OK the panic has begun... [rant warning]

[matholwch]

Well chaps, and former-colonists ;) , the pre-4th edition panic has officially begun.

I was over browsing at Paizo.com when I noticed that all of Green Ronin's OGL/D20 line had gone on sale, and when I say 'on sale' I mean 'ON SALE'.

Hardbacks are $5 and softbacks are $2! it would cost me more in shipping t the UK than to buy the entire Freeport range.

I wonder how long it will be before every OGL/D20 publisher is marking its entire range down into the clearance bucket?

Now Paizo have been in bed with Wizards for quite some time now, so I wonder if they are telling their suppliers that the changes in 4th edition are significant enough to make any product that isn't extremely generic effectively obsolete?

Which leads me to ask: Just how fickle are we gamers?

I mean 3rd Edition, and the OGL/D20 contract, revolutionised and revitalised the FRPG market. Although I, for one, think that the rules are far too complex, I recognise that for many gamers they were a breath of fresh air. But based on the news that things might change significantly in 4th edition are we really all going to abandon D&D 3.5 and the OGL/D20 games that it spawned, and all the creative sweat we have poured into these games?

It seems that some publishers and retailers think so...

All the rumours and 'leaks' that have emerged from Wizards over the past few months regarding 4th edition have done nothing to reassure me that D&D will be improved by the feverish development work being carried out by their staffers. It is beginning to seem like a cynical attempt to change things just enough that we have to buy it all again.

It also seems to be dumbing the whole game down for the power-gaming munchkins brought up on World of Warcraft and Shoot-em-ups. Those who see nothing wrong with abandoning the last game and trotting down to their games store to throw another $50 over the counter every week.

Methinks that Wizards has forgotten that their main constituency is made up of people who actually leave the console occasionally and may actually prefer to get together with some buddies over beer and pretzels.

Am I wrong?

[Kenneth Newquist]

The first part of my shipment (Hammer & Helm, Advanced GM's Guide) arrived today. They say that the Book of Righteousness has shipped, so hopefully it'll be here in time for some light weekend reading after my NaNoWriMo run is complete.

[Berin Kinsman]

What Murat said. It was called the D20 Apocalypse sale based on the panic over 4e expressed on some message boards. Green Ronin just decided to capitalise on it.

I bought a bunch of stuff. Still waiting on it. Should be here this week, I think.

[Kenneth Newquist]

I love Savage Worlds, but there are some things from D&D that I haven't seen implemented in it, specifically, stuff like magic items (magic swords, rings, rods, staves, wands, armor, etc.)

I should just buy the fantasy toolkit and be done with it, but I haven't had a pressing need just yet.

I'm assuming you'd simply handle it similarly to D&D (at least to weapons) by giving the weapon a simple bump (e.g. a +1 longsword offers a +1 to hit and damage) but I'm not sure how/if that unbalances the game. It doesn't seem unbalancing when you add the +1 for aiming or double tapping, but what about when you've got the +1 for your weapon? Or a +2?

The same thing with magic items. I assumed you'd have a power assigned to an item, and then give the item a certain number of power points (charges) that either can be replenished or run out. What happens to the balance of the game when you have these non-character based extras?

These are the sorts of things I'd need to know the answers to in order to contemplate converting from D&D to SW (and to have any chance of convincing my friends to switch).

As is, I figure some version of D&D will always be our primary gaming system, but Savage Worlds will be our default for everything else 'cause it works so ... damn ... well. :)

[Vulcan Stev]

D&D 4e? Yawn. Savage Worlds is much easier to play, GM, and deal with. I agree with SL

[Kenneth Newquist]

The 4E anticipation vibe is definitely different from the 3E vibe. With 3E, we all knew 2nd edition was broken and couldn't wait to play something that promised to unify a broken ruleset.

With 4E, we may grumble about 3.5E, but honestly, no one I know is clamoring for a new edition. I know there are others like us, and with dread (or at least indifference) rather than anticipation being the predominate mood, it's had to build a whisper campaign.

Is it really a leak though, if you're publishing it on your web site?

[matholwch]

Personally I think the day of the Big-Publishersaurus is gone. Wizards let the cat out of the bag with the OGL, spawning a plethora of independent publishers, many of which died in the first year.

The survivors though have embraced the downloadable pdf publishing model, and many have moved to make themselves wizard-proof. We even now have specialist printers who'll run off print copies of your pdf's to order. It really is a buyer's market our there.

In my arrogant opinion this is D&D's last chance. This is why there are so many 'leaks' from the development and playtesting groups. They're testing the water and trying to get a positive whispering campaign going. It ain't working, at least not over here in Europe - obviously I can't speak for the States.

The big fuss over here is the countdown to the Warhammer 40K roleplaying game...

[Murat, Esq.]

I'm not going to decide to upgrade or not til after I see more solids on 4th Ed. I suspect one or more non-WotC companies will continue to support 3.5 under its OGL. I've ordered a bunch of the GRR stuff, though I'm pissed they ran out of the Hamunaptra Boxed Set before I placed my order.

Also, the GR sale at Paizo was the brainchild of Chris Pramas, head of GR. The "d20 Apocalypse" premise is a partial put-on. Its really not a lot more than a clearance sale; almost everything on sale had passed the end of its shelf life and would have been slated for the bargain bin whether or not 4th Edition was on the horizon.

[Kenneth Newquist]

I'm keeping my d20 stuff as source material, and any fire sale type stuff I get is with that in mind (e.g. the Ultramodern Weapons Guide or the Book of Righteousness which sound like a pretty nifty books to have regardless of system).

[Kenneth Newquist]

Based on what Erik Mona and other folks at Paizo have said, I don't think they have any better idea of what's going to happen with 4.0 than anyone else.

Most companies are likely reacting to what Wizards has been saying, starting with 'wrap up your campaigns and then prepare to start over from 1st level, because this is a whole new ride' or words to that effect.

It certainly sounds like nothing in 4E will be directly compatible with 3E; there's bound to be a lot of similar concepts (classes, levels, feats, skills, etc.) but they've already said one-to-one conversions will pretty much be impossible. You can recreate your characters thematically within 4E (thus, the new "Living Realms" campaign) but forget running characters through a conversion gauntlet.

With that in mind, and with a lot of people not knowing if/when they'll convert, now's a pretty good time to unload all your old 3.x stuff.

I don't know if the game is being dumbed down so much as it's being changed to directly appeal to what makes MMORPG gamers' brains click (as well as the power gamer sect amongst existing D&Ders, which I'd argue are in ascendency). New powers every time you level, the ability to do *something* every round, etc.

Are they cynically changing things just to force us to buy all new product? Honestly, I don't think so.

I think what they're really doing, as the biggest and baddest RPG out there (which, despite that, isn't making a dent in World of Warcraft) is trying to change the game to appeal to those lost players who might be dissatisfied with grinding their way through level after level in WoW, while retaining enough of what D&D was to appeal to their base.

I don't think Wizards has forgotten who their core audience is; I think they've just realized (as we've discussed many times before) that the core audience isn't enough ... and it's shrinking. This is an attempt to combat this.

Whether it will work is anyone's guess.