The sky is falling!!

[Treebore]

Eric Noah (publisher/editor of Dungeon and Dragon magazines for those who don't know) has announced "unofficial rumors" about 4E being in production, being focused on miniatures, and even "GASP!!" possibly being sold off by HASBRO.

So now people are in a panic like the "world" of gaming is coming to an end or something.

When are people going to realize there are always going to be RPG games called D&D or C&C being played as long as we want them to be?

I just hope 4E is still convertable to C&C, in case they actually have anything in 4E I will like enough to want to use.

I mean, that is another reason I love C&C. The Trolls could close down today and C&C would still be just as viable.

[eibon]

This is one of the reasons I got out of 3.5. After buying a large amount of material and having this unruly monster of options and add-ons the rumours began. I cut my losses and sold off all of my material just to unburden myself and to get away from that madness. Somehow my email address was drawn to be on the WotC survey and I received emails with a survey every few months. When I was done I wrote to them saying that I was no longer interested in a game I had played since the early '80's and I would not be buying anymore of their products and wasn't even interested in receiving free material from them (they gave survey members new products at random) and that I was investing my time and money into the Warhammer rpg and into Castles & Crusades and that was it.

Rumours and anguish over 4e is just too much drama for me to waste time with and I am sure ENWorld will be overburdened with threads of people that are dying due to these rumours which are probably true with WotC's track record; 3.0 could have had a thin transitional book to become 3.5, not the complete overhaul it was.
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[Tadhg]

Treebore wrote:
Eric Noah (publisher/editor of Dungeon and Dragon magazines for those who don't know) has announced "unofficial rumors" about 4E being in production, being focused on miniatures, and even "GASP!!" possibly being sold off by HASBRO.

So now people are in a panic like the "world" of gaming is coming to an end or something.

Hehe, yeah some people. Well, my thoughts on 4E are such that I, uh . . .
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[Moorcrys]

Eric Noah wrote:
Hopefully folks are taking this all with the grain of salt it deserves. "Someone I know had lunch with someone he knows and blah blah blah" isn't much to base anything on.

Not that big of a deal, I think.
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Moorcrys

[Treebore]

Moorcrys wrote:
Not that big of a deal, I think.

Even if this was an official announcement by WOTC/Hasbro I wouldn't consider this that big of a deal.

[Maliki]

There is little doubt that 4E will happen, when is the big question. My answer, "I don't care!" C&C fill my needs as a fantasy rpg, I houserule it to what I want and what WotC does is of no concern to me. I don't like where they took D&D to and see them heading further astray with each new edition or 1/2 edition.
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[Combat_Kyle]

This is why I play the lottery every week, if I win that 150 Million jackpot I can buy the naming rights to D&D and give it back to Gygax or the Trolls, let Hasbro make minature games if they wish.
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[Julian Grimm]

Note that I have taken this with a large chunk of salt.

If they sell it off it could be a boon. There are two things that I see as an opportunity here. 1) D&D is acquired by a company that respects it's history and heratige and takes over bringing D&D closer to it's original roots. 2) my preferred option this opens a big door for C&C and TLG to take. Even at that this could open things up for companies like Necromancer, Goodman and Judges Guild to work with TLG or even work on bringing the 3e game closer to a more reasonable level.

It would be interesting to see how well the whol OGL and SRD thing holds up. It's constructed in such a way that even if WOTC ends official support they won't be able to stop the support from other companies.

I don't see it as the end of the world but more as interesting times and a way for the small press guys to really get a foothold.
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[angelius]

Ditto for me, I haven't played D&D in so long and I really have no inclination to do so anytime soon.
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[Omote]

*shrugs* Eh, you knew it would happen sooner or later. No biggie either way. When it comes out, I'll take a look at it but as of right now I've got enough gaming materal.

.........................................Omote

FPQ
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[Moorcrys]

On a side note, Monte Cook has just put up a "line of sight" article where he states he's reprioritizing his life and moving malhavoc press to the back burner while he pursues other interests. That combined with the 4E rumors, I'm wondering if he has some specific knowledge that the edition he had a large hand in creating is being phased out relatively soon and has taken this as his cue to wrap up this particlar aspect of his life and move on...
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Moorcrys

[Inkpot]

Oh noes! A 4th edition of D&D? Whatever will we do? Guess I'll have to pack up my imagination because, you know, those fifty gazillion books already sitting on peoples' shelves are going to suddenly disappear. And every roleplayer in the world is suddenly going to have an instantaneous lobotomy. And all our dice are going to suddenly melt into little pools of molten plastic.

Get real.

If you can't play D&D (or any other RPG) without having the latest and greatest bit of shiny, then you're not a roleplayer. You're a sheep. And sheep get fleeced.

Somebody had to say it. Might as well be me.
Ink
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[Treebore]

Ink,

your so politically INKorrect!

[JRR]

Maybe something good will come out of this, like they'll sell the rights to AD&D off to some small company and we'll get a 4th edition that pretends Highlander 2, er 3e never existed.
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[gideon_thorne]

Honestly. I dont know why you folks are worried? 4e happens C&C will still be here. If its a Non OGL system, C&C will still be here.

TLG has a game that is slowly growing with the able assitance of an expanding fan base. There's really no need to change what works around here. 8)
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[Jynx]

gideon_thorne wrote:
Honestly. I dont know why you folks are worried? 4e happens C&C will still be here. If its a Non OGL system, C&C will still be here.

TLG has a game that is slowly growing with the able assitance of an expanding fan base. There's really no need to change what works around here. 8)

Personally, I'm not worried at all. I am curious of course, but time will tell what happens. I would also like to see a small company attain the rights to D&D, if only to have the name back.

As for a 4e, if they do come out with it, I hope it's got options that allow for two types of games to be played... a basic classic feel like C&C, or a more modern type game (thereby pleasing most gamers). Instead of making everything so complex, it should allow for easy removal of specific rules. I'm not a designer, so I'm not sure how this would work, but it would be cool if 4e would allow, for example, no feats, then it would allow for less munchkinism and such. Instead of cramming everything into one book, perhaps they can come out with the basic rules, the minis expansion, the feat expansion, etc.... . They can also make lots of $$$ that way - which is the bottom line isn't it!

I don't think RPGs are ever going to die, regardless if there is a 4e or if 3e is dropped from the shelves. The only thing that I perhaps do worry about, if at all, is the fact that newer players are coming along not knowing what it is truly like to RPG. I've had the pleasure and misfortune of playing with a wide variety of people of all ages that frequent my website. I can tell you for a fact that 75% of all newbies under 30, know nothing about role playing and it only serves to grate on my nerves when I run or attend games at events. I flinch each time I think that perhaps my kids will follow these morons into a pseudo-RPG campaign one day. I'll just have to ingrain them with proper techniques I guess!

[Moorcrys]

I don't think anyone is particularly worried... at least that's not the impression I get from the above messages.

I am, however, interested. What happens to D&D tends to have significant repercussions throughout this small industry. I haven't seen anyone comparing C&C to 2nd Edition lately, have you?
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Moorcrys

[Jyrdan Fairblade]

Yeah, if 4e comes out and it's as predicted, there'll still be plenty of great games to play like C&C, LA, WHFRP 2, and so on...

What would make sad is that there are plenty of great 3rd party companies out there. What happens to them if 4e is a closed edition?

I'm with Moorcryson this. Even though there are d20 variant systems, there are still many products that are dependent on D&D 3e, and indeed, a good portion of the RPG market.

[Julian Grimm]

Jyrdan Fairblade wrote:
What would make sad is that there are plenty of great 3rd party companies out there. What happens to them if 4e is a closed edition?

If they play their cards right, nothing. Since relatively speaking the end of 3e would just be official support there would be no reason a good company couldn't keep on making compatable books.

If this is true the newer players are about to see why there is such fighting between certain camps of in and out of print gamers. Luckily they will have the OGL on their side which keeps 3e in some form of print even though it's not official.

A good company that can produce quality stuff could stay in business for awhile.
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[johns]

Speaking of 3E/d20/OGL companies, Monte Cook announced today that he's putting Malhavoc Press on the back-burner for a while to concentrate on other things. They've been a pretty dominant d20 publisher for a few years - with them out of the way, some other companies may have a chance to shine.

As for 4E - who honestly cares. I can now think of several open-content games out there that people can still run - the 3E SRD, the 3.5 SRD, d20 Modern SRD, d20 BESM SRD, C&C, True20, BFRP, ... I'm sure there are more.

I get the feeling that 4E will be a simpler version of the game. 3E is, essentially, 2E AD&D with most of the material in the "Player's Option" series made official. In other words - the most complicated version of AD&D ever. It seems like 4E will borrow heavily from the D&D Miniatures Game, which simplfies combat in a major way - it was actually how I began playing D&D with my 6-year old daughter (who wanted to imitate daddy, etc). I later switched to C&C because it was still simpler and more accessible.

All in all, such a change might be a good thing for the hobby, and for C&C. C&C might become the game that's as simple to learn as 4th edition, but without the need for expensive miniatures.

[PeelSeel2]

I will buy it when it comes out. If it is $39.95, however, I will wait to pick it up on ebay for less bling. It will be like most games on my shelf, viewed yet never played,
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[Thulcondar]

I dunno... I don't care so much about the edition of the rules so much as the setting they support. I haven't bought any 3.x stuff, and won't be buying any 4.x stuff. I would absolutely love it if they would stop messing up my beloved World of Greyhawk. But I suppose that's too much to ask; they've got too much invested in that appalling Living Greyhawk nonsense.

Thulcondar

[Omote]

Thulcondar wrote:
I dunno... I don't care so much about the edition of the rules so much as the setting they support. I haven't bought any 3.x stuff, and won't be buying any 4.x stuff. I would absolutely love it if they would stop messing up my beloved World of Greyhawk. But I suppose that's too much to ask; they've got too much invested in that appalling Living Greyhawk nonsense.

Thulcondar

I think you;re not going to have to worry much longer. When 4E hits I think there will be no reference to anything Greyhawk anymore. Matter of fact, I betcha they won't even have Living Greyhawk anymore. The RPGA might have it's it own unique setting.

This has been prevalent in the last 12 months of Dungeon Magazine. Even though the past issues of Dungeon have delt with "Greyhawk" they havn;t mentioned the word "Greyhawk." About 8-9 issues ago Erik Mona (in one of his editorials) mentions that there will be less "Greyhawk" in Dungeon, at least in name.

...........................................Omote

FPQ
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[miller6]

You can't pull the rug out from under your customers and expect them to be happy about it. In my opinion, changing editions is for the most part a business money-making scheme...and a sure way to lose customers and long term profits despite the short-term influx of profits from selling new core books to those who don't give up on D&D. Change the art. Add new themes (i.e. Star Wars monopoly, etc.), whatever, but don't mess with the game engine on a major scale. The general rule is "don't change what works."

Heh, heh, heh...Ironically, this is the best reason to change 3E...it doesn't work the way it should.

Brian Miller
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