How Essentials and beyond is a ...zucchini...

[TerraDave]

What has been described so far of Essentials and beyond D&D is, in whole or part, a ...zucchini... of the game. It has “updated” rules, new versions of the traditional core classes and other new crunch, a new format. After this fall, you won’t and will never need your 4E PHB, DMG, or MM to play the current version of the game. It as big a change as most ...zucchini...s of most rpgs.

Now setting aside wether a ...zucchini... is a good or a bad thing, people resist this characterization of a ...zucchini... on a number grounds:

Its 100% compatible with what I am using now:

This is basically true of most versions of D&D. 0D&D, B/X D&D, 1st and 2nd AD&D, and now their various retro clones, have a high degree of compatibility, as does 3.0 with 3.5. (its also worth noting that some of the most game breaking changes can happen in “within” edition products.). This tends to be even more true when you look at other RPGs. And is everything in 4E “compatible” right now? Monsters from MMI?

Its only for newbies, a pure gateway product:

This is basically false. (Once we include the post essentials products that are building on the base created by it) It is for newbies, but it will be the only current version of the game, and is basically for everyone who might buy new products.

But I can still play my 4E game:

I hope so. But this is also true of your 1E game or your game of bridge for that matter. But if you play 4E using just 2008-09 materials, you are no longer playing the ...zucchini....

Are the changes that big?

Big enough to preview revised classes and release a whole bunch of new stuff.

But isn’t it retro?

Oh sure, like most ...zucchini...s of D&D they have reversed some of the changes made before and or try to hearken back to D&Ds glory days.

But aren’t key changes already in my errata:

Ok, good point. 100 plus pages of errata, including 20 for the PHB have been released, including changes to number of widely used skills and powers. And if you want (most) of this in print products, you have to buy Essentials.

Now wait a second, I subscribe to DDI, I don’t have to buy crap.

Sure. A lot of the new material has come and will come to you that way. But: you pay money for that subscription. It is not legally free. So, by paying a steady stream of money to WotC, you get the ...zucchini.... This was always the case.

What? but this is different this time, really different.

By their nature, ...zucchini...s are different. Yes, they are saying keep using your old character (but be sure to incorporate all these rule updates). Yes, the DDI changes how some of this works, though again DDI is not free.

 

[DracoSuave]

The funny thing about this ....zuchini.... is that they still sell, and will sell ...cucumbers... which means that any logic that the ...zuchini... is a replacement for the ...cucumber... is ignoring the continued future availability of ...cucumbers...

You might have a point if... say... they stopped printing PHBs and completely redid the line as essentials.

But... they aren't.

Also, they're still coming out with non-essentials books in the meantime, and will after.

It's just making a new, less expensive entry into D&D with new class variants.

Saying that this ...zuchini... affects the old stuff is like saying the Unearthed Arcana 3.5 completely changed how 3.5 worked...

Protip: It doesn't.

 

[Jhaelen]

I like ...zuchini... but only in combination with ...eggplants... and lots of cheese!

Err, what was this thread about again?

 

[mkill]

Now I'm hungry and I don't know why.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, I think most of the OP's points are at best opinions.

Sure, in some degree 1e/2e/BECMI/OD&D were FAIRLY compatible, they were still different games and there was a fair amount of conversion needed. Not all classes would translate well between all of these version either. At best you needed to rewrite your character sheet and do a bit of extrapolation to make things work. Same thing was true 3.0 <-> 3.5, some changes HAD to be made to the character to play it in the other edition. No such thing is true with 4e/Essentials.

I have no idea what the intended audience of Essentials has to do with anything. Whether it is aimed at grognards or noobs is irrelevant to me. It is what it is regardless.

If the rules of Essentials were actually different then the "I'm not playing the latest supported edition" argument might be relevant, but since an adventure module or supplement made for any flavor of 4e is going to work with ALL of 4e there is no ending of support for what I'm playing now. Maybe some existing classes won't get as much new stuff as before, but since every class in PHB1 and 2 now has something like 1,000 powers, 10 PPs, and a hill of feats supporting it do I really care? A LOT of any new stuff that comes out WILL work with the existing classes. It will be many years before anyone at my table has even come close to tapping out existing 4e.

The problem with saying that the changes are 'big' is that there aren't any real changes. There's new stuff, but we already got new stuff almost monthly. I don't see how Essentials changes that.

DDI isn't needed to utilize any of the new stuff. It never has been. You can buy the stuff in a book or buy it by subscribing to DDI, so what's new? Are you suggesting that if I can't get it free then its not the same game? I rather beg to differ...

The 100 pages of errata thing is hyperbole. 2/3 of that page count is descriptions, whitespace between sections, and recapitulations of the changes. For any given group much of the rest is often irrelevant. LARGE amounts of the errata are minor changes to items and powers which rarely impact a given group. I can count on one hand the number of errata that have impacted a character in any of my games. The most important general errata was already in PHB2, so I guess that was a new edition as well? Again I'm skeptical.

Really, show me where the increment of difference between the PHB1 and PHB2 is any less than that between either of them and Essentials. All of this talk about different vegetables is really just pointless navel gazing if you ask me.

 

[Insight]

Do we really need another thread whining about Essentials and how it's the end of D&D as we know it?

 

[Jack99]

Are you talking about a .... Zucchini or a ... zuchini.. because they are not the same thing..

 

[Scribble]

Mix decent olive oil with a little balsamic vinegar, sea salt, garlic, and some pepper, then spread liberally over zucchini sliced into long strips (use a mandolin but watch your fingers!)

Grill it on medium heat until the zucchini is tender, and has a little char on it.

 

[Piratecat]

This thread would be much better if the topic was bacon.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

I hate when people are cutesy. D&D and it's associated arguments should not be cute.

You have a straw man fallacy, you shoot down the idea that Essentials is just for new players when it is explicitly for current players too.