here's an additional wrinkle:

according to rumor, the new 4th edition rules won't call for "optional rules" where D&D Miniatures are concerned (I mean the collectable prepainted plastic minis with cards...) They will be Mandatory! the game will come with some basic minis; but you'll be expected to collect the miniatures from blind packs, and without them, the system will not run smoothly. So you'll be like "sorry guys, we can't run this module. Beholders cost $30 apiece, and I havn't gotten enough knolls yet."

LAME

As someone who still plays 1st & 2nd AD&D....you could just choose *not* to get any upgrades or "reprints". If you enjoy a system, play that system. One doesn't even have to follow the rules completely if you feel like tweaking them yourselves.

I always find the base system I like, and then play it. Maybe modify the things I don't like within my gaming groups.

No biggie really.

I personally do not intend to spend one penny on 4th edition, and I strongly suggest everyone else do the same (or not do the same as the case may be). There are better games out there than D&D anyway, or keep playing 3rd edition if you like it. Just because WotC is releasing a new edition does not mean we should buy into it. It makes me sick to see my fellow gamer geeks taken advantage of, and I hate Wizards of the Coast for ripping us off. I gave up giving WotC money for Magic the Gathering a long time ago because I realized that it was just a trap designed to get more and more of my money. Now they are doing the same thing with D&D and I do not intend to let them take advantage of me. 4th Edition is specifically being released to make all our old stuff obsolete, and I’m not falling for it.

Once again proof Wizard’s of the Coast is Evil! The Wal-mart of the gaming Industry!
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I will buy 4th edition Player's handbook and see what it has to offer. i will not bash anything before i see it. On a whole, I agree with you. 3.5 was going strong. Why mess things up?

Waassaaabe!

I personally do not intend to spend one penny on 4th edition, and I strongly suggest everyone else do the same (or not do the same as the case may be). There are better games out there than D&D anyway, or keep playing 3rd edition if you like it. Just because WotC is releasing a new edition does not mean we should buy into it. It makes me sick to see my fellow gamer geeks taken advantage of, and I hate Wizards of the Coast for ripping us off. I gave up giving WotC money for Magic the Gathering a long time ago because I realized that it was just a trap designed to get more and more of my money. Now they are doing the same thing with D&D and I do not intend to let them take advantage of me. 4th Edition is specifically being released to make all our old stuff obsolete, and I’m not falling for it.


Ok Borther, here is the deal. We have a scam of our own going on here. We will scan the book and pass it around to our friends when it comes out.

D and D is only as good as the game master and the players. This is true no matter what version you play. You are right. Wizards of the Coast are a bunch of rectal sucking greedy bastards....you are right about that




Wassabe!

Personally, I think they are harming themself. This is my opinion alone, and probably flawed, but I believe it would be better to release new game worlds and supplements for them to make money than core rules. We don't need new core rules every few years. 2nd ed lasted so long because they had the sense to diversify a lot more with the worlds, even if Forgotten Realms got the lion's share. They could make a mint by getting a few writers to come up with new and different game worlds instead.

I think Gary Gygax died after reading 4th edition.. I can imagine him eagerly opening the Artifact level Tomb only to find it was cursed with such a madening mockery of mechanics that even the great maven DM missed his save.. RIP Gary


I have read the three core 4th ed books at the store(yah I read stuff at stores for long periods and not buy anything).... they definitly suck. It is basically a different game now. Of course if I wanted to play a different game if would pick one of the already existing myriad of worthy choices such as Rifts, Robotech or Vampire. D&D had always been a step above these.... until now.

I own all three and a half editions of the game. What made 3rd edition acceptable and eventually the best edition was that it took that core system and principles of what D&D was and attempted (often successfully) to improve on them while at the same time continuing to add creative options, ideas and settings. To be sure there was some worthless or just plain bad crap in 3rd Edition but these pieces were easily removed or ignored. Additionally, when there were things that were better or cool from the previous two editions it was easy to add, integrate, swap or convert with 3rd edition. This is no longer the case with 4th edition.
It also completly fails as a new game system... it has almost no interesting features leading to no reason to play it instead of another system...

For example, with 3rd edition it kind of seemed to get ideas from good RPG video games like those from SSI which lead to innovations in how to visualize and work with combat situations. Nothing of the sort in 4th edition. We get things like healing surges available to every class adding absolutely nothing to the game... who thought of this bright idea? Probably the same one who thought of counterspelling in 3rd ed. With the exeption of a few good pictures, the art is becoming worse by more closely resembling cartoons and comic books. The disturbing trend of integrating wildly different styles of art continues with various cartoons, video game like pics, sketches, comic book characters and a few really excellent pictures. And I can't stop thinking about that recycled picture of the Night Hag from MM1 3.0 now in the 4th edition monster manual.... this sort of recycling is nothing new to D&D but after reprinting the same monsters over 4 editions of the game, the least they could do is give us a new picture!

To put it another way, I remember several years ago when 3rd edition just came out and I was skeptically looking at it thinking " 2nd editiion is a little clunky but itss fine overall... do I really want to spend a wad of cash for more and more recycled info, stats and such?" Then I went to the store the fresh and interesting cover design and lay out caught my eye...as I opened up the 3rd ed monster manual I was further impressed by the interior art, organization and good conceptualization and ideas. Degree of recycled content was high to be sure but there was obvious new creativity and geniius mixed in.... I found most of the other 3rd edition books to also be of quality and my collection grew substantially over the following years. I got no such spark or inspiration from the 4th edition MM or its core book companions....the cover design was ok but not inspiring, the interior art was mostly very good but that is where the value ends....the content was sadly lacking and good ideas were missiong while bad ideas held center stage. In general the core books were boring and their mechanics purpusless.

All together the situation leads me to believe that the design of 4th edition had only financial goals in mind with no thought of real RPG fans. Not exactly sure who they are marketing to however. It would be much better if they would have stuck to continued expansion of 3rd edition and maybe published a rule update or tweak manual here and there. I think they made 4th ed. so different so that there couldn't be any gradual or partial conversion options like there was between 2nd and 3rd editions.

4th ed is dead to me.... long live the classic versions of D&D and hopefully publishers like Green Ronin and Swords and Sorcery will continue making things for them... well, at least until the Large Hadron Collider starts running in August creating a micro black hole that swallows the Earth......