The End of 4e D&D.

[mean_liar]

Most game employed game designers seem really incompetent, I wonder why that is.

Because the skills required to design a good, balanced, engaging RPG system overlap with a lot of skills one uses in much higher-paying professions.

[Windjammer]

Their customer base was already shattered by releasing 4e.

Why would they want to fragment it?

Who fucking knows? Of course even if they didn't do anything it would be fragmented anyways because of Pathfinder. But they certainly are helping it along. D&D is basically dead at this point.

As in, commercially dead? I'm interested where you guys see the signs of impending (or fully come about) doom. I understand you think 4E isn't exactly the sugar of RPG design, but commercially dead? I'm not sure it is. Is it low site traffic on wizards.com, the reduced product output for the Core line in 2010 which was planned (as per the Rouse quote above) i.e. set in motion prior to 'ooooh no, the Core 2's are selling poorly' or any such sentiment (if that is real and not imagined), or what is it? I mean, toss us a bone here. You hold a strong opinion here, let us know how you came to hold it.

[Username17]

I wouldn't go so far as to say 4e D&D is dead, bu it's clearly on the way out at this point. It's really pretty obvious: production schedule deviations. 4e books just aren't hard to write. And WotC has a very large stable of writers and aspiring writers. If a book gets canceled, it isn't because one of the writers had a personal illness, it's because they decided that their time would be better spent not publishing a book with that name than publishing it.

It would be one thing if books were being kicked off the schedule for more versions of popular books - if October had no Arcane Power 2 and had "Legendary Weapons" or even "The Epic Level Handbook" or "Unearthed Arcana" then my assessment would simply be that Martial Power 2 didn't get the kind of preorders they were hoping for and they were going to do some tried and true brand extension. But that's not what they are doing. They do't have any books for 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons in October at all. They have a couple of stand-alone reboots (Gamma World and Essentials). Nothing has "Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition" written on it at all.

Some things are just marketing decisions. The fact that shortly before the PHB3 hit they dropped the "Everything is Core" charade and reclassified all the rule supplements as supplements is just a foot note in market speak. But the only reason to come out with zero 4th edition books in a month is that they don't intend to sell any 4th edition books that month. That pretty well signifies the end.

And considering how much money the RPG stuff brings i compared to the other stuff, it seems pretty likely that Hasbro will cut the financial life lines to table top RPGs altogether if the Essentials line doesn't pa out. And honestly, I can't wrap my mind around who they think they are appealing to, so I rather imagine that Essentials will fail.

The really ironic thing, is that this was a pretty good year for gaming (financially). Table top games are an incredibly good deal for the money, and are in any case part of the notoriously recession proof entertainment industry. Catalyst pulled in 1.8 million dollars. Steve Jackson Games Pulled in 3. And yet, gaming companies are being raided left and right. White Wolf is reduced to the point that Steve Jackson no longer considers them a major participant in the RPG market. Catalyst is probably a matrix ghost in 3 months.

It's really hard for me to imagine Hasbro wanting to continue financing the RPG division when they are selling "hundreds of thousands of books." Their yearly revenue is over 4 billion dollars.

4th edition is a failure. All you have to do is look at a convention lineup of games, to note that 4e is still less pervasive than 3e is - even 3 years after 3e stopped getting published. That they are abandoning the brand logo in the 4th quarter of this year speaks tremendous volumes about the kind of desperation they apparently feel.

-Username17

[Roy]

Their customer base was already shattered by releasing 4e.

Why would they want to fragment it?

Who fucking knows? Of course even if they didn't do anything it would be fragmented anyways because of Pathfinder. But they certainly are helping it along. D&D is basically dead at this point.

As in, commercially dead? I'm interested where you guys see the signs of impending (or fully come about) doom. I understand you think 4E isn't exactly the sugar of RPG design, but commercially dead? I'm not sure it is. Is it low site traffic on wizards.com, the reduced product output for the Core line in 2010 which was planned (as per the Rouse quote above) i.e. set in motion prior to 'ooooh no, the Core 2's are selling poorly' or any such sentiment (if that is real and not imagined), or what is it? I mean, toss us a bone here. You hold a strong opinion here, let us know how you came to hold it.

Well first of all, D&D isn't really pulling in a lot of new people. It's always been in competition with MMOs, etc. Offline RPGs as well. Not direct competition mind you, but competition for time since you are either playing WoW or whatever, or playing tabletop D&D but not both. In other words, D&D competes with 'anything else you can do with your friends'. But mostly CRPGs and MMORPGs since these are the most similar.

Now take a look at D&D. D&D 3.5 could pull in some new people because while for example NWN can do combat better it lacks in the roleplay and creativity area. And NWN is one of the best games out there when it comes to D&D non combat stuff. So there are reasons to play D&D, and there are reasons to play NWN and which you do depends on your mood at the time.

Well, D&D 3.5 was getting late in the product cycle. There was no question something else needed to be done. However when getting people to upgrade, you need to ensure what you are offering is actually an upgrade. Otherwise they just won't do that, and that is what happened there. 4.Fail seemed very promising at first... until we had enough information on it to make an informed decision that is. As this happened before the edition was actually released or even leaked to the public and the release really only served to confirm that... Yeah. Compare to earlier editions. 1st to 2nd and 3rd to 3.5 were both comparatively minor changes, but were still upgrades. So while you'll always have doom sayers, the editions were mostly well received. And 2nd to 3rd was a major change and also an upgrade. It fared even better. If 3.5 to 4th was a major change (it was) and also an upgrade (it was not) you'd see a lot less rabid hatred.

Instead what happened is the community was fragmented. Quite a few stayed where they were, even well into the 4th edition life cycle. And why not? After all while other editions have only been in indirect competition 4th is trying to directly compete by being Ye Olde Generic Grind MMO on tabletop. That means that while before, some would have came to D&D when they wanted less grind and more plot... now they don't. Anyways. Some moved, and a few came in but the fragmentation was still obvious. And what's more, Pathfinder decided to pull a me too, and fragment the community further. Except they just released a downgrade. Even so, the community is now being split three ways. And remember, it's not growing much. And that growth is being offset by people leaving in disgust because the fragmentation makes it even harder to get groups on the same page than you would if there was just 3.5 and nothing else.

Now look at what WotC is doing. Low sales, low traffic, and... how long has it been? 2 years, and they're already reprinting D&D Basic rules in the middle of it? So that's a four way split now, and 3 of them are WotC competing with itself. That's a failure from a commercial and a player standpoint. I'd say within a year, if they haven't lost or given up on the license they'll try and make a 5th edition. And maybe they'll get that right and revive the edition, or they won't and bury that undead for good. I'm hoping for the former, but am well aware that the latter will most likely be the case.

[RandomCasualty2]

4e books just aren't hard to write.

Actually I might say that 4E books are very difficult to write, assuming you want it to be successful. The problem is that in 4E, while sure any fool can just basically copy another classes powers, reflavor them, and add in a few minor changes, this isn't going to be enough to actually attract people to buy the book.

On the other hand, handing out powerful abilities actually creates shit that's imbalanced, and fucks things up.

Trying to make the book interesting, but not totally better than every class out there is a hard feat indeed.

[hogarth]

Steve Jackson Games Pulled in 3.

According to that link, 80% of it came from Munchkin, which has little to do with tabletop RPGs.

[Roy]

4e books just aren't hard to write.

Actually I might say that 4E books are very difficult to write, assuming you want it to be successful. The problem is that in 4E, while sure any fool can just basically copy another classes powers, reflavor them, and add in a few minor changes, this isn't going to be enough to actually attract people to buy the book.

On the other hand, handing out powerful abilities actually creates shit that's imbalanced, and fucks things up.

Trying to make the book interesting, but not totally better than every class out there is a hard feat indeed.

Well, writers are paid based on word count. So it favors them at least. But yes, making something unique and interesting when you're painted into that small of a box isn't happening. Even the 3.5 Fighter is broader conceptually than any 4th edition character, even if you only stick to the 3.5 builds that actually work. Namely the build that auto attacks by spamming charges with a reach weapon, lots of PA and charge multipliers and the build that auto attacks by tripping everything around with a spiked chain. Yes, even they are broader. And that's just sad.

[Windjammer]

They do't have any books for 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons in October at all. They have a couple of stand-alone reboots (Gamma World and Essentials). Nothing has "Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition" written on it at all.

Nothing ever had "4th Edition" written on it in the literal sense. 2nd Edition had the edition number in the logo, and the 3.5 core books (for better or worse) had the ugly "v.3.5." on the book cover and spine. But 4e? No "4" in sight. In fact, the 4E PHB had exactly two places it even mentioned it was "4th edition" - the rear cover, and a (hilarious) side-bar on the game's history in chapter 1, both in tiny-tiny script. A common criticism of the PHB when it appeared was that it nearly hid the fact that it was for 4th edition. And it's not as if this changed for follow-up products.

That aside, you are right that there won't be any books in October. However, there will be Dungeon Tiles, which are 4E products in my book (EDIT though I've just seen that the product description explicitly flags them as "An Essential D&D Game Accessory" - oh my). Not exclusively, but a 'core product' if we go by the bullshit boxed text on their books ("To be used with these core products: Player's Handbooks, Monster Manuals, DMG, D&D Miniatures, D&D Dungeon Tiles"). I also envisage that WotC will put out products that will suit the Core and Essentials line equally. The current softcover releases, Dragonborn Codex and Hammerfast (location booklet), would seem to fit that bill. That said, we have no clue about which products they plan to do in 2011, so that's just pointless speculation on my part as to what they COULD do.

That they are abandoning the brand logo in the 4th quarter of this year speaks tremendous volumes about the kind of desperation they apparently feel.

They are? I just looked at the provisional covers and, Red Box aside which features a variation of the logo, all the Essentials stuff and even the D&D boardgames they publish (Ravenloft e.g.), have the 4e logo on their cover:

http://www.wizards.com/DND/Catalog.aspx

There never was another logo than the one shown on this products for 4th edition D&D product, so what did you have in mind by saying they 'abandon' the brand logo?

[angelfromanotherpin]

Good science, Windjammer, do you ever stop shilling?

[Lago PARANOIA]

That was totally uncalled-for, angel.

For one, I don't care how much of a shill someone is as long as their argument is good. You're allowed to pimp things you like.

For two, Windjammer isn't a 4E shill. It's not very hard to find his criticisms of the product. I think one of his first posts was talking about the failures of the game.

[Smeelbo]

From the point of view of a game store manager, it seems clear to me that 4E is not as successful as Wizards of the Coast needed it to be, and that they are pushing hard to fix it.

As a buyer for a game store, I can say yes, the lack of Arcane Powers 2, Dungeon Masters Guide 3 and the imminent publication of The Rules Compendium seems ominous. It feels like the end of 3.5 did, only on an accellerated schedule.

As a seller of 4E books, I can tell you that sales have dropped dramatically for new books. The first 60 days of sales of Martial Powers 2 was well under half the comparable sales of Martial Powers 1, and whereas I used to bring in a dozen or more copies of each new book for opening week, I am now bringing in no more than half a dozen.

As a direct customer of Wizards of the Coast, I can say that their marketing has become increasingly and nakedly aggressive. For example, in order to receive and be able to sell the Player's Handbook 3 on the same date Barnes and Noble does, our store had to agree to host World Wide Game Day Player Handbook 3 Adventure, otherwise we'd have to wait over 10 days later to release (and no game store can afford to cross Wizards of the Coast regarding release dates, let me tell you). Host Game Day, or give Barnes and Noble (who regularly breaks release dates without consequence) ten days head start? Not actually a choice.

Or consider D&D Encounters. This is Wizards new program to promote 4E play in store. Starting at first level, an adventure a week, for twelve weeks, with the promise of additional "seasons" of play. There is an explicit in-game mechanism, called Reknown, which rewards players who have access to and use specific published materials, and which disadvantages characters in game who do not. At various Reknown totals, players gain the equivalent of encounter powers for their characters, above and beyond what they entitled to for their class, level, and magic items, and some of the highest Reknown rewards are awarded for using specific products.

That is, a player with access with to just the original Player's Handbook playing a Ranger with a photocopied character sheet will actually have one less encounter power at first level than a the player sitting next to him playing a Psion Shardmind built using the Character Builder, at least until he has caught up with the Psion's Reknown. But the Psion will almost always have more Reknown.

The D&D Encounters adventure itself is not entirely self-contained, but depends on DM knowledge of both the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide and the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide. It is specificly tied to that setting, and the mechanics contained. In order to be able to sell new 4E books without waiting an additional ten days, either I, or the store, are going to have to eat the cost of two of the most expensive 4E books published.

Further, it is obviously that they are putting much more effort into the promotional adventures. Both the World Wide Game Day and D&D Encounter adventures have actual authors, editors, and staff credited, and are substantially less awful than previous efforts. While still lame, they require much less effort to fix, as they are more internally consistant, and have fewer contradictions, errors, and omissions. At least it's clear they have an author, and are edited.

It feels to me like Hasbro has lit a fire under Wizards of the Coast, and given them an ultimatum: Perform or Be Sold Off. There was an article recently in the Wall Street Journal about Hasbro's performance and profitability. Transformers and G.I. Joe get kudos, they discuss their Parker Brothers and Avalon Hill board game lines, but neither Magic the Gathering nor Dungeons and Dragons even rates a mention!

That is suggestive of the sad state of Wizards of the Coast.

4E has become a monstrous, almost unplayable mess. It practically requires the Character Builder for most people to create and maintain a character sheet much beyond first level, and the number of available options (races, classes, features, powers, feats, and items) is ridiculous.

I have been playing D&D since 1975, have a degree in mathematics, dozens of years of programming experience, and a very good memory and organizational skills, and I find it difficult to manage all the various effects, conditions, bonuses, and penalties, and when they expire (e.g., save ends, until the end of your turn, until the end of your next turn, until the end of their turn, until the end of their next turn, when they enter the zone/aura, if they begin the turn in the zone/aura, etc., etc.). There is no way a beginning DM is going to manage that correctly without the use of software or some elaborate mechanical aid. It's very much like trying to play a computer game, only without a computer.

So much for "simplifying" D&D.

If it were anyone else but Wizards of the Coast doing D&D Essentials, I'd actually have some hope. 4E needs simplification if it is to have substantially broader appeal. If Frank, for example, were to simplify 4E down to 32 pages of rules, I would expect something quite elegant, consistant, broadly applicable, teachable, and playable.

It's not absurd to think that this could be done. People played OD&D for years without endless rules supplements. Very many good independent RPGs have elegant and broadly applicable mechanics to represent characters and resolve conflicts. If someone talented were to take on the chore, it might well be just what D&D needs.

But that's not what's going to happen, because Wizards of the Coast does not have either the people or the processes to make that happen. The idea of "boiling D&D down to its Essentials" will, in the end, likely prove to have accomplished nothing more than sell Hasbro on giving Wizards one more chance. It is likely that at best the end will be delayed for a few quarters. Because Wizards of the Coast lacks the ability to carry out its goals.

The only question then will be, will Hasbro strip off the D&D brand for its own purposes before it hangs Wizards out to dry?

On its own, Wizards of the Coast does a pretty good job of maintaining Magic the Gathering. On its own, it could probably do an adequate job of publishing roleplaying games. But Wizards of the Coast isn't even a pimple on the ass of Hasbro.

Smeelbo

[Maxus]

Smeelbo, I would read through your post but I keep getting distracted by the liberal use of italics, underlining, and bold font. It could only be more distracting if you varied font sizes and colors as well.

[Koumei]

I'll tl;dr it for you:

It's going down the sink, Hasbro is probably telling them "Make it work or clear your desks for your replacements" so suddenly they're dancing about trying to advertise it and make it trendy and cool and played in-stores all the time.

Also you can seriously buy power boosts with real money (Reknown system: buy fancy useless shit, get stuff that grants your character extra shit).

And if Frank was doing the "Simplify this pool of faecal horror into something simple, elegant and workable as a combat boardgame" project, he'd have faith in it, but as it's WotC, hahahano.

tl;dr of the tl;dr: shit sucks, it's dead

[RandomCasualty2]

I have been playing D&D since 1975, have a degree in mathematics, dozens of years of programming experience, and a very good memory and organizational skills, and I find it difficult to manage all the various effects, conditions, bonuses, and penalties, and when they expire (e.g., save ends, until the end of your turn, until the end of your next turn, until the end of their turn, until the end of their next turn, when they enter the zone/aura, if they begin the turn in the zone/aura, etc., etc.). There is no way a beginning DM is going to manage that correctly without the use of software or some elaborate mechanical aid. It's very much like trying to play a computer game, only without a computer.

This is one of my biggest problems with 4E. The combats gained a ton of bookkeeping, yet became less interesting.

[Username17]

As a seller of 4E books, I can tell you that sales have dropped dramatically for new books. The first 60 days of sales of Martial Powers 2 was well under half the comparable sales of Martial Powers 1, and whereas I used to bring in a dozen or more copies of each new book for opening week, I am now bringing in no more than half a dozen.

This jives well with what we've bee seeing elsewhere. And production has slowed to a crawl. Half as many books selling half as many copies is a huge kick in the nuts. I wouldn't want to be there when the Hasbro execs walk back in and say "That pile of money is almost the same size as it was the last time I was here!"

That is, a player with access with to just the original Player's Handbook playing a Ranger with a photocopied character sheet will actually have one less encounter power at first level than a the player sitting next to him playing a Psion Shardmind built using the Character Builder, at least until he has caught up with the Psion's Reknown. But the Psion will almost always have more Reknown.

That was something I had not heard. That's insane. I know you needed to get people to want to buy new books, but "if you own more books, your characters will be more powerful" is such a transparent statement that I am shocked anyone in corporate would approve it.

The core problem with getting people to buy more books is that the characters are so limited that they don't need any more books. Once a Ranger gets 4 Minor Action Attacks as encounter powers anywhere on his list, it really makes no difference if he gets a new power written up. There's basically nothing you could write up that he cares about, because he only ever gets 4 encounter powers and they are all spoken for. A ranger really can't possibly get anything they care about anymore, it's just the way the game works. The only thing left is to add new character types, but they seem unwilling to release those with the effectiveness depth of a ranger or a wizard, so none of them get any traction.

If it were anyone else but Wizards of the Coast doing D&D Essentials, I'd actually have some hope. 4E needs simplification if it is to have substantially broader appeal. If Frank, for example, were to simplify 4E down to 32 pages of rules, I would expect something quite elegant, consistant, broadly applicable, teachable, and playable.

I am inclined to broadly agree with you there. When one of the first expansion books for D&D Essentials has five races in it, and four of them have a Charisma bonus, it doesn't really fill me with confidence. Seriously, that's 5 races, and therefore 10 stat bonuses. The distribution is:

• Charisma: 4
• Strength: 2
• Constitution: 2
• Intelligence: 1
• Dexterity: 1
• Wisdom: 0

That indicates to me that they haven't really spent any time with a spread sheet analyzing their own game. Especially since they are packaging four Wisdom classes into the same book (Cleric, Druid, Paladin, and Ranger). Again, out of a total of five. While they are writing all new powers for the classes, and thus it's possible that they re fielding a Charisma/Dexterity Cleric for Drow to play and a Charisma/Constitution Druid for the Half Elf to play - it really just reads like they picked some random classes and random races to reboot with no thought at all as to how the game would actually run.

Yes, you could write a new short-n-sweet game based on 4e's core ideas that would fit in 32 pages and solve much of the problems. But the design team doesn't seem to have been capable of that before and hasn't said anything that indicates that they know where they went wrong. Their latest offerings have been "What if we made tracking powers and durations more complicated?" When they printed up the PHB3 races, they made a plant race that is Wisdom/Constitution (and thus, plays a Druid).

If they were going to make D&D Essentials a going proposition, I would expect them to be throwing down ideas that would make playing a Drow Cleric playable now. I would expect them to be throwing out ideas that would speed up play now, and I would expect them to be throwing out ways to make skill challenges work now.

They seem to have realized that giving players one Encounter Power for the first two levels is actually pretty dull. I give them props for that. Both the Renown system and the Darksun allegiances thing give you a second first level encounter power. Good chance that players will get two encounter powers at 1st level in Essentials. That will be... something.But if they don't address the stifling racial determinism and character conformity or the incredibly fiddly accounting system, I just don't see what they expect to accomplish.

That and the fact that they seem unwilling to whip out a pocket calculator and make a skill challenge ruleset that works. That's just puzzling.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty2]

If they were going to make D&D Essentials a going proposition, I would expect them to be throwing down ideas that would make playing a Drow Cleric playable now. I would expect them to be throwing out ideas that would speed up play now, and I would expect them to be throwing out ways to make skill challenges work now.

The problem is that their whole philosophy seems based on later, to sell more books.

"Wanna play a druid? Buy our PHB2."

"Wanna make your drow cleric not suck? Buy divine power and Underdark."

As far as skill challenges, they're honestly a lost cause.

[RobbyPants]

What do you mean by "lost cause"? That they can't be salvaged from a design standpoint, or that WotC still hasn't figured out why they failed, so they won't likely correct Skill Challenges in a meaningful way?

[erik]

Smeelbo, I would read through your post but I keep getting distracted by the liberal use of italics, underlining, and bold font. It could only be more distracting if you varied font sizes and colors as well.

Amen. Smeelbo, you use italics, like I use commas, far, too, much. Other than that, a very good and interesting read.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

Smeelbo's post was fine.

[Username17]

What do you mean by "lost cause"? That they can't be salvaged from a design standpoint, or that WotC still hasn't figured out why they failed, so they won't likely correct Skill Challenges in a meaningful way?

I'm not RC, but I suspect that he's saying the DMG2 was really the last hurrah of being able to save Skill Challenges. When the die hard fans are out there discussing whether the DMG2's skill challenges were something that they "get" or not, I'm just left shaking my head. People are so burnt on WotC trying to fix Skill Challenges that they might not even read a new Skill Challenge version if it comes in a full sized book. The 4e Skill challenges do not work, and no one believes that they work, or is surprised or interested to find out that a new iteration also doesn't work. And to an extent, I agree. I think that if they made a DMG3 and it had a Skill Challenges chapter, that no one would read it or care.

But there's a key point that I think RC is missing. D&D Essentials has a 64 page DMG + MM. People are going to read that, cover to cover. If you started it up with a quarter of a page intro that looked something like this:

Skill challenges.

During an adventure, there will be many times that a task is to be accomplished that requires a lot of action but doesn't need to be divided into individual combat rounds. It is often convenient to run these tasks as skill challenges. A skill challenge might be an investigation, a negotiation, or a peregrination (that's a fancy word for traveling). And how it works is that each player describes how they are going to assist with the task, then each player makes a single skill test representing their efforts. Each player whose efforts succeed, adds to the team's overall “quantity of success.”

More difficult skill challenges may require a greater quantity of success for the players to get what they want, and in turn more complicated skill challenges may have more than one round. When there is more than one round for a skill challenge, the quantity of success the players achieve in each round is added together.

Then you'd perk up and take notice. What's that Scooby? Everyone is encouraged to participate? The expectation is that it will be over in a finite number of die rolls? There are more than two possible outcomes? People would read the rest of that. Especially since it would only be 3 pages long, including the charts.

But no one is going to give a rat's ass if you just printed another 4e Skill Challenge. Seriously, I doubt most people would even bother to read the Skill Challenge rules for 5e if they came out in the current climate. If they don't issue something to indicate that they understand why people don't like their skill challenges, and they put skill challenge rules into a 300 page book, no one is even going to bother reading them.

-Username17

[Smeelbo]

This is how they "encouraged" group participation in skill challenges recently:

...Run this skill challenge round-by-round as if it were a combat...roll a d8 and consult the "Shallow Madness" table to determine the...skill or action...for that turn...Characters...can't affect each other in any way during the skill challenge....not attempting the check has the same result as failing it...

Seriously. Roll a D8 each round to determine the skill and DC, players can neither pass nor assist. One way to make everyone participates in the skill challenge, regardless of their skills.

Smeelbo
Abuser of BBCodes

[Username17]

This is how they "encouraged" group participation in skill challenges recently:

...Run this skill challenge round-by-round as if it were a combat...roll a d8 and consult the "Shallow Madness" table to determine the...skill or action...for that turn...Characters...can't affect each other in any way during the skill challenge....not attempting the check has the same result as failing it...

Seriously. Roll a D8 each round to determine the skill and DC, players can neither pass nor assist. One way to make everyone participates in the skill challenge, regardless of their skills.

Smeelbo
Abuser of BBCodes

That's...
Brilliant!

Holy crap, why didn't I think of that? Why dick around with incentives to get everyone to participate and use various skills each round when we can just force everyone to use literally random skills. It will be just like character and player choice have no meaning at all, and then everyone will be happy!

It's like a perverse nightmare of a Winds of Fate System. Exactly the kind of system you would draw up if your goal was to straw man the entire concept.

-Username17

[Lokathor]

It does have a cruel elegance.

[mean_liar]

Nicely stated.

[sake]

I am inclined to broadly agree with you there. When one of the first expansion books for D&D Essentials has five races in it, and four of them have a Charisma bonus, it doesn't really fill me with confidence. Seriously, that's 5 races, and therefore 10 stat bonuses. The distribution is:

• Charisma: 4
• Strength: 2
• Constitution: 2
• Intelligence: 1
• Dexterity: 1
• Wisdom: 0

That indicates to me that they haven't really spent any time with a spread sheet analyzing their own game. Especially since they are packaging four Wisdom classes into the same book (Cleric, Druid, Paladin, and Ranger). Again, out of a total of five. While they are writing all new powers for the classes, and thus it's possible that they re fielding a Charisma/Dexterity Cleric for Drow to play and a Charisma/Constitution Druid for the Half Elf to play - it really just reads like they picked some random classes and random races to reboot with no thought at all as to how the game would actually run.

I think it's assumed, based on the phb3 races, that they'll just give every race in the book a floating stat to chose from. Granted they'll still probably miss some important combo like Wis/Cha or Int/Con again, or they'll forget that not everybody playing an int based class will want to be a fucking tiefling.