Ask the Designers of D&D Fourth Edition

This past August, big news dropped in the tabletop gaming community: 2008 would see the release of a fourth edition of Dungeons and Dragons. Since then the official D&D Insider site, and communities like the excellent ENWorld, have been doing their best to keep us up to date on the ins and outs of the newest way to dungeon-delve. With the release just five months away, we've been given a chance to put some questions to the team developing the game. One question per post, if you would, and we'll make sure to pass the best questions on to the designers. Don't forget to ask about the online version of the D&D tools as well! We'll get their answers back to you as soon as we get them, so fire away.

Online PDFs

[Anonymous Coward]

Will I need to have a paid subscription in order to download the PDFs of the 4th edition books that I buy?

Critical Failure

[pwnies]

I know at the moment there is only house rules for critical failures (i.e. rolling a 1 on a d20). Will there be set rules for this in 4.0?

Why 4th Edition?

[DrMrLordX]

3.5E had so many non-core sourcebooks that you could have easily respun and/or rebalanced the material into a new set of books if you had any need to sell more material (which you presumably do, as would anyone else in the same business). Based on what has been released and what I've read, 4E will be a radical departure of standards set back in 3E which were, in turn, meant to improve the game drastically.

Don't you think more work could have, and should have, been done to improve 3.5E? It seems like you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Re:Critical Failure

[krog]

A well-played D&D campaign is just one house rule after another.

How long will this edition last?

[Erwos]

It upset quite a few folks when D&D 3.0E transitioned to 3.5E relatively soon after release, and made some people's investments in D&D become basically worthless overnight. While I appreciate that it's sometimes time to spawn a new edition that's incompatible with the old, it felt like 3.5E should have been an errata to 3.0E, rather than a totally new set of books.

I understand that WotC can't commit itself to any firm "we will not release another edition for X years" guarantee, but it would be nice to hear some sort of assurance that we won't see a repeat of the 3.0E->3.5E debacle. What's the plan? What lessons have you learned?

Re:Why 4th Edition?

[Lord Apathy]

So you mean they are going to fuck the game up even more? How about this, you scrap 3.0/5 and go back to 1st edtion? Then you work from there.

My friends and I had been playing AD&D for over 20 years. We started with chainmail. Went through basic, not the red and blue books, 1st editon and into 2nd. Frist edition was a mess. Inconsistan rules, typos, and shitty book construction but we had a fucking ball with it. 2nd edition was better, less rule problems and some needed rule changes.

3rd edition is crap. Most of the soul of the game is gone. The books look nice but it's not D&D. It's a bad imitation with D&D on the cover. Come on, magic using dwarves, evil rangers, and wizards carrying swords. That goes against the very core of the game.

Like good little players we bought 3rd edition and tried to play it. We ruled that it sucked so much and went back to 2nd edition. 3rd edition might have been a good game if it stood on its own but its not D&D.

I don't play anymore because of that crap and I know a lot of old time players who have stopped playing too. Wizards should go back to the roots of D&D. 3rd edition isn't D&D and neither will 4th.

4th edition?!?!?

[Obliterous]

this is the `we're not making enough money' edition, right?

Seriously. 3rd, and then 3.5, and now 4th edition, all within what, six years?? and how long did 2nd last?

there's nothing wrong with the game as it plays, now, that a couple of house rules cant fix.

another `lets make everything from the last version completely obsolete' version is NOT going to sit well with a lot of players.

I paid all that money for 2nd edition books, and actually got my moneys worth. I had them for more than 10 years.

I held off on buying 3rd edition, because I was still happy with 2nd, and by the time I was ready to buy, 3.5 had been released, so that's what I bought.

considering how much I paid for all of these books, and how many 3.5 books I've purchased, I wont consider myself to have gotten my moneys worth from them until at LEAST 2012. So as far as I can tell, 4th edition is at LEAST 4 years too early. so I doubt that I'll be buying or playing 4th edition for a while.

So, really, My question is: Did you actually come up with something so completely new that it makes a new edition essential, or is this just a move by WOC to squeeze as much money out of the AD&D franchise as possible?

Re:Newbie alert (me)

[halivar]

The game is only as fun as the people you play with.

Re:Critical Failure

[moderatorrater]

well said. Many people forget that the rules are in place for a reason. You don't want the game to turn into one rules-lawyering session after another, but at the same time, the game should work in a way where you can predict the mechanics of your actions every time.

Re:Complexity vs. other gaming systems

[east coast]

What? You didn't find The Complete Potato Farmer v 3.504.321a to be worth the 30 USD?

Sadly, and I know that someone will probably bitch at me, the WotC business model is based on people consuming what they normally don't need at an alarming rate. They gained wide popularity in the business of CCGs. Anyone who's ever spent any serious time playing CCGs knows that it's a scam; a monetary blackhole where rules are made up to make perfectly good cards obsolete and create an atmosphere where players (normally teens) beleive that their cards are going to be worth big money and are, in fact, an investment instead of a gaming supply. Come on folks, enough already.

I felt that this would be the case with D&D when Wizards got their hooks into it and the speed with which 3.5 was announced only confirmed my thoughts. And this isn't even to mention the meager software offerings that went toes-up before the bittorrent could even be completed.

While I still maintain and interest in the game and still play with the same small group I have for the better part of the last decade, I still clutch onto my 3.0 core rules and a copy of Tomes and Blood. I will not spend 30+ USD on more books for a game that does not justify it. I'm still running just fine with my Call of Cthulhu 5.0 rulebook. I've had it just as long or longer than most people have had their AD&D 2.0 books. And it's the only book needed for the game!

Re:Why 4th Edition?

[CrashPoint]

Come on, magic using dwarves, evil rangers, and wizards carrying swords. That goes against the very core of the game.

Nonsense. The core of D&D is not, and never has been, "only play characters that fit pre-approved fantasy archetypes".

Who are you trying to please?

[HikingStick]

Pardom me if this mini-rant-around-a-question goes long. I started playing D&D (the basic boxed set) and AD&D ages ago--first on 1st Ed. rules and eventually ponying up for 2nd Ed. My friends and I liked the game because it was easy and simple (regarding game mechanics) in the first edition, and we did enjoy some of the changes going into 2nd E. (though we did opt to keep the original Ranger class, as our gaming world was very Norse and giant-heavy). For those of us who wanted games with more realistic (if you can use that term for a Fantasy RPG) combat mechanics, different skill allocation methods, and other detailed tables, we had RuneQuest, Palladium, and dozens of other options. The game was well-established, and players could be found anywhere.

With the arrival of the 3rd Ed. rules, you lost me as a regular player, along with many of my peers (we may be a bit older now, but we are the ones with regular salaries and a desire to continue the delusion of ongoing youth by purchasing simple amusements like games). I had no desire to relearn a gaming system that, for the most part, had its rules embedded in my head. The 3.5 Ed.? Didn't even pay attention. Fourth edition? Sorry, but not interested.

My own sons are old enough to play now. I've been shopping around for some of the early 1st and 2nd Ed. books so my kids and I may try out the game together, but until that happens, we bide our time playing Guild Wars (online) and Magic: The Gathering (offline).

My question is this: who are you trying to please? Do you have a core group of early gamers who will buy anything AD&D just because you print it? Are you attracting any younger gamers to the fold? If not, what's the point in publishing release after release after release? It's as bad as auto makers manufacturing '08 vehicles that are effectively the same as the '07s (Oh!, but the door for the gas cap is now square!).

The question I'm asking beneath the surface is, "Why should I care at all?" Unless the rules are relatively simple--something that won't require me to buy an entire library of books--you won't win me back. Once upon a time, only three books were needed for hours (months, and years) of fun: the DM handbook, the Player's handbook, and a Monster Manual (and the creative DM could get by without the MM). In all honesty, it looks like you are using the glorious history of (perhaps) the most storied RPG franchise of our time and using only as a perpetual money maker for your company. The more I hear about subsequent editions, the more I get the impression that you don't give a crap about the players out there (the people who made the game great in the first place), and that you simply wonder how much more you can squeeze the golden goose before it dies.

Re:Why 4th Edition?

[shinma]

Gandalf carried a sword.

Books do not make the game

[PrimalChrome]

Can you publish an edition that likens back to 1st Edition AD&D where four books and a module pretty much could sum up a session? How about putting more energy into fleshing out a world instead of bloating the ruleset or creating more classes? Well designed modules/worldbooks will still generate the revenue that you are trying to force out of your clients with more core books.

The magic of AD&D (whether it be high, dark, monty haul, hack-n-slash, dungeoncrawling, or comic) is in the minds of the players....the world they mold around their characters. Then again....most gaming companies today don't really care about this. WotC, Whizkids, Games Workshop....they're all about the $$ and number of units sold.

What is REALLY going to happen to Open Content?

[xant]

During the 3.x timeframe, you introduced OGL, the Open Gaming License, a reasonably good share-alike compromise for the game system.

Alongside that, you published the System Reference Document (SRD) which contained most of the monsters and equipment from the core books and almost all of the rules. It made an excellent standard for spinning off games and creating publishable material based on a canon.

And yet, at the same that Creative Commons license gaining ground, and YouTube and other crowd-publishing sites (like Gleemax?) are looming massively over the entertainment playground, I hear the rumour that OGL and the SRD are going away!

What is Wizards really going to do to promote community publishing? Those of us creating content for the game, content that promotes the game, are waiting to hear that we'll have a green light, that we can publish our material freely for all to use without fear of The Lawyers, and that we can incorporate Wizards' canon material in those publications in a non-competitive way. Will we be given that license? Or will there be, as the rumor told it, licensing fees to keep out content creators?

Re:Why 4th Edition?

[internic]

Sort of off topic here, but are wizards carrying swords really counter to "pre-approved fantasy archetypes"? I mean, I'd think Gandalf would be a pretty archetypal wizard and he carried a sword.

Why will D&D4e be better than other RPGs?

[CmdrSam]

Whenever I hear anything about the upcoming 4th edition, the only comparisons I ever hear are comparisons to previous editions of Dungeons and Dragons.

There are a lot of other roleplaying games in the market these days: the availability of print-on-demand has given rise to a new generation of "indy" games like Spirit of the Century, Reign, Primetime Adventures, and so forth. Even ignoring these, there are all kinds of other competitors in the marketplace: Exalted, World of Darkness, GURPS, etc.

For someone who moved away from D&D to other game systems, I can't help but feel that discussion and marketing of 4th edition is curiously blind to the existence and advances made by all these other systems.

Why should I choose to play D&D 4th edition instead of one of the other games? What, in short, are your relative competitive advantages when I am deciding what system to use for a new campaign?

DRM?

[MykeBNY]

Many people are acting as if a new edition will not only obsolete their old books, it will actually prevent them from accessing the ruleset at all. Level-headed people of course regard that as silly, nobody's going to sneak into your house and burn your old books!

However, with more and more importance being placed on digital content (not specifically Wizards of the Coast, but in general), if the wrong decision is made regarding DRM, that nightmare scenario may actually take place if WotC stops supporting this edition.

Will WotC spend a lot of time and money in vain in adding restrictions that will only serve to frustrate legitimate customers, restrictions that pirates will figure out how to bypass within a week of release, if not sooner?

Is the issue of whether to DRM or not, and why and how being treated very seriously within the company?