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

[Pedantic]

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

Unaligned was a great idea, and could have easily slipped in next to True Neutral, or subsumed it entirely on the nine alignment grid.

 

[Lanefan]

You know the saying "armies prepare to fight their last war instead of their next war"? That's pretty much how the early 4e adventures were written.

Which would be more or less OK if those adventures had been - for any edition! - any good.

I've converted and run a few early-era 4e adventures and am here to tell you they're just as bad when run in 1e.

They were not really designed for the strengths of the 4e system. I think that this is where heavy early playtesting helps.

I agree, but writing good adventures to begin with would IMO have helped more.

 

[pemerton]

It also doesn't make sense if you believe that players don't get to decide what characters that aren't their PC do, but I know you don't care about that. It's just a matter of playstyle preference.

That first sentence doesn't make sense to me. Why would your preference mean that something contrary to that preference doesn't make sense?

I mean, you don't like CaGI. But look at the rules: they tell you that visible enemies within a certain distance close to adjacent. One reason they might do that is because they're already in the process of swarming you!

How does that not make sense just because you don't like the rule?

 

[Aldarc]

I'm not far into the World & Monsters book, but HOLY COW! This is really good reading and insight into the game.

 

[Lanefan]

One approach is to relax the requirement that every movement needs to be motivated by a rational decision. Combat is chaotic, so people doing stupid things makes sense.

Heck you could ignore even the user of any taunt like maneuver entirely and treat it is an assertion from the player: "These characters are now going to do something stupid". The taunt ability whatever you want to call it is not something that the character does. It's something that the enemies attempt. I expect this is too "narrative" for a lot of players though.

As long as the enemies can do the same thing back to the PCs, I'd be fine with this.

But if it's PC-only? Very, very hard no.

 

[pemerton]

I think the case works better when you look at it from a variety of situations. Instead of two humans, what if one is a species that doesn't speak the same language? Or a mindless undead? There are likely more, but there are two popular thoughts on this.

First is that the mechanics need to make logical sense. Is it mind effecting? Is it a feint? The rules describe when it qualifies and how it works. The second type views it purely as a mechanical rule to determine fail or success state. How it works is however they say it does in any number of situations.

For example, the first may view CAGI as a mind effecting taunt. Works against a human, but not against an undead creature. The second, would simply say its a mind effecting taunt against a human, but a clever feint against an undead.

The way I look at it, the rules state that visible enemies within the specified distance close, and then the warrior wallops them.

The rules don't specify why those enemies close. The flavour text suggests a narration, but the rulebook already tells us that flavour text is just suggestive.

So then we can either insist - in a way that the game rules don't require us to - that the flavour of the power must be the same every time, even if that produces incoherent fiction.

Or we can do what the game rules permit and even encourage us to do, which is to allow the narration/flavour to vary with the situation, maintaining as constant only what the game requires, namely, that when the player uses this power, the PC's visible enemies within the specified distance close such that they can be walloped.

To me it seems obvious that the first is a silly approach to the game, and the latter sensible. Among other things, as I posted, the second helps produce a sense of dynamism, disrupting the tendency of turn-by-turn resolution to imply a stop-motion world.

 

[payn]

The way I look at it, the rules state that visible enemies within the specified distance close, and then the warrior wallops them.

The rules don't specify why those enemies close. The flavour text suggests a narration, but the rulebook already tells us that flavour text is just suggestive.

So then we can either insist - in a way that the game rules don't require us to - that the flavour of the power must be the same every time, even if that produces incoherent fiction.

Or we can do what the game rules permit and even encourage us to do, which is to allow the narration/flavour to vary with the situation, maintaining as constant only what the game requires, namely, that when the player uses this power, the PC's visible enemies within the specified distance close such that they can be walloped.

To me it seems obvious that the first is a silly approach to the game, and the latter sensible. Among other things, as I posted, the second helps produce a sense of dynamism, disrupting the tendency of turn-by-turn resolution to imply a stop-motion world.

I think this is very reductive to the point of offense and doesn't genuinely look to make any constructive connection. Have a good day.

 

[Aldarc]

I think this is very reductive to the point of offense and doesn't genuinely look to make any constructive connection. Have a good day.

This is a nice summation of how I feel about what many detractors of 4e have to say about 4e.

 

[payn]

This is a nice summation of how I feel about what many detractors of 4e have to say about 4e.

If they are framing it a way that their perspective is intelligentrightfun and yours is dumbincorrectfun, then you should.

 

[Aldarc]

If they are framing it a way that their perspective is intelligentrightfun and yours is dumbincorrectfun, then you should.

We may not see eye-to-eye about 4e or other games, but you aren't the sort of person to frame games you dislike as BadWrongFun, which I appreciate.