Wizards of the Coast gives up on 4th Edition, asks for help with fifth

CB Droege 10 Jan, 2012 at 7:37pm ET Article published in Gaming

Wizards of the Coast, developers and publishers of the Dungeons & Dragons table-top role-playing game, this week announced that they have begun work on a fifth edition of the iconic property. With the fourth edition having come out less than four years ago, this marks the shortest life-cycle of any edition of Dungeons & Dragons—and it’s no surprise, as 4th Edition has been a relative failure.

4th Edition was created partly in response to the unexpected creation and success of Pathfinder, which—among other more minor contenders like Sword & Sorcery and Legends & Lairs—cut into WotC’s D&D profits by nearly 50%, causing the company to regret the decision to publish the third edition as an open-license d20 game. The most recent edition was created with a closed-content license, prohibiting third-parties from creating new content to fit within the system. It was also developed with a more ‘casual’ player in mind, so as to attract a broader audience than past versions. This lost them a lot of devoted players, who chose to stick with 3.5—a middle version of their third edition—or one of the competing book lines. It didn’t help that they stopped printing the 3.5 books while Pathfinder and others continue to create new content for the d20 system that players like.

That brings us to their decision to create a fifth edition, but they don’t want to do it alone. In a move that seemingly recognizes the dislike players have for the latest version, WotC is asking players to give feedback on the current development of the game, which will be used to create a game that everyone enjoys—or everyone hates roughly equally.

The storied games publisher is taking a cue from the software development process by opening the upcoming version to a public beta test of sorts. Interested players can go here and sign up to participate in the playtest when it becomes available later this year.

Personally, I think that WotC should just turn the clock back, and pretend like they never released 4.0. It would be easier than making something new again, and it’s what most of the players do anyway.

Comments

10 Jan 2012 ~ 7:40pm Thrax Solution: Purchase Paizo's Pathfinder, find/replace with the WoTC name, and shove it out the door.

//EDIT: Forgotten Realms and Pathfinder is a match made in the Celestial planes.
10 Jan 2012 ~ 8:21pm SpencerForHire ^ This. Pathfinder is superior in every way.
10 Jan 2012 ~ 11:58pm QCH I will forever hate 4th edition and the fact I bought 3 books when a new group wanted to "give it a try" and we tried... a full year and it was so unnatural to play. When chapter 1 of the campaign ended and we switched DMs (my turn), we recreated all the characters with 3.5 rules. Boy was that better... Still would like to see some things tweaked but use 3.5 as the starting point.

I personally love Warhammer's constant evolution of your characters with every session seeing the characters change. Nothing major all at once... slow changes as the character reacts to environment and circumstance dictates.
11 Jan 2012 ~ 8:12am LazarusXero I agree with QCH (partially because I was a part of the failed 4th ed. game). What WotC did with the 4th ed. seemed to try to make every character class equal in power/ability/endurance and in doing so, made each character class useless. In my history of table-top gaming, most of the fun revolved around getting a group together and having diversity because that was the only way to survive. You needed a mage for his spellsthe priest/cleric for their healing, the warrior for the brute strenght and melee ability, the rogue for the backstabbing and thieving abilities, and the kender for their comic relief.

My favorite feature though of Warhammer is the fact that your mortality is never a sure thing. One lucky goblin has the ability to utterly destroy your character in any battle sequence, and it's this realization that keeps the game tense and "real" at all times as each fight may be your last. It still amazes me that our characters have stayed alive so long in the game.
11 Jan 2012 ~ 8:41am CB
11 Jan 2012 ~ 10:44am Ilriyas I've never been a fan of 4th edition, the first game I ever participated in made me hate the system all the way through character creation and well into the last few hours of the campaign. Everything is so damned similar (class wise) and the changes they made, not only to the mechanics of the game but also to the fluff were, to me downright stupid.

My two favourite classes for example, wizard and bard were changed to the point where they were almost unrecognizable from their 3.5 versions. Wizards in 3.5 were a 'jack of all trades caster' for the most part due to the fact that they had potentially the ENTIRE spell book at their disposal and while they could easily focus on a school of magic they still had more flexibility than a sorcerer or other arcane caster. In 4e I first set about making a wizard and was shocked at the changes there were so few spells to choose from I felt like I was playing a dumbed down sorcerer instead of a master of the arcane arts.

Similarly this occurred with the bard class, while originally a support character designed around benefiting allies with encouraging music or debuffing enemies as well as being a fair hand at illusion magic the 4e model made no bloody sense at all. What is the point of a bard who doesn't have nor need a musical instrument to accomplish feats? I found this so unsettling to the RP potential of my character that I sacrificed the wands damage potential simply so that I could actually play a BARD in my second campaign.

I don't wish to recount my experiences DMing a 4e game I hated it so much.

Now on the above I'm not a 3.5 elitist, I've been a Role-player for well on nine years now in that time I've learned and used almost 14 different systems ranging from better known systems like GURPS to the brilliant but largely unknown Spycraft and Starship Troopers RPG systems. I've enjoyed using just about all of these (I must say that Spycraft 2.0 is perhaps one of the greatest systems I've ever used) 4e is the only one I've ever really despised using for a game.
14 Jan 2012 ~ 12:13am Erik Tenkar Actually, Pathfinder was a response to D & D 4E. Specifically, the GSL - the license that allows third party publishers to publish 4E compatible works. It is much more restrictive then the OGL, which allows for fairly liberal use of the 3e/3.5e systems.

Pathfinder is based on 3.5e and the OGL.

There are a bunch of other games that are derived from 3.5E D & D and the OGL. Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry, OSRIC, Adventurer Conqueror King System, The Secret Fire (didn't use the OGL but "Fair Use" if I recall correctly) and others that are less well known or haven't been released yet (but are in the works). Most of those games attempt to replicate one of the earlier editions of D & D / AD & D.

The OGL was great for the hobby, less so for WotC.
23 Jan 2012 ~ 1:37pm Sébadtien I play fourth edition, but only to have the chance to see friends I would not see for awhile ptherwise. I made the deal to my D.M. that I would play only if I could bitch about the edition during the game (as long as it does not disturb the game too much...)

Yesterday, while going through the books (specifically Martial Power), I found yet another exemple, whicg pretty much sumarize my hate for the edition: the beastmaster ranger.

He gets to choose a companion from a category of animals, such as Cats, Bear, Lizards, etc...
Any animals within one categorie have the SAME STATS. So you can choose a crocodile as a lizard, or a giant monitor lizard, but don't expect the monitor to be a better mount than the croc, or the cro to have a better swim check (not that THAT exists anymore...) than the monitor...

You don't have a crocodile anymore, you have a bunch of stats. I f you had a crocodile, it would have an amazing bonus to hold it's breath, and if you had a polar bear, it would have better saves than a brown bear against cold environment. But as I said, in 4th edition, you don't have a crocodile, or a polar bear anymore, you have a piece of sheet with stats written on it.

Sadly, the same goes with your own character.
26 Mar 2012 ~ 1:01am primesuspect It's weird. I have this really strong urge to play D & D 4E, and I think it's mostly because I have the sourcebooks. They are some of the most beautifully produced books I've ever seen (I'm a real print dork, I come from the printing industry).

I guess I just want to understand exactly what is so damned bad about it. I am going to be starting as a player in a Pathfinder game soon, and it seems fine and good, but I still want to know what the ruckus about 4E is.

Maybe I'll just do a small campaign with my kids or something.
26 Mar 2012 ~ 10:54am QCH NO... Brian.... NO... Damn, lost another one to MMORPG-PV (Massive multiplayer online role-playing game paper version).
26 Mar 2012 ~ 10:57am TiberiusLazarus Still waiting for that pathfinder game @thrax @spencerforhire ....
26 Mar 2012 ~ 11:15am Colgere
NO... Brian.... NO... Damn, lost another one to MMORPG-PV (Massive multiplayer online role-playing game paper version).
^ This. Basically, if I wanted to play WoW, I'd go get WoW. When I want to play D&D, I'd go play 3.5 or Pathfinder (currently 3.5 since that's what everyone in my group has, will probably run Pathfinder the next time I run a game.)
26 Mar 2012 ~ 12:39pm primesuspect You guys are totally missing the point. Yes, I get it. 4E sucks. But I need to, for lack of a better term, feel what's wrong with it by playing it (or attempting to).

It's like when I wanted to know what WoW was about. I read everything I could, talked to everyone, but still had no clue at all so I jumped in and played for 10 days to get a feel for it.
26 Mar 2012 ~ 12:43pm CB Brian's the type of guy who, when told the milk is sour, must stick his own nose in the top of the jug, just to see for himself.
26 Mar 2012 ~ 1:04pm primesuspect That's true, but not for the reason you state. It's not to see for myself, it's so that I can fully grasp the fundamental nature of the sour milk and learn a bit about the universe and myself
26 Mar 2012 ~ 1:14pm Colgere So in this case you're not just going to smell the milk, you're going to chug the whole thing down so you can learn a bit about the universe and yourself (and your gag reflex).
26 Mar 2012 ~ 1:25pm Bandrik There are better methods to learn about yourself and the universe without defiling your digestive tract with sour milk.

Such as smoking weed... erryday.
26 Mar 2012 ~ 1:55pm CB
There are better methods to learn about yourself and the universe without defiling your digestive tract with sour milk.

Such as smoking weed... erryday.
Which would be what in this analogy? Freestyle story-gaming?
26 Mar 2012 ~ 2:24pm QCH Brian, if you need more 4E books, let me know. I'll ship mine to you FREE OF CHARGE but you must destroy them at the end of your research project. And I mean destroy them in the only way possible Icrontic Getto Style (with video proof).
26 Mar 2012 ~ 3:07pm kryyst CB don't fret it there are plenty of people happily playing 4e.

They just don't know any better.
26 Mar 2012 ~ 3:39pm midga 4th was WoW with a DnD overlay.
3.5 was 3.0 with a $75 service pack.
3.0 was 2nd ed for people who can't do math.
I'm still waiting for them to bring back Spelljammer.

Honestly, with a good DM/GM/ST/w/e it doesn't matter. Most of the rules will be house-ruled to fit the gamers involved and the style of the Story Teller. CB is a good example of this.

Right now, I'd rather find a good Shadowrun game anyway.
26 Mar 2012 ~ 11:14pm SpencerForHire
Still waiting for that pathfinder game @thrax @spencerforhire ....
Not even going to bother. I love me some Pathfinder and will profess that it is the best incarnation of this game but it really won't make a difference.
28 Apr 2013 ~ 1:43am Lament Wizards lost me and everyone I know with 4E. d20 is better in every way, and they should have continued support. The reason Pathfinder beat them out on sales is because they had the brains to learn what the players wanted, house rules common to many many groups, etc. Wizards stop caring about their lifebrood, the gamers, and only cared for the cashflow. Had the updated to Pathfinder's '3.75' before someone beat them to it, WIZARDS would still be in the d20 'game'.