What will happen to 4th edition?

[Jer]

Wouldn't this be part of the DMG? At least a tactical combat module should be there. As far as a powers framework goes, I do have my doubts, though

Well I did say in less than 10 years They've said that there will be a set of tactical rules, but I've been going by the assumption that they'd be similar to 3rd with a few tweaks from 4th that use different terminology so that 4e-haters don't get upset when they read them I doubt we'll see the kinds of tweaks that bring back the feel of 4e combat in the DMG.

But I have no hope for a powers framework in the DMG, or any time in the near future. I mean, there are bits and pieces of the powers framework throughout the 5e classes, so it's there in that sense. If they actually get to the level of re-writing certain class features to function differently if you're using the tactical rules in the DMG I'll be surprised.

 

[M.L. Martin]

I wonder if, some time after 5E is released (MM and DMG are still to come, don't forget), we might see a brief resurgence of interest in 4E from a small section of the fanbase?

For all of its faults, both legitimate and perceived, 4E handled a lot of the balance problems of all the pre-4E editions, and the utterly boring combat of AD&D, both of which are back in what we have seen of 5E so far. Maybe there will be a mini-renaissance?

(Yeah, yeah; this is just wishful thinking on my part. )

Best case scenario: 5E is a good game, but it doesn't fill the same niche as 4E, so a lot of people give 4E another look if 5E begins to get stale for them or it turns out it doesn't do what they want. Eventually, the broad distribution of the books and the 'legacy' DDI and GSL turn out to provide a small but vibrant 4E fanbase. Most of the vitriol vanishes as gamers who prefer Pathfinder, OSR games or 5E focus more on what's fun for them than on tearing down a game that's no longer seen as blocking their own preferred forms of D&D.

Worst case scenario: Nasty elements of the OSR, Pathfinder and 5E fanbases unite to shout down any discussion of 4E and run off anyone who favors it. WotC closes up DDI and revokes the GSL, and eventually the game dwindles to a tiny number of holdouts.

 

[Jer]

Worst case scenario: Nasty elements of the OSR, Pathfinder and 5E fanbases unite to shout down any discussion of 4E and run off anyone who favors it.

Eh. I don't think that those fanbases have that kind of power. People who want to play will keep playing regardless of what names unrepresentative members of the Pathfinder/OSR/5th edition fanbases call them (I mean it isn't like I haven't already had to hear how much 4th edition sucks at every con I've been to for the last 7 years. From random strangers. Standing in line for unrelated events. Hasn't change my desire to play the game one bit).

What will hurt more is just that is just the smaller number of people playing 4th edition. Much like the pool of people wanting to play 2nd edition games dried up when 3rd edition came out for a while, the pool of people wanting to play 4th edition games is going to dry up too. Even people who enjoy 4th edition will want to move on to the newest edition - it's a dynamic that has been going on for almost 40 years. It isn't the people who hated 4th edition that will drive down the player base - it's the people who liked it well enough but want to stay current and like 5th well enough too that will drop it.

WotC closes up DDI

I expect this to happen eventually, regardless of what the eventual player pool for 4th edition shakes out to be. So I'm not going to see the closing of DDI as an indicator one way or the other of anything other than eventually it won't make sense for Wizards to keep those servers running. (If they DO keep it going for more than a few years, then that would indicate to me that I've underestimated the number of people who like 4th edition substantially.)

and revokes the GSL,

Revoking the GSL would be a bone-headed move that would cut off their nose to spite their face at this point. Right now they are pursuing a "keep it all in print" strategy via dndclassics.com. The GSL licensees that want to keep printing 4e material do nothing but drive business toward older 4e material.

It "made sense" for Wizards to want to clamp down on the OGL for 4th edition because they were stuck in the old mentality of making money from a new edition by "forcing" an upgrade onto people. I'm pretty sure that their removal of the older PDFs from RPGNow at that time was because of the same mentality - they were trying to force people to buy the new edition by cutting their access off to anything other than the new edition. It failed. Now they're trying something new and if it works they have no reason to actually revoke the GSL. (There might be a reason to not allow new GSL licensees, though - I could see them allowing old licenses to continue but not processing new licensees since they have to pay someone to actually process the licensing requests with the GSL.)

Of course there's nothing to say that they won't pull a boneheaded move that would cut off their nose to spite their face. They're a big company - all it takes is a management shakeup and you end up with someone with a "bold new direction" that leads the whole group right into the stupid. It isn't like they haven't done things like that before (and don't get me started on TSR before them). But that doesn't change the fact that it would be a stupid thing to do. And cancelling it would say more about the overall stupid of WotC management decisions that it does about the health of the 4e game itself.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Best case scenario: 5E is a good game, but it doesn't fill the same niche as 4E, so a lot of people give 4E another look if 5E begins to get stale for them or it turns out it doesn't do what they want. Eventually, the broad distribution of the books and the 'legacy' DDI and GSL turn out to provide a small but vibrant 4E fanbase. Most of the vitriol vanishes as gamers who prefer Pathfinder, OSR games or 5E focus more on what's fun for them than on tearing down a game that's no longer seen as blocking their own preferred forms of D&D. (snip)

One of the reasons I have been posting in the Lost Mine of Phandelver threads and linking to related content on my blog despite having absolutely no interest in 5E is that I am still a D&D fan and I have something in common with DMs from any edition: I run adventures.

When you're actually running adventures you can actually find a lot in common with anyone who is also running adventures regardless of the game or edition and sometimes even regardless of genre. The vitriolic fanbase should, as a matter of reconnecting with its lost humanity (yeah, that's too strongly worded ), learn to engage over what we have in common and not just get riled up by what divides us.

And, let's face it, the existence of another game or edition doesn't block our access to the games we own. Look at the OD&D fans who have been running OD&D for, in some cases, 40+ years with next to know support for most of that time period.

To sum up, I have no interest in 5E but that in no way impacts the fun I am having with 4E or that I expect to have with 13th Age when I get around to that.

(snip) Worst case scenario: Nasty elements of the OSR, Pathfinder and 5E fanbases unite to shout down any discussion of 4E and run off anyone who favors it. WotC closes up DDI and revokes the GSL, and eventually the game dwindles to a tiny number of holdouts.

Honestly, I don't think the GSL is relevant. There was never really a third party 4E publisher critical mass largely because DMs like me weren't interested in anything that wasn't in DDi. Oh, and because the GSL sucked. Or blew chunks. Choose one.

I do think that 4E will be left with a few holdouts. I expect I will be one of them. But what I really do need is a legal way to get the DDi tools offline....

 

[Sunseeker]

Well, Wizards already came into my house and tied me up and forced me to watch them burn my books, so I guess I won't be running it anymore since I have to shell out money for their brand new edition. /kidding folks, just kidding.

I will still use it as my edition of choice for when I run games. I'll probably put more effort into codifying my houserules though.

Beyond that, I don't really care. I suspect this is the same attitude 3.Xers have had since 4E launched who didn't want to go Pathfinder.

 

[Jer]

I will still use it as my edition of choice for when I run games.

This is pretty much where I'm at. Except that it's the "edition of my table's choice" - they're the reason we're really not going to 5th. If they wanted to do it I'd go along with it, since I'll run almost anything other than 1e/2e with no houserules. But since they've been quite vocal about sticking with what we've got, it's going to be our game of choice for the foreseeable future.

I'll probably put more effort into codifying my houserules though.

This too - we've been houseruling the heck since they announced D&D Next (actually since Gamma World blew my table away with the possibilities for the system) - and I should be writing more of them up instead of just keeping vague notes. It's stupid, but having a new edition really makes it feel like I have more freedom to houserule, since I won't ever have to worry about conflicts with new official rules that I might want to use down the road. And any new official rules that come down the pike will have to be houseruled to work with my game anyway - much as I've already determined that backgrounds will be in my next campaign and my table is considering the use of the tool proficiency and advantage/disadvantage mechanics for our current 4e campaign. Maybe that's part of it.

 

[Robyo]

Sorry for the miscommunication. Obviously, Magic the Gathering sells like hotcakes, while D&D is quite niche and limited in potential sales. I didn't mean to say that Wizards relies on sales of D&D, which obviously they don't. I meant the D&D division of WotC... but that point is fairly moot. The D&D division of Wizards didn't publish much for what, like 2 years, while they worked on 5e playtest stuff. I mean, a couple system-agnostic sourcebooks and some sundering modules is all they realeased, as I recall.

I too, would love to see the DDI given away to the community, like as a downloadable program. That would be the ultimate blessing from WotC, and probably make every 4e fan's dream come true, or something. But how likely is that?

5e seems alright, and I've played it a little and will continue to do so, probably. But it's quite a different play-style from 4e and really, there's already a ton of games that can emulate the style that is 5e. I feel like 4th is unique and is much more balanced than other systems, even more than 13th age, which is similar. The tactical element is pretty awesome, if that's what you want. Maybe it's not for every campaign style out there, but it deserves to be supported.

 

[Jer]

I too, would love to see the DDI given away to the community, like as a downloadable program. That would be the ultimate blessing from WotC, and probably make every 4e fan's dream come true, or something. But how likely is that?

Not very likely, I'd think. DDI is a webservice rather than an individual program - it would be hard to distribute it and, even if you did, it would be pointless without the data in the backend.

I think the ultimate blessing from WotC would be if they just OGL'd the 4e rules and monster stats. The community would take care of providing an interface to the material. But I don't think anything like that has a chance to happen. I mean, I'd love to see Wizards get into a pattern where they open up old editions when the new edition has been released as a goodwill gesture, but OGLing content is expensive (have to pay someone to produce an SRD, because there's a lot of content that I'm sure they wouldn't want to accidentally open up like "iconic monsters" and whatnot) and generates nothing for them other than goodwill. Plus that probably messes with their plans for PDF sales of 4e material into the future.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Hmmmmm, I don't mean to be a pessimist, but I think 4e is likely to be the deadest of all dead editions in the history of D&D. Its an outlier and it was never well-accepted. It has basically nothing in the way of a 3rd party group of publishers, and really cannot, given that you practically have to live on the GSL that WotC can revoke at any time now that the game is no longer current. It is also a game that really was only in existence for 5 years in a truly supported form (lets not even joke that WotC has considered 4e an active product at any time in the last 18 months).

So, what we have is a game that is largely OOP, will soon lack electronic support because surely DDI has at best a year or so of life until whomever signed up a year subscription recently cycles out. There's little overall love for it, tools are lacking, etc. There's a small dedicated fan base, but is it even half the size of the current 2e fan base? I mean of people that will actually keep playing it when they could just go play 5e? 3.5e has a fan base, I know LOTS of groups that never stopped playing it. 2e still has a pretty modest number of fans, I know groups that have never stopped playing it. 'OSR' is out there pumping on the old Basics and such, and they were simple games with limited materials. 4e hungers for at the very least a good CB.

I dunno, I think it is set to be the forgotten middle, that thing that you can't get players for. I can see it already. In my current circle I've got one person who absolutely won't even try the game, two that might still play but would rather play 3.5e or 5e, and the few others will play but also don't really care THAT much. I don't see ANY players out there in the real world of people that I meet and game with outside of forums that prefer to keep playing 4e. At best I'll be selling people on my campaign, which I can do as I have a pretty good rep as a DM, but using 4e rules won't be a DRAW.

 

[Steely Dan]

I see New Coke.