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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6556572" data-attributes="member: 42582">I'm not sure what, or whose, theory you're talking about.Mearls has stated that the 4e Red Box had good uptake, but there was limited retention and purchase of further products. Part of the rationale of 5e was to make the "on-ramp" easier. A number of people in this thread have stated that they find the "wall of books" to be a barrier across the on-ramp. That seems plausible to me.I've never played a computer game or MMO, but I've played 4e more than once. 4e seems to me to be built to appeal to game players, including people who care about the game (ie rules and mechanics) elements of RPGs, and the way those elements drive play. 4e isn't built to appeal to those who like the GM to play the predominant and mechanics-independent role in determining how a game unfolds.Anyone who inclines to the view that mechanics "get in the way of" roleplaying, or who wants mechanics that will "disappear" is probably not going to like 4e. The 4e design approach is heavily influenced by the view that mechanics cannot disappear. <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/15/" target="_blank">Here</a> is one statement of that view:System is experientially inescapable. One cannot make Character, Setting, Situation, and Color "go" without it. . . . Really to remove System requires that anything and everything that happens during play be mediated solely through the Social Contract, without any formalized method even to do that. I think that such play would be awfully difficult, requiring so much negotiation regarding how to play per unit of play as to be hopeless. 5e, on the other hand, is designed on a different assumption - that a lot of system can be handballed to social contract (otherwise known as "empowering the DM" - a strong version of this, which has plenty of proponents on these boards, is that if I say "My guy looks out the window" or "My guy draw his sword" then even that isn't true, in the fiction, until the GM has signed off on it). It turns out, following market research, that more D&D players want a game like that than the 4e designers had thought.(@BryonD responded with disagreement in some recent thread - I think the roles one rather than this one - to a comment from me about certain players preferring to disregard the mechanics. From my perspective the above paragraph is a restatement of the point, and so Bryon may have a response to it.)</blockquote>

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