Dark Sun announced as new D&D4e setting for 2010!!

[Emotional Vampire]

Such as:

(Say GURPS please, it will save me a lot of trouble)

 

[Tulkas]

Dark Sun is amazing.

Can't wait to see how horribly it will be raped in the 4th Edition.

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

Such as:

(Say GURPS please, it will save me a lot of trouble)

Savage Worlds games (50 Fathoms, Savage World of Solomon Kane), Unisystem games (All Flesh Must Be Eaten, Witchcraft), WHFRP, Burning Wheel, A-State, Reign, Heimot, Aces & Eights and so on. The only GURPS game I can remember is Transhuman Space, which looks interesting, but I haven't played a decent campaign in it.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

(This is where you try to make an argument just exactly WHY is any of these better than DnD but fail miserably)

 

[Norfleet]

What can I say. I kinda like 4e, though I can appreciate that it is a little more skewed towards combat. From my experience the non-combat elements of the games I've played haven't suffered that much, but I find the combat considerably more enjoyable.

It's only natural that a ruleset should be skewed towards combat: You don't really need RULES at all if you're not in some kind of combat or survival situation. If you're not in imminent danger of having your face chewed off or starving to death, why do you need rules at all?

 

[Imbecile]

What can I say. I kinda like 4e, though I can appreciate that it is a little more skewed towards combat. From my experience the non-combat elements of the games I've played haven't suffered that much, but I find the combat considerably more enjoyable.

It's only natural that a ruleset should be skewed towards combat: You don't really need RULES at all if you're not in some kind of combat or survival situation. If you're not in imminent danger of having your face chewed off or starving to death, why do you need rules at all?

Arguably so that your character skills have some sort of impact. I'd want me thief to operate differently to a fighter, and a diplomatic cleric to operate differently to an intimidating sorcerer.

If the codex should be thankful for one thing, its that 4e looks like it translates a lot better to turn based gameplay than it does to real time. Though that of course, means nothing...

 

[Xi]

3-3.5e rules were utter shit and fucking suck donkey balls. I welcome the 4e rules with open arms. Seriously, every video game adaptation using 3-3.5e was utter shit, all of them.

 

[LeStryfe79]

Actually 4E PnP plays exactly like a piss poor turn based strategy JRPG, except the fact that it lacks a Playstation to play it on. Great job, WotC! Remember how slow and repetitive combat got in the epic levels of 3/3.5? Well in 4E, it starts out that way. This time around WotC forces everyone to purchase miniatures and encourages the use of "power cards". Heck, when 4ed was announced its major selling point was online play, yet somehow these plans shat the bed.

Dark Sun is a great setting, but not even that can save this hopeless pile of garbage.

Fuck you very much WotC, I hope all you ass-hats have cannibals for children.

 

[Imbecile]

Actually 4E PnP plays exactly like a piss poor turn based strategy JRPG, except the fact that it lacks a Playstation to play it on. Great job, WotC! Remember how slow and repetitive combat got in the epic levels of 3/3.5? Well in 4E, it starts out that way. This time around WotC forces everyone to purchase miniatures and encourages the use of "power cards". Heck, when 4ed was announced its major selling point was online play, yet somehow these plans shat the bed.

Dark Sun is a great setting, but not even that can save this hopeless pile of garbage.

Fuck you very much WotC, I hope all you ass-hats have cannibals for children.

I dunno about it being close to Playstation JRPGs, but its certainly leagues ahead of 3 and 3.5 in terms of tactical options, teamwork and variety. In 3.5, I could largely just attack with my rogue. Now, at least I can pull off different moves, using different abilities, or "power cards" as you seem to prefer for some reason. You aren't forced to purchase miniatures either. We certainly don't use em.

 

[Xi]

Heck, when 4ed was announced its major selling point was online play, yet somehow these plans shat the bed.

This was a very intriguing aspect of 4e. Too bad to hear this. The biggest limitation is not being able to find people to play D&D with. I figured it would be worth purchasing if I could hook up with people online and play through a simulated software version of the rules(even if toned down some). This would be a great way to promote sales I'd think. They'd almost have to hire a software studio to make such a thing though, and that's probably the reason it got scrapped - too expensive.

Too bad.

 

[J1M]

Based on the responses here I am one of the few people who has actually played both 3.5 and 4e.

Combat in 4e is VASTLY improved. Martial characters can actually do interesting things and wizards don't have the tools to surpass martial characters at fighting while destroying reality in the same turn. (Although recent books I have not read may change this)

There is no more multiclassing stupidity. There are branches classes can pick at certain milestones to specialize instead of cherry picking prestige classes. Multiclassing consists of a chain of feats which give you certain abilities of other classes. They provide more flavor than they do power boost.

Consolidating a bunch of dumb skills like Climb, Climb Rope, Run, Jump, Tumble, Ride, etc into athletics and acrobatics is a good change. In fact, I see skill checks used FAR more often in 4e games than 3.5 because when there are ~20 skills instead of ~60 it's more likely that the party has an option other than "bash skulls in" as a method of progressing the story. There are even officially endorsed game mechanics for "skill challenges" outlined in the DMG for 4e.

4e is vastly superior to 3.5 in terms of pure game design. If there is a particular feature you've heard disparaged that is preventing you from trying it feel free to mention it and perhaps I can explain how it translates into a better RPG experience at the table. I'd also be interested in discovering weaknesses of 4e compared to 3.5 so that if I run a game I can patch them up with house rules.

 

[LeStryfe79]

Based on the responses here I am one of the few people who has actually played both 3.5 and 4e.

Combat in 4e is VASTLY improved. Martial characters can actually do interesting things and wizards don't have the tools to surpass martial characters at fighting while destroying reality in the same turn. (Although recent books I have not read may change this)

There is no more multiclassing stupidity. There are branches classes can pick at certain milestones to specialize instead of cherry picking prestige classes. Multiclassing consists of a chain of feats which give you certain abilities of other classes. They provide more flavor than they do power boost.

Consolidating a bunch of dumb skills like Climb, Climb Rope, Run, Jump, Tumble, Ride, etc into athletics and acrobatics is a good change. In fact, I see skill checks used FAR more often in 4e games than 3.5 because when there are ~20 skills instead of ~60 it's more likely that the party has an option other than "bash skulls in" as a method of progressing the story. There are even officially endorsed game mechanics for "skill challenges" outlined in the DMG for 4e.

4e is vastly superior to 3.5 in terms of pure game design. If there is a particular feature you've heard disparaged that is preventing you from trying it feel free to mention it and perhaps I can explain how it translates into a better RPG experience at the table. I'd also be interested in discovering weaknesses of 4e compared to 3.5 so that if I run a game I can patch them up with house rules.

Yeah, what you describe here are the design philosophies behind 4E, not the realisation of them. I bought the damn thing and gave an extreme effort to playing it, but it didn't pan out this way at all. When I see people writing this, I seriously doubt their PnP roots. 1E and 2E each have strong points in that 1E made for the best dungeon crawls, and 2E presented the most realized milieus. 3E was mostly fine until the splat books got out of hand, and endless options became a double edged sword. The new features in 4E detract, instead of add to the experience. The skill challenges are broken and the number of numeric resources have gotten out of hand. From 1-10th levels, the average battle in previous editions took 15 minutes. In 4E it's more like 45 minutes. WotC wanted their gamers to be engaged in combat the majority of the time because this is more acclimated to online dungeons, miniatures, and splat books. The game was clearly based around an ill-conceived business model. This business model has led to the firing of countless employees as well as the the end of the OGL and PDF downloads. All of these accomplishments ride shotgun to the failures of DDI and 3rd party support. Call it what you want but I have reality at my side: WotC dropped the proverbial ball on this one.

Also, I might add that 1st 2nd, and even 3rd editions of D&D are outdated. However, $th is bad to begin with, which is sad because we were all counting on WotC to update their IP responsibly. You can never go back and play those old editions with the same wonder they use to hold. Luckily, I've been running my own system for 5 months now, and have no more use for them. If I can sober up and finish enough art assets, I might eventually put it on LuLu or offer a free pdf, but thats a BIG "if"...

 

[Trithne]

Heck, when 4ed was announced its major selling point was online play, yet somehow these plans shat the bed.

This was a very intriguing aspect of 4e. Too bad to hear this. The biggest limitation is not being able to find people to play D&D with. I figured it would be worth purchasing if I could hook up with people online and play through a simulated software version of the rules(even if toned down some). This would be a great way to promote sales I'd think. They'd almost have to hire a software studio to make such a thing though, and that's probably the reason it got scrapped - too expensive.

Too bad.

There's heaps of programs out there for doing just that. And not just with D&D. There's OpenRPG, Gametable, and a bunch more I don't use. The difference is it doesn't track the rules for you. It's basically just IRC with a map, character sheets and a better dieroller script. Does the job though.

 

[J1M]

Yeah, what you describe here are the design philosophies behind 4E, not the realisation of them. I bought the damn thing and gave an extreme effort to playing it, but it didn't pan out this way at all. When I see people writing this, I seriously doubt their PnP roots. 1E and 2E each have strong points in that 1E made for the best dungeon crawls, and 2E presented the most realized milieus. 3E was mostly fine until the splat books got out of hand, and endless options became a double edged sword. The new features in 4E detract, instead of add to the experience. The skill challenges are broken and the number of numeric resources have gotten out of hand. From 1-10th levels, the average battle in previous editions took 15 minutes. In 4E it's more like 45 minutes. WotC wanted their gamers to be engaged in combat the majority of the time because this is more acclimated to online dungeons, miniatures, and splat books. The game was clearly based around an ill-conceived business model. This business model has led to the firing of countless employees as well as the the end of the OGL and PDF downloads. All of these accomplishments ride shotgun to the failures of DDI and 3rd party support. Call it what you want but I have reality at my side: WotC dropped the proverbial ball on this one.

Also, I might add that 1st 2nd, and even 3rd editions of D&D are outdated. However, $th is bad to begin with, which is sad because we were all counting on WotC to update their IP responsibly. You can never go back and play those old editions with the same wonder they use to hold. Luckily, I've been running my own system for 5 months now, and have no more use for them. If I can sober up and finish enough art assets, I might eventually put it on LuLu or offer a free pdf, but thats a BIG "if"...

I have no experience with 1st edition or AD&D tabletop.

I really have to question your assertion that 3rd edition combat can take less time than 4th edition though. Did you never play with 3rd edition casters that have 3 pages of spells to pick from or a dozen persistent buffs running to calculate? There are also a lot more opposed skill checks compared to 4e which generally have static defenses and just attack rolls.

I honestly don't care about all the business stuff you mentioned.

Why do you think skill challenges are broken? Did you honestly participate in the OGL?

 

[Xi]

There's heaps of programs out there for doing just that. And not just with D&D. There's OpenRPG, Gametable, and a bunch more I don't use. The difference is it doesn't track the rules for you. It's basically just IRC with a map, character sheets and a better dieroller script. Does the job though.

I was hoping for a high production value, D&D 4E, online extravaganza though. I was intrigued by the first set of info, screenshots, and videos they showed. Hopefully they release it someday...

 

[Imbecile]

There's heaps of programs out there for doing just that. And not just with D&D. There's OpenRPG, Gametable, and a bunch more I don't use. The difference is it doesn't track the rules for you. It's basically just IRC with a map, character sheets and a better dieroller script. Does the job though.

I was hoping for a high production value, D&D 4E, online extravaganza though. I was intrigued by the first set of info, screenshots, and videos they showed. Hopefully they release it someday...

That would be good. To be honest, either that - or a really good turn based RPG based on 4e would be teh awesome.

 

[WholesaleGenocide]

I've played 1st edition (once or twice), 2nd edition a bunch, AD&D, 3rd edition, 3.5, and 4.0.

4.0 fucking sucks. 3.5's major problem was that martial classes mostly sucked/were incredibly boring to play. They had barely any special abilities and all these special abilities were surpassed by spells that wizards/clerics/druids had.

And...So? The dumbfucks, masochists, and stubborn bastards would play martial classes so people that wanted to play fun character classes (wizard/druid/cleric/etc) could. The problem is that in 4.0 WOTC increased the viability of martial classes by giving them "powers", but by doing this they made it so they got the same amount as Wizards. The problem is that by doing this, they severely decreased the versatility of spellcasters and made it so everyone gets the same amount of powers per level. The problem? The only reason wizards/clerics/druids/etc were interesting is because they had a metric fuckton of different spells. At the current amount, everyone is strong with just enough powers that it's still really fucking boring. So instead of just martial classes suffering through minimal ability use, now it's everyone! Yeehaw! Just to clarify, though, Wizards do have a slightly higher option of powers to use in terms of their dailies, but it's pretty fucking minimal and doesn't count in my book.

They streamlined the game to make it ultra balanced, but unfortunately when something is hyper-balanced it becomes unbelievably fucking boring. Look at MMO's where everything must be balanced or everything turns to shit. Nothing all that interesting can really be implemented because it might fuck something else up. Well if you approach DND like that it just becomes dull.

A good example of this dumbfuckery is WOTC's treatment of the Druid. In 3.5, the Druid was pretty fucking overpowered and had incredible versatility. In 4.0, all druid wildshape forms are exactly the same. Why? Because turning into different types of animals is overpowered, and WOTC decided that versatility = overpowered so they decided to make everything the same.

Moving on....

Power cards are...A decent idea, but mostly just gimmicky bullshit and definitely say something about the audience WOTC is going for. The entire skill system is dumbed down beyond recognition, though some may argue that 3.5's had too many useless skills and it needed to be trimmed anyways. I agree to an extent, but not to the extent that 4.0's was. Most combats (namely at low levels, I've only played 1-5) consist of using your two-ish encounter powers and then spamming boring shitty at wills. The concept of spell conservation is pretty much dead because dailies are almost always just saved for boss fights//you get an incredibly minimal amount of dailies (something like 1 or 2 at level 5) so those two dailies are your only real conservation choices in battles.

WOTC's design philosophy has also been to dumb down combat because they don't want players to be able to do things to enemies that they don't want happening to them. Grappling? Dead. Sundering. Gone. Disarming? Poof! The DM doesn't have to use enemies that grapple/sunder/disarm, so I don't see why the hell they completely obliterated the rules instead of leaving them in for DMs that want to use them.

All that being said, 4.0 is easier to DM for (from what my faggot 4th edition DM said) and it's probably more balanced. The entire mmo-esque differentiation of classes (HEZ A STRIKER HEZ A CONTROLLER HEZ A BLASTER) is a fucking atrocity, though. That's MMO as fuck.

edit: And I think 3.5 combat takes longer than 4.0 combat.

 

[J1M]

Waaa, I want to play an overpowered class

Yeah, how dare someone not want to play a cleric, wizard, or druid! What idiots.

 

[Melcar]

4th edition is shit and if you like it you're a fag.

 

[Mackerel]

Heck, when 4ed was announced its major selling point was online play, yet somehow these plans shat the bed.

This was a very intriguing aspect of 4e. Too bad to hear this. The biggest limitation is not being able to find people to play D&D with. I figured it would be worth purchasing if I could hook up with people online and play through a simulated software version of the rules(even if toned down some). This would be a great way to promote sales I'd think. They'd almost have to hire a software studio to make such a thing though, and that's probably the reason it got scrapped - too expensive.

Too bad.

There's heaps of programs out there for doing just that. And not just with D&D. There's OpenRPG, Gametable, and a bunch more I don't use. The difference is it doesn't track the rules for you. It's basically just IRC with a map, character sheets and a better dieroller script. Does the job though.

If I was going to play a RPG game online with people I'd go for JParanoia, now there's a much more interesting game than D&D by far.

 

[SkeleTony]

4e is to be commended for at least doing away with the stupid quasi-Vancian magic system and going for something more like the magic depicted in 99% of books/comics/movies/etc.

But yeah some of the 'dumbing down' stuff I agree is fucked up. I especially hate it when RPGs make race selection an inconsequential thing(save for aesthetics which only LARPERS and furries give a fuck about anyway). I don't understand why official D&D rules have always stressed this stupid idea that there should be these strict limits on how different one race can be from all others in terms of stat bonuses and penalties.
Why NOT have half-ogres that get +6 Strength and Constitution and -4 Dex, Intelligence and Charisma?! If you are a good game designer balance will not be an issue so that excuse does not work for me.

 

[Lysiander]

The new features in 4E detract, instead of add to the experience. The skill challenges are broken and the number of numeric resources have gotten out of hand. From 1-10th levels, the average battle in previous editions took 15 minutes. In 4E it's more like 45 minutes.

I've played pretty much every edition of DnD with a heavy emphasis on AD&D (naturaly) and I strongly disagree. Most challenging battles took much much longer. However, due to the severe imbalances of the system(s) many battles could be over very quickly, assuming your DM was unable to cope with your party or siimply did not care to pose a challenge.

4th Edition does a lot of things right, for instance:

• It is impressively well balanced. Some may call this dumbed down, and in a way it is, but when I read the PHB, for the first time in any RPG, I could not decide which class I liked best. By doing away with negative modifiers and going for 'zero or positive' combined with 'level affects all' instead, they have removed a major problem previous editions had, the ever growing gap between specialists that eventually caved you in this one role where you had, at best, a handfull of tricks. Failling those, you were essentially dead weight because there was just no way you'd hit that monster.
  
  In most games, removing all equipment from a party effectively renders most characters useless (barring the casters and only if they still have their spellbooks & components). In 4th, stripping the party of their gear adjusts the numbers downwards, but doesn't rob them of their Hero status. The power of a character comes from the character, not his equipment list. This is a good thing.
  
  Skills and the way the game handles them are simply good. The system does have a couple of flaws, but I've seen more skill checks and actual use out of them in about a year of 4th then in 3 & 3.5 since release.
  
  Classes actually have meaning now. I realize this is quite the opposite of what others stated, so I'll elaborate. In general, you can distinguish classes by two factors. Roleplaying and combat. Roleplaying is independant of a ruleset, so in terms of that, we are left with combat and to a lesser extend, other meaningfull challenges that require a DM or a ruleset to make calls. In previous editions (and many other games) combat boils down to either casting spells or hitting things with weapons. Since most systems, and every previous DnD edition featured a unified method of hurting things (namely to hit and AC) there was little real difference between, say, a fighter, a ranger and a rogue. Sure, they all had different flavor text and did different amounts of damage etc. but essentially your stagetime in combat was the same, you rolled to hit and caused damage, spotlight off.
  In 4th Edition, classes also have different flavor, but their abilities actually back them up beyond the 'I have to flank him so I do more damage'. Some move enemies around the battlefield, some forgoe their actions to allow others to act more, some constantly debuff the mobs and still others ensure the mobs are hitting them instead of others.
  It's true that many of these concepts were introduced through MMOs, but then, MMOs have a habit of testing rulesets to an extreme few PnP games ever can, providing mounds of statistical and meaningfull data were PnP games have to rely on reports by people, flavored by the ultimately arbitary decisions of a single person.
  
  Last but not least, 4th does away with a lot of DM arbitariness in a simple yet usefull way. In every previous DnD edition, most parties had a meatshield and every single one of them relied on the DM to play the monsters in a way so he actually took the majority of the damage. Players helped with this through tactical choice, but ultimately, there was nothing to stop the DM from simply ignoring the meatshield and go straight for the casters. Now, meatshields actually have a way to do their job beyond the unwritten contract between players and DM.

However, DnD4 also has quite a few flaws:

• In some areas, it simply is over simplified. One of these areas, is spells. I used to enjoy reading through the zounds of spells in previous editions, pride myself on proper foresight to memorize the right ones and use each and every one of them with great care, lest I'd need it badly later. With the exception of the few daily powers, this is gone. From a balance point of view, that is a good thing, but it does rob me of something I held very dear.
  
  For years of 3.0 and 3.5 I had hoped for a decent, well tuned, balanced system for magic item creation that allowed my imagination as a DM and Player to run rampard without jeopardizing the balance at the table with every new item. That fear is gone with 4th, but so is the fun of creating new items. 4th provides no rules at all to create items and with the limitation on spells and magic effects as it is, there is little need for new ones beyond the fun factor. Again, this is sad in a way and good in another.
  
  Finally, gone are the days where ingenuity and creative design paved the path to power. The system is as stable as it is mostly by simply removing a lot of time honored concepts such as magic resistance, stat boni, permanent boni of any kind, long lasting buffs, shapechange etc. I suspect this is the prime problem many people have with this edition and what they mean when they say 'dumbed down'. And while I agree in principle, I have to say that I have not yet missed these concepts much. The biggest difference between 4th and 3rd is that now most buffs are used in combat, not beforehand and stats are less extereme. Again, their lack is sad and a drawback, but it also has its advantages.

Long story short, 4th has a lot to be said for it and I doubt I'll ever go back. I will continue to miss the old days where countless numbers had to be crunched to be effective, where reading the spellbooks while eating breakfast was mandatory to play a caster and paladins were just iron clad jokes on moral high ground, but I will miss them with a nostalgic eye, knowing that they are only great in my memory.

As for powercards, I've used them since 2nd edition, writing down my spells (yes, all of them), tugging them inside the protective cover of some useless magic card. Whenever I wanted to memorize spells, I'd just flip through my cards and pick the ones I wanted, discarding them again when cast and handing them to my DM when he needed to know some detail or I didn't want my party to know what I was casting. Quite frankly, they are an awesome tool when used in moderation.

 

[J1M]

Good post. I would just add that most of the interesting out of combat spells have been renamed to be "rituals" and with enough gold a wizard can certainly do some pretty neat stuff with just the PHB. Obviously as they release 200 books for 4e I'm sure that rituals will have power creep and be a much more extensive system.

 

[Imbecile]

Good post. I would just add that most of the interesting out of combat spells have been renamed to be "rituals" and with enough gold a wizard can certainly do some pretty neat stuff with just the PHB. Obviously as they release 200 books for 4e I'm sure that rituals will have power creep and be a much more extensive system.

No doubt. I also like the cantrips that wizards can pretty much pull for free. As far as I know that's something that no other class gets?

 

[Crispy]

If the result is a new Dark Sun CRPG then they can use the rules from Candy Land as far as I'm concerned.