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

[Aldarc]

Not sure if my 4E experience was unusual or not. I hated it without having played it, because everything was off about it.

The setting was wrong, they screwed over alignments (LE is THE evil alignment why was it removed? And why did they remove CG?), they changed the planes, skill challenges felt very rough, everything was called "powers", the book had a "weird" presentation if you were used to 3.0 and 3.5. Funnily enough the only opinion I had on classes was that I wanted casters to use a spell system instead of the AE-whatever-it's-called system (a system which I liked on martials).

These were ironically things - particularly the setting, alignments, and planes - that I loved about 4e that pulled me back to D&D after playing other d20 games. Because the Nentir Vale and the World Axis cosmology just "clicked" for me in a way that the Great Wheel and older settings I had been exposed to during my 3e days (e.g., Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Planescape, etc.) had not. I think that a lot of that was the "made for adventure" vibes and the strong Chaoskampf motif, which I'm fairly certain was the influence of James Wyatt.

I also almost felt that those alignment changes were made for me. For example, I never really saw much of a point in a difference between CG and NG or LE and NE, and I felt that CN was an excuse to skirt around playing CE, and so on. I'm not really the biggest fan of alignment, but these alignment changes made a lot more sense to me, particularly in light of the aforementioned Chaoskampf motif.

 

[payn]

Not sure if my 4E experience was unusual or not. I hated it without having played it, because everything was off about it.

The setting was wrong, they screwed over alignments (LE is THE evil alignment why was it removed? And why did they remove CG?), they changed the planes, skill challenges felt very rough, everything was called "powers", the book had a "weird" presentation if you were used to 3.0 and 3.5. Funnily enough the only opinion I had on classes was that I wanted casters to use a spell system instead of the AE-whatever-it's-called system (a system which I liked on martials).

Our group switched over from 3.5 to PF and when that campaign was over a player took over from me as a GM and he ran a short 4E adventure. The system was a lot better than I expected. I played a fighter and another player who had previously burned out on playing a rogue in PF tried bard and was pretty happy about it.

However, that GM wanted to run adventure paths so we switched to Pathfinder again for a long time. Later on another GM wanted to run 5E with us so we jumped on that, running two campaigns in parallel. I was initially very positive to 5E, having game mastered a short adventure in it earlier, but now that we switched to a longer campaign I began to sour on it. As I played a fighter I realised that you barely have any options, and you suck, relatively speaking. The longer we played, the more this was obvious. Things like how bounded accuracy seems like a good idea, but it doesn't work if some classes get to ignore it (cough casters cough).

Then we tried PF2 and it's funny how much that feels like it is inspired by 4E without actually having anything from the presentation of 4E in it.

My groups experience was different. They mostly didnt want to learn 4E because they had finally reached a point they had a handle on 3E. It was up to me to champion 4E, but I was a bit skeptical of doing that. My group stayed with 3E while I played some 4E on the side. I didnt come around, but thats not important. We moved to Pathfinder and ran APs pretty much for the next decade up until covid killed our face to face group. Looking back, I was the trend setter and didnt go to 4E, so the group never went either. I think 3E/PF1 got long in the tooth well before we stopped. It was the regular adventure paths that kept us going for all this time. I think about 5E and why Ive only had a few campaigns in the last ten years. The system is ok, not my preferred. It's the lack of good adventures with many options to choose from that seems to keep me from coming around.

Now this is just me, but im curious how many others are effected by setting and/or adventure material? I do know that early 4E adventures were not rated highly (Id agree). Though, also PF2 early adventures also are not rated highly either. The Paizo adventure writers admitted to not really groking PF2 yet, so naturally the adventures suffered for it. So, this isnt an element that is unique to 4E, but definitely something to add to the list of things that went wrong at launch to think about. I know its a comon saying that "APs are for readin, not for playin" from folks. Many others dont like them at all. I wonder how much of that is due to edition change hangovers for writers in general?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Now this is just me, but im curious how many others are effected by setting and/or adventure material? I do know that early 4E adventures were not rated highly (Id agree). Though, also PF2 early adventures also are not rated highly either. The Paizo adventure writers admitted to not really groking PF2 yet, so naturally the adventures suffered for it. So, this isnt an element that is unique to 4E, but definitely something to add to the list of things that went wrong at launch to think about. I know its a comon saying that "APs are for readin, not for playin" from folks. Many others dont like them at all. I wonder how much of that is due to edition change hangovers for writers in general?

On a personal level, adventures are virtually irrelevant to me; I don't use them as a GM, and never have, no matter the system.

Setting material is a more complex question. Generally I bake my own settings, but sometimes what I'm wanting to focus on isn't that, so I'll use an extent one--or be attracted to run the system in the first place by setting. So it has some thumb on the scale, but I wouldn't usually say a strong one.

 

[payn]

On a personal level, adventures are virtually irrelevant to me; I don't use them as a GM, and never have, no matter the system.

Setting material is a more complex question. Generally I bake my own settings, but sometimes what I'm wanting to focus on isn't that, so I'll use an extent one--or be attracted to run the system in the first place by setting. So it has some thumb on the scale, but I wouldn't usually say a strong one.

I can see that as a response from someone who doesnt buy heavily of the product. The amount of folks that subbed to Paizo's monthly publication, and their enthusiasm online about that, tells me its not insignificant to the lifespan of 3E/PF1.

 

[James Gasik]

My groups experience was different. They mostly didnt want to learn 4E because they had finally reached a point they had a handle on 3E. It was up to me to champion 4E, but I was a bit skeptical of doing that. My group stayed with 3E while I played some 4E on the side. I didnt come around, but thats not important. We moved to Pathfinder and ran APs pretty much for the next decade up until covid killed our face to face group. Looking back, I was the trend setter and didnt go to 4E, so the group never went either. I think 3E/PF1 got long in the tooth well before we stopped. It was the regular adventure paths that kept us going for all this time. I think about 5E and why Ive only had a few campaigns in the last ten years. The system is ok, not my preferred. It's the lack of good adventures with many options to choose from that seems to keep me from coming around.

Now this is just me, but im curious how many others are effected by setting and/or adventure material? I do know that early 4E adventures were not rated highly (Id agree). Though, also PF2 early adventures also are not rated highly either. The Paizo adventure writers admitted to not really groking PF2 yet, so naturally the adventures suffered for it. So, this isnt an element that is unique to 4E, but definitely something to add to the list of things that went wrong at launch to think about. I know its a comon saying that "APs are for readin, not for playin" from folks. Many others dont like them at all. I wonder how much of that is due to edition change hangovers for writers in general?

Oh early 4e adventures were horrible. And trying to shoehorn settings that weren't built with the new rules in mind didn't work so well either. Eberron, in particular, was built around 3.5 assumptions. Moving it into 4e (or even 5e, for that matter) has done the setting no good. Ditto for Dark Sun, which was meant for demigods with innate psionic abilities in a post-apocalyptic world, not regular 4e characters with a "wild talent" feat that basically gave you a cantrip!

I was on the fence about the Forgotten Realms- I felt the setting could use a shakeup, but so much of the old lore was rendered moot, and some of the changes were fairly heavy handed and served no purpose. That even WotC failed to do anything interesting with Returned Abeir or what they did to Unther was fairly telling as well.

Now when they leaned into what their rules system was good at, there were some really great adventures- the Scales of War adventure path (a sort of sequel to the excellent Red Hand of Doom) was really cool The Chaos Scar, what we got of it, was also neat, if plagued by delays.

 

[payn]

Oh early 4e adventures were horrible. And trying to shoehorn settings that weren't built with the new rules in mind didn't work so well either. Eberron, in particular, was built around 3.5 assumptions. Moving it into 4e (or even 5e, for that matter) has done the setting no good. Ditto for Dark Sun, which was meant for demigods with innate psionic abilities in a post-apocalyptic world, not regular 4e characters with a "wild talent" feat that basically gave you a cantrip!

I was on the fence about the Forgotten Realms- I felt the setting could use a shakeup, but so much of the old lore was rendered moot, and some of the changes were fairly heavy handed and served no purpose. That even WotC failed to do anything interesting with Returned Abeir or what they did to Unther was fairly telling as well.

Now when they leaned into what their rules system was good at, there were some really great adventures- the Scales of War adventure path (a sort of sequel to the excellent Red Hand of Doom) was really cool The Chaos Scar, what we got of it, was also neat, if plagued by delays.

Oh, yeah I've never been into Forgettable Realms, but I know it's very popular with folks. The 4E changes, for better or worse, was a big wedge issue for folks. More launch stuff that was such a turn off that folks didnt stick around for the better/good stuff.

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

Oh, yeah I've never been into Forgettable Realms, but I know it's very popular with folks. The 4E changes, for better or worse, was a big wedge issue for folks. More launch stuff that was such a turn off that folks didnt stick around for the better/good stuff.

Yes I think there's a lot of conservatism around things like setting changes more so than rule changes.

The Swedish rpg Drakar & Demoner went through a similar thing in the 90s when they released Drakar & Demoner Chronopia, which was the fourth (or was it fifth?) edition of the system. Instead of keeping the old campaign world they made one that absolutely oozed Warhammer Fantasy. It was very much a dark-and-edgy-90s style setting and it very much clashed with the more traditionalist Lord of the Rings influenced setting that it used to have. This drew ire from fans of the earlier editions and many complaints were heard.

In my opinion the Chronopia setting was pretty good, but it was not what people were expecting.

 

[pemerton]

in 4e the mechanics are king, and the description has no effect on the action beyond entertainment and potentially a sense of immersion

(1) No one has explained how 3E, 5e or even AD&D is different in this particular respect, when it comes to combat resolution. Upthread, when I asked how you resolve "I cut off their head!" followed by a successful attack roll you explained how you follow the mechanics and ignore the description of the action.

(2) What you say is not true of 4e D&D, as page 42 of the DMG explains.

(3) If - as you have claimed - there are no coherent narratives available, then the narration of something coherent actually does serve a purpose in itself, namely, it establishes coherence in the fiction.

 

[Hussar]

It does sound like you just want a generic fantasy RPG system and legacy means little. Thats fine, but it shouldn't be surprising when folks dont want that. I mean, Monopoly would be better if redesigned as a Euro, but it wouldn't be "Monopoly" to many folks anymore.

See to me legacy has never meant much in DnD. Every edition from Basic/Expert to Adnd to 3e to 4e has been a massive rewrite to the game. Huge changes.

So I find the notion of legacy to be rather baffling.

 

[Micah Sweet]

(1) No one has explained how 3E, 5e or even AD&D is different in this particular respect, when it comes to combat resolution. Upthread, when I asked how you resolve "I cut off their head!" followed by a successful attack roll you explained how you follow the mechanics and ignore the description of the action.

(2) What you say is not true of 4e D&D, as page 42 of the DMG explains.

(3) If - as you have claimed - there are no coherent narratives available, then the narration of something coherent actually does serve a purpose in itself, namely, it establishes coherence in the fiction.

Page 42 is even more clear about this, as it provides a DC and damage matrix (rules widget) to apply to any situation not otherwise covered. It's the epitome of Mechanics are King.