Parmandur
Book-Friend
Do we have hard data on Vampire being actually bigger, or is that just speculation?
D&D 4E What Aspects of 4E Made It into 5E?
For a couple of sales periods. I don't think anyone outside the industriy knows the totals over the years of 4e being on sale.
Also, it was not the first time that D&D fell behind another publisher. In the mid-to-late 90s White Wolf overtook TSR's D&D.
I thought this thread is about transmission of design ideas, not reverence.
As far as the previews were concerned: I think they were quite straightforward. I remember a lot of threads on these boards that denied what the preview authors said, namely, that the game involved changes to 3E; and then when the game actually came out, many of the same posters complained about how different it was from 3E! From my point of view - as someone who doesn't particularly care for 3E - the changes were pretty obvious in the previews, and the game as published delivered them.
If people get "trapped" because they don't believe the designers when they are explaining how they have changed their design, well, that'll happen. I'm expecting that a similar thing may happen with PF2. However, . . .
One hopes that the PF2 designers have their eyes focused on this issue.
I think the 4e designers focused on the play experience as delivered by playing the system as written. Whereas it turns out that a big part of the consumer experience is of the book as read. System appears to matter a lot less than the designers thought, in part - I think - because many tables seem to bring late-80s/90s sensibilities (developed from the 2nd ed AD&D era) to their RPGing, and will just follow those instincts regardless of what's written in the rulebooks. Changes in writing style seem to get in the way of those instincts.
I've just made another post - I'm curious if you agree with it also.
As far as 3E/PF is concerned, I think as a system it is extremely different from 4e, and is the culmination of the mechanical strand of the 2nd ed AD&D system design ethos.
The issues that can emerge from this system are well-known. 4e adresses them through treating the encounter as the site of action resolution, and establishing mechanical parity of builds about the encounter.
Essentials departs from the default 4e approach, with some PC builds that have healing surges as their only daily resource. 5e and 13th Age extend this model, using N encounters per day as their balancing method. In 13th Age this is hardcoded; in 5e it's built into the encounter-design guidelines. The 5e approach allows the players and GMs to experience the dynamics/pacing/regulation of play as very similar to mid-80s and onwards AD&D, while those who care about mechanical parity have a clear guideline on how to reach it (the maths is not essentially unconstrained as in upper-level AD&D itself, and as in 3E/PF).
Whereas default 4e will push back very hard against an attempt to run itoin the mid-80s and on AD&D spirit.
Jester David
Hero
I think MtG might also be a factor in their ability to make 5e.
I don't know how much cross-subsidy there is across business units within WotC.
If I was managing a firm, and Division A was successful while Division B had failed, I would be hesitant to allow Division A to cross-subsidise Division B on the strength of a promise that Division B will get it right next time! But that's at best a very abstract description of the situation at WotC.
Mouseferatu
Hero
Completely leaving aside my personal feelings for 4E--positive, negative, and/or otherwise--I think this is untrue for at least one major reason.
I don't think 5E would have been quite the phenomenon it was if it hadn't had 4E to, in the eyes of many, "recover from."
(To say nothing of the fact that it wouldn't include many of the innovations that it's borrowed from 4E.)
Just as Pathfinder's success was, in part, a confluence of events, so too was 5E's. I'm not suggesting that either wouldn't have been a good game, or wouldn't have been successful, but I believe they wouldn't have made as much of a massive initial impact.
And given that 5E, and the activities surrounding it (streaming, mainstream attention, etc.), are largely responsible for the biggest tabletop RPG renaissance since the 80s, I think the hobby is in a better place now than it would've been without the sequence of events--4E and its controversies included--that led to it.
Now, this is all personal theorizing on my part. I don't know anything more than anyone else who's reasonably tapped into the hobby. But I think it's a reasonable conclusion.
the Jester
Legend
Going back to the original topic, one thing I didn't notice anyone mention was the inclusion of "saving throw as duration determiner" effects- i.e. "At the end of each of your turns, repeat the saving throw, ending the effect on yourself on a success" effects, or as 4e more eloquently put it, "(save ends)."
I really like the way 5e mixes the older version of saves-as-avoidance with saves-as-duration from 4e. There's plenty of room for saves to do both.
I really like the way 5e mixes the older version of saves-as-avoidance with saves-as-duration from 4e. There's plenty of room for saves to do both.
Lord Mhoram
Hero
I've said for years that the reason 4E didn't "Feel" like D&D to some people (not just haters, though many probably became haters) is that (using 3fold terminology) older D&D was sorta gamist, 3rd was sorta simulationist, and 4E was gamist/Nar. For someone who saw the rules as a definition of the world (using common sense to ignore corner cases), the concept that the same monster could use 3 different write ups, solo, normal, and minion and still be the same monster, just different in how the character interacts with them completely beyond the pale. Add to the percieved samey-ness of classes and power, and the "balance by encounter/day" rather than adventure and a lot of things just added up to "this isn't D&D" - that is also from self anlysis on my reaction to it as well. When fights were more tactical in 4E then when I played Hero/Champions you know it was a different style of D&D. (admittedly a style that was very well crafted, but not what I wanted out of the game).
So along comes 5E. It takes a different view on balance - potions not taking hit dice, but the did take healing surges (as I recall) in 4E, which speaks to a more sim approach. Spellcasting is different than martial abiltiies - so mages and fighters don't have the same structure is another big percieved difference. Natural language rather than formal language (again something that I was very familar with in HERO). There are some mechanical differences.
But as you said the presentation is huge. When I read the 4E rulebook, it was like reading the Hero 5th rulebook - very dry descriptions of abilities to be used as a reference book. The 5E have a lot more flair that makes just reading them enjoyable.
If there were a thread on "what elements of 4e did 5e leave behind, intentionally or accidentally, for better or for worse", then this would be a important element. Also backwards compatibility in general. It is possible to run "White Plume Mountain" in 5E. The silly aspects of 1E are IMO even more overt when played in 5E, but at least it's possible to run the adventure. As you say, a DM who runs "White Plume Mountain" in 4E, may find the 4E rules uncooperative.
What elements of the 4e setting, or decisions about how to handle setting, re-appear in 5E or carry over into 5E?
The warlock flavour seems pretty similar in 5e to 4e.
The shadowfell and feywild seem pretty similar also.
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