My Reasons for not Buying HASBRO's 4th Edition

[darksaba]

My reasons for not buying more DnD

1) I don't like change, as has been said "Change! Change! Aren't things bad enough already."

2) DnD 3e was rather buggy when it was first released, hence the need for 3.5. Now I'm of the opinion that you shouldn't need to patch a role playing system, and you really shouldn't charge for it.

3) I just don't play those style campaigns anymore.

4) I quite liked Seamonster's rant about the loss of inspiration and appealing to the lowest common denominator. Its the same with the popular music charts, they rarely play anything good, they just play what most people will find least objectionable which I feel makes the world a sadder place.

5) I also dislike the idea of playing an online RPG around a table. It feels all backwards. I play computer RPGs because its hard to get regular gaming groups together or because I'm feeling anti-social. Its like inviting your friends round to a fancy dinner party and serving them pot noodle.

[DocRailgun]

I did break down and buy 4th edition D&D. Though I am loathe to call it "D&D", since there is no Vancian magic system, the system does have some promise. GURPS is of course a superior system that allows for many more options... its the standardization of the new D&D that will make the game even more popular than ever before.

GURPS has a lot of options. A LOT... even in the basic books. Those options are available to every character from character creation. Most of those options can be modified by various other options. Combat is also full of options. This is great for me or for the people reading these forums... but not always for the average gamer or all younger gamers. The new D&D also has a lot of options, but they're only available as the character levels and these options have specific usesat certain times in a battle... very much like a video game.

It will take 10 minutes to set up a 1st level character for anyone, where it takes quite a bit longer to get players unfamiliar with GURPS up to speed (or evento make a character). Of course, if the ease of chargen or a simple rule set is good or not is open for debate... personally I love GURPS and its options, but the new D&D will be quite a bit easier to get casual gamers to play.

[Dagger of Lath]

Originally Posted by DocRailgun

I did break down and buy 4th edition D&D.

Same here.

There are a few ideas that I'll be stealing from it to integrate into the ungodly hybrid of Gurps, True20 and 3.5 that our group is currently running many of our games on.

However I'm not going to run a game using the system. It's very well built but it's not a game I'll enjoy myself. Still I think this will be great for some other people's games.

[Hannes665]

We could always hope that 4e DnD will bring some of those young MMORPG players to the Table Top games. New Generation of TTRPG players is needed. And so when those new players mature and start to look for something more “Generic” or with more options they will turn to other systems, like GURPS! :P

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

It would be interesting to hear what the professionals like you and Dr. Kromm has to say about it. Although I can understand if you rather didn't comment - might look as if SJG had an official position.

First, I'm wearing no SJ Games hat here. This is not an official position.

I don't have the game and don't currently plan to get it. In fact, I don't own any edition of the D&D rules newer than AD&D, First Edition, although I've played some with the two editions that followed. Honestly, though, if you want a professional opinion, I don't think it impacts my professional credibility not to own the latest incarnation. Innovation comes from the obscure little games you end up bringing home from tiny publishers, and only rarely from market leaders working on their Nth editions. This is true in most industries! I don't see much wrong with more D&D -- but I also think it's like Windows Vista or Coke Zero, and just the latest version of a standard.

Should a review copy ever find its way to me, I'd happily review it. I don't think I'd be likely to freak out at what I saw. I am not one of those people who believes that you have to keep computers and paper in different countries to avoid an explosion, or that computer and PnP games are at war. I've played way too many hours of games from franchises like Diablo, Baldur's Gate, and NWN -- not to mention Rogue and NetHack -- to seriously take that stance.

[Jürgen Hubert]

One thing I really like about 4E is the introduction of skill challenges - something utterly unlike MMORPGs, and also a brilliant way to facilitate roleplaying.

"OK, for this problem you need X successful skill rolls without failing more than Y skill rolls. The most useful skills here will be A, B, and C. However, I will allow you to use other skills at higher difficulties - if you can explain to me how they are relevant."

This will encourage players to come up with their own creative uses for skills - a brilliant mechanic that I'd like to see more of in the future.

[Fade]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

One thing I really like about 4E is the introduction of skill challenges - something utterly unlike MMORPGs, and also a brilliant way to facilitate roleplaying.

"OK, for this problem you need X successful skill rolls without failing more than Y skill rolls. The most useful skills here will be A, B, and C. However, I will allow you to use other skills at higher difficulties - if you can explain to me how they are relevant."

This will encourage players to come up with their own creative uses for skills - a brilliant mechanic that I'd like to see more of in the future.

I really enjoyed that mechanic in play; watching a player justify the use of some supposedly irrelevant skill for the challenge at hand was interesting, and the suggested skills gave us players a lot of help in figuring out where to start instead of standing around trying to figure out what to do.

[Dagger of Lath]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

One thing I really like about 4E is the introduction of skill challenges - something utterly unlike MMORPGs, and also a brilliant way to facilitate roleplaying.

This is something we've been using for a fair while in a number of different places in our games at home. For example our item creation rules ran on a similar principle for a while there. However bringing it all together as a single named mechanic that can be used for many different things is a good idea. It's one of the thing I really admire about 4e.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Kromm

First, I'm wearing no SJ Games hat here. This is not an official position.

Well, Caesar's wife and all that.

[Pmandrekar]

Originally Posted by Seamonster

Change is good. My personal philosophy is that any change is better than no change. The release of 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons from HASBRO has reinforced this, because now, more than ever, gaming will be easily divided into those who love MMORPGs, and those who love tabletop RPGs.
.....

First of all, Change is good. If I didn't believe that, I would not have spent the last 10 years in Biotech R&D, developing new and different things than has gone before...

That said, I *enjoy* MMORPGs to get one fix, and I *enjoy* tabletop RPGs to get another, different fix. I dislike the apparent need for people to decide what I am and am not allowed to enjoy. I've spent 37.5 years developing my own preferences... If D&D 4E is being built to emulate the MMORPG experience, then they can expect their sales to decline as the availability of reasonably priced computers goes *Down* over time, as a continuation of an existing trend.

I will not be buying 4th Edition because while it may improve on some aspects of the game, it moves away from other aspects that I appreciated.
The game is being designed, I should probably conclude, for people whose sensibilities differ from mine. I can accept that, and there is no shortage of gaming materials out there to purchase and own.

That, and it supports a genre which is, to me, an occasional diversion, which I can easily emulate with my GURPS collection in any case. In short, new rules to learn to play something that I can do *now* adds nothing to my gaming table, that I can't either accomplish with my existing D&D 3.x materials or GURPS Dungeon Fantasy collection.

Someone pointed out to me that I already have a working game collection that could fill my next *10* years of game time, without ever running the same game twice.

-P.