[4e] Those lying liars.

[Psychic Robot]

Tricking people into buying an incomplete product/charging them double to buy a complete product? I'm not entirely surprised.

[ggroy]

[Meikle641]

One can only hope.

[Gelare]

Wow, they keep outdoing themselves. I feel like there's a 4E nuclear winter going on above ground, and I'm hiding in a bunker with my canned 3.5 and waiting for the sun to come out again. Which, judging by the idiots that are still working at Wizards, could take a very long time.

[Username17]

Watch it become a complete failure, dragging the rest of 4E down with it.

The Player's Essentials line is basically them hitting a wall. 4e is now too complicated for their own in-house people to grok and it never really sold as well as it was "supposed" to. Assuming of course that you're one of those people who believes that "hundreds of thousands" is less than "millions."

They can't squeeze more blood out of the stone, so they are starting up a new line of "Basic" D&D to try to pull in the new players that 4e was supposed to. It's a reboot of the system, and it's going to try to build up a player base on its own merits. However, since I don't see a lot of people getting fired, I doubt it will be much more than a 4.5 style reboot. Indeed, the names on the Essentials line are Mike Mearls, Bill Slavicsek and James Wyatt (plus Jeremy Crawford, the guy they are pulling in for the Rules Compendium). Still, no Andy Collins on board is a step in the right direction.

What I don't understand is the basic marketing failure. First of all, repeating the Cleric and the Ranger? Why? I understand that the 4e designers cannot imagine a party that doesn't have a Cleric and a Ranger in it, but that's absurd. Nut up and write some different fucking classes for your different books. You're writing stand alone material, nothing has to be better or worse than anything else. You could make Warlocks the baddest ass mofos on the planet if you wanted to.

So the first book is basically the LotR fawank book. It has all the LotR classes except Bards and all of the LotR races except Orcs and they stuck in Clerics and Blood Elves for no reason. Fuck. That. They should have embraced their shallow ripoff of LotR and made the races and classes:

• the cleric, the bard, the fighter, the ranger, the rogue, and the wizard.
• dwarves, eladrin, elves, halflings, humans, and orcs.

And the second book is just the Horde primer. Fucking embrace that shit. Grab your most popular dungeon dwelling races and fucking go for it.

• the barbarian, the cleric, the druid, the paladin, the ranger, and the warlock.
  dragonborn, drow, gnome, half-elves, half-orcs, kobolds, and tieflings

And yeah, you might have thought I was going to say Minotaur instead of Gnome, but the fact is that you have Cleric and Druid on that list, so you're required by law to have a Wisdom bonus race in there, and there just aren't that many Wisdom bonus races in D&D.

-Username17

[Just another user]

No he's not, he just takes the ignore-radiant-immunity feat.

Which makes the game even less exciting.

They made a feat for that?!

If they didn't yet they certainly will.

After all, they must find some way to fill the next half dozen of player handbooks.

[RandomCasualty2]

http://wizards.com/dnd/Product.aspx?x=d ... /244660000

*Checks the date to make sure it's not April 1st*

Wow... holy fucking shit... They even used the same red box, and the classic D&D logo.

I'm hoping this idea means they'll create AD&D again and split the two games by LotR genre and high magic genre. I seriously doubt it, but it'd be awesome if they did.

[Windjammer]

4e is now too complicated for their own in-house people to grok

It is? I'm not sure I disagree, but I'd like to hear why you think that.

They can't squeeze more blood out of the stone, so they are starting up a new line of "Basic" D&D to try to pull in the new players that 4e was supposed to.

True. Observe also the Ravenloft boardgame and the Heroscape D&D game. They sunk the D&D minis game and are looking in alternatives to alert boardgame customers to the D&D game. I think they might have a chance, actually.

It's a reboot of the system, and it's going to try to build up a player base on its own merits. However, since I don't see a lot of people getting fired, I doubt it will be much more than a 4.5 style reboot.

Well, at this point WotC disalleges any sort of stealth updates in the Essentials line. They could be lying, but if you think so I'd like to know why. Track record is not good enough.

Indeed, the names on the Essentials line are Mike Mearls, Bill Slavicsek and James Wyatt (plus Jeremy Crawford, the guy they are pulling in for the Rules Compendium). Still, no Andy Collins on board is a step in the right direction.

Names on product previews mean NOTHING in 4e. Heinsoo's name was on a lot of 4E covers over at Amazon even after the books were released with Mearls' name on it. A lot of 2010 titles have Mearls' name on the cover (MM 3, Demonomicon), and his name only. I expect these to change, just as they always did for EVERY 4e preview mock-up cover we saw in the past 2 years.

Second-guessing the authors involved in the Essentials line from the mock-up covers is utterly unreliable.

What I don't understand is the basic marketing failure. First of all, repeating the Cleric and the Ranger? Why?

Because it's the Red Box of '81. They could include the worst 4E classes in the box (which they actually do, apart from keeping out the Paladin) and it wouldn't have an impact on their prospective buyers. Red Box is all about surface, not about functional design.

So the first book is basically the LotR fanwank book. It has all the LotR classes except Bards and all of the LotR races except Orcs and they stuck in Clerics and Blood Elves for no reason. Fuck. That.

No, the first book is the one which people who've only been exposed to the Red Box will naturally go for. The choice of the classes in the first "Heroes of" book hence is parasitic on what is in the Red Box, on which see above. LotR doesn't come into this. Bards are not a core class in the `81 (A)D&D game (irrc they were more of a prestige class for rogues).

The real question for me is how much impulse purchases the Red Box presentation can garner. That's where WotC put their money. Not people who watched Jackson's LotR movies. No, the millions of lapsed D&D gamers who, according to Greg Leeds, are out there, willing to sink their cash once more into a product that, to all appearances, is a sensitive update of what they remember with fond nostalgia. Boy, are these people in for a surprise.

[Username17]

Well, at this point WotC disalleges any sort of stealth updates in the Essentials line. They could be lying, but if you think so I'd like to know why. Track record is not good enough.

Well, Track Record is pretty damn strong. All kinds of stealth updates went into the 3.5 Rules Compendium. But the big thing is the size. The Essentials rules are one book with all the player information that is 32 pages, and one book with all the DM information that is 64 pages. Or in other words: 32 pages each for the PHB, DMG, and MM. The 4e D&D combat rules in the player's handbook are 31 pages long, in order to condense it to a 32 page book with an index, you'd have to cut some things and simplify others. And yeah, cutting and simplifying rules is a change. And a rather big one at that.

Because it's the Red Box of '81. They could include the worst 4E classes in the box (which they actually do, apart from keeping out the Paladin) and it wouldn't have an impact on their prospective buyers. Red Box is all about surface, not about functional design.

Red Box is '83. Blue Box was 81. Which is beside the point. I agree that it's not about making something playable, it's about making something marketable.

Which is why I don't understand them failing to make the first Players Essentials book into a LotR tie-in. And even if they decided to throw a weird class and race that don't fit into Middle Earth into the mix, Eladrin and Cleric are stupid choices. You don't throw in the least popular class from the Red Box in and a race you made up for 4e that no one likes - that's madness. Kill two birds with one stone: make it a total LotR rip off and use classes and races that people like.

Everyone who played Red Box and is buying it for nostalgia remembers hating being the Cleric. If you're going to add classes that weren't in the 1983 basic set Red Box (as they are doing with the Ranger), go whole hog. Throw in classes that don't make people groan when they play them. The fact that the 4e Cleric is ridiculously overpowered is beside the point. The point is that people played Red Box to be a Magic User or Thief. So when you decide on the classes, you have two criteria:

• Classes people want to play (like Ranger, Warlock, and Bard)
• Classes that tie in to marketing demographics (like ones that fit into LotR).

-Username17

[shadzar]

Watch it become a complete failure, dragging the rest of 4E down with it.

The Player's Essentials line is basically them hitting a wall. 4e is now too complicated for their own in-house people to grok

Now, shit i think it was too complicated when they started. For such an easy and streamlined edition, it seems the people working on it know less about it than those playing to the point the have now idea how it worked form the start. Somehow this was supposed to make the meaning of "core" change from "essential rather than supplement" to some magical, fully balanced concept?

It was too complicated when they added all the fake choices and shit to purposefully over complicate and codify it.

The first problem was the powers, the class tech trees as it were. The only way to have ever made a levels powers balanced with another is if they all did the same thing with just a different name, and maybe some status effect.

They really probably have already run into a wall trying to figure out how to make useful permutations of damage+status.

Since the inception the designers of the game could not even answer questions correctly about it, so that should have told you the product wa not worth the paper it was printed on. Would you buy a car from a company unable to repair any defects itself?

[shadzar]

http://wizards.com/dnd/Product.aspx?x=d ... /244660000

*Checks the date to make sure it's not April 1st*

Wow... holy fucking shit... They even used the same red box, and the classic D&D logo.

I'm hoping this idea means they'll create AD&D again and split the two games by LotR genre and high magic genre. I seriously doubt it, but it'd be awesome if they did.

That shit needs a big fucking boycott. I hope people flood the market with Mentzer/Holmes versions and make it so confusing this one doesn't sell, or worse the others sell better since they will be much cheaper and people find a better game than 4th.

I wouldn't doubt then the Rules Cyclopedia they are planning will look something like this:



Now they have really bastardized themselves by trying to kill off the older editions, and proven that things like older edition PDFs will never return, a the excuse they will use is that the PDFs would confuse the customer.

They are trying to make it so that there only is one D&D and as if they made it form the beginning.

I thought the ret-conning to the Realms was bad, but this? COME ON!

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

You realize of course that except at level 1, the Cleric was exponentially better than the Fighter, Dwarf, Halfling, and Thief.

[souran]

I really do not get the players essentials line of products.

Everything I have been able to find on them calls them introductory products.

From their product description they seem to replace the D&D starter kit, not the PHB.

However, if these are not a system wide rules update then they are going to go half a year without producing a product that appeals to the existing players? Thats fucking madness. It would be like ford deciding that for the last half of 2010 they are only going to sell the 1995 ford taurus because that car is good to learn to drive in.

The whole thing just is a little wierd and fishy. They announced them at the D&D experience. Thats just about the dumbest place to announce a D&D starter set. Why would those people even give the slightest care that you are rebranding/repackaging the starter set? They already are well beyond that.

If your going to do this, wouldn't you announce it at origins (which is a trade show where wizards plays second fiddle and might have a chance to attract players who play other games as opposed to gencon where once again its all about wizards), or maybe something like the North American Toy Expo or any of the other trade shows where you might find people who would be interested in learing dnd?

Something is defaintly up.

[Wyzzard]

You realize of course that except at level 1, the Cleric was exponentially better than the Fighter, Dwarf, Halfling, and Thief.

...As long as you didn't get stuck in support-mode.

[Username17]

I really do not get the players essentials line of products.

Everything I have been able to find on them calls them introductory products.

From their product description they seem to replace the D&D starter kit, not the PHB.

Well sort of. Remember that they are getting their own expansions, so it's like a mini-edition within the edition. Giving it the art from the 1983 Basic Set is no accident - it's seriously a separate rule set in precisely the same way that the Basic Set Boxes were a different edition from the concurrently running AD&D.

The "Dungeon Master's Kit" and "Player's Essentials: Heroes of the [Fill in Blank" books are not Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition books, they are D&D Essentials Series Supplements.

However, if these are not a system wide rules update then they are going to go half a year without producing a product that appeals to the existing players?

They are dropping 4th edition like an apple full of maggots. The only thing they are releasing for 4th edition in the latter half of the year is the rules compendium. Essentially they are closing up shop and letting everyone buy up the previously published material in anthology format. Exactly what they did for 3.5 when they had all their primary designers working on 4th edition.

So they are going to see how many people they can get to play D&D Basic Essential D&D while they start working on a new edition whole hog. I expect them to have a new edition announced or leaked before the end of 2010 and for them to have something in stores with a "5" on it (either 4.5 or 5th edition) before the end of 2011. If they have more marketing savvy than I think they do, they will call the new edition "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons". So then they will maintain two lines: "Essential D&D" and "Advanced D&D" for as long as both remain popular.

However, putting Eladrin and Clerics into the LotR fanwank book and burdening the stalwart antihero book with half elves and a repeat of the Cleric and Ranger indicates to me that they don't know what they are doing with the Essentials line and that it won't last very long. Honestly, it might be a sucker's gambit to convince people that there is room for an "Advanced" moniker.

-Username17

[ggroy]

[RobbyPants]

They are dropping 4th edition like an apple full of maggots. The only thing they are releasing for 4th edition in the latter half of the year is the rules compendium. Essentially they are closing up shop and letting everyone buy up the previously published material in anthology format. Exactly what they did for 3.5 when they had all their primary designers working on 4th edition.

Since I never intended to buy any 4.0 books, I never payed attention to the release dates of future material. I had no idea they'd slowed down that much.

[souran]

Well sort of. Remember that they are getting their own expansions, so it's like a mini-edition within the edition. Giving it the art from the 1983 Basic Set is no accident - it's seriously a separate rule set in precisely the same way that the Basic Set Boxes were a different edition from the concurrently running AD&D.

The "Dungeon Master's Kit" and "Player's Essentials: Heroes of the [Fill in Blank" books are not Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition books, they are D&D Essentials Series Supplements.

Ok, then it would seem to me that its more likely going to be a bit like the SAGA edition star wars vs. 4e D&D. This would be the half step that shows off where they intend to go.

They are dropping 4th edition like an apple full of maggots. The only thing they are releasing for 4th edition in the latter half of the year is the rules compendium. Essentially they are closing up shop and letting everyone buy up the previously published material in anthology format. Exactly what they did for 3.5 when they had all their primary designers working on 4th edition.

If that is really the case why bother with Dark Sun or Martial Power II? On the other hand a new edition does seem like its in the works what with some of the author's talking about how it would take a new edition to fix the ritual system and with things like utility powers that are tied to skills, and since they have basically admitted that all the phb I classes need a redesign in order to actually make them fit their roles.

Either way it does look like your right that some kind of change is comming.

[RandomCasualty2]

However, putting Eladrin and Clerics into the LotR fanwank book and burdening the stalwart antihero book with half elves and a repeat of the Cleric and Ranger indicates to me that they don't know what they are doing with the Essentials line and that it won't last very long. Honestly, it might be a sucker's gambit to convince people that there is room for an "Advanced" moniker.

Honestly, I think there is room for an advanced D&D. It's just that people have to realize that AD&D should be more than just regular D&D with more rules, it should actually be a different gaming experience. Basic D&D should be the LotR clone, because that's basic. You run around and you kill shit with swords. Magic doesn't really accomplish a heck of a lot beyond some basic feats. Honestly I'd even be nice if they dumped ability scores and most of the magic items in basic D&D.

AD&D on the other hand can toss out lots of player options and lean more towards a high magic style where guys are running around with Christmas tree items.

Frankly because regular 4E is too complicated for what it's supposed to do. Keeping track of all those bullshit state effects is complicated, and it's loaded with annoying conditionals that you constantly have to remember. For a game that's supposed to be a pick and go style of play, it really has a lot of fat that can be cut out.

[ggroy]

[ggroy]

[Windjammer]

They are dropping 4th edition like an apple full of maggots. The only thing they are releasing for 4th edition in the latter half of the year is the rules compendium. Essentially they are closing up shop and letting everyone buy up the previously published material in anthology format. Exactly what they did for 3.5 when they had all their primary designers working on 4th edition.

If that is really the case why bother with Dark Sun or Martial Power II?

Because those are spring/early summer 2010 products for 4E. If you read Rich Baker's designer blogs on Dark Sun you don't exactly get the impression that they are putting heavy effort into it. Not that they put heavy effort into their previous 4E settings, so that's a non issue. FWIW, observe how they cut down the 4E Dark Sun CG's page count and make 4E DMs buy the bestiary section separately.)

The real issue is where the 4E core line will pick up in 2011 after the essentials line. As Frank rightly points out, we have no clue whatsoever if the line will even continue with future products. And frankly, nor do WotC. They already have a hard time selling the third instalment of the core books, by taking a Dark Sun Player's Guide off the release list and integrate it into Player's Handbook 3 so it will at least sell some copies. Now imagine what they'd have to do to make the fourth run of the Core 3 viable. I can't imagine, so can't WotC. End of story.

[Windjammer]

Releasing a new edition of an rpg game in 3 or 4 years is not unheard of.

I'm wondering how long it'll take until Warhammer 3rd folds up. That game was touted as a revolution in roleplaying and 1 month post-release it basically dropped off the radar from all major online fora. 4E at least gets discussed widely if not played widely, but Warhammer 3rd seems to have been stillborn.

[ggroy]

[mean_liar]

At $99 for the box and sitting on top of the jilted masses of Warhammer FRPG players who've had several successive editions yanked from under them it's no surprise.