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

[amethal]

It spends an inordinate amount of space to describing the treasure of the keep’s inhabitants, for some reason.

The reason is in case the PCs elect to sack the keep.

There's presumably a reason why the adventure isn't called "The Caves of Chaos"

 

[Kannik]

I see no reason Mearls shouldn't have said what he said, provided he believed it. Nothing wrong with expressing his opinion.

And there is nothing wrong with Undrave (and others) to disagree, to express that disagreement, and to express how a statement (which is worth noting is an excerpt of an edited interview perhaps designed to be more contentious for "clickbait" reasons) such as "4e punished players with an active imagination," feels insulting to them.

Especially since Undrave never even said Mearls shouldn't have been allowed to say what they said.

 

[Lanefan]

I tried to run it, and had issues. For example, it isn’t clear whether or not the road is supposed to be usable by the PCs to get directly to the caves of chaos, or if they have to search “somewhere to the east”, hex-crawling, as it were, but in a grid, in order to find the caves.

There's a gap there, to be sure, the benefit of which is that it allows the DM to put the Caves as near or far from the Keep as she wants. But, the downside is of course that a brand-new DM (for whom the module is in theory intended) isn't given any guidance.

It spends an inordinate amount of space to describing the treasure of the keep’s inhabitants, for some reason.

This would be my only real criticism of the module; though in fairness if a group of PCs decided to take out the Keep and this info wasn't there, even an experienced DM might be floundering a bit. A new one would be in a heap o' trouble.

Otherwise, it has the potential to introduce numerous different aspects of play all in one adventure - wilderness, dungeon-crawling, factions-alliances-diplomacy - and not all early-era modules can say that.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

And the 1e AD&D attack tables contained a note that as an optional rule you could "smooth" the progression of Fighter attacks to be a 1pt improvement per level instead of 2 points every two levels. And of course this was itself a smoothing of the progression from OD&D and the Basic line, where the Fighter's attack progression jumped three points at 4th level.

In an amusing historical revelation, it turns out that the original concept was a 5% (1pt) improvement every level of advancement, but that they altered it for the 1974 publication, apparently in part because of space limitations for the tables!

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playingattheworld.blogspot.com

So, that means THAC0, at least for fighters and 1HD monsters, in 2e is a reversion to the original design. I always kind of figured that this was the case. Of course it still begs the question since AC could instead have been SUBTRACTED from 20 to yield the required to-hit value, with a level bonus of +1/level (for fighters at least, in AD&D it was +2/3 levels for clerics, +1/2 levels for thieves, and +1/3 levels for MUs).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Again, perhaps he was part of whatever WotC faction it was that didn't want to push the game towards narrativist play.

I would assume this is true, OTOH isn't it a better idea to put a guy in charge of your product that IS enthusiastic about its main feature? Because, honestly, while you may certainly play 4e in a more trad or neo-trad sort of mode, it doesn't actually make that much sense as an edition of D&D if that's your goal! 5e in fact is, gotta hand it to him, Mike's well considered completely trad cleanup of 2e/3e. 4e actually only makes sense as a product development if your assumption is that narrativist character-centered play, at least in a mild form, is likely to be the future and you need to do it. In fact, as opposed to the 'factions argument' maybe a more sophisticated reading would be that WotC wanted to split the difference, and make a game that would still work for traditionalists, but would also work well with more modern play styles.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Was he not on board with 4e's design principles? AFAIK, the seeds of 4e's design were sown with the Book of Nine Swords, where he was a writer. He was also part of the Scramjet, the core 4e design team that looked into all of D&D's sacred cows and decided which ones should be offed. Surely he would've taken the game in a different direction if the main tenets of 4e didn't appeal to him at the time?

Well, first of all, Mike certainly was familiar with things like narrativist design concepts, sure. But he wasn't IN CHARGE of 4e's design, AFAIK. Honestly its impossible to say who had what influence and what these different people advocated for. So, it is quite possible that the game went in a direction he NEVER liked and he may well have fought tooth and nail to change that, or he was just a good soldier and did his best to get his boss what he wanted, like most of us do every day. We know he wrote KotS, which IMHO does not speak well of his feel for what would work well in 4e...

 

[Micah Sweet]

I would assume this is true, OTOH isn't it a better idea to put a guy in charge of your product that IS enthusiastic about its main feature? Because, honestly, while you may certainly play 4e in a more trad or neo-trad sort of mode, it doesn't actually make that much sense as an edition of D&D if that's your goal! 5e in fact is, gotta hand it to him, Mike's well considered completely trad cleanup of 2e/3e. 4e actually only makes sense as a product development if your assumption is that narrativist character-centered play, at least in a mild form, is likely to be the future and you need to do it. In fact, as opposed to the 'factions argument' maybe a more sophisticated reading would be that WotC wanted to split the difference, and make a game that would still work for traditionalists, but would also work well with more modern play styles.

That would make sense, sure. Regarding 4e, I actually think it would have been better received as its own game as opposed to part of the D&D chain. Of course, the nature of its origin story makes that impossible, but I do like the counterfactual speculation.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

That would make sense, sure. Regarding 4e, I actually think it would have been better received as its own game as opposed to part of the D&D chain. Of course, the nature of its origin story makes that impossible, but I do like the counterfactual speculation.

Yes and no. Obviously, it would not have received any of the pushback (especially the whole, "But it's not D&D!!11!!!!") if it hadn't been part of the D&D chain.

But let's not forget that the only reason it had the sales that it did have was largely because it was part of the D&D chain. If it had been released as some random game from some random publisher, then it likely never would have gotten even a tenth of the sales that it did ... and I'm being generous.

That's the blessing and curse of any established brand / IP. On the one hand, you are guaranteed a level of interest; on the other hand, you are always going to be, to some extent, a prisoner of the brand. That's why being a creative working with a well-established IP has difficulties that a lot of us don't choose to recognize.

 

[Red Castle]

Yes and no. Obviously, it would not have received any of the pushback (especially the whole, "But it's not D&D!!11!!!!") if it hadn't been part of the D&D chain.

But let's not forget that the only reason it had the sales that it did have was largely because it was part of the D&D chain. If it had been released as some random game from some random publisher, then it likely never would have gotten even a tenth of the sales that it did ... and I'm being generous.

That's the blessing and curse of any established brand / IP. On the one hand, you are guaranteed a level of interest; on the other hand, you are always going to be, to some extent, a prisoner of the brand. That's why being a creative working with a well-established IP has difficulties that a lot of us don't choose to recognize.

Came to say exactly that.

That’s why I never understand when people say 4e should have been called something else, that it would have fair better under another name. No, it would not. The brand name is a selling point and probably the main reason why people buy and try the game in the first place.

And like it or not, 4e was as much DnD than any other editions. It might not fit what you are looking for (and that’s probably the main reason of the division regarding 4e) in DnD, but it is nonetheless.

 

[MockingBird]

Before 4e launched was there a "first look" book? I think it's been mentioned (or I made it up in my head). If there was such a book or document does anyone have any pictures from it or a legal way to look at it?