Comments on: 'Dungeons & Dragons' fourth edition, online tools just around corner

The brand-new D&D Insider will allow players to run campaigns with their friends across the Internet without having to own all the iconic books.

[Mergatroid Mania]

Watered down

While it sounds interesting, it looks as though they've dumbed down the game.

I used to be a heavy D&D player, always being the DM and designing the dungeons myself. I remember making a dungeon using BASIC on a Timex Sinclare 1000 more than 20 years ago.

The idea of doing it on-line appeals to me, as does rolling the characters. However, making all the characters fit into four classes is very dumbed down, and reminds me of what a few MMORPGs have already been doing. It looks to me like they are indeed learning from the MMORPGs, too bad they're incorporating the bad parts.

[rswhite1]

Not Watered Down -- Faster, Better Designed, But Different

As a long-time player and DM, I've been watching the development of the new edition, and it is not just a watered down, MMO-clone brought to paper. It looks very good, although there are areas where they have made some big departures from the earlier versions -- particularly in eliminating some of the cumbersome mechanics and in balancing the classes. Contrary to the take of the previous poster, there are not going to be only four classes. The first set of books will have eight classes with more to follow as later books are published. There are going to be four broad roles in the party that can be filled by different classes. I have not seen the final rules, so I can't speak definitely, but from the previews and information coming out, this game promises to be faster to play and DM, and still have the complexity of story and gameplay that omputer games still cannot match. Check it out and form your own opinion at this fan, gaming website (pro and con discussions): http://www.enworld.org/index.php?page=4e

[GRANDMAGI]

Faster, dumber, less fun, and more commercial is more like it! :(

The concept of four basic positions in the party I can understand...beyond that it's all renamed world of warcraft crap!

[psiandco]

However, I will never forget...

The following are all true, and if they continue... The D&D game will be reduced to pokemon dung:
1. The 3.0 edition was supposedly "rushed out" and not completed, leading to a 3.5 edition to be released a few years later... and supposedly they (*wotc) knew it was "broken all along, and were working on 4th edition" all the while shelling out books for 3.0/3.5... and I wonder how you feel if your *EXPENSIVE* library just suddenly becomes obsolete.

2. The author's interview on the wizards web site for the 3.0 psionics handbooks was straight forward an admition of plagarism,in the authours own words- because "WRITTING PSIONICS WOULD BE TOO HARD"...

3. Since the year 2001, the majority of the books being released by wizards had MASSIVE editing errors, entire chapters littered with "cut and paste" fall out (*you see folks, MS office does not make changes actualy save with a document but as a seperate temporary file... a file it tends to forget when you edit more than a page at at time).

4. Fans posted content *AND ERRATA to be read by EVERYONE on the wizards website only to see such works be added to other books or magazine articles... Claimed as the sole property and creation of wizards and/or author x,y,or z.

So let's see:
1. being carless with what they have inherited.
2. Writers are not bothering to focus on one product at a time and frequently engage in plagarism- not just from core rule bookls but from their fans too.
3. Fans are being taken as "LOYAL" no matter what changes are introduced... Card games, computers, miniatures, battle maps and more are being made into "play aids". That if you aren't using these EXPENSIVE AND RANDOM *COLLECTIBLES*- well, your just not playing the game right, are you?
Did I say fans are regarded as loyal? Oh no, I meant "Chumps, chumps who will buy anything with the D&d label stuck on it".

I for one do not look forward to D&D with; baddly flawed miniatures, pokemon cards, computers, printers, internet connections, website vaporware with subscription fees, none of it will function as advertised...

You want proof? the current "web based dungeon and dragon magazines" have failed to produce content equal to the size of one print magazine since the print magaizines were killed by corprate fiat...

"Here's your new game, but now you need to buy this, and this, and this and that, and this, and those, and these... ad NASEUM." That is not the D&D game I remember OR currently play. I have better more reliable ways to invest my money and free time.

[GRANDMAGI]

I'm afraid I have to emphatically agree... :( And it It probably saddens none more than me...

[RobsterMK]

When the version 3.0 and 3.5 came out, there were a lot of people grinding axes about their books becoming useless and changing things that weren't broken. As with any changes, everyone got a bit antsy.
However, our group found the new editions to be very good in spite of our worries and gripes before we tried them out. Now with 4th Edition, our group have been kind of in the same worried mindset, with a few gripes about buying stuff all over again. However, I have embraced the change, because there is a good chance it will play even better than the previous versions.
I got the books this morning, and having flipped through them, I think it will play very well with my group. I would disagree with this being dumbed down, and say it has more been streamlined for more efficient play. It looks like WOTC have thrown out a lot of time consuming paperwork, and book keeping, so you can concentrate on the role-playing aspect, and not the rule-playing. Personally, I prefer this, as I enjoy the storytelling part of D&D more than the mechanics. However, I know that some players and GM's can be rules munchkins and enjoy all the various game mechanics that they can go into in great detail. Some players I know get great enjoyment from this attention to detail and have a love for the numeracy and mechanics of the game, as much as they do for the storyline and characters. There is nothing wrong with this. If it floats your boat, then stick with it. But there is a saying about roleplaying, that it can be three to four hours of gaming, for an hour of actual fun. Meaning that drawn out combats can be time consuming. I game for about 4 hrs every week, and have had occasions where we did some interaction and plot moving, and then spent a long time resolving a combat, so that the storyline didn't move forward much at all. I think WOTC are trying to sort out this fun glitching with 4th Ed, as well as make it a lot more acessable to new players who might be put off by too many rules and book keeping.
Lets face it, we need the new roleplayers if this hobby is set to continue, as in recent years there have been less younger gamers taking it up, so thats no bad thing.

At the end of the day, noone is making you buy this product. If you play 3.0 or 3.5 there is plenty of third party support out there for you to continue for many years if you run only prewritten games. Many independant publishers have said they will continue to support the older editions, and there is a tonne of free stuff online you can download if you know where to look. Plus because of it's very nature, D&D has as many add ons and adventures as you have in your imagination. So if you have your core rules, you dont need to buy any more books to run your adventures.
A few years back, the hobby market was overun by the magic the gathering card game. It wasn't my cup of tea as far as gaming goes and I wasn't a big fan. However, I could see it's value in keeping the rpg marketplace alive, and getting more people interested in fantasy games, at a time when rpgs weren't doing as well as they had. So even if you balk at 4th Ed, please appreciate that it will further the roleplaying industry. Personally, in a time where more people are going over to MMO's, I think that any new tabletop RPG's that come out have got to be a good thing.

[Derkas68]

I see that Wizards and the author of this article is perpetuating the theme of release dates for online games in that there is no date. How long exactly is "just around the corner" entail for these online tools?

Anyway, I have just played a session. It is different and I like it. I like how they had the foresight to think of a video game translation for this edition. To date there has not been a good interpretation of the rules to a video game platform. The rule always had to be tweaked to accommodate the translation. It seems that it should be much smoother. Hopefully this will allow more content and balance to games such as DDO. Which is a shame, DDO had tons of promise but was built upon a system that was not designed for online gaming.

Now, for the beauty of this edition. If you don't like it you still have the previous editions to play. And they are all great in their own right when played in pen and paper mode.

[vegetto1970]

[Frosty2008]

I embrace change and have had all the hopes, doubts, and issues listed above with the new edition.
I honestly feel that the game has been dumbed down, for whatever business reason (not nearly the depth of choices in Spells or Skills, or in the amount of content in equipment and number of Character Classes that I'm used to seeing in the books). Sense of wonder and discovery for Player Characters has been diminished by putting all magic items in the Player's Handbook. 4et has creative plagiarism from WoW (Character Visualizer). The paper-and-pencil table-top game feels like a video game now, or even like a sister game, Magic! The Gathering (many players have decks of cards with their abilities on them).
I have yet to see the promises materialize from when the announcement of the new edition happened last year (August 2007). There is no computer table-top yet, and combat is NOT faster. This was supposed to be the big plus, that you could have so many more combats in a night of gaming. Creating a character is not player-friendly (the Character Creator program is not ready).
Creating your own new campaign material is not intuitive anymore. The designers have made changes to the vernacular (the role of a creature in a combat needs to be considered before you can just pick a creature to use; terrain for an encounter needs to be picked before an encounter.) Changing to 4e from 3.5e is like changing to C++ from Fortran IV. Not impossible, but not necessarily intuitive.

[tirephus]

Who are these people fooling? One can look at the 4th edition rules and it easily SCREAMS MMO. I play wizards and I can see things like the change of magic missles that really gall me - no wish spells? If that wasn't a hint that WOTC is saying "our DM's are incompetent and can't arbitrate rules- let's take those out", I don't know what is.

Simplifying complex rules are good, a colossal "dumb down" is another. GET REAL, people.

[GRANDMAGI]

I've been playing the Dungeons and dragons game now for well over 30 years...I've spent approximately 70,000 hours playing, creating. and DMing. It's been my favorite pastime...that is UNTILL fourth edittion came along like some kind of evil doppleganger and stole my game! :( The game is now only the same in name, it has only a few titles that are even still consistant. Everything, and I do mean everything about the core rules has been changed to the point of rendering my 70,000 hours meaningless. If someone had taken Worl of Warcraft and named it "Dungeons and Dragons", there wouldnt be enough of a difference between the current (4th) edittion game and it to dispute. It's NOT the same game by ANY stretch of the imagination, to say it's been "dumbed down" is an understatement of epic proportions!!! I have NEVER IN MY ENTIRE LIFE been THIS let down or dissapointed in well...ANNYTHING!! An evil doppleganger has supplanted itself as our game...personally I think the players that had difficiulty understanding it should have either #1. Gone to a player or DM that could teach them, or #2. Stick with something simple like pokiemon, chutes and ladders, (or 4th edittion Dungeons and Dragons). The 4th editttion game is lame, it doesent deliver 1/8th of the enjoyment as previous edittions did, and I wont at all be surprised to see it slowly wither to extinction. All because someone wanted to play World of Warcraft in "DND land".