D&D 4E Ron Edwards on D&D 4e

[Malmuria]

FWIW, I have found Justin Alexander's thoughts on scenario design to be really helpful, but I understand that he doesn't like 4e at all, and people here who like 4e in turn do not like him. But, for 4e fans, I would be curious for your thoughts. For example, I find his article on dissociated mechanics to be very clarifying and a useful way of thinking about how mechanics relates to the fiction (and incidentally one that (seems to) fit within the "gameist" critique of 4e)

Dissociated Mechanics – A Brief Primer

Four years ago, in an effort to understand why I found so many of the design decisions in the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons antithetical to what I wanted from a roleplaying game, I wrote an es

thealexandrian.net

 

[Aldarc]

So anyway, I hear that there are two videos where Ron Edwards mildly talks about 4e D&D with a fan.

 

[Jaeger]

The brain damage comments were not directed at D&D. They were directed at Vampire and certain ways to play Champions. Mostly it's about railroads.

Basically the contention was that being exposed to railroads during your formative stages warps your perception of what story is.

Poor choice of language, but that was more than 20 years ago and had nothing to do with D&D.

Or more generally 'RPGs'.

Ron is very verbose... so to distill:

His main frustration was that he would see games like vampire touting their "Storyteller system", that the GM was a 'Storyteller' and you were 'telling stories" when you played RPGs.

But the mechanics of the game had absolutely nothing to do with 'creating Stories'.

Like was said here:

Ron's hyperbole was because he teaches storytelling and values it greatly, so seeing people being trained into not being able to engage with stories well was something that distressed him. It's worth noting that he came to this from his classroom experiences and noting a pattern there.

i.e. RPGs are not storytelling games. The are too incoherent in system and mechanics to be so.

So he started the forge and created 'story games' which more evenly share more narrative control amongst a group than RPGs; specifically so that actual storytelling can be done.

His thinking was that if potential RPG players were to try a proper story game, they would come to prefer the story games focused narrative style of play over the incoherence of RPGs.

Given the popularity of the Storygames that came out of his little movement vs. RPGs , he was dead wrong in his conclusions to put it mildly.

It turns out people like their incoherent RPGs just fine, thank you very much.

 

[darjr]

FWIW, I have found Justin Alexander's thoughts on scenario design to be really helpful, but I understand that he doesn't like 4e at all, and people here who like 4e in turn do not like him. But, for 4e fans, I would be curious for your thoughts. For example, I find his article on dissociated mechanics to be very clarifying and a useful way of thinking about how mechanics relates to the fiction (and incidentally one that (seems to) fit within the "gameist" critique of 4e)

Dissociated Mechanics – A Brief Primer

Four years ago, in an effort to understand why I found so many of the design decisions in the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons antithetical to what I wanted from a roleplaying game, I wrote an es

thealexandrian.net

I think he’s right. And it was an issue for me as well. I ran a TON of 4e, probably more than any other edition before 5e. Several days a week. Public and private games.

Ope! Sorry folks. I’ll go back in topic.

 

[Campbell]

This is like a greatest hits thread. Alexander's dissociated mechanics article is a horrible take as our his attempts to claim that indie games really are not roleplaying games, but he also says a lot of stuff I agree with.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So anyway, I hear that there are two videos where Ron Edwards mildly talks about 4e D&D with a fan.

I apologize for adding controversy to a discussion that could have been about other things. I honestly had never heard of this controversy prior to this thread, which is why I engaged. Once I have a chance to watch the video, I will respond in kind; I will, if at all possible, avoid any further comments on that specific thing Ron Edwards did, since the meat of the discussion centers on these videos. I'll also try to keep comments on the Alexandrian, which are especially less-relevant, confined to this post.

I didn’t know he’d said anything about 4e. I found him via his Dragon Heist remix and have found many of his other 5e articles enlightening. Bummer he apparently had some bad 4e takes though.

As linked above, he is the origin of the "dissociated mechanics" canard so frequently used against 4e. I have numerous problems with this particular theory about game mechanics and how they work, not least that numerous mechanics he finds perfectly acceptable are quite dissociated but he's used to them, while several mechanics he has problems with are quite associated. But, again, topic for a different thread.

I'll post further once I've actually listened to Edwards' thoughts, since it sounds like has at least some productive things to say (though, as noted, I am...not enthused by an apparent conflation between RPGs and religions of any kind, folk or otherwise.)

Edit:

FWIW, I have found Justin Alexander's thoughts on scenario design to be really helpful, but I understand that he doesn't like 4e at all, and people here who like 4e in turn do not like him. But, for 4e fans, I would be curious for your thoughts. For example, I find his article on dissociated mechanics to be very clarifying and a useful way of thinking about how mechanics relates to the fiction (and incidentally one that (seems to) fit within the "gameist" critique of 4e)

Dissociated Mechanics – A Brief Primer

Four years ago, in an effort to understand why I found so many of the design decisions in the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons antithetical to what I wanted from a roleplaying game, I wrote an es

thealexandrian.net

Since, as I said, I would like to confine my comments on the Alexandrian to this post, would you be interested in starting a new thread on the subject? Be forewarned, this is a pretty controversial topic. Many 4e fans strongly dislike this take while many non-fans (which is not the same as anti-fans, I should note) rather like it. Discussions of it have a high risk of getting heated (and thus being terminated), but at least I personally would welcome the chance to try for a civil discussion about it and why it bothers me so.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Alright, I have also read that post too. It's...sort of a non-pology, but it at least it recognizes, "Hey, maybe I screwed up in how I presented this?" The question mark is important there. It's entirely possible that he genuinely, truly did not think that saying certain game-styles cause pervasive brain damage (to any degree comparable to horrifically traumatic events), though given his background in biology and behavior I find his (apparent) naive eagerness to use these terms surprising. His comparison of rollplaying vs roleplaying to having one's legs blown off and choosing between dragging yourself via your left arm vs your right is a little harder to explain as naivete.

That final post did shape my opinion somewhat. But whether it was malicious attention-seeking or naive stupidity, neither reflects well on him. The notable lack of a real apology (even of the "Some responded positively, but that doesn't justify what I said" variety) weakens the impact from "okay, sure, I messed up" to "maybe I messed up, maybe I didn't?"


Haven't read the Alexandrian article yet, but...well. I'm a 4e fan. I don't think it should surprise you that I rather dislike the Alexandrian overall (not solely for the statements about 4e, but certainly in large part due to them).

I don't like the Alexandrian either, but that essay is quite good. I tend to still try to read things from people that I have disagreements with because I often find they can say very interesting things. I recently strongly disagreed with Ron's take on Blades in the Dark -- so much so I question what game he was actually talking about (and, reading his more detailed posts, they did start by altering the game pretty strongly and approaching it from a very strange place so that worked out). Further, I find some of his posts from the Forge to be needlessly bombastic and damage the interesting things he has to say (and even in the brain damage post he's saying some very interesting and thought provoking things in-between the unnecessarily alienating wording). His thoughts on games are still pretty interesting, and even in the posts/vlog about Blades that I have strong disagreements with, there are still things very much worth considering -- it made me take a close look at some aspects of play and think about them. I find being challenged like this very valuable.

 

[Ovinomancer]

it's a little bit, "I'm sorry that people were offended by my comments," rather than really understanding why his comments were problematic.

I'll quote the offending passage, but, big content warning: child abuse

Spoiler: Content Warning: child abuse analogy, the forge

- he compares playing a trad rpg to sexual assault of a minor

• he asserts that both experiences causes not just damage to a person's self consciousness, but literal damage to one's physical brain
• he evidence for this is his anecdotal experience in the classroom (as opposed to anything resembling a psychological study)

The thread as whole indicates for me why some people who were around and engaged in these discussions during that time find the Forge to be so toxic. Many people responding simply pick up on Edwards' thoughtless analogy and either declare themselves to be "brain damaged" in this way, or describe people who like trad rpgs as brain damaged and therefore sadly incapable of understanding narrativist design. It's deeply condescending and cringe-inducing.

I don't see the literal bits in there -- it's still clearly very figurative. But okay, yes, he said brain damage and used an analogy to child abuse -- this is extremely bombastic language and I strongly regret that he chose to do this. And that's because his underlying point plays out as completely true in my experience. This underlying point is more approachably made in the Alexandrian piece about abused gamers -- it's that you can be trained into expecting how games work and it's very hard, sometimes, to break from from that expectation, especially when the hobby as a whole often encourages it. The Alexandrian gives concrete examples of this in his essay.

 

[Ovinomancer]

FWIW, I have found Justin Alexander's thoughts on scenario design to be really helpful, but I understand that he doesn't like 4e at all, and people here who like 4e in turn do not like him. But, for 4e fans, I would be curious for your thoughts. For example, I find his article on dissociated mechanics to be very clarifying and a useful way of thinking about how mechanics relates to the fiction (and incidentally one that (seems to) fit within the "gameist" critique of 4e)

Dissociated Mechanics – A Brief Primer

Four years ago, in an effort to understand why I found so many of the design decisions in the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons antithetical to what I wanted from a roleplaying game, I wrote an es

thealexandrian.net

That's actually one of his posts I find the most disappointing, narrow, and flawed. I find it so because he started with the premise and then went looking for the support, and so engages in special pleading, cherry picking, and false dichotomies to support it. Elsewise he'd have had to skewer hitpoints, saving throws, armor class and a host of other things that pre and post date 4e.

 

[Cadence]

The Alexandrian gives concrete examples of this in his essay.

The Alexandrian also comes off to me as trying to explain something about a narrowly defined group of players

“When you systematically strip meaningful choice from [the players], they stop making choices and instead start looking for the railroad tracks.”

and has a whole section on "fixing the problem". Regardless of the intent, that seems fundamentally different than seemingly labelling everyone who played a lot of the most popular ttrpgs of the time as brain damaged. (Similarly, in his revised post on Disassociated Mechanics he admits the original wasn't great, and it feels to me like the only place I would have revised is to claim it as his definition of roleplaying and not one-true-waying it).