Do you lament the lack of third-party or fan material?

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Very unhappy. I find WotC's current stuff uninspiring at best and design-by-committee at worst, and am imncreasingly tired of the piecemeal 'lets milk this as far as we can' approach. I really miss the explosion of creativity and enthusiasm that 3e sparked. Even if it resulted in a lot of drek, it produced some amazing stuff that still has legs.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I miss the adventurers. Goodman Games is doing a solid job of providing them, but thus far they've all been relavitely low level rarely going into the paragon and none in the epic. (That I'm aware of.)

Crunch? Not so much. As a GM I enjoy seeing new monsters. The Crittter Cache does a nice job of expanding some of the many holes in the 4e system but as a player?

With the way the system is set up so that every class is essentially a high level wizards from level 1 with a lot of options and choices, no way. Without it being in the DDI, I ain't going near it.

 

[ggroy]

The way 4E is today with respect to the 3PP market, it does remind me somewhat of the early 1E AD&D days when Judges Guild was the 3PP. I didn't pick up any Judges Guild modules in those days (due to lack of adequate funds), but I had some friends who picked up some stuff like the Dark Tower module.

These days, I do pick up Pathfinder adventures and supplements to use for my 4E game. With the encounter construction guidelines in the 4E DMGs, it's relatively easy to use encounters from the Pathfinder APs and modules.

 

[Hadrian the Builder]

I'm already overwhelmed by the volume of character choices from WotC, so I don't want any more of those.

Adventures...I only borrow from others to flesh out my own stuff, so I don't need much more than wizards is offering.

Monsters: thanks to Monster builder, inventing my own monsters is easy.

BUT, I would like to see 3PP doing something that Wizards isn't: Creative single encounters, with maps that can be dropped into any adventure. And making better ways to play D&D. (some are already doing this)

I don't want Wizards to be the only player on the field. I want some serious challengers who will eat their lunch if they don't stay on the cutting edge. On the flip side, thinning out the ranks of 3PP is more likely to help us find some serious challengers.

 

[Henrix]

I would like more variety.

I really like Wizards stuff. But it's generally more of the same. Another class. More feats. More powers. Another fairly random dungeon with a minimum of motivation.

I'd like more different stuff. Not so much crunch. Fluffier. And adventures that are not just dungeoncrawls. (Nothing against dungeoncrawls, but I'm a bit bored by the lack of alternatives.)

 

[Derulbaskul]

Like most, I don't miss the stuff for PCs simply because of the character builder.

I would like to see more monster books because it is now so easy to transpose that information into the Monster Builder.

And, of course, adventures and adventure paths. I think WotC is getting a lot of things right but adventures is not on that list. I would love to see some adventures like Necromancer did for 3E done for 4E; ditto (and even more so) for Paizo.

 

[Khairn]

I don't want Wizards to be the only player on the field. I want some serious challengers who will eat their lunch if they don't stay on the cutting edge.

Agreed.

Unfortunately, with the rules as WotC has set them (GSL, DDI) another "player" on the field just isn't going to happen in any significant way. Many 4E players already ignore what slim 3pp offerings there is now if it isn't on the DDI. Playing by WotC's rules just doesn't look like much of a win/win situation for any 3pp.

WotC may be on the cutting edge of 4E crunch and online subscription support, but when it comes to anything else ... ~meh~ to me they look "fair to average" at best.

 

[catsclaw227]

I was a 3.x 3PP addict. I had tons (have) of stuff in both PDF and print, and in some cases, the same product in both formats.

For 4e, I don't miss any player option crunch. There's plenty of that in DDI and the CB makes it super easy to use. So unless there's CB integration, player crunch is not gonna be used in my game.

But settings, adventures, locations, encounters? I would buy lots of that stuff up.

Now that there's an import/export function in Monster Builder, there's no reason why a 3PP monster book can't be viable. They can provide a file with their PDF purchase for the monster file. Unfortunately, this file will be pirated ad nauseum and then the value of the book bottoms out unless the fluff is amazing and/or it's directly tied to a new setting.

 

[Ourph]

It looks to me like there is a significant amount of 4e support by 3pp. Maybe not as much as for early 3e, but still more than I will ever be able to buy or use. And, unlike early 3e, the publishers putting out stuff for 4e now are putting out universally quality stuff.

 

[amysrevenge]

Answer to question in thread topic: no.

But then, I'm a reasonably uncommon corner case. I (only) play RPGA games, so other than a brief time early in the decade when the RPGA had a couple of 3PP campaigns, I've never had much actual use for 3PP stuff (although I approve of the idea in general).