D&D General Ray Winninger on 5e’s success, product cadence, the OGL, and more.

[SlyFlourish]

Whilst I think your point is generally well-made, I wish people would stop repeating this canard.

Nothing about 4E's "core gameplay" resembled WoW's core gameplay particularly. In fact, the closest comparator for 4E's design is tactics RPGs in general. Roles weren't even WoW's "core gameplay" in 2007 - that's historical revisionism. In 2004 through 2007, WoW was still developing and struggling with the concept of roles. When WoW launched, roles in that sense didn't exist - the "holy trinity" of WoW was not Tank, Healer, DPS - it was Warrior, Priest, Mage - they were the core classes that were to form the spearhead of every raid. Everyone else was kind of in a hybrid limbo to a greater or lesser extent - even the other "pure DPS" classes. In practical terms, Druids could perform the same role as Priests, almost - but Blizzard buffed Priests in various ways to try and make this less true in Vanilla. Bears and Prot Pallies were a joke - totally second-rate and non-viable as real tanks. Paladins were also inadequate healers - they couldn't be the "main healer", because they were a hybrid. This was totally intentional - Rob Pardo was part of a movement, in EverQuest, to try and stop "hybrid" classes being as powerful/useful as Warrior, Mage, Priest (which was then also EQ's Holy Trinity). Only towards the end of TBC, so 2008, did Blizzard really relent on this and make all specs capable of fulfilling actual roles - the change to Prot Paladin in late TBC was particularly spectacular, they went from being terrible tanks that couldn't even really tank normal dungeons, let alone heroics or raids, to being pretty masterful ones, absolutely on-par with Warriors.

Further, even if we say inaccurately WoW had the Holy Trinity when 4E was beign developed, and that roles were inspired by it, it's a bad comparator because 4E uses 4 roles - unlike WoW, but very like EverQuest 1 and arguably Final Fantasy XI and Dark Age of Camelot - specifically, Tank, Healer/Buffer, Pure DPS, and CC character. WoW has never, at any point in its existence, had CC as separate from DPS, but 4E was very clear on separating them and the secondary roles classes had in 4E also reflected this.

I think it's fine to say "MMORPG-inspired roles" or the like, but they're a fraction of 4E's gameplay, not the whole of the core (which was very much about AEDU and tactical movement and so on, stuff that's alien to MMORPGs of that era and even mostly is today), and they're explicitly not WoW's take on roles. WoW finally introduced a 4th role in the previous expansion, like 2022, and it wasn't even CC - it was "Support" (which is a combo of buffs and DPS in that vision)!

As you mention, and as a longtime Everquest player back in the late 90s and early 2000s, there were definitely clear roles in EQ of the tank, healer, and DPS (and crowd control, you're right) and these were wired into bosses in EQ before WOW was even released. The concept of roles may not have been directly wired into the mechanics of WOW (I can't say) but the ideas were around even before WOW was.

Rob Heinsoo and other 4e developers had a great conversation with Peter Atkenson (the CEO of WOTC back in the late 90s and early 2000s during the 3rd edition era). Rob said directly (go to the 27:30 mark in the video) that the powers-that-be asked the design team to make the sort of game that would relate to MMO players so they could bring those players into D&D.

I played a ton of 4e and I loved a lot of it but I think it isn't inaccurate to say it had some MMO ideas wired into its design -- power cooldowns being an example.

 

[WinningerR]

Adding a little more texture to the new products:

WotC's budgeting starts in early September. It's a process where managers submit their plans for the following year, along with how much money they need to execute those plans. Head count is a big part of that.

The fact that we saw a wave of products announced in September, and then more products added in January, makes me suspect that in the budgeting process this happened:

• The slate of products they had already planned for '25 was not projected to hit revenue targets.
• To maintain current staffing, they had to find a way to generate more revenue.
• To do that, they added more products.

The timing adds up. I might be completely off base, but it's a process I lived through many times back in the day.

The new products were announced in January, they weren't added in January. Those products were in the works for quite a while. (A couple of them were in the works for several years.)

For the last couple of years, WotC announced the next year's entire slate of D&D products in the fall. In previous years, as you know, new products were announced individually, about a quarter before they released. My understanding is that they were trying to return to something closer to the old model by holding some of the announcements back.

 

[Tigris]

1. D&D 4e launches in 2008, sells great for a 3 to 6 month window, then craters.

Fundamentally, 4e failed because all of the plans around it were based on two things that proved wrong:

• The core game play of WoW was portable to other games. It wasn't.
• D&D miniatures were a sustainable, growing business. They weren't.

I would rather say 4E failed for these reasons:

1. The absolutly first released 4E adventure killed peoples interest. The first 4E material book was absolutly horrible I dont mean the PHB or DMG but the adventure Keep on the Shadowfell. It was so bad that people still 15 years later tell stories about how "combat take 3 hours" etc. It had such an absolutely awfull design. Way to many combats which dragged on.

2. Because of internal struggles one designer who wanted to get more power talked strange things about the game being the first who is inspired by computer games. Even though the people who actually did the original design even last year explained how it was not really inspired by WoW but by other things. "I wasn’t involved in the initial design meetings for the game, but I believe that MMOs played a role in how the game was shaped"D&D’s Biggest Controversies Ranked—4. Fourth Edition Sparks an Edition War and the Creation of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game vs this of course still today gives a lot of ammunition to 4E haters

3. When essential took over, unfortunately the new lead really did not understand how much the 4E fans loved the new "martials can be cool too" and the first book released under Essentials was such a punch into the face of 4E fans, that even they did stop buying the products. It was such a tone deaf reaction. Especially since the Essential wizard which was released was even more complicated than the original. So instead of releasing several simple classes for beginners (which were missing) one released 2 extremly simplified classes, and 1 still complex and 1 even more complex class. To reintroduce the "complex caster, simple martial" meme which people who enjoyed 4E was glad it was over. And I like Essentials as a whole, but the first book was a really really bad idea in this way. If there would have been 4 simplified classes including casters (like the later really cool Elementalist Sorcerer), it would have felt like an honest attempt of "We need some simple classes for some people" and not like "we dont respect the 4E fans likes."


Its really sad that a single person could cause so much harm

Rob Heinsoo and other 4e developers had a great conversation with Peter Atkenson (the CEO of WOTC back in the late 90s and early 2000s during the 3rd edition era). Rob said directly (go to the 27:30 mark in the video) that the powers-that-be asked the design team to make the sort of game that would relate to MMO players so they could bring those players into D&D. People might not like the comparison of D&D 4e to MMOs but the designers and the executives at the time definitely had MMOs in mind for 4e's design.

Well in the same video the designers claimed that almost nothing from WoW influenced the game... Even how roles came direct from D&D play.

The quote is "it should be more familiar to players coming from computer games" and thus it was streamlined and used modern gamedesign. You can see clear direct inspiration from Magic the Gathering as an example in wordings etc.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think among many gamers here there isn’t a need or desire for a 3D vtt. I think it’s been polled a few times.

I thought that there would be among the wider newer audience, but I don’t see it. But I am probably blind to this demand.

I think this is 100% right. Even in places with much, much younger-skewing and more diverse players, people just don't seem excited about the 3D VTT. It's something that really a small cadre of serious nerds (with no disrespect meant, I'm absolutely a serious nerd about some stuff) seem to be genuinely excited about.

And now we're sufficient far post-pandemic (he said, being sick with what is probably COVID but w/e man!) I think most people who play are sort of "back in the swing" of things and have found ways to play and aren't really looking for a new one. Let alone a new one that'll cost them a big subscription fee or the like! Which, even if that's not what they do in the end, is certainly the vibe WotC have been giving re: the 3D VTT.

So now I think maybe there is an avenue with BG3 players looking for more. Maybe.

I personally suspect WotC's goal here is more lined up with that, yeah. I think the delay to the 3D VTT probably is partly technical issues being resolved, but I think it's probably also them trying to find a way to make it so they can essentially sell the 3D VTT as a "single player" thing, or co-op with an AI DM or something (that isn't going to work, just to be clear, generative AI is not there yet, and I don't think will be, maybe not ever unless some fundamental issues are resolved, issues which might not be possible to resolve with this approach to AI).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I would rather say 4E failed for these reasons:

1. The absolutly first released 4E adventure killed peoples interest. The first 4E material book was absolutly horrible I dont mean the PHB or DMG but the adventure Keep on the Shadowfell. It was so bad that people still 15 years later tell stories about how "combat take 3 hours" etc. It had such an absolutely awfull design. Way to many combats which dragged on.

2. Because of internal struggles one designer who wanted to get more power talked strange things about the game being the first who is inspired by computer games. Even though the people who actually did the original design even last year explained how it was not really inspired by WoW but by other things. "I wasn’t involved in the initial design meetings for the game, but I believe that MMOs played a role in how the game was shaped"D&D’s Biggest Controversies Ranked—4. Fourth Edition Sparks an Edition War and the Creation of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game vs this of course still today gives a lot of ammunition to 4E haters

3. When essential took over, unfortunately the new lead really did not understand how much the 4E fans loved the new "martials can be cool too" and the first book released under Essentials was such a punch into the face of 4E fans, that even they did stop buying the products. It was such a tone deaf reaction. Especially since the Essential wizard which was released was even more complicated than the original. So instead of releasing several simple classes for beginners (which were missing) one released 2 extremly simplified classes, and 1 still complex and 1 even more complex class. To reintroduce the "complex caster, simple martial" meme which people who enjoyed 4E was glad it was over.


Its really sad that a single person could cause so much harm




Well in the same video the designers claimed that almost nothing from WoW influenced the game... Even how roles came direct from D&D play.

The quote is "it should be more familiar to players coming from computer games" and thus it was streamlined and used modern gamedesign. You can see clear direct inspiration from Magic the Gathering as an example in wordings etc.

This is very good and on-point.

And good christ yes people forget how much damage Keep on the Shadowfell and it's nearly equally dire follow-ups did. You can't launch a game with a fundamentally new approach to combat, then put out the first adventure fail to design it around that new approach!

Well said re: Essentials too - people act like that was purely some good thing, but some of it was pretty bad.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

As an example, take a look at the Hiding header on page 19:

"The Dungeon Master decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding. When you try to hide, you take the Hide action."

Then look at the Hide action on page 368:

"With the Hide action, you try to conceal yourself. To do so, you must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity (Stealth) check while you're Heavily Obscured or behind Three-Quarters Cover or Total Cover, and you must be out of any enemy's line of sight"

So which is it? Does the DM decide, or does cover and obscurement determine if you can hide?

I'm not seeing a contradiction here. If a player asks if they can hide, the DM decides if there's something in the environment that the player could try to hide behind or in. Then the player uses the Hide action, having gained confirmation from the DM that the circumstances are appropriate for hiding.

I personally haven't seen many rules issues for PHB 2024 other than the issue with Conjure Minor Elementals.

Nothing about 4E's "core gameplay" resembled WoW's core gameplay particularly. In fact, the closest comparator for 4E's design is tactics RPGs in general.

We even have a D&D MMO that came out during the 4E era and uses various names and concepts from 4E but doesn't play anything like 4E. I personally have never enjoyed MMOs but love tactics RPGs, and 4E is firmly a particularly complex example of the latter.

 

[Tigris]

I played a ton of 4e and I loved a lot of it but I think it isn't inaccurate to say it had some MMO ideas wired into its design -- power cooldowns being an example.

It is so sad that even today people still lack soo much knowledge in gamedesign, that they think "encounter abilities" and "cooldowns" are the same... yes on a superficial level "both make you wait for abilities to be useable again", but they fulfill a completly different job.


More in detail can be found here:
But in short:

• Cooldowns create rotations. Repetition of the same things in fixed order. Goal is perfecting your rotation.
• Once per combat and once per day abilities do the opposite. They make that you cant do the same thing over and over.
• Per combat and per day abilities are extremly easy to track in real table play with cards. (which were sold for 4E and could be printed for powers). You put them down when you used them. This is easier to track than spell slots and clearly with real table play in mind. (Also Magic the gathering is a big 4E influence. Even the golden rule from mtg is in 4E book, and wording of abilites and layout etc is clearly inspired by MTG).
• There are lot of better ways to implement cooldowns and or rotations. A good example is 13th age with the monk class, which has almost the same rotations as the monk class in final fantasy 14

EDIT: And here you can read an explanation of how WoW was NOT trying tactical gameplay: D&D 4E - The D&D 4th edition Rennaissaince: A look into the history of the edition, its flaws and its merits

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Then the player uses the Hide action, having gained confirmation from the DM that the circumstances are appropriate for hiding.

I dunno, I think there's a real, important difference between "The DM determines..." and "Here are some elaborate, game-jargon-y, and very specific conditions you need to fulfil for the DM to even consider it!", especially as in fantasy fiction, people often hide without meeting those conditions. I feel like this is really a place where "less is more". I think most people have pretty reasonable ideas re: hiding, and 3E-esque rules-waffle about 3/4s cover and so on isn't helpful.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Well said re: Essentials too - people act like that was purely some good thing, but some of it was pretty bad.

Another forum I frequent was full of people who absolutely loved 4E and could generate hundreds of pages of discussion a year about it in a single thread. The enthusiasm for 5E there is much more tepid (the OGL debacle also killed a lot of good will), and when 4E discussion does come back up it's a common talking point that Essentials heralded the beginning of the end for 4E in terms of quality of PC option game design.

 

[dave2008]

Another forum I frequent was full of people who absolutely loved 4E and could generate hundreds of pages of discussion a year about it in a single thread. The enthusiasm for 5E there is much more tepid (the OGL debacle also killed a lot of good will), and when 4E discussion does come back up it's a common talking point that Essentials heralded the beginning of the end for 4E in terms of quality of PC option game design.

I guess I am the odd 4e player / DM that liked both the original and essentials lines. In my game we had 4 OG 4e characters and 2 essentials characters and it was no issue. We appreciated the different options.