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Typeline wrote:Played DnD since I was eleven. Always loved it. I'd be playing now, but I'm not a geek's geek so I have some problems finding a group that doesn't ruin the game for me. I love 4th edition, I've only had a chance to run it and play it once. But it's just a much better game. A lot easier to play.

I could argue and bitch and moan with the rest of you. But I won't. DnD has been a good game, always. In every edition. People just don't like change.

Sorry I have to disagree with your comment. Changing a game for the worse is not a good thing. In comparison to ealier versions of D&D, 4th edition just blows. There is NO roleplaying involved just number crunching.
The whole tone of your post is arrogant and trollish, maybe you should edit it so you don't sound so.

It's okay... Been too dumbed down for my tastes and there are better games out there.

-J.

I had to check the closet for that hideous old red box (the cheap dice and yellow crayon that came with it were still inside) and have a nostalgia moment.

We're all going to quibble about what is good and bad about the game. 4e would garner a lot less abuse if it wasn't part of the D&D brand given how much a deviation it is from its predecessors. All versions of all Roleplaying Games have their flaws.

D&D in any of its iterations is a game system, and the system is *not* the only tell if you're going to have a good time. Only the group you're playing with can determine that. The worst that could happen is you eat up an afternoon and not enjoy it - the same opportunity cost for a boring date or bad matinee. Go try it out.

I prefer AEG's 'Legend of the Five Rings' over D&D for the depth of the environment. It is extremely deadly though, and not suited for every group.

BaronIveagh wrote:

I'd be interested to see a comparison between it's sales and, say, the current Shadowrun or GURPS books, or better, Pathfinder when it comes out. Further, is that overall units sold in a given time frame or current sales of 3.0 vs 4.0? (And yes, I've seen big companies use a metric where they compared sales of a product they no longer sold to one that was on the shelves to make the current one look more popular.)

Hasbro's profits fell 20% overall last year, according to the SEC, and 47% last quarter when compared to the same time a year ago. WotC was one of their less profitable product lines, though they anticipate that additional revenue will be generated by movie tie-ins with GIJoe and Transformers, as well as their cut of the proceeds of each of those films and are forecasting a turn-around for overall corporate profit in the second Quarter.

D&D, much like GW, is the book dog on the porch. If PATHFINDER sells 50K of books come August at Gencon release and a couple months to come, its a smashing success. If WotC only sells 100k of 4e? Thats a failure. Acccording to Wotc folks, their on their third or fourth printing....

Yes Hasbro's profit fell that much, but unlike GW and ist IP, D&D is a tiny tiny slice of its brand. Hell ifyou read Habro's fiancial release, they'll mention say my little pony or such brands-GI Joe or Transformers and I havent heard word one of 4e.

Unfortunately Hasbro's finacials and GW's are two very different things.

I've dabbled with it. I still have some old books. I don't see myself ever playing it again but I understand that the face of gaming would look a lot different without it. You can't give it all of the credit, though. J.R.R. Tolkien is the one that really put everything together and started to inspire people.

You can't really say a game "has" more or less role-playing. That's all up to the group, as is the type of game, how much action, etc. Unless the rest of your group doesn't suck, it won't be enjoyable. Regardless, all editions of DnD involve rolling dice and playing a character. If you took a random person off the street and gave them intro to 4.0 and an intro to 3.5, they'd hardly be able to tell the difference (though I'd voyage to say 4.0 would make more sense at first).

Chimera_Calvin wrote:Then Black Industries re-released WFRP.

Now that is an awesome ruleset. I genuinely don't believe I've read better RPG rules.

If only GW would employ some of those people...

Hey, I tried (I wrote half of the award-winning "Old World Bestiary" supplement for WFRP), but GW didn't want to pay me enough for me to move to Nottingham...

I like WFRP a whole lot -- I think that any Warhammer Fantasy player should at least give it a shot. I've not played Dark Heresy yet, though.

My other favourite fantasy RPG is Dragon Warriors (recently re-released). It has some similarities to WFRP, in that it's low-fantasy, kinda gritty, and very British. The setting is like a 12th century Europe where folklore is real. Loads of fun. (Note that, in the interests of full disclosure, I helped revise the new edition, but I had been playing the game and raving about it for 25 years before that.)

I agree with earlier posters that you can't beat Cyberpunk for an SF RPG.

BaronIveagh wrote:
No, but previously they have not actually set out to make an incomplete book as a model to force increased sales. Most previous releases at least contained a full set of the basic classes. Bard for some reasons springs to mind as the most glaring example of this. They also tended to include the basic races in the initial release, rather then telling people that they had to wait a volume to play a gnome.

Bard is a core class? Really? I don't think it was remotely a core class until 2nd edition AD&D. (It was a weird uber-class in 1st edition, where you had to be high-level in a couple other classes.)

The 'core classes' of D&D have pretty much always been 'fighter, wizard, magic-user, thief' at least since AD&D 1st. Everything else tends to be a variant on these.

Your complaint about the gnome is slightly more valid, but again: the class and race roster has been tweaked every edition. For example, half-orcs were lost from AD&D 1st to AD&D 2nd.

BaronIveagh wrote:
True, it would be more accurate to call it World of Dungeons & Dragonscraft. But that's a personal opinion.

That's a more valid point, but I would note that you're complaining about a game (D&D 4th) drawing inspiration from a game (WoW, or effectively most MMOs) that was, essentially, based on the previous version of the previously referenced game (MMOs being derived from D&D in many cases).

The biggest 'MMO' element I see in 4th edition is that it defaults to a pretty 'magic heavy' setup and expects lots of magic weapons to be used. The first is that nearly every class has a bunch of powers that explained by default in ways that evoke imagery of big particle-effects special MMO abilities. Also, the game expects a regular stream of ugprades.

However, the latter has always been something D&D has done. It's something I've never been fond of: I prefer games where magic weapons are interesting and detailed, and the fighter doesn't toss Stormcutter The Blade That Kills in the back of the closet because he found a sword with another plus in a trash can somewhere. That's more an issue with setting and, like many problems, can be solved by a good GM. My only issue is that it can require some rebalancing as 4th edition's guidelines on building encounters expects the party to have a certain amount of magical gear after a certain point, and you really only need so many 'utility' items like Decanters of Endless Water.

D&D 4th isn't my favorite game... But it's fun.

BaronIveagh wrote:
I'd be interested to see a comparison between it's sales and, say, the current Shadowrun or GURPS books, or better, Pathfinder when it comes out. Further, is that overall units sold in a given time frame or current sales of 3.0 vs 4.0? (And yes, I've seen big companies use a metric where they compared sales of a product they no longer sold to one that was on the shelves to make the current one look more popular.)

No clue... Not sure if SJG or the current publisher of Shadowrun publishes sales info.

One thing to consider is that SJG has trimmed the GURPS line down a lot in the current edition. Admittedly, the GURPS line was huge when you counted all the historical books, but most of these have gone to PDF only, which suggests it wasn't felt they would be profitable. I think only the 'core' is now printed.

BaronIveagh wrote:
Hasbro's profits fell 20% overall last year, according to the SEC, and 47% last quarter when compared to the same time a year ago. WotC was one of their less profitable product lines, though they anticipate that additional revenue will be generated by movie tie-ins with GIJoe and Transformers, as well as their cut of the proceeds of each of those films and are forecasting a turn-around for overall corporate profit in the second Quarter.

Last year was The Suck for most companies, though. As I believe I said earlier, there was a period in the late 90s when RPG lines were expanding at what was probably an unrealistic rate. A bubble, essentially. White Wolf would release a game, a revised version a year later, and a dozen add-on books and they sold. A lot of people complained about 'meta plots' then: story lines that ran through tons of books, providing an incentive to purchase the whole line and possibly changing the setting in weird ways.

The dot-com bust, September 11th, and the economy have really changed the market and it's never really recovered. Some companies are clawing their way back, but I don't think we'll see the days of massive RPG lines again. Companies are going for smaller, leaner games.

Typeline wrote:

MagickalMemories wrote:

Typeline wrote:People just don't like change for the worse.

That's a bit closer to the mark.

Eric

Keep crying I'm certain it will help.

Yeah, well.... if you don't have a reasonable defense against the comment, I guess the ad hominem CAN BE a last line of defense.


The bottom line is that your statement was wrong. Not everyone dislikes change. It's change for the worse (based on their opinion) that people have problems with.
I think you should try realizing that people sometimes have opinions that differ from your own, and that it's acceptable.

I like D&D in general. I wish it well.
If they could get back the charisma of 2nd edition and mix it with the easier flow of d20, while losing the "combat monster' mentality for characters, I'd give it a shot.

Eric


Automatically Appended Next Post:

carmachu wrote:

Recently, I started an AD&D 2nd edition campaign and managed to find 7 other players (with an 8th who's now interested). That system is the BEST in D&D's history, IMO, and was the SOLE basis for my choice of "frigging awesome."

WHile I'm glad you have found players and are playing and having fun, you, frankly, are wrong. Flat out wrong. 2nd ed was a trainwreck that required too many house rules to make right. not even close to the best.

PoTAYto.
PoTAHto.

I respect your opinion, but disagree.

Personally, I've never had to make a house rule to fix anything in the 2e game. Mind if I ask what you had to fix?

We have house rules for other things... things we wanted to try or to change (like, for character creation), but nothing that was due to the system and nothing that we didn't also use in our AD&D 1st Ed and 3.x games.

Eric


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Roze wrote:I Love D&D! Cleric of lolth FTW! i have a Dark elf fetish used to play religiously for about 6 years then was asked to leave the roleplay group because of angry Girlfriends.l now i just look longingly at rule book and monster manual remembering the joys.....*sigh*

Maybe you should've flirted with the DM... or... maybe... SHOULDN'T have?
; )

It's a shame, Roze. Insecure women.
If you ever move to the states, you can game in our group.

Eric

I played D&D in all of its incarnations from my early teens until about 6 years ago. It has steadily been leaning towards a table top battle game a little more with each addition(which is ok by me since I love table top battle games). Every edition began leaving you to find your own level of comfort with role palying, with less and less guidance on telling you how much you have to rolepaly. I'm okay with that approach as it lets you make what you want of the game, and has rules to cover the mechanics. The group I played with liked characterful interactions but was let down by and bored by complicated intrige stories, etc. So 3.0 and 3.5 fit us wonderfuly. I havn't been in touch with them for a while, so i'm not sure if they have switched to 4th or not.

If you want a game where roleplaying is a must, play Harn. If you can get past all the complications of building a character and figuring out just how much armor your knee caps have, you will enter a world where your character is scared of everything. You'll try to talk your way out of a fight with a little kid weilding a knife, and be in mortal fear if the little brat takes a swing at you. Wounds stay with you and actually have to heal, magic is present but rare and special, settings are realistic and suitably mediveal. The time it takes to implement the mechanics do interfere with the suspense of disbelief though, but like any game it is easy enough to take the parts you like and dispense with the rest. I still have the re-released binder of the basic rules, some old scenarios, and a couple city and castle packs that are simply stunning in their detail in capturing a realistic feel iof fuedal low-fantasy life.

Meph

Balance wrote:

warpcrafter wrote:A friend of mine let me look through his 4th edition D&D player's manual, man it's a mess! You can't get through an entire page reading about anything without being referred to some other section of the book, and it's so much different than I remember the last time I played (I believe it was 3rd ed.) that I would probably have to get in a party with a bunch of complete noobs and have somebody explain it as we went along to figure it out. Why does it have to be so complicated? Surely not everybody who plays is an IT worker who is a whiz at juggling reams of numbers. (I suck at math, it makes my head hurt.) Even thinking about it now is giving me a headache. I know 40K is really simplistic in comparison, but surely there is a halfway point somewhere.

Really? Most people wouldn't fault a book for pointiung out links to other sections.

The main 'trick' is to make or buy power cards (or a similar reference sheet). All your math is on them and can be pre-calculated, and during play they an be discarded/turned over to show what has been used. It's a bit fiddly (some find the idea of arts & crafts in D&D to be some horrible thing, but are probably the same people who'd love to see the 'artifacts' like aged-looking maps some GMs like to make.

Now that sounds like a good idea. Where do you get them?

Orlanth wrote:(...)
4th edition is a design disaster that makes the worst GW studio monkeys look like paragons of enlightenment in comparison. It's the Vista 'upgrade' of gaming.

That goes into my quotefile.

I registered pretty much to say just that, but since I'm here, I might as well say something that's on topic. I started playing DnD in the summer of 2006, with 3.5e. It is at the same time my beloved and most hated system. I hate twinkery cheesefests, official material lawyers, morons who think they can do any old gak just because they're playing DnD, ding level ups, the secondary importance of skills, save-or-dies and many other, minor things. I love the early settings, the DnD-specific playing mood, seeing my characters grow and laying the smack on donkey-caves who think that powergaming beats a good idea.

4e is not a very good system in my eyes. It keeps much of what I consider the flaws of the game, adds some more stupid crap, and excises much of what makes the game magical, to boot. I'll be sticking with 3.5e or Pathfinder, which actually still feels like DnD.

AbuDhabi wrote:

Orlanth wrote:(...)
4th edition is a design disaster that makes the worst GW studio monkeys look like paragons of enlightenment in comparison. It's the Vista 'upgrade' of gaming.

That goes into my quotefile.

I registered pretty much to say just that, but since I'm here, I might as well say something that's on topic. I started playing DnD in the summer of 2006, with 3.5e. It is at the same time my beloved and most hated system. I hate twinkery cheesefests, official material lawyers, morons who think they can do any old gak just because they're playing DnD, ding level ups, the secondary importance of skills, save-or-dies and many other, minor things. I love the early settings, the DnD-specific playing mood, seeing my characters grow and laying the smack on donkey-caves who think that powergaming beats a good idea.

4e is not a very good system in my eyes. It keeps much of what I consider the flaws of the game, adds some more stupid crap, and excises much of what makes the game magical, to boot. I'll be sticking with 3.5e or Pathfinder, which actually still feels like DnD.

Let me hear an AMEN!

That said, as the player of a Necromancer (LM) I suppose I'd be a cheesefester as I don't make the monsters you slay, I make the monsters you slay better.

DM: A long shadowed hall stretched ahead of you.

ME: I have five of my skeletons carry the bags full of mice I brought with me down the hall. (Our party was without a trapsmith.)

LOL Bagorats fighter ftw!

Green DM: Why'd you Bring a Bag of Rats?
Me: I drop the bag or rats, and attack, then GREAT CLEAVE my way through the enemy!

BaronIveagh wrote:Let me hear an AMEN!

That said, as the player of a Necromancer (LM) I suppose I'd be a cheesefester as I don't make the monsters you slay, I make the monsters you slay better.

DM: A long shadowed hall stretched ahead of you.

ME: I have five of my skeletons carry the bags full of mice I brought with me down the hall. (Our party was without a trapsmith.)

Hardly cheesing. Cheesing is what Gwar! just described.

<(^^,< ) I only did it once, when I was teaching the DM how to DM and how to deal with Gitz (I'm a experienced DM, so I have to pass the Skillz on!)

I'm currently playing two seperate campaigns, one 3.5 and one 4, although my 3.5 char was just crushed by a level 20 Paladin/Cleric (I was level 4). Most of the people I play 40k with also play DnD so, sometimes things will intertwine with interesting results.

I'm my group's designated game master... I basically had to do so in order to actually get to play. My current game is sort of on hold as the last session was a total-party-kill and I haven't had the motivation to get everyone together again (since I have to be the organizing force, too).

I first played D&D in late 2E. When 3E came out, I ran a few abbreviated campaigns for people so we could get a handle on the rules, as well as played in one relatively long-term game. Then I started what is (to date) my longest campaign, running a Forgotten Realms game that actually ran (with a few stop-and-starts) from the release of the Big White FR Book right up to the launch of 4E. Unfortunatly, one of the party's key players got married and moved away so we haven't been able to finish it up and convert that world to 4th.

I also have a totally home-brewed world that I've been working on, and that campaign is where the TPK mentioned above occurred. The main issue with getting it restarted is that I'm trying to introduce the players to the concepts of the world slowly, and I'm not sure how to do it again without just saying "OK, you're at a similar location to last time, and here we go".

My opinions on the rules are pretty bland; I'm not a rules junkie and I like whatever makes the gaming accessible for the people sitting at my table. My sister, for instance, who is definitely NOT a gamer by nature, had a difficult time figuring out 3E but really has grasped 4th to the point where she WANTS TO RUN A GAME. That alone shall make 4th Edition considered a success in my book.

As far as it being a Good or Bad system... I just don't really care. I try to make my games as much as possible about the interactions between the characters, and there's not much need for die rolls there. As such, I just need rules for combat, and will pick based on what's needed for the environment. I have plenty of other rulebooks on my shelf, and they'll probably all get used at some point (I keep meaning to start up a Star Wars d6 game...)

AbuDhabi wrote:

BaronIveagh wrote:Let me hear an AMEN!

That said, as the player of a Necromancer (LM) I suppose I'd be a cheesefester as I don't make the monsters you slay, I make the monsters you slay better.

DM: A long shadowed hall stretched ahead of you.

ME: I have five of my skeletons carry the bags full of mice I brought with me down the hall. (Our party was without a trapsmith.)

Hardly cheesing. Cheesing is what Gwar! just described.

How about using feats and magical items to make my skeletons into an unliving legion of 1 hit dice self healing self destructing str buffed magical sword wielding skeletons at lvl 15? (if it was not for the end of the campaign, I was well on my way to shrouding the Kingdom in eternal darkness... Or whatever Chaotic Neutral shrouds people in... Bwa ha ha ha HA!)

Dude, you can hardly be a Necromancer without being Evil!

Gwar! wrote:Dude, you can hardly be a Necromancer without being Evil!

Requirement: Non-good. (LM)

Though all the best feats for undead creation require Evil.

Exactly. It's like trying to be a 3.5 Lawful Good Rouge. technically Possible, but not effective

-Shakes Fist at 4e-
I cant be a Chaotic Neutral Sorcerer any more? Fork That Sheet!

Yeah, why'd 4th get rid of the awesome alignment system and replace it with a good-to-evil meter instead?

It's a shame Gary Gygax upped and died. I wanted him to sign my Monster Manual.

Cheese Elemental wrote:Yeah, why'd 4th get rid of the awesome alignment system and replace it with a good-to-evil meter instead?

It's a shame Gary Gygax upped and died. I wanted him to sign my Monster Manual.

It's no coincidence they waited for him to pop it. When 3e came out, and people were crying their heads off, WotC had to ask Gary to help them fix it, and turn it into the pinnacle of D&D (IMO, having Played AD&D, 2nd ed and 3rd ed).

Now he is gone, they can go about ruining it just like they wanted. 4e is just WoW on Paper.

I play D&D more than I play 40k, as I find the latter horribly unbalanced and very much lacking in any requirement of thought.

I started out with 3e (2nd, if you want to count the Baldur's Gate computer games), and loved them, loved 3.5 more. Since 4th has come out, though, I have discovered something about 3.5:

4th edition is better.

Yes, I am a huge fan of 4th edition, and to me, 3.5 is clunky, boring, unbalanced, and generally crap in general. I sold off the bulk of my 3.5 books (sans Eberron books, for fluff) so I could better afford 4e books.

Prior posters have commented on the criticisms of 4e. Pointing out how drawing inspiration, although I would love to see exactly *what* was lifted, from WoW is just the cycle coming around, as WoW has the whole fantasy thing going on, which D&D is a part of.

As another prior poster has said, criticisms of a lack of roleplaying in 4e is rather foolish. The system does not determine the ability to role-play, the GM and group does. If your DM subjects your party to a near-neverending barrage of encounters, your party will not be able to roleplay because you'll be too busy killing things. If your party has no interest in roleplaying and just moves on to the killing (followed by a light salad), you will not be able to roleplay. It's as simple as that.

Now, i find 4th edition to be more streamlined, balanced, dynamic, and frankly, interesting to play or run than 3.x. In 3.x, the wizard would wrinkle his nose and UNMAKE THE WORLD, and the fighter could....swing a stick 5x a round. Oh, and probably not hit 3 times out of those 5. In 4e, it's far more balanced, and when you attack, you do something else. You have tactical choices to be made to add to the team effort of the fight. If you listen to a 4e group, you will hear them working together to take advantage of party synergy, each contributing something to the whole. Which really doesn't happen in 3.x, in my opinion.

Thinking about it, I remember one time when I played in a game of 4th edition and 3.5 in the same night. The 4e game was dynamic, fast-moving, had RP, and was, for me, a hell of a lot of fun.

The 3.5 game was slow-moving, clunky, had RP, and was, for me, not fun. The 3.5 game even had a hottie playing in it (intelligent slender blonde, my traditional weakness, with a low-cut shirt. Mmm.), and I was playing a class I hadn't played before (Duskmage).

When I told this story on the Wizards board, all of the 3.x neckbeards accused me of countless crimes, from heresy to not being a true D&D player. What will you, oh righteous 4e hater, accuse me of today? Frankly, I am quite content to leave you playing your clunky, bloated cesspit of a system if you would leave me the hell alone to play my nectar-and-ambrosia of a system. However, I doubt that is going to happen, and I'm going to have to remain being somewhat of a prick to all of the people who either blindly hate 4e without playing it, or went into a 4e game with pre-conceived notions of how it would suck, and weren't disappointed; after all, you will see what you want to see. If you honestly gave it a fair chance and didn't like it, I apologize for lumping you in with the other sort. I, however, cannot see how people could like 3.x more than 4e; doubtlessly, there are people who cannot see how I like 4e more than 3.x. I seriously doubt that anybody's mind would be change, so frankly, I think that discussions about the virtues and vices of the respective systems be tabled, to avoid more pissing contests.

Well, they Killed off the Sorcerer and Monk and bard.
That Alone is enough to hate it.

They raped the Alignment System.
Another Point Against 4e.

The removed Spell levels...
Seriously, why remove something that has worked for so long and replace it? Why?

And the whole "OMG THERE ARE 4 CLASSES LAWL!"....
No thanks, I'll stay to the edition that Gygax actually Inspired and helped refine, not some crappy WoW clone.

I think it is safe to to say you are one of the 0.00089% of 3.5e players who move to 4e. 4e will otherwise only be played by people new to the game.

I'm pretty sure Gygax had NOTHING to do with either 3.0 or 3.5, other than that some of the writers had doubtless read & been inspired by earlier editions of D&D.

Gygax did write the occasional 3rd edition-compatible book, like Mongoose Publishing's _The Slayer's Guide to Dragons_, but I'm almost 100% certain that he didn't write anything for WotC at that time.

No, but during the development of 3.5e after the messup that was 3e, they actually asked Gygax what he would fix, and damn well fixed it

D&D with a good group and DM on any given Sunday (or whatever day) can be one of the greatest gaming experiences ever! Sadly, at least in my experience, those conditions are fairly rare (or not maintained for more than six months to a year as adults). I would continue to play if I knew of a good group with an opening. I don't like what they did with D&D 4th as they have (which many others have pointed out) made it a video game on a table top with plug and play characters. They feel they are evolving the game to survive, I get that I just don't like it and don't feel that will work. I'll keep my 3.5edition and the ludicrous Hackmaster books forever. They will have to pry them from my cold dead hands!

Anyone in Vegas know of a good D&D group looking for an old player?

At least you live in a Proper City. I live in a Poxxy little Town of 16,000 people and have no way of leaving (being poor and Unemployed has it's downsides )