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I've been watching the announcement clips on Youtube and reading up on the D&D insider(?) forums (I have to admit that I'm still a bit fuzzy on just what constitutes the "insider" part and what is going to continue to be free forums and such.)
There's a snazzy new character generator, and you can use said characters for tabletop gaming, or virtual online gaming (with monthly fees), or whatnot. So far so good. It gets more interesting in regards to new rules and supplements. The way I understand is that you buy a rulebook and get a unique code; with this code and some extra money you can buy an e-version of the book and register it online. This then allows you to build your characters using these rules. In other words, you can't use rules from books you haven't bought (and then rebought for a "nominal" fee as e-versions.) You can't use rules from books your friends bought. That's a pretty slick way for Wizards to generate revenue, that's for sure. I'm not so amused by it as a customer.
The game also seems to make enough changes to 3.5 that it's not just a simple upgrade but really largely a new game. Some of the changes I'm not entirely certain about, but all of this seems to be game mechanics, rebalancing and what not. I prefer character development and social roleplay over battle, and so far there was nothing in regards to that -- other than yet another revamp of the default faiths and pantheons, so they're no longer Greyhawk. One wonders if this means that there will be another new world that will be introduced. (Mind you, fights are a natural part of the game, and that's OK. I just prefer more social content, more wondrous world exploration. I care about the character's reaction when he/she encounters a creature, and how it looks and smells and behaves.) As far as balancing goes, that's all and good, and there certainly are things that could use rebalancing, but my take on that is that as long as there are rules-lawyers and munchkins, they'll find a way to come up with a min-maxed creature that's totally out of line, and it is ultimately the DM's task to make sure that everyone is having fun and the game stays reasonable for all characters and players. Mind you, what I have seen about the new racial level advancement and scrapping of a gazillion prestige classes and such with better skill/feat trees sounds pretty good to me.
I'm also trying to understand the shift in gamer culture and the generational gap that is emerging. I perceive that through 1st and 2nd edition the game was relatively uniform, and playing it was an immediate smoking "nerd" brand on your forehead, and while especially the 2nd edition class books were akin to card battle games -- you don't need them to play the game, but they sure make your character more powerful -- you really were set to go with a relatively small investment.
3rd edition (in the context of this entry encompassing 3.5 as well) brought consistent, reasonable quality art and look to the books, and really, for a hard-cover full-color book the prices (at least after discounts) weren't too unreasonable. I also liked the rules much better than the old and arcane mush, no matter how familiar I was with it. The books were more logically organized, but still not entirely so, and the use of indices was very haphazard. Also, the move from 3 to 3.5 was botched -- one shouldn't have to rebuy books within such a short period of time, and they made a total mess of some things. Want to play a Tiefling in Forgotten Realms? Well, you have to get three books, because they all give partial racial information! WotC should have just redone the Forgotten Realms material as concise and complete works rather than supplementing the existing books in such a way that you had to buy the obsolete 3rd ed. book, then the 3.5 book and keep looking between both.
The problem I always had with (A)D&D was that it was too restrictive and pigeonholing. I want my character to advance more than once every four months when I go up a level, and the more granular skill system of 3rd edition was a vast improvement over 2nd edition proficiencies. I won't even touch alignment. This all goes back to me being more interested in characters and their interactions as persons rather than a game per se, and arguably D&D might not be the best framework for that. Luckily, a lot of my DMs have been pretty accommodating, and from my earliest gaming group we introduced advantage/disadvantage type systems as house rules. On the downside, 3rd edition, by now, has such a ridiculous number of spells, prestige classes and feats scattered all over the world that even when I have a character concept, finding the best way to dress the character in the rules is very, very difficult, and chances are that there's a perfect feat for the character, I just don't know about it or own the book.
3rd edition also brought with it a new generation, both as producers and consumers. The game became a lot more ambitious, sold to people who had never played D&D before, and now available in major bookstores. It was more colorful, easier to get into, and action-oriented -- or rather, I vager that a lot of the people who got into it were more interested in snazzy battles and powering up their characters with cool feats and weapons. It also as a setting was inherently more high-magic (hence snazzy) than the games I grew up with, where you never bought magic items, and finding that +1 long sword for your fighter on 5th level was a Big Deal. There's a bit of resentment of the "new kids" taking over the hobby, and based on my limited view the gamers that grew up with the old system don't mix as readily with the children of the 3rd edition, even if they end up playing the nominally same system. I also feel a bit lost; not knowing the world and rules nearly as well as some of the younger kids. That, of course, is just part of getting older and will undoubtedly become the case with a lot of other ventures as well.
The world is changing, people are changing, and D&D is changing as well. It's becoming a lot more colorful and easy and multifaceted. WotC is a business, and I cannot help to view them as unpleasntly greedy as they attempt to move more products and more often, resulting in a much higher cost to the gamer. I do appreciate the product development, but I'm not sure where the line goes between bona-fide enhancements to the imaginary, magical worlds in which we can engulf ourselves and artificial "must have" power-up packs that just get annoying after a while, especially once you realize that within less than a decade you'll have to do it all over again -- or in the case of 3rd edition and the latest releases, less than a year from the release of the book. While the existing investment in 3.5 is pretty high, I do also think that with their online tools and new rules 4th edition quite possibly has enough draw to get people to migrate over -- if you're lucky enough to stick with 3.5, there should be plenty of cheap books on the used market within a while!
There's a snazzy new character generator, and you can use said characters for tabletop gaming, or virtual online gaming (with monthly fees), or whatnot. So far so good. It gets more interesting in regards to new rules and supplements. The way I understand is that you buy a rulebook and get a unique code; with this code and some extra money you can buy an e-version of the book and register it online. This then allows you to build your characters using these rules. In other words, you can't use rules from books you haven't bought (and then rebought for a "nominal" fee as e-versions.) You can't use rules from books your friends bought. That's a pretty slick way for Wizards to generate revenue, that's for sure. I'm not so amused by it as a customer.
The game also seems to make enough changes to 3.5 that it's not just a simple upgrade but really largely a new game. Some of the changes I'm not entirely certain about, but all of this seems to be game mechanics, rebalancing and what not. I prefer character development and social roleplay over battle, and so far there was nothing in regards to that -- other than yet another revamp of the default faiths and pantheons, so they're no longer Greyhawk. One wonders if this means that there will be another new world that will be introduced. (Mind you, fights are a natural part of the game, and that's OK. I just prefer more social content, more wondrous world exploration. I care about the character's reaction when he/she encounters a creature, and how it looks and smells and behaves.) As far as balancing goes, that's all and good, and there certainly are things that could use rebalancing, but my take on that is that as long as there are rules-lawyers and munchkins, they'll find a way to come up with a min-maxed creature that's totally out of line, and it is ultimately the DM's task to make sure that everyone is having fun and the game stays reasonable for all characters and players. Mind you, what I have seen about the new racial level advancement and scrapping of a gazillion prestige classes and such with better skill/feat trees sounds pretty good to me.
I'm also trying to understand the shift in gamer culture and the generational gap that is emerging. I perceive that through 1st and 2nd edition the game was relatively uniform, and playing it was an immediate smoking "nerd" brand on your forehead, and while especially the 2nd edition class books were akin to card battle games -- you don't need them to play the game, but they sure make your character more powerful -- you really were set to go with a relatively small investment.
3rd edition (in the context of this entry encompassing 3.5 as well) brought consistent, reasonable quality art and look to the books, and really, for a hard-cover full-color book the prices (at least after discounts) weren't too unreasonable. I also liked the rules much better than the old and arcane mush, no matter how familiar I was with it. The books were more logically organized, but still not entirely so, and the use of indices was very haphazard. Also, the move from 3 to 3.5 was botched -- one shouldn't have to rebuy books within such a short period of time, and they made a total mess of some things. Want to play a Tiefling in Forgotten Realms? Well, you have to get three books, because they all give partial racial information! WotC should have just redone the Forgotten Realms material as concise and complete works rather than supplementing the existing books in such a way that you had to buy the obsolete 3rd ed. book, then the 3.5 book and keep looking between both.
The problem I always had with (A)D&D was that it was too restrictive and pigeonholing. I want my character to advance more than once every four months when I go up a level, and the more granular skill system of 3rd edition was a vast improvement over 2nd edition proficiencies. I won't even touch alignment. This all goes back to me being more interested in characters and their interactions as persons rather than a game per se, and arguably D&D might not be the best framework for that. Luckily, a lot of my DMs have been pretty accommodating, and from my earliest gaming group we introduced advantage/disadvantage type systems as house rules. On the downside, 3rd edition, by now, has such a ridiculous number of spells, prestige classes and feats scattered all over the world that even when I have a character concept, finding the best way to dress the character in the rules is very, very difficult, and chances are that there's a perfect feat for the character, I just don't know about it or own the book.
3rd edition also brought with it a new generation, both as producers and consumers. The game became a lot more ambitious, sold to people who had never played D&D before, and now available in major bookstores. It was more colorful, easier to get into, and action-oriented -- or rather, I vager that a lot of the people who got into it were more interested in snazzy battles and powering up their characters with cool feats and weapons. It also as a setting was inherently more high-magic (hence snazzy) than the games I grew up with, where you never bought magic items, and finding that +1 long sword for your fighter on 5th level was a Big Deal. There's a bit of resentment of the "new kids" taking over the hobby, and based on my limited view the gamers that grew up with the old system don't mix as readily with the children of the 3rd edition, even if they end up playing the nominally same system. I also feel a bit lost; not knowing the world and rules nearly as well as some of the younger kids. That, of course, is just part of getting older and will undoubtedly become the case with a lot of other ventures as well.
The world is changing, people are changing, and D&D is changing as well. It's becoming a lot more colorful and easy and multifaceted. WotC is a business, and I cannot help to view them as unpleasntly greedy as they attempt to move more products and more often, resulting in a much higher cost to the gamer. I do appreciate the product development, but I'm not sure where the line goes between bona-fide enhancements to the imaginary, magical worlds in which we can engulf ourselves and artificial "must have" power-up packs that just get annoying after a while, especially once you realize that within less than a decade you'll have to do it all over again -- or in the case of 3rd edition and the latest releases, less than a year from the release of the book. While the existing investment in 3.5 is pretty high, I do also think that with their online tools and new rules 4th edition quite possibly has enough draw to get people to migrate over -- if you're lucky enough to stick with 3.5, there should be plenty of cheap books on the used market within a while!
