4th & Dragon : Dungeons and Dragons...and stuff

Like rats abandoning a sinking ship.

Maybe if 4e dies before WotC can get out any more product they won’t be able to destroy it with power creep like they did 3.5e.  Just a thought.

Sadly for those of you who don’t like it, it’s doing really well.  And from playing it for over a month now a few times a week, it flat out trumps the sh*t out of 3.5 Much faster and vastly more streamlined. 

But, what do I know.  The whole 3.5 vs 4.0 argument is boiling down to Apple vs. PC.  Ford vs. Chevy.  Old Van Halen vs. New Van Halen.  In the end I’m just trying to contribute to the chaos of it all and send people into a tizzy.  Because some who love 3.5 (that’s cool and good for you), act like Wizards somehow “owes” them something.  You’re sadly mistaken, they don’t owe you jack squat.

Ingredients:

1 Hornets’ Nest

Procedure:

Shake Hornets’ Nest vigorously

You are mistaken if you think I don’t like 4e.  There are things I don’t like about it, but generally I do like it.  I’m no fanboy mind you, defending it to my last breath, but it works.  So do dozens of other RPGs by the way.  My comment was more about the inevitable power creep that will work its way into the game.  It’s just the nature of the business beast.  By the time WotC is ready to release 5e, 4e will be so broken as to be nearly unplayable, just like 3e was.  Mark my words.  <G>

That’s just the natural way of most game systems.  That’s why GURPS is in its 4th Edition (despite being 12 years younger than D&D), Shadowrun is in its 4th Edition (despite being 15 years younger than D&D), Ars Magic is in its 5th Edition (despite being 13 years younger than D&D), etc.  Granted, D&D has had mini editions (Basic, Advanced, 3.5, etc), but it’s an inevitable part of games to have a power creep.  Heck, Magic: the Gathering is in its 10th edition in only 15 years.

Anyway, that is really only tangential to Necromancer story.

Well I would say that the whole Magic (collectable) business model from the beginning has been to release new editions as frequently as possible to generate repeat business.

Ah, I remember a simpler time when TSR seemed only interested in releasing adventure content for their game instead of hardback rulebooks every month.  :sigh:

Ah, I remember a simpler time when TSR seemed only interested in releasing adventure content for their game instead of hardback rulebooks every month.

I don’t.  I distinctly remember softcover rulebooks every month and few adventures.

I’m talking 1e AD&D.  For the longest time there was only the three core books and dozens of modules.  Eventually they put out the MM2, Unearthed Arcana, and the Fiend Folio, but I believe they were very near the end of the 1e life cycle (if I am remembering correctly).  There were a bunch of folio products too, like Dungeon Geomorphs, and Rogues Gallery, but I don’t recall any rules specific softcovers in that era.

Oh, and Deities and Demigods.

then I completely misunderstood your first post.  My bad - didn’t dump many points into knowledge on that one. 

Now I see where you are going Kalex, with that follow up. 

And I’d like to add to your point.  My very best friend in the world and I have been having this HUGE argument about 4E.  Now he is the text book “research everything powergaming munchkin” we all don’t like who’s real goal is to make a DMs life miserable.  Also the type that if the DM throws an encounter to challenge him, killing him, totally blames the DM and complains the DM was out to get him.  This is what I love about 4E, it really leveled the playing field.  And I see your point Kalex as well… “FOR NOW” it has leveled the playing field. 

To which my best friend Rob said/believes In 3.5 people complained, so they made more books, those books came with more powers, then to make those who didn’t have more powers happy they gave them special books, and each book had a new more powerful class, so each book that comes out past the core raises the power notch one until the game is totally broken.  Maybe he has a point; maybe he doesn’t.  I say he doesn’t because the original Monk in 3.5 totally sucked when compared powers wise across the board with everything else.

Honestly I don’t see 4e as “doing really well”.  Of course to me that might mean something different than it does to others.  To me it means that it not only does well for the company but it helps the gaming community as a whole.  Honestly, aside from the divide amoung rabid 4e fanboys and 3.x people who have suddenly been demoted to grognards there is the issue of the GSL pretty much barring quality content from anyone other than WotC.  (You know...the topic of this news post.) And thats just fact...Necromancer games is far from the only publisher to have the same sentiment.  This whole thing makes me happy because I dislike 4e and would like to see 3.x move forward.  Pathfinder appears to be the system for me and this whole issue is going to do nothing but drive their product.  That is something I would really like to see because I like Paizo’s attitude towards open source gaming, their rules system, their business plan and their products.

The GSL is a point of contention even among people who like 4E, as evidenced by Clark.  Sadly, it’s one of the things that I actually agree with you on.  It doesn’t make me happy in any way because I do like 4E.  Strangely, despite how much I like 4E, I also want Pathfinder to move forward and do well too.

The problem comes with what isn’t known about Pathfinder.  We keep getting told that it will be open and the development is certainly open, but there’s a year of development left and I’m not convinced that it will remain open.  I honestly think it will go the way of the True20 licensing system and be overly restrictive for fans of the OGL like me.  It’s only natural that this would happen to protect IP, and I truly feel that’s what Paizo will do.

Could you define “open”?  Do you mean like having an online SRD?  Honestly, if your really worried about that (which I’m not) then I would download the alpha for free now.  I’ve been reading through it and I really like what I see.

well as far as i know dnd didnt have a ogl, gsl before 3.x and they did fine with out it. To tell you the truth i wasn’t thrilled with necromancer games any ways, in my opinion the built their business off the corpse of 2nd edition material.
I thing wotc is being so restrictive right now cuz a certain publisher out there basically reprinted all of the dnd core rulebooks sans pictures and made them pocket size and they where half the price and out selling the actual rulebooks.
so i can see why they would be restrictive on their new content, also i feel that they are trying to regulate the growth of the new edition to make sure that every thing blends nicely and that some 3rd party publisher starts creating mega level powers that are at will. I would say give the new gsl some time, it’s a living document and can all ways change

Priest of Asmodeus: Is your opinion of Necromancer games based on any first hand knowledge of their products or are you basing your opinion of them entirely on the names of their products? 

Speaking from first hand experience I can say that they make some quality products.  They are not the only ones either.  There are plenty of 3rd party companies that are going to have a hard time working with the GSL.  I’m betting Andorax would have a similar opinion.  Although I haven’t spoken with him on this specifically I do see worldworksgames hasn’t made any 4e plans yet either.

little bit of both actually. I never bought any of the products but my brother has and has used them. Either way I wasn’t impressed. You cant deny that they took old products and refurbished them into 3.x rules. Thats what im saying, and it was Mongoose Press that published the pocket Players and such.

Again I dont feel like necromancer games do good products from what my brother has shown us.

and if your interested heres a review on the pocket players- one of the reasons i think wotc is locking down on there gsl.
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/9/9993.phtml

yep that mongoose strikes again

You cant deny that they took old products and refurbished them into 3.x rules.

And I didn’t.  But I also don’t think that is a bad thing.  A lot of people wanted to play through those modules in 3.x but if WotC doesn’t make them then they wouldn’t have the opportunity to do so without 3rd party publishers like Necromancer Games. 

As far as the book that your refering to by Mongoose goes; if it is selling as good as you say then from a consumer’s standpoint it makes no sense why such things could no longer be produced.  And actually from an RPG industry standpoint it makes no sense to not want to get RPGs into the hands of as many players as possible as a PHB is a gateway book to D&D and D&D is a gateway game to other RPGs.  The only one it makes sense for is for WotC and only from a purely selfish perspective.  Now don’t get me wrong, there are certain businesses that can only be successful by being selfish and keeping rights to certain products to themselves and not allowing others to produce content for their product.  And perhaps this is just a difference of opinion but I do not believe that D&D or any RPG really is one of those.  Of course my basis for this opinion is mostly 3.x, but I think that is a fairly solid basis.  *shrug* One of the things I look for in an RPG is for it being fairly open source and portable.

I’m relatively certain that I never heard of the Pocket Payer’s Guide outselling the PHB. There were some ruffled feathers among publishers who couldn’t believe that Mongoose would sell the SRD in pocket-sized format (not the PHB, mind you… they could only include material from the SRD under the OGL, which meant no XP rules or anything like that).

And while I am relatively impressed with 4e, I too dislike the GSL. Strongly. But then, considering what work I’ve been doing with d20 lately, that shouldn’t come as a surprise.