D&D 4E Paizo and 4e - Vive le Revolution!

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

(Now to hear the negative cries from the "I welcome our new 4th ed masters" set. *sigh*)

Please don't go looking for fights.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

They arent avoiding grognard capture at all, IMHO.

Grognards tend to be slow moving (old knees, too many nachos) anyway.

 

[catsclaw227]

Thanks to Clark, Erik, Jeff and Chris for the insight into how things work!

And thank you for being good stewards of the game.

Ditto for sure, and double ditto for Clark. He and Bill (and Casey) are the main reasons I own so much NecG stuff.

 

[Twowolves]

Please don't go looking for fights.

I don't have to look far. Any dissent in the "4th ed is teh bomb!" ranks is immediately pounced upon and told:

A) "If you don't like it, don't buy it"
B) "It's just what I always wanted, how can you NOT love it?"
C) "Go away troll, your opinion is not wanted here"
D) "No one is going to make you play it"
or
E) "You are not the target audience for 4th ed, so who cares what you think"

Honestly, I'm not looking for a fight, but my stomach turns when I read how some of the 4th ed supporters respond to anyone who expresses doubt at the glory that is the new edition. And I'm not talking about smacking down obvious trolls either. It's almost painful how quickly people have jumped on the 4th ed bandwagon and started trashing 3.5 ed, which up until a month or so ago was the "It girl" of roleplaying.

 

[Grog]

I don't have to look far. Any dissent in the "4th ed is teh bomb!" ranks is immediately pounced upon and told:

Well, you posted an hour ago. Where's the pouncing?

Do you have a different definition of 'immediately' than the rest of us do?

It's almost painful how quickly people have jumped on the 4th ed bandwagon and started trashing 3.5 ed, which up until a month or so ago was the "It girl" of roleplaying.

People have been talking about the problems with 3.5 for years. Seriously, have you ever looked at the Rules forum?

 

[Celebrim]

That is a bit scary.

Orc: Sheesh. I thought I was offering a pessimistic viewpoint. I'm a programmer by trade. If this was a video game, I'd be expecting the release date to slip by six months.

Playtesting is about a year long process. Six months maybe. Two months won't cut it - paper or digital.

And if content can go out to playtesters, why cant it go out to third party publishers? That I dont know either.

Well, you know and have rejected my speculation on that question. I don't have an answer then either I guess.

No game with Orcus on the cover of a book can be called "grognard hostile."

I think that it takes more than the 'all Demon Lords, all the time' approach to say a product is grognard friendly. It's not like an approach of 'sexing up' a product by go whole horned hog on the fiendish themes is unique to 'old skool'. Just my impression, but I think the 'look, demons!' aspect of 4e that I've been lampooning is more aimed at a younger audience than an older one. It's the kids that are more likely to be impressed by that as 'adult' content.

 

[Minicol]

I'll take all the "ifs" out of it. And put in some "wants".


But distributors are going to have a very limited appetite for 3.5 products following launch of 4e. So if I cant do 4e, and if 3.5 isnt really a long term viable solution, then it makes sense for Mona and I (and maybe others, and maybe such discussions have already been had months ago, but I'm not saying) to do 4e "our way"--aka 3.75. In other words, to make a competing system and to support that.

Clark

You know there is a solution around the distributors not wanting 3.5 : make the pdfs available as Print on Demand for people who want them, like kenzer did for Kalamar with lulu.com.

The ones who want .pdf have theirs, the other get custom-made nice books specially for them. I have tested it, and I can safely say this is a win-win situation.

BTW, I think this would have been a much smarter alternative than cancelling for Dragon and Dungeon ... instead of the DI.

 

[Desdichado]

Depends on what you mean by grognard.

There's the guys who've been playing since the early 80s or earlier. Probably mostly play beer & pretzels, published adventures, etc. Then there's the guys who like live and breathe D&D. IMO, it's the latter that are getting all up in arms about what are essentially minor changes to the minutia and esoterica of D&Diana that we've been previewed so far. I can't imagine that that's a really big percentage of the total market. Then we have the guys who are so old skool in their tastes that they just play OSRIC, AD&D 1e or C&C instead of D&D at all.

If you mean the first group, however, then yeah---I think Orcus has it right, and it looks like this game is as catered towards their grognardy playstyle as much as anyones. Probably taking some serious steps at trying to recruit the third group as well.

Honestly, the think the second group can probably be written off as unlikely to be happy with anything you do---but will end up buying it anyway.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Well, you know and have rejected my speculation on that question. I don't have an answer then either I guess.

I'm inclined to agree with Clark here - and the reason is that the worst thing that could happen from WoTC'S POV is for the D&D world to get divided. The best way to avoid this is to co-opt their biggest threats: Paizo, Necromancer, and Green Ronin. How do they co-opt them? By getting them to support 4E with product.

How do they shoot themselves in the foot? By waiting too long, and forcing Clark, Erik, and Chris to go with a SRD-'d 3.75.

If they went with your theory, they'd be guaranteeing themselves a strong, competent competition.

 

[catsclaw227]

It's hard to say because there's a part of the process I can't assess until I see the rules. To do quality product, I and my team need to absorb the new rules and begin to master them. I don't want to put out any half-ass 4E stuff, you know? How long that takes depends on how different the rules are from previous editions. Right now they are looking pretty different, which means we'll want a least a couple of months to chew them over, playtest, and see how the work.

BTW, Chris, thanks for following up on my question. I missed it the first time around. I dig Pirate's Guide and the Freeport Trilogy were the first three 3.0 adventures I DMed. There are some seriously fond memories of these games.

I trust you guys will get it right. (just try to do it quickly! )