In light of Ishmayl's new poll, who will buy 4E? Why? Or why not?
Who has given up on D&D in favor of other systems?
I haven't played D&D in months, as what is left of my group is helping me playtest my variant of our system.
I find that as time moves along, I cannot abide the flow of crap coming out of WotC, especially in light of their previously stated position of not releasing umpteen supplements.
I doubt i'd buy 4e anytime soon, due to my "do not buy any dnd book unless you will use it in play in the next month" rule.
And honestly, the only thing i'd want out of a new edition is a simpler way to do grapple checks.
I play D&D. I also dabble in d20 Modern, but not much.
When WotC releases 4th Edition (because eventually they will) it'll be a changed system. There's no reason to release 4E without a big change. Personally, I think it'll be a change of the magic system, or the class system, but that's just my, completely uninformed opinion. So, whether I buy it will depend on whether I like the changes they've made or not.
Phew! I thought this was going to be another of the usual "paranoid about the release of 4E" threads. I think WotC should just go ahead and release 4E so that we can get some innovation in the form of "4e sucks!" threads.
As for me, I've given up on WotC stuff altogether. It's too complicated for me to even consider being the DM, and that's the only way I'm ever going to get to use the cool stuff. The flavor is boring a lot of the time because they focus so much on their traditional load of drivel (alignment and how its applied, what the races are like in terms of things such as personality, the limited nature of the classes in core, etc.). And it's all about combat, with non-combat roleplaying tacked on the side.
I'm not even going to consider variants such as Arcana Evolved. AE is a nice system that's a refereshing departure from D&D, but it's got the same complicated rules.
My system is now Mutants & Masterminds because I can use its point-based system to build what I want to play. And it's rules are so simple that they all fit in one book, a majority of which isn't even rules! Maybe I'd go back to D&D if they made it like M&M. (Likelihood factor: :morons: )
I probably would not buy it right away...but I might. I don't know. Right now, I don't really play D&D as much as I play the D20 system, if you take my meaning.
I'm more or less with Black Jack. I haven't owned anything D&D since 1st ed. I've got the D20 SRD bookmarked. For what it is, it is a decent system, though the grapple check thing does suck.
My biggest beef with it is that they apparently felt that they needed to retain the feel of all the old races, classes, and stuff. With only a little more work they could have made it a much better system. Only then it really wouldn't be "D&D" except in name.
That's why I'm not holding my breath for any really significant changes of the type that would interest me. Although I still do take the wait and see attitude. They might surprise me.
I honestly don't know.
When 3.5 came out, I was very hesitant to switch because, well, there may have been a lot of changes but I had made a lot of very similar house rules to deal with things I didn't like. Eventually I gave in and "accepted" the system because none of my players wanted to play 3.0 when they had " so easily adapted to 3.5" (this was during a time when I actually DMed regularly). The funniest thing is, even though I labeled my games "3.5 D&D", I never could refer to them as anything but "D20" because of the changes I had made. And what's even funnier than that is the fact that they accepted my games as playable even though the only thing that really changed was the label, and maybe the Pit Fiend statistics.
I think after stating that junk that I won't ever really take part in the age of 4th Edition D&D, just because I've already found what I want. My favorite D&D system remains 2nd Edition coupled with the Player's Option series (or what some people call AD&D 2.5), and at this point if I want a rule for anything I can make it myself.
QuoteMy favorite D&D system remains 2nd Edition coupled with the Player's Option series (or what some people call AD&D 2.5), and at this point if I want a rule for anything I can make it myself.
Interesting, as I completely skipped 2E, not liking the initial offerings, way back when. I went straight from eons of mutated 1E to 3.5, and into the slide of new hybrid stuff.
2.5 was fun. It added a lot of the "good" rules featured in 3.0/3.5, but had some of the old restrictions and managed to keep that "classic" gaming feel.
Wow, it sounds like I'm in the minority here. I've been quite impressed with Wizards' new creations, especially in the last year. Since I purchased 4 out of 5 of the original splat books, I shyed away from the Complete series (I only have Warrior, Psionic, and Mage, though I do have access to the others), but I've liked many of their expansion items. Deities & Demigods, Manual of the Planes, Psionics Handbook (and of course the Expanded Psionics Handbook), Heroes of Battle/Horror, Oriental Adventures, and now Tome of Battle have done much to inspire me for my own setting.
Based on the innovations in new products (Warlock/Dragonfire Adept invocations, Martial Adepts' maneuvers, and UA/PHB2), I forsee 4th Edition utilizing a new direction. I whole-heartedly expect 4th Edition to kill off some sacred cows, but I don't think it will be moving away from the d20 system; I don't think Wizards could get away with obsoleting everything (I myself have only seen a few 3.0 materials that were entirely obsoleted by the revision; mainly DR issues).
So, I'll probably check out a 4th Edition PHB, and see if it wows me.
While I don't care for the 3.5 edition or the possibility of a 4e, I do admire some of the material that shows up in the new books. Some of it has inspired me (Manual of the Planes gave me many ideas for my own cosmology in the past, and may do so again), while I very much admire some of the material in certain splats (the BoVD had a few images and ideas very popular with me, and the monsters in Heroes of Horror are fun). Basically while I don't like the systems, the fluff never hurts anyone. :)
Quote from: WitchHunt2.5 was fun. It added a lot of the "good" rules featured in 3.0/3.5, but had some of the old restrictions and managed to keep that "classic" gaming feel.
:soap: I once downloaded a free version of the 1E rules, and I have to say that the idea of racial level limits sickening. If you want humans to be unique give them the free skill points and feat. I'm not telling you what to do, I just feel that any time humans get the long end of the stick that I have to grab the other end and beat them with it. I also just don't like some limits, such as the current alignment system, and the codes of conduct certain classes have that basically do nothing more than force them into certain roles. Forcing people to follow certain behavioral paths does not encourage good roleplaying any more than good roleplaying.
Of course, no one actually used the racial level limits in 1E. At least not for PC's. At least not in any game I ever played in or heard of.
Quote from: snakefingOf course, no one actually used the racial level limits in 1E. At least not for PC's. At least not in any game I ever played in or heard of.
We did. For about a month in the early eighties...
I never ever used racial limits. I gave humans a few extra bonuses to compensate, most commonly consisting of +1 to any one ability and two extra weapon proficiency points (this was before I had access to the Players Option series; then I just went crazy).
Quote from: CYMRO ARBITER BRASSICIIn light of Ishmayl's new poll, who will buy 4E? Why? Or why not?
Who has given up on D&D in favor of other systems?
I'll only buy 4E pending some other member of the CBG's positive review. I've learned the hard way not to just leap in and buy something that looks good, as my completely unused collection of 3.5 D&D supplements can attest to.
Personally, I'd like to see simplified rules, and right now I'm looking in other places for the things I want. I'm really on a search right now, just collecting the "core rules" for every system I can find hoping that I will enjoy one of them. That, and I wait with baited breath for LC's new homebrew system, as it seems to hold a lot of what I've learned to love in an RPG system.
Quote from: CYMRO ARBITER BRASSICIIn light of Ishmayl's new poll, who will buy 4E? Why? Or why not?
Who has given up on D&D in favor of other systems?
I'll buy 4E, at least the Core Rules. Having played every edition of D&D from Basic (the red box printing) to 3.5, I have to say that I have enjoyed each edition more than the last. The more editions there are, the more old material I have to draw upon when creating house rules. (Yes, I regularly reference even my old red boxed set when creating house rules for 3.5.)
Also, usually by coincidence, every new edition of D&D has ended up incorporating some of the house rules that I used in the previous edition into its core rules. So as long as the designers keep coming up with ideas that seem to fit with my particular approach to modifying the game, I'll keep supporting them.
As for leaving D&D for other systems, I don't see D&D and other systems as mutually exclusive. I'll play whatever system is most approapriate to the setting I'm playing in, without shunning the others. When I have a gaming group that needs to play short sessions that don't get too heavy, I'll play D&D because it is a good-versus-evil combat simulation game that doesn't require complex moral quandries, intensive character development, or GM invention to mitigate an overly-permissive character creation process. You can just pick it up, play with fairly ready-made roles, and kill some monsters.
(D&D is like a WWII movie where you don't have to sweat it that Nazis are getting slaughtered by the dozen. Nazis are bad. Allies are good. I'm an Ally, so its good that Nazis are getting slaughtered. Are there some Nazi soldiers who disagree with their leaders and are only going along becuase they fear for their lives? Yes. Does the WWII movie dwell on that fact? No. That would ruin the movie's entire genre.)
When I want some other style of play, I either house-rule it, or I use another game system. As it so happens, in my experience, player familiarity with third party systems is inconsistent at best. There is no one third party system that nearly every gamer knows, so as I encounter different gaming groups, I end up dabbling in any number of systems other than D&D, from Shadowrun and Storyteller to GURPs and (currently) a Hong-Kong action system called Fung Shui. (Every gaming group I've ever met offline has also universally known and at least occasioanly played the most recent edition of D&D.)
As for what should be put in the latest edition of D&D, I hope it retains the usual sacred cows. As I've mentioned here and elsewhere before, D&D isn't a generic roleplaying game. It's designed to recreate only one specific kind of story with a few specific types of characters. For that matter, its one of the few roleplaying games that specifically caters to its own unique themes.
And while I hope that the 4E rules are more concise and streamlined that the 3.5 rules (games should always become easier to use as they get refined), I in no way hope that it becomes one of those systems where it just gives you guidelines for creating any character you want and then tells you that the players need to figure out how to balance things on their own. When it comes to good-versus-evil combat simulation, I want things laid out exactly the way D&D does it now, even if that can't be fit into one book a la Mutants and Masterminds or other systems.
Quote from: WitchHuntI never ever used racial limits. I gave humans a few extra bonuses to compensate, most commonly consisting of +1 to any one ability and two extra weapon proficiency points (this was before I had access to the Players Option series; then I just went crazy).
I was primarily just ranting against the idea in general, that's why I put the soapbox smiley in front of it. I feel that many of the elements of D&D, even in the current edition, are offensive (and not even specifically offensive, but generally), and I take every opportunity to decry them.
I'm not really a huge fan of D&D or even d20 for a number of reasons beyond the scope of what I want to go into this morning, but I might still buy 4E in the hopes that it would fix some these issues (though since most of them are the so-called "sacred cows," I doubt it). Still, many of my friends know and even prefer D&D, so I continue to occassionally play it.
I vastly prefer The Riddle of Steel. I've also enjoyed Shadowrun and Warhammer, and have some interest in Storyteller. I'd be interested in looking into other systems if I could convince more other players to give them a try.
While I'm not a big fan of the class and level concept, over time I've become convinced that it is not inherently flaws. Rather, the D&D implementation of classes and levels is especially rigid and uncompromising. 3.5e fixes some of this, but didn't really go all the way. I rather suspect that 4e will be the same, but I'll be interested to see.
If you look at the core of d20 system (classes and levels with XP, feats, skills, combat system, magic system), the flawed parts are mostly fixable. For example, the way bonus feats are used in the core fighter class makes it nicely flexible, within the limits of what they've allowed you. I'd just like to see that flexibility extended to all the classes. And improve on the multiclassing system so you can combine classes more effectively and freely. This would relieve the requirement for more base classes, more prestige classes, etc. with every new supplement. At least, this is the direction I'm moving in with my own variant d20 tinkering.
So I'd be interested to see if 4e moves a little more in the same direction. It may not, because of the aforementioned sacred cows. But they could surprise me.
I have mostly given up D&D. The tactics just are not that interesting (I prefer board games) and most other things I can do better with freeform or Burning Wheel (http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=41).
It depends on my budget. If I can, I will buy EVERYTHING.
I've been following the posts of these two nut cases that figured they could simplify the game, fix up inconsistantcies, stupid rules and "WTF?!?" things, while amping up the warrior's game. I asked them to hop over to the CBG, and they ignored me. They got this guy to make them an SRD though. Linky to Frank and K SRD (http://www.d20ragon.com/frank/)
i've heard of those guys. I think their mechanics can be suspect, at best; but i love the explanations they make.
Basically I cant afford it so I wont buy it. WOTC are following the Games Workshop business model where you get all the saps (i.e. us) to buy their products for five years and then they completely renew their product line in the hope that we'll buy it all over again. Its a tired old con, but it works - its better than the strategy which TSR pursued in the nineties. I use a stripped down version of 3.0 with bits of 3.5 (for instance the much improved ranger class) added on. It does what I want it to do, which is provide the framework for the interactive stories me and my players create. And thats it. I dont need to buy a fancy new edition to do that.
I posted recently in a Future Releases thread on WotC regarding new manuals coming out, and I came to a conclusion not only for new releases in 3.5 but those in 4.0 as well. I don't really want to see 4.0 come out, but rather I want to see all of the major existing material clumped together in a series of massive encyclopedias, i.e. MM/MM2/MM3/MM4/MM5/FF/MonOfF all in one huge tome, and all of the PHB/PHB2 + DMG/DMG2 + XPH + etc. all in one. Yes, they would be massive books and might give rise to back problems in some people, but as someone said on that thread, "it'd be no worse than carrying all of your current supplements around in a backpack". They could even theme the encyclopedias ("Encyclopedia of Races, Volume 1", "Encyclopedia of Magic, Volume 1", etc.), though obviously fill each with a lot more material instead of trying to milk every cent out of the books by creating an extra volume.
And this could by no means discontinue the individual books (though maybe they could stop producing everything in single copies except for core and heavily core-related books), leaving it easier for newcomers to the games and people who just want a few simple things (but I know I'd want the massive collections).
Oh. My. God.
I did not know there was a MMV in the works until the post above me. :explode:
I guess it's a good thing I stopped buying supplements this spring, I could never foresee myself using most of these supplements. Ever.
As for 4E, I don't begrudge it if it ever comes, but I probably won't learn how to play it. 3e/3.5 works just fine for me, so I'll stick with it.
QuoteI could never foresee myself [using???] most of these supplements.
no one[/i] can use all or most or perhaps even
many of just
wizard's supplements.
I'd kind of imagine most people would ignore 90% of the new books coming out and snap up 1 every 2 months or so that looked really appealing?
The problem with most books and buying a select few now is that they reference other books heavily while saying "while those books are useful, they are not necessary to put this book to use" even though there's usually a fair bit of material in the book that relates.
Quote from: brainfaceQuoteI could never foresee myself [using???] most of these supplements.
no one[/i] can use all or most or perhaps even many of just wizard's supplements.
I'd kind of imagine most people would ignore 90% of the new books coming out and snap up 1 every 2 months or so that looked really appealing?
Right now, I don't see any that I would buy. I guess I'm just content.
If I were still playing D&D, I kind of liked the enviornments books, so I might get Cityscape. There's little insentive to buy when I know I won't use it any time soon, though.
There was a time when I bought supplements because they looked like they might have cool stuff in them. After a while, I downgraded to buying things I thought might be fun to read (having no social life has nothing to do with this). But now I've come to the point where I won't even get suplements I think I'll like because I can't think of what I'll use them for. I might still buy them if I thought they might be fun to read. Part of this reluctance is both because I'm not DM material and because most games I find use few books (and none of the more interesting ones), so even if the game material is FANTASTIC there wouldn't be anything to do with it. Heck, even if I was allowed to use that stuff the game might not last long enough or it advances too slow. And it's almost pure combat. WHY?!
At this point I'm mostly just downloading books and keeping them long enough to see if I have any use for them. If I do, I'll buy the actual sourcebook.
Quote from: WitchHuntAt this point I'm mostly just downloading books and keeping them long enough to see if I have any use for them. If I do, I'll buy the actual sourcebook.
Very sensible approach.
One that I also take.
I personally would not cry if WotC released 4e anytime soon. For one, I haven't invested hundreds of $$$ into v3.5. And second, I bloody hope that WotC uses the opportunity 4e provided for getting rid of several sacred cows (like Disjunction, the current version of Magic Missile that just begs to be metamagically abused, CoDzilla, stuff like Planar Shephard, finally getting out a working Polymorph spell line, ...).
:?: :-/ :roll: