D&D General New Interview with Rob Heinsoo About 4E

[niklinna]

Ultimately, though...I just don't see why the fact that it is a Lurker means you have to tell them it's a Lurker. Let actions speak for themselves, or use poetic description when the creature acts, or encourage your players to do research before they set out. All of those are orders of magnitude better than trotting out a dry, mechanical description. Let the mechanics do their job; your job is to be talespinner and fatebinder.

I never once knew the role name or the game mechanics of an NPC/monster in all the time I played 4e. I did often learn facts (and sometimes fiction, of course) about their capabilities, as you described.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And the lesson 5e learned at launch was to treat the players like mushrooms and not fix the underlying problems.

Mod Note:

This comes off as a bit insulting, don’t you think? Be better going forward.

 

[GrimCo]

I'll preface this post by saying that 4e was good system. Hell, it was great. It was designed for specific play style and to provide specific gaming experience. And it did that damn well. It does exactly what is says it does on the tin. And if your preferences aligned with that design framework, you were golden, that edition was awesome. It's tactical combat game with classes clearly designed for specific roles and optimized around small unit tactics with each character contributing with their specialty.

Unfortunately, imho, there are couple of things that hindered 4e success. At least in my opinion.

Nuking FR was one of them. Personally, i don't care much for FR, but lot's of people do. Radical changes to setting don't sit well for lot of people. People like familiar stuff. That meme - same, different, but same. Little changes, yes, but not too many of them.

Rules change. 4e was revolution, not evolution. It was too different. Same with setting, small changes - good. Big changes - not so good. Personally, i just think that it came too early. If 4ed and 5ed switched places, i think that 4e would fare better. 5e is just streamlined 3.x in many ways. It would introduce people to SR/LR recharge mechanic, at will cantrips, subclasses etc. 4e's AEDU would be just evolution of that mechanic.

It tried to compete with MMOs by providing tabletop experience similar to MMOs. When 4e came out, WoW was reaching it's peak potential. People who played MMOs and ttrpgs, played them both cause they were different gaming experience. Decent amount of people stopped playing D&D and switched to WoW. Those that stayed with ttrpgs, they didn't want MMO like D&D. At least most didn't, since lot of players stayed with older editions or switched to PF1 (3.75 tbh).

There are 3 types of players. New, current and returning. They split current player base. They gained some from new player base. They tanked with returning player base. 5e was massive success cause it grabbed decent chunk of all 3 types. Returning player base is big one, sales wise. It skews older and with more disposable income. For 5e that were people who played in HS and Uni during 3.x, stopped playing cause of life (job, family etc) and now, when they are older and have more free time and more disposable income, they are ready to return to thing they loved when they were younger. For 4e, that was crowd who grew up on 2ed AD&D. Problem is, 4th was so radically different from 2ed, it was another game practically. On the other hand, 5e is similar enough to 3e that it feels familiar to returning players. On the other hand, if 4ed came out in 2014/15, generation that grew up on MMOs, would probably find it's MMOish style familiar enough to give it a shot.

Last thing. Grid and minis. Today, 3d printing is affordable and widespread. Game that utilizes minis has more appeal when you can easily custom make your hero and print it at home.

 

[Manbearcat]

Yeah, I mean, we can all have hobbies outside of our job, but 4e was pretty clear that Defender was a Fighter's job. And if I played my Dex fighter as a bow-using damage dealer who ignored marking, I'd be doing a bad job at doing the Ranger's job, and a bad job at doing my job as the party's defender.

I'm ultimately making the case that combat roles are mostly irrelevant to class for a lot of D&D players. The combat role is part of the medium. It's set dressing. It's paint. It's celluloid. It's story structure. It's meant to fade into play. It's not fun for those players for it to be something you need to pay attention to when selecting a class.

So if as a D&D designer you tie your classes to combat roles, you're going to wind up having a lot of players see that as a problem. As restrictive. As "like an MMO." As purely combat-focused. As artificial. As solving a problem they didn't have. As meaningless to their reasons for picking a class. If 6e has hard-coded class roles, it will have the same problem, because the problem results from the design.

5e's iteration (roles are things you can choose mechanics for if roles are important to you) isn't perfect, but it's better for more people than 4e's iteration (roles are things classes do), which itself was an improvement on 3e's iteration (roles aren't something the rules really need to worry about at all). The lesson that 5e has appeared to learn is that people don't need to care about combat role to choose a class. Combat role can be part of it, but it really doesn't have to be. This seems like a correct assessment from where I'm sitting.

My initial response to you was tackling a few particular concepts and attacking them discretely, indexing 4e specifically and D&D generally:

* What makes up the who you are as a character?

* What makes up the how you do D&D Fighter archetypical shtick?

Your response to me above looks to (a) be running together both of those things without any particular 4e or D&D-general analysis + (b) a sort of smuggling in of the importance of, or (your?) sympathies to, the interests of a cohort of people which basically looks like special pleading.

On (a) with respect to the who and how above, I know you've played some 4e D&D. We've discussed it in the past. But I don't know what was happening at your particular table. Here is what I've seen at my table and how I know 4e generates a huge diversity of play within the archetypal space of the Fighter:

I've GMed 4 different Fighters in play, but I'll focus only on two (spoiling these as its lengthy):

*

Spoiler: Group Game Fighter

In group play, I GMed a heavy armor Weaponmaster Fighter who was the typical vanguard archetype. The entire suite of Defender mechanics + feats + other features + power selection made them generate an enormous array of melee control effects such that I (the GM) am constantly bombarded with no good options (catch-22s). If my monsters/NPCs ignore them (violating either their Combat Challenge or Combat Superiority features or a mark from another source), they absolutely annihilate my characters with both damage and control. If I honor the threat they pose by not ignoring them (honoring their features and/or mark), they prove to be enormously capable of defending themselves and resilient to what I throw at them.

No_good_options.

Their suite of powers gives them enormous mobility on command, threatening reach to ensure enemies stay connected to them (or suffer; catch-22), terror (to generate surrenders at Bloodied), and the ability to muster their allies (via triggering their Healing Surges in combat) through extreme moments of being on the ropes, and action denial and control of enemy movement via conditions or forced movement.

Like a Samurai Knight leading their Section in the midst of a throng of enemies or a Spartan Hoplite doing the same. Or the biggest, baddest dude in a donnybrook. Or an X-Men comic featuring squad based combat with any tank character of your choosing. Or a 3 v 3 tag team match that has spilled into a 6 person melee with the terrible spectacle of Andre the Giant constantly looming over every action the poor opposing 3 takes. Etc etc. Or it looks like a 1v1 sparring contest (on the feet or on the ground) where one of the combatants has a devastating go-to feint + combination or take-down/sweep/throw or positional advancement + submission that constantly looms over the contest such that the opposing combatant's headspace and gameplan is utterly preoccupied with denying it and, in turn, it limits their choices and their own offense.

They had Athletics, Heal, Intimidate, Religion and several non-trained high Skill bonuses due to various build choices (Endurance, Diplomacy, Dungeoneering, Insight, Nature, Perception)

In the course of only the Heroic Tier (this game went through level 30), their suite of abilities enabled the conflict tropes of squad-based combat where they are the vanguard/center of the melee/bottleneck, escorting vulnerable personnel (various noncombatants such as children, priests, civilians, monarchs and their stewards, a dragon's newborn brood, etc) through all manner of danger (combat and noncombat), raising an army and brokering peace, leading or playing pivotal roles in the major obstacles of perilous wilderness journeys, compelling a spirit to undo its curse on a shrine and RIP, convincing a mad crowd to put down their pitchforks and torches because they were manipulated, and turned two enemies into notable Companion Characters PCs with a surrender post-Bloodied.

This is before we even talk about Powers and Features gained from Theme (reskinned Neverwinter Noble for different city and the PoL setting).

But that is who they were. An Aragorn type who fearlessly dominated the melee, who protected their charges, would lead in dangerous situations in the wild, healed the injured of their wounds and the downtrodden of their flagging spirits, who turned enemies to allies, raised armies, moderated and settled grievances, banished spirits, etc etc.

The how of them doing the who was through the combination of all of 4e's tech and GM and player playing aggressively and deftly; Fighter features + feats + powers in concert, the various aspects of the intricate combat engine and monster design, Companion Character tech, Skill Challenges run correctly and noncombat abilities that interface with that, and the Quest system.

*

Spoiler: Solo game Fighter

In solo play (I brought up solo play before for a reason...one of them is the ridiculous notion that 4e doesn't support it), I've GMed both a Tempest Fighter/Ranger Hybrid and a Slayer who had huge Dex and featured the nova deployment of a bow (all three of (a) pre-combat to turn a Standard into a Minion and assassinate them via successful Stealth or (b) surprise round successful RBA to slay an inaccessible artillery that would otherwise have harassed them terribly in the coming combat or (c) the same as (b) except round 1). But lets focus on the first. The Tempest Fighter/Ranger was an otherwordly Eladrin who (while the first character was basically Aragorn) was Legolas with mysticism dialed up to 11. The game was played solely in the Paragon Tier and the entirety of play was escorting a Winter Court spy from that frozen Feywild domain to the Summer Court.

The character balanced on the scantest of surface, could hear everything from afar, skulked like a shadow and nova'd with the bow, dominated the melee and protected their charge (which was a Companion Character as a Princess Build Warlord), soared through the air on invisible wings and blinked in and out of existence routinely, had vast knowledge of spellcraft and was capable of the rudiments of spellcasting, understood the span and implications of History, and was at home in nature.

They were a (reskinned) Iliyanbruen Guardian (background), Guardian (Theme), Soaring Rake (Paragon Path) w/ Acrobatics, Arcana, Athletics, History, Nature, Stealth trained and their Dungeoneering, Endurance, Insight, and Perception were all nearing Trained status in total value due to abilities/features/items. They had Ritual Caster from Wizard multiclass and they had several Arcana and Nature Rituals to earn them auto-successes for situation-relevant moves in Skill Challenges. They routinely spent their level -1 Coin on "palm-greasing" in social Skill Challenges where they didn't have the Bluff/Diplomacy/Intimidate chops (leaning instead on their Fey Court patronage/backing of their mission). This game featured a huge number of magic-infused wilderness chases through the Feywild (including plenty of intra-combat engine chases w/ win cons as "escorting the Fighter's charge to the finish line sq"...which in the imagined space is some strategic point of egress) and constant perilous journeys broken up by the stray combats and bartering for safe passage/egress with Fey locals. It was basically a Feywild version of Midnight Run.

The how of them doing the who was through the combination of all of 4e's tech and GM and player playing aggressively and deftly; Fighter/Ranger/Theme/Path features + feats + powers in concert, the various aspects of the intricate combat engine and monster design, Companion Character tech, Skill Challenges run correctly and noncombat abilities that interface with that, and the Quest system.

---

None of the above is even addressing the most trivial elephant in the room:

Reskinning the Ranger by merely trading out Nature for another Class Skill (Athletics or Endurance are the easy ones) is the most trivial thing ever. Now you have (a) a pure Striker/Skirmisher Fighter who (b) isn't a woodsman and (c) can be master of blade/bow (or whatever) and be resilient with armor.

TLDR: There are trivial ways of making an enormous variety of Martial substrate Fighter archetypes in 4e, and the who they are is not reduced to the base chassis of Combat Challenge + Combat Superiority + Healing Surge values/quantities. Who they are is decided through play via the aggressive usage of all of 4e's integrated themes & premise (of characters, of setting, of cosmology) + game tech (Quests, Skill Challenge Goals, novel Win Cons embedded in combats) + participants deploying both skillfully and aggressively = the cascading fiction that settles the answers surrounding the nature/legacy of the character in question. The how they do what they do can be as intricate, as multiple, as versatile as the participants at the table wants via their build choices + the conflicts they engage in (both the premise/goals and the mechanically-derived means to get to win cons like "chases w/ finish line sq" or Skill Challenges embedded in the combat engine) + their blow-by-blow decision tree management at every moment of the game (which assumes that the GM in question can use 4e's robust game engine to actually build out interesting, novel decisions on top of what 4e already provides).

Sum:

* Use the beefy game engine to build intricate, novel characters (or throttle that back to be less intricate or novel at your discretion...playing standard archetypes still yields compelling play).

* Players: Play goal-forward by signaling what your character is interested in engaging with via the Quest system + Background, Theme, Path, Destiny + the action declarations you make and the conflicts you engage with (and how you engage with them). Go through each of your decision-points with pace, attention, aggression, and competence.

* GMs: Don't suck at framing compelling conflicts, generating compelling (tactical, strategic, thematic) decision-spaces for the players of these characters, and move the situation-states and gamestates forward in equally compelling ways at all times.

Do all this and the play experience of the how and the who the characters are won't remotely be reduced to "Class Role x is totally lame and stifling" or "4e is impossible to have a solo/duo (I've done plenty of both in 4e) game due to the intransigent nature of the Class Role paradigm and how its design demands multiple players/PCs."

 

[Aldarc]

Generally, I have a character concept in mind. For instance, if I ever get to play again, then I want to play a holy warrior. I have never gotten to play a Paladin. For me, it starts with the RP aspects. What type of person/hero do I want to play? It would be Devotion, Glory, Ancients, or Crown in the case of the Paladin.

I have not even looked at their abilities yet. I just read the flavor text to see what type of Holy Warrior I may want to RP.

Once I choose, then I will look at the stats and combat. The style is probably going to suit the RP aspects I want.

I just do not consider combat until I have picked who I want to play in the game.

What if I told you that this was how I and many others also played 4e D&D?

However, one thing that I and some of my players liked about roles in 4e is they also let me know what sort of playstyle I could expect from my character concept in combat with the class mechanics. I may want to play a holy warrior, but what does that look like in play? What can I expect? Will I be happy with how it plays? Would my character concept be better fulfilled with a Cleric or Avenger instead?

All too many times, I have seen players had their expectations of their character concept dashed on the rocks of actual play because their class's mechanics didn't really deliver the playstyle that they were expecting. That was far less the case with 4e, IME, because the game was pretty transparent and upfront about how the mechanics were meant to support the class fantasy.

But I will also admit that sometimes I go into a game with a role in mind rather than a character concept.

When I played a 5e game with my old group in Vienna, there were people who never played 5e before, so I let my friends* pick their characters first. Then when I noticed that there wasn't much healing or support (e.g., Totem Warrior barbarian, Open Hand monk, Necromancer wizard), I decided to look for something more akin to a support role. This was obviously not necessary, but I wanted to be helpful. I knew what I could pick based upon my understanding of the class mechanics, but that isn't always clear at first glance. Then the character concept came second.

Sometimes, my character is simply born out of "that class looks cool" or "I wanna play that," and then make a character concept that lets me play whatever "that" is.

I know that we often appraise our character creation process as being purely about roleplay, but I think that the actual reality for many people is a little more complicated or nuanced and not so straightforward as character concept -> class choice. There will be many people who want to play something because they think that are attracted to the mechanics of the class. Likewise, there will be some people who have their typical character archetype that they are drawn towards. For example, I know that when my partner is playing a MMO that they will be drawn towards rogues/thieves and rangers. The character concept or thinking about who the character is as a person may not be that important. They just like the playstyle that these sorts of classes often provide.

4e roles do not inhibit people from creating a character from their character concept first to class later. 4e roles provide more information about the class playstyle for those who may be using that to decide their character. I have had a fair number of players who were very straight-forward about wanting to play a character that does a lot of damage. One of the nice things about roles, IME, was that I could point them to the Strikers.

Roles can even help provide some additional clues about what character concept best matches which class. Again, I have a holy warrior, so I should probably look at the classes with the Divine power source. Now would the holy warrior that I have in mind best be realized by playing a Paladin (defender), Cleric (leader) for a war god, or an Avenger (striker)? Likewise, maybe I have a concept for a defender of nature character. In 5e, the druid may be the obvious choice. However, 4e presents me with the choice between the Warden (defender), the Druid (controller), the Shaman (leader), or even the Barbarian (striker). I have to think about that.

* FWIW, these are some of the players who were disappointed in the class/subclass delivering the desired playstyle.

 

[mamba]

Marking is NOT an MMO mechanic, and cannot be, because (unlike what damn near every detractor ever says...even though it's dead wrong...) it is NOT a taunt, it is NOT mind control.

while I agree that it does not have to be mind control, the below certainly does sound more like mind control

The most fun I had playing 4E was an eladric swordmage. They're a unique defender in that they mark the target then teleport around the encounter playing keep away with the mark. Tanking via kiting, basically.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Then, when it takes its minor action you say that "Suddenly the statute comes to life", adding in additional narration about them having dropped their guard, or whatever, as makes sense given their own action declaration. Because that's what's happening in the fiction. It's no different from how you would narrate sneak attack damage in a 3E of 5e D&D game.

I have run every edition of this game... and there are game mechanics that are like this for newbies in each. Your SA analogy hits well with me.

I was running a store game of 5e back pre covid. I had 1 player that knew 2e, 1 player that had played and run 5e, and 4 newbies that 3 of them (including my then GF now Wife) never having played ANY TTRPG. I had an NPC/villian rogue. she was a kobold assassin, with a 3d6 SA. none of the players were playing rouges (If I remember it was fighter monk sorcerer ranger... and I don't remember others) so when they fought there way through kobolds, and made it to thiss big encounter, and the fighter almost got dropped by a knife sneak attack that was 100% a sneak (from hidden) attack... BUt the next round the kobold moved next to an alley and got SA again and everyone was like "Hey wait, we can see the kobold, why do they get to add sneak attack" and yeah the rules say when you have advantage or when you have an adjacent alley (and with pack tactics she had both) but how do I explain why a small rouge hits for 1d4+2+3d6 just cause someone is next to them, but the fighter with a magic two handed sword only hits for 2d6+4?

 

[Oofta]

...

Rules change. 4e was revolution, not evolution. It was too different. Same with setting, small changes - good. Big changes - not so good. Personally, i just think that it came too early. If 4ed and 5ed switched places, i think that 4e would fare better. 5e is just streamlined 3.x in many ways. It would introduce people to SR/LR recharge mechanic, at will cantrips, subclasses etc. 4e's AEDU would be just evolution of that mechanic.
...

Not to pick on this particular post, but I've seen this before and completely disagree that 4E would ever be accepted as an evolution of the other versions of D&D. It was a different game that carried over a handful of properties and core lore. How the rules were implemented and expressed, what various classes could do or targeted at was completely different.

People that rejected the game didn't reject it because it was too big a change and they just couldn't handle something new. They rejected it because it was a game they didn't want to play.

EDIT:
The problem with statements like this is that it's always implying that if people were just not stick-in-the-mud grognards unwilling to change they would accept how amazing 4E was. It's just not true, people simply like what they like and different isn't always better.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

while I agree that it does not have to be mind control, the below certainly does sound more like mind control

Well, two factors.

1. Still not mind control, because the monster could choose to chase after the Swordmage if they wish to. It's just a lose-lose-lose situation for that monster, because of the way Swordmage marking works. In this case, because it's actually a magical effect, the Swordmage can set it off from anywhere; they don't need to be adjacent to their target, unlike Fighters, who can only meaningfully punish a marked target if they're within reach. With the specific type of mark in question--Aegis of Shielding, in this case--the Swordmage basically puts up a magic barrier around their targeted ally which will partially or even completely negate the marked creature's attack. So the creature can stay put and smack one of the PCs, with a high chance to miss and a low chance to actually do meaningful damage; or it can chase after the Swordmage, probably eating an AO to do so; or it can use an AoE power to try to hit everyone (which avoids violating the mark)...but that most likely ALSO invites opportunity attacks from adjacent creatures. Hence: the creature has lots of options, but all of them suck, and now the DM must decide which sucky thing to deal with this time.

2. I was speaking of marking in the generic. Some marks literally are a magical challenge (e.g. the primary Paladin mark is quite literally called "Divine Challenge"), while some aren't. None of them take away the ability of the creature to choose. In essentially all MMOs, most if not all creatures work by having a "threat table" (also known as an "aggro table," "enmity list," or other similar things), and the creature has NO choice whatsoever except to attack whichever creature appears at the top of the list. A "taunt" effect puts the person who used it at the top of the list; the monster has no choice but to target that person, immediately, no question. 4e marks do not at all work that way, they don't force the creature to do anything at all. They just change the incentive structure so that what was once a great choice (slap the squishy geezer in a bathrobe) becomes a problem (trying to do that will get you stabbed, and also you might miss the attack).

Point being: marking mechanics and aggro mechanics are entirely opposite. "Aggro"/"enmity"/"threat"/etc. is inherently mind control. Creatures never make choices about their targets. With marking, it is always the case that the DM must be making choices (or, as noted, being forgetful or otherwise accidentally doing a thing they really would rather they hadn't done if they'd known better.)

 

[Manbearcat]

while I agree that it does not have to be mind control, the below certainly does sound more like mind control

The Fighter's suite of Defender mechanics (Combat Challenge and Combat Superiority - at bottom) are not mind control. Not in the way full-blown amygdala hijack (which is effectively "mind control") occurs as a matter of course in our own daily lives (we stumble over our words or say ridiculous things, break out in sweats, and otherwise "can't be ourselves" when we're faced with someone we're smitten with or when we're thrust into a high duress and, perceived, high stakes situation); which of course that same outright amygdala hijack should occur in a FRPG that is based on our human biology and attendant behaviors. Hudson (RIP Bill Paxton) in Aliens is one of the quintessential cases of this in fiction. The number of bumbling smitten examples are too many to mention.

However, its absolutely "apex mind influence" (let's call it) and it happens constantly in martial arts contests and ball sports both physical and otherwise. The instances of a competitor being compelled into suboptimal behavior with respect to their preferred strategy is nearly limitless. I could come up with easily 100 such examples off the top of my head (and have in this thread and others). I mean, even the tennis server to serve returner deals with this paradigm...same as the baseball pitcher and hitter. When multiple exchanges occur over a given interval + area control and action denial (whether that be defending yourself or defending a location) are both paramount inputs into "who comes out the winner" contests (especially when the loser is apt to face physical harm or social cost or both), "apex mind influence" is going to be a high magnitude governing parameter in the headspace of the participants.

You're not just talking about the tactical/strategic layer either. You're also talking about the "dealing with stress layer" and participants who are better equipped (via innate capability, exposure, and cognitive training) to do this will perform their cognitive loop more efficiently and more accurately. There are so many saying regarding this, but the important part is at the highest level of play, what separates competitors is overwhelmingly the mental game ("x IQ," where x is the sport/competition, and the ability to handle pressure and not let that amygdala hijack take over).

A TTRPG that includes this elemental feature of martial combat is fundamentally a better simulation of martial combat than one which does not.