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

[darjr]

Pick a lane mate lol.

Naw. I get it. I think it could have been worded better. But it has a “keyword” right there.

P.S. I generally don’t like keyword kind of design like this anyway.

 

[Pedantic]

The text says the DM determines if you can Hide. If so, you can use the Hide Action. The Hide Action then has a bunch of constraints. Seems simple to me. What is giving you an issue?

Should the DM respond with "yes, you have 3/4s Cover" or with "yes, it's appropriate to hide now, if you can find 3/4s cover?"

The first conditional is written as though the only thing you'll do is ask the DM directly about the action, the second is written as though you'll ask about the situation, and then resolve the action if the situation aligns. They produce totally different gameplay loops, and if they're both true, produce an even weirder loop where I might, for example, ask the DM if I can hide to get a bonus against ranged attacks from the cover I'm now in.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Yeah, the DM is the one who decides when skills can be used, and when they are used there are rules for using them. For Stealth the DM decides if there is something the player could use to hide, just like if someone wants to try climbing something the DM determines if that is possible and then the player uses Athletics.

 

[Chaltab]

It's really disheartening that over 15 years later and we're still having the same tired arguments about 4E. And that some of it is coming from people who worked at WOTC and should know better.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Yeah, the DM is the one who decides when skills can be used, and when they are used there are rules for using them. For Stealth the DM decides if there is something the player could use to hide, just like if someone wants to try climbing something the DM determines if that is possible and then the player uses Athletics.

In that case the "DM decides if it is appropriate to hide" is completely redundant with the base gameplay loop. Might as well preface other rules with "The DM decides if it is appropriate to attack" or "The DM decides if it is appropriate to cast a spell".

 

[Micah Sweet]

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)!

The idea isn't based on what WoW was when it started. It was based on what WoW appeared to be when Hasbro execs looked at and decided to use it to drive D&D game design toward what they thought was most profitable.

 

[darjr]

Folks. Even leaked early 4e playtests complained about the computer game thing. Maybe it’s time to at least accept that people have legitimate opinions about what they think the game was like?

 

[Imaro]

Should the DM respond with "yes, you have 3/4s Cover" or with "yes, it's appropriate to hide now, if you can find 3/4s cover?"

The first conditional is written as though the only thing you'll do is ask the DM directly about the action, the second is written as though you'll ask about the situation, and then resolve the action if the situation aligns. They produce totally different gameplay loops, and if they're both true, produce an even weirder loop where I might, for example, ask the DM if I can hide to get a bonus against ranged attacks from the cover I'm now in.

The DM should say "Yes, it's appropriate to try and hide now. How are you doing it"
The PC should then relay how they hide in the fiction, keeping in mind the mechanical requirements for them to be successful.

 

[dave2008]

Should the DM respond with "yes, you have 3/4s Cover" or with "yes, it's appropriate to hide now, if you can find 3/4s cover?"

What I like is the DM can decide, depending on their and their groups style. I think either response is appropriate depending on the situation and play style of the group. There is not one true way to play the game IMO and IME.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The idea isn't based on what WoW was when it started. It was based on what WoW appeared to be when Hasbro execs looked at and decided to use it to drive D&D game design toward what they thought was most profitable.

Yeah, that's why it's ahistorical and revisionist, because WoW wasn't like that when 4E was being developed. That's my entire point! The timelines don't fit.

Nor ever, actually, as I pointed out. You can make a (weak) case for 4E being MMO-inspired mechanically. You can't make any kind of rational case for it being WoW-inspired mechanically.

The famous comment from the WotC exec was about getting people on to a subscription, not the gameplay, which I very much doubt he even understood.