Is a 5th Edition coming soon? [Answer: NO, it isn't!]

[Happypuke]

I think the real question isn't when is 5e coming, but when are the compendiums coming. I liked the 3e compendiums. With the amount of new ideas coming out every time they release a book, they may eventually be very useful. Especially for people that don't buy every book, but could use some of the extra rules. I doubt it would be any time soon, but in the future I may be nice.

On another note, what edition of D&D will be out by the time GURPS actually makes 5e? I would say at least 6, but I'm a pessimist.

[Pmandrekar]

Originally Posted by NeverCool

As for the system overhaul, I don't know. Seems like the old "money for nothing" angle, sure, but the system does have some drawbacks that GURPS does not (not wanting to bash DnD, still respect them for some very cool concepts). One is that it is very narrow.

I agree with you completely. Using my 3rd Edition GURPS Ruleset from 1987, I managed, with little difficulty, to run RPG campaigns ranging from Complete weirdness (IOU) to a Mercantile campaign in Traveller, to Vampires in New Orleans, to something set in a slightly mystical Ancient Greece, to Rogues working out of a Brothel in a Fantasy Metropolis... Without changing the core system, but by pushing sliders here and there about how things work, and what equipment was available.

By Contrast, I've played D&D for *much* longer than GURPS (26 vs. 12 years) and over that time, I've played a couple of campaigns that differed, but essentially, I've played mostly Dungeon Crawls. I started playing in 1981 (1st Edition) in a Dungeon Crawl Campaign, and I'm playing in one even now.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. If you're going to play Dungeon Crawls, and all your published modules are in D&D 3.5 (as is the case right now--the DM is running a number of Goodman Games Dungeon crawl classics on us), then it makes sense for us to play D&D.

And there is a lot of room for D&D 4E to improve upon how things are handled, such as social interactions. But it's hard to imagine why I would move to D&D 4E for the Social interaction rules, if I'm thinking of running such a campaign, seeing as how I *have* 110 or so GURPS Books in 4th and 3rd Editions.

And even with a handful of those books, the *variety* of campaign types is much broader that can be handled, than D&D.

So, I'm hoping (for the sake of my D&D Fan friends) that this next edition will be a significant improvement, as there is room for improvement in D&D... I'm just not going to get invested in it, since I just bought my first Core book for 3.5 (I had been trying to play with my 3.0 materials. They claim that they are compatible, but they've changed so many things, like spell durations, for example, that I just figured I'd pony up the $24 for a PHB 3.5, easier than sorting through stacks of printouts from the internet.)

A few things that I've heard are improvements. The Spell lists will no longer be all "Fire and Forget" Vancian spells. There will be some combination of Mana engine and spell slots. The social rules look to be an improvement (again, probably not enough for my taste, but an improvement nonetheless).

-P.

[Pmandrekar]

Originally Posted by NeverCool

Hmm... Just watched the entire 4-part presentation of the 4. edition DnD.

I was hoping that that irritating fake French accent using spokesdork was going to Fail a saving throw and die on a trap...

Sadly, it did not come to pass. I'm surprised that Wizards couldn't have found a more appealing narrator to their video.

-P.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Happypuke

I think the real question isn't when is 5e coming, but when are the compendiums coming. I liked the 3e compendiums. With the amount of new ideas coming out every time they release a book, they may eventually be very useful. Especially for people that don't buy every book, but could use some of the extra rules. I doubt it would be any time soon, but in the future I may be nice.

4e is meant to be more organized than 3e, with very few new traits or rules introduced in later books. Hopefully a Compendium won't ever be needed.

[Pmandrekar]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

4e is meant to be more organized than 3e, with very few new traits or rules introduced in later books. Hopefully a Compendium won't ever be needed.

4e Basic seems to have the content of the Compendiums anyhow. They'd have to introduce a *lot* of new rules variants to warrant a full blown Compendium. And the new material we've been getting seems to be compatible with Basic in anyhow. (Powers is an add on... But I figure that one could just buy a copy of Powers if you're running a campaign that would use them :)

-P

[Happypuke]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

4e is meant to be more organized than 3e, with very few new traits or rules introduced in later books.

Right, I know that. And they are doing a really good job of doing so. My only point was, they do include a few new rules, traits and the like in some new books, and 4e is hopefully going to be supported for some time. After a very long while it may be warranted to put together some kind of collection. Perhaps I'm wrong. Not really that big of a problem for me though, I buy just about every book anyway.

[Tanir]

Originally Posted by Pmandrekar

I was hoping that that irritating fake French accent using spokesdork was going to Fail a saving throw and die on a trap...

Sadly, it did not come to pass. I'm surprised that Wizards couldn't have found a more appealing narrator to their video.

-P.

Well, the supposedly 'heartland of France' accent in English doesn't sound so fake but that guy is too dark-haired and makes too many emphatic gestures to really be from the Northern half of France, so I wouldn't be astonished if he were a Quebecer posing as a Parisian. I think the people at WoTC wanted to attract gamers' attention by shooting a surprising, humorous, kitsch video and I think they have perfectly managed to do so. Now I'm not saying that I wouldn't have preferred something more dramatic and traditional...


Best regards,

Tanir

[capnq]

Originally Posted by Happypuke

On another note, what edition of D&D will be out by the time GURPS actually makes 5e? I would say at least 6, but I'm a pessimist.

You call that pessimism? I will be pleasantly surprised if D&D hasn't reached 12th edition by the time GURPS 5e arrives.

[Phase_Shifter]

D&D? What about WoD?

I remember seeing on the Daily Illuminator a message stating that Steve Jackson Games had finally decided to release GURPS 4th edition.

It seems like the same week, I was getting messages from White Wolf about "We've released 3 editions in the last 13 years, and we've been threatening the end of the world the entire time. We're really going to end the world now, and release a 4th edition that's unrelated to the previous three."

The only thought going through my head was "Four editions in the same amount of time it took GURPS to accumulate enough new rules and errata to make one new edition!"

And to top things off, you can actually convert the old GURPS stuff to the new rules quite easily with the conversion rules included in nearly every book released during the transition...That's not really an option with WoD4, which had not only a completely different rules system than previous editions, but the (IMO vastly dumbed down) storyline in the new edition meant the old factions, clans, etc. no longer existed (or even never had existed!), with few rare exceptions.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Phase_Shifter

And to top things off, you can actually convert the old GURPS stuff to the new rules quite easily with the conversion rules included in nearly every book released during the transition...That's not really an option with WoD4, which had not only a completely different rules system than previous editions, but the (IMO vastly dumbed down) storyline in the new edition meant the old factions, clans, etc. no longer existed (or even never had existed!), with few rare exceptions.

I'm not so concerned about that. But I bought Promethean and the new version of Mage, and you know, I don't feel the slightest imaginative stimulus from them. They're like some vast exercise in poststructuralism. I prefer the vast cosmological craziness of Mage: The Ascension, or the struggle against despair of Wraith: The Oblivion. The Traditions' war against the Technocracy, now that was a storyline. . . .

Bill Stoddard