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

[Garthanos]

Fair point about the feels; in my experience of every edition of D&D, this feeling of "contributing" or not, has never been an issue.

The sense of the mage JUST watching the show so often at low level was one such contribution to the feel of not being part of a team

 

[Parmandur]

Well, obviously WotC could suddenly decide to release virtually anything, but I don't see this as 'early days' of 5e! This is 3 years since the official release of the game, is it not? I mean, 2.5 years. This is the point in 4e where it was 2011, the PHB3 had been released IIRC, most of the * Power series of books was out, and essentially the game was feature complete. Around this time WotC must have begun working on Essentials, since it was released in 2012.

So, I would expect that 5e is feature complete and mature. Beyond that every year that goes by and sees more material released for a game reduces the chances of any significant additions and revampings, short of an edition-roll-like event (IE like the release of Essentials or 3.5). I don't see anything like this in the cards for 5e. WotC doesn't have the staff, has evinced no interest in significant further 5e rules development, etc. Given the depth of the undertaking I feel entirely confident in my belief that no reworking of 5e in the direction of being 'more tactical' will ever happen. If it does, it will herald the release of a replacement version of the game, not just some supplement. This is exceedingly unlikely in the near to mid-term.

Time is relative; it has been 3 years, just about, but only 5 crunchy books have been released so far. In fact, they are working on some mechanical expansion book for this year, hence the weekly UA tests that are now moving into DM modules: it would hardly surprise me if tactics-supporting mechanics were somewhere in the next couple months, given the 4E-isms they have explored in the new subclass options. We'll see, but 5E has hardly begun, let alone become feature complete.

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[Parmandur]

The sense of the mage JUST watching the show so often at low level was one such contribution to the feel of not being part of a team

So I am given to understand from reading about D&D on the Internet; but I have seriously never seen this in actual play across three editions now, having played across the martial-caster spectrum.

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[doctorbadwolf]

OK, excellent, thank you for that explanation: I think we were experiencing some equivocation of terminology. When you say "4e does the best job in DnD history of modeling such characters in a mechanically satisfying way" rather than "relying on player imagination to model the thematics" I feel I see the difference in our play styles and experiences, because the latter is how I prefer the game to play out, and when I was saying "tactical" perhaps "mechanically modeled in detail" is a more accurate way to describe it. You and yours like the specified mechanical narrative devices; I felt they were limiting, though obviously many of y'all here felt they were expansive which is why you loved the design.

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Yeah, ok. So, I'd definately say that tactics is an entirely separate concern from mechanical representation of thematic elements.

With that understanding of wht I mean by tactical, I think we can agree that we want different things from game systems, and I hope you can see why I disagree with the idea that 4e is "DnD:tactics".

What i I don't understand is how people who don't like detailed mechanical representation enjoyed 3.5? Seems like the main difference between it and 4e is simply that 4e rejects the ivory tower design concept, and is less asymmetrical, etc, not that 3.5 is any less designed around mechanical representation of thematic elements.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, ok. So, I'd definately say that tactics is an entirely separate concern from mechanical representation of thematic elements.

With that understanding of wht I mean by tactical, I think we can agree that we want different things from game systems, and I hope you can see why I disagree with the idea that 4e is "DnD:tactics".

What i I don't understand is how people who don't like detailed mechanical representation enjoyed 3.5? Seems like the main difference between it and 4e is simply that 4e rejects the ivory tower design concept, and is less asymmetrical, etc, not that 3.5 is any less designed around mechanical representation of thematic elements.

Well, the "Tactics" comparison was specific to the analogy of main "Final Fantasy" games to the subseries "Final Fantasy Tactics" which is waaaay more mechanically involved (but still a fine bunch of games); not a putdown of any sort.

I think the answer as to why some folks found 4E frustrating but not 3.x, is the same reason you found 4E to be a revelation: folks are looking for different things, and 4E brought a different approach, worked for some who were looking g for what it offered mechanically. But, for others who were on a different wavelength, it was alienating. And people turned their preferences into a war.

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[Garthanos]

Changing the magic system was one the most common gaming hacks I seen back in the day and it wasnt because the "magic user" contributed well at low levels and was balanced at high level. Having a D&D that didnt just call that imbalance traditional and ignore it was refreshing.

Arguably it was the combination of good stuff and the inadequacies of early D&D started a huge industry. Pretending nothing failed is as incorrect as pretending everything did.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, obviously WotC could suddenly decide to release virtually anything, but I don't see this as 'early days' of 5e! This is 3 years since the official release of the game, is it not? I mean, 2.5 years. This is the point in 4e where it was 2011, the PHB3 had been released IIRC, most of the * Power series of books was out, and essentially the game was feature complete. Around this time WotC must have begun working on Essentials, since it was released in 2012.

So, I would expect that 5e is feature complete and mature. Beyond that every year that goes by and sees more material released for a game reduces the chances of any significant additions and revampings, short of an edition-roll-like event (IE like the release of Essentials or 3.5). I don't see anything like this in the cards for 5e. WotC doesn't have the staff, has evinced no interest in significant further 5e rules development, etc. Given the depth of the undertaking I feel entirely confident in my belief that no reworking of 5e in the direction of being 'more tactical' will ever happen. If it does, it will herald the release of a replacement version of the game, not just some supplement. This is exceedingly unlikely in the near to mid-term.

I think it is *extremely* unlikely that 5e is "feature complete and mature". Like...so unlikely that if it weren't for nitpickers on the internet I'd have just said, "no, 5e is not feature complete and mature." Technically there is a non zero percent chance, but I'd put the chances at less than 3%.

Even if we count UA articles as things that are already done/in the game, rather than as the playtest material they are, I don't think the time comparison tracks. Previous editions had very fast release rates, where 5e doesn't. I think that is intentional, to extend the lifespan of 5e, so that it takes at least twice as long to get to that feature rich maturation.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

And to risk being a broken record, I do wish 4e has expanded on the improvisation advice. More detail on doing things like improvising the use of existing powers, creating and training new powers, etc.

Well, and on propounding the whole design of the game and its play. I mean there's just a lot that seems to be latent in there that the DMGs sort of only touch on very tangentially. They provide the material, but the vision is often not front and center.

 

[cmad1977]

After taking vitals, I'd say it feelz like it's CTD.


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[AbdulAlhazred]

The sense of the mage JUST watching the show so often at low level was one such contribution to the feel of not being part of a team

Well, and certainly up through 1e, there was a whole subtext of a party being a bunch of cutthroats that were out for themselves and damn the party! Gygax had his player's characters charging each other fees to cast spells, pitting their hirelings against each other, backstabbing, etc. One of the goals was to create an empire of your own, and clearly in the early days part of that was pitting it against the empires of the other Players!

Admittedly there were also admonishments to be a team player and such that appeared in 1e and I'd say that was the primary message in all later editions. Still, the game wasn't born to be a team cooperation exercise exactly. It was expected that each character was uniquely talented, but also self-reliant.