D&D 4E Not going to 4e

[Turanil]

You must have been at a different Gencon presentation to me then. <...> Mostly the place was fairly quiet.

most of the assembled audience I witnessed was simply quiet.

In the entertainment industry, either a strong positive OR strong negative reaction is frequently considered acceptable ("all press is good press"), but stony silence = death.

Ho hum... For one thing I guess that many gamers won't spend as much dollars on a new edition as they already did with 3.5. Buying one book to see what it looks like is not the same thing as purchasing in earnest everything that is released in print or online. But now, if a quiet, near indifferent audience means death... I wonder what will happen if WotC/Hasbro doesn't meet its sales projections. Will D&D continue? (not that I care so much though) Will D&D just turn into a WoW variant (that I see coming; WoW probably makes much more money than D&D I think)? Or will it be the death of pen-n-paper D&D?

 

[Holy Bovine]

I won't be switching to 4E for a few reasons. I have way too much 3E stuff to even consider going to a system where it is all useless (beyond fluff). I really like 3E and the prep time doesn't bother me (note: I cheat). And finally I will be stealing any and all ideas from 4E that I like and sticking them in my 3E games. Most notably Skills, 'Second Wind' and 'Bloodied' are going in. If there is a publicly available SRD I won't even need the 4E books.

 

[Holy Bovine]

I'm sure I'll look at it and I'll probably even buy the core books but from what I've seen so far I'm not at all interested in moving to 4E. What I'll probably do is mine 4E for good rules that are easily compatible with 3.5 but otherwise continue using the 3.5 rule set.

WotC has bungled 4E big time.

err...huh? 4E isn't even out yet. And you even state you'll be buying the core books. Colour me confused

 

[mmu1]

You must have been at a different Gencon presentation to me then. Certainly there were scattered grumbles as well as applause. Mostly the place was fairly quiet. To suggest there were "tons of unhapppy booing fans" is seriously overstating the position.

The boos were far from constant, of course (and there was applause as well - in some cases outright, at others mixed with jeers) but they were loud enough that Chris Perkins got drowned out several times, and persistent enough that whatever WotC honcho was up there as well got visibly pissed off towards the end, and IIRC actually ended up saying what amounted to, basically, "Quiet, we're telling you about 4E, we're not taking questions, so shut up and pay attention."

No, it wasn't a riot, but considering the nature of the audience - dedicated fans, who took the trouble to come to Indy, and then put up with the crowd and the wait to hear it - I feel comortable saying that the reception of the announcement was terrible, and that there was a lot of jeering. Perhaps by your standards, it wasn't so bad, but I (and the friends I was there with) found it pretty striking.

 

[collin]

Even numbered editions

I'm not going to 4e, basically for reasons that have already been stated, which include things like too many unnecessary changes that 1) will require learning new rules just for the sake of the fact it is 4e, and 2) removes the feel and flavor of D&D more than any edition before it.

WotC should have just created a new game rather than claim this was D&D in sheep's clothing.

I will probably look at the SRD to get a sense of what it is truly like, but my guess is I will import some of the rules/mechanics of 4e into my 3x edition game and stick with 3x overall.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I'm sticking with 3.5.

I'm mixed on what I've heard about 4e, but the bottom line for me is this: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I like 3.5. I've just picked up a ton of cheap and very good 3.5 books that won't have 4e equivalents for years. 3.5 fixed a lot of what was bad about 3.0. I'm familiar with 3.5, I've got a lengthy and useful set of houserules for 3.5, all of which I'd have to start over again if I switched.

Even if 4e was better, which I'm not sold on, I'd rather run 3.5 well than start over and fumble around with a whole new set of rules.

 

[BadMojo]

Unless 4E blows me away when the PHB comes out, I'll probably be skipping it.

Then again, I'm kind of getting tired of the slow combats and massive prep time of 3.X. I may try something a bit different once we've finished Red Hand of Doom & the Rise of the Runelords stuff for 3.5 Ed.

 

[FickleGM]

At first, I was excited about 4e, but that excitement waned and in the end, I realized that True20 gives me what I want and 4e isn't going to do same things that True20 does. So, it doesn't look like I'll be running any 4e games...

 

[PoeticJustice]

Not going in the first wave, if at all. I'll probably see through college with my 3.5 and then take looong break from D&D. By the time I have money/time for D&D books, they may be on 5E.

 

[Ifurita'sFan]

Not going anywhere near 4e.

I'm done with the D&D brand after hearing what their plans are for it. It's no longer even close to the game that I grew up with.