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

[mamba]

According to multiple designers who worked at WotC, it outsold 3e.

I heard that claim a few times, and it was always focused on initial sales, not total sales. The only claim for total sales I have seen is the Ben Riggs one.

The issue wasn't that it did poorly. The issue was that it was expected to be a $50 million/year revenue game by Hasbro

no, the issue was that it did very poorly after initial good sales.

Sales dropped off a cliff, and fast. Entire planned settings (Dragonlance) were scrapped because sales disappeared so fast.

So did it out revenue 3e? Yes. Did it get anywhere near Hasbro's ridiculous expectations? No.

both no, actually…

 

[mamba]

.

 

[dbolack]

It’s wild and sad that people are entirely unaware of a time before the OGL. Other games flourished. Other games were played more than D&D. D&D was nearly dead and gone. The only thing that saved it was the OGL. There was a bright and glorious time in the late 80s and 90s when D&D was not king. One game to rule them all. Sigh.

Except that's not entirely true. It felt like it in many places, particularly before the Eternal September.

 

[mamba]

Even if that were true, that's comparing apples and oranges. Total revenue is what counts and DDI was a very large amount of total revenue.

‘very large amount’ is nice, it was relatively large because it sold so badly, but in absolute terms it was still small.

Somewhere I heard that it was a failure because you can subscribe for a month, get all books, and unsubscribe. Not a sign of it making a ton of money… I think I saw somewhere that it made 100k a month, 5e makes more from just PHB sales (not even counting digital) even now…

 

[Retreater]

I firmly believe that if 4e

1. Gave every class 2 role and let you choose between them at level 1
2. Have all powers shared between power source

There'd be more acceptance on 4e.

Like you choose fighter and choose Slayer (Striker) or Guardian (defender).
Paladin chooses Defender or Leader.
Wizard choose Controller or Blaster.
Etc etc.

I think the less people had to accept to fix what was broken in the past, the more they'd accept change

Have you looked at the indie RPG "Strike!"? It does something similar, with a tactical module inspired by 4e.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The thing is that I think 4e expects you to go in the other direction. You start with the decision to be a Defender. What kind of Defender?

And you've already lost anyone who is playing D&D more for the character performance experience than for a tactical combat experience. You don't start with the decision to use the Kuleshov effect. You start with the needs of the narrative and the emotional content.

Having a role communicates both what you are supposed to be doing in a fight, and lets the designers make sure you have access to the tools to do that.

For a lot of people who play D&D, it's an incredibly narrow and specific and largely irrelevant aspect of playing D&D.

I do think I should reiterate that this doesn't mean it's not important for the people it's important for, or that D&D should ignore this or pretend that people don't want this. But tying it to class like 4e did wasn't good design for D&D, because the design told you that this was VERY IMPORTANT, a key part of your decision to play a particular class, and for a lot of people, it really just wasn't.

And part of why 4e fell flat for a lot of players is that mismatch between what the rules suggested were important and what was actually important to those players. It wasn't just about the setting not meeting expectations. It was also about the rules not meeting expectations.

that isn't all that 4e Fighters can do

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.

 

[Staffan]

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.

The problem from where I am sitting is that 5e doesn't allow characters to fulfill roles without making very specific choices – at least not the Leader or Defender roles. The only way to do meaningful combat healing is as a Life cleric, and the only way to prevent a foe from ignoring you and running all around the battlefield is to take the Sentinel feat (which for non-humans means you delay that until level 4 at the earliest, and more likely level 6 or 8).

 

[pemerton]

And you've already lost anyone who is playing D&D more for the character performance experience than for a tactical combat experience. You don't start with the decision to use the Kuleshov effect. You start with the needs of the narrative and the emotional content.

<snip>

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.

This doesn't make much sense, to be honest.

I mean, if I build my DEX wizard using a bow who ignores spell-casting, I'll be doing a bad job in 5e D&D. My character will be pretty ineffectual. But basically no one will build that PC. People who build wizards in 5e take it for granted that they will be using spells, but not healing spells because - for purely legacy reasons - D&D wizardly magic doesn't include healing.

If I build my STR rogue and try to go toe-to-toe without using sneak attack, I'll be doing the fighter's job poorly - too few attacks, too little damage, too few hp. But again, almost no one builds and plays PCs like that. If I want to play a tank-y PC in 5e D&D, I don't build a rogue. I build a fighter, or a paladin, or maybe a barbarian or (if I'm more adventurous and rules-savvy) a cleric.

In 5e, if I want to play a DEX bow wielder I build a ranger. The rules are clear about that. There's no confusion, and no failure to convey what sort of character particular build elements are suited to.

 

[niklinna]

Doesn't mean it can't be done.

And it has the added benefit of slowing the release schedule.

I wasn't sure whether to or or your post here, considering the earlier comment on "15 years of content in 5 years"!

It might have had. But 4e is over and done with and I'm not expecting its return in that general form. The might-have-beens have been interesting to read, in any case!

 

[Aldarc]

I wasn't sure whether to or or your post here, considering the earlier comment on "15 years of content in 5 years"!

It might have had. But 4e is over and done with and I'm not expecting its return in that general form. The might-have-beens have been interesting to read, in any case!

It has taken awhile before designers were even willing to publicly admit that they were influenced by 4e, let alone like the game. I think that 4e, for whatever flaws attributed to the game (merited or not), did scratch a new itch for a number of people, which became increasingly clear with its relative absence. We are seeing more games out there where the designers are pointing to 4e as a strong influence on their designs.