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

[payn]

There is no fault involved in people deciding they would rather play some other game or even participate in some other activity (like say intramural sports, board gaming groups or trivia nights). At the end of the day, we're talking about a group of people playing a game together, not a marriage. There is no fault to be assessed.

At heart this implies that seeking your bliss, trying new things. is ultimately an act of betrayal. That's beyond silly. I have left many gaming groups over the years because I was not getting the play experience I was looking for. Sometimes because I wanted to play different games. Sometimes because there was a core difference in what we wanted to get out of a particular game. This was a good thing because I'm in groups that jive with my preferences better and I don't have to deal with conflict at the table. It's also better for the groups I left behind because they get to enjoy a game that fits their preferences better.

I think this is common wisdom and experience in most things. However, D&D isnt like most things, its gravity is nearly impossible to escape. It is not the only game in the TTRPG hobby, but often times it may as well be.

 

[Parmandur]

I mean, c'mon @Imaro, let's be fair here. Was anyone actually shocked or surprised about the mechanics of 4e? They did advertise and preview large swaths of it for about six months or a year before release. The arguments were WELL underway, LOOOOOONG before 4e hit the streets. "Cloud Watching" anyone? They were pretty clear that this wasn't your Father's D&D. And in context, even the whole "Ze Game is Ze Same" thing was pointing to the fact that this was still very clearly D&D - you played fighters and wizards, fought monsters and played out stories that aren't exactly very different from what you did in other editions.

"Oh, I had not idea 4e was going to look like that and it wasn't until I bought the game, read it, started playing it, that I realized that WotC bamboozled me!!!!"

I think one of the fundamental errors WotC made at the time was thinking that most people were plugged into all that noise in advance.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Not at all. There are plenty of folks who enjoyed 4e. There are even more who didn’t enjoy it, but don’t have a vendetta against it.

And to make it clear, in case its gotten lost in the noise, I'm one of the latter. I think 4e was an astoundingly well-thought through design in most ways; the fact it focused on some of the elements of D&D I least liked doesn't change that.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I mean, c'mon @Imaro, let's be fair here. Was anyone actually shocked or surprised about the mechanics of 4e? They did advertise and preview large swaths of it for about six months or a year before release.

I'm sure there were some people who were. Its not like there aren't RPGers who don't interact much with the hobby outside playing the game, even GMs. I realize that's easy to forget for those of us who are much more engaged with the hobby's PR and other discourse, but its certainly still a thing.

How many? That's hard to say.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So we move from "cause" or "catalyst" to fault! How can it be the fault of a game that people react to it in some irrational way?

I don't consider those three words meaningfully different in this context.

 

[Voadam]

I think one of the fundamental errors WotC made at the time was thinking that most people were plugged into all that noise in advance.

I did not go in-depth on stuff, the same way I am not going in-depth on any of the 2024 5e developments. I picked up on the monster roles and really liked the concepts and adapted that to my 3.5 games, but none of the other WotC marketing won me over to try 4e on my own (particularly their OGL policy and actions which I was following) so I mostly let a lot of the 4e discussion of specifics pass by while I continued to play and DM and get stuff for 3.5. I saw a bunch of chatter here and checked out a few but not a ton. I saw some WotC videos, I remember liking the ones with the tiefling and the gnome.

I did not get the prequel softcover Worlds and Monsters or Races and Classes. I remember getting a bunch of 3.5 hardcovers (pretty much the entire Eberron line and later MMs and the specialized monster books), off of Amazon sellers for $0.01 each plus $3.99 shipping at the time because the new edition drove down prices on the old edition stuff. A lot of stuff that I had an interest in before but not enough to get at full or even half prices. This provided me with a lot of new cheap material to expand my 3.5 games further.

 

[Campbell]

I think this is common wisdom and experience in most things. However, D&D isnt like most things, its gravity is nearly impossible to escape. It is not the only game in the TTRPG hobby, but often times it may as well be.

I do think at the time it was relatively easy to escape 4e's gravity given the popularity and accessibility of Pathfinder. When I would go to the game store back then 4e and Pathfinder were pretty much given equal prominence. In some cases, stores were actively pushing people towards Pathfinder and Pathfinder Society. I personally had several cases where I would go to the store to buy a 4e book and have a store employee try to get me to buy Pathfinder stuff instead.

That's part of what made not really understand a lot of the vitriol at that time. For a brief moment in time people had real choices in that space. I got to be happy and so did the 3e fans because their game was on the same shelves, actively played and just as if not more available in organized play - not that organized play has ever been my thing.

I was legitimately happy for Pathfinder fans. I never understood why that could not be a mutual feeling. I feel the same way about some of the vitriol, although far less pronounced I saw from some 5e fans on these boards who actively cheer-leaded against Pathfinder Second Edition's success.

 

[payn]

I do think at the time it was relatively easy to escape 4e's gravity given the popularity and accessibility of Pathfinder. When I would go to the game store back then 4e and Pathfinder were pretty much given equal prominence. In some cases, stores were actively pushing people towards Pathfinder and Pathfinder Society. I personally had several cases where I would go to the store to buy a 4e book and have a store employee try to get me to buy Pathfinder stuff instead.

That's part of what made not really understand a lot of the vitriol at that time. For a brief moment in time people had real choices in that space. I got to be happy and so did the 3e fans because their game was on the same shelves, actively played and just as if not more available in organized play - not that organized play has ever been my thing.

Thats true. Though, for a moment it didn't seem like folks would have a safe landing zone for their gaming preference. That anxiety I think led to some obnoxious E war behavior. I think afterwards, that led further into a certain Ford Vs Chevy kind of culture. Fortunately, I think that has died down since 5E and PF2.

 

[Aldarc]

I'm sure there were some people who were. Its not like there aren't RPGers who don't interact much with the hobby outside playing the game, even GMs. I realize that's easy to forget for those of us who are much more engaged with the hobby's PR and other discourse, but its certainly still a thing.

How many? That's hard to say.

Regardless, it's hard for me to imagine that any person who joined ENWorld in early 2007 and participated in the forums would or should be surprised by 4e.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think this is common wisdom and experience in most things. However, D&D isnt like most things, its gravity is nearly impossible to escape. It is not the only game in the TTRPG hobby, but often times it may as well be.

And as an observation, this seems even more true now than it was 40 years ago, which is kind of odd given there are a lot more useful options than there were back then in terms of other choices. I suspect the media dominance of D&D probably has a lot to do with it.