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Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, Latest News
Lord Aramil of Dreadwood writes "Blogger and Dragon magazine writer Jonathan Drain is tracking the latest developments on the new D&D edition. Highlights include: Thirty levels instead of twenty, no more XP costs for magic items creation, flexible talent trees replacing feats and prestige classes, a new racial bonuses system that obsoletes ECL, and an end to rubbish skills like Forgery and Use Rope. A quote from the blog: 'Unlike 3.5, all the changes this time around sound like they're definitely for the better... If nothing else, at least they have the opportunity to get rid of Mialee.'"
The first time you hear "got rid of useless feature X", that's a sure sign the game sold out to the mainstream.
To the true gamer, there is no such thing as "useless feature".
I've not got much to add, except to say that you pretty much summed up my opinions and experience. The only time I ever played D&D (not even the advanced version :)), was my very first game. After that I discovered all the other games out there - games that weren't stuck in some anachronistic wargaming time warp - and I never looked back. I read 3rd edition when it came out, because I worked in the industry and there was a lot of excitement over OGL, but still levels, and (A)D&D in particular, still feel quaintly old fashioned to me. Its good for characters to grow in terms of skills and experience, albeit slowly, but as you say, growth mostly happens in terms of the experiences, reputation - horizontally. Meeting old friends, revisiting old places or having a familiar base - to me that is growth as much as any gain in skills or THAC0.
No one talked about this subject yet.But I wonder whether Dungeons & Dragons Online would be converted to 4th and how hard programmers and other stuff should work.Please enlighten me.
While I'm still not sure if I'll drop a bunch of money on getting this new edition when it comes out I'm slightly more optimistic about this edition of the game. The designers seem to have a few good ideas in their heads; not least of which is getting rid of those bloody prestige classes. I've lost count of the amount of times I've seen that feature abused!
Still, is it enough to get me to spend money? I dunno. And the sting of needing to update the material I've written hasn't quite worn off yet. It'd be nice, though, if they could cut down to one core rulebook, or failing that have a basic rulebook handling the first few levels -- sort of a digest version of the core rules
It's more a matter of the value you can get out those skills. You might have an actual need for 'use rope' once every five sessions, while other skills such as 'spot' or 'diplomacy' would be used repeatedly during a session. So you have the choice of spending your limited number of points gaining ranks in a skill that might eventually be useful versus one you know will be used over and over.
The other side of this is that the people writing the adventures know that most players don't take those skills. So they don't add events that require the skills, or provide alternative ways of solving the problem. So it spirals down fast.
The vast majority of the rules are about killing and looting. Sure, you *can* play a different style, but why would you want to? The non-combat rules are poorly thought out and not at all detailed, you'd be much better off using one of the many systems actually designed for non-combat play. I however happen to enjoy the traditional dungeon crawl, and a great many other D&D players do too.
Amen, sir. Our group of players is the same way. We made this call when 3rd Edition came out and we were all playing 2nd Edition. All of the other RPG groups I knew all jumped on the bandwagon and spent hundreds (thousands?) on the new 3e stuff. For us it didn't really matter. Our GMs are telling interactive stories, and the rules are only there to govern special situations. The only die-rolling we do most of the time is combat oriented, and even then we try to avoid it.
We've actually switched over to playing Warhammer FRP in the last few years. It's a different system, although much more realistic. Low wounds (hp), armour which protects at a believable level, and low magic. It all makes for a very brutal and highly deadly combat. Even more reason to try and avoid it and talk your way out of most situations.
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And rule-hounds like you are why I and my core group of friends migrated from D&D to the Storyteller system (White Wolf games like Vampire: The Masquerade and such). We actually wanted to (gasp!) have fun instead of drowning in the mountains of rules. In Storyteller, the GM develops a basic story outline, often with much input from the players, and then starts the improv act. It's liberating, being that much in control of your character while still having a skeleton of a backstory to keep you within sensible bounds. The only dice rolls we ever did were for situations that couldn't be properly acted out, such as fights. When you wanted to mesmerize a victim, you acted it out instead of rolling (though the rules allowed for either), and if you did it well it worked; if you didn't, well that's "life" and you learned to be a better actor.
I guess it's all about whatever makes you happy, but not everyone who is into non-computerized roleplaying can have fun with a mind full of numbers and dice rolls.
As a former d20 writer who might be coming out of retirement, I've been looking for any news I can find about 4e. It seems that they are planning to release the old settings as standalone books at the rate of one per year. You may just see Dark Sun and Planescape again.
l csnap-203072.png Check this image out for some flimsy proof.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/Eostre_7/v
Of course, if your on board with the D&D Insider your probably going to need to buy the core set. The Insider is actually the Dungeon and Dragon magazines which WOTC brought back in house, combined with a ton of digital tools such as an online game table, dungeon master tools, character creator and visualizer, and other features. That would probably be the only reason to buy the core set, unless of course you have some reason to want to see WOTC succeed, which I do. Of course that doesn't mean I'm going to buy supplements I'll never use. I'm pretty far from the completist.
This really isn't a money grab, at least not on some levels. Yeah, I'm sure Hasbro is happy about the core set, but Third Edition being tapped dry. There is nowhere else to go. I don't want to see WOTC die. If they don't release a new edition, its over. Look at whats been released lately, compendium after compendium, splatbook sequels, worthless environment books, adventures I have no interest in playing. Nobody is buying these books, nobody but completists, and there isn't enough of those to keep a company afloat. Besides, there is plenty of rules that need to be tweaked, plenty of skills that need to go, plenty of classes that need revision. Third edition was broken the day they released it, ask Monte Cook, who wrote third edition.
Its time to take what everyone learned playing third edition for the last eight years, and make the game better. WOTC deserves their coin for what they do. Of course, I'm a WOTC fanboy, what do I know.
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Those are good examples, and you make a great point at low and mid-levels, but when you get to high level play you can easily add 10 minutes per day of Spider Climb to your boots for 7,200gp. At that point, costs like that are a rounding error. Or better yet, buy an item that gives you flight-- not only do you never need to worry about jump or climb again (except in antimagic fields), but you also can bypass content and travel more swiftly. You no longer need a mount or other transport other than as a tactical choice (eg mounted combat). You have a potent kiting mechanism against many ground-only monsters.
:)
Sure there are situational cases where Climb or Jump are still useful; but those are so rare that at high level play you're likely to jump less often than you are to use Use Rope. RP purists can still buy those skills (along with Profession: Basketweaver) but D&D is designed around combat, so you're shooting yourself in the foot if you do. Ideally, D&D shouldn't punish you for good RP; games like World of Darkness actually reward it. Ideally since skills cost the same they should be similar in overall utility; you'll never be perfectly balanced but it's like setting a level for a spell: if it's a spell you couldn't imagine NOT getting it then it's too powerful and if you can't imagine ever blowing a valuable spell slot or action casting it then it's not powerful enough.
Some people think that roleplaying and gaming are mutually incompatible-- or at least compete with one another. At times, that's true, but it needn't be so. We power-game in real life. My friend who had a high Int dumped all his skill points into "Knowledge: Computer Programming" to maximize his weekly skill check to earn the maximum number of gold pieces. Another friend, who has a high Cha score, splurged on masterwork clothing (+2 to diplomacy checks) and constantly socializes (checks Diplomacy) to maximize people's attitude towards him. These friends give him business connections (Aid Another on his weekly profession check), let him in on the latest gossip (aid another on his already-good Gather Information score) and do him favors (since they are Helpful towards him). He also has had a string of great girlfriends, which I can't put into D&D terms because I don't know the system for seduction, but you get the point.
Is that min-maxing? Sure! And it's definitely true to life because it is real life.
Check out Ryan Dancey's blog from this week. He's a major game industry consultant, former CEO of Wizards when they bought D&D and then sold to Hasbro. He's dumped a major 6-part blog or so on how D&D needs to change to compete with WOW.
Even if you think the game experiences are different, all of the business people involved are almost maniacally obsessed with how to get a slice of those millions of monthly WOW subscriptions. Everything they're doing right now has that as an objective.
http://web.mac.com/rsdancey/iWeb/RSDanceyBlog/BloWe know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Obviously you have never encountered the philosophy behind Munchkin!
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
So I've read some of the quotes by the posters...
DnD is still pretty popular, but what happens is that those of us above the age of 30 who still play or enjoy the game find it more and more difficult to see a campaign through. Couples with kids that host. People show up with lots of beer. Then of the 4 hours of play time, too many people jump out of character.
It takes time and dedication, and sadly as people grow up, time is extremely limited.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.