Community

The new submission guidelines for Dragon/Dungeon have been posted and there's both good and bad news for fans of 4e.

First the good news:

"  Although Wizards has announced a new iteration of the D&D game and made playtest materials available, no release date has been determined. In the meantime, the online magazines will continue to focus on 4th Edition. Please do not submit proposals for articles and adventures based on prior or future editions of the D&D game. "

This gives us confirmation that the magazines will still be 4e focussed for at least the next 6 to 8 months (about how long it takes for articles from the next window to get published).

Now the bad news:

"  Adventures should feature preexisting monsters and avoid introducing new ones (unique NPCs are the exception to this rule) "

" We’re primarily looking for short (1,500–4,500 words) player- and DM-focused articles that explore and further develop the existing lore of the game "

"  We are not looking for articles that add new mechanical elements (such as powers and feats) to the game. The current edition contains thousands of these elements, and the digital tools (D&D Character Builder, D&D Compendium, et al.) are bloated with options. We will only publish new mechanics if we find the underlying story extremely compelling and the mechanics are necessary to support the narrative. "

In other words, they really don't want a lot of new monsters, feats, powers, or mechanics added to the game. The magazines will be primarily focussed on the lore and story of the 4e world without adding new mechanical options.

My guess is that in the next 6 months we'll see the last few rounds of errata and then the digital tools wrapped up with all the final mechanical bits added in.

4e will be official complete in about 6 months time.


How do you feel about this? Discuss. 

Though there may be a few exceptions, any pitches greenlighted during this submission window won't likely see print for at least 8-12 months.  Also, this message isn't that much different from previous guidelines, though I'd assume they'd be overall pickier about mechanical content.  For the last couple of windows, story elements have had priority over mechanical ones.

while i can appreciate you trying to start convos style, just bc they don't want more crunch doesn't mean they are about to shut the tools off. to be completely honest, i agree with this stipulation:

"We will only publish new mechanics if we find the underlying story extremely compelling and the mechanics are necessary to support the narrative."

and if they always had followed that advice, we wouldn't be stuck with a lot of bloated and worthless feat, power, and item options. it also means if someone came up with something cool, they would publish it.

it is a good thing they were explicit; at least they are being honest. i also agree that there do not need to be many more articles with player options.

they did a poor job with monsters as well; they did not show any restraint, so there are just so many choices as to be absurd. there are all kinds of monsters that they published but never really explored. for example, they never really delved into the demonomicon or open grave in the mags. thats just off the top of my head, but a talented writer could make at least an issues worth of adventures from one of those books alone.

anyways, i usually agree with a lot of what you say style, but your whole melodramatic way of saying stuff like '4e will be done in 6 months' is kind of unnecessary. just bc they admit the obvious, that 4e is rife with sub-par, useless choices, it doesn't follow that the tools are about to be shut off. and even if they were i don't think anyone that truly loves 4e is just going to up and quit, especially with other 4e software floating around the internet.

Sep 27, 2012 -- 3:05PM, Felorn wrote:

It doesn't seem like anyone other than a few on the forums here really cares about 4e's future.    

that may be true, but it is also true that it is the same like 15 posters in the 5e forums that dominate every thread there. the point is, looking at it from the perspective of forum posts is kind of a skewed and narrow view.

Sep 27, 2012 -- 3:05PM, Felorn wrote:

I to be honest don't see 4e lasting very long without official support.

well, you would be completely misguided and wrong. people play 'dead' games daily. ive said it before and i will say it again: i could get a game of cyborg commando up in about 30 mins if i was willing to run it.



the point is, dms keep games alive. most players i have played with have never even heard of these forums, or were new to d&d, or lapsed for decades. but if i was willing to run a game, they had no problem playing. most people dont give a flying f about edition wars or any of that; it is way to nerdy for the average person to even contemplate or be aware of. even the fact that there are different editions of d&d is news to the average person.

sometimes it takes a game being out of print for a minute for the heart to grow fonder. the osr only picked up steam with the release of 3rd edition. before that people took it for granted. anyways, no matter what people say or what posters post, games are alive if people play them, and if youre willing to dm, you can play anything you want.