D&D 4.0

[Ari]

Random minis? Or can you choose what minis you want to buy?

[nerdious dorkus]

Random minis? Or can you choose what minis you want to buy?

They're random if you buy them in the box. But I'm sure you can find minis that fit your characters at Hidden Fortress. Or Ebay.

[Ari]

I'm not a fan of random minis. That shit can get expensive.

[nerdious dorkus]

Here's a comment on D&D via The Consumerist:

Semi-ironically, Chris posted to links to Gleemax, a service that Hasbro is giving up on because nobody wanted it, either.
For those of you who don't play D&D...
Why are you reading this thread?
Just kidding. I meant to say, for those of you who don't play D&D, the "annual membership" is for "Dungeons & Dragons Insider," (DDI) part of a 3-pronged intitative to get D&D players using Hasbro-operated online services:
First, they tried creating a social network (Gleemax) that was substandard by any definition of social network. That's already shut down.
Second, they took two print magazines (Dragon and Dungeon) online-only and merged them into DDI.
Third, they announced an online "virtual tabletop" for networked D&D-playing. That doesn't work yet.
So basically, this article is people complaining that Hasbro won't let them cancel their subscriptions to 2 online magazines.
Yep, that's Hasbro's big new revenue model: Online magazines for a hobby dominated by teenage boys.
When all this was announced at Gen Con last year, I told another player "I look forward to reading the Wall Street Journal on 'How Hasbro Killed Dungeons & Dragons" (which seemed to visibly started the Hasbro employee at the table with us).
Anyway, this is exactly the kind of runaround one should expect from Hasbro. They spent two years claiming they weren't working on a Fourth Edition of the D&D rules, then announced they had been working on a the major game show, instantly killing the sales of third-party products designed to be compatible with the Third Edition. In one swoop, they screwed with their customers and their semi-competitors.

[Ari]

Sounds about right with Hasbro in charge.

[nerdious dorkus]

More comments regarding D&D's online content:

The set of online tools and other benefits that were supposed to come with D&D Insider has an even more robust history, and I'm sure you're aware of that. But for anyone else curious....
The set of tools that was supposed to be available at the time 4th Edition launched included a character builder, character visualizer, dungeon builder, online game table and online magazines. Of all these utilities, only one was actually ready at launch: the magazines, and that's only because they were already doing it. This many months later, and only the character builder has been released, which makes Hasbro's runaround especially nefarious, because people have every reason to cancel their account, given this track record.

[nerdious dorkus]

I've read through some of the 4.0 updates, and I don't know if I really care for them. They've changed a lot of things to make it more available to the general public.

[patronsaintofcheeseburgers]

So where can I buy minis and what is the website to make my character?

[Abraham Smashington]

4.0 just makes everything easier. For everyone involved.

[Ari]

So I picked up the starter set this weekend and got a headache from reading the rules. I have a feeling I may not ever actually play this.

[Abraham Smashington]

HAha. It's not that difficult for the most part. Everything revolves around your d20 and making checks.

[Ari]

Yeah, it looks extremely geeky to me.

[Abraham Smashington]

Oh it is, but if you can't get it at least you have Hero Quest to fall back on.... haha

[Ari]

I love Hero Quest like a child.

[nerdious dorkus]

Be glad it's not Warhammer, Ari. Or even the earlier D&D rules, as there is more math involved.