| Fared Jogel, FTW

I know not this Jared Fogel you speak of.

4th Ed: While they tried to make all sorts of cool powers for the PC's to use and feel effective, important, and interesting through every encounter, they forgot that the D20 was still in effect and there are a lot of numbers on that bad boy that will STILL take the PC out of the game and make them ineffective. I like the idea of gettin' something at every level, and I think the modular encounter creation system was cool, but in the end it felt like a lot more overhead for effectively the same result as with 3rd/2nd/1st/D&D. Maybe the powers added more panache to the combats as they had flavor text built right in to the description, but it still became more of the same after a while, I guess. The loot system sort of bugged me too.

5th Ed: I don't know, I think crowdsourcing might work out. Not to say that a bunch of grumpy neckbeards are better suited to create the next D&D system, but I think listening to the fans, and following the trends could make for an interesting product. The fear is that by using fan metrics to drive design decisions, you might end up with a lowest common denominator game that doesn't offend, but doesn't really excite. OR, fresh, non-corporate perspectives might really help the design and the million monkeys might find a way to create something unique.

MMO's have won the day so does D&D offer a similar experience to try and speak to a wider audience, or does it go deeper into RPGs and satisfy their niche market as best they can? Since D&D is a component of a publicly traded company, my thoughts are it will try and emulate MMO's again (like 4th edition) and release another product of middling value.

Trail of Cthulhu/Earthdawn/Space RPG game FTW x2!