[Spectral Knight]

Originally Posted by Evan Waters
So first you sarcastically imply that it's not much, now you're saying it's too much and that too proves that D&D isn't a proper RPG.

No, he sarcastically implies that it's still not enough. Kindly leave the self-righteous snark in the trash can over there, where it belongs.

THIS is where the "grognard" allegations and such come from- it seems all sorts of hyperbole (again, Linkin Park to 3E's Wagner? Why not say it's THE LOVE GURU to 3E's CITIZEN KANE while we're at it, FFS?!) and snark gets thrown in way out of proportion to the game's actual shortcomings.

Snark that mocks those who don't like it, especially for legitimate reasons, is no better. I personally like the ideas in 4th, but I can accept that it has drawbacks.

Originally Posted by Evan Waters

Where are we getting $150? SRP for each book is $34.95.

Counting tax, that'd still be about $120. Which is about a day and a half's pay for me. I'm not putting that down lightly.

Fortunately, Amazon had it for an actual reasonable price of about $58, not counting shipping.

Originally Posted by Evan Waters

Sight unseen, no. But the idea that every potential player is going to need to buy all three books right at once doesn't actually fly.

They might not need them, but many will buy them nonetheless. After all, it's the early days of the new game. More people will want to not only play, but DM.

Originally Posted by Evan Waters

And if they were only aiming for the MMO crowd that would be a problem. And it's not a Pen and Paper MMO, or a board game, or a miniatures wargame, it's AN RPG. It's no less of an RPG than ANY RPG on the market, period. Arguing that D&D is not a proper RPG because it focuses on combat and uses minis is getting the definition of an RPG wrong right off the bat.

Oh, here we go again...

D&D, RPG or not, is a very combat-oriented RPG, and the latest edition is more miniatures-oriented than even 3.5 (even 3.5 had fewer plugs for those annoying D&D collectible minis). The focus is on combat, pure and simple. Roleplaying takes a back seat to that. If it didn't, there wouldn't only be 8 pages in the PHB, the book that really needs pages on the subject, devoted to the actual roleplaying of characters. You're still killing things and taking their stuff. For many groups, that's as far as the roleplaying goes.

The point still stands that there's a similarity to MMORPGs (which are equally dubious on the RPG angle) in the rule-writing and structure. That might not, qualitatively, be a bad thing, but it does have an effect on how the game will be received. Many players may, upon trying it, decide that it's easier to do the same thing on their computer, which will do the calculations for them, open-ended nature of the game notwithstanding. Whatever the semantic description of the game, it's still going to be judged by how it plays. If it reminds people too much of something they've done somewhere else, but with more work, they may decide to do that something else instead.