Dungeons and Dragons 4th ed. preview: Swamp Hobbits!

[Terrifel]

--or at least that's the part that stood out most for me after perusing the recently published "Wizards Presents: Races and Classes" at the bookstore today. I get the distinct impression that the game is doing all it can to shed its tabletop RPG roots and recast itself as something more palatable to online gaming tastes. As a Tolkien-reading dork from back before it was fashionable, it makes me a bit sad that D&D apparently no longer regards me as its primary sales target. From the look of the preview, the new game extends the anime-ization trend started in 3rd Edition. There's a strong Elder Scrolls vibe to the art and flavor text, at least to my eye. They spend a lot of time talking up the art design and consistent 'look' of the new system, as if it were a flashy computer game. I'm a great fan of fantasy illustration; but if it were all that critical to the success of D&D, the game would never have gotten off the ground to begin with.

Halflings are no longer Gypsies as in 3rd Edition; instead, they are now Cajuns. They live on riverboats, favoring swamps and marshlands. The logic here is that the race never really had a distinctive "home turf" like elves and dwarves before, and this change is meant to rectify that. What a good idea that is. Of course halflings don't have a home turf like elves and dwarves, because they were totally ripped off from Tolkien to begin with! There's no vast folkloric tradition of legendary bog midgets. 4th edition halflings retain their oddly elongated, breadbox-shaped heads, and now their ears are perfectly rectangular (?!), so the catastrophically inbred, stunted bayou dweller image is complete. I hope players running a halfling remember to do the accent.

Since the game is so eager to distance itself from Tolkien, elves are no longer shorter than humans, but tall and slender just as in Tolkien. Also, instead of one race with several subraces (wood, grey, etc), there are now three distinct races of elves: generic elves who live in the forest, eladrin or "high elves," who live on another plane of existence entirely, and drow. So that should clear that up.

(Why in the hell are drow so popular anyway? They live in the ground, hate everybody, and worship spiders. They're like a race of insane bag ladies or something, living over a subway vent and naming the neighborhood rats. I just don't get their appeal.)

One of the main problems with previous editions, we are told, is that the game never really established a clear character for humans. Just who are these "humans?" What are they like? What motivates them? 4th edition proposes that humans are inherently more corruptible than other races, which explains why they're always fighting among themselves. The preview doesn't really go into how this is expressed in game mechanics-- there's not much detail of this sort anywhere in the book. Dice are barely mentioned at all. Again, I am briefly sad.

Anyhoo. Gnomes are being recast with a darker edge. Dwarves remain dwarves, albeit without darkvision (?). Also included are tieflings (half-demons) and dragonborn (half-dragons). Personally I question the need for two half-monstrous player races with horns, but whatever. What exactly is the high-fantasy tradition that includes heroic warriors with barbed tails and reptile heads? Meanwhile, half-orcs appear to be out entirely. Alas.

The preview goes on at length about the need to balance player classes so that they are all able to participate equally in all stages of an adventure. I don't quite know what to say about that, as such number-crunching details always sort of took a back seat to the roleplaying part for me. I don't really remember unbalanced classes being that much of a problem during our gaming sessions.

This philosophy of 'balance' will apparently manifest itself in some odd ways. The designers cite dungeon traps as an example of an unbalanced play element, since only rogues are equipped to deal with them. This will supposedly change in 4th edition, so that dungeons will now have traps with multiple elements that challenge all members of a party. So a single trap might have a mechanical feature for the thief to disarm, and meanwhile monsters are released from trapdoors for the others to fight while that's happening, and so on. The unspoken corollary is that if you're missing any classes in your party you're all screwed, but thems the breaks, I guess.

Apparently the magic system is going to change radically. Wizards alone will have three types of spell effects available. There will be no formal "schools of magic:" instead, a wizard's abilities will depend on what type of magic item they wield-- the choices being orb, staff, or wand. The book mentions in passing that arcane necromancy has been intentionally weakened in the interests of 'balance.' Screw you, WotC.

I'm depressed. I'm pretty sure I spent more on 3rd edition than everything that went before, though I hardly got any use out of it. This new game is unfamiliar territory again, and I'm not even the intended audience anymore. The book also contains multiple ads for "D&D Insider," the online resource-- the designers go on and on about how the new system was designed with web support in mind. Apparently that's another 10 bucks per month. I don't see that happening.

Ah well, things change. I'm not in college anymore anyway. While I looked away, D&D passed me by. It was a good ride while it lasted. My dice and I have our memories.

[Revenant Threshold]

Well, hey, it's not over. That's the one big advantage that DnD has over online games - WoW might change the whole system overnight. But DnD could bring out the My Little Pony expansion and you still have your old books.

Drow are more popular because people want to be The Guy. Why be some random, common elf, when you can be The Only Good Drow from a Race of Evil. Also Drizzt.

I quite like the sound of the halfling changes. The magic thing sounds pretty crap, though.

[Hal Briston]

Originally Posted by Terrifel

(Why in the hell are drow so popular anyway? They live in the ground, hate everybody, and worship spiders. They're like a race of insane bag ladies or something, living over a subway vent and naming the neighborhood rats. I just don't get their appeal.)

That paragraph is Reason #217 of Why My SDMB Subscription Is So Damn Worth It.

[Just Some Guy]

$20 for a preview? A 96-page, soft cover preview?! Well right there is a problem. If they want it to expand then they need to think in terms of one book for the whole system at $20, not gouging would be customers like that. Talk about fanbase exploitation.

(Why in the hell are drow so popular anyway? They live in the ground, hate everybody, and worship spiders. They're like a race of insane bag ladies or something, living over a subway vent and naming the neighborhood rats. I just don't get their appeal.)

Drop the worship spiders part and you've got a large portion of the D&D player base.

[Windwalker]

One big reason Drow are popular is because they're munchkins. I believe Icewind Dale II used fairly accurate D&D 3.0 rules, so this is what I'm basing it on; they get an extra 2 ability points AND magic resistance all at the cost of some equivalent levels. Plus, being the odd ones out in the surface probably elicits some sort of understanding from the stereotypical socially-excluded D&D'er. Extra points for being bad-ass and winning over or getting revenge on those snobby surface-dwellers, by super heroic deeds or evil dastardly ones (respectively), and you got yourself a nice vicarious hit.

[Odesio]

Originally Posted by Terrifel

The preview goes on at length about the need to balance player classes so that they are all able to participate equally in all stages of an adventure.

One of the bad things about a Fighter from 3.0 is that he was bloody well useless in any situation that didn't require him to break something or kill someone. That's just bad game design.

The unspoken corollary is that if you're missing any classes in your party you're all screwed, but thems the breaks, I guess.

That pretty much sounds like what we have now. Try running a game without a Cleric for example and see how far you get.

Apparently the magic system is going to change radically. Wizards alone will have three types of spell effects available.

I hate Vancian magic so this gets a resounding hurrah from me.

The book mentions in passing that arcane necromancy has been intentionally weakened in the interests of 'balance.' Screw you, WotC.

Too many complaints of high level Wizards being head and shoulders above other classes.

Ah well, things change. I'm not in college anymore anyway. While I looked away, D&D passed me by. It was a good ride while it lasted. My dice and I have our memories.

I understand. The same thing happened to me between 3.0 and 3.5.

Marc

[Jophiel]

Originally Posted by Windwalker

One big reason Drow are popular is because they're munchkins. I believe Icewind Dale II used fairly accurate D&D 3.0 rules, so this is what I'm basing it on

They were munchkins in 1st edition with the Unearthed Arcana as well so I doubt it's changed much. They were basically elves that could dual-wield without penalty, had the detection bonuses of both regular elves and those of dwarves and received a slew of innate spell effects. They had some daylight fighting penalties which, naturally, tended to go ignored whenever possible.

I haven't seriously looked at D&D since 1st ed AD&D (I have one or two 2nd ed sourcebooks) but half-dragons and box-headed halflings don't make it sound as though I've missed much.

[Odesio]

There's something you need to remember abotu D&D. If it lives underground then it's automatically a bad ass when compared to whatever surface cousins it has. This goes for dwarves and gnomes as well as elves.

Marc

[Lightray]

I'm thinking you took a really cursory read of that book. But, addressing points in no particular order:

"anime-ization" is not the term you're looking to for the art. That would be "dungeon-punk" -- which was the art-style of 3.0 & 3.5, and has been the style of D&D art for quite some time (8 years, now). The definition of "anime" is grist for an entire other thread, but I'd apply it to art like, say, Exalted's long before I'd describe D&D's like that.

Swamp-dwelling halflings are Tolkien, not contra-Tolkien. You just lost geek points on that one. Sméagol and Déagol were water-dwelling halflings who lived in a matriarchal society that subsisted on fishing and trapping (apparently). So on that point, they're going back to Tolkien roots.

But, I'd really dispute that Tolkien-reading dorks have been the main focus of sales for D&D for a long, long time. As anyone who has tried to shoehorn Middle-Earth into any D&D framework should know. The fit is just wretched.

Anyway. Too bad drow are so hot and popular -- 'cause they're not going to be in the PHB. They're going to be in the Forgotten Realms books, which will be released at some indeterminate time in the future year (or later, maybe). There'll be partial rules for drow and gnomes in the MM, apparently, but they're not going to be as fully-supported as the other PC races. No doubt dual-scimitar wielders everywhere are weeping bitter tears over that.

The tieflings and dragonborn -- as that book explains -- are not half-demons and half-dragons. That was in 3.0/3.5. The high-fantasy tradition that includes heroic warriors with barbed tails and reptile heads would be... well, hell, just pick up some pulp fantasy. Lieber-reading dorks and Howard-reading dorks have, IMO, been a more targeted fanbase of D&D far moreso than the Tolkien-reading dorks. And Conan just doesn't seem right without atavistic reptile-people around.

Unbalanced classes? Oh, yes. Play a low-level wizard with any other class, or any other class with a high-level wizard in the party -- or clerics. Druids. Serious re-design was needed. And multi-classing needed fixing in a major way. It sucked.

And you complain about arcane necromancy being intentionally weakened... uh, it also sucked. They tried fixing it several times with new prestige and base classes (e.g., dread necromancer). It still sucked. Divine necromancy was where it was at. So they really didn't need to weaken arcane necromancy; it was already pants.

They are apparently weakening all the "summon other combatant" types, though -- of which necromancers are certainly a subset. Personally, I found those types of characters a big drag on time during combat (and overpowered at high levels when they're summoning up things that can grant wishes and the like). But, eh. They'll show up in later releases, just as the enchantment/charm types of characters will.

But, hey. They won't be sending ninja to take away your 3.X D&D books. I can tell you this with confidence, as I still have mine. And my AD&D books. And my Basic Set D&D books. I even have my Deities and Demigods with the two forbidden pantheons, and my Gods, Demigods & Heroes -- all perfectly well usable now. Just like I could drive a classic car if I wanted; although I prefer something a little more modern.

[Critical1]

I had a Drow magic user theif way back in the day, as in before drizzt, he was chaotic evil and pretty much would have happily killed Drizzit with a knife in the back.

havent played in ages though.

[Johnny Angel]

Ideas about game design are advancing all the time, so I'm interested in what they come up with. But I'm afraid that in the meantime they're taking too much glee in taking the axe to sacred cows. That they took gnomes out of the core book and put tieflings in suggests to me that they're already off the rails, and this is coming from a guy who made space in his campaign setting for Muppets.

It was only recently that I realized that the previews they were promising to come out with would be actual books that they would actually charge money for. Wow. It'll cost me a double-saw to read their rationalizations without any actual playable rules content. Does that come with a kick in the balls, or must I administer that myself?

I also love how one of their great improvements is to remove problematic rules like magic item pricing and character levels for monsters and replace them with absolutely nothing. Hey, geniuses! I don't have to buy a new edition not to have any guidelines for how powerful a magic item is. I can just ignore the guidelines I've got! Here's their advanced method, not prone to the errors of the previous methods: just sort of guestimate. Jesus Mary Fucking H Christ, I can see why these guys are professional game designers. It never even occurred to my dumb amateur ass to just make up some fucking numbers and hope it all works out.

As I said, I'm interested to see what the new D&D is going to be like, but at this point I have very little interest in switching.

[Terrifel]

Originally Posted by Lightray

I'm thinking you took a really cursory read of that book.

Well... yeah? An in-depth review would have required me to actually BUY the thing. I have been known to spend money on D&D in my day, but I'm not so far gone that I'm going to pay WotC 20 bucks for the privilege of owning an advertisement for their future products. I believe that advertising is traditionally supposed to work the other way around? THEY are supposed to pay for their ads, not ME. They get their money back later when I am enticed to purchase their exciting new product. Which ain't about to happen.

"anime-ization" is not the term you're looking to for the art. That would be "dungeon-punk" -- which was the art-style of 3.0 & 3.5, and has been the style of D&D art for quite some time (8 years, now). The definition of "anime" is grist for an entire other thread, but I'd apply it to art like, say, Exalted's long before I'd describe D&D's like that.

If you say so. The multiply layered costumes and ostentatiously non-medieval European-styled attire say "anime" to me, though the influence is not as directly referenced as with Exalted.

Swamp-dwelling halflings are Tolkien, not contra-Tolkien. You just lost geek points on that one. Sméagol and Déagol were water-dwelling halflings who lived in a matriarchal society that subsisted on fishing and trapping (apparently). So on that point, they're going back to Tolkien roots.

Don't you patronize me. If you want to go that route, then they never LEFT Tolkien roots did they? 1st and 2nd ed. halflings were Shire hobbits, and 3rd and 3.5 were early Third Age migratory hobbits. So why bother to take them out of the Shire in the first place? Why screw with the archetype of reluctantly curious adventurer?

How has D&D distanced itself from the other iconic Tolkien races? Elves are still Tolkien elves, close to nature, except for the REALLY magic elves who live in Valinor-- excuse me, Feyland; they're even MORE Tolkienesque now that the height restriction has been addressed. Dwarves still live in the mountains, children of the god of craft, stouthearted workers of the mine and forge.

Yet halflings have had to endure having their skulls being forcibly reshaped to resemble freak show pinheads; they've been driven out of their bucolic communities and recast as untrustworthy, schizophrenic Gypsies. Now they have to live in a swamp, forced to act out the role of faux-Kender kleptomaniac riverboat gamblers. This is like insisting that dwarves are really clean-shaven, island-dwelling teetotalers, or elves are comically graceless, paunchy city-dwellers. Halflings get no respect, I tell you. They get no respect.

The tieflings and dragonborn -- as that book explains -- are not half-demons and half-dragons. That was in 3.0/3.5.

Well, they're humanoids with draconic and demonic features. The detail that they're no longer directly descended from human/monstrous couplings is beside my point. I expect that the change was made to provide an excuse for unified communities to produce the sexy demonically/draconically themed weapons and armor.

And you complain about arcane necromancy being intentionally weakened... uh, it also sucked. They tried fixing it several times with new prestige and base classes (e.g., dread necromancer). It still sucked. Divine necromancy was where it was at. So they really didn't need to weaken arcane necromancy; it was already pants.

I am AWARE of that. And yet they did it ANYWAY! They went and made arcane necromancy EVEN MORE PANTS! WHY?! WHY?! CLERICS ALREADY GET EVERYTHING! WHY?!

Look, all I want is an arcane necromancer that doesn't make me sad. Necromancers are supposed to tamper in Gods domain, not worship and pay homage to them! In my opinion, 2nd edition was on the right track-- divine worshippers of evil gods aren't necromancers, they're death priests. I just want the freedom to toy with the forces of life and death. Is that really too much to ask?

[Bryan Ekers]

I understand "Swamp Hobbit" was Francis Marion's nickname when he played D&D in high school.



Anyway, the last time I gave TSR money was for a 2nd-edition Monster Manual.

[smiling bandit]

The ironic thing is that while I think the new changes are crap, I like the impulse. It's just that WotC's execution bites the big one.

They can't make up their minds what they want on anything at all. Is DnD going to be "generic fantasy rules" for playing all sorts of settings? WIll it be specifically for traditional settings they paid TSR for and immediately dumped? Will it be for some custom settings they themselves made, but never properly supported, and it wasn't really different anyhow? (Yes, that's Eberron, which I hate with the fury of the fires of a thousand suns.)

They don't know.

There rules now suggest a very specific setting, but it's not one that anyone, to my knowledge, has ever played. Meanwhile, they seem to be trying to stuff all existing official settings into their new straightjacket, despite this not making the slightest sense.

If they'd just make an effin' decision and live with it, all would be well. But they don't, and they'll waffle and wiggle and waver back and forth until it becomes another muddle. They've got a bloated staff, and they keep trying to stuff - not just crunchy bits, but BAD crunchy bits - into every book they release, until the tide of prestige classes threatens overhwelm the planet (Good God! Faerun alone had a couple hundred offical PrC's and the implication of thousands more!)

Originally Posted by Mgibson

That pretty much sounds like what we have now. Try running a game without a Cleric for example and see how far you get.

Actually, it works out pretty well. You'd be surprised at how easy it is to get by without one. The problem is that everyone treats them like a heal-bot, which is actually their least effective role.

But if everyone takes the right stuff, well, a Wand of Cure Light Wounds is cheap enough that any party should be able to afford a dozen, it's efficient enough that people can and will make them, and it pretty much takes care of the entire healing situation. Oh sure, you might want one or two high-level (for whatever level you are) healing thingies to back you up, but this strategy is very good at ensuring things don't get that bad int he first place.

Try it sometime.

[E-Sabbath]

Quick reply: I always liked visualizing 3E halflings as the ultimate urban sort. Small, vicious, and fast talking. This... not so handy. Frankly, I'd rather gypsy halflings on the road than gypsy halflings on the river. The carts are more interesting.

[Lightray]

Originally Posted by Johnny Angel

Ideas about game design are advancing all the time, so I'm interested in what they come up with. But I'm afraid that in the meantime they're taking too much glee in taking the axe to sacred cows. That they took gnomes out of the core book and put tieflings in suggests to me that they're already off the rails, and this is coming from a guy who made space in his campaign setting for Muppets.

They didn't take gnomes out of the first book out of glee over axing sacred cows (of which, there are many to be axed, IMO). They did it because they didn't know what to do with the damn little things. They either turn up as elves-lite or dwarves-lite or steampunk mechanics like WoW. So they're waiting 'till they figure out what to do with them. Sounds kinda like they'll be Feywild connected, somehow.

Originally Posted by Johnny Angel

I also love how one of their great improvements is to remove problematic rules like magic item pricing and character levels for monsters and replace them with absolutely nothing. Hey, geniuses! I don't have to buy a new edition not to have any guidelines for how powerful a magic item is. I can just ignore the guidelines I've got! Here's their advanced method, not prone to the errors of the previous methods: just sort of guestimate. Jesus Mary Fucking H Christ, I can see why these guys are professional game designers. It never even occurred to my dumb amateur ass to just make up some fucking numbers and hope it all works out.

Eh? All the vague previews are blurring together with all the hysteric assumptions being made all over the Internets... but I thought sure they had some guidelines planned...

EnWorld says there'll be no rules for DM's making up magic items (which, really, is nothing new aside from scroll or wand guidelines). But there's this Design & Development article on Magic Item Levels, so there'll be some guidelines even if they didn't make it into Races & Classes.

Originally Posted by Terrifel

Well, they're humanoids with draconic and demonic features. The detail that they're no longer directly descended from human/monstrous couplings is beside my point. I expect that the change was made to provide an excuse for unified communities to produce the sexy demonically/draconically themed weapons and armor.

I suspect the change was made because the designers are for some reason squicky about assumptions of rape (as with the half-orc), and seem to think that no human would willingly pair off with an Evil creature like an evil dragon or a demon.

But, I'd rather the emo tieflings than the emo drow.

Originally Posted by Terrifel

I am AWARE of that. And yet they did it ANYWAY! They went and made arcane necromancy EVEN MORE PANTS! WHY?! WHY?! CLERICS ALREADY GET EVERYTHING! WHY?!

Look, all I want is an arcane necromancer that doesn't make me sad. Necromancers are supposed to tamper in Gods domain, not worship and pay homage to them! In my opinion, 2nd edition was on the right track-- divine worshippers of evil gods aren't necromancers, they're death priests. I just want the freedom to toy with the forces of life and death. Is that really too much to ask?

Clerics also are not going to be getting the necromancy schtick. Necromancers are being planned for future release, once they figure out how to make it work. As with other classes such as bards and illusionists, apparently.

In the end, though, it's all just pre-release hype from WotC. We haven't seen anything substantive on what 4e will be like. Some people are buying into the hype, and either rejoycing or raging as they deem fit. It's months yet before the thing'll be out. No need to panic about the sky falling until then. And even then, if we don't like it... we won't be buying it, and WotC will be out some cash while we still play 3.X or AD&D or whatever.

[Odesio]

Originally Posted by Bryan Ekers

I understand "Swamp Hobbit" was Francis Marion's nickname when he played D&D in high school.

That was pretty funny in a geeky historical kind of way.

Marc

[Johnny Angel]

Originally Posted by Lightray

They didn't take gnomes out of the first book out of glee over axing sacred cows (of which, there are many to be axed, IMO). They did it because they didn't know what to do with the damn little things. They either turn up as elves-lite or dwarves-lite or steampunk mechanics like WoW. So they're waiting 'till they figure out what to do with them. Sounds kinda like they'll be Feywild connected, somehow.

There is no historical or even literary precedent for gnomes the way that D&D presents them except for D&D, but it did set up certain expectations that they're now trashing.

Originally Posted by Lightray

Eh? All the vague previews are blurring together with all the hysteric assumptions being made all over the Internets.

Ala Andy Collins:

"We tried to fool ourselves into the fact that there was a hard pricing, but we started recognizing that with MIC, that we should look at them more holistically. There will not be magic item creation rules for DM’s as we realize that as professional game designers we don’t even get it right every time. We’re going to give you lots and lots of examples and suggest that you build it, test it, etc. "

[Odesio]

I realize that this is anecdotal but I cannot recall seeing anyone playing a gnome character since the end of the Thief/Illusionist multiclass from many years ago. On the other hand it seems as though you can't swing a dead cat in a D&D campaign without hitting a half-orc so I'm a little surprised they won't be included in the initial release of the next edition.

I don't mind Tieflings being a base race but I would have preferred it if they weren't an entire civilization of their own. Those Dragon-Kin I can do without but those lizardy non-human types are popular in some computer RPGs and MMORPGs.

I'm not going to be buying 4E when it comes out. As part of my new years resolution I promised not to buy any type of games in 2008.

Marc

[DocCathode]

Ah well, I'll always have 2.0

[Bosstone]

Originally Posted by MGibson

I realize that this is anecdotal but I cannot recall seeing anyone playing a gnome character since the end of the Thief/Illusionist multiclass from many years ago.

What's fun about gnomes is that since so few people are willing to play them, the few that do are inspired. I've played at a table with a gnome wizard, and the guy was entertaining as hell. I've also toyed with the idea of making a gnome Knight and calling him Sir Didymus, complete with riding dog Ambrosius, but I haven't had the chance to use him yet.

As for magic item creation: the Magic Item Compendium is supposed to be a fairly complete preview of the direction they're taking magic items and magic item creation, and it certainly isn't just "make up your own shit" with no guidelines. It's simply that the hard mathematical formulas they tried to apply to value in 3.0 just didn't make sense a lot of the time.

[Bryan Ekers]

Originally Posted by Bosstone

I've also toyed with the idea of making a gnome Knight and calling him Sir Didymus, complete with riding dog Ambrosius, but I haven't had the chance to use him yet.

I understand your reason for holding him back. I know I wouldn't send out a knight on a dog like that.

[What Exit?]

Terrifel, your Op and description of the ongoing and bizarre changes D&D makes with each new money grab edition, reinforces my belief I made the correct decision to stick with AD&D 1st Edition and just ref it with my own rule changes to fit either my own world or the early 4th age Middle Earth World where most of my campaigns have been.

Good review, I love the rat lady piece, seems like a good character for Futurama.

Mellon,
Jim

[Othar the Tooth Collector]

I made a campaign setting that had all the standard AD&D races, but changed around their origins to make it a sort of SF/fantasy hybrid. The origin story as the races knew it was that their creator god originally populated their world with three intelligent species, the dragons (who ruled the mountains and the air), elves (who ruled the seas), and the gnomes (who ruled the lands). The three species had wars, the dragons drove the gnomes underground, and the gnomes used magic to create new races to fight the dragons for them - their first attempts were the various goblinoid races (who were genetically unstable and whose fast population growth quickly led them to get out of control). Their second attempt was the dwarves. The dragons created the sahuagin by combining elf with shark DNA, and this drove the elves out of the seas and into the rivers and lakes, where a subspecies colonized the swamps and forests with the help of a slave race they made by combining elven genes with animals, the orcs. The dragons created fast-breeding mini-dragons to fight the gnomes, but never got around to using them as the gnomes were wiped out in their wars with the goblinoids, and these kobolds had their own civilization on the isolated continent that the dragons were originally breeding them. Halflings came from another plane after these wars were pretty much over, and a few hundred years before the campaign setting took place introduced humans as a slave race.

There was a twist with halflings, their extraplanar origins gave them limited teleportation powers but most of them could only blink a short distance if they were in extreme distress (they could not give natural birth and halfling infants teleported out of their mothers wombs when the contractions started). They were also mostly evil. They lied and said they created humans by combining halfling DNA with that of great apes. The other races suspect that the halflings abducted and used elven and dwarven DNA to create humans as humans are the only species that can cross-breed with elves, orcs, and dwarves, but in reality the humans were a population that had been in suspended animation for hundreds of thousands of years, and the elves and gnomes were two species of hominids that had descended from humans who had colonized other worlds in their distant past. Dragons were aliens, and the world was originally colonized by the three cooperatively, and the animosity began after a catastrophe caused them all to lose their technology and revert to a more primitive way of life.

I was pretty proud of it.

[Garula]

Pretty neat setting, Othar. I hope that most of that information was hidden to the players until they discovered it during the campaign. Preferably with plenty of misinformation thrown in.

I have mixed feelings about 4th edition. Frankly, I never cared much about the campaign setting as given, so I'm not too shaken up about the changes being discussed here. Unless I like the changes, I see no reason why I can't use the new rules with the old setting. I Think that rather than becoming swamp dwelling, the far bigger blasphemy is that halflings are now supposed to wear shoes. On the mechanics side, I like the idea of making feats a more integral part of character development, and the changes to the magic system seem solid. What I strongly dislike is the new skill system, universal stat increases at every level up, and the overall increase in power level. I also don't care for the new path system replacing prestige classes. Further, one of my favorite characters was an Artificer, so I'm kind of bummed that they're doing away with hard guidelines for item creation. Sure, it was far from perfect, (1000gp for an item that can heal an unlimited amount of HP? Cool!) but I had a lot of fun making myself into, basically, a modron version of Batman.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

I'll wait and see. Of *course* the new edition is a moneygrab. Wizards of the Coast is, despite their denials, an organization of people who are trying to get your money to line their own pockets. There's a name for people like that: they're a business! OOOOOOOO!

Really, I can't understand people who accuse WOTC of trying to earn money to pay their workers, like it's a bad thing. If they were cornering the market on wheat, I'd understand the outrage. But they're making a luxury entertainment product that you don't have to buy. They're trying to do it for a living, so they don't have to get jobs as transcriptionists or programmers or fry cooks or whatever. Good for them!

As for the changes, we'll see. Some of the changes look interesting to me; some of them make me say, "meh." Until I see the whole game, I don't feel qualified to make a judgment. I certainly won't be purchasing a preview product, but I have nothing against its buyers or its sellers.

Daniel

[Terrifel]

Originally Posted by Lightray

I suspect the change was made because the designers are for some reason squicky about assumptions of rape (as with the half-orc), and seem to think that no human would willingly pair off with an Evil creature like an evil dragon or a demon.

Well, phooey. Like there aren't dozens of ways to address half-orcism without rape? "You are a magically created race that mingles the traits of orcs and men. Your ancestors were fashioned in a clay pit by an evil wizard played by Christopher Lee." There. Done.

And don't tell me there aren't any guys out there who'd willingly go for fanged, heavy-browed women. I've seen Klingon weddings.

But, I'd rather the emo tieflings than the emo drow.

Well, at least drow characters had the fact that their race was pretty much universally evil to play against. The tiefling race concept seems to want to have it both ways. "Oh, we are an outcast race, scorned and mistrusted due to our ancestry and appearance." But they apparently all choose to dress in ridiculously demonic-looking attire with spikes and flames and whatnot, so it's hard to feel much sympathy. The "outcast loner" bit really worked better when any given tiefling was in fact an outcast loner, and didn't have the option of hiking over to the local town's Little Pandemonium and purchasing custom-fitted hellforged armor at the local J. Orcus outlet.

Clerics also are not going to be getting the necromancy schtick. Necromancers are being planned for future release, once they figure out how to make it work. As with other classes such as bards and illusionists, apparently.

Oh, well in that case... er... um. Yeah, I can see the importance of that qualifier: "--as soon as they figure out how to make it work." And the first step toward that goal, of course, is to weaken all the available arcane necromancy spells. So what will they have to have to work with? Are they going to have their own entirely separate magic system, or what? Oh lord, I can already feel the pain from here.

[Othar the Tooth Collector]

Originally Posted by Garula

Pretty neat setting, Othar. I hope that most of that information was hidden to the players until they discovered it during the campaign. Preferably with plenty of misinformation thrown in.

Yes, the players had limited access to background information. The theology was that there was a creator god who made the world and the three original races and two gods, one of chaos (Sil) and one of law (Ab). All the other gods were members of the intelligent races who were elevated to godhood by either Ab or Sil, who were engaged in a kind of cold war against each other for followers and for the ability to shape history. There were good and evil gods under both sides, and often the chaotic god of X would be what we would consider good while the lawful version was evil, and vice versa. The races knew all knew that the dwarves were created by gnomes, orcs by elves, kobolds by dragons, etc., but only the dragons knew they weren't created on that world and they weren't sharing the info. The creator god was actually the original global consciousness that inhabited a supercomputer in an adjacent subdimension that was intended to manage the colony, and it intentionally deleted large chunks of it's own memory to protect the colony from knowledge of their origins, and this led to it fracturing into Ab and Sil. Ab and Sil's pantheons were living minds that were uploaded into that computer.

All that anybody knew about the halflings was that they came from another "plane", but they were actually refugees from a vast war in the rest of the galaxy and they made a deal with Ab and Sil when they came to the world to not pass on that knowledge in exchange for being allowed to live there. All but a few halflings had no knowledge of how humans truly came to exist on their world and believed the official line that they are simply halflings modified to be bigger and stronger. The world has a conspiracy theory about the origin of humans that I mentioned in the original post, that the halflings actually created humans from elves, dwarves, orcs, and goblins and are keeping this secret because this would almost certainly lead to the dwarves and elves aligning against the halflings in a war of extermination (creating new races out of a different intelligent race is seen as an extremely evil act, and the dragons are loathed by everyone for using elven and gnome DNA to create the sahuagin and kobolds). The halflings actually secretly promote this theory to mask the truth, that they discovered an ancient structure far underground that had archaic homo sapiens preserved in a stasis field. When they woke up the original humans, they kept the first generations isolated on an island and would take their infants away so they would not hear from their parents their true origins, then exterminated the original humans once they had a sustainable population of slaves.

The gods have mixed feelings about humans, and none of them have been elevated into godhood (for fear they would be able to deduce their true origins if they had godlike intelligence). There are myths that the arrival of humans is a sign of the end times and that they will destroy the world, planted by the gods as a precaution in case they find it necessary to destroy them.

In my campaign, the group broke up before they could discover the truth. They had just got to the island where the first few generations of humans were bred but hadn't deciphered any of their writings yet.

[smiling bandit]

Originally Posted by Left Hand of Dorkness

I'll wait and see. Of *course* the new edition is a moneygrab. Wizards of the Coast is, despite their denials, an organization of people who are trying to get your money to line their own pockets. There's a name for people like that: they're a business! OOOOOOOO!

It's complicated. WotC bought up TSR, and when they did so, they pretty much screwed everyone. Not that TSR was a gem; it had its own issues with incompetent management. But WotC should have known better. For example, they slashed old but solid settings. Birthright, Mystara, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Ravenloft, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, and especially Planescape. In several cases, there seemed to almost be a hair of Sour Grapes about it, and they went a little out of their way to screw players of those settings by introducing rules which made it irritating to convert them. Some of this stuff got a little bit of support (Greyhawk, Dragonlance) and a couple others got fan-projects. Still, little to no support.

This PO'd a lot of people. It's hard to find those books anymore becasue they're not in print. Not supporting them is the kiss of death, and makes it extremely hard if not impossible to make a game of it. And what support they did get was pretty thin stuff.

Second, WotC has a bad habit of making rules so generic they're meaningless, and then other rules so specific they're useless. They toss in feats and Prestige Classes willy-nilly. OGL stuff is actually much better and arguably more balanced! They quite often fail to even check their own published material. I think by now they've got three prestige classes just for Loviatar, a minor god with a small following in Forgotten Realms! All the classes are similar and none terribly interesting. Point = none. They kept tossing in useless crap into every book they make to pad the page count. I can go into any TSR book and find pages upon pages of intersting and useful material. I go into WotC books and see pretty art and formatting, along with a little bit of material here and there.

Third, WotC has a nasty habit of releasing half-done stuff as new books. 3.5? It wasn't done, had no real guidance. Sean K. Reynolds heard that the writers basically had no guidance at all from the management. They were just given a deadline and told to do something. With the result that they tossed something together. And some of it was decent and some of it sucked.

Likewise, WotC apparently thinks we're going to buy giant but really bad series of books or something. In order to keep their profits up, they charge high and make long lists of books with little-to-no use in most campaigns. You're paying for artwork and color printing, not useful material. And they make such bad books. I dont' mind paying for quality product, but they're stuff is just ridiculous. I don't need a book full of generic "fire stuff," and then another for generic "cold stuff"!

Then, when their sales dropped like rocks they dont know what's going on and try to respond with volume rather than content. They were incapable of seeing they cannibalized their own sales base.

Fourth, They have no idea what they're doing with their settings. They honestly seem afraid of actually changing things up, then make a mad rush to try and switch things around, which rather diorients their player base. They first hit superficial changes, but can't seem to make any deeper ones which would actually help. To be blunt, they writing staff seems to have no idea what they're doing from one day to the next.

On a relate note, I've noticed a LOT of turnover at WotC. This somewhat makes me think the problem may be that they're not keeping people around, and that may be causing a lot of the mess.

Fifth, they keep releasing this kind of crap. Obviously, they're not forcing us to buy it, but the insult inherent in the offer is there. It's a book which offers you precisely DICK, and they want to charge you $20 bucks for it. It also suggests they're so desperate they've decided to whore out their design documents, and is rather pathetic and ignoble.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Originally Posted by smiling bandit

It's complicated.

I wrote out a long snarky post full of line-by-line refutations. I hate that kind of post. Suffice it to say that I think you're way off base, seeming to think WOTC has a duty to make the kinds of materials you like, and really unaware of the business basis for their decisions. Suffice it to say that I think I'm much more educated on this topic than you.

Daniel

[DocCathode]

Originally Posted by LHOD

For good reason: they were money sinks. Yeah, they were awesome, but they were money sinks. Remember: WOTC is a business. THey're not a charity or a nonprofit arts group. If you want ars gratia artis, start your own gaming nonprofit.

What if I want Ars Magica gratis?

[Lightray]

Originally Posted by Terrifel

Oh, well in that case... er... um. Yeah, I can see the importance of that qualifier: "--as soon as they figure out how to make it work." And the first step toward that goal, of course, is to weaken all the available arcane necromancy spells. So what will they have to have to work with? Are they going to have their own entirely separate magic system, or what? Oh lord, I can already feel the pain from here.

We've been told that the Book of Nine Swords is a good indication of what 4e will look like, and that spells and such will be vastly simplified. I suspect that spells are going to look a lot like the B9S maneuvers look -- and also divided into "at will", "per encounter", "per day", etc. abilities. So not only no entirely separate magic system, but maybe not a magic system separate from other systems, at all.

And they're not weakening the available arcane necromancy spells -- it's just that wizards (and warlocks, etc.) won't have access to many necromancy spells. So they won't be in the first books, at all. When they later come out with a necromancer class, there'll be necromancy spells in those books.

Originally Posted by Left Hand of Dorkness

I wrote out a long snarky post full of line-by-line refutations. I hate that kind of post. Suffice it to say that I think you're way off base, seeming to think WOTC has a duty to make the kinds of materials you like, and really unaware of the business basis for their decisions. Suffice it to say that I think I'm much more educated on this topic than you.

Eh, the easy refutation is "TSR lost money on every campaign setting book they put out" (at least, at the end of the TSR era). Including... Birthright, Ravenloft, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, and especially Planescape.

WotC is not only not obliged to support those, but would seem to be pretty darn stupid if they picked up money-losers again. Moreover, farming out their intellectual property to others really did nothing much for their business, either. I don't think they really know what to do with all those settings, really.

Nonetheless, they are in business, and expecting them to go back to stuff that lost money is rather silly. What they've found that makes money is... books with lots of Prestige Classes, even if they duplicate PrCs already published elsewhere.

And, yes, their book sales have declined. Because, seriously, what else is 3.5 missing. The damn thing is just about done. They've covered enough ground. Time for something new.

Ironically, for the complaint of WotC not changing up their settings enough... Forgotten Realms is due to get a complete overhaul and a jump forward on timeline in 4e. That would seem to address smiling bandit's complaint on that account. Their doing so has Internet FR fans howling for blood.

There'll always be someone who hates whatever decision they make.

Originally Posted by DocCathode

What if I want Ars Magica gratis?

You're over a year too late, then. Atlas Games was giving away free Ars Magica 4th edition (pdf) up until their 5th edition came out.

I already had two copies, so it was of no use to me, and so I didn't download it.

[Miller]

Originally Posted by Lightray

Ironically, for the complaint of WotC not changing up their settings enough... Forgotten Realms is due to get a complete overhaul and a jump forward on timeline in 4e. That would seem to address smiling bandit's complaint on that account. Their doing so has Internet FR fans howling for blood.

He knows. He's one of them.

[Lightray]

For everyone's edification, here's what Mike Mearls posted over at RPG.net as the things people complained about that 4e is supposed to fix:

1. Generating numbers for NPCs is like doing (really boring) homework.
2. The game seems to function best at about levels 5 to 12.
3. High level games are cumbersome and difficult to run.
4. Low level games are swingy.
5. The CR system is confusing and produces wonky results.
6. Spellcasters outclass everyone else.
7. Multiclassing works for only certain combinations. Classic tropes (warrior-wizards) need new core classes because the core system doesn't work.
8. Characters have too few skill points.
9. Monsters are unnecessarily complicated.
10. You don't get enough feats.
11. Attacks of opportunity are confusing.
12. Magic items are really important, but it isn't equal. Some items are critical, others are complete chaff.
13. There are a number of weird little subsystems that introduce unnecessary complexity, like grappling.

The original post is here, buried in a thread gone seriously whacko, and with only a post or two more by Mearls (including one earlier with the noted weird analogy). Although I cross-posted this information since it bears on what changes they're covering in Races & Classes, let's keep their flame-fest over there, please.

Also, the online Dragon has a new article up about changes coming to the Forgotten Realms...

[Terrifel]

Originally Posted by Left Hand of Dorkness

I wrote out a long snarky post full of line-by-line refutations. I hate that kind of post. Suffice it to say that I think you're way off base, seeming to think WOTC has a duty to make the kinds of materials you like, and really unaware of the business basis for their decisions. Suffice it to say that I think I'm much more educated on this topic than you.

Daniel

That's an interesting perspective. What is the business basis for WotC's decisions, if not to make the kinds of materials players like? I am intrigued by your "no customer feedback" business model.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Originally Posted by Terrifel

That's an interesting perspective. What is the business basis for WotC's decisions, if not to make the kinds of materials players like? I am intrigued by your "no customer feedback" business model.

Given that I've spent several years as a moderator on the largest unofficial D&D fan site, it's untrue that I support a "no customer feedback" model. Rather, I believe that the ultimate customer feedback for a luxury product is the consumer's dollar. Given WOTC's tremendous success at revitalizing the D&D brand and increasing its market saturation, I'd say the feedback has been very positive.

They've made some recent changes that I don't like. I've stopped purchasing products. That's some significant feedback. If I weren't so lazy, I'd send an email to Mike Mearls et al., after reading everything I could find on the reasons for the changes I don't like, describing in polite, measured tones what changes I don't like and suggesting alternatives to those changes. I would send only one email, and I would recognize that they're making the game for millions of people, not just for me, and I would therefore expect them to refuse to make any of the changes I'd like. That's how mass markets work.

Many of the complaints I see about 4e strike me as histrionic, irrrational, and uninformed. That's not what useful consumer feedback looks like.

Daniel

[smiling bandit]

I think you're missing my points. I don't mind them not wanting to publish certain products if they think they can't make money on it. What irritates me is that they won't sell them or make them available for other poeple to use, outside of Ravenloft.

Likewise, I explicitly noted their schizophrenic attitude toward setting changing. I'm not a fdan of their 4th edition setting changes, but they don't seem to comprehend that you can change something incrementally without a total overhaul. Nor are they the only developer with that problem.

I think it looks like they botched the design of 4th. I also think they identified the problems correctly. The two positions are not contradictory.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Originally Posted by smiling bandit

I think you're missing my points. I don't mind them not wanting to publish certain products if they think they can't make money on it. What irritates me is that they won't sell them or make them available for other poeple to use, outside of Ravenloft.

Why do you think they should do this--that is, how do you see it as being in their best interest, and why do you think you understand their best interest better than they do?

Likewise, I explicitly noted their schizophrenic attitude toward setting changing. I'm not a fdan of their 4th edition setting changes, but they don't seem to comprehend that you can change something incrementally without a total overhaul. Nor are they the only developer with that problem.

You sound as though you're unfamiliar with 3.5, which was an incremental change without being a total overhaul. This is a new edition, and like each previous edition, it will be a total overhaul. It might suck--generally the changes from 1st to 2nd are viewed as sucktastic (I really got my chops playing 2nd edition as soon as it came out, so I'm not qualified to judge)--but expecting it not to be a complete overhaul is odd.

I think it looks like they botched the design of 4th. I also think they identified the problems correctly. The two positions are not contradictory.

Sure. It's the idea that they're insulting you, or sabotaging your play, that is irrational. When you stick to pointing out specific changes that you don't like, that's fine.

Daniel

[Terrifel]

Originally Posted by Left Hand of Dorkness

Given that I've spent several years as a moderator on the largest unofficial D&D fan site, it's untrue that I support a "no customer feedback" model. Rather, I believe that the ultimate customer feedback for a luxury product is the consumer's dollar. Given WOTC's tremendous success at revitalizing the D&D brand and increasing its market saturation, I'd say the feedback has been very positive.

They've made some recent changes that I don't like. I've stopped purchasing products. That's some significant feedback. If I weren't so lazy, I'd send an email to Mike Mearls et al., after reading everything I could find on the reasons for the changes I don't like, describing in polite, measured tones what changes I don't like and suggesting alternatives to those changes. I would send only one email, and I would recognize that they're making the game for millions of people, not just for me, and I would therefore expect them to refuse to make any of the changes I'd like. That's how mass markets work.

Many of the complaints I see about 4e strike me as histrionic, irrrational, and uninformed. That's not what useful consumer feedback looks like.

Daniel

Perhaps not, but responding to complaints with: "Guess what? They're a business! OOOOOOOO! If you don't like the game, don't buy it! Why do you think they have a duty to make the kind of game you like?" isn't very useful either, is it? You could drop the the same rebuttal to most threads in Cafe Society, and it'd be just as appropriate:

"Wow, Sucky Movie 2 really sucked. Why does Sucky Pictures keep making such sucky movies?"

"Guess what? They're a business! OOOOOOOO! If you don't like their movies, don't buy a ticket!" etc., etc. Repeat as needed in as many threads as possible. See how helpful that is?

I don't see that we're doing anything different here. We're talking up the parts of the game we like, and bitching about the parts we don't like. This will never, ever change. People will never stop complaining about D&D. I've quit buying it, and I'm still complaining about it. Don't be such a killjoy.

Maybe you've been moderating on a D&D fan site too long, if criticism of the game gets under your skin so badly. Seriously, I'm pretty sure WotC doesn't want you to have an aneurysm on their account.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Originally Posted by Terrifel

aneurysm

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Originally Posted by Left Hand of Dorkness

Lemme elaborate.

First, no aneurysm. That's the sort of histrionic, uninformed, and irrational stuff I've grown used to dealing with from many folks who hate 4e. Not all: many.

Second, the comment about the moneygrab wasn't made in response to the OP: it was made in response to someone who called the new edition a money grab. That's histrionic and irrational, but at least it's informed: pretty much every business's product is a money grab, to the extent that this one is.

Daniel

[Terrifel]

Originally Posted by Left Hand of Dorkness

Lemme elaborate.

First, no aneurysm. That's the sort of histrionic, uninformed, and irrational stuff I've grown used to dealing with from many folks who hate 4e. Not all: many.

Second, the comment about the moneygrab wasn't made in response to the OP: it was made in response to someone who called the new edition a money grab. That's histrionic and irrational, but at least it's informed: pretty much every business's product is a money grab, to the extent that this one is.

Daniel

I don't hate 4e! I simply have not been persuaded to buy 4e. When the game comes out, and everybody else tells me that 4e is brilliant and wonderful and a panacea to all earthly ills, then... well, I still won't buy 4e, because by that time 5e will be in the works, and so on.

I don't think anyone here has argued that WotC shouldn't make money off their product. I think people want to spend money on D&D, but

Crap. Work calls--- I continue this thought later.

[MrDibble]

Originally Posted by Bryan Ekers

I understand your reason for holding him back. I know I wouldn't send out a knight on a dog like that.

Bravo, sir, well played - didn't want that so go unremarked.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Originally Posted by Terrifel

I don't think anyone here has argued that WotC shouldn't make money off their product.

What Exit called it a money-grab, which is a really weird term for a product intended to make money. And Starving Artist has suggested that WOTC is trying to insult him and sabotage his gameplay. These are the kinds of criticisms that I don't think are reasonable; I don't think there was anything in the OP that I found objectionable, even though I don't agree with every one of the points.

Daniel

[Merijeek]

Originally Posted by smiling bandit

Then, when their sales dropped like rocks they dont know what's going on and try to respond with volume rather than content. They were incapable of seeing they cannibalized their own sales base.

While I generally do my best to disagree with you on everything, the "Dungeon Survival Guide" is a perfect example. It's a $20 book that, near as I can tell, looks at currently published WotC adventures and says, "For this adventure, if you're a fighter, you'll want to be packing a [fill in item or feat here]."

Crap like that should be a giveaway pamphlet.

I know it gets said every time, but I really think that unless WotC fools enough people into giving them a $10-$15 monthly fee they've cut their own throats.

-Joe

[Merijeek]

Continuing on my previous post...

Remember, back in the days of 2nd edition when TSR released the 'class kits'? I'm not talking about the kit books, I'm talking about the plastic box-type things that contained a little blurb on running a thief, a single thief miniature, a "player's screen" and a bunch of other silly junk like that?

That's when I knew TSR was truly f'zucked.

-Joe

[Johnny Angel]

Originally Posted by Merijeek

Remember, back in the days of 2nd edition when TSR released the 'class kits'? I'm not talking about the kit books, I'm talking about the plastic box-type things that contained a little blurb on running a thief, a single thief miniature, a "player's screen" and a bunch of other silly junk like that?

I remember the lunchboxes. Actually, I would love to own them now. But at the time I couldn't see paying for them just on the grounds that they were stupid.

This controversy over business practices manifests itself in a pretty predictable arc. Somebody complains about the company money grubbing, and then someone comes along and points out that businesses are required to make money. That's true, and it's also true that you don't have to pay into a business that you feel is not doing right by you. But let's not run to the strange conclusion that maximizing profits is the only relevant moral obligation a business has, or that withholding money is the only legitimate protest. There is a moral dimension to the apparent tendency of WotC to use the loyalty of its user base as leverage against them.

I remember the howls of protest over the first announcement of 4th edition, because it was clear that it was already a fairly well developed project by the time it was announced, and that meant that WotC reps had in fact been lying to D&D fans about the fact that they were already working on 4th edition. WotC can't exactly win here because as soon as they announce 4.0 they kill the 3.5 market. The fans also lose because they're investing in the meantime in a system which is quickly bound for obsolescence. So, everyone pretty much has to eat that one all around -- WotC had to lie and eat the wrath of the fans, hoping they can smooth it out in the long run, and the fans had to eat the betrayal and waste of their own money. Once the announcement was made, they still had 3.5 materials coming out, and I'll bet the sales for those were troubled, but at least one supplement was a 3.5 rules compendium, which at least has the attraction that it caps off the buyer's collection. But now they still have to stay afloat, and they have no crunch to sell that's ready for market, so they're selling a book that talks about what that crunch would look like when it comes. It is in effect an ad that they're asking you to pay for, but what else can they do in the meantime?

[smiling bandit]

Originally Posted by Left Hand of Dorkness

Why do you think they should do this--that is, how do you see it as being in their best interest, and why do you think you understand their best interest better than they do?

Because it ain't getting them any money, and they have no interest in the settings anyway. Sure, they weren't big sellers solo, but add them up and you have a lot of players. Plus, TSR itself wasn't making much $$ towards the end, and WotC might have been able to do better.

They COULD have sold off those properties, or even offered them as OGL. Or even split the difference and gotten free fan writers. By offering some support, theyd have had more variety and more defined settings to sell to. And while you say those setting books didn't make any cash for TSR, I haven't heard that a lot of WotC later material did either. D20 virtually stopped selling after a while.

You sound as though you're unfamiliar with 3.5, which was an incremental change without being a total overhaul. This is a new edition, and like each previous edition, it will be a total overhaul. It might suck--generally the changes from 1st to 2nd are viewed as sucktastic (I really got my chops playing 2nd edition as soon as it came out, so I'm not qualified to judge)--but expecting it not to be a complete overhaul is odd.

OK bud, by this point you're just willfully refusing to comprehend.

Settings can and should change over time. But look at Forgotten Realms. The problem is that they don't really do this. They mostly kept everything the exact same, or dropped in a handful of changes in places where few, if any, people played. And then they never supported the changes with any new material.

I don't particularly have problems with the level of changes in 3.5, which si a totally different issue. What bothers me about it is that it simply wasn't a finished product, and not one with a serious design behind it. Look, these nitwits were so moronic, they failed to update the damned book from the 3.0 errata.

Moreover, they made a number of changes which are mathematically incorrect. For example, Keen no longer stacking with Improved Crit. In a number of other cases, they limited spells not because it made the game more interesting or more "balanced," but because people actually used them to do things which were interesting and inventive - and which didn't fit in with their "kill the monsters, grab the treasure, move to the next room" concept.

[Bryan Ekers]

Originally Posted by MrDibble

Bravo, sir, well played - didn't want that so go unremarked.

Actually, I read that in Reader's Digest twenty years ago and was just saving it until now.

[Terrifel]

Originally Posted by Left Hand of Dorkness

What Exit called it a money-grab, which is a really weird term for a product intended to make money. And Starving Artist has suggested that WOTC is trying to insult him and sabotage his gameplay. These are the kinds of criticisms that I don't think are reasonable; I don't think there was anything in the OP that I found objectionable, even though I don't agree with every one of the points.

Daniel

I think the key to the "money-grab" objection is simply that What Exit? already paid for his D&D core rulebooks. If you don't like a game supplement or a setting, you can simply not buy it, and continue to buy the ones that appeal to you. But a whole new edition demands another purchase if you wish to use any other new product. If the company kept producing old edition material alongside the new edition, no one would complain of a "money-grab." But a new edition is like digital TV: you bought the old set on the understanding that the medium was sound, and then the company decides that your service isn't worth it anymore. The current business model appears to guarantee that longtime players will have support for their investment nullified after an unspecified time. At least when you buy other perishables, you are provided with an expiration date.


However, What Exit? claims to have stood fast by 1st edition all these years, so surely that earns some points for adhering to your "complain by not buying" policy. I don't see where Starving Artist made any comments against WotC-- was this in other threads?

Perhaps such attitudes are unreasonable, but then: Gaming isn't reasonable. There is nothing remotely reasonable about meeting with the same group of people every Saturday night for years and staying up til 6:30 AM pretending to be elves. It's a social ritual, one that can last for years or decades. D&D encourages people to get together, establish friendships and participate in an intricate shared escapist fantasy. So why is it so baffling that people who invest time, emotion and money in this recreation react badly when the game suddenly changes under their feet?