Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
D&D reboot.
Isturi
Member Posts: 1,509
For you 20D freeks and If you are a fan of D&D then good news if you all ready dont know that is lol anyhoo the popular RPG or perhaps the "original RPG for that matter is going for a reboot....
"We have begun obtaining feedback from a limited Friends & Family playtest consisting of internal employees and their gaming groups and soon we will be expanding that group to consist of members from our existing body of playtesters. Then at the D&D Experience convention in late January, Wizards of the Coast will conduct a special playtest of ideas currently in development. The D&D Experience will be moving to Gen Con in 2013, so as a convention special this year, we will be offering show attendees a first-look at a draft of the new set of rules. Then beginning sometime in the spring, we will begin open playtesting. Through our web site, we will release a growing set of rules, classes, monsters and other materials for your study and feedback. We seek to reach as many people as possible, from the gamer who just started with D&D last week to the gaming group that has been together since the early-1970s...
for complete story here is the Link.
Comments
Looks like Pathfinder taking their market spot really stung them...
Sad for those that have invested heavily in 4E. One of the great things with Pathfinder was that it was updated but still compatible with all my 3.5 stuff with minimal work so it wasn't all dead money.
Ahh well, maybe they will judge their market better this time.
They pretty much killed their license with the 4th Edition. Wonder how will this turn out.
REALITY CHECK
Yeah 4E showed that streamling something and casualizing it ,might actually HURT your product alot.
Even though I like other systems better for sake of licensing D&D (as deffo in future some games will use or consider to use D&D) they make better work.
Think they need "back to roots + some refreshing" approach even if that mean more compex or even complicated system.
One, this belongs in the other games section. Two - I really wish people would stop saying that pathfinder has a market share they think they do - 4th edition is still about 5 times the size, and the online subscription tool makes Wizards of the coast more income than all of Paizo's product lines combined still. A large amount of people didn't switch, but 4th edition still cleared at least 3 million PHB 1s. I don't have it compiled, butthe ICV2 numbers from 2008 to today in full still show that. Pathfinder has a nice amount of customers mind you, more than any other non D&D related product outside of FATE systems, but lets not kid ourselves. Only their Ultimate magic/Ultimate Combat books were their superstar sellers, WOTC had somewhere around 10 non-phb books for 4e that sold as many copies.
Agreed
I really liked the basic idea of D&D4 - give classes compareable complexity.
Many of the other changes however looked just random and weird. For example, the changes to the alignment system did not make much sense to me.
Great. Just what we need. Another revision. Fuck them.
Shadus
I really hope that D&D 5E is all they are building it up to be, because I thought 4E was terrible.
In 4E all of the classes get lots of abilities, but they all tend to do very similar things, and all the classes use the same abiltiy mechanic. This leads to the feeling that all the classes are the same.
For example, this is how our play sessions go:
Player1: "I use nightmare blade eruption!!!!"
DM: "Okay, what does it do?"
Player1: "1d10+5 damage and I get to move the monster a square."
DM: "Okay, you're up player2."
Player2: "I use sword of the ancient mithrandian kings!!!"
DM: "Okay, what does it do?"
Player2: "1d8+6 damage, and I get to move the monster 2 squares."
Really?
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Like 4 levels into the first campaign i ran in 4E I actually just openly stated to everyone at the table that I feel like im playing WoW, at least in combat.
Use power 1
Use power 2
Use power 3
Repeat
If monster is "elite" blow cooldowns on encounter powers, if its the "boss" pop daily powers
go back to 1,2,3
I went back to Pathfinder immediately.
D&D 4th edition was D&D Bob... If you want to be a little more charitable D&D Milleneum Edition...
Pathfinder came out under the 3.x rules and held a lot of the playerbase.
Thing was WOTC thought everyone would move over and they could get rid of the SRD from 3.x that all of the people loved but the suits at WOTC says loses them too much control and money.
They had to make it "different enough" essentially and they certainly accomplished that measure.
---
We can only hope they got enough of a bloody nose to release a D&D XP. If they do then it could be a good thing.
When is 6E coming out?
I really don't get all the negative sentiment over editions after all this time. Tabletop RPGs will never be like video games, computer games, card games. Normal campaigns last for YEARS in it, and often a gamer is only in maybe one or two different games at any one time. For all the good that 3rd edition had, it also had a few monstrous problems. 4th edition has its own problems. But none of either has to do with 1st edition, or 2nd edition problems. And moreso explicitly, 4th edition was just as different from 3rd edition, as 3rd was to 2nd, and 2nd was to 1st. But we all still have those games. 2nd and 3rd edition had so much material, what else could wizards of the coast have printed?
I remeber hearing this, back in dragon magazines when 3rd edition was just around the corner, first the previews came, and then the first core book was released at gencon 2000. Angry letters in the forum and mailbag section a plenty, but both of them failed to realize one thing - if the rules were going to be incredibly similar, how could they ever move new products? I'll say this, working under a tiny 3rd party publisher at one point during 3.X's lifecycle -
"There is a hard limit, be it a nebulous number of worthwhile design ideas, themes, settings, classes, races, items, EVERYTHING that can be designed and sold at a profit. No small revision gives enough back to a game to allow them to get away with a re-release of everything. it's even harder to come across a good idea, and save it for a day when you need a moneymaker as well; Let alone be able to release it before someone else thinks up of the same idea, they always eventually will."
Right there, that was the problem with 4th edition. We're fickle, exact tasted, afraid of change as everyone else. We sure as hell want our favorite things to go on forever. But I'd never expect modern mario games like super mario galaxy 2 to play the same as super mario 3dland, or super mario world. None of these diminished the fun or value of the other. But there's a reason why an isometric view game like Diablo III can only come along every once in a while and be a huge success like days of the past. It's a lot less having to do with any kind of quality, or exactness of game mechanics, rules, reoccuring themes, and much more like World of Warcraft - Right game, right market, right time.
OD&D , and 3rd edition replicated that due to at first being the first role playing game of its time with a good name and solid rules, and piggybacked off its chainmail success. 3rd edition came around after TSR had been dead for some time. White Wolf games' popularity was waning, the internet was becoming more widespread in use and ease of access. Wizards of the Coast had huge success under their pokemon and magic the gathering trading card games, and had just been acquired by hasbro.
This time around for 4th editiion, much of that market was still happy with what they had, even if very far from perfect, not that you're going to get a perfect tabletop RPG ever. For the people that bought it and liked it - that's their game. For everyone who dislikes it - You've still got 3rd and pathfinder. Everyone deserves a game. And no, namesake is not any kind of thing that needs preserving. only psychopaths fall into that line of ideology.
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG