D&D General D&D's Utter Dominance Is Good or Bad Because...

[Aldarc]

4) I think there existed a sweet spot of changes between the "mostly the same" PF and "very experimental" 4e, that would have done better than either, if it has been released as "4e" in 2008. I don't what that exact sweet spot is, and I don't think it's identifiable now, but I think it definitely existed.

Potentially something like PF2. I don't think that it necessarily would have been better than 4e D&D, but it would likely have been perceived as the next step between systems. It likely would have succeeded then too since it would still have predated the need for a system more suitable for streaming.

 

[Corinnguard]

Here's a small point of trivia for you. Did you know that if Paizo retained Dragon and Dungeon magazine, they would not have been in charge of making 4e? True story.

True. They wouldn't have been in charge of 4e. Which is why I am glad that they left WoTC and took their ideas elsewhere.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I just disagree. The math changed but it felt like the same game. My wizard still cast spells, my fighter still swung their sword.

Yeah, I largely hopped completely over the D&D1e period (and only ran rather than played 2e, largely because it was briefly the convenient option) and it didn't even feel different in any radical way from OD&D. Honestly, the most noticeable thing was paying attention to nine alignments rather than three.

 

[Aldarc]

True. They wouldn't have been in charge of 4e. Which is why I am glad that they left WoTC and took their ideas elsewhere.

Yep, they took their ideas elsewhere and then later hired 4e writers to help them develop PF2.

 

[Oofta]

These are my alt-4e speculations. They carry about as much weight as "What would 19th century US history look like if Lincoln hadn't been assassinated", i.e. no predictive weight at all. This is just idle thoughts.

1) I think if the 3.5 Vancian casting structure had been imported to casters (i.e. what Bo9s did), but casters had been left alone, the amount of concern around it would have been heavily muted.

2) I think releasing a 3rd core rulebook set in 8 years was a poor decision to allow for a positive reception, even if the economic need was urgent and pressing.

3) I think even if WotC had released the exact rules of Pathfinder as "4e", it would not have been successful because it was "too similar", and again, few people saw the need for a 3rd core rule book set in only 8 years.

4) I think there existed a sweet spot of changes between the "mostly the same" PF and "very experimental" 4e, that would have done better than either, if it has been released as "4e" in 2008. I don't what that exact sweet spot is, and I don't think it's identifiable now, but I think it definitely existed.

Yeah, we can speculate all day about what could have been. There are many, many stories based on that concept

We never got the Book of 9 Swords, so I can't comment on that.

Spoiler: Couple of my thoughts on 4E, please don't read if you think critique is edition warring.

I think if 4E had been more along the lines of 5E it would have been seen as an evolutionary change and been better accepted. After all a lot of people that jumped ship still bought new books - they just bought PF books. The people I knew that didn't switch (and admittedly one of the things I grew to dislike) was the entire AEDU structure. I understand what they were attempting to do, it's just a very different approach.

Add in, for example, powers that fighters had like come and get it where I could taunt literally any monster whether we shared a common language or not and automatically pull them in or the auras of weapon damage. The narrative justification just wasn't there; for me it was a supernatural ability with a "martial" label. I just don't see that ever being something some people wanted for what was supposed to be a minimally supernatural martial character. While 3.5 had some silly things like the cleave feat the let you continue to cleave and shift, at least it had a narrative description that had a basis in the archetype.

In any case, every edition has things I don't care for. After playing 4E for a couple of years it just wasn't for me and I don't know how they could have changed it without making it more or less 5E to change that.

 

[Corinnguard]

Yep, they took their ideas elsewhere and then later hired 4e writers to help them develop PF2.

Well that explains the 4e vibe I was getting from the first PF2 books I bought. Ick.

 

[TwoSix]

We never got the Book of 9 Swords, so I can't comment on that.

Honestly, I think Bo9S is a really interesting book to examine in terms of D&D's development. It was obviously a testbed for some of the ideas that eventually made it into 4e. It came pretty late in the 3.5 release schedule, so a lot of people didn't get it. But among the people who did get it, it proved almost equally as divisive as 4e did, even without the major lore and systematic changes that 4e made.

Which I think illustrates there's something fundamental about the narrative and mechanics that Bo9S presented that struck a large contingent of D&D players as problematic. And when those ideas were carried over into 4e, they proved just as divisive to an ever broader camp of D&D players.