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

[AbdulAlhazred]

Hmmm... I don't know if I can agree. 4E has narrative mechanics that resemble some narrative mechanics in HQ, but in HQ that's the core mechanic that guides every type of action; in 4E, they're given for specific non-combat, non-magical challenges only.

Well, I use SC almost exclusively, so it's very much governing every action. Even if you don't always use them, you can't get XP and arguably complete quests otherwise, unless you run a 100% combat game, which goes against the adventure structure rules. So BY-THE-BOOK SC are basically the primary resolution mechanism of 4e.

 

[Hussar]

The whole point of the tag was the get those two groups to a point that was close enough together to both by 5e, and that principle continued to be the guiding light inside all of 5e's design, and while that particular example didn't come through, the underlying principle worked perfectly! The thing is, the group complaining about dragonborn is pretty marginalized now. No significant amount of voices are seriously arguing they should be removed from the PHB, and we're getting more ancestries, not less in the 2024 version.

A very good point.

 

[RealAlHazred]

Hmmm... I don't know if I can agree. 4E has narrative mechanics that resemble some narrative mechanics in HQ, but in HQ that's the core mechanic that guides every type of action; in 4E, they're given for specific non-combat, non-magical challenges only.

After further thought, I guess I can agree. Of the official D&Ds, 4E is "most similar" but it's still far removed.

Well, I use SC almost exclusively, so it's very much governing every action. Even if you don't always use them, you can't get XP and arguably complete quests otherwise, unless you run a 100% combat game, which goes against the adventure structure rules. So BY-THE-BOOK SC are basically the primary resolution mechanism of 4e.

Sure, but if you tried using SC in place of combat you'd get rebellion. That said, I think I remember someone coming up with a SC for a magical contest, but my 4E players didn't want to use it since, "magic is powers." So, again, I don't think it's that similar. That said, 4E is definitely the most "narrative" of them as far as mechanics baking the narrativism in. But Basic D&D feels closer, since the way we played it there was a lot of narrative action that was defined by player decisions without the weight of the mechanical systems that were added in later editions.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The point was lost on you because adventures have pull for those folks. They hung out longer for the system because that need was met.

Ah, you were asking a rhetorical question. I'd missed that.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

After further thought, I guess I can agree. Of the official D&Ds, 4E is "most similar" but it's still far removed.

Sure, but if you tried using SC in place of combat you'd get rebellion. That said, I think I remember someone coming up with a SC for a magical contest, but my 4E players didn't want to use it since, "magic is powers." So, again, I don't think it's that similar. That said, 4E is definitely the most "narrative" of them as far as mechanics baking the narrativism in. But Basic D&D feels closer, since the way we played it there was a lot of narrative action that was defined by player decisions without the weight of the mechanical systems that were added in later editions.

You could easily build an SC-based combat system though. I mean, 4e is designed around tactical combat with a high degree of assertion by the rules of how most things will go, but SCs are pretty structured and would go well with a narrativist approach. I think the problem with something like B/X is, yes its simple and 'narrative' in the sense of 'you talk through most stuff, maybe with a sprinkle of arbitrary dice tosses' but nothing binds the GM or the players to anything much. Especially the GM is in a position to pretty much just dictate everything that happens as much as they wish. Even 5e has this problem, the GM can just basically say "Oh, well, best 2 out of 3..." if he doesn't get what he wanted. This is something the SC system (and mechanics in more narrativist systems generally) specifically prevents. Its declared to be a complexity 1 challenge, the GM can only call for checks until 3 failures or 4 successes, end of story. No fudging! If you go by RC rules, the difficulty and other aspects of what each side can deploy are almost fully specified by the rules. How the fiction and the mechanics bind together and play one with the other is very open, but how a conflict is resolved in NOT. B/X (and 5e) completely lack this character! I mean, there are a few places where they DO have something, but it is much weaker and less generalized. I feel like the fully generalized "governs how action plays out" rules of narrativist systems (many of them at least) is actually MORE flexible, and also clearly more of a game!

 

[Voadam]

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?

My experience was a bit different, I was solidly in 3e for a long while with a ton of material I had not used yet and fairly happy with it as a system when 4e came out with no SRD and I just did not get the new system stuff.

So I kept playing online 3e games and adopted Pathfinder when it came out and ran games and got stuff for that. When I joined a face to face group in 2010 I believe they were playing 4e so I tried it out and liked it and started getting a little bit of player stuff. When I was fully in and got the online subscription for a year my group all but me decided they were sick of grinding 4e fights so we switched to Pathfinder and when I came to run the game I ran Pathfinder with the 3e Freeport Trilogy and the Reign of Winter Adventure Paths. I subscribed for a while to Paizo's APs and got a few on deep discount sales and liked them and I have played in a number of them.

I like 5e a little better than 3e/Pathfinder (concentration, bound accuracy, skills, the balance points between classes and builds, easier monster stats to track) so once my group started into 5e when I DM I have used Paizao Pathfinder APs (Carrion Crown, Iron Gods) converted to 5e, which has been fairly easy to do.

I could not say whether I would really like DMing the WotC 5e hardcover adventures, I have a few (Curse of Strahd, Icewind Dale) but have not run them or really read through them. When I put out a list of 20 big module themes of stuff I have with Pathfinder APs, WotC 5e stuff, AiME stuff, and Call of Cthulhu adventures the last time I took over DMing duties, Thundar the Barbarian style Iron Gods AP with tech in D&D land was the big enthusiasm winner.

I normally run D&D in my homebrew mashup setting which is a lot of Ptolus and Golarion with other stuff mixed in as well so current setting offerings are cool and I am somewhat interested in checking different things out but I work a lot off of older material I have that I like and that I already integrated into my homebrew. While I use the FR gods as a pantheon in my setting for some areas, I don't own SCAG or the 4e setting book and don't really sweat that.

 

[payn]

My experience was a bit different, I was solidly in 3e for a long while with a ton of material I had not used yet and fairly happy with it as a system when 4e came out with no SRD and I just did not get the new system stuff.

So I kept playing online 3e games and adopted Pathfinder when it came out and ran games and got stuff for that. When I joined a face to face group in 2010 I believe they were playing 4e so I tried it out and liked it and started getting a little bit of player stuff. When I was fully in and got the online subscription for a year my group all but me decided they were sick of grinding 4e fights so we switched to Pathfinder and when I came to run the game I ran Pathfinder with the 3e Freeport Trilogy and the Reign of Winter Adventure Paths. I subscribed for a while to Paizo's APs and got a few on deep discount sales and liked them and I have played in a number of them.

I like 5e a little better than 3e/Pathfinder (concentration, bound accuracy, skills, the balance points between classes and builds, easier monster stats to track) so once my group started into 5e when I DM I have used Paizao Pathfinder APs (Carrion Crown, Iron Gods) converted to 5e, which has been fairly easy to do.

I could not say whether I would really like DMing the WotC 5e hardcover adventures, I have a few (Curse of Strahd, Icewind Dale) but have not run them or really read through them. When I put out a list of 20 big module themes of stuff I have with Pathfinder APs, WotC 5e stuff, AiME stuff, and Call of Cthulhu adventures the last time I took over DMing duties, Thundar the Barbarian style Iron Gods AP with tech in D&D land was the big enthusiasm winner.

I normally run D&D in my homebrew mashup setting which is a lot of Ptolus and Golarion with other stuff mixed in as well so current setting offerings are cool and I am somewhat interested in checking different things out but I work a lot off of older material I have that I like and that I already integrated into my homebrew. While I use the FR gods as a pantheon in my setting for some areas, I don't own SCAG or the 4e setting book and don't really sweat that.

Another good point, folks love converting Paizo adventures to 5E, Savage Worlds, etc… Does anybody convert WOTC adventures to anything else?

 

[Hussar]

I also wonder if part of the reason that I didn't have such a huge issue with 4e is that I didn't jump into 4e until it had been out for a while. The whole HP thing passed me by, for example. I wound up wrapping up our 3e games for six months or a year before actually playing 4e. By that point, most of the rough points had been filed off. Our first long term 4e game was a Dark Sun game, so, things like Inherent Bonuses and whatnot were already right there, as well as a boatload of classes and material.

 

[pemerton]

Uh.... Hero Wars/HeroQuest in the sense of the Chaosium RPG. Not the boardgame/semi-RPG of the same name.

If it resembles any D&D at all, it would probably be one of the newer rules-lite flavors, such as the Black Hack or something. Classless, almost statless.

I know the game. I've got plenty of posts discussing the use of Robin Laws's advice on running extended contests to assist in running skill challenges. And here's an actual play post where I adapted Demon of the Red Grove to 4e: https://www.enworld.org/threads/session-report-apect-of-vecna-defeated-demon-bargained-with.355600/

 

[tomBitonti]

On further consideration, I have to ask: What cinematic example of Come and Get It can be presented? And I don’t mean a single target taunt. I mean an example of multiple targets being brought to the attacker.

Necessary features are (1) The opponents aren’t already inclined to mass rush the attacker, and aren’t being prompted by their leader to attack. (2) The use of the weapon was necessary to bring in targets.

That means, for example, the blood shower rave in the beginning of Blade doesn’t count. Blade didn’t do anything except be there. The vampire crowd was already pumped to attack him.

There is the attack scene in the sewer at the end of Underworld, but again, she does nothing to force the attack.

Trinity kind-of achieves the effect at the beginning of The Matrix, but that is more her taking the police by surprise, and them aggressively continuing their attempt to arrest her.

A part of my problem with CaGI is that I really don’t have this as a recognized move in the movie fights that I’ve seen. Sure, there are lots of big mook rushes. None of them fit CaGI for me.

TomB