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

[QuentinGeorge]

In 5E? High AC foes what is this?

There's plenty when you don't hand out +X magic items like candy. (Seriously, 5E plays better if every magic weapon merely bypasses immunity and adds to damage, not to hit)

 

[Alzrius]

Appealing to grogs is an inevitably self-defeating strategy.

You say that, but by gum we'll still be here when all those kids with their TikToks eventually decide that D&D isn't cool anymore!

 

[overgeeked]

You say that, but by gum we'll still be here when all those kids with their TikToks eventually decide that D&D isn't cool anymore!

It is to be hoped. The alternative is a dirt nap.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Exactly. Maybe iconic for the olds, like me, but the newer players likely don't care one whit whether something is "iconic" or "traditional" or "how it's always been done" in regards to D&D. Grogs are still complaining about changes made to 2E, to say nothing of the "travesty" of dragonborn and tieflings in the PHB. Appealing to grogs is an inevitably self-defeating strategy.

Yup. I mean, barring people who ran into OS groups as their first play, its been 23 years since that was the version of D&D people were likely to hit when they got into the hobby. That's a growing group that sees it otherwise (and in some ways sadly) a shrinking group that doesn't.

 

[Zardnaar]

There's plenty when you don't hand out +X magic items like candy. (Seriously, 5E plays better if every magic weapon merely bypasses immunity and adds to damage, not to hit)

What's your idea of high AC? I've had PCs use the -5/+10 feats against AC20

 

[Micah Sweet]

On the other hand, being "iconic" is a moving target. I'd say that tieflings have become an iconic D&D race, and there was no sign of them that far back. So if MM had picked up a to-hit roll in 4e and kept it, by now it would probably be well on the way to becoming the "iconic" version because many players would never have seen it otherwise (how much proportion of modern D&D players played 1e or earlier?)

Tieflings will always be the widely variable 2e Planescape folk to me. The new ones were designed to be easy to copyright.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Exactly. Maybe iconic for the olds, like me, but the newer players likely don't care one whit whether something is "iconic" or "traditional" or "how it's always been done" in regards to D&D. Grogs are still complaining about changes made to 2E, to say nothing of the "travesty" of dragonborn and tieflings in the PHB. Appealing to grogs is an inevitably self-defeating strategy.

Appealing to whatever's hot right now leads to incoherence, and will hurt the brand in the long run.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Appealing to whatever's hot right now leads to incoherence, and will hurt the brand in the long run.

Clinging to what was expected 30 years ago is blind adherence to things most modern players don't really have any attachment to.

 

[Zardnaar]

Appealing to whatever's hot right now leads to incoherence, and will hurt the brand in the long run.

Probably not.

Depends what it is and execution of it.

 

[pemerton]

The most amusing part of this is that the ORIGINAL Magic Missile spell in D&D itself says nothing about being auto-hit. Its just a magical arrow that you have to cast using a spell. Basically you're better off just buying a bow! I assume Gary and Co noted this deficiency and made it an automatic hit with no save just to save the spell from total oblivion in 1e. Never played enough Basic to recall how it even works there.

In Moldvay it does 1d6+1, whereas in AD&D it does 1d4+1.

Appealing to whatever's hot right now leads to incoherence, and will hurt the brand in the long run.

Clinging to what was expected 30 years ago is blind adherence to things most modern players don't really have any attachment to.

We could also ask, "what is the long run?" I mean, if the sort of commercial success D&D seems to have enjoyed over the past near-decade is the cost of long-run decline, I reckon WotC must be pretty comfortable with that trade-off!