D&D 4th Edition – What Went Wrong?

Posted by Alamar in Articles, Roleplaying on April 13, 2009

I’ve been playing D&D in some form for… let’s just say a long time. Through every major edition, including the minor revisions like Unearthed Arcana and Player’s Option.  Every release, there are some detractors and some controversy stirred up. It seems to grow louder with every edition, too. Some people still swear by 1st or 2nd Edition over 3 or 3.5, but for the most part 3rd Edition was rapidly accepted after some initial grumbling.  It’s this time delay that lets me write about it now, rather than just after release.  The game has had around three quarters of a year to settle into the minds of gamers and the community.  Yet a large portion of the community still gnashes teeth at the idea that 4th Edition is called ‘D&D’ at all.  This is very surprising considering the majority of pre-release reviews were positively glowing with praise for the new game. Obviously there’s some sort of split, even discounting the grouches who will hate the game regardless of how good it is.

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Upcoming Changes

Posted by Alamar in Site News on March 5, 2009

Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about the site. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m in the middle of doing yet another move. This is keeping me busy, and I won’t be finished until later in March. So updates will be few and far between until then, and mostly focused on site updates and tweaks. But for those of you wondering what I have planned for the site in short order…

  • Articles. Actual articles on the industry and gaming… as soon as I catch up a bit on things, myself. I used to be pretty into the news, but nowadays I’m a touch behind.
  • Reviews. Not sure if this will cover books, video games, or just RPGs. I don’t buy as many RPGs as I used to, so don’t expect cutting edge stuff.
  • Settings. I’m working on one for HERO System 5th Edition, and a version of the same for D&D.
  • Grey Lotus will be renamed and revised a fair bit. The system will remain mostly the same, other than a couple tweaks to close loopholes and fix minor problems that have popped up. The major change will be in the world itself, where I’ll be redoing the map and the nation boundaries quite a bit. I’ll be fleshing out things a lot more, and splitting the main book between a player’s guide(which will still include basic cultural and geographical info) and a campaign guide(for the bestiary and in depth information). You have to buy both to play!

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Old Content Back Online

Posted by Alamar in Site News on February 15, 2009

A quick update.  While the site layout will continue to change constantly, I did repost the old downloads for now.  I thought that much was newsworthy.  This will be the last news update for a while, since I probably won’t make another one until either the layout is semi stable, or I’ve posted new content. The most likely new content will be some setting info for another game system, namely a fantasy world for HERO and D&D 3.5.

You might note that the chapter PDFs and such are no longer available from links. They’re still in the directories, but I had to update that page manually, so I left them out for now.  Once I’ve altered the Downloads page to be more automation-friendly I will try to bring them back.

Previous versions of the text are not available.  Once I move into 2.0 for Grey Lotus(which will also be renamed), I’ll be putting it into my Subversion repository at home. Most of the new content will also be under Version Control, but for the time being I do not plan for this to be a public-access SVN repository.

I’m also attempting to bring some forum software into the page, but that’s a long term goal, and I’d like a bridge to link WordPress accounts with forum accounts. I know they’re out there, it’s just low priority right now.

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New Site Launch

Posted by Alamar in Site News on February 14, 2009

Just a bit over four years since the last ‘official’ update, and I’m finally getting around to doing something with this page.  For those of you who have been waiting, I’m very sorry.  Right after my last update, some things happened. Since then, I think I’ve moved twice, and I’m about to do so again. It’s been a busy four years.  Keeping up with this page became a low priority.

I’m back now, and I’ll be fussing with the page layout for a few weeks while I get things set up. I’ll have some new content on the way, and repost the old content once I have sections for it. I’m using a basic WordPress theme for the time being. I’ll be tweaking it off and on for a while, but eventually replace it with one of my own. Content first, then layout.

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