D&D 4E 4E indications - Has it slowed your purchases alreadY?

[Xorial]

The rumors havent affected my buying either. I still buy the 3.5e books I want & like. I continue to buy 3rd party stuff that catches my eye too. With the OGL & SRD, there is bound to be 3.5e compatible products out there for awhile, at least as PDFs. I personally echo the sentiment that I dont want a RPG that has been turned into a collectibles minis game. It isnt an RPG, at least to me, then any more than a computer game is roleplaying. Worse com to worse, I would buy a bunch of creature counters & use them in place of minis.

I also agree that some things are getting too complicated to be considered "easy to play" in the game. Newer players are put off buy the complication, which is why I never been able to get my group to even consider d20 Modern. It is the same rules, but it REQUIRES multiclassing, which to my characters is too complicated. :\

 

[Strahd_Von_Zarovich]

There is nothing interesting on the market right now for me to purchase.
Let's wait and see what is all about with the 4th edition.

 

[Pinotage]

Nope. If 4e comes, it comes. If it doesn't, it doesn't. I'll reserve judgement on it when I see it. When 3.5e came I refused to play it for at least a year - now I think it's waaayyy better than 3e. If 4e is an improvement, I'm happy to buy it. I upgraded a lot of 3e material to 3.5e - it's not difficult. If 4e is still d20, I can't see it influencing anything - my 3.5e material is just as useful. If it's not d20, then I'll just stick with 3.5e. So, no, it hasn't influenced any of my buying.

Pinotage

 

[Li Shenron]

Nothing changes for me, because this has already happened with 3.5.

As soon as I heard 3.5 was coming out I became enthusiast and started saving some money to upgrade. Then I cooled down... read the previews, got the SRD, tried to play a whole campaign, and finally decided I didn't need to upgrade at all.

The fact that they stopped printing 3.0 books simply made me almost to stop purchases completely (I still bought a couple of 3.5s and some 3.0s which I was missing).

3.5 teached me that it is 90% a matter of marketing and 10% a matter of improving the design. So I really doubt that I would ever shell a single $ on 4e (unless it's largely back-compatible, which doesn't make sense anyway).

 

[Hussar]

Good for you Imperialus! I wonder what vice I could stop so that I can have more money for RPG books. I suppose I could cut back on that pesky "giving money to my wife" habit I seem to have developed...

You have that habit too? Talk about a monkey on my back. Smoking was cheaper.

((Owowowowowoww stop hitting me, I'll go back an edit!!!))

 

[Tessarael]

3.5E has jumped the shark with the plethora of crunchy complete splat books, new base classes, etc. If I was DMing a campaign, I might buy some more fluff books (i.e. books describing campaign worlds et al.), but I am unlikely to buy any more rulebooks.

Players Handbook II is likely to have been my last 3.5E D&D purchase - I like the high level feats, but unlikely that I'll see them allowed in the campaign I am in. Other than that, I was not that impressed by Players Handbook II - had some house rules that we were already using, a few other nice ideas for a DM, and more crunch that wasn't particularly useful with the plethora of crunch available already.

I am hoping that 4E D&D will bring a consolidation of all the crunchy rules, and hopefully (at least initially) discourage the massive variation in feats, base classes, and prestige classes. i.e. I want a serious revision of 3.5E D&D with only a few base classes again, balanced feats and skills (get rid of Endurance feat, Use Rope skill, etc.), and upgraded magic system (include swift and immediate actions for spells and spells of those types). I do not want prestige classes. I do want better multi-classing rules for spellcasters, so that we don't need prestige classes (Spellsword, Mystic Theurge, etc.) as a system patch.

If 4E lives up to these hopes and remains mostly compatible with 3E (3E was a very good ruleset - e.g. linear abilities, good multi-classing rules for non-spellcasters), then I expect we will use it and I will buy 4E books. If not, I will stick with 3.5E D&D and working on my own homebrew variant.

 

[glass]

4E indications - Has it slowed your purchases already?

What 4e indications?


glass.

 

[Krelios]

If 4e actually comes out less than 12 years after 3e, then I will never buy another edition of D&D. I've already had a hard time sifting through all the crap that's come out for 3.5 and spent way too much money in the process. If WotC's going to prove that it doesn't care about the game and only about the money, I can't see why I should support them.

There are plenty of other systems I'll be happy to play instead.

 

[Radovarl]

Focus Group

Has it occurred to anyone that these so-called "rumors" are being intentionally encouraged (quietly) by WotC, so that we'll all discuss it in-depth and act as a de facto free focus group for them? At this stage I bet they have no concrete, specific plans for 4E (though I'm sure they have a pretty good idea where it will go), and will be avidly analyzing the response to their leaks in order to determine what the D&D community (read consumer base) wants to see. With GenCon here, this is the most opportune time (for Wizards) for the rumor-mongering to reach frenzied proportions, and give them as much market research/feedback, gratis, as possible.

My prediction is that we'll witness a vast surge in the online discussion in the few weeks after the convention, followed by an announcement from Wizards about a month or two after that (say, sometime in October). If you search Amazon, you'll find that there are D&D 3.5 and Realms product releases scheduled as far out as late winter, early spring 2007, so they're not prepared to "go 4E" before the end of 2007 at the earliest.

Most of the mechanics they would need to incorporate/upgrade are likely already in existing products, so the process of developing the new edition would take minimal time, regardless of the direction it takes. About 6 months for consolidating these into three new core rulebooks (or only one, possibly, if the DM-less rumors, heaven forefend, pan out). Another six months for playtesting, and we'll likely see a Christmas, 2007 release of a handful of 4E products. If not ready by then, probably mid-2008 (just in time for summer vacation .

All this hasn't slowed my purchases of Wizards products. The direction they have already been taking the game in has brought my purchases to a screeching halt. Despite D&D's basis in wargaming, I'm not a wargamer, and don't care for the explosion of miniatures sets (it's just Magic: TG with plastic toys), not to mention the ever-accelerating proliferation of bizarre and useless new monsters, superfluous prestige classes, endless feats, etc. They've gone so crunch-heavy in their recent releases, and slowed down their fluff-heavy (Forgotten Realms) releases to such a trickle, that not only have I stopped purchasing 3.5, but I've actually sold off some of the stuff I already had out of disgust.

To cut my ramble (somewhat) short, my suspicion is that they will end up trying to capture more (which means younger) new gamers, which is the only way to really boost sales in a major way. This means an incessant treadmill of miniatures products, simpler streamlined rules (maybe DM-less or DM-lite?), and overall a "sexier" profile. I saw a bumper sticker the other day, believe it or not, that said, "I played D&D BEFORE it was cool." Well, so did I, and D&D is not SUPPOSED to be cool . As soon as it is I'll be moving on to something else, or at least I'll be sticking with the uncool version. I'm certain I am not the only one who will be alienated.

You guys (Wizards) listening?

 

[The_Gneech]

4e is like the bogeyman ... very scary but completely without form or substance!

So remember kids ... eat all your spinach, or 4e will get you!

-The Gneech