D&D 4E Rate your interest in 4e.

[DM_Blake]

I voted 2.

I was initially excited, and the very first announcements looked very promising. I told all my D&D-playing friends about how wonderful 4e looked.

Then we started getting details. Slowly they trickled in.

And now 4e has become an over-simplified, unrealistic morass of nonsense rules designed to ensure that no child is left behind, swirling around a few nuggets of good ideas that I will simply integrate, where possible, into 3e.

When the game designers decided to throw any effort at believability or verisimilitude out the window in favor of kewl powers/exploits whose sole purpose is to give everyone something cool to do every round, regardless of how silly the actual effect/flavor of the cool powers really are, 4e started looking more and more like a parody of RPGs rather than a real RPG.

I imagine that when InuYasha, Naruto Uzumaki, a Tauren Shaman, and Eric Cartman sit down for a RPG, they would most likely settle on D&D 4e first.

Which doesn't exactly make it my cup of tea. Not even close.

 

[Irda Ranger]

A month ago? 10 and steady.

Today? 8

I expect to reach 7 by the end of the month. Keep on the Shadowfell will make or break my remaining interest.

Strangely I have felt the exact same thing. I think all the "best" news for me came closer the beginning (less magical items! bigger sweet spot! new math! simpler stat blocks and DM prep!!) while all the stuff since has been "yeah, that's cool." Plus, some kind of fatigue has set in.

But, I've only done two playtests with partial rules and they were way, way better than 3.5. So I know once I get Keep on the Shadowfell I'll get back to being excited.

The only other thing that's dragging the number down is competition for my attention. I'm really looking forward to a few of this summer's movies and I'm also planning on getting a PS3 when Metal Gear 4 bundle comes out, so D&D has to share mental shelfspace.

 

[Gundark]

I voted 8. Our group is quiting all campaigns and games to jump on to 4e. I don't vote the top as I know from experience that if I look too forward to something I get dissapointed *Coughstarwarsepisode1cough*. 4e appears to be heading in a good direction...that said EVERY game has got it's warts. There are going to be things about 4e that I don't like (and as I have read some previews I can see a possible few areas). My guess (and I hope I'm right) is these areas will be small.....

However I do have a back up game to play if 4e sucks

 

[Shades of Green]

I voted 7; a week ago I might have voted 0. 4E shows promise, but I still have my reservations about it, both in terms of flavor and feel and in terms of rules and gameplay. I have to see more of it - probably also actual reviews once it'll come out - to decide.

 

[sjmiller]

I'll be perfectly honest and say that I voted a zero. I keep hoping that they will tell me something about this new game they are calling D&D that will interest me. What I have seen so far has not sparked my interest in the least. The more I see of this new game the less D&D I am seeing. To me, and to my gaming group to be honest, this new game is just using the D&D name. It isn't really D&D. So currently I have no interest in this new game. I don't plan on buying it. I still read these forums in a vain hope of finding something about it that I like. So far, it seems to be a lost cause.

 

[katahn]

I'm excited about it and my interest is as high as it can be, so a "9" was the right vote. I've tried running D&D games before, and found that either I or my players end up getting so bogged down in the un-fun details that campaigns never really go anywhere.

I like the idea of balancing classes for combat around certain roles - so the archetypes of defender, controller, leader, and striker make perfect sense to me.

I never liked the idea of restricting role-play based on classes, where having the smooth-talking and knowledgeable fighter was hampered by limited available skill points to reflect those qualities.

I found the idea that arcane magic was the only form of magic affected by wearing armor to be counter-intuitive and wasn't happy with how comparitively powerful divine casters were. Reimagining divine casters based on their combat roles and removing the penalties for arcane casters is very welcome.

I like the idea of feat-based multiclassing to reflect the guy who dabbled a little in something, who can then expect to use that something reasonably effectively throughout his adventuring career.

I like the massive streamlining and debloating of the byzantine 3e combat system, particularly as a DM who will be running games for my wife and our older children as well as family friends.

I like how demons and devils were made distinct, I like the concept of angels as "free-willed servants of the gods" rather than "servants of the good planes/gods".

I like the debloating of the pantheon.

I LOVE being a monster! RAWR!

I like having a way of allowing exotic/unusual player races that doesn't involve the arbitrary and unfairly punative "ECL" system.

Who's my minion? Who's my minion? You are!

I love "save or die" is gone.

They set me up with a gorgeous lair! Do you have a lair? I've got a lair!

I'm intrigued by the idea of the "astral sea" and how that will play into upcoming 4e versions of Spelljammer and Planescape.

I could go on and on, but thus far everything is looking very cool.

 

[Xorn]

I imagine my interest will go up 2 or 3 points once I have the books...but unless 4E jumps the shark as soon as I open the box, my interest won't go much higher than that.

I'm confused, and I think it's because of the phrase you used; I read, "If 4E jumps the shark, then my interest will go up more than 2 or 3 points."

I'm confused because "jumping the shark" is not a good thing.

To 'jump the shark' refers to the episode(s) of Happy Days where the Fonz (wearing his leather jacket) jumps over a shark on waterskis. The phrase basically means an unsuccessful attempt to stir interest in something that has passed its prime.

Jumping the shark for 4E would mean that the game falls flat on its face, unable to rekindle interest in D&D, and marking the beginning of the end of D&D.

 

[Khairn]

3. I've seen some interesting things; some not-so-great things; and a lot of "different but not better or worse" things. There are some things outside 4E itself (the way the GSL is shaping up, my lack of faith in WotC to produce a decent electronic character generator, the fact that I still enjoy and have tons of materials for -- and players for -- 3E) that are weighing heavily against my switching.

Ditto.

I'm a complete "game-aholic" and collecting games is one of my true vices. But WotC has consistently underwhelmed me with their management of 4E's launch and everything that has gone along with it. So much so that it overshadows what might very well be a good (great?) high heroic fantasy RPG.

I would probably be a fan of 4E if it was published by anyone other than WotC.

 

[Surgoshan]

I have seen a lot of post about "pro" and "anti" 4e, but I have the feeling that many people are somewhere in between : like this, dislike that, don't know about something else.

That's probably true, but you're not going to see it on this poll. First because people are more inclined to extremes in response and second because the people who respond to polls voluntarily are the extremes in the population.

The poll already shows a bias to the extremes and that almost certainly won't change.

(9)

 

[Ximenes088]

I went 9, myself. I can't remember the last time I was this interested in an RPG product, and I'm so long-tired by 3.5 that I can't even remember where I put my dice. 4e is giving me a vastly sturdier framework to hang my preferences on than 3.5 ever did. Too many times in 3.5 I'd make a change, see it was unbalanced, and then see the entire mechanism the change was affecting was unbalanced. With the huge number of proof-text powers in core, they're giving me 150 pages of guidelines and sanity checks for my customizations.