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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Visanideth" data-source="post: 6100793" data-attributes="member: 6705825">Honestly, I think the core issue 4E fans are having with Next (aside from the occasional vitriol thrown at them in podcasts, as in the recent "Warlords shouted lost limbs back" nonsense) is that integrating 4E with classic design IS problematic.The core problem here is that 4E's merits can hardly continue working when faced with compromise. If 4E's virtue is having integrated and balanced options available to all classes at all levels, that is not gonna work as well when one of your design goals is simplicity and quasi-AD&D styled leveling. If 4E's virtue is divorcing reality-altering magic from classes (and combat), that's hardly gonna work if one of your design goals is bring back the 3E arcane spellcaster.And so on and so forth. 4E is about balance, options, exception based monster design, compatible subsystems, narrative solutions integrated into mechanics; it's about having an extremely class-based design for player characters, and so on. Another problem is that unlike previous editions, 4E fans aren't nearly as dissatisfied with the system as WotC is used to see late in the life of an edition.If you dislike 4E, you generally do from the get go. You disagree with the premises, you dislike its philosophies and its approaches. But if you do like 4E... it doesn't present many issues. It doesn't fall apart at high levels. It doesn't feature linear "fighter/quadratic wizard" kind of issues. It's balanced, it's functional, it's strongly supported, it has a gigantic amount of material to draw from - it just works. That doesn't mean it can't be improved, but it doesn't really need to.When 3.5 hit, I remember my gaming group being willing to accept the frankly ridicolous idea of buying every single book again because while we had a lot of fun with 3.0 initially, we were having huge issues with it. We hoped 3.5 would allow us to play past level 10, that it would fix the imbalance of casters and so on. We felt like we needed 3.5. 3.0 had issues, but maybe it was salvageable, so 3.5 was fundamentally welcome.As a 4E fan, I really don't feel like I need 4.5. I wouldn't want 4.5. 4E, for what it's meant to do, works fine. And that's also why I don't feel I need Next to satisfy my need of a game like 4E: because 4E isn't an RPG-lite, it's a system that thrives on complexity, options and modularity. Could you make Next more like 4E? Maybe, but why would I want a watered down version of 4E, if being watered down/fast/accessible isn't 4E's forte? Honestly, I'm fine with Next being nothing like 4E because I don't think you can really compromise 4E and retain its strength. I like 4E classes having 20 pages worth of abilities. I wouldn't want a "new" 4E with "simple" classes (like Heroes Against Darkness, for example). Why would I want less of something I like?Instead, I could be really interested in Next if it's a "fixed" 3.X, or even better (much, much better) if it's a modernized AD&D. Because I like those systems too, and they have bigger issues than 4E, and a much bigger need of "fixing" or simply to be put up to date. I'm completely happy with the idea of going back to the D&D/AD&D formula where Next is my lighter, faster and improvisation-friendly system and 4E is the more complex, more "crunch" oriented one.As a 4E fan, I feel like it's understandable that other fans feel like Next isn't going their way, but I also feel it's something inevitable. 4E is an edition that thrives on being "more" - to be part of a "a bit for everyone" edition, it would need to be stripped down of some of its parts, and that edition would be a worse 4E than the one we have already is.</blockquote>

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