It's been out for a good six years now, which is roughly seventy two in edition years.

I'm getting to that point where I get reluctant to buy any more products, expecting them to all be invalidated in the near future. Any word that they're planning to keep this edition around unusually long? Or if they've got some kinda promise where books after a certain date will have conversion PDFs printed for free after the new edition hits, or that conversion rules will appear in some version of the new edition's core book? I seem to recall they did that with one of the editions long ago now that I'm typing this.

4a sort of threw the "schedule" out of whack. As a result, I expect SR4a to last another 2 years. Maybe a little less, maybe a bit more, but probably around 2 years.

Unless there are extenuating circumstances, of course.

Honestly, not sure myself. There have been some problems with 4e, which has caused books to come out erratically, which may quicken or slow the process onto a new edition.

Honestly, I think we'll see 4e last for awhile as long as CGL is making the books, but if a different company gets the rights, I'd suspect we'd see a different edition.

Me I'm hoping for a new edition, I'm not fond of most of the more recent releases and I think 4e has gotten a bit stagnent.

Maybe they can use that new 4^th Edition D&D rules I've been hearing so much about?

Ahh D&D, it started as a fantasy war game(chainmail), turned into an RPG, and is now a wargame again.

A wargame, ripping off a MMO.

Which ripped off D&D in the first place.

*Sings in the key of off* "The CIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRCLE of life!!!"

Of course, SR ripped off it's fair share of sources. I imagine someone read through Neuromancer and Lord of the Rings while drunk and...

I guess we've found Mr. Gibson's board posting handle.

Nah, I think he's been a Vancouverite long enough to suggest something a little stronger than alcohol.

People always say this. I don't think the ones who say this actually play a lot of mmos. D&D 4e is nothing like an MMO mechanically. And if the game plays that way, it's the fault of the DM not the system.

Seemed that way to the few games I tried, both of 4th and MMOs. Get mission from guy, go kill ten snow moose or whatever, come back for reward.

But, as you said, GM. But I've heard the same statement from other people who do play MMOs and have tried different GMs.

To be fair, D&D 4e is a wargame, anyone saying otherwise is in denial. 90+% of your character are combat numbers, movement speed, special abilities with areas, special effectives, ect. Tactical grid based combat is essential to the system, and the non-combat mechanics are as shallow as a cat bowl. A good DM can make a very run and exciting game, and players can RP with the system, but the system is still a wargame.

I can RP while I play monopoly if I want.

Well I can say I never had a quest that was "Go out, kill X of this, come back for reward". I can also say I've never played an MMO where powers didn't have some in combat recharge mechanic, or one where the amount of healing over the course of a day (or in an MMO throughout a raid) was limited. I also don't think there's any MMOs where tanks maintain aggro on their targets by penalizing the target for hitting others, but leaving the option available. Note: 4e's introduction of defenders and marks is the biggest complaint that I've seen, because people associate tanking with MMOs. But the 4e method of tanking leaves it up to the GM to weigh the cost vs benefit of just ignoring the mark, in no case is any creature ever forced to attack the guy in full plate to the exclusion of everyone else no matter how stupid that tactic seems or how poorly it is working. This is vastly different from any MMO.

In fact, there are roughly 2 similarities with MMOs I see in 4e D&D: 1) There is a pretty heavy emphasis on combat mechanics. In both instances, this does not mean this is what you must focus on. You can play for months in D&D without fighting one enemy, but most groups don't play that way. Similarly, you can run around in WoW as a level 1 roleplaying experiencing the world and trying to avoid these huge skull leveled creatures trying to kill you, but most don't.

2) There are clearly defined roles in the group, and everyone fills the role. I think this is the one that gets peoples goat more than anything (see also: The tanking thing mentioned above, which is related to this), but really, it is good game design. We don't consider Shadowrun an MMO because you have the street sammy, the hacker, and the mage, each filling their own role in the group. D&D3.5 had a big issue with this particular problem because there weren't defined roles, so it became casters do everything for everyone else, including front line melee combat in the rare event that option was actually useful, and everyone else was useless. Rather than continue that trend, 4e shored things up and narrowed down the options to have each class fill a role in the party. People missed their mage being able to do anything, and thus complained about D&D becoming more MMO-like, because suddenly they don't have tools to bypass adventures and dominate encounters singlehandedly. But I do want to point out, this does not make the game MMO-esque, a creative group still has plenty of options, you just no longer have one player with nigh infinite options, and another player with 1 option.



Now, I'm not saying 4e is perfect. The developers could have left a little more wiggle room all around with regards to options and customization without repeating the mistakes of their past, and I do prefer both 3.5 and Shadowrun to it. However I feel that calling it MMO-esque is a pretty big misnomer, and it is a pet peeve of mine.



I won't disagree with this. But there's a huge step from a wargame and an MMO. And that line only really gets crossed if you have an exceptionally lazy DM (who does the aformentioned go kill 10 buffalo, bring me back their wings for a reward style quests)

In fact, Mr. Gibson, some of the best roleplaying I've ever seen was at the Monopoly board.

As far as how long 4th will last - have there been any rumblings of a new system? Might the recent troubles at CGL have delayed any planned new edition?

I personally don't like the MMO comparison, but I understand it. 4e basically boiled characters down to a bunch of "crunchy bits", singular abilities that have direct combat applications and rules spelled out. There is less wiggle room to be creative with the use of the abilities, and frankly every class is the same, just have a bunch of abilities that "deal X damage and do Y"

Seriously, a D&D4E shitstorm? Here? Aren't you messing up dumpshock with /tg/ or something, gentlemen?

Also, back to initial topic. I hate switching editions (and I don't really like learning the crunch of new systems, unlike the fluff, to be completely honest). So, unless 5E will be a massive improvement, tears of rage will be shed.

I would say atleast 2-3 years, as there seems to be quite a lot of books in different states of development.

SR4 will last for as long as people play it, no matter what the publishers do.

UNLESS SR5 is astonishingly good, so good that it makes every current SR player abandon SR4 at the drop of a hat - but really? How likely is it that a new edition pleases all of the players?

There are still dozens of websites hosting SR3 material, after all. SO even if the publisher decides to do nothing more for SR4, its likely that plenty of new fan-made material will continue to arrive - and based on the negative attitude that every new current sourcebook gets from dumpshockers, the quality of said stuff will be just as good :(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

SR5D20 *runs*

If it was organized and consistent, I'd switch today.

I've lost track of the number of hacking threads that claim the authors didn't even understand their own rules. I've watched people argue that rules are fluff (which leaves us with entire situations that have no rules). I'm convinced that not only do I still not understand the rules, I'm convinced that not a single poster on Dumpshock understands the rules. (Though some of them will argue against that with their dying breath.)

We should not be this far into things and still not have a clue what you need to spoof, how to spoof, or why you would bother. Despite skinlinking to keep someone from ejecting your "clip", I don't think we can get two people to agree HOW a hacker actually goes through the process of getting your "clip" to eject in-combat before combat is over, even if it isn't skinlinked.

All 5th has to do to win me over is be organized and consistent, to the point where everyone understands it.

*Joins the choir*
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
.....


Now, seriously, new editions are a fact of life. I've been through 3 editions of D&D (4 if you count 3.5 as a differente edition), 4 editions of L5R (third edition, how I hate thee), 3 white wolf editions and 3 GURPS editions and 2 Shadowrun editions (moved from second edition to fourth, never played the third one).
And as far I as can tell, and this is MY OPINION, all games were an improvement of the last one with the exception of L5R 3ed and D&D 4ed.
I can see a lot of flaws in Shadowrun4, but compared to the the second edition, I think it was one hell of improvement.

Well if you look at the precedent (Eclipse Phase, I'm looking at you), changing a bit here and there doesn't really fix 4E's problems. So unless it's something revolutionary, I doubt it will be worth it - and if it is revolutionary, I am sure at least half the current 4E players will frown upon it for the change alone.

Really? I like L5R 3rd. Though to be fair, I have yet to see anything on L5R 4th. What did you find objectionable? I found it somewhat less onerous (less powerful) than L5R 2nd. But that was just a matter of scale, I think. I'm Curious. Maybe PM me to keep the derail from extending too much.