Play 4e using maptool with a full set of pre-scripted powers and focus on playing the role of your character (not striker, defender, but their personality etc).
Play 4e using maptool with a full set of pre-scripted powers and focus on playing the role of your character (not striker, defender, but their personality etc).
For me 4E marks the final slippery slope down which the elephant in the room (Wizards) has taken with the D&D licence.
I have been playing D&D since 1976 (yes I am that old) and DM'ing it al that time through its various incarnations. Although I grew tired of the endless drive to improve it through complication, my players did not, so I dutifully shelled out the cash for each new edition.
This latest incarnation though is a step too far. It panders to the online rpg WoW crowd, reduces the whole experience to a colourful skirmish game and leaves little for the avid roleplayer.
This is why I have begun publishing my own (free) rules on my blog and running them for my friends.
I am also aghast at Wizards recent money-grabbing head turns such as making it more difficult for all the independent D20 producers that once again made D&D the market leader to get involved in 4E and the short-sighted withdrawal of online pdf publication out of fear of 'pirates'.
The latter may cost them more than the former. There is piracy online, but nowhere as much as is advertised. Products where the publisher tries to claw back as much cash as for a print edition are the rules those that suffer most. Wizards would be better slashing their prices for pdf editions and getting their profit from the sheer volume of sales they would generate. I rarely see pdf products that sell for under ten bucks on the various scan and publish sites (not that I ever visit them of course...).
On the bright side we have Paizo with Pathfinder. Still free to download in its beta edition, it looks to mend all the absurdties in 3.5. Whether it will succeed is still to be seen, but at leat they are trying.
Craig.
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