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<blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 6430656" data-attributes="member: 59082"><p>Unlikely to happen, at least not to the extent that you might want. But the fact that there will be an OGL means that there should be tons of standalone modules produced by other publishers. I don't know what Goodman plans, but it would be nice to see another line like Dungeon Crawl Classics.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Yes, true - I agree with all of this. But...</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Here is where we differ. While I played 4E and for me it was "real D&D," it did have a rather different quality to it than 3E, and in that sense was <em>more of a departure</em> from traditional/classic D&D (or AD&D) than 3E was from 2E, and I would say overall was, if not quite the "red-headed stepchild" of the D&D family, then certainly the black sheep. This is not meant in a pejorative manner! I, for one, love black sheep (and am a bit of one myself)! <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" /></p><p></p><p>I wouldn't want to be overly specific about what exactly made it feel so different, because that is largely what it was: a feeling. Certainly that feeling was derived from actual mechanics within the game, but I wouldn't want to reduce it to any one or set of mechanics. That said, I do think that the AEDU paradigm was key to this. 3E and 4E shared a similar complexity (with 3E being perhaps more <em>complicated</em> in terms of "heapishness", and 4E being a bit more streamlined and less "heapish" but equally <em>complex</em>), but the main difference was the AEDU powers structure.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>True, although I see it as a change in what we could call "player positioning relative to the character and setting." The terminology and, to some extent, mechanics of 4E changed the way the player was positioned relative to their character (and thus game world). In a way it incorporated a layer of abstraction that wasn't previously there, or was different in terms of positioning. As I see it, this allowed for greater tactical complexity and richness, but was problematic for many in terms of how it re-positioned the player into a more abstract game environment, rather than the more traditional theater of mind story environment - at least for many who found the additional tactical-abstract-metagame layer a bit distracting from immersion in theater of mind.</p><p></p><p>You and I have talked about this before and not entirely agreed, but at the least I will say that I don't feel one way is "better" than the other, and that it may come down to cognitive styles. Different people process concepts in different ways. But I think the thing to keep in mind is that many folks found 4E's approach off-putting or at least difficult to penetrate and adjust to. The million-dollar question that will forever remain unanswered is whether or not WotC might have found a better way to get people into 4E if the edition wars hadn't occurred. In that regard I think Essentials was a missed opportunity, that could have both "healed the rift" and provided a simpler, easier access to 4E. As I see it, it didn't do the former at all and only the latter in a rather half-hearted way.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Agreed! But in that regard I think we have a bit of a black sails of Theseus problem where it is easy to assume a certain response or intent before one actually takes the time to try to understand what the other is saying. This is not to say that there aren't some people out there who are really playing a "My dad is better than your dad" game, but I don't think that's inherently the case when trying to speak of differences between editions, or the relative success of different editions. I mean, I'm fairly certain that these are the types of questions WotC asks, or asked while designing 5E: How successful was 4E overall? To what degree did it capture the "essence of D&D" for a wide number of fans? What could we change in order to offer a more inclusive D&D game? Etc. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I agree with the spirit of what you are saying, and I for one do not think 4E was "poorly designed." Actually, it was an incredible design and a very fun game. But I don't think it has to be all or nothing - either we're talking just about our own personal tastes or we're talking about everyone. </p><p></p><p>But I don't think most people who didn't like 4E didn't like it because they thought it was "poorly designed," or if they did I would suggest that they--or many of them--were projecting their feelings onto the game system itself. I think for the people who actively disliked 4E it was more of an affective, gut feeling - partially a response to WotC's early "anti-3E" campaign, partially not gelling with the mechanics, in particular AEDU, partially not liking the aesthetic of 4E and its incorporation of non-traditional elements into the core (e.g. dragonborn, eladrin, etc).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Mercurius, post: 6430656, member: 59082"] Unlikely to happen, at least not to the extent that you might want. But the fact that there will be an OGL means that there should be tons of standalone modules produced by other publishers. I don't know what Goodman plans, but it would be nice to see another line like Dungeon Crawl Classics. Yes, true - I agree with all of this. But... Here is where we differ. While I played 4E and for me it was "real D&D," it did have a rather different quality to it than 3E, and in that sense was [I]more of a departure[/I] from traditional/classic D&D (or AD&D) than 3E was from 2E, and I would say overall was, if not quite the "red-headed stepchild" of the D&D family, then certainly the black sheep. This is not meant in a pejorative manner! I, for one, love black sheep (and am a bit of one myself)! :lol: I wouldn't want to be overly specific about what exactly made it feel so different, because that is largely what it was: a feeling. Certainly that feeling was derived from actual mechanics within the game, but I wouldn't want to reduce it to any one or set of mechanics. That said, I do think that the AEDU paradigm was key to this. 3E and 4E shared a similar complexity (with 3E being perhaps more [I]complicated[/I] in terms of "heapishness", and 4E being a bit more streamlined and less "heapish" but equally [I]complex[/I]), but the main difference was the AEDU powers structure. True, although I see it as a change in what we could call "player positioning relative to the character and setting." The terminology and, to some extent, mechanics of 4E changed the way the player was positioned relative to their character (and thus game world). In a way it incorporated a layer of abstraction that wasn't previously there, or was different in terms of positioning. As I see it, this allowed for greater tactical complexity and richness, but was problematic for many in terms of how it re-positioned the player into a more abstract game environment, rather than the more traditional theater of mind story environment - at least for many who found the additional tactical-abstract-metagame layer a bit distracting from immersion in theater of mind. You and I have talked about this before and not entirely agreed, but at the least I will say that I don't feel one way is "better" than the other, and that it may come down to cognitive styles. Different people process concepts in different ways. But I think the thing to keep in mind is that many folks found 4E's approach off-putting or at least difficult to penetrate and adjust to. The million-dollar question that will forever remain unanswered is whether or not WotC might have found a better way to get people into 4E if the edition wars hadn't occurred. In that regard I think Essentials was a missed opportunity, that could have both "healed the rift" and provided a simpler, easier access to 4E. As I see it, it didn't do the former at all and only the latter in a rather half-hearted way. Agreed! But in that regard I think we have a bit of a black sails of Theseus problem where it is easy to assume a certain response or intent before one actually takes the time to try to understand what the other is saying. This is not to say that there aren't some people out there who are really playing a "My dad is better than your dad" game, but I don't think that's inherently the case when trying to speak of differences between editions, or the relative success of different editions. I mean, I'm fairly certain that these are the types of questions WotC asks, or asked while designing 5E: How successful was 4E overall? To what degree did it capture the "essence of D&D" for a wide number of fans? What could we change in order to offer a more inclusive D&D game? Etc. I agree with the spirit of what you are saying, and I for one do not think 4E was "poorly designed." Actually, it was an incredible design and a very fun game. But I don't think it has to be all or nothing - either we're talking just about our own personal tastes or we're talking about everyone. But I don't think most people who didn't like 4E didn't like it because they thought it was "poorly designed," or if they did I would suggest that they--or many of them--were projecting their feelings onto the game system itself. I think for the people who actively disliked 4E it was more of an affective, gut feeling - partially a response to WotC's early "anti-3E" campaign, partially not gelling with the mechanics, in particular AEDU, partially not liking the aesthetic of 4E and its incorporation of non-traditional elements into the core (e.g. dragonborn, eladrin, etc). [/QUOTE]
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