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

[Snarf Zagyg]

The 1e DMG had setting rules as well, as did sources like the Dungeoneer's and Wilderness Survival Guides. Lots of tables, mostly, but I'm a big fan of tables.

All ur tablez r belong to Gygax.

The High Gygaxian Table of Tables

Roll to see how many tables you need for your book.

00 – 10 The number of tables you wanted, doubled.
11 – 25 Hyperlinks to even moar tablez.
26 – 35 More tables than Ikea has meatballs, or tables.
36 – 50 A table for every awesome name in Greyhawk. Melf went to Verbobonc. Heh.
51 – 65 Sixteen appendices, full of tables.
66 – 75 Every table has four legs, and each leg is a table. Tables, all the way down.
76 – 85 You know the story by Borges? Library of Babel? Yeah, like that. But tables instead of books.
86 – 90 One table, that is a meta-table, that contains all the tables, including the meta-table. Godel to the yodel, yo.
91 – 92 Only one table, but that table is actually another copy of the book in its entirety.
93 – 94 Three tables- snow, frost, and ice.
95 – 98 No tables, because they were destroyed by the Scarlet Brotherhood.
99 – 00 Roll twice, add the results.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Not to derail the thread, but I still recall the "end" of 1e, or, at least, what I consider the end.

It was 1985, and the publication of OA and UA. Personally, I found OA to be an amazing book, filled with great ideas and good design. UA, on the other hand, was an unmitigated mess- a bunch of bad Dragon articles hastily assembled into a cash grab without any concern regarding the actual game.

That said, I generally agree with you- IME, most tables adopted parts (or all) of UA, while very few used OA.

At the time, we treated OA as a separate game, but nowadays I would have integrated it.

 

[James Gasik]

Now what I will say about older D&D and setting elements is you found a TON of such things in Dragon magazine, as opposed to the rulebooks. The loss of Dragon was a major blow to the game and hobby, IMO.

 

[Voadam]

That said, I generally agree with you- IME, most tables adopted parts (or all) of UA, while very few used OA.

Well it is mostly fantasy Japanese specific alt classes of the same niches as the PH classes and had a somewhat inconsistent level of proficiencies compared to PH classes so integrating the nonweapon proficiencies was not straightforward. The honor and clan stuff is also fairly niche style specific and does not integrate well with generic D&D.

Even so my group adopted bunches of it fairly straightforwardly. I remember someone using the OA monk in my Greyhawk campaign for a few games while my fighter learned OA martial arts when in a fantasy Mongolia and Japan and my wizard picked up fantastic Wu-Jen spells and used charm monster to get a jishin mushi earthquake beetle as a friendly companion for a while. Most people stuck to more core D&D stuff, but it was there as options for us as players and DMs.

 

[Alzrius]

The honor and clan stuff is also fairly niche style specific and does not integrate well with generic D&D.

I always wanted to reskin the honor mechanic as a substitute for paladins staying true to their code of conduct, but never had a chance to implement that.

 

[Lanefan]

One of the most surprising, to me anyway things that came out of the whole 4e thing was this notion that D&D in any edition has ever supported simulationist play.

Well, the discussions about gamism v simulationism (a.k.a. realism) go way back into the 1e days, at least around here: I can remember sitting through many such an argument over tea or beer during the mid '80s.

Because even then some of us saw the potential for 1e, with some tweaking (which we were already doing anyway), to become considerably less gamist and - to a certain extent - more simulationist, if never truly realist.

 

[Lanefan]

That's only one option, though. As Red Castle pointed out, the healing surge system in 4E literally is "a body-fatigue system", in that healing surges can be drained by undead, or by physical exhaustion, sometimes as a consequence of a failed skill challenge, for example, so they represent your overall vitality until you get a long rest. And your ability to heal is mostly limited/capped by your physical and mental reserves (remaining surges).

Perhaps that's a different way of achieving the same ends.

Well, D&D has always done "full combat effectiveness" or "unconscious". And the "comatose and then combat ineffective" rules for going below 0 in 1E, and the equivalent optional rule in 2E are just "full combat effectiveness" or "totally incapacitated".

What we added in (and I think it would be a good amendment to the 1-2e rules overall) is that if you're at or below 0 but still at -9 or better, you roll to see if you remain conscious. If you are, you're severely curtailed in what you can do and how effective you can be but you can at least try to do some things; and you bleed out a bit slower.

Though in practice I always saw people ignore the lingering incapacitation rules in AD&D because it was too awkward and annoying to have a party member left behind or have to put the whole adventure on hold while the party waited for the wounded person to recover.

We have our own lingering-injuries system, slightly less harsh than 1e-as-written but it can still leave someone recovering for days on end, and it's never ignored.

 

[Voadam]

I always wanted to reskin the honor mechanic as a substitute for paladins staying true to their code of conduct, but never had a chance to implement that.

Not me. I disliked the honor stuff in OA from day one and never wanted to roleplay it or track it or impose it on a game I was DMing.

 

[Mannahnin]

What we added in (and I think it would be a good amendment to the 1-2e rules overall) is that if you're at or below 0 but still at -9 or better, you roll to see if you remain conscious. If you are, you're severely curtailed in what you can do and how effective you can be but you can at least try to do some things; and you bleed out a bit slower.

We have our own lingering-injuries system, slightly less harsh than 1e-as-written but it can still leave someone recovering for days on end, and it's never ignored.

I dig how Nightmares Underneath does it, which seems somewhat similar, with the roll to remain conscious when you take Health damage, and the chance of lasting injuries, etc.

In my 5 Torches Deep & B/X mashup I ran for the last three years I had PCs go unconscious at zero, auto-dead if knocked to -5 or below, and otherwise, when bandaged or healed you roll d20 on an injury chart. Roughly... 1-2 Dead, 3-8 lose d6 from a random ability score (can be recovered at a rate of d6 points per week of rest), 8-12 roll on sub-table* for scar or lasting injury, 13-19 disadvantage on all d20 rolls until you get a night's rest, 20 instantly ok and gain d6HP back.

Retainers and Henchmen also had to take an additional roll BEFORE getting to roll on the injury chart. On a 1 they're instantly dead. Retainers roll a d4, Henchmen roll a d6. Fate/the gods protect PCs a little more.

*Lasting injuries table:
Roll D8 + D12

2 --------- 1.04 % ---- Lose an Eye -1 TH melee, -3 TH ranged, flanking enemies get +2 TH
3 --------- 2.08 % ---- Lose a Leg/Foot - half MV speed, -2 AC
4-7 ------ 18.75 % -- Limp - 5’ MV speed (can be cumulative)
8-11 ---- 32.29 % -- Minor Scar - No penalty! Record/describe location & story. [Can also be a lost finger]
12-13 -- 16.67 % -- Broken Ribs - Disadv. on all checks, half move rate, 1 mth to recover or Cure Serious W
14-15 -- 13.54 % -- Internal Injury - Disadv. all checks, 1/2 mv, DC11 CN to recover w/disadv, check 1x /week
16-17 -- 9.38 % ---- Horrible Scar - 1 permanent Charisma, record/describe location & story
18-19 -- 5.21 % ---- Festering Wound - As internal injury and -1 HP per Unsafe Rest, no HP recovery Safe Rest
20 ------- 1.04 % ---- Lose an Arm/Hand – Cannot use that limb to hold or use items.

 

[Hussar]

Snip.

And that's the problem. Why are you laughing at someone who says they enjoy simulation? They aren't saying that their fantasy game is "real." Or that they think that hit points is a 100% accurate representation of combat. Instead, they are saying that they prefer games that largely follow the cause-and-effect of in-game logic, and don't sacrifice that for story reasons.

That's a reasonable position and difference to articulate; arguably, that's one reason that people either did (and did not) enjoy 4e, which had an emphasis of "getting to the good stuff."

It's important to understand what the actual objection is.

Note I would never laugh at anyone for liking simulation. Hell I do too. I will somewhat giggle at people who insist they play DnD because of the simulation tendencies.

DnD rules rarely ever followed cause and effect and have always sacrificed that for story reasons.

Look I get that people drifted their game that way. No worries. But we aren’t talking about your game or my game or someone else’s game.


It’s like watching someone insist they love off reading but hate the new Porsche because it’s a poor off road ever but then insisting that other Porches are great off roaders and that’s why they drive them.

No. I disagree. “Simulation” is indeed jargon. But it is jargon for “game I don’t like but I feel the need to pretend that I need to justify my preferences and prove that my preferences are based on anything other than just my preferences “