D&D 4E Is 4E winning you or losing you?

[MoogleEmpMog]

I was initially very excited, because the first teasers seemed to imply 4e would take the best of d20 design and reincorporate it into d20's core.

My enthusiasm has cooled considerably since then; at this point, while 4e sounds much better than 3.5, it doesn't sound as good as Star Wars Saga and I'll likely continue to use that as the basis of my home d20 games.

With that said, Saga isn't Open Content and 4e sounds like a blast to WRITE FOR, so from that perspective I'm looking forward to it.

 

[jolt]

There's no downside. More choices for gamers can never be a bad thing.

This was my initial impression as well. However, I no longer feel (based solely on the fragments of info that we have) that 4E is giving us more optioms. If anything, it feels like its giving us less. The "just drop what you don't like" idea is hogwash. There are far too many changes being made for that to be even remotely a viable option.

We're lacking a lot of information right now. There are some changes that sound interesting, some that don't and some I could care less about. But even if 4E creates a gaming utopia with no flaws at all (neither of which will happen), when you base mechanics off of fluff you're going to lose a lof of people even if the fluff is good (and from what I've read so far it isn't). It also makes it significantly harder, if not impossible, to just "drop what you don't like" without screwing up the whole system. Also, if mechanics are indeed going to be tied into fluff the the idea of 4E being about more options is a blatant falsehood

My final judgement will be rserved for when I actually have the books in my hands and can read them. But here are my impressions so far:

Mechanics: neutral; too many changes and too little info

Fluff: hate it (vitriolic hatred if mechanics become tied to it)

Reasons they've given for doing things: ugh (e.g. "Monks are a fifth wheel" when they've actually been one of the most popular classes since it was first introduced in Blackmoor in 1975. "We're not trying to turn D&D into a miniatures game, a video game...[snip]...D&D will still be D&D." In fact, the game is moving farther away from D&D with every statement they release (as other posters have said and seem quite happy with; I'm not)).

We'll see what the final product actually is and how current campaign settings are affected. But it puts a cold feeling in my stomach when misinformation about a game is stemming from the designers and managers themselves (whether intentional or not).

I imagine 4E will be a success regardless of what it turns out to be because it's WotC who's making it and it says D&D on the cover.

jolt

 

[el-remmen]

I think when every class has a default "thing" they can do all the time then it becomes the default and imaginative problem-solving is not as encouraged.

More than anything, the move in that direction is not to my liking so far.

Otherwise, everything else is wait and see. A lot of the things they cite as problems to be fixed have never been problems to me, so some it strikes me as weird.

 

[green slime]

Lost me. No more dollars from this gump.

 

[JeffB]

"We're not trying to turn D&D into a miniatures game, a video game...[snip]...D&D will still be D&D." In fact, the game is moving farther away from D&D with every statement they release ...
jolt

QFT...This is the thing that cracks me up when I see it. Gotta love the marketing BS


(I worked in marketing for a fairly large company for a few years, so I get even more of a kick out of it )

 

[Beckett]

When it became obvious what the GenCon announcement was going to be on, I knew I, as a D&D player, had to be there. I was pretty sure I was going to be unimpressed; I had enough 3E stuff to last me a long time, why did I need to spend more money on a new edition?

My feelings changed over the course of the presentation. After, I went back to my hotel, called up my wife, and gibbered about how awesome the virtual table top and character creator looked, and about the potential of the new edition. The D&D seminar the next day only furthered my excitement.

So far, I've been happy with most everything I've heard. There's still 8 months for WotC to put out something that changes my mind, but they haven't yet.

 

[Dragonblade]

My interest in 4e has only grown. I'm am totally stoked and looking forward to 4e very much.

The Good:

Flipped Saves
Implements that enhance casting (+6 wands!)
Monsters that are monsters
Less DM prep time
At will, per encounter abilities (especially for casters)
Anything from Tome of Battle
No more christmas tree effect

The bad:
Built-in fluff (I'm cautiously optimistic that the revealed Wizard traditions won't be integral to arcane caster characters)
level based action points (this has not been confirmed, but I hate level based action points)

 

[Wanderer20]

4E is neither winning or losing me 'cause it lost me from the beginning (I could even say "before it was announced")

At least I'm not alone in the darkness

 

[Desdichado]

I've gone from ambivalent to more ambivalent.

I think 4e will be a reasonably good game. I still don't know if I care to switch or not. My group doesn't want to at the moment.

 

[wingsandsword]

So, who started off hating the idea but has come to welcome our new 4verlords? Who started off as a 4E fan from the get-go but now are dreading the coming storm?

I started out as wary of 4e, and that has increased to outright dread the more I hear.

The more I hear of 4e, the less it sounds like D&D and the more it sounds like d20 Fantasy. They are getting rid of too many sacred cows, putting in too many things that might be okay as supplemental material or optional material as core. I also find myself disagreeing more and more with the design philosophies being mentioned by the designers.

It's the sacred cows that make D&D what it is, instead of just another fantasy game, the more times they kill a sacred cow because they have a neato idea of how they think they can do it better, they make the game less D&D.