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

[Kannik]

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.)

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

That is a neat section of the DMG for a trio of reasons... first, is what you note above. Second, is the intro to the section is pure high Gygaxian in language, talking not only about the history of the saving throw in wargames but also a small treatise on the purpose of the game in creating an epic story/adventure, and with great phrases such as "creating personae and operating them in the milieu created and designed, in whole or in part, by the Dungeon Master." Third is is that, on the same page, is one of the great old "Mad Magazine" type comics the 1E DMG was graced with:

 

[Kannik]

I recall looking into 4e shortly after starting with 5e, and mostly being turned off by the power presentation being so different. I've been thinking of giving the PHB another go recently, but I've heard a lot that the math was all broken on release, so never really felt like it was worth the trouble, mostly just focusing on PF2, that seems pretty similar.

The math is not super broken, there's only really two things: one was monster values*, which was fixed in Monster Manual 3 and the Monster Vault. So if you use the monsters from those volumes (and the Vault republishes monsters from the earlier Monster Manuals so you won't 'lose' anything) then you're pretty golden. The other one was a trio feat 'fixes' in the form of the Expertise (bonus to hit per tier) and Focus (bonus to damage per tier) type feats as well as a Defensive feat. An easy and common house rule is to simply give one of each type of those feats for free around 5-8th level.

And, as that implies, the math around these earliest levels works just fine if you'd like to give the game a try for an extended time. Which I'd invite you to give it a whirl!

 

[Kannik]

Were this the case in a game I was in I'd be annoyed with it too; but we just use straight-line measurements for such things (when they matter) that neither snap-to-grid nor stick to the eight cardinal directions.

All hail the majesty of the hexagon, the bestagon!

(Gridless is cool too, just having fun...)

 

[James Gasik]

One interesting thing about the Great Edition War was how people bounced off of the requirement of 4e to use minis/tokens and a tactical map. 3e was certainly designed with this sort of thing in mind, and there are examples in the rulebooks showing tokens on a tactical map to explain things like attacks of opportunity. Characters got powers that granted additional or alternative methods of movement, 5' steps were a thing, etc. etc..

So when they said 4e was designed to use a map and mini/tokens, I was like, yeah ok, I've been using both extensively since 2000? In fact, after starting to use them, after my "theatre of the mind" AD&D years, I found a lot of the little headaches I used to have with arguments about who is where and how did that goblin attack me vanished, so I almost always use them, save for small skirmishes where it really doesn't matter.

So what was the problem? It seemed to come down to two sticking points. The streamlined rules for diagonals (leading to one of my favorite 4e-isms, the dread FIRECUBE!) and "squares of movement".

See, while races generally moved at the same speed as they did in 3e, rather than say "30' movement", suddenly Humans had 6 squares of movement. Even though squares were still 5' x 5', so it wasn't hard to figure out how much distance was being crossed, this apparently was "too gamist" for some. They pointed at the forced movement and zones and pointed out how this game was designed to be used with maps and tokens (just like 3e was!) and said "you'll take my Theatre of the Mind away from me when I'm dead and buried!", even though 3e had the same things (though they were more common in 4e).

In the end, 4e's presentation and it's marketing doomed it more than the actual game did. That and the fact that, as I said way upthread, the fact that not everyone was ready for a new edition, or hadn't yet experienced the more experimental concepts of late 3.5, like the Warlock, the Miniatures Handbook, or the Tome of Battle.

And while 3e made a lot of changes to 3.5, they were largely culled from late 2e and popular house rules. Enough stuff stayed the same that while people did reject some 3eisms, they grumbled and sallied forth (I recall a fantastic debate about "attacks of opportunity" where I pointed out they were directly inspired by AD&D attacks on retreating characters, and were actually created in late 2e to people who thought this "new" rule would destroy the game (or something, it's been 24 years).

The Miniatures Handbook, interestingly, is a piece of the puzzle I hadn't considered before, but makes this push for 4e to be played with a battle map come into sharp focus. During 3.5, WotC attempted to make a miniatures game for D&D (far from the first time this has happened) that used very compatible rules with 3.5.

They produced a line of plastic miniatures to go with the game. But the game flopped, yet they had all these miniatures that weren't selling...and wouldn't you know it, it was for my 4e game that I bought like 50 goblins (among other things) from this line cheaply online!

 

[Lanefan]

Regarding roles, I always thought that classes in other edition had one, the only difference is that 4e decided to be transparent about it. I never thought the idea behind them was to make it more gamist, but simply a tool to help players pick and understand the class they're about to play and help make a balanced party if that's what you want to do. Players wanting to cover each role when building their party is no more different than the classic ''We need a cleric'' or ''we need a thief'' in other editions. It's encouraged, but not necessary, I mastered a couple of 4e campaign where not every role were covered and it still went smoothly, the party just changed their approach accordingly, just like in other editions.

Part of the issue there was, I think, that in at least one major instance the role of a class was changed from what it had long been seen as to something else. That instance was the Fighter, long seen as both the main damage dealer AND tank being changed to "defender", with its damage-dealing side stripped off to other "striker" classes; one of which (Rogue) was mostly seen prior as an occasional damage-dealer and otherwise non-combatant.

So yes, they codifed the roles...but also changed some of them in ways that might not have been as popular as expected.

You want to play a ranger? well, know that the class is considered a striker, so you should do a lot of damage in combat, move a lot, but have poor defense and/or health so you gotta be careful, position will be important.

Another awful role definition, but this one's a 2e error that perpetuated.

You want to play an Invoker? as a controller, while in combat, you should have a lot of powers that do area damage and/or debuff the enemy, so it will be about zone control. You would like to be the kind of character that protect your allies in combat and is not afraid to go in the front line? That sounds like the role of a defender, so let's see what classes are considered defenders... you have the fighter, the swordmage, the paladin, the warden, the battlemind... let's dive in those classes to learn a little bit more about them and see what would fit what you have in mind...

If you're gonna have roles (and I'm not sure they add much if anything) they absolutely have to encompass things other than just combat.

The Ranger's role should be something like "explorer". The Bard's, "talker". The Rogue's, "scout" or "looter". Etc.

 

[Lanefan]

So when they said 4e was designed to use a map and mini/tokens, I was like, yeah ok, I've been using both extensively since 2000? In fact, after starting to use them, after my "theatre of the mind" AD&D years, I found a lot of the little headaches I used to have with arguments about who is where and how did that goblin attack me vanished, so I almost always use them, save for small skirmishes where it really doesn't matter.

We've used a grid and minis since before I started in 1982, mostly to avoid the bolded piece. 10' squares, though; nothing "snapped to grid", circular things are circular, and in an open area you can move any direction you like (assuming no obstruction) and we'll just measure the distance by eyeball or a bit of string rather than count squares if your movement doesn't happen to line up either straight or diagonal sacross the squares.

See, while races generally moved at the same speed as they did in 3e, rather than say "30' movement", suddenly Humans had 6 squares of movement. Even though squares were still 5' x 5', so it wasn't hard to figure out how much distance was being crossed, this apparently was "too gamist" for some.

Changing feet to squares always seemed like an unnecessary complication when we already have a measurement (feet) that works just fine and is more relatable to real life. I can easily visualize in my mind what a 20-foot distance looks like, but to do the same in squares (or meters, for that matter) I first have to convert it to feet - an extra step.

My guess is the 'squares' bit was done to appeal to metric types who don't use feet.

And while 3e made a lot of changes to 3.5, they were largely culled from late 2e and popular house rules. Enough stuff stayed the same that while people did reject some 3eisms, they grumbled and sallied forth (I recall a fantastic debate about "attacks of opportunity" where I pointed out they were directly inspired by AD&D attacks on retreating characters,

And then, as with most shiny new design ideas, vastly overused. Adv-disadv in 5e is the same way.

 

[James Gasik]

We've used a grid and minis since before I started in 1982, mostly to avoid the bolded piece. 10' squares, though; nothing "snapped to grid", circular things are circular, and in an open area you can move any direction you like (assuming no obstruction) and we'll just measure the distance by eyeball or a bit of string rather than count squares if your movement doesn't happen to line up either straight or diagonal sacross the squares.

Oh to be sure, the game could be played with maps and such from a very early stage (it was born as a mod to a wargame after all). I remember a fun discussion on this topic too. "Why do you think AD&D races have their movement speed expressed in inches?". 12" movement for humans? That'd be 12 5' squares, so 60', which is a 3e "double move".

Of course, I didn't realize that myself until the late 90's- when I played AD&D, we never used a battle map, and none of my DM's ever seemed to concerned with how much time it took to get places on dungeon maps- I mean, they could have been, but often it felt like some arbitrary unit of time was decided on the spot.

Which always struck me as odd considering how emphatic Gary was about timekeeping in the DMG!

 

[Aldarc]

One thing that I love and respect about squares of movement, more nowadays than when I was first playing then, is how it's measurement neutral with respect to US/UK imperial to metric units. For almost a decade, I have played with European players who sometimes gripe about imperial units. This sidesteps all of that.

Changing feet to squares always seemed like an unnecessary complication when we already have a measurement (feet) that works just fine and is more relatable to real life. I can easily visualize in my mind what a 20-foot distance looks like, but to do the same in squares (or meters, for that matter) I first have to convert it to feet - an extra step.

My guess is the 'squares' bit was done to appeal to metric types who don't use feet.

Yeah, funny thing about that. Feet are more difficult for my players to visualize because they think of distances in meters. The use of feet is less relatable to real life for them. They can easily visualize in their mind what a 6-meter distance looks like, but trying to do the same in feet requires an extra step.

 

[James Gasik]

Yeah, D&D is pretty weird in metric. I remember White Wolf's solution to this with Revised Edition- suddenly everything was measured in yards/meters.

 

[pemerton]

If you're gonna have roles (and I'm not sure they add much if anything) they absolutely have to encompass things other than just combat.

In 4e this is handled via the skill system. Each class signals its non-combat "role" in virtue of the skills it encompasses, and the stats it prioritises. Additional information would be redundant.