Rechan said:
Dude, I am sick and tired of elves and dwarves. I want to take the 5' tall bearded scotsmen out to the chemical shed and shoot them in the back of the head, in hopes they'll disappear just for one year.
THis would be the point at which someone would tell you to play another game -- pretty much what happens to people that say they don't want Dragonborn or whatever in the core. It's a reasonable suggestion in either case, of course, but it totally ignores the fact that we like D&D and we want to play D&D.
Here's the thing about the changes in flavour that 4E is presenting: at this point, they seem so pervasive, so random and so extreme that it suggests that 4E will in fact not support playing D&D in the manner that [any given person] has been playing for 30 years. It isn't that D&D hasn't undergone change before, it is that it has never undergone such drastic change before, particularly in both "fluff" and "crunch" simultaneously. While the mechanical changes to 3E were significant, for example, the flavour changes weren't particularly significant. The 4E changes probably aren't as significant as they feel to some of us neo-grognards for those that have been buying and liking the last 2 years worth of (IMO only; totally subjective) drek that has been put out by WotC -- since it has all been testbed for 4E. But if you have been playing even 3.5 by the core in Greyhawk or FR or Krynn, 4E looks hella different and not in a good way.
Ultimately, what D&D "is" is entirely subjective and varies from group to group and person to person. That said, though, I think it is an entirely acceptable opinion that it "won't be D&D anymore" if 4E -- and no one can know this yet, but we can make as educated guesses as WotC allows us given they are the ones educating us -- doesn't allow a person or group to continue playing in their hombrew world or in their preferred playstyle without massive amounts of effort. I mean, if my understanding is correct, FR is going to require an event on par with the
Crisis on infinite Earths to make the transition to 4E. If you have to do that with your flagship setting, which is probably more recognized and beloved a brand than D&D itself, it is safe to say that you are "doing it wrong".
When it comes down to it, the massive flavor changes are wholly unneccesary. The proposed mechanical changes alone would have warranted a new edition and would likely have not caused such a rift in the existing fanbase. It is a strange thing to imagine why it is that they are making such sweeping flavor changes, and what benefit they think they will get out of it, and who exactly is going to replace the existing-customer attrition, no matter how large or small, that is going to inevitably follow.
