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

[Lanefan]

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?

Who's insisting that?

 

[Lanefan]

Also, I’ll grant that limiting actions to where a character is when they stop moving is artificial. Really, a character’s reach should be all along the path of its movement. What can I say? We give up a lot to have sequential initiative.

Solution, to a certain point anyway: re-roll initiative each round and allow ties.

 

[Voadam]

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?

Actually moving outside of the square is fairly defined mechanically with considerations of attacks of opportunity, movement limits, potential difficult terrain effects, defender powers, etc.

You could do a narrative of an attack that is disassociated from the mechanics that are occurring and narratively moves beyond the movement limits in the six second round and does not draw a triggered ready action attack or provoke from a defender pinning you down with a mark and then returning to the pinned down spot, but that would tend to detract from the visceral connection of mechanics and narrative.

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

Solution, to a certain point anyway: re-roll initiative each round and allow ties.

Dragonbane uses a deck of initiative cards. Since there's no way to get a bonus to initiative in that system anyway it works pretty well. Every player and monster draws a card and the number of the card is their initiative for the turn. When they are done with their turn they flip their card over to indicate they have spent their turn. Next turn everyone draws new initiative cards.

 

[tomBitonti]

That must be because you're bending the fiction to fit the rules!

In fairness, I’m remembering lot of long forgotten issues that I had with 3E, mostly in regards to initiative and to attacks-of-opportunity mechanics. In hindsight, I’m also able to articulate an unease which ultimately was resolved by bounded accuracy, and, having built a few terrain tables, have grown disaffected with the combat grid. I don’t have a strong stance in regards to attitudes towards 5E; my group still uses 3E. But, I can apply the consternation re:5E as a consternation to 3E. That is, if I had a problem with 4E, why didn’t I have a problem with 3E?

The answer is, I suppose, that I did, but there was no alternative. Either get with the program (use 3E) or don’t play. Plus, I liked the crunchyness of 3E, with its keywords and linear (additive) class levels. I was an early Rolemaster devotee years before getting back to D&D, so 3E was an easy sell.

My group never adopted 4E and has no inclination to buy into 5E. 4E changed too much for us, and we didn't really care for how it played. Looking at 5E I feel that I’m going backwards. Also, I feel that 5E is relying on the ghosts of structures provided by 3E and 4E: Natural language descriptions work because folks have a sense of how to give them a consistency using the previous game structures.

I’m rather not looking forward to 5.5E. Jaded that I am, I suspect that eventually there will be a new edition that is changed enough such that new, younger players cannot inherit the books from older, retiring players. Evergreen through forced incompatibility.

TomB

 

[tomBitonti]

Who's insisting that?

Me, although others have similarly opined. In 3E, to move out of your square, you have to use an action (or take a 5’ step). While you can stretch your presence by a 5’ step, you still have to explicitly take that step.
TomB

 

[Hussar]

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.)

I would agree with your point @Snarf Zagyg if there was even the slightest evidence that those who tell everyone they bounced off of 4e were to make even the slightest bit of introspection and realize that the reason they bounced off is largely due to their intransigence over recognizing their own biases and interpretations.

It’s those basic interpretations which make conversation impossible. And any meaningful discussion fruitless because of a complete unwillingness to admit that there is any personal responsibility for not liking 4e. This insistence that there is something wrong with 4e rather than a problem that exists between the observer and the game.

Which makes pointing out any inconsistencies in position impossible since the fault ever lies in the game.

 

[payn]

In fairness, I’m remembering lot of long forgotten issues that I had with 3E, mostly in regards to initiative and to attacks-of-opportunity mechanics. In hindsight, I’m also able to articulate an unease which ultimately was resolved by bounded accuracy, and, having built a few terrain tables, have grown disaffected with the combat grid. I don’t have a strong stance in regards to attitudes towards 5E; my group still uses 3E. But, I can apply the consternation re:5E as a consternation to 3E. That is, if I had a problem with 4E, why didn’t I have a problem with 3E?

The answer is, I suppose, that I did, but there was no alternative. Either get with the program (use 3E) or don’t play. Plus, I liked the crunchyness of 3E, with its keywords and linear (additive) class levels. I was an early Rolemaster devotee years before getting back to D&D, so 3E was an easy sell.

My group never adopted 4E and has no inclination to buy into 5E. 4E changed too much for us, and we didn't really care for how it played. Looking at 5E I feel that I’m going backwards. Also, I feel that 5E is relying on the ghosts of structures provided by 3E and 4E: Natural language descriptions work because folks have a sense of how to give them a consistency using the previous game structures.

I’m rather not looking forward to 5.5E. Jaded that I am, I suspect that eventually there will be a new edition that is changed enough such that new, younger players cannot inherit the books from older, retiring players. Evergreen through forced incompatibility.

TomB

I dont think new, younger players will even be using books.

 

[tomBitonti]

I would agree with your point @Snarf Zagyg if there was even the slightest evidence that those who tell everyone they bounced off of 4e were to make even the slightest bit of introspection and realize that the reason they bounced off is largely due to their intransigence over recognizing their own biases and interpretations.

It’s those basic interpretations which make conversation impossible. And any meaningful discussion fruitless because of a complete unwillingness to admit that there is any personal responsibility for not liking 4e. This insistence that there is something wrong with 4e rather than a problem that exists between the observer and the game.

Which makes pointing out any inconsistencies in position impossible since the fault ever lies in the game.

Eh, lots of us have stated that we just don’t like 4E, as largely a preference. And arguments over what 4E does wrong are from the perspective of a preferred style of play.
I do think that the presentation (marketing, and some of the writing) had faults, hence was arguably objectively wrong. That’s a bit of a tangent, though, since it’s not really about the core of 4E.
TomB

 

[payn]

I would agree with your point @Snarf Zagyg if there was even the slightest evidence that those who tell everyone they bounced off of 4e were to make even the slightest bit of introspection and realize that the reason they bounced off is largely due to their intransigence over recognizing their own biases and interpretations.

It’s those basic interpretations which make conversation impossible. And any meaningful discussion fruitless because of a complete unwillingness to admit that there is any personal responsibility for not liking 4e. This insistence that there is something wrong with 4e rather than a problem that exists between the observer and the game.

Which makes pointing out any inconsistencies in position impossible since the fault ever lies in the game.

Please, I often frame my issues as personal taste. Folks come at me like I kicked their puppy through a brick wall.