D&D 4E Will 4E be backwards compatible?

[Kunimatyu]

I can't believe my eyes. 4E truly is coming and so damned early.

I'm never purchasing them. WotC is taking a huge risk in all of this. People angry at the cancellation of Dragon and Dungeon, the DI, and now a new edition. Why did it need a new edition? It was fine the way it was!

Any thoughts?

My first thought is that your misery was an amazingly refreshing way to start my day! Thanks!

More seriously, we won't know for awhile. If I was going to take a stab in the dark, I'd guess that the mechanics will facilitate ease of lower-level adventure conversion, but spellcasters, high-level abilities, and core monsters will change a lot.

Ergo, you probably won't be able to see "1d3 bone devils" on the encounter table and flip open your 4E MM and expect the encounter to work properly, but you could probably use the old creatures to some degree, even if their stats are considerably clunkier than 4E's (hopefully) beautifully streamlined creatures. Expect the biggest changes to evil outsiders and dragons.

 

[Zendragon]

A new edition, I believe, shouldn't have to come for at least 20 years.

Seriously, what products are you still using from 20 years ago? I graduated from high school 20 years ago. You still using DOS 5.0 on that IBM 286 machine with 1 MEG of RAM? You still wearing those Jordache and Calvin Kline jeans, Still listening to cassettes? Still driving that 1987 K Car?
Still listening to these top 10 songs from 1987
# 1. Walk Like An Egyptian - Bangles
# 2. Alone - Heart
# 3. Shake You Down - Gregory Abbott
# 4. I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) - Whitney Houston
# 5. Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now - Starship
# 6. C'est La Vie - Robbie Nevil
# 7. Here I Go Again - Whitesnake
# 8. The Way It Is - Bruce Hornsby & The Range
# 9. Shakedown - Bob Seger
# 10. Livin' On A Prayer - Bon Jovi

Sorry, but if WoTC stops making money by only supporting a product for 20 years, then there will never be any new editions. Just look at how strong the Magic the Gathering cards sell. THere are new cards every 4 months!!! and cards only stay in type 2 formats for roughly 2 years. I am fine with a new edition every 5 years. This will allow smaller companies to rework some of their works and sell them with the new rules. This will give them more money to work on new products as well. And isn't that one of the best things about 3.x was the additional support from other companies? So I don't think you will get much sympathy for a new edition being delayed until 2020.

 

[Umbran]

So there'll never be a line drawn somewhere? When 4E slows down, 5E comes, when 5E slows down, 6E comes.

No, and yes.

I think WotC is just not running the game properly at all.

Well, it isn't just WotC that isn't doing it right, then. WotC has the longest game-lifetime in the industry.

If you have to make a whole new edition change every 7-8 years, with a possible revision in between, then there's something wrong with the way the company is promoting the game and keeing it fresh. It's definitely not because there's something wrong with the current edition of the game.

There doesn't have to be anything "wrong" with the game itself, or with how they market it. All that's required is that the market for the activity be fairly small - it then quickly reaches saturation. If a high enough percentage of the potential gamers have already bought the stuff, your revenue stream will peter out.

It isn't like purely cosmetic or marketing changes will substantially boost sales - if it isn't new content, few of the old customers are going to buy new copies. So, they have to produce new content. Eventually, the realms of support products too get saturated, and they have to consider changes in content to the core of the game itself. And here we are.

A new edition, I believe, shouldn't have to come for at least 20 years.

There is no need for an edition lifetime substantially longer than the typical gamer lifetime. Setting aside the grognards around here, who are a small subset of gamers, how long is a typical gamer active enough in buying new products to matter?

 

[Superj3nius]

this is my 1st, edition change and i gotta say its exciting but it really sounds like every ones just pissed off that they worked out some kinks probibly threw in some new kinks and now we have to pay $40 a book to keep getting this new matirial and if we dont well have to make do with what we got, which is fine by me cuz i love this system its easy and covers just about everything i need

though of course with every new system there are new things that id LIKE to throw in but then are those things wroth $40? besides im the redacted DM if i want a rule thats not in the book write it down and say redacted im the dm am i right

who knows maybe its just that this is my 1st, edition change

Mod edits: Dude, we have rules of language use around here - if we can tell what you're saying, the asterisks don't make it better. Sorry.

 

[Eldragon]

Still listening to these top 10 songs from 1987
# 1. Walk Like An Egyptian - Bangles
# 2. Alone - Heart
# 3. Shake You Down - Gregory Abbott
# 4. I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) - Whitney Houston
# 5. Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now - Starship
# 6. C'est La Vie - Robbie Nevil
# 7. Here I Go Again - Whitesnake
# 8. The Way It Is - Bruce Hornsby & The Range
# 9. Shakedown - Bob Seger
# 10. Livin' On A Prayer - Bon Jovi

Yes. Yes I am. I happen to have each one of these songs on my playlist right now. Now excuse me, I need to put another load of parachute pants in the dryer.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

There doesn't have to be anything "wrong" with the game itself, or with how they market it. All that's required is that the market for the activity be fairly small - it then quickly reaches saturation. If a high enough percentage of the potential gamers have already bought the stuff, your revenue stream will peter out.

This sort of makes me wonder if the whole thing isn't going to collapse in on itself soon. I get the feeling that at some point there will have been too many editions, and eventually a new edition won't kick-start things again. Then, they'll be stuck trying to promote a new edition that nobody wants to buy while being more or less unable to support the older edition thanks to lack of profitability. I can't say whether 4E is going to be the last one, but I do think that if 4E is significantly similar to 3E, it's a sign that we're reaching some kind of plateau of how far we can improve the general D&D system. Eventually, there will be few improvements that can be made that are significant enough to justify an entire new edition. 3.0 to 3.5 was a pretty low-key set of changes, and I think that if we see too many more of those kinds of "buy all your books again" manoeuvres, there may be a general downturn in interest for the whole project.

Not that I'm hoping that the hobby collapses under its own weight, but I wonder how long a hobby like this can last if the only thing keeping purchases up to a profitable level for the keystone company is the novelty of the products, and not their content.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Still listening to these top 10 songs from 1987
# 1. Walk Like An Egyptian - Bangles
# 2. Alone - Heart
# 3. Shake You Down - Gregory Abbott
# 4. I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) - Whitney Houston
# 5. Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now - Starship
# 6. C'est La Vie - Robbie Nevil
# 7. Here I Go Again - Whitesnake
# 8. The Way It Is - Bruce Hornsby & The Range
# 9. Shakedown - Bob Seger
# 10. Livin' On A Prayer - Bon Jovi

Hmm... about half of those, yes, actually.

But then, I don't recall their being huge, revolutionary leaps in music theory in the intervening years, either.

 

[HeinorNY]

# 7. Here I Go Again - Whitesnake

I was listenning it yesterday!

 

[Eldragon]

Not that I'm hoping that the hobby collapses under its own weight, but I wonder how long a hobby like this can last if the only thing keeping purchases up to a profitable level for the keystone company is the novelty of the products, and not their content.

I think as long as they release a new edition every time a significant portion of the playerbase is unhappy with the current ruleset, it is in their best interest to introduce a new edition before too many players jump ship for a new RPG ruleset altogether. I could see some other company coming up with a similar game system that seamlessly integrates online content and kicks D&D to the curb.

If 4e makes it so I can play D&D online with random people in a fun way*, I couldn't be happier. For many people its hard to get a group together in their town, myself included. But if I could play D&D with my character for a pick up adventure at 11 pm on tuesdays, awesome.

*playing games online with Random people is always a dangerous proposition. Dont try it at home.

 

[pawsplay]

If D&D produced a new edition every 20 years, the next big thing would be me.

Seriously, that's a longass time to stare at the same game. Plato revised his theory of forms more often than that.