Why won't you switch?

[Celebrim]

The cancelation of Dragon and Dungeon is not a direct reason why I won't switch to 4E, but it certainly could contribute to it.

I've been playing since about 1980. Dragon has always been a big part of the experience of D&D for me. It was what D&D gamers had before there were splatbooks. Long long time ago, instead of putting tons and tons of new books with spotty content on the market, spotty content was first vetted somewhat in comparitively cheap periodical literature. Anything that made it into a hard cover was mostly solid, useful, crunchy material. Either way, you got what you paid for. Now, granted, I haven't thought much of Dragon since the golden age in the early 90's when Dragon had been around long enough to be truly a professional rag, but hadn't been around so long that it was having a hard time coming up with original and useful content. So there aren't many recent copies of Dragon in my boxes of gaming papers. However, the period around a new edition coming out is one of the few periods that Dragon can really shine because the content can get revamped.

The 3E previews in Dragon were absolutely awesome. The 4E previews have been, at least from my perspective, disasterous. The online stuff has been annoying, and the 'preview books' made me want to hurl. They made me want to 'throw the design team under a bus' (to make a MtG reference) for even expecting me to shell out good money for that sort of vacuous material. Would a vibrant Dragon have changed my opinion? Probably not, but who knows.

Dungeon on the other hand is going to be missed. You can make a good case that the magazine was cancelled in its golden age. It's had alot of good content over the years, but I'm not sure you could find a period that was more intriguing than that of the 'Adventure Paths'. Those are going to become legends in the way that no module or series of modules has been since 1st edition. Thirty years from now, if people are still playing this game, they are going to be making things like 'Return of the Age of Worms'. I'm not sure that great 4E modules appearing in dungeon would have persuaded me to give the game a try, but I can't think of anything at this point that would have been more likely to do so.

So am I not adopting 4E because of my 'bitterness' about the cancelation of perhaps the most iconic legacy of being a D&D gamer? No. I don't really have an emotion about it. Emotionally speaking, I could care less. I'd stopped buying Dragon regularly years ago, and I'd never actually subscribed to either one. It seems like a dumb move for the company, but I know why they justified it. Does it impact my decision to buy 4E. No, not really. But I can understand perfectly why people think its going to impact thier enjoyment of the new edition.

 

[Ebon Shar]

Hey, nice for you...looks like you overlooked this thread here, though. Might be your post is a bit more fitting there. Why WILL you switch.

Always grateful for the kind direction of fellow members.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Always grateful for the kind direction of fellow members.

Hey, glad I could be of assistance. And by the way, welcome to ENWorld.

 

[korjik]

I am not sure I will or wont upgrade to 4th ed. I will take a look at it when I can ge the rules in my hands. However there are some things that make me have some apprehension about the next edition.

My biggest fear is that the rules wont be generic enough to use. The races and classes in the prior eds are pretty generic. Especially since LotR movies came out, everyone knows what an orc, dwarf, elf, etc. are. What the heck is an eladrin or a dragonborn? (rhetorical question ) I feel that they are making the game too specific to the setting, and that I wont have the desire to retrofit the rules to my setting.

I also think WOTC is making rules that should be set by the DM, not the publisher. Having rings restricted to upper levels is something that I should do, not WOTC.

Thirdly, 4th ed should be about fixing the problems of 3rd, not throwing most of the system out and rebuilding. I think that while 4th may end up being a good game, it will have just as many flaws as 3rd ed does. Why should I spend a bunch of money for a new edition just to be where I am now.

I am extremely conflicted about the online content. If they actually have good online additional content, then that just leaves me with no internet connection at home. If the online content is nickel and diming us with stuff that should be in the books, then I will have problems staying with WOTC.

I also agree with the sentiment that the marketing for 4th ed has been very ham handed and poorly done. I have been playing D&D for 26 years now, and I am quite literally a rocket scientist. I dont need smoke blown up my backside, and I know the problems with 3rd ed as well as anyone. Treat me with respect, as a peer, not some brain-dead fanboy geek. Talk to me straight about the rules and about the testing.

When it comes right down to it tho, I will be giving 4th ed an even chance. I have already allocated the money for the core, and will have no problems buying them, after I look to see if they are worth it.

 

[Diamondeye]

I've got several reasons, but the king granddaddy of them all is the changes to spellcasting

I do not want to hear about spells as "per encounter" or "per day" or "at will". I do not want to hear about removing spell schools. I do not want to hear about orbs and wands as anything other than magic items. I do not want to hear about sorcerers that "barely control" spells. I do not want to hear about "save or die" going away or about mind-affecting spells going away so psionics can have a nitch.

Even if there were no other changes whatsoever to 3E, the magic changes alone, heck, the removal of spell preparation alone, would be more than enough for me not to switch.

 

[DaveMage]

It's too soon.
I have yet to use 75% of my 3.5 material.
I have noine of the problems with 3.5 so many tell me I must! ;-)
Too much invested.
The game is exactly where I have wanted it for the past 30 years.
3.5 alive.

-DM Jeff

This.

 

[Cbas_10]

Honestly, I don't know if I will switch or not. There have been a number of things I have misunderstood regarding 4E, and there have been a few things that I learned and liked about 4E. Thus, my presence on this part of the boards.

However, as others have stated, 4E really is more like an all-new game from what I've seen so far. That is the approach I'll take when I feel like deciding about switching. I won't compare 3E to 4E, hoping to find enough elements of 3E in 4E to hold my interest...I'll simply look at 4E as its own entity.

That being said...If I had to decide right now, I wouldn't switch. 3E might have a few glitches in my experience, but if it was so bad...I'd have stopped having fun a long time ago. So, aside from the justification of "I love my 3E!", I don't have a real reason not to play 4E. Not until I give it a fair shake when the books actually come out; individual rules or concepts may sound crazy or horrible...but no way to know until the final product is on my desk.

 

[wingsandsword]

1. The "3.5 is badwrongfun" 4e marketing. I like 3.5, if you were going to sell me on 4e tell me how 4e is fun without putting down what I already like and enjoy.

2. Getting rid of Dragon Magazine. Getting rid of the magazine of D&D that had been around for 30 years and replacing it with lackluster web articles does not make me trust WotC.

3. Emphasis on "roles" of classes. All this talk of defender/controller/leader ect really seems too much like something from an MMO. I like classes to be based on a character concept, not on an arbitrary combination of power source and designed role.

4. Massive changes in the setting assumptions: the new cosmology, tieflings are common enough to be a core PC race, ditto with warlocks, adding "dragonborn" as a core race, but gnomes are out?

5. The new definition of "core". I don't like D&D to be a subscription service that I'm expected to regularly pay just to have my core rules be current.

6. I like 3.5 and have a lot of fun with it, and I just plain didn't feel a need for a new edition before 4e was announced. 3.5 might have some problems, but they needed tweaks and fixes, not being outright scrapped and replaced with a game going in another direction.

7. The massive changes to the Forgotten Realms. I'm having to seriously hold my tongue on this one to stay civil, but I seriously disagree with the direction they're taking it.

8. Simplicity of rules over verisimilitude, the 1-1-1-1 diagonal movement being an example. D&D was never a detailed simulation, but it did have enough verisimilitude for me, 4e looks to be going for too little of it for my taste.

I guess a good summary of it all would be: I'm happy with 3.5 and like it, while not perfect it's closer to what I would see as D&D perfection than any other edition. I did not see a need for a whole new edition when 4e was announced, and the changes that have been announced are built around a gaming philosophy very dissimilar from mine and take the game away from what I already enjoy and would like to continue to enjoy.

 

[Wolfspider]

Anyway, just wanted to chime in.

Thank you for your participation.

 

[The Little Raven]

Now they say DDI is key and they'll be expanding the corebooks every year.

DDI is about as key as Dragon Magazine was previous: it isn't.

Now they've been booted because --- well they haven't really told us have they? What's the deal with that?

Actually, they have, just like they explained the lack of bard and monk: they want more time and effort put into them to make them more distinct and they only have a limited amount of space in the core rules.

The killing off of Greyhawk. What's the point of changing these institutions?

Greyhawk is being "killed off" because hardly anyone likes it. There's a reason it's been in a coma for over a decade.

Along those lines, I find it insulting the way WotC has continued to tell me that the last 8 years of playing D&D was an awful experience and that at last with D&D 4e I'll finally have fun.

Provide evidence of this claim, or retract it because it's a dishonest statement.

Powers for unpowered classes. Maybe I'm reading this all wrong, but not everyone should have magic powers of healing, super attacks and battle effects. Not everyone should be magical.

You're reading it wrong.

The push of the DDI (and the cancellation of the Dragon and Dungeon) are implying that I need a computer to really play this version of D&D. My RPGing experience is about being with friends, goofing around, rolling dice and eating chips. It is not about watching animation on a computer and feeding data into it so I can see what a fireball does.

And again, you're reading it wrong. The only things required to play the game are a brain, friends, dice, pencils, paper, and the three core books. Everything else is 100% optional.

Honestly, the lack of backwards compatiblity is the biggest deal-breaker for me. I really only wanted a slight update for D&D. I want a D&D that works with the 90-pounds of books I already own.

It's about as backwards compatible as 3e was: that is, you'll have to do the work yourself to convert old concepts to new rules.