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

[Aldarc]

Hence the part of my post that you didn't quote "One of the things I disliked...".

What do you mean "hence the part"? "One of the things [you] disliked" prefaced a different sentence where you expressed a dislike for AEDU for what you felt lacked flexibility. You then create further separation between these ideas with a second sentence about the runecaster. But saying that the "people creating the classes were hamstrung" is an entirely different opinion that veers into insulting the designers and a belief that they were hamstrung by this design. Please write clearly in the future and less insultingly towards the designers.

 

[niklinna]

One rule that I would have in a revised version of 4e would be using Healing Surges to regain uses of Encounter Powers in combat. So you can use Encounter powers again, but there is now an associated cost. I have seen people with a similar rule. It doesn't change 4e RAW, but again, I don't think that anyone is out there saying 4e couldn't have used some tweaks.

That...would be a huge improvement, yeah. I never minded the division into AEDU, but it felt a little too classically Vancian to me. I'd rather have had, you have X/Y uses of encounter/daily powers, and can use whichever ones you know up to that point. Of course then the labels make a little less sense.

The other thing that bugged me was having to replace rather than add new powers past a certain point. It felt as if my character was forgetting the basics! (And I recall that often the higher-tier powers didn't thematically fit my character as well; another frustration.) I'd rather powers had some tier-based scaling to them. But that of course increases the size of the catalogue text, and I've already mentioned I'm not a fan of giant catalogues of special abilities.

 

[SteveC]

I think this thread, and others, has shown me that maybe, if WotC ever were to release a 4e SRD into creative commons, that a 3rd party might have some success marketing a system based on it.

I don't think WotC has any interest in such things, as 5e is far to popular for any major change.

I think this is an astute observation. There are a lot of people who don't like 4E, so you would think there wouldn't be much if any interest in an OGL version. So what's the holdup? It's not like WotC would be creating completion, would they? If that's the case, why are we getting 5E 2024 in OGL? That's a juggernaut game. This is another "I don't know" situation. Anyone?

 

[Oofta]

What do you mean "hence the part"? "One of the things [you] disliked" prefaced a different sentence where you expressed a dislike for AEDU for what you felt lacked flexibility. You then create further separation between these ideas with a second sentence about the runecaster. But saying that the "people creating the classes were hamstrung" is an entirely different opinion that veers into insulting the designers and a belief that they were hamstrung by this design. Please write clearly in the future and less insultingly towards the designers.

I don't get why you're trying to make a big deal out of this. I don't clarify every single thing with "in my opinion" when I already stated that I was just talking about my perspective. There is no objective measure of what it means to hamstring rules, therefore of course it is just my opinion.

So, just to make it clear Sir Pedantic:
IN MY OPINION the AEDU structure was unnecessarily limiting with little benefit other than simplicity. IN MY OPINION it limited what could be done for new options for characters. In 5E we have some abilities that are per short rest per day, or multiple times for others. IN MY OPINION that is a better design and gives the developers more flexibility which means that TO ME the classes and subclasses have a more distinct feel.

Better?

 

[niklinna]

I think this is an astute observation. There are a lot of people who don't like 4E, so you would think there wouldn't be much if any interest in an OGL version. So what's the holdup? It's not like WotC would be creating completion, would they? If that's the case, why are we getting 5E 2024 in OGL? That's a juggernaut game. This is another "I don't know" situation. Anyone?

How much work would it be to put 4e under the OGL now? Is that amount above zero? Well then, I can see why WotC wouldn't bother. There's nothing in it for them, not even goodwill, probably, as far as they can tell.

5E 2024 will be OGL because there was some slight pushback from the community about it not being OGL, a couple months ago.

 

[SteveC]

How much work would it be to put 4e under the OGL now? Is that amount above zero? Well then, I can see why WotC wouldn't bother. There's nothing in it for them, not even goodwill, probably, as far as they can tell.

That's an excellent point. What they could do at zero effort was to make it known that 4E could be used in the same manner as OSR games. There's no OGL for 1E and 2E but you see a ton of games using that material.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

How much work would it be to put 4e under the OGL now? Is that amount above zero? Well then, I can see why WotC wouldn't bother. There's nothing in it for them, not even goodwill, probably, as far as they can tell.

5E 2024 will be OGL because there was some slight pushback from the community about it not being OGL, a couple months ago.

I think the community puts too much value on the OGL in cases like this, given the creative commons. The latter is the objectively more open license. The value in the OGL is the content that is grandfathered into it.

For the 2024 rules, I see little value to using an OGL version of the SRD compared to a CC-BY version. In fact, I can't see any. Even assuming you want to release into the OGL, you might as well use the CC-BY version of the srd and just release what you wish into the OGL.

Maybe I'm missing something. But in my opinion, the best case for the community is CC-BY releases of every SRD. It's important to have the OGL for the grandfathered content, but for future use I don't see the value.

 

[MockingBird]

Every time one of these type threads pop up I always get the urge to grab my 4e books off the shelf. As much I as didn't enjoy it, it's still fun to go back through.

 

[Clint_L]

There are options besides "give every class access to every spell" and carving out healing as a special domain of magical endeavour. Rolemaster is one example.

Treating healing as special but not, say, teleportation; allowing wizards to have direct damage and battlefield control and enchantment and a reasonable range of buffs, but not healing; those are D&D legacies. There's no inherent design reason to bundle things in just that way, and other FRPGs - and 4e D&D - show other ways of bundling the various sorts of ability.

I mean, you keep asserting that there's no inherent design reason, but I've pointed out that there is: preserving class identity and balance. Rolemaster goes in the other direction - it's the system I first switched to when I got tired of AD&D. My experience with Rolemaster is that the granularity of character design actually led to more homogeneity, not less, and one of the things that led me back to D&D was that I decided I preferred a system with more distinct class identities that, in my experience, leads to a greater variety of player experiences.

Saying it's only there as a legacy is dismissive, and you haven't proven your case. Do you have some documentation of designers asserting that "gee, we just keep healing spells away from wizards because that's how it's always been?" I don't think so. I think you are just dismissing the possibility that it is good design to not give wizard-type classes much access to healing spells. I happen to think that it is. Your flaw is my feature. Ergo, good design from my perspective, and not just some legacy that no one has thought through. In fact, as you point out, 4e tried it differently. That didn't work out very well.

This is a theme throughout this thread: asserting opinions as facts and dismissing alternatives as, basically, driven by ignorance. Is it possible that maybe the designers looked at the feedback about 4e and decided that some of those choices turned out to not be great design for D&D?

The knee-jerk reaction, especially when someone doesn't like something as much as we do, is to assert that they just don't get it. They don't understand, or they're too cautious, or they are willfully ignoring the better option. Maybe they're just sheep. Or "mushrooms," to quote another poster in this thread.

It's super condescending. Maybe people are smart, and have all the same information, and have good intentions, and just don't come to the same conclusion. It happens all the time. Game design is an art, not a science, and what makes a good game is subjective. I think 5e is a MUCH better version of D&D than 4e. I think it is the best designed version of D&D. You have all the same information, seem very smart, and I have no reason to assume you have ill intentions, so it just seems like we are both reasonable people who disagree. That's okay.

But please stop dismissing my opinions as if I haven't thought them through and don't understand what "legacy" means.

 

[overgeeked]

The value in the OGL is the content that is grandfathered into it.

And that’s the benefit of the OGL over the CC-BY. Everything that was open content prior to January 2023 is open under the OGL, not the CC-BY. The CC-BY license might be more open, but it has wildly less content available for D&D and RPGs.