Will there ever be a D&D 4th edition cRPG?

People will always complain when you change what they like. Any change will make it "the worst thing ever".

Still, I can honestly say that I am unimpressed by large portions of D&D 4.0. I found the books to be well written, the layout to be good, the art to be a mixed bag (good in the GM book, okay in the player book), and the rules to be horrible. I was one of those who found D&D 3.X to be a bit of a sub-par RPG, so I have no emotional connection to the game. I also found AD&D to be a rather uninteresting game.
 
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Yeah whether you like a gaming system is always very subjective. Personally I found that in actual play, the rules for 4e are the most elegant and functional of any d&d gaming system before that, particularly at mid to high level where other editions quickly broke down. My biggest complaint though is that it lost some of the flavor and feel of D&D, although some of that was repaired when they released the essentials line of books (which many refer to as 4.5).
 
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For a 4th edition CRPG it looks like the closest thing we'll get any time soon will be the Heroes of Neverwinter facebook game. I haven't been able to play it yet (its in limited beta) but on the surface it looks intriguing: turn-based, grid-based, tactical party combat, isometric view. Supposedly it will have a user-made dungeon capability as well. I usually have no interest in Facebook games but have to admit this one looks slightly tempting. It probably won't be a full-fledged RPG though - more of a lightweight dungeon romp.

Regarding 4E in general - I've been playing in a 4E tabletop campaign and have to say I definitely prefer Pathfinder, as far as modern RPGs go. Overall I think I'd rather play old-school (AD&D or old D&D / retro clones) more. Combats in the modern systems just take so damn long. But I think 4E is definitely well-suited for a computer adaptation - perhaps I'd grow to like it more in that setting.
 
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Personally, I believe that a Pathfinder C-RPG is more likely than any other (A)D&D-based game …
 
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Alrik Fassbauer said:
Personally, I believe that a Pathfinder C-RPG is more likely than any other (A)D&D-based game …
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Yeah I think a Pathfinder CRPG is inevitable - its just a matter of when. The official Paizo forums have many threads on this topic and many people have been asking for one. They have a very rich setting (Golarion) to draw from and they really know how to write good adventure paths / storylines. If they could find a good game developer to partner with they could produce something great. I'd much rather have that than a D&D 4E game!
 
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Myrkrel said:
Yeah I think a Pathfinder CRPG is inevitable - its just a matter of when. The official Paizo forums have many threads on this topic and many people have been asking for one. They have a very rich setting (Golarion) to draw from and they really know how to write good adventure paths / storylines. If they could find a good game developer to partner with they could produce something great. I'd much rather have that than a D&D 4E game!
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Just don't get too excited, as if they follow the trend, it'll be a real-time action RPG, with only 'Pathfinder' in the name for marketing.
 
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That's what I fear as well, I must admit.
 
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Well the best bet for a turn based D&D RPG these days is from an indie company that sells directly online. The Pathfinder license is likely to be much less protected then the d&d license and thus much more likely to be given to an indie game designer. So it may be a better bet for a turn based game just because of that.

For an AAA title pathfinder is likely to be less attractive then D&D just because despite it's popularity, it doesn't have anywhere near the name recognition. This means it's not as useful for slapping on the title of a mindless action game to boost sales.
 
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Fnord said:
But does the Pathfinder name actually mean anything to anyone who don't play pen & paper RPGs?
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Definitely not. Even many people who play p&p games have never heard of it.
 
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fadedc said:
Well the best bet for a turn based D&D RPG these days is from an indie company that sells directly online. The Pathfinder license is likely to be much less protected then the d&d license and thus much more likely to be given to an indie game designer. So it may be a better bet for a turn based game just because of that.

For an AAA title pathfinder is likely to be less attractive then D&D just because despite it's popularity, it doesn't have anywhere near the name recognition. This means it's not as useful for slapping on the title of a mindless action game to boost sales.
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Good point - and along the lines what I was thinking as well. I almost prefer they not try to make it a big-budget AAA title. Its more likely they'd be able to stay true to the system that way (turn-based, etc). They could market it toward Pathfinder fans primarily (and possibly D&D 3.5 fans), not aiming for the masses. If it is an indie-level dev team then the budget wouldn't require selling to the masses to cover their costs.
 
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I guess I've been out of the loop for quite awhile. I've never even heard of Pathfinder until this thread…:uncool:


*Edit* @fadedc - Didn't see your last post until after I replied. I guess I feel a little better now. :)
 
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Pathfinder appears to be quite popular here in Germany.
Although I must say that my view might be a bit distorted, because I only know it fro reports from the forums of the official German distributor of Pathfinder - which happens to be the official TDE license holder as well, by the way.
 
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Alrik Fassbauer said:
Pathfinder appears to be quite popular here in Germany.
Although I must say that my view might be a bit distorted, because I only know it fro reports from the forums of the official German distributor of Pathfinder - which happens to be the official TDE license holder as well, by the way.
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That is a bit of a biased report :). With that being said, Pathfinder has a decent following in America, so it wouldn't surprise me if it also had one in Germany. But pen and paper RPGs don't really makes news that much, so you can have a succesful one and still not have anyone know who you are other then the niche that plays it.
 
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Well, even down here at the southern tip of Africa, we're using Pathfinder ;-) so it's not that niche! I'm DM'ing a high-level campaign (which we migrated from 3.5) - but there are no epic level rules (PF only does 1-20 currently), so I'm having to improvise. I'd love to see a turn-based PF game, but I don't hold out much hope.
 
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Well most niches have people from all over the world. I would even consider D&D to be somewhat of a niche, just one with much bigger name recognition.

I've found that every 3.x campaign I've been in (including things living like living greyhawk) had the rules break down pretty severely and stop being fun once you got past level 10. That was around the time when combats would only last 1-2 rounds but each round would take about an hour to play out. I can't imagine trying to do even higher levels then the books has. Somewhere around levels 3-7 were considered by many to be the sweet spot of 3.x.
 
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fadedc said:
Definitely not. Even many people who play p&p games have never heard of it.
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I expected as much. Here in Sweden it seem to have reached a level where most "serious" roleplayers are aware of the game, but I still run into roleplayers who have no idea what it is, from time to time. Level-based pen & paper RPGs have traditionally never been very popular here though (many of the current roleplayers grew up with BRP).
 
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The problem is that it's very difficult to develop a full ruleset like Pathfinder for an 'Indie'. Specially because most of the time of coding will be spent just coding the rules, all the exceptions and what not, and balancing, so by the time you get to code the actual game (story, characters, etc) most Indie developers would have thrown the "towel of abandonwareness +1" by then.
 
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