What would it take for 4E to win over the old guard? (Forked Thread: Changeover Poll)

[Zephrin the Lost]

I'll be 40 next year and have been playing since 7th grade. My first decade and a half I took a 'rules-light' approach, even letting other players make up my characters for me during the skills and powers era. Come 3e I made an effort to master the rules and had a very clear picture of them by the end. The result is that even before 4e there were a long list of things in 3e I didn't like as a player or a DM. When 4e arrived, it had gotten rid of nearly all of them. I was among the early adopters in my group but we all play 4e now, and are enjoying it. I'm also the youngest in the group, so we're pretty old gaurd.

-Z

 

[Wisdom Penalty]

...but the content of the product line is way too sparse for my tastes. I expect my official D&D books to be a good value, packed with info.

I just would like to say that David the Mage and I, for once, agree.

Bring on the Apocalypse!

The WP

P.S. My group's age range is from 33 - 43 yrs old, not including me (too old) and our whippersnapper (age 26). Some of us have played together since '83. We switched to 4e, and we're having a hell of a lot of fun. To each his own.

 

[Khairn]

Hopefully the 2nd round of core books will help with this. If not, maybe a revised GSL will allow a 3rd party publisher to create such a thing.

I voted for the 3rd option, as I felt that with enough changes (improvements ?), that 4E is a system that I could adopt. I'm appreciating certain aspects of the game more and more, as I delve into it. But I need to add a caveat to my choice.

Compared against what I believe was their customers expectations, the initial 4E PHB was deliberately designed to be incomplete and require the purchase of both DDI and additional PHB's. That decision goes hand in hand with the "everything is core" mantra that WotC has adopted and is trying to push down into their customer base. I can certainly understand the reasons for doing this from a business perspective, but from a players perspective it rubs me the wrong way.

Over the years I purchased many of the 3E splat and expansion books. I made the decision to expand the scope of my game and use optional rules based on the usefulness or improvements they brought to my game. But that is not a decision I can make with 4E.

If I am going to adopt 4E, WotC's marketing / design plan to require the purchase of additional PHB's just to fill a baseline number of character roles and power sources would have to be changed. If Martial, Divine and Arcane are the starting Power Sources, why shouldn't we have expected and received 12 character classes in the PHB ? (3 Sources x 4 Roles) That would have given players a complete game to start with.

I do not want to buy an incomplete game, which is what 4E is if you don't buy the DDI and the new PHB. Unfortunately this particular horse has already left the gate and I can't see WotC publishing a "Complete PHB" anytime soon.

Sorry about the rant, but its early in the morning and I haven't had my coffee yet.

 

[kenmarable]

It depends on what you by "win over".

"Get me to play it" - Well, I'm already there (at least going to give it a try soon), but all of the other classic material would have been nice.

"Get me to playing 4e exclusively and convert both my groups to it" - I don't see that happening. One of my groups is going to give 4e a try since it seems more pick-up-and-play-quickly friendly which appeals to them, whereas the other group isn't even considering it since they really dislike a lot of the changes and enjoy the "mastery" aspect others have mentioned about 3.5. Plus as a member of that group, I don't want to convert either. I have far, far too much 3.5 material I want to use and explore not to mention that although I'm coming around to accepting that 4e might be a fun game, 3.5 is pretty darn close to my ideal vision of D&D and is my favorite edition I've ever played (started with Red Box).

"Get me to buy as many WotC books as I bought in 3.x" - Again, I don't see this happening because for one thing, I can't afford it, but even so, I'm planning on my 4e purchases being the core rules and a DDI subscription. I greatly dislike the setting changes so far, and have so much setting material from 3.x anyway, that all I really need are the rules, which DDI can get me enough of. Back in 3.x I was a self-described "WotC Whore" and bought 95% of the books they produced. Since 4e's launch, I haven't spent a dime on WotC, and even if I keep playing 4e, I can't see spending as much as I used to given how much great 3.x material I still have and can use.

 

[jensun]

Compared against what I believe was their customers expectations, the initial 4E PHB was deliberately designed to be incomplete and require the purchase of both DDI and additional PHB's.

This is simply not true. We have played through the entire Heroic tier to date using just the core books without any problems whatsoever. I could quite easily run a game to 30 using nothing but the core books.

If Martial, Divine and Arcane are the starting Power Sources, why shouldn't we have expected and received 12 character classes in the PHB ? (3 Sources x 4 Roles) That would have given players a complete game to start with.

Because each class (excepting spellcasters) now requires a much larger page count to provide all of the information you need to play it.

 

[Thistonius]

I think the questions in this poll are very biased to a 3E approach.

I would, by what I've read on here and WOTC, old guard since I started playing D&D early eighties when it was AD&D. Currently my group and I play 4E and we are loving it, even though we have some 3E hardcore players in there as well, and we are all aged 35+

Maybe you should add another poll result there saying 'You play what you want for fun and not game mechanics' and you will probably see a lot more people voting for that one.

 

[Khairn]

This is simply not true. We have played through the entire Heroic tier to date using just the core books without any problems whatsoever. I could quite easily run a game to 30 using nothing but the core books.

Because each class (excepting spellcasters) now requires a much larger page count to provide all of the information you need to play it.

Unfortunately we'll just have to disagree on this.

Given the importance of roles & balance with 4E, providing only a single Controller Class seems pretty indicative of an incomplete mix of classes. And given the amount of white space and the larger font size used in the PHB, I believe that any competent type setter / graphic designers, could have found enough room for an additional class, if "completeness" was a goal for the PHB.

Just my opinion in answer to the OP.

 

[drothgery]

I kind of expect a lot of people to move to 4e over time no matter what happens. More casual players aren't all that strongly wedded to one edition, and it's almost inevitable that eventually something will come out for 4e that convinces most DMs to try it -- and some portion of those will like it.

Also, more long-running 3.x campaigns that were in progress when 4e launched wrap up every month. My tabletop group didn't move to 4e right away -- and probably won't before I move -- because we were in the middle of a 3.5 game and had some long-running games outstanding that needed to wrap up (we still have one). But I'd be shocked if the next all-new D&D campaign they start isn't 4e.

 

[FourthBear]

I've been playing since 1979 or so and have many fond memories of the boxed sets, 1e, 2e, 3e and 3.5e. I've been playing for the past 10 years or so with a group of older gamers, most with experience back to at least 2e. During the release of 3e, a couple of our Old Guard hated it with a passion and made all the usual complaints about power creep, video game influence and attempts to appeal to a younger generation. Since I'm the primary DM, I introduced a new campaign using 3e (with significant grumbling) and we've had a lot of fun with it (although a couple of them are still fond of 1e and 2e, not enough to DM their own games yet). Oddly, one of the primary 2e Old Guard who disliked 3e so much has really been taken with 4e and even has started DMing with it (a complete surprise to me). He noted that while he enjoyed playing 3e, he didn't like the idea of DMing it. He's had a lot of fun DMing 4e.

As for myself, I was a big proponent of 3e when it first came out and still believe it to have numerous excellent design decisions and changes. However, when Mearls came out with his list of design goals for 4e, I agreed with every single one. So I'm very much one of the greying haired Old Guard who has enthusiastically adopted 4e.

As to what WotC could do to entice fans of previous editions who do not like 4e? Perhaps release some older, classic campaigns, like the upcoming Giants series, for 4e. Like many have said before and on this thread, it's unlikely that those who have already looked at it and made up their minds will change them readily. Especially if that change would involve purchase of additional books. I think that it would best for WotC to simply concentrate on releasing the best 4e books that it can. People can decide for themselves whether it's worth playing on their own. I don't think there's much they can do to lure reticent buyers over that isn't also appropriate to appeal to new gamers entirely.

 

[billd91]

This is simply not true. We have played through the entire Heroic tier to date using just the core books without any problems whatsoever. I could quite easily run a game to 30 using nothing but the core books.

Depends on whether or not the players expected to be able to play some of the classes that have been around since 1e that were not in 4e's PH1. If they did, then yes, it is true. The PH1 was deliberately designed to be incomplete in favor of putting them into PH2.