The D&D 4th edition Rennaissaince: A look into the history of the edition, its flaws and its merits

[Joshua Randall]

If you're not being part of the solution, then you're part of the problem.

You can be both. I can aggressively engage in swatting down bogus, stale attacks on 4e and I could also say positive things about it. Except that I am genuinely dubious that any "[+] 4e" thread will be allow to state its claims in peace.

That said. I do have a project dating back to last year, from, er, a different message board, that would be both [+] and 4e. So consider your polite challenge accepted. I'll just need a few weeks to get some writing in the backlog so I can post stuff.

Like I said, let the haters hate. Since you've decided to be one yourself,

Don't hate the players; hate the game.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Yeah, I was about to say that 13th Age has more than a little 4E in its DNA. I'm currently 25 sessions into my first 13th Age campaign. Really interesting system.

 

[Micah Sweet]

yes, it is compatible, but it gives alternatives to the ‘vanilla’ 4e classes that are more traditional. You can play with just Essentials and do not need any prior 4e PHBs or MMs. It clearly was an overhaul of 4e in reaction to criticism.

You can argue for it being a new (and compatible) edition or against it, there are arguments for either perspective.

Even so, 4e and Essentials combined sold worse than 3e or 3.5 individually I believe. Would have to look at Ben Riggs’ statement again.

As a relevant aside, I think a little critical thinking makes it clear that many games are overhauled to one degree or another (both Essentials and 5.5 are examples of this) in response to various critisizms leveled at them by players and media outlets. Why then to do the companies that publish these persist in equivocation about that fact? Just explain that a change was made in response to criticism!

 

[payn]

If I was a more conspiracy-minded individual, I feel like I could make a solid argument that WotC wanted 4E to fail. Between an ad campaign that actively attacked their customer base, a more restrictive license, an errata strategy that seemed designed to make it frustrating to stay up to date and give the impression that the base system wasn't playtested (exacerbated by the monster math taking three MMs to get properly dialed in)... Probably more accurate to say that it was a comedy of smaller bad decisions more than anything else that led to 4E's terrible general reception (not talking about sales, but general impressions).

I think it was just blatant mismanagement. This idea came about that folks just moved onto the newest D&D eventually, so no need to worry about grogs and sour grapes. It did happen with 3E-3.5E so I can kind of see why they felt that way. I dont understand the antagonism, but thats what leads me to the arrogance of a bad mangaement team.

I even remember a hilarious thread here at EN World where Paizo announced they were sticking with 3.5E and a poster saying Paizo was a good company and will miss them after 4E eats their lunch. Folks just assumed 4E was going to firmly take over the RPG space as D&D always had.

Which is a darn shame, because I loved a lot of what made 4E 4E. Healing Surges were fantastic, and I wish more systems would implement a similar system (5E's hit die system is a shadow in comparison for me). Encounter design was amazing compared to other editions (early solo design aside). The weapon your martial uses actually mattering while not hard locking them into using a single type of weapon. And the Warlord not returning for 5E is an outright crime. Primal being a separate power source from Divine. I even liked Monks being categorized as Psionic, though I also understand why some folks didn't like it. Heck, the Psion in 4E was great too.

I did like healing surges (hated the name) and think that space had potential. Bloodied is, imo, a great idea for mechanics. For example, having save or sucks turn into save or die after bloodied would be nerve wracking and fun! So much 5E could have run with but left on the table.

 

[BrokenTwin]

If I were going to retroclone 4e I'd actually start with 13th Age, which gives you a lot of the chassis you need, and conveniently is under the OGL itself so you don't have to worry about the 4e GSL.

While I do really like 13th Age (really curious to see what they do with 2E, hoping against hope but doubting that they'll be squashing HP growth), it doesn't really have the tactical crunch that I think a lot of 4E players want.

I know it would be a ton of work (as was previously mentioned earlier), but I think a straight retroclone of 4E would go a long way towards giving people a starting point to make their own 4E-inspired games. But given the lack of that, using 13th Age as one's starting point wouldn't be a bad idea.

Sonofa- I somehow completely missed the 13th Age 2E kickstarter!

 

[Reynard]

I think it was just blatant mismanagement.

Never attribute to malice that which is more easily attributable to incompetence.

 

[BrokenTwin]

I did like healing surges (hated the name) and think that space had potential. Bloodied is, imo, a great idea for mechanics. For example, having save or sucks turn into save or die after bloodied would be nerve wracking and fun! So much 5E could have run with but left on the table.

Oh man, how did I forget to mention Bloodied? Such a simple mechanic, but so useful! I port that into every HP-based system I run.

Now I'm brainstorming alternative names for the Healing Surge mechanic. Calling it Stamina would work just as well, I'd think. Life Pool would better show that it's a resource to be spent...

 

[payn]

Oh man, how did I forget to mention Bloodied? Such a simple mechanic, but so useful! I port that into every HP-based system I run.

Now I'm brainstorming alternative names for the Healing Surge mechanic. Calling it Stamina would work just as well, I'd think. Life Pool would better show that it's a resource to be spent...

I was kicking around a Mass Effect adaption years ago. Bloodied became shields/armor down and healing surges became medi-gel application. 4E made a lot more sense to me outside the fantasy space for some reason.

Though, yeah the healing surge pacing mechanic for 4E didnt seem to sit well with folks. Probably becasue they came on the heels of 3E and its spell in a can problem where you could just bust the system assumptions easily if you wanted a pacing hack. 5E rolled back a bit, even though they smartly downgraded magic items. However, 5E has a weird hybrid of long and short rest classes that makes pacing difficult for seemingly everyone. Part of that 5E design philosophy of dont please anyone too much, nor upset them too much either. You get a sort of works but sort of doesnt result.

 

[Willie the Duck]

I yearn for the day when everyone can stop fixating on 4e as being the "failed" edition, the "controversial" edition, or the "divisive" edition. Just accept that (like it or not) it is just another version of the Dungeons & Dragons, respect that many D&D fans actually liked the system (and many still do), and appreciate the contributions and influences it made to current RPG designs.

There's still the possibility that it will happen. OSR/TSR-era grogs have quietly acknowledged AD&D 2nd Edition as yeah, actually part of the group.

Farther afield, oWoD and nWoD/CoD fans now mostly appreciate anyone that is still invested in the overall game line.

Staying in the nerd-o-sphere but straying outside TTRPGs, Star Trek shows Voyager and Enterprise have moved off the whipping post and into the general tier listing. Likewise Transformer fans have rollicking debates about what IPs are good or not, but rarely line up along 'Trukk' vs. 'Munky.'

 

[eyeheartawk]

There's still the possibility that it will happen. OSR/TSR-era grogs have quietly acknowledged AD&D 2nd Edition as yeah, actually part of the group.

This one always struck me as odd too. Like, it's basically just a cleaned up 1E it's more like 1E than BECMI is and that was always part of the group. I did hear alot of derision about the whole Jim Ward led sanitization of the game though, so maybe that was a bigger part?