Hearsay and conjecture. Two of the four horsemen?

The cat is out of the bag. Not that I was aware of that cat or the bag, blissfully immersed in 3.5 as I was. But there it is. DnD 4th Edition.

Admittedly my first reaction was outrage. Another blatant cash grab by a heartless corporation. I pictured the library of books and gaming material we (ie. Crwth for at least 90% of it) have accumulated over the last seven years. Some of which we've never had a chance to use in game. A couple thousand dollars would be a conservative estimate. Now WotC is telling us that as of May 2008 that could be a couple grand wasted.

Do they really expect us (I mean Crwth mainly) to sink even more hard earned (I use that term loosely since he is in IT) cash into 4e? Can we (he) police ourselves (himself)? Can we resist the tantalizing allure, that siren song, of a new version?

Believe you me, the concept of my fighter specializing in a single weapon type is very tasty. Whether it's implemented as a DDO type enhancement or some sort of Talent Tree, it makes my imagination race. I'm picturing special moves that only a character trained in the use of the quarterstaff can do. Trips, ripostes, parries, disarms, sunders. Oh my!

I'm also intrigued by the tidbit about race progression and having special abilities tied to it. Yum!

Is that enough to make me purchase the 4.0 PHB when it comes out next spring? Not quite. But it has piqued my interest.

So, I will follow all the teasers that WotC drops to the public over the next several months. Those breadcrumbs of marketing that lead the consumer along by the nose all the way to the ginger bread house. I just hope that the witch inside isn't all that nasty and evil.