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

I mean, I know thwt you were going for hyperbole, but...that part is not true. I loved 3E, but after playing 5E I could never play it again, no exaggeration. 5E has a lot of straight-up love going for it, for a lot of people.

It's more for veteren layers lol. Everyone's second favorite D&D.

Wouldn't take it to literally.
 

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I mean, I know thwt you were going for hyperbole, but...that part is not true. I loved 3E, but after playing 5E I could never play it again, no exaggeration. 5E has a lot of straight-up love going for it, for a lot of people.
Yeap, there are a league of folks out there having the time with 5E. The hardcore that want to push the mechanics and complexity, are sidelined and that's not a bad thing. We still have 3E/PF, 4E/PF2.
 

I always saw 2e as a fantastic font of new material (which is what it was) that I could use as I saw fit without having to give up on the 1e core our group had been using the whole time. 2e was win-win for me, the Golden Age of D&D. From my perspective the reboot of 3e was the beginning of the end.

Well, it was the afterlife for TSR... lol. I mean, I am not disagreeing that some good material came out of TSR in the 2e era, but TSR was always super inconsistent IME. There was equally in 2e a LOT of WTF were you thinking TSR! The elf supplement, seriously, what were they thinking???

I agree it would be wrong to necessarily blame 2e for the whole thing, it was not a BAD game, just behind the times severely by 1988 when it was written. Like, it would have been a solid effort in the early '80s. By the time it came out though? It felt very thin and marginal, and even in 1989 I was not that impressed with their "GM as master of a story" approach, that never worked. For us it was just slightly cleaned up combat rules and classes, and some generally slightly improved monsters. Could have been published as 1e supplements frankly.
 

I always joke about 5E being everyone's second favorite edition (yes its a joke and not serious no need to storm in and tell me its your #1). After launch and all this time most opinions seem to be its fine, but not exciting to play. Nobody loves it, but nobody out right hates it either (also no need to storm in and tell me you hate 5E). When 3E and 4E diehards are not completely satisfied I think you have reached a good spot.
yeah, I can appreciate that point, objectively. OTOH between DW and 4e and my own system, I have plenty of fodder for FRPG play... I might in theory join a 5e game if its got the right people in it, not going to go out of my way to play it simply because there are better options for me.
 



This is another one I've definitely seen on reddit. Not sure what it is about crunchy tactics games, but I read a lot of replies along the lines of "actually you think this because you're bad at the game / haven't played the game" when voicing dissatisfaction with PF2, 4e, or Lancer.

I don't exactly think that's the case in what I've seen, especially on the PF2 Reddit. I've seen people correct people or direct them to play in different ways for PF2 in particular because while superficially-similar there are a lot of important differences people miss at first glance that shape how the game plays. Things like CR look similar but are built under different assumptions which can throw off things wildly and tactics that would be less optimal in 5E are more optimal in PF2 and vice-versa.

If there is something people generally get a bit skittish about there it's homebrewing or houseruling certain rules.
 

There was that crowd, but you missed the other major POV, that 2e was almost pathetically anemic in it's modernization of the game.
In our case, 2e (at release) just did a lot of catching up to things we'd already homebrewed into 1e; and took out a bunch of stuff we wanted to keep. So, we just kept chugging along with what we had.
Many of us questioned the worth of such a shallow and largely cosmetic update. Granting it's a cleanup and we did buy it! Yet our AD&D play became much less frequent and the perception was that the game was pretty retro and there was better stuff out there to play. TSR's decline started right about then.
TSR's decline started a few years before that; the 2e release slowed it for a year or so but the rot (sadly) had already set in.
 

I don't exactly think that's the case in what I've seen, especially on the PF2 Reddit. I've seen people correct people or direct them to play in different ways for PF2 in particular because while superficially-similar there are a lot of important differences people miss at first glance that shape how the game plays. Things like CR look similar but are built under different assumptions which can throw off things wildly and tactics that would be less optimal in 5E are more optimal in PF2 and vice-versa.

If there is something people generally get a bit skittish about there it's homebrewing or houseruling certain rules.
Indeed PF2 hides its tactical nature a bit. I didn't realize at first, but after being told to "git gud" or to promptly "f right off" I learned its intended play style in those spaces.
 

Indeed PF2 hides its tactical nature a bit. I didn't realize at first, but after being told to "git gud" or to promptly "f right off" I learned its intended play style in those spaces.

Honestly I've seen people be pretty polite and constructive (at least, for Reddit) on most of the boards I'm on. At the least, I haven't seen the comments like those very often.
 

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