D&D 4E Ben Riggs' "What the Heck Happened with 4th Edition?" seminar at Gen Con 2023

[Micah Sweet]

But does not the reverse also hold true? Should we not be allowed to accept something without constantly being told we’re wrong for accepting it?

IOW, why is it acceptable to hold the game hostage to one set of tastes?

Try building a game that caters to contradictory tastes and ask again.

 

[Parmandur]

Unsustainable for WotC. Like how 4e sales were unsustainable for WotC even though for most of it they were selling more than Paizo.

And even they had to turn the crank on the new edition treadmill.

Honestly, unsustainable for many customers. I bought more D&D books in the past three months than I did for the first decade playing the game, and a big reason why was that I could buy them all.

 

[Hussar]

Try building a game that caters to contradictory tastes and ask again.

See, I really don't get it.

There's stuff in any edition I don't like. So... don't use the stuff you don't like. Seems a pretty simple solution to me. Don't like X spell? Don't use it. Don't like Y effect? Don't use it. If someone else at the table uses it? Well, respect their tastes and don't yuck in their yum.

Seems a pretty simple solution to me. Don't like Warlords yelling arms back on? Don't play a warlord. Don't like damage on a miss? Don't take that ability for your character. The game is more than modular enough to just not use stuff.

I really don't understand this need to force everyone else to play the way I might want to play. Just don't use the stuff that you don't like.

 

[Parmandur]

Just don't use the stuff that you don't like.

I mean...that is how I approached 4E, yes.

 

[Micah Sweet]

See, I really don't get it.

There's stuff in any edition I don't like. So... don't use the stuff you don't like. Seems a pretty simple solution to me. Don't like X spell? Don't use it. Don't like Y effect? Don't use it. If someone else at the table uses it? Well, respect their tastes and don't yuck in their yum.

Seems a pretty simple solution to me. Don't like Warlords yelling arms back on? Don't play a warlord. Don't like damage on a miss? Don't take that ability for your character. The game is more than modular enough to just not use stuff.

I really don't understand this need to force everyone else to play the way I might want to play. Just don't use the stuff that you don't like.

You can do that if your issue is with a particular trapping (spell, monster, subclass, what have you). You can't do that if your problem is the game's actual structure and assumptions.

 

[Thomas Shey]

See, I really don't get it.

There's stuff in any edition I don't like. So... don't use the stuff you don't like. Seems a pretty simple solution to me. Don't like X spell? Don't use it. Don't like Y effect? Don't use it. If someone else at the table uses it? Well, respect their tastes and don't yuck in their yum.

Seems a pretty simple solution to me. Don't like Warlords yelling arms back on? Don't play a warlord. Don't like damage on a miss? Don't take that ability for your character. The game is more than modular enough to just not use stuff.

I really don't understand this need to force everyone else to play the way I might want to play. Just don't use the stuff that you don't like.

I just should note what you dislike can be woven into the fabric enough you can't get away from it. The way 5e handles Advantage/Disadvantage would irritate me constantly.

(Now, you can argue "so play another game" and that's perfectly legit, but sometimes you just can't work your way around the irritating bits within a game. Sometimes that approaches being true even if you're the GM.)

 

[Autumnal]

One consideration in PF1/4e comparisons is that Paizo pit out a lot of lower-page-count paperbacks. I’m too lazy to do the work myself, but someone could compare their annual page count total.

 

[Alzrius]

One consideration in PF1/4e comparisons is that Paizo pit out a lot of lower-page-count paperbacks. I’m too lazy to do the work myself, but someone could compare their annual page count total.

A very rough estimate was that they changed off between the thirty-two page player guides and the sixty-four page campaign setting supplements each month, so they published roughly forty-eight pages of those every month for twelve years, i.e. five hundred seventy-six pages a year.

There were just over thirty hardcover books in that twelve-year period, each one roughly two hundred fifty-six pages, so two-and-a-half of those per year is about seven hundred forty pages.

They put out an adventure path publication every month, which was usually one hundred pages even, so that's twelve hundred pages right there.

The stand-alone adventures are some of the hardest to calculate, as they changed publication rates and pages (going to slower releases with thicker pages toward the end of their life-cycle). From what I can estimate, they made forty-five thirty-two page adventures (one thousand four hundred forty pages altogether) and fifteen sixty-four page adventures (nine hundred sixty pages). So two thousand three hundred forty pages, divided by twelve, gives us two hundred pages per year of the stand-alone adventures, on average.

So let's add that up. In a single year we got:

• 576 pages (player's guides and campaign setting supplements)
• 740 pages (hardcover books)
• 1,200 pages (adventure paths)
• 200 pages (stand-alone adventures)

Altogether, that's 2,716 pages per year. And that's not counting the sixteen-page Free RPG Day supplements, novels, map packs and flip-mats, comic books (though Dynamite published those), card games, pawn boxes, etc. Not to mention the various Pathfinder Society modules, which were PDF-only products.

 

[Autumnal]

If you are a lazy person, you’ve fooled me completely. Thank you!

 

[Hussar]

You can do that if your issue is with a particular trapping (spell, monster, subclass, what have you). You can't do that if your problem is the game's actual structure and assumptions.

If you're to that point though, don't play that game? I mean, if you are to the point of having a problem with a games underlying structure, why on earth would you play it? There's a reason I won't play AD&D. Or Paladium games for that matter.

What I don't do though is tell people who want to play AD&D or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, that they are wrong for playing that game and then spend years bitching about those games. I just don't play them. Again, it seems simple enough to me.