The game, at its core, is simple. Adding a ka-jillion books and numerous magazine articles to make money and please people that need more rules to help fill in the gaps in their attention span/creativity has made the game, as a whole, complicated.

It is a role-playing game, after all, not a new chapter of Diablo (I agree with Apesamongus regarding simple/good.)

As mentioned above, the people at WotC are (in general) good folks and avid gamers. This edition is probably, however, driven more by sales and a desire to keep that division working. Hasbro, as a corporation, and as mentioned above, certainly wants to pull as much back into the fold as they can and do what corporation do nowdays: squeeze as much money as they can from something through planned obsolescence.

Eberron, for example, while perhaps a labor of love to those who worked on it, was driven by a desire to have a wholly created property for licensing, since the core D&D license was split into several parts.

They also have a strong desire to create an interactive gaming/my spacey/lounge community (which was brought up earlier); 4.0 is being designed with that in mind. Unfortunately, their track record for online has not been smooth (even ignoring how uncreative and goddamn clunky their website is.)

That said, if you just drop the $120 or so that the core books will cost every five years and ignore all the extra crap that will come out in the four years after, it really won't be that expensive compared to nearly everything else you do for fun.

The specifics have been elusive in terms of what the fees are going to be. It looks like they are going to cherry pick producers who they want to have support their product lines and give them a head start in the market. Others will be layered in as there is space in the marketplace.

They pretty much did that with 3.0 OGL, too. A couple publisher had the heads up and easy approval so their stuff would hit at the same time.

As an aside, I was around there when a very small portion of the 4.0 visual designs were being done. I found them pretty plain and generic, especially after watching all the work that went into 3.0 (Todd Lockwood and Sam Wood.) I don't like the art direction, especially compared to what MtG is coming out with. That's a very minor quibble, and hopefully doesn't reflect a "dumbing down/generic aim" for the rules, as well.

malkav11

Saint Paul, MN

July 2003

AUG 22, 2007 03:08 AM

I think most people who are complaining about the price have invested in more than just the core rulebooks (which, at least in 3.0, were significantly cheaper than the supplements, presumably to get you hooked before beginning to gouge.) Replacing all that with new edition versions gets expensive fast. Especially if, like me, you don't actually wind up doing much, if any, gaming with those purchases.

But then, that's why I'm not likely to buy into this new edition, as I said previously. I'm not upset about it or anything.

DiamondJoe

I'm lost

November 2004

AUG 22, 2007 04:29 AM

All I needed to know was that 4.0 was in works 2 years after 3.5 was released.

#### Them!!!!

cklarock

Lawrence, KS

August 2004

AUG 22, 2007 10:26 AM

mQx said:
Eberron, for example, while perhaps a labor of love to those who worked on it, was driven by a desire to have a wholly created property for licensing, since the core D&D license was split into several parts.

I think especially in the case of D&D you can see a dove-tailing of business and game interests. In the Eberron example, they wanted a core world for licensing and that drove a search that led to a fan getting his world published.

While Eberron wasn't my cup of tea, it's still a pretty cool concept, and an example of grass-roots up design.

mQx said:
As an aside, I was around there when a very small portion of the 4.0 visual designs were being done. I found them pretty plain and generic, especially after watching all the work that went into 3.0 (Todd Lockwood and Sam Wood.) I don't like the art direction, especially compared to what MtG is coming out with.

I noticed the big panel of concept art for MtG at the Wizards's booth, and it was gorgeous. So far, I'm fairly meh about the 4e concept art that has come out, but some of it is very good, and I am in the "loves Wayne Reynolds" camp, so the cover art is good for me.