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

[Kannik]

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.

Following on this and Snarf's additions, I concur that the Hasbro dictates ($1B or DIE, essentially) likely played an oversized role on so many things that they ended up compounding in a not-great feedback loop (like how the choice to have no SRD or license tainted the views of some or even turned them away sight unseen). 3.5 came out a mere 3 years after 3.0 (which itself started some resentment of edition churn), and with an even greater push for $$ with the $1B dictate, a drop of any number compared to the previous edition would be seen as a problem. (I have my inklings and educated guesses what that drop actually was, and as with Snarf I'd love to see the actual numbers, but again it's probably immaterial from Hasbro's point, since any devaluation would be in the wrong direction of the BIG BRANDS, NO WHAMMIES mantra.) (I probably just dated myself there, didn't I? )

On the whole 5e seems like it was a low-risk move for WotC and Hasbro to pursue. (So much so that it 'had' to be done.) Fortunately, at least from what I understand, the $1B thing had been dropped as a death line march, and so they only need to grow things, not reach for unatainable heights. And since they could be confident that most who went from 3e to 4e wouldn't bail as they had shown themselves to be open and expansive, there was that chance with the new edition to recapture some players who had gone elsewhere, either due to 4e itself or due to that myriad of other elements that formed the feedback loop noted above. And then there was also the usual new edition buzz that could entice new players, even to those not already playing. Getting bigger number seemed almost inevitable.

And then, as we saw, with the magic timing of actual plays, the Marvel effect allowing formerly "geeky" things to be seen as "cool", some TV show inclusions, and technology that had caught up to some of 4e's ambitions, etc and etc, things really got turbocharged and 5e is where it is today.

 

[payn]

Following on this and Snarf's additions, I concur that the Hasbro dictates ($1B or DIE, essentially) likely played an oversized role on so many things that they ended up compounding in a not-great feedback loop (like how the choice to have no SRD or license tainted the views of some or even turned them away sight unseen). 3.5 came out a mere 3 years after 3.0 (which itself started some resentment of edition churn), and with an even greater push for $$ with the $1B dictate, a drop of any number compared to the previous edition would be seen as a problem. (I have my inklings and educated guesses what that drop actually was, and as with Snarf I'd love to see the actual numbers, but again it's probably immaterial from Hasbro's point, since any devaluation would be in the wrong direction of the BIG BRANDS, NO WHAMMIES mantra.) (I probably just dated myself there, didn't I? )

On the whole 5e seems like it was a low-risk move for WotC and Hasbro to pursue. (So much so that it 'had' to be done.) Fortunately, at least from what I understand, the $1B thing had been dropped as a death line march, and so they only need to grow things, not reach for unatainable heights. And since they could be confident that most who went from 3e to 4e wouldn't bail as they had shown themselves to be open and expansive, there was that chance with the new edition to recapture some players who had gone elsewhere, either due to 4e itself or due to that myriad of other elements that formed the feedback loop noted above. And then there was also the usual new edition buzz that could entice new players, even to those not already playing. Getting bigger number seemed almost inevitable.

And then, as we saw, with the magic timing of actual plays, the Marvel effect allowing formerly "geeky" things to be seen as "cool", some TV show inclusions, and technology that had caught up to some of 4e's ambitions, etc and etc, things really got turbocharged and 5e is where it is today.

Is it a billion now? I thought it was 50 million?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

This was a good post, but I'll nitpick that the five alignment system wasn't entirely novel or ahistorical. It matches Holmes Basic closely which in turn lines up with Gary's expanded thoughts on alignment in OD&D from The Strategic Review #6 (Vol 2, issue 1), which also broke alignment down into Good, Evil, Lawful, Chaotic, and Neutral. I really liked the 5 alignment system, though I can absolutely see how LE or CG could definitely be people's Gnome. Heck, for some of the 90s CG probably would have been MY Gnome.

Just checking here- Holmes Basic was a little odd, but it has LG, CG, CG, CE, and N. It was missing the LN and CN that we expect, but otherwise it is the standard alignment, and even has an alignment chart as you'd expect.

Fourth edition is the only one that changes this to what appears to be a continuum ... LG-G-E-CE, and added in "unaligned".

Which I think is pretty ahistorical in terms of D&D. Personally, I don't have any beef with unaligned (and think it makes some sense ... especially in counterpoint to Gygxian Muscular Neutral). It has a much more "Warhammer-y" feel to it.

Regardless, I don't think that appealing to a possible, albeit (IMO) unsupported link to Holmes Basic does much for continuity, given that most players would have been much more familiar with the alignment systems from 1978-2008 by that time.

 

[Kannik]

Is it a billion now? I thought it was 50 million?

Shoot, I'm not somewhere now where I can do easy research on what the numbers were, but there was either a 500M on the way to 1B, or maybe it was 50M on the way to 100M. Maybe the numbers got Dr Evil'ed along the way... and either way, it was a stringent dictate to all divisions, and as D&D and Magic were different divisions, D&D had to reach levels it hadn't attained before.

 

[Mannahnin]

Just checking here- Holmes Basic was a little odd, but it has LG, CG, CG, CE, and N. It was missing the LN and CN that we expect, but otherwise it is the standard alignment, and even has an alignment chart as you'd expect.

Fourth edition is the only one that changes this to what appears to be a continuum ... LG-G-E-CE, and added in "unaligned".

Which I think is pretty ahistorical in terms of D&D. Personally, I don't have any beef with unaligned (and think it makes some sense ... especially in counterpoint to Gygxian Muscular Neutral). It has a much more "Warhammer-y" feel to it.

Regardless, I don't think that appealing to a possible, albeit (IMO) unsupported link to Holmes Basic does much for continuity, given that most players would have been much more familiar with the alignment systems from 1978-2008 by that time.

Fair enough. Just noting as an aside that OD&D and Holmes had, at least for a few years, a five alignment middle ground between the three alignment and nine alignment configurations which are most well-known. So 4E trying to simplify alignment with something close to that wasn't entirely unprecedented.

I'm not disagreeing at all that the nine alignment layout is the legacy thing that the vast majority of players associate with D&D and which is part of its brand and cultural identity.

I do think that Unaligned was a great concept and of much greater general utility than "Gygaxian Muscular Neutral".

 

[Lanefan]

At the end of the day, I think for a lot of people who liked 4e, we would like some sort of closure as to why we were chucked so thoroughly under the bus.

At a quick guess it might be in delayed response to 4e's marketing and resulting underlying attitude that, in effect, chucked players of all prior editions under that same bus (it's a voracious bus, that one!).

Not Wot'C's finest moment, that.

In this thread, I've been repeatedly told that I MUST respect people's playstyles and preferences and opinions. I must not question them.

Yet, my playstyles and preferences got completely ignored in the run up to 5e. No one had any problems chucking me under the bus and then putting things in drive and reverse repeatedly to make sure that I knew exactly where my place was in the hobby.

Join the team. We 1e diehards long ago dug a hole in the road here and jumped in, so the bus can run over us all it likes and yet can't touch us.

 

[soviet]

Come and Get It was also a statement of intent. Fighters were absolutely terrible in 3rd edition. CaGI says very clearly 'Martial characters can do cool stuff without having to ask for permission'. It's a fun and well-designed power that gave me a lot of enjoyment.

 

[Mannahnin]

Shoot, I'm not somewhere now where I can do easy research on what the numbers were, but there was either a 500M on the way to 1B, or maybe it was 50M on the way to 100M. Maybe the numbers got Dr Evil'ed along the way... and either way, it was a stringent dictate to all divisions, and as D&D and Magic were different divisions, D&D had to reach levels it hadn't attained before.

50m on the way to 100m.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/wotc-ddi-4e-and-hasbro-some-history.661470/

Sometime around 2005ish, Hasbro made an internal decision to divide its businesses into two categories. Core brands, which had more than $50 million in annual sales, and had a growth path towards $100 million annual sales, and Non-Core brands, which didn't.

Under Goldner, the Core Brands would be the tentpoles of the company. They would be exploited across a range of media with an eye towards major motion pictures, following the path Transformers had blazed. Goldner saw what happened to Marvel when they re-oriented their company from a publisher of comic books to a brand building factory (their market capitalization increased by something like 2 billion dollars). He wanted to replicate that at Hasbro.

Core Brands would get the financing they requested for development of their businesses (within reason). Non-Core brands would not. They would be allowed to rise & fall with the overall toy market on their own merits without a lot of marketing or development support. In fact, many Non-Core brands would simply be mothballed - allowed to go dormant for some number of years until the company was ready to take them down off the shelf and try to revive them for a new generation of kids.

At the point of the original Hasbro/Wizards merger a fateful decision was made that laid the groundwork for what happened once Greg took over. Instead of focusing Hasbro on the idea that Wizards of the Coast was a single brand, each of the lines of business in Wizards got broken out and reported to Hasbro as a separate entity. This was driven in large part by the fact that the acquisition agreement specified a substantial post-acquisition purchase price adjustment for Wizards' shareholders on the basis of the sales of non-Magic CCGs (i.e. Pokemon).

This came back to haunt Wizards when Hasbro's new Core/Non-Core strategy came into focus. Instead of being able to say "We're a $100+ million brand, keep funding us as we desire", each of the business units inside Wizards had to make that case separately. So the first thing that happened was the contraction you saw when Wizards dropped new game development and became the "D&D and Magic" company. Magic has no problem hitting the "Core" brand bar, but D&D does. It's really a $25-30 million business, especially since Wizards isn't given credit for the licensing revenue of the D&D computer games.

 

[soviet]

Comparing "cut of his head" with Come and Get It is not a good comparison.

As a more defined example, let's compare Bull Rush, from 3.5E, and Come and Get It, from 4E:





Note that in 4E "pull" is defined to be the same as "shift" and "push". The fighter using CAGI is not presumed to be necessarily actually pulling the target.

In the 3.5E description, actually pushing the target is unambiguously a part of the action. Additional details are consistent with this -- larger targets are harder to push. The movement must be away from the attacker. The attacker can follow behind the target if they desire.

In the 4E description no details are given (nor are needed) as to how the target gets moved. Were they caused to stumble closer? Were they made to be dis-oriented and caused to move to a location not of their choice, but of the attacker's? Were they goaded into moving next to the attacker? Were they literally dragged closer by the attacker hooking them and moving them closer? Did the attacker mentally take control of their facilities and compel them to move? (One could argue that some form of trickery or a taunt is permitted as an explanation, and a hook is not permitted, since the attack is against Will.)

The 3.5E bull rush ability is much more strongly described than the 4E Come And Get It. While there are details of exactly how the target was pushed with bull rush -- Did the attacker give them a shove with both hands? Did the attacker give them a strong kick? Did the attacker hunch behind their shield and forcefully plow into the defender? -- None of these rises to the level of detail which must be provided to explain a use of Come and Get It, and none is categorically different than the others (all involve a physical push; none involve trickery or mind control or hooking the target).

One could try to correct CAGI by adding a description:

• Your dazzling display of prowess causes the target to be momentarily confused. You pull the target up to 2 squares to an adjacent square.
• Your deadly weave of attacks leaves the opponent no defensible option except to move closer.
• You unleash a torrent of vile insults that the target cannot ignore.
• You leave yourself apparently vulnerable, causing the opponent to rush forward, heedless of the strength of your position and the awaiting attack.

All of which sound fine, but all of which work better if CAGI had not baked in Strength vs Will. In each case, I'd want a different attack combination, and would apply different defensive modifiers depending on the defender.

(Which turns this into a different problem: CAGI simply having bad design, as most supplied descriptions of how it works might want a different check and different defensive modifiers. Something to think about.)

TomB

No, the revision to CaGI was a mistake. The pull should be an auto success and the roll is just a basic to-hit.

 

[James Gasik]

Keep in context that I was not a fan of 4e, but played a pretty full length campaign of it.

This is the opposite of my experience, and because I was doing campaign maintenance of the Hero Labs 4e manager (which was not official) I got into a lot of powers and feats guts than most.

Unless you had a very elevated idea of what was needed, it actually required a great degree of effort to get a bad character in 4e. It was possible in a couple of cases to get an overpowered one without trying (there as a notorious Ranger power for example) but as long as you were okay with a middle of the road character there were far, far less trap options than in 3e.

Edit: I should note that we were playing relatively late in the day--post Essentials as a matter of fact--so its possible there are some pre-errata problems early on. But I stand by my opinion at least as of that period.

So I played a Seeker, and many of it's powers were strictly inferior to those of other controllers. And one of it's support feats (available at Paragon) increased the damage of it's ranged basic attacks (?), not the sort of thing you'd expect from a controller class.

The Battlemind not having access to a decent melee basic attack meant that you could just walk away from one and unless they managed to have a decent Strength, their opportunity attack was anemic. The original feat that fixed this, letting you use another ability score to determine your basic attacks attack and damage was nerfed when Essentials came out to no longer give you your full damage.

Paladin marks were not terrifyingly damaging in the first place, and until Divine Sanction was added to powers later, they had no way to mark more than one foe.

It may be that your experience showed that a lackluster class could still perform quite well, but I actually watched a lot of optimization going on in order to make some of these classes shine, like the Sorcerer in my Scales of War group, who became a Demonskin Adept to get Demonsoul Bolts in order to give themselves a power that actually did Striker-level damage*.

*Obviously what this entailed varies from group to group, but the Ranger and the Barbarian were much better than many other Striker classes. One of our 4e DM's constantly complained how much damage our characters did, and I was like, uh, you really have no idea.

He didn't believe us until me and my friend showed up for an LFR game with new characters just to prove the point. My friend's Ranger ended up in a solo battle against an Elite, and it died before he was even done attacking.

When we faced a solo, I charged and used Life-Ending Strike for 4 [W] weapon damage, taking it past bloodied in one attack.

-

I generally was more interested in making, well, "interesting" characters with 4e than anything along these lines, but there was a pretty sharp divide between well-supported classes and the not-so.