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

[Justice and Rule]

In a vain attempting at preventing this from becoming a multiquote lollapalooza, I'm going to consolidate the two source requests.

I definitely don't mean to imply that my 5-odd quotes were the definitive representation of every comment about every D&D discussion I've read online, which seems to be what you're aiming at with notes about "the actual picture of the actual community". I'd say that a dismissive comment along the lines of what I posted gets trotted out at least once or twice in every reddit thread that discusses the edition, but my highest-effort experience with those involves copy/pasting the funnier ones to share and then moving on. I was able to find one of these with some search-fu, but I can't pull the other up despite my best efforts.

But more importantly, I don't really want to convince anyone here that their experience is fake or wholly non-representative or whatever. I see comments here that I think are pretty reductive or cherry-picked (and its weird that those seem to get liked in some places and questioned in others), so all I'm trying to do is lend a small voice in a sea of dissenting opinions.

People don't really question people saying those things about 4E because we've seen them for 15 years. I've been on websites that had to regulate certain stuff to stop people from starting edition wars. It may seem unfair, but that's kind of the situation we're in. Though it was less about not believing they existed as much as the two I wanted to see the comments on were vague enough that I think more context was warranted. Speaking of...

And now that I've cleverly delayed my one actual link (I am bracing for its inevitable dissection...), here's the thread complaints of inter-class gameplay being too similar. Tried to zoom in enough to keep it focused, but out enough to give some context: link

This works great! But I think your quotation of the person misses the context before it: the very long and thorough going over of the argument. It's not being said as a response to the initial comment, but the response that goes into detail as to why they feel it's wrong. It's more of a communal affirmation than anything, which I get.

And this is why I wanted context for those ones in particular: the Pathfinder 2E one was believable enough, but it also stood on its own as a direct response and I could see the path it followed. The other two... a bit less so, which is why it felt like context would add something to it.

Certainly, but when someone mentions not enjoying a certain element of gameplay, assuming it's because they're bad isn't the most clever play. Understandable? I guess. A little cringe-worthy? I think so. Notable enough remark on it once or twice in the 300th-ish page of a 350-page thread? Sure.

I understand that, but I think the point is that the system is trying to leverage the limitations you see to make the classes more distinct. They have options to make up for those (as they mentioned), but part of the point is that this was a design decision so that casters could be much more distinct. Most immediately, it makes for a huge distinction between Wizards and Sorcerers that 5E can struggle with from time to time.

But I take umbrage with the idea that they are saying you're "bad", because I don't think that's the implication. Again, I think with PF2 specifically there's a lot of fighting biases from 5E that no longer apply. Like, I remember being turned off by the idea of using an action to gain the benefits of a Shield. That sounded terrible and that it would only make a Martial character's life more difficult because now they have to spend an action to get a defensive benefit they used to get for free. Combined with what felt like a new reaction that would just bust up your shield (Shield Block) and I just was not thrilled.

It took me actually seeing it in action to really get it, and see how its effectiveness was different compared to 5E. Those sorts of moments, when you realize what you can do and how things move together were really big in figuring out the system. That person isn't telling you that you're bad at the game or anything as much as trying to inform you of parts of the system that make up for the limitations that you might not be aware of because they aren't there in the other system. These are things that get missed.

Really, again, I think if there is anything that the PF2 board is a bit too quick-triggered on, it's people houseruling things. Sometimes justified, sometimes just them being a bit too dogmatic.

Yeah, that was the point of my comment. The folks who are posting here don't have the same experience as me. Some of the enworld threads linked here are older than my account! I think your note on bias is probably relevant to those threads, but it's not really my place to tell you (or Hussar, or whoever else that's complaining about being yelled at for badwrongfun) that the conversations you're tired of never happened. I just want to give you my perspective: I've been on D&D related social media a similar amount of time, and I like to think I've formed a nuanced opinion of its positives (which exist!) and negatives (which also exist). I've found that reasoned criticism of 4e was frequently shouted down in some very unfair ways, ranging for passive-aggressive insults to outright hostility. It's the only edition that I still can't have a reasoned discussion about in any discord server. At least one person got banned from one of my discord servers ("my" as in I'm on it, not that I run it) because they were so obnoxious to other members.

Do my 10~20 years of talking about D&D on the internet mean that your personal experience is fake? I don't think so. Does yours make mine fake? I certainly hope not.

Again, I think people are plenty prepared to talk about negatives. I think, however, such things need to be maybe phrased properly. In the thread you linked, there is a discussion about how the two most similar classes in 4E base are the Paladin and Fighter, which makes the argument a bit harder but it doesn't fall into just name-calling at all and I think it's actually a really good conversation.

The argument being made when I came in was a classic one that people don't like: calling the powers of 4E to be "nonsensical", while ignoring that they aren't meant to be specific actions with ultra-specific requirements. That's going to be a big argument because we are missing a key design point of 4E being more about effect than cause: you can create the cause however you like, but the point is to give you combat options that aren't easily taken away. That's a lot of where the arguments come from: trying to pass off a personal preference ("I prefer something more simulationist") as a system flaw ("This system is gives the fighter mind-control powers"). That's going to start an argument.

And I'm not going to say there aren't obnoxious superfans of 4E, but I just don't see them nearly as often. Certainly not on these boards, at least. I generally find 5E discussions to be worse, but I think that is in part because 5E brings in a lot of different people and there are a lot fewer expectations of play when it comes to 5E, so you get all sorts of playstyles and opinions; some people really want a more high-powered game, while others want less power, simpler systems, and even less.

Honestly I think there are fewer 5E superfans as much as WotC superfans nowadays, but that's a complete different discussion for a different day.

No worries, it wasn't

lol

 

[Umbran]

Again, link? It's easy to cherry-pick people, but that doesn't really give us an actual picture of the actual community and thread.

Mod Note:
As if there is one single "actual picture" of a community? As if two people in a thread here won't usually have different impressions coming from it?

Folks, the cross-venue drama is unlikely to be constructive. Please leave it be.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Not really trying to create cross-forum drama as much as get context for quotes. I appreciate the one thread given because I think it was enlightening to what we were talking about. I'll leave it at that.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I disagree. Like it or not, with their purchase of TSR WotC made themselves custodians and curators of the game's entire history, not just the eiditons they themselves put out. As such, I feel they have a duty to support them all; similar perhaps to a car manufacturer having a duty to provide replacement parts for older models.

That they've on the whole done a very mixed (at best!) job of this doesn't excuse them from the duty.

Look, while I live down the street from WotC, I don't claim to know anything about what management or the owners (Hasbro, a giant corporation, so probably not much) think about any sort of custodial role. Buying TSR was a business transaction, nothing more, nothing less. Maybe WotC/Hasbro carefully conserves their culture and heritage, or maybe the message is just make money. They are entirely within their rights to do whatever they want with their IP, modulus a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders that might mandate they don't, say burn it all in the parking lot.

You may WANT them to have certain ideas about things, and adhere to your preferences, but claiming it is a duty they actually have? Sorry, nope.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

My stance is that it's their duty to their customers to do so for a much longer period of time than is often the case.

Yeah, sorry, we live in a capitalist system. They have no duty to you or anyone that doesn't own their stock, whatsoever.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, no I don’t care much about philosophy of games. I like what I like. 5e is okay, but we (my particular gaming group core of 3 people) are happy with 3.5, which we play like we played 2e. 4e was my least favorite edition. As my brother says, I did play it, own a few of the books, but would NOT play again if given any option. My main reason? The PH is indecipherable to me. I simply could not read it and make sense of creating a character.

Yeah, and the interesting thing is, to me, that one of my perspectives on 5e is that it can greatly reduce the need to keep making fairly informed decisions about build options constantly in order to build up both thematic and mechanical aspects of your character. 4e has a lot of details, and the rules structure is pretty straightforward, but the interactions can be fairly intricate. On the 4e+ thread that's going now we were talking about a few character builds, and really these things get pretty specific! You can kind of just blunder through the 5e PHB and pick what you want, there's not really that many choice points for a fighter (a couple at levels 1 and 3, and then a fairly straightforward set of "pick the ASI!" mostly after that. There are some simple 4e builds too, but I think there's some virtue in 'simplicity of build, subtlety in play'. 5e did make incrementally improve there.

OTOH 3.x is just a hot mess in that department, but if you have played for 20 years...

 

[Aldarc]

In my experience, if there is obnoxious, toxic anti-5e rhetoric and criticism, it comes mostly from some of the OSR communities and influencers rather than the comparatively smaller 4e communities. (If 4e was the current edition, however, I highly doubt that 4e would be immune to similar rhetoric. If anything, I expect it would be even more toxic.)

 

[Hussar]

In my experience, if there is obnoxious, toxic anti-5e rhetoric and criticism, it comes mostly from some of the OSR communities and influencers rather than the comparatively smaller 4e communities. (If 4e was the current edition, however, I highly doubt that 4e would be immune to similar rhetoric. If anything, I expect it would be even more toxic.)

Let’s be honest here.

It’s far more common to see someone merging like “DnD lost its way when WotC bought out tsr” than much from any 4e fans.

There just isn’t that large of a 4e community.

 

[Aldarc]

Let’s be honest here.

It’s far more common to see someone merging like “DnD lost its way when WotC bought out tsr” than much from any 4e fans.

There just isn’t that large of a 4e community.

Or "5e is the carebear easymode edition." 4e D&D, in contrast, is treated as a far less encroaching or threatening "dead game."

 

[payn]

In my experience, if there is obnoxious, toxic anti-5e rhetoric and criticism, it comes mostly from some of the OSR communities and influencers rather than the comparatively smaller 4e communities. (If 4e was the current edition, however, I highly doubt that 4e would be immune to similar rhetoric. If anything, I expect it would be even more toxic.)

Not in my experience. Though I don't think there is a large contingent of these folks. The few out there are extremely nasty and some of the things they say occasionally rubs off on otherwise good folks.