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

[Eric V]

It does seem that the only 4e that people will accept is...4e.

Nonsense. What are you even basing this on? 4e was my group's fav version of D&D but we enjoyed 13A just fine, PF2E as well...People might prefer 4e, but 'the only one they'll accept?' Yeesh.

 

[Tigris]

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.

I like the power progress. And that AC, Hit, etc. scales compared to enemies. I personally just think its better to just have a small bonus depending on level difference (ideally baked into enemies, but the DM mentioning it "Because of your high precision the enemies have problems to evade" or something) instead of big ever scaling modifiers, which mostly get cancelled out by higher modifiers on the other side.

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.

I think a lot o people just misunderstand what balanced means. It means you know exactly how hard fights are. No one wants the skyrim treatment were rats level up with you. The best 2 ways to show progess is:

1. Fight clearly stronger enemies over time (like starting with goblins and later going against giants etc.)
2. Show how much you improved directly by sometimes have fights against old enemies again, showing your increased power. Like instead of 2 Elite Goblin soldiers against you struggled, you know can easily beat 3 of these elite goblin soldiers.

I think this feels better than just bigger numbers.

On the other side, we need SOME numbers to increase else its really just an illusion of scale, but if damage and HP already increase, I dont think hit values also need to. (or at least a lot less).

Nonsense. What are you even basing this on? 4e was my group's fav version of D&D but we enjoyed 13A just fine, PF2E as well...People might prefer 4e, but 'the only one they'll accept?' Yeesh.

Well it might also be that some people dont accept certain games inspired by 4E. For me PF2 is absolutely unbearable, but I like Gloomhaven, Beacon, 13th age, Wyrdwood wand etc.


This is because:

• 4E had lots of different parts. A lot of good but also some weaknesses
• Different games not only choose different parts of 4E but also add different things on top.

I dont like PF2 because it is inspired by 4E, but I dont like it because it mainly took (apart from the balance) inspirtaion from the things I did not like too much in 4E (too high numbers, small (stacking) modifiers, multi attacks (worst is if they have different modifier), too many (weak) feats) and added things which I dont like ("illusion of choice" design).

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.

Well they can take essential classes, or just limit themselves to 1 book etc.


What made this hard are the tons of options which were added over time. Also at least a level 1 character is not that hard to make, but higher level ones take lot of time etc.


Other newer released games dont have that problem as much, but will over time as well when more and more material is added. The books did try to help a bit with that in 4E because they gave "builds" for the classes, but just for low levels (and without character themes and race).


I am honestly not sure how one can solve this problem, without limiting character choices too much. Like 5E does not have the problem thanks to way less choices (basically class, race and subclass).


Of course one CAN give players some prebuild characters /archetypes to choose from for help.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

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.

That's fair. I've never had to manage anything, so I don't know what kind of complications arise under such scenarios. But the two people involved here were both leadership and programming, taking two of the best and most important people out of the picture. It's almost certain that things were mismanaged as well. I'm just...I don't see how that specific thing couldn't have made things way, WAY worse than it already was. In the absence of that tragedy, the mismanagement might have been fixed. With it, fixing it was never in the cards.

Nonsense. What are you even basing this on? 4e was my group's fav version of D&D but we enjoyed 13A just fine, PF2E as well...People might prefer 4e, but 'the only one they'll accept?' Yeesh.

It would be much more apt to say "we won't accept something that actively rejects the principles that went into 4e."

Strike!, 13A, PF2e, and probably a couple more I'm unfamiliar with, all managed to preserve that ethos, even while going quite far afield. It is utterly unfair and inaccurate to claim that 4e fans will accept nothing less than a perfect carbon copy.

What I won't accept is things quite clearly wearing the flayed skin of 4e like a grotesque pantomime. Need I remind you @Micah Sweet of the notorious, "...what about what I like to call "passive perception?"" article? (Note: that's an archive.org link, because WotC has scrubbed their website at least twice since this was posted.) WotC has been actively pretending 4e never existed since before D&D Next was called "D&D Next"--as shown here, an article from 2011 that predates the "D&D Next" announcement, which would only come in January 2012.

Edit: And, I will note, I was much, much more sympathetic to Monte (and Mearls) at the time than I am now. Because it turned out the people who got Pretty Annoyed about this were entirely justified in doing so, and my "hey, give the man a break, everybody makes mistakes" messaging at the time has ended up looking painfully naïve. Folks want to know why us 4e fans are bitter? We tried not being bitter. It got us ignored, sidelined, insulted, and ultimately excluded from the edition that was supposed to be the "big tent", the edition that initially proposed a rules structure such that one table could play the game OSR-style, another could play it 4e-style, a third could play it 3e-style, and a fourth could mix bits and pieces from each, both in the space of individual character expressions (e.g. the Battle Master moving in a 4e-like direction while, say, the Thief moves in an OSR-like direction, despite being entirely compatible with one another) and in the space of table rules and campaign elements.

 

[Staffan]

I linked first to this video. Also when you watch the full video the designers also say that they did NOT take much inspiration from WoW at all.

4e is a complex soup, with lots of ingredients. MMOs (and WoW) is one of them, and it's one that a lot of people point to when talking about it, but it's by no means the dominant one.

And while roles primarily come from the classic fighter/cleric/rogue/wizard classes, there are two main differences in 4e. One is to make sure that if a class is supposed to do a thing, it can do that thing. Fighters and paladins are defenders, so they have both the ability to take a lot of punishment and the ability to make enemies focus on them (or pay the price). Rangers are not defenders, so while they can take a hit or two they can't be the main tank, and the game communicates that very clearly. Clerics and warlords are both leaders, so they buff and heal their allies. Druids are not leaders, so they can't do in-combat healing (or at least not very well).

The other is that other editions have been less clear on these issues, and often positioned classes in between – e.g. paladins not being as good at fighting as a fighter, nor as good at healing as a cleric. Or druids having access to healing spells but on a delay, meaning they won't be as good at it as a cleric. Remember Ron Swanson's advice – never half-ass two things. 4e classes are built role-first – I imagine the design process went something like this:

1. OK, so what would a primal striker be?
2. A barbarian, huh? That's an interesting take.
3. How can we make a class that uses primal power to deal lots of damage and does so in a barbarian style?

This would be unlike other editions where the primary question is "What should a barbarian be able to do" and whether or not they can fulfill a "role" or not is at best a secondary concern.

 

[Lord Shark]

I only played 13th Age a couple of times and I really only remember my two major takeaways:

1. I was like a 3rd level fighter and even though the fighter class was not very well regarded in 13th Age, I felt super powerful. Like, in DCC, a level 3 character is equal to a level 6 character in most editions of D&D, this felt even more powerful than that.

2. With the sort of handwavy distance ranges and changes made to combat I remember thinking that "I don't think this is going to scratch the 4E itch for people who like 4E". Because at the time, when it was pretty new, it was more or less understood that it was sort of pitched as a place for the 4E fan to go to.

Yeah, when 13th Age was being developed, a lot of people claimed it would be the "Pathfinder of 4E," mostly because of Rob Heinsoo's involvement. Although it does have a lot of 4E in its DNA, it's definitely its own thing.

The power level is partly because of compressing the game into 10 levels rather than 20 or 30, and partly because one of the basic assumptions of 13A is that the PCs are Big Damn Heroes from the start. Since this is the style of play I prefer, that's a feature rather than a bug.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

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

I wish people would stop cautioning others for daring to dream... Maybe its just better to stop relying on others, hoping they fulfill them for us. fingers crossed

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

It wasn't really a question. If it were, it'd be rhetorical.

Oh, Vandal Hearts! I forgot about that one! Probably a couple more I haven't thought about since my PS1/PS2 days...

 

[Tigris]

4e is a complex soup, with lots of ingredients. MMOs (and WoW) is one of them, and it's one that a lot of people point to when talking about it, but it's by no means the dominant one.

And while roles primarily come from the classic fighter/cleric/rogue/wizard classes, there are two main differences in 4e. One is to make sure that if a class is supposed to do a thing, it can do that thing. Fighters and paladins are defenders, so they have both the ability to take a lot of punishment and the ability to make enemies focus on them (or pay the price). Rangers are not defenders, so while they can take a hit or two they can't be the main tank, and the game communicates that very clearly. Clerics and warlords are both leaders, so they buff and heal their allies. Druids are not leaders, so they can't do in-combat healing (or at least not very well).

The other is that other editions have been less clear on these issues, and often positioned classes in between – e.g. paladins not being as good at fighting as a fighter, nor as good at healing as a cleric. Or druids having access to healing spells but on a delay, meaning they won't be as good at it as a cleric. Remember Ron Swanson's advice – never half-ass two things. 4e classes are built role-first – I imagine the design process went something like this:

1. OK, so what would a primal striker be?
2. A barbarian, huh? That's an interesting take.
3. How can we make a class that uses primal power to deal lots of damage and does so in a barbarian style?

This would be unlike other editions where the primary question is "What should a barbarian be able to do" and whether or not they can fulfill a "role" or not is at best a secondary concern.

But thats the thing I dont see any clear MMOs or WoW ingredients. (Hunters mark remind me a bit about WoW Hunter, but mechanically it is also just similar to the rogue damage bonus, just with another limiting factor to it than the rogue)


Making sure that classes can fulfill their role? That is just basic good game design. Open communication is for me also just good game design. Having clear roles with names is something you can see in sports, like football, from where 4E has its role names.
Yes other editions were older and did use not as much modern gamedesign as 4E, but this is not something which has to be comming from WoW or MMOs.

The power sources as an example are much more like the colours in Magic the Gathering and is something much more D&D and not used in MMOs.

And a common complaint of people I know is that "non pure classes in D&D just suck". That a ranger is just a worse fighter, etc. that classes without a clear role are not as good.
And a solution to this problem is that you give everyone a clear role and communicate that and make sure they can fulfill it. And you say in the past "roles in D&D were less clear", yes I agree at least for the non major classes, but I think this is just an improvement. And also when you compare D&D 4E with WoW the roles are A LOT less hard in 4E than they are in WoW. (In WoW a healer would ONLY heal. A tank would only make aggro, no matter how little damage they do. A damage dealer would concentrate only on damage. )


The problem here is that many RPG players are or were just not used to good gamedesign. And just assume it comes from MMOs, where it can be found in cardgames, boardgames, wargames, other computer games and sometimes even sports.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

4e is a complex soup, with lots of ingredients. MMOs (and WoW) is one of them, and it's one that a lot of people point to when talking about it, but it's by no means the dominant one.

And while roles primarily come from the classic fighter/cleric/rogue/wizard classes, there are two main differences in 4e. One is to make sure that if a class is supposed to do a thing, it can do that thing. Fighters and paladins are defenders, so they have both the ability to take a lot of punishment and the ability to make enemies focus on them (or pay the price). Rangers are not defenders, so while they can take a hit or two they can't be the main tank, and the game communicates that very clearly. Clerics and warlords are both leaders, so they buff and heal their allies. Druids are not leaders, so they can't do in-combat healing (or at least not very well).

The other is that other editions have been less clear on these issues, and often positioned classes in between – e.g. paladins not being as good at fighting as a fighter, nor as good at healing as a cleric. Or druids having access to healing spells but on a delay, meaning they won't be as good at it as a cleric. Remember Ron Swanson's advice – never half-ass two things. 4e classes are built role-first – I imagine the design process went something like this:

1. OK, so what would a primal striker be?
2. A barbarian, huh? That's an interesting take.
3. How can we make a class that uses primal power to deal lots of damage and does so in a barbarian style?

This would be unlike other editions where the primary question is "What should a barbarian be able to do" and whether or not they can fulfill a "role" or not is at best a secondary concern.

So 4e wasn't the problem. "D&D" was the problem. If 4e was designed without the need to shoehorn a completely different system designed for multiple, specific styles of play, it could've been so much better. D&D held it back from doing things better because it was safer to bet on the legacy and nostalgia of an entrenched fanbase rather than offer a different kind of D&D; one that, ideally, could have existed alongside the traditional/classic roleplaying game.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

And while roles primarily come from the classic fighter/cleric/rogue/wizard classes

There's actually another source, one that very often gets overlooked or ignored.

Soccer. Or Association Football, for those who don't like the nickname derived (in Britain, by the Brits!) from the word "association."

Defenders, Strikers, Leaders, and Controllers are literally tasks players can be assigned on the soccer field. And two of the most common approaches to being a Defender in soccer...are to "mark" (that's literally the word used) specific opponents to track, or to lock down one specific area of the field around you. Y'know...literally the two major gameplay mechanics of Defenders in 4e: marks that target specific opponents, and auto-marking "stances" which affect anyone that gets close to you.

For all the hullabaloo about 4e being unrealistic...it's heavily inspired by very real and very meaningful tactical choices in a competitive environment. Of course, soccer players don't normally kill their opponents, but soccer was just that, an inspiration, not a carbon-copy adaptation.

I wish people would stop cautioning others for daring to dream... Maybe its just better to stop relying on others, hoping they fulfill them for us. fingers crossed

There's a tug-of-war between, if we phrase them nicely, "idealism" and "practicality". Too much idealism and you get wishful thinking and endless disappointments that can leave a person bitter and distrustful. Too much practicality and you get cynicism and prodigious lack-of-imagination fallacies.

So, in the spirit of being respectful of both idealism and practicality: If someone does decide to do this, they'd better make sure they have a good solution for the "Marking problem" I cited above. That is, Marking only works when there's a real person's brain behind it, making real choices, rather than RNG or threat-tables or scripted behavior. In the absence of a real, decision-making person, you're left with having to figure out how to program a computer to behave strategically. This is very, very difficult. It is not totally impossible (ask me sometime about the genuine cleverness of the GalCiv 3 AI), but it is quite hard.

Given how important well-executed Marking mechanics are for making this system work properly, this is a hard problem that needs to be solved. That is a reason to pause and reflect, and to confirm that your ideal product is, in fact, actually possible.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So 4e wasn't the problem. "D&D" was the problem. If 4e was designed without the need to shoehorn a completely different system designed for multiple, specific styles of play, it could've been so much better. D&D held it back from doing things better because it was safer to bet on the legacy and nostalgia of an entrenched fanbase rather than offer a different kind of D&D; one that, ideally, could have existed alongside the traditional/classic roleplaying game.

Sorry man. I'm never going to accept this argument. It just doesn't hold water, and PF2e pretty thoroughly proves that. Being both the things 4e was and the things D&D aspires to be is, in fact, important.