D&D 4E 4E WotC way of saying your fired?

[WayneLigon]

It wouldn't have been all that bad an idea.

I would certainly think it would be easier to fire the existing customer base. No worries about sacred cows, conversion, unrealistic expectations, or cries of 'now you want me to buy everything all over again'. No having to include stuff from the past to mollify those who can't live without their Bigby or Mordenkainen or Nine Hells or Vancian memorization or whatever. For a designer, it would be heaven not to be shackled by the past, both it's successes (against which you'll be compared) and it's failures (which you'll be either expected to fix or leave alone because 'it ain't D&D').

Honestly, it wouldn't be hard. No significant amount of the gaming population plays a game that is not in print; for all the noise some seem to generate here.

I like 3E; it made D&D worth my time and attention again, for the first time in a long time. But it's always been my contention that 3E is the first in a series of steps along a road that will leverage the comparatively massive fanbase of D&D towards a more modern rules set with a minimum of disruption or significant loss of playerbase. I think 4E will continue that, and somewhere around 6E, we'll have what we should have had around 1995 or so.

Now, a lot of the evolution that would have - should have - naturally occurred, didn't. This came from D&D being run by a company that didn't listen to it's customers. Lorraine Williams doesn't shoulder 100% of the blame for this, either. Regardless of the blame, what's it led to is a wholly unrealistic expectation of stability - ten years between editions isn't a feature, it's a bug. In most other businesses if you did things exactly the same way you did them ten years ago you wouldn't be praised, you'd be fired. And rightly so.

Customers who expect the exact same things out of a company for 20 straight years deserve to be fired as well.

I wouldn't mind seeing Paizo create their own gaming system. I think that might, in the long run, be a good thing. It would certainly be vastly interesting to see what they'd come up with. But I think that they'll be provided the 4E rules just like other publishers will, and they'll convert just like the others will.

 

[Imaro]

I personally think Erik is voicing a concern I've had as well as far as 4e vs. 3.xe...There are alot of companies who jumped on the bandwagon with the d20 system. I can honestly say I think it was a good thing, but...I also think those same companies are realizing now(though an inkling of it came with 3e to 3.5e) one of the major drawbacks to participating in this. Basically you no longer control your publishing schedule, WotC does. I think alot of companies saw this with the very quick release of 3.5 wherein they had to restructure their products to fit a new rules system after only three years time. Now I doubt many companies enjoyed this shakeup and most probably expected a little more time with the 3.5 rules than has been given.

I think what we will see is a major chunk of good companies who supported 3.5 dropping out of the game. Many have alreaddy either published their own rules set (True20, Mongoose's Conan, Mutant's and Maserminds, Lonewolf, etc.), are purely "adventure" companies( which take less work to convert over, though this is dependant on how big the rule changes are.) or are now stuck in a sort of limbo on whether to update, create their own system or just drop d20 (Privateer Press with their excellent Iron Kingdoms setting is one of these.)

I keep hearing people talk about WotC having to make money...but so do the publishers who support their system(s), and few if any can afford to publish stuff at the rate WotC can. I honestly don't think the sales of 4e will be as good as 3e, and I think this is the major reason the online push has ramped up...it's a hedging your bets sort of thing. I haven't decided if I'll be switching over yet, it just seems trite and kind of unneeded for me and my group. I would, however, love if a company decided to publish a 3.5/3.75 update rulebook that addressed the major problems with the system.

In the end I feel there is no "perfect system" but I feel like in about two to three years after release we'll be talking about all the things that are wrong with 4e. What I'd love to see is WotC stick with a rules system and actually correct and modify the problems with it rather than jettison it for something else every time a new edition comes out. But then again it won't make as much money.

 

[delericho]

While I haven't made a decision on whether or not I'll buy into 4th edition,

My decision isn't quite set in stone at this point, but it's getting towards that point. There are three cases:

1) WotC retain Asmodeus as a god in the core rules. I don't buy 4e, or anything associated with it.

2) WotC change their minds about Asmodeus being a god. I buy the 4e core rules, and find them not to my taste, and so stick with 3.5.

3) WotC change their minds about Asmodeus being a god. I buy the 4e core rules, find them an improvement over the current edition, and so switch over.

At the moment, #1 looks like the most likely outcome. Based on what we've heard so far, #2 looks to be the next most likely, although there have been a number of things that have struck me as genuine and significant improvements.

If I switch over, I won't have any interest in anything produced for the old edition. If I don't, I won't have any interest in anything produced for the new edition.

nor do I think that Paizo dropping away from being fully compatible with D&D would be good for either WotC or Paizo,

Agreed. At the moment, Paizo are consistently producing the best support material for 3.5e D&D, so if WotC lost them that would seem to be a blow.

And, unless 4e is a total flop, I don't see it being financially viable to continue supporting 3.5e. Either the vast majority players will switch over, or the market will be split. In the latter case, it may well not be viable for any third party company to support any edition of the game. But I certainly don't expect 4e to flop.

However, if I don't switch, and if Paizo find themselves unable to use 4e for their third Pathfinder path, and if they find that it remains viable to continue to support 3.5, then that would suit me ideally. I really don't see it happening, though.

I'd enjoy seeing a 3.75-style game, too. I'd much rather see a tune-up to the rules rather than a reinvention.

I was actually hoping they would do more or less what they're doing. Some of the flaws with the existing game (multiclass spellcasters, level adjustment...) are such that the engine does need stripped and rebuilt to really implement fixes. Unfortunately, they haven't done it the way I would have done it.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Thereafter, we might release a "3.75" that smooths out some of the system's kinks and addresses some of the common complaints about it in a way that is respectful of the game's 30-year tradition.

But if the end result is something that is comfortable and fun and in the grand tradition of our favorite hobby, it might actually work.

I honestly trust and expect that 4.0 will allow us to do that, so my default assumption, to be frank, is that we'll convert whole hog to 4.0 at some point or another.

But I haven't seen the rules and I haven't seen the new OGL, and until I do I've got to keep our options open.

Pretty much exactly where my head is at.

 

[Raven Crowking]

That gave me a whisky tango foxtrot moment as well. We've had, what, 3-4 weeks of outside playtesting of the rules, and he's publicly voicing worry that the third party publishers don't have the rules yet? They've only begun the playtesting.

Which, BTW, might be a significant source of worry right there. With the PHB looming, WotC should have begun playtesting a long, long time ago. Especially given the (apparently) sweeping nature of rules changes.

RC

 

[WayneLigon]

1) WotC retain Asmodeus as a god in the core rules. I don't buy 4e, or anything associated with it.

So, your entire 4E feelings are based on this one little - easily changed, almost insignificant - tidbit? I have to ask you how often will this particular thing impact your day-to-day play? Do people in your campaign run into Asmodeus all the time or have some long range plan for raiding his fortress and destroying him? Are y'all at the end of a 20-year campaign that somehow hinges around the current planar configuration and set in the Hells?

 

[Doug McCrae]

Not buying 4e because they made Asmodeus a god is completely ridiculous.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Not buying 4e because they made Asmodeus a god is completely ridiculous.

Not if you feel that it is indicative of a more pervasive (and unnecessary) change of tone.

There are no additional concrete examples to give, so it makes perfect sense to use the only example we have handy.

Assuming of course his objection isn't simply on religious grounds, in which case he need say no more; but then I am sure you wouldn't mock someone's religion in an open forum.

 

[delericho]

Honestly, it wouldn't be hard. No significant amount of the gaming population plays a game that is not in print;

So far. Of course, this is the first edition where the OGL has allowed another company to simply reprint the rules once the new edition hits, thus preventing the books from going out of print. That makes simply 'firing the customer base' extremely risky - new players joining any existing group will play what the group plays, and if that's not the latest edition, then they won't buy books.

I like 3E; it made D&D worth my time and attention again, for the first time in a long time. But it's always been my contention that 3E is the first in a series of steps along a road that will leverage the comparatively massive fanbase of D&D towards a more modern rules set with a minimum of disruption or significant loss of playerbase. I think 4E will continue that, and somewhere around 6E, we'll have what we should have had around 1995 or so.

Now, a lot of the evolution that would have - should have - naturally occurred, didn't.

If it's evolution, then there is no 'should have'. If the game wasn't fit to survive, then it would have died. Indeed, it nearly did, but for the actions of fan who had a lot of money.

However, what I really wanted to ask is: what do you mean by a "more modern rules set"?

 

[Raven Crowking]

Not if you feel that it is indicative of a more pervasive (and unnecessary) change of tone.

There are no additional concrete examples to give, so it makes perfect sense to use the only example we have handy.

Assuming of course his objection isn't simply on religious grounds, in which case he need say no more; but then I am sure you wouldn't mock someone's religion in an open forum.

Thank you, Wulf. I was trying to think of a classy way to say the same thing, and utterly failed.

RC