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

[BigZebra]

As a new DM back in the day, with a group of new players who had never played D&D before, it was good to know what were rules and what was fluff. Clear rules also meant less time discussing rulings and re-reading the books for clarifications, and more time devoted to playing.

And while we enjoyed the tactical combat part of the game, we were a quite a roleplaying bunch. That the rules were clearly separated from the fluff didn't mean we did ignore the fluff or roleplayed less because of it. I always find it odd when people say that 4e doesn't allow for roleplaying just because it doesn't have rules for what to do outside combat (as if I need rules to know what to do if the characters go to the bathroom...), when it has a lot of advice and inspiring fluff to encourage roleplaying...



It would have helped to know if 4e is really a "failure", as many claim. Because yes, you can say that 4e sold less than 3e, but that wasn't something exclusive to 4e. Every edition until that point has been selling less than the previous one.

When this comes up, I'm reminded of this twitter thread:

 

[overgeeked]

Odd. My players always knew they needed time between adventures, to rest and recover, to train (those new powers and feats weren't going to appear in their PCs minds a la Matrix), to live their lives... so we always took some time for roleplaying "out of adventure" stuff. Unless the adventures we were playing needed to be played one after the other for plot related reasons, I rolled a 1d4 to determine how many weeks passed between adventures. We didn't needed rules for that.

That's a thing I run into a lot. And I'm an old-school D&D player. I love 4E, but I also don't get why people want rules for everything. Just make it up. I get the idea of gamifying subsystems, I really do, but if something is outside of the main gameplay loop, it doesn't need mechanics. And if someone really, really wanted mechanics for downtime they could use a subsystem like skill challenges...or a short series of skill checks. It's not hard.

 

[overgeeked]

Because physics tells us that you can't trip a featureless cube.

That's not physics, that's your assumptions about how a make-believe creature should function. It might be an omni-directional creature with no primary foot or it might have a primary foot. How it works determines whether you can "trip" it or not. If the rules say you can trip it, that indicates it does in fact have a primary foot. If the rules specifically say you cannot trip it, then it's omni-directional.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's not physics, that's your assumptions about how a make-believe creature should function. It might be an omni-directional creature with no primary foot or it might have a primary foot. How it works determines whether you can "trip" it or not. If the rules say you can trip it, that indicates it does in fact have a primary foot. If the rules specifically say you cannot trip it, then it's omni-directional.

I don't prioritize the rules over what makes sense to me. The fact that 4e explicitly did so was a huge strike against it to me. One of many for my part. Still a well-designed game, but it drove me crazy.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

That’s actually reasonable vs tripping it?

I think pushing an ooze over / off-balance / wobbling makes much more sense than putting an arm out to stop an advancing wall of mostly liquid acid. That also cannot pull away from you, because now you're grabbing it.

They probably should be immune to both conditions, but this is just the silliness of the system having dozens of conditions.

 

[darjr]

I'm having a difficult time understanding how real-world logic would provide any helpful baseline in interpreting the biomechanics of a 10 foot acidic animated gelatinous Platonic solid.

Well… it’s not a snail, for one.

 

[darjr]

I think pushing an ooze over / off-balance / wobbling makes much more sense than putting an arm out to stop an advancing wall of mostly liquid acid. That also cannot pull away from you, because now you're grabbing it.

They probably should be immune to both conditions, but this is just the silliness of the system having dozens of conditions.

Note in both your examples you have to touch it.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

Note in both your examples you have to touch it.

Yes, and gelatinous cube doesn't DO anything to you if you shove your hand into it to grapple it, only if you shove your hand into it to pull something out of it (or allow it to wander into your square).

 

[overgeeked]

I don't prioritize the rules over what makes sense to me. The fact that 4e explicitly did so was a huge strike against it to me. One of many for my part. Still a well-designed game, but it drove me crazy.

Neither do I. But that's not really the question. The question is: what makes sense? Is the only thing that makes sense to you an omni-directional cube? You cannot imagine that it has a primary foot?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think pushing an ooze over / off-balance / wobbling makes much more sense than putting an arm out to stop an advancing wall of mostly liquid acid. That also cannot pull away from you, because now you're grabbing it.

They probably should be immune to both conditions, but this is just the silliness of the system having dozens of conditions.

They probably should, yes. Lacking that. I reserve the right to make those decisions based on my understanding of how things work. Make a convincing argument otherwise, and I will seriously consider it.