The D&D 4th edition Rennaissaince: A look into the history of the edition, its flaws and its merits

[Joshua Randall]

Mearls does not get to redefine reality here. His list is laughably self-serving.
Mearls never understood nor liked 4e and ACTIVELY WORKED to destroy it.

 

[Joshua Randall]

@Mannahnin you hit the nail on the head re: 4e gameplay. It is difficult to put your finger on WHY it works, but it DOES. In the thick of an exciting combat you can see players pull off incredible, awesome, amazingly fun tactical decisions and c-c-c-combos. You can see monsters user powers that perfectly reflect their monster-ness and are also incredible, awesome, amazingly fun for both the DM and the players.

For those who enjoy 4e gameplay it is VERY rewarding.

 

[Mannahnin]

@Mannahnin you hit the nail on the head re: 4e gameplay. It is difficult to put your finger on WHY it works, but it DOES. In the thick of an exciting combat you can see players pull off incredible, awesome, amazingly fun tactical decisions and c-c-c-combos. You can see monsters user powers that perfectly reflect their monster-ness and are also incredible, awesome, amazingly fun for both the DM and the players.

For those who enjoy 4e gameplay it is VERY rewarding.

It was the first version I really enjoyed and felt confident DMing. Monster encounters almost built themselves. The only part of it that was practically any work at all was designing terrain/battlefields to add extra complications. But as long as you mixed at least a couple of monster types a tactically-dynamic battle was virtually guaranteed. Sometimes it could be dynamic with just a single monster type, depending on the monster.

After DMing 3E it was a breath of fresh air.

 

[Mannahnin]

The counterargument being you did not choose the timing of when to do your once a month spectacular play. You were presumably trying hard a lot but spectacular play is more than just choosing to do so and expending effort to do so, it depends on circumstances being right, etc. So choosing when to do your daily power does not perfectly model your every once in a while spectacular play.

Critical hits on a 20 might be a better model for soccer you where you try hard a bunch but sometimes things are spectacular.

A better analogy for daily powers might be characters in a story sometimes do spectacular things at dramatically appropriate moments such as a climax fight. Bruce Willis in Die Hard with his single last bullet for the end boss being an example. Van Dam pulling it together with a knock out blow after being outclassed and beat up for a while in a martial arts movie.

Right. It's a bit of a narrative mechanic, reflecting the conceit that heroes in action stories can't constantly spam their cool moves like MMO or Street Fighter characters. But it's under the control of the player to pick the spot when the hero finds the opening to pull off that special maneuver. Which rubs some players the wrong way. Still, it feels awesome in play to set your fellow party members up for combos and vice-versa. And of course, as Gary made perfectly clear and explicit in 1E, hit points are a heroic narrative mechanic too. So IMO this is really a question of taste in terms of HOW MUCH rather than KIND of play.

Didn't one of the successor games, 13th Age or one of those, randomize when you could use your cool abilities? Similar to how the Tome of Battle: Book of 9 Swords Crusader class did?

Inspired by James V. West's Black Pudding house rules, I also allow my players in old school games to perform a special maneuver (like bull rushing, disarming, called shots, etc.) whenever they roll a nat 20.

 

[Lord Shark]

Right. It's a bit of a narrative mechanic, reflecting the conceit that heroes in action stories can't constantly spam their cool moves like MMO characters. But it's under the control of the player to pick the spot when the hero finds the opening to pull off that special maneuver. Which rubs some players the wrong way. Still, it feels awesome in play to set your fellow party members up for combos and vice-versa. And of course, as Gary made perfectly clear and explicit in 1E, hit points are a heroic narrative mechanic too. So IMO this is really a question of taste in terms of HOW MUCH rather than KIND of play.

Didn't one of the successor games, 13th Age or one of those, randomize when you could use your cool abilities? Similar to how the Tome of Battle: Book of 9 Swords Crusader class did?

Yeah, 13th Age's fighter and bard have what are referred to as "flexible attacks," where the abilities you can use are determined by whether your attack roll came up odd or even.

It's worth noting that this approach was generally hated, and the 13A fighter was frequently called a letdown even by those who enjoyed the game otherwise. The upcoming Second Edition does away with flexible attacks entirely and just lets fighters choose when to use their abilities.

 

[Staffan]

Didn't one of the successor games, 13th Age or one of those, randomize when you could use your cool abilities? Similar to how the Tome of Battle: Book of 9 Swords Crusader class did?

Not quite, but there were some random elements.

• Fighters had powers that could trigger on certain attack rolls. I believe the common one was on an even attack roll, but there were some others. The fiction there is that the attack roll indicates an opening and using the power is taking advantage of that opening.
• Sorcerers had some powers that were part-way between dailies and encounter powers, which would need a roll to recharge during a short rest.
• Stretching things a bit, rogues had many powers requiring Momentum (I remember making a card for my rogue player which had "Momentum" on one side and "No-mentum" on the other), which I believe you had if you hit with an attack last turn or something like that. There might also have been something about losing it if you were hit yourself. Since these are the results of random rolls, you could see it as random.

Oh, and I think the Occultist was basically all random all the time, but that was in 13 True Ways.

 

[payn]

Yeah, based on Tigris' explanation (which matches what I've seen from other friends who play MMOs), the comparison of encounter/daily powers to MMOs cooldowns seems pretty off-base.

As Pedr wrote, with 4E encounters and dailies you pick your spots to optimize value.

Sometimes that DOES mean using them early, particularly because strikers want to be cutting down the number of enemies ASAP. Reducing the number of enemy actions and attacks is always a good thing. And that is the most similar to MMO cooldown powers.

But most other powers which provide situational benefits or can be multiplied in effect based on positioning (getting enemies or friends bunched in the AoE, for example) are more powerful when you set them up. And synergistic play in 4E often meant characters coordinating- for example one character pushing or sliding one or more enemies to set up an ally to get extra value from a key daily. Or the Bard I played in one campaign using a power to let the whole party move off-turn to get into perfect formation for the next character to pay that off with another power.

Mearls' summary there seems like memory changing in hindsight. Not just because his release timeframe seems simply mistaken.

I'm not sure what he thinks MMO-style play means. The closest elements I recall from that were...

a) hoping to capture recurring subscription money (which they did, with all the groups I played with- EVERYONE used the character builder),
and
b) hoping to have a VTT which would allow people to play remotely with their old friends and family around the country or the world (which would also be more likely to get buy-in on said monthly subscription, as it would be a service more akin to playing EverQuest online with your friends, rather than just books in your house).

If by "MMO-style" he means "online play that you pay for on a recurring transaction basis" that makes sense. If he means in terms of play style, I don't think that comparison holds up. Playing 4E is not much like playing an MMO in terms of what your actual activities are while playing. How you spend your time and how you interact with the world, game, and other players. The kinds of decisions you make.

I’ve come to think of it this way. D&D always had roles that could be applied tactically to great effect. MMOs required it, which is how 4E/PF2 felt to me as well. The roles in D&D were finally defined and mechanics given to match. 5E pulled back to previous D&D where a savvy group would use the tactics to good effect, but could fumble around like unherdable cats and still move forward.

I think the tactical knowledge lends itself better to video games because you can ply them whenever with whoever, but TTRPGs are a slower more casual experience so the 4E design pushed a lot of those folks out. YMMV

@Mannahnin you hit the nail on the head re: 4e gameplay. It is difficult to put your finger on WHY it works, but it DOES. In the thick of an exciting combat you can see players pull off incredible, awesome, amazingly fun tactical decisions and c-c-c-combos. You can see monsters user powers that perfectly reflect their monster-ness and are also incredible, awesome, amazingly fun for both the DM and the players.

For those who enjoy 4e gameplay it is VERY rewarding.

That’s exactly how MMO play felt to me and the same feeling I got from 4E even if the mechanical application was different.

 

[Tigris]

Yeah, based on Tigris' explanation (which matches what I've seen from other friends who play MMOs), the comparison of encounter/daily powers to MMOs cooldowns seems pretty off-base.

One thing I did forget to mention:

In D&D you want to minimize damage taken. In WoW you normally wanted to minimize time (so number of turns). Sometimes you might want to burst things down, but its often not the case.


Since healers cant really do damage, its often better to not focus enemies, and instead just do area attacks, or spread dots (damage over time) of several enemies, since this minimizes the total time you need to take all those enemies. Even if you might take much more damage this way.


Of course focusing down also sometimes was important but it is not the only / the default strategy.



Also cooldowns in WoW are not "cool attacks" there are temporary passive bonuses. Like "I deal x more damage for 10 seconds". Some attacks also had some cooldowns, but only short ones.

That’s exactly how MMO play felt to me and the same feeling I got from 4E even if the mechanical application was different.

How long did you play MMOs? Because in the 5000 hours I played WoW this was not the feeling I got.

 

[Mannahnin]

Yeah, 13th Age's fighter and bard have what are referred to as "flexible attacks," where the abilities you can use are determined by whether your attack roll came up odd or even.

It's worth noting that this approach was generally hated, and the 13A fighter was frequently called a letdown even by those who enjoyed the game otherwise. The upcoming Second Edition does away with flexible attacks entirely and just lets fighters choose when to use their abilities.

Yeah, that's what I remember.

It makes sense to me that it would be disliked, as it seems to me that it's a mechanic appealing to the players who didn't enjoy 4E in the first place, whereas 13th Age would be a game primarily checked out by players who DID like 4E. Their actual market would want the ability to pick their spots to use their moves. The people who were turned off by the player being able to choose wouldn't be looking to play a 4E-successor in the first place.

I’ve come to think of it this way. D&D always had roles that could be applied tactically to great effect. MMOs required it, which is how 4E/PF2 felt to me as well. The roles in D&D were finally defined and mechanics given to match. 5E pulled back to previous D&D where a savvy group would use the tactics to good effect, but could fumble around like unherdable cats and still move forward.

Huh. Given that 4E is still a human-DM'd game, though, I don't think it can "require" skilled play in the way a computer game with a set difficulty does.

If my group is good at setting up combos, I as DM can scale up encounters and play hard with my tactics. If they're not good at that, we can still easily have a fun game- I just don't make things as difficult. My 4E and 5E groups can both fumble like unherdable cats.

5E definitely reduced the available tactical complexity, though, in offering simpler rules with fewer options. Especially fewer ones which take advantage of grid positioning and forced movement.

I guess the sense in which I can agree that 5E lends itself more to casual groups is just that the "skill cap" is theoretically lower? But when my groups play it's just different skills being exercised. Less miniatures tactics in 5E or B/X, equal "playing the world" and solving puzzles and problems.

Edit: Actually, I guess B/X has the most playing the world/puzzle-solving and the least miniatures tactics, 4E the reverse, and 5E the middle ground. Just based on time spent.

 

[Kannik]

My 4E and 5E groups can both fumble like unherdable cats.

I'll let the besmirchment of felines slide But, ouch, yeah too close to home, too real. Maybe this is the true, 100%, through line heart of D&D across all editions: the ability to continually flork up in a string of the most mortifying (perhaps literally for the "mort" part for the character!) ways.