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

[MockingBird]

At what point looking at 5% of the data that doesn't fall within the majority isn't a time sink? Legit question.

 

[Alzrius]

Imagine a NPC blacksmith in AD&D, with (let's say) 7 hp. Orcs raid the village, and one stabs the blacksmith with a spear, dealing 6 hp of damage. The blacksmith is now down to 1 hp. Presumably that's not a light wound.

A friendly cleric comes by and casts Cure Light Wounds on the blacksmith, and restores 6 hp of damage (not a remarkable result when rolling 1d8). Now the blacksmith is at full health again.

Clearly the AD&D spell names are not very accurate; they're superficial flavour.

Do those spell names also come with a full sentence of descriptive text saying what it is that they do from an in-character perspective? And is there also a section which talks only about changing the cosmetic nature of that effect, rather than what exactly is being represented? Or is this another attempt to say "but AD&D!" in an effort to look past how 4E is talking out of both sides of its mouth where hit points are concerned?

The scope of a "light" wound doesn't change the fact that it's still a wound, and every mechanic that AD&D presents regarding hit point loss/recovery is an effect of taking or treating wounds. That's far and away different from having those mechanics simultaneously represent losing or recovering personal stamina. AD&D and 4E are not comparable in that regard.

In my 4e game, there was never any doubt what happens when a cleric speaks a Healing Word: they pray, and urge on their friend, who draws on their own reserves (a healing surge) and has their vigour and resolve restored. There is no weirdness that it is easier to heal a badly injured blacksmith than a merely grazed Conan; and in the fiction we know what is going on.

Yes, and I don't blame you for fixing the problems that 4E as-is presents, but therein lies the rub: in order to fix it, you first have to acknowledge that the problem exists in the first place.

Whether or not you like it, WotC put an entire line's worth of text telling people reading the PHB that healing word is an ability that closes a wound, and did that with reference to the exact same mechanic that the warlord uses for inspiring word, which says that it rallies a character to keep fighting via willpower. Saying that we should ignore that doesn't mean the issue isn't there; just that you're ignoring it.

 

[Hussar]

It truly boggles my mind that anyone would actually defend them on this.

Unlike a discussion forum or newsfeed where people can get in your face, in a survey there's only so much "vocal" one can be. They're counting how many boxes get ticked, meaning any one person's input on that question is limited to ticking a box; and even if they add a place for comments they only allow you to type x-many characters, thus rather limiting what one can say.

You're also assuming two things: one, that the ignored group would all have said the same thing; and two, that what they said on average would have been unpopular with the greater community (as opposed to the designers, who I very much think had their own ideas going in and just wanted them publically confirmed).

Sorry, but, you are just flat out wrong here @Lanefan. This is done all the time when collecting data from large groups. Of course you have to limit your pool of responses. That's just how it works. And you keep ignoring WHY they ignored the older gamers - they knew from previous research that the longer you stayed in the hobby the less money you spend.

Why would they include the opinions of people who are not going to buy products in a product survey?

Additionally, you are pretending that the original survey is the ONLY market research they ever did in the past thirty years. Good grief - do you really think they didn't do any more? They released the results of ONE market survey. Just one. We know for a fact that they were doing market research all the time. They didn't share the results, but, we do know that they were gathering information.

The fact that WotC's cut off for that one specific bit of research also dovetails PERFECTLY with every other similar survey of the time - the age of players, the time spent in the hobby, etc. done by places like Paizo, TSR Dragon, and various other sources, cannot possibly be lost on you. You keep harping about this, thirty years after the fact.

Dude, talk about beating a dead horse.

 

[payn]

At what point looking at 5% of the data that doesn't fall within the majority isn't a time sink? Legit question.

QFT

 

[payn]

Sorry, but, you are just flat out wrong here @Lanefan. This is done all the time when collecting data from large groups. Of course you have to limit your pool of responses. That's just how it works. And you keep ignoring WHY they ignored the older gamers - they knew from previous research that the longer you stayed in the hobby the less money you spend.

Why would they include the opinions of people who are not going to buy products in a product survey?

Additionally, you are pretending that the original survey is the ONLY market research they ever did in the past thirty years. Good grief - do you really think they didn't do any more? They released the results of ONE market survey. Just one. We know for a fact that they were doing market research all the time. They didn't share the results, but, we do know that they were gathering information.

The fact that WotC's cut off for that one specific bit of research also dovetails PERFECTLY with every other similar survey of the time - the age of players, the time spent in the hobby, etc. done by places like Paizo, TSR Dragon, and various other sources, cannot possibly be lost on you. You keep harping about this, thirty years after the fact.

Dude, talk about beating a dead horse.

Gamers have long memories lol

 

[pemerton]

every mechanic that AD&D presents regarding hit point loss/recovery is an effect of taking or treating wounds

Including loss of hp from psionic attacks (DMG p 77)? And "suffering damage from phantasmal missiles or from falling into an illusory pit full of sharp spikes" if deceived by a phantasmal force spell (PHB p 75)?

Or a 60 hp fighter being "hit" by the arrows shot by four Hobgoblins, and suffering a total of 7 hp of damage?

I don't think these things are presented as taking wounds at all. Which Gygax was aware of, hence writing his explanation of hit points in the PHB and DMG, and the complementary explanation of saving throws in the DMG.

 

[Alzrius]

Including loss of hp from psionic attacks (DMG p 77)? And "suffering damage from phantasmal missiles or from falling into an illusory pit full of sharp spikes" if deceived by a phantasmal force spell (PHB p 75)?

Yes to both; the psionic attacks are – as per the page that you yourself indicated in the DMG – physical damage (emphasis mine):

Damage accruing beyond the point where 0 psionic attack points was reached results in physical damage (hit points) being taken by the defender on a point for point basis.

Likewise, phantasmal force says (again, emphasis mine):

When this spell is cast, the magic-user creates a visual illusion which will affect all believing creatures which view the phantasmal force, even to the extent of suffering damage from phantasmal missiles or from falling into an illusory pit full of sharp spikes.

I don't really see how you could take either of those to mean anything except the loss of hit points means that bodily harm is being received.

Or a 60 hp fighter being "hit" by the arrows shot by four Hobgoblins, and suffering a total of 7 hp of damage?

Yes, since as you noted, he's being hit by arrows, so of course he's taking damage, i.e. being wounded.

I don't think these things are presented as taking wounds at all. Which Gygax was aware of, hence writing his explanation of hit points in the PHB and DMG, and the complementary explanation of saving throws in the DMG.

And yet he flat-out says that they're resulting in damage being taken, to the point of spelling out that means physical wounds.

None of which bridges the conceptual gap in 4E, I'll note (again).

 

[Voidmoji]

Yes, and I don't blame you for fixing the problems that 4E as-is presents, but therein lies the rub: in order to fix it, you first have to acknowledge that the problem exists in the first place.

Whether or not you like it, WotC put an entire line's worth of text telling people reading the PHB that healing word is an ability that closes a wound, and did that with reference to the exact same mechanic that the warlord uses for inspiring word, which says that it rallies a character to keep fighting via willpower. Saying that we should ignore that doesn't mean the issue isn't there; just that you're ignoring it.

Sorry if I missed something in the vast array of posts, but are you saying that having a Warlord's Inspiring Word work on the same set of points that a Cleric's Healing Word works upon is the problem, the issue that needs to be acknowledged?

Because I consider that a feature of 4e, and certainly not one that needs fixed.

 

[Alzrius]

Sorry if I missed something in the vast array of posts, but are you saying that having a Warlord's Inspiring Word work on the same set of points that a Cleric's Healing Word works upon is the problem, the issue that needs to be acknowledged?

Because I consider that a feature of 4e, and certainly not one that needs fixed.

To be absolutely clear, I'm saying that having hit point loss/restoration be representative of two different things (i.e. personal stamina and bodily injuries) is a problem, because it creates confusion (for lack of a better term) by having the same mechanic represent multiple things despite only having a single operation. Mechanically, healing word and inspiring word do the same thing, but just read the descriptive text and you can see that that's not the case from an in-character perspective.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to have a stamina depletion mechanism in the game, but not when it's folded into a mechanic that already does something else. That creates burden on the mechanics insofar as representing the game world goes, because you run into a point where someone loses hit points due to an attack inflicting bodily harm on them, and then have those hit points be regained because an ally yelled at them to tough it out.

Now, plenty of people don't seem to care about that burden, but plenty more did, since the issue was one that was perennially raised with regards to criticisms of 4E. I'm suggesting that those could have been avoided if both ideas weren't tied to a single operation.

 

[Lanefan]

At a certain point, why wouldn't you discount the outliers?

Before even knowing whether or not the generic group you're excluding really are outliers?

Sure, after the survey's complete and all the data's been counted, then sure; you can pick and choose what among that data you're going to focus on. But to arbitrarily not count some of the responses at all simply because of what they might say (and, I very much suspect, because what they might say doesn't agree with what you want it to say) is garbage.

That's not willfully ignoring the data, especially because they're not starting from zero in this case — they have context for whatever data they're collecting now because they've done previous market research, they've watched the messageboards/Twitter, they've gone to Cons, etc. Like, what would count as willful ignorance?

Wilful ignorance is when a legitimate piece of gathered data (in this case, a survey response) is ignored due to an arbitrary standard that has nothing to do with the data.

It's the same as if one was conducting one of those "who would you vote for if an election was called today?" polls, and tossing out any responses from people aged 30 or less because you know they're on average likely to vote differently than what you want the poll to reflect.