D&D General New Interview with Rob Heinsoo About 4E

[FitzTheRuke]

No. I was giving that as an example of quick design a lot of people do. I haven't designed encounters like that since I was 12.


Let's see. I have the leader of a rival town who has come into their city and declared martial law - who they haven't engaged with. A faction of rebels trying to overthrow him - who they haven't engaged with. An aboleth in the sewers trying to take over the thieves guild with mind control - who they haven't engaged with. The dark thane of the duergar who is weaponizing the dwarves of the nearby mountains.
There is a lot of stuff going on. When I give them the opportunity to talk, it's all reduced to "you can fight agents of enemy x but these guys do ongoing fire damage." Why? Because they look at their sheets and see "blazing doom of the void" or "fire shroud."
It's that old saying, when you have a hammer, everything's a nail. They have 6-page character sheets, with 5 pages dedicated to attack powers. There's one block of skills on the front page. There's an empty box on page two for personality and backstory.

I think that after reading many many 4e-bashing posts over the years, I have come to the conclusion that in spite of many of us that found 4e to be refreshing and had no trouble (even encouragement!) by the system to role-play, tell great stories, and have our games be D&D (even D&D dialed to 11!) That there is a large swath of gamers who have the 4e style stifle their gaming.

Like you say here, "when you have a hammer, everything's a nail". When you have a robust combat system, everything's a fight. When you have a Power Card, you say "I use this card" instead of "I duck under his attack and bring my sword up under his arm" (or whatever fluffiness is appropriate). Some players fall into this trap.

And we argue about it because other players (specifically the ones that enjoy 4e) simply don't have the same issues. They don't see everything as a nail - they might have a hammer, but that makes them see everything as a carpentry project. (Or whatever appropriate metaphor that makes the hammer inspirational, rather than constraining).

Now, before anyone thinks that I'm saying that 4e-lovers are right and 4e-haters are wrong - not at all. I'm trying to say that it hits different players in different ways, which is why we can't see eye-to-eye. Some people find it ruins their creative spark and turns it into a pure numbers game; others find it inspires them. Neither can understand why the other sees it that way, and assumes that the other side must be doing something "wrong" (in the first case, failing to understand the system or engage with it "correctly"; in the second, enjoying games that "aren't D&D" or "are too gamey") or the usual arguements.

When in reality, the 4e game really DOES stifle creativity in some people and inspire others. That the first group is large is proven by 4e's lack of success. So like it or not, 4e really IS "not for everyone".

When it comes to 4e's sales (as is argued above) I have this to say: Regardless of what you think of it, 4e really DID sell better than other editions (other than 5e) but ONLY on INITIAL RELEASE. It dropped off faster than most, and while it really was overall "successful" (by any standard metric), it ultimately failed, and it did NOT have lifetime sales as high as previous editions' core books, unless you put PHB1-3 added up against any given single PHB.

 

[Oofta]

This is because the language regarding MMOs translates well and it was very clear that 4e was influenced by the genre.

They openly admitted to taking ideas from MMOs. Problem was that in an MMO you have a computer to keep track of all the things going on. In a D&D game I couldn't even get players to keep track of what conditions were affecting their PC. and don't get me started on the "creative" interpretation of powers that some people had.

Some of that still happens in 5E of course, it's just significantly less.

EDIT: ninja'd

 

[FitzTheRuke]

It also perfectly shows why 4e was so divisive. It was the rules. The rules catered to a much smaller subset of the player base and was really, really good for those players.

I was about to say that you summed up what I was trying to say more succinctly than I did. And then you said this:

These are the same type of people who join elite raiding guilds.

THIS I disagree with. There are a whole lotta people who enjoyed (and enjoy) 4e who used it to PLAY D&D. Who, like myself, have NEVER PLAYED WOW. My 4e games were not in any way, particularly different (other then very specific rules minutia) than were my 3e games, or my 2e games, or my 1e games. We played the same style game with slightly different tools, is all.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

They openly admitted to taking ideas from MMOs.

Sure, but the part of the MMO argument that bothers me is the obvious fact that it goes the other way around FIRST: MMOs would NOT EXIST without D&D being a thing. They owe EVERYTHING to D&D. D&D took a few things back (maybe a few things that they shouldn't have)? Sure.

 

[Aldarc]

I despise MMOs and their design and strongly disagree. It's just RPG stuff. Fourth edition is less like an MMO than it's like your Ogre Battles or Final Fantasy Tactics: you have front line attackers, you have healers, you have people that work as crowd control.

This is the interesting that I find about it all. Many tabletop games that cite 4e as an influence are NOT also citing Warcraft as an influence, but, rather, tactical JRPGs, which in turn were probably some of the most heavily D&D-inspired games out there, especially the classic ones.

I'll be honest. None of the designers of 4e really strike me as the sort of people who were playing World of Warcraft or MMOs. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe it was a superficial look.

 

[Cadence]

“I wasn’t involved and didn’t have much to do with it and demolished its core strengths with my version, but I think…”

I would be kind of surprised if none of the 4e designers ever played MMOs regularly, and if they did play them that none of them that did so at all were influenced by it.

I find it kind of funny how many people are apparently traumatized that it might have happened.

(Do any MMO players act appalled when someone points out what their favorite game borrowed from DnD?)

 

[Chaltab]

My 4e games were not in any way, particularly different (other then very specific rules minutia) than were my 3e games, or my 2e games, or my 1e games. We played the same style game with slightly different tools, is all.

As an addendum, my 5E games aren't terribly different than my 4E games were, other than being a bit more confident in my DMing ability now that I've been doing it longer (and perhaps less confident in my encounter balance because... well, 5E's monster balance ain't great.)

 

[FitzTheRuke]

As an addendum, my 5E games aren't terribly different than my 4E games were, other than being a bit more confident in my DMing ability now that I've been doing it longer (and perhaps less confident in my encounter balance because... well, 5E's monster balance ain't great.)

Yes! I could make balanced encounters on the fly in 4e and I still can't quite understand how 5e's encounters are supposed to work, exactly. Fortunately, the balance is not all that important, comparatively.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Naw, that’s way overstated - and I think that at the time there were probably way less “casual” players given what I remember of 3.5? I’d rather never touch a computer again then get into high level raiding and find 4e totally comprehensible - but then again I’m a DM, and we’re almost always more likely to engage with rules (especially in 5e where you’re expected to be the voice of god).

4e absolutely needed a midlife QOL pass to reduce the complexity around feats and modifiers (a Tasha’s basically - which it turned out was just a preview of D&D future). It got Essentials & buried instead.

Really, it needed a pre-life QoL pass. I may be a 4e mega-fan, but it's pretty clear that it came out with at least a couple parts still half-baked, and that's before you consider the presentation issues.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Yes! I could make balanced encounters on the fly in 4e and I still can't quite understand how 5e's encounters are supposed to work, exactly. Fortunately, the balance is not all that important, comparatively.

That's the secret.

They don't.

Edit: There's a good reason several of the major well-known, respected youtubers who do DM advice, such as Matt Colville, specifically advocate using 4e to improve your 5e games. 4e monster design is really, really good, to the point that you can leverage it to make better, more interesting, more engaging combats even in 5e.