D&D 4E 4e - Too much change?

[Keefe the Thief]

I, personally, wouldn´t buy 4e if there were not AT LEAST as many changes as those advertised. I already have the other versions of D&D, I want something new. And i like watching designers design things.

 

[Umbran]

The complaints about the Wizard being narrowed into an artillery-piece are exactly what I've been concerned about the whole time. Playing spellcasters is sort of my niche, and the reason I enjoy it is the flexibility. If that goes away, the game has become sharply less fun for me in one fell swoop.

Well, here's a really big question, then:

Are you worried about the class called "wizard" being a generalist, or about being able to make a spellcaster who does generalist spellcasting? I submit that the news we have at this point has not precluded the latter.

This is the sort of thing I mean - we don't know what is possible in the system, through feat choices, multiclassing, and such. Getting up in arms about what the current focus of the wizard class rather misses the point that we don't know if the same function is available through some other avenue.

 

[scruffygrognard]

In the long run most people are going to come around (so long as the game isn't borked in actual play). For all the changes 4e brings it is still nowhere near as big a transition as it was moving from 2e to 3e.

I don't find that to be the case at all. The flavor changes from 3rd to 4th edition are far broader in scope than those from AD&D to 3rd edition, as are the mechanical changes.

Yes, 3rd edition moved to a unified system (d20) rather than using lots of different subsystems to resolve checks BUT the types of classes, the way classes operated and the way spells/magic items worked were similar.

 

[thundershot]

3E to 4E is a bigger change than 1E to 2E, but it's not by any means a bigger change from 2E to 3E... I'll enjoy it regardless.



Chris

 

[ivocaliban]

I agree with the general premise of the original post.

This idea of merging a system and a setting (an idea that 4e seems to be promoting) may be a successful one, however. At least from a marketing point of view. When you provide this much setting with the rules, they inevitably become one and the same. It makes selling the sourcebooks that follow that much easier. It has certainly worked for White Wolf.

Say what you will about 3e, but apart from the names of the deities and a handful of spells, they were not setting specific. They provided the basic tools for creating, running and playing in a fantasy world. They didn't tell you that that this world was going to focus on "points of light," although that style of play was (is) certainly possible with the core 3e books. They left this sort of thing up to the individual settings, which, in my opinion, is how it should be.

With 4e we appear to be losing the foundation upon which so many of us have built our worlds. It's not that "points of light" or dragonborn or what have you are intrinsically bad. It's that they're being presented to us as the norm, not as an option. We're not being given the tools to build our own settings, instead we're presented with a setting that appears to have a very specific tone--a "World of Darkness" if you will.

The big point I'm trying to make is that I prefer a little room between my system and my setting when it comes to D&D. I prefer a toolbox approach to the core books, so that I'm given what I need to make the world I want. If I want a setting that feels a certain way, then I'll either create it myself or buy a setting that reflects the themes I want for my game. It appears that the 4e core books are going to be rather thematically specific, which may make using those books to create other kinds of worlds more difficult.

While many have said not to worry about all the changes, they do add up. And what they add up to is a system that is married to a distinct theme. My complaint is not with the system, nor with the theme itself, but with the fact that they're both being served together. This is not what I want from D&D.

 

[3catcircus]

First, I'll disagree that THAC0 and BAB are identical, simply because they are reversed. If they didn't change anything, then they would still be usig THAC0. Also, my main point is that what they did keep the same, the fact that different classes get different progressions, is actually a source of severe problems, since then classes get more and more unbalanced the farther they climb in level. Changing the mechanic to a unified progression is a change, and is an improvement.

Disagree all you want, but subtracting a positive and adding a negative are the same thing...

I don't play in the Realms, so I won't comment on the changes they are making to it.

My justification for using new flavor, even if it is bad flavor, is that newness is always good. New ideas are inherently better than old ideas, simply because they offer a new opportunity for inspiring someone. Also, it is impossible to see if new flavor works well or not unless it gets developed and tried, and I think the potential benefit of getting a good new idea outweighs the potential harm of getting stuck with bad flavor.

That is the dumbest reasoning for change I've ever read. By that reasoning, New Coke must be better than original Coke even though they had to go back to making the old formula to regain the sales they lost when they introduced "new, improved, better, what people really want and you can't get the original formula Coke anymore" new formula Coke, huh?

New ideas aren't inherently better than old ideas - every idea has to prove itself on its own merits.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

(Topic for another thread: Is WotC Running a Disastrously Bad Marketing Campaign for 4e?

I've been saying that since I saw those video clips on the WotC website after Gencon. My first impression of 4E was two guys whose "skill" at public speaking was almost intolerable. They should have hired someone with a marketing/communications background to do the public speaking, with knowledgeable "gurus" on hand to answer specific questions. Those videos made my first impression of 4E:

"Bush League."

 

[zoroaster100]

Ivocaliban, you have summed up exactly my concerns about the flavor in the 4e core rules glimpses so far. I too am concerned that I'm being presented with rules that are married to a particular flavor so that it will take more work and time than I have to separate them in order to have the setting I want. I'm generally excited about the possibilities of the new rules that are being hinted at, but concerned that using those rules will be a headache if I don't like the specific flavor or setting tied to those rules.

 

[delericho]

I predict that D&D is going to go the route of many heavy metal bands: it will come out with a new edition, alienate a large chunk of its fanbase, suffer a less than anticipated "success", reevaluate as the market continues to shrink, and eventually release a 5E version that takes D&D "back to its roots."

Yeah, that's the sort of feeling I'm starting to get. I just hope it doesn't get cancelled entirely in the meantime.

 

[scruffygrognard]

My prediction: 4th ed will be a roaring success. There will also be naysayers, but the majority of players will move over to the new edition and like it.

If you're right, and I REALLY hope you're not (no offense meant), then I'd bet that a lot of oldtimers (people who've played D&D for the last 10 years or more) will not be on-board.

It's a strange feeling to be left behind by a hobby that you've supporting for 27+ years but that's life. C'e st la vie.