It was with a certain amount of, multiple emotions, that I saw the announcement of next edition of Dungeons and Dragons.
The first was curiosity. What direction would the game take? The second was satisfaction. I make no bones that I did not like anything to do with Dungeons and Dragons fourth edition, and the changes it brought to this hobby. That includes in continuality, game mechanics, or setting fluff. I liked the Forgotten Realms the way it was, thank you. And if I wanted to play WoW or Everquest, I’d have had accounts on those years ago.
However, I’m not here to complain about 4th edition. I’m here to give a detail explaination of my hopes and expectations, and how I would go about accomplishing them, for Fifth edition.
But first, my background with this game.
I am 35 years old, and I was introduced to Dungeons and Dragons when I was about 12. I have been playing Dungeons and Dragons for approximately 23 years. During that time, I played with most of my friends, my future wife, my sister and some of her friends, my father, and even 'friends of a friend' I only met once or twice.
I have played every incarnation of the game published up to Fourth Edition. I also Dungeon/Game Master bi-monthly games with my friends, as well as bi-monthly games with just my wife.
I have also collected, in one for or another, every single piece of published material for Dungeons and Dragons. This includes the entirety of Dragon Magazine, Dungeon Magazine, most of Polyhedron, most of the original Judge’s Guild stuff, and every piece of RPGA stuff I have been able to get my hands on. I will admit, these are mostly electronic at this point. But I still have my original Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk Boxed sets, and a bookcase worth of old D&D materials.
However, my entire 3.0/3.5 Collection is hard copy. I had to buy a new bookcase just to hold them.
I introduced my wife and most of my friends to the game. Two of the members of my current gaming group I have known since I was 14, and we have been playing in the current incarnation of our group since a few months after the release of Third Edition (this was one more of happenstance, not planning). One of the other members came back to it after going away for college, under the condition we were not playing 4th edition (he made the same World of Warcraft comparison I did). I hope to one day, fate willing, to have kids and introduce them to the hobby as well. I have also meet new friends via 'looking for player' ads on websites. Including 1 guy that became a very good friend and helped me renovate my house without asking for anything beyond feeding him.
My wife and I have been running a continuous campaign, that is just the two of us, for approximately 16 years. We’ve been romantically involved for 14, and married for 5. Actually, I should correct that, we reset the campaign when we switched to 3rd edition (about 1 month after it came out) in recognition of how badly we had garbled it with bad book-keeping, damaged or missing character sheets, etc. It’s multi generational (and rewrites of the past characters), and we’ve “adventured” three generations of the same family group, with 1 “redo” of a group when we were not satisfied with the over-all story. (It just didn’t work in the end). One of the members of this family, the 'great grandfather' of the 3rd generation, is my 2nd D&D character. I've been using him, in some for or the other, since I was 13.
Now then…
My journey into and within Third Edition
When third edition was announced, at first, I was very hesitant with the idea. I liked AD&D as it stood at the time. Sure, it was a little, mechancially questionable in places, but nothing that a house rule from a Dungeon Master with a few braincells couldn’t handle.
As I watched 3rd edition unfold, with the information we were given, I was intrigued. Many mechanical elements I’d wondered about over the years were being incorporated. Armor Class ranging from High to low was replaced by ‘Higher is better’, and THACO was removed, simplying combat math and speeding up the game. To Hit charts were removed. Monsters had variable hit dice like classes, and monsters could take classes. Monsters had stats beyond intelligence, and ability scores were expanded beyond ’25 is maximum’.
The game wasn’t just simplified. It was streamlined and expanded upon.
By the time the Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide were published (let alone the Monster Manual), I was eager to get a hold of them, but they flew off the local gaming shelves very fast. When I did get a hold of them, I read them over, and I was very pleased. D&D had also became more plug and play. It wasn’t as fixed and focused. No more dual classing or racial level limitations, and character progression stacked.
If I wanted to play a Human fighter for a few levels, then switch to cleric, and then switch to monk, I could, and it wasn’t being penalized anymore for it. If I wanted to fight unarmed in that scenario, I could, with my fighter and clerical combat training aiding it. That kicked ass!
And the plug-and-play aspect of it was great. Custom rules could be created and dropped on without any problem, and removed and replaced just as easy if they were problematic. I also saw that the system would allow for a lot of customization of characters that didn’t require bending over backwards to accomplish. Kinda of like a home computer, hence my plug-and-play comparison.
I enjoyed the changes to the campaign settings as well.
In Greyhawk, the Wars were over and things more or less stabilized.
In the Realms, the setting was given a kick in the ass without a dreaded “Realms Shaking Event”.
In Dragonlance, the dreadful ‘Age of Mortals’ was put to rest, and an good explanation for it was offered.
Ravenloft wasn’t handled as a setting by Wizards of the Coast, but at least most of the material for it was updated to third edition.
Dark Sun eventually got a clean-up and update.
I was disappointed that Mystara didn’t see much love outside of the ‘Savage Tide’ adventure path (and even then, indirectly at best), but still, it’s the thought that counts.
Heck, even Spelljammer got a partial clean up in Polyhedron. (I’ll admit that overhaul of the Spelljammer ships made ship to ship combat annoying as hell, but still, it’s the thought that counts).
Over the time, I saw some of my favourite adventures get sequels and updates. Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, the 3.5 version of the original Ravenloft adventure, the Shadows of the Abyss trilogy in Dungeon Magazine, and of course, the Savage Tide adventure path took us back to the Isle of Dread. Then there's the updates on the website for Tome of Horrors and White Plume Mountain.
Wizards of the Coast not only provided a mechanically good game system (no system is perfect), it honoured the previous 20+ years of Dungeons of Dragons by keeping it going, just with their own ‘touch’ to it. If D&D was a car, they didn't slap a new coat of paint on it or give you a new car. They buffed out the dings, fixed the damage to the car, and put in a new engine. But it still 'felt' the same, even if the stick shift no longer felt sluggish moving out of park.
Combined with my like of updating older edition adventures, my group was set. Some adventures, we’ve played using the rules from every edition of the game now. I can’t tell you how many times they saved that Goat candidate from that Golem in Greyhawk City. They even Voted for him too.
Over the course of third edition, I purchased every non-Eberron Wizards of the Coast book. I was not knocking Eberron with that, just I already focused on two campaign settings, and didn’t want to toss in a third or fourth at the time. I also picked up third party D20 System books as well. Specifically Mongoose Publishings generic books, Alderac Entertainments books, Green Ronins, and Sword and Sorcery.
Quite frankly, I walk into the local gaming store I used for that, and I still get a discount from them from all that.
I stopped collecting third party D20 System books (partially from lack of use, partially from the fact PDFs take up less room on my shelves), and started collecting D&D Miniatures with the release of the Colossal Red Dragon. At this point, I own all the DDM from Harbringer to Night Below. I’d own all of the rest of them, but I stopped buying around the time of Desert of Desolation because we were planning to move and needed the money for renovations. I’ve since restarted that, and I’m about 80 sigh of completing the Desert+ sets. I also picked up all the Icons, even that dorky looking version of Orcus, and the Collector Sets. I had to install new shelves in my game room for them. At 2 feet by 8 feet, they fill up two of them and are about 2/3 of the way to filling up the third.
Fourth Edition
When Fourth Edition was announced, I went through the same initial reaction that I did to Third Edition, but with more enthusiasm. My wife and I discuss things at length, and decided if Fourth Edition worked for us, we’d download the conversion book, take the core books out from the local public library, and try re-running an adventure with established characters. If it worked better (emotionally or mechanically) then before, we’d update.
So, you can imagine my reaction when I read on the WotC Website that there would be no Conversion Book, and that your hope was you’d stop played 3.5 and just switch to a new Fourth Edition game.
That raised a rather large red flag in my mind. However, during a discussion with fellow gamers, they said a conversion guide might not be needed.
So, when Fourth Edition came out, I checked the local library during my lunch break (fortunately, my office building at the time was literally across the street) about 2 weeks later, and there was the PHBK for 4E. I checked it out, and sat down and read it at my desk that afternoon. Fortunately, the project I was working on the time was one of those ‘go until this part is done, and then wait for the reply from testing and the manager’.
After work, I returned the book to the library, and went home. And I told my wife my opinion straight out:
“That’s not Dungeons and Dragon’s. It’s the unholy spawn of conspiracy between World of Warcraft, Everquest, Ultima Online, and an old M.U.D”
A little harsh, but it expressed my distaste nicely.
Why the Hate?
I think the best summary of it is this;
I could build a character using any of the classes in Basic D&D, and then, depending, port it over to AD&D, AD&D2E. I could build any character in the previous systems, and thanks to the conversion guide, update them to 3rd Edition/3.5 with a minimum of ‘loss’. Sure, some of Kits where never converted, and so was a lot of other ‘crunch’/mechanics, but converting them was a breeze. And as the various expansions came out, more was converted, updated, or could be used as a substitute.
“You want to use your old Elven Fighter/Mage with the Bladesinger Kit? Okay, that would be a Elf with 4 Levels in Fighter, 1 or 2 levels in Wizards, and the rest in Bladesinger. It might take use 30 to 40 minutes to retool him. Game is at 6, get here at 4:30, then we’ll have Pizza.”
Fourth Edition? Not that I can remember. IT was a whole new game system, and it didn't even feel the same. 10 minutes to cast Knock? What gives?
So, I did not buy any Fourth Edition books. I didn’t bother checking out the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, as the Grand History of the Realms had already informed me that the Forgotten Realms as I knew it was gone.
The transition from any of the previous incarnations of Dungeons and Dragons to Third Edition was relatively smooth. There was no transition to Fourth Edition. From my perspective, and the 5 million plus customers lost, there was no transition, there was a car accident. If Dungeons and Dragons was a road, you hit a break wall at 100 miles an hour, totalled your car, and then go into a new vehicle you had to learn to operate, and then go on a different road.
So, what would I like to see in the next edition of the game, mechanically, then?
First, put Fourth Edition on the ‘ideas’ pile, not the mechanics pile.
Now, take 3.5 Edition, and clean it up. Make 5th edition what Fourth edition should have been. What third edition was to the previous editions. A clean up and simplification of the rules. Put out a conversion guide for 3.X to 5.0
Then, take a look at the Fourth Edition books, and take the new class abilities from them, and turn them into Alternate Class Features, Substitution Levels, and Feats. That would allow the Fourth edition players to rebuild their characters into the new rule set.
And massively playtest it. Put out a call for players of Fourth Edition, and those that didn’t update to it and stuck with 3.5. Playtest it until everyone is sick of playtesting and want’s to see the final products. Encourage Character Optimization and 'Abuse the Rules' discussions on it, and adjust the rules to prevent powergaming.
Put conversions of the 3rd and 4th edition character material on the Website, and slowly put it into print form. This will allow for more playtesting, and more fixing before it even reaches print.
In other words, support the past of the game into the new version of it, and make it so that the people that spent hundreds or thousands of dollars and either edition can actually use their investments. (i.e Me)
Also, offer the ability to download Watermarked PDF versions of the new books, cheaper then the hard copies. A lot of people use computers for book-keeping in RPGs now, and pulling the books up in Adobe Acrobat off a thumb drive is a lot easier then lugging around the sourcebooks, or flipping to the right page.
Or even better, put Watermarked PDFs you have to register on a CD with each book. Or 'anyone that orders the book from Wizards of the Coast directly, can order the PDF for $2.00'. That would cut out the distributors, and raise your profit margins.
Also, have a character generator program (ala Lone Wolf’s Hero Lab), ready to go with the rules, and release updates for it with every book and Web Article. Hell, liscence it out to Lone Wolf and let them do it, but you must have computer support.
What would I like to see from the settings?
Well, I’ll address that by setting
Greyhawk –
Some actual support for it, and not in the form of ‘generic organizations and source books’.
Put out a details book about the setting, and another about Greyhawk City at the very least.
Forgotten Realms –
Hit stop button (or finish the current story arcs), and reload a backup from before the Spellplague. In the novels, have Mystra resurrected say ‘Oh hells no’ to that and afterwards. She used to be the Goddess of time, let her use that. If you still want to advance the timeline, go ahead, but don’t do it by destroying or nullifying 20 years of story and source material. And if you do advance the timeline, include a explaination and timeline as to what actually happened.
And anyone that says ‘The Realms is to detailed/complicated/complex’, don’t hire them to write novels for it or support it, or at least have their material looked over by someone that knows the Realms backwards and forwards. Or just ignore them.
Eberron –
Ask the original creator. I have no knowledge of Fourth Edition Eberron, and have barely looked at the Eberron books besides looking for character material. What I have seen does interest me, but until my group campaign ends it’s current story arc, the odds of an Eberron campaign are low. Maybe as a side excursion, but I’m getting off topic.
Other Campaign Settings –
Run a poll on the website, including a mail in one. Ask ‘Which Campaign Setting would you like to see get support for next?’ And list the old campaign settings. Greyhawk (after the first two books), Dragonlance, Ravenloft, Planescape, Spelljammer, Mystara, etc. Heck, allow right in votes, and votes at conventions over the course of 6 months (start with GenCon obviously). And whatever the winner is, get their old design team back, and go for it.
At the next GenCon, release a primary setting book or two, and maybe an adventure or adventure path (depending on how many votes come in). If sales are good, keep supporting that setting until sales decline.
And when it’s released, restart the poll for the other campaign settings.
For all Campaigns -
More adventure paths. They make things so easy for the Dungeon Masters. When I was running the original 3.0 adventure series, or the adventure paths from Dungeon Magazine, I barely had to do any work besides re-reading stat blocks on occasion.
And the Minis Game?
The lack of support for the Minis game after DDM 2.0 was a major sore spot for a lot of people. Many people spent more on minis then they did on source books!
So, if you are going to support the minis as a seperate game, get update cards for every single miniature ready. And actually, adapting the fourth edition rules into the mini game would probably be a good idea. The minis game and core D&D game do not have to be interchangeable in mechanics.
Also, to maximize sales, linking up the miniatures game releases with products would be a good idea as well. New monster book coming out? Well, over the next two miniature game releases, we’ll be covering most of the monsters from it.
In that regard, take a que from Pazio and how it’s handling the Pathfinder miniatures game. The miniatures will support the books. New monsters in a splat book or adventure path? Here are the miniatures for it. Oh, and if you buy a case, odds are, you’ll get the entire set.
The alternative would be to go the Heroscape route, and release the monsters in fixed configuration packages. Also, being able to order singles of a monster directly from you (or from the local distributor) would be a great thing. That way, instead of having to buy a package 4 times to get the number of a monster you want, and ending up with extra miniatures and paying more, you just go ‘I need 4 Iron Golems for the adventure I am planning on running next in 2 weeks. I better go to the gaming store and order them’, or if you are running a pre-planned story, you could order them further in advance. (Case in point, I recently needed several Chain Golem minis. Fortunately, the local gaming store had Promo copies at 2.00 each).
Also, support the game. Start a DDM miniatures league, and support it. Prizes, tournaments, etc. Even if the store that want’s to host one can only generate 4 players, that’s still enough for a small tournament.
Would this cause me to come back as a customer?
I honestly have no idea. If I could drop my 3.X stuff into 5.0 and play (essentially just replacing the PHBK + DMG, the approach Pathfinder took), I probably would. I might not do it immediately, likely waiting to hearing reviews from people online and face-to-face, and possibly until whatever story arc my groups are working on have started to wind down (people don’t like switching horses mid-stream, etc), but I’d be inclined towards it.
And if you did that, even if I don’t buy the core books, I’d be all over the setting books.
One more thing..
Oh, and so you know, Paizo already did all this, and I switched over to Pathfinder already, without hesitation once I read the corebook.
What I said above, that's what you need to do to lure me back as a customer.
In the meantime: Fear my Werewolf Pathfinder Barbarian 20, WOTC Frenzied Berserker 10
The first was curiosity. What direction would the game take? The second was satisfaction. I make no bones that I did not like anything to do with Dungeons and Dragons fourth edition, and the changes it brought to this hobby. That includes in continuality, game mechanics, or setting fluff. I liked the Forgotten Realms the way it was, thank you. And if I wanted to play WoW or Everquest, I’d have had accounts on those years ago.
However, I’m not here to complain about 4th edition. I’m here to give a detail explaination of my hopes and expectations, and how I would go about accomplishing them, for Fifth edition.
But first, my background with this game.
I am 35 years old, and I was introduced to Dungeons and Dragons when I was about 12. I have been playing Dungeons and Dragons for approximately 23 years. During that time, I played with most of my friends, my future wife, my sister and some of her friends, my father, and even 'friends of a friend' I only met once or twice.
I have played every incarnation of the game published up to Fourth Edition. I also Dungeon/Game Master bi-monthly games with my friends, as well as bi-monthly games with just my wife.
I have also collected, in one for or another, every single piece of published material for Dungeons and Dragons. This includes the entirety of Dragon Magazine, Dungeon Magazine, most of Polyhedron, most of the original Judge’s Guild stuff, and every piece of RPGA stuff I have been able to get my hands on. I will admit, these are mostly electronic at this point. But I still have my original Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk Boxed sets, and a bookcase worth of old D&D materials.
However, my entire 3.0/3.5 Collection is hard copy. I had to buy a new bookcase just to hold them.
I introduced my wife and most of my friends to the game. Two of the members of my current gaming group I have known since I was 14, and we have been playing in the current incarnation of our group since a few months after the release of Third Edition (this was one more of happenstance, not planning). One of the other members came back to it after going away for college, under the condition we were not playing 4th edition (he made the same World of Warcraft comparison I did). I hope to one day, fate willing, to have kids and introduce them to the hobby as well. I have also meet new friends via 'looking for player' ads on websites. Including 1 guy that became a very good friend and helped me renovate my house without asking for anything beyond feeding him.
My wife and I have been running a continuous campaign, that is just the two of us, for approximately 16 years. We’ve been romantically involved for 14, and married for 5. Actually, I should correct that, we reset the campaign when we switched to 3rd edition (about 1 month after it came out) in recognition of how badly we had garbled it with bad book-keeping, damaged or missing character sheets, etc. It’s multi generational (and rewrites of the past characters), and we’ve “adventured” three generations of the same family group, with 1 “redo” of a group when we were not satisfied with the over-all story. (It just didn’t work in the end). One of the members of this family, the 'great grandfather' of the 3rd generation, is my 2nd D&D character. I've been using him, in some for or the other, since I was 13.
Now then…
My journey into and within Third Edition
When third edition was announced, at first, I was very hesitant with the idea. I liked AD&D as it stood at the time. Sure, it was a little, mechancially questionable in places, but nothing that a house rule from a Dungeon Master with a few braincells couldn’t handle.
As I watched 3rd edition unfold, with the information we were given, I was intrigued. Many mechanical elements I’d wondered about over the years were being incorporated. Armor Class ranging from High to low was replaced by ‘Higher is better’, and THACO was removed, simplying combat math and speeding up the game. To Hit charts were removed. Monsters had variable hit dice like classes, and monsters could take classes. Monsters had stats beyond intelligence, and ability scores were expanded beyond ’25 is maximum’.
The game wasn’t just simplified. It was streamlined and expanded upon.
By the time the Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide were published (let alone the Monster Manual), I was eager to get a hold of them, but they flew off the local gaming shelves very fast. When I did get a hold of them, I read them over, and I was very pleased. D&D had also became more plug and play. It wasn’t as fixed and focused. No more dual classing or racial level limitations, and character progression stacked.
If I wanted to play a Human fighter for a few levels, then switch to cleric, and then switch to monk, I could, and it wasn’t being penalized anymore for it. If I wanted to fight unarmed in that scenario, I could, with my fighter and clerical combat training aiding it. That kicked ass!
And the plug-and-play aspect of it was great. Custom rules could be created and dropped on without any problem, and removed and replaced just as easy if they were problematic. I also saw that the system would allow for a lot of customization of characters that didn’t require bending over backwards to accomplish. Kinda of like a home computer, hence my plug-and-play comparison.
I enjoyed the changes to the campaign settings as well.
In Greyhawk, the Wars were over and things more or less stabilized.
In the Realms, the setting was given a kick in the ass without a dreaded “Realms Shaking Event”.
In Dragonlance, the dreadful ‘Age of Mortals’ was put to rest, and an good explanation for it was offered.
Ravenloft wasn’t handled as a setting by Wizards of the Coast, but at least most of the material for it was updated to third edition.
Dark Sun eventually got a clean-up and update.
I was disappointed that Mystara didn’t see much love outside of the ‘Savage Tide’ adventure path (and even then, indirectly at best), but still, it’s the thought that counts.
Heck, even Spelljammer got a partial clean up in Polyhedron. (I’ll admit that overhaul of the Spelljammer ships made ship to ship combat annoying as hell, but still, it’s the thought that counts).
Over the time, I saw some of my favourite adventures get sequels and updates. Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, the 3.5 version of the original Ravenloft adventure, the Shadows of the Abyss trilogy in Dungeon Magazine, and of course, the Savage Tide adventure path took us back to the Isle of Dread. Then there's the updates on the website for Tome of Horrors and White Plume Mountain.
Wizards of the Coast not only provided a mechanically good game system (no system is perfect), it honoured the previous 20+ years of Dungeons of Dragons by keeping it going, just with their own ‘touch’ to it. If D&D was a car, they didn't slap a new coat of paint on it or give you a new car. They buffed out the dings, fixed the damage to the car, and put in a new engine. But it still 'felt' the same, even if the stick shift no longer felt sluggish moving out of park.
Combined with my like of updating older edition adventures, my group was set. Some adventures, we’ve played using the rules from every edition of the game now. I can’t tell you how many times they saved that Goat candidate from that Golem in Greyhawk City. They even Voted for him too.
Over the course of third edition, I purchased every non-Eberron Wizards of the Coast book. I was not knocking Eberron with that, just I already focused on two campaign settings, and didn’t want to toss in a third or fourth at the time. I also picked up third party D20 System books as well. Specifically Mongoose Publishings generic books, Alderac Entertainments books, Green Ronins, and Sword and Sorcery.
Quite frankly, I walk into the local gaming store I used for that, and I still get a discount from them from all that.
I stopped collecting third party D20 System books (partially from lack of use, partially from the fact PDFs take up less room on my shelves), and started collecting D&D Miniatures with the release of the Colossal Red Dragon. At this point, I own all the DDM from Harbringer to Night Below. I’d own all of the rest of them, but I stopped buying around the time of Desert of Desolation because we were planning to move and needed the money for renovations. I’ve since restarted that, and I’m about 80 sigh of completing the Desert+ sets. I also picked up all the Icons, even that dorky looking version of Orcus, and the Collector Sets. I had to install new shelves in my game room for them. At 2 feet by 8 feet, they fill up two of them and are about 2/3 of the way to filling up the third.
Fourth Edition
When Fourth Edition was announced, I went through the same initial reaction that I did to Third Edition, but with more enthusiasm. My wife and I discuss things at length, and decided if Fourth Edition worked for us, we’d download the conversion book, take the core books out from the local public library, and try re-running an adventure with established characters. If it worked better (emotionally or mechanically) then before, we’d update.
So, you can imagine my reaction when I read on the WotC Website that there would be no Conversion Book, and that your hope was you’d stop played 3.5 and just switch to a new Fourth Edition game.
That raised a rather large red flag in my mind. However, during a discussion with fellow gamers, they said a conversion guide might not be needed.
So, when Fourth Edition came out, I checked the local library during my lunch break (fortunately, my office building at the time was literally across the street) about 2 weeks later, and there was the PHBK for 4E. I checked it out, and sat down and read it at my desk that afternoon. Fortunately, the project I was working on the time was one of those ‘go until this part is done, and then wait for the reply from testing and the manager’.
After work, I returned the book to the library, and went home. And I told my wife my opinion straight out:
“That’s not Dungeons and Dragon’s. It’s the unholy spawn of conspiracy between World of Warcraft, Everquest, Ultima Online, and an old M.U.D”
A little harsh, but it expressed my distaste nicely.
Why the Hate?
I think the best summary of it is this;
I could build a character using any of the classes in Basic D&D, and then, depending, port it over to AD&D, AD&D2E. I could build any character in the previous systems, and thanks to the conversion guide, update them to 3rd Edition/3.5 with a minimum of ‘loss’. Sure, some of Kits where never converted, and so was a lot of other ‘crunch’/mechanics, but converting them was a breeze. And as the various expansions came out, more was converted, updated, or could be used as a substitute.
“You want to use your old Elven Fighter/Mage with the Bladesinger Kit? Okay, that would be a Elf with 4 Levels in Fighter, 1 or 2 levels in Wizards, and the rest in Bladesinger. It might take use 30 to 40 minutes to retool him. Game is at 6, get here at 4:30, then we’ll have Pizza.”
Fourth Edition? Not that I can remember. IT was a whole new game system, and it didn't even feel the same. 10 minutes to cast Knock? What gives?
So, I did not buy any Fourth Edition books. I didn’t bother checking out the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, as the Grand History of the Realms had already informed me that the Forgotten Realms as I knew it was gone.
The transition from any of the previous incarnations of Dungeons and Dragons to Third Edition was relatively smooth. There was no transition to Fourth Edition. From my perspective, and the 5 million plus customers lost, there was no transition, there was a car accident. If Dungeons and Dragons was a road, you hit a break wall at 100 miles an hour, totalled your car, and then go into a new vehicle you had to learn to operate, and then go on a different road.
So, what would I like to see in the next edition of the game, mechanically, then?
First, put Fourth Edition on the ‘ideas’ pile, not the mechanics pile.
Now, take 3.5 Edition, and clean it up. Make 5th edition what Fourth edition should have been. What third edition was to the previous editions. A clean up and simplification of the rules. Put out a conversion guide for 3.X to 5.0
Then, take a look at the Fourth Edition books, and take the new class abilities from them, and turn them into Alternate Class Features, Substitution Levels, and Feats. That would allow the Fourth edition players to rebuild their characters into the new rule set.
And massively playtest it. Put out a call for players of Fourth Edition, and those that didn’t update to it and stuck with 3.5. Playtest it until everyone is sick of playtesting and want’s to see the final products. Encourage Character Optimization and 'Abuse the Rules' discussions on it, and adjust the rules to prevent powergaming.
Put conversions of the 3rd and 4th edition character material on the Website, and slowly put it into print form. This will allow for more playtesting, and more fixing before it even reaches print.
In other words, support the past of the game into the new version of it, and make it so that the people that spent hundreds or thousands of dollars and either edition can actually use their investments. (i.e Me)
Also, offer the ability to download Watermarked PDF versions of the new books, cheaper then the hard copies. A lot of people use computers for book-keeping in RPGs now, and pulling the books up in Adobe Acrobat off a thumb drive is a lot easier then lugging around the sourcebooks, or flipping to the right page.
Or even better, put Watermarked PDFs you have to register on a CD with each book. Or 'anyone that orders the book from Wizards of the Coast directly, can order the PDF for $2.00'. That would cut out the distributors, and raise your profit margins.
Also, have a character generator program (ala Lone Wolf’s Hero Lab), ready to go with the rules, and release updates for it with every book and Web Article. Hell, liscence it out to Lone Wolf and let them do it, but you must have computer support.
What would I like to see from the settings?
Well, I’ll address that by setting
Greyhawk –
Some actual support for it, and not in the form of ‘generic organizations and source books’.
Put out a details book about the setting, and another about Greyhawk City at the very least.
Forgotten Realms –
Hit stop button (or finish the current story arcs), and reload a backup from before the Spellplague. In the novels, have Mystra resurrected say ‘Oh hells no’ to that and afterwards. She used to be the Goddess of time, let her use that. If you still want to advance the timeline, go ahead, but don’t do it by destroying or nullifying 20 years of story and source material. And if you do advance the timeline, include a explaination and timeline as to what actually happened.
And anyone that says ‘The Realms is to detailed/complicated/complex’, don’t hire them to write novels for it or support it, or at least have their material looked over by someone that knows the Realms backwards and forwards. Or just ignore them.
Eberron –
Ask the original creator. I have no knowledge of Fourth Edition Eberron, and have barely looked at the Eberron books besides looking for character material. What I have seen does interest me, but until my group campaign ends it’s current story arc, the odds of an Eberron campaign are low. Maybe as a side excursion, but I’m getting off topic.
Other Campaign Settings –
Run a poll on the website, including a mail in one. Ask ‘Which Campaign Setting would you like to see get support for next?’ And list the old campaign settings. Greyhawk (after the first two books), Dragonlance, Ravenloft, Planescape, Spelljammer, Mystara, etc. Heck, allow right in votes, and votes at conventions over the course of 6 months (start with GenCon obviously). And whatever the winner is, get their old design team back, and go for it.
At the next GenCon, release a primary setting book or two, and maybe an adventure or adventure path (depending on how many votes come in). If sales are good, keep supporting that setting until sales decline.
And when it’s released, restart the poll for the other campaign settings.
For all Campaigns -
More adventure paths. They make things so easy for the Dungeon Masters. When I was running the original 3.0 adventure series, or the adventure paths from Dungeon Magazine, I barely had to do any work besides re-reading stat blocks on occasion.
And the Minis Game?
The lack of support for the Minis game after DDM 2.0 was a major sore spot for a lot of people. Many people spent more on minis then they did on source books!
So, if you are going to support the minis as a seperate game, get update cards for every single miniature ready. And actually, adapting the fourth edition rules into the mini game would probably be a good idea. The minis game and core D&D game do not have to be interchangeable in mechanics.
Also, to maximize sales, linking up the miniatures game releases with products would be a good idea as well. New monster book coming out? Well, over the next two miniature game releases, we’ll be covering most of the monsters from it.
In that regard, take a que from Pazio and how it’s handling the Pathfinder miniatures game. The miniatures will support the books. New monsters in a splat book or adventure path? Here are the miniatures for it. Oh, and if you buy a case, odds are, you’ll get the entire set.
The alternative would be to go the Heroscape route, and release the monsters in fixed configuration packages. Also, being able to order singles of a monster directly from you (or from the local distributor) would be a great thing. That way, instead of having to buy a package 4 times to get the number of a monster you want, and ending up with extra miniatures and paying more, you just go ‘I need 4 Iron Golems for the adventure I am planning on running next in 2 weeks. I better go to the gaming store and order them’, or if you are running a pre-planned story, you could order them further in advance. (Case in point, I recently needed several Chain Golem minis. Fortunately, the local gaming store had Promo copies at 2.00 each).
Also, support the game. Start a DDM miniatures league, and support it. Prizes, tournaments, etc. Even if the store that want’s to host one can only generate 4 players, that’s still enough for a small tournament.
Would this cause me to come back as a customer?
I honestly have no idea. If I could drop my 3.X stuff into 5.0 and play (essentially just replacing the PHBK + DMG, the approach Pathfinder took), I probably would. I might not do it immediately, likely waiting to hearing reviews from people online and face-to-face, and possibly until whatever story arc my groups are working on have started to wind down (people don’t like switching horses mid-stream, etc), but I’d be inclined towards it.
And if you did that, even if I don’t buy the core books, I’d be all over the setting books.
One more thing..
Oh, and so you know, Paizo already did all this, and I switched over to Pathfinder already, without hesitation once I read the corebook.
What I said above, that's what you need to do to lure me back as a customer.
In the meantime: Fear my Werewolf Pathfinder Barbarian 20, WOTC Frenzied Berserker 10
