D&D General Ray Winninger on 5e’s success, product cadence, the OGL, and more.

[mamba]

It's really disheartening that over 15 years later and we're still having the same tired arguments about 4E. And that some of it is coming from people who worked at WOTC and should know better.

maybe they do know better but the 4e fans do not like what they have to say on the topic…

 

[SlyFlourish]

I think they didn't really consider how important it might be to what made 4E good for the people who liked 4E. I don't dislike 13th Age mechanics-wise (though I do frown that they've re-involved Jonathan "Race Science" Tweet), but I've played (though not run it) and for me, it didn't have the punch and cool choices that 4E combat had.

Yeah I'm not a big PF2 booster as I think some of their stuff is a miss and it's bit overcomplicated at times, but I feel like it's actually got slightly more of what I want "tactical combat"-wise than 13A.

They both clearly stated their design preference for abstract distances in combat, something I too learned to love through 13th Age after years of gridded combat in 3e and 4e. As have many other RPGs including the four-time-ENNIE-winning Shadowdark. My personal favorite is the ICRPG "banana" distance (the distance measured with a real-world banana).

RPG designers including abstract distances aren't doing so because they forgot. It wasn't an oversight. It's a design decision, one some may not like. For me its the opposite. If a game clearly leans in on the grid (Like PF2 and 4e), it's really not for me these days.

And please, lets not get started on whether 5e is a gridded game or not. We have enough tangents in this thread.

 

[dave2008]

Although IMO you are going pretty far off-book if you do so.

Maybe? We played it for 4 years using minis in basically the same way we used them in 1e 20 years prior. We also played an epic (30th level) adventure in two 6 our sessions while riding in a minivan. Just because the game gave you the structure to play with minis and a grid doesn't me they were necessary or prevented you, in any way, from playing without them.

 

[dave2008]

Yeah much as I liked 4E it wasn't easy to play without a map or representations (we never used minis, only tokens, but same deal).

Why? Was it the tactical movement (push, pulls, etc.) or something else?

 

[mamba]

What's ironic too is that's exactly what WotC are doing again now, and nobody is blinking about.

this time they build a VTT for the existing game, they are not designing a new edition with the VTT in mind. Maybe that makes a difference

 

[Tigris]

Why? Was it the tactical movement (push, pulls, etc.) or something else?

Well the whole game with all its effect is built around positioning movement and forced movement.


All the area attacks, minor movements like shift 1, opportunity attacks, marking, flanking, the while lot of area attacks etc. all is balanced and built around the grid.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Folks. Even leaked early 4e playtests complained about the computer game thing. Maybe it’s time to at least accept that people have legitimate opinions about what they think the game was like?

I'll concede that MMOs are way more well-known and popular than tactics RPGs and that the playtesters maybe didn't have the vocabulary to describe what they meant, especially if the higher ups were demanding 4E to be a tabletop MMO and advertising it as such to playtesters despite it emphatically not actually being that.

Yeah much as I liked 4E it wasn't easy to play without a map or representations (we never used minis, only tokens, but same deal).

5E pretends to not require a grid, but it sure isn't built around it with all the mechanics that require discrete areas of effect represented in terms of feet. I've played in multiple games where the DM tried to use Theater of the Mind only to switch to maps when combat was slowed to a crawl by players constantly asking who was in their AoE or aura, if an enemy had triggered their Sentinel feat, if an ally was close enough to benefit from a ranged buff reaction, etc.

 

[dave2008]

Well the whole game with all its effect is built around positioning movement and forced movement.


All the area attacks, minor movements like shift 1, opportunity attacks, marking, flanking, the while lot of area attacks etc. all is balanced and built around the grid.

But it was easier, for us at least, to imagine without a grid than previous "gridless" versions with less precision in the spell or effect description. So 4e was still easier for us to play gridless than 1e for example

 

[dave2008]

5E pretends to not require a grid, but it sure isn't built around it with all the mechanics that require discrete areas of effect represented in terms of feet. I've played in multiple games where the DM tried to use Theater of the Mind only to switch to maps when combat was slowed to a crawl by players constantly asking who was in their AoE or aura, if an enemy had triggered their sentinel feet, if an ally was close enough to benefit from a ranged buff reaction, etc.

Is there a version of D&D where that wasn't true?

 

[Chaltab]

Yeah, you can play 4E without a grid but it does lose something without a way to visually track positioning.

Though honestly, I prefer to have a grid even in 5E because I've never liked playing the 'am I in range' and 'do I have enough movement to reach them' edition of 20 Questions.