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

[AbdulAlhazred]

Right. Sacrifice tactical infinity in the silly need to have a rule for everything. Which is why fewer, broadly applicable rules and rulings to cover any gaps is better than hundreds of rules for distinct and seldom seen edge cases.

There's another answer, which is the answer games like 4e or even far more so PbtA games and such give. Have a short list of abilities of some sort, like 4e has 17 skills, and simply bin every attempt to do something under one of those. If some more specific capability exists, like a power or a ritual, or class feature/item/whatever, in 4e's case, then the player is free to try to invoke that instead. This is the 'exception based rules' approach. Provide a totally generalized resolution system and then break out more specific possibilities if they make sense.

I mean, even 5e has the bones of this in place, though it seems a lot of people are so steeped in '70s D&D design logic (no rules at all plus specialized subsystems for various cases) that it is often discounted or ignored. Dungeon World's 'Defy Danger' with its 6 ability bonus specific flavors is really kind of the last word here, you can effectively ALWAYS employ that move! 4e Skill Challenges are just sauce, giving you a way to upgrade something to the level of being an encounter, basically, and gaining all the advantages of that. 5e unfortunately doesn't go there, but its skill system is still a solid approach overall.

 

[Pedantic]

There's another answer, which is the answer games like 4e or even far more so PbtA games and such give. Have a short list of abilities of some sort, like 4e has 17 skills, and simply bin every attempt to do something under one of those. If some more specific capability exists, like a power or a ritual, or class feature/item/whatever, in 4e's case, then the player is free to try to invoke that instead. This is the 'exception based rules' approach. Provide a totally generalized resolution system and then break out more specific possibilities if they make sense.

I mean, even 5e has the bones of this in place, though it seems a lot of people are so steeped in '70s D&D design logic (no rules at all plus specialized subsystems for various cases) that it is often discounted or ignored. Dungeon World's 'Defy Danger' with its 6 ability bonus specific flavors is really kind of the last word here, you can effectively ALWAYS employ that move! 4e Skill Challenges are just sauce, giving you a way to upgrade something to the level of being an encounter, basically, and gaining all the advantages of that. 5e unfortunately doesn't go there, but its skill system is still a solid approach overall.

I am deeply unwilling to consign myself to a push your luck dice game as the best expression of any out of combat TTRPG play. The make believe is insufficient to paper over dishwater dull gameplay.

 

[Zeromaru X]

On the other hand, I'm really happy that there is a system of rules that support actions outside of combat, and that is more fair to the game and the players than "DM's fiat".

 

[darjr]

On the other hand, I'm really happy that there is a system of rules that support actions outside of combat, and that is more fair to the game and the players than "DM's fiat".

I'll just leave what Mike Mearls said to Greg Tito when Greg was still with the Escapist.

“I think we’ve hit the second era of RPG decadence, and it’s gone the opposite way,” he continued. “It’s all about player power now – the DM is just the rules guy – and the DM can’t contradict what the players say. [The game] is taking away from the DM, and that’s where I worry because other types of games can do that better. I might as well play a board game, ’cause I’m just here enforcing the rules. Without the DM as the creative guy, what’s the point?”

Mearls admits 4th edition might have gone too far in creating a perfectly balanced game. “We’ve lost faith of what makes an RPG an RPG,” he said, admitting that in trying to please gamers with a limited imagination, 4th edition might have punished those with an active one. “There’s this fear of the bad gaming group, where the game is so good that even playing with a bad gaming group, you’ll still have fun.”

Now please note, I do think it's maybe an overreaction. He was just coming from the end of 4e, essentially.

 

[Zeromaru X]

Now please note, I do think it's maybe an overreaction. He was just coming from the end of 4e, essentially.

I once had a very d*ck DM, that even denied his players to do actions that did not favored the story he wanted to tell. Heck, he even invalidated nat 20s if it suit him. His excuse? He was the DM, so he can do it because reasons.

So, you may think that 4e rules invalidated the DM, but as I see it, it put reins to dictator DMs that abused of their "authority". Also, Mearls was just pandering to the grognards that were playing Pathfinder, trying to lure them back to D&D by giving them what they wanted: the current, flawed 5e rules that they are trying to fix with the 2024 re-releases (and if they are trying to fix them, it means they are failed).

Because, yes, there is always another side for every coin.

 

[darjr]

I once had a very d*ck DM, that even denied his players to do actions that did not favored the story he wanted to tell. Heck, he even invalidated nat 20s if it suit him. His excuse? He was the DM, so he can do it because reasons.

So, you may think that 4e rules invalidated the DM, but as I see it, it put reins to dictator DMs that abused of their "authority". Also, Mearls was just pandering to the grognards that were playing Pathfinder, trying to lure them back to D&D by giving them what they wanted: the current, flawed 5e rules that they are trying to fix with the 2024 re-releases (and if they are trying to fix them, it means they are failed).

Because, yes, there is always another side for every coin.

I think he's trying to point out that trying to "control" bad DM's was a mistake. He's said elsewhere some thing along the lines that bad DM's don't need the rules to be bad, nor the lack of them.

I'm sorry you had that experience. I've had it too. I left those DM's and tables and groups. I've even asked DM's not to return to events I've organized. It looks like you left that group too.

 

[pemerton]

Skill challenges, as a mechanic, have nothing to do with "controlling bad GMs". They are a way of resolving non-combat situations via some method other than GM decides.

That's it.

 

[Zardnaar]

I once had a very d*ck DM, that even denied his players to do actions that did not favored the story he wanted to tell. Heck, he even invalidated nat 20s if it suit him. His excuse? He was the DM, so he can do it because reasons.

So, you may think that 4e rules invalidated the DM, but as I see it, it put reins to dictator DMs that abused of their "authority". Also, Mearls was just pandering to the grognards that were playing Pathfinder, trying to lure them back to D&D by giving them what they wanted: the current, flawed 5e rules that they are trying to fix with the 2024 re-releases (and if they are trying to fix them, it means they are failed).

Because, yes, there is always another side for every coin.

All the rules are flawed in some ways. Only 2E and Basic line really got cleaned up versions.

Castles and Crusades is kind of a cleaned up AD&D imho.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I once had a very d*ck DM, that even denied his players to do actions that did not favored the story he wanted to tell. Heck, he even invalidated nat 20s if it suit him. His excuse? He was the DM, so he can do it because reasons.

So, you may think that 4e rules invalidated the DM, but as I see it, it put reins to dictator DMs that abused of their "authority". Also, Mearls was just pandering to the grognards that were playing Pathfinder, trying to lure them back to D&D by giving them what they wanted: the current, flawed 5e rules that they are trying to fix with the 2024 re-releases (and if they are trying to fix them, it means they are failed).

Because, yes, there is always another side for every coin.

The usual answer you'll get to this is that "rules can't stop bad GMing", and to a degree that's right.

But the one thing that a detailed rules set gives is that there's less room for a GM to hide behind his necessary authority. If you've got a rules set that's very handwavey, there's always an argument-from-necessity they can use. That's a lot harder a card to play when the rules for a situation are very clear in what should be applied and how it should be resolved.

So its still possible for a GM to just assert authority and move on, but its got to be much more blatant.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think he's trying to point out that trying to "control" bad DM's was a mistake. He's said elsewhere some thing along the lines that bad DM's don't need the rules to be bad, nor the lack of them.

The issue is that I don't think that's entirely right, as I say in the post above. Its not a panacea for bad GMing, but it breaks one of the expectation sets (that all kinds of things need to be decided by the GM because the game is mum or unclear on them) to a large degree.

(Of course a detailed system doesn't assure this; if its design is so bad that it requires constant intervention to pave over bad parts, but I don't think even most of its critics would have accused that of being a problem with D&D 4e).