D&D 4.0

[JohnHwangBT]

To be honest, I've always *hated* Vancian Magic.

*HATED*, *HATED*, *HATED*!

I much prefer the notion that Mages can use magic at-will, in much the same way that Fighters can attack at will, with similar risk of failure and feedback.

It's good that 4E finally gets with the times and makes magic "fun".

[HarlequinZero]

To be honest, I really like the new D&D and I AM a role player first and a combat gamer second. The well fleshed out fast paced combat system makes it so, as a DM, I can run combat quickly and smoothly and get back to the story.

I think the new rules are a boon for anyone who primarily like role playing. Simply use your brain and instead of saying "the book doesn't have NWPs anymore!" you simply add them yourself. The D&D police aren't standing around in your gaming group telling you that if it isn't in the Player's Handbook you can't use it. Those are the gamers that drive me absolutely insane and I refuse to play with them. "But that isn't in the rulebook!" or "But on page 97 of the Guide to Munchkin Smuggling it says that hiding a midget in a clay pot only requires a -2 to my dex roll."

So I say three cheers for the new rules. They greatly simplify and streamline combat while allowing me to build onto those core rules as much or as little as I like.

[IraShaine1972]

I started D&D around...............1980. Wew..........gettin up there. Anyways for me the train went off the track with the release of 3rd. It just didnt feel like D&D and more like a game designed to apeal to a newer generation. Ever since then I havnt been able to really soak it up like I once did. Sadly I once owned almost every single scrap of printed material for 2nd but I sold it all. Wish I still had it.

[Trader Xi]

I started D&D way back in 1990, and played for about ten years. I skipped 3e since I didn't have a group. 3.5e I liked. It was great. Even my wife gets it, yeah. Our group has about 80 books amongst ourselves.

So why did WotC feel the need to release 4e, the MMO edition? What kind of *edit* is this? Not backwards compatible with all the 3.5e material at all? WTF?

Suffice to say all the books I own are 3e or 3.5e, and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay anything for 4e.

[onnotangu]

I like it.

then again everyone complaining about the new edition are the same fogies that complained when 3.0 and 3.5 came out. I got tired of paying for out of print books from 2nd edition. (you have any idea how expensive a wizard compendium is?)

No one is saying you can never use the older books and no one is saying switch over or perish. but look at it this way. the older gamers are not getting any younger. we have to have something to keep the younglings interested in the pen and paper world or D&D is going to die out when we do. I mean Mr. Gygax is dead..what more do you need than that to tell you it's time for something new.

It's Been 8 years since they came out with 3rd edition.

and for those who keep harping on the combat..it's up to the DM to make the story. WOTC just has to get your combat rules right. you make the rest up as you go along. every game system is like that. at least they actually fixed the weapons damage table.

[insidius]

I think it's funny how some of you are downing the game system because it's "not about roleplaying."

You can roleplay with ANY game system (hell even WITHOUT a game system).

My first game of D&D I didn't even have DICE! We didn't have RULES. It was straight up imagination, with a string of numbers written down on a paper that a pencil was dropped on randomly to see if I succeeded at any given task.

And you know what? It is still to this day the most fun I've had playing D&D.

I guess my point is that actual roleplaying transcends any system you use to resolve skills and conflict.

D&D 4.0 seems to lessen the impact combat has on your game by making it more streamlined, so if anything you should technically LIKE this system more.

[porkuslime]

I started D&D way back in 1990, and played for about ten years. I skipped 3e since I didn't have a group. 3.5e I liked. It was great. Even my wife gets it, yeah. Our group has about 80 books amongst ourselves.

So why did WotC feel the need to release 4e, the MMO edition? What kind of *edit* is this? Not backwards compatible with all the 3.5e material at all? WTF?

Suffice to say all the books I own are 3e or 3.5e, and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay anything for 4e.

mmph.. Younguns..

My parents bought me the original brown booklets (very worn), and a blue cover Box Set around 1977-1978 for Xmas.. they were university math professors and saw the grad students flocking to this game.. and decided it would help lil Jim get interested in numbers and statistics..

For me, D&D went bye-bye at the advent of 3.0... and nowdays when I game, we either use 2nd ed, or C&C.. or Labrynth Lord ... etc..

Ascending AC.. the one thing 3.0+ did right...

-Porkuslime

[MagickalMemories]

I think the new rules are a boon for anyone who primarily like role playing. Simply use your brain and instead of saying "the book doesn't have NWPs anymore!" you simply add them yourself. The D&D police aren't standing around in your gaming group telling you that if it isn't in the Player's Handbook you can't use it. Those are the gamers that drive me absolutely insane and I refuse to play with them. "But that isn't in the rulebook!" or "But on page 97 of the Guide to Munchkin Smuggling it says that hiding a midget in a clay pot only requires a -2 to my dex roll."

While I admit that I haven't SEEN the new combat rules, I understand that they are built upon the 3.0/3.5 (referred to as 3.X from here on out) framework.
THAT is not simplified combat.
Yes. As stated, ascending AC is the best thing about the new system, and that will streamline combat a bit.
The rest of the new modifiers and additions from 3.X add unnecessarily (IMO) to it. Plus, as stated, it was added to the exclusion of some "Role Playing" aspects.

Let me say, first, I'm not one of the people you refer to ("But the book says,"), as long as I know the DM is deviating from the book. Once that is established, I've always been fine with it (Then again, I was most often the DM, and I ALWAYS let the players know UP FRONT about any deviation from the books... it's only fair).
I don't want to "use my brain" and make that stuff up. I'm 37 years old. I work a full time job. I have a wife, 3 kids (10, 19, 22) and a grand daughter (9 Mos.) who live in my house. My weekly schedule is full.
I'm not a kid anymore. I don't have time to "make up" sensible rules for anything. That's what I want my game to do for me. I want the game to have the rules already in place that I can refer to, and so that everyone has a common base to work from.
For me, it's not about what the "D&D Police" will allow or not. I've never been afraid of that. For me, it's about convenience... and 3.X was never convenient for me. The new ruleset seems more of the same.

So why did WotC feel the need to release 4e, the MMO edition? What kind of *edit* is this? Not backwards compatible with all the 3.5e material at all? WTF?

Welcome to my world. LOL that's the same thing I said when 3.0 came out. Second ed was the end of D&D. It was the last system that wasn't compatable with the original D&D. Even a halfling, from the "red box set" could be easily adapted to 2nd ed.

Third edition was a new game with an old name.
Not that it's horrible. When I was a kid, if I'd had a choice of ONE of the 2 games (Old D&D or d20 system with a different name), I'd have probably chosen d20. It was hack & Slash based, easier to learn (read: Dumbed Down), and required less thought processes on non-combat oriented stuff.

Suffice to say all the books I own are 3e or 3.5e, and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay anything for 4e.

I said that at first, when 3.0 came out... but there was nobody near me playing 2nd ed. anymore. I changed by necessity.
Since I haven't played D&D in over a year, now, I no longer have a group to concern myself with.
I'll only be (RPG) gaming once a month, so I'm doing it the way I want. I'll go find some people via online notices, meetup.com, local bookstore, etc and have the game at my home (when my huge new gaming room in the basement is complete).

I like it.
then again everyone complaining about the new edition are the same fogies that complained when 3.0 and 3.5 came out. I got tired of paying for out of print books from 2nd edition. (you have any idea how expensive a wizard compendium is?)

That last statement makes you sound like a "young punk kid" compared to us "old fogies." LOL
Don't mistake my statements of dislike for complaints. I am NOT complaining. I'm stating preferences. I couldn't give a rip WHAT WotC does to D&D any more. I've washed my hands of anything post 2nd edition.

No one is saying you can never use the older books and no one is saying switch over or perish. but look at it this way. the older gamers are not getting any younger. we have to have something to keep the younglings interested in the pen and paper world or D&D is going to die out when we do.

No one is saying you can't use the older books?
Compatability, my friend. Compatability.
Yay! my $20 sourcebook just became "flavor text." It's impossible to translate anything (rules-wise) from 2nd ed. to POST 2nd ed with any sense of similarity. Period. If you've tried it, you'll know.

Second edition kept the younglings interested just fine, thank you. What 3.X did was make it easier for the dumb ones to catch on to the rules and give them less to think about and more to swing at.

I mean Mr. Gygax is dead..what more do you need than that to tell you it's time for something new.

What kind of crap statement is that? The death of the guy who helped create the game and who was the "face" of D&D since its' inception passes away, so it is suddenly time to bastardize the game even further?
That is one of the most asinine statements I've ever read on the internet (and that is saying something).

It's Been 8 years since they came out with 3rd edition.

Point?

and for those who keep harping on the combat..it's up to the DM to make the story. WOTC just has to get your combat rules right. you make the rest up as you go along. every game system is like that. at least they actually fixed the weapons damage table.

Not every game system.
Give AD&D 2nd edition a whirl.
They managed a combat system AND game mechanics that could be worked into Role Playing.

Those of us harping about combat aren't harping because WotC didn't give us a story. It's because they're scraping away the Role Playing aspect of it (in the traditional sense) and turning it into a paper version of COMPUTER "Role Playing."

Your statement, "at least they actually fixed the weapons damage table" made me laugh. We're talking about how it's ruiining traditional Role Playing and you gave it a pat on the back for something to do with...
Combat...

I think it's funny how some of you are downing the game system because it's "not about roleplaying."

You can roleplay with ANY game system (hell even WITHOUT a game system).

I guess my point is that actual roleplaying transcends any system you use to resolve skills and conflict.

D&D 4.0 seems to lessen the impact combat has on your game by making it more streamlined, so if anything you should technically LIKE this system more.

Not at all. D&D 3.X+ has placed an emphasis on combat and de-emphasized (traditional) RPing. As I said above... it's not just about RPing. I can do that in my back yard with no game, even... For me, it's about scraping away at the Role Playing based rules and focusing on the Combat based rules.
They're making it hack & slash by nature, with Role Playing being the deviation from the rules.

Eric

[mrrshann618]

Heck yeah MM, Only one more thing I'd like to add

AS you stated, the newer rules seems to have scraped away the hint of RPing by replaceing them with diagrams of how to hit people in the squared next to you.

I want to use minis in a combat setting, Personally I'll play a wargame. Yeah we used minis to show relations an such, but we never counted squares to see if we could get to someone.

To be honest, 3, 3.5, and from what I hear 4, is combat rules. If I want a game about combat where the GM has to really work to bring RP into the game. I'll spend 50$ every few years and play an MMO, join an RP server, and play that way. Cheeper in the long run, and you can fit more people in my basement group that way.

[mardaddy601]

I started in '83. Never played past 2ED.

And I have held firm and steadfastly refused to learn or move on to the 3.0/3.5, Birthright/etc. incarnations of the game.

Of course it helps that I really have not played AD&D AT ALL since 3ED even came out (with the exception of two dozen sessions a couple months last year.)

I still have no desire to check out 4ED... I may buy the occassional module or sourcebook to use as inspiration for different things to adapt into 2ED rules and incorporate into "my world," but that is it.

[Adunaphel]

I have to echo a couple of comments here. I started at a young age in the late 70's and played into the early 90's (I think, MEDEVL might have better idea of what date we stopped at).

I remember when 3rd Edition came out, that we were about done with it. I still have a good bit of 2nd Edition stuff, but I don't know if I will ever get back to it. Some things should maybe just be left in the past.

I fully agree with Insidius on being able to roleplay just about anything out and you don't have to put any blame on the "system". When Gygax died, there was some criticism of D&D being "hack and slash", but I don't believe my gaming group ever really did that too much. We were always more about imagining up our own world.

I haven't even seen a 4th edition book, and I doubt that I would even open one up. If I ever decided to get back into roleplaying, I would just open up the big, old, dusty box and get started again with re-imagining the worlds that our gaming group had made when we was younguns.

Karl