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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Caliburn101" data-source="post: 7025098" data-attributes="member: 6802178">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;"Look, no one at Wizards ever woke up one day and said 'Let's get rid of all of our fans and replace them.' That was never the intent," Mearls said. "With 4th Edition, there were good intentions. We are D&D fans. We want D&D to be the best roleplaying game it can be. We're always open to change, to reacting to what people say."“If you are a disgruntled D&D fan, there’s nothing I can say to you that undoes whatever happened two years ago or a year ago that made you disgruntled – but what I can do, what’s within my power, is that going forward, I can make products, I can design game material, I can listen to what you’re saying, and I can do what I can do with design to make you happy again; to get back to that core of what makes D&D, D&D; to what made people fall in love with it the first time, whether it was the Red Box in ’83, the original three booklets back in ’74 or ’75 or even 3rd Edition in 2004, whenever that happened, to get back to what drew you into D&D in the first place and give that back to you.”4th Edition fans can credibly defend the play experience, or how much they enjoy it - the system caters for a certain style of play, was well supported and played by many.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.As a credible sample poll, check out Rolld20 numbers on how many are playing each edition for the straw poll on this - or indeed how many are still playing Pathfinder compared to 4th Edition right now.Let's stop pretending Mike and WotC didn't know what they were talking about when they collectively stated that they needed to get back to the core of what makes D&D, D&D.Cherry pick all the specific rules that were the same or similar individually - and then look at the rules on Minions and understand this was a major departure, and a great poster child for the fundamental differences between D&D as was, and is, and 4th Edition.Rolling a polyhedral does not D&D make...Nor indeed does 4th Edition a bad game make - it had it's strengths and genuinely positive mechanics and flavour (I especially liked the Primordial stuff and the birth of the Abyss for instance...) but being the chip off the block offspring of D&D before, or a significant spiritual ancestor of 5th?Short and Long rest plus a few other minutiae - these could have come from the development of 5th from 3.5 with a bit of thought, and not via the off-road route taken via 4th.This thread was and is about the 'feelz' of 4th Edition, and it had a very different feel indeed - enough to create the history and the particularly polarised battles of the 'Edition Wars' thereafter.I would argue that in the face of the events following the release of 4th, it is ultimately fruitless to claim that the way it played wasn't largely responsible.</blockquote>

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