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

[Manbearcat]

Sure! I’m not even a huge fan of 4e. I liked some ofthe things it did quite a lot. Others, not so much. But no edition of D&D is flawess. And I’d argue most are more flawed than 4e.

But the perpetual vitriol, the unending crusade against 4e by many online… it’s like they’re little Bruce Waynes and 4e just shot their parents, and they’ve set down a path of vengeance.

It’s bonkers.

During the full throes of the edition war, I called the perpetual vitriol and unending crusade behavior akin to "a scorned lover." To that point, I had never seen its kind for all values of "perpetual" and "vitriol" and "unending crusade" and I'd been witness to or involved in lots of communities and disputes up to that point (including the "role vs roll" culture war back in the day).

"Scorned lover" didn't take.

But your valorizing it as "child Bruce Wayne extracting righteous vengeance for the murder of his parents?" That finally got us there! 15 years later we're finally at the point where we can just come out with what we already knew; so much of this was/is deeply, deeply personal and animated by (righteous) vendetta.

 

[tomBitonti]

My mind goes to bunches of martial arts movies that live in my subconscious, but possibly one of the best examples is in Police Academy 2.


Winslow 100% pulls the opponents from targeting someone else and they both come in at the same time and get hit.

Ah,

Maybe the power would be more well received if it were “Readied Whirlwind”: You stand ready for an expected onrush. Until the beginning of your next turn, you receive a free attack against any opponents who moves into reach. That seems to be the common scene.

It does rely on the GM not playing the opponents “above their ability”, and rushing the character when that is their usual inclination.

TomB

 

[Mannahnin]

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.

I don't think those criteria are needed. The weapon is needed to attack them once they get in close, as already mentioned. The power is often best used when the enemies ARE already in a position where rushing the Fighter would be a logical next move, or rushing SOMEONE, and the Fighter deliberately makes himself the target.

The nature of the power, with its 3 square burst range means that when you're affecting several enemies you're positioned in a spot where you're an obvious nearby threat and they're in a good position to swarm and maybe surround you, so the temptation to do so is logical.

I can picture innumerable scenes like this in movies, where the warrior moves (or stands his ground) to challenge a whole group of enemies, they oblige him by rushing in and get hit. That challenge, the deliberate provocation to which the enemies respond, is the most common trope being represented by the power, although as Pemerton has illustrated it doesn't have to be the only fiction. The interruption of the usual turn sequence (having the enemies move on the Fighter's turn) helps make combat more fluid and simultaneous in feel and slightly reduces the "I go, you go" chess-piece feel of battlemap combat.

 

[Parmandur]

I think it would be interesting to find out what drove this design process in more detail. For example, we all know that WoTC looked extensively at what players wanted when designing 3e, and we are all familiar with the playtests and consensus model used for 5e. Neither of which is likely to produce cutting-edge or innovative design, but it likely to lead to safe, boring, and commercially successful decisions.

In the way back, during the Q&A for a Happy Fun Hour episode, Mike Mearls went into detail about this. He eqs one of the people in the room when it happened, and...it was a bunch of Gen X white dudes who were full-time professional game designers talking to each other about what they liked (Mearls emphasized the "middle aged white guy" narrowness of the demographics for the two dozen or so designers). They were genuinely just making a game aimed squarely at the playstyle of WotC designers in the mid-Aughts, simply assuming thst they were representative of gamers writ large.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think its overly blithe to assume that conflicts in choice of game system can't cause a group to break up. So I'd say that depends on your definition of "fault" here.

A gaming group could break up over any game. If game A is being insisted upon and players X and Y refuse to play it, then some compromise must be made, or else that group will split up.

Ultimately, that’s a failing of the group.

Its an interesting logic puzzle because saying its not the games fault makes it sound like the player is at fault for not wanting to play a game they dont like. It's not the games fault inherently anymore than it is the players but the environment in which they all coexist.

I’ve been in that very situation. I’ve been the player who didn’t want to play a specific game, and I’ve been a GM who wanted to run a specific game that a player didn’t want to play.

When I was the player, I sucked it up and played the game I didn’t want to. I wound up having fun… perhaps not as much as with another game, but still worthwhile. When I was the GM, I asked the player to reconsider. They refused. I talked to the rest of the group, and they weren’t open to playing something else, so we stuck with it, and that player opted out. My main goal here was to make sure there were no hard feelings.

These are people issues.

 

[Gammadoodler]

I think its overly blithe to assume that conflicts in choice of game system can't cause a group to break up. So I'd say that depends on your definition of "fault" here.

Not the person you are replying to, but it's hard for me to see a gaming group breakup as anything other than a social thing, especially for long term groups.

For the game to even be a considering factor, people's experience must be so bad that it outweighs how much they enjoy each other, and someone has to have so much control that they can drive that game's usage in spite of that dislike, and be more committed to the game than to the idea of hanging out with the people who dislike it.

Like, I'm sure this is something that can happen, but it suggests deeper interpersonal issues with the group.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Not the person you are replying to, but it's hard for me to see a gaming group breakup as anything other than a social thing, especially for long term groups.

For the game to even be a considering factor, people's experience must be so bad that it outweighs how much they enjoy each other, and someone has to have so much control that they can drive that game's usage in spite of that dislike, and be more committed to the game than to the idea of hanging out with the people who dislike it.

Like, I'm sure this is something that can happen, but it suggests deeper interpersonal issues with the group.

Kind of. But most groups have diverse interests. That's why I previously talked about the Cheesecake Factory theory of D&D.

When you're dealing with groups with diverse preferences, most people will often have strong preferences one way or the other. So in looking for a group activity, the usual default is to find something that is agreeable to everyone. Whether it's choosing a movie, or a restaurant ... or a game.

The more a game is highly-focused on appealing to a strong set of preferences, the more likely it is that one (or more) people in the group won't enjoy it. That's why you'll often see long-term play of games that might not be the first choice of some of the group, but are "good enough." On the other hand, people might agree to do a one-shot of a game they won't enjoy (for interpersonal group dynamics), but will balk at committing to playing it for a longer period of time.

Anyway, it's kind of weird (IMO) that for some, "system matters" except to the extent that people don't like the system, in which case it's "people matter."

 

[Thomas Shey]

A gaming group could break up over any game. If game A is being insisted upon and players X and Y refuse to play it, then some compromise must be made, or else that group will split up.

Ultimately, that’s a failing of the group.

Its also a problem of the game. To act like they're disconnected is, I think, a counterfactual. If the group can play one game together satisfactorily and another tears them apart, there's only one variable there.

 

[James Gasik]

Its also a problem of the game. To act like they're disconnected is, I think, a counterfactual. If the group can play one game together satisfactorily and another tears them apart, there's only one variable there.

Ok but, the group allowed the game to tear them apart is the problem here.

Like, let's say you and your friends have a weekly boardgame night. After awhile, everyone has their favorite games and games they don't like as much. Eventually one day, some of your friends say "let's play Cataan with all the expansions!" and a few others say "ugh, I'd rather walk on hot coals."

If there's a big fight and you stop having your boardgame nights over this, that's not Cataan's fault, is it? No, it's the fact that you and your friends were unable to broker a compromise or simply decide "hey, we can just play games we all like".

 

[Imaro]

Kind of. But most groups have diverse interests. That's why I previously talked about the Cheesecake Factory theory of D&D.

When you're dealing with groups with diverse preferences, most people will often have strong preferences one way or the other. So in looking for a group activity, the usual default is to find something that is agreeable to everyone. Whether it's choosing a movie, or a restaurant ... or a game.

The more a game is highly-focused on appealing to a strong set of preferences, the more likely it is that one (or more) people in the group won't enjoy it. That's why you'll often see long-term play of games that might not be the first choice of some of the group, but are "good enough." On the other hand, people might agree to do a one-shot of a game they won't enjoy (for interpersonal group dynamics), but will balk at committing to playing it for a longer period of time.

Anyway, it's kind of weird (IMO) that for some, "system matters" except to the extent that people don't like the system, in which case it's "people matter."

Agree with this and would add that, IMO, another advantage to not necessarily hardcoding a particular playstyle into your ttrpg is that the DM can more easily drift it to account for more diverse playstyles in their group of players. I've stated before I feel this is one of the main strengths of 5e.