Support for D&D 4th Ed?

[TheSoulBurner]

Since it's out by now ... 4th Ed is coming spring 2008!

Will there be support for D&D 4th Ed in FG2?

[Oberoten]

Most likely not since it seems that the licensing will change and that D&D will have it's own targeted VTT at a subscription solution. I think that actually means that not only will Wizards not want anyone to compete, they will actually hunt even fan-work VTT solutions down to eliminate competition.

[NymTevlyn]

Which is why I'm knuckling down and finishing my rpg system. Just need to find someone skilled with xml to make a character sheet for me. :D

[Griogre]

Whether there is support for 4th Ed will be determined by will there be an OGL for 4th Ed and how hard it is to get a license. Only time will tell.

[Waldo Pepper]

In the mean time you might try out some alternative systems: There are other systems out there and many of them IMHO are better than D20. E.g., Savage Worlds is very fast moving and easy to use system that's also very flexible.

[Mainframemouse]

I agree with Waldo.
I see the D20 system as the Microsoft of the RPG world. Call of Cthulhu was perfect with its percentile system, then was sodomised into a d20 system. There are better systems, lots of them.

And I can see nasty lawsuits ahead, for those that try and make 4th ed rulesets. Which is a shame given the type of hobby Roleplaying is.

[richvalle]

Seems that there will be an OGL and an SRD. We'll have to see what that means for FG.

rv

[TheSoulBurner]

Thanks for the answers.

Although we sometimes play with some other systems (that means only one: Warhammer RPG, since we're quite RPG newbies that started off with DnD and haven't had the time to test some other systems), I personally am a big DnD fan, so permanently switching to another system ain't gonna work for me ;)

So I think I'm just gonna sit it out and wait ...

[Malovech]

I agree with Waldo.
I see the D20 system as the Microsoft of the RPG world. Call of Cthulhu was perfect with its percentile system, then was sodomised into a d20 system. There are better systems, lots of them.

And I can see nasty lawsuits ahead, for those that try and make 4th ed rulesets. Which is a shame given the type of hobby Roleplaying is.

I can guarantee that even without FG officially supporting 4th Ed, a ruleset will be made and distributed, with enough anonymity that there won't be much that Wizards can do.

[Ram Tyr]

I can guarantee that even without FG officially supporting 4th Ed, a ruleset will be made and distributed, with enough anonymity that there won't be much that Wizards can do.
WotC staffers have said there will be an SRD for 4E. The SRD ruleset can be made by anyone and distributed as long as they comply with the OGL. Assuming the OGL for 4E looks similar to the 3E OGL, this should not be a problem and should not require anonymity or any cloak and dagger sharing. It can be on the up and up in broad daylight.

My suggestion...Interested FG community members should discuss this when the SRD is released so that they cooperate in constructing the ruleset. Then they should ask Four Ugly Monsters (FUM) to host the ruleset so that it is shared freely. (The FUM Modern SRD is a good example of an OGL ruleset already shared freely at FUM.) (I assume Devin will spread some terror if my suggestion is not well received by the Four Ugly Monsters.)

Later.

[Griogre]

I'd also like to point out that 4th Ed is not a new game. There are going to be HP, XP, d20 rolls, damage rolls and classes - the same basic mechanics. In other words, it is very likely you would be able to play 4th Ed on using the 3.5 charactersheet.

The classes will have different ablilites but little of that is hardcoded into the current d20 default ruleset. From what I have read the biggest change affecting the default ruleset will be to skills shifting to a SW Saga Style. This means that the day 4th ed comes out the odds are very good you can run it on FG. You may need to put some extra things on the Notes page or in Feat or Special Abilities but you should be able to play until a 4 ed official or unoffical ruleset is released.

[tholaday]

Actually (and this may be an unpopular thing to say) I think moving away from d20 a bit would be good for FG. My biggest complaint with the FG product (and don't mistake me, I love the tool) is that it is too focused on d20. I wish the system came "out of the box" in a form less "dedicated" to a single rpg. I would rather start with a vanilla instance that includes some things like a deck of cards and engineer what I want than begin with a d20 package that I have to reverse engineer first.

[richvalle]

Yeah, but you can't blame them for making it this way. If you are going to support one system out of the box its going to be D20.

Plus they can do it without having to mess with any other company and their licence's since its all OGL and SRD based.

rv

[Griogre]

I agree that if you are going to include a ruleset the d20 one is the way to go. I do think that including a "Generic" character sheet would be nice also though. Just a two page thing: one with a page for attributes/skills and one for equipment similar to what Toadwart did.

[tholaday]

Yeah, but you can't blame them for making it this way. If you are going to support one system out of the box its going to be D20.

Plus they can do it without having to mess with any other company and their licence's since its all OGL and SRD based.

rv

You're right. I don't "blame" them for doing it this way. I was just expressing a wish.

[richvalle]

Sure. And the 'yeah' part was me agreeing with you. :)

Sorry it came out that way... I thought about going back and trying to reword it but got called off on other things.

rv