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If 4th Edition didn't use the "D&D" moniker...

Would you buy 4e, at WotC costs, if the system didn't bear the brand name of "D&D"?

  • Yes

    Votes: 118 40.1%
  • No

    Votes: 176 59.9%


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No.

D&D 4e look pretty cool but without the D&D moniker I'd have no real advantage to choosing it over GURPS or something else. Like it or not D&D is an easy sell to most gaming groups ...
 

Maybe. To me, it looks like a fun game that I would love to play. But I'm not going to buy a game unless I'm sure that I can get other people to play with me, especially not a $105 game.

The fact that it's Dungeons & Dragons means that I know I'll get my money's worth when I buy the books, only because of brand recognition and because of WotC's organized play. But if Green Ronin was publishing it and charging $105 for necessary books, then I'd be sticking with 3.5 or SWSE.
 

arscott said:
Maybe. To me, it looks like a fun game that I would love to play. But I'm not going to buy a game unless I'm sure that I can get other people to play with me, especially not a $105 game.

The fact that it's Dungeons & Dragons means that I know I'll get my money's worth when I buy the books, only because of brand recognition and because of WotC's organized play. But if Green Ronin was publishing it and charging $105 for necessary books, then I'd be sticking with 3.5 or SWSE.

If you pre-order from Amazon the slip-case set of all 3 is only $76.
 

I would probably but it. After all, I purchased Iron Heroes because it tried to solve some of my problems with 3E, and 4E seems to solve those same problems even better.
 

I voted 'no', but was fairly close to a 'yes'.

Actually, I'd be more likely to buy 4e is it wasn't branded as D&D. It looks like a fun game, but from what I've seen doesn't look like it's set up for the kind of play I'm looking for from D&D. When playing D&D, I want to make decisions based upon the situation in the game world and what my character would naturally do in that situation. 4e looks to be a game based around making decisions based on rules utility and metagame logic. Why can a Fighter only use Brute Strike once per day?

If I knew of a group of good folk playing 4e, I'd want in whether it's called D&D or not. When 4e comes out, I'll examine the system to see if it supports tradition sim type play. If it doesn't I'll stick with already existing sim systems like C&C, M&M, True20, Spycraft, nWoD, Scion, Savage Worlds, etc. etc.

We'll see. I'm holding out hope that 4e will have more support for traditional D&D type play than we've been shown so far. I'm disappointed that WotC is holding back the GSL for the last dozen weeks. I know that Necromancer, Goodman, and Green Ronin would support traditional sim play, so this delay is decreasing my confidence that 4e can fit my gaming style.

Sam
 

Yeah, I would. I tried a lot of different systems after becoming disillusioned with Second Edition, and I came back to D&D because I felt Third did what I wanted my rules to do better than any other system I tried. I was glad it was badged, "D&D," simply because I was glad to see that D&D, the first RPG I played, was again the best (IMHO, obviously) RPG available, but I still felt it was a very different game than the D&D I loved and eventually grew tired of. Fourth Edition looks like it's going to repeat Third Edition's feat; it's going to be the system that best supports the game I want to play, and it will be badged as Dungeons & Dragons, which will make me feel warm and fuzzy because I'm continuing a tradition I began when I was nine.

Now, there's the obvious fact that calling the game, "D&D" makes me automatically aware of it and interested in it. That's not necessarily going to be true with other games. Unless it's based on a license I'm interested in or produced by a developer or publisher I respect, I probably won't become aware of it. There's also the fact that, while 4E is a very different game than 3E, there's still a large amount of continuity in terminology and concept that dates back to the earliest editions of D&D. That makes me comfortable, and while that would still exist whether or not 4E was badged, "D&D," the fact that it is D&D Fourth Edition makes those concepts and terms more evident and obvious. There's no, "Y is X from D&D, but we can't call it X because of copyright or trademark concerns."

I'm sure there's a very good chance that my "perfect" fantasy RPG lies on the bottom shelf somewhere accumulating dust, and because it doesn't have a name I recognize attached to it, and no one has recommended that I check it out, I'm never going to play it. All I know for sure is that after playing BECMI, 1E, 2E, 3E, 3.5E, RQ, RM, GURPS, T&T, HM, C&C, Palladium (gasp! really, I did; feel pity), C&C, Earthdawn, WHFRP, three different versions of LotR, and a dozen other systems I can't remember, 4E is shaping up to do what I want my rules to do best.
 

If it wasn't called D&D, we wouldn't even be discussing it this much. We'd have a few threads at best, just like other games, even the most successful ones like Iron Heroes or Arcana Unearthed. I don't think those who voted "yes" can really believe they'd give the same credit to the game if it wasn't called D&D: most of us would be ignoring it and would still wait for 4e.
 

Into the Woods

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