DND 5.0 remake

[Callie Del Noire]

Annnnndddd... here we go..

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/arts/video-games/dungeons-dragons-remake-uses-players-input.html?_r=3&hpw

About 2 years earlier than I thought it would start though.

They took a leaf from Paizo though.. asking for gamer input.

[Aiden]

About fucking time, 4.0 was garbage.

I am an MMO player but I play MMO's for a reason, when I get to DnD, I want to customize my own shit not follow a path like a video game.

[Callie Del Noire]

About fucking time, 4.0 was garbage.

I am an MMO player but I play MMO's for a reason, when I get to DnD, I want to customize my own shit not follow a path like a video game.

Please.. don't start the hate warz. (though I do agree that 4e was VERY MMO-ish)

I'm curious to see how long they keep up the 'looking for Gamer' input outlook given they did a lot at the beginning of the 4e release train to ignore them (cutting FLGMS out of the loop and giving folks like WALMART a 50% cut on the unit cost of the books).

I think the boys and girls at Wizards want to do this but the Masters of Business Atrocities at Hasbro might overrule them eventually though.

Hasbro is looking to make the GOBS of cash they were shown at the purchase time back at the beginning of this Century. Face it..the guys at Wizards showed them the books for the year or so before the purchase and they have been chasing THAT pay off ever since.

[RubySlippers]

2.0 had three years of player development and groups testing the rules and a two decade run.

3.0 -> 3.5 screwed me over after buying the first rules set alot.

4.0 -> 5.0 didn't bother going there.

There are plenty of other options pathfinder, the basic fantasy rpg (my fav) and other retro-clones of the older "dnd" system with some like hackmaster having their own following. Not to mention the 2nd Edition which I find superior to the rules used 3.0 and after in some ways.

The fact is if you want a fantasy rpg there are ample other options oop and in print and free options and most are close enough to "dnd" to be as good as the system if one wishes to rp in that environment.

[Callie Del Noire]

well I know Ed Greenwood is still running a 2e game (and from what I've heard.. still using the 3/3.5e version of the Realms for it), and I know a LOT of designers still use 2nd or 3rd in their own games. Very few actually use 4e from what I've heard.

[Inkidu]

I think 4.0 could have used a better name than the Fourth Edition. That comes with standards.

Now if they called it Basic v2 or something that would be okay. I like 3.5 and I'm dabbling with Pathfinder, but 4.0 had a lot of potential for introducing new players to the larger game. That's just my opinion though.

[TheGlyphstone]

4.0 was a great game on its own merits, for all that I don't like it personally. But it wasn't 3.5, and it wasn't 3.5 to such a amazingly significant degree that it almost certainly permanently fractured the fanbase forever. If WotC/Hasbro means to recapture their entire market, they're doomed - Paizo scooped up the disgruntled 3.xers, and has more-or-less treated them well. So a 5.0 edition will have to be at least superficially in the 4E style, otherwise it'll end up losing players to no additional gain.

The 4.0=MMO argument was always nonsensical grognardian garbage. The real worry we need to care about is 5.0=CCG, with worrisome precursors like the random Power Cards that Essentials introduced, or the pay-per-month model of D&D Insider/Dragon Magazine (the only really MMOish element of 4E's sales structure).

[Chris Brady]

Don't forget, 3e was a Diablo video game for the tabletop, which would doom D&D into obscurity.  (This was the argument used back then.)

If anything, 4e is closer to Disgaea.

One thing they really need to do for 5e is cut back on the Hit Points.  3e made them explode exponentially, into stupid levels where save or die effects became mandatory, which of course, only Wizards and other casters had access to.  At about level 10, you'd start facing things in excess of 100 HP.  And most melee/non-caster classes were useless against.  Hell, most monsters could easily bypass the front line, most of the time they didn't was because GMs played nice.

4e didn't really change that.

Personally, I think that Fighter types should do much more damage from the outset, that way they are a threat, as equal to the casters.

Either way, I've signed up for the 5e beta test, so I shall see what's new on the table.

[Callie Del Noire]

I did the same, though I disagree with 3e/'Diabloing'.. and my outlook on the whole '4e commerce' model isn't where I get my MMO outlook, that came from reading the  players handbook and terms like 'CC', 'tank', 'Buff' coming to mind as i read through the roles and then reading about how you enchant things by 'disenchanting' other items for 'magic powder'.

I dislike the whole e-scription thing for Dragon/Dungeon.. I was a loyal subscriber of the dead tree books from like.. Issue.. 28 on. Then they took all the PDFs off the market, one a 2 day notice that occured while I was on deployment. So I lost like 200 bucks worth of pdfs I will never get back.

I don't blame the folks I bought the pdfs from.. I blame the MBAs who are stuck in an old model. Their current 'e-scription' stuff is crap. 

[Brandon]

I was actually expecting this to come out soon after having a hint dropped by a friend but you know what? I dont think I really care all that much. I was hyper hating on 4E for a lot of years and especially on WotC for what they did to dungeon and dragon magazine (let alone the IMO crummy way they treated Paizo) but for 5.0...I just really dont care.

If anything can be said its this, I enjoy pathfinder and Ive long since stopped caring about the D&D name. I wish them well but they will not be getting my business, not because its D&D but because its Wizards of the coast, the same people who screwed us gamers over years ago

[Callie Del Noire]

I was actually expecting this to come out soon after having a hint dropped by a friend but you know what? I dont think I really care all that much. I was hyper hating on 4E for a lot of years and especially on WotC for what they did to dungeon and dragon magazine (let alone the IMO crummy way they treated Paizo) but for 5.0...I just really dont care.

If anything can be said its this, I enjoy pathfinder and Ive long since stopped caring about the D&D name. I wish them well but they will not be getting my business, not because its D&D but because its Wizards of the coast, the same people who screwed us gamers over years ago

It wasn't Wizards taht screwed everyone.. it was HASBRO. Wizards was playing fair till they were sold to Hasbro. That was when '3.5. was suddenly sprung on everyone, and the sudden (and repeated) downsizings (Wizards got infamous for letting folks go before the holidays.. class act folks). What they did to Paizo was another 'classy' move by the folks @ Hasbro. I mean they had a publishing contract and killed it to be 'online only' despite the fact that a LOT of folks didn't want to lose their dead tree copies.

Then they burned Paizo, and Drivethrurpg by yanking EVERYTHING e-pub based that belonged to Wizards.. It was their right.. but come one.. TWO days isn't fair.

[Oniya]

The games I've been a part of have all been 2e homebrews.  I chalk it up to being more interested in playing than wasting time and money buying all new rulebooks and learning the new system.  ;D

[TheGlyphstone]

Personally, I think that Fighter types should do much more damage from the outset, that way they are a threat, as equal to the casters.

Either way, I've signed up for the 5e beta test, so I shall see what's new on the table.

That was what the Tome of Battle did, though, and I don't think the entire 3E line had a book more prone to causing flame wars and arguments. What fighter-types need more than straight up damage boosts is flexibility, ways to contribute that don't amount to 'I hit it with a sword/axe'. Casters dominate not just because they can end fights with a single spell (often one that doesn't even allow a save) and reshape entire battlefields with area denial, but because they can bring the perfect tool to any situation in or out of combat, where only the Rogue of the non-casters can make real contributions outside fights. Reinvent the fighter as a leader-of-men with diplomacy abilities and teamwork-related group buffs, make the paladin an avatar of good with class features past 5th level, and for the love of all that's holy give the poor monk some actual synergy with itself.

Personally, I'm going to be giving Legend a good shot - I'm semi-acquainted with the developers, and have watched the entire playtest and development period up to an awesome end product.

[Callie Del Noire]

That was what the Tome of Battle did, though, and I don't think the entire 3E line had a book more prone to causing flame wars and arguments. What fighter-types need more than straight up damage boosts is flexibility, ways to contribute that don't amount to 'I hit it with a sword/axe'. Casters dominate not just because they can end fights with a single spell (often one that doesn't even allow a save) and reshape entire battlefields with area denial, but because they can bring the perfect tool to any situation in or out of combat, where only the Rogue of the non-casters can make real contributions outside fights. Reinvent the fighter as a leader-of-men with diplomacy abilities and teamwork-related group buffs, make the paladin an avatar of good with class features past 5th level, and for the love of all that's holy give the poor monk some actual synergy with itself.

Pathfinder does some work on that. .Fighters get some really good options (depending on your design), Rogues get some out of combat enhancements and BOTH have reasons to stay with them for many levels past the 6th level range (which is where you normally saw both classes go looking for a prestiege class (or three) to make themselves relevent)

Personally I think the Pathfinder monk still needs a bit of loving but overall every base class got something.

But that is my take on the system and results may vary

[TheGlyphstone]

The PF fighter didn't get anything except bigger numbers, though the Rogue did get some neat tricks, yeah. They actually made the core Monk worse by removing its ability to take TWF and Improved Natural Attack, though a Hungry Ghost archtype monk can be a real beast. I did like the way they built classes to encourage staying in them, though.

[Callie Del Noire]

The PF fighter didn't get anything except bigger numbers, though the Rogue did get some neat tricks, yeah. They actually made the core Monk worse by removing its ability to take TWF and Improved Natural Attack, though a Hungry Ghost archtype monk can be a real beast. I did like the way they built classes to encourage staying in them, though.

I thought so too.. till my freind pointed out that you can add in things like Critical Focus (and its' offspring feats) and maneuver feats. Yes, it'f fairly easy to hammer in with more and more damage or alternate between damage and 'move' feats.

[TheGlyphstone]

I thought so too.. till my freind pointed out that you can add in things like Critical Focus (and its' offspring feats) and maneuver feats. Yes, it'f fairly easy to hammer in with more and more damage or alternate between damage and 'move' feats.

Those are still combat-only things though, which is my point. Outside of combat, the Fighter is just a lump of meat whose utility is 100% dependent not on the character, but the silver-tongue of the player.

[Brandon]

With the change in skills I disagree. A fighter can be anything they want to. A fighter can choose to be conversation focused or choose to be stealth focused. With the right feats a fighter can even make magic arms and armor.

However I think that avoids the other problem where very few classes have utility outside of combat in the first place

[Callie Del Noire]

Those are still combat-only things though, which is my point. Outside of combat, the Fighter is just a lump of meat whose utility is 100% dependent not on the character, but the silver-tongue of the player.

The same could be argued about the monk, paladin and such. I find it depends on how the player (and to an extent DM) thinks things up. Skills are pretty tricky considering you come out with fewer than casters. My favorite character for a long time was a 'security' expert (fighter) who had skills in Animal Handling, Craft (Traps) and Perception as his big skills. He had a trio of dogs that he used to held guard merchants, traps he built to give alerts to folks who came looking for them and such.

How? By working with the DM on the campaign. Fitting his guy into the game backstory. (I like the Paizo adventurer's paths for that sort of thing. Right now I'm playing a Rogue in a Kingsmaker game on RPoL.. pretty fun)

[TheGlyphstone]

And note that I did also call out the monk and paladin as being desperately in need of fixes. If a player and DM have to go outside the rules to make a character useful, that's highlighting the failure of the rules to make them useful on their own.

Don't get me wrong, I play and enjoy Pathfinder. It fixed more than it broke or left alone, and more importantly, it kept the 3.X brand alive when WotC wanted to let it starve. But it wasn't the panacea it was advertised to be, and the things it didn't fix were some of the biggest problems I had with 3.5. Thus, I'm hoping Legend picks up as a decently popular alternative, because I like a lot of the things it did to the overall structure of the rules.

[Brandon]

And note that I did also call out the monk and paladin as being desperately in need of fixes. If a player and DM have to go outside the rules to make a character useful, that's highlighting the failure of the rules to make them useful on their own.

Don't get me wrong, I play and enjoy Pathfinder. It fixed more than it broke or left alone, and more importantly, it kept the 3.X brand alive when WotC wanted to let it starve. But it wasn't the panacea it was advertised to be, and the things it didn't fix were some of the biggest problems I had with 3.5. Thus, I'm hoping Legend picks up as a decently popular alternative, because I like a lot of the things it did to the overall structure of the rules.

I still dont understand how a character is not useful when the skills system allows for all manner of specialized and unique characters and its largely used as utility outside of combat.

[TheGlyphstone]

I still dont understand how a character is not useful when the skills system allows for all manner of specialized and unique characters and its largely used as utility outside of combat.

Because they need skill points and a good skill list to get skills. PF helped by greatly homogenizing skill ranks, but most non-caster classes are given an abysmal 2+Int, points per level, and only the Fighter has any incentive (Combat Expertise feat chain) to boost his Intelligence with his creation points. Due to how D&D's scaling skill DCs work, the only skills that matter are the ones you have maxed out, and most mundanes don't have the skill points necessary to max more than two or three skills.

[Chris Brady]

What I found so funny about the 4e = MMO meme that people parroted was that I could, personally, map the four basic classes in 3e to WoW and EQ equivalents much more easily.

High Armour, low Damage?  WoW Warrior in Protection, or 3e Fighter.  Unless you went Power Attack+Greatsword, then you were an Arms Warrior.

Positional High Damage, medium Armour?  Rogue.  Rogue.  (At least in the beginning, most of the rogues massive damage in WoW was from behind.  And SA in 3e only works in certain situations.  Some of which is DM's call.  Not that anyone actually paid attention to that part...  Other than me...)  Hell, the term Rogue meaning stealth based fighter with thief skills came from 3e.

High Damage, low Armour?  Wizard and Mage, they also both have a lot of utility 'crowd control' effects too.

The Cleric used to throw me for a counterpart in WoW, although EQ's was pretty analogous.  Then I realized that a true D&D style Cleric was a Holy Paladin!  Heavy Armour, able to Heal, and do obscene amounts of damage?  Even had some Crowd Control in there!

So to ME, this 4e is a WoW-clone BS, was just that.  If anything, 3e should have gotten that label.  Except that...  WoW came after it.

[Callie Del Noire]

What I found so funny about the 4e = MMO meme that people parroted was that I could, personally, map the four basic classes in 3e to WoW and EQ equivalents much more easily.

High Armour, low Damage?  WoW Warrior in Protection, or 3e Fighter.  Unless you went Power Attack+Greatsword, then you were an Arms Warrior.

So to ME, this 4e is a WoW-clone BS, was just that.  If anything, 3e should have gotten that label.  Except that...  WoW came after it.

What got me was the powers. Daily, encounter, ct. They are COOLDOWNS. Gone were any utility spells for mages.  And enchanting required 'magic dust' you got from disenchantment things. And you were (initially) stuck on a very tight set of choices and tiers that set you on a specified career path.

And multiclassing was majorly broken.

[Brandon]

That makes them "not as useful" not "Useless". Quite a big difference between the two meanings. The other problem with your argument is thats how you play the game, not how everyone does. Some people like to play ultra smart characters just like they prefer to play ultra strong or sexy characters. Playing intelligent characters with a large variety of skills is its own reward in games where GMs use skills a lot (like me).

I still dont see why a GM cant artificially increase said skill points were level if the game requires it. I do it by giving players an additional 2 every level and I use skill checks a lot. I even make it a point to try and use every skill once over the course of a level so players odd choices can be rewarded.

[Chris Brady]

Because they need skill points and a good skill list to get skills. PF helped by greatly homogenizing skill ranks, but most non-caster classes are given an abysmal 2+Int, points per level, and only the Fighter has any incentive (Combat Expertise feat chain) to boost his Intelligence with his creation points. Due to how D&D's scaling skill DCs work, the only skills that matter are the ones you have maxed out, and most mundanes don't have the skill points necessary to max more than two or three skills.

Personally, for D&D, I think that skills should have been thrown out.  Tossed.  If you want your Dwarven Fighter/Rogue to have been a 'Brewer', then he was.  Make an appropriate stat check.  Kinda like Castles and Crusades does.  But with better balancing in mind.

Or maybe packages of skills, like they did in 2e with the optional Secondary Skills, but able to pick more than one.  Like Mercenary would give you knowledge and skills for like knowing how to get jobs, what's the expected pay scale, how to maintain your gear, who to talk to about your line of work.  That sort of stuff.

[Chris Brady]

What got me was the powers. Daily, encounter, ct. They are COOLDOWNS. Gone were any utility spells for mages.  And enchanting required 'magic dust' you got from disenchantment things. And you were (initially) stuck on a very tight set of choices and tiers that set you on a specified career path.

And multiclassing was majorly broken.

Multiclassing has ALWAYS sucked.

But for ME, whenever someone wants to 'multiclass' I keep hearing that warning bell about players who want to be good at everything.  At once.  And that's just not fair for anyone who want to be a single class.  Nor is it really plausible to me.

As for utility spells...  Those are what the 4e Rituals were for.

Also, most of those types of spells were utterly, utterly broken.  From broken pointless to broken powerful.  A good school was Divination.  Where it ran the gamut from players "why bother" to GMs "why bother with this adventure?  A simple Scry just broke it.  Again."

Rituals was WoTC's attempt to fix that.  Which they admit they didn't really.  Also, the Essentials line of books has brought several of them back.

As for the Powers, they make sense for certain classes.  Like Wizards and Clerics.  After all, they've ALWAYS had cooldowns and durations.  When it came to the martial classes, the concept being able to use a power only once per 'day' blew my mind.  What?  I keep pulling a groin muscle or something?  Wouldn't I learn NOT to swing it that way after a while?  Or maybe my body would adapt??

[Callie Del Noire]

Multiclassing has ALWAYS sucked.

But for ME, whenever someone wants to 'multiclass' I keep hearing that warning bell about players who want to be good at everything.  At once.  And that's just not fair for anyone who want to be a single class.  Nor is it really plausible to me.

As for utility spells...  Those are what the 4e Rituals were for.

Also, most of those types of spells were utterly, utterly broken.  From broken pointless to broken powerful.  A good school was Divination.  Where it ran the gamut from players "why bother" to GMs "why bother with this adventure?  A simple Scry just broke it.  Again."

Rituals was WoTC's attempt to fix that.  Which they admit they didn't really.  Also, the Essentials line of books has brought several of them back.

As for the Powers, they make sense for certain classes.  Like Wizards and Clerics.  After all, they've ALWAYS had cooldowns and durations.  When it came to the martial classes, the concept being able to use a power only once per 'day' blew my mind.  What?  I keep pulling a groin muscle or something?  Wouldn't I learn NOT to swing it that way after a while?  Or maybe my body would adapt??

I disagree, but it's a matter of style. if you're like me and you want to a secondary spell caster (more utility spells for bypassing traps,ect than vaporizing folks) a rogue/mage is helpful. Or a fighter who is more agile and sneaky that a front line version with heavy armor and such.

Not all non-damage spells are 'broken'. 4e Rituals suck BUT they do allow the GM to work things more to his/her favor.

[TheGlyphstone]

Agreed, and it depended on what you were multiclassing. Full Caster/Anything mean less full casting, which meant a less powerful character in the end - if you wanted to be good at everything, you just played a wizard or sorcerer or druid or cleric. Noncasters benefited heavily from multiclassing as long as they kept full BAB (for warriors) or sneak attack (for rogues) or high skill points (for skillmonkeys), because WotC sucked at class design and tended to frontload the good stuff in the first few levels of melee classes (i.e, Fighter 2/4 as almost mandatory for melee characters, on top of being as flavorful as stale tofu).

[Chris Brady]

Which annoyed me no end.  The most basic of classes, the most common and iconic in fantasy literature, reduced to being dipped like a bad sauce.  But really, if anyone should be blamed, it's Monte Cook.  He loves his Magic styled trap cards and D&D magic, and in 3e it showed.  Everything he did was around those two assumptions.  3.5 was an attempt to try and get away from that...  Not far enough, but hey.

4e was a radical departure.  One I'm STILL not comfortable with, truth be told.

[TheGlyphstone]

They just rehired MC, actually, so that might be a bad sign for 5.0.

[RubySlippers]

This is what I like most of the pre-3e DnD you have options a GM in 2.0 didn't need to use proficiencies, allow optional character classes and could mess around with the game all they wanted. In 3e+ you could not toss out feats and skills and have the rogue be a rogue, a fighter a  fighter it didn't help much. Which is why I jumped ship with my favorite game it is my game I can add or subtract as I want to.

But multiclassing is not an issue for me in fact sometimes I needed it once a DM banned the monk so I did a Fighter/Rogue that was an expert in unarmed combat, physical skills and was a self-styled monk just used cestus when going at it with support feats. In a 2.0 game they banned the bard in one campaign so I did a half-elf cleric/thief that was a performer of a dieity of the arts a self-styled holy bard. Plus the slow progression in the older rules made the combos sometimes a pain to advance with but at least offered options.

[MasterMischief]

Meh.

Wake me when they finally give up class based systems.

[Avis habilis]

Wake me when they finally give up class based systems.

From D&D? You're gonna be asleep a long, long time man.

Although now I'm imagining a d20 variant without classes where you just buy stuff with your XP. Want to increase your BAB by 1? Pay X experience points. Want to case level 1 wizard spells? Pay Y points. Hmm...

[MasterMischief]

Although now I'm imagining a d20 variant without classes where you just buy stuff with your XP.

IKR  Wouldn't that be crazy.   ;D

[TheGlyphstone]

You mean like Trued20 or Mutants and Masterminds? It's Power Points instead of XP, but otherwise identical.

[MasterMischief]

True20 still has Classes, although they are far more vague.

There used to be something for 2e I believe where you built your own Class with abilities.  Each ability cost XP, so if you made some uber Class it would take forever to level.

[Avis habilis]

True20 still has Classes, although they are far more vague.

Three extremely loosely defined "roles". Professional warrior, wizard/psychic/Jedi, & everybody else.

There used to be something for 2e I believe where you built your own Class with abilities.  Each ability cost XP, so if you made some uber Class it would take forever to level.

There was a custom class sidebar that gave you a menu of options with a point cost. If you really loaded a class you could end up with one that took 4000 XP to reach level 2.

[MasterMischief]

There was a custom class sidebar that gave you a menu of options with a point cost. If you really loaded a class you could end up with one that took 4000 XP to reach level 2.

It worked well for me.  I just wanted to give Theives a d6 instead of that death sentance of a d4.

[Callie Del Noire]

It worked well for me.  I just wanted to give Theives a d6 instead of that death sentance of a d4.

When did Rogues have d4 hp?

[MasterMischief]

When did Rogues have d4 hp?

Ahahahahaha.

Ahem.  Sorry.  Before they were called Rogues.

EDIT: I could have sworn they had d4 back in AD&D.  Apparently, I was having flashbacks to Basic.

[Callie Del Noire]

Ahahahahaha.

Ahem.  Sorry.  Before they were called Rogues.

EDIT: I could have sworn they had d4 back in AD&D.  Apparently, I was having flashbacks to Basic.

I dont' recall them having d4 back then. (My first D&D game was Basic waaay back in '79)

[Avis habilis]

Up until AD&D thieves used d4. Come to think of it, they kept on using it in B/X, BECMI & the Rules Cyclopedia too, so that's up until 1991.

Even 1e AD&D thieves got d6.

[MasterMischief]

Thieves have always been shafted.   ;D

[Callie Del Noire]

http://www.enworld.org/index.php?page=dnd5e

ENWorld's page on the subject.

And of course the boys at Penny Arcade have it right ..

[MasterMischief]

Imagine a game where you can play the version of D&D you love best. And then imagine everyone plays at the same table, in the same adventure. We aim to make a universal game system that lets you play the game in whatever way, whatever style, with whatever focus you want, whether you want to kick down doors and kill monsters, engage in high intrigue, intense roleplaying, or simply to immerse yourself in a shared world. We’re creating a game where the mechanics can be as complex or as light as you want them.

I am curious to see how well they can pull this off.  This could either be genius or epic fail.  G.U.R.P.S. had a lot of optional rules, but then it started as a very heavy system.  It would be interesting to see a game built from the ground up that can be played light, heavy or anything in between.  I have toyed with this idea myself whenever I have considered writing my own system.

[Callie Del Noire]

Imagine a game where you can play the version of D&D you love best. And then imagine everyone plays at the same table, in the same adventure. We aim to make a universal game system that lets you play the game in whatever way, whatever style, with whatever focus you want, whether you want to kick down doors and kill monsters, engage in high intrigue, intense roleplaying, or simply to immerse yourself in a shared world. We’re creating a game where the mechanics can be as complex or as light as you want them.

Is it me or does this sound like PR/Marketing Grunts press release to say everything without saying anything concrete?

[MasterMischief]

Is it me or does this sound like PR/Marketing Grunts press release to say everything without saying anything concrete?

Not to me.  It sounds rather specific rather than 'It will be a continuation of the most popular role playing game ever.'

[Callie Del Noire]

Not to me.  It sounds rather specific rather than 'It will be a continuation of the most popular role playing game ever.'

The thing is.. you can't get all the versions to work together.. it's nigh impossible to move a 2.0/3.0/3.5 PC to 4E already.. (or vice versa) and even from 2nd to 3rd editons it didn't work.. We got the conversion rules while we were on deployement back in 2000ish.. and we had two PCs who went from being two 'weak sauce' types (triple class characters) to being something like 8 levels above everyone. (no more dividing your hp/xp between 2 or 3 classes).

Be honest.. either the 'old school' folks will win back their system or the 'New edition' crowd will. It cant' be a universal balm to everyone. And they seem to claim they can do it all.

[MasterMischief]

It is a tall order, I will grant you that.  And I am sure it will not be all things to everyone.  But I am not taking it so literally that it will be exactly all editions.  I am guessing they may do something like the very basics are Characteristics + Class.  Then you can add the options of Skills and/or optional Feats and/or optional Daily/Encounter/At-Wills.

[Chris Brady]

Is it me or does this sound like PR/Marketing Grunts press release to say everything without saying anything concrete?

Pretty much.

[RubySlippers]

I'd be happy if the game was all in ONE book at a costs of less than $40 hardcover for all the rules and the basic monsters needed to run a game.

[Oniya]

You mean, like Synnibarr? 

*flees before people start throwing things*

[Avis habilis]

*throws the horns*

[SinXAzgard21]

I'd be happy if the game was all in ONE book at a costs of less than $40 hardcover for all the rules and the basic monsters needed to run a game.

And for the reason of it being expensive is now why all the books can be pirated including the dragon magazines.

[TheGlyphstone]

You mean, like Synnibarr? 

*flees before people start throwing things*

Isn't Synnibar getting a new edition too, now that you mention it?

[Oniya]

No clue.  The only reason I know about it is that I inherited a copy from a gamer-friend who passed away several years ago.  (The man was a dear, but he had a tendency to put 'new gaming stuff' ahead of food sometimes.)  I've since found out that it ranks up there with FATAL on the list of 'games not to mention in serious or polite conversations'.

Hence, the fleeing.

[TheGlyphstone]

No clue.  The only reason I know about it is that I inherited a copy from a gamer-friend who passed away several years ago.  (The man was a dear, but he had a tendency to put 'new gaming stuff' ahead of food sometimes.)  I've since found out that it ranks up there with FATAL on the list of 'games not to mention in serious or polite conversations'.

Hence, the fleeing.

Having seen both, it's not as mind-wrenchingly awful as FATAL. Awful, but in a 'this game is written awfully' sense, not the 'Oh God Please My Eyes Are Chewing Their Way Backwards Through My Brain' offensively awful of FATAL.

[MasterMischief]

I'd be happy if the game was all in ONE book at a costs of less than $40 hardcover for all the rules and the basic monsters needed to run a game.

I am afraid we consumers have explicitly expressed our overwhelming glee at buying RPGs piecemeal.  Even Hero split its system into three (so far) core books (not including Bestiary).  One of the reasons I did not buy 6th Edition.

[Chris Brady]

I am afraid we consumers have explicitly expressed our overwhelming glee at buying RPGs piecemeal.  Even Hero split its system into three (so far) core books (not including Bestiary).  One of the reasons I did not buy 6th Edition.

The reason I didn't get 6e was the fact that it's at least 3 PHONE BOOK SIZED HARD COVERS.

That's iNsAnE!

[Callie Del Noire]

The reason I didn't get 6e was the fact that it's at least 3 PHONE BOOK SIZED HARD COVERS.

That's iNsAnE!

What? You didn't want them to beat your irrating players senseless with?

[OldSchoolGamer]

About fucking time, 4.0 was garbage.

I am an MMO player but I play MMO's for a reason, when I get to DnD, I want to customize my own shit not follow a path like a video game.

This.

Let paper and pencil be paper and pencil, and let video gaming be video gaming.

[Oniya]

What? You didn't want them to beat your irrating players senseless with?

Phone-book-sized soft covers have a much nicer whippy effect.  *nods*

[OldSchoolGamer]

Be honest.. either the 'old school' folks will win back their system or the 'New edition' crowd will. It cant' be a universal balm to everyone. And they seem to claim they can do it all.

I don't see the old system being brought back.  I don't think it can be brought back.  It was a product of a different gaming culture in a different time.  Before anime and high-res video games and the Internet.  You had gaming rooted in the adventures of Tolkien, Homer, Grendel, Bram Stoker and Edgar Rice Burroughs.  Before most these things were interpreted and reinterpreted in 1080p/7.1.  Our culture was a niche culture, and a written/oral rather than visual culture at that.

Now, everything is visual.  Every-frakking-thing has been thrown into the mix, from Bilbo Baggins to Green Lantern to Akira to Sherlock Holmes to sparkling vampires to X-men to Hogwarts to World of Warcraft.  The whole classic gaming storyline of largely ordinary people without super powers and feats and whatnot going on an adventure and quite possibly dying is gone.  Now if someone doesn't have tentacles, or ninja attack skills, or the ability to fart magical blue fire for 3d8 damage, forget about it.  And what's worse, the video has eroded the power of imagination.  Storytelling has been replaced with charts and feats and tactics.  I'm just waiting for a game to be run by PowerPoint slides.

Gaming as those of us who were blessed enough to live through its glory years knew it is gone forever.  If you gamed between 1978 and 1988 (give or take a year or two) you know what I'm talking about.  If you didn't...you never will, no matter what happens with D&D 5.

[Chris Brady]

About fucking time, 4.0 was garbage.

I am an MMO player but I play MMO's for a reason, when I get to DnD, I want to customize my own shit not follow a path like a video game.

Hate to break it to you, Chief, but D&D NEVER let you customize your own character.  From the beginning (or at least Red Box/BECMI, which I finally got to play a few months back) it was a pretty strict and structured class system you chose from.  Hell, way back in Red Box, any sort of customization was either optional, or very limited.  Actually, it was pretty much both.  Fighters did ONE thing, and often with ONE weapon.  Magic Users had the most variety, but even then, without their spells per day, they didn't contribute much.  Thieves were mainly for opening chests, and maybe doing some support stabbing with Backstab being so limited.  And Clerics were anti-Undead healbots.  Which didn't really change.  Ever.  They all still had their rolls.  The Fighter was the Tank, the Thief was the Positional Killer, the Cleric the Healer and Magic Users were the Glass Cannons and Crowd Control.

Hell, nothing has changed in over 30 years.  Just the minutia of it has.

If you want a game that truly let you make an archetype as you want, I believe (And this is sincere, no snark, or sarcasm intended) the various iterations of Runequest do.  Although Mongoose Publishing has had to change the name of their second variant to Legend.  I hear, though, that it's pretty game good.

I know I can get copies for about 18 with tax, of which I'm planning to.

[TheGlyphstone]

Hate to break it to you, Chief, but D&D NEVER let you customize your own character.  From the beginning (or at least Red Box/BECMI, which I finally got to play a few months back) it was a pretty strict and structured class system you chose from.  Hell, way back in Red Box, any sort of customization was either optional, or very limited.  Actually, it was pretty much both.  Fighters did ONE thing, and often with ONE weapon.  Magic Users had the most variety, but even then, without their spells per day, they didn't contribute much.  Thieves were mainly for opening chests, and maybe doing some support stabbing with Backstab being so limited.  And Clerics were anti-Undead healbots.  Which didn't really change.  Ever.  They all still had their rolls.  The Fighter was the Tank, the Thief was the Positional Killer, the Cleric the Healer and Magic Users were the Glass Cannons and Crowd Control.

Hell, nothing has changed in over 30 years.  Just the minutia of it has.

If you want a game that truly let you make an archetype as you want, I believe (And this is sincere, no snark, or sarcasm intended) the various iterations of Runequest do.  Although Mongoose Publishing has had to change the name of their second variant to Legend.  I hear, though, that it's pretty game good.

I know I can get copies for about 18 with tax, of which I'm planning to.

Indeed. As above, there are few statements outside of the more extreme political commentaries I've ever found more utterly mind-numbingly stupid than '4E = Videogame LOL". It's part Grognardian Syndrome, part elitism, and part blinkered prejudiced ignorance build off hearsay.

Heck, someone I knew for a while liked to outright complain that 4E was as roleplayable as WoW, often while playing WoW on his RP server. Pointing out that bit of ironic hypocrisy was entertaining.

[RubySlippers]

But retro-clones like Basic Fantasy RPG kept that and leaves the GM free to have fun. I for example tossed all the thieves skill percentages for a block Thieves' Knack class feature that covers all of them with some specialties and they are better overall. I added other things to suit and pulled some things out. Its very loose. And many gamers don't mind classes I always found the build them yourself models rather hard to use I need that structure just not to much. Even in 3.5 a rogue is not always a thief I had one that was a acrobatic athletic performer and staff fighter that after using some optional rules and couldn't pick a lock to save her life. Alot of things were also roleplaying you could be a fighter prefering unarmed combat, a monk who was a courtesan or a mage who was a half-orc with a pretty modest Int that just tried hard and knew lots of lower level spells.

It seems to me 4th Edition channeled characters outside of this flexibility and added complexity not always a good combo.

[OldSchoolGamer]

Hate to break it to you, Chief, but D&D NEVER let you customize your own character.  From the beginning (or at least Red Box/BECMI, which I finally got to play a few months back) it was a pretty strict and structured class system you chose from.  Hell, way back in Red Box, any sort of customization was either optional, or very limited.  Actually, it was pretty much both.  Fighters did ONE thing, and often with ONE weapon.  Magic Users had the most variety, but even then, without their spells per day, they didn't contribute much.  Thieves were mainly for opening chests, and maybe doing some support stabbing with Backstab being so limited.  And Clerics were anti-Undead healbots.  Which didn't really change.  Ever.  They all still had their rolls.  The Fighter was the Tank, the Thief was the Positional Killer, the Cleric the Healer and Magic Users were the Glass Cannons and Crowd Control.

There's some truth to this...but then, a lot depended on your friendly neighborhood DM.  Most I knew were amenable to kits and mods.  Specialty priests helped to evolve the priest/cleric class beyond the stereotype you describe.  And there was multiclassing, too.  Most old-school DMs were willing to bend the rules there, too.  I remember playing a specialty priestess of Artemis who got to use the THAC0 tables for fighters when wielding a bow (house rules). 

[TheGlyphstone]

But retro-clones like Basic Fantasy RPG kept that and leaves the GM free to have fun. I for example tossed all the thieves skill percentages for a block Thieves' Knack class feature that covers all of them with some specialties and they are better overall. I added other things to suit and pulled some things out. Its very loose. And many gamers don't mind classes I always found the build them yourself models rather hard to use I need that structure just not to much. Even in 3.5 a rogue is not always a thief I had one that was a acrobatic athletic performer and staff fighter that after using some optional rules and couldn't pick a lock to save her life. Alot of things were also roleplaying you could be a fighter prefering unarmed combat, a monk who was a courtesan or a mage who was a half-orc with a pretty modest Int that just tried hard and knew lots of lower level spells.

It seems to me 4th Edition channeled characters outside of this flexibility and added complexity not always a good combo.

You do realize these two statements are completely unrelated, right? A 4E monk can still be a courtesan, and in fact a moderate-Int Mage in 4E is actually possible to play where it would have been impossible in 3.5E, since a 4E character's ability to use their powers is not dependent on their ability scores, only the save DCs of powers. You'll be weak, but not unplayable like a low-Int 3E mage. I played a 3.5 Rogue once who was a professional doctor, using his expert knowledge of anatomy to deprive other people of theirs - all I have to do in 4E for the same character is train Heal, and there's an entire Fighter archetype/track (the Brawler) based around grabs and unarmed combat.

In 1e and 2e, there was no Rogue, all Rogues had to be Thieves. So 4E is actually more roleplaying condusive on that front as long as you stick to the printed rules/fluff, and if you don't, what's the issue?

[Chris Brady]

The problem with 3.x (Outside of the CoDzilla, which is Core Book, the escalation of hit points until Save or Die effects are mandatory, and the Christmas Tree magical item progression) was that you could, quite easily make a character that could be a problem.  More often to the GM.  Who, if they were like me, were too nice to have make something else.

You know the less than useful type of character that if you threw an equal level challenge at would fold faster than Superman on laundry day, while the other Players would breeze through.  That was HELL on my adventure design.  Trying to think of something that would challenge the party without crushing two thirds of it, because one character accidentally was superiour than the rest.  Hell, with the right spells he WAS the party.

And having run several games/campaigns of 3.x over it's entire lifespan, I can tell you, that as a DM, having to deal with that, every freakin' campaign was not fun.

At least in 4e, it's tighter, and harder, to make it so the GM has to work that hard.  One thing I will give praise on 4e is that DM'ing the crunchy bits is easy.  I don't have to worry about PC spells, it's all detailed and up to them to take care of, all I need to do is if it's a combat scenario, add the right monsters and watch things explode.  Or if it's a trap manipulation, get skill challenges up and running.  Otherwise it's RP time with the rare dice roll.

[MasterMischief]

Gaming as those of us who were blessed enough to live through its glory years knew it is gone forever.  If you gamed between 1978 and 1988 (give or take a year or two) you know what I'm talking about.  If you didn't...you never will, no matter what happens with D&D 5.

Wow.  Just...wow.

Hey kids, once OldSchoolGamer is done kicking you out of his yard, you are all welcome over at my place for cookies and gaming.   ;D

[OldSchoolGamer]

Wow.  Just...wow.

Hey kids, once OldSchoolGamer is done kicking you out of his yard, you are all welcome over at my place for cookies and gaming.   ;D

Okay, so maybe that came out a bit more codger-like than I intended.

Still, I stand by my point.  Think of it like the difference between a garage rock band in 1962 versus 2007.  Yes, both are artists and legitimate musicians.  Yes, music was still music in 2007.  But there's a different context, a different culture, a different vibe to being part of something semi-underground and nascent and raw versus something established and commercialized and refined.  If you're in a music festival here in the 21st century, hey, more power to you...but it's not going to have the same panache as playing at Woodstock, sorry. 

[Chris Brady]

'Underground'?  They were selling D&D in dept. stores in the early 80s.  All the Satanism claims and Mothers Against D&D, not to mention Jack Chick were helping the craze.  Until about 1989, D&D was the Beatles of the RPG/Gaming world.  You couldn't go anywhere game related without a reference of it somewhere.

However, right now?  This very instant?  We ARE living in the true RPG Golden Age and it is AWESOME! So many games, so many options, so MUCH FUN TO BE HAD!  This is a great time to be a gamer, and I frankly worship every second of it!

So I say with 5e, BRING IT ON!  I am ready and signed up to help make history!

[Callie Del Noire]

'Underground'?  They were selling D&D in dept. stores in the early 80s.  All the Satanism claims and Mothers Against D&D, not to mention Jack Chick were helping the craze.  Until about 1989, D&D was the Beatles of the RPG/Gaming world.  You couldn't go anywhere game related without a reference of it somewhere.

However, right now?  This very instant?  We ARE living in the true RPG Golden Age and it is AWESOME! So many games, so many options, so MUCH FUN TO BE HAD!  This is a great time to be a gamer, and I frankly worship every second of it!

So I say with 5e, BRING IT ON!  I am ready and signed up to help make history!

I don't know.. I like the advent of the Open Licensing movement as the beginning of the Golden Age. Not all of the stuff that came out the movement was great (okay.. most of it wasn't) but it encouraged growth, innovation and imagination in ways no one had before then. Have a campaign setting you have been playing around with for a decade +. Go for it..

I think we're still riding that Golden era thing, but we've had some stumbles.

[Chris Brady]

The problem with the OGL was that D20 was dominating the market.  And most of it was outright crap.  Only one thing came out of that glut that ended up being any good.  And that was Mutants and Masterminds.  The rest has either failed, or companies decided to go another route.

Hell, the GSL has been one of the best things for the industry!  You have Mongoose's Runequest (1&2 and now Legend), you have Chaosium's reformatting of their signature Basic Roleplaying System, Cthulutech, Shadowrun, Cyberpunk made something of a less than great comeback, Icons, Supers, Anima: Beyond Fantasy, Dark Heresy and it's sister games of Rogue Trader and Deathwatch, Savage Worlds!  And that's just a small smattering of what has been available at my favourite game store!

So this is a MUCH better than when the OGL came out.

[MasterMischief]

Okay, so maybe that came out a bit more codger-like than I intended.

See, that's fine.  You like the oldies.  Me?  I love the new stuff.  I love the variety.  I love the polish.  And I do not think it has anything to do with video games or having read the right books.  I just happen to think the industry has been improved.  As much as I loved D&D at first, it was too stifling.

EDIT: And just for the record, I started with the Red Boxed Basic set back in 82.  So you can teach an old llama new tricks.

[Callie Del Noire]

The problem with the OGL was that D20 was dominating the market.  And most of it was outright crap.  Only one thing came out of that glut that ended up being any good.  And that was Mutants and Masterminds.  The rest has either failed, or companies decided to go another route.

Hell, the GSL has been one of the best things for the industry!  You have Mongoose's Runequest (1&2 and now Legend), you have Chaosium's reformatting of their signature Basic Roleplaying System, Cthulutech, Shadowrun, Cyberpunk made something of a less than great comeback, Icons, Supers, Anima: Beyond Fantasy, Dark Heresy and it's sister games of Rogue Trader and Deathwatch, Savage Worlds!  And that's just a small smattering of what has been available at my favourite game store!

So this is a MUCH better than when the OGL came out.

It was a start, OGL.. without it you'd never had GSL showing up. It showed that it was possible for the 'backroom publisher' to get started. Most of my favorite supplements for d20 modern came out of this rush.

Don't get me started on Cyberpunk..I weep at the loss of my old Cpunk 2020 for what we got after.

[Chris Brady]

The problem with the OGL is that it was stifling the market.  Because 3.x was effectively 'free' to use, no one wanted to try anything outside the box.  And Modern D20 was a mistake.  WoTC even claimed it was, because it just didn't do what it meant to 'right'.  But now that people have to pay to use the D&D rules, publishers said *beep* that, I'm going my own way.  Which is wonderful.

Of course, this is my opinion.  Although I do agree that CP v3 was not...  Oh, it was just garbage, let's be honest, so many holes in it's plot to begin with.

[Callie Del Noire]

The problem with the OGL is that it was stifling the market.  Because 3.x was effectively 'free' to use, no one wanted to try anything outside the box.  And Modern D20 was a mistake.  WoTC even claimed it was, because it just didn't do what it meant to 'right'.  But now that people have to pay to use the D&D rules, publishers said *beep* that, I'm going my own way.  Which is wonderful.

Of course, this is my opinion.  Although I do agree that CP v3 was not...  Oh, it was just garbage, let's be honest, so many holes in it's plot to begin with.

I cry at what could have been. I even considered building a cyberpunk 2020 game around the cybergen setting. the image of a 'runner against corporate America.

[Avis habilis]

EDIT: And just for the record, I started with the Red Boxed Basic set back in 82.  So you can teach an old llama new tricks.

Amen to that. I got my start with Moldvay Basic too, & I have a fine time with Fiasco, or In a Wicked Age, or ... well, Thou Art But a Warrior not so much. Come to think of it, I love me some Essentials 4e, too.

[MasterMischief]

What's the deal with Fiasco?  I have been curious about it.

[Chris Brady]

Amen to that. I got my start with Moldvay Basic too, & I have a fine time with Fiasco, or In a Wicked Age, or ... well, Thou Art But a Warrior not so much. Come to think of it, I love me some Essentials 4e, too.

Truth be told, Essentials is the version of 4e I play the most.  I prefer it over the base version.

[adifferenceinsize]

What got me was the powers. Daily, encounter, ct. They are COOLDOWNS. Gone were any utility spells for mages.  And enchanting required 'magic dust' you got from disenchantment things. And you were (initially) stuck on a very tight set of choices and tiers that set you on a specified career path.

And multiclassing was majorly broken.

Fun fact - the power timing system in 4E wasn't really an innovation at all. Most of the changes from AD&D to 4E were essentially the designers making increasingly explicit what had always been somewhat implicitly designed as the core of the encounter system. The "5 encounter workday" was an assumption from way back, and spell caster classes were always meant to have a flow that would work like "per encounter" and "per day" powers. It just so happened that like most of D&D, when you bothered to be at all rigorous with the applications of the rules, the assumptions proved to be non-optimal actions. Unless you had a specifically tight timeline, for example, why not Rope Trick after every big encounter to let your arcane casters recharge? Suddenly, you find the balancing element between wizards and fighters et al. taken right away.


I liked AD&D when I was kid (I started off my brother's hand-me-down of a 1E DMG and 2E PHB), liked 3E when it was around (won an UnCon contest or two), and enjoy 4E now. However, for all the D&D vs. Pathfinder hoopla now, I fear the two real issues for their prospective 5E development is really traditional D&D vs. modern RPG design shifts and the internal interests of Hasbro and Wizards. The sound of the attempts to modularize the next edition sounds interesting, if fairly GURPS-ish, but given their need to support RPGA, I fear it will not last. Further, how the general direction of design decisions and their quality in play have gone from better to worse after hitting what I consider a sweet spot right after the PHB 2 came out, their attempts to wrangle the breakthroughs in consistency and the desire to pull in more of an old-school mechanical aesthetic will end up appeasing nobody. If 3E was Diablo and 4E was WoW, I fear they'll end up with 5E as Dominion, a good game with a whole lot of pieces that can easily lead to bad games if not assembled with care.


Personally, I'm much more hopeful at the talk of an Exalted 3E, as it seems the guys in charge of that are more likely to move that game forward appreciably.

[Callie Del Noire]

Fun fact - the power timing system in 4E wasn't really an innovation at all. Most of the changes from AD&D to 4E were essentially the designers making increasingly explicit what had always been somewhat implicitly designed as the core of the encounter system. The "5 encounter workday" was an assumption from way back, and spell caster classes were always meant to have a flow that would work like "per encounter" and "per day" powers. It just so happened that like most of D&D, when you bothered to be at all rigorous with the applications of the rules, the assumptions proved to be non-optimal actions. Unless you had a specifically tight timeline, for example, why not Rope Trick after every big encounter to let your arcane casters recharge? Suddenly, you find the balancing element between wizards and fighters et al. taken right away.


I liked AD&D when I was kid (I started off my brother's hand-me-down of a 1E DMG and 2E PHB), liked 3E when it was around (won an UnCon contest or two), and enjoy 4E now. However, for all the D&D vs. Pathfinder hoopla now, I fear the two real issues for their prospective 5E development is really traditional D&D vs. modern RPG design shifts and the internal interests of Hasbro and Wizards. The sound of the attempts to modularize the next edition sounds interesting, if fairly GURPS-ish, but given their need to support RPGA, I fear it will not last. Further, how the general direction of design decisions and their quality in play have gone from better to worse after hitting what I consider a sweet spot right after the PHB 2 came out, their attempts to wrangle the breakthroughs in consistency and the desire to pull in more of an old-school mechanical aesthetic will end up appeasing nobody. If 3E was Diablo and 4E was WoW, I fear they'll end up with 5E as Dominion, a good game with a whole lot of pieces that can easily lead to bad games if not assembled with care.


Personally, I'm much more hopeful at the talk of an Exalted 3E, as it seems the guys in charge of that are more likely to move that game forward appreciably.

I just.. couldn't get into the 4e. I disliked the fact that you couldn't effectively multiclass out of the box, the MMO feel was pretty big and for a lot of other reasons. I tried but I couldn't get into it.

It was stuff like the redaction of alignments, and then they went and seeming killed off every 2nd good guy in the Forgetten Realms (as well as jumping forward 100 years) and a lot of stuff they didn't need to do except to cut off all the old supplements.

[Chris Brady]

One thing I will freely slam 4e for is the abandoning of settings.  The 'One Setting Per Year' was the worst way to go about it.  Say what you will about the supplement treadmill (and I do agree ther IS a reachable limit) but one or two books per setting, and then dropping it?  Stupid.

Callie, do you play any MMO games?  I ask because you seem to have the wrong idea on how they work.  4e may not be the game for you (and I respect that) but...  Honestly, 3e is more in line with an MMO, in how it works.  In fact it's too much like WoW for me to get back into.   Still, in hopes of stopping this edition war, I admit to some intrigue as to what Wizards plans to do with fifth.

And according to some sources inside Hasbro, they don't interfere with WoTC's business. It's profitable enough for them not to feel the need to step in.

[Callie Del Noire]

One thing I will freely slam 4e for is the abandoning of settings.  The 'One Setting Per Year' was the worst way to go about it.  Say what you will about the supplement treadmill (and I do agree ther IS a reachable limit) but one or two books per setting, and then dropping it?  Stupid.

Callie, do you play any MMO games?  I ask because you seem to have the wrong idea on how they work.  4e may not be the game for you (and I respect that) but...  Honestly, 3e is more in line with an MMO, in how it works.  In fact it's too much like WoW for me to get back into.   Still, in hopes of stopping this edition war, I admit to some intrigue as to what Wizards plans to do with fifth.

And according to some sources inside Hasbro, they don't interfere with WoTC's business. It's profitable enough for them not to feel the need to step in.

Let's see.. I got into betas for UO, EQ, I've played Star Wars (current and the old one), I've played WoW since the third month it was out (I have 7 level 85s on my favorite server), I've played City of Heroes and a few others as well that I can't recall. So yes, I play MMOs.

[AndyZ]

Been reading this lately.  I've personally enjoyed 4e nearly since its inception, and am willing to give a list of pros and cons as I see them.

Roleplaying

4e generally follows the pattern, in my experience, that you're going to shift between using the system for combat, and not using the system during roleplaying.  Effectively, there are very few aids listed to help you play your character outside of a combat situation.

That's rather fine with me.  I'm used to freeforming, and I don't need to see an Alignment on my sheet to tell me how to play.  If anything, being placed in a rigid box feels a little constraining, because maybe I'm mostly a good and upstanding citizen, but I'll happily slit the throats of kobolds in their sleep because of what kobolds did to my mother.  Systems do not do a good job of equating the entire human condition.

If someone can't use the system for proper roleplaying, then maybe they just can't handle playing without a system.

Minor bits

I much prefer picking out a few skills where you're especially good as opposed to having to toss around points every level.  Being able to actually roll your fireball instead of having the DM roll to save is also more fun.

Not so much a fan of rituals.  I don't like paying for Tenser's Floating Disk; I'd rather see more options for wizards using utility-type spells.  However, it also means that you can get someone raised even if no one is playing a healer, which is nice.

Encounter Powers

I love having at-will, encounter and daily powers.  Fighters are more interesting than "I have feats and I swing my sword all day," and Wizards are more interesting than "I do a few awesome things every day and spend the rest of the time hitting things with my staff."  We used to joke in lower levels of 3e games that various classes should just sit in the back and play cards until they have enough experience to actually be useful, which was around the time that fighters and the like got to the point where they were jealous that other classes had actual options in their choices during a round.

Healing

In 4e, everyone completely heals up over the course of the night, rather than getting back just a few HP every day.  Some people hate this, but I love it, because otherwise your choices are to force someone to play a healer, or to camp out for weeks and weeks healing up between each battle.

I get that people want some degree of realism, but I'm playing an elf who can shoot fire out of his hands.  Then again, I'm the type who doesn't want to have to keep track of encumbrance or food, because it feels like meaningless bookkeeping.

Square fireballs

Many people don't like that an area attack takes up a 3x3 space instead of taking up a round area.  However, it's important to remember that you're using a square grid.  Figuring out a square takes about two seconds, as opposed to slowing everything down as someone got some measuring tape to try to make things almost-not-quite circular.



The first time I started playing 4e, a lot of the changes bothered me until I realized why many of them were put into place.

For the record, though, I hate Essentials.  They've attempted to just slide it into the normal 4e game, and that just doesn't work well for balance.  If you let classes freely mix and match Essentials powers, then the classes which don't have such options will be left behind.

However, I realize that different people like different things.  I'm just curious how many have actually played 4e for more than half a session before passing judgment.

I'm also severely glad that WotC gave this much advance notice.  Ever bought heavily into a system and then had them announce a few months later that it's being shifted out?  I have.  It's painful.

[Chris Brady]

By the by, I'm thinking that 5e is waaaaaay off in the distance, like at least two more years away.  What I'm getting with this announcement, and the subsequent ones so far, is that they want to try a few ideas.  And the call for playtesters is to try them out.  If this is anything like the 3e playtests, we're in for a long wait for the new edition war.

I just hope it's not going to be like Paizo's 'playtest', which wasn't.

[TheGlyphstone]

By the by, I'm thinking that 5e is waaaaaay off in the distance, like at least two more years away.  What I'm getting with this announcement, and the subsequent ones so far, is that they want to try a few ideas.  And the call for playtesters is to try them out.  If this is anything like the 3e playtests, we're in for a long wait for the new edition war.

I just hope it's not going to be like Paizo's 'playtest', which wasn't.

A long wait? Look at this thread alone, the edition war has already started. ;D

[MasterMischief]

It never ended.

[Callie Del Noire]

It never ended.

It NEVER ends.

The only game I have yet to see support of a newer version for is the new Cyperpunk RPG. No one apparently likes it.

[Avis habilis]

By the by, I'm thinking that 5e is waaaaaay off in the distance, like at least two more years away. 

They said something about D&D Experience moving to GenCon in 2013, so I'm thinking that's when they'll be turning it loose. A year & a half of testing to get ready doesn't sound like quite enough, but maybe they've got a longer head start on this than I thought.

The only game I have yet to see support of a newer version for is the new Cyperpunk RPG. No one apparently likes it.

That was such a clear catastrophe it couldn't be defended.

[Callie Del Noire]

That was such a clear catastrophe it couldn't be defended.

Yet R Talsorian still puts out new books for it. Someone must be buying it.

[Chris Brady]

I said new Edition War, we still have the old ones, of course.  As for CPv3, can we please stop mention that paper base disaster? ;D

[Avis habilis]

The Dungeon Bastard has the right idea.

Dungeon Bastard - Edition Wars

[MasterMischief]

No, your prom date was ugly.   ;D

[Ironwolf85]

Yet R Talsorian still puts out new books for it. Someone must be buying it.

*raises hand* Yo.... played it recently... needs some tweaks but we made it work. shame they don't print the main book anymore, just additions.

also I'm an avid pahtfinder fan, i started with 3.5 and never understood it, I started my gaming group myself with flyers around the collage dispite not knowing how to play. My players shoved a 3.5 monster manuel and DM guide into my hands and said "you posted fliers you're DM... go!" I nearly killed them with a bodak at level 1 because it looked cool.
when the new game shop opened up and my game-club dissolved at the end of the year, i got into 4e which was the first system that I understood and ran.
side note, the guy who introdouced 4e by playing the game hindered and crippled my fighter constantly and used him as a punching bag so bad he made me, being the new player, cry. never played with him again.
i ran a 4e game for about one and a half years, it was quick it was fun, and because I wan't coming off 3.5 let alone 2.0 I got along with it pretty well, even if it was more "kick in the door and stab things" bought the books, and got sick of buying books, so I started creating my own stuff.
thing was none of the old vets wanted to play 4e, the most damning argument was lack of customization, the constant need to buy new books (I can't afford $30 a month I have bills) and it was too "videogamey" course I'm a videogamer and I understood, it wasn't just technical, the feeling was more in pacing.

when Pathfinder came out I understood what they meant, I've been playing Pathfinder ever since, and have not been dissapointed.
CMD VS CMB did a lot of good for me persionally.
in 4e it would have been hard for my Gnoll Cleric of Isodome to figure out how to climb aboard (acrobatics) a moving dragon, kill the blackguard riding it not by fighting him mono-e mono but with a spell that stunned him, then grabbing, tripping, and throwing him. letting gravity do the damage to his high level ass instead. when the dragon tried to shak me off, (yay check) i folded up it's wings using the steering harness (handle animal applied to figuring out the harness even if the black dragon was intelligent.) and sent it crashing into a mountian side, took a lot of damage (failed Ref save to bail at the last second to a nearby ledge), but thankfully the dragon cushoned the impact, and lacking featherfall, I used a high level heal and Bears endurence on the way down to give me enough HP to (barely) survive terminal velocity impact with pavement.

I loved pathfinder ever since.
4e kinda said, your imagination must stay within our bounderies... not just through playstyle, but through ruthlessly hunting all prior 3.5 and 3.0 materal.
Pathfinder was more like "here's some rules and pre-made stuff if you want it, have fun"

[TheGlyphstone]

Frankly, if you understood Pathfinder, you would have understood 3.5 with the same quantity of experience. The mechanical baseline was 90% the same, just changing a lot of the numbers. Where Pathfinder worked was clearing away the vast system bloat 3.x had accumulated, purging the nine billion optional rules, variant rulesets and magic systems, and working on making core interesting rather than bland oatmeal that you added the flavor of splatbooks to.

[Ironwolf85]

now that I play pathfinder I do understand 3.5 better, and sometimes incorprate some of it's stuff into pathfinder because the systems are simmilar.
for 3.5 I was literally handed four thick books and told "you get to be DM..." I was sort of kicked from the nest and told to fly. I didn't get the hang of it till pathfinder.

[TheGlyphstone]

now that I play pathfinder I do understand 3.5 better, and sometimes incorprate some of it's stuff into pathfinder because the systems are simmilar.
for 3.5 I was literally handed four thick books and told "you get to be DM..." I was sort of kicked from the nest and told to fly. I didn't get the hang of it till pathfinder.

Yeah, that was a mistake on their part.

At least you didn't get handed the entire 20+ book 3.5 line. ;D

[Ironwolf85]

damn... agreed there. probably woulda hurt my head
i downloaded a lot of them when it was totally legal to do so, and before WOTC (more hasbro's fault probably I don't think they understand RPG's, they only recently figured out how card games work XD ) tried to kill 3.5 ruthlessly.
I think it was that ruthlessness that turned me off their products, the threat of lawsuit hanging over my head if I did not comply with their product mandate.

[Callie Del Noire]

Found this post on the Paizo message boards. 

WoTC has a dirty little secret.
A Brand is just a word.

WoTC, or more accurately Hasbro, hires people to write rules and modules and then releases them to us with a label.

And so does Paizo.

The people that actually write the words change from year to year. The brand doesn't.

The reason 3.0 became so popular came in three parts. First, they got people to real the rules they released because they were a brand people recognized and respected.

Second, the rules they put out were pretty good. Not great, 3.0 was flawed enough that 3.5 followed a few short years later...but pretty good.

And third, and most importantly, the OGL encouraged freelancers. And freelancers are the people who eventually get hired to write the material.

4E is not being replaced because of the first reason. Certainly in 2008 WoTC had the clout to get us all to at least take a look, regardless of how distasteful we found the transition.

4E is not being replaced because of the quality of the rules, which while I personally found to be a major step back weren't completely unpalatable.

4E is being replaced because the people who wrote the rules and the modules in house aren't nearly as good as an open free market of ideas.

Paizo is very small. But they pull from a large pool of writers and artists. They have access to this pool because they pay them money and ask very little in exchange regarding what they do outside of the project they are assigned. If Wolfgang Baur wants to write a competing setting, feel free. If Monte Cook wants to write a module for Paizo then go help design 5E, good for him.

Paizo doesn't care what freelancers do on the side, as long as they put out quality products when paid to do so.

Paizo is what Newt Gingrich wanted from his wife. An open relationship.

WoTC's genius in 2000 when they created the OGL was what made them "The World's Most Popular Role Playing Game."

Who is left from those times? Monte? And only because he was hired to come back.

So what is WoTC? What is the link between the 2012 company and the company that saved the brand when TSR was going under?

It is a label.

While I've heard lip service about the mistakes of the GSL vs OGL, I am skeptical until I see a return.

WoTC could design a brilliant system, but it will be nothing without support. They could address all of our concerns, but it will be nothing without a system that allows evolution to correct the concerns not yet discovered.

And why should we believe that the WoTC team now working will find some panacea every other game developer has missed in the past...including the staff on the team itself.

For now, the d20 system is the best system on the market, in large part because of the available variations and options that exist that have been run through all of our games through the years. It is the reliable truck that gets it done, that every mechanic knows how to work on.

It is they system you can find players for, and you can find GM's to run.

5E still can get people to read it, on brand. Although a lot less will pay for the privilege.

And I have no reason to think that with the devs involved it won't be a decent game, although I also have no reason to think it will be better than anything else they each put out in the past, none of which are better than the current d20 system.

The real question is if they can get the freelance community to come on board and put out quality material because they will have a personal investment in the system beyond a paycheck.

Frankly, I would be a lot more hopeful if the same group was putting it out as a freelance rather than under Hasbro.

Either way, the d20 system has a 12 year head start.

[Chris Brady]

Wow.  So incorrect it's not funny. Mike Mearls, Robert Schwalb and Bruce Cordell were part of the 3e crew, which still work at WoTC for one.  And that's what just jumped out at me.

And second, I'm trying to remember D20 OGL spawned that is still going strong and which wasn't a rewrite of the SRD with some house rules (Pathfinder) or done by Green Ronin (Mutants and Masterminds, and even then, they're desperately trying to get away with D20 nomenclature, like it's a dirty word or something...)

I can't think of anything.  Anyone, help?

But...  Man, that's just fanning the Edition War flames again.

[Callie Del Noire]

Wow.  So incorrect it's not funny. Mike Mearls, Robert Schwalb and Bruce Cordell were part of the 3e crew, which still work at WoTC for one.  And that's what just jumped out at me.

And second, I'm trying to remember D20 OGL spawned that is still going strong and which wasn't a rewrite of the SRD with some house rules (Pathfinder) or done by Green Ronin (Mutants and Masterminds, and even then, they're desperately trying to get away with D20 nomenclature, like it's a dirty word or something...)

I can't think of anything.  Anyone, help?

But...  Man, that's just fanning the Edition War flames again.

I didn't say it was CORRECT.. but that is the typical outlook I hear on the 'con' side of 4e and I am sure that there are as many falliacies on the 'Pro' side.

I do agree that Hasbro wants more control of what comes into their game's theater BUT it's not as open and shut as that guy said. (did like the Newt comment.. that was worth a giggle)

There is a LOT of folks with this perception. That is why I THINK 5e is being considered.

I do have a curiousity on how much they gained in audience compared to what they lost in old school gamers who went back to AD&D, 2e, stayed with 3e or went to another system.

I do know from friends they hashed out a good chunk of the game store market starting out but he doesn't work for the game store anymore (works for Books A Million now ironically). Moves like cutting Walmart a 50% reduction on initial release price with a buy back option had to hurt in the long run.

[MasterMischief]

What I find ironic is people screamed bloody murder when WotC did 3.5 and then acted like Pathfinder (which is just 3.75) was the second coming of Jesus.  Can you imagine the gnashing of teeth if WotC (dirty, greedy bastards who only in it for the money) had tried to do a 3.75?  The fans would have lynched them.

[Callie Del Noire]

What I find ironic is people screamed bloody murder when WotC did 3.5 and then acted like Pathfinder (which is just 3.75) was the second coming of Jesus.  Can you imagine the gnashing of teeth if WotC (dirty, greedy bastards who only in it for the money) had tried to do a 3.75?  The fans would have lynched them.

I think there would have been less hate that some of the flame wars I saw for 4e. Though, I have to conceed your point, a lot of fecal masses would have impacted with the rotating oscillator.

[MasterMischief]

I think there would have been less hate that some of the flame wars I saw for 4e. Though, I have to conceed your point, a lot of fecal masses would have impacted with the rotating oscillator.

Are you kidding?  Were you anywhere near the internet when 3.5 came out?

[Callie Del Noire]

Are you kidding?  Were you anywhere near the internet when 3.5 came out?

Not for the first 2 months. (sitting in the middle of CLASSIFIED for a bit of it.)

[Chris Brady]

What I find ironic is people screamed bloody murder when WotC did 3.5 and then acted like Pathfinder (which is just 3.75) was the second coming of Jesus.  Can you imagine the gnashing of teeth if WotC (dirty, greedy bastards who only in it for the money) had tried to do a 3.75?  The fans would have lynched them.

I've been saying that on RPG.net's D20 ghetto for years, right up until I got banned (if you must know, and I don't mind telling my side, PM me), but no one ever listened to me.  I wanted to know what gave them a special 'Get Out of Jail' card, that WoTC only wished it had.  Truth be told, I've always felt that Pathfinder is a bit of a scam.  Ignore the fact that as a pure art book, it's well worth the $50, the fact remains that to be backwards compatible for it to work, you sort of have to reprint the rules.  But the 3.5 SRD already is on the Internet for free!  And OGL makes it legal!

However, some of the Rule tweaks are excellent, like the two I remember, the changes to Cleave and Great Cleave, as well as the Paladin's Smite ability.  Makes me wish I had thought of them when I could still stand 3.x

That said, a full glossy paged book, with colour art plates (of which the core book has A LOT) over 200 pages?  It's worth $70 flat out.  The PFRPG core book is a steal at $50.

[Callie Del Noire]

I've been saying that on RPG.net's D20 ghetto for years, right up until I got banned (if you must know, and I don't mind telling my side, PM me), but no one ever listened to me.  I wanted to know what gave them a special 'Get Out of Jail' card, that WoTC only wished it had.  Truth be told, I've always felt that Pathfinder is a bit of a scam.  Ignore the fact that as a pure art book, it's well worth the $50, the fact remains that to be backwards compatible for it to work, you sort of have to reprint the rules.  But the 3.5 SRD already is on the Internet for free!  And OGL makes it legal!

However, some of the Rule tweaks are excellent, like the two I remember, the changes to Cleave and Great Cleave, as well as the Paladin's Smite ability.  Makes me wish I had thought of them when I could still stand 3.x

That said, a full glossy paged book, with colour art plates (of which the core book has A LOT) over 200 pages?  It's worth $70 flat out.  The PFRPG core book is a steal at $50.

I like any book you can beat a missionary at your door to death with.

My first look at Pathfinder was due to the stuff they had done with their 'full campaign a year' thing they did in the last few bits of Dungeon before WoTC burned them on the magazine deals. (My opinion.. I don't know the full back story but from what it looked like they got left holding the bag when WoTC pulled everything back in house)

I like the artwork for the MOST part. (Their iconic barbarian and druid make me grit my teeth..but I LOVE the fighter, cleric and pali A LOT)

[Chris Brady]

Fair enough.  I'd get it myself, but WAR has some technical issues in his style that bother me as an artist.  He's got the dynamic colours down to an...  Well, an art form, but he needs serious work on his anatomy and perspective.

[MasterMischief]

I like any book you can beat a missionary at your door to death with.

I can not count the number of times someone thumbed their nose at Hero because the book was 'too big'.

The Pathfinder setting and supplemental material is excellent.  I will give them that.  But if WotC had put out the exact same thing, people would have raked them over the coals and accussed them of killing puppies.

[Callie Del Noire]

I can not count the number of times someone thumbed their nose at Hero because the book was 'too big'.

The Pathfinder setting and supplemental material is excellent.  I will give them that.  But if WotC had put out the exact same thing, people would have raked them over the coals and accussed them of killing puppies.

Looks at extensive collection of BOUGHT pdfs from Paizo.. looks at LACK of pdfs from WoTC.

Nah..they'd have done only half as much.

I'm still reeling from (in my opinion) the raping they gave the forgotten realms. I looked through 4e gaz and nearly cried. They killed off so many good guys (and godlings) and made things so radically different (as well as bumping forward 100 years) that it wasn't the realms that I had been playing in for so long.

[Oniya]

I can not count the number of times someone thumbed their nose at Hero because the book was 'too big'.

The Pathfinder setting and supplemental material is excellent.  I will give them that.  But if WotC had put out the exact same thing, people would have raked them over the coals and accussed them of killing puppies.

I like big
Books
And I can't deny...

(I'mma stop before I get myself in real trouble.)

[Callie Del Noire]

I like big
Books
And I can't deny...

(I'mma stop before I get myself in real trouble.)

No please...go right ahead.. (sets cup of cider down) go right ahead.. I'm all ready for something silly.

[MasterMischief]

I like big
Books
And I can't deny...

How do you feel about bullet-proof?   ;D

Hero Games 5th Edition Rule Book Ballistic Test

[Callie Del Noire]

The biggest book my folks owned while I was growing up was this HUGE DICTIONARY.. it was like 18 inches THICK with those microscopically thin pages you can ALMOST see through and a font that was described as TINY.

[Chris Brady]

Oh boy... The FR setting...  You do know why they did that?  Because people were upset at the fact that the uber NPCs had effectively taken over the game.  In one absolutely BRILLIANT piece of fiction, Mr. Greenwood put forth that all the 'ruins' in FR had long been cleaned out, and that Elminster went around putting some of his own in dungeons so that newer heroes (the PCs) would have something to find.  Yeah, no.

And let's not forget that most of 'epic heroes' of the realm were magic users and were over level 35 on average, with Elminster topping it out at 45.  Hell, emo-poster boy Drizzt Do'Urden was only level 16 (3 Fighter, 1 Barbarian and 13 Ranger, if I remember rightly.)  And each of them were fiction characters first, which broke the games rules.  Hell, Elminster was banging the Goddess of Magic!  (Ah, Ed Greenwood, giving hope to boring old men for decades.)

WoTC correctly realized that this demeaning and patronizing to the players of D&D and decided to change it.  After all, no one wants their epic adventures to be dismissed as irrelevant, by some non-player character.

[Callie Del Noire]

Oh boy... The FR setting...  You do know why they did that?  Because people were upset at the fact that the uber NPCs had effectively taken over the game.  In one absolutely BRILLIANT piece of fiction, Mr. Greenwood put forth that all the 'ruins' in FR had long been cleaned out, and that Elminster went around putting some of his own in dungeons so that newer heroes (the PCs) would have something to find.  Yeah, no.

And let's not forget that most of 'epic heroes' of the realm were magic users and were over level 35 on average, with Elminster topping it out at 45.  Hell, emo-poster boy Drizzt Do'Urden was only level 16 (3 Fighter, 1 Barbarian and 13 Ranger, if I remember rightly.)  And each of them were fiction characters first, which broke the games rules.  Hell, Elminster was banging the Goddess of Magic!  (Ah, Ed Greenwood, giving hope to boring old men for decades.)

WoTC correctly realized that this demeaning and patronizing to the players of D&D and decided to change it.  After all, no one wants their epic adventures to be dismissed as irrelevant, by some non-player character.

Well I never had the players meet any of the uber types when I game it. They did their own thing. And I tweaked down the Chosen a bit anyway. There were enough bad guys in Thay and Callisham to do what I wanted without running into the 'uberdudes'.

[MasterMischief]

So you are mad at WotC for raping a world you happily altered anyway? 

Right.  Got it.   ::)

[Callie Del Noire]

So you are mad at WotC for raping a world you happily altered anyway? 

Right.  Got it.   ::)

I simply don't see how literally 'emptying' the ocean, destroying the sea, killing off every 3rd good god and destroying every city fits with 'revamping'.

I used the setting.. just didn't put the 'big guns' on stage to out do the players. No fun if your guy spends 4 days in a running fight with the big bad to have a 'goat farmer' come over the hill and go 'pop you're a soap bubble' on them.

[Chris Brady]

Well I never had the players meet any of the uber types when I game it. They did their own thing. And I tweaked down the Chosen a bit anyway. There were enough bad guys in Thay and Callisham to do what I wanted without running into the 'uberdudes'.

It did beg the question, though.  If Thay and the Zentharim, were such big threats, why didn't Khelben, the Seven Sisters or Elminster himself come and deal with them?  Answer?  They had 'bigger things' to deal with.  Meaning that the PC's were always going to play in the 'little leagues'.  Not exactly what some of the fans wanted in their favourite setting.  So WoTC, with R.A. Salvatore and Ed Greenwood (among other writers) decided to 'reboot' the setting for players first.

Did they do a good job?  That's personal opinion.  I never really liked the Forgotten Realms to be honest.

[Callie Del Noire]

It did beg the question, though.  If Thay and the Zentharim, were such big threats, why didn't Khelben, the Seven Sisters or Elminster himself come and deal with them?  Answer?  They had 'bigger things' to deal with.  Meaning that the PC's were always going to play in the 'little leagues'.  Not exactly what some of the fans wanted in their favourite setting.  So WoTC, with R.A. Salvatore and Ed Greenwood (among other writers) decided to 'reboot' the setting for players first.

Did they do a good job?  That's personal opinion.  I never really liked the Forgotten Realms to be honest.

Personally I liked the 2E version better.. I always felt the 'rumor accuracy' point where the NPCs level could fluxuated.

Hmm.. thinking back.. I think the most 'powerful harper' the players ran into was someone like Mirt the Moneylender.

[Chris Brady]

Personally I liked the 2E version better.. I always felt the 'rumor accuracy' point where the NPCs level could fluxuated.

Hmm.. thinking back.. I think the most 'powerful harper' the players ran into was someone like Mirt the Moneylender.

I still have my Undermountain box set, and the 2e FR adventure guide.  I loved the guide especially because of the 'treasure options' and the various currencies.

[Ironwolf85]

pathfinder player here... don't have the money after swapping from 3.5 to 4, then to pathfinder, to go for 5e on the chance it might be good.
pathfinder does what I need it to do, and that is why I like it, i don't care about flame wars or editions. I have found a game that I understand and enjoy, i'm sticking with it for now, because I haz noi money to take a leap of faith on 5e.
the 4e books have been sitting on the gameshop's shelf for years collecting dust, after a good selling spree, people stopped buying them but WOTC kept releasing more books and expecting us tpo cough up $30 a month for the newest book.
a lot of older gamers were pissed, and I was irritated at the constant marketing of new books I was supposed to buy.

okay rant done... or not...

I've been wanting to try forgotten realms, but we've never really done it. I only have the 4e book for it, but I've played the original buldar's gate and BG2 on pc... I remember amn, Saravok, the city of Buldar's Gate itself, I remember the story as it played out and every detail of it. a scene where Peter (my character) apparently a son of Baal, this paladan sired by an evil god of murder fought alongside Drizzt do-urden, watched his finsterfather killed by his half brother, prevented a war, fled candlekeep, watched Ortz the imploding ogre at the local fair, ddied god knows hoe many times before figuring otu how to get through durlag's crazy tower. He lost his soul to a wizard and hunted him down to retreve it. fought monks of clamishan and protected his brothers and sisters from genoside. and when the bloodshed was over and he stood before his father's throne, shattered it, destroying his chance at godhood, and went on adventures across the world before dying a peaceful death as an old man.
I remember Minsk, Jerhiea, Dyhner, Imoen, Tiax, Zahera, i remember fighting back to back with them, listening to their banter. it was like playing a storybook in my childhood.
even as I read the drizzt series for the first time, drizzt isn't forgotten realms to me, what WOTC says isn't forgotten realms to me.

the adventures of Peter the Paladin, the places he saw, the people he met, the adventures he had, as cheesy as his name sounds (I was 10 at the time)...

peter the paladin and his world's edge blade, son and destoryer of Baal, lord of Seven Star keep. he Drizzt and Elmister are my only big-wigs, and peter's dead of old age, a side affect of giving up godhood, you can die of old age.

sorry for the rant... but that is forgotten realms to me, not what's written by wizards.

I am keeping returned aber... of all the things that annoyed me about 4e there was one thing I loved.
Dragonborn... I loved playing them and even introdouced them ot other settings.

[ShadowFox89]

 Never did like Forgotten Realms..... Between the uber-NPCs and how everything was described, it just wasn't my cup of tea. Plus, I had a falling out with some folks over at the WotC forum play-by-post area and swore off FR for good after that.

Much prefer Eberron, if only because I'm such a psionics fanboy.

*Ahem* But, back on topic. I'm going to save any thoughts about 5e for when it actually comes out. I didn't buy any 4e stuff, but have played it several times and didn't like it too much. Felt too much like a video game turned into a table top game.

I've played at least one game of pretty much every edition, have played the latest version of Castles and Crusades (even played with some of the writers a few years ago at a con), play and run some pathfinder, and started gaming with 3.5e DnD.

[Garou]

I started advanced dungeons and dragons in 1996 and when dungeons and dragons 3.0 came out I was reluctant to buy it.  I made the conversion and I started to love it too.  3.5 was very close to 3.0 but when the fourth edition came out I stopped buying products. For me it looked like playing world of warcraft with papers.  I have no idea what 5.0 will be put I hope they will go back to the original concept of roleplaying games instead of roll playing games.

I played Forgotten Realms and I like this campaign setting but my greatest love is the dark domains of Ravenloft.  :)

[Ironwolf85]

played in ravenloft in 3.5 I was the only one who didn't change aleinment

[MasterMischief]

I don't know why they dummed down Dungeons and Dragons.  Now you have to play with a battle mat so everyone can get their AoO.  Hit Points exploded making everyone tougher.  They did away with all the saving throws and lumped them all into three.  And they did away with THACO!  It just feels like a video game now.

[Chris Brady]

Thanks, Llama.  You forgot the comparison to Diablo 2, of course.

One thing I heard that 5e is going to do, and that I approve, is making the stat number mean something.  Like say, you have a 15 strength, and the DC to break down a door is 13.  Guess what?  You just totaled that door!  Walk on in!

One thing drove me nuts (And still does in 4e) is the need to roll when you have the capacity (Assuming you have a 18 Strength) to deadlift close to a half tonne.  And that although you can give a kick at about 200psi if you roll a 1, you somehow bounce of a flimsy, rotted wooden door.

So I'm liking this change.