Yesterday, Wizards of the Coast unveiled Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition at Gen-Con.
I for one am not happy (and I certainly know I'm not alone).

For one, this means my hundreds of pounds worth of books will be redundant, and I will be expected to shell out again, for something seeming very similar to the current rules.
On top of this, the new edition will require a number of things to get the most out of it: First, a laptop or PC at every gaming session (not a viable option in a lot of cases), and more annoyingly, an online feature which requires a paid subscription.

The subscription service supposedly "unlocks extra features" that aren't in the books by inputting a code from your physical book. In other words, if you don't pay this, you won't get all of the information from the book you already own.

Here's some of the things being promised:

-Higher level cap (30 instead of 20).
Big deal... the epic level handbook goes up to level 40.

-Easier to DM [provided you pay the subscription for the extra DM tools]
They claim to have made the layout so that you don't have to stop and flip through the books to find the appropriate rule. Bullcrap. There is no way they can promise that.

-Defined roles.
Basically, each member of the party has a more specialised role. Less flexibility, methinks?

-New power sources.
"So that everyone has something fun to do all the time, not just the wizards and the clerics"
Or, in other words, making the spellcasting classes far less unique and interesting to play, because everyone will be able to have various forms of magic.

-Resource management.
What the hell? They claim it means that spellcasters out of magic can still do important things... but doesn't that defeat the point of having a limit to spells per day?

-New Encounter Design
"In first edition you'd fight one troll, in 2nd edition you'd fight, maybe one and a half trolls... now you could be fighting a whole lot of trolls"
Wow... adding more monsters in... that's entirely not possible at all in 3.5 ed!
Oh wait.... yeah it is.

Basically, this is just one big money-grabbing scheme.
D&D is about the only real hobby I have, and making it so that I can't buy any new books without having to upgrade entirely, paying huge amounts for stuff I largely have anyway is greedy, to say the least.

I *might* buy the new PHB when it comes out next year, but only so I can see through all the jargon, and see what these new rules are actually about.

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