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I follow another conspiracy theory, and that's that essentials is the 4e mearls wanted to make from the beginning, and now that he's in charge and most of the other big names from 4e's origin are gone he's going ahead with it.  I'm with you on fortune cards being a message from above, though.  Not that fortune cards are dividing the 4e fan base like essentials did - from what I can tell we're pretty unified in our dislike of them.

I was less impressed by this column.  I've had this feeling of D&D going back instead of forward since essentials was released, losing track of 4e's vision and instead being led around by nostalgia like the limbo kid with a worm in his brain.  This article does nothing to relieve me of this impression.  It's not about me hating the past, I don't.  I liked previous editions of D&D.  When I want to play them, I go play them.  But the future of D&D isn't in appealing to nostalgia, it's about doing what D&D did in the first place - looking around it at the wide world of the fantasy genre, and pulling it all together into a beutiful mishmash of a game that lets you live those stories and be those heroes yourself.  The future of D&D isn't in second and third editions, it's in modern fantasy novels, movies, television shows, cartoons, and video games.  It's in grasping the trends of an ever evolving genre and twisting them together into a coherent thread.

Then consider my theory on the origin of essentials debunked!

My comments about nostalgia blinders remain though.  I would have been less annoyed with a 4.5 (or whatever we want to call it), if it felt like more of a progression, rather then a regression. 

Feb 16, 2011 -- 6:04AM, Arithezoo wrote:

But how is it a regression, other than classes having different structures?  They are all still bound by the same limiting factor as all 4E classes: healing surges per day.  The Mage, Cleric, and Druid are not suddenly the most powerful classes (that would be a regression).  While they gain access to more powers per day than other Essentials builds (but not more than older builds which are still part of 4E!), that is balanced by other features given to the other builds.  Simply not liking something, or finding something boring, does not mean it is a regression.

You can call "it" whatever you want.  My friends and I still call it 4E.  We see Essentials as a step forward...classes are no longer shackled to a single design.  If it would make sense for an arcane class to not have daily powers, that is how it will be built.  Having played with the Essentials builds, I can say that the game remains just as well balanced as ever.

I'm not at all trying to convince you of anything.  It is clear that you dislike everything to do with Essentials and feel it has destroyed 4E for you.  For that I am sorry.  I just hope you know that not everyone views the situation with as much blind vitriol as you do.

I thought you said you were no longer going to argue anymore This I call passive aggressive arguing. Heh. There was hardly any vitriol in his statement. If he feels it's a regression, let it be. It's his opinion and no 'pillar of the community' can deprive him of it.

I don't see the article as an attempt to stop anybody from talking about the different editions of DnD in a civilized manner (and yes, that can be done; to quote Lennon: it's easy if you try). Because we will talk about the different editions, the rules they provide(d), the design ideas behind the rules and the philosophy governing them.
And in my opinion these are worthy subjects to talk about.

And since I believe that there are certain measures by which you can judge a system in a more or less objective way, I am assuming that we can talk about these measures are and why we think a certain system is better than another.
Mearls is a game designer. And as such, he and his collegues must be asking these questions all the time, especially when thinking about a new edition. Just like the people at Paizo did when they turned 3.5 into Pathfinder.

What I cannot understand, though, is the rage and frothing (sp?) and name calling and over-the-top use of certain words that sometimes come with such a discussion. And this is what has to stop, because this is what edition WAR is all about. It's not a civilized discussion, which, in the end, might lead to an understanding that it is possible to just like or just dislike certain elements without having any less fun.

And since this is so obvious in my opinion, I do not understand why Mearls chose to write an article like this. I really love his work, but here he is just stating the obvious.

Feb 15, 2011 -- 11:35AM, hunterian7 wrote:

If Wizards 4th edition had a stronger position and hadn't failed to loose players to Paizo/3.5, then we wouldn't be reading about us all getting along better.

Actually I don't think 4th editon lost many people to 3.5; I think the majority of Pathfinder players simply never bought into 4E in the first place.

That being said I read more negative posts about Pathfinder on these boards than I read negative posts about D&D on Paizo's boards.  My theories on this have enraged people in other threads, but simply stated I believe that most people who play D&D only play D&D, while Pathfinder players are less likely to restrict themselves to a single system.