D&D 4E 4E: Why now?

[olshanski]

The time was right about 2 years ago.

Now we are flooded with bloat.

Lets see, other than the 3 core I have DMG2, MM3, MM4. I'd have been better off to stick with just the 3 core.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I think there a number of reasons why they are choosing to release 4th Edition in the near future, other than the cynical "they want to make us buy everything again" stuff that keeps coming up. Product cycles have changed in pretty much every industry; customers generally have far more options to choose from than they did 20 years ago and the access to purchase pretty much anything from anywhere in the world. Nearly every retail product is being refreshed far more frequently than in the past, or they simply get buried and forgotten under newer products.

I wish I shared your optimism, but this is a corporation we're talking about here. Quarterly profit-and-loss statements are a reason I can believe. Everything else is just fluff.

 

[Keldryn]

I wish I shared your optimism, but this is a corporation we're talking about here. Quarterly profit-and-loss statements are a reason I can believe. Everything else is just fluff.

Well of course it all comes down to the bottom line, when all is said and done. But that doesn't make for a very interesting or meaningful discussion. And the designers behind the game, while they are being paid to do it, certainly have their own reasons for doing it that go beyond the company's profits.

 

[frankthedm]

You need new players and young kids to support these products, but tell me where are you going to find a mother with three kids who is going to pay $3 each for a comic book?

They are not aiming for those kids, they are aiming for the kids of the well to do and those who think they are well to do and are burying themselves in credit card debt to give themselves and their children a life of affluence.

 

[KingCrab]

The life run of 3.5 has had the majority of the books I expected from it

PHB x2
DMG x2
MMx4 [3.5, III, IV, V]
7 Complete Player books
Dragon book
A few environment books
A few race books
Horror book
Cthulhiod book
Mini book
Mass battle book
Tome of magic
Spell compendium
Magic item compendium

SO maybe the time is right.

I agree that this is not the time for lots of extra crunch books. This should be the time for lots of great adventures and adventure settings books. Give 3.5 a nice long retirement without introducing more rules to a bloated system. Let us use all the books that we've bought and spend our money on campign settings and adventures for a few years. No?

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

The life run of 3.5 has had the majority of the books I expected from it

PHB x2
DMG x2
MMx4 [3.5, III, IV, V]
7 Complete Player books
Dragon book
A few environment books
A few race books
Horror book
Cthulhiod book
Mini book
Mass battle book
Tome of magic
Spell compendium
Magic item compendium

SO maybe the time is right.

Yet we just managed an 8+ page thread on ideas for new fluff-heavy books for 3.5 . I don't think the mine is played out, yet.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I agree that this is not the time for lots of extra crunch books. This should be the time for lots of great adventures and adventure settings books. Give 3.5 a nice long retirement without introducing more rules to a bloated system. Let us use all the books that we've bought and spend our money on campign settings and adventures for a few years. No?

Uh, and stop making money? No indeed.

Adventures and settings don't sell the way crunch books do. I'm not applauding WotC for this, but it makes sense. Besides, I remember the later days of 2E, which were mostly adventures and setting/location stuff. I wasn't very impressed with it (especially not when the blew up Planescape, the bastards).

Yet we just managed an 8+ page thread on ideas for new fluff-heavy books for 3.5 . I don't think the mine is played out, yet.

Perhaps not, but do you see that 4E or something like it has clearly been planned for some time? All the compendiums and tomes don't happen by accident, I would suggest. I mean, I do remember that in 2E they didn't herald the end of the edition, precisely, but they did announce a lot of changes (new PHB, DMG etc., Skills & Powers and so on), changes which really amounted to greater change than the change from 3E to 3.5E, so...

 

[FireLance]

Why now? In one abbreviation: SWSE.

Whether or not SWSE was a premeditated attempt to test the waters for a new edition, there was a large amount of positive feedback for the rules, and there was at least one serious attempt (on this very board, in fact) to develop SAGA-based ruleset for d20 Fantasy.

All this seemed to indicate that gamers in general were going to be receptive to a new edition, and that if WotC didn't do it, someone else would.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Why now? In one abbreviation: SWSE.

Whether or not SWSE was a premeditated attempt to test the waters for a new edition, there was a large amount of positive feedback for the rules, and there was at least one serious attempt (on this very board, in fact) to develop SAGA-based ruleset for d20 Fantasy.

All this seemed to indicate that gamers in general were going to be receptive to a new edition, and that if WotC didn't do it, someone else would.

It's too soon for this to be a reaction to the reaction to Star Wars Saga, unless it's simply a statement of intent: "the D&D design team is now officially going to begin work on 4e."

Far more likely that Saga was deliberately a testbed product as well as a release in its own right, and that the positive feedback from it served to guide the design process rather than the decision to begin that process.

 

[frankthedm]

I agree that this is not the time for lots of extra crunch books. This should be the time for lots of great adventures and adventure settings books. Give 3.5 a nice long retirement without introducing more rules to a bloated system. Let us use all the books that we've bought and spend our money on campign settings and adventures for a few years. No?

No, that won't give the profits Wotc needs as a Hasbro subsidiary. Big companies want to make money hand over fist, a small tidy profit made off a few supplements will not satisfy them. Hasbro will want to know "Why are you not making as much profit as second half 2000 and 2003?" And they won't take any answers other than $$$.

Still comes back to hasbro is not happy. They bought WOTC back in the days of the Fad of PokeMoney. They want the profit sof those days even though that mostly happened because Nintendo[pe] subcontracted an ultra-hot property to Wotc.