What will happen to 4th edition?

[AbdulAlhazred]

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...

Yeah, I just saw the whole reaction to 4e as a big smack-down for innovation. Its not so much that I care about the game being different. Its more that classic D&D is good for certain things and not good for a lot of other things that I'd like to do. 4e DID do those things. Maybe it wasn't totally great at doing all the old things, so I can see where people had issues, but at least there was some new ground. I've been DMing for 37 years now, and I really wanted to be able to run a version of D&D AND do some new stuff. I think in the end the health of the game needs that, but its only my opinion.

 

[prosfilaes]

Yeah, I just saw the whole reaction to 4e as a big smack-down for innovation.

Since the creation of the RPG, sans possibly two months where WoD took the lead, D&D or its close derivative Pathfinder has been the best-selling game. I think that says how little the market wants innovation. In the 30 years before D&D 4, The Fantasy Trip, GURPS, Ars Magica, Rolemaster, Runequest, and Warhammer Fantasy came out, just to count medieval-esque fantasy games; if you were worried about innovation, why were you a DM in those years, instead of running an innovative game?

 

[Imaro]

Since the creation of the RPG, sans possibly two months where WoD took the lead, D&D or its close derivative Pathfinder has been the best-selling game. I think that says how little the market wants innovation.

Wait I'm confused are you saying D&D has had no "innovation" whatsoever since it was first created... that doesn't make sense, in fact I'd argue every edition has added some innovation to the game rules. I think the only thing it may show is how much the market did or didn't want the supposed "innovations" 4e brought...

In the 30 years before D&D 4, The Fantasy Trip, GURPS, Ars Magica, Rolemaster, Runequest, and Warhammer Fantasy came out, just to count medieval-esque fantasy games; if you were worried about innovation, why were you a DM in those years, instead of running an innovative game?

Have the various editions of these games innovated any more than D&D's various editions. Warhammer 3rd perhaps, but then it's been cancelled and I'll be curious to see if they go back down a more traditional route... What innovations did later editions of Rolemaster, Runequest or Ars Magic bring to their respective games?

I guess this highlights more of my confusion over "innovation"... Most RPG's don't inject alot of innovation between editions... they usually refine, reorganize, tweak, etc. the rules and setting(s) but it's usually not drastic overhauls in the name of innovation unless a particular game goes to a totally different company. The thing is if I sit down to play Ars Magica, D&D or Rolemaster there are expectations of the type of fantasy I will be playing... what I don't want is I buy the 8th edition of Ars Magica and it's been innovated into Exalted (and yes I know this example is filled with hyperbole in the name of making a point.).

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

(snip) 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.

Spilt milk now, but I do think that 4E had another year left in it but that was never going to happen with Mike Mearls in charge. It was clearly an edition he neither enjoyed nor played outside of work commitments. In that respect, the latter days of 4E were like the latter days of 2E: many of the designers weren't actually playing it.

I rather wish Chris Perkins had had control over 4E for at least a year. I think seeing his talent and enthusiasm - and actual experience running 4E campaigns! - stamped on several renaissance products would have seen 4E go out with a bang rather than a whimper. But, again, that's just spilt milk at this point in time.

 

[SteveC]

Spilt milk now, but I do think that 4E had another year left in it but that was never going to happen with Mike Mearls in charge. It was clearly an edition he neither enjoyed nor played outside of work commitments. In that respect, the latter days of 4E were like the latter days of 2E: many of the designers weren't actually playing it.

I rather wish Chris Perkins had had control over 4E for at least a year. I think seeing his talent and enthusiasm - and actual experience running 4E campaigns! - stamped on several renaissance products would have seen 4E go out with a bang rather than a whimper. But, again, that's just spilt milk at this point in time.

Pretty much this. I think a lot of it is due to the casualty from layoffs that tend to come in the wake of the end of first wave products for WotC. The folks who were producing a lot of product didn't really seem to get the rules. I shudder at some of the late edition products that did make it.

 

[prosfilaes]

Wait I'm confused are you saying D&D has had no "innovation" whatsoever since it was first created...

I think if you take the first RPG, the wood box edition of D&D, that the step to AD&D was fairly small, especially compared to the step from the first RPG to any of the RPGs I named. Then AD&D stays fairly stable for 20 years; AD&D 2 is a refinement and errata to AD&D 1, and that stays the main book until 2001. 2e to 3e is a bigger jump, but if you've been playing AD&D for more than a decade at that point, you've been avoiding all the innovation in the RPG world that didn't get packaged into the Player's Option books, assuming you used them.

 

[Zardnaar]

It will dwindle like any other D&D version once a new edition comes out. However I do not think there will be a 4E comeback a few years down the track due to the lack of an OGL and I do not think the fanbase has enough oomph, numbers or organization to do what the grognards did. They also do not have a rallying point like Gygax which is what a few grogs did and Gygax was involved with Castles and Crusades which kind of got his stamp of approval as a result.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Pretty much this. I think a lot of it is due to the casualty from layoffs that tend to come in the wake of the end of first wave products for WotC. The folks who were producing a lot of product didn't really seem to get the rules. I shudder at some of the late edition products that did make it.

Which late edition products are you referring to? (I am still so enamoured with, inter alia, the Neverwinter Campaign Setting that I may be missing some dogs! )

For me, 4E was the only edition of D&D where the designers actually got better as the edition's life extended. You can see this particularly in the adventures where 4E began with rubbish authored by Mike Mearls and Bruce Cordell (I can still remember when the latter actually wrote good adventures) to new classics such as Reavers of Harkenwold and Madness at Gardmore Abbey. And the few post-Essentials splat books were generally well-received, other than Heroes of Shadow which had Mike Mearls as its lead designer. (I must admit, though, as someone who stays in the levels 1-12 range in my games, I quite like Heroes of Shadow.)

 

[Hussar]

Wait I'm confused are you saying D&D has had no "innovation" whatsoever since it was first created... that doesn't make sense, in fact I'd argue every edition has added some innovation to the game rules. I think the only thing it may show is how much the market did or didn't want the supposed "innovations" 4e brought...
/snip

I'd say that yes, D&D had few innovations. The changes between editions were almost universally borrowed from other systems. 1e-2e, you see the addition of non-weapon proficiencies, something other games had in various forms for years and I suppose greater customization in the idea of kits, but, again, greater customization wasn't anything new in 1989.

3e borrowed almost whole cloth from Rolemaster, not surprising given that Monte Cook was pretty heavily into Rolemaster long before he took the helm for 3e. What new innovations did 3e have that we hadn't already seen in other games?

About the only true innovation I'd say that I've never seen in any RPG was 4e's breaking of the initiative order. The idea that you could pro-actively perform actions out of turn is pretty ground breaking. Although, perhaps more evolutionary than anything, since out of turn reactions have been in gaming for years and years. But, other than that, virtually every mechanic in 4e appears in some form either in 3e or in other games.

D&D has never been the industry leader when it comes to innovation. The rules and whatnot that make up D&D, in any edition, have always been percolating around in the hobby for years before they make the jump into D&D.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

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...

"Intellectually dead" is not reasonable statement. By the same logic, chess is intellectually dead since the rules haven't changed significantly in a very long time. In D&D as in chess, I would expect to see "intellectual life" in how the game is played, not in changes to the rules.