D&D (2024) Do you plan to adopt D&D5.5One2024Redux?

[Micah Sweet]

Some valid reasons not to like 4e D&D:

Where's my level drain?
Why isn't my Wizard all-powerful?
What do you mean all the good spells take an hour to cast and cost money and anyone can get a Ritual book with a feat? Bad enough I'd have to share this feature with Bards and Clerics.
What do you mean my Cleric has to heal and buff others?
What do you mean Fighters aren't damage machines? Protect my allies? They should stick behind me and use ranged weapons.
At-Will Powers for squishies? They should be throwing darts!
What do you mean I can only use Fireball once a day?
What do you mean I can only use that awesome sword strike once every 5 minutes?
Everyone can take an action to heal themselves? What is this nonsense?
You can heal yourself after 5 minutes?
Why does my 1st level character feel like a 5th level character? Where's my zero to hero?
Prestige classes are built into the game?
Rogues are damage dealers?
Where's my Ranger's pet and spells?
Paladins aren't Lawful Good? They can't instantly lose their powers at the drop of a hat? What is this?
Why are dragon men and demon people in my player's handbook?
I can't run my old game with these rules!
They ruined (insert setting of choice).
Where's my extra attacks? What's this "2 [W] garbage?"
Magic items are expected? Nobody should be entitled to magic items!
Magic items are lame now.
So I have to track ammo, but he can just fire magic all day?
So every class can use different stats to hit and damage? And you can wear plate with Strength 10? What's the point of ability scores?
Wait, you start with plate?
Where's my glaive-guisarme?
Where's my spiked chain?
Where's my skills? I can't have a Profession?
I have to use a battle map?
Why is everything in squares? We use the Imperial system in my country!
Why is everything in 5' squares? We use the metric system in my country!
Fireballs are not cubes!

Are you trying to make fun of fans of previous editions? I know a lot of this is clearly jokey, but much of the list is early edition stuff that some people legitimately like.

 

[James Gasik]

Are you trying to make fun of fans of previous editions?

Why, do you feel called out? Because I can assure you, some of those things were things I said when I first read the 4e PHB. The game changed. Whether or not those changes were good or bad is entirely a matter of perspective, but they were changes in the entire philosophy of D&D at that point, it was a total paradigm shift. Up til very late 3.5, D&D was a daily resource based attrition system.

The 3.5 designers noted that a lot of problems people had could be better solved by making it more of an encounter-based attrition system, though they kept some daily abilities. They noted low-level blues, they noted "not feeling like a member of your class" for several levels. And the more they changed, the more they felt like they could improve and tweak. Less attacks during combat, more base damage. Let's not worry about diagonal movement. Let's fully embrace the grid.

So on, and so forth. What they forgot was, while many things they changed were unpopular, they were also a huge part of D&D's identity. If their target audience was people who never played D&D before, or who felt that D&D was old and busted and hard to get into, smashing success.

But if their target was the people who liked their D&D-isms and were used to a certain kind of play and certain expectations about the game, it was a failure. They were bold. They picked a lane. They said "Did you like the Book of Nine Swords? We think this is the future of D&D, come along for the ride."

And like Rorschach, a good amount of D&D fans looked at it and said "no". You can take umbrage with my examples, but I feel they are more concrete than "too video-gamey" "too much like an MMO" or "too anime" or whatever blithe dismissal of the product some might adhere to.

These are some of the real reasons in my opinion. It was too different. And no amount of "but see, this is better!" will change that abject fact.

5e's success, in part, shows that there are some things people didn't want changed about Dungeons & Dragons. Not just from the 4e era, but the 3e era as well.

EDIT: changed "you" to "some" in the line "you adhere to". I have a habit of using the generic "you" when I should more properly say "one", "a given person" and so on.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why, do you feel called out? Because I can assure you, some of those things were things I said when I first read the 4e PHB. The game changed. Whether or not those changes were good or bad is entirely a matter of perspective, but they were changes in the entire philosophy of D&D at that point, it was a total paradigm shift. Up til very late 3.5, D&D was a daily resource based attrition system.

The 3.5 designers noted that a lot of problems people had could be better solved by making it more of an encounter-based attrition system, though they kept some daily abilities. They noted low-level blues, they noted "not feeling like a member of your class" for several levels. And the more they changed, the more they felt like they could improve and tweak. Less attacks during combat, more base damage. Let's not worry about diagonal movement. Let's fully embrace the grid.

So on, and so forth. What they forgot was, while many things they changed were unpopular, they were also a huge part of D&D's identity. If their target audience was people who never played D&D before, or who felt that D&D was old and busted and hard to get into, smashing success.

But if their target was the people who liked their D&D-isms and were used to a certain kind of play and certain expectations about the game, it was a failure. They were bold. They picked a lane. They said "Did you like the Book of Nine Swords? We think this is the future of D&D, come along for the ride."

And like Rorschach, a good amount of D&D fans looked at it and said "no". You can take umbrage with my examples, but I feel they are more concrete than "too video-gamey" "too much like an MMO" or "too anime" or whatever blithe dismissal of the product you adhere to.

These are some of the real reasons in my opinion. It was too different. And no amount of "but see, this is better!" will change that abject fact.

5e's success, in part, shows that there are some things people didn't want changed about Dungeons & Dragons. Not just from the 4e era, but the 3e era as well.

Ok, I thought you were trying to be funny, and I absolutely did feel called out. Nearly all of that list are complaints I had and have about 4e. Nevermind, I apologize.

 

[James Gasik]

Ok, I thought you were trying to be funny, and I absolutely did feel called out. Nearly all of that list are complaints I had and have about 4e. Nevermind, I apologize.

You don't have to apologize, certainly, there are some quibbles that I think people should look at with humor. Like the firecube thing. An important thing that separates humans from the other life forms on this planet is that we can laugh at ourselves. Especially when we sometimes get a little too worked up and serious about a game we should be playing for fun.

Runs before the "D&D is not for fun, it's serious business" crowd shows up.

 

[Oofta]

you're completely right of course, but please note my response wasn't about if the presentation of those powers was 'right' or if you or anyone else is wrong or not in their dislike of 4e (you're not wrong your opinion is entirely valid), but simply on whether nuking those options from 4e would have a significant impact on the game, and i gave my opinion of the situation to the best of my understanding.

The powers (and it was by no means limited to 4) were only 1 part of it. If you took away everything that bothered me, there wouldn't have been much left.

I had a longer response but ultimately it was just a different game than what came before or has come since. It shared some names and basic concepts but actual play was quite different.

What's funny about all this is that only 4E fans bring up the version, usually talking about how it did things better and that people just didn't understand, it was all just bad press or presentation or similar. Then people respond with "eh, it wasn't that great for me" and we're off to the races again.

 

[James Gasik]

Hey, I'm a 4e fan, and I'm perfectly happy to discuss it's failings- it certainly had them! I take umbrage with how it's often misrepresented. A lot of people just parrot the "4e is bad memes" without demonstrating that they truly comprehend what, exactly, the real merits and flaws of the game were.

You want to say you hate 4e because mechanics were far more important than flavor text, that you don't like turn-based battles on a grid, that you don't feel like you can run the game your way without the system slapping you in the face, or the fact that "thing X that I like in D&D" doesn't exist or isn't supported? Not a problem!

Or simply, like Oofta says, "it wasn't a game for me". Great!

D&D is for everyone, but a given version (or the game in it's totality) might not be the best fit for a person. Which is great! We have lots of other games you can play too!

But the "4e sucks because of some thing that isn't actually true" sticks in my craw, because it's a thing that has been perpetuated to the point that there are people in the hobby who never even looked at a 4e book, who have this viewpoint! Often on Youtube, I'll watch a video made by some younger player that I'm perfectly enjoying, and they'll make some comment like "except 4e, 4e was universally bad. I never played it though."

It grinds my gears. Because I hated the game too! But once I started really playing it, and examining the game in more detail, I saw a lot of good packed in with the not-so-good, to the point that I truly enjoyed it. That isn't to say that there can't be people who also engaged with the game who still didn't like it.

But the flippant and dismissive comments some people make about it make it hard to believe that everyone has an informed opinion.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Meh. How many spells are there in 5e? Never minding 3e which had several thousand FEATS, never minding the rest of it. If you could play 3e without a character builder, you certainly didn't need one for 4e.

You only needed a character builder if you insisted on using every single option ever printed for 4e.

I have played 4e. And I felt that I needed the character builder more than in any other editon.
So please stop patronizing me. That is quite rude.
I speak from experience, not making something up. If you felt differently, more power to you.

 

[soviet]

I played 4e throughout its life with three different paragon level characters. I built them all without the character builder or any other online tools and it was fine.

 

[FrogReaver]

Hey, I'm a 4e fan, and I'm perfectly happy to discuss its failings- it certainly had them! I take umbrage with how it's often misrepresented. A lot of people just parrot the "4e is bad memes" without demonstrating that they truly comprehend what, exactly, the real merits and flaws of the game were.

No issue with this sentiment. Though I might ask how one is to know who is truly misrepresenting it with no direct experience of it and who is representing their experiences with it?

You want to say you hate 4e because mechanics were far more important than flavor text, that you don't like turn-based battles on a grid, that you don't feel like you can run the game your way without the system slapping you in the face, or the fact that "thing X that I like in D&D" doesn't exist or isn't supported? Not a problem!

Agreed!

But the "4e sucks because of some thing that isn't actually true" sticks in my craw,

What if we don’t agree about what is actually true of 4e?

because it's a thing that has been perpetuated to the point that there are people in the hobby who never even looked at a 4e book, who have this viewpoint! Often on Youtube, I'll watch a video made by some younger player that I'm perfectly enjoying, and they'll make some comment like "except 4e, 4e was universally bad. I never played it though."

I think for some people it was universally bad.

It grinds my gears. Because I hated the game too! But once I started really playing it, and examining the game in more detail, I saw a lot of good packed in with the not-so-good, to the point that I truly enjoyed it. That isn't to say that there can't be people who also engaged with the game who still didn't like it.

I liked 4e early on and a bit less so as time went on - I prefer 5e Now but wouldn’t be opposed to a 4e campaign for a change of pace. But I can understand how people bounced right off it.

But the flippant and dismissive comments some people make about it make it hard to believe that everyone has an informed opinion.

Agreed. Some comments are too dismissive, but on the flip side it often feels like alot of comments about ‘how the game was for a particular poster’ tend to get lumped in with the overly flippant and dismissive when they really aren’t.

 

[James Gasik]

No issue with this sentiment. Though I might ask how one is to know who is truly misrepresenting it with no direct experience of it and who is representing their experiences with it?

Agreed!

What if we don’t agree about what is actually true of 4e?


I think for some people it was universally bad.

I liked 4e early on and a bit less so as time went on - I prefer 5e Now but wouldn’t be opposed to a 4e campaign for a change of pace. But I can understand how people bounced right off it.

Agreed. Some comments are too dismissive, but on the flip side it often feels like alot of comments about ‘how the game was for a particular poster’ tend to get lumped in with the overly flippant and dismissive when they really aren’t.

When I say universally bad, I mean it- universally bad for everyone, the hobby in general, D&D in particular. That the very existence of 4e casts a shadow over reality!