D&D 4E My biggest concern about 4E

[Sunderstone]

meh, Im with Zoroasters original post.
The 4E stuff has definately lost its flavor. And you can bet your last dollar that most future products will likely feature the "cool looking" core races like the Tieflings, Dragonborn, etc.

The only solution would be to create your own campaign world and heavily modify every product that you like yourself. The hell with that is what I say. I have to spend $30+ on the average hardcover, pay monthly for any official errata/enhancements, and then put a ton of work into it for my own errata. Dont think so.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Yes, fluff is changeable, but if the core game isn't going to be able to (say) support Greyhawk right out of the gate, it's going to feel significantly different from the D&D of old, which pretty much everyone on this board is somewhat invested in in one way or another.

I disagree with this - I have no particular interest in Greyhawk, or indeed the FR. The only setting I'd like to hang on to is Planescape, and given that was never officially converted to 3e I can't see that 4e is going to cause any problems.

And I also don't see anything in 4e that indicates that Greyhawk won't work with. If you don't like warlocks, then don't include any (or don't include them in large numbers) until you're happy with it - keep all the changes small scale.

If you're running a big complicated game with lots of planar interaction and so on at the moment, then yes, you're going to have some problems changing it over, but I would suggest that you are in the minority. I would imagine that 'most' groups are either playing homebrew stuff or are able to start new campaigns. I don't know this, but I suspect it.

And if they are the majority, the WotC are right to be marketing to them.

 

[Odhanan]

WotC, for all their researching and studying, occasionally makes mistakes. They occasionally make big ones. For the sake of the hobby let's hope that this isn't one of them.

I agree. I'm speaking as a guy who, at this very moment, doesn't like anything about the changes announced with Fourth Edition (with the exception of potentially shorter stat blocks). I was considering picking up the core books to at least have a look at them. Now, I'm pretty sure I will not, so underwhelmed I am about the whole thing.

 

[grimslade]

A lot of good points in this thread.
The biggest complaints have been about fluff changes, mechanics barely get a mention. Granted there have been precious few bits of mechanics to process.
This will be my 3rd edition change. I played BECMI and AD&D at the same time. I have hundreds of dollars invested in each edition, thousands in 3.X alone. The fluff has not changed much over those 28+ years. It has been expanded and refined but the fluff is the same as '79. It is time to change it.
Greyhawk is not Greyhawk anymore. The advent of kits and PrCs have twisted the original setting out of shape. There is nostalgia value to Greyhawk but it is a bloated mishapen shade of its former self. Forgotten Realms is in a similar predicament. Mechanics and subtle fluff changes have weighed the setting down made it contradictory and kludgy. Start fresh. New system new fluff. Reimagine the old. I'm tired of the gymnastics required to convert old materials and NPCs.

 

[Cadfan]

I understand people's complaints about the changes to the Great Wheel, and the redistribution of the planar creatures into the various factions and creature types. Those are actual changes to the actual game. If you were intending to run, say, a campaign based around the Blood War, that will be harder now. That's a fair enough complaint, and it centers around a real issue amongst fans with different opinions, pro and anti Great Wheel style game design, and the Great Wheel itself.

I don't understand complaints about "points of light." I read people saying things like "that's not my campaign, and I'm worried that 4e will strongly assume points of light and make my game hard to run." But I don't understand how that is supposed to happen. Can someone give me an example of something that might be written into the rules to support "points of light" that would create problems for non points of light campaigns?

 

[Sunderstone]

Start fresh. New system new fluff. Reimagine the old. I'm tired of the gymnastics required to convert old materials and NPCs.

I have to agree. Different name would be great too.