Should 4th ed be point and level based?

[Jim Hague]

Vigilance,

Just as a point of fact (insofar as facts can be applied here) - if sales figures are any indication, then you're dead wrong. White Wolf and SJG both come in consistently at #2 and #3 for their game sales, which comprise a good 40-60% of the remaining game market behind WotC for D&D. Both are point-based systems. While D&D has the majority (and likely will for quite some time), dismissing those who prefer point buy is misinformed at best.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Vigilance,

Just as a point of fact (insofar as facts can be applied here) - if sales figures are any indication, then you're dead wrong. White Wolf and SJG both come in consistently at #2 and #3 for their game sales, which comprise a good 40-60% of the remaining game market behind WotC for D&D. Both are point-based systems. While D&D has the majority (and likely will for quite some time), dismissing those who prefer point buy is misinformed at best.

Well, I think we're kidding ourself that if 4th ed comes out with the official brand and it does use some type of point system that it will all of the sudden fail and some other Heartbreaker system will come in. The market goes with D&D.

 

[tetsujin28]

Would D&D be better off using levels as a tool in terms of how many feats, hit points and skills you can have, and using points to buy those things?

I'm starting to think so....

Yep. I'm also in favour of ditching classes, and being given a balanced toolkit from which to buy feats, class abilities, &c. But I'm pretty happy with the way the game works right now.

 

[MerricB]

Well, I think we're kidding ourself that if 4th ed comes out with the official brand and it does use some type of point system that it will all of the sudden fail and some other Heartbreaker system will come in. The market goes with D&D.

That's a very bad assumption. D&D can easily lose its player base.

Cheers!

 

[JoeGKushner]

Yep. I'm also in favour of ditching classes, and being given a balanced toolkit from which to buy feats, class abilities, &c. But I'm pretty happy with the way the game works right now.

Well, since this is the interent and people can't read my mind, I'm very happy with the way 3.5 is and where it's going. I really enjoyed Magic of Incarnum and find that three have been some great game mechanics snuck into the system. I'm hoping that the Player's Handbook II blows my mind away and hope that we get another book like Unearthed Arcana, maybe a Skills and Powers book or something along those lines.

However, I think that if all the mechanics were in place, WoTC could focus on the fluff or details of the setting and using that new system to showcase how much it can handle instead of all these new little mechanics that keep sneaking into the system like Planar Touchstones, unique schools of magic that require feats, substutition levels, bloodlines, and other coolness.

It would also allow the GM, if given the proper tools, to run a swords & sorcery type game out of the box instead of needing Black Company, Iron Heroes, Conan, Grim Tales, Dark Legacies and other low powered books by letting the GM decide what the focus was on.

 

[Jim Hague]

Well, I think we're kidding ourself that if 4th ed comes out with the official brand and it does use some type of point system that it will all of the sudden fail and some other Heartbreaker system will come in. The market goes with D&D.

Oh, no disagreement there. Just putting a few facts to the light, as it were. Personally, I don't care one way or the other, and won't until 4e comes out, if it ever does.

 

[Warbringer]

That's a very bad assumption. D&D can easily lose its player base.

Unlikely. I don't know if you recall the chicken little responses for 3e when some deatils began to leak out.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Unlikely. I don't know if you recall the chicken little responses for 3e when some deatils began to leak out.

They're getting rid of Thaco? Are they mad? I just learned it and thank god! It's so much easier than those stupid combat matrixes!

And good lord, they're still not adding the assassin as a core class? And what's this nonsense about skills? What's rong with non-weapon proficiencies?

 

[JoeGKushner]

That's a very bad assumption. D&D can easily lose its player base.

Cheers!

Well, it's my assumption ot make. that's the benefit of ramblings on the internet.

However, I think that if D&D was really going to lose it's player base, it would've happened at 3.5.

and let's assume that most of the players were lost. Is it at all possible that there would be players who liked the system and came in? That's kind of Games Workshop's strategy with their miniature games no? Not relying on the die hards but on new blood? Don't know if that would work for D&D players though.

 

[Umbran]

However, I think that if D&D was really going to lose it's player base, it would've happened at 3.5.

Perhaps it depends upon our definitions of "easily". I think that if the next edition of D&D is crappy, it will lose it's player base.

Let's face it, it is that easy. If the game is comparable to sweaty gym socks or cleaning public restrooms with toothbrushes, the people won't play it. Tradition and "network externalities" will not support the game if it really is bad.

While we had some questions about the wisdom of 3.5 in a marketing sense, the overall design of the system remained basically sound, and basically the same...