*Sigh* I guess we will never get another 4e Gamma World supplement. I did not really like the cards in 4eGW, but they were not that big a hindrance and 4e rules were a great fit for GW.

lotofsnow: Do away with the roles system implemented in 4e that makes players feel limited in what they have to provide for the group

I agree completely with this. Make the classes flexible enough that they can fill whatever role the player wants to, within reason. Or no role. The whole roles concept felt like it was D&D for Dummies. Don't even mention it.

Fair_Poopsmith: First- I want an official WOTC "Create your party" matchup message board allowing people in their local areas to note their play style and the sort of group they're looking for, to assist players in finding one another for games in the real world.
Second- I want an online tabletop/chatroom that provides a nearly indistinguishable experience from live play in some dude's basement. Some of us live in remote areas. Some of us don't know anyone else who wants to play D&D, but we sure as hell would enjoy getting together online once a week or so and playing via an official chatroom. I'm not talking about Gemstone or something resembling a MUD- I'm talking about a regular-ass game of D&D, where the players happen to be in different houses. This can't be hard to accomplish. People have been using chatrooms for ...

First- I joined my current group (running for almost 4 years) on Wizards message boards. There was a "find a group" forum on there of some sort. I went in there, searched for my city, found a group looking for a player, and have become great friends with them. Like, invite them to my kid's birthday party type friends. Not sure if that board still exists, but it is still worth a shot if you're that interested in playing. Also, call up your local gaming stores, if you have any. Even colleges sometimes have D&D groups/clubs.

Second- Wizards is currently "testing" their Virtual Tabletop which is an online gaming table. Supposedly, it implements the rules, creature, and powers of the game and syncs up with their online character builder. Unfortunately, it has been in beta for over a year and one can't help but wonder what's going to happen to it if they are gearing up for a new edition.

IlGreven: 4th Edition was the last good one Wizards made. All the other ones have been shiat, especially M11.

Oh, wait, we're talking about D&D here?

Carry on, nerds...

4th edition was shiat and they shouldn't have gotten rid of dual lands. At least M11 had the Titan cycle.

Why the stupid tag? They have a product that lost a market share to Pathfinder because their audience enjoyed the rule set more. So it's stupid to change said product to make it more competitive in the market?

/Pathfinder Society games please
//also playing a lot of Savage Worlds now

lotofsnow: Second- Wizards is currently "testing" their Virtual Tabletop which is an online gaming table. Supposedly, it implements the rules, creature, and powers of the game and syncs up with their online character builder. Unfortunately, it has been in beta for over a year and one can't help but wonder what's going to happen to it if they are gearing up for a new edition.

They were supposed to demo that Virtual Tabletop at PAX East last year and it ended up a no show. Personally, I'll be surprised if anything ever comes of it. I think they're in way over their heads and had no idea what they were promising.

SuperChuck: lotofsnow: Second- Wizards is currently "testing" their Virtual Tabletop which is an online gaming table. Supposedly, it implements the rules, creature, and powers of the game and syncs up with their online character builder. Unfortunately, it has been in beta for over a year and one can't help but wonder what's going to happen to it if they are gearing up for a new edition.

They were supposed to demo that Virtual Tabletop at PAX East last year and it ended up a no show. Personally, I'll be surprised if anything ever comes of it. I think they're in way over their heads and had no idea what they were promising.

I've messed with it a little bit. It was very very low key compared to some of the independent virtual tabletops out there. I think they should partner with an existing company (i.e. Fantasy Grounds) to use their software.

lotofsnow:
I've messed with it a little bit. It was very very low key compared to some of the independent virtual tabletops out there. I think they should partner with an existing company (i.e. Fantasy Grounds) to use their software.

Good luck with that. Last I've heard, Wizards really didn't want to have anything to do with FG. In fact, there were some issues a while back where WOTC was using FG graphics to demo their virtual tabletop (they claim it was just a placeholder).

Although the 4E ruleset for FG is pretty darn impressive. They've taken the code from that and really improved lots of other rulesets (SW, Pathfinder, etc).

I want a less complex rules system myself... that is why I love the Indy game market and the old school BRP rules. Keep them simple so they can fade into the background and the players and gm can enjoy the adventure...

And allow me to conclude by sharing a quote from THE BINDER OF SHAME... (new window)


How did he end up with 96 magic items? Allow me to explain. The way they set up high level D&D games in my neck of the woods was to have you roll up your character and then roll once on the treasure tables for each level they needed your character to start at. Psycho Dave had planned his campaign for 12th level characters and above, so Cheating Bastard's character was a 12th level Wizard-Cleric-Fighter-Thief-Illusionist-Druid-Ranger-Bard with limited Psionic abilities. His explanation, really lucky die rolls had allowed his magic user to get ahold of a Wish Ring with the maximum wishes. The Wishes had prolonged his life and allowed him to pursue multiple career paths so that now he had a small magic arsenal stored in a Spelljammer craft that he had held in a bag of holding.

A good thirty minutes of game time was eaten up by this long drawn out explanation of the origin of the 12th Level Everything man. I suggested that we all have our characters go to sleep so we can meet with our employer the morning but no one else seemed to be interested. Deviant Boy kept going into lurid detail about his escapades with his girl for the night. Weasly Crusher kept whining about his head. Short Attention Span Larry kept quiet, no surprise since he was busy trying to play the game, watch Star Trek and read a Gor novel. El Disgusto continued to break into our character's rooms and pilfer our things, until he crossed paths with Cheating Bastard's bag of holding. Cheating Bastard kept his familiar in the bag as a kind of guard dog. So the stealthy ninja ended up having his ass handed to him by a Quasit permanently polymorphed into Rush Limbaugh.

I didn't understand that last bit either but I couldn't bring myself to ask.

SuperChuck: lotofsnow: Second- Wizards is currently "testing" their Virtual Tabletop which is an online gaming table. Supposedly, it implements the rules, creature, and powers of the game and syncs up with their online character builder. Unfortunately, it has been in beta for over a year and one can't help but wonder what's going to happen to it if they are gearing up for a new edition.

They were supposed to demo that Virtual Tabletop at PAX East last year and it ended up a no show. Personally, I'll be surprised if anything ever comes of it. I think they're in way over their heads and had no idea what they were promising.

This was supposed to be a feature of DnD Insider that was to launch with 4e. You were supposed to be able to buy mini models and pop them in dungeons that were either premade or that you modified. They never got it close to rolling. Their efforts at any electronic support has been pathetic. I don't expect WoTC to have any of this working, ever.

I didn't even know there had been a 4th edition. Sad.

Ah well, I was always a big fan of AEGs d10 only systems, but really, the best campaigns were the ones where we almost never broke out the dice anyways.

I miss the old days of 7th Sea Fridays. Boo on you, growing up. ;/

Weaver95: oh - and since its 2012 shadowrun 4th edition deserves special mention. Catyst games gave shadowrun an overhaul and IMHO did a very good job with it. points based character creation system that's easy to follow, plus a combat system that's easy to run makes for a game of corporate intrigue that's fun to play and weirdly retro for anyone who's familiar enough with 1st edition and the 2012 kick off to the Awakening.

hoy chummer!

I'll have to take a good look at that. I loved Shadowrun back in the 90's but haven't played much since. I had a 4th ed game going for a while but it's tough to get a game together when I work second shift and my players have weekend hobbies. Battle in 4th ed worked out ok, but role playing felt like trying to thread a metric nut onto a standard bolt.

/has a dusty set of 2nd edition in a closet

I would join in on this nerd-fight, but the last RPG I played was HackMaster. That about 6 years and one enlistment in the Army ago, and now the closest actual tabletop game store is a 90-minute drive from my house, one way.

/And no, I haven't done any of the internet-based stuff a la Virtual Tabletop. Haven't been able/wouldn't know where to start to find a group, and all of my various system books (3.5, CBT, HackMaster, and HERO) ended up getting lost/tossed somewhere along the line. Thus I'd need to figure out a source of income before joining a group in any system, as I'd need to buy the book(s).

I recently found my deck from 1995. I never did get into this stuff. I was also disappointed to learn that the whole thing is probably only worth about $20 on eBay.

Even if I wanted to play tabletop games, there's no way I could possibly find the time to make my own maps and whatnot. I'll stick with the half-assed version and just keep playing Infinity Engine CRPGs re-purchased through GoG.com.

I'm 29, just started DnD about 18 months ago, been DMing for about 6 now. This news really upsets me. I'm really just genuinely upset that I have given them my time and money, and now they're on to something new.

WTF?

I kind of loved the old Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay rulesets.

Pathfinder is where it's at. imho.

Paizo did an amazing job of transforming the 3.5 system, which was really good in its own right, into something great. Even the Pathfinder Beginner Box Set is streamlined in such a manner that it's simple enough to get a group of non-table top gamers up and running within 30 minutes or less.

lotofsnow: I'm looking forward to this. I've played 4e since it came out and 3.5 before it, and both editions had their flaws. 3.5 was clumsy at times. 4e suffered from player information overload in higher levels yet somehow felt limited in the options each character could access. One of the best things 3.5 offered was a genuine feeling that your power level was far outshining the world around you. One of the best things 4e offered was simple encounter design that made creating battles on the fly a simple task for even the amateur DM. Finding a way to balance the two should be a design goal for the next edition.

I think, if modular rules implementation is designed well in 5e, it could eclipse its predecessors. Give me a set of rules where I can implement what I want as a DM based on the story I'm building and the experience of my group. Also, stop trying to balance everything. A fighter does not need to be as powerful as a wizard at maximum level. Wizards use f**king magic. Make Divination worthwhile. Make bards bards instead of "arcane clerics." Do away with the roles system implemented in 4e that makes players feel limited in what they have to provide for the group.

Hopefully, they'll actually listen to their play-testers this time around.

The problem with the balance and the roles system in 4e was they developed a system that was skirmish rules first and foremost, and all of the "role-playing" tacked on later. I did like the fact that they addressed the fact that the progression of a magic user was slow at first and light-years ahead of the party at higher levels.

I don't mind them trying to add a bit of a balance to make fighters and rogues less useless once wizards start getting higher level spells, but as long as they remember not everything revolves around combat encounters they'll be better off.

And make sure you learn from making the Factotum class. That was a great class, and was far closer to what a Rogue should have been.

I haven't played since 2e, and I'm really not interested in trying any of the newer editions. The game peaked a long time ago and isn't coming back, especially with all of the MMORPGs out there now.

INeedAName: I'm 29, just started DnD about 18 months ago, been DMing for about 6 now. This news really upsets me. I'm really just genuinely upset that I have given them my time and money, and now they're on to something new.

WTF?

Don't worry. The print in your books doesn't disappear with the new edition. You'll still be able to play your old game.

wingnut396: SuperChuck: lotofsnow: Second- Wizards is currently "testing" their Virtual Tabletop which is an online gaming table. Supposedly, it implements the rules, creature, and powers of the game and syncs up with their online character builder. Unfortunately, it has been in beta for over a year and one can't help but wonder what's going to happen to it if they are gearing up for a new edition.

They were supposed to demo that Virtual Tabletop at PAX East last year and it ended up a no show. Personally, I'll be surprised if anything ever comes of it. I think they're in way over their heads and had no idea what they were promising.

This was supposed to be a feature of DnD Insider that was to launch with 4e. You were supposed to be able to buy mini models and pop them in dungeons that were either premade or that you modified. They never got it close to rolling. Their efforts at any electronic support has been pathetic. I don't expect WoTC to have any of this working, ever.

Exactly. Before Insider, there was E-Tools for 3 and 3.5. They couldn't get that going, either, and I think a company called Code Monkey did something with it (so at least it existed for a time). WotC/Hasbro sucks ass when it comes to delivering on their promises of electronic supplements for the D&D brand.

Also, I never even bothered to pick up 4e. I was a huge Planescape fan and when they basically blew up the multiverse and wiped out all the old lore for something "new", I never gave 4e a shot. I actually liked 3 and 3.5 mainly because all the lore and story from previious editions was still in place, for the most part.

Everyone complained that 1e and 2e were too complicated. I found the opposite to be true. 1e and 2e gave you freedom to play the way your group wanted to play. That freedom came from rules that were optional. The 1e and 2e books were just guidelines on how to play the game, but not the end all. 3e, 3.5e and 4e were all heavily focused on The Rules. It became very involved to create a character, level it, and enjoy the unfolding saga.

If D&D is to survive, it needs to allow players to hit the ground running with basic rules, and go back to offering supplements for those that desire to buy them. Imagination is at the heart of any RPG, and that gets lost when you are hampered with too many rules.

PacManDreaming: Mr_H: would die for a Paranoia, Star Frontiers

Still have my original Star Frontiers (and the box and maps) and the 3rd edition of Paranoia. I bought the new hardback edition of Paranoia by Mongoose, just to see what it was about.

I also have my boxed TSR Conan game. It was a little clunky, but not a bad game. We had lots of fun playing it. Got the Mongoose version of it, too. It's not bad, but it seems to have lost some of it's flavor.

I have the Paranoia XP hardcover. I ran the adventure in the book for a group of about 8 a few years ago. It was definitely a good time, but the group didn't understand they should be trying to kill each other as well as complete the mission. That is, until one player dropped a live grenade in the hallway to the debriefing room, blowing up the other troubleshooters, and spinned it as "unexplained equipment failure."

It could be interesting to run a campaign, though my players now all know that I don't actually read the dice I roll during Paranoia.

I was really looking forward to 4e when it came out. I liked the idea of spellcasters having a reliable "always castable" spell, and of fighter-types having something useful to do other than charge or full-attack. I liked the streamlined skills system. I liked that magic items were back to "+X, with one ability" instead of the "+2 Flaming Keen Vorpal" stuff from third. The combat encounter design was so well thought out that I'll never DM 3.X again.

I even gave the system a pass on its weaker points, because I wanted it to be good. Sure, the new alignment system doesn't make any sense, but since it doesn't affect mechanics, we can use the old one, or none at all. Paladins might be a bit weak, but there's a kernel of goodness there to be houseruled. Skill challenge DCs are a bit off, but we can fix that. And so on.

Then there were the things I said to reassure skeptics. Sure, powers for each class might be a little gimmicky, but it's not like they'll release secret power cards with their miniatures or anything. Hey, you might be worried about the online subscription setup, but you don't lose what you had if you stop subscribing! Points of light is a design concept instead of a full-on setting, so you don't have to worry about PoL-specific spells and such. These kinds of things were all promised by the design team, who were then fired. Oh. ...Oh dear.

Basically, 4e had the potential to be great (if unlike old-school D&D in many ways). But the business people took complete control sometime late in the development of the core rulebooks, and pretty quickly killed it.

I would have loved to see them turn it into D&D Basic 2. Fighter/Mage/Cleric/Rogue only, with the various AD&D classes made through power choices and multiclassing. Rangers as bow-specialist rogues, paladins as fighter/clerics, and so on. Make powers more general/scalable (instead of "whirlwind attack" ranks 1-6), keep ritual magic as feat-accessible, and make magic items rarer instead of codified into "you must have these three items to be balanced." Oh, and make combat more dangerous. And for GODS' SAKE, either have a decently balanced social interaction mechanic, or none at all.

First edition AD&D rules or GTFO.

wingnut396: Their efforts at any electronic support has been pathetic. I don't expect WoTC to have any of this working, ever.

Here's the thing: they shouldn't have it working, ever. A virtual tabletop is a good idea, but a virtual tabletop that automates the rulekeeping of the game is a terrible idea. The first rule of RPGs is that the rules are only a guideline. From a software design standpoint, having a rulekeeper that also allows fudging increases the complexity exponentially. A virtual tabletop that attempts, instead, to simulate a tabletop, in all its dumb, tangible glory, would be awesome.

//I actually was working on such a project. I should finish it off.

Ab3: I want a less complex rules system myself... that is why I love the Indy game market and the old school BRP rules. Keep them simple so they can fade into the background and the players and gm can enjoy the adventure...

And allow me to conclude by sharing a quote from THE BINDER OF SHAME... (new window)

So it's saying the guy was Republican? /rimshot

That's when the GM gets twisted and say the Wish Ring the guy thought he was using was actually more like the Wish Granter from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Kill him and tell him to reroll.

IlGreven: UNC_Samurai: Weaver95: BurnShrike: It really seemed like their business model for that was just "let's reprint all the same old stuff under the new rules! People will love it!" Except, people don't love spending $40 on a book that contains all the same stuff they have in a book at home..

I *still* can't figure out WOTC's business model. their president said he'd NEVER allow legacy products to be legally sold as PDF files ever again no matter what. he also swore that there would never be an online store for any WOTC product ever. Paizo and others just grabbed hold of that market and ain't letting go for nothing man. it's a huge money maker for 'em.

Way late to this party, but that probably wasn't a bad idea considering how amazingly inept WotC has been over the years at managing their online integration.

/E-Tools, Gleemax, D&D Insider, great jobs all around

Yes. From the looks of it, Magic Online is about the best thing that they've done...and even then, there's no overlap between virtual cards and real-life ones...

/And don't get me started about their actual video games...

They are torn between making money online and not pissing off the hobby shops.

I don't see one mention of DDO.

Dungeons and Dragons Online.

It exists. Really. Free to play like Lord of the Rings. Same company.

/ yeah I didn't know either

I actually kind of like 4e. Sure, it's obviously been WoW-ified, but that streamlining has come in handy with our group. We drink a lot of beer and get sidetracked with joking around a lot, and the streamlined 4e play experience means we always actually get something accomplished when we game... Now we don't have someone rules lawyering for 1/2 an hour before they decide what they're going to do... now we just do it, and turn a card on its side. Boom, done.

I'd be willing to look at a 5th edition... I don't relish the thought of buying new books again, but if it's better it's better and I have an open mind. But 4e is actually working pretty well for us.

The only thing I don't like is the online subscription crap. It seems overpriced to pay that much each month for access to a character sheet generator. They should have an app or program you install instead, and in fact we found and use one that someone else made.

Might have to check out this Pathfinder dealio after seeing that screenshot up above. Our DM uses a laptop and a monitor to display our map, and it looks like they got a lot going on there software-wise.

Weaver95: Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch/Black Crusade - fantasy flight games attempt to make 40k into a tabletop role playing game and lemme tell yaz, it's really well done. easy rules to understand, well defined roles make it a little rigid at times but it's by far the best techn-gothic space horror game on the market. personal favorite: Rogue Trader. that game is amazing. get it and play it, your gaming group will love you long time.

Oh Dark Heresy. Played briefly with some friends. Our very first combat encounter, the very first time our psyker went to use a power, bam perils of the warp. He was promptly possessed by a world devouring daemon of Nurgle. Good times were had by all.

I'd like the chance to play again for real. GM was going easy on us, and many of us, myself included, were new to p&p so we were ignoring some rules and trying to ease in.

DjangoStonereaver: Personally, I am much more into CALL OF CTHULHU

If you like CoC, but still want to play in a fantasy setting, check out Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing, 2nd (out of print) or 3rd edition. My group has more fun with it than D&D 4th ed.

There's a lot of butt-hurt when it comes to new editions of DnD. I remember when 3e came out and people lost their shait over that. Same thing happened with 4e. Same thing will happen with 5e, and again with 6e, etc..
I refused to play 4e for years. The original core books were garbage, and a lot of people went off to pathfinder or whatever. Years later I took another look, and the system was greatly improved. I managed to notice the -good- changes. The action-based combat system speeds things up, so you can focus less on crunch and more on fluff. I realized that I was GLAD they didn't tell me how to roleplay, because I don't WANT anyone to tell me how to roleplay. I already know how, thanks. Having more defenses than just AC makes so much sense that I can't believe it took as long as it did to get fixed.
There's so much nostalgia for how much "better" the game used to be. But go back and look at the previous editions players handbook. It's rules for combat, a small section on skills, and a metric fark-ton of spells. It's not so terrible that you can't re-create your third edition characters in 4th edition (although I'd argue that you can NOW, you certainly couldn't in 2008). That's one of the things that kept me from playing the game back then, and I shouldn't have cared. Try to start 4e with a 25th level character and make it just like the 3.x character you used to play. You can't do it. If I wanted to play the same character, I shouldn't have tried to switch editions. 4e was new, and I should have wanted to play it with -new- characters. It's not the ruleset that made the game good or bad, it was the nerds you used to hang out with that made it good or bad, and it will continue to do so no matter what version you play.

PacManDreaming: Mr_H: would die for a Paranoia, Star Frontiers

Still have my original Star Frontiers (and the box and maps)


Ditto! Alpha Dawn, Knight Hawks..I even have a copy of Zebulons Guide somewhere (meh rules, but some good background stuff there).

I did find Jparanoia a while back which seemed like a interesting way to play Paranoia online.

mongbiohazard: I actually kind of like 4e. Sure, it's obviously been WoW-ified, but that streamlining has come in handy with our group. We drink a lot of beer and get sidetracked with joking around a lot, and the streamlined 4e play experience means we always actually get something accomplished when we game... Now we don't have someone rules lawyering for 1/2 an hour before they decide what they're going to do... now we just do it, and turn a card on its side. Boom, done.

I'd be willing to look at a 5th edition... I don't relish the thought of buying new books again, but if it's better it's better and I have an open mind. But 4e is actually working pretty well for us.

The only thing I don't like is the online subscription crap. It seems overpriced to pay that much each month for access to a character sheet generator. They should have an app or program you install instead, and in fact we found and use one that someone else made.

Might have to check out this Pathfinder dealio after seeing that screenshot up above. Our DM uses a laptop and a monitor to display our map, and it looks like they got a lot going on there software-wise.

The online subscription also covers Dragon and Dungeon magazine, which are now online only. There might be more but I haven't looked in a while.

I never understood why it's such a big goddamned deal that 4th edition sucked. My roleplaying group has been using outdated editions that are superior to later releases(rolemaster 2nd edition) for decades. It's not difficult to find the older books in physical or digital formats, so what's the big goddamned deal?

Fair_Poopsmith: Okay, Wizards, you listening? I'm your target market. I'm in my early 30s and I've wanted to play D&D since I was about 14 years old..

That's probably the saddest thing I'm going to read all day.

The problem here is that its company being run like every other company; if you're not making record profits you're failing. This notion cannot work for every industry. In some fields you will merely turn a profit and not every quarter will be higher than the last. This pursuit of the ever higher profit margin is what's driving them to behave like this and in the long run it will actually hurt the company.

A game company should not be owned by a group that is beholden to stock-holders and run by someone with an MBA and no interest in the companies work. It should be run by private companies headed up by people who actually play and understand what they sell. Paper and board gaming is not an industry field but a hobbyist field. It simply isn't big enough for big business mentality.

Rifts was, is, and shall always be better.

Weaver95: BurnShrike: 4th Ed was an abomination.

I'm still happy with 3.5/Pathfinder

4th edition was badly presented. I think it might have had a shot but...the management of WOTC handled it in the worst possible of ways.
.

You are very....very wrong.
Coming from a guy who sells both at his store, Pathfinder has what players wanted.
4th edition D&D is so dumbed down, I'm surprised they aren't playing it on Jersey Shore.
That simple.

t3knomanser: wingnut396: Their efforts at any electronic support has been pathetic. I don't expect WoTC to have any of this working, ever.

Here's the thing: they shouldn't have it working, ever. A virtual tabletop is a good idea, but a virtual tabletop that automates the rulekeeping of the game is a terrible idea. The first rule of RPGs is that the rules are only a guideline. From a software design standpoint, having a rulekeeper that also allows fudging increases the complexity exponentially. A virtual tabletop that attempts, instead, to simulate a tabletop, in all its dumb, tangible glory, would be awesome.

//I actually was working on such a project. I should finish it off.

Well, I am not so much actually worried about the rules as I am about the tabletop, as we continue to use 3.5e. What was promised, and what I would have paid for, was a 3D tabletop that we could have fun with. I would be able to design a dugeon and use have 3D minis to put in them. It also promised to have a consolidated interface that would lets us play easier with our buddy that has moved out of state.

Yes, there are some other tools that do this, and I've used them, but have been less than trilled. They work okay, but its easier to just run the wet erase grid map.

Anyway, its not so much that one does not exist, as more to the fact WoTC promised it, showed some of it, canned it, and then acts like nothing happened. But this time you can trust them for sure....

Zombie DJ: Weaver95: BurnShrike: 4th Ed was an abomination.

I'm still happy with 3.5/Pathfinder

4th edition was badly presented. I think it might have had a shot but...the management of WOTC handled it in the worst possible of ways.
.

You are very....very wrong.
Coming from a guy who sells both at his store, Pathfinder has what players wanted.
4th edition D&D is so dumbed down, I'm surprised they aren't playing it on Jersey Shore.
That simple.

Let's be fair, it's not like Pathfinder is difficult or that complex.