Some interesting news about 4th edition

[Umbran]

Please note: this is NOT just another "4e rumor". I've known this FLGS owner for years now, and his WotC insider friend is a man of honesty and integrity, who was with TSR long before WotC took over.

Unless/until you name names, and can attribute a uote to them, and it is seen that this person is in a position to know what they are talking about, it is still just a rumor. Sorry.

 

[Coredump]

Please note: this is NOT just another "4e rumor". I've known this FLGS owner for years now, and his WotC insider friend is a man of honesty and integrity, who was with TSR long before WotC took over.

Unless/until you name names, and can attribute a uote to them, and it is seen that this person is in a position to know what they are talking about, it is still just a rumor. Sorry.

Y'know... if this really is someone that was with TSR 'long before' they got bought by WoTC, and thus long long before Hasbro... how many of those can there be?

I bet there are folks here that could narrow that list down to like 5 names.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Unless/until you name names, and can attribute a uote to them, and it is seen that this person is in a position to know what they are talking about, it is still just a rumor. Sorry.

Well, I heard from a guy in the pub the other day that 4th edition won't even be available in print - they have decided to go straight PDF through DriveThru... and you can always trust what you hear from a guy at the pub! This is not just a rumor!*

The Auld Grump

*This is true, the above statement is not just a rumor, it is a bald faced lie...

 

[village6]

My FLGS owner, who is a close friend of mine, was told by a source at WotC that 4th edition will be integrated with Magic: the Gathering. He was vague on *how* this would be done, as 4th edition is still very much in the preliminary stages. But the terms "feat cards", "spell cards" and "power boost cards" (?) were used.

In spite of the abuse that you are already taking on this thread, I'll chime in and point out that WotC is already using this model, having tested it for some years now with their RPGA campaigns, specifically Green Regent and Eberron. They have done quarterly releases of special 'action' and 'item' cards for these two campaigns as rewards to RPGA players who play lots of their games. Their finding has been that the cards are marvelously popular among the "I want kewl powerz" demographic, and they found players in other of their RPGA campaigns asking/urging/bitching for the cards to be globally useable. So, they capitulated, and I'm quite sure that marketing has realized that anything so popular (yes, they are sold on Ebay for sometimes significant $$) can be sold for profit.

So, for the naysayers, WotC is already using a variation on this theme, to (what they define as) great success. I can't say that Cowpie Zombie's source is right, but I can't say that they're wrong either. If I was a betting man, current and recent WotC trends would lead me to put my money on a 'collectible D&D' variant.

Be seeing you...
- 6

 

[SWBaxter]

If this rumor is true, its final implementation would rely on math. On whether or not the inclusion of collectible card elements would increase the overall number of players.

Wrong math. Hasbro (and by extension WOTC) will be looking at whether it brings in more dollars, not necessarily more players. If they decide that aiming for more players is impractical for whatever reason, then they'll happily soak what players they do have for as much as they can.

 

[Mighty Halfling]

If it is true, I would hope it would be an optional rule to use the cards.
Unless the D&D mechanic changes completely, I can't imagine how one would use random cards for things like feats and spells, even if you held five or six in your hand that you could choose from while drawing off the deck.
If however there were different decks for each character class and different decks for each monster type that might work. I don't think it would be as much fun, but it might work.
Overall, such randomness would really annoy me if I was the Dungeon master.

 

[Rasyr]

Wrong math. Hasbro (and by extension WOTC) will be looking at whether it brings in more dollars, not necessarily more players. If they decide that aiming for more players is impractical for whatever reason, then they'll happily soak what players they do have for as much as they can.

Well, with a collectible business model, more players does often equate to more dollars in the long run, and it was what I meant, even though I did not phrase it properly.

 

[Mordane76]

*The following is pure speculation/whimsy on my part, and should be read with this in mind*

I didn't hear this from anyone, but just reading through all this it came to me as a logical possibility:


If Wizards wanted to "build on the success of M:tG" without alienating either market, and possibly drawing people from the CCG to the RPG, why not turn one of the expansion set worlds from M:tG into a setting for D&D? Doesn't alienate either market, possibly crosses people in both directions (new setting for RPGers possibly sparks interest in M:tG and CCG players who've played the setting take another look at RPG), and only costs Wizards the time and money required to flesh out an already skeletonized setting unlike trying to build one from scratch. They release the new setting at the same time as 4E, so now you have two immediate world options for 4E right out of the gate: Greyhawk and M:tG expansion world.


Even given this scenario, 4E will still likely be several years into the future, and with no guarantee that the OGL would remain in effect for 4E, it might be in WotC's interest to prime a setting for an edition that would pare out the third party producers.

 

[Rasyr]

If it is true, I would hope it would be an optional rule to use the cards.
Unless the D&D mechanic changes completely, I can't imagine how one would use random cards for things like feats and spells, even if you held five or six in your hand that you could choose from while drawing off the deck.
If however there were different decks for each character class and different decks for each monster type that might work. I don't think it would be as much fun, but it might work.
Overall, such randomness would really annoy me if I was the Dungeon master.

Read the couple of comments already listed about how cards are being used in the rpga.

You seem to be thinking along the lines of it would work like a game of MtG. It wouldn't (if wotc went this direction), it would be more likely to be something along the lines building your character using various collectible cards (a mix-n-match system?), and then playing that character in something that approximates normal play. Thus to get more powerful characters you have to buy more booster packs....

The randomness would be in the purchase, not in the actual use, I would think.

 

[WizarDru]

So, they capitulated, and I'm quite sure that marketing has realized that anything so popular (yes, they are sold on Ebay for sometimes significant $$) can be sold for profit.

So, for the naysayers, WotC is already using a variation on this theme, to (what they define as) great success.

Let's be clear here: the cards you're referring to are essentially the same as the long-standing certs from years gone past: they're just sexed-up and specific to certain RPGA campaign paths (such as getting the ability to take a free action without an AoO or picking one feat or power from Magic of Incarnum, if it's on an approved list). I checked e-bay, and $1 - 2.00 per card isn't exactly a rich bounty. Consider also that those cards aren't among the general D&D public, but instead the RPGA, which represents thousands, not millions of players.

Maybe some of us would be less skeptical of this if it didn't contradict established WotC intent, wasn't an anonymous reference of a 'friend of a friend' story and wasn't brought up every other week. Heck, wasn't this an April Fools news item earlier this year? Is this some odd 'Mischief Night' posting?