D&D 4E Would 4E be Popular?

[diaglo]

I think you can guess what my feelings are - for the most part - about 3.5.

i think you can guess what my feelings are - for the most part about all of the crap produced after OD&D....

 

[Jim Hague]

i think you can guess what my feelings are - for the most part about all of the crap produced after OD&D....

Eh, same here about the stuff produced before 3.0, for the most part. Boxed sets like Ravenloft and Planescape being notable exceptions.

 

[Dragon Mage]

I can't speak for the market as a whole. But, I for one am dreading a 4th edition. In order for it to be successful WoC knows it will have to have some ground-breaking changes, and thus it will not be backword compatable with all the cruch-heavy products 3.5 as given us.

I don't see any major flaws with 3.5 so I do not see the need for 4.0. However, WoC is quickly running out of money making products so it is an eventuallity. I will not change over and make my vast collection of 3.5 obsolete.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I'd buy it.

Don't tell Hasbro I said that, okay.

 

[Greatwyrm]

4e will be popular if for no other reason than it's D&D. There's a lot of brand loyalty to the game.

Yes, there will be craploads of complaining about it, regardless of when it's released. How long was ADD2e around for? At least 10 years, wasn't it? The way some people reacted when WotC announced 3e, you'd have thought time and space were about to collapse.

I'd bet they got as much flak then as when they did 3.5. That in itself says a lot. For all the complaining, 3e sold very well. For all the complaining 2 or so years later, 3.5 has sold very well. As consumers, we've basically told WotC that it doesn't matter if it's 10 years or 2, we'll probably come grudgingly along for the ride.

All that aside, I don't think there's anything all that wrong with 3.x that couldn't be addressed with another book like Unearthed Arcana. If I were writing such a thing, I'd focus on creating new classes and alternate magic systems. These are the sacred cows people tend to complain about the most. If there was a good guide on making new ones and tailoring them to your game, while still being in line with the rest of the system, that would be a solid product.

Would I buy a 4e? Maybe. If it was really innovative and a real departure, I'd certainly take a look. The thing is, the large amount of backwards compatibility that softened the blow of the 3-3.5 shift would be lost if you did a serious overhaul of the game. In any event, I've got more than enough 3.x stuff to run games 'til I'm old and grey and if I don't like that, I can still go to HERO (which is really growing on me).

 

[Kanegrundar]

I can't speak for the market as a whole. But, I for one am dreading a 4th edition. In order for it to be successful WoC knows it will have to have some ground-breaking changes, and thus it will not be backword compatable with all the cruch-heavy products 3.5 as given us.

I don't see any major flaws with 3.5 so I do not see the need for 4.0. However, WoC is quickly running out of money making products so it is an eventuallity. I will not change over and make my vast collection of 3.5 obsolete.

That's the reason why I think a 4th edition within the next year or two would extremely unpopular decision. There's nothing overly wrong with 3.5. Sure there are some things that could use tweaking, like the Turn Undead rules, but the need to start over from scratch...no way.

I know a lot of people are going to say that they're not going to change over to the new edition will end up doing just that. However, I'm not so certain that i will jump right on the 4th edition bandwagon.
1: I agree that it will likely not be compatible with 3.5.
2: Compared to 2E, I have a LOT more material for 3.5. Switching over to a new system and invalidating most if not all of my current books, is not very attractive to me.
3: I'll likely be married by next year (if some of the eariler predictions of when 4E will come out come true). That means a LOT less money for a whole new game. That'll be compounded even further if I start a family then also.

Now, if (and that's a BIG if) 4E ends up being that much of an improvement over 3.5...I'll do a lot of book selling to be able to afford a new edition. Like I said, it's going to have to be a BIG improvement. Otherwise, I'll stick with 3.5, and then covert what little bit of new material from 4E back to 3E.

Kane

 

[Psion]

As I was reading through the Forseeing the future thread about 4E, I got to thinking. Would 4E really be that popular of system? 3.0/3.5 is a very popular game. The OGL movement has brought even more people into the D20 fold as well. The general concensus among people that play D&D is this the best edition so far. So, the move to 4E wouldn't be like the move from 2E to 3E, where we went from a maligned system that had no cohesion and was losing players to a system that was an obvious improvement from the second a character was rolled up.

I don't think it would be a popular move on WotC's part. I know, the move to 3E wasn't too popular either, but I think a lot of people (including me) switched over pretty quietly once I saw just how much of an improvement it was. I'm just not seeing exactly where there's room for THAT much improvement to honestly warrant a new edition for anything other than a money grab.

I concur with this. There are a few things listed in the poll in the said thread that might make nice additions, but I think we are at the point that half of the populace would want one change and the other half wants another.

I don't think they have the right team at WotC right now to bring me a 4e that would make me want to leave 3e behind.

Further, support and entrenchment are big issues for me. It's one thing that almost had my staying with 2e despite the overall improvement of the system. 3e has less problems than 2e, and I have much more support sitting on my shelves... a major switchover probably won't look attractive to me for some time.

 

[Staffan]

"We've totally redesigned D&D so that your character's gear is much less important than their personal abilities and magic is a dangerous mystery to be avoided by sane people rather than something you can fire off X times per day. In other words, we changed it into Mongoose's Conan! Woohoo!"

While "easy magic" ¹is a sacred cow in D&D, I don't think "equipment outweighs inherent abilities" is. To be honest, I think a rather substantial amount of players (or at least DMs) would prefer it if inherent abilities were the vast majority of character capabilities.

One of the big problems I see with D&D is that in order for an NPC to be a valid challenge to a group of PCs, you have to load him down with magic items. Of course, once the PCs have killed him, they get those items, so you have to load down the next NPC with even more items. This is a cycle I'm not fond of at all.

 

[shadow]

I'm pretty sure that 4e will be very successful! Sure WotC would catch a lot of flak for it, but in the end most gamers would make the switch; after all Wizards goes on market figures, not the angry rants on message boards to decide how to make decisions.

4e will be very sucessful for number of reasons. First many gamers like to stay current. As soon as the next incarnation of a gaming system comes out, many groups will instantly make the upgrade; some even going as far as to switch rule systems in the middle of a campaign. Second of all, gamers have a reputation for spending a lot of money on gaming books, miniatures, etc. Even the players who don't completely switch systems may buy the books for stuff to houserule into their campaigns.

Wizards will catch a lot of flak from a small, but vocal minority. But in the end, most players will end up buying the books. Look at the outcry over 3.5e. Many diehard players denounced it, but ultimately a large number of gamers went out and brought it making 3.5e a success.

 

[EricNoah]

Having a 4th edition pushed on us when we are not ready would not be a popular move. WotC is going to have to keep its ears to the ground and be ready to start work on 4e when a true need presents itself.