Why won't you switch?

[Turjan]

Why won't I switch? Well, it's not a definite decision by far. I haven't seen the final product after all . And, as many have mentioned, I don't really see the need to do so at the moment. I have too much 3.x stuff I still want to use before I abandon a system I'm used to.

My main reasons:

• I don't like the business model. I don't like anything I heard about the DDI, and I don't like the "rolling release" model. At the moment, it looks like 4e will be able to have a long lifetime, but only in the sense as MtG has a long lifetime: each year, you will get a slightly changed ruleset. Tell me that I'm wrong, but that's what it looks like to me. I want to have a longer time of stability.
• As already said, I have too much 3.x stuff I still want to use. I simply don't need a new edition at the moment.
• I didn't like Iron Heroes, and I didn't like the Bo9S. This is also a real dealbreaker. I applaud the attempts to make the job for the DM easier, but I don't like all this additional stuff loaded into the encounters. Wizards may become simpler to run, but everything else looks more complicated. Not my cup of tea.
• Tieflings. OK, this is a weak point. As hong said, I could get rid of the silly horns and tails and still live with the cool background. But I'm adverse to having a huge influence of demons and/or devils on any of my campaigns, at least as a baseline. And with tieflings as core race, this influence will be everywhere. I couldn't care less about this kind of flavor.

I said that the last point is weak, and much of this has to do with the fact that everything I hear about 4e looks a bit like the "Best of 3.x". And I don't only mean "Best of WotC 3.x" but also "Best of 3rd Party OGL". Take those tieflings. The whole idea looks like taken directly from Dawnforge; it was the one central original idea of that setting, at least IMHO. Now it will be core D&D. Or Dragonborn; they looked like WotC's take on the Mojh of Arcana Unearthed, and if they are less connected to Bahamut in 4e, the similarity will be even closer. Both ideas were very well accepted, and here they are. And Warforged were the idea from Eberron that was a hit with the fans.

Maybe, it's not even only "Best of 3.x", but also "Best of AD&D". The jewel that stood out, IMHO, from Birthright was it's take on fey. I often wrote here on EN World that I found those Birthright fey fey done right. And here we are. I was also one of those people who wrote in those "what is the cosmology in your homebrews" threads, and what I heard about 4e so far, it will look pretty close to my homebrew (and those of many other people). And let's add that the ultimate "Points of Light" setting for me is Dark Sun, although this is hardly the only example (see the popular Wilderlands).

Anyway, what I want to say is that I notice that WotC's 4th edition actually seems to fulfill quite a lot of the wishes I had for D&D, and much of it will for some weird reason look closer to my homebrew than anything of 3.x ever looked. Maybe, that's why it makes it even harder for me to swallow the toads that come with the cake.

If this sounded confusing, it was probably because I'm still confused. Let's see how the release version will actually look like. I'm not in a hurry to look at it, though.

 

[Fenes]

Not to be contrary, but would you recommend they use such adjectives as: mediocre, somewhat okay, or the-best-we-could-do? They are in the business of making money, so of course they are going to market the game in such a way as to elicit excitement.

I would like them to use a more sophisticated approach to marketing the game. I can't put it in words very well, but a comparision would be that I am looking to buy a new car, and Audi would try to sell me their latest model on the merits of it having cool colors. I would ask myself what target audience they lump me in with.

Stuff like "more streamlined" "easier to prepare" "more balanced between casters and fighters" "less of a shift between low-, mid- and high-level gameplay" appeals to me. "Cool" "awesome" "Super" etc. simply sound fake to me coming from designers and marketing.

 

[Fenes]

I am not sure they are eliciting excitement with their "so cool much funner" superlatives.
it's ok for a reviewer or an outsider to make those comments, but from designers it just comes off as a lame marketing mantra.

what bugs me and i suspect others, is not the overuse of one word (like some wotc staffers chose to think) it is that what's "cool" is not really theirs to decide. it's like saying "hi, i'm sexy" as anything other than a joke, no matter how hot you are.

they should stick to more objective qualifiers like "we made that a lot faster/ simpler" or even "more likely to attract new gamers" if they must.

Of course, that attitude alone is not a reason for me not to switch, but it surely does not help.

Lutecius said it better than I did.

 

[Fenes]

From the very beginning with the Dragon Disciple to the end in the PHB2's Dragon Shaman, it seemed every year WOTC released a "let's play as a dragon-inspired PC". Now while I'm personally dumbfounded by this appeal, I think it makes sense for WOTC to put Dragonborn into the PHB since quite frankly, dragon-pc ARE popular and not listening to your audience is not something I would advise.

I have exactly one player who plays a PC related to a dragon in any way - and that's a relation as in "my character has about 1/1000th of dragon blood".

I don't know anyone who thinks playing a lizardman, even if called "Dragonborn", is appealing.

 

[AllisterH]

I have exactly one player who plays a PC related to a dragon in any way - and that's a relation as in "my character has about 1/1000th of dragon blood".

I don't know anyone who thinks playing a lizardman, even if called "Dragonborn", is appealing.

I would agree EXCEPT that as I mentioned, it seems like there wasa Half-dragon prestige class/class/template being produced EVERY year. Unless WOTC was producing those things on a whim (and given their business sense, I doubt it), there had to be a LARGE segment of the populace who like "Half-Dragon" pcs.

How many half-orc "things" did we see in 3.0? Hell, how many orc supplements did we get? Someone had to been buying all that Dragon stuff and while it certainly wasn't either of us, I'm guessing we were easily in the minority

re: Marketing
Mearls et al have said things like "we want to make the classes more equal so the wizards have been decreased in power at high levels" yet it pretty much gets ignored.

Statements like "This is a cooler way of doing X" actually seems to get people talking/examing the rule. Statements like "This is how we're doing X now" without any qualifications of being "better/cooler/faster" is poor marketing as well since it doesn't show that the designers have any enthusiasm for their rules.

 

[Fenes]

re: Marketing
Mearls et al have said things like "we want to make the classes more equal so the wizards have been decreased in power at high levels" yet it pretty much gets ignored.

Statements like "This is a cooler way of doing X" actually seems to get people talking/examing the rule. Statements like "This is how we're doing X now" without any qualifications of being "better/cooler/faster" is poor marketing as well since it doesn't show that the designers have any enthusiasm for their rules.

I did not ignore it. I did ignoreanything like "this is a cooler way" statements since they just sound like marketing.

 

[Old Gumphrey]

This:

4) I am entering a period of my life where I would rather invest in good board games than good role playing games.

6) If gnomes aren't cool enough for 4E PHB, I'm not either.

 

[Raven Crowking]

You win, Wolfspider. Innovation is dead.

You know, though, that a few folks simply don't see anything innovative about the 4e previews we've seen so far? And, a few folks see some things being "fixed" that seem to imply that either (1) the designers didn't understand the function of the thing being "fixed" to begin with, or (2) (far more likely) the "fix" is occuring for reasons other than "fixing" things that are broken.

As a really good example: Saving Throws. How often have you has rolling saves slowed down your play to an unbearable grinding halt? I can count the number of times IME on one hand. Even if I cut off the fingers. Even if I cut off the hand.

Tieflings and dragonborn aren't innovative. Per-encounter abilities aren't innovative. WotC could have renamed the Green and Grey Lymbo from my story hour to have gained their new and innovative cosmology.....and believe me, it wasn't new and innovative in my story hour either.

With 3e, we had a team that believed that D&D, to some large degree, must belong to its fans and its players in order to be a living, successful thing. And it was a living, successful thing. Too successful, perhaps, from WotC's viewpoint. It allowed the little birds to leave the nest, and although doing so made WotC money, with each bird that grew on its own the idea surely occurred that the money that bird earned could have been in WotC's coffers. Hence, with 4e, we have a concerted effort to keep those birds in the nest forever.

But here's the rub, IMHO: The reason that those "birds" made money is because the third parties creating them had a very different attitude than WotC had. And, IMHO, the fluff part of 4e is WotC entrenching itself even further in a position that, simply put, sucks for the consumer. There is a reason that Frost & Fur was a better book than Frostburn (IMO, at least), and that is that the writers/producers of the former were free to suggest that the game is a lot more than statblocks and levelling.

WotC is far from the leader of the pack in innovation. Indeed, it is seemingly attempting to make itself the leader by curtailing third party innovation. If anything, those who favour innovation should be avoiding 4e like the plague....until and unless it is released with an actual OGL.

YMMV, of course.


RC

 

[wingsandsword]

Well, the point of change is innovation. Without change, there can be no innovation. Perhaps the game will not substantially reflect prior editions, but why is that a bad thing?

Change for the sake of change is not progress.

Being honest, and a little cynical, I thought the main purpose of this change was so WotC could sell more books by labeling more books as Core and getting the existing D&D player base to subscribe to a monthly web service and buy the books they'll need play D&D all over again (and keep re-buying them every year to stay current) rather than to innovate and inherently improve the game.

If it will not substantially reflect prior editions, is it really a new edition of the same game or just a similar game with the "Dungeons and Dragons" name on the cover?

 

[Desdichado]

I do like the perspective of thinking that the status quo is that I'll remain with 3e rather than update to 4e just because it's being released.

Rather than 4e being something that I need to be talked out of, it's something that I need to be talked into. I don't automatically, by default, assume that I'm going to buy it---it has to sell itself to me.

A lot of the rancor and antagonism would disappear from these discussions if we weren't coming from different default positions, or if we at least recognized those two default positions.

My default position on any luxury item is that I won't buy it, unless I'm convinced that I really want it. A new edition of D&D certainly qualifies. I assume in general that I won't buy it, unless there's a really compelling suite of reasons to do to. So far, the reasons haven't been quite compelling enough. I don't have to be a "hater" I just have to think that I'm happy enough with 3e to not bother.

Yes, I know. I said rancor. RAWR!