D&D 4E, or why I stopped giving WoTC my money

As I mentioned previously, D&D 4th Edition is coming out next year. Now that I know a little bit more about it, I feel comfortable putting some of my concerns/bitter hatred in a more cogent form.

It seems that the mechanics of the new Star Wars RPG is pretty close to what we can expect from 4E, and I've reviewed some of that material in the last couple of weeks. I am not impressed.

Some of the ideas are fine and good, and might even find themselves house ruled into our game (Combining all of the sneaking skills into a single skill is okay, being able to spend skill points to improve initiative is long overdue in my mind, and nobody can argue with more stat bumps), a lot of them are just a mess (starting first level with 30+ hit points is excessive, I think the combining of skills went to far: Bluff, Diplomacy and Intimidate are not the same thing, neither are Spot and Sense Motive, and eliminating Saving Throws in favor of three different AC's is just going to breed confusion).

These things could have been released as an alternate rule book (Unearthed Arcana II or whatever) and priced at $25 to $30 bucks. About 50 to 80% of players would pick it up and use about 20 to 30% of the book. Everyone would use a different 20 to 30% (except for the initiative as a skill and extra Stat bumps: everyone would use those), and we'd all be happy.

But no, they have to make 4E to try and sell us three $40 dollar books, and render the rest of our collection obsolete. Frak that.

Then there is the online component. Not so long ago D&D had an ad campaign encouraging gamers to leave their basements and play in a social setting. The new business model trashes that and tries to chase everyone back to their computers. You can play entirely on line (if you pay the ridiculous $10 to $15 a month fee) if you like, there fore crippling the vital social interaction aspect of the game. WotC claims that the game will still primarily meant to be played at the kitchen table, but this is largely bullshit. So much of the game is now tied up with the online aspect that it just encourages people to stay locked up in their homes. They are trying to emulate the WoW model, and they will fail.

Oh, and if you have a Mac you're apparently not part of WotC's glorious vision of the future. The key elements of the online D&D experience will only run on a PC, with the informational stuff being all that a Mac user can access. More short sighted mistakes that will cost them a lot of players in the future.

I will continue to enjoy my 3.5 D&D, thank you very much. I won't cry too much when this grand experiment that WotC is embarking on fails.