Eric Noah's Info

[RangerWickett]

Consider these points:

1. No WotC staffer has stepped in yet to comment that this is 'just a rumor.'

2. Piratecat stopped posting updates to his storyhour, which would make sense if he was playtesting again and didn't want to leak possible rules changes.

3. Wulf Ratbane is awesome.

4. A new edition would give me a chance to be at the cutting edge of adventure design, which I really want to do. WotC, if you're reading this, check out my storyhour and see that I'm the type of writer who you want working on your 4e adventures.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I'll keep taking my dose of salt until the sky starts falling, thank you. Personally, while I'd believe note-taking is underway for 4E at some level, I have a hard time buying the rest of the rumors.

I assume WOTC isn't run by idiots (possible, but not likely). Ergo, RPGs aren't losing money. They may not be making as high a profit as they would like, but I'm certain they aren't losing money for the company -- since you can only survive selling at a loss to try and "make it up in volume" for so long before you wake up and realize you just have to stop. Now it may be that D&D has taken a down-turn into money-losing territory and they want to sell it -- but I have a hard time seeing selling D&D while trying to retain the (apparently quite profitable) minis side of the license.

4E is coming some day, but for the time being I'm going to play the game I've got (and I was a big proponent of 3.5, so I'm not opposed to change -- but I don't see a particular reason to change from a game standpoint, 'cause I don't think 3.5 is broken), wait 'til "rumor" becomes "news", and judge on the new game. Who knows, maybe 4E will be OK.

@Wulf -- LOL. You have an open seat at my game, anytime.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

It's miniatures based.

But it's GRIM miniatures. They're made from depleted uranium.

Heavier than lead... sweeeeet. Minis that don't tip over at the slightest adjustment of the mat!

 

[philreed]

WotC is introducing a new miniatures game - Dreamblade -

I think this has more to do with the fact that WotC has been trying for years now to find a successful replacement for Magic. All indications are that Magic sales are down. As a large company, WotC must always be working to find the next "hot" game.

Witness last year's Hecatomb and how quickly it was dropped when it didn't perform. I suspect that WotC looked at CCGs, looked at CMGs, and decided that CMGs are where the money is at in the future. Why?

Toy value. Geeks the world over can collect cool plastic, pre-painted minis and display them in offices. It's not as easy to display cards.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And Magic is?

When I was in Bosnia in '97, they held weekly Magic tournaments at Eagle Base. So, yes, it's accessible to a wider audience.

And no, there were no 2E games held in public spaces with public sign-up sheets.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

With absolutely no more support for it. No anxiously awaiting the next new Monster Manual, the next new set of spells or whatever.

Are you a collector or a player? I don't know how many WotC 3e books have been released, or how many thousands of third party products have been released, but if you can honestly claim you and your group have already run through all that, then my hat's off to you. Most everybody else couldn't use all the material that's available in 3 lifetimes. Plus given the fact that 3e allows for the energetic and industrious DM to easily create his own stuff, I don't see how one could run out of new material ever.

It'd make your budgeting cheaper, but half the fun of D&D was seeing WotC/Paizo produce new material every month.

Well, at least for me and my group.

Nice qualifier at the end. I'm not worried about my gaming budget. I don't spend so much on gaming that I feel the need to scale back. 3e/d20/OGL material is so voluminous, and lately so good, that I can easily pick and choose. If 4e came along and wasn't compatible with 3e, I'd still have tons of 3e material to buy that would be new to me, assuming I didn't like 4e.

 

[Sammael]

Toy value. Geeks the world over can collect cool plastic, pre-painted minis and display them in offices. It's not as easy to display cards.

Miniatures lack the portability that made Magic popular. You can't just carry your minis around in your back pocket and have a quick game of Skirmish whenever you feel like it. Thus, miniatures will never be as popular in this matter as Magic was.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

You can release a game that's compatible with any other RPG on the market today -- game rules cannot be copyrighted, just the exact expression of those rules.

Incidentally, that's one reason the OGL makes it easier to produce a compatible product. A legal challenge over copyright would hinge on whether or not Game A's "artistic presentation" of the rules was substantially similar to Game B's "artistic presentation." In that kind of situation, you could argue that terminology (e.g. Armor Class), etc. is part of your artistic presentation of the rules/algorithms. By explicitly licensing you to use certain terms and descriptions (i.e. open game content), the OGL makes this type of thing much more open-and-shut. You could create a compatible game without using the OGL, but the OGL makes it a lot easier and safer, legally.

If WotC changes 4E so that open game content terminology and descriptions from the SRD are no longer applicable, it would still be possible to create a compatible system, but it would be much more difficult, and the legal questions would be less objective and more open to interpretation.

 

[philreed]

Miniatures lack the portability that made magic popular. You can't just carry your minis around in your back pocket and have a quick game of Skirmish whenever you feel like it. Thus, miniatures will never be as popular in this matter as Magic was.

I disagree. From discussions with others it appears that Star Wars minis, for instance, are primarily purchased by collectors and they aren't played with. I suspect that this is part of the reason why Dreamblade minis are a larger scale -- bigger toys are cooler toys.

 

[Sammael]

Star Wars minis are bought primarily by Star Wars fans and their popularity has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the Star Wars Miniatures game, which is hardly played at all. Dreamblade minis are pretty unattractive and bizarre, and the game was designed with tournament play as its basis. Furthermore, for the price of one Dreamblade booster, you can buy two (much larger) McFarlane toys, which look a whole helluva lot better on your hypothetical cubicle/executive office desk. Dreamblade minis lack the recognition factor of Heroclix, D&D miniatures, and Star Wars miniatures. A geeky co-worker who looks at your desk and sees the pair of boots from Dreamblade isn't going to go "OH WOW I FOUGHT ONE OF THOSE IN 1987 AND SLICED ITS HEAD OFF WITH A VORPAL SWORD" or make a Yoda-speech joke.