D&D General D&D Evolutions You Like and Dislike [+]

[Parmandur]

I mean, that's my (secondary) point -- even if they were in fact (as Riggs indicates) borrowing cooldowns by way of AEDU, it was addressing an incredibly longstanding frustration many had had with the game.

In their analysis of what went wrong with 4E reception, a key point the designers have noted was mistaking the "applause for the end of Vancian casting at GenCon" crowd as being representative of a significant part of the player base.

 

[Willie the Duck]

I mean, if you want to capture an audience you will build something that is similar to what they already like. Not sure how else you would go about it

Perhaps, but it can be in terms of aesthetics or tone or presentation or yes potentially mechanics. That does not mean that a given mechanic was inspired or attempting to emulate a mechanic of the thing whose audience an edition that introduced the mechanic was trying to capture. Additional causal evidence is required. That is (all) that I am saying. That any given thing was in 4e and that 4e was trying to capture the WoW market does not mean any given 4e thing was WoW-based.

Alzrius did it right. He brought his receipts. Apparently AEDU was an attempt to capture cooldown (although I reiterate that the effect that both encapsulate has been a longstanding concern for some who play D&D for a very long time). I'm a little surprised (since, as EzekielRaiden stated, AEDU and cooldowns aren't incredibly similar and distinct from what has come before and elsewhere; and because 5/15 minute workdays had been a major concern for quite a while), but there is the evidence. For my money, what 4e did that was very WoW-ish was presentation (the 4e books look a lot like computer game manuals of the time), a focus on set piece encounters, just a focus one tactical combat gameplay at that specific time (not unique to either, but certainly a notable concurrence), and the whole striker/etc. roles sounding a lot like MMO roles.

Funny thing is that when 3.0 and 3.5 came out, I had pretty much the same take on games like Everquest, Diablo, and Diablo 2.

It felt like they were trying to make D&D more like those games.

Since the very beginning of the hobby, D&D and computer/video games have had a recursive relationship. D&D spread on college campuses partly because of the nascent internet, and attempts to recreate the experience on computers followed quickly. Doom and DIablo were both based on creators' D&D games. It should come as no surprise to anyone that they have shared ideas back and forth and have evolved together.

I still dink around with a port (to the Unity system) of Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall. It seems to be a pretty strong approximation of a TSR-era dungeon-crawl. Certainly Ultima, Wizardry, Bard's Tale, Final Fantasy, and Gauntlet are all D&D-like. I think that's why I always find the adjective 'video-gamey' as a descriptor of an RPG to be too vague to be of use. What makes it video-gamey?

I'm going to add one evolution that I'm seeing in D&D... for good and bad.

I think we're seeing a shift from practical consequences of choices in favor of narrative or conceptual ones. Take, for example, the change in the Heavy property for weapons in 5e.

So, as long as they're strong or dexterous enough, small creatures can use heavy weapons now without penalty. In prior editions, small creatures had Strength penalties and maybe even did a little less damage with weapons, were at a disadvantage in grappling against larger opponents, but maybe also had a positive stealth modifier compared to their larger peers. Being small had practical consequences.
But what does small really mean now? What does it mean to have chosen to play a small character?

There certainly is some of that happening. Mind you, I started with BX/BECMI and being a small race just meant a penalty on polearms and a few other bits and bobs like that (no attribute penalty or slower speed), so I don't know if it is a directional evolution (so hey, more like actual evolution).
I'm not really seeing the shift from practical to narrative/conceptual in this example, though. I'm just seeing a practical consequence of reduced impact. Wouldn't a conceptual or narrative one be more like halflings won't choose to wield heavy weapons or there won't be kits or PrCs or premade characters designed around gnomish maul-users or the like?

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Not all that different from the Lord of the Rings party/parties, when you think about it........

Party starts out as characters 1-2-3-4, then picks up character 5 before long. A few adventures later they meet characters 6-7-8-9, that party runs for a few adventures then character 9 dies; shortly after that, character 8 dies and characters 3 and 4 get captured. The few that are left split up into two parties: characters 1 and 2 carry on with the original mission (picking up character 10 along the way) while characters 5-6-7 try to rescue the captives; meanwhile bumping into (and picking up, again) the revived version of character 9. And without anyone knowing it yet, captive characters 3 and 4 have freed themselves and started their own adventure, etc., etc.

And that worked out as a pretty good tale, I think.

Great! now you've ruined it for everybody who hasn't read the books. Spoilers man, spoilers.

 

[Willie the Duck]

In their analysis of what went wrong with 4E reception, a key point the designers have noted was mistaking the "applause for the end of Vancian casting at GenCon" crowd as being representative of a significant part of the player base.

This is definitely possible. I'm talking about the reason for choices and changes (or really just what our evidentiary support regarding such is), not whether they were the right choices to be made.

Regardless, this is unsurprising. Loud voices bemoaning/advocating for X, Y, or Z and believing/insisting that they are representative seems to be a constant issue with D&D. I don't envy WotC (or TSR before them)'s challenge in figuring this out, even if we can point to instances where they failed to tack a solid course.

It is interesting that 5e's Vancian-lite has caught on so well. Perhaps the 5/15-minute workday wasn't even the part of Vance people didn't like? Or wrong solution, wrong time. Or any number of other things. It'd be interesting to know what lead the designers to come to that conclusion in their analysis, and if anything changed between then and 2014 (or now).

 

[Alzrius]

Regardless, this is unsurprising. Loud voices bemoaning/advocating for X, Y, or Z and believing/insisting that they are representative seems to be a constant issue with D&D. I don't envy WotC (or TSR before them)'s challenge in figuring this out, even if we can point to instances where they failed to tack a solid course.

I don't have a source on this, but my understanding is that the various restrictions on spellcasters in AD&D 1E and 2E were an example of this. That is, things like wizards needing to spend "round segments" casting their spells; automatically losing them if anything broke their concentration during casting; only being able to know so many spells per level if they had less than a 19 Intelligence; various spells requiring system shock checks or teleporting off-target being instant death if you ended up inside a solid object or having spells age you prematurely; magic item crafting requiring exotic ingredients whose availability was entirely controlled by the DM; requiring what could potentially be hours to fill all of your spell slot; your familiar dying requiring you to make a save to avoid dying yourself, etc.

A lot of people, I'm given to understand, didn't like these. And so Third Edition dialed them all back in various ways, the result of which was a whole list of new complaints about how spellcasters dominated the game ("linear fighters, quadratic wizards"). So the designers essentially made martial characters operate like spellcasters in 4E, which was what they thought people wanted, and that turned out to be just as unpopular of a move.

All of which goes to show how the loudest voices aren't necessarily the ones who represent what your customers want.

 

[MGibster]

I don't see how cooldowns are "like" at-wills etc. Like I genuinely cannot make the logical connection there, still less the "pressing buttons" concept.

I don't know if you've ever played WoW, but each class has abilities and they have cool downs. i.e. Once used, a certain period of time has to pass before you can use that ability again. In WoW, you have some abilities you can use any time, you have others that have a longer cool down period meaning you could only use them a limited number of times in an encounter, and still others that might have a cooldown period lasting 10 minutes or more. Within a few hours of playing WoW, I made the connection to how WotC structure their abilities to be used at-will, per-encounter, or daily.

Then you have the player character role which was DPS, Tank, and Healer. Your DPS existed to deal as much damage as possible in as short a period as possible to the enemy. The Tank existed to get punched in the face by the enemies so the DPS and Healer remained untouched. This corresponds to the Striker, Defender, and Leader roles in D&D. In WoW, the duties of crowd control were generally spread out among several classes, so there was no single Controller role in a group.

It's obvious to me the design of D&D 4th edition was influenced greatly by MMORPGs. I'm certainly not arguing 4th edition was an MMORPG nor am I arguing the influence was negative. My theory is WotC was a bit nervous about losing players to MMORPGS. I know there was a period of time when my gaming groups were lamenting the loss of players to games like Dark Age of Camelot. You don't have to agree that 4th edition was influenced by MMORPGs, but hopefully you can see the logic behind why many people see the connection.

 

[mamba]

In their analysis of what went wrong with 4E reception, a key point the designers have noted was mistaking the "applause for the end of Vancian casting at GenCon" crowd as being representative of a significant part of the player base.

another issue could be that people do not like vancian casting in the abstract, but that does not mean they will prefer your specific solution once you present it

 

[billd91]

I'm not really seeing the shift from practical to narrative/conceptual in this example, though. I'm just seeing a practical consequence of reduced impact. Wouldn't a conceptual or narrative one be more like halflings won't choose to wield heavy weapons or there won't be kits or PrCs or premade characters designed around gnomish maul-users or the like?

What I'm getting at as far as being a narrative or conceptual consequence is that it either comes out in how a player (or DM) uses the smallness in the narrative or as part of the character's concept rather than a practical consequence imposed by the rules looking to simulate some difference between small and larger characters. And that would include playing against type here as well - so gnomish maul-users as a concept that heightens the contrast between the small wielder and the larger weapon for some effect, even image, may well be fine - there's no practical consideration involved so it's all narrative-defined or a particular concept that someone wants to play out.

 

[Stormonu]

The unified d20 resolution system that 3E introduced was way overdue and is a fantastic now-core addition to the game.

I do miss having a reason to pull out my Decaider(TM) D10 and have a reason to roll it for stuff like thieves skills.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I dislike how far the game has gone into the ethos that PCs are super exceptional beings, to the point where even the species abilities in the phb cannot be assumed to be shared by all members of that species?? So a PC Dwarf isnt the same type of creature as an NPC Dwarf?? I find this completely unacceptable.

I like the way the game has gotten less and less beholden to weird little janky oddball bits from 30+ years ago, like finally killing the "move action" in favor of "you can move this much in a round, broken up however you want". This is such an improvement that it is hard to go back and play games that have a move action that you can only use once regardless of how far you move.

I dislike 5e going backwards on lore, but i like that since around Tashas the lore has been moving forward again. We did not need to return to "inherently savage" orcs and the game is better for ditching that once again.

I like the change in monsters to be more inclusive. As Pointy Hat says, "Yay boy hags!" And I especially love seeing Succubus and Incubus being distinguished by what they do rather than by gender.