Umm, by the time this launches 4th ed will be 6 years old or more. That's hardly a super quick turnaround and as gaming hobbies (both computer and non) go 100-250 USD every 6 years is fucking cheap.

Don't get me wrong. I realize that TSR had money problems, but as I understand it these were mostly related to excessive supplement development. The three core systems were all profitable. I am also well aware that TSR was a mismanaged company. For all their genius Arneson and Gygax were not good business managers. Not only do I fully credit them with what they did wrong, I'm inclined to dismiss what they did right as luck.

I also realize that the model I'm proposing would break the back of WotC if applied using traditional publication models. But this is the information age. WotC can sell legacy titles without the ancillary expenses of printing and distribution. The fact is I can get a PDF of a 1st edition players handbook whether or not WotC want's me to give them $5 for it. Of course not being a pirate. I bought legal copies from Paizo back when they were still available and I just direct new players to use OSRIC for character generation, but I'd much rather be able to use the original AD&D materials. WotC's assumption that if I can't get my AD&D materials I'll run out and by 4th edition is just stupid. If WOTC is serious about breaking D&D into a larger market they need to respect us legacy players and stop trying to force us to use systems we clearly don't want.

In that case it's more justifiable (not that I have any personal stake in it). I think the event which sticks most in my memory is the 3-year-turnabout between 3.0 and 3.5.

I do think that PnP RPGs should have a longer longevity cycle than computerized ones simply because they are different mediums; PnP is not technology-curve based the way cRPGs are. Vampire: The Masquerade, a PnP RPG I played, hosted, and was involved with quite heavily had a good 13 years to its name before it was rebooted with Vampire: Requiem. Requiem, in the WoD world settings, is still going strong. Deadlands was another one, with ten years betwixt the original game (1996) and the Savage Worlds reboot (2006).

I was doing math tutoring and baby sitting early on and then worked in a grocery store when I got of legal working age so I had a decent amount of disposable income.

I'd say at least 70% of my collection is for the Ravenloft campaign setting.

Basically, I got the 3 main books, then the options supplements (Spell & Magic, Combat & Tactics, Skills & Powers), 4 handbooks (Humanoid, Fighter, Thieves, Wizards), Planescape Monstrous Compendium, Planescape boxset and the rest were Ravenloft material.

I would have eventually acquired everything that was Ravenloft for the second edition (one purchase at a time), but the books got out of print and I have never entirely forgiven them for that (if ultra-right wing pundits claim that the market is a democracy, then I wonder where my democratic right to complete my 2nd Edition Ravenloft collection went).

Of the settings, Ravenloft and Planescape were the ones that really made me tick.

The rest of the settings didn't do it for me.

3 things made me lose interest in the 3rd edition:

1) The descriptions for the monsters and spells were extremely short compared to the 2nd edition and were nowhere near as rich as the second edition's

2) They didn't have Ravenloft

3) They had over 500 prestige class.. I found it rather sloppy

Things did not improve from there.

Yeah, Tolkien's work was awesome, but now I have a hard time stomaching it, because it got overused, just like a hit song that they play on the radio over and over.

I have to agree with that one to an extent. There was a lot of overlap between the Skill & Powers and the 3 main books.

I have to disagree with you there.

4th edition has a lot less role-playing flavor and a lot more pre-rehearsed "for PC games" mechanics than the 2nd edition (at least judging from the Core books which I read at my friend's).

The 3rd edition was closer to it in many respects.

For the 100USD, it is true only if you don't buy supplements.

Bumping the thread, because the playtest has started. I got the materials about an hour ago, but I'll be able to look at it tomorrow.

I'm really curious how they incorporate the various edition playstyles into one.

Getting them now...

I've never played 4.0, but as someone who doesn't like miniature and prefers RPing, I don't have much desire to. I enjoy AD&D 2.0 and Pathfinder a lot, though, so I'll be curious to hear people's opinions on the new version (is there an NDA for the playtesters?).

Dammit!
Why am I working late today?
:(

dont worry their website is crawling

The playtesting is an adventure to test a party of low level premade characters. I'm not done yet with the full reading, but the basic rules seem to be 3.5 again, although I noticed things from Pathfinder.

I will comment more when I read it.

Ooh, I need more details! I didn't bother signing up for the playtest as I've lost a lot of interest in WotC's products over the years, but I want to know what they've done. Is it really just a regression back to Pathfinder/3.5 or have they actually put some effort into making it stand out?

The suspense is killing me. I'm hitting the blogosphere to see what my fellow gamers have to say.

Wow. I am glad I aborted our foray into 4th. Another edition already? These should be ten year products. Those books are damn expensive, and a whole shelf of add ons just became unsellable.

What I find funny is that 4th ed. rules were made more combat-focused and closer to an MMO (from what I've heard anyway, I never actually played them) at least partly to make them easier to port to the video game format, and yet in the end 4th ed. has been the very worst D&D edition when it comes to video games.

I don't know much about 1st games since that was before I started playing, but 2nd ed had both BG, Icewind Dale and Torment, 3.0 had NWN and Icewind Dale 2 and 3.5 had NWN 2 and ToEE. The current official D&D MMO uses heavily modified 3.5 rules as well.

What does 4th ed have? An as yet unreleased Neverwinter MMO (that doesn't look all that great) and Daggerdale (which according to reviews sucks).

Does that mean gamers just don't care anymore about the D&D license, or did WotC (and Atari since they had the exclusive license until recently I think) just mismanage that part of their business that badly?

I really hope they don't do a full reversion into 3e. There was at least as much bad stuff in that edition as there was good, and in some regards 4e made some huge improvements, though I'm not a fan of 4e as a whole. For one thing, martial characters aren't dead weight in 4e. That was one of my biggest gripes with 3e, because martial classes were quite good in 2e, even at high levels. 4e also scales better (but not great) at high levels, but that's not exactly difficult because 3e has the absolute worst scaling system I've ever seen in any RPG, except maybe for a couple of the oWoD books, but those don't really have "levels" in the traditional sense. Throwing out all of the good things from 4e just because people whined about it is the epitome of bad design. But we'll see, of course. The nice thing about D&D is that nobody's forcing you to play with a certain edition other than your local gaming group. I played a 2e game a couple of years ago and it was just as fun as it ever was.

My thoughts exactly. I had just bought the 4th edition books and learned to play with my friends... and now they're already releasing a new edition? Oh dear.