Speculation about "the feelz" of D&D 4th Edition

[MwaO]

Smacks of conspiracy theory - it's hard to credit WotC with a coordinated anything, let alone one rating a coupla 'very's. ;P

But, it does also ring of the "Illusory Truth Effect." Repeat something often enough, and even if still obviously false, it becomes more familiar and less implausible.

Plus, if it's not some fiendish plot, you have to give them credit for trying.

In one class I taught a long time ago - I had this one college kid who was 'fight the power', 'advertisers are slime', etc...I assigned them to do an ad.

His was the most openly manipulative ad and not at all by a little. WotC seems to have a similar problem in that they ran a very manipulative marketing campaign. And presumably someone at Hasbro signed off on it.

I don't think they're doing it deliberately. I just think they don't really know what they were doing on a whole lot of levels.

 

[Parmandur]

It is about the only mechanical difference you came up with for "TotM Support" the rest comes down to incentives to deprecate the system and rule arbitrarily. Which....
Yep, at that point, Freestyle RP starts to look like the way to go.

I remember, back on UseNet in the Roll v Role debate, there were people who bought deeply into the Wolfie philosophy, that bad rules made good games, and I always had to wonder if they'd just never heard of the concept of Freestyle.


It is funny how trivial a thing can affect feel in a big way for some people. One game has squares that convert to 5', another has feet in multiples of 5 that convert to squares. The difference is meaningless on a rational level, non-existent on a mathematical level, but on a subjective personal level, could be meaningful.

It's still /no support at all/. So, sure, if that's all you need, you have it, in every edition of D&D - since they all used feet, one way or another.


Smacks of conspiracy theory - it's hard to credit WotC with a coordinated anything, let alone one rating a coupla 'very's. ;P

But, it does also ring of the "Illusory Truth Effect." Repeat something often enough, and even if still obviously false, it becomes more familiar and less implausible.

Plus, if it's not some fiendish plot, you have to give them credit for trying.

Putting things in natural language measurements, and keeping things abstract (HP, AC are super nontechnical abstractions), without muddying things up with maneuvers et al, is the support, and all that is needed: spells are a rather limited resource, that those responsible for need to be careful with.

Once everyone has fiddly bits they need to track, the system breaks down because it needs to be tracked visually; once that is necessary, I would consider that a failure state.

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[Parmandur]

In one class I taught a long time ago - I had this one college kid who was 'fight the power', 'advertisers are slime', etc...I assigned them to do an ad.

His was the most openly manipulative ad and not at all by a little. WotC seems to have a similar problem in that they ran a very manipulative marketing campaign. And presumably someone at Hasbro signed off on it.

I don't think they're doing it deliberately. I just think they don't really know what they were doing on a whole lot of levels.

In the 4E era, their marketing was astonishingly unconsidered; this time around, they got their data down to a T, from what I can see.

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[Campbell]

I think there is a very large design space that exists between principled freeform and something like 5e. The reason why I asked those questions is not because there is right answer to all those questions, but because each individual question's answers allows us to find a unique design space that informs play. Dungeon World has hit points and discrete spells, but lacks a discrete action economy. Blades in the Dark lacks an action economy and hit points, but has a stress economy and models fictional obstacles like 'The Blue Coats Are Coming' as abstract countdown clocks that PCs can influence. Monsterhearts has one move for handling physical conflicts, but has an elaborate economy to handle social conflicts. Burning Wheel lets you resolve combat through a single test, but also provides a detailed combat system if you want to use it - same goes for social conflicts. Exalted 3e has an action economy and discrete supernatural effects, but uses abstract rather than discrete positioning.

 

[Jhaelen]

Quotes from Mike Mearls that should be read by anyone claiming 4th Edition was just another step in the evolution of D&D and not a departure with significant negative impact - from the horses' mouth, without editing or further ado;
[...]
But the idea that it wasn't a significant departure that split the D&D gaming population, was a natural evolution (or whatever label is used to give it high water-mark D&D credentials) is not shared by the game's designers, the company that published it or the majority of the current D&D gaming community.

Well, I still disagree with you.
It's important to look at the context, especially the point in time when Mearls posted this bit. You didn't provide the date, but it's obviously after 5th edition was announced, perhaps even after 5e had been published.

Since you ignored my previous evidence, I'm not inclined to invest the time to dig for one of his quotes from the beginning of 4e. Basically, what he posted was a marketing pitch, no more no less.
After 3e, 3e suddenly was the worst edition ever, and 4e was going to come to the rescue.
After 4e, 4e suddenly was the worst edition ever, and 5e was going to come to the rescue.

If 4e was a significant departure from the 'core of D&D', then 3e was, as well.

In retrospective I also suspect that Mearls was never entirely a supporter of 4e; actually it often seemed he hadn't really 'grokked' it.

Both 3e and 4e were attempts to incporporate ideas from other, modern RPG systems to breath life into the withered husk of D&D again.
5e is the equivalent of shrugging their shoulders, burying everything that happened after 2e, building a monument on top and polishing it to mirror-like sheen.

In other words 5e was an attempt to 'make D&D great again' by undoing everything that had been done to improve it and make it fit for the future.
It's closing your eyes to everything outside the microcosm of classic D&D and pretending nothing else exists or could affect you in any way.

I understand the appeal to D&D grognards, but it's not a development I feel inclined to support or endorse.

 

[Tony Vargas]

In other words 5e was an attempt to 'make D&D great again' by undoing everything that had been done to improve it and make it fit for the future.

That is in no way disturbing or depressing. No sir. ;P

Putting things in natural language measurements, and keeping things abstract (HP, AC are super nontechnical abstractions)

Now you're just contradicting yourself. One post, 'gamist abstraction' is the death of TotM, the next, it's support.

without muddying things up with maneuvers et al, is the support, and all that is needed...Once everyone has fiddly bits they need to track, the system breaks down because it needs to be tracked visually; once that is necessary, I would consider that a failure state.

You're goin' down the "less is more" rabbit hole there, and the other side of that is "nothing is everything." ;P

Ironically, that's not nonsense: it's an argument for Freestyle RP.

 

[The Fighter-Cricket]

In other words 5e was an attempt to 'make D&D great again'...

That sounds rather heavy in all of the context we live in. But I sadly have to second this argument. The thought of getting back to an ideal state of something which lies often in the past is overwhelming these days (and maybe has been there throughout human history). If I'm getting too political here, just tell me - but I think that overabundant nostalgia can be found today in the political sphere of the western world as well as in popular culture. Think about all the retro games that spring forth, think about the "arguments of purity" when something that is advertised as being a successor of a long lasting series of cultural products (games, movies, stuff) is being changed too much. I myself am a nostalgic guy - I still like quite a lot of the stuff I liked as a kid/teenager and like to see it revamped. But I know that out there some people have a very unhealthy relationship with nostalgia.

---

Overall I found the discussion about TotM very insightful - thanks to all of you! And I also want to emphasize the argument that the "feelz" of 4E are not only evoked through how it handles certain mechanics and how it plays. It is certainly influenced through wording alone ("natural language") and through marketing and what people told other people about 4E. In this regard the discussion came back quite organically to the OP's question.

 

[Caliburn101]

@Jhaelan

We have quite different opinions about where the line sits between evidence and opinion it would appear. You cite your use of evidence but then offer up by your own admission only opinion and assumption.

You characterise what Mearls said as a marketing pitch - but I see no evidence of that. I think labelling the statement a falsehood without evidence whilst simultaneously being openly disinclined to dig up evidence to support what you say is far from fair on the man, or convincing in discussion.

I have repeatedly stated that this thread is about the feel of 4th Edition, not a critique of the playability of, or indeed the fun to be had with the system used by 4th Edition. It is a discussion engaged with from my point of view about how unalike it was compared to all other iterations of the game.

Not every person that likes 4th Edition feels the need to try and justify why it is 'like' the other versions - it's a perfectly decent game in and of itself and introduced a handful of innovations that were capable of being integrated into 5th Edition.

I have absolutely nothing against 4th Edition and I do wish those who don't agree with me would stop passive aggressively labelling me as a hater.

My contention, with evidence, Mearl's opinion, with the weight of D&D gaming history, the exodus of players and the success of Pathfinder etc, etc. all point towards 4th Edition being a significant departure from the expected paradigm that for several significant reasons needed remaking with a more recognisable (to the majority of players) version of the game.

You clearly like 4th Edition and whilst it is stating the completely obvious, you have a great deal of material from that system to use to run games into the future - certainly more than 5th Ed. players do.

The irony here is that you don't like 5th Edition, which was deliberately designed to be closer to pre-4th Edition versions by WotC, but simultaneously cannot see the fundamental contradiction between that dislike of 5th Editions differences from 4th Edition and the contention that 4th was a natural development of 1 to 3.5...

... to be clear - if you don't like 5th Edition because it is closer to the pre-4th Editions, then how can you logically argue that 4th was a natural development of the editions before it?

 

[cavalier973]

I think that overabundant nostalgia can be found today in the political sphere of the western world as well as in popular culture.

Check out "The Fourth Turning" or the book "Pendulum".


This isn't supposed to be an "Edition X is the superior one" discussion. It's not even a "here are the reasons 4e is really D&D, or really does feel like D&D" discussion, although there has been some of that in this thread. Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition is Dungeons and Dragons; claiming that it not is not an argument, it's just contradiction. I was just throwing out my thoughts on why someone would say that 4e "felt different". I do not have a long history with D&D. My first experience with it is through computer games.

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I would hear, on various fora, that 4e "didn't have the right feel", without adequate explanation why.

So, then, the question becomes "what did 4e do that previous editions did not, and vice versa?" The answer isnt, I think, "Healing Surges" and "Measurement by Squares"; there is something fundamental about the "feel" of earlier editions that 4e did not capture for some players.

 

[cavalier973]

To add to my previous comment (instead of editing it again), my initial observations about what made earlier editions "feel" a certain way are limited by my having to rely on the rules as written, since I have very little--well, actually, non-existent experience actually playing with the rules.

Reading the rules, I came to the conclusion that 4e dispensed with the management of the mundane, which in turn meant that the attritional aspects of the game were no longer present--at least, in the form to which they had been accustomed. There is resource management in 4e, but the resources that matter are the characters' inner qualities instead of the fear [edit: I meant gear] they carry.

So, imagine a B/X fighter getting separated from the group, then having his magic (talking!) sword stolen. He is going to have a difficult time, even if he manages to find or steal a weapon. It would be a question of whether he would survive the night, unless the player can figure out some clever way to leverage what his character has in his backpack to turn certain death into a fighting chance to live. In a certain way, that's awesome.

A 4e fighter in the same position could pick up a tree branch and probably be sitting on the dead body of the orc king when the rest of his party finally enters the throne room, because, in 4e, the power is inside you!--er, I mean, inside the character. In a certain way, that's awesome.

Anyway, that's the difference, as I see it.