AAAARGH! Someone turn undead allready! Seriously now, this thread was about how the plot ending of ToB didn't anticipate the spellplague and its effect on the characters backstories. Nothing to do with 4th edition rules. Just the story. And 5th ed. won't "reset" the realms. They had a big d&d author summit and agreed on a way for the story to move on (rumour has it it involves dead powers rising again and a sundering of worlds.. ).
Come friends, let us sit, hold hands and be grateful that the beast is almost dead and will go down in history as the shortest lived edition of D&D.
Let us pray that the fifth edition will not be an equal quagmire and that they can reverse the half decade of ruining beloved campaign settings, pissing all over praised Gygaxian traditions and other bone headed decisions.
And finally, let us praise the lord and be thankful that for all the disaster of the edition that shall not be named, it did spawn in it's wake the greatest thing that has happened to role playing in ages, namely the Pathfinder Role Playing Game. Yes! All the traditions of D&D preserved by a company, Paizo Publishing, run by industry veterans who do not have excrement for brains. Not only has Pathfinder been incredibly successful, it has outlived the edition that tried to kill it, and all of this it has done by doing one simple thing: It cares about what the customers actually want!
By the grace of St. Gygax and St. Arneson, praise D&D.
Let's ease on the Gygax wax, the guy might'be been an innovator but DnD said good bye to "Gygaxian traditions" already back during the designing of 2nd Ed when Gygax was sacked for, well, being impossible to work with.
As for Pathfinder... Well, it's 3.75 for both good and bad. While it did improve on some of 3.5's weaker points, it's certainly still enough 3.5 to have many of the inherent flaws of the system remaining, and even aggravated in some cases (like the balance between casters and magickers and "ordinary" classes).
But then again, I haven't played enough of it to have a final opinion, but the above's my impressions so far. I still prefer a homebrew 3.5 if I'd have to name a DnD version as favourite, though is rather have something else.
Come friends, let us sit, hold hands and be grateful that the beast is almost dead and will go down in history as the shortest lived edition of D&D.
Let us pray that the fifth edition will not be an equal quagmire and that they can reverse the half decade of ruining beloved campaign settings, pissing all over praised Gygaxian traditions and other bone headed decisions.
There was no "quagmire," just a lot of bile-spewing grognards who can't admit that any given edition has flaws that the successive editions try to correct.
As much respect as I have for Gary Gygax, his outmoded ideas are the only things that are boneheaded, and they have been outmoded, as scriver pointed out, since the times of the word "edition" coming into use to describe D&D rulesets. He got the game started, certainly, but he hated every narrative, roleplaying spin the players tried to put on the game. That's right, your revered St. Gygax despised every aspect of the game detractors of 4E claim that 4E did away with (false claims with no basis in reality, I might add).
Not only has Pathfinder been incredibly successful, it has outlived the edition that tried to kill it, and all of this it has done by doing one simple thing: It cares about what the customers actually want!
There was no "quagmire," just a lot of bile-spewing grognards who can't admit that any given edition has flaws that the successive editions try to correct.
That's just the thing, they didn't try to correct flaws, they fundamentally changed the game into something completely different.
They reworked the classes to the point where it seemed to be more like a video game than a tabletop role playing game with their "encounter powers" and "daily powers".
And they dumbed down one of the most iconic parts of D&D, the alignment system, seemingly for no reason. Now, you have just a completely linear scale from Lawful Good (super good) - Good - Neutral (or unaligned as they call it) - Evil - Chaotic Evil (super evil). All the depth of the original system pissed away for nothing.
They do away the barbarian, bard, sorcerer and monk, some of the most fundamental classes of the game in favor of what, the warlord class? Likewise they broom away the gnome, in favor of some dragon-man thing.
But that isn't even the worst part of it, the history of the game itself was just thrown out. They bury their original campaign setting, Greyhawk and refuse to allow anyone to do anything with it. They completely nuke the Forgotten Realms with a joke of a cataclysmic event and kill of most of the beloved characters of the setting, just so the campaign setting will be easier to write for. All those who loved the depth and history of the original be damned.
Old staples like the Great Wheel cosmology is just canned in favor of something completely generic, and loads of deities are killed off so that they can "focus on the fun gods". Entire races of outsiders are just dumped, one of my favorites, the eladrins didn't just get dumped. They had their name re-purposed to suit some extra planar elf race.
And there are numerous other arbitrary changes, like making the succubus a devil because it is too pretty to be a demon, and then scrapping the erinyes so people won't get confused.
It isn't just that Wizards doesn't respect D&D, they don't understand it. That is why scores of their previous fans abandoned them when they pushed this on us. They drove away the D&D fans with their "improvements" and all they have left are the Wizards fanboys who call the real D&D fans "bile-spewing grognards" and unfortunately for Wizards there aren't enough fanboys to keep the edition afloat.
Thankfully they made the Open Game License for 3rd edition so that companies like Paizo, Frog God Games, Kobold Press and Necromancer Games can keep the edition alive, to the point where Pathfinder is outselling 4th edition on Amazon. That is the power of respecting the real fans.
And if there were more of them they could keep the edition going. Wizards made the monumental mistake of alienating their existing customers so that they could attract new ones. I assume they realized that considering that they decided to announce their "D&D Next" edition less than four years after they released fourth edition making it the shortest lived edition of D&D by far.
That's just the thing, they didn't try to correct flaws, they fundamentally changed the game into something completely different.
They reworked the classes to the point where it seemed to be more like a video game than a tabletop role playing game with their "encounter powers" and "daily powers".
The "more like a video game" criticism has been around since AD&D, and it's just as meaningless now as it was then.
The game has had "daily powers" since its inception. What do you think the Vancian spellcasting system is? Encounter powers have been around since 3.5's Tome of Battle.
And they dumbed down one of the most iconic parts of D&D, the alignment system, seemingly for no reason. Now, you have just a completely linear scale from Lawful Good (super good) - Good - Neutral (or unaligned as they call it) - Evil - Chaotic Evil (super evil). All the depth of the original system pissed away for nothing.
You say dumbed down, I say they got rid of alignments that were more or less extremely similar. The difference between Lawful and Neutral Evil or Neutral and Chaotic Good are negligible.
They do away the barbarian, bard, sorcerer and monk, some of the most fundamental classes of the game in favor of what, the warlord class? Likewise they broom away the gnome, in favor of some dragon-man thing.
The Barbarian, Bard, and Sorcerer were all added in PHB2. Barbarian was tested in the beginning, but it needed a lot of work. The gnome was also reintroduced in PHB2. It's more like gnomes were replaced by tieflings, swapping positions in monster manual and player's handbook. Dragonborn have been in the game in some form or another for a long time. They just got a backstory for the core setting.
But that isn't even the worst part of it, the history of the game itself was just thrown out. They bury their original campaign setting, Greyhawk and refuse to allow anyone to do anything with it. They completely nuke the Forgotten Realms with a joke of a cataclysmic event and kill of most of the beloved characters of the setting, just so the campaign setting will be easier to write for. All those who loved the depth and history of the original be damned.
Literally nothing in 4E stops you from having a campaign in whatever iteration of FR or Greyhawk you want.
Old staples like the Great Wheel cosmology is just canned in favor of something completely generic, and loads of deities are killed off so that they can "focus on the fun gods". Entire races of outsiders are just dumped, one of my favorites, the eladrins didn't just get dumped. They had their name re-purposed to suit some extra planar elf race.
The eladrin were adapted into an elven race to make clear the age-old "elves are in tune with nature, oh but also they have marble cities and other unnatural stuff," so eladrin essentially serve as a broad category of high/moon elves and the normal elves are your wild/wood variety.
And there are numerous other arbitrary changes, like making the succubus a devil because it is too pretty to be a demon, and then scrapping the erinyes so people won't get confused.
The succubus was made a devil because the designers wanted to make a more clear distinction between devils and demons. Devils are the tempters, the manipulators, the ones who want mortals to sin and use the captured souls for currency. Demons, on the other hand, are merciless destroyers that despise order, good, and would tear down the very fabric of reality if they could. Which do you think better fits the succubus?
The erinyes made a return, but only after they could figure out a way to sufficiently differentiate it from the succubus' role. The erinyes is now more of a tactician and battle leader type of devil, and I think it works pretty well.
It isn't just that Wizards doesn't respect D&D, they don't understand it. That is why scores of their previous fans abandoned them when they pushed this on us. They drove away the D&D fans with their "improvements" and all they have left are the Wizards fanboys who call the real D&D fans "bile-spewing grognards" and unfortunately for Wizards there aren't enough fanboys to keep the edition afloat.
Thankfully they made the Open Game License for 3rd edition so that companies like Paizo, Frog God Games, Kobold Press and Necromancer Games can keep the edition alive, to the point where Pathfinder is outselling 4th edition on Amazon. That is the power of respecting the real fans.
And if there were more of them they could keep the edition going. Wizards made the monumental mistake of alienating their existing customers so that they could attract new ones. I assume they realized that considering that they decided to announce their "D&D Next" edition less than four years after they released fourth edition making it the shortest lived edition of D&D by far.
I am an existing customer. I am a real fan. I'd appreciate you not attempting to imply otherwise.
I am an existing customer. I am a real fan. I'd appreciate you not attempting to imply otherwise.
Sure you're a fan, you're a fan of the D&D brand. I'm a fan of the D&D game, the game that was first created in 1979 and received numerous updates over the years, but was still fundamentally the same game. The game did change a lot between Basic D&D and 3rd Edition, but it was a road of smaller changes that ultimately built upon the earlier. They made necessary changes, but it was never too radical and they didn't try to solve problems that didn't exist, which made the transition between Basic and Advanced D&D, and 2nd Edition and 3rd Edition extremely successful commercially and managed to attract new players. It worked because while it was different, it was fundamentally the same game.
This was not the case with 4th edition, despite assurances from a guy with a french accent in their videos before launch, it was NOT the same game. It had some of the same names, but it was a completely different game with the D&D brand slapped on it.
So the end result is that Wizards only managed to hold on to those few fans that were loyal to the brand, and not the fans that were loyal to the game, and unfortunately for Wizards the majority of players were in the latter category, loyal to the game and not the brand, and those are the real fans. This ended up meaning that for all the money the threw at DDI and the rulebook line it could never win, the vast majority of players either stuck with the out of print 3.5 edition or moved on to Pathfinder and 4th edition has never seen the sales numbers of any previous edition, despite a much larger marketing push than ever before.
Ultimately, their failing is that they didn't respect the game, and tried to float by on the brand. That may work for you, but for the fans of the game that was never going to work. That is also why 4th edition is going out the door, because us "bile-spewing grognards" want our game back. And we deserve it back, because we are the real fans who built the game from the ground up.
The way I look at it, they'll just keep making editions to make money. I don't think they care as much about the customer feedback anymore so they'll just keep making PHB3's and MM5's.
I am an existing customer. I am a real fan. I'd appreciate you not attempting to imply otherwise.
Sure you're a fan, you're a fan of the D&D brand. I'm a fan of the D&D game, the game that was first created in 1979 and received numerous updates over the years, but was still fundamentally the same game. The game did change a lot between Basic D&D and 3rd Edition, but it was a road of smaller changes that ultimately built upon the earlier. They made necessary changes, but it was never too radical and they didn't try to solve problems that didn't exist, which made the transition between Basic and Advanced D&D, and 2nd Edition and 3rd Edition extremely successful commercially and managed to attract new players. It worked because while it was different, it was fundamentally the same game.
I'm not going to bother dealing with your bullshit if you're going to keep acting like you're better than me, that I'm not a real D&D player, because I don't have the red box or whatever arbitrary criteria you're intent on basing true fandom. I've been playing D&D since 2nd, through 3E, 3.5, and now 4E and Pathfinder. You can use whatever semantics you want to describe me, but doing so won't invalidate my appreciation for the game or my opinion about it.
AAAARGH! Someone turn undead allready! Seriously now, this thread was about how the plot ending of ToB didn't anticipate the spellplague and its effect on the characters backstories. Nothing to do with 4th edition rules. Just the story.
This. So much this. As the OP, I'm giving any and all mods permission to shut this thread down.
I'm not going to bother dealing with your bullshit if you're going to keep acting like you're better than me, that I'm not a real D&D player, because I don't have the red box or whatever arbitrary criteria you're intent on basing true fandom. I've been playing D&D since 2nd, through 3E, 3.5, and now 4E and Pathfinder. You can use whatever semantics you want to describe me, but doing so won't invalidate my appreciation for the game or my opinion about it.
You don't have to have the Red Box, in fact several of my closest friends don't have the Red Box and I accept that about them.
Seriously though the point (that you're missing) is that 4th edition is not D&D, it has the D&D logo on it and it has a lot of the same names and things in it, but it is not the same game. They threw away all the history and progress of the previous editions to solve problems that needed fixing and a lot more problems that didn't need fixing, most likely because they didn't understand what the real problems were and they didn't understand the game. That's why Hasbro is ordering Wizards to can 4th edition, because it failed as a D&D edition (because it isn't D&D) and was not worth the vast sums they spent on it. And that's why they are taking a step back with D&D Next to try to salvage the brand.
You may appreciate 4th edition on it's own merits if you like (I don't), but to the vast majority of players (at least as far as sales figures go) it isn't the 4th edition of D&D, it's a completely different game.
Comments
Seriously now, this thread was about how the plot ending of ToB didn't anticipate the spellplague and its effect on the characters backstories. Nothing to do with 4th edition rules. Just the story. And 5th ed. won't "reset" the realms. They had a big d&d author summit and agreed on a way for the story to move on (rumour has it it involves dead powers rising again and a sundering of worlds.. ).
Let us pray that the fifth edition will not be an equal quagmire and that they can reverse the half decade of ruining beloved campaign settings, pissing all over praised Gygaxian traditions and other bone headed decisions.
And finally, let us praise the lord and be thankful that for all the disaster of the edition that shall not be named, it did spawn in it's wake the greatest thing that has happened to role playing in ages, namely the Pathfinder Role Playing Game. Yes! All the traditions of D&D preserved by a company, Paizo Publishing, run by industry veterans who do not have excrement for brains. Not only has Pathfinder been incredibly successful, it has outlived the edition that tried to kill it, and all of this it has done by doing one simple thing: It cares about what the customers actually want!
By the grace of St. Gygax and St. Arneson, praise D&D.
As for Pathfinder... Well, it's 3.75 for both good and bad. While it did improve on some of 3.5's weaker points, it's certainly still enough 3.5 to have many of the inherent flaws of the system remaining, and even aggravated in some cases (like the balance between casters and magickers and "ordinary" classes).
But then again, I haven't played enough of it to have a final opinion, but the above's my impressions so far. I still prefer a homebrew 3.5 if I'd have to name a DnD version as favourite, though is rather have something else.
As much respect as I have for Gary Gygax, his outmoded ideas are the only things that are boneheaded, and they have been outmoded, as scriver pointed out, since the times of the word "edition" coming into use to describe D&D rulesets. He got the game started, certainly, but he hated every narrative, roleplaying spin the players tried to put on the game. That's right, your revered St. Gygax despised every aspect of the game detractors of 4E claim that 4E did away with (false claims with no basis in reality, I might add). The people who buy and play 4E are customers.
They reworked the classes to the point where it seemed to be more like a video game than a tabletop role playing game with their "encounter powers" and "daily powers".
And they dumbed down one of the most iconic parts of D&D, the alignment system, seemingly for no reason. Now, you have just a completely linear scale from Lawful Good (super good) - Good - Neutral (or unaligned as they call it) - Evil - Chaotic Evil (super evil). All the depth of the original system pissed away for nothing.
They do away the barbarian, bard, sorcerer and monk, some of the most fundamental classes of the game in favor of what, the warlord class? Likewise they broom away the gnome, in favor of some dragon-man thing.
But that isn't even the worst part of it, the history of the game itself was just thrown out. They bury their original campaign setting, Greyhawk and refuse to allow anyone to do anything with it. They completely nuke the Forgotten Realms with a joke of a cataclysmic event and kill of most of the beloved characters of the setting, just so the campaign setting will be easier to write for. All those who loved the depth and history of the original be damned.
Old staples like the Great Wheel cosmology is just canned in favor of something completely generic, and loads of deities are killed off so that they can "focus on the fun gods". Entire races of outsiders are just dumped, one of my favorites, the eladrins didn't just get dumped. They had their name re-purposed to suit some extra planar elf race.
And there are numerous other arbitrary changes, like making the succubus a devil because it is too pretty to be a demon, and then scrapping the erinyes so people won't get confused.
It isn't just that Wizards doesn't respect D&D, they don't understand it. That is why scores of their previous fans abandoned them when they pushed this on us. They drove away the D&D fans with their "improvements" and all they have left are the Wizards fanboys who call the real D&D fans "bile-spewing grognards" and unfortunately for Wizards there aren't enough fanboys to keep the edition afloat.
Thankfully they made the Open Game License for 3rd edition so that companies like Paizo, Frog God Games, Kobold Press and Necromancer Games can keep the edition alive, to the point where Pathfinder is outselling 4th edition on Amazon. That is the power of respecting the real fans. And if there were more of them they could keep the edition going. Wizards made the monumental mistake of alienating their existing customers so that they could attract new ones. I assume they realized that considering that they decided to announce their "D&D Next" edition less than four years after they released fourth edition making it the shortest lived edition of D&D by far.
The game has had "daily powers" since its inception. What do you think the Vancian spellcasting system is? Encounter powers have been around since 3.5's Tome of Battle. You say dumbed down, I say they got rid of alignments that were more or less extremely similar. The difference between Lawful and Neutral Evil or Neutral and Chaotic Good are negligible. The Barbarian, Bard, and Sorcerer were all added in PHB2. Barbarian was tested in the beginning, but it needed a lot of work. The gnome was also reintroduced in PHB2. It's more like gnomes were replaced by tieflings, swapping positions in monster manual and player's handbook. Dragonborn have been in the game in some form or another for a long time. They just got a backstory for the core setting. Literally nothing in 4E stops you from having a campaign in whatever iteration of FR or Greyhawk you want. The eladrin were adapted into an elven race to make clear the age-old "elves are in tune with nature, oh but also they have marble cities and other unnatural stuff," so eladrin essentially serve as a broad category of high/moon elves and the normal elves are your wild/wood variety. The succubus was made a devil because the designers wanted to make a more clear distinction between devils and demons. Devils are the tempters, the manipulators, the ones who want mortals to sin and use the captured souls for currency. Demons, on the other hand, are merciless destroyers that despise order, good, and would tear down the very fabric of reality if they could. Which do you think better fits the succubus?
The erinyes made a return, but only after they could figure out a way to sufficiently differentiate it from the succubus' role. The erinyes is now more of a tactician and battle leader type of devil, and I think it works pretty well. I am an existing customer. I am a real fan. I'd appreciate you not attempting to imply otherwise.
This was not the case with 4th edition, despite assurances from a guy with a french accent in their videos before launch, it was NOT the same game. It had some of the same names, but it was a completely different game with the D&D brand slapped on it.
So the end result is that Wizards only managed to hold on to those few fans that were loyal to the brand, and not the fans that were loyal to the game, and unfortunately for Wizards the majority of players were in the latter category, loyal to the game and not the brand, and those are the real fans. This ended up meaning that for all the money the threw at DDI and the rulebook line it could never win, the vast majority of players either stuck with the out of print 3.5 edition or moved on to Pathfinder and 4th edition has never seen the sales numbers of any previous edition, despite a much larger marketing push than ever before.
Ultimately, their failing is that they didn't respect the game, and tried to float by on the brand. That may work for you, but for the fans of the game that was never going to work. That is also why 4th edition is going out the door, because us "bile-spewing grognards" want our game back. And we deserve it back, because we are the real fans who built the game from the ground up.
It's been Quantity > Quality for years now.
Seriously though the point (that you're missing) is that 4th edition is not D&D, it has the D&D logo on it and it has a lot of the same names and things in it, but it is not the same game. They threw away all the history and progress of the previous editions to solve problems that needed fixing and a lot more problems that didn't need fixing, most likely because they didn't understand what the real problems were and they didn't understand the game. That's why Hasbro is ordering Wizards to can 4th edition, because it failed as a D&D edition (because it isn't D&D) and was not worth the vast sums they spent on it. And that's why they are taking a step back with D&D Next to try to salvage the brand.
You may appreciate 4th edition on it's own merits if you like (I don't), but to the vast majority of players (at least as far as sales figures go) it isn't the 4th edition of D&D, it's a completely different game.