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Ben Riggs' "What the Heck Happened with 4th Edition?" seminar at Gen Con 2023
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<blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 9225966" data-attributes="member: 22779"><p>I've very often referred to 4e as the RPGA edition. Most of the playtesting was done by the RPGA. And so much of the design was driven by elements that had been instituted in the RPGA. Add to that the idea that 4e was expecting this huge growth meaning that you would have a broad swath of new DM's playing with newly minted groups and suddenly I think that a lot of the changes that 4e made make sense. You don't want "DM empowerment" when you're playing pick up games with strangers. You want consistency between tables. This makes even more sense when you add in the idea that WotC was banking on Online play being a big deal and many of these players would be jumping from group to group, RPGA style. </p><p></p><p>And, since that does not apply to the majority of existing 3e players of the time - the RPGA was big, but, hardly a majority of D&D players and online, while also sizable at the time, was still miniscule as well - these decision points would make zero sense.</p><p></p><p>Which, IMO, goes a ways to explaining why 5e touted the whole "DM empowerment" thing. It was directly addressing existing groups with established players. There's no sense of consistency between tables. How you play 5e and how I play 5e doesn't really matter so long as the game gives a good enough baseline for both of us to enjoy our games.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Hussar, post: 9225966, member: 22779"] I've very often referred to 4e as the RPGA edition. Most of the playtesting was done by the RPGA. And so much of the design was driven by elements that had been instituted in the RPGA. Add to that the idea that 4e was expecting this huge growth meaning that you would have a broad swath of new DM's playing with newly minted groups and suddenly I think that a lot of the changes that 4e made make sense. You don't want "DM empowerment" when you're playing pick up games with strangers. You want consistency between tables. This makes even more sense when you add in the idea that WotC was banking on Online play being a big deal and many of these players would be jumping from group to group, RPGA style. And, since that does not apply to the majority of existing 3e players of the time - the RPGA was big, but, hardly a majority of D&D players and online, while also sizable at the time, was still miniscule as well - these decision points would make zero sense. Which, IMO, goes a ways to explaining why 5e touted the whole "DM empowerment" thing. It was directly addressing existing groups with established players. There's no sense of consistency between tables. How you play 5e and how I play 5e doesn't really matter so long as the game gives a good enough baseline for both of us to enjoy our games. [/QUOTE]
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