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Message: <blockquote data-quote="merelycompetent" data-source="post: 4611809" data-attributes="member: 33830">My sincerest apologies if this is a threadjack. I think that your opinion holds great value and understanding of my particular situation with D&D 4E. I gather from reading various posts that my situation is not uncommon.For me, it is not a matter of what edition is best. It is a matter of what edition's mechanics best support the game/setting that I and the players enjoy.I think 4E is a great game to introduce new players to D&D. Possibly the best edition for introducing new players to D&D since 1E. I don't know for certain because I am not currently recruiting "new" players. My game is currently on hiatus due to Real Life issues.We were having fun. We're starting back up in March of this year. The players are all but threatening me bodily harm to start the campaign back up sooner. I am fortunate that my players encourage trying new stuff -- especially considering how I'm houseruling 3.5E so that I don't go insane with handling all the rules and high-level/epic-level adventures.It seems that, by the current definitions of EnWorld, I'm a grognard, thought I hate and refuse that description, since (to me) "grognard" deescibes a dedicated wargamer. I'm not a wargamer. I'm a gamer, specifically a role-playing gamer. Don't call me a grognard - it's wrong, and almost insulting. I'm a gamer. It just happens that 4E mechanics, rulebooks, and splatbooks don't support the game I'm currently running. Call me old school. You won't be wrong, so long as you understand that I'm perfectly willing to try new stuff. Heck, I'm back-porting some pretty cool ideas from 4E to 3.5E, and still working on a new magic system for 3.5E (mainly because I'm bored with that aggravating Vancian memorize-and-forget annoyance, partly because I want a tool to help me define how powerful a spell is *before* I add it to the campaign, and partly because it generates some really cool ideas for new spells.)I've been playing this game since before Basic D&D. I actually became a gamer right at the point where the Basic and Expert boxed sets were available at the hobby shop, the 1E PHB was in its 2nd or 3rd printing, and you could still mail order the Eldritch Wizardry supplement (which I am deeply privileged to have, along with a few other relics and artifacts). I am concerned about the changes brought in with 4E. I expect that, barring unexpected disasters of the TPK kind, the current campaign will take PCs to 30-40th level, have them facing Elder Gods, Ancient Evils, and Horrors from Beyond before the campaign ends. 4E supports an equivalent. 4E -- It, especially the mechanics and lack of conversion, just doesn't support my current game setting. The lack of GSL hurts, too. I've pulled a lot of ideas from other posters on EnWorld, and from purchases from 3rd party publishers (I'm looking at you, Necromancer, FatDragon, Paizo, Upper Krust, and others). 4E is a significant change from all previous editions. Perhaps too much change. That seriously bothers me. There is no convenient way to get from point C (3.5E) to point M (4E).The extremity of the changes from 3.0 to 3.5 to 4.0 bothers me even more. I don't want to see WotC fail in any manner whatsoever. There are too many talented and skilled people involved, including 3PP, who are generating intriguing ideas - treasure worth its weight in platinum. But for now, 4E is not a game system I DM a campaign for. The rules mechanics make DMing a lot easier (thank you, WotC - 3.0 and 3.5 have been a nightmare of mechanics, especially after level 13-15), but the other changes - races, classes, cosmology, magic system, go too far. My current campaigns aren't done. I'm left high and dry by 4E, as a DM with a living, breathing, flourishing campaign setting. It is not a pleasant sensation. It also doesn't mean that I won't try 4E to see what it has to offer. It just changed too much, so what I was currently running couldn't change with it. The last ten plus years of campaign setting, supported by convertable mechanics, are no longer convertable in the details. And the devil, along with versimilitude and continuity, is in the details.I no longer have the time in my blue/white collar life to devote to re-writing a campaign setting to a new paradigm. Maybe this change is necessary so that the hobby can gain new blood and continue to grow and evolve. Certainly, the work by the current designers is credible and admirable. Maybe this is a difficult or damaging, hopefully not fatal, step in the evolution of the hobby.But for me, unless something unexpected happens, I won't be recruiting new players to 4E for the foreseeable future. That's an average of 1-2 new customers per year, since I've "retired" from open games at the local university and game store. But it's been *my* campaign, *my* playstyle, that's been recruiting new gamers - gamers who haven't played D&D (in any incarnation) before. The newest, latest, edition only offers me ideas. The mechanics kill my campaign. I don't want to pay $25 per splatbook/6 months DDI subscription to get the mechanics for core classes like druids and barbarians so my campaign can convert to 4E.I don't know what impact my particular "class" of customer will have on 4E. WotC strikes me as being populated with very smart people. People who may very well look on me as a "fringe customer". There is nothing wrong with that. I still get to run my campaign the way I - and the players - enjoy, and WotC still gets to publish an immensely popular game. That is a win-win situation - the best kind. Five game sessions from now, I may have TPK, or the players may decide they want to scrap their current game for a brand new 4E one. I'm OK with that so long as I still get to have fun. I would hate to see a campaign setting with years of background get relegated to a pool of ideas. That happens, and it's OK. Evolve or die. Considering the players, and the campaign, I don't expect that to happen. But I am worried, at this time, by the fact that all the long-time DM's I personally know (please note that I'm excluding players - the view is even more dismal there), are *not* using, or buying, 4E products. I can account for a small percentage of the market, in a very remote market region. But the company that *is* my hobby no longer suports the game I play. This is cause for concern.I hope that I am an isolated statistical point. But I worry that this poll indicates that I am not.</blockquote>

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