Since we know so little about 4e, its hard to really say whether I want to go with it. On the plus side, 4e seems to be trying to streamline the game (less 3e hypercomplexity and slowness, more od&d). 3e's complexity and horrid stat blocks above about 5th level made me not want to dm the game (though playing was still a blast).
On the negative side, I too am concerned because a lot of these changes seem unnecessary. I somewhat disagree with the moderator's post a few posts back. Rather than making the absolute statement the moderator was correcting, e.g. "4e is not d&d (because d&d is defined by me)", and rather than making the typical relativistic tail chasing argument that "d&d is whatever you want it to be dude" that illuminates nothing in a discussion, I question whether or not 4e has too many degrees of freedom relative to what D&D has been understood to be by a majority of the fan base over time.
Erik Mona over on Paizo said something to the effect that he wasn't interested in having some random R&D guy at Hasbro change too many mental images that he has accumulated over thirty years of playing d&d. Obviously, a few changes are no big deal but now duergar are diabolical, succubus aren't allowed because demons are all brutish and no longer smart and cunning, tieflings are a core race, we have 30 levels of spells, the planes have been changed AGAIN, vancian magic is sorta gone, halflings are nomadic river rafters [?] rather than tolkeinesque hobbits or dragonlance kender, wizards have "pushing hands" blasts of force, and various classes have a huge variety of odd buffing effects...Based on very preliminary set of rules, 4e SOUNDS a lot more different from 3e than 3e was from 2e or 2e was from 1e or 1e was from od&d -- not just mechanically, but in terms of its basic images.
The changes don't seem to be doing much to fix the mechanical problems of 3e (horrible prep time for dms, too many buffs, too much complexity in stat blocks, polymorph is whacked) and they don't do what Mona has done in Pathfinder in terms of breathing new life into old monsters (e.g. goblins) yet they may cut into 30 years of "mental imagery" that most people have had of d&d.
I am a bit worried.
On the negative side, I too am concerned because a lot of these changes seem unnecessary. I somewhat disagree with the moderator's post a few posts back. Rather than making the absolute statement the moderator was correcting, e.g. "4e is not d&d (because d&d is defined by me)", and rather than making the typical relativistic tail chasing argument that "d&d is whatever you want it to be dude" that illuminates nothing in a discussion, I question whether or not 4e has too many degrees of freedom relative to what D&D has been understood to be by a majority of the fan base over time.
Erik Mona over on Paizo said something to the effect that he wasn't interested in having some random R&D guy at Hasbro change too many mental images that he has accumulated over thirty years of playing d&d. Obviously, a few changes are no big deal but now duergar are diabolical, succubus aren't allowed because demons are all brutish and no longer smart and cunning, tieflings are a core race, we have 30 levels of spells, the planes have been changed AGAIN, vancian magic is sorta gone, halflings are nomadic river rafters [?] rather than tolkeinesque hobbits or dragonlance kender, wizards have "pushing hands" blasts of force, and various classes have a huge variety of odd buffing effects...Based on very preliminary set of rules, 4e SOUNDS a lot more different from 3e than 3e was from 2e or 2e was from 1e or 1e was from od&d -- not just mechanically, but in terms of its basic images.
The changes don't seem to be doing much to fix the mechanical problems of 3e (horrible prep time for dms, too many buffs, too much complexity in stat blocks, polymorph is whacked) and they don't do what Mona has done in Pathfinder in terms of breathing new life into old monsters (e.g. goblins) yet they may cut into 30 years of "mental imagery" that most people have had of d&d.
I am a bit worried.
