I've made up my mind...for now.

[delericho]

I have it on good word from within the company that DMing 4e is going to be amazing.

Well, yes. I'll believe it when I see it. (Conversely, I'll reject it only when I fail to see it. Or, I remain to be convinced... but I'm also open to being convinced.)

In this realm alone, the game sounds worth trying.

...you can always change story elements your not wild about back to 3.5 D&D easy enough.

There is at present one absolute deal-breaker for me, so I may never find out how this game actually works out. We'll see.

However, as for changing the story elements, it's never quite as easy as it sounds. The story elements inform, and are informed in turn by, the rules. So, changing those elements will require some amount of house ruling to fix. Tearing out the Wizard implements (for just one example, although I don't actually mind these) sounds quite easy, but is likely to have some sort of far-ranging consequences as far as the rules are concerned.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

The reduced prep time is the big thing I'm looking forward to.

I keep wanting to DM, but everytime I've tried it with D&D it's never quite worked for me - yet when I ran a Feng Shui game not too long ago it was fine, my players enjoyed themselves and I was able to have fun too.

So if 4e can manage to make me enjoy setting up adventures as well as running them, then I'll be an enthusiastic buyer.

 

[LostSoul]

For everyone else out there, I wanna know, why do you (or don't you) want to do 4e?

I want to do 4e because it looks like they are making it more fun from a "this is a game" point-of-view. Part of that is removing the "simulationist" elements from the game, which I support.

Also, social resolution.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

I've been playing D&D (under one name or another) since the very end of '79. The following is a bit of a recap of my experience with D&D along with my group and my thoughts on comming 4th edition.

I am curious about your gaming experience. Is it difficult DMing for the trees? I mean, they haven,'t got any tongues, so you have to say all their dialog for them. I imagine it makes for a strange gaming table atmosphere.

 

[timbannock]

This is one of my biggest 4e concerns. I think it's extra important to playtest this game a lot since they are promising no 4.5. Yet, they still seem to be writing and developing the rules now (I'm getting this from the descriptions they've given.) How can they playtest enough (in such little time) to get the balance right?

Not sure if anyone else got to this but:

Considering the man-power WOTC has behind a new edition, I really don't think there is a lack of play-testing going on. They have in-house designers (and other staff members, too) playtesting pretty much every dat at work, and then most nights after work, and then on the weekends. These people are living and breathing the new rules.

Add on all the "outside" playtesters -- a few hundred people, maybe a few thousand? -- and then imagine that they'll have some kind of rough draft out for whatever companies support the game (Paizo, Necromancer, Goodman, etc.) eventually, which, in effect, may end up being a last round of testing (considering that WOTC knows Paizo, Necromancer and those companies have skilled designers on their teams...including many former WOTC and TSR designers).

If WOTC spent more time playtesting, everyone would cry about waiting. If they spent less time, you'd know they couldn't get all the bugs out (frankly, they probably won't no matter how long they take, as many "bugs" are opinion anyway).

I think they are taking exactly as long as they think they need to do a great job.

 

[Archade]

I'm likely to buy the PHB and DMG and MM, but I've pretty much made up my mind that I won't be playing 4e. I'll take the ideas I like and house rule them into my 3.5 game.

One of the reasons I like playing 3.5 is the nostalgic elements that remain from AD&D, on top of a pretty solid system. I've played Harnmaster, Hero, Gurps, Runequest/Chaosium/etc, Swordbearer, MERP, and other systems, and I'm pretty happy with 3.5. It has elements I think could be improved, but it's a solid system, and a transparent system (which I like), with the ability to be as simple or complex as a gaming group wants.

With 4e, they seem to be removing all nostalgic elements that are important to me, revising rule sets that are solid and functional, and frankly, changing things for the sake of change, not because they are asked for, or have been proven to be better. What 4e is, is not D&D to me.

Now, I might be wrong about 4e, but every time a news clip comes out, I cringe, and while I am trying to be open minded about a new way to do things, the game they are describing doesn't sound like my game.

 

[timbannock]

simply put 4e is moveing more away from what i think of as d&d . it may in its self be a good system , but doesnt look to be my kind of game if i want to play superheros i have m&m or could try exalted to much change just for change heck they seem the be killing the whole herd . and i have a lot invested in my 3e books and my group is well and happy with 3e so for the gamers going on to 4e hope yall have fun , me and my group are sticking with 3e.

Agreed. I'll read the PHB and see what it's got, but it definitely is moving more and more away from what I want to run/play. 3.5E was the beginning of a move towards this whole "D&D is its own milieu/genre" thing, and the hardcoding of the rules to that is frustrating.

There's too much of the Earthdawn problem: every character class is magical. I like cool maneuvers for fighters, but why do they have to be magical maneuvers? I could be wrong, but I strongly suspect we'll see a little bit of magic in every class (or call it wuxia/anime/superhero maneuvers, whatever you want) and I'm not looking to play that.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

For everyone else out there, I wanna know, why do you (or don't you) want to do 4e?

Wow, change '79 to '83 and I would have thought I wrote most of the above.

I am going to give 4E a shot. Why? Because earlier this year I was finding myself seriously questioning whether I wanted to play anymore. I did not want to DM, but not because of the usual DM burnout I experience occasionally. I would have continued to play, but no one else wanted to DM. I don't know how close I was to pulling the plug when the annoucement of 4E hit, but the announcement definately got me excited about D&D again. It has helped me maintain my current game by building anticipation for what lies ahead. Otherwise I may have drifted away from the game.

 

[TerraDave]

Lorax, I wonder if we are the same age? Your first 6 paragraphs or so are deja-vu all over again.

But, (also) like the Basterd, I am ready to finish my current campaign and move on. 3.0 was a big improvement (3.5 a tiny one), but it turns out it is not perfect.

One other difference: I see the shear volume of 3/3.5 stuff as a liability, not an asset. I like the idea of refocusing on the core, not being concerned about what of the many books I do or do not want to use, and everybody being on the same page again. At least for a while.

 

[SWBaxter]

For everyone else out there, I wanna know, why do you (or don't you) want to do 4e?

I was thinking I'd wait until it's released, then see if it's worth switching. I really don't understand the line-in-the-sand mentality so many seem to have, the burning need to declare abject worship or eternal hatred of 4e six months before we find out what it actually is.