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So, I don't get to play D&D so much these days... but I am still pretty darned excited about the game that "started it all" ... the first RPG I ever played. I still remember fondly "the glory days!"

Anyone else excited about the pending release of the all new, Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition. I am very excited about it myself. I have been reading what I can and it does seem like the developers are well aware of the weaknesses in the system and are addressing them. What I have read regarding this is very exciting to me.

I am an old-school AD&D 1st Ed. player... I actually didn't like much of what was done in 2nd Ed. (I know... I'm in the minority... ) but, I jumped back on the D&D band wagon with 3rd Ed. and we played and enjoyed that game for awhile. It will be really cool to get excited about D&D again... and I am looking forward to this!

I think that computer RPG's and MMORPG's have changed the pen and paper RPG landscape quite a bit. At least one developer quote I read regarding 4th Ed. mentioned World of Warcraft. I think this might be a really good thing... as gaming goes mainstream the people who work to develop our pen and paper games are being forced to shake off old ideas and concepts that have been legacied into the system and find genuine working solutions. We reap the rewards with a polished product that really works.

I think 4th Edition might be the first genuinely different D&D game that works. That's exciting to me! Anyone else want to jump in here with their 2 cents... anything about D&D you'd really like to see changed?? Anything you really don't want to see changed??

Jeff,
More I read your blog, more I like you! We seem to have identical desires as to what we want in an rpg. But am much less sanguine about the impending "wonders" of next edition D&D. I've never made any distinction between the various incarnations of the commercial version of the game, "Advanced D&D" didn't differ from the "Basic" which didn't differ from the original nearly as much as any of our house rules for the original differed from the published version. So, the new edition isn't going to "fix" anything, it's just another money soak for munchkins. Now, it may be so that among those it attracts will be those who want to do games that have both role-playing potential and coherent rules which allow use of imagination and creativity instead of "I can do this because I have this many hit points but I can't do that because the game author said so." For example, a friend of my daughter's just mentioned he was going to change his campaign from D&D to GURPS just because the former required so much preplanning to no purpose (E.g. you can't create characters, just elect stereotypes) and infinite chart-looking-up, that GURPS was simply so much easier to get the same role-playing experience. An even better example to me is what I'm seeing on this website and the rpg laboratory: simple, coherent rule systems that can be customized to taste a whole lot faster than adding up all the qualifiers and exceptions to everything you do in D&D, to give you an actual role-playing game in which you can still "kill-da-monsters-loot-da-bodies-get-experience-points" every bit as much as in D&D.
While D&D created the hobby, and its concepts and procedures are the "vocabulary" of role-playing games, it's complete adherence to pursuit of experience-points-to-get-hit-points-to-get-more-experience-points, to the exclusion of anything else, warped the idea of a role-playing game from "I'm living in this world" to "I've got hit points."

I've had a bit of a chance to look over the speculation page at EN-world. Apparently some of my concerns from above are a bit moot. (As is the question you didn't quite understand.) It will be the same three books, dedicated specifically to D&D rather than a core system with an added genre. (The new world of darkness and DP9's Silcore represent this approach.) Of course the question remains as to if you wanted to see an overhaul of the presentation. Personally, I'll stand by D&D remaining its owngame rather than an added world.

Most of the notes don't make much difference to me, as I'm not a big d20 player, and I probably won't be able to afford the new books anyway. (My RPG shopping list is already several pages long unlikely to be ever fulfilled.)

I'm a little take back by the loss of the Vancian spell system - the per day limit was one of the defining elements of the game. Admittedly, I can see why people disagree with such, and many rpgs made since then have had magic systems in reaction to its limitations. Still, the strategic planning of what you might need was part of the game's chalange and appeal.

Everyone have limited use abilities seems to be adding book keeping. I always found choosing abilities and skills to be the defining factor in how quickly and easily. Given that feats remain (Though monsters are revamped) this may be a bit of a problem.

Hit point and ability spirals don't bother me, though I would like to see the steps to be a little more dramatic (ie +10-20 hp a level rather than 1d6) so you can really feel the changes. Most of the systems I've designed don't have a HP or ability increase mechanic (aside from XP for skills) However, they are also designed for characters that represent "ordinary people" not questing heroes - or take place in worlds where armor and technology are more intrinsic to your survival than being able to take the hit. For the D&D world, I think it makes a lot of sense.

What about all the Third Party Developers who have already invested time and money into writting up supplements and aids for the D20 system? Are all the writers going to have to write a new version of their product and what's going to happen to all the legacy aids and supplements? This is extremely important if the spell system is going to change completely. I admit, though, just like Jeff said, I remember feeling that nostalgic feeling from playing 1st edition D&D and hope that 4th Edition does the same thing. Still kinda scary though.

Paul

I continue to ignore any editions past the first Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. I played the 2nd edition a little when I was younger, but for the most part, I always enjoyed the AD&D I played when I was much younger. I got the 1st edition AD&D Rulebooks a few years back at a used bookstore, and have since gotten all the monochromatic modules (the one color modules such as Keep On The Borderlands, Tomb Of Terror, etc) and the Deities & Demigods with Elric & Cthulhu Mythos in it. Great reading material and a truly great game. You can see why it became such a huge phenomenon back then.

I also recall some of the early editions of Dungeons & Dragons before it became 'Advanced' (and I'm not talking the Basic Set). I only recall them vaguely, though. They seemed pretty cool in themselves, but nowhere near as detailed as the Advanced set.

All that being said, I certainly don't begrudge any other edition just because I am solely focused on the 1st edition AD&D. To each their own, and I hope this 4th edition is cool and finds it's own niche of fans.

I've followed Dungeons and Dragons for More than a decade now. I remember having that little red box for the basic set. I remember my first character, a bumbling Thief with a Dexterity of 4, who regularly insisted to the party that Yes, he had disarmed the trap, there was nothing to worry about.
I've been DMing the same group of people through AD&D, into 3.5, and now 4th edition. In a single campaign that's gone on for about three years. We've included Greyhawk, Spelljammer, and Ravenloft, and I can say without the slightest hesitation;
4th edition is the worst thing that has happened to us.
It's clumsy. Awkward. And Boring.
I'm sure it delights a lot of wargamers.
But it just does not allow for our playstyle.
There is only one player amongst us who seems to enjoy the system, and I suspect that it may only be because I'm allowing him to play a Lich Beholder. A Race and Class for which I designed the rules from scratch.

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