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

[Parmandur]

Unfortunately there's really no way to know.

Sure there is, market research. Which WotC has been engaged in for years.

 

[Parmandur]

More competence in business acumen, perhaps, but I still hold TSR on the whole made better stuff.

I am actively reading some old TSR stuff recently, and while I like it personally I have to say that this is not true. Recent WotC output is simply better than old TSR on average.

 

[Parmandur]

And I think at this point I'm done here.

OK, still unclear on how appealing to more people and doing so more deeply is in opposition somehow.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I am actively reading some old TSR stuff recently, and while I like it personally I have to say that this is not true. Recent WotC output is simply better than old TSR on average.

Hard disagree. What you're talking about is subjective.

 

[Parmandur]

Hard disagree. What you're talking about is subjective.

I mean, sure, but even on the technical level thst isn't subjective it has been superior. The more recent books are all more thoughtfully designed to appeal to an audience rather than pumped out for a deadline. No 5E Forest Oracle or War Rafts of Kron.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I mean, sure, but even on the technical level thst isn't subjective it has been superior. The more recent books are all more thoughtfully designed to appeal to an audience rather than pumped out for a deadline. No 5E Forest Oracle or War Rafts of Kron.

We are interested in different things out of these products. This is why it is subjective.

 

[Parmandur]

We are interested in different things out of these products. This is why it is subjective.

Sure, but thwt doesn't mean thar a designer cannot figure out how to please the greater number of people, and to do so profoundly.

 

[Alzrius]

I want to point out that 5e doesn't handle this any better than 4e does. If hit points are "meat" in the fiction, that still leaves completely unexplained how someone can recover from a sword wound after an hour nap, let alone how a Fighter can recover from the same wound as a bonus action with Second Wind.

5E does handle it at least somewhat better than 4E does, i.e. it has no damage on a miss (and yes, it was noted that that's in the playtest for OneD&D; we'll see if that makes it through to the finished product, but it's not original 5E, or whatever we'll call it to differentiate it from next year's iteration).

Trying to map hit points into anything remotely resembling verisimilitude is utter madness, just like Gary Gygax pointed out multiple times in the AD&D DMG.

Which would be why I've repeatedly described hit points as an area where verisimilitude is abrogated in favor of playability, calling that a consensus that no one liked, but everyone accepted. 4E, as noted before, moved the metaphorical needle on that, with disastrous results.

 

[Parmandur]

5E does handle it at least somewhat better than 4E does, i.e. it has no damage on a miss (and yes, it was noted that that's in the playtest for OneD&D; we'll see if that makes it through to the finished product, but it's not original 5E, or whatever we'll call it to differentiate it from next year's iteration).

Which would be why I've repeatedly described hit points as an area where verisimilitude is abrogated in favor of playability, calling that a consensus that no one liked, but everyone accepted. 4E, as noted before, moved the metaphorical needle on that, with disastrous results.

I didn't care for 4E, but overall I think damage on a miss is a fairly minor element in it's reception, albeit symptomatic of the main issue of not paying attention to customers in general.

 

[Alzrius]

I didn't care for 4E, but overall I think damage on a miss is a fairly minor element in it's reception, albeit symptomatic of the main issue of not paying attention to customers in general.

That might be so, but I was bringing it up to point out that the idea of "5E is no better than 4E in its conception of what in-character elements are mapped to hit point loss/recovery" isn't the case, as damage on a miss is an aspect of 4E's having hit points perform double duty in a way that 5E doesn't.