Quote from: Koltar;381036The only true alternatives I see D&D players going to thaty don't like 4th edition is PATHFINDER or continuing to play 3.5/OGL with third party and PAIZO 'generic'/systemless products that are still available and out there on shelves.

Presumably you're only talking about alternatives that are currently in print?

Quote from: Benoist;381149Man, that digital virtual game table sure looks awesome!

Nope, that's pure vaporware and the chances of ever actually seeing it are pretty close to zero, I think.

The Character Builder is a nice piece of work, though, and the Compendium is very useful at the table.

I'm guessing that's why TDD said the DI was aborted. Which is an overstatement, I agree.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;381083I think we can all agree in general terms about what D&D is and is not.

Probably the only thing I'll ever agree with Trollman on - there's no way you'll get agreement on this. Ask 100 people how they define D&D and you'll get at least 103 answers.

Quote from: Benoist;381152I'm guessing that's why TDD said the DI was aborted. Which is an overstatement, I agree.

Yes, he either doesn't know what the DI involves, or he's using the wrong term.

I dunno - If sales are going down, Hasbro has two options:

1) Fire and hire different people based on who they think might do better.
2) Drop the whole line.

Thing is, D&D is, what? 32 years old? That's a long and successful product history. Just a guess, but based on the shakeups, Hasbro might be trying Option 1.

The main difficulty is whether the guy in overall charge of WotC in Hasbro (Someone with a business degree could probably put it better) knows what to look for. Any smart business person knows that someone in charge needs to know what the product is about.

The question is, is such a person in charge right now?

Quote from: Narf the Mouse;381155The main difficulty is whether the guy in overall charge of WotC in Hasbro (Someone with a business degree could probably put it better) knows what to look for.

I can try. Wizards has its own CEO, so far as I know. Ultimately the CEO of Hasbro would be "in charge", since Wizards is a wholly-owned subsidiary, but Wizards' day-to-day operations would be run from within, not by Hasbro.

Who'd be in overall charge of WotC, of which D&D is one product. Hopefully, we see something better out of this. The Powers system, IMO, would make an awesome Stunt system (If codified into one).

Waitaminute.  Skill Challenges still haven't been definitively fixed yet?  I'm genuinely shocked by this.  Where's the betting pool for whether Skill Challenges will appear in the Essentials line at all?

It seems obvious that through his stories of what he considered to be a big D&D fracture, (2e), he is addressing this one.  He wants to be the next Dancy.

Since 4e was the cause of the fracture, short of killing off 4e, or having a dual D&D line--one 4e and one new for 5e, I doubt he can do it.

He can do things to pander, like release pdf's of older edition stuff again.  That will help with the bad feelings, but won't get those gamers back.  Again, 4e is the problem.  Even the new reb box, with the retro-artwork and look and feel, isn't going to get that many people back.

At this point, even a revised GSL wouldn't help, even if they went OGL with it. Since 4e is so dependent on the digital stuff, unless you can add your product's stuff to the DDI, it won't help.

Bottom line, unless he makes a new version of the game that somewhat resembles D&D, which isn't dependent on DDI,and is OGL, he's fucked.

Quote from: GameDaddy;381070My Vista runs awesome!

It's the only Microsoft OS I have ever had that did not require a re-install a few months after purchasing. I even gutted the worthless Vista security/nag system. All you have to do is keep it patched with the latest updates. You don't have to lift a finger. Once a month, the correct patches are automatically downloaded and installed, behind the scenes. You wouldn't even know it except that the OS automatically notifies you the next time the system is rebooted, detailing what was changed, and how to reverse it, if there is some kind of problem with the patch.

It's still fast too, even with 200+ Gb of additional installed software apps.

Oh, and, every software app that is even halfway decent and supported, gets regularly patched these days, with updates and improvements.

That's just weird!  Ubuntu has been doing all of that for about five years now.  

I'd run Linux, but I like playing computer games.

Quote from: Settembrini;381097Okay, that means 5th edition is being done with mearls at the helm and they start development NOW.

That was my first thought too.  Expect it in 2013.

We need to get a deadpool going with people placing their bets on who wotc will fire in December.

Quote from: Benoist;381094"Speech" from the Mearls on ENWorld:

What the hell?
Discounting all the babble, there's no informational content in the message at all, that I can see. Political noise about 'just being one of the people'.
It is weird in that it seems to lean pro-3e rather than pro-4e - there's no mention of 4e here. It could be that he's just trying to win over new converts and will say something completely opposite somewhere else to the current True Believers, rather than 5e, but I live in hope.

I'd concur with Frank's synopsis of Mearl's capacities, at least Bill S. being promoted onto some higher plane and Andy Collins leaving reduces the incompetence count slightly - even if we can expect 'legacy' rules from 4e, the Art department redesigning the gods and the legal team naming the monsters as per usual.

Also, I'm not sure why he feels the need to beat up on 2nd ed.??Dig up, stupid!