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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 5968065" data-attributes="member: 710">It's not just bout choosing which spells you prepare, but also when you use them with the best effect and still have "over" so you're prepared for the next situation. "Operational Play", I believe, is the word to be used here.A fair warning - I am becoming a grogn4rd, aka someone that seems to believe that D&D Next is not heading in a direction I wish it would go, and believes that he may actually stay with 4E. (But realistically, we've only seen the bare bones of the new system, so it may be premature and a lot can still change).The way I see it, 4E did fix a ton of problems previous edtions, and especally 3E had. 3E wanted to be balanced, but it failed. 4E focused totally on balance. But this cost it fans, because there were a lot of fans that didn't need more balance and instead actually liked entirely different aspects of 3E - aspects that 4E sacrificed, sometimes for balance, sometimes for other reasons. Maye some even liked the imbalance, even if only because it "made sense" to them that, say, high level Fighters cannot compete with a novaing Wizard since dammit, a Wizard breaks the laws of nature, a Fighter doesn't. Or they had a play style where it simply never became a problem, where the novaing Wizard didn't happen and everything felt fine. Or look into a different direction - 3E introduced really cheap magic healing thanks to Wands of Cure Light Wounds and magic item by level rules. But not every group actually used these - some may have ignored those guidelines, or at least didn't allow easy access to this. So they never had the experience of people healing themselves up without spell expenditure each combat. Some groups almost never noticed natural healing and entire relied on sucking those wands dry, but others experienced natural healing -and 4E suddenly said - you get all hit points back after a night of rest. That basically lead to the same gameplay experience as for people in 3E with healing wands, but for the other group, it turned into something alien, that no edition of D&D had them experienced.So every "problem" you fix can be unintentionally taking something away from some other player. And in the end, D&D across al editions had a ton of players despite all its flaws, and despite better non-D&D games out there. Sure, they lost players to those flaws, no doubt -but they also kept a ton of them around. And now they get the impression that fixing a ton of issues did lose them more than they gained. So we're seeing the pendulum swinging back, very hard, and them instead trying to recapture the "old" game. Some flaws can be eradicated - non-standardized saves, THAC0, demi-human level limits, inconsistent skill system (non-weapon proficiencies or d% rolls?) because no one really missed them that much, but others may have to stay because they defined the experience of D&D for several decades and were flaws only to some players, and features for other players.It could very well be that WotC is "wrong again" and they won't actually manage to get their all-inclusive D&D edition with this either, because they don't bring enough new stuff and innovation and turn off people that see flaws returning. But that may still be the long run - the other view here is - people really first have to see the core rules in play - which often requires outright buying them - first before they decide it's not enough. But if D&D Next says "Like D&D 4, but even more extreme changes", then they know they have little chance of recapturing audience D&D 4 lost. They kinda have to bring the pendulum back first because they can go in that direction again.Or maybe they are wrong on a more fundamental level - with the OGL and Pathfinder's success, the D&D audience will be split forever. There are just too many options that come close enough to D&D for parts of the audience that they can't patch it up. Then there only hope may be churning out new editions every 5 years or so.Or maybe I am wrong and it will work out great, and maybe future playtests will see a lot more thought put into these things and ways to fix it in manners (with modules, for example) that everyone likes. But even then. There has to be defined a core. And I think it's likely it will include Vancian magic and Daily abilities. Maybe a module can throw them out, maybe not.</blockquote>

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