Why won't you switch?

[Raven Crowking]

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.

Quoted For Truth.

And +Rep for the Star Wars reference.

RC

 

[Greylock]

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.

I've never met that populace in real life, on the streets, at the game store, or at a gaming table.

Oddly enough, I have met them in cyber-space - all the twelve year olds I ran into playing Neverwinter Nights who thought the whole point of the game was to play a Dragon Disciple.

 

[hong]

I've never met that populace in real life, on the streets, at the game store, or at a gaming table.

Oddly enough, I have met them in cyber-space - all the twelve year olds I ran into playing Neverwinter Nights who thought the whole point of the game was to play a Dragon Disciple.

Twelve-year-olds with MORE DISPOSABLE INCOME THAN YOU.

HAW HAW!

 

[Rel]

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.

I agree with this philosophy completely. However I will say that some of the stuff I've seen has me leaning a bit more "pro" than I originally thought I'd be. I'm still not completely sold however and probably won't be until I get a good look at the final product.

 

[AllisterH]

I've never met that populace in real life, on the streets, at the game store, or at a gaming table.

Oddly enough, I have met them in cyber-space - all the twelve year olds I ran into playing Neverwinter Nights who thought the whole point of the game was to play a Dragon Disciple.

I call shenanigans on this.

SOMEONE has to be buying this Dragon-stuff. By my count, they're 3 Dragon-based products from 3.5 era. As a niche, it completely dwarfs (pun intended) gnomes and half-orcs niches. Its like I'm watching the 1E/2E version of "no-one I know plays elves/drow" on r.g.f.d.

Yeah, right.

So fess up, which of us is the Dragonophile (I state with 100% truthery I didn't buy one single Dragon-product neither did I use any other dragon mechanic such as the shaman/disciple so its obviously not me )

 

[Falstaff]

I call shenanigans on this.

SOMEONE has to be buying this Dragon-stuff. By my count, they're 3 Dragon-based products from 3.5 era. As a niche, it completely dwarfs (pun intended) gnomes and half-orcs niches. Its like I'm watching the 1E/2E version of "no-one I know plays elves/drow" on r.g.f.d.

Yeah, right.

So fess up, which of us is the Dragonophile (I state with 100% truthery I didn't buy one single Dragon-product neither did I use any other dragon mechanic such as the shaman/disciple so its obviously not me )

I game with about 6 guys regularly. I know dozens of other gamers in my area. I can say for a fact that NONE of them think playing a half-dragon PC is a good idea. And thank God for that.

 

[Celebrim]

I call shenanigans on this.

SOMEONE has to be buying this Dragon-stuff.

I think Hong has the right of it.

Haven't you ever walked into a card store and see a 10 year old drop the equivalent of a half a week's paycheck on Pokemon or Yu gi-oh? And got the feeling that this was a regular thing?

 

[delericho]

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

It's rather hard to buy those books about Orcs when they don't publish them.

And one could argue that the reason we kept seeing new and different versions of the Dragon Disciple/Dragon Shaman, Dragonkin/Dragonborn/Half-dragon concept, but rarely or never did we see expansions to the existing material, is that none of the various versions they put out achieved any notable traction amongst the player base. One might almost think someone at WotC has a pro-dragon anti-orc (and pro-elf, anti-gnome) agenda that they're pushing on us despite a customer base inclined to say "Meh".

The first test of this will come when they release that Dragonborn splatbook in 2009 or 2010. Personally, I wouldn't be remotely surprised to see 5e going a lot more "back to basics", dropping the Dragonborn and the Tiefling, and heralding the return (again) of the Half-orc and the Monk in the core.

 

[Doug McCrae]

So fess up, which of us is the Dragonophile

I think it might be my group. There was a half-dragon in the last campaign and there's a spellscale (from Races of the Dragon) in the current one.

 

[helium3]

6) The game seems to be tamer and safer than what I'm used to playing. Alot of the things that made success difficult are being removed from the game. This is highly conjectural on my part, but I have a strong feeling that the new edition is relying heavily on 'tactical illusionism'. Normally 'illusionism' refers to a DM technique where the players are made to feel that the have free will because they are being presented with a great many choices. However, the DM is secretly dictating that every choice actually leads to the same outcome. For example, the PC's encounter a fork in the road. The two roads look very different and head in very different directions. But not matter which one they take, that road will lead to the 'Lost City of Foorgidor' and the DM will adjust his map accordingly. By 'tactical illusionism', I mean presenting players with a reasonable number of seemingly relevant choices in combat, however none of these choices is actually both critical and difficult to discern. The player feels like they are making crucial choices, because they achieve a great deal of success, but in fact there isn't much difference in outcome between highly skilled players and novices. I can think of several games that are like this, for example, Cosmic Encounters, Bohnanza, and several variaties of dominoes. The game superficially appears deep and is emmensely fun at first, but after playing it a while you realize that for various reasons it really isn't that interesting. I think 'per encounter powers', the removal of effects that tend to steal 'turns' from participants, the standardization of what you can do in a turn (it seems everyone has a move and a attack), and so forth lends itself to this sort of illusionism. Once you realize that in every fight you are basically doing the exact same thing (a feature probably hidden by the rumored rapid advancement), I think its going to wear.

Oh hey!! You just explained what I mean when I rumble on about my fear that the various classes (and future classes) are just going to be different "skins" on the same set of powers.