Is this what you went through with 3rd Edition?

[Cmarco]

In response to the OP:

Yes. The same arguments (or at least, very similar ones) were made. The one I remember most was "4th edition in 3 years!" (that was the average estimated years. Some said one, some said as high as five)

Yeah, there will always be doomsayers, naysayers, and those folks who just like to complain. No stress.

 

[ptolemy18]

I used to play 1e D&D when I was really little, in the early '80s. Then I got tired of it and, by the time 3rd edition came out, I hadn't played D&D in ages. I played 3rd edition and it was really fun. I got used to 3rd edition. I like it so much (specifically 3.0, not 3.5) that I don't really see the need for a major new edition (although some of the apparent changes in 4e do make sense when I think about them objectively).

I guess my basic complaint about 4e is that it seems to lack some of the extreme mix-and-match capabilities of 3e which were fun for me as an experienced player. The spell lists are slimmed down, multiclassing is different and from what I can tell de-emphasized, prestige classes are now some "Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies" which are this big deal that only happens at 11th and 21st level... I'm sure that there is plenty of new complicated stuff in 4e which I haven't seen yet, of course, but as an extreme 3e nerd, I will miss a lot of the possibilities which may have been unique to 3e.

Furthermore, if you want to throw big terms around, I would count myself as a "simulationist" rather than a "gamist" and I prefer the simulationist aspects of D&D3e, such as the fact that a 1st level character is only marginally stronger than a "1st level" monster. (Although again, I recognize that this was something that probably turned off a lot of first-time D&D players... but personally I like the grittiness and ease-of-death at low levels... oh well... ~_~ )

 

[Li Shenron]

I missed the 2e-3e transition discussions, because at that time I wasn't interested in RPGing (although I had played D&D before that). So my comments here apply to what I thought when I picked up the 3e core books in 2001, while the gaming community had been playing 3e since a year already, and compared the 3e rules with OD&D and AD&D 2e (although I wasn't an expert with them, I had played both).

"They're dumbing the game down and taking away all the intricacies that I enjoyed."

I didn't know the intricacies of OD&D and AD&D because I had only played with their core rules. 3e gave me immediately the impression of being MORE intricate and tactically interesting.

It also gave me the impression of being more simple to remember (d20 rolls, saving throws) and more streamlined (skills and feats system, multiclassing rules). Since I didn't consider the difficulty of the correspondent previous edition rules as a value, these immediately seemed an improvement to me.

"It isn't the same game as the one that I love playing."

All the big sacred cows were there, even those I wasn't very fond of, so yes it felt like the same game.

What started to feel different after a year or so was the abundance of discussions about "builds" and the attitude towards powerplaying and trying to break the system. Internet however had a major effect on this, because it made every little "bug" universally known.

"The new rules don't support the style of play that I like."

I felt like 3e was flexible enough to support all previous styles at least.

"There's nothing in here except fighting, fighting, fighting."

Absolutely utterly not! With the 3e skill system, a MAJOR attention was dedicated to "everything else beside combat". Also a large amount of spells were designed to be useful in non-combat situations.

3.5 made it certainly worse: skills started to become cheaper for example (indirect psychological effect of making something cheaper, is that it often lowers the interest in it), and spells were oriented more to combat particularly to damage.

"This is soulless corporate gimmickery."

Considering that with TSR the game was at best stabilized with negative hit points, at least the gimmickery was bringing it back...

"It just doesn't feel like D&D."

It still got the traditional races, classes and monsters in core, vancian magic with most of the old spells, it's got all the sacred cows, and the general idea about how an adventure looks like (difficult, with high degree of mortality and quickly draining your resources). That's pretty much like precious D&D versions.

 

[Gundark]

I believe that there was more "grassroot" fatigue with AD&D and desire for the changes that 3E brought than we have today. I believe that WotC misjudged the markets demand (hunger ?) for a new edition and we are seeing the fruits of that timing decision with the amount of pro-4E vs anti-4E discussions on this and other sites.

I think comparing 2nd to 3rd jump with the 3-4e jump is an error. People made the jump from 3-3.5. I wasn't around for the 2nd - 3rd edition jump, but I was here for the 3.0 to 3.5 jump. There was similiar levels of anger. I would argue that there was a lot less "edition fatigue" then than there is now.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Incorrect. And I don't know why you are coming at the argument from that direction; I never even implied it was a roleplaying thing or that 4e would be wanting in this way.

D&D to me has also been defined by common elements that have been part of the ruleset and (growing) metasetting since 1e and before. Dryads as beautiful forest spirits instead of treants with bewbs, evil chromatic and good metallic dragons, lawful good paladins, Gnomes, bards, the planes, all those things are definitive of D&D to me, and did not "come from me", and are being unceremoniously chucked aside for the first round of 4e books.

If I wanted a bevy on new races or whatnot, I could have got that from Arcana Evolved or Talislanta a long time ago. But they presented something I didn't want from my fantasy gaming experience.

I can somewhat get your point, but in my view, this is all fluff that I can add, change, modify or ignore (as neccessary). And my players won't whine if I don't let them play Dragonborn or Warlocks if my campaign doens't have it. As long as I give them cool alternatives, that's fine.
But it defintely helps that our group isn't that limited in scope - and everyone is wearing the DM hat (round-robing DMing, each with his own campaign and even sometimes game system)
But the question is: IF you're players would be whining if they can't play Dragonborn Warlords or Tiefling Warlocks, shouldn't you reevaluate your priorities? Shouldn't everyone get what he wants to play?


What I find a lot harder to do is fixing a rule system that is broken, or overly complicated. If the tools I use to satisfy my fantasy needs don't work as good as they could, it sucks. My whole group is too much into the "gaming" part of RPGs that we can accept unbalanced, broken or overly complicated systems for too long. 3E was very good, but if there is something that promises to fix its mechanical problems, it is not good enough for us anymore. (At least not in the long run. I guess with enough adventure paths and modules still in progress, 3E campaigns might go on for a while...)

 

[Li Shenron]

Sure, fear of change is real for many people.

Conservatism is one drive for customers.

But then there is also the opposite drive... you cannot deny that a large share of products in supermarkets bear the label "NEW", and every stupid little product from a toothpaste to a breakfast cereal is competing with "new formulas" that are only partially aimed at making the product better, the other part of it is just attract the consumer.

 

[Bold or Stupid]

I think you're making something of a bogus argument.

If Call of Cthulhu changed core flavor elements by making all of the Old Ones products of radiation a la Godzilla or got rid of them in favor of traditional horror movie fodder like vampires, werewolves, and zombies, I don't think anybody would acknowledge it as Call of Cthulhu even if the mechanics were identical.

But those are changes in setting that alter the premise of the game. The bg changes that WotC are making aren't changing the premise of the game, yes some monsters are changinging but [silly french accent]the Game remains the same!!![/silly french accent] The changes simply are modifications to the normal setting. The changes to FR are a different matter and changes to eberron would alo be different. Rules wise 4e feels like D&D to me, its just a new D&D, just as 2e, 3e and BECMI were differnt games with the same feel.

 

[solkanar33]

I can only speak for myself, of course. But at the time they announced 3E, it was clear for me and my group that 2e had become a horribly broken game.
While it was soon clear that 3E was going to have problems of its own, I highly anticipated that edition because the better streamlining and great flexibility was a great boon. I was (and still am) convinced that 3E is a better system than 2e. And that showed from the start.

Now on the other hand, I don't have the idea that 3.5 is a bad system. It has its issues, but basically its far from the monstrosity 2e was at the end of the '90's.

I do like some aspects of 4E, but the system as a whole does't capture my imagination like 3e did. It 's a different system, but I'm still not convinced that it will be a better system. It looks more restrictive, it has too few classes and too many powers just look the same.

I guess a lot of people have, to some degree, the same reservations.

So for me, the situation now is very different from the one when 3e came out.

 

[KarinsDad]

And we all saw how initiative worked out...
... maybe dragon boobies are a good thing.

I consider initiative to be the single most constructive improvement that came out of 3E, even above THAC0 removal.

We used to waste a lot of time with initiative every round in 1E/2E.

This is also why 4E has as much support as it does. They took out a long of the klunky rules. The problem for some people, however, is that they changed a lot of the fluff at the same time.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I consider initiative to be the single most constructive improvement that came out of 3E, even above THAC0 removal.

We used to waste a lot of time with initiative every round in 1E/2E.

This is also why 4E has as much support as it does. They took out a long of the klunky rules. The problem for some people, however, is that they changed a lot of the fluff at the same time.

A problem off course only for people who prefer the "old fluff". I probably didn't need Tieflings or Dragonborn (but now that I can have them, why not?), but Feywild, Astral Sea, Elemental Chaos? That's cool stuff. I love it. I feel inspired. The Great Wheel never really did that for me... :/ off course, this might wear off after 5-10 years...