Community

If there was anyone still holding out hope for a new 4e product, they should look upon the the 2012 D&D Holiday Gift Guide and despair. There isn't a single 4e product on their list.

Yes, it's been a long time since there were any new 4e products, but the Essentials items were supposed to be "evergreen" at least (ha ha ha ha ha!) and 5e won't hit the shelves until at least 2014.

The WotC strategy moving forward seems to be to support old editions (this makes me happy because I still play all the old editions on a semi-regular basis) at the expense of 4e (this makes me unhappy because 4e is my preferred edition). I love old school D&D and I'm enjoying playing D&D Next, but WotC is making the same old mistakes of throwing the current edition (and its supporters) under the bus.

It's also quite telling that novels and board games make up 50% of the gift guide. No room for one single 4e book? Not even a rules compendium?

I feel sorry for all those FLGS owners who still have plenty of 4e products on their shelves and were maybe hoping to sell some of them this Christmas season.

See "Bus, 4e thrown under a"

See, "has no more customers" as in screwed them all over.

I have plenty of gift ideas, they're just not going into WotC's pocket apparently. Too bad for them, but no biggie for me!

Nov 19, 2012 -- 10:06AM, AbdulAlhazred wrote:

See, "has no more customers" as in screwed them all over.

More accurately, "has no more customers" as in not providing anything for them to buy.

We want to give you our money, dammit.

Nov 19, 2012 -- 10:09AM, Mand12 wrote:

Nov 19, 2012 -- 10:06AM, AbdulAlhazred wrote:

See, "has no more customers" as in screwed them all over.

More accurately, "has no more customers" as in not providing anything for them to buy.

We want to give you our money, dammit.

Yep, this is more accurate.

Does anyone else feel like this is just like the death knell of 3rd Edition and the misguided marketing campaign for 4th Edition all over again? "Yeah, that last edition of the game sure sucked! We know you all hated it!  No more of those crappy books! No sir! How about some edition-neutral stuff? No? Well, this new edition is going to be everything you ever wanted in D&D! We guarantee it!" Wizards has learned nothing. They could still be making money, selling 4E product, and have chosen to screw over anyone who wants more material for their 4E games. There are plenty of class builds, character options, monsters, and other "crunch" that could be put into books and sold. But nope, they have decided to put all effort into a product that is more than a year away. Fail.

Nov 19, 2012 -- 10:09AM, Mand12 wrote:

Nov 19, 2012 -- 10:06AM, AbdulAlhazred wrote:

See, "has no more customers" as in screwed them all over.

More accurately, "has no more customers" as in not providing anything for them to buy.

We want to give you our money, dammit.

Actually at this point I'd rather reward the people that are still making products that I do want. Got a nice 4e PDF, Admiral o' the High Seas today. I could go buy some of the 4e WotC stuff I'm still missing, and I probably will eventually, but frankly I'd rather put the money in someone else's hands at this point. That is people that support the product I am interested in. They may provide less and maybe even lower quality, but at least they listened to what I wanted.

So far WotC has at some point pissed off pretty much everyone that was ever a customer in a vain quest to do better. Let it go. I'll be happy now if they just give up and stop and pass the torch.

eh, i would have been more surprised if there were 4e products in it

If anyone's interested, there's two great new 4e PDF's available:

Admiral of the High Seas (lots of goodies about running ships)
 
Midgard Bestiary for 4th edition (some cool monsters and NPC's)

Both are definitely worth the cash. 

Nov 19, 2012 -- 10:47AM, frothsof wrote:

eh, i would have been more surprised if there were 4e products in it

Given their past history, you're right, but I'd hoped they learned something from the past.

I'm surprised they didn't at least put in some of the Essentials books. At the very least a Rules Compendium, DM Kit and Heroes of the Fallen Lands. That's just 3 things they could have put in there that would help FLGS move product and/or support 4e.

The lack of these items speaks volumes about WotC plans for the future of 4e. 

Nov 19, 2012 -- 1:11PM, Style75 wrote:

Nov 19, 2012 -- 10:47AM, frothsof wrote:

eh, i would have been more surprised if there were 4e products in it

Given their past history, you're right, but I'd hoped they learned something from the past.

I'm surprised they didn't at least put in some of the Essentials books. At the very least a Rules Compendium, DM Kit and Heroes of the Fallen Lands. That's just 3 things they could have put in there that would help FLGS move product and/or support 4e.

The lack of these items speaks volumes about WotC plans for the future of 4e. 

Thought on the otherside, it could also means that those books and reprints are not selling at all and they need to sell them to avoid loses, i hope so... I know people don't care enough Menzoberranzan book to even pirate it (because there is no book selling chart site like in other kind of media markets, i use the amount of piracy to the interest of popularity of D&D books)

Nov 19, 2012 -- 1:11PM, Style75 wrote:

That's just 3 things they could have put in there that would help FLGS move product and/or support 4e.

The Holiday gift guide is an advertisement for WotC's newest products. WotC is not making new 4e products.

That's fine. Pelgrane Press (13th Age) now has the money WotC could have had at this point. They're not doing much to earn my money for the future, either. Way to repeat the pre-release of 4e.

Sadly, 13th Age doesn't feed my needs right now that 4e D&D does...(13th Age is not the 4e's Pathfinder, is it's own diferent kind of beast and feel, wish is something i can respect, because i see Pathfinder as plagium)

13th is good very casual RPG system i am looking forward thought, and i am actually going to use 13th age to introduce some people into the world of tabletop RPGs

Really? Not one?

www.wizards.com/dnd/Product.aspx?x=dnd/p... is on there.

The dungeon tiles most certainly can be used for 4e games.

Lords of Waterdeep is a fun boardgame, as is Dungeon!

This is not a list of upcoming products, it's a list of what's already available.

Nov 19, 2012 -- 6:40PM, Webster wrote:

Really? Not one?

www.wizards.com/dnd/Product.aspx?x=dnd/p... is on there.

The dungeon tiles most certainly can be used for 4e games.

Lords of Waterdeep is a fun boardgame, as is Dungeon!

This is not a list of upcoming products, it's a list of what's already available.

Mezoberranzan is not a 4th edition product, hell it was sold as an "coming wave of edition neutral books"...4th edition players got more out of that month's dragon magazine article with the themes than the entire book itself...i don't even think that book is selling at all...when the internet don't even bother to pirate a D&D book, you know there is a very low interest on it...i don't even want to imagine how is selling (yes, i use research piracy to know the amount of piracy and sold product ratio of several things, i had to do it for a asignment for collage, but sometimes i continue to do stuff like that, sadly there isn't such thing as official numbers from books sold online and on retail/store like it happend on other kind of media)

Nov 19, 2012 -- 5:01PM, mexrage wrote:

Sadly, 13th Age doesn't feed my needs right now that 4e D&D does...(13th Age is not the 4e's Pathfinder, is it's own diferent kind of beast and feel, wish is something i can respect, because i see Pathfinder as plagium)

13th is good very casual RPG system i am looking forward thought, and i am actually going to use 13th age to introduce some people into the world of tabletop RPGs

It isn't 4e's Pathfinder, and that's why I love it. It holds the spirit of 4e while being its own entity. If I wanted a 4e clone, I'd play 4e.

Nov 20, 2012 -- 1:51AM, Samrin wrote:

Nov 19, 2012 -- 5:01PM, mexrage wrote:

Sadly, 13th Age doesn't feed my needs right now that 4e D&D does...(13th Age is not the 4e's Pathfinder, is it's own diferent kind of beast and feel, wish is something i can respect, because i see Pathfinder as plagium)

13th is good very casual RPG system i am looking forward thought, and i am actually going to use 13th age to introduce some people into the world of tabletop RPGs

It isn't 4e's Pathfinder, and that's why I love it. It holds the spirit of 4e while being its own entity. If I wanted a 4e clone, I'd play 4e.

I know...i just...want more 4e crunch content...that isn't essentials...except hexblade, i love freaking hexblade...

Nov 19, 2012 -- 6:40PM, Webster wrote:

Really? Not one?

www.wizards.com/dnd/Product.aspx?x=dnd/p... is on there.

The dungeon tiles most certainly can be used for 4e games.

Lords of Waterdeep is a fun boardgame, as is Dungeon!

This is not a list of upcoming products, it's a list of what's already available.

The Menzo book is solidly edition neutral. As for the boardgames, they are a lot of fun (LoW is amazing) but are absolutely not 4e products. And while dungeon tiles can be used in 4e, they were originally released in 2006 (DT1) so they are as much a 3.5e product as they are a 4e product. I would say they are also edition neutral.

So I stand by what I said, there's not a single 4e product on this list.

I've given up and am assuming my collection is "complete" (I don't have the Mezzo book, but since it's not 4e specific I don't feel I need to). 
 

I looked upon it.

I am in despair.

Nov 20, 2012 -- 2:11AM, mexrage wrote:

Nov 20, 2012 -- 1:51AM, Samrin wrote:

Nov 19, 2012 -- 5:01PM, mexrage wrote:

Sadly, 13th Age doesn't feed my needs right now that 4e D&D does...(13th Age is not the 4e's Pathfinder, is it's own diferent kind of beast and feel, wish is something i can respect, because i see Pathfinder as plagium)

13th is good very casual RPG system i am looking forward thought, and i am actually going to use 13th age to introduce some people into the world of tabletop RPGs

It isn't 4e's Pathfinder, and that's why I love it. It holds the spirit of 4e while being its own entity. If I wanted a 4e clone, I'd play 4e.

I know...i just...want more 4e crunch content...that isn't essentials...except hexblade, i love freaking hexblade...

I do, too. However, I want to keep spending money on new material. 13th Age is the best candidate for that since DDN seems to be moving further and further away from the people that have been feeding them money for the last 4 years.

Moving on to a new system isn't unreasonable for me. 13a gives me something fresh while keeping me happy with the stuff I want from an RPG (what 4e has been providing).

So, yeah. I want new material for 4e, too. I'm not going to get that. That means that it is time to move on from WotC unless DDN extends some serious olive branches to the 4e fans. 

The one good thing about a finished game system at least is that I finally feel comfortable house-ruling things I thought could be better without having to worry about how some future release is going to affect the balance of those house-rules.

Nov 21, 2012 -- 1:58PM, Chris24601 wrote:

The one good thing about a finished game system at least is that I finally feel comfortable house-ruling things I thought could be better without having to worry about how some future release is going to affect the balance of those house-rules.

A little dose of "on the bright side"? Yeah, I can be down with that too. I just wish some really underdeveloped classes could get some love.

Supposedly, next year they are going to start releasing their back catalog as PDFs.

I'll be real interested in seeing if that includes 4E. 

I'm pretty disgusted with Wizard's treatment of 4th edition. I can't even bring myself to buy dungeon command- odds are they will discontinue that in 6 months.

With how they have handled 4th edition since D&D Next was announced I for sure do not want a damn thing to do with D&D Next (nor anything with Mearl's name on it).

Yes I noticed this and feel they missed out on promoting some really good products they currently have.

I think the Dungeon Survival Handbook (DSH) was the last 4e book they produced. Mezoberranzan came out after and was edition neutral. The DSH being the last 4e product, I feel they put a lot of effort into it as it was a last hurrah for 4e.

I found it one of the best products they have produced and enjoyed it a lot. All the history, plenty of flavour and crunch. It gave me a new appreciation for the Underdark and I went and bought that book afterwards. I checked out Mezo and it was just a book of ideas, like Vor Rokuth. Not really worth the money and could have been done in a PDF on DDi.

I'm just surprised that WotC is abandoning publishing new RPG content for over a year. I suppose their hope is that dropping off the radar will make the Next 'reboot' a bigger event.

Well, if you don't want my money, it will go elsewhere. No trolling or grumbling; I am merely no longer a customer or even an interested party. I've got a reasonably complete RPG to play with out of 4e, which is more than other fans of 'finished' RPGs can say.

Nov 21, 2012 -- 7:01PM, knux911 wrote:

I checked out Mezo and it was just a book of ideas, like Vor Rokuth.

actually, vor rukoth has 4e items, monsters, and a killer battle map with it, all for like a third of the list price of menzo. the only real comparison you can make between them is that neither product is an actual adventure, although i daresay that you can run vor rukoth as a sandbox as-is, as the majority of the text is keyed locations on a map. vor rukoth actually contains 4e specific crunch, and just completely obliterates menzo as far as utility and creativity. menzo is just an embarrassing money-grab, spare and sparse compared to the actual 2e menzo box set (which you can still find for cheaper than the menzo book).

i would take a second look at vor rukoth; any 4e dm worth their salt can get a lot out of that little product.

For all intent and purposes D&D is shelved until 5e comes out in 2014. This is no surprised.

Some might say that D&D products are still being made, and that is true, but no new RPG products will be sold, which is the real barometer for shelving.

As a costumer and a 4e enthusiast, I feel insulted. And I am not putting any money on Next on release until I am certain it won't be thrown out the window in some other four or five years.

There are very good 4e products that could have been included in the Gift Guide. I expected to see the Neverwinter Campaign Setting and at least, a DM's Kit + Monster Vault combo. Or one of the frickin' best 4e adventures: Madness at Gardmore Abbey.

Way to go, Wizards of the Coast. Spitting on our faces.



And then you wonder why sales drop?

Nov 22, 2012 -- 8:22AM, frothsof wrote:

Nov 21, 2012 -- 7:01PM, knux911 wrote:

I checked out Mezo and it was just a book of ideas, like Vor Rokuth.

actually, vor rukoth has 4e items, monsters, and a killer battle map with it, all for like a third of the list price of menzo. the only real comparison you can make between them is that neither product is an actual adventure, although i daresay that you can run vor rukoth as a sandbox as-is, as the majority of the text is keyed locations on a map. vor rukoth actually contains 4e specific crunch, and just completely obliterates menzo as far as utility and creativity. menzo is just an embarrassing money-grab, spare and sparse compared to the actual 2e menzo box set (which you can still find for cheaper than the menzo book).

i would take a second look at vor rukoth; any 4e dm worth their salt can get a lot out of that little product.

Hmm, I suppose I was looking for encounters and actual adventures. It was a while ago when I was still learning so maybe I'll take another look.

Nov 22, 2012 -- 8:22AM, frothsof wrote:

Nov 21, 2012 -- 7:01PM, knux911 wrote:

I checked out Mezo and it was just a book of ideas, like Vor Rokuth.

actually, vor rukoth has 4e items, monsters, and a killer battle map with it, all for like a third of the list price of menzo. the only real comparison you can make between them is that neither product is an actual adventure, although i daresay that you can run vor rukoth as a sandbox as-is, as the majority of the text is keyed locations on a map. vor rukoth actually contains 4e specific crunch, and just completely obliterates menzo as far as utility and creativity. menzo is just an embarrassing money-grab, spare and sparse compared to the actual 2e menzo box set (which you can still find for cheaper than the menzo book).

i would take a second look at vor rukoth; any 4e dm worth their salt can get a lot out of that little product.

I agree with the Vor Rukoth love. I also really like Hammerfast. Everything ready to go, all you have to do is pick the adventure hooks you want to use and you've got 5 to 10 levels worth material to work with. I've always felt that Vor Rukoth and Hammerfast were two of the most underrated 4e products. When they cancelled that series I could have cried..... 

Nov 26, 2012 -- 12:46PM, Style75 wrote:

Nov 22, 2012 -- 8:22AM, frothsof wrote:

Nov 21, 2012 -- 7:01PM, knux911 wrote:

I checked out Mezo and it was just a book of ideas, like Vor Rokuth.

actually, vor rukoth has 4e items, monsters, and a killer battle map with it, all for like a third of the list price of menzo. the only real comparison you can make between them is that neither product is an actual adventure, although i daresay that you can run vor rukoth as a sandbox as-is, as the majority of the text is keyed locations on a map. vor rukoth actually contains 4e specific crunch, and just completely obliterates menzo as far as utility and creativity. menzo is just an embarrassing money-grab, spare and sparse compared to the actual 2e menzo box set (which you can still find for cheaper than the menzo book).

i would take a second look at vor rukoth; any 4e dm worth their salt can get a lot out of that little product.

I agree with the Vor Rukoth love. I also really like Hammerfast. Everything ready to go, all you have to do is pick the adventure hooks you want to use and you've got 5 to 10 levels worth material to work with. I've always felt that Vor Rukoth and Hammerfast were two of the most underrated 4e products. When they cancelled that series I could have cried..... 

I agree- Vor Rukoth and Hammerfast are good, small priced products. I even liked the $9.99 race books on the Dragonborn and Tieflings. Hammerfast was in black and white but had a ton of great ideas. I was especially happy to see the three headed dragon (Calathrax?) make it into the Nentir Monster Vault.

Mearls wrote Hammerfast- for someone who is now actively set on destroying 4th edition he sure was an instrumental part of some of its greatest moments. 

Do you think at some point they'll provide a class or race compendium?  Or a Dragon/Dungeon collection of 4e content?

Dec 17, 2012 -- 9:52AM, GloriousDemon wrote:

Do you think at some point they'll provide a class or race compendium?  Or a Dragon/Dungeon collection of 4e content?

I'd say there's a 0% chance of that ever happening