D&D 4E 4E: What we think we know

[WayneLigon]

The 4th Edition rules emphasize faster game play, offer exciting new character options, and reduce the amount of "prep time" needed to run the game

That is is supremely encouraging, but I wonder if that's a built-in function of the rules or the imagined effect of Insider?

The December and January preview dates just astound me, though

 

[Shawn_Kehoe]

Who needs the OGL? Seriously. You can't copyright or trademark rules and there are ways to say on the cover "compatible with..." legally. The ability to say "usuable with..." "compatible with..." etc. is not limited to the world of games. The only thing left is product identity, and that is not some uber IP right, far from it. And product identity can be easily avoided, unless you think you can't posibly publish without saying Mind Flayer, etc., in every product. For example, changing hobbit to halfling seemed to work pretty well for TSR.

Third party publishers should band together and pony up the $30K-$40K for a reasoned opinion of counsel from a tier 1 firm and finally get some sense of certainty here. Heck, they may even be able to use the market power of WotC/Hasbro against it. That is if your goal is to make materials compatible with the rules. If you want to use logos, the "official" designator, etc. then well I guess you may want that license.

The d20 publishing community is a small one... I don't think anyone benefits from getting the lawyers fighting each other.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Lol, they have one Doomsday and one Halellujah thread prepared. That feature alone will make it easier for people to whine about the new edition. I love it when people plan a head.

So yeah, we have two eyes, a nose, two ears, a mouth, and hair all over the top. What? You say he wanted me to "plan ahead," not "plan a head?" Back to the drawing board, then.

 

[Mystery Man]

I just can't believe how fast eight years can go by.

 

[Xyxox]

Support for the OGL was my single biggest concern about 4e; I feel much better about this project now.

I'm in this one all the way. I'll definitely subscribe to D&D Insider and the online Dungeon and Dragon magazine content now.

An SRD released under the OGL was my requirement and they met it.

Hold on Matilda, I'm drinkin' the KOOLAID!

 

[Fifth Element]

The d20 publishing community is a small one... I don't think anyone benefits from getting the lawyers fighting each other.

...other than the lawyers, of course.

Anyway I don't think we need another copyright discussion in this thread, it's been done at length in others threads. This one is about 4E.

 

[thormagni]

I'm on the way out the door now for an interview at the show, but here is what I wrote this morning. Not many crunchy bits, I'm afraid because it is for a general interest newspaper. But someone might find it interesting...

http://www.therepublic.com/main.asp?SectionID=393&SubSectionID=979&ArticleID=111814

 

[Wormwood]

I am loving just about every aspect of this announcement. C'mon May!

 

[Cadfan]

I don't understand this D&D Insider thing. Specifically, I don't understand the limits on the system.

Limiting you to three games per month is possibly reasonable, if they're concerned about people sharing passwords. This makes it so that sharing your password with someone else directly reduces the amount of times you can play. But there's objections to this: first, why three times? If a game runs on a weekly basis, that number needs to be 5 (to encompass 30 day weeks where the game starts on day 1 or 2). And second, there certainly has to be a better way to do this than to impose an arbitrary limit. Many other online communities have handled password sharing problems, I'm sure D&D could do the same.

What really doesn't make sense to me is limiting a player to 10 stored characters, and/or 10 stored versions of the same character. Why? It can't possibly be file space. A character sheet is a low file size item. Even if you allowed players to upload multiple high definition jpegs of their characters, you wouldn't expect to pass a megabyte in storage.

 

[Yair]

I just can't believe how fast eight years can go by.

So true