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

[Voadam]

This still comes down to making the fiction bend to the rules, rather than the opposite; which is a fundamental problem for some.

That this fiction-bending is here put on the player's plate doesn't change what it is.

Generally the rules are designed to match some cool fiction then turned into cool generally applicable game mechanics, they are not just bald game mechanics divorced from any fictions.

The difference of making up narration to fit or bending the rules for the situation only comes up in corner cases against not typical situations.

My instinct is to apply the RAW fairly strictly and make narration work where I can, but be flexible on unwritten narrative stuff. So if magic missile says target creature then I envision a Shadowrun mana type mechanic that attacks the animating force of a living being, a spirit, a construct, or an undead, but does nothing against inaminate objects like a lock. If I can narratively conceive of a blow knocking an ooze prone and imposing the prone condition on it which it is not immune to, I go with it. When a 5e PC asks whether heat metal can target a metal construct monster or PC warforged, something not directly covered as far as I can tell, I say sure, but their melee attacks and grappling are burning hot as well.

 

[pemerton]

This still comes down to making the fiction bend to the rules

You mean like insisting that the fighter can't move outside of a 5' x 5' area when making a melee attack, because their token is not being moved from the square it occupies?

 

[Red Castle]

Describing what you do when you engage the rules widget is definitional to playing an RPG though.

If your players don't care whether describing what they do makes any sense unless they have to, and even then they won't put much effort into it, I suggest to you that the problem is not with the rules.

This reminds me... is there something more boring than a player that just say 'I attack' during his turn?... Please, at least give me a little description... something...

'I attack... with my sword!'...

 

[payn]

This reminds me... is there something more boring than a player that just say 'I attack' during his turn?... Please, at least give me a little description... something...

'I attack... with my sword!'...

Its enough for me. I want combat over quickly, so I can get back to exploration and social activities.

 

[billd91]

And no I don't accept your framing that I'm "attacking your personal experiences." I'm arguing your general framing of these issues, your explanations, and your understanding of the ruleset (whether that be how the exception-based design works or how to deploy trivial workarounds of these "problems") is the primary factor in these conversations. I mean, we're still having conversations that are illustrating clearly improper understanding and deployment of the ruleset (like Force Movement without Line of Effect or not understanding that Forced Movement into Hindering Terrain gives a Saving Throw to the creature) just like so many of these conversations of yore like "can a fire keyword effect ignite combustible materials?"

No I don't accept partial responsibility for your perplexing hatred (not that you wouldn't like the ruleset...that it would animate you to come to a 4e thread and write posts like this) of a ruleset these 15 years later. I will accept responsibility for saying correct and useful things to you that are helpful to both you, should you decide to play 4e at some point (!), and to any folks who aren't aware of how these things come together and therefore might come to wrong conclusions.

See, this is a thread about how things went wrong with 4e. So those of us participating in this thread about where and how 4e lost us are part of how things went wrong (and appeared to have some predictability if Ben Riggs's information on the design process of 4e is correct). So it's not like any of us are barging into a thread unwelcome. And yet, whenever we do relate our experiences and objections to elements of the game, we constantly get told that we didn't understand the game or its design which is SUCH a constructive and welcoming response. Some of us played it for months - and still our experiences and impressions are rejected by you and have been for 15 years. So yeah, you TOTALLY bear no responsibility for the conflict going on and on.

 

[Aldarc]

I don't know how yours do it, but mine just don't look back.

Out of sight, out of damage.

 

[MichaelSomething]

You are remembering Chris Perkins running a session where someone tried to use Faerie Fire to burn down a door.

Anyway, the DMG has a discussion of setting things alight with fire powers, on pp 65-66.

He was right for the wrong reasons. Faerie Fire isn't actually fire. It's more of a flash light. A DM could rule a power would be required to have the fire keyword to burn stuff.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

See, this is a thread about how things went wrong with 4e. So those of us participating in this thread about where and how 4e lost us are part of how things went wrong (and appeared to have some predictability if Ben Riggs's information on the design process of 4e is correct). So it's not like any of us are barging into a thread unwelcome. And yet, whenever we do relate our experiences and objections to elements of the game, we constantly get told that we didn't understand the game or its design which is SUCH a constructive and welcoming response. Some of us played it for months - and still our experiences and impressions are rejected by you and have been for 15 years. So yeah, you TOTALLY bear no responsibility for the conflict going on and on.

Yep. I might not have put it exactly like that, but you're not wrong.

This thread was (ostensibly) about the recent revelations regarding the design process of 4e that were revealed. And how some of them were new, and some of them corroborated things we already knew.

For example, I had previously written an abbreviated history that detailed, inter alia, that people were aware that 4e was going to be divisive, and that this was so obvious that when Paizo went to playtest it, it gave them the confidence to pursue PF.

However, I didn't know that people on the design team were trying to raise the alarm unsuccessfully.

While thread drift is certainly a thing, and people can talk about what they want to, it does seem weird for people to come in to this thread in particular and lecture everyone about how they didn't get 4e, and it was actually perfect.

Okay, not weird. Completely predictable. But still.

(And I will reiterate that I think that 4e was a well-designed game, and that I am glad it happened, but I also think that it should be possible to have rationale conversations about the ways in which it didn't work for the target market without rehashing old debates that are no longer relevant.)

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, when I read and apply the rules of 4e game I get an awesome game of fantasy heroics.

When you do it, you get a game in which combatants are glued to the ground, movement is stop motion, and notionally skilled warriors can't exert any martial influence over opponents three or so metres away.

To me, this seems to make clear who has the better grasp of the fiction-mechanics relationship intended by the game.

Right, which is why I bounced off 4e and don't play it anymore. I'm comfortable with that.

And I understand the relationship fine, but I don't agree with it and I don't like it. I don't want to play that way.

 

[MichaelSomething]

After a decade of writing up 3E style NPCs, getting your plots bypassed by the right spell at the right time, and recalculating stats on your turn, I would rewrite 3E too.