will 4.0 succeed?

[Jerrand Redband]

Hi new to this thread

hi just read the last page of this thread and i have some insite being that i was there for 2nd editon when it came out the third and all the others I didn't know WotC was going to put out core books every year (or core like books) Or are these books going to be formatted like supplments and said to be core who knows everytime a new addition comes out there is a bunch of books not just the basic three that are sold look at 2nd and all the brown leather like books that they sold and the blue campagin books- then there's 3.0 and all the books it had Fist and Sword , Tome and , can't remember them excatly it's been 8 yrs and 3.5 hand all the complete supplements so 4e will have all that as well no matter what they call it core or acessory but what 4e won't have and what i believe will make it tough for us to really get into the new set is Dungeon and Dragon Mag maybe someone brought this up(let me know what page) but without the outside support the different ideals the new settings, places and people then it may go up as an o.k. edition not better than the old like 2nd was for 1st and 3rd was for 2nd

thanks

 

[Monkey Boy]

Wow, that takes me back - people said pretty much the same thing in 1999 before the release of 3.0.

But it didn't happen then, and I doubt it will happen now. After all, WotC does have a few people with half a brain left...

Back in 1999 people who suggested that 3.0 would follow a MtG release schedule of regular new editions had no evidence to support them. WOTC track record with RPGs at the time also seemed to indicate a MtG release schedule was unlikely. I would suggest that now we have evidence that DnD will adopt many ideas from MtG including regular minor reboots. WOTC have stated that there will be no version 4.5 but I think the new yearly cores will add enough crunch to count as maybe a 4.1, 4.2 etc while not being implicitly labelled as such.

Unless I am not understanding the new core each year. *Warning unfounded speculation* I am imagining 40% all new crunch (rules for new classes like sorcerors), 10% tweaks to existing rules (immediate actions, grappling revised) and 50% unchanged rules (how initiative works). Has the format of the new core this been defined by WOTC?

Incidently I don't have a problem with DnD borrowing heavily from MtG. If it makes DnD more popular more power to them.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

They have stated they will not place any existing rules in the yearly Corebooks. You still need PHB1, DMG1, and whatever MMs you want to play. The additional Corebooks simply give structured crunch to add additional options and variety to the game and not have them dispersed across numerous books.

I am not sure about Errata, but I don't believe they will be in the Corebooks I think it will be online.

 

[Monkey Boy]

They have stated they will not place any existing rules in the yearly Corebooks. You still need PHB1, DMG1, and whatever MMs you want to play. The additional Corebooks simply give structured crunch to add additional options and variety to the game and not have them dispersed across numerous books.

I couldn't find anything on the EnWorld 4e information page about this. Does anyone have a link to WOTC explaining just what is meant by the publishing of a new core PHB each year?

Back on topic and to put my money where my mouth is -

4e will succeed. It will capture a young market and draw the interest of MMO players. It needs to do this to remain relevant and continue to make money. I am fine with this. The game will be finely tuned and balanced like never before (taking its cues from MtG style mechanics ).

The DDI will be flawed, but not fatally (it will not be the e-tools fiasco). Enough people will subscribe, despite the flaws, that the venture will be profitable. While not a run away success WOTC will be happy with the results.

 

[haakon1]

I think it will do quite well out of the gate.
I think it will be a success.

I do not think it will come close to 3E's success or duration. Partly just because the market was starving for something good when 3E came along.
. . .
Partly because I think the idea that a simplified game will bring in more gamers is a pipe dream.
. . .
I also think that the been-there-done-that factor will hit much quicker in 4E. Not in weeks or months, but much quicker than 3E.

I agree with all this. I'd one more point. In what I can tell from interacting with game store folks, there are three kinds of RPG players and buyers.

1) Me and people I DM for. Fluff people, if you will. We like RPG because we like the world that it represents. We're people who majored in history or like to watch "Battlefield Britain", read Osprey Miniature books, play Matrix Games strategy/war computer games, love "Medieval 2 Total War", etc. We all love Tolkien to bits and think Peter Jackson is a saint. Some of us have different circles of geekdom involving more reading SF than hard history, but it'll likely involves some Harry Turtledove more than Starfleet blah. Essentially, we're grognards, the people for whom Chainmail/D&D crossover makes perfect sense and who enjoyed the polearms section of the original Unearthed Arcana, even if we never used it. How I get these people at my game is that I select for them, and the way I game, they like it best -- Meepo's power struggles to takeover the kobold clan and his showing up in later episodes are more interesting to them than which Prestige Class to go into. In fact, they don't generally DO prestige classes or "weird" races, and I encourage them not to. We don't get bored of the rules because it's not really ABOUT the rules. Rules are just a tool to represent our world.

2) The folks at the game store. Crunch people, if you will. The guy today who was shocked that I never bought Complete Arcana, because it has the warlock, which is great because of how the spells . . . at this point, my eyes glaze over. Rules are fine, you need rules, but I don't care that much. The original published rules for AD&D or 3e/3.5e were enough for me. For crunch people, the rules are the game.

3) The just play people. When I'm a player, about half the people I play with seem to be in this category, as is our DM. The "fluff is lame, prestige classes are lame, roll the dice and kill stuff" camp. I'm fine with this, but it's more fast-food D&D than the fine dining fluff version to me. It seems to work in giving everyone their fix, but it's not as immersive, interesting, and addicting the fluff stuff for me.

I think 4e will do just fine with group #3, but will need to careful not to alienate group #1 (we in general come pre-alienated to new editions, because we have so much built into the old) and careful not to bore group #2 by letting them run out of rules too fast.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I think your missing a biggie and the one I think 4e will cater the best to:

4) Storytellers. Those players and DMs who get engrossed into a world by playing through a story and revealing secrets, engaging in dialogue, intrigue, plots, etc. The type that like to set up cinematic moments and scenes that could have been written/shown in books and movies.

For them it isn't about fast-play, simulation or major-crunch it is simply about becoming engrossed in a story and characters that you will play through for months, years at a time. Building together with the DM a story.

 

[Agamon]

I think your missing a biggie and the one I think 4e will cater the best to:

4) Storytellers. Those players and DMs who get engrossed into a world by playing through a story and revealing secrets, engaging in dialogue, intrigue, plots, etc. The type that like to set up cinematic moments and scenes that could have been written/shown in books and movies.

For them it isn't about fast-play, simulation or major-crunch it is simply about becoming engrossed in a story and characters that you will play through for months, years at a time. Building together with the DM a story.

A biggie indeed. I haven't been playing published adventures and eyeballing new systems for 5 years because 3e is easy to run a non-"kick-the-door-down" game, that's for certain. Can't wait to start playing in my brand spankin homebrew though, should be fun!

 

[Dragon Snack]

3) The just play people. When I'm a player, about half the people I play with seem to be in this category, as is our DM. The "fluff is lame, prestige classes are lame, roll the dice and kill stuff" camp.

I think 4e will do just fine with group #3...

Can I ask why you think that? If group 3 doesn't care about stuff and just wants to play, why would they move to another edition? If "fluff is lame" and "prestige classes are lame", wouldn't dragonborn be lame? I would think more people who still play 2nd (or 1st) edition fall into this category than group 1.

 

[haakon1]

I think your missing a biggie and the one I think 4e will cater the best to:

4) Storytellers. Those players and DMs who get engrossed into a world by playing through a story and revealing secrets, engaging in dialogue, intrigue, plots, etc. The type that like to set up cinematic moments and scenes that could have been written/shown in books and movies.

For them it isn't about fast-play, simulation or major-crunch it is simply about becoming engrossed in a story and characters that you will play through for months, years at a time. Building together with the DM a story.

To me, that's the same thing as "fluff players". Perhaps there's a subdistinction between "fluff player grognards" who care about polearms and read about the Crusades and "fluff player non-grognards" who don't care about polearms, but to me, it's all about deep immersion in and interaction with the world.

Maybe it is different things though . . .

 

[haakon1]

Can I ask why you think that? If group 3 doesn't care about stuff and just wants to play, why would they move to another edition? If "fluff is lame" and "prestige classes are lame", wouldn't dragonborn be lame? I would think more people who still play 2nd (or 1st) edition fall into this category than group 1.

What I mean by the "just play" people is that they genuinely are not much interested in the fluff (the "when all NPC's were there to be killed" people of DCC lore) and genuinely not much interested in fancy builds of their character. These folks pick a paladin with a trident as his main weapon because:
1) They feel like playing a meatshield, and they haven't done a paladin in a while.
2) They've never used a trident.
Note the lack of characterization ("I got this great idea for a guy who was captured by slavers and then the gods gave him powers", sayeth the fluff player) or build logic ("With the trident, I can do X feat better, which will really work when I take that PrC", sayeth the crunch player).

The guy who DM'ed the 3e game I was playing in was literally of this camp. He was using some Greyhawk-set adventures and I asked him about doing X based on it being Greyhawk and his response was "yeah, OK, if you want, I don't really care where it's set". He also, like me the fluff player, banned most materials beyond the core books because it just gummed up the game without adding much (I agreed with him and did the same), so he doesn't care about crunch either. And don't make the mistake of thinking this means he's a casual player -- he KNOWS the rules inside and out, runs a fun and exciting game, and LOVES D&D. He just cares about neither fluff nor crunch, since neither directly drives the fun action stuff.

His favorite line was "alright people, let's play D&D", which mean roll d20s for initiative and start having fun. (To some of us, like me, yammering about the game or exploring the ruins was already having fun, but to him, it was just the instruments tuning up before the concert of action.)

His reaction to Dragonborn would be "Sure, whatever, it's in the rules, so do it if you like". He will go with 4e mostly because it's the current edition, and because he likes the play online capability, plus he likes the revisions that get rid of resource management.