Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition Announced

bigstrat2003 writes "For the past day, Wizards of the Coast has had a countdown to "4dventure" on their web site. The countdown ran out at 6:30 eastern time today (and the web site promptly crashed), but stories are already appearing on the rest of the web. Wizards also has had their 4th edition forums up for a couple of days."

That probably signifies the end of new books

[bigtangringo]

I own damn near every 3.5 book there is. I haven't looked too much into the "new version" but I have no intention to replace the books I own. If the "new version" is mostly moot, as far as system changes, then I'll continue to buy their books.

Given that the system is fairly hashed out, I don't see much reason to change.

Re:I'm not buying any more WoTC products...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The fact that 3.5 is working, and in no need of overhaul"

Clearly you've not noticed how horribly broken some of the 3.5 rules are. Check out some DnD forums and you might be surprised.

When a first level character can literally do infinite damage every turn, I think you're in need of a rules overhaul.

Re:I'm not buying any more WoTC products...

[Planesdragon]

I'm literally in shock right now. I thought Wizards of the Coast understood its consumer base better and was comprised of people more concerned about the integrity of the game and more competent about long-term business strategies.

They are. Go over to enworld.org and read the information.

3e was a much-needed refresh. 3.5 was a patch. 3.5 + all the cruft is an unstable, annoying, POS that I haven't played in years. Not because the game has gotten worse, but because a better game is so easy to make.

4e is necessary, and if they do it right I might just come back into the fold.

Kinda like software...

[ConceptJunkie]

There's a pattern here that was also the same with DOS, Windows, Netscape, and perhaps others.

Version 1 was awful.
Version 2 was a little better.
Version 3 was excellent and stable.
Version 4 was big and bloated.
Version 5 fixed all the problems with version 4 that shouldn't have been made after version 3.

Of course, I played mostly 1ed and a little 2ed. I haven't played since the 3ed came out, but I always liked the 1ed rules with all the leftover nonsense from miniatures and wargames and stuff (1" = 10' indoors, but 30' outdoors).

To be honest I thought TSR was totally jumping the shark by the late 80's with all their "If it's not 'official', you can't use it." crap, and by 1992 or so most of the people I played with had moved out of town.

I really can't speak to WotC, but I thought of software given the comments I've read. "3.5 is stable" "3.5 is buggy"...

Re:I'm not buying any more WoTC products...

[kpharmer]

I used to play back in the 70s and 80s.

1st edition was poorly designed, but at least it was relatively simple.
2nd edition tried to fix the design with a lot of poorly thought-out patches.
3rd edition tried to redesign the solution and managed to make it worse.
3.5 edition tried to fix the bad redesign with more bad patches.
4th edition will supposedly fix the prior bad designs.

However, this vendor has no credibility when it comes to go design - they've never really created an elegant gaming system and clearly enjoy changing things around to force players to buy $1000+ in books.

So, compare this to gurps (generic universal role playing game system at www.sjgames.com) for a second. Gurps came out around twenty years ago. They've had revisions - but the original game mechanics worked so well that the revisions are mere tweaks compared to the nonsense at wotc. This isn't to say that gurps is perfect - it could be more detailed than some groups would want - but it's a perfect example of how an elegant design ages well.

Given the options of buying the old 1st edition books used for $5 each, playing gurps (requires 1-2 books), or playing almost any other game I've got no idea why anyone would bother with d&d anymore.

Re:I am really pissed off.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't believe the hype, my friend.

Stereos and computer systems depreciate. Drugs and booze kill your mind. Girls play D&D, too.

And everything I need to know to do my job (I'm a business consultant - and make well over a quarter million a year), I learned from D&D. I'm 33 and I still play. With a few other lawyers and accountants.

Re:I'm not buying any more WoTC products...

[podperson]

I finally understand D&D. In D&D the rules are the content. They need to change them frequently because you run out of content. If you're actually interested in stories and "role-playing" (vs. leveling up and trying out new spells and magic items), then D&D's rules get in the way and you play something else... You also prefer your rules not to change constantly.

Re:Why did the site crash?

[The Evil Couch]

Their site ate it because their website's been poorly maintained for at least the past year. I've lost track of the number of times that I've gone to WotC's website and gotten a friendly error message saying that some portion or another was "down for maintenance" for hours at a time. Almost as often was the times I'd get an unfriendly error message for an entire wing of their site. I'm not sure if they maintain their servers in house or if they have it contracted out to someone else, but I'd say that either they're not getting their money's worth, or not they're not spending nearly enough. Which is kind of a shame, considering that they have a lot of good content on their site.

Re:I'm not buying any more WoTC products...

[Anthony Boyd]

The fact that 3.5 is working, and in no need of overhaul, exposes the fact that they are doing this under the motivation of short-sighted greed.

No. The 3.5 edition has many needed changes. Anyone who has the d20 Star Wars Saga knows that the rules can be improved, because that improved it. If WotC is basing 4th edition on SW Saga, it's a good sign.

I personally just wrapped up a gaming session tonight, and I have to tell you that 3.5 edition rules on grappling and turning undead are brain-dead. Not brain-dead as in dead-easy, but brain-dead as in stupidly cluttered. Also, later in this very Slashdot topic, someone posted about the changes he'd seen playing out in test games, and I have to say that I VERY much like some of the things described. For example, the fact that only the attacker rolls (I cast a fireball, I roll once, those in the blast take full or half damage without rolling). That alone will double the speed at which we complete battles, and I don't think (based upon what I've heard of the implementation) that we will lose much detail. These are great improvements. I had a session last month that was 5 hours long. During that session, we had one battle with 8 goblins. The ENTIRE five hours was spent fighting them. They were not particularly hard (or easy) but we were pouring over rule books for nuances about 5-foot steps, flanking, charges/bullrushes, and so on. If 4th edition fixes some of this nitpicking by streamlining away the cruft, then I'll happily give WotC my money for the new books.

PS: Our 3.5 edition game is at 5th level, we're in San Jose, California, we're professionals in our 30s, and we're looking for a 5th player. Email me at tony [at] outshine [dot] com, if you might be able to join.

Re:I'm not buying any more WoTC products...

[Aladrin]

You say that as if it's negative, but I see it otherwise.

While I haven't played a lot of pen & paper D&D, there have been quite a few video games based on fairly loose rules that you use in the right way to really come up with a great character.

For instance: In Guild Wars, someone figured out that you could purposefully use runes to reduce your health to about 10% of what other people had... And use the game's rules to keep yourself healed and deal major damage to a whole group of enemies all at once. This is obviously WAY beyond what the game designers had thought of, and shows how flexible the system is. To this day, people are still finding new combinations of classes and skills that seem to be way overpowered. Most of them COULD have been created on day 1, but were just finally imagined.

I see D&D's rules and arguments about the rules in the same way. All those arguments come from people interpreting the rules or the rules' interactions differently and coming up with new strategies. So for those who just want to play mindlessly, it's a pointless argument. For those that care, it's pretty much a basic part of the fun.

Re:I'm not buying any more WoTC products...

[thebdj]

I finally understand D&D. In D&D the rules are the content. They need to change them frequently because you run out of content. If you're actually interested in stories and "role-playing" (vs. leveling up and trying out new spells and magic items), then D&D's rules get in the way and you play something else... You also prefer your rules not to change constantly.

I call bullshit, not only from the D&D perspective, but from all other RPG perspectives. I know people who still play Second Edition World of Darkness, which was replaced by Third Edition (and now the "New World of Darkness"); there are also people who refused to ever change to 3rd Ed D&D. The rules provide a framework, the rest is based on your imagination. If your GM/DM/ST (or whatever you want to call them) is unimaginative, then yes, you might get hindered by what is in the rulebook. The fact is a good GM can create new settings, add new characters, add new creatures, or change the entire outlay of the world.

There are rules and systems in place for a lot of these creations that GMs make. People have created tons of player generated content for various RPGs, which other people will in turn adopt. I have seen where an entirely new game was created within the rules of a larger system, like White Wolf's World of Darkness. You are truly only confined by the rules of these systems if you let yourself be that way.