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

"Well, the arrival of 4e D&D meant that no 3.5e licenses will be handed out anymore. In other words, you can be certain of it that the next D&D game will be based on 4e."

Not excatly right. Paizo continues making 3,5 ed material.
www.paizo.com
and Cryptic Studios is rumored to be making NWN MMO using the 3,5 ed set of rules. As to weather or not there will be any more D&D CRPGs based on 3,5 beyond that we can only guess. My guess is it will.
I dont think 4 ed would have been flamed so much if they chose another title for their game, something more akin to the WoW type of game they themselves (Wizards of the coast) said they wanted to create. The line of thinking was something like "take worlds most successful P&P RPG (D&D), mix it with worlds most successful MMORPG (WoW) = winner".
To bad that idea is more focused on making cash then creating a worthy edition successor to the D&D franchaise.
Personally, i´d like to try 4 ed out as a player, but 3,5 is where my heart is at. I just love the advanced Multi class system of 3,5.
Peace!

in related news, the 'spiritual successor' of D&D 3rd ed (and 3.5), Pathfinder, has finally been officially released (after like 2 years of 'beta' testing)

wolfing said:

in related news, the 'spiritual successor' of D&D 3rd ed (and 3.5), Pathfinder, has finally been officially released (after like 2 years of 'beta' testing)

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Pathfinders core rulebook was released in August 2009. That's a whole year ago. There's no 'finally', it's been out for a year now. The beta ruleset came out in 2008. PF is an awesome 3.75e of sorts with changes along the lines of intelligent streamlining of combat maneuvers (no more opposed rolls!), no more XP loss for item crafting (wtf was the point of that?) and other tweaks.

I've read through the OGL guidelines for d20 and pathfinder-d20 and it doesn't look like it'd cost anything to use the D20 ruleset in a game (or even the PF ruleset), as long as the OGL considerations are taken into account. I don't see why Knights of the Chalice is the only indie dev to take advantage of this.

Pathfinder seems to be relatively popular here in Germany.
But I'm not an expert in distribution of P&P systems.

I've been really interested in finding an open system that anyone could use for developing a cRPG. I've looked at the OGL and I have read that Bio and Lucas Art used it to bypass WotC's 3rd ed requirements but I seem to recall that the OGL was strictly something for printed media.

Another thing I don't like about WotC's system is that its so all encompassing, rather than a modular approach. The late Robert Jordan, for example, talked in his blog about how he spent most of his time on the PnP version of the game trying to prevent Wizard's from forcing Paladin's on his world, rather than any real development on it.

Lucky Day said:

I've been really interested in finding an open system that anyone could use for developing a cRPG. I've looked at the OGL and I have read that Bio and Lucas Art used it to bypass WotC's 3rd ed requirements but I seem to recall that the OGL was strictly something for printed media.

Another thing I don't like about WotC's system is that its so all encompassing, rather than a modular approach. The late Robert Jordan, for example, talked in his blog about how he spent most of his time on the PnP version of the game trying to prevent Wizard's from forcing Paladin's on his world, rather than any real development on it.

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D20 is actually a very modular system. That's one of it's main features. Your anecdote about Robert Jordan is vaguely incoherent and I don't understand what it means. For examples of modularity: the Call of Cthulhu d20 book abandons classes entirely, d20 modern replaces the classes with 6 archetypes based on the 6 statistics. It's really a generic and universal role playing system, just one people are generally more familiar with than GURPS.

I just did a bit of research on the matter, and the old d20 OGL from WotC seems to have been revoked? I can't really tell what's going on there for sure but looking at the Pathfinder site shows that their use of OGL would allow a PF RPG to be made (even a commercial one) as long as nothing was used from the Golarion campaign setting.

Didn't like the d20 CoC and the use of the HD system. Levelling and Cthulhu seems anithema, although Cthluhu was in the original Deities and Demigods (there's a long story). Anyway, after the license expired Chaosium brought out Cthulhu Medieval thanks to the renewed interest. It seemed to me Cthulhu d20 was a failure.

Concerning RJ's response to the WoT RPG

For Infested Templar, I had little to do with the RPG. Mainly my role was limited to telling them that they could not have paladins, ninjas, clerics, shuriken etc. I had to put so much time into that fighting that I washed my hands of the rest, I’m afraid. I could see that trying to make them actually adapt the books was going to be Valmy Ridge all over again. At least I managed to stop them from putting in a ter’angreal that could bring on the Last Battle in some unspecified manner and also some other really terrible ideas. I wish I had been able to do more, but I had a book to write.

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And this is my point, the OGL requires the core rules in order that third party devs have spillover sales. It was very much a marketing gimmick to be the One Ruleset to Rule Them All.

On your point with d20 Modern I noted that it was different as well at the time - after all the core rules would be useless there - so yeah, there was a degree of flexibility.

But, OTOH, the OGL is expired now, as you point out, simply by decree.

I often read about people liking to play Ctulhu P&P on German-language boards.
But again, I'm not an expert in P&P distribution ...

Just as an FYI, shortly after 4th ED came out they put out a really terrible Facebook App (official and everything) called Tiny Adventures. Now this thing has no play value at all, but does give an overview of the new races/classes and has some interesting artwork. I would post a link, but I deleted it long ago.

graffen69 said:

"Well, the arrival of 4e D&D meant that no 3.5e licenses will be handed out anymore. In other words, you can be certain of it that the next D&D game will be based on 4e."

Not excatly right. Paizo continues making 3,5 ed material.
www.paizo.com

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Since this is a thread about cRPG's, I didn't think I had to specify that I was talking about cRPG's. But yeah, there are third party tabletop 3.5 versions still being produced. But not by WoTC themselves.

graffen69 said:

Cryptic Studios is rumored to be making NWN MMO using the 3,5 ed set of rules. As to weather or not there will be any more D&D CRPGs based on 3,5 beyond that we can only guess. My guess is it will.

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There is a NWN 4.0 source book, on which their MMO will probably be based. Just like with AD&D, they stopped handing out licenses of outdated products. They do this in order to promote their current line of products, not their old ones that they discontinued.

The NWN Online rumors have been going back a ways though, so there's the possibility the license was granted prior to 4E. And of course, also the possibility that it's a sub-license from Atari, who had the rights to make games using the 3.5 set from prior to 4E's release.

Either way, if it's a 4E game, then I think things will be a little messed up, since I thought Neverwinter was wiped out during the changeover. It was overwhelmed by an army of Chaotic Good Drow Rangers dual-wielding scimitars.

Either way, I think I'll pass, and wait on 5E. I'm not particularly enthused by 4E.

Well, your prayers have been answered (sic). The rumored NWNO is 4E.

http://www.examiner.com/mmorpg-in-national/neverwinter-goes-online

Whether it's just a rehash of the old NWN without an offline mode (though single player play is mentioned somewhere else that I don't feel like finding and linking) or anything else other than it's 4E, and has only 5 classes is yet to be seen. Also whether I could have made a longer, more rambling version of that sentence.

Truth be told, I have almost no interest whatsoever in this one.

… About one year later …

Just take a look at this table : http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/20743.html

Please keep in mind that this is about pen & paper role-playing :

Top 5 Roleplaying Games – Q2 2011


Title
Publisher

1
Pathfinder
Paizo Publishing

2
Dungeons & Dragons
Wizards of the Coast

3
Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch
Fantasy Flight Games

4
Dragon Age
Green Ronin Publishing

5
Shadowrun
Catalyst Game Labs

These bestseller lists are from ICv2's Internal Correspondence #76. For more information on the game market in Q2 2011, see "Game Sales Grew in Q2."

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I find this quite interesting, imho, but I really on't know how much "serious" this site is ?

One of the reasons why I suspect that we won't see a "pure" 4th edition game, following the 4th edition ruleset is because how fiddly it is. You are always expected to use your special abilities, many of which has an added in game effect that requires the players attention (like moving your target one square). This means that the game will either have to be turn-based (and we all know what big publishers thinks of turn-based games *looks at 2k*), or you would have to create an AI capable of not doing stupid things when they use these abilities. And a smart combat AI is hard to do. You could remove many of these skills, but then many classes would lose some of their core skills, and it would hamper them quite a bit.
Also, the system is incredibly rigid, you would have to put a whole lot of work into it to make make chances that don't clash with any abilities.

Overall, I don't really mind a lack of D&D-based games. I've never been a fan of D&D, as I've found D&D (no matter the version) to be far too rigid for my taste. And yes, I have played nearly every version of D&D at some point, I have participated in AD&D, D&D 3.X & D&D4 campaigns. If anything I would like to see a CRPG based on Dark Heresy, that setting & system could make for some interesting gameplay, and the possibilities for good stories are nearly endless (the 40k setting is actually very good, in particular when you step away from the battlefield and deal with the life of the (more) common people, something that Dark Heresy does really well). The traditional level/class based system results in far too limited character options. When dealing with a class based system, I find that it is a lot more interesting if you give the player more options, and don't make each "level up" so huge, but instead create a more natural progression of skills & stats.

I'm playing 4 atm and quite like it (3 and 3.5 mostly passed my by), but it does seem to be clearly designed with the assumption that you have a computer at the table with you - we have so many things to keep track off in even a simple combat, and it's only going to get worse.

It would be very well suited to a turnbased rather than real time game, but the companies that would develop a D&D 4th edition game think that people don't want that in RPGs. The solution to me would be to market it as a Roleplaying-Strategy game instead.

Pathfinder have pretty much beaten Dungeons & Dragons 4th at this point, except more are familiar with the D&D brand.

A 4th edition RPG would require a lot more complexity for every character except for the spell casters. In previous editions physical combatants only had ability that they used every single round in combat....attack. This was very easily to simulate in a RPG. Now even the most basic melee grunt generally has numerous techniques that influence the battle in different ways.

Regarding opinions of 4E, I play with a bunch of old school gamers, many of which have been playing since 1E. We generally like 4E, although we don't necesarily think it's a strict improvement in the way that 3E was over 2E. It's more of a mix of mostly good with some bad. A few of our complaints have been resolved by some of the newer books in the essentials line though.

I do find it interesting that almost every criticism I hear 3e gamers make about 4e is almost identical to criticisms that I heard 2e gamers make about 3e.

fadedc said:

I do find it interesting that almost every criticism I hear 3e gamers make about 4e is almost identical to criticisms that I heard 2e gamers make about 3e.

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My only criticism of 3e (core books) over 2e was the 'mass production' of magic items. In 2e when my character got a magic item, it was an exciting thing, unexpected. In 3e it became part of your character creation almost. You *knew* you could get a 'Ring of Critical Haziness' when you wanted, so you could build your character around it. I didn't like that.

But in 4e I have so many complaints, but most of them fall in the "This has become tabletop WoW" category.

While my only real experience with D&d outside of books set in the Forgotten realms universe comes from its video game adaptations it seems to me that Dnd reached its peak with 2.5.
Some light tweaking might have been needed but on the whole it was an enjoyable system that worked well and i cant recall anyone asking for something new.
As the various infinity engine games proved it was also transelatable to pc gaming if not of the hack and slash variety wich seems to be the accepted norm now.

Legal issues aside i doubt we will see another Dnd crpg of anything but the cheap cash grab variety as the teen demographic wich "aaa" games are invariably aimed at has no real connection to the dnd universe.
Perhaps at some point the license will be available to indie developers and some goodies will come out on the newly released cryengine3 sdk (yes im dreaming here).

wolfing said:

My only criticism of 3e (core books) over 2e was the 'mass production' of magic items. In 2e when my character got a magic item, it was an exciting thing, unexpected. In 3e it became part of your character creation almost. You *knew* you could get a 'Ring of Critical Haziness' when you wanted, so you could build your character around it. I didn't like that.

But in 4e I have so many complaints, but most of them fall in the "This has become tabletop WoW" category.

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Back in the 3e days, people called it tabletop Diablo because WoW wasn't out yet. All of the haters said that they were trying to turn it into a computer game.

In 3e you could always just limit gold or put your own limitations on item crafting (personally I made players find formulas before they crafted items). 4e added the concept of uncommon and rare items that could not be crafted which helped with the mass production thing a lot.