D&D 4th Edition Next Year?

[Nytewolf]

I would expect any release of a new edition to come at Gen Con, as it provides the maximum industry exposure and follows tradition. Also, WotC has products listed for 3.5 to be released next May -- including Players Handbook II.

Whether 4.0 Comes out or not is of little matter to me really but I will point one thing out in observation. Perhaps they are still working on 3.5 Releases up until May of next year. But I have played DnD through all of its incarnations and one thing that has remained constant is that they continued to make products for the older system up to and including slightly after the new rules set came out. So yes you could see the PHB II show up in May and 4.0 Show up in June of the same year.

 

[wingsandsword]

I would expect any release of a new edition to come at Gen Con, as it provides the maximum industry exposure and follows tradition. Also, WotC has products listed for 3.5 to be released next May -- including Players Handbook II.

Same here, hence the disbelief that somebody would honestly expect 4e by this December, like the utterly clueless FLGS owner atom crash talked to, I've met FLGS owners who didn't know squat about the industry, or even the products they sell (they were more into selling CCG's, or comic books, or collectable toys, or something else and their RPG's were just an aspect of the store they carried because it sold).

Some people are just going to believe, no matter what you tell them, that Big Bad Hasbro will come and take their 3e away soon, and their little dog too. They aren't fools, they've got a winning formula and releasing a new edition isn't guaranteed money, it's a risk that their customer base will adopt the new rules.

3e was so thoroughly adopted because it was so widely seen as an improvement over 2e, and 3.5 was widely adopted because it was seen as a general improvement over 3e (mostly). However, when 2e came out, many people stuck to 1e, there are still people who play 1e campaigns to this day, or Basic D&D, or a few ancient ones who play pre-advanced D&D (remember, we're mostly a d20 forum, not older D&D, dragonsfoot has plenty of ancients and grognards). Every new edition fragments their player base, and unless they are making what will be widely seen as a vast improvement, that fragmentation could be large.

 

[William Ronald]

Well, I think it is always important to consider the source, wingsandsword. Thalmin is a very reliable source, and I would take anything he had to say seriously. So far, I think we have a lot of speculation.

Harmym, most people here are helpful and respectful to each other. If you found a post to be offensive, you can contact a moderator by hitting the icon with the exclamation mark on it.

I think even if we are disagreeing on this thread, we should respect each other. We may have different facts and opinions, but I think we need to be civil. It saves the moderators some work, and ensures that the thread can remain open.

 

[wingsandsword]

Well, I think it is always important to consider the source, wingsandsword. Thalmin is a very reliable source, and I would take anything he had to say seriously.

Thalmin hasn't posted anywhere in this thread that I can see. I would take what he said under fair consideration, I was talking about the one atom crash talked to that he called clueless.

That and I was thinking of a local FLGS owner I knew who knew absolutely nothing about RPG's, he ran a comic book & CCG store where he kept a shelf of RPG materials because they sold. When the Wheel of Time RPG came out, I remember him looking confused as he opened the boxes and asked me "is this some kind of D&D book or something?", and I tried to explain it to him, but he'd never heard of the WoT novels, or any other d20 game other than D&D and Star Wars.

Because just some FLGS owner says it? Not reliable on its own. Thalmin, yes, is a reliable and respected poster. If he said he had hard info on 4e, I would take it more seriously and want to know where he got his information, but I haven't seen him say anything.

 

[William Ronald]

Thalmin hasn't posted anywhere in this thread that I can see. I would take what he said under fair consideration, I was talking about the one atom crash talked to that he called clueless.

That and I was thinking of a local FLGS owner I knew who knew absolutely nothing about RPG's, he ran a comic book & CCG store where he kept a shelf of RPG materials because they sold. When the Wheel of Time RPG came out, I remember him looking confused as he opened the boxes and asked me "is this some kind of D&D book or something?", and I tried to explain it to him, but he'd never heard of the WoT novels, or any other d20 game other than D&D and Star Wars.

Because just some FLGS owner says it? Not reliable on its own. Thalmin, yes, is a reliable and respected poster. If he said he had hard info on 4e, I would take it more seriously and want to know where he got his information, but I haven't seen him say anything.

This is why I am not taking much of the speculation very seriously, as thalmin has been quiet. (If you ever meet him, he can give you a lot of insight into some of the things that gaming companies have done in the past. I hope you can make it up to Games Plus one of these days -- as it is a great shop and has supported the EN World Chicago Gamedays.) Also, I have run into a few stores where the staff new little about RPGs. I like to think that a good FLGS owner pays close attention to the products his customors buy.

 

[JVisgaitis]

Now before anybody chimes in and says that Charles Ryan promised 1-2 years notice, I would like to point out that he did not actually promise anything. He said something to the effect that he wants to give 1-2 years notice. However, there are a number of factors which may prevent him from doing so.

There are a lot of reasons why he would be unable to do so. However, one thing I must say is that all of the guys in R&D are really nice people. I've had dealings with Ed Stark and some of the others, and I truly believe that they *would* try and give us as much lead time as possible. A lot of times they do get a bad wrap, but they are a great bunch of people. I'm not trying to get on a soapbox or anything, but I just want everyone to know that WotC isn't some heartless bureaucracy. The guys in R&D love D&D every bit as much as we do. I'm sure they'll do whatever they can to make the transition as smooth as possible.

Since they have no playtester credits for 3.5, one would assume they did no playtesting.

I read somewhere that the playtester credits were accidentally left out. And when playtesting a system that is going to be played by millions of people, there are bound to be some hitches in the road. They do a great job with errata and I don't hold that against them. Its when they don't calculate skill points correctly or base attack bonuses accurately that raises my ire. Those type of mistakes can happen, but its just real sloppy especially when coming from the creators of the game.

Shifting the focus of this thread a bit, I wonder what fate is in store for the Open Game License? If you figure the license gets dropped, a lot of people will probably still be playing 3.0 or 3.5 because of the lack of product support for 4e. If there are more restrictions placed on the license, the same thing may happen. Its scary to think that the d20 market may be further fragmented when 4e is released. Also, will we run through the some glut with millions of products and companies like we did when d20 was first released if they keep the license as it is now? There are a lot of interesting problems that could develop because of the Open Game License.

 

[JVisgaitis]

It seems like if 4E was in full development right now (such as it would have to be if a release was less than a year away, in order to give adequate time to playtest), there'd be 3 or 4 guys working fulltime on it and not much else. Does WotC have that kind of manpower?

Doh! I meant to address this in my last post. Do they have the man power? I would think so. Not only that, I'm sure there were a lot of design decisions left on the cutting room floor when both 3.0 and 3.5 was designed.

When your a designer, you never stop designing. You just get the product out the door before its forgotten. Heck, there are probably a dozen things I can think of in Denizens of Avadnu that I would love to go back and change. I'm sure that if anything, everyone in R&D has some very clear ideas on what they would like to see in 4e. And that would certainly help decrease development time.

 

[Monte At Home]

Well, I don't know how I stack against the fairly big industry type, but I'll go on record as saying that I don't think there's any way possible that there will be a new edition of the game suddenly showing up any time next year. All you have to do is look at their product schedule to see that.

A new edition of the game isn't going to just suddenly show up. The signs will be just too obvious. Plus, there are very good reasons why they would announce a new edition at least a year in advance. The same reasons why we announced 3e a year in advance.

And no offense to Mike, but if you think that they brought Mearls on to be the architect of 4e, you are seriously underestimating the collective ego of wizards R&D.

Lastly, WotC brand management and WotC R&D have a lot more control over their own products and their release dates than you might think. It's not really accurate to say that Hasbro even really thinks about D&D enough to force them to do a new edition--particularly if R&D doesn't think it's a good idea. Hasbro just looks at the bottom line. They don't care how the bottom line is upheld. (It's my understanding, for example, that 3.5 was a directive of the D&D business manager at the time, as well as an eager R&D staff, not a specific mandate from Hasbro.) So I'll argue that there are people at the switch who care about the game. There going to want to make 4e, whenever it comes out, something really special. If 3.5 showed us anything, it's that whenever 4e sees the light of day, it's going to most likely be the product of a lot of time and work. It's probably going to be fairly new and different. Probably at least a little groundbreaking. (I say that 3.5 proves my point because 3.5 could have easily been 4.0--it was as different from 3.0 as 2e was to 1e, more or less. So if that's a revision, when they set their sights on 4e it'll be something big, cool, and different. Whenever WotC does something like that, they do it with a lot of preamble and fanfare.)

I'll join the chorus of the people who say that it's premature to be worried about this, or even to give it serious thought. We'll know when 4e is coming. You won't have to hear it as a rumor or as pure speculation from some industry type at a con or on a messageboard.

 

[William Ronald]

Lastly, WotC brand management and WotC R&D have a lot more control over their own products and their release dates than you might think. It's not really accurate to say that Hasbro even really thinks about D&D enough to force them to do a new edition--particularly if R&D doesn't think it's a good idea. Hasbro just looks at the bottom line. They don't care how the bottom line is upheld. (It's my understanding, for example, that 3.5 was a directive of the D&D business manager at the time, as well as an eager R&D staff, not a specific mandate from Hasbro.) So I'll argue that there are people at the switch who care about the game. There going to want to make 4e, whenever it comes out, something really special. If 3.5 showed us anything, it's that whenever 4e sees the light of day, it's going to most likely be the product of a lot of time and work. It's probably going to be fairly new and different. Probably at least a little groundbreaking. (I say that 3.5 proves my point because 3.5 could have easily been 4.0--it was as different from 3.0 as 2e was to 1e, more or less. So if that's a revision, when they set their sights on 4e it'll be something big, cool, and different. Whenever WotC does something like that, they do it with a lot of preamble and fanfare.)

I'll join the chorus of the people who say that it's premature to be worried about this, or even to give it serious thought. We'll know when 4e is coming. You won't have to hear it as a rumor or as pure speculation from some industry type at a con or on a messageboard.

I am glad to hear that you believe that the people at the helm of WotC do have a love of Dungeons and Dragons aand that a new edition will be something special. (Possibly, they could approach a few of the top D20 developers for help and insight. There are many good ideas that could appear in a new edition that have been introduced in products from Green Ronin, Malhavoc Press, and other companies. I would argue there are already examples of "parallel evolution" such as hero points in AU/AE and action points in Unearthed Arcana and Eberron. Both give a player an opportunity to do something remarkable with a character -- such as striking an enemy who is attacking the hawk companion of a totem warrior (which I did with a character at an AU event at a Chicago EN World Gameday) or in making a critical die roll.)

Monte, thanks for your insights. I suspected that developing a new edition would take even more effort than the esteemed Mike Mearls alone could manage -- even if Hasbro gave an order to double the caffeine in the coffee and other beverages at WotC.

 

[francisca]

Monte, thanks for your insights. I suspected that developing a new edition would take even more effort than the esteemed Mike Mearls alone could manage -- even if Hasbro gave an order to double the caffeine in the coffee and other beverages at WotC.

Hey you know what, if someone put a gun to my head and told me I had to pick just one guy to crank out 4e on his own, it might be Mearls.

Or maybe Ari. Or Wil. Or Phil. Or merge their brains together, and call them the "Texas Triumvarate"

Or maybe Diaglo.

Or maybe Teflon Billy. But only if I could implant something in his brain so I could whisper ideas about the new game to him while he is asleep.

Dunno. Going to bed now.

Goodnight, ENWorld. May all your skill checks be natch 20s.