, with no desire to build a campaign for it, and no desire to play an adventure in it. You could run Isle of Dread or Slavelords for 4E, but the 4E flavour is all wrong, so why bother? Unless you ban wodges of the material, so you don't have a "dragonborn warlord" fighting the slavelords. You're happy with that, I'm not.

I'd rather not work for this edition, because I'm not a fan of it - the core flavour is wrong for me. Unlike watching a bad movie, which can be done without investing significant time and effort, D&D requires significant time and work investment in it, and this edition is the first that I think doesn't deserve it. So it's not getting it.

 

[Hussar]

With enough effort and hacking around, anything is possible in any edition. But for me the will is no longer there, because the flavour and artwork no longer makes me willing to suspend my disbelief, and it's all in the core, so it's difficult to ignore.

I know you may scoff, but these details matter rather a lot. I don't want to think about so-called-"warlords" and dragonborn, nor eladrin teleports, nor the name "eladrin" at all, nor WOTC's tiefling flavour, and these things are staring out at me every time I open a PHB. I don't want to have to ban them, pretend they don't exist (in the sense that the book is pretending they do exist, yes I understand the irony) - the core shouldn't contain stuff that I want to ban each and every campaign I ever run or play in. They actively annoy me.

This is a first. An edition of D&D that leaves me totally cold, with no desire to build a campaign for it, and no desire to play an adventure in it. You could run Isle of Dread or Slavelords for 4E, but the 4E flavour is all wrong, so why bother? Unless you ban wodges of the material, so you don't have a "dragonborn warlord" fighting the slavelords. You're happy with that, I'm not.

I'd rather not work for this edition, because I'm not a fan of it - the core flavour is wrong for me. Unlike watching a bad movie, which can be done without investing significant time and effort, D&D requires significant time and work investment in it, and this edition is the first that I think doesn't deserve it. So it's not getting it.

Ok, my bad. I thought you were being broader than your own personal take on things.

Hey, you don't like it. That's fine. That doesn't make it bad though.

What's wrong with having dragonborn warlords battling the Slave Lords? It does not change the flavor of the modules in the slightest. Absolutely no difference from having half orc assassins battling the Slave Lords. Or any other class. You don't have to ban anything to play the Slave Lord modules in 4e.

See, you keep going on and on about how you don't like the flavor. That's fine. But, that doesn't mean that the flavor is bad or doesn't fit. A party made of an Eladrin Warlock, Dragonborn Warlord, Dwarf Paladin, Tiefling Cleric and Human Ranger go into the Slavelord Stockade, kill everything they meet and carry on. It's absolutely, 100% no different than it was twenty or thirty years ago.

Some time ago I started a thread about how the game hasn't really changed all that much for me. And it hasn't. I have run Keep on the Borderlands in every edition other than OD&D. I will likely run it sometime in 4e as well.

Will it be somewhat different? Probably. But, it'll certainly be recognizable as D&D.

 

[RFisher]

I know you may scoff, but these details matter rather a lot. I don't want to think about so-called-"warlords" and dragonborn, nor eladrin teleports, nor the name "eladrin" at all, nor WOTC's tiefling flavour, and these things are staring out at me every time I open a PHB. I don't want to have to ban them, pretend they don't exist (in the sense that the book is pretending they do exist, yes I understand the irony) - the core shouldn't contain stuff that I want to ban each and every campaign I ever run or play in. They actively annoy me.

You know, that’s exactly how I felt about AD&D for years. I didn’t want its “fantasy melting-pot”, and it annoyed me that there was so much in the core rules that I had to ban to try to shoe-horn it onto my campaign world.

For the most part these days, I’m trying to let D&D be D&D more. (I can’t help but customize things a little.) When I want something more customized, I try to look to other systems that are easier to customize.

(Although, oddly enough, I’m considering 3.5 + UA as one of those alternatives to straight D&D.)

(And, FWIW, I currently choose classic D&D over 4e and 3e for straight D&D.)

 

[grickherder]

Since you are claiming that 4th is so much more narrow in focus and scope, it should be easy to find campaigns that I can no longer do. you are claiming that homebrewers will have a much more difficult time doing "generic fantasy" with 4e, so, enlighten me. What campaign of the past can I absolutely not do in 4e?

I think this is one of the best arguments to show the imbecility of the idea that editions other than an individuals pet edition are somehow "not D&D."

 

[Carnivorous_Bean]

Since you are claiming that 4th is so much more narrow in focus and scope, it should be easy to find campaigns that I can no longer do. you are claiming that homebrewers will have a much more difficult time doing "generic fantasy" with 4e, so, enlighten me. What campaign of the past can I absolutely not do in 4e?

But, I defy anyone to listen to that podcast and then try to claim that they are not playing D&D. Same geeky humour, same crap happening, dice being rolled, expletives being uttered. Those guys were playing 4e and they were playing D&D.

In the first place, he's not claiming that 4th edition is not D&D. Don't try to change the focus of the argument by claiming that he's saying something that he isn't. He's saying that 4th edition is more strongly branded than other editions, which, although probably debatable on several grounds, is still a far cry from saying that it's not D&D. It seems like your last statement is already misdirecting other people into attacking for saying 4th edition isn't D&D, when he hasn't said that or even implied it, simply that they're making it less generic and more branded.

In the second place, what campaign of the past can I not do in ANY system? I can run, say, Planescape with 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, Palladium Megaversal, White Wolf's Storyteller, Fudge, Saga, d6, GURPS, Rolemaster, etc. That doesn't make them all generic, although some of them are -- it just means that with enough hacking, twisting, and stretching, you can force any ruleset into depicting the story you want.

So your argument -- "so, enlighten me. What campaign of the past can I absolutely not do in 4e?" -- is so generalized that it's true no matter what system names you put in -- and it's therefore always correct, and therefore, essentially useless, IMO, in determining whether D&D 4e is more strongly branded than previous editions.

It's like saying "horses and 747s both exist, so how can you say that 747s are more strongly branded to Boeing than horses are, since I can travel between two destinations using either a horse or a 747?"

 

[rounser]

But, that doesn't mean that the flavor is bad or doesn't fit.

Who says it does fit? WOTC? Their opinion, and yours, is subjective too. Hundreds or millions of people can all be wrong, as well. Design by committee often produces awful results; design by survey might even be worse.

You can't say my opinion is subjective and then imply that yours, or WOTC's, is somehow objective. That's intellectually dishonest, and that's the stunt I see you trying to pull here. Please knock it off.

 

[ThirdWizard]

You can't say my opinion is subjective and then imply that yours, or WOTC's, is somehow objective. That's intellectually dishonest, and that's the stunt I see you trying to pull here. Please knock it off.

Of course our individual opinions of 4e don't mean anything, no matter what they are, to anyone other than ourselves and our groups. Implying anything more than that is intellectual dishonesty, in that regard.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

Who says it does fit? WOTC? Their opinion, and yours, is subjective too. Hundreds or millions of people can all be wrong, as well. Design by committee often produces awful results; design by survey might even be worse.

You can't say my opinion is subjective and then imply that yours, or WOTC's, is somehow objective. That's intellectually dishonest, and that's the stunt I see you trying to pull here. Please knock it off.

If you dislike certain elements for 4E, remove those elements from the games you run or use a different edition. As DM you have this power.

As a player, if you dislike certain elements of 4E to the point that you can not enjoy a game if those elements are present, perhaps discussing your concerns with your group will sway them to your opinion or switch to a different rpg/edition.

DnD is a game meant to be enjoyed among friends. If 4E and Wizards of the Coast causes this much stress, frustration, and discomfort then its probably time to switch to a different edition, different roleplaying game, or different hobby company.

 

[Gentlegamer]

In my opinion, the manner and extent that versions of a game differ in goals, assumptions, and mechanics can make them different games, regardless of the trademarks and other IP involved.