D&D 4E Why has 4E become the D&D zeitgeist?

[Wanderer20]

4E, *IF* it ever happens, will be the same thing 3E was. A new game that in no way negates the old one or can lessen your enjoyment of it.

That's in some way right. I cannot be hurted by the birth of new editions as long as I don't spend any penny buying them

 

[Nifft]

my great fear is that 4e will actually be better.

That's a good kind of fear.

IMHO, the two things 3.5e did wrong were:
1/ Not be different enough; and
2/ Arrive too soon.

Why do I say those are problems? Because lots of people are still playing 3.0e.

- - -

With the SRD on-line for free, I just don't see how a the current new rule set can be hated for being expensive. I seriously use d20srd.org for monsters more than all my other monster books combined, because it's so damn easy.

I hope WotC keeps the free SRD model.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Nifft]

That's in some way right. I cannot be hurted by the birth of new editions as long as I don't spend any penny buying them

You can in terms of opportunity. Once 4e comes out, I probably won't be writing free prestige classes for 3.5e. (Of course, by the time 4e comes out, all possible prestige classes for 3.5e may have already been written... )

But that's not necessarily harmed, it's more like hampered.

Cheers, -- N

 

[diaglo]

So there was definitely speculation about new editions back in the day.

yes. in The Dragon there was speculation about 1edADnD release.
in Dragon there was speculation about 2edADnD release

on Eric Noah's board there was speculation about the newer edition.

 

[Desdichado]

As much fun as editions warz can be, I'm just going to have to agree to disagree. 3e had some very rough patches that were fixed by 3.5 IMO. Spells, the slaughter of a few more sacred cows, and, truthfully, putting a bullet in the release of so many crap d20 products by 3rd party publishers.

Sure, it was driven by profits. But, it also resulted in a better game as well. Personally, it wouldn't faze me too much to release backward compatable PHB's and DMG's every 3 or 4 years that incorporate material that has been released.

It would certainly phase me. I still haven't fully adapted to 3.5 because I can't see the point of buying all these new books when I still have so many that I haven't had the chance of using much. 3.5 may have fixed a few rough patches, but it botched just as many things that were working fine in 3e already, and made a mountain of changes that were neither good, bad nor indifferent, but just mean that suddenly you didn't know what the rules were anymore because of these meaningless changes.

3.5 is the scourge of the current edition of the game. If you have a few bad spells, you release errata, not some half-assed sorta but not quite all new edition of the game that's clearly just done as an attempt to spike sales for the quarter.

4e, however, I might actually be interested in. If some of these Saga Edition Star Wars previews are also previews of what 4e might be like.

But yeah; don't even get me started on the idea of having three editions of d20 Star Wars over the course of 5-6 years.

 

[BluSponge]

I didn't game during the 1E days, but I highly doubt that they spent their time worrying about 2E before it'd been announced. I was a player in the 2E days, and the playtest groups notwithstanding, 3E wasn't even a thought before it was announced in 1999.

That's not entirely accurate. Actually, when WotC bought up TSR there was a great deal of clamour on TSR's AOL community about the possibility of a third edition. The general concensus was about the same as it is with 4th: do it and I'll never spend a penny on D&D ever again. You can see how well that plan worked out.

Tom

 

[Azgulor]

I have no idea why so many are caught up in the 4E speculation. I also fail to understand the meaningless speculation ad nauseum - esp. since this board contains a lot of poeple who are anti-WotC (at least right now). Since I play OGL fantasy and d20 Modern games over core D&D, I have zero interest in 4E or the incessant speculation.

Looking at the entire bookcase full of OGL, d20, & 3E/3.5E books I own, there is also zero chance of me making the jump to a 4E. There's no way I could justify the expense with my existing books being perfectly fine and suiting my and my players' needs.

Azgulor

 

[Warbringer]

Why... high bandwidth intrawebby...

Wait until the 5e rumors start....your avatar will have a heart attack!

 

[dcas]

yes. in The Dragon there was speculation about 1edADnD release.
in Dragon there was speculation about 2edADnD release

on Eric Noah's board there was speculation about the newer edition.

But before it was announced?

Historically it seems that new editions come out about 3-4 years after a revision. For example, 2e came out in 1989, 4 years after 1e was revised with Unearthed Arcana, etc. Third edition came out in 2000, 4 year after 2e was revised with the Player's Option and DM's Options. Since 3e was revised in 2004, it seems reasonable that 4e would be released in 2008 or therabouts. Hence the speculation.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

To be clear, I'm not asking about the pros or cons of 4E; I'm asking why everyone seems to be so obsessed with 4E currently?

They're not. You've simply allowed yourself to be misled into thinking that what you read here online is an accurate sampling of ALL D&D players. Even if the percentage of posters were representational, the percentage of posts blathering about 4E is still NOT representational. In other words, just because a fair number of posters are obsessed with it and start up and bulk up threads talking about it, does NOT mean that everyone is obsessed with it.