Speculation about "the feelz" of D&D 4th Edition

[Caliburn101]

But, objectively, it's still very much an edition of D&D.

Something I said myself not so long ago in the thread. I have responded to a bunch of people here, not just your good self - so please don't think I am trying to crowbar in critique of opinions you don't have - I am not the kind to misrepresent anyone's point of view except by accident.

I think you're a bit rough on Mearls though - he was in the offices where 4th Ed. came to be, so whilst you may discount some of what he says due to his other works, and your opinion of the quality of those, he was not lead designer, and of course has a perspective on this neither of us will ever come close to being able to approximate.

In court - he'd be the expert insider witness and we'd be the bystanders to the event in terms of credibility of opinion.

 

[Manbearcat]

Something interesting I want to note right quick about "feelz" versus design.

4e and Moldvay Basic are (IME - which is correct) the most tightly designed editions of D&D. They each have an explicit premise (MB as well-oiled, after map/key are created, nearly self-sustained content generating dungeon crawling machine...4e being closed scene resolution, player-driven, high octane action adventure centered around destined heroes ensconced in mythical conflict). Their build and resolution mechanics are "outcome-based" (engineered toward their respective premise) rather than attempting to model process.

Map/key + Role-centered classes + Exploration turns/rest + Wandering Monsters + Encounters + Reaction Adjustment. And all related.

Action Scenes charged with PC-centered conflict (from combat to parley to rooftop chase to escape from crumbling complex to infiltration/espionage to esoteric research to perilous journey, etc etc) + dynamic decision-points + universal narrative authority + scene resolution mechanics + failure isn't an endpoint.

Play snowballs naturally and premise-coherently in both systems.

But the "feelz" are rather different due to divergent premise. Nonetheless, they're still both very much D&D. And they both diverge in certain key ways from AD&D and 3.x (process-modeling rather than outcome-based design is a big area where they diverge from 3.x...universal narrative authority vs spellcaster exclusively, go to the action vs serial exploration, and scene resolution are areas where 4e diverges from both).

Resultantly, I would put Moldvay Basic MUCH CLOSER in the D&D family tree to 4e than to the others.

One final note to @Parmandur. I think when you're trying to compare the D&D board games to 4e, you're rather showing your lack of familiarity. See my above. If anything, it's probably closer to a Moldvay Basic dungeon generator (where the map and key are generated at the moment of play). It has the basic exploration procedures (less Reaction) of Moldvay at its core. The only thing I can see it shares with actual 4e is VERY rough combat action economy, vanilla class features, and everyone has Dailies. If anything, it is an extraordinarily shallow mash-up of the two (which it isn't...sooo). And of course, most importantly, MB and 4e aren't board games. They're both actual RPGs where the shared, evolving fiction is the primary input for expansive play/action declaration & resolution (hat tip @pemerton for robust, concise definition).

 

[Parmandur]

Something interesting I want to note right quick about "feelz" versus design.

4e and Moldvay Basic are (IME - which is correct) the most tightly designed editions of D&D. They each have an explicit premise (MB as well-oiled, after map/key are created, nearly self-sustained content generating dungeon crawling machine...4e being closed scene resolution, player-driven, high octane action adventure centered around destined heroes ensconced in mythical conflict). Their build and resolution mechanics are "outcome-based" (engineered toward their respective premise) rather than attempting to model process.

Map/key + Role-centered classes + Exploration turns/rest + Wandering Monsters + Encounters + Reaction Adjustment. And all related.

Action Scenes charged with PC-centered conflict (from combat to parley to rooftop chase to escape from crumbling complex to infiltration/espionage to esoteric research to perilous journey, etc etc) + dynamic decision-points + universal narrative authority + scene resolution mechanics + failure isn't an endpoint.

Play snowballs naturally and premise-coherently in both systems.

But the "feelz" are rather different due to divergent premise. Nonetheless, they're still both very much D&D. And they both diverge in certain key ways from AD&D and 3.x (process-modeling rather than outcome-based design is a big area where they diverge from 3.x...universal narrative authority vs spellcaster exclusively, go to the action vs serial exploration, and scene resolution are areas where 4e diverges from both).

Resultantly, I would put Moldvay Basic MUCH CLOSER in the D&D family tree to 4e than to the others.

One final note to @Parmandur. I think when you're trying to compare the D&D board games to 4e, you're rather showing your lack of familiarity. See my above. If anything, it's probably closer to a Moldvay Basic dungeon generator (where the map and key are generated at the moment of play). It has the basic exploration procedures (less Reaction) of Moldvay at its core. The only thing I can see it shares with actual 4e is VERY rough combat action economy, vanilla class features, and everyone has Dailies. If anything, it is an extraordinarily shallow mash-up of the two (which it isn't...sooo). And of course, most importantly, MB and 4e aren't board games. They're both actual RPGs where the shared, evolving fiction is the primary input for expansive play/action declaration & resolution (hat tip @pemerton for robust, concise definition).

Well, no, the D&D Adventures engine they are still using for board games isn't exactly 4E in full: but it is a "Basic" version of it. The gameplay part is the same, and the elements that bother me with the RPG version, I enjoy in the board game version as a board game. So, go figure?

Sent from my BLU LIFE XL using EN World mobile app

 

[MwaO]

I think you're a bit rough on Mearls though - he was in the offices where 4th Ed. came to be, so whilst you may discount some of what he says due to his other works, and your opinion of the quality of those, he was not lead designer, and of course has a perspective on this neither of us will ever come close to being able to approximate.

In court - he'd be the expert insider witness and we'd be the bystanders to the event in terms of credibility of opinion.

Mearls is not an expert witness. He's the lead marketer of D&D. He's telling his target audience what they want to hear so they'll purchase D&D stuff. Legends & Lore and Next were a big long marketing campaign to convince 1e/2e/3e/PF players to play 5e. Which meant saying things like that. On Reddit, when asked when he was going to actually do anything for 4e players, he sounded surprised that it was even a concern, and said, "4e fans aren't feeling the love yet. We'll have that covered - just give us some time."

This represents the reasonable sound conclusion that most players of current edition X will at least try edition X+1. It is the ones who aren't playing X, but rather X-1 or X-2 or especially X-1* controlled by a different company that are the ones that need to be convinced to try it out.

------

And ironically, 5e is the edition that feels least like D&D to me.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Sure, none.

Doesn't mean you can't do it.

LOL, yeah, I never got that '5e is the TotM edition' meme. It gives you SQUAT tools for that, none at all.

I remember seeing the X-men done as Sorcerers...

...3.5 sorcerers.

That would be weird, but I guess it would KINDA work. Of course they'd be glass cannons, which seems pretty strange to me! Nor does it seem like Wolverine would be well-served by such a reskinning! I think 4e does this kind of thing MUCH better.

 

[MwaO]

Resultantly, I would put Moldvay Basic MUCH CLOSER in the D&D family tree to 4e than to the others.

Totally agree with this. Some similar design concepts as well - Elf has AD&D style multi-classing which 4e initially tries to replicate with Paragon Multiclassing and then later on Hybrid.

 

[Parmandur]

LOL, yeah, I never got that '5e is the TotM edition' meme. It gives you SQUAT tools for that, none at all.



That would be weird, but I guess it would KINDA work. Of course they'd be glass cannons, which seems pretty strange to me! Nor does it seem like Wolverine would be well-served by such a reskinning! I think 4e does this kind of thing MUCH better.

It gives the same tools folks have been using to do TotM for decades; the same tools we used in 3.x to do it that way. Many top RPG Twitches play 5E in TotM, it ain't hard.

Sent from my BLU LIFE XL using EN World mobile app

 

[Parmandur]

Mearls is not an expert witness. He's the lead marketer of D&D. He's telling his target audience what they want to hear so they'll purchase D&D stuff. Legends & Lore and Next were a big long marketing campaign to convince 1e/2e/3e/PF players to play 5e. Which meant saying things like that. On Reddit, when asked when he was going to actually do anything for 4e players, he sounded surprised that it was even a concern, and said, "4e fans aren't feeling the love yet. We'll have that covered - just give us some time."

This represents the reasonable sound conclusion that most players of current edition X will at least try edition X+1. It is the ones who aren't playing X, but rather X-1 or X-2 or especially X-1* controlled by a different company that are the ones that need to be convinced to try it out.

------

And ironically, 5e is the edition that feels least like D&D to me.

Yeah, [MENTION=697]mearls[/MENTION] does not appear to be a 4E fan, nor the other current WotC folks. Somebody recently asked Chris Perkins on Twitter what his favorite part of 4E that didn't make it to 5E: he said everything he liked in 4E made it to 5E.

Sent from my BLU LIFE XL using EN World mobile app

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's nice. He has an opinion. He's also the designer who did more to botch 4E than any other. Look at his credits: Keep on the Shadowfell, Pyramid of Shadow, Heroes of Shadow. Yep, I included that last one because, while every other 4E designer got better at the system, he arguably got worse.

I also remember a seminar he and Chris Perkins did at Pax discussing DMing. Chris was asked about his current campaigns and he mentioned briefly about Iomandra. He only needed to mention that briefly because his WotC blog was full of additional details as was that tremendous series he authored, the DM's Experience.

By contrast Mike had this to say: I'm not running a campaign now. (It's no wonder he never really grokked 4E.) That and his list of credits is really all you have to know about his opinions about 4E.

That said, you would be misrepresenting my opinions if you claimed or implied or even inferred that I didn't think that 4E was perceived as being very different. I agree with that but, looking at D&D holistically (there's that word again) over the decades I have been playing, I can see the natural evolution (I'm sticking with that phrase) over the editions and the design choices made. But while I see the natural evolution, that's irrelevant in the face of subjective taste.

4E failed the subjective taste test. That I do agree. But, objectively, it's still very much an edition of D&D.

Oh, there were plenty of people who, ridiculously, claimed 4e "wasn't D&D" and blah blah blah blah blah. That Mearls quote is being stretched pretty far too. Mike never EVER said HE didn't think 4e was D&D or that it DID 'replace D&D fans with new ones' or any other such ridiculous thing. He was just addressing such hyperbole. Then he goes on to say that he wants to provide such people with a game they will like. That's all well and good, and I think its pretty clear, as you have pointed out, that Mearls himself wanted some other version of D&D for his own personal reasons.

Honestly, IMHO, it is a terrible business mistake to put in charge of your product line a person who doesn't believe in your product, and WotC never should have made Mike Mearls its head D&D guy in the 4e era. However it was just par for the course of execrable business decisions WotC has made in the D&D line. I don't know if the people who made those are still around, it was obviously a level above Mearls or the people who came before him, but I expect they have to have changed something at higher levels, because they certainly are at least clear now on what they're trying to do. Perhaps that is just a result of management leaving D&D to figure its own way out, and at least now Mearls has a game he LIKES, much as it chaffs me that he did such a bad disservice to my own preferred game.

 

[The Fighter-Cricket]

Yeah, [MENTION=697]mearls[/MENTION] does not appear to be a 4E fan

Please, guys, could you stop writing out The Traitor's name out loud? I'm really not that superstitious but you know what they say: "When HIS name is written down on forums HE will descent again and HIS rule will be terrible." It just gives me... chills.