3E to 4E Gripes (Was: What Did You Want Fourth Edition to be Like?)

[malraux]

I don't understand this at all. My entire campaign converts old 1e and 2e materials, with all the fluff of the adventures intact. I'm finding it a lot less work to convert than it was for 3e, simply because NPC and monster creation is so much simpler. I'm not converting any of the text, just the monster stats, and there have been nothing that doesn't make perfect sense in 4e yet. Could you explain why you can't convert Menzoberranzan to 4e, or Hellgate Keep, or the Ruins of Zhentil Keep or any of the other 2e FR modules?

Well, the realms did kinda blow up in the interim. And a lot of the core assumptions regarding fluff are a bit different. That said, I haven't had much trouble with conversion myself. Its a lot easier than I remember 2e-3e conversion being.

 

[xechnao]

The Beta is practically a new system (like the classes, I see much of the changes as uneccessary)

To fix things you have to do a new system. You cant say what changes are necessary and what changes are not necessary only that changes are necessary. Unless you want to keep a certain standard and rebalance everything according to this standard (this could be for example the fighter in 3.5e). But I do not believe that this would have been a better approach than say trying to cutting here and adding there till you have a satisfied result all around: especially if you want to add more flexibility to the fighter class.

 

[Sadrik]

Why was this thread forked exactly?

3e had run its course and needed to be reset. This is a very valid thing and people who wanted to basically stay at 3e and not switch is fine. People still play 1e and 2e (albeit not many - relatively). Games get bloated, 3e especially because the crunch is what their marketing said was the thing that sold the best. If you release 3 books a month for 8 years you will get a little too crunchy and ugly things will pop out. This is very much like MAGIC THE GATHERING They have arcs of cards so that you do not have every option available, if you did, it would be uncontrollably unbalanced. When they release a new arc, they do not re-write the game from the ground up. They add rules and take away rules and get a new mix of the same game. Magic players would be unhappy if a new arc was released and it played like a different game. Variability is fine but at a cost of dissociating core play feel. It can cost some players to rebel, it has.

Look at new coke of years ago arguably the worst marketing flop of all time. I don't want to put D&D in this category because it is not there but it is an interesting case study. New Coke beat out old coke in every taste test they ever did. When they released it though the public reviled it. So the old coke was ibrought back by public demand in the form of classic coke. There are times when brand identity are just associated with a "feel" one of those nebulous things that you cannot quite put your finger on. I don't know but D&D could be suffering from that "bright shiny newness".

 

[ProfessorPain]

Look at new coke of years ago arguably the worst marketing flop of all time. I don't want to put D&D in this category because it is not there but it is an interesting case study. New Coke beat out old coke in every taste test they ever did. When they released it though the public reviled it. So the old coke was ibrought back by public demand in the form of classic coke. There are times when brand identity are just associated with a "feel" one of those nebulous things that you cannot quite put your finger on. I don't know but D&D could be suffering from that "bright shiny newness".

I do think the New Coke thing is an appropriate analogy. That seems to be how many 3E fans are reacting.

But I have always wondered about the taste tests for New Coke. Whenever I tried it, it tasted pretty bland and nondescript to me. I can't imagine people actually selected it over Old Coke. My money is on the Coca Cola company engineering the whole thing to boost sales with the release of Coca Cola Classic.

 

[Arkhandus]

I think 3E created a lot of divisions between gamers, since it placed so much weight on rules mastery. But in my opinion, they made a mistake by releasing an edition that catered to 3Es critics; and neglected its champions. Just from a marketing stand point. I believe they fragmented their own market.

Because 3E is supported by so much 3rd party material and open license, it wasn't like older editions. They couldn't just switch like they did from 2E to 3E; because 3E has a whole industry behind it, and there is nothing to stop companies like Paizo from repackaging it and making it their flag ship. What they did was create a game that 3E critics love, but 3E fans hate. Neither is worse.

They just cater to different tastes. But by cutting it down that line so clearly, they made certain many of the 3E fans will go back to a game that is mechanics heavy (which is their preference) and has a flexible multi-classing system. Not saying 4E won't be succesful; but this does feel more like the days of 1E and 2E when you had real alternatives to the current edition. In 3Es heyday there really wasn't much serious competition, since everyone was riding the d20 gravy train.

I agree with this analysis. And I agree with Desert Hare.

They fragmented the market more, making many of us 3e players/DMs decide not to buy into their new edition and instead become 3e pseudo-grognards. There's so much out there for use with 3e, or variations of it, that 4e seems like a poor move. 4e is NOWHERE NEAR as easy to use in conjunction with old (more complete, more detailed) campaign setting materials, old modules, or other d20/3e materials. Though it may have cut down on DM prep time somewhat, slightly easing the adaptation of some modules, that's the only thing it has going for it in that department. It doesn't work with the flavor and style of the old settings so much.

A 4e that stuck more closely with 3e, a 'perfected' version of 3e, would have been more widely acceptable and useable, and more preferable to me and many other folks who still stick with 3e. Many of us would have 'upgraded' and thereby given WotC money we aren't giving them now. Done right, it probably would've attracted new players and brought back those who ditched 3e before, with some streamlining.

I don't hate 4e necessarily, I just don't *like* it as a new edition of D&D. I love the Tome of Battle for 3.5, but it's not what I want for a standard D&D game, not what I associate with all the cool settings D&D has had. I don't like the new core setting or the new core assumptions, or the thoroughly videogamey/anime-style of the races and classes in 4e. The classes are too similar and wierd for me (had they been renamed and used in splats, rather than being the core assumptions, they'd be less irksome). And it's just too combat-oriented.

 

[ferratus]

Well, the realms did kinda blow up in the interim. And a lot of the core assumptions regarding fluff are a bit different. That said, I haven't had much trouble with conversion myself. Its a lot easier than I remember 2e-3e conversion being.

But that's the fault of the Realms storyline, not the 4e mechanics.

 

[ferratus]

It doesn't work with the flavor and style of the old settings so much.

Again, I'm curious to know what exactly doesn't work, since I'm using the old settings just fine, and I don't have to change any of the descriptive text.

 

[Sadrik]

I do think the New Coke thing is an appropriate analogy. That seems to be how many 3E fans are reacting.

But I have always wondered about the taste tests for New Coke. Whenever I tried it, it tasted pretty bland and nondescript to me. I can't imagine people actually selected it over Old Coke. My money is on the Coca Cola company engineering the whole thing to boost sales with the release of Coca Cola Classic.

Well by this analogy WotC would do good to release a supplement that would bring 4e around with a "classic" supplement to give that old feel if you didn't like it don't fret we have that classic feel right here. Buy this. Reinvent the game in a supplement that evokes classic. AD&D.

I don't know I am not in their marketing department.

 

[Panzeh]

I agree with this analysis. And I agree with Desert Hare.

They fragmented the market more, making many of us 3e players/DMs decide not to buy into their new edition and instead become 3e pseudo-grognards. There's so much out there for use with 3e, or variations of it, that 4e seems like a poor move. 4e is NOWHERE NEAR as easy to use in conjunction with old (more complete, more detailed) campaign setting materials, old modules, or other d20/3e materials. Though it may have cut down on DM prep time somewhat, slightly easing the adaptation of some modules, that's the only thing it has going for it in that department. It doesn't work with the flavor and style of the old settings so much.

A 4e that stuck more closely with 3e, a 'perfected' version of 3e, would have been more widely acceptable and useable, and more preferable to me and many other folks who still stick with 3e. Many of us would have 'upgraded' and thereby given WotC money we aren't giving them now. Done right, it probably would've attracted new players and brought back those who ditched 3e before, with some streamlining.

I don't hate 4e necessarily, I just don't *like* it as a new edition of D&D. I love the Tome of Battle for 3.5, but it's not what I want for a standard D&D game, not what I associate with all the cool settings D&D has had. I don't like the new core setting or the new core assumptions, or the thoroughly videogamey/anime-style of the races and classes in 4e. The classes are too similar and wierd for me (had they been renamed and used in splats, rather than being the core assumptions, they'd be less irksome). And it's just too combat-oriented.

Is one of the core tenets that full casters ought to be the most powerful characters at mid to high levels? If you agree that it is a core tenet, it would have been better if 3.5 considered martial classes to be npc classes and perhaps gave casters companions from these clases ala Ars Magica.

Certainly, though, the only way to fix full casters was to radically change them or change everyone else, and 4E went a little bit both ways.

 

[Dannager]

Is there a purpose to threads like this, other than to perpetuate the echo-chamber mentality that sows community division in the first place? It's not something we haven't seen here dozens of times before.