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It just seems a bit...disingenuous...to take something they have created, give it the name of something other people like and then say "hey look, we are changing things slightly so you don't get upset".

It's a bit like selling custard as gravy and then making new brown custard when the gravy fans object.

Don't get me wrong, I like 4E just as I like 3.5E and all the ones before, hell, I'm grateful to play anything these days but my heart has OSR written through it. They should have the courage to stick with 4E as they designed it and let the older versions go to third party development. Now if they were to reprint BX (Moldvay) or BECMI (Mentzer) I would sing their praises forever...

Having said that, the red box game on saturday was a hoot!

I just think it amusing and ironic that Paul mentioned on a different thread that he did not want to have to learn a new version of D&D, yet the version he plays IS the new version, and then this ... ;)

Len

Lol, nice try Len. The rules themselves aren't changing (apart from some stuff being tidied up by errata), but the way the classes interact with the rules is changing. For instance the new versions of the martial classes (Fighter, Rogue etc.) don't get Daily powers. But both versions of the classes will be perfectly ok side-by-side in a fight.

It's odd. The "new direction" of the game does feel like a new edition to me, but without me having to relearn anything.

yeah, the rules aren't changing they are just being altered!

It is nothing like the change from 3 to 3.5 or anything.

Roll on 5th edition!

Alan,

You have beaten me to it, yet I wanted to post this:

The lamest joke of all about the "Essential" line is that they more or less always started every preview with "This is not 4.5".

I just do not get it, if 3.5 was initially seen as a money making gimmick from Wizards, it took only a couple of months for people, including I, to say that the rule changes were pretty good overall. After all those years I still moan about the weapon size issue and the "everything is a square" for a monster's space, but still "3.5", with hindsight, was needed.

For all the denials, the "4e Essentials" line is just that: "4.5". They should not be ashamed of saying so. They have changed the classes, they have hit the reset button for their splatbooks, they have rejigged the introduction to the game. They even say the same things as they said back in the days of 3.5: "Nobody is going to come to your table and snatch your 3rd Edition Monster Manual". Nowadays, they claim that "4.5" is fully compatible with Fourth Edition, which it is.

However, I shall give it to Mearls to be sort of frank, he is maybe the first WotC guy to actually say openly that something went wrong for many with 4e.

"If you are a disgruntled D&D fan, there's nothing I can say to you that undoes whatever happened two years ago or a year ago that made you disgruntled - but what I can do, what's within my power, is that going forward, I can make products, I can design game material, I can listen to what you're saying, and I can do what I can do with design to make you happy again; to get back to that core of what makes D&D, D&D; to what made people fall in love with it the first time, whether it was the Red Box in '83, the original three booklets back in '74 or '75 or even 3rd Edition in 2004, whenever that happened, to get back to what drew you into D&D in the first place and give that back to you.

"If you're unhappy with 4th Edition, I say take a look at Essentials and see where we're moving."

Personally I am very unlikely to even download a dodgy PDF of the new rules, let alone buy a book. However, if Mike Mearls is the same Mike Mearls who designed the good stuff for 3rd Edition/3.5 and if he is actually meaning what he is saying in what I have quoted from his interview, I might have a look at D&D 5th Edition in April or July 2011. WotC is an American company, they are likely to launch a new edition at the beginning of a financial quarter.
It is true that they should at first "categorically deny" the existence of a fifth edition six months before releasing it; but it has been documented in Kobold Quarterly that they were planning 4e more or less as soon as they released 3.5. So it is fair to say that they are already working on Fifth Edition.

By the way: Good luck to your wallet for the £250 or so you will need to collect the whole of the eleven "Essential" products!

Laurent,

I don't know... I started this thread to pass on information to people who actually like 4E and I get sarky comments and negativity. I don't know why I bother sometimes.

Here goes anyway. I wasn't into D&D when 3rd and 3.5 edition came about. So I have no idea if history is repeating itself. All I know is they created 4E which had a unified strucutre for the classes. Despite the unified power strucutre, different classes play very differently.

2 years later they are bringing out new classes that deviate from this. So they are changing the design philosophy of the game. However, I don't have to buy new books to learn new rules because the majority of the rules have not changed (at the last count only 3% of the entire 4E D&D rules had been changed. This included a lot of grammar changes to make sentences clearer).

So is this similar to the 3rd to 3.5 change? I don't know. I am happy to call the Essentials and stuff going forward 4.5 as it feels different to what we've had up until now. But it's not going to effect my wallet too much. Some of the products look interesting, but overall I prefer the classes I already have access to so I won't be buying it and I don't need to buy it in order to conitnue playing the game.

There will obviously be a 5E. I knew that when I got back into D&D. They are a business after all. I don't think it will be as soon as Laurent says, but I may be wrong. And you know what? I hope there is a 6E as well, even if I hate the actual system. Becuase if there is a 6E, that means they are still in business and that means the biggest comapny in this industry is still in business, which I see as a good thing for the whole of the industry (others probably disagree).

And yes Laurent, that is Mike Mearls who worked on 3.5.

Also there are only 10 essentials products and sticking them all in a basket at amazon racks up £138. Which is still too high, but I believe the intention is that while WotC would obviosuly like you to buy all of them when you start out, you don't need them all. It's also less than I have invested in the game...

well that was easy.

Fear not Paul, we know you are passing along good info, and appreciate it. At least I do, and I believe even Araf understands in his own quiet way.

There is almost no difference between 3rd and 3.5 until you try playing a game where the DM has one edition and players have the other. Then, the differences show in many strange ways.

I have played 4e, and have loved the game. I have played 3.5, and still love the game. I have played 2nd Ed, and loved the game. I have run 4e, and I still run 3.5. With the right people, the game is the same. A roleplaying game with rules, so that everyone is on the same page.

We will always baulk at new editions. It is the nature of passionate players to do so. We love what we play, or we probably wouldn't play. There are still players happily playing older versions, and those versions still work exactly as they have always worked.

To be honest, I miss THAC0, but I have no desire to have to look up tables now that I know a simpler method exists. I like that we now always roll high, rather than sometimes needing to roll under a figure, and sometimes over a figure. It makes more sense. 4e has not removed that, yet it returned perception rolls, which were sadly missing from the 3.5 I love, but in the 2nd Ed I grew out of.

Len

Heh! I can still remember the furore when someone realised AD&D was a different system to D&D. You're not a true D&Der until you have been involved in at least one version war...

Quick question

I'm sure I read somewhere that the rules on the use of magic items daily powers had been altered but cant for the life of me find it again.

I think it had said something to the effect of lifting the limit on how many different items a character could use per day.

Can any one shed more light on this? or was I mis-reading whatever it was.

Its probably one of the differences between 4th Ed and the new Essentials stuff (Not 4.5 apparently, no matter what people say.) Just like the new "magic missiles don't miss any more" which is apparently not 4th Ed, but Essentials only as well.

I'm not well enough versed in 4th Ed to tell you for sure.

Len

Thanks Len, I'll have a look at the Essentials books and see if it rings any bells there.

Hmmm... I do not know if I am the best person to say this, but:
Somebody has just got hold of the new D&D 4e-ess "magic" cards.

It is $4 for 8 cards by the way, and will likely be a £4 RRP for 8 cards in Blighty. Read the thread to see the fanboys explaining why 50 cents for what is nothing more than a MtG card, without much art apparently, still makes sense.

For those who do not know: this is the Fortune Cards page aimed at retailers.
They are also mentionned here as part of the WotC newsletter.

Cancelled products (while the American economy is likely to rebound soon), getting out of the miniature business, new card system for D&D... What happened to milking 4e-ess with the issue/re-issue of splatbooks?

Will a forthoming 5th edition (Autumn 2011 to coincide with the start of the American academic year, or later in 2012) be a cross-breed between MtG and D&D, with cards and tokens (to replace minis)?
As a business decision this makes sense: WotC knows its card games and exploiting synergies in design, art and production would indeed be clever.

Laurent,

is 5th edition really pencilled in so soon? Crikey...

Alan,

I have not said so exactly, I merely expressed an opinion on the conjecture.

I am especially surprised at the apparent lack of exploitation of the 4e-ess "revision" with the dearth of announced products. Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium being cancelled does not make much sense. This is a generic product (magic items and equipment), damn easy to design and produce. Whatever the game ruleset or edition a +1 sword is a +1 sword. Also the book had that 4e-ess flavour of "bring back the old grognards" with the mention of Mordenkainen and a whiff of Greyhawk. This was typical 4e-ess, what Mike Mearls talked about (see OP), and it has been dropped!

An Autumn (or fall for Americans) release makes sense, this is when students start a new academic year, hence start playing RPGs (again). Will it be 2011 or next year? The way their release calendar is evolving pushes me, and others, to think Autumn 2011. Still... these are just my musings.

Laurent,

interesting... I wouldn't have expected it so soon myself so next year or the year after seems more likely to me but I don't keep in the loop on such things so what would I know? But with 4e having dared to try to be different the possible directions 5th could take are definitely interesting. And for what it is worth I'd look to their summer schedule rather than fall. Summer is traditionally the time of high gaming to coincide with the holidays and more importantly getting to show off at the big conventions.

But that is just my conjecture on the matter.

A retailer not really happy about WotC's communication, re: the cancellation of products and product lines.

The price of minis and price of oil comparison is a bit over the top methinks. The actual minis cost far less than what they sell for.

Laurent,

Hello,

Neverwinter is back on the WotC publishing schedule.

For a while it was rumoured that this would be separate from the Forgotten Realms, as in separate timeline, but the official blurb seems to say the contrary. Technically it could be a campaign setting within a campaign setting... Why not just call it a supplement?

Laurent,

The Neverwinter campaign setting is (as far as I'm aware) being released to coincide with the new version of the computer game of the same name (a 4e version of Neverwinter Nights).

As you say, it should really have been called a campaign expansion as it is supposed to be used along with the Forgotten Realms Campaign and Players Guides (though these have very little information in them sadly).

When I enquired as to the lack of background material that WoTC had produced for the 4e Realms the general response was that the 2 guides was all you got, with the addition of one adventure (Scepter tower of Spellguard), other than that it was to gain access to the various LFR adventures (now freely available without "sanctioning").

TSR had their faults, but the wealth of background material they produced for their campaign worlds was excellent (not just the Realms, but Dragonlance, Greyhawk, and the original Dark Sun too).

I still use a lot of my 2nd Ed info to create adventure hooks and plots in my 4e Realms campaign.

I think these days a wealth of information is looked on less favourably than it once was. It is a broad generalisation that will have plenty of exceptions but I think there is presently a greater tendency to want smaller books with more direction. A lot of people lack the time to read hundreds of pages of background info even if it is excellent and they'd love to only to then have to do the work of using it when they can read a 50 page scenario that tells them all the setting info they need to know to run it and maybe a couple of follow on sessions. Its a theory anyhow and by no means limited to 4e.