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

[Jacob Lewis]

People need to stop fixating on comparisons to MMOs, especially World of Warcraft. Aside from attempts to disparage the system, there is really nothing in the way either game plays that are even close. And most people who like 4e never want it to be otherwise.

If anything, 4e actually has more in common with a game like Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics. Frankly, I would love to see a 4e-inspired game more like those.

 

[Joshua Randall]

I dont like big numbers because they make calculations slower in average.

The bigger numbers tend to be slower for players to Math out

OK. It's a fair complaint: people are bad at math. In fact, based on my experience DM-ing 4e for its entire lifespan at the FLGS, people are atrociously, horribly, mind-bogglingly bad at math.

I have seen such wonders as:

• PC has a +7 attack bonus. Player rolls a 12. Player announces "15".
• PC has a +15 attack bonus. Player rolls a 17. Player announces "22".
• PC has an at-will power that does 2d6+8 damage. Player rolls 3, 1 on the dice and announces damage as "5".

Like, I'm not even sure how it is possible to be that bad at math.

And although they are not literal, verbatim examples nor can I [citation needed], I assure you they are realistic examples and not exaggerated. (The damage example? I saw that sort of thing over and over and over and OVER AND OVER AND OMG HOW DID YOU GRADUATE FROM ELEMENTARY SCHOOL?!?!)

So that said: I will concede the point that bigger numbers like 4e has, will only make the dice-math harder for players who are already atrociously, horribly, mind-bogglingly bad at math. HOWEVER. I would submit that REGARDLESS of the size of the numbers, players who are already atrociously, horribly, mind-bogglingly bad at math will find a way to screw things up.

Bigger numbers (when every target number raises by the same amount) is just busywork and constant adjusting of your values with every level - just hassle that doesn't change anything.

First of all: loaded words (busywork, hassle).
Second of all: it's actually enjoyable for some players, particularly the subset that 4e is geared towards. (See my response to Tigris below.)

But what it does do, is severely restrict what are reasonable opponents to throw at the PCs.

This is a common complaint and I am convinced, without doing the proof YET, that it is irrelevant. Because, and this is what I intend to prove: D&D never had a "set of reasonable opponents to throw at the PCs" that lasted more than a few levels. 4e suggests monsters in the -4 to +4 level range. I would submit, again not having proved it yet, that the equivalent range in a 20-level game would be right on what D&D historically always used in practice. (So instead of a spread of 8 monster levels in the 30-level 4e, it would be a spread of 8/30=.26666x20=5.33 in the 20-level D&D.)

Well this IS a design goal. Power progression IS important in RPGs (like D&D) and absolutely wanted.

Players WANT progress.

Yes. It is certainly a design goal of 4e. And that is one reason that your attack bonus, AC, etc. etc. etc. goes up as you progress.

It's not "busywork" and "hassle". It's a core part of the reward cycle of the game.

You (hypothetical you) are still free to dislike it! But to claim it is stupid or terrible or that people who do like it are terrible people playing an inferior version of D&D -- that's where the war comes in.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

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.

Yeah. We can distinguish two claims:

1. Create a subscription service which permits players to play D&D. This was, quite clearly, a goal of 4e from the beginning. In some ways, they succeeded, but in other ways, they failed. The murder-suicide that destroyed the digital tools' prospects (remember, the two people involved in that were both Wizards employees...and both of them were heavily involved with the digital tools stuff) essentially guaranteed that WotC could never realize their VTT dreams, which ended up being a crippling problem.

2. Create a game based on the game design of MMOs, such as World of Warcraft. This is demonstrably false for a variety of reasons. As noted, the initial design work for 4e predates World of Warcraft, and much of what 4e would become was already laid down before WoW had become quite the worldwide blockbuster. Note, for example, that Mearls & co., and indeed anyone who brings up these comparisons, never mentions EverQuest. Because, prior to WoW, EverQuest was the holder of the crown of "biggest MMO"--and it got almost as much social recognition for it as (early) WoW did. People called it "EverCrack". There were TV spots commenting on it. Pearl-clutching news segments about MMO addiction. Etc. Yet it's ever and always WoW that 4e was trying to emulate, even when WoW was still in its infancy? Ridiculous.

Further, most of the people making this comparison did not play WoW and had no actual knowledge of its mechanics...and many of them also did not play 4e and had no knowledge of its mechanics, so the comparison was completely bunk in many cases. As an example, a great many people tried to claim that the Marking mechanic, and defenders' mark-punishment mechanics, were directly copied from "taunt" effects in MMOs. This requires a short explanation for why it's so thoroughly incorrect, but I'll keep it brief.

In pretty much all MMOs, monsters work by a simple priority system. There's a thing called a "threat table." "Threat"--also known as "aggro", "enmity", "hate", etc.--is a number that grows because players do something while engaged in combat with a monster. Casting a healing spell, using a damaging attack, etc. Monsters always* attack whatever creature is at the top of their aggro table; they cannot choose. "Tank" characters usually have actions or stances which cause them to generate extra threat, so they naturally bubble up to the top of that table. Many "tank" classes in MMOs have a "Taunt" action, which automatically jumps the user's threat to the top of the list, often with a bit of bonus threat on top so the tank doesn't instantly lose threat again.

By comparison, Marking is entirely different. When a creature is Marked by a character, the status indicates the harrying and difficulties that come from being hounded by the character that marked it: attacks from a Marked creature that don't include the character that Marked it have a penalty, because the Marked creature has to account for the character's direct and indirect efforts at interference. Any character can pick up an ability that allows them to Mark targets, though only Defenders start with such a feature. Defenders get an additional benefit: they can punish Marked creatures who "violate" (=ignore) Marks applied by that character. Mechanically, a target can only be Marked by one source; a new Mark overrides the old one.

But here's the critical point: the creature is NEVER required to attack the character that marked it!

In other words, Marking and punishments are exactly the antithesis of the MMO mechanics for threat. MMOs simply do not have the computing resources, nor the time, to actually have "smart" monsters that make actual evaluations to decide which target is best to attack. Monsters in an MMO are perfectly mind-controlled by threat. If a Pastamancer's saucerous assault causes his threat number to become larger than the Battlemime's threat despite his gesticulations, then the creature in question immediately begins attacking the Pastamancer--no ifs, ands, or butts. Conversely, a Marked creature is never actually required to attack the character that marked it. However, the DM playing that creature may be quite well aware that choosing to ignore a Defender's Mark is a very dangerous prospect, and thus the DM is left with the unenviable choice of "obey the mark...which means attacking the giant slab of meat and steel that is hard to hurt, or disobey it, and get slapped AND possibly miss the attack anyway!" It is 100% always something that an actual human being has to decide. Despite the many claims that 4e was "made" for a computer-run environment, you cannot use Marking as a mechanic without a human mind making the decision of which thing to attack right now.

 

[eyeheartawk]

People need to stop fixating on comparisons to MMOs, especially World of Warcraft. Aside from attempts to disparage the system, there is really nothing in the way either game plays that are even close. And most people who like 4e never want it to be otherwise.

If anything, 4e actually has more in common with a game like Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics. Frankly, I would love to see a 4e-inspired game more like those.

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You say that, but have you ever played Temple of Elemental Evil? Granted that one was a RAW conversion of the 3E combat engine, but it managed to suck all the magic out of D&D. I'm not so sure this wouldn't end up the same. Alot of "Oh yeah, that's right, it was originally like this before we changed it to this a decade ago" etc.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Well this IS a design goal. Power progression IS important in RPGs (like D&D) and absolutely wanted. And the best way to show power progression is to let players wipe the floor with enemies, against which they struggled some levels before.


Players WANT progress. Thats why nowadays even shooter have XP, levels, unlocking new weapons etc. Because that is fundamentally something most players want.

Very importantly: This is actually covered in the 4e DMG!

People love to trot out the claim that, because 4e has a clear and spelled-out power curve (rather than a mystical voodoo power curve hidden behind intentional designer obfuscation...which really isn't that hard to figure out regardless!), it expects that absolutely 100% of combats are always perfectly level-locked to the party's level. If you hit level 5, then all the level 4 goblins you would have faced will somehow spontaneously grow to level 5.

THE BOOKS DO NOT SAY THIS! THEY SAY EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE!

The books make clear that a generally satisfying adventure experience will, usually, include mostly combats that are at or close to the party's level. E.g. most combats will be (very roughly) within a Level+/-2 range. That's a pretty reasonable statement--just as it would be pretty boring to always fight level 2 goblins no matter what level your character was, and both boring and frustrating to always face off against level 15+ threats regardless of your character level. There will be a general, loose trend favoring fights within that very rough five-level range.

BUT!

There must also be some fights to spice things up--in both directions. Sometimes, it's a great idea to throw a fight that is above the PCs' weight--perhaps even up to level+8 in 4e, which is very roughly about the same as throwing a fight designed for characters six levels higher in 5e. Such a fight can be really really scary, and remind the players that they aren't gods among men (at least, not yet!) Likewise, bringing back monsters you fielded seven levels ago that were kinda scary then (say, level+3) but are pushovers now (e.g. level-4) is a great way to show the players how they've grown. They can see that they're shrugging off blows that used to be dire, that they're skewering opponents who used to be tough.

Likewise, it is good to have high-level characters occasionally adventure through low-level areas, so they can see how their skills are now more than a match for challenges that used to make them sweat. The 4e books are quite explicit that this is part of how you make an exciting and memorable campaign. They are, further, very specific in saying that if absolutely everything is always "perfectly balanced" (by which they mean, keeping in perfect lockstep with the party's level), then things will get boring.

The books could not be more clear that this is a BAD thing to do, and that the correct and good thing to do is to make sure you include variety and allow space for surprise and variation within your campaign.

Something 5e is struggling with right now--as noted in another active thread--is that progression can be hard to feel when the numbers (except HP/damage) remain nearly static for long stretches of time. If going at the loosely recommended pace of about 4 sessions per character level on average, that means it takes three months to see your proficiency bonus increase by a mere 1. With magic items also being so heavily agitated against (even though I know the magic item haters are a minority!), some characters may go six months or more with hardly any change at all. That can be a real problem.

I fully understand and appreciate that concerns about numbers getting too big matter. They do. I do not dismiss them. But they aren't the only concern, and as with far too many things 5e, it threw the baby out with the bathwater in many ways. Those ways often bore out with great subtlety, such that it's taken time and reflection for people to notice. But it definitely seems to me that they are noticing.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

You say that, but have you ever played Temple of Elemental Evil? Granted that one was a RAW conversion of the 3E combat engine, but it managed to suck all the magic out of D&D. I'm not so sure this wouldn't end up the same. Alot of "Oh yeah, that's right, it was originally like this before we changed it to this a decade ago" etc.

I have. The best review I've read about it describes it something like "playing with an incompetent DM, which is about as close to the real pen and paper experience as you can get". I think it's pretty acurate.

But this is leading to an entirely different conversation. ToEE is nothing like Tactics Ogre or other grid-based tactics game, which has a lot more in common with 4e. Have you played any of those?

 

[Joshua Randall]

As always, Ezekiel makes the best and most well reasoned arguments.

1. Create a subscription service which permits players to play D&D. This was, quite clearly, a goal of 4e from the beginning. In some ways, they succeeded

Indeed they did. And while I will note that there is an attitude that says "all subscription services are bad and wrong", let us observe that nearly every major digital product you buy nowadays has some kind of subscription service, including 5e. Now I am not interested in debating whether this is a positive development: it very well may be a horrible development. But it is a fact of modern business, and 4e never gets the credit for being way, way ahead of this curve.

Even if you prefer to conceive that 4e was so far ahead of the curve that it was the progenitor of the evil, terrible, scourge that is subscription services... you are still admitting that 4e did something impressive.

the Marking mechanic, and defenders' mark-punishment mechanics, were directly copied from "taunt" effects in MMOs.

Excellent take-down of one of the least well informed of the "4e=WOW" talking points.

the DM playing that creature may be quite well aware that choosing to ignore a Defender's Mark is a very dangerous prospect, and thus the DM is left with the unenviable choice

Exactly. It is one of the ways in which 4e gameplay makes the game interesting and fun for the DM, even though like the Washington Generals vs. the Harlem Globetrotters, the DM is destined to lose!

I will note that in my experience as DM, it is more entertaining for everyone if I violate the defenders' marks most of the time. It lets the defenders show off their mechanics and it burns down monster HP faster.

I also frequently deliberately have monsters provoke OAs, again so that certain characters can show off their mechanics, and again to trigger more attacks against the monsters to burn down monster HP.

(Which I don't think is an actual problem as much as people think it is, but if it is, why don't more DMs take the obvious approach of provoking more defender mark punishments and OAs?)

 

[eyeheartawk]

But this is leading to an entirely different conversation. ToEE is nothing like Tactics Ogre or other grid-based tactics game, which has a lot more in common with 4e. Have you played any of those?

Yeah, I was just saying be careful what you wish for.

If the question is: 4E combat is more like FFT/Tactics Ogre/Vandal Hearts etc than WoW, yes or no? I would absolutely agree.

I'm more of a Front Mission guy when it comes to Japanese style strategy RPGs though, if we're just talking about the videogames. I find that FFT and Tactics Ogre have far too many difficulty spikes that can only be overcome by having a just-so party composition and too much trial and error advancement.

 

[Mannahnin]

The rest of your post is great, but one point I want to expand on a little.

1. Create a subscription service which permits players to play D&D. This was, quite clearly, a goal of 4e from the beginning. In some ways, they succeeded, but in other ways, they failed. The murder-suicide that destroyed the digital tools' prospects (remember, the two people involved in that were both Wizards employees...and both of them were heavily involved with the digital tools stuff) essentially guaranteed that WotC could never realize their VTT dreams, which ended up being a crippling problem.

Someone mentioned earlier in the thread, though, that this was still really on Wizards' perennial mismanagement of the digital side. As far as I've ever seen the VTT never made it close to release, and if WotC's launch of such a huge application could be completely scuppered by the loss of two people (for any reason, nevermind the terrible tragedy), then it was fundamentally mismanaged and under-resourced in the first place.

The character builder we got was pretty darn good (although the Silverlight conversion was bad and dumb) and became a staple of play virtually everyone use, and the monster builder was pretty nice too.

 

[eyeheartawk]

The rest of your post is great, but one point I want to expand on a little.

Someone mentioned earlier in the thread, though, that this was still really on Wizards' perennial mismanagement of the digital side. As far as I've ever seen the VTT never made it close to release, and if WotC's launch of such a huge application could be completely scuppered by the loss of two people (for any reason, nevermind the terrible tragedy), then it was fundamentally mismanaged and under-resourced in the first place.

The character builder we got was pretty darn good (although the Silverlight conversion was bad and dumb) and became a staple of play virtually everyone use, and the monster builder was pretty nice too.

I want to get a 4E game going, if for nothing else just a nice change of pace. And honestly the biggest impediment to get people on board? The fact that making characters, especially with all the books and errata, without the character builder is such a chore. If somebody makes a 4E clone and derivative I'd like to see one where the combat and powers still all play out the same but character creation is more streamlined. Sort of like kits from back in the day or something might help.