D&D 4E Presentation vs design... vs philosophy

[FrogReaver]

There really is no way to look back on the 4E edition wars and blame only one side.

The whole thing supercharged levels of idiocy on both sides to truly epic proportions.

I'm not blaming either side. I'm blame the designers for not knowing better than to create a game that would do that (aka blaming the game).

 

[Neonchameleon]

Sounds cool!

Both 4e-Essentials and 3e-3.5e(-PF1?) remind me of times past where people took bits of 0e, BX, 1e and even early-era 2e and mashed them together into their own game.

The difference between literally any of those cases is that you need to actually settle on one of those games for the core rules and then tweak the others to fit. In some cases it's minor tweaks, most of which can be handled DM side (what are your saving throws? In particular does a paralysis save come in the Death/Poison category or the Petrification/Polymorph?) - or what shape is a horse.

In 4e's case it's utterly seamless. We aren't talking about "Mash things together and bend one, other, or both of them slightly until they fit" we're talking about "fits together seamlessly".

If a class changed between one edition and another you would almost ever only use one version of the class. For example no one would use the 3.0 Ranger alongside a 3.5 Ranger, a 3.5 Fighter alongside a Pathfinder Fighter, or a 1e Bard alongside a 2e Bard. Meanwhile I've played a 4eE Warlock (hexblade) alongside a 4e PHB Warlock - different enough classes to be very distinctive but worked together seamlessly and I'm not even sure the DM knew they came from different sources (although both of us did).

'Rulings not rules' is a thunderously empowering statement when put in context: it's a direct reversal of 15 years of WotC's 'rules not rulings' philosophy, and a tacit admission by WotC that D&D works better when you don't try to impose M:tG-grade pickiness on it.

You're confusing ten years with fifteen. Rulings not rules is thunderously empowering compared to the actively disempowering nature of 3.0 and 3.5.

Meanwhile it's a thunderously disempowering statement when put into the context of 4e which provided tools to empower the DM. It's saying "No you can't have the tools. Instead you should be able to make everything you need with your bare hands." Fortunately I can bring my toolkit with me - but there is a reason that every 4e table I have been at had half the players ready and willing to DM while 5e in my experience is much more often scrabbling round for someone to DM (even if it's nowhere near 3.X bad that way).

They've still a ways to go to get to 1e-grade empowerment, to be sure, but it's a fine start.

You mean the edition of D&D which clogged up the game with unnecessary lookup tables for attack matrixes, and hid away things like rules for helmets?

As someone who tried to learn to both play and run 1e from just the 1e rulebooks if you think 1e (as opposed to B/X or BECMI) was empowering you're confusing empowerment with makework. On the other hand it is likely you (like a most people who kept playing 1e) were using B/X with 1e as a splatbook.

"You're on your own, bucko" is just different words for saying "Do what you want", which is about as empowering as it gets.

"Do what you want" is less empowering than "Do what you want and here's $1000 and a chainsaw" even if you have no intention of touching the chainsaw.

Ah - it seems you're conflating 'empowerment' with 'support', and they're not the same thing. 4e gives one, 5e gives the other, neither gives both.

Empowerment doesn't mean 'Here's a really well-made road, you're free to drive along it provided you follow all these many and various rules and regulations which will be enforced by those people in the black and white cars over there', because here the real power rests with the cops in the black-and-whites and not you at all. The only power you have is to choose whether to drive along that road, in what type of vehicle, and in which direction; but you've got lots of support in doing so.

Contrast that with 'Here's a wide open prairie with all the holes filled in, you're free to drive wherever and however you want as long as you don't hit anyone else, but otherwise you're on your own and you have to sort out for yourself how you interact with other drivers out there.' Now you're completely empowered but have virtually no support.

The more I think about this the more I find it a perfect illustration of exactly why I get confused by claims that oD&D is empowering to the DM. You are taking (as a lot of Old School fans do) the idea that driving on the roads is a bad thing and the only place you could possibly want to drive is on artificially-flattened prarie. To me that is even more disempowering than "You must drive this car on the roads and only on the roads"; roads take me to places I want to go. And that's why almost everyone who drives uses roads.

If I'm to be empowered what I want is a roadworthy all-terrain car. And driving on prarie may be fun - but I don't want to just drive on prarie. I know perfectly well the 4e car can't drive in the swamp (neither can most cars to be honest). And I know perfectly well that the old school car is better on prarie/sandboxes. But when it comes to driving on roads/adventure paths the game that starts wizards out with 1d4 rolled hit points and might even start the fighter out with a single hit point is simply terrible (and there are reasons Dragonlance needed the Obscure Death Rule).

I'm not saying that either driving on prarie or old school sandboxes/dungeoncrawls are bad. They aren't - and I'm running one right now in 5e. I'm saying that to me empowerment means two things. First I can go wherever I want, and second that I will be supported in doing so. This includes prarie - but also road, mountains, forests, and other places. Or sandboxes but also adventure paths, cinematic combats, character driven RP with mechanical representation of motivation, and other places.

Meanwhile (and part responding to @Manbearcat) Apocalypse World is more like "So you like to go fast through forests. Here's a nitrous-oxide injected quad bike!" And no it's not much good driving around on praries. It doesn't try to be, and it's not roadworthy either. It's also intended for much shorter runs than D&D. 4e meanwhile is an all terrain vehicle

But as for support, how does coming with a built in car GPS, a spare petrol tank, a spare tyre, and even snow chains make you less free?

To carry that analogy one step further: in the road model you don't have to worry about where you're going; just stay on the road and it'll take care of the navigation to get you where you're going. But in the open prairie model the greater power also brings greater responsibility: you're now responsible for figuring out where you're going and the navigation required to get there.

To follow your analogy by your own description you are only driving in pre-prepared prarie with the holes filled in. That's not empowered - it's every bit as diadactically constrained and constricted as only driving on the road, but the scenery you will see is less interesting because it's all prarie, and if you're lucky you might find the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota. It also does not give you greater power than the power to decide where to go and whether to go to the prarie, the mountains, stick to the roads for some sight seeing, or go through the forests.

Meanwhile 4e is great on roads, superb in the mountains, decent in forests, and mediocre on prarie that comes with a spare tank and a GPS with built in maps as standard. 5e is a decent all-rounder on all terrains (better than 4e on prarie) but doesn't have the GPS or the spare tank.

The market share of people who like cars is - or could be - covered by Ford but that doesn't stop a thousand other companies from also building cars, many of which are very similar (as in, nigh-identical other than superficial looks) to the ones Ford makes.

Why would they buy a Honda or a VW or a Dodge that's just like the Ford they could buy instead?

Because it's either cheaper, more reliable, or looks better.

Or, as a better sales pitch, if the only thing on the market is a solid ford compact there are very good reasons for buying a volvo estate.

 

[Charlaquin]

You're confusing ten years with fifteen. Rulings not rules is thunderously empowering compared to the actively disempowering nature of 3.0 and 3.5.

Meanwhile it's a thunderously disempowering statement when put into the context of 4e which provided tools to empower the DM. It's saying "No you can't have the tools. Instead you should be able to make everything you need with your bare hands." Fortunately I can bring my toolkit with me - but there is a reason that every 4e table I have been at had half the players ready and willing to DM while 5e in my experience is much more often scrabbling round for someone to DM (even if it's nowhere near 3.X bad that way).

As a few people have pointed out, it’s different forms of empowerment. DMing 4e is like being a train conductor; pulling all the levers and turning all the knobs to keep a beautifully-crafted machine running smoothly. It gives you all the tools you need to run the game WotC designed. DMing 5e is like being an engineer; putting parts together to make a machine yourself. It might not be pretty, you may have to repair or replace parts as you go, but you can make it do exactly what you want it to do. Both are empowering in different ways, and they don’t appeal to all the same people.

 

[prabe]

As a few people have pointed out, it’s different forms of empowerment. DMing 4e is like being a train conductor; pulling all the levers and turning all the knobs to keep a beautifully-crafted machine running smoothly. It gives you all the tools you need to run the game WotC designed. DMing 5e is like being an engineer; putting parts together to make a machine yourself. It might not be pretty, you may have to repair or replace parts as you go, but you can make it do exactly what you want it to do. Both are empowering in different ways, and they don’t appeal to all the same people.

I was thinking something similar: As someone who never played (or ran) 4E, I have never felt disempowered by 5E--the explicit emphasis on DM as authority is, well, explicitly empowering. I remember feelng kinda hemmed in in 3.x, though I never felt that was my big problem there. I definitely feel that there's nothing in 5E that keeps me from running the kind of world I want to run, though I'd like to see more guidance for newer DMs about that.

 

[Umbran]

Sounds like you are blaming people for disliking a game.

People are responsible for what they do in the name of disliking a game.

If you dislike a game... you just don't play it. Use that dislike as an excuse to treat people badly, and that is on YOU, not the game.

 

[Neonchameleon]

As a few people have pointed out, it’s different forms of empowerment. DMing 4e is like being a train conductor; pulling all the levers and turning all the knobs to keep a beautifully-crafted machine running smoothly. It gives you all the tools you need to run the game WotC designed. DMing 5e is like being an engineer; putting parts together to make a machine yourself. It might not be pretty, you may have to repair or replace parts as you go, but you can make it do exactly what you want it to do. Both are empowering in different ways, and they don’t appeal to all the same people.

And where I'm having problems understanding things here is twofold:

1. Being forced to be an engineer isn't empowering. It's making me do things that shouldn't be necessary for the result I want if that's what the game tells me it's good at doing. Note the word forced in there.
2. When I want to be an engineer and repair or replace parts in 4e I can and do do this. And there is (a) nothing that prevents me doing this and (b) a collection of benchmarks that makes it easier for me.

As someone currently running 5e I have no authority in that game I do not also have when running 4e. I enjoy engineering and hard-drifting games outside their normal box (4e makes a surprisingly good horror game and I've run it as a sandbox relatively successfully). But I'm only empowered to do something when doing that thing is optional. When I'm forced to do something it's automatically disempowering.

 

[Garthanos]

Pathfinder 2 has an interesting skill system according to some descriptions I have read its intended that the skills not overlap much with spells or vice versa ... but it didnt really reading it that didn't seem entirely true (or maybe much at all really but I didnt do comprehensive).

 

[prabe]

@Neonchameleon

What exactly do you feel forced to do in 5E, that you weren't in 4E? I've done horror, and there's nothing I've seen in 5E that seems to me to fight against sandbox play (though a complete sandbox isn't my preferred style). I've never felt forced to be an engineer (to use that analogy) in 5E; the things I'm changing are things I want in my setting, or rules I think need tweaking (but, TBH, just about every game has at least some of the latter).

 

[Garthanos]

@Neonchameleon

What exactly do you feel forced to do in 5E, that you weren't in 4E? latter).

Figure out what the bloody hell a skill check might accomplish compared to all the spells and class abilities in the game.

 

[prabe]

Figure out what the bloody hell a skill check might accomplish compared to all the spells and class abilities in the game.

So, figure out how hard you want the relevant skill check to be? I never played 4E but I haven't found that onerous to date running or playing 5E.