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

[Iosue]

When talk of 4e's marketing comes up, I always think back to this blog post by Jeff Grubb about the transition from 2nd Edition to 3rd Edition.

Those following previous editions were simply ignored for the new shiny, the idea being that if it was cool enough the old grogs would come back to the fold. The business plan did not care, to quote one executive, "If any player of 2nd Edition came over to 3rd." We had T-shirts made mocking 2nd Edition weaknesses. And it was successful.

With this kind of background, it is no surprise that when it was 4e's turn, the designers were, let's say, dismissive of what they perceived as weaknesses or problems in 3e that they intended to fix with 4e. I think what they were not banking on was that in 2000, WotC could still pass itself as "one of the guys." In 2007/8, now owned by Hasbro*, and with a bit of skepticism built into the fanbase after the release of 3.5 and now 4e (a mere 8 years after the release of 3e), they could no longer do that. The marketing has this whole "amirite?" tone. "Profession skill, amirite?" "Gnome PCs, amirite?" "Grapple rules, amirite?" That worked in 2000, but not in 2007.

*Of course, WotC was already owned by Hasbro when 3e released in 2000, but it still maintained its pre-sale image with the fans. By 2007, many of those with the company in 2000 were gone, and it was no longer possible to present itself as a company of gamers, rather than a division of Big Corporate.

 

[Ondath]

When talk of 4e's marketing comes up, I always think back to this blog post by Jeff Grubb about the transition from 2nd Edition to 3rd Edition.


With this kind of background, it is no surprise that when it was 4e's turn, the designers were, let's say, dismissive of what they perceived as weaknesses or problems in 3e that they intended to fix with 4e. I think what they were not banking on was that in 2000, WotC could still pass itself as "one of the guys." In 2007/8, now owned by Hasbro*, and with a bit of skepticism built into the fanbase after the release of 3.5 and now 4e (a mere 8 years after the release of 3e), they could no longer do that. The marketing has this whole "amirite?" tone. "Profession skill, amirite?" "Gnome PCs, amirite?" "Grapple rules, amirite?" That worked in 2000, but not in 2007.

*Of course, WotC was already owned by Hasbro when 3e released in 2000, but it still maintained its pre-sale image with the fans. By 2007, many of those with the company in 2000 were gone, and it was no longer possible to present itself as a company of gamers, rather than a division of Big Corporate.

I think this might also be tied to people being already tired of 2e (the 90s essentially being a time of glut due to splatbook fatigue, Magic/Vampire taking away players and AD&D 2e being seen as "that old game nobody plays anymore", from what I understand) when 3e was coming out. While 3.5 did have many pain points in 2007/8, I remember it still being fairly popular. So mocking 2e, an already unpopular edition, while 3e was coming, would feel very different to mocking 3e, a fairly popular edition, when 4e was coming.

 

[Iosue]

I think this might also be tied to people being already tired of 2e (the 90s essentially being a time of glut due to splatbook fatigue, Magic/Vampire taking away players and AD&D 2e being seen as "that old game nobody plays anymore", from what I understand) when 3e was coming out. While 3.5 did have many pain points in 2007/8, I remember it still being fairly popular. So mocking 2e, an already unpopular edition, while 3e was coming, would feel very different to mocking 3e, a fairly popular edition, when 4e was coming.

Questions of popularity aside, there's quite a difference in latent goodwill when you're replacing an 10 year old edition than when you're pushing out the third set of core rulebooks and second completely different version of the game in 7 years.

 

[payn]

Granted by MM3 those things were essentially fixed from WotC.

I can only speak for myself on this, but the core splat was a bad strategy when it came to me as a customer. A big beef I had was a lot of my favorite things not being available at launch. When I did play the game issues I had where to be fixed in book 2,3,4 etc… I was long gone by then.

 

[Autumnal]

Fannish over-identification is a thing that comes and goes. In the early 1800s, women threw various undergarments at Niccolo Paganini when he played in concert, with assignation directions written inside. People in southern France did the same with troubadours in the 1400s-1500s (and since st least a quarter of Provençal troubadours were women, men did throwing as well as catching, so to speak). Gladiators got the same enough to draw condemnation as moral hazards by both pagan and Christian viewers-with-alarm.

It seems to get independently reinvented almost every time. People are wired for some really bad stupid stuff, apparently.

 

[teitan]

So in spite of the myths and legends, 3.x did not in fact outsell 1e or even 2e. That's pretty crazy considering how people act like 3.x was such a massive thing for D&D and some even speculating that it outsold 1e.

I was a big 3.x player until 2007, so I am 100% surprised. I am also, on the left hand, not shocked that WOTC was blaming Warcraft for D&D sales bottoming out. That was Dancey's mantra for years anyway. People were saying 3.x was like playing a video game (Diablo 2 springs to mind) long before 4e was a twinkle in our eyes. I had always felt it was misguided to target video game and MMO players in the same way that when TSR targeted MTG players to try and win them back they lost big time.

 

[pemerton]

I feel like some 4e fans (both on this site and in places like Reddit) have a revisionist view of history where 4e and its marketing did nothing wrong and that people are actually, morally at fault for not liking 4e.

I don't think anyone is morally at fault for not liking 4e D&D, any more than I think that I am morally at fault for thinking that 3E is a bad RPG system, and 5e a mediocre one.

What is true is that the game's earlier marketing misunderstood its main demographic, and that main demographic did really feel insulted (whether you think the marketing is insulting or not is irrelevant at this point).

I read both of the Wizards Presents books and I have to admit, I like a lot of the ideas they presented there. But the book did feel like it was insulting me for liking "forced symmetry", 3.5-style hardcore worldbuilding, simulationist rules etc. and the whole throughline was essentially "All these years your D&D games were impure in lore and mechanics, but the almighty Scramjet has now descended from heavens to fix your incorrect game!". And I didn't like that.

Fair enough.

There are a lot of things I don't like, or that I don't agree with, in various RPGs and associated commentary that I read. I don't take them to be insults. To me that seems to be an exaggerated and ultimately unhealthy response.

 

[Lanefan]

I was not playing and running 3.5 at the time. I was reading about the development of 4e in 2007/8 and quite interested by it. I saw W&M in my local game shop and thought it looked pretty interesting, and so bought it. And it did get me hyped about the forthcoming edition -

Same here, to a point, but not because of this:

and not just, or even primarily, because of the content it presented, but because of the way it showed D&D was being (re)designed from the ground up with an eye on actual play.

What caught my eye was the art and general look of it, along with a few design ideas that were being tossed around. There's one piece of art in W&M that I built a whole adventure around.

 

[Lanefan]

They're a paired set. If you want to separate two books published by the same at the same time about the same game, fine. I apologize.

I certainly separate them. I bought W&M and got good use of it. I looked over R&C but didn't buy it, as nothing in there looked like anything I either had to have or wouldn't see in finished form when the core three books came out.

 

[Lanefan]

BUT the big important part of this is that what THEY wrote, doesn't reflect any of us. And it also doesn't actually reflect on the game itself.

What they wrote (and said) might not reflect on any of us but it does/did reflect on the game, whether deservedly or not.