Is this what you went through with 3rd Edition?

[Ruin Explorer]

That's funny. . . I remember pretty much all those comments the OP mentions being trumpeted about. . .

. . . along with "Hardly anybody is going to switch to 3E. They've changed too much and its going to fall flat on its face and WotC will have to go back to supporting REAL D&D again. Just wait and see!"

Unfortunately, there aren't any forums around with 8 year thread retention, and while I'd like to throw those comments back in people's faces, I don't care enough to back them up on a hard drive. . . transfer them from computer to computer for the next few years, and re-post them down the road. . . only to have people claim I made it up anyway --> because you know they would when blatantly confronted by their own stupidity. There's nothing else they could really say.

Really? I don't remember your name being around back then, here, and your join date is after the announcement of 4E, so perhaps it was another board you're talking about? I'm sure there were places where plenty of idiotic comments went around, but claiming the reasons people are concerned about 4E here on ENworld are the same as 3E beyond basic "fear of change" (which is a real "well duh", and sure, I'll give you that) seems to be very inaccurate to me.

There are actually forums with eight-year+ thread retention via archiving, just not this one afaik. Indeed, this isn't even the same engine the forum was running on eight+ years ago. But then you wouldn't remember that, if you weren't there. Now, just to be clear, are you saying that you were viewing/posting on ENworld eight years ago? Do you remember your handle?

 

[Spatula]

Psion- the reason you are having trouble explaining this to people is:

Many of us do not and have not ever played in the D&D default setting. Because the D&D default setting did not appeal to us, we played in homebrews that contained significant changes to the baseline assumptions about, amongst other things, D&D monsters and classes. Apparently the default D&D setting did appeal to you, but now it does not. I can see how that might feel like a loss. However, from our perspective it just puts you in the same position we've been in for years.

Well, Psion is correct in that what he calls the meta-setting influences the game mechanics (i.e. you cannot totally seperate the two). As a result, I've rarely (if ever) played in a homebrew world that was significantly different from the default. I don't doubt that such worlds exist & thrive, but they do create more work for the DM, so most DMs that I have played with stick with published settings or create their own world that still contains the basic assumptions of D&D. Elves still live in forests, dwarves in hills & mountains, there's a Nine Hells-like plane that contains the devils, an Abyss-like plane that contains the demons, etc. That's been your "standard" D&D world for the life of the game. The convenience of this is very high, as pretty much all adventures and supplements are built on the same assumptions, so you can use them without having to do too much tinkering. Stuff like having a custom pantheon is ultimately just window dressing.

So, the underlying setting is being re-written from scratch, which means either changing campaign worlds, or extra work for the DM to stick with what you have. Some people will enjoy the challenge, others won't have the time nor the inclination.

 

[Wormwood]

I was definitely on ENworld (before it was named such) 8 years ago, and one huge argument that leaps to mind is that 3e would kill roleplaying because of skills like Diplomacy.

Thankfully, 4e is going to kill roleplaying in altogether different ways.

 

[Set]

The OPs basic premise seems to be the standard name-calling.

"You're all lying and acting exactly like some people I like to claim made the same arguments in the 2E to 3E conversion. You'll be playing 4E three months from now like the rest of us. Cry more noob."

It's cute that the pro-4E crowd is doing such a bang up job of driving people away from giving the game a chance. 4E has some promising stuff, and 3E is hardly perfect, but the soccer hooligans have convinced me that I should probably not go to the game, unless I want to get hurt.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

"You're all lying and acting exactly like some people I like to claim made the same arguments in the 2E to 3E conversion. You'll be playing 4E three months from now like the rest of us. Cry more noob."

This certainly seems to be the fairly clear subtext of the post. Personally I'm attempting to ignore that and address the actual claims, which, specifically, to me, appear to be false (a lot of people complained a lot about 3E, but not for the reasons stated).

 

[Greg K]

They said that they would never switch and that they would only buy the core books in order to understand the rules for the purposes of converting later material. But they had switched over within months, at most.

Nope. I can't say that I went through this with 3e. We had some issues, but nothing like with 4e. The only really big issues with 3e from the previews were keeping the vancian system and suspecting both that spellcasters would still dominate at higher levels and we would still not like high level play (beginning around 12th level). The only other issue that I recall from the previews of 3e was not liking the barbarian as a rager- that was one I thought was stupid (and I'm still not fond of it, but having the UA barbarian hunter and a variant that exchanges wildernes skills for more urban skills takes care of my issues with it). Then again, about 90% of my pre-3e suggestions made it into 3e.

Of course, I had some other issues with 3e after buying the books. Most were carry overs from previous editions (e.g., energy and level loss), a few were not adopting some of the ideas introduced in some of the 2e supplements, and a few were new to 3e.

In contrast, I see too many things with 4e that I don't like which are far greater than the few changes that I do like. They still appear to not have addressed some of the issues that I had with previous editions (although, it is still possible that they may have and we have not have seen the changes). Where the designers of 4e appear to be addressing my problems, they are often doing so in ways that I do not like and/or consider inferior to solutions in current d20/OGL products (including some of WOTCs own). Finally, they are introducing a number of elements that I don't like. Some of these elements are include changes to things that I don't think need changing and have resulted in steps backward from what I consider advancements introduced in 3e to things that I disliked about previous editions.

 

[Psion]

Here's a factor I neglected to consider that is very different now than then.

Anyone remember this Rob Repp in the late 2e era? At the time, there was a budding body of AD&D fansites, but Mr. Repp as the TSR web rep went and started sending cease and desist letters to ISPs, and many sites came down, the only alternative being some ill maintained web community that had TSR's blessing. There was a massive amount of ill-will over this move and some left AD&D entirely over the incident.

When the OGL was announced, the idea of a license that implicitly allowed and validated fan sites (and third party producers) was a welcome shift in direction. The creative community flourished, and people could feel safe in sharing their worlds and settings.

Now, we are on the eve of an opposite trend. The GSL is here, and it's a more traditional license. No guarantees for fansites. Yes, most rational companies won't take that approach these day, but you never know. Just today, I heard that White Wolf made an exalted fansite take charm cards down.

 

[Ktulu]

I lost my entire group to a rift between 2-3. They wanted to stick with 2, because they thought it was a nightmare...though not because it was a powergaming-videogame-dumb-down...They thought it was too bogged in rules & didn't let them properly tell a story, like 2e did.

I shrugged and started up a new group. It wasn't long before a number of the old group came over and started checking out the new rules. A year or so later, we were all joined as one under 3e.

Over time, the group split into two, but more because of taste than edition. On the eve of 4e, that old group will be sticking with 3.x because now they've bought a lot and they don't like the new rules and what-not. I suspect they'll be at 4th by August.


Ktulu

 

[Lord Zardoz]

The problem I have with the massive supplementary nature of 3.5 is likely to be repeated within a few short years with 4e.... continued, unending expansion of books that give the players "rules" amo to challenge DM fiat.

I have yet to see any sort of D&D expansion for any edition which adds rules that would interfere with DM Fiat. We may however, be using slightly different definitions. I do not think that new classes, races, feats or spells interfere with DM Fiat.

To me, DM Fiat is a DM ignoring a rule because it is inconvenient to his plot or world view in some way. DM Fiat is the DM deciding behind the scenes that he does not want a monster to be dead in the first round before it even has a chance to act, so it will have extra HP even though he should have died on the most recent attack. Or it is the DM telling me I do not see anyone in a room despite hitting a 28 on a spot check against opponents who could not hit 29 on a hide check given their stats and skill ranks. It can also be the DM creating circumstances meant to railroad a player. "No, you cannot sale to the other side continent right now because, umm, there are no ships sailing that way. The only way to get where your going is to travel through the Mountains of Obvious Peril".

Some people advocate DM Fiat as a virtue, others, myself especially, do not. I am convinced that just as many games have been ruined by DM Fiat as there have been games that benefit from it. I am generally in favor of rules that overlap or codify things that many would be inclined to handle through pure role play for a few simple reasons. Such rules are often the easiest to ignore. You can ignore Bluff and Diplomacy in 3rd edition without breaking much of anything. You cannot do that with say, AoO's without heavy retooling. The other reason is that the very existence of these rules will suggest a course of action to players that they may not otherwise even think of. It may also remind the DM to account for certain courses of action. If Forgery as a skill did not exist in D&D, then how often would someone try to write up fake documents in an attempt to trick the guards into letting them in? And how often would such a plan have any sort of success under a DM that was caught totally unprepared for it?

Ultimately, whenever anyone says "the feel" of D&D, they or I are only referring to our own SPECIFIC game experiences.... and I'm willing to bet almost all of us equate different things as being important.

If I were the sort to quote other people in a post sig, I would probably use that.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[HP Dreadnought]

Really? I don't remember your name being around back then, here, and your join date is after the announcement of 4E,

Now, just to be clear, are you saying that you were viewing/posting on ENworld eight years ago? Do you remember your handle?

I don't happen to remember your name from the 1999 era either. Either you weren't here, or just weren't very memorable.

This is probably my fourth or fifth account on here. (Keep having various issues over the years that just make it easier to create a new account.) I joined Eric Noah's forums prior to the release of 3E. Not sure what my handle was then. . . Soulcatcher? Soulmage? I'm on dozens of forums all over the net, it gets difficult to keep track after a while.

This may be news to you. . . but EnWorld is not the only place where 4E is discussed and saying "If its not said on EnWorld it doesn't count" is convenient, but not rational. Most people participate in multiple D&D forums. I see lots of people here from Monte's boards the Necromancer forums and so on.

I posted heavily on Monte's forums back in those days (I tended to lurk here) and saw all those statements made repeatedly. I saw more of the same here.

So yes, the same statements were made then as are being made now and I expect the we'll see the same outcome. The vast majority of people with switch, like the new system. Many detractors will eventually switch as well. . . only to bitterly complain again once 5th edition comes out.

Interestingly. . . this is not a D&D specific phenomenon.

I also play 40k and Fantasy (among a great many other games). In both cases when those systems went through edition upgrades, we saw exactly the same sort of thing all over the net - "its being dumbed down, its not 40k anymore, I'm sticking with 3rd etc. etc. etc.) 4th edition 40k and 3.5e D&D came out about the same time and the parallells in people's bitching were quite amusing to me. Same complaints, different system. Must just be a gamer thing. I could file off the details of the posts and easily crosspost between 40k and D&D forums the same sorts of things people are saying.

Now 5th edition 40k is being released this summer. . . and once again the same phenomenon is occurring. The same sorts of complaints from people even though they are completely different systems.

So in short. . . the OP was right on target when he discusses the kind of complaints people have. Those of us who have been around a while just kinda roll our eyes at those comments as coming from a bunch of chicken littles.