That goes for any 1e-isms, 2e-isms or 3e-isms as well.

But we will see. Next week is DDXP and we will soon learn how Mearls and Cook have magically created a system that appeals to everyone and appeases every edition warrior.

Quote from: 1989;508116I don't know if 4e fans actually exist. I think people that play 4e simply lack discernment and taste, and will play whatever is put before them, praising it as new and awesome.

4e fans are just 3e fans that went to the next edition. Are you going to tell me that all those 1e/2e fans that hated 3e  were just waiting for something awesome like 4e to come along? No. So, then, where did the 4e fans come from?

QuoteLike, this guys loves 4e so much that he won't play anything else? Yeah, so what were you playing for the last 30 years???

Out of everyone I know personally who played 3x, I know all of one person who switched. Had you considered the possibility that 4e got some brand new players somewhere along the line? Or the possibility that not all roleplayers are over 30?

QuoteWill WotC capture the 4e lovers? 4e is an anomaly in the history of D&D. An abomination. The more you make 5e look like 4e, which has failed, the more 5e will fail.

As I've said elsewhere, many of the things that bothered pre-4 players weren't explicit draws for those who played 4th, so much as they were non-issues (much like THAC0 is vaguely counterintuitive, but a non-issue for those already familiar... or like fractional save progressions for 3x fans). Matters of clean math and rules presentation could make it into the new edition, pleasing 4e fans and bothering no one in particular.

Main points of division are Vance, customization, and tactical combat. Vance will be a dealbreaker for the 4e crowd, while ditching Vance (as a rule) would be suicide after 4e. Customization seems to bother existing fans least, if 3x's history is to be believed (though it may not have been handled the best way). Tactical combat doesn't have to be gridded, but total absence would be a dealbreaker for 4e, must-have presence would be an annoyance for most pre-4e fans, and there are 3x fans that would be pushed either way regardless (we were sort of mixed in our thoughts on the grid).

Quote from: beejazz;508131Out of everyone I know personally who played 3x, I know all of one person who switched. Had you considered the possibility that 4e got some brand new players somewhere along the line? Or the possibility that not all roleplayers are over 30?

New players? All those would-be-RPGers that were out there, just waiting for the SUPERHERO MINIATURES BOARD WARGAME THAT IS 4E to be created?

It's true, there could have been a few new players. Nothing of any significance, though. 4e still failed, and failed hard.

But this guy from RPGnet already was playing 3.5.

Quote from: 1989;508132New players? All those would-be-RPGers that were out there, just waiting for the SUPERHERO MINIATURES BOARD WARGAME THAT IS 4E to be created?

I know I wasn't waiting for 3e in particular as much as I was first exposed to D&D after 3e was released. I would imagine 3e wasn't the first edition to have that happen.

QuoteIt's true, there could have been a few new players. Nothing of any significance, though. 4e still failed, and failed hard.

We don't have good numbers on the player base. I don't think it brought in as much as other editions, but it also only had 4 years in which to do so. That while it was limping along with a damaged player base.

You know, people do exist who liked 4e, liked AD&D, but disliked 3e.

Pretty much everyone in my gaming group disliked 3e.  I've heard of no interest at all in Pathfinder.

Some of them disliked 4e as well, but on the whole most people were at least amenable to it.  The favorite edition around here would be AD&D 2e, actually.

So, yeah, if 5e looks like 3e, then there's a lot of people I know who won't touch it (of course, they won't be buying Pathfinder, either).  Though, honestly, most everyone around here is burnt out on the new edition treadmill so even if 5e was perfect they might not buy it at this point; WotC has really burned a lot of goodwill with crap moves like 3.5 and 4e essentials.

Quote from: jgants;508148You know, people do exist who liked 4e, liked AD&D, but disliked 3e.

This is interesting. Both 3e and 4e are grid-driven wargames. 2e is the polar opposite. Cook even said that 2e was designed to have a very abstract combat system, himself (don't have the link here with me, at the moment).

Maybe they were playing AD&D like a wargame with miniatures or something?

I'm not sure why someone considering Pathfinder over D&D4e wouldn't be playing Pathfinder, like, right now.

WotC would have to actually advertise to get new players. And I'm not talking about their website or other rpg websites. They need to be on Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, etc.

Quote from: 1989;508155This is interesting. Both 3e and 4e are grid-driven wargames. 2e is the polar opposite. Cook even said that 2e was designed to have a very abstract combat system, himself (don't have the link here with me, at the moment).

Maybe they were playing AD&D like a wargame with miniatures or something?

Or they liked the two games for something they had in common, or they liked them for different reasons and had some totally unrelated dealbreaker issue with 3e (character creation and prep times are a common complaint), or they liked a setting that got support with the two editions but not 3e (Dark Sun).

There are more types of player out there than you seem to be aware of.

Yeah, I like the grid- for 4e, but I wouldn't use it for anything else, and I never made it through character gen in 3.x. Neither game is really what I think of as D&D, but one I like the other I do not. Also the fluff in the 4e Dark Sun campaign guide is superior to the original box set, if only because it's not related in first person.

Quote from: Broken-Serenity;508083The funnier comments are form the ones who cant seem to separate the online tools from the physical books anymore its as if the books they own are somehow unreadable unless there's an online source to tell them how.

That's what you get when adolescent ADHD MMOG players are your target demographic (and yes, many quotes from 4e designers said exactly this.)

Quote from: 1989;508155This is interesting. Both 3e and 4e are grid-driven wargames. 2e is the polar opposite. Cook even said that 2e was designed to have a very abstract combat system, himself (don't have the link here with me, at the moment).

I recall playing most of 3rd edition (3.0 and 3.5) without a battle-mat except in rare cases where the DM needed to manage a great deal. 3.0 still had the players and DMs using common sense and reference drawing to determine things like cover (1/2, 3/4, 9/10). 3.5 introduced/played up the more codified systems dependent on squares.

Quote from: Kord's Boon;508187I recall playing most of 3rd edition (3.0 and 3.5) without a battle-mat except in rare cases where the DM needed to manage a great deal. 3.0 still had the players and DMs using common sense and reference drawing to determine things like cover (1/2, 3/4, 9/10). 3.5 introduced/played up the more codified systems dependent on squares.

5' step, attack of opportunity, all the fancy footwork feats related to movement -- 3e really need a mat to play as written. 3.5 came out and said it was flat out mandatory . . . and even included a mat for you in the book.

WTF. Who took my RPG and replaced it with a boardgame!?

Quote from: 1989;5081993e really need a mat to play as written.

Yep, I was lying all along. Clever of you to find me out.

Quote from: 1989;508116I don't know if 4e fans actually exist. I think people that play 4e simply lack discernment and taste, and will play whatever is put before them, praising it as new and awesome.

4e fans are just 3e fans that went to the next edition. Are you going to tell me that all those 1e/2e fans that hated 3e  were just waiting for something awesome like 4e to come along? No. So, then, where did the 4e fans come from?

Ludicrous to take this post as occasion for a serious reply, but off we go.

I like 4E for one thing: it makes DM'ing very easy on my time and brain. I find it physically (not mentally) exhausting to DM what I take to be a RPG session of a proper length - 5 hours and upwards. I have no problem with 'proper' RPG sessions when I'm just a player, because then I can just fade in and fade out, let other characters take over, let my own character hang out in the back and not participate in in- or out-character banter, and just let me mind wander off. I'm made that way, short intermittent phases of concentration and creative outbursts. And that's anathema for DM'ing. Because, as a DM you have to pay attention all the time. Court room intrigue? Players wanting their characters to do this, that, or anything? Pay attention! Respond! React. It's a high intensity game, and I love it for that. But it also means that, however much I love RPG sessions at 'proper length', I'm not really built for them. (Or, not anymore - like many of you I enjoyed many 10+ hour session during vacation many summers ago.)

And this where 4E comes in. Of course, out of combat, the RPG plays like any other I've played. But when combat breaks out, the game is fundamentally very simple. I'm not stupid, or lack the comprehension of complex rules system (FFS I play intricate wargames). But here's the catch: when it's combat time, the system runs like a perfectly oiled machine. It's not 'here, have 4 pages of rules, make up the rest' or 'here's a book with 200 tables, have fun consulting our charts!'. It occupies the odd space inbetween, being quantitatively enormous, but very easy to understand in its entirety. Ultimately, when a 4E combat starts, as a DM there are remarkably few things you got to pay attention to; play can go wildly off the rails (it regularly does in our group), but it's not that way All. The. Time. It's entertaining, funny, frequently unpredictable, tactically rewarding - it is all that and a lot more. And there's one thing it isn't - it isn't taxing on my brain. Coming out of DM'ing a 4E session I don't feel I've just been through a 3.x session, or a session of Here I Stand, which felt like work, very rewarding work, an intellectual challenge of the highest caliber - yes, it doesn't feel like that, because whatever else a 4E session delivered, it did so without taking a lot of my resources in the process.

So, when combat kicks off, the game suddenly becomes very relaxing for me as a DM. And I love it for that. I also love the tactile aspect, but that's a pure side effect. (And yes, 4E combat does work wonderfully as a board game! There, I said it.) No, the point is that the pacing which this game brings to my DM'ing experience (w.r.t to the non-/combat aspects) is as if it's made for hybrid minds like myself. Because the game itself, you see, is this curious hybrid. I'd go on replicating Spinachcat's well known review of the game, which did a lot to help me understand the game's 'drive' so to speak.

So there you have it. That's why I'm ultimately a fan of this system.

It's simple enough to house rule, and it got tons of crazy funny stuff that's there for the taking. (Last week a friend and I made up the ultimate Eberron NPC: he's a sentient metal dog, brain in char, except the char is a metal canine corpus, and the sentient thing is not a brain but one of Cyre's last regalia. And he's a companion to the PCs. I run his loyalty towards the PCs using the extant 4E system for artefacts. Ever noticed how great this subsystem is? 4E offers several great delightful surprises if you look beyond its vilified powers system. It vastly improved traps and diseases, and you can use the latter to model concussion hits.) And it's a joy to create custom content for. The system's basic chassis is so simple that even a simpleton like myself can grasp it, and  lot of the Official (TM) stuff published for it so amateurish, the adventures so trashy, the char sheets so butt ugly, that I feel instantly compelled to come up with something I prefer.

That doesn't make it a great system, or a great game - after all, a game's faults are hardly its merits, ey? - but it's a way of saying that 4E and I, we work well together.

Here's my parting shot: my hand drawn / Heroquest-pimped char sheet for 4E, which I use side by side with WotC power cards. Because I can.