Essentials - calling a spade a spade

[Mercurius]

I suppose on some level but not the same level as Essentials. The nature of a game as vast and detailed as D&D is such that it is constantly evolving and changing. As many have mentioned, there were phases between 3.5 and 4.0; or you could say there were things in later 3.5 that paved the way for 4.0 (like Book of Nine Swords, which some have called "3.75"). In some sense you could say that any edition goes through a natural evolution from its first iteration (3.0 or 4.0) to gradual additions, expansions, errata, revisions, etc, until it finally gets to a point where it "jumps" off and a new edition comes out. But the markers that we use are somewhat arbitrary ("3.5" was probably poorly named if only because it was closer to 3.0 than it was to 4.0; "revised" probably would have worked better, as some have said).

It is a bit like Zeno's arrow: you can continually halve the distance between the arrow and its target, but at some point it just "gets there" (with a new edition).

(What puzzles me, though, is why this is such a hot topic. Why do people get so offended? It really doesn't matter, does it? And why can't this be discussed without people calling to question why someone would want to discuss it? If the topic doesn't interest or offends you, just move along...these aren't the droids you're looking for ).

 

[UngeheuerLich]

It is the underlying accusation of WotC lying to the fanbase, which makes it such a hot topic.

- They said that there will be no 4.5 (There should be a quote somewhere)

What many people forgot, WotC said:

- We don´t need 4.5, as we will have one core book each year and we will update as necessary. (4.0, 4.1, 4.2 etc...) Everything is core.

So calling essentials 4.5 is like crying:

- WotC you lied to me, because you said there will never be rules updates and I will now have to buy new things... which they actually never promised...

edit: just to make sure, I am not a fanboy, or I defend WotC, no matter what they do... i just waited until exact this point to really buy in into non ddi only play... i just feel sorry for the designers who are trying their best to make a balanced game, beeing open minded to suggestions, and they are still accused of everything... i just feel sorry.

"Hey WotC, your skill DCs, and rules for skill challenges, are crap." (Obviously before the shortly after release patch"

"Ok, we change it"

Actually IMHO they were listening a bit too much to nerdrage... and maybe this is why some people don´t like essentials...
but this time i have the feeling, they didn´t do overhasted changes...

 

[Mercurius]

Fair enough, Ungeheurlich. I guess the idea of it being 4.5ish doesn't offend me because of the very fact that I think updates are a good thing and I was never annoyed or pissed when WotC came out with a new edition. Plus I like the idea of "essentializing" 4E into a simpler core, something I've been advocating for years now and was dabbling with designing not so long ago (my hope is that Essentials is to 4E something like Castles & Crusades was to 3.5).

An interesting thing is that I haven't seen anyone say they don't like Essentials or are pissed it is coming out. I'm new to the conversation, so maybe I missed it.

 

[Sunseeker]

If I am wrong, how am I wrong? How is this not 4.5? And if it is, how is WotC rationalizing it when they clearly said that there would be no 4.5?.

I suspect the logic is to avoid edition wars.

 

[CovertOps]

(I'm counting the July Errata as part of "essentials" errata for one very specific reason -- magic missile tells me that essentials was definitely on the radar when that set of errata was released, and the MM3 changes, etc. all feed directly into essentials products.)

I only want to disagree about the MM3 changes. The damage boosts were needed AND I love the new format. Neither of those really has anything to do with new class builds, magic missile errata and some of the other PLAYER side changes coming with Essentials.

As far as I can tell, #1 is not true. But it isn't really an either/or; at what point, for example, does errata accumulate to such an extent to require a revised edition? My impression is that Essentials serves a few purposes:

But my choices were worded to be either/or. If they weren't, my apologies. They were basically either my PHB1 is outdated and should be tossed OR it isn't. As long as it's 4.x it's compatible which is not true with 3.0/3.5

My guess as I posted above is that a lot of the errata will likely be changes to make things forward compatible ie to make the old material play nice with the new.

In any event if we aren't saying that the PHB is out the window you can call it zucchini for all I care. It's not a new "edition" or "revision" until we have to start getting rid of books (and their errata).

We already have monthly downloads of CB and AT. WotC should figure out how to let us "buy" books and register those book purchases with our DDI account and download updated PDFs (or some other digital format) of the books with updates included. Even if you had to buy online to get this perk it would be OK.

 

[Festivus]

So if I want to introduce new players to the game, should I direct them to the Essentials line or the PHB? Or, do we not have enough info on the Compendium yet?

I ask because I want to get a new group started at my FLGS and I plan to use 4E because that is the only RPG the store carries and I want to support them as much as I can.

While I was DMing my Encounter table last night, I observed a couple of guys with a 4e PHB1 in hand try to figure out how to make characters. After my Encounters game was over I talked with them and asked what they thought of 4e. They were confounded a bit by how to create characters, they were a bit overwhelmed by the options and didn't know exactly where to begin.

I briefly showed them the red box demo they had in the store and they were quite impressed by it, particularly the "choose your adventure" style intro. Informed them that they were welcome to sit down at an Encounters table and show them how to play the game, and that there was a couple game days coming up that would be welcoming for new players.

I mentioned that the character builder is free to try out online at the wizards site, which helps with playing around with character creation.

I offered to run a intro session for them if we could coordinate a time to do so. I am thinking this weekend if my Dark Sun table doesn't fill (I am the overflow table anyhow), because the best way to learn to play is by someone showing you how... essentials will make things easier but still not the ideal way to learn.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

(What puzzles me, though, is why this is such a hot topic. Why do people get so offended? It really doesn't matter, does it? And why can't this be discussed without people calling to question why someone would want to discuss it? If the topic doesn't interest or offends you, just move along...these aren't the droids you're looking for ).

The vitriol partially comes from the fact that there have been approximately 2 billion threads on this very topic, and every single one of them have brought out a spectrum of human personality disorders that is frankly terrifying.

Intelligent discussion on the topic of game evolution is fine and dandy (and why I'm still around), but framing that discussion in terms of 4/4.5 (or any variety of D&D at all, really) doesn't give us much of that discussion. Instead, for every post along those (interesting) lines, we get half a dozen tinfoil hats, a half dozen bouts of pure trolling or flaming, and 3 or 4 seemingly calm people with charts and graphs proving that someone, somewhere, possibly associated with WotC in some way, may have misrepresented the future at some point. The purveyors of these graphs nod gravely during the presentation, to lend weight to this damning evidence of... something.

And, at the end of the day, it's an empty semantic argument. It is what it is. What you call it seems to say way more about you than about the product.

 

[bagger245]

I briefly showed them the red box demo they had in the store and they were quite impressed by it, particularly the "choose your adventure" style intro. Informed them that they were welcome to sit down at an Encounters table and show them how to play the game, and that there was a couple game days coming up that would be welcoming for new players.

Yeah, choose your own adventure style is the best way to intro to an rpg if there is no one teaching you. I remember getting into rpgs through Lone Wolf books.

 

[Dausuul]

Essentials is fully compatible with 4E, or so we are told.

The way I see it, this means one of two things:

• Essentials is not 4.5E.
• Essentials is 4.5E, but why should we care?

 

[DracoSuave]

I remember when this board was about discussion game rules, and about elements of the game, and not about whether the sky was falling, and not about hyperbole about whether or not some previous edition's marketting was bad

(Protip: If a product is the best selling of its class of all time, it wasn't poorly marketted.)

but when it was about whether the game is based on cubes or squares, or on whether multiclassing allows you to use implements for multiple classes, or about a million other things that are actually -interesting.-


Besides, Dark Sun is more interesting.

Yeah, choose your own adventure style is the best way to intro to an rpg if there is no one teaching you. I remember getting into rpgs through Lone Wolf books.

Fighting Fantasy. I then picked up this book called 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness' which was awesome and segued into other rpgs.