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

[payn]

I know that topic-drift is a thing, but...let's just say it's been a while since anyone mentioned GenCon 2023.

The thread isnt about GenCon 2023 though either.

 

[payn]

But just to stick with the New Coke analogy though. You are saying that people rejected 4e because it was too many changes, not necessarily the changes themselves. Just that there were too many.

Fair enough.

But that doesn’t really explain the resistance to pointing out that there are changes in 5e that come from 4e. The very strong reactions to any suggestion that 5e shares a lot of DNA with 4e.

In other words it doesn’t explain the 4e cooties.

Im guessing the DNA is palatable things? For example, the hard coded roles and tactical combat is not present in 5E. Nor is there hybrid multiclassing. ADEU is interesting because its sort of still there, its just not the same structure for every class. I can only speak for myself, but the two games dont play much alike, even if they share some design points.

 

[pemerton]

the hard coded roles

I'm not sure what it means to say that 4e has hard coded roles but 5e doesn't.

Do you mean there is more variation in 5e build in general? Or within the structure of a given class? But it's not really possible to build a buffing/healing fighter on a par with a bard or cleric, is it?

 

[pemerton]

I'm not sure that anything is "necessary" for that; if you want to do the work yourself, you can turn chess into a verisimilitudinous and coherent game. It's more of an issue as to whether or not the game system works with you or against you in that regard (or simply offloads the work for doing so onto the GM and players rather than doing the heavy lifting itself), and to what extent.

See, what you call "offloading" I call playing the game.

In a classic D&D dungeon, a wandering monster result produces some Orcs. Where did they come from? We make it up.

As per Gygax's account of saving throws in his DMG, a fighter chained to a rockface makes a save vs Dragon Breath. What happened in the fiction? We make it up. (Gygax offers some suggestions.)

In our 4e game, the fighter pulls a number of opponents closer to him. What happened in the fiction? We make it up. (Normally, given our fighter tended to fight with a honking great polearm, he had wrongfooted his opponents.)

The game system doesn't work against anything in this regard.

 

[payn]

I'm not sure what it means to say that 4e has hard coded roles but 5e doesn't.

Do you mean there is more variation in 5e build in general? Or within the structure of a given class? But it's not really possible to build a buffing/healing fighter on a par with a bard or cleric, is it?

Im thinking more along the lines of the leader, defender, striker, controller roles of each class. 5E multiclassing makes mixing among the roles a possibility that is much more difficult, IME, in 4E.

 

[Alzrius]

But just to stick with the New Coke analogy though. You are saying that people rejected 4e because it was too many changes, not necessarily the changes themselves. Just that there were too many.

"Too many changes" does not mean "it wasn't the changes themselves." If the changes themselves weren't things people were unhappy about, then how many there were wouldn't have been an issue!

Rather, people are willing to accept a certain amount (and degree) of changes that they don't like (with the exact number varying by individual). But pile enough straws on the camel's back, and eventually it will break. You make enough changes that aren't accepted, and eventually that will result in widespread rejection of what's being offered.

But that doesn’t really explain the resistance to pointing out that there are changes in 5e that come from 4e. The very strong reactions to any suggestion that 5e shares a lot of DNA with 4e.

People disagreeing with you is not "strong resistance to pointing out" anything. Leaving aside the "very strong reactions" bit, which strikes me as being an overstatement, the idea that a there's a lot of 4E in 5E isn't some sort of truth-bomb; it's an opinion, one that a lot of people justifiably disagree with.

 

[Alzrius]

See, what you call "offloading" I call playing the game.

In a classic D&D dungeon, a wandering monster result produces some Orcs. Where did they come from? We make it up.

As per Gygax's account of saving throws in his DMG, a fighter chained to a rockface makes a save vs Dragon Breath. What happened in the fiction? We make it up. (Gygax offers some suggestions.)

In our 4e game, the fighter pulls a number of opponents closer to him. What happened in the fiction? We make it up. (Normally, given our fighter tended to fight with a honking great polearm, he had wrongfooted his opponents.)

The game system doesn't work against anything in this regard.

The gamist aspects do require some interpretation, and that's to be expected; no one seriously thinks that the game will give you every possible detail of what's happening for every operation as if you were really there (the only people who tend to bring that up are, in my experience, making a caricature of what they think simulationists want). But different editions have gone to different lengths to define various aspects of play from a simulationist perspective. When you have an ability which can only be used 3/day, there needs to be some sort of explanation regarding that limit, for instance. If the ability is blatantly supernatural, then it's not that hard to come up with one. If it's something that isn't, that can become harder.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Can you provide one example of someone refusing to admit that some things in 5e came from 4e? Please? You've been going on about this for days.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm not sure what it means to say that 4e has hard coded roles but 5e doesn't.

Do you mean there is more variation in 5e build in general? Or within the structure of a given class? But it's not really possible to build a buffing/healing fighter on a par with a bard or cleric, is it?

Well, the book does explicitly tell you which role each class is designed to fill. Like, from a list.

 

[Campbell]

The vast majority of 4e classes had strong support for leaning into secondary combat roles. Fighters could absolutely be built to do a lot of damage or to have stronger control. Paladins could lean into damage or group buffs / healing. Avengers could be incredibly sticky. Barbarians were tough as nails.

You were just basically guaranteed to be competent at your classes' combat role, but that wasn't all there was to that class and its available options. It's just there as a guide when putting a group together, but you could absolutely go with unusual group compositions and still cover your bases fine.