What will happen to 4th edition?

[pemerton]

A large part of the community seems to have ossified in place. Once it was about new things and exploring new stuff, now it appears largely to be about re-enacting the past almost ritualistically.

you see a huge number of "Return to" or "Back to" or "Adventure Du Jour Redux" kinds of products that apparently sell rather well. 5e's entire approach has been to try to turn back the clock in a large way, just with better maths. I won't be surprised to see Keep on the Borderlands being redone yet again. Or the GDQ series. Or yet another setting update of a setting that's been kicking around for twenty years.

I do rather wish that D&D would pull its collective head out of its past and start looking a bit forward.

<snip>

Even the new MM in 5e is simply recycling virtually all the old monsters from the game. And, of course, any deviation from tradition is met with vociferous condemnation that never stops.

I agree that the D&D community seems very backward-looking. One of the things about 4e that really excited me was its reconception of many of the classic D&D monsters as actually having a place in a coherent cosmology and mythic history. It still surprises me that this sort of thing attracts so much hostility.

4e borrows heavily from indie games, with perhaps less success. But, D&D has never really innovated, at least, not after about 1976.

I think 4e's skill challenges exhibit a modest degree of innovation. They are obviously inspired by indie-style "extended contests" (Burning Wheel, HeroWars/Quest, Maelstrom Storytelling, etc). But they do bring something new to the table in that respect.

But probably the biggest innovation in 4e is in monster design, and especially elite/solo design based around the action economy. Problems with action economy for monsters are a recurring issue in fantasy RPGs, and 4e showed how this could be dealt with. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Burning Wheel Adventure Burner (which is a sort of GM's-guide for that system) both lists 4e as one of the RPGs that the designers have been playing and influenced by, and has advice on how to deal with the action economy issue within the context of BW monster design and action resolution.

And this is one thing that 5e has continued from 4e, with its "legendary actions" for certain monsters.

I loathe the way the word "fluff" has come to represent the alternative to the word "crunch".

<snip>

I would love to see the word Fluff go away and Flavor take it's place.

Agreed. I much prefer "flavour" to "fluff". I also sometimes use the word "colour".

One thing I like about 4e is that it has less mere colour/flavour and more colour/flavour that actually ties into action resolution and mechanical outcomes. In that sense, there's less "telling" and more "showing". For instance, instead of the flavour text for the wight telling us that it has a fearsom visage, the wight has a Horrific Visage power that causes opponents to recoil in horror.

4e monster design really was innovative, in my opinion.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I agree that the D&D community seems very backward-looking. One of the things about 4e that really excited me was its reconception of many of the classic D&D monsters as actually having a place in a coherent cosmology and mythic history. It still surprises me that this sort of thing attracts so much hostility.

I fear that any innovative traits have been beaten out of WotC. Paizo went through the same grinder during the PF playtest, there were suggestions of innovations, but it seems they were shouted down pretty hard.

Intellectually D&D is dead. While 5e may in and of itself be a perfectly reasonable game and an understandable business decision it is the tombstone of D&D. Nothing new will be seen in this mind space. I fear the whole RPG genre may be fated to go basically the same way. There's still a lot of life in it, but the crowd keeps ageing and shrinking...

 

[Hussar]

I fear that any innovative traits have been beaten out of WotC. Paizo went through the same grinder during the PF playtest, there were suggestions of innovations, but it seems they were shouted down pretty hard.

Intellectually D&D is dead. While 5e may in and of itself be a perfectly reasonable game and an understandable business decision it is the tombstone of D&D. Nothing new will be seen in this mind space. I fear the whole RPG genre may be fated to go basically the same way. There's still a lot of life in it, but the crowd keeps ageing and shrinking...

I don't think this is fair though. D&D has never, at least, not since the mid-70's been a cutting edge game. Within a very short time after D&D first arrived, people started varying the rules and coming up with new ways of doing things. Every subsequent edition of D&D, has been a mixed bag of what came before and a few cherry picked elements from other, established games. Has anyone ever looked to D&D to see what's new in gaming?

To me, the function of D&D in the hobby is to serve as the foundation for the hobby. It's what keeps the hobby around and keeps the money coming in. Sure, it's not the prettiest part of the house, but, it's the most necessary. D&D will keep borrowing from the ideas floating around in gaming space and trying to incorporate them. But, I don't ever see D&D as terribly innovative.

 

[vagabundo]

I think 4e will have a strong following and will rebound a little after 5e settles down. I think it has enough solid content out there to do most game tables for a long time yet.

My current heroic tier campaign:

- The Slaying Stone (just finished; fight with Krayd The Butcher was on the the best ever)
- Reavers of the Harkenwold
- Orcs of Stonefang Pass
- Madness of Gardmore Abbey.

I'm running 4e without a grid/minis and with a lot of the fiddly bits removed - inherent bonsu etc.

It is a very satisfying system to home rule in: 1d4 healing surges per Extended Rest adds some grit to the whole show.

I wish they would reduce the sub cost though.

 

[TrippyHippy]

4E will go down in history as……um…..well…it’ll go down in history….

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't think this is fair though. D&D has never, at least, not since the mid-70's been a cutting edge game. Within a very short time after D&D first arrived, people started varying the rules and coming up with new ways of doing things. Every subsequent edition of D&D, has been a mixed bag of what came before and a few cherry picked elements from other, established games. Has anyone ever looked to D&D to see what's new in gaming?

To me, the function of D&D in the hobby is to serve as the foundation for the hobby. It's what keeps the hobby around and keeps the money coming in. Sure, it's not the prettiest part of the house, but, it's the most necessary. D&D will keep borrowing from the ideas floating around in gaming space and trying to incorporate them. But, I don't ever see D&D as terribly innovative.

No, but there was SOME level of innovation at various points. While 1e was fundamentally a compilation and codification of existing norms of play it broke new ground in production values, in overall layout and design, in sheer scale, and there was real innovation in terms of new game elements and things that was constantly bubbling up. 2e didn't do anything really new game-system-wise and it mostly drew from 1e, but there were at least some new and interesting settings and things. 3e certainly wasn't radically innovative, but it did a few things.

4e at least TRIED to really innovate in a serious way for the first time since 1e, and really re-imagined a lot of the game, and even perhaps broke a bit of new ground in overall RPGs. It certainly brought a lot of ideas to D&D. Even so in terms of settings it was dead basically, there was nothing new. PoL is utterly stock and the other settings are of course vintage early 90's stuff basically.

I just don't see anything new happening again. 5e is clearly deliberately a zero in GAME innovation. You could say charitably that it 'combines the best of all' or something, but its basically pretty much 3e recast into the mould of 2e with some of the warts filed off. Whether or not they produce anything new and different in terms of adventures or settings or supplements remains to be seen, but it doesn't feel likely. The whole ouvre of the thing seems to be a safe retreat to familiar ground.

This is why I say the game is intellectually dead. It has no new thoughts. The mindset of the community seems to be mostly 'lets do that old thing we did 100 times before one more time', not 'lets invent something new and cool', which was the spirit of the game that I loved.

 

[Imaro]

Eh, my thoughts on "innovation" is that it's overrated. Unless your so called "innovation" results in a game experience that is more fun that what I am having with the traditional system you are trying to "innovate"... then I don't care whether you innovate or not, and for my group and I would say many gamers 4e failed at this. I don't value new things for the sake of it being new... if it doesn't add value over what's come before for me then the "innovation" was a failure.

As to what I think is going to happen with 4e, well I think it's going to slowly fade into obscurity, probably being played as much as or less than AD&D 2e. I think the real hit to it's popularity is going to happen once DDI is shut down.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Eh, my thoughts on "innovation" is that it's overrated. Unless your so called "innovation" results in a game experience that is more fun that what I am having with the traditional system you are trying to "innovate"... then I don't care whether you innovate or not, and for my group and I would say many gamers 4e failed at this. I don't value new things for the sake of it being new... if it doesn't add value over what's come before for me then the "innovation" was a failure.

In a sense I agree with you, why mess with what ain't broke. I think there is a more subtle aspect to it though. Once the creativity fades from a thing then the creative people and a lot of energy and excitement and mind-share goes out of it. At some point people stop paying attention any more. I don't think TTRPGs will die, and I don't think D&D will die in the near to mid term, but without some way to re-imagine itself for each new generation and explore SOME new ground it can't be sustained in the long run.

 

[Imaro]

In a sense I agree with you, why mess with what ain't broke. I think there is a more subtle aspect to it though. Once the creativity fades from a thing then the creative people and a lot of energy and excitement and mind-share goes out of it. At some point people stop paying attention any more. I don't think TTRPGs will die, and I don't think D&D will die in the near to mid term, but without some way to re-imagine itself for each new generation and explore SOME new ground it can't be sustained in the long run.

Yes but I see people in this thread conflating "creativity" with "good creativity" or "preferred creativity"... My 6 year old niece is creative, but I don't necessarily want her creativity in my D&D game (now an Adventure Time rpg, that might be cool). Creativity in and of itself is not necessarily an objectively good thing just like innovation isn't.

In all honesty 5e speaks to me and my group's creativity much more than 4e ever did (even had two other people volunteer to give DM'ing a shot so I can play more) so I'm not seeing it's death with the release of 5e but more of a regeneration or rejuvenation of a type of energy and creativity that had been sorely lacking in our 4e games... but then different strokes for different folks I guess...

 

[SteveC]

This is a really good question. For me, at the moment, the 4E itch gets scratched by 13th Age.

I sincerely hope that someone picks up the 4E football and runs with it, since 5E shares very little in common with it (and that's the point, I know).

You had the largest gaming audience, which shrunk to the second largest gaming audience with no support from the publisher, and it's just being abandoned.

I wish that the designers hadn't pulled the plug so soon in the development cycle, as there were proposed books for Martial characters to expand their versatility along with an "unearthed arcana" type book with support for narrative combat and the like.