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

[Alzrius]

would they have done so if 4e had continued using the OGL?

An interesting counterfactual to contemplate.

 

[mamba]

In fairness, the way players at the time responded, their condescension wasn't unwarranted. People did, in fact, cheer at the announced removal of Vancian spellcasting at one point.

it is one thing to cheer vance being replaced, it is quite another to cheer 4e. When you just say ‘we change’ anyone can envision the change they like best, only to later learn that what you replaced it with is something they do not really like…

And replacing vancian might have been the least of 4e’s issues…

 

[Minigiant]

4E feels like a video game because it has roles for its classes. Having to be a Leader or Striker instead of being a Controlling Fighter or a Leader Wizard was something a lot of people didn't like. Yes, you could use feats and powers and whatever to change this, but at a default, many playing TTRPG don't want to feel pigeon-holed.

Basically people rather be able to make their characters organically and have them successful or failures at their intentions based on their choices, for good or ill.

4e was designed to say "You are an X" and made you an X. You had to purposely make horrid choices to be bad at X. Your Ranger was a good ranged slayer, melee killer, or beast wrangler. There was no failure at it

But your ranger couldn't be a trucker or tank, or blaster. Those were other classes.

4e corrected heavily for the "low tier failure classes and high tier Do-It-All classes of 3e". Some say it overcorrected.

Setting dislike was just dressing

 

[Alzrius]

In fairness, the way players at the time responded, their condescension wasn't unwarranted. People did, in fact, cheer at the announced removal of Vancian spellcasting at one point.

I was there, at the presentation at Gen Con 2007, when this happened. I recall looking around the room, aghast.

 

[Oofta]

From everything I’ve understood, a lot of 4e rules have been adopted into other systems so from a certain standpoint, they made a big impact. I’m guessing 13th Age has a lot of 4e design. I know Lancer does as well, and I’m betting the MCDM game will too. So it’s not like proponents of the system don’t have 4e inspired alternatives.

I think 4E had some good ideas, some of which were used to inspire features in several games, including 5E. But it took a very different approach and actual play was very, very different for a lot of people. The labels, most of the lore, the cosmetic looks were the same. It also had issues on release resulting in a ton of errata and a feel that it was pushed out before it was really ready for release. It likely would have been better off published as a different game altogether without the D&D trappings.

But it was kind of like going to a restaurant and ordering a burger and fries then they bring out a chili cheese dog and onion rings*. In theory you get two sandwiches and a deep fried side dish. Maybe you decide you liked the cheese topping or other people start offering onion rings. But it was not a burger and fries.

*yes, once in a rare blue moon I crave A&W's chili cheese dog and onion rings because it used to be one of my favorite fast food meals back when A&W was one of the few fast food restaurants within 20 miles of where I grew up.

 

[Shardstone]

Basically people rather be able to make their characters organically and have them successful or failures at their intentions based on their choices, for good or ill.

4e was designed to say "You are an X" and made you an X. You had to purposely make horrid choices to be bad at X. Your Ranger was a good ranged slayer, melee killer, or beast wrangler. There was no failure at it

But your ranger couldn't be a trucker or tank, or blaster. Those were other classes.

4e corrected heavily for the "low tier failure classes and high tier Do-It-All classes of 3e". Some say it overcorrected.

Setting dislike was just dressing

Exactly. This is something that successors to 4E have evaded. In PF2E, the most clear successor, there are so many customization options that you can, over time, build into the exact thing you want, regardless of how you start. Want to be a Controlling Wizard vs a Damage Wizard? The latter will take a while, but its doable and not a huge pain. Meanwhile in vanilla 4E, a WIzard is a Controller is a Wizard. That, IMO, is NOT what MOST people are signing up to play TTRPGs for. Some are, and 4E had great ideas, but this was one of SEVERAL factors that killed the edition.

 

[Zardnaar]

I was there, at the presentation at Gen Con 2007, when this happened. I recall looking around the room, aghast.

I'm guessing some people cheered?

 

[DEFCON 1]

I mean, this is simply not true. Rituals are still there. Rituals include silent image (works effectively the same way as the 5e spell), hallucinatory item (which can be a door, wall, or various other things), hallucinatory terrain, and hallucinatory creature, and the PHB Wizard has cantrips (including ghost sound and prestidigitation), amongst other various powers. And I know for a fact that they discussed, multiple times, that what one might call "off-label" uses of powers, or even modifying powers to fit a character theme, was perfectly legitimate and appropriate.

The stuff is still there. All of it. People just didn't see it in the same places, assumed it wasn't there, and then crusaded against 4e for omissions that never happened.

That kinda proves my point then doesn't it? I mean I ran 4E games for the lifespan of the game and the whole ritual system was so separate from the rest of the main parts of the game that my players never used them to the point where I couldn't even tell you what rituals there were (and thus completely forgot about the two you mentioned above.)

Which again, is merely a strike against the presentation of the game (which you acknowledge was an issue), not that having rituals in and of themselves was a problem. Unfortunately, the way the design of the game was focused, it directed eyes mostly towards the use of the powers on the grid, and anything separate from that (like rituals and TotM) did not get as integrated into the game's dynamic as they might have been to really create full cohesion plus maintain a continuity with the previous editions. So for instance, had the game listed the powers in the Essentials format from the beginning and intermixed the rituals into the powers list like we have seen in the Spells sections of the other editions... they all would been of a piece and possibly less prone to being missed or ignored. And as a result, maybe less people would have bounced off of it.

Now we have no way of knowing which knobs and dials would have needed to be turned to make 4E into an image that most D&D players would have embraced. And I do think that many of the people who flippantly said 4E "was not D&D" were being kind of disingenuous because all the combat powers of 4E are not in any way any different than any combat abilities or spells in the other editions of the game-- you have range, area of effect, duration, attack type, damage amount, some effect on a hit-- they're just written in a different style than those editions. So again, merely presentation. So overall I think the game in and of itself was very good, but it just was printed and published in a manner that did not make the rollover from 3.5 into 4E one that some players found necessary.

 

[Aldarc]

4E feels like a video game because it has roles for its classes. Having to be a Leader or Striker instead of being a Controlling Fighter or a Leader Wizard was something a lot of people didn't like. Yes, you could use feats and powers and whatever to change this, but at a default, many playing TTRPG don't want to feel pigeon-holed.

Exactly. This is something that successors to 4E have evaded. In PF2E, the most clear successor, there are so many customization options that you can, over time, build into the exact thing you want, regardless of how you start. Want to be a Controlling Wizard vs a Damage Wizard? The latter will take a while, but its doable and not a huge pain. Meanwhile in vanilla 4E, a WIzard is a Controller is a Wizard. That, IMO, is NOT what MOST people are signing up to play TTRPGs for. Some are, and 4E had great ideas, but this was one of SEVERAL factors that killed the edition.

As a counterpoint, I found that roles made it easier to onboard classes to new players. Many new players liked that roles made class expectations, particularly regarding play style, clear rather than opaque. I had a number of players at my tables who disliked that 5e moved away from roles because they suddenly had the problem in reverse. They now found it difficult to present new classes to their new players and to onboard those players. I understand that the popularity would suggest that isn't true, but I don't necessarily think that this is causally related.

 

[Aldarc]

That kinda proves my point then doesn't it? I mean I ran 4E games for the lifespan of the game and the whole ritual system was so separate from the rest of the main parts of the game that my players never used them to the point where I couldn't even tell you what rituals there were (and thus completely forgot about the two you mentioned above.)

Which again, is merely a strike against the presentation of the game (which you acknowledge was an issue), not that having rituals in and of themselves was a problem. Unfortunately, the way the design of the game was focused, it directed eyes mostly towards the use of the powers on the grid, and anything separate from that (like rituals and TotM) did not get as integrated into the game's dynamic as they might have been to really create full cohesion plus maintain a continuity with the previous editions. So for instance, had the game listed the powers in the Essentials format from the beginning and intermixed the rituals into the powers list like we have seen in the Spells sections of the other editions... they all would been of a piece and possibly less prone to being missed or ignored. And as a result, maybe less people would have bounced off of it.

Now we have no way of knowing which knobs and dials would have needed to be turned to make 4E into an image that most D&D players would have embraced. And I do think that many of the people who flippantly said 4E "was not D&D" were being kind of disingenuous because all the combat powers of 4E are not in any way any different than any combat abilities or spells in the other editions of the game-- you have range, area of effect, duration, attack type, damage amount, some effect on a hit-- they're just written in a different style than those editions. So again, merely presentation. So overall I think the game in and of itself was very good, but it just was printed and published in a manner that did not make the rollover from 3.5 into 4E one that some players found necessary.

This tells m a lot about how 4e rituals were used at your table (or not, as the case may be) but they don't accurately reflect how often they were used at mine because they saw a LOT of use at my table.