D&D 4E Ben Riggs' "What the Heck Happened with 4th Edition?" seminar at Gen Con 2023

[AbdulAlhazred]

As per my post not far upthread, I stand by my view that the assertion that the AD&D 2nd ed Monstrous Vault had more lore than the 4e Monster Manual is not borne out by a creature-to-creature comparison. (At least the ones I've done.)

Except for demographics.

Heh, well, I have one on the shelf behind me. My recollection is it is pretty similar to the preceding edition MMs and such, overall. They do tend to have a couple paragraphs of description for a lot of monsters, which MAY be a bit more than 4e MM1, but not always.

 

[pemerton]

Heh, well, I have one on the shelf behind me. My recollection is it is pretty similar to the preceding edition MMs and such, overall. They do tend to have a couple paragraphs of description for a lot of monsters, which MAY be a bit more than 4e MM1, but not always.

I stand by my comparisons!

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, to be fair, D&D is a game.

To be blunt, having that fact thrown in my constantly during play isn't my idea of fun.

 

[Micah Sweet]

TSR did sometimes go kinda lore crazy. Its cool, though it isn't always helpful in play.

Not my highest priority anyway.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is something I reflected on around a decade ago:

The DMG should be where the game part is thrown into focus. I need less of that in virtually every other book.

 

[humble minion]

The biggest tragedy with 4e is that nobody cared about the people actually playing the game who liked it. Everyone wanted to woo people who either didn't play TTRPG's or who already had a version of the game they preferred, be it 3.5 clones like Pathfinder, or clones of even older games (OSR)!

That’s a good observation, and it’s not a phenomenon that was limited to the core books in that period. The 4th Ed iteration of the Forgotten Realms setting was very clearly targeted at people who hated the Forgotten Realms as they’d previously been implemented, largely ignoring the customer base that liked it.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That’s a good observation, and it’s not a phenomenon that was limited to the core books in that period. The 4th Ed iteration of the Forgotten Realms setting was very clearly targeted at people who hated the Forgotten Realms as they’d previously been implemented, largely ignoring the customer base that liked it.

Not my highest priority anyway.

See, my feeling with 4e is that it was BUILT TO BE PLAYED from the ground up. No, there wasn't a lot of impractical and useless trivia type lore. There was a TON of "when the PCs take these guys on here's how they operate, who they hang with, who their bosses are likely to be, etc." type of lore.

The same applies to things like FR. The thinking was "how do we make this interesting and engaging to PLAYERS" instead of just wool-gathering sort of endless trivia and whatnot. When they thought through the fundamental conflicts and driving factors arising within the milieu they made them straightforward, interesting, and gameable.

For me at least this was always the beauty of 4e, it is PRIMARILY an RPG at all levels. It consciously aimed to produce the best possible game experience in terms of lore, setting, etc. Very deliberate design!

 

[darjr]

See, my feeling with 4e is that it was BUILT TO BE PLAYED

This assumes everyone plays the same way.

 

[Micah Sweet]

See, my feeling with 4e is that it was BUILT TO BE PLAYED from the ground up. No, there wasn't a lot of impractical and useless trivia type lore. There was a TON of "when the PCs take these guys on here's how they operate, who they hang with, who their bosses are likely to be, etc." type of lore.

The same applies to things like FR. The thinking was "how do we make this interesting and engaging to PLAYERS" instead of just wool-gathering sort of endless trivia and whatnot. When they thought through the fundamental conflicts and driving factors arising within the milieu they made them straightforward, interesting, and gameable.

For me at least this was always the beauty of 4e, it is PRIMARILY an RPG at all levels. It consciously aimed to produce the best possible game experience in terms of lore, setting, etc. Very deliberate design!

I would agree with all of that, and people who are looking for it (and there are quite a few prolific posters on this forum who seem to be) had every reason to be pleased with 4e. But it was definitely not what I wanted out of D&D.

 

[payn]

This assumes everyone plays the same way.

Thats very true. While some folks want the material to tell you how it is played, some folks want that to be left up to them to decide.