4th edition, The fantastic game that everyone hated.

[Sunseeker]

...table norms such as "wish lists", lack of support for non-combat aspects of the game, etc.

I hear the statement in bold often and I question: can we hold "table norms" against the game? Is it a design flaw? Or is it a player(incl. the DM here in "player") flaw? Personally I've played and run 4e games where there are "wish lists", and I've run older editions with "wish lists" as well, some with that pesky "Ye Olde Magic Item Shoppe" that seems to have a wormhole linked to every possible magic item you could ever want, and some not.

With certain parties, I like "wish lists", because it can give me insight into what a player wants to do. Perhaps the dwarf wants a special hammer, the ranger a special bow, the halfling a special cloak. Now just like birthdays and christmas I have the choice of giving them what they want, or not and I think that's the bigger issue. The 4e DMG encourages DMs to account for what players want, which every DM rightly should do, but it doesn't do a good job of drawing a line between that and giving them what they want.

It's important to account for things people want, but it's important to know how to account for them. Perhaps a mega-dungeon leads players to a demonic forge whereby touching their hand upon the ancient, evil crystals, the force will create for them one demonically-empowered item....for a price. There's always a price. Be it defeating the dragon or willingly taking on demonic taint, perhaps 4e simply needed to encourage DMs to up the ante. Because an item a player wants as opposed to an item a player gets is going to be a much more significant source of investment for them. Anyway...

4th Edition was great at what it did. But what it did was too narrow. D&D traditionally has catered to a wide variety of playstyles, often in a single campaign. Sometimes you want the fight to be quick and loose (bar brawl, beating up a couple sentries) and sometimes you want a large set-piece fight.

I don't think it's impossible for 4e to do both, though probably not on the same night. I agree that combat was generally a slog, but that's assuming you need actual full-blown combat for each and every one of these things.

Dragonborn in the PHB was definitely a step too far IMO. It results in Dragonborn cropping up randomly in adventures where there's not really a thematic place for them.

No it doesn't. It's always your choice to include anything in a game. If Dragonborn showed up in your game that's because you let them show up. I'm building a new game right now and I just buzzed through the CB list of "playable races" and put a big fat "X" on darn near half of them. Exactly because I don't like them, I don't want them to "crop up where they don't fit" and I don't want to bother with writing them in thematically. Heck, I was talking to one of my new players last night as he was making his character, about 5 minutes before I finished my list, and he picked Kenku. I had to tell the guy "sorry, I don't allow kenku" and that he'd have to pick something else.

You are in control of your game, and if it's not your game, it's really not your place to say what is or isn't appropriate. If you*not you you, hypothetical you) fail to exercise that control, well...that's not 4e's fault.

I think we're seeing an interesting move from 'everything is core' to 'everything is optional' - also known as 'put it in a module'. I think really they'd be even better off if the 'core' system was just rules, and the first published races and classes are equally optional as everything that comes afterwards.

I agree. There's a lot of the specifics that I don't like about 4e, nit-picky things that just bug me. The same applies to most editions though. However, the math, the framework, the adjudication, the general system I love.

I don't think that they were really a step to far (especially not if the feel had been "everything is optional" rather than "everything is core" - but since we always treated D&D as the former, we pretty much ignored the latter) as much as it was kind of vexing to have this new doodad taking up space rather than including the traditional core. Had more (or all) of the traditional core been there and dragonborn added, I think they would have been less controversial.

Again, statements like these perplex me. The "traditional core" was there. 4e's PHB1 had the following:
Humans
Dwarves
Elves
Half-Elves
Halflings
Tieflings
Eladrin
Dragonborn.

Aren't the first 5 there the "traditional core"? 3.X and earlier included Half-Orcs and Gnomes in place of Dragonborn, Tieflings, and Eladrin.
The 4e PHB1 also included:
Fighters
Clerics
Wizards
Rogues
Paladins
Sorcerers
Warlocks
Warlords

Now, aren't at least the first 4 of those also "traditional core"? The second 2 were pretty common in early supplemental material if not core themselves in some editions. Warlocks at least made an appearance at some point in most edition, and Warlords(at least the way 4e did them) are really the only new appearance.

So I must ask: what "traditional core" did they leave out? In the very first book the most traditional of classes and races were included. Now, if you're saying that they're styled too differently to be "traditional", well, that's an opinion issue. But from where I look at it, the traditional core is there. I mean older editions had Monk, Bard, Ranger and Druid, though these were sometimes sub-classes. There were some racial classes, but those don't seem to be holding their popularity. What "traditional core" am I missing?

 

[billd91]

Again, statements like these perplex me. The "traditional core" was there. 4e's PHB1 had the following:
Humans
Dwarves
Elves
Half-Elves
Halflings
Tieflings
Eladrin
Dragonborn.

Aren't the first 5 there the "traditional core"? 3.X included Half-Orcs and Gnomes in place of Dragonborn, Tieflings, and Eladrin.
The 4e PHB1 also included:
Fighters
Clerics
Wizards
Rogues
Paladins
Sorcerers
Warlocks
Warlords

Now, aren't at least the first 4 of those also "traditional core"? The second 2 were pretty common in early supplemental material if not core themselves in some editions. Warlocks at least made an appearance at some point in most edition, and Warlords(at least the way 4e did them) are really the only new appearance.

So I must ask: what "traditional core" did they leave out? In the very first book the most traditional of classes and races were included. Now, if you're saying that they're styled too differently to be "traditional", well, that's an opinion issue. But from where I look at it, the traditional core is there.

Gnomes
Half-orcs
Bards
Druids
Illusionists
Charm spells that are worthwhile
Illusion spells that are worthwhile

Noticeable gaps in the traditional core, if you ask me.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I don't really get what the big deal is. 3E was a really great game. People liked it. But after printing all those books, and "refreshing" the rules with 3.5... WotC needed something really new to justify a 4E that wasn't just another "refresh". Preferably one that would get them out from underneath the OGL so that they could have regain control of all the publishing for the new game. In addition... it seems they were making good money from their miniatures line and dungeon tiles line... so by creating a game that really required minis and grids, it would synchronize those lines together for more sales.

At the time it probably seemed like a solid business plan. They just didn't count on the backlash many players had to the miniatures game aspect, or the non-incorporation of the OGL. And enough players rebelled to the point that Paizo was able to mobilize those players and bring them over to their version of 3.5.

But really... who cares? So we have multiple types of D&D out there. Big deal. We always have. Today is no different than almost any other day in the history of D&D's lifespan.

 

[Sunseeker]

Gnomes
Half-orcs
Bards
Druids
Illusionists
Charm spells that are worthwhile
Illusion spells that are worthwhile

Noticeable gaps in the traditional core, if you ask me.

The "Illusionist" only appeared as Core in 1st edition AD&D. What is defined as "worthwhile" is a matter of opinion I'm afraid. Gnomes certainly seem to get very little love elsewhere when people talk about having them in DDN, so I can't imagine their loss being that grievous. If this is just a "but this new thing isn't exactly like that old thing!" whine, well, hey, stuff changes. Yes yes I'm aware people think that D&D ought to be carved in stone and never changed no matter what never ever but I think you can agree that's a rather unrealistic position to hold.

But we can agree that these "gaps" still represent a minor portion of the whole yes? Two classes, two races? FIVE were included of each, that's still the vast majority.

 

[Li Shenron]

I am not sure, but I think for me 4e indeed looked like it could be a totally fun game.

But still I have only played it a few evenings, and then decided I didn't want to have anything to do with it.

Why? My own speculations...

#1 - I didn't need a new edition. I had 3.0 and that was great for me (yes, 3.0! I both played and run 3.5 also, but never felt I really needed to upgrade. I spared the money and still prefer 3.0 to this day for a variety of reasons). 4e didn't seem to "fix" anything, because I felt there was nothing to fix really, and didn't seem to improve anything that could have improved (I kept hearing that 4e is great for DM's preparation, and I believe it, but I never went that far in 4e to actually see this). Nowadays I know what is wrong for me about 3ed, it is the fact that such edition requires mastery (indeed the concept of mastery was a major drive in the design of 3e) and personally I cannot afford that in gaming, at this point of my life. I need a game that doesn't require mastery. In the meantime, I never thought 4e was significantly less forgiving about it.

#2 - Generally speaking I don't like a RPG with strong focus on combat. Our 3e campaigns most probably had less focus on combat than average. 4e to me immediately felt like it was a combat game first, which you would drop into a story. I never felt like that in 3e and not even in BECMI.

#3 - I totally hated the marketing strategy of 4e. Both WotC and everybody who went along with 4e were suddenly treating me and my friends like we were stupid fools who didn't understand how to play the game. I especially found the "kill the sacred cows" and related jokes about burgers to be complete insults. Those sacred cows were the reason I sticked with D&D instead of exploring other RPGs. Exploring variants, even strong ones, was always something I liked myself, but creativity and curiosity was my reasons for doing that: now the 4e designers were certainly having fun doing that... but they were taking away my fun! And they were killing the cows I always came back for.

#4 - Once the cows were killed, the game simply didn't look enough like the D&D I used to play for me. I always thought it probably was a nice game, but then it had become just another RPG like the hundreds out there that probably are all good and fun, but I never bothered to check them out, much less invest time and money.

 

[S'mon]

It's important to account for things people want, but it's important to know how to account for them...

No it doesn't. It's always your choice to include anything in a game. If Dragonborn showed up in your game that's because you let them show up.

The random dragonborn do appear in published adventures. It then takes me effort to excise random dragonborn NPCs from the published adventures I run. I would rather not have to bother - and generally don't, but then sometimes after the game I'm left wondering stuff like "Why were those dragonborn 80 miles up the Delimbiyr river, part of the cult of Bane?" OK so I'm a crappy GM, it's a minor problem, but if WoTC had limited the core race palette it wouldn't happen. published adventures IME only stick in hobgoblins if hobgoblins make sense; PHB core races get stuck in everywhere by default.

Occasionally randomly demihuman (elf, dwarf, halfling) NPCs do bug me too, mind you. 99% of NPCs I make myself are human, unless there's some actual reason for them to be otherwise.

On 'want' - I've finally learned not to ask players "What do you want?" All I ever got in response was variants on "I want a pony". In future I'm going to ask them "What do you want to do?" If the answer is "I want to go looking for a pony", then fine. But I can't stand this whole passive wish-list thing where the players are trained to expect to follow the linear adventure and collect the wish-list treasure drops.

 

[Evenglare]

It just sucks that 4th edition D&D's biggest flaw is having Dungeons and Dragons attached on to it. There are hundreds of RPGs out there that are much MUCH worse and yet still awesome, if 4th edition D&D was named like... Final Fantasy Tactics the Roleplaying game or whatever other than D&D. The audience would know exactly what they were getting. The game is solid, it shouldn't have been judged on the basis that it wasnt D&D, but eh, that's the world we live in i guess.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Gnomes

The joke race that almost no one played much and hadn't had a clear identity since 1e (and the rise of the Elves for Everything).

Half-orcs

Not in 2e and then there's the necessary implications of the backstory given the level of racial mixing between humans and orcs in most D&D worlds.

Bards

A different kettle of fish in every edition. Seriously, there might be a class named bard in every edition of AD&D but that doesn't mean it's the same thing at all - especially

Druids

Specialty priests? Niche in AD&D, part of CoDzilla in 3e. Little consistency.

Illusionists
Charm spells that are worthwhile
Illusion spells that are worthwhile

These I'll grant. 4e didn't have a quarter of the book devoted to wizards.

Noticeable gaps in the traditional core, if you ask me.

If by "Noticeable gaps" you mean "Improves the game by not having them and all their implications" (as in the case of half-orcs) or "Prevents the game being flattened" (illusionists, enchanters) or "Isn't a joke" (gnome) I might agree.

The problem was that this "everything" 4E had still was less than what the core of other editions offered. 4E decided to throw away a lot of appeal in favor for tactical combat.

1e was a hacked tabletop wargame. 2e made a nod to skills with NWPs - 4e out of the box was broader than either.

 

[I'm A Banana]

It just sucks that 4th edition D&D's biggest flaw is having Dungeons and Dragons attached on to it.

One could make the counter-point that having D&D's name attached to it is the only reason 4e sold as well as it did. Left on its own without the branding of D&D, 4e could've languished, unplayed, collecting dust on bookshelves.

Hypotheticals are like that.

 

[Sunseeker]

The random dragonborn do appear in published adventures. It then takes me effort to excise random dragonborn NPCs from the published adventures I run. I would rather not have to bother - and generally don't, but then sometimes after the game I'm left wondering stuff like "Why were those dragonborn 80 miles up the Delimbiyr river, part of the cult of Bane?" OK so I'm a crappy GM, it's a minor problem, but if WoTC had limited the core race palette it wouldn't happen. published adventures IME only stick in hobgoblins if hobgoblins make sense; PHB core races get stuck in everywhere by default.

I have honestly never had the displeasure of running a published adventure. I don't think I'll ever be interested in doing so. Still, unless the adventure hinges around the fact that there are dragonborn in the Cult of Bane some 80 miles up the Delimbiyr River...I would wager snapping your fingers and replacing them with humans wouldn't require too much effort.

Occasionally randomly demihuman (elf, dwarf, halfling) NPCs do bug me too, mind you. 99% of NPCs I make myself are human, unless there's some actual reason for them to be otherwise.

So your issue really isn't with dragonborn, it's with all demi-humans. I'd question if running published adventures of any edition is a sound idea with such feelings.

On 'want' - I've finally learned not to ask players "What do you want?" All I ever got in response was variants on "I want a pony". In future I'm going to ask them "What do you want to do?" If the answer is "I want to go looking for a pony", then fine. But I can't stand this whole passive wish-list thing where the players are trained to expect to follow the linear adventure and collect the wish-list treasure drops.

I don't mind asking players what they want, and what they want to do. But I always follow it up with "what are you willing to give me?" Christmas preseants are nice, but Christmas only comes once a year. That's how I look at giving out treasure. The stuff that really matters, the huge caches of gold, the ancient elven swords, you don't find these things on bandits or the occasional evil spider, you find them after nearly being eaten alive and your thief has to play for time until daybreak when your wizard smashes the giant rock and turns all the trolls to stone.

It's one thing to ask what players want, its another thing to give it to them, and even if you do, never does a thing in D&D come without strings, that's just not fair....to the DM.