WotC James Wyatt is on the Dungeons & Dragons Team Again

[Kobold Avenger]

For 4e changes I liked the additive changes like Feywild or Shadowfell, but not the outright retcons or limitations to fit everything within the "new" core, especially when they did that to established campaign settings.

In 5e, they realized they were wrong in doing a lot of those things. There's still some retcons out there in 5e, but not as widespread as it was before.

 

[billd91]

I loved the Bael Turath backstory in 4e, because it gave them a history, hooks, and a connection to the world of the Nentir Vale and the World Axis.

(Applying the loaded "monolith" language to the Bael Turath backstory now instead of Asmodeus, doesn't make things much better.)

Ultimately, Bael Turath vs Asmodeus doesn't matter much. The distinction is just a question of relatively minor and insignificant detail. 4e did have the effect of conforming the tieflings to both an origin and a general look that they didn't have to conform to before. And that's unfortunate.
The SCAG helps with its Tiefling Variants sidebar, but it was unnecessary before 4e to sidebar that. It was the normal content.

 

[Mind of tempest]

my observation on 4e is where it did well it did really well but were it failed it was just unpleasant and it killed a lot of scared cows but some more than what was really need.

 

[Aldarc]

For 4e changes I liked the additive changes like Feywild or Shadowfell, but not the outright retcons or limitations to fit everything within the "new" core, especially when they did that to established campaign settings.

In 5e, they realized they were wrong in doing a lot of those things. There's still some retcons out there in 5e, but not as widespread as it was before.

I think people make 5e to be more of a “messiah” and 4e a scapegoat than either really are. I said it before, I’ll say it again: 5e could get away with murder and 4e couldn’t get away with jaywalking.

 

[Scribe]

I think people make 5e to be more of a “messiah” and 4e a scapegoat than either really are. I said it before, I’ll say it again: 5e could get away with murder and 4e couldn’t get away with jaywalking.

From my perspective...no. I think 5e gets more shine because its not 4e, but I'd go back to 3.5....

 

[Aldarc]

From my perspective...no. I think 5e gets more shine because its not 4e, but I'd go back to 3.5....

I’m not following your sentence construction here at all.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I think people make 5e to be more of a “messiah” and 4e a scapegoat than either really are. I said it before, I’ll say it again: 5e could get away with murder and 4e couldn’t get away with jaywalking.

It's the design intentions behind 4e and 5e. 4e had this intention to build on the game as this tactical combat RPG, trying to tap into the MMORPGs and other video games. So in order to work along those lines, it had to cut a lot of things out.

5e had the intention to bring back those who drifted away from the game because of what they were doing in 4e. It was designed with the intention that Role-Playing Games can be different things to different people. So it cut down on the tactical combat aspects and allowed the story aspects to be more open.

 

[cbwjm]

One of the saddest things about 4e, is that they never made a decent single/multi player video game for it where you control a party of heroes. They could have kept the rules exactly the same, all turn-based and it would have been amazing. Considering the success of games from previous editions, I thought for sure they'd make one and was really disappointed they didn't.

 

[cavalier973]

Yea, it was a great idea to start them there. I'd love to hear Chris commentary on each WotC adventure or how he'd run it, or maybe a live play of him running the book.

The game he did with the Robot Chicken guys has an accomoanying DM commentary set of videos, where he talks about the game. He describes the "evil D&D pinata that he had planned for them, but that they didnt get to experience.

 

[Scribe]

I’m not following your sentence construction here at all.

It's not about 5e being some Messiah. 5e only looks so good (imo) because people didn't like what 4e did.

I'd still go back to 3.5, as 5e is not the second coming of Christ, it's only seen as so much better (imo) because of how bad 4e was received in comparison.

If that doesn't make sense, sorry.