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

[Thomas Shey]

I had an interesting revelation (and to make it clear, this is a personal one) when I was thinking of why I ended up not really liking 4e even though in some ways it was aimed at me (I like a lot of engagement with mechanical teeth that isn't just dependent on the GM providing it). The interesting thing is its the opposite of some people's complaints, which is why I looked at them back in the day and kind of rolled my eyes.

It felt all too much D&D.

I've mentioned before that I was away from D&D all through the AD&D period pretty much, and a big part of the reasons is it felt overly abstract and disconnected from what was going on, and where all kinds of things were special cased to death. My go-tos were things like RuneQuest that, though they were missing some things I wanted (BRP has never been particularly good at handling character defining elements that weren't attributes and skills) things pretty well mapped to what the character could do in a discernible way, and that for the most part did general systems with specific applications to minimize special casing. I wondered off later into things like the Hero System that weren't always quite as special-case avoidant, but still minimized it and provided extra tools to define a character in the form of Talents and the like.

I'd come back for a bit in the 3e days, because it had moved more toward that character definition (in the forms of multiclassing, prestige classes and feats) and though it still was too special case intensive (every spell was still a one off, and feats weren't built to a common metric), the system had tried to provide an underlying structure everything ran to. Unfortunately, it also turned out to become virtually impossible to run at higher levels because the still present special-casing expanded to an unmanageable degree.

So 4e comes along, and not only does the special casing expand like crazy (every class power is a special case, and they're everywhere), the parts that aren't using that have retreated from being particularly representational of anything concrete.

To my perspective, it was the most D&D thing ever, in about half the way things had put me off from D&D, and the part that served my other issue (the difficulty in representing anything not pretty simple in OD&D) had largely done so in ways that made that worse. It had even solved the GMing problem in 3e by making the opposition far more abstract than they had been in 3e (which, to make it clear, was a virtual necessity with all the special-case moving parts but was not, in and of itself, a virtue to me).

Just a side note, since the position I was coming from was not going to be relevant to most people approaching 4e; they weren't going to object because it was too much D&D.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

And I get that. And I have so much respect for the OSR movement. They've clearly declared that continuity and legacy is important and are proudly standing on that hill.

But, then you have 5e. Take the recent example of alignment. 4e is decried because it changes alignment. Fair enough. That's factually true. They changed alignment.

Then 5e comes along and says, "Hold my beer." In 5e, alignment has been totally removed from the mechanics. You could take a black marker to every example of where alignment is written in 5e and nothing would change. It's entirely vestigial. But, they used those magic 9 words, so, they must be respecting continuity right? But, hang on, none of the classes are restricted by alignment (something that 4e brought to the table), none of the spells have anything to do with alignment. Heck, Paladins can't even Detect Evil anymore.

And that's perfectly fine. Totally respecting continuity?

Like I said, I can totally respect wanting legacy and continuity. It might not be important to me, but, I get that it's important. But, it seems like continuity or legacy is only important if someone doesn't like something. If someone likes Change X, then continuity is totally unimportant. We can change things all we like (5e alignment as an example). But, if we don't like something, whoa Nelly. We MUST respect legacy. It's so obviously self serving.

I know that @Pedantic also addressed this, but I wanted to talk about alignment in relation to the Gnome Issue.

If you recall, one of the issues that the uncovered later on with 4e was the removal of gnomes. They assumed it would be fine, because so few people played gnomes. But the problem with that is that the people who played gnomes, played gnomes, and that playing groups consist of 4-6 people, so if you had two random D&D groups (for example), you probably strongly alienated one person in one group from 4e.

... and we know how group dynamics work. If you have one person in your playing group that refuses to play, or is constantly complaining, you'll eventually stop playing.

It's the same with a lot of changes. A lot of people don't care about alignment. But some people really do. Whether it's because they actually like the old alignment system, or because they like creating "What alignment is Batman" memes, they like the 9 alignments. In a certain way, 4e's choice was the worst possible move; it was ahistorical (neither the 3-alignment system nor the nine-alignment system) and it also didn't do away with it. There are some people that really liked it, but a lot of people? Well, that was their gnome.

Now from your perspective, 5e just split the baby. They brought back the old alignments, but decoupled the alignment system from almost all mechanics. To you, that's meaningless. But to many other people, that's the solution- people who like alignment can keep writing "LG" or "CN" or making their memes, and people who don't like alignment don't have to worry about classes and abilities being kept behind arbitrary alignment doors. It's almost the equivalent of fan service in a movie- people that recognize it can enjoy it and pat themselves on the back for the continuity, and people that don't care don't have to worry about it.

Is it self-serving? Yes, self-serving in the sense that they want to eat their cake and sell it to the most people possible.

 

[payn]

I know that @Pedantic also addressed this, but I wanted to talk about alignment in relation to the Gnome Issue.

If you recall, one of the issues that the uncovered later on with 4e was the removal of gnomes. They assumed it would be fine, because so few people played gnomes. But the problem with that is that the people who played gnomes, played gnomes, and that playing groups consist of 4-6 people, so if you had two random D&D groups (for example), you probably strongly alienated one person in one group from 4e.

... and we know how group dynamics work. If you have one person in your playing group that refuses to play, or is constantly complaining, you'll eventually stop playing.

It's the same with a lot of changes. A lot of people don't care about alignment. But some people really do. Whether it's because they actually like the old alignment system, or because they like creating "What alignment is Batman" memes, they like the 9 alignments. In a certain way, 4e's choice was the worst possible move; it was ahistorical (neither the 3-alignment system nor the nine-alignment system) and it also didn't do away with it. There are some people that really liked it, but a lot of people? Well, that was their gnome.

Now from your perspective, 5e just split the baby. They brought back the old alignments, but decoupled the alignment system from almost all mechanics. To you, that's meaningless. But to many other people, that's the solution- people who like alignment can keep writing "LG" or "CN" or making their memes, and people who don't like alignment don't have to worry about classes and abilities being kept behind arbitrary alignment doors. It's almost the equivalent of fan service in a movie- people that recognize it can enjoy it and pat themselves on the back for the continuity, and people that don't care don't have to worry about it.

Is it self-serving? Yes, self-serving in the sense that they want to eat their cake and sell it to the most people possible.

Yeap, I think 4E had many of these examples. Like, im sure some folks had no issues with the mechanics, but likely were upset at the FR changes. Not just Gnomes, but no Barbarians, Bards, or Sorcs in the launch either. Alignment, ADEU, etc.. It was very common to hear that gaming groups were torn asunder during 4E. I think MMOs had a bit to do with that at the time to exasperate the issue, but 4E had a lot of ways to push people out. Any one item is likely not enough to break the camels back, but collectively, they got it done.

I think the one consistent theme is that the designers and leaders of WotC assumed folks would just migrate over so none of these choices would ultimately matter. Take a few or more away, and they likely would have been right.

 

[Voadam]

It's the same with a lot of changes. A lot of people don't care about alignment. But some people really do. Whether it's because they actually like the old alignment system, or because they like creating "What alignment is Batman" memes, they like the 9 alignments. In a certain way, 4e's choice was the worst possible move; it was ahistorical (neither the 3-alignment system nor the nine-alignment system) and it also didn't do away with it. There are some people that really liked it, but a lot of people? Well, that was their gnome.

Now from your perspective, 5e just split the baby. They brought back the old alignments, but decoupled the alignment system from almost all mechanics. To you, that's meaningless. But to many other people, that's the solution- people who like alignment can keep writing "LG" or "CN" or making their memes, and people who don't like alignment don't have to worry about classes and abilities being kept behind arbitrary alignment doors. It's almost the equivalent of fan service in a movie- people that recognize it can enjoy it and pat themselves on the back for the continuity, and people that don't care don't have to worry about it.

I really liked that 4e decoupled alignment from class mechanics so any class, including paladins could be any alignment. This was a continuation of 3e's any race, any class, any level expansion over AD&D niche limits and I had been seeing different alignment paladin champions since 1e dragon articles. It also meant that people who wanted to use alignment as a guide for their characterization could, but that there was no reason for DM oversight of whether a PC was playing their alignment or not which avoided a lot of PC-DM conflict over different moral interpretations and pressures on how to roleplay a character.

I also thought unaligned was a fantastic 4e development for PCs, much better than 1e true neutral. OD&D and Holmes Basic had unaligned animals and unintelligent monsters, but unaligned PCs who do not particularly care about and are not specifically aligned with the cosmic forces makes sense for me.

I did not care for the 4e style 5 part alignment though. It was like the WFRP 5 part alignment line of Law - Good - Neutral - Evil - Chaos where Law was better than good and chaos is worse than evil. Bleah. I am fine with Good being its own alignment axis and Lawful Good being a different flavor of good than Chaotic Good, not Lawful Good being more good than good. I aesthetically do not care for that. I was OK with the Holmes and 1e MM 5-part alignment of Neutral, LG, CG, LE, CE for the four alignment poles, but I think the full 9 part two axes with neutrality as a region on each axis makes a little more sense. The 4e one just does not work as well for me.

 

[payn]

I really liked that 4e decoupled alignment from class mechanics so any class, including paladins could be any alignment. This was a continuation of 3e's any race, any class, any level expansion over AD&D niche limits and I had been seeing different alignment paladin champions since 1e dragon articles. It also meant that people who wanted to use alignment as a guide for their characterization could, but that there was no reason for DM oversight of whether a PC was playing their alignment or not which avoided a lot of PC-DM conflict over different moral interpretations and pressures on how to roleplay a character.

I also thought unaligned was a fantastic 4e development for PCs, much better than 1e true neutral. OD&D and Holmes Basic had unaligned animals and unintelligent monsters, but unaligned PCs who do not particularly care about and are not specifically aligned with the cosmic forces makes sense for me.

I did not care for the 4e style 5 part alignment though. It was like the WFRP 5 part alignment line of Law - Good - Neutral - Evil - Chaos where Law was better than good and chaos is worse than evil. Bleah. I am fine with Good being its own alignment axis and Lawful Good being a different flavor of good than Chaotic Good, not Lawful Good being more good than good. I aesthetically do not care for that. I was OK with the Holmes and 1e MM 5-part alignment of Neutral, LG, CG, LE, CE for the four alignment poles, but I think the full 9 part two axes with neutrality as a region on each axis makes a little more sense. The 4e one just does not work as well for me.

I think the 3E intention was class based so you had mixed alignment parties. Also, to make some multiclass options difficult to pull off. Whether or not that was a good idea is dependent on the person/group I think. Though, I think everybody agrees the Paladin was too rigid and caused way more problems that it was worth. I say that as a big fan of 3E/PF1.

I think the 5E missed a good opportunity to tie alignment to the BIFTs. Still wouldn't interfere mechanically with any character, but maybe give a little more thought to character personality and morality. Perhaps thats a bad idea too, BIFTs just seemed like a half baked poorly executed idea. Alignment really needed setting and/or modular support but that idea vaporized after 5E launch

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Moving back the original topic, one of the things that I hope will be examined in more detail is the sales numbers and trends of 4e.

As I've written about previously, 4e was released on June 6, 2008.

We've previously known that 4e was "internally dead" by the time that 4e essentials was released on September 10, 2010.

And, of course, a skeleton crew was tasked with creating the (perhaps last) D&D edition in the middle of 2011.

Which means that within about two years, Hasbro had given up on 4e. Within three years, they had decided to release a "last gasp" edition.

People have previously discussed the ways in which 4e did not match Hasbro's expectations. But I wonder about what the sales looked like after the initial burst of people who bought the books. Given the amount of time and money invested in 4e, the choice to give up on it so quickly does seem odd, but it might be supported if the trend lines were bad; in other words, after the initial burst of people who purchased it because they wanted to check it out, there were fewer recurrent purchases. It would be interesting to compare the sales to the first two years of 3e and (for that matter) to the end period of 3.5e.

Speculation is always fun, but data is much more informative.

 

[James Gasik]

I think I stopped caring about alignment because there were no benefits to it, only hindrances. I typically play heroic characters, because to my mind, D&D characters should attempt to be heroic. I'm not solely motivated by self-interest, and I will help people when I can.

However, more and more, I found selecting "good" for my character was more of a straightjacket than I think it was intended. I would have to contemplate if an action I was about to undertake was "evil" or not. Often, my party members would engage in nefarious acts, and I had to decide if my morals were more important than not playing, ditching my character, or worse, working at cross purposes to the other players.

What finally put the nail in the coffin was when I was playing Pathfinder 1e and an enemy used Unholy Word. That basically broke me- not only was holding myself to a good alignment sometimes difficult, but now I could be punished for it? So I made my next character Neutral, deciding I couldn't be bothered with concepts like "good" and "evil". I didn't kick puppies or was particularly selfish, I simply had my own code.

And I experienced no real problems for it.

This does bother me, because I still prefer my characters be virtuous, but if putting "good" on my character sheet only has the potential to make play miserable, then what good is it? Sure, in reality, I would expect good NPC's to react better to good PC's or something, but when you don't see that reflected in play, it's a bit upsetting.

NPC's I encounter care more about your species or what gods you worship than what your given alignment is. A friend of mine created his own system, and it uses elemental alignments that have a fundamental impact on your character's abilities, even giving you a special trait only individuals of that alignment (or alignments, as most characters have two alignments) possess.

It's a lot more fun than any version of alignment I've played with in D&D.

 

[Voadam]

Moving back the original topic, one of the things that I hope will be examined in more detail is the sales numbers and trends of 4e.

As I've written about previously, 4e was released on June 6, 2008.

We've previously known that 4e was "internally dead" by the time that 4e essentials was released on September 10, 2010.

And, of course, a skeleton crew was tasked with creating the (perhaps last) D&D edition in the middle of 2011.

Which means that within about two years, Hasbro had given up on 4e. Within three years, they had decided to release a "last gasp" edition.

People have previously discussed the ways in which 4e did not match Hasbro's expectations. But I wonder about what the sales looked like after the initial burst of people who bought the books. Given the amount of time and money invested in 4e, the choice to give up on it so quickly does seem odd, but it might be supported if the trend lines were bad; in other words, after the initial burst of people who purchased it because they wanted to check it out, there were fewer recurrent purchases. It would be interesting to compare the sales to the first two years of 3e and (for that matter) to the end period of 3.5e.

Speculation is always fun, but data is much more informative.

Similarly the numbers for the PDFs would be interesting.

IIRC 4e started selling some 4e books as PDFs then killed those PDF sales, apparently to support brick and mortar sales of 4e books and to "prevent piracy".

This was also shortly followed by the time period of dropping all old edition D&D PDF sales with some arguing at the time that this made sense because the sales were a rounding error for WotC and not worth the expense and time to internally account for the pure profits of selling those PDFs.

 

[billd91]

I think I stopped caring about alignment because there were no benefits to it, only hindrances. I typically play heroic characters, because to my mind, D&D characters should attempt to be heroic. I'm not solely motivated by self-interest, and I will help people when I can.

However, more and more, I found selecting "good" for my character was more of a straightjacket than I think it was intended. I would have to contemplate if an action I was about to undertake was "evil" or not. Often, my party members would engage in nefarious acts, and I had to decide if my morals were more important than not playing, ditching my character, or worse, working at cross purposes to the other players.

<snip>

This does bother me, because I still prefer my characters be virtuous, but if putting "good" on my character sheet only has the potential to make play miserable, then what good is it? Sure, in reality, I would expect good NPC's to react better to good PC's or something, but when you don't see that reflected in play, it's a bit upsetting.

I want to highlight this particular situation: How is seeing your character as virtuous different from putting good on the character sheet in cases where your party is engaging in nefarious acts or you're contemplating whether a course of action was evil/immoral? If you want to play a virtuous character, aren't you in the same bind whether labeled or not?

 

[James Gasik]

Moving back the original topic, one of the things that I hope will be examined in more detail is the sales numbers and trends of 4e.

As I've written about previously, 4e was released on June 6, 2008.

We've previously known that 4e was "internally dead" by the time that 4e essentials was released on September 10, 2010.

And, of course, a skeleton crew was tasked with creating the (perhaps last) D&D edition in the middle of 2011.

Which means that within about two years, Hasbro had given up on 4e. Within three years, they had decided to release a "last gasp" edition.

People have previously discussed the ways in which 4e did not match Hasbro's expectations. But I wonder about what the sales looked like after the initial burst of people who bought the books. Given the amount of time and money invested in 4e, the choice to give up on it so quickly does seem odd, but it might be supported if the trend lines were bad; in other words, after the initial burst of people who purchased it because they wanted to check it out, there were fewer recurrent purchases. It would be interesting to compare the sales to the first two years of 3e and (for that matter) to the end period of 3.5e.

Speculation is always fun, but data is much more informative.

I'm pretty sure it came down to the fact that 1), D&D wasn't making all of the money. There was actually a serious rival in the form of Paizo, who built their success on the grave of the previous edition. And 2), not all of the promises of 4e came to fruition.

The rules set seemed ideal for a video game adaptation- never happened. The VTT was going to complement the online subscription and become the future of TTRPG's- also never happened.

Miniature sales were lackluster. And to be honest, this one I don't really understand. There were some very good D&D minis out there. And when Paizo made their own Pathfinder minis, those sold like hotcakes (I own quite a few of them)-curious for a game that is supposedly less reliant on minis and battlemaps than 4e, lol.

The online subscription was a double-edged sword, since it gave you access to content without needing to buy actual books. The adventures were largely lackluster.

In addition, inside of two years, a stupendous amount of content was produced for 4e in the form of new powers, new "subclasses", new classes, new feats- and the quality wasn't very consistent. Some classes barely functioned. The Seeker didn't seem to know what class it was. Sorcerers were supposed to be damage dealers, but were actually fairly lackluster. Monks and Psions were fiddly, Wardens and Battleminds lacked a decent melee basic attack (and the feat that could give you one was eventually nerfed). Ardents barely did anything, lol.

While some races and classes got more support, others languished. The Wizard class got more support than anything. The Swordmage, on the other hand, was mostly relegated to niche or hybrid builds.

The Warlock's "Y" design meant half the Warlock powers might be useless to you. Paladins couldn't even be decent Defenders until Divine Power was released- making a character required a lot of diligence on your part, maybe even more so than in 3.5!

And sure, the online builder helped. In fact, it was practically necessary, as even if you owned all the books, the errata was all online, as were the various "Dragon magazine" online articles that fixed things, like "Class Acts".

Some rules didn't even function, as seen with the various revamps to things like Stealth. And when the final version of Stealth arrived, some powers that had been designed with past versions in mind didn't even function properly (I saw this in action when I ran for a Ninja, and they had chosen an Assassin Utility power that claimed it would let them stealth, but didn't actually do any such thing).

And there was significant power creep as well. Backgrounds, for example. Suddenly everyone is doing end runs around Constitution by being "Born Under a Bad Sign" or coming from Thay to get better hit points. Themes granted additional powers with no real downside. There were "patch feats", because you know, everyone loves a tax to overcome a flaw in the game's design!

And Essentials added some dubious content like Vampire as a class, lol. Because I really enjoy having someone asking me for a spare healing surge so that they can contribute in a fight!

Simply put, while I enjoyed playing 4e, I have to admit now that, as it was being published, it likely would have collapsed even if Hasbro didn't pull the trigger on it. It reminded me of the late TSR era, with it's dizzying array of products, rules scattered across a dozen books, very little oversight or even communication from one team to the other, and in the midst of everything, "a whole new system" to shake things up (Player's Option, etc.) when the existing system was groaning under it's own weight due to sheer bloat.

A true "4.5e" was necessary to turn things around, not a halfhearted effort to try and woo back players who weren't coming back at the expense of the things the existing fans liked, lol.