D&D 4E What to do with 4th Edition

[kenada]

I hear ya on this. Even coming on ENWorld I'm being called an "entitled cheapskate" and worse. I have really no social outlets left anymore. Real life gaming and hanging out is pretty much over. Family and friends have sort of disappeared. With the attitudes on here, I don't even much feel like discussing the game anymore.

I’m sorry, but this is crap. Someone was working on an open source project, then they scaled it back, and you were upset about it. You have no right to their labor or to expect them to labor on your behalf for free. Entitlement to open source developers work is a major problem, and it’s not wrong to call that out.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

Edit: Deleted. Civility and decency prevails.

 

[Retreater]

Edit: Deleted. No point in bringing it up again or explaining my position in an unrelated thread.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

@Jacob Lewis If I did not have an online group I would be looking into online play. Smiteworks, the people that do FantasyGround host some virtual cons every now and again and if I recall correctly they open the licences so that you can run games even on the demo version over that time period. It may be a way to dip a toe in that waters if Roll20 is not your cuppa.

As for 4e, yeah a retroclone build from the ground up would be a way to go.

Now I was a big fan of 4e but I am not sure I would go back to a pure 4e clone. Now if some one was to produce a version with bounded accuracy, scaling powers and only one reaction per turn I would be interested.

I do think that Mearls and co were overly conservative in 5e's design but I can see why and do not blame them overmuch.

Unfortunately, I think we are stuck with it. I think that WoTC/Hasbro now see D&D as more of an IP engine and thus they will not mess with the base game. Tinker around the edges somewhat but nothing sudden.

Of course, I am getting old and my appetite for learning new mechanics is diminishing.


As for the lore, well I still have the books so as far as I am concerned I still have the lore. I have never felt obligated to follow the official lore.
I still use the Shadowfell and the Feywild and I never used Nerath and so far the Astral sea has never come up but as far as I am concerned it is still out there.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

You know lads ,if people are upsetting you and following you into other threads you are entitled to report them and to use the ignore button.

Edit: that said what was this open source project about then?

 

[Retreater]

Edit: that said what was this open source project about then?

Not to bring up too much tangential stuff, but I had expressed disappointment regarding Paizo's official foray into Foundry.
If you search the forum, I'm sure you can find it. I don't want to burden this thread with details.

 

[kenada]

You know lads ,if people are upsetting you and following you into other threads you are entitled to report them and to use the ignore button.

On the other hand, people should be able to defend themselves when statements they made are brought up in other threads.

Edit: that said what was this open source project about then?

Spoiler: Explanation of the project, which is OT

There is an open source converter for Foundry that will convert Pathfinder adventure PDFs to maps and scenes and stuff in Foundry. The author announced recently that he was scaling it back and wouldn’t be doing much more than bug fixes and smaller adventures like PFS modules. Because of the way he was doing the conversion work (to respect Paizo’s copyright), he apparently just can’t hand over the project to people. I’m not clear on the details why.

Paizo had apparently been working with a third party to develop Pathfinder content for Foundry. It is my understanding that this was an independent effort and not motivated by the developer’s decision to stop, but they reached out to the open source developer, who was happy because it meant his work wouldn’t be necessary anymore (which had stopped being fun and was starting to feel like a job).

There is some overlap between what Paizo is releasing and what he already converted, but the converter is not being taken offline. If you want to use it, you can. The official content gets you higher quality assets and more sophisticated Foundry support (like sound and music).

The official community system implementation is also being moved into the official Foundry org on GitLab. It is and will remain available for free. The move was done to help with organization and coordinating development by the Foundry devs.

Edit: further discussion should be done in the thread in the PF2 forum

 

[Jacob Lewis]

@Jacob Lewis If I did not have an online group I would be looking into online play. Smiteworks, the people that do Fantasy Ground host some virtual cons every now and again and if I recall correctly they open the licenses so that you can run games even on the demo version over that time period. It may be a way to dip a toe in that waters if Roll20 is not your cuppa.

I have Ultimate licenses for FG Classic and Unity. I also own Foundry, and had a year Pro on Roll20 at one time. They is very little they can offer to satisfy my 4e dreams, and I am not script-savvy enough to create what I want. (It was messing with FG, in fact, that kinda broke me recently.)

As for 4e, yeah a retroclone build from the ground up would be a way to go.

Now I was a big fan of 4e but I am not sure I would go back to a pure 4e clone. Now if some one was to produce a version with bounded accuracy, scaling powers and only one reaction per turn I would be interested.

That's what I'm thinking. But I have different ideas that don't include a d20.

I do think that Mearls and co were overly conservative in 5e's design but I can see why and do not blame them overmuch.

Unfortunately, I think we are stuck with it. I think that WoTC/Hasbro now see D&D as more of an IP engine and thus they will not mess with the base game. Tinker around the edges somewhat but nothing sudden.

Of course, I am getting old and my appetite for learning new mechanics is diminishing.

I wholeheartedly agree with all of this. I really want to give PF2 a try, but my brain is just resistant to learning another system. My wallet has similar feelings.

 

[eyeheartawk]

Why would we be happy about something that was free, now being not? Are we supposed to welcome it?

I remember ten years ago, I was more heavily involved in the OSR scene and it was really great and active. Everybody was writing and creating stuff on blogs and iterating on each other's stuff. But then came Patreon. Now everything that was a freely available post was content behind a walled garden. That affect was tangible and felt.

I get it, people's work does deserve some kind of remittance, sure. But, at the end of the day I'm now expected to pay for something I used to get for free and be happy about it? Like, you're allowed to understand the reasons for something and still not like it.

Who knows, this PF2 experiment could go the way of CNN+ anyway.

 

[Retreater]

Hey, I don't want to get us off the topic of @Jacob Lewis 's original post about missing 4e, wishing we could play it, or how we could bring it back.
I'm sorry for my part in getting us off topic.
And I have no desire to block anybody. I've been enough of a curmudgeon lately that I've brought this on myself.

But back to the original topic ...
What if there was a way to play 4E, using the original books, with a very limited tabletop? Not automated like Foundry or FGU? Maybe more like Owlbear rodeo with our original books?