Some interesting news about 4th edition

[Umbran]

. I refuse to buy booster packs of spells or feats to play D&D...

Have you ever bought anything beyond the core rulebooks? Anything that has new spells, feats, and such? Then you've bought a "booster pack"

 

[TheLe]

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.

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.

At any rate, I thought I'd share it here. Personally, I'm looking forward to it already!

Nope. Makes no sense. This is a total 180 of what they have been doing for the last 5 years. I don't see it happening.

However, what I could *potentially* see is actually a M:tg campaign setting to go along side Eberron and Faerun.

~Le

 

[wingsandsword]

Have you ever bought anything beyond the core rulebooks? Anything that has new spells, feats, and such? Then you've bought a "booster pack"

No, I bought a suppliment. I could look through the book beforehand, I could browse the contents, and I knew exactly what I was getting. If I was buying a "booster pack" I would be getting a sealed package of rules, only knowing what could be in there, and not knowing what I was spending my money on until I'd already bought it and opened the package.

 

[village6]

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).

Somewhat true. I'm quite sure that many of the item and ability cards were patterned after some of the many certs from the Living City campaign. However, many of the cards give access to special races, classes, etc that are not able to be accessed in any other manner. The important this is that the contents of the cards, whether they be 'new' or 'recycled (LC) living campaign goodies' are only available on and with the cards. These goodies and powers are a limited resource, and therefore are valued by those who give a flip about the campaign(s) in question.

If WotC goes in this direction with 4E (and I'm not saying they will) then my assumption is that the contents of the 'cards' will probably be handled a lot like the contents of the various 'builder' and 'complete' books in 4E.

I checked e-bay, and $1 - 2.00 per card isn't exactly a rich bounty.

$1-$2 per card doesn't appear to be a rich bounty, until it is examined in context. $1 or $2 isn't much, until you compare that to the amount of content in a 'builder' or 'complete' book, and then break out that content as individual cards...multiply it by factor 'x', the number of boosters that you have to buy to get that rare Feat access or Race ability. If a normal book contains 40-60 new Feat/Item/Class/Race options, a case can be made that it might easily be worth imore than the $20-$30 currently charged for a book. From WotC's point of view, their content might be predicted to be worth significantly more in 'collectible card' format.

Consider also that those cards aren't among the general D&D public, but instead the RPGA, which represents thousands, not millions of players.

You are correct that the current model is only targeted at RPGA and its small niche of customers, but WotC views (rightly or wrongly) that RPGA niche as a slice of the gamer demographic whose behaviors are indicative of the market as a whole. In their mind, collectible card-based goodies and powers have already been proven to work.

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?

I'm not endorsing, in truth or principle, the idea of collectible D&D in any form. I'm simply offering up what I know of experiences that WotC views as marketing data. The initial poo-pooing and disbelief over this idea was not merited, as it has already been tried and 'proven' in WotC's R&D 'lab'. I'm skeptical too, just not as much so as most on this thread, as I've seen it in action.

Just because someone posts something on an April Fool's thread doesn't mean that it isn't and can never be true. No more so than posting it as a 'rumor' automatically makes it true.

 

[kenobi65]

$1-$2 per card doesn't appear to be a rich bounty, until it is examined in context.

Most of the Player Reward cards are only applicable to one RPGA campaign (the original sets were for Legacy of the Green Regent; the more current sets are for Mark of Heroes)...and cards that are only useful in those campaigns are the ones that typically only go for $1 or 2 on eBay (if they sell at all).

However...some of the cards are allowed for use in other RPGA campaigns, as well, such as Living Greyhawk. *Those* tend to sell for considerably more (sometimes $10 or more, depending on how "good" the card is).

 

[Thunderfoot]

Why? Personally, I think it's a fantastic idea, and I'm looking forward to seeing how they implement it. The 800 lb. gorilla of the CCG business and the 800 lb. gorilla of the RPG business . . . combined, should <SNIP>.

Create a 1600 lb pile of cow plop!!!!!
M:TG sucks wind and would be the final straw for me if WotC were ill advised to make that move.

 

[Goblyn]

Just because you think it is a stupid idea, does not mean somebody else disagrees with you...

Regardless of whether you think it's a stupid idea, someone else disagrees with you.

 

[BlueBlackRed]

The role-playing card game has been tried already; Dragonstorm.
It made it to one expansion before it died.
Not a bad game, but showed up during a time when it was just another CCG vying for our gamer money.

 

[Andor]

Darn, and here I thought I'd get to be the first to mention Dragon Storm. Oh well, the fact that it got to page 4 of this thread before cropping up tells you something. Although according to the website it doesn't look quite dead. And I think I saw Susan doing some more demos recently.

Having played a couple of demos, I can say that I thought it was fun, and seemed like a good model for a beer and pretzels style pickup game. But as a long term campaign? Where you want to be able to sculpt your PC exactly? Nope. It does however make a pretty good introductory RPG. The rules are simple and right on the cards in front of you. Everything has nice graphics to help get you into the game. Putting a character together out of a pile of cards with the rest of your party is a good team building bit, and it plays very quickly.

There is also a CCG that uses simplified DnD mechanics in it's play. Warlord by AEG. I don't know how well it's doing though.

And yes it seems like a total troll, and I can't imagine WotC trying it. It would fail. Badly.