D&D 4E For the post 4E world, what will your game be?

[Radiating Gnome]

WOTC is releasing the 3rd edition books in september as bound books. I doubt they would let 4e drop off without at least publsihing the books.

Plus at the keynote they sais they are releasing all past products in electronic format. I am sure when 4e becomes past product it will be included.

I doubt I'm alone in feeling like DDI's tools -- especially the character builder -- have become far more important to me that the specific books (which I still buy obsessively). I'm sure there will come a time when the number of subscribers using the 4e Character Builder will dwindle to the point that it's no longer worth the money to maintain, but I hope that day is far in the future.

-rg

 

[S'mon]

4E or Pathfinder.

Definitely not 5E.

I've started playing in a full Pathfinder campaign last Sunday, while GMing my Pathfinder Beginner Box game (and 4e, and Labyrinth Lord). I'm also a player in a Labyrinth Lord game, so I have 5 campaigns on the go right now. Oh, 6 counting my online 1e AD&D game!

Playing the full Pathfinder game reminds me that 3e/PF is a great game to play, and a pain to GM! I can see myself having loads of fun with my Ulfen Cleric PC in Rise of the Runelords, but I really don't think I'd ever want to GM full Pathfinder. Meanwhile 4e is great to GM, and fun to play if the GM doesn't dick around with 3-hour slogfest encounters.

So, looking ahead now,my current plans/hopes are:

1. GM my 4e D&D Forgotten Realms campaign all the way to Epic 30th level, 22 levels to go at ca 3 fortnightly sessions/level = 66 sessions, around 140 weeks, so ca mid 2015!!

2. Play Pathfinder - Rise of the Runelords, it's fortnightly and if it goes all the way that'd take it ca 35 sessions, 70 weeks plus say 5 off for vacations would take it to early 2014.

2. Intermittently GM my Pathfinder Beginner Box game, I'm adapting the core rules to take PBB classes up to 10th level, like to see some domain rulership type stuff at 9th-10th.

3. Intermittently GM my Labyrinth Lord game, maybe. I may decide to drop either it or the Beginner Box game.

4. Play Labyrinth Lord. Loads of fun, great GM.

5. GM a sci-fi game! I'm desperate to get to use all my cool sf minis. Still not sure I have the right sf ruleset; might even need to go back to Savage Worlds. Trouble is that SW has player-side stuff, but very little GMing tools to actually create and run a game; but I do have Traveller: The New Era adventures that could be Savaged and used in a Buck Rogers type setting. Maybe from March 2013.

6. GM my online AD&D game.

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

My group quit keeping up with the current state of D&D when WotC started pushing out Essentials material, so we've felt like we're playing an "old edition" for a while.

We've been pretty big fans of 4E even as we whine about its shortcomings to each other, so 5E is barely on our radar. There are some nice prospects -- e.g. the ability to run a combat in under 10 minutes -- and some that are a pure regression to tropes we sick of years ago -- e.g. the idea of D&D as a war of attrition that demands throwaway encounters in order to have a meaningful climax -- but in general I think I'm the only one that's paying any attention. Certainly none of us are at all interested in going back to 3E or its offspring, so what has been shown so far has been a mixed bag at best.

The bigger trend we're coming across is a waning interest in D&D as a genre. The Warhammer junkies in the group are reading up on Rogue Trader and Dark Heresy, somebody picked up Mouse Guard, we finally got to play a game of Dread (great, as expected!), and recently tried out Our Last Best Hope (great, as hoped for!). Since I wrapped up our 4E Red Hand of Doom in April, we haven't touched D&D at all. The only active campaign we have is a Gamma World one which is theoretically wrapping up. At this point I think I'm hoping for great things from 5E if only to drum up interest in fantasy RPGing to the point where I can be a player in one again.

Basically, 4E still looks like our fantasy drug of choice at the moment, but the bigger "threat" (aside from everyone being too lazy to actually DM a session ever) is abandoning medieval fantasy.

 

[Odysseus]

I asked my group what they wanted to do next(were coming up towards the end of WotBS) and there was no love for 5E. I've got a few years worth of 4E stuff I can DM. And I've figured out how to house rule stuff on the character builder. Getting rid of plus half level, or add custom stuff etc. So it will be 4E until something changes.

 

[Roland55]

I shall do what I have always done.

Finish the current campaign ... and then, take a look at the New Shiny.

No reason to change my ways now.

 

[Aenghus]

I intend to stick with 4e for the most part, it's the best iteration of D&D for my purposes. I'll keep looking at other games for inspiration and possible adoption, though D&D next is too retro for my tastes at present, and apparently by design.

 

[Argyle King]

I play a lot of GURPS 4th Edition. If I want the D&D or Pathfinder vibe, I crack open the Dungeon Fantasy books. http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/dungeonfantasy/

I do still own the 4E books I bought, and it wouldn't surprise me if I ran the game again at some point, but -for now- I mostly mine some of the fluff for ideas of things to convert. I loved a lot of the 4E fluff; even if there were times when I wasn't sold on the game as a whole.

 

[delericho]

My current campaign (3.5e) is due to wrap up on Tuesday. After that, I'm taking a long break from D&D of all flavours (and Pathfinder, for that matter). I'll be running SWSE next and probably some "Black Crusade", and also trying to get some time in on the other side of the screen.

When I do get back to D&D, I expect 5e will have been out for some time. When it's released I will inevitably buy at least the core rules and check it out, but won't make a final decision until I've played at least a few sessions. But my gut feeling at the moment is that I'll be sticking with 3.5e which, despite it's flaws (that my current campaign has shone a big spotlight on, again), remains my favourite edition by quite some way.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

When I do get back to D&D, I expect 5e will have been out for some time. When it's released I will inevitably buy at least the core rules and check it out, but won't make a final decision until I've played at least a few sessions. But my gut feeling at the moment is that I'll be sticking with 3.5e which, despite it's flaws (that my current campaign has shone a big spotlight on, again), remains my favourite edition by quite some way.

That is most probably my path as well, though right now, its hard to say exactly what my group will be playing in the near future. The 4Ed campaign collapsed and the DM of the suspended 3.5Ed campaign hasn't said a peep about restarting.

And this group is very conservative about RPGs: since 1998, only a brief RIFTS game and an even shorter M&M campaign interrupted the playing of D&D.

 

[adembroski]

Two playtest packets ago, I was really down on D&DN, and I feel like its improved since... but it still isn't doing anything that I feel is an improvement over Pathfinder.

At this point, I feel pretty safe committing myself to Pathfinder for my fantasy role-playing needs, but I'm still looking for a go-to modern/futuristic system.