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

[Pedantic]

I'll just note that I saw this same argument made when D&D 3e came out. It didn't get as much traction because a lot of people who left D&D years before returned (at least transiently) to the fold so the people who's expectations it violated didn't get to control the narrative, but their take on it was very much the same.

Yeah, this line still has traction today because Pathfinder ensured dissidents had somewhere to go. Really, I think this is more a knock-on effect of the OGL, and the attempt to claw things back via the GSL.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm not saying it's unique. Or that losing key people doesn't hurt any software project.

I'm saying WotC's failure on the VTT was particularly noteworthy in that it not only was hurt by the loss of those people, but the VTT never happened at all. Which seems indicative that WotC never gave it enough resources/people to create it in the first place.

Which is kind of incredible given that it (as I recall) was supposed to be the centerpiece of the new edition. One of the guys I played with at the time was very well-off, and talked about buying laptops for the whole group when 4E came out so that we could use them to play, both in-person and remote, so as to take advantage of dynamic lighting and limiting sightlines to what our own characters could see. Supplanting our then-standard 4x8 Chessex Mondomat and hundreds of miniatures the group had collected for use.


4E does not require a character builder to work. Like every other RPG I've ever played, I have done and can make characters just using paper books. In the last 4E campaign I played in a few years ago, none of us were particularly techie or motivated enough to dig up and get a character builder functioning, so all four players (two experienced, two complete newbies) and the DM just worked from physical books and PDFs.

4E does have such a large variety of options, and gives you so many opportunities to make choices and add new feats and powers, that this compounds and exacerbates the cumbersomeness of digging through the various books to find the feats and powers you want. 4E also, like 3E, published an absolute firehose of hardcover books full of options. Most other games, even complex ones, have nowhere near as many books full of character options.

I think @billd91 is correct that 3.x is arguably even more difficult in terms of having more published options. But games with a really good character builder are rare, and basically everyone who regularly played 4E got used to using and relying on the character builder. So going without it feels like more of a PITA.


No.

He's not asking for anyone to praise it.

He's asking for people to stop repeating derogatory canards about it, and coming into discussions of it JUST to crap on it.

I think there's a bigger difference between those who don't like 4e and those who are here to smacktalk it than some appear to see. I don't like 4e personally, and agree with those who say it would have done better had it not been required to carry the sole torch of official D&D, but I respect the different kind of game it presented itself as and am glad it exists for those who like it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, this line still has traction today because Pathfinder ensured dissidents had somewhere to go. Really, I think this is more a knock-on effect of the OGL, and the attempt to claw things back via the GSL.

You can argue that pre-3e fans ran off to the OSR, but I think its fair to say the scale of the OSR games footprint and the difference between their creators experience and resources and Paizo's made a significant difference in how thorough the hop was.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Sorry, Snarf. I can’t keep up with your output and your back catalogue.

Briefly pops in .....

If it makes you feel better, I can't keep up with it either. I've actually written essays and then realized ... woah ... I'd already written it before.

Have to say that at 50% of the time I find out that I have the same position! The rest of the time, I realize that other person writing in the past was a lying liar. Can't trust 'em.

Anyway, I know you asked for a recommendation about Peterson. There are two books that I recommend (I haven't gotten around to seeing if the re-release of PATW has been ... re-written to reflect his advancement as a writer):

Do you want to learn about the creation of TSR and the real story of Gygax, Arneson, and the Blumes, from the beginning until Gygax is ousted? The egos, the growth, the business, the lawsuits, the craziness, and going bust? But sourced from actual real documents?

Go Read Game Wizards!

Do you want to read the book that I keep referring to like I have some kind of Pavlovian tick, that documents how "Role playing" came to be, the hobbyist community that formed around D&D comprised of wargamers and science fictions fans (sci-fi including fantasy)? The early battles over what an RPG should be called, and what it even is? And, of course, eventually come to the depressing realization that time is a flat circle, and almost all the debates we are having here today were had back then? But it doesn't matter, because (1) it's never mattered, (2) ya can't tell me what to do!, (3) time is a flat circle, and (4) no one reads, that's what youtube is for.

Go read The Elusive Shift!


Snarf out.

 

[Zardnaar]

Absolutely, but I mean, would you trust me to hand you a flash drive and go "Trust me, bro".

My friends know me better than that.

This is kinda why I pointed out cutting 10 to 15 levels off a clone might be an idea.

You have the option of using 4E as is but logistics matter both in lugging books around or some poor bastard has to write it.

Star Wars Saga Edition uses 4E engine and it's 1 book.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It sounds to me like 4e being a good game that you enjoy isn't enough for you, it also has to be generally acknowledged and validated by the community at large.

No. It needs to have people actually playing it, so I can get to play it, instead of just talking about it or thinking about it, as is the case with 99% of other games I've read. And is the case with PF2e, which never reached even 10% of the market share PF1e did. Because it wasn't able to tell people, "You can play exactly what you've always been playing." 5e (pretty much) did tell them that. Because 5e is 3e with refinements. The designers even explicitly said this during development, reducing 4e to a mere concept of "streamlining".

PF2e is what happens when a game that changes things lacks the cachet, the importance, the thematics, that are part of what D&D is and has been. It practically disappears from public perception. It gets totally drowned out by other games; D&D takes the lion's share, even though PF1e had had that lion's share before (because, as I have previously argued, it was an extension of 3e through and through), even though Golarion is popular and Paizo has produced numerous popular, well-loved adventure paths (several of which have been adapted into successful video games!)

A game that isn't given that incredible, almost indescribably huge boost due to being D&D, good luck ever getting to see a game. Good luck ever even finding someone who DMs it, even if you can't join their group!

But that's only half of it. The other half is, again, the person I was replying to said that 4e should have jettisoned absolutely everything that is D&D. Zero overlap. Zero thematic crossover. No Paladins. No Warlocks. No divine vs arcane vs primal magic. Zero overlap. I appreciate sci-fi and science fantasy RPGs (I enjoy Shadowrun, for example)--but being focused on fairly straight fantasy with minimal sci-fi elements is a significant part of baseline D&D's appeal, in every edition.

I just don't see why that's so important to you.

Because I want to actually play the game some of the time, and because the thematics that come with being D&D or D&D-like are too important to jettison.

None of the games I enjoy the most are the most popular, or indeed official D&D by any means. Why do you need other people to give 4e the gold star?

Because I want to actually play the game some of the time, and because the thematics that come with being D&D or D&D-like are too important to jettison.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Let me try this another way.

This was absolutely a Dungeons & Dragons game. No question about it, even for those who argue in the manner that you describe. We know who they are, and why we reserve a grain of salt for everything they say after. It is, in fact, my favorite expression of that game to date.

But would it have done better if it were "D&D the Adventure Game" instead of "D&D the Roleplaying Game (version 4.x)"? Plain and simple, I think it would've been better if it wasn't "Fourth Edition" of a game that had a lot of baked-in expectations and prerequisites to be called the next iteration of said "roleplaying game, known as Dungeons & Dragons".

And I am 100% convinced it would have died in obscurity, with 95% or more of D&D players never even looking at it, let alone playing it. Putting it in that position would guaranteed kill it off dead, even before you consider that being "D&D the Adventure Game" would have meant it got zip-zero-zilch-nada additional support after publication.

I mean, as it stands, at least half the people who criticized it never played or even read it either, given the pernicious and dead-wrong "criticisms" that were the stock and trade of the edition war (and thus still linger with us today).

Also? I'm certain you did not mean it, but...well, there's really no other way to read your distinction there as anything other than "4e isn't for roleplaying." Which is both untrue and deeply, deeply frustrating, because that, too, is a longstanding insult without any basis, other than efforts to exclude 4e from being "true" D&D.

Clearly, there is room now for alternate expressions of D&D now that we have everything from cookbooks, to themes of other popular board games, to unique board and card games, and meat sticks!

PF2e says otherwise. It might not have been an outright failure, but it objectively failed to hold any of the market-share gains that PF1e had made. PF2e was 1.4% of all campaigns run on Roll20 in the last report I have access to (Q3 2021), and no report from the time PF2e was published shows it ever achieving more than a roughly equivalent amount (~1.6% is the highest I've been able to find; unfortunately, some of the Orr Reports are lost to time now.)

And the reason is very simple. It, like 4e, said "Sorry guys, the 3e engine is just really really broken, we've tried all we could to fix it, it just isn't fixable. We have to replace things. Please give us a chance to show what we can do." (Of course, Jason Bulmahn was much more articulate and persuasive, but that's the high-level summary of his argument.) Fans of 3e don't want to be told about the ways that it really truly does have serious, fundamental, systemic issues. They don't want to be told that the system they had legitimate fun with, that they enjoyed and found awe-inspiring and refreshing and immersive and all the other things--all responses that are perfectly valid--is a system that the designers have run into a dead end with and can't keep going. They want that system to remain unchanged forever, except for the few, exceedingly rare exceptions where they'll deign to grant any criticism at all--Advantage/Disadvantage being the primary example.

It has nothing to do with "dissociated mechanics", or whether the game is "adventure" vs "roleplay", or Fighters turning into wizards and shooting lightning out of their butts. It has everything to do with folks having real, legitimate, perfectly valid joy that they derived from 3e...and thus taking any criticism thereof as a criticism of their joy, their experience, and (in at least some cases) their identity.

 

[Zardnaar]

And I am 100% convinced it would have died in obscurity, with 95% or more of D&D players never even looking at it, let alone playing it. Putting it in that position would guaranteed kill it off dead, even before you consider that being "D&D the Adventure Game" would have meant it got zip-zero-zilch-nada additional support after publication.

I mean, as it stands, at least half the people who criticized it never played or even read it either, given the pernicious and dead-wrong "criticisms" that were the stock and trade of the edition war (and thus still linger with us today).

Also? I'm certain you did not mean it, but...well, there's really no other way to read your distinction there as anything other than "4e isn't for roleplaying." Which is both untrue and deeply, deeply frustrating, because that, too, is a longstanding insult without any basis, other than efforts to exclude 4e from being "true" D&D.


PF2e says otherwise. It might not have been an outright failure, but it objectively failed to hold any of the market-share gains that PF1e had made. PF2e was 1.4% of all campaigns run on Roll20 in the last report I have access to (Q3 2021), and no report from the time PF2e was published shows it ever achieving more than a roughly equivalent amount (~1.6% is the highest I've been able to find; unfortunately, some of the Orr Reports are lost to time now.)

And the reason is very simple. It, like 4e, said "Sorry guys, the 3e engine is just really really broken, we've tried all we could to fix it, it just isn't fixable. We have to replace things. Please give us a chance to show what we can do." (Of course, Jason Bulmahn was much more articulate and persuasive, but that's the high-level summary of his argument.) Fans of 3e don't want to be told about the ways that it really truly does have serious, fundamental, systemic issues. They don't want to be told that the system they had legitimate fun with, that they enjoyed and found awe-inspiring and refreshing and immersive and all the other things--all responses that are perfectly valid--is a system that the designers have run into a dead end with and can't keep going. They want that system to remain unchanged forever, except for the few, exceedingly rare exceptions where they'll deign to grant any criticism at all--Advantage/Disadvantage being the primary example.

It has nothing to do with "dissociated mechanics", or whether the game is "adventure" vs "roleplay", or Fighters turning into wizards and shooting lightning out of their butts. It has everything to do with folks having real, legitimate, perfectly valid joy that they derived from 3e...and thus taking any criticism thereof as a criticism of their joy, their experience, and (in at least some cases) their identity.

I woukd maybe give a 3.X derived game another look.

It woukd need to have an engine though eg the 4E one like SWSE. The broken spells would need an overhaul along with the skill system.

And xapoed ability scores(16-20 range).

+5 bonus trained, +5 skill focus, +5 ability scores level 1 is a bit much for example.

I miss aspects of 3.5 no nostalgia as such eg wanting to play it again.

Think you're right as 4E as a spin off game. DOA.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No. It needs to have people actually playing it, so I can get to play it, instead of just talking about it or thinking about it, as is the case with 99% of other games I've read. And is the case with PF2e, which never reached even 10% of the market share PF1e did. Because it wasn't able to tell people, "You can play exactly what you've always been playing." 5e (pretty much) did tell them that. Because 5e is 3e with refinements. The designers even explicitly said this during development, reducing 4e to a mere concept of "streamlining".

PF2e is what happens when a game that changes things lacks the cachet, the importance, the thematics, that are part of what D&D is and has been. It practically disappears from public perception. It gets totally drowned out by other games; D&D takes the lion's share, even though PF1e had had that lion's share before (because, as I have previously argued, it was an extension of 3e through and through), even though Golarion is popular and Paizo has produced numerous popular, well-loved adventure paths (several of which have been adapted into successful video games!)

A game that isn't given that incredible, almost indescribably huge boost due to being D&D, good luck ever getting to see a game. Good luck ever even finding someone who DMs it, even if you can't join their group!

But that's only half of it. The other half is, again, the person I was replying to said that 4e should have jettisoned absolutely everything that is D&D. Zero overlap. Zero thematic crossover. No Paladins. No Warlocks. No divine vs arcane vs primal magic. Zero overlap. I appreciate sci-fi and science fantasy RPGs (I enjoy Shadowrun, for example)--but being focused on fairly straight fantasy with minimal sci-fi elements is a significant part of baseline D&D's appeal, in every edition.


Because I want to actually play the game some of the time, and because the thematics that come with being D&D or D&D-like are too important to jettison.


Because I want to actually play the game some of the time, and because the thematics that come with being D&D or D&D-like are too important to jettison.

So your argument is that it's not possible to find a group playing anything but WotC 5e? So any game that has any chance of being played by anyone has to hitch itself to WotC's star (or a very close equivalent like PF1)?

 

[Micah Sweet]

And I am 100% convinced it would have died in obscurity, with 95% or more of D&D players never even looking at it, let alone playing it. Putting it in that position would guaranteed kill it off dead, even before you consider that being "D&D the Adventure Game" would have meant it got zip-zero-zilch-nada additional support after publication.

I mean, as it stands, at least half the people who criticized it never played or even read it either, given the pernicious and dead-wrong "criticisms" that were the stock and trade of the edition war (and thus still linger with us today).

Also? I'm certain you did not mean it, but...well, there's really no other way to read your distinction there as anything other than "4e isn't for roleplaying." Which is both untrue and deeply, deeply frustrating, because that, too, is a longstanding insult without any basis, other than efforts to exclude 4e from being "true" D&D.


PF2e says otherwise. It might not have been an outright failure, but it objectively failed to hold any of the market-share gains that PF1e had made. PF2e was 1.4% of all campaigns run on Roll20 in the last report I have access to (Q3 2021), and no report from the time PF2e was published shows it ever achieving more than a roughly equivalent amount (~1.6% is the highest I've been able to find; unfortunately, some of the Orr Reports are lost to time now.)

And the reason is very simple. It, like 4e, said "Sorry guys, the 3e engine is just really really broken, we've tried all we could to fix it, it just isn't fixable. We have to replace things. Please give us a chance to show what we can do." (Of course, Jason Bulmahn was much more articulate and persuasive, but that's the high-level summary of his argument.) Fans of 3e don't want to be told about the ways that it really truly does have serious, fundamental, systemic issues. They don't want to be told that the system they had legitimate fun with, that they enjoyed and found awe-inspiring and refreshing and immersive and all the other things--all responses that are perfectly valid--is a system that the designers have run into a dead end with and can't keep going. They want that system to remain unchanged forever, except for the few, exceedingly rare exceptions where they'll deign to grant any criticism at all--Advantage/Disadvantage being the primary example.

It has nothing to do with "dissociated mechanics", or whether the game is "adventure" vs "roleplay", or Fighters turning into wizards and shooting lightning out of their butts. It has everything to do with folks having real, legitimate, perfectly valid joy that they derived from 3e...and thus taking any criticism thereof as a criticism of their joy, their experience, and (in at least some cases) their identity.

For my part, I had a lot more fun using 4e as a series of straight arena battles against other PCs than I ever did playing it straight in the campaign I ran for a year back in 2010.