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

[hawkeyefan]

Oh no. That ship has sailed. WotC would get pilloried if they didn’t have open playtests. There is zero chance that the fandom will allow them to make unilateral decisions about the game ever again. If they tried the accusations of all sorts of nefarious things would be a wall of screaming.

Not going to happen. Not with social media it’s not.

I didn’t say I expect it to happen. I said it’s what I think would be good.

I agree, but the purpose of open playtests has little to do with game design, and much more to do with avoiding public condemnation and keeping everyone buying brand merchandise.

Sure, I get the corporate thinking behind it. I never claimed my desires aligned with the corporate goal of maximum profits. I’m speaking strictly from a design perspective.

I am extremely cynical of designers, no matter how good, getting consistently good results without blindtesting. Almost any game designer has tunnel vision and expectations they're presenting that can end up being very different from a large part, perhaps the majority of their market.

Frankly, its better to do blindtesting and then just learn to ignore a subset with an axe to grind (but the key word here is "subset").

I never said not to do playtesting. I said open playtests aren’t that useful.

They seem to be doing a pretty good job, that's why they have their high threshold of satisfaction for each option. That accomplishes specifically rhe goal of helping to filter out the vocal minority. That's why forum and Reddit responses to UA seem to have nothing to do with the results: they are filtering out the noise.

An opinion on reddit or an opinion on the playtest surveys are both just opinions. One could be awful and the other great. There’s nothing inherently good about the opinions’ of folks who are doing the surveys.

Why would WotC possibly care about people who refuse to sign up for their free portal...? They are bending over backwards to make it easy to sign up, no strings attached, and putting out tons of free stuff on there. At this point, refusal to sign up for Beyond is absolutely a safe indicator of not being part of the representative sample of people who will spend money on D&D.

I don't use Beyond for anything, but I signed up years ago for the free stuff. It takes like ten seconds.

I’m signed up for Beyond and I’m not doing the surveys. I looked at some of the UA playtest packets and then one of the surveys. I didn’t find the process to be that compelling. I feel like the whole thing is skewed so they can try to get a high consensus. And I don’t think that’s what the goal should be.

The goal should be a good game.

 

[Lanefan]

My suggestion would be to not have open playtests. I don’t think they’re nearly as useful as many seem to. I would say the best approach would be to trust the actual designers to do their job and for them to deliver a coherent game. Just make the best game possible.

Thing is, what the designers think is the best game possible and what the general gaming population actually wants to long-term play may be a very great distance apart.

That's how we got 4e: a fairly well-designed game that, in the end, not many people wanted to play (other than maybe for a test drive).

Especially now that it’s easier than ever to get prior editions, so anyone who doesn’t like the new edition can happily continue playing one of the old.

Easy to say, harder to do when the cultural zeitgeist so much revolves around having (and using) the new bright shiny all the time.

 

[Lanefan]

It's not the "odd edition out". I mean, from my point of view 3E is the "odd edition out".

That's an interesting take.

For me, I can see a clear (if sometimes inexplicable in its logic!) and fairly-direct progression from 0-1-2-3e and thence to 5e; but I don't as clearly see a direct progression from 3e to 4e or from 2e to 4e.

Now maybe later elements within each edition make 4e fit in better; I can (and for these purposes do) only go by the initial core three books for each one.

4e is the full realisation of the resolution principles set out by Gygax in around pages 60 to 80 of this DMG.

So you're seeing a direct progression from 1e to 4e. Guess I have to squint harder.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Thing is, what the designers think is the best game possible and what the general gaming population actually wants to long-term play may be a very great distance apart.

That's how we got 4e: a fairly well-designed game that, in the end, not many people wanted to play (other than maybe for a test drive).

This is largely my point. I’d rather see a unified, coherent game. Which, opinions aside, is what 4e is. It has flaws, for sure, as do all editions. But it’s a well constructed and tightly designed game.

I’d much rather that whatever was coming out of the playtest be something like that rather than the cautious, least offensive, design by community committee game that I expect will be the result.

Easy to say, harder to do when the cultural zeitgeist so much revolves around having (and using) the new bright shiny all the time.

Coming from you that’s an odd point!

 

[Lanefan]

Based on the numbers involved, they have a more than representative sample, yes.

A representative sample of what, though?

Of current 5e players? Very likely, yes.
Of current or lapsed players of other D&D editions? Fairly unlikely.
Of current/lapsed players of RPGs not named D&D (or Pathfinder)? Highly unlikely.
Of people who don't (yet) play RPGs at all? Almost certainly not.

 

[Zeromaru X]

So you're seeing a direct progression from 1e to 4e. Guess I have to squint harder

I would say that is more like D&D pre editions -> 4e.

But really, for me 4e was the natural evolution of 3.xe. 5e is a step back to something that mixes 2e and 3.xe with some elements of 4e.

 

[Parmandur]

An opinion on reddit or an opinion on the playtest surveys are both just opinions. One could be awful and the other great. There’s nothing inherently good about the opinions’ of folks who are doing the surveys.

Individually, yes, but it is the aggregate that matters for determining what will appeal to as many people as possible.

I’m signed up for Beyond and I’m not doing the surveys. I looked at some of the UA playtest packets and then one of the surveys. I didn’t find the process to be that compelling. I feel like the whole thing is skewed so they can try to get a high consensus. And I don’t think that’s what the goal should be.

What goal could be better than making a game people like...?

The goal should be a good game.

Good by what metric? That's the reason they gather daya...to determine the design parameters.

 

[Lanefan]

I’d much rather that whatever was coming out of the playtest be something like that rather than the cautious, least offensive, design by community committee game that I expect will be the result.

As long as it's easily-enough kitbash-able into what we each might want, who cares?

Coming from you that’s an odd point!

I can see what the zeitgeist is even if I don't myself follow along with it very often.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Individually, yes, but it is the aggregate that matters for determining what will appeal to as many people as possible.

I don’t think that designing a game that appeals to as many people as possible will yield the best game.

What goal could be better than making a game people like...?

Making a game people love?

I don’t know… I don’t think I’m advocating for them making a game people wouldn’t like.

Good by what metric? That's the reason they gather daya...to determine the design parameters.

How did people know OD&D was good? Or even AD&D?

Or any other game? Or piece of media?

 

[Parmandur]

I don’t think that designing a game that appeals to as many people as possible will yield the best game.

A game is a tool for people to have fun. Making something that gives the most fun to tge largest number of people is basically by definition the best game.

Making a game people love?

Based on the 70% metric, the number of "love it" responses basically have to match with the entire rest of the spectrum just to see print.

I don’t know… I don’t think I’m advocating for them making a game people wouldn’t like.

You are advocating making a "good game." People enjoying a game is what makes a game good. If WotC makes a game that people like enough to buy and play...that's the whole shebang.

How did people know OD&D was good? Or even AD&D?

Or any other game? Or piece of media?

Very carefully.