Why do YOU want a new edition

[Moggthegob]

So far I havn't heard anything that I don't like about 4e. I'm not a fanboy, just a lot of the changes have been a long time coming.

-Faster, streamlined play. High level should play just as fast/smooth as low level.

-Quicker DM prep time. IMHO relying on a program to stat out NPCs because doing it on paper is too long is a design flaw.

- Players requiring X amount of magic items to survive was/is too fine of a line to tread. what's too much? What's too little?

I know they say these things but will they come true. I can point odozens of threadso nthe boards right now pointing out things designed to streamline gameplay that apparentall stifled it( THAC0 if I recall being one of them)

 

[Mouseferatu]

See I dont like maneuvers, at least how written most of the time because they dont seem realistic

Some of them don't. Some of them, however, have nothing supernatural about them.

And anyway, we're talking about Bo9S. We haven't seen what maneuvers look like in 4E.

and, if i recall dont use anything more than a swift action.

You recall improperly. Many of them only work as a standard action.

Plus Bo9s took a look at the core rules and said lets find a thousand ways to mess with them

Not my experience. But even if true, you're talking about an experimental add-on to an existing rules set. In 4E, they're built in from the beginning, so they're hardly going to mess with the core rules, are they?

and for flavor regarding how you hit, there is no mechanic in the world that can top roleplaying.

Good thing 4E isn't getting rid of roleplaying, then. Maneuvers, like spells, give the PCs more options for what they can do, but there's no reason at all they should prevent roleplaying. I know they certainly never did in any games I was in.

 

[Gundark]

So far people who complain about 4e seem to fall into 4 categories (yes I know is this gross generalization...but hey here goes anyhow)

1- mostly players. 3e was a game for players, not for DMs.

2- They bought a ton of books. Where you expecting 4e to never come?

3- Passive DMs. Passive isn't the word I'm wanting...I just can't think of another word right now. Anyhow the DMs who aren't concerned about the mechanics. DMs who don't worry about if the stats are done right or stuff.

4- the walking dictionaries/number crunchers- the ones who can actually remember off the top of their heads how many hit dice to give a magical beast to up their CR by 3.

 

[Moggthegob]

ok Well, I suppose Ill give it a shot and just hope that whats designed as a sleek new ride doesnt clunk more than my old reliable beast in practice.

 

[psionotic]

I'm not sure whether or not 4e will address my problems with 3.x in ways that I'll love, but I'm very happy that the problems I see with the game do seem to be the same problems the designers have with it.

1) High level combat is cumbersome, slow, and all too often boring and anticlimatic. It shouldn't take me 20 minutes to run a complete round when DMing above level 15 or so, but it always does.

2) I dislike any rule subsystem that forces a book look-up. Turning Undead and Grappling are good examples. AoO's are really nice in theory, and while I no longer have to look them up, teaching new players the ins and outs of them is a nightmare, from my experience.

3) The current combat system, I believe, actively discourages combat roleplaying, something I'm hoping a maneuver based system will actually facilitate. ("I swing 4 times" isn't very interesting or dramatic. I don't want Dragonball Z style zaniness, but I do want my heroic, dramatic action.)

4) I really really really dislike the fact that D&D parties in the current system so often fall into patterns of "8 hours of sleep, 15 minutes of adventuring!" Rinse, repeat, bore. While resource conservation is interesting and SHOULD be part of the game, wizards and clerics should be able to do something useful once they're out of the goodies, even if that something is on the weak side.

 

[M.L. Martin]

What Mouseferatu said, plus the getting rid of some assumptions I didn't care for that were designed into the core of 3E and require rebuilding from the ground up to get rid of, such as the idea of encouraging system mastery by including 'sucker's choices' in the character building options.

I tell you, the day Mike Mearls posted on Bruce Baugh's livejournal that D&D R&D had abandoned that idea in favor of trying to make all concepts viable was the day I started looking forward to 4E.

 

[Moggthegob]

So far people who complain about 4e seem to fall into 4 categories (yes I know is this gross generalization...but hey here goes anyhow)

1- mostly players. 3e was a game for players, not for DMs.

2- They bought a ton of books. Where you expecting 4e to never come?

3- Passive DMs. Passive isn't the word I'm wanting...I just can't think of another word right now. Anyhow the DMs who aren't concerned about the mechanics. DMs who don't worry about if the stats are done right or stuff.

4- the walking dictionaries/number crunchers- the ones who can actually remember off the top of their heads how many hit dice to give a magical beast to up their CR by 3.

I dont hate it for any of those reasons except I dont feel I ve gotten my investments worth yet for no.2. I suppose its just i know this system intimateley(I could tell you exactly how turning works,including which numbers mean what, and exactly how grappling and tripping and disarming work.) and how to work it and it took me several years to do so as it did with earlier editions and in Fact games in general including the much heralded M&M. I am afraid that the new system will cause as much trouble its trying to fix and mostly just cant convince myself that starting over is worth it.

Can I be a 5th category?

That said I will give it a chance and hope or the best.

 

[Aeric]

Why a new edition?

I want a new edition because the 3.5 ruleset is too complicated and burdensome for my tastes or the tastes of most of the people I play with. There are some things I love about 3.5 and some things I hate. My hope is that 4th edition will fix the things I hate and leave the things I love alone.

Why no gnomes?

For several reasons.

Reason #1) Gnomes lack a niche of their own. Want a short race? Play a halfling. Want a subterreanan race? Play a dwarf. Want a magic-using race that lives in harmony with nature? Play an elf. So many people complain about the gnomish tinker from Dragonlance, but at least that was a niche no other race filled.

Reason #2) Never in my 15+ years of playing D&D have I ever seen anyone play a gnome that wasn't intended* as a comic relief character. Ever. It doesn't help that they are described as pranksters and practical jokers, or that their names universally sound goofy, or that every single illustration of a gnome looks ridiculous. Even Gimble, the coolest-looking gnome in any D&D book I've ever seen, still looks silly to me. And he manages that without even looking like a gnome in the first place (please see my avatar for more details).

All of this is like a blank check to those players who get their kicks from irritating the rest of the party. Why would I want to encourage people to be disruptive?

*(I say intended because for the most part, these characters are highly irritating, not funny.)

Why simplification?

Because 3.5 is overburdened with rules that are essential to gameplay: class skills vs. cross-class skills, grappling, turning undead, status effects, energy types, size modifiers, types of modifiers, etc.

What's your reason for pining for a new edition of the game we all know and love?

It's because I love the game that I want a new edition. I want it to grow, to be even better than it is now.

Also, is the want for a new edition greater than the fear of a dud?

If 4e is worse than 3.5, then we still have 3.5 (or some other system). If 4e is better then 3.5, then we've got a better game. It's a win-win situation!

EDIT: Also, do you feel the new edition will address the reason you want a new edition?

I like a lot of what I see so far, but I know it won't be a perfect game. I'm looking foward to the new edition to see what they fixed, how they fixed it, and what I'll have to fix myself.

 

[KarinsDad]

Because after 30 years of DMing, I still had to pull out the PHB 3 times this evening to look stuff up.

 

[zoroaster100]

I welcome a new edition for two reasons:

1) Mid- to high- level play in third edition got too cumbersome, with too much math and record keeping, and buffing sessions that lasted the first hour of the game session, etc. I hope fourth edition will solve that problem with an elegant solution.
2) I already have enough 3.5 edition supplements and adventures to last me a couple of years or more, so if fourth edition is screwed up, I can still play 3.5.

That's not to say I'm not a bit nervous that WOTC might screw up the design of fourth edition. My biggest fear is that it won't see enough playtesting and that the designers will run out of time before their announced self-imposed deadline to publish the new edition and turn out something that is flawed even if they realize it's flawed.

But from WOTC's announcements and blogs, I can tell their design goals are what they should be in my opinion. So the only question is whether they will be able to pull off what they are trying for. At least they are focused on the right issues.