What is the essence of 4E?

[Pauper]

There is clearly a large outcry over TLJ from SW traditionalists/the base. I’m not referring to them.

I don't think you did a bad job of explaining -- I just think that the existence of a very vocal population of 'baseline' fans reacting badly to the changes in a property argues against the idea that "don't piss off your base" isn't a lesson to be learned. It might not be *the* lesson, in that it's the only issue that interfered with the otherwise successful change, but it is clearly *an* issue.

With that said, there was a similar fan reaction against the changes from AD&D to D&D 3E -- we call it the "Old School Renaissance", but it really got started with people who just kept on playing AD&D even after the release of 3E. It's just that the reaction wasn't nearly as loud or as rapidly communicated as the one from 3E to 4E. Why those reactions are becoming more powerful, despite likely involving similar minorities of existing fan bases, is getting off the topic of the original post, though I'm willing to suggest that the portion of Star Wars fandom truly incensed by The Last Jedi is probably roughly equivalent, in size, to the portion of D&D gamers who migrated to Labyrinth Lord or some other OSR game rather than play 3E, 4E, or some other version of what the rest of us would call D&D. We perceive the outcry as 'large' not based on its raw population, but on its visibility within our chosen social sphere.

--
Pauper

 

[Jer]

Following that premise, then, what is the core defining trait of 4E? Is it the choices? The grid? The unified resource structure? What do you consider to be the essence of 4E, such that you would recognize a game as being 4E-derived if it shared such an element?

So even though this discussion has gone off track, I think the original question is an interesting one and I want to answer it

It's a really good question. My primary group liked 4e quite a bit and they don't care for 5e much at all, so to find that essence I'd think about why they like 4e but never want to play 3e again and are at best mildly negative to 5e:

1) Big Damn Heroes. This is probably the biggest one. They like that the default for the game is not "zero to hero" but "hero to superhero". Personally I think that's a big defining trait for 4e, and I also personally think its at the root for a lot of the hate that the edition received (and continues to receive even though it's now long out of print) because for a LOT of people "zero to hero" IS the game.
2) "Per encounter" vs. "Daily" resource refreshes. And where it is "daily" its for something really cool and not just a magic missile. They all really liked this aspect of the game - especially going into combats at full hit points every time as a "standard" way of doing things.
3) Abilities to help visualize what they're doing in combat. They all liked having At-will and Encounter powers as inspiration for describing how their actions looked in combat (when you're on you can come up with flashy descriptions without prompts - when you're off, the prompts help with not having to say "I guess I swing my sword again" for the umpteenth time).

And to add my own as a GM:
4) Organization - putting all of the rules for adjudicating monsters directly into the statblock makes running creatures a breeze. I miss running 4e every time I see a spell ability listed on a creature in the MM and I can't remember off the top of my head how the spell works.
5) Improvisation. This ties into monster organization, but in general I found 4e to be the easiest official edition to run combat encounters "off the cuff" with no prep at all (Dungeon World has this beat, but Dungeon World is a collaborative improv game that's built for no prep games so it's in a different category imo). The monster math is open and obvious, so once you know how it works it's pretty easy to just come up with stats on the fly if you need them. Or if you want to run straight out of the MM the stats are all there without having to cross-reference any other books. And since the game is built (mostly) around a per encounter balance it's actually pretty easy to build encounters that don't accidentally overwhelm or underwhelm the PCs.

I think those are the things that my players would say are the "essence" of 4e to them. Probably why we're enthusiastically playing 13th age these days - it's got a lot of similar "essence" along those 5 points, despite being a pretty different game from 4e in a lot of other ways.

 

[Aenghus]

For me 4e came out with answers to problems I was having with high level 3.5 D&D. I was getting burned out from all the busywork in 3rd ed, humanoid npcs needing long lists of magic items to represent even a minor threat, spellcasting npcs and monsters needing long lists of spells, and the balance being all over the place, so it was difficult to evaluate a particular encounter without simulating or runnning it.

I have always used maps and minis as I find it difficult to use theatre of the mind, and track multiple mobiles in space and time.

I had already started to take shortcuts, giving monsters the numbers they needed rather than follow the 3e monster progressions, not bothering with item lists that just existed to given necessary bonuses to npcs, reducing spell lists for npcs whose lifetime was generally measured in rounds.

I was getting tired of the dependence of 3e parties on exhaustive lists of buff and protection spells to succeed against power creeped, templated foes.

So I immediately recognised the innovations that 4e came up with as being useful to me - treating monsters as different to PCs because they serve different purposes in the game, using simplified monster stat blocks that are sufficient for running typical encounters, PCs that all have a variety of useful, reliable powers.

4e spreads out the sweet spot for character levels imo, skips the early zero levels where death is common, and IMO makes what they called Paragon and Epic levels distinct and interesting, at least the way I run it.

I really appreciated that 4e powers were reliable, in that the GM wasn't supposed to casually forbid their use or apply arbitrarily penalties. My experience of previous editions was that trying anything undocumented was often an exercise in futility, which is why I gravitated to spellcasters in previous editions, which could still be arbitrarily shut down, but not without being obviously unfair.

4e reducing the upper limit on power levels allowed them to make powers transparent and reliable, as in players could rely on them not being twisted, ignored, negated or made to be worse than doing nothing. Plot device spells of previous editions could be split up into their different components, powers that it was reasonable for PCs to have, and npc only rituals or monster powers that could be more powerful than pcs powers in the service of the plot.

I liked that 4e was designed to run the kind of D&D that I wanted to play, mechanics that didn't fib to it's users, had less random death and craziness, evened out the power levels of different classes, removed the long lists of buff spells.

I found 4e much easier to improvise for as a GM, with easy monster reskinning and interesting room features.

 

[Shasarak]

The healing surge mechanic succeeded at what it was intended to do, which was (along with encounter powers) to ensure that nobody was out for the whole day after a single fight went south; (and also to make it so that nobody was forced to play a healer, and I guess also to prevent you from abusing wands or potions).

It does assume that you want the PCs at full power in every fight, though, which can be somewhat limiting in the way you run the game. And it also assumes that you're going to have enough encounters in a day for the limit on healing surges to be meaningful, which can also be pretty limiting. Granted, there are still an infinite number of games that you can play within those parameters, but there was a bit of a learning curve involved, and not everybody was able to (or wanted to) make the transition.

My experience with healing surges was that there was always one character that ran out of healing surges before the rest of the party which forced the whole party to stop.

 

[Aenghus]

My experience with healing surges was that there was always one character that ran out of healing surges before the rest of the party which forced the whole party to stop.

When I saw this happening it typically involved a player being reckless, and probably playing a striker role class, most of which don't have lots of healing surges, and have lots of temptation to take risks that can put them in over their head.

As I told the player of the rogue in one of my early 4e groups, just because you roll a high initiative doesn't mean you have to immediately charge right in. Because that leads to a semi squishy character being surrounded by monsters and beaten down.

Instead you can throw a dagger or use some other missile weapon (which gets sneak attack on the first round), and you can move in after the defenders or other tough melee characters have locked down some of the enemy.

4e is very much a team game rather than a game of rugged individuals. Players need to cooperate, keep their heads, not overcommit, spread the damage around, and the squishies need to stay safe most of the time.

Sometimes it was a matter of the player changing to a character that better suited their play style, with more hit points and healing surges.

Learning any new system involves some teething troubles.

 

[Shasarak]

4e is very much a team game rather than a game of rugged individuals. Players need to cooperate, keep their heads, not overcommit, spread the damage around, and the squishies need to stay safe most of the time.

It seems like a team game and on the other hand the way that healing surges work mean that instead of healing being a team resourcet it became an individual resource that could force the whole party to have to rest.

I know that 5e Hit Dice and healing mostly fixed this problem.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It seems like a team game and on the other hand the way that healing surges work mean that instead of healing being a team resourcet it became an individual resource that could force the whole party to have to rest.

I know that 5e Hit Dice and healing mostly fixed this problem.

I'm curious how hit die fixed this problem.

 

[Shasarak]

I'm curious how hit die fixed this problem.

By giving you a pool of healing that your character can access and also allowing you to use other magical healing as well.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Essence is uncertain until death. 4e is dead we can be certain of its essence. A problem it solved or a virtue it abandoned cannot be part of that.

That's one way of looking at it, I suppose.

I'm not really asking what that essence is, though, (if such a thing could even be objectively defined). I'm asking what everyone perceives that essence to be.

 

[Ted Serious]

It seems like a team game and on the other hand the way that healing surges work mean that instead of healing being a team resourcet it became an individual resource that could force the whole party to have to rest.

I know that 5e Hit Dice and healing mostly fixed this problem.

Hit Dice and spells are still individual resources. Everyone going in on some wands of lesser vigour would be a team healing resource.