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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 6589066" data-attributes="member: 85870">I significantly disagree with most of this statement. <ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">4e was absolutely NOT coherent as initially presented in the "Core 3" release. For me it took radical amounts of meta-analysis by proactive 4e fans on this board to explain the nuances of the "indie" / "scene framing" vibe to make 4e sound even remotely coherent as a light narrativist / gamist hybrid with a specific style that worked for it. If it was coherent, we would have heard a whole lot less stories of groups throwing up their hands saying, "This really isn't giving me what I want...." and moving on.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The 4e designers CLEARLY did NOT understand "what sort of game it was," because they kept pushing the delve format over and over again. 4e is HORRIBLE for delve format gaming, because delve formats rarely include enough relevant stakes to frame scenes with. To be honest, I think 4e is very much hampered by its D&D roots. At it's core it's an "indie" game square peg forced into a round hole, but the designers didn't dare present it in an "indie" vibe way, because they knew they risked alienating the long-standing fans. Of course, they ultimately ended up doing just that anyway, so why not take more risks and play up the unique playstyle aspects?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">SOME of the 4e presentation was flawed? SOME? In retrospect it's truly shocking just how badly Wizards of the Coast botched the ENTIRE core 4e presentation from its June 2008 launch until its final "gates closed" in August 2014. From the marketing, to the book formats themselves (remember, "The medium IS the message"--when your first player's handbook is basically 200 pages of powers, what does that convey to the reader? This book is about using all these cool powers), to the purposeful "tweaking" of players' noses about being tied to their sacred cows (dismissive "Running off to the faerie gnomes" comments during live presentations), to the yanking of PDFs, to the utter failure of the digital tools, to the abominable "relaunch" of the system using the incomprehensible Essentials formats, to the anime-inspired art style that was "controversial" at best to much of the player base (I personally never had a problem with it, but for others it was just that much more fuel), to the execrable adventures..... The level of inept decision making for the marketing design, branding, and promotion of 4e is truly mind-boggling. It's truly a "cluster-eff" of epic proportions. I'd actually love for a marketing researcher at a major university to do a case study of it as how NOT to successfully market a product. The 4th edition era was the FIRST, LAST, AND LIKELY ONLY TIME PERIOD IN D&D'S HISTORY where it was not the #1 selling and #1 supported RPG game system in a market it created and was the long-standing incumbent.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">For a somewhat narrow playstyle, facilitated by a functional understanding of some of the "indie" roots of some of its subsystems, 4e was a step up, clearly, for some players/groups. For others it was unequivocally a move in the wrong direction.</li> </ol>I'm neutral-to-negative about the D&D brand at this point. I don't currently have a single TSR, WotC, or Paizo core rules product on my shelves (I do have some adventures and campaign settings). I'm actually very gratified to hear that many people still enjoy 4e. I've adapted much of the "scene framing" techniques it supports into my own gaming, so clearly there's some value and merit in it. The open discussions here, talking about 4e has improved my GMing. But claims that 4e is an "obvious step up from any previous edition of D&D" are biased at best, and willfully disingenuous at worst.</blockquote>

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