The Glade 4.0

All I want to know is: have they gotten over their hatred of halfbreeds?

If this is what they've been doing for the past year or two, things don't look good for D&D.

I wouldn't say that. The idea to revise the rules and have a fourth edition was sound. Ten years between rules editions is D&D's typical cycle. The actual product sucked, which is plainly evident in fifth edition being announced just a few years later.

I'm fairly certain at this point that fourth edition's lack of success convinced Hasbro that the product was dead, and they won't let WotC spend any more money on it. Unless someone pries the license loose, the game is done for.

I wouldn't say that. The idea to revise the rules and have a fourth edition was sound. Ten years between rules editions is D&D's typical cycle. The actual product sucked, which is plainly evident in fifth edition being announced just a few years later.

I'm fairly certain at this point that fourth edition's lack of success convinced Hasbro that the product was dead, and they won't let WotC spend any more money on it. Unless someone pries the license loose, the game is done for.

It wasn't really 10 years between editions, though, since 3.0 came out in 2000, and then it got 3.5'd around 2003. In any case, the actual product is what I was referring to. 4E was created by listening to the portion of the game community that complained on the internet the most, and which didn't get that D&D is not an MMO and doesn't need that sort of "balance".

In retrospect, the evidence indicates that's not how 4E was created. 4E is Mike Mearls's pet system, that he hijacked the D&D brand to produce. You can see a lot of the design philosophy of 4E in the Iron Heroes d20 OGL product. Was there some listening to the vocal minority? Yes, but probably not to the extent that you're thinking. The chain of events seems to have been a) Mearls developing a system that he released as Iron Heroes, but it wasn't exactly what he wanted to produce b) Internet complainerizing of 3.x to the extent that WotC decided a new version was warranted c) hiring of Mike Mearls as 4E lead designer d) Mearls taking the opportunity to get his system produced the way he wanted it.

I haven't really had the opportunity to examine the latest (and, reportedly, last) playtest packet. From previous playtests, there's been some encouraging material, and some other not-so-encouraging. I suspect I won't be doing much with D&D Next, but WotC could surprise me, I'm not ruling it out. But it would require re-establishing the libre OGL over the restrictive GSL first of all, which I doubt they intend to do. So the rest of the improvements I'd like to see are probably moot.

That was already discussed on the previous page. The reason it was Mearls, specifically, that was hired was that his Iron Heros system was reflective of what the vocal complainers were demanding. The big source of complaint with 3.X was always "balance" between classes, and that's what 4E delivered on, big time, at the expense of pretty much everything else.

My point was, he already had the system before the complaining started. There might have been a bit going on rec.games.frp.dnd, but it didn't become the great noise until many years after he'd already developed what would later become 4E. It probably only was mildly reskinned. It's just that, as a standalone system, uptake was not projected to be very good. It required the grand deception of slapping the D&D label on it to get people to buy it.

Seriously, i don't know what the big deal is

I...want...my.......

I...want...my.....

I want my PHB......

Now look at them yo-yo's that's the way you do it
You run your game without the PHB
That ain't gaming, thats the way you run it
Playin for nothin cause the game is free

Now that ain't gaming. Thats the way you run it
Lemme tell ya that game ain't fun
Maybe roll a fighter for your little sister
Maybe roll a cleric for your son

We gotta design half drow rogue fighters
Custom backgrounds for meeee
We gotta explore all of our options
We gotta check out these PHB's

See the newbie player with a printout in a note book
Yeah buddy thats his whole game
That newbie player has a whole four classes
That newbie player doesn't seem to care

We gotta design half drow rogue fighters
Custom backgrounds for meeee
We gotta explore all of our options
We gotta check out these PHB's

I wanna learn to roll up a druid
I wanna learn to play a monk
Look at this basic, its just stickin to the old core classics
Man we could have some fun
And whats all that? Theres no bards or warlocks?
Only got four classes and ain't got no feats
That ain't playin thats the way you run it
Get your playing for nothin cause the game is free

We gotta design half drow rogue fighters
Custom backgrounds for meeee
We gotta explore all of our options
We gotta check out these PHB's Lord

Now that ain't playing that's the way you run it
You play the game without the PHB
That ain't playing that's the way you run it
Playin for nothin' cause your game is free
Playin for nothin'and the game is free

I realize this is a necropost.

At this point, we're 3 years in to 5E. To date, there have been 13 releases in the system (not counting the starter set, DM's screen, or character sheets) 8 of which are modules and 1 is a setting guide. The 14th release upcoming mid-late November is the appearance of what in previous versions would be called the Unearthed Arcana. From the books themselves, it seems evident that 5E is the edition of teaching how to be a DM. Each module has basically been a tutorial on how to run an adventure. Which is somewhat promising, when you look at it.

Now that you put it like that, I see what you mean. DMing is a much more daunting task than it initially appears to the novice, and there's a lot of people that won't even try. Hopefully this will be healthy for the community.