D&D 4E Who's still playing 4E

[Nemesis Destiny]

... but I expect we're veering off the topic here anyway...

Well off topic.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Seriously, though, I appreciate the point you're making, but it's as much a foundation stone as a tombstone. From here, the D&D IP can be built up in other media and other formats. The RPG is, perhaps, dead in the existential sense that it's identity is set. It's legacy won't be a later, better, D&D TTRPG. Maybe it'll include D&D CRGPs, MMOs, AR games, movies, or future holodeck adventures or what-have-you.

But what D&D, the TTRPG, /is/ has become a settled question.

Well, if you basically look at the current generation of the game as the last Pencil and Paper TT RPG, though I would have thought 4e was a more robust platform for moving into other formats with its highly regularized rules...

D&D hasn't been that in a long while. Even when everyone was jumping on the d20 bandwagon, it was market or business-model, not head-space/creative, leadership.

Well... 4e certainly TRIED.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Well... 4e certainly TRIED.

4e tried to address perennial problems with D&D, but I don't see how it tried to become a thought-leader in the industry. It did things that were new-to-D&D, maybe, but nothing innovative as far as the broader industry was concerned. (Or did I miss something that no other RPG had ever tried?)

Well, if you basically look at the current generation of the game as the last Pencil and Paper TT RPG, though I would have thought 4e was a more robust platform for moving into other formats with its highly regularized rules...

It's not the rules that move you on to other formats, it's the IP and the image, the brand identity, the fanbase, and other intangibles. D&D, fractured by the edition war, would have been a shaky foundation, indeed, to try to build anything else upon. With 5e, the base is secured.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

With 5e, the base is secured.

Somewhat. I'll grant that it's more unified than it was under 4e, but 5e has also left several camps outside the big tent, and the prevalent attitude seems to indicate that's not likely to be addressed, at least not anytime soon. Is it enough to prevent them from branching out with the brand? Probably not, but I want no part of it going forward, and I can't be the only one.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

4e tried to address perennial problems with D&D, but I don't see how it tried to become a thought-leader in the industry. It did things that were new-to-D&D, maybe, but nothing innovative as far as the broader industry was concerned. (Or did I miss something that no other RPG had ever tried?)

It's not the rules that move you on to other formats, it's the IP and the image, the brand identity, the fanbase, and other intangibles. D&D, fractured by the edition war, would have been a shaky foundation, indeed, to try to build anything else upon. With 5e, the base is secured.

It is?

I think 4e DID try to do something relatively new. It introduced a fairly distinctive Euro-game inspired functionalism and game element presentation. It certainly attempted to mainstream a more story-centered and explicitly gamist kind of approach to RPGs. I think its hard NOT to be able to find some antecedent to anything in any RPG around today, and particularly something that is basically d20 (3.x and its spin-offs and 3PP extensions is a VAST territory after all). Likewise I don't think its unreasonable to call (dis)advantage 'something new' to 5e, but in 5e there are so many less of these things, and they are in service of so much less of a pioneering agenda its hard to really see them as part of any attempt to break new ground. I think its safe to say that 4e is pretty groundbreaking in terms of its application of its type of system to a large class and level based RPG.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Somewhat. I'll grant that it's more unified than it was under 4e, but 5e has also left several camps outside the big tent, and the prevalent attitude seems to indicate that's not likely to be addressed, at least not anytime soon. Is it enough to prevent them from branching out with the brand? Probably not, but I want no part of it going forward, and I can't be the only one.

Yeah, I have lost much of my enthusiasm for the game, conceptually. Anyway, I'm not convinced Tony is right. It seems more like the precedent has been set that players can declare anathema on anything that varies from the canon. So just how much room does a CRPG actually have to use more appropriate rules? Not much IMHO!

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think its hard NOT to be able to find some antecedent to anything in any RPG around today,.... Likewise I don't think its unreasonable to call (dis)advantage 'something new' to 5e.

If you're willing to grant Adv/Dis as 'something new' introduced by 5e, sure. By that standard, 4e was wildly innovative...

Somewhat. I'll grant that it's more unified than it was under 4e, but 5e has also left several camps outside the big tent, and the prevalent attitude seems to indicate that's not likely to be addressed, at least not anytime soon. Is it enough to prevent them from branching out with the brand? Probably not, but I want no part of it going forward, and I can't be the only one.

You're not wrong. But as long as you and others* who feel left out by 5e, the way others had felt left out or betrayed by 4e, don't go as far as they did in vocally working against it, the base is secure enough to start building the IP in other directions/formats/media.
Go ahead and walk away from Omelas, just don't try burning it to the ground on your way out.











* and I have a weird perspective on this, as I'm pretty ambivalent. In some ways, I'm happily on the 5e-is-really-D&D bandwagon, in other's I'm in the 'left out' camp. I like to hope it can still be re-integrated into the big-tent of 5e.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

It seems more like the precedent has been set that players can declare anathema on anything that varies from the canon.

That's certainly a prevailing attitude around here, and it seemed to me that a lot of the anti-4e ranting and the "it's not D&D!!!1!1" reaction was born from that gut reaction. A lot of people hated it because it seemed different, and didn't even give themselves the chance to judge it on its merits.

See also, "New Coke" vs. "Coke Classic"

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

You're not wrong. But as long as you and others* who feel left out by 5e, the way others had felt left out or betrayed by 4e, don't go as far as they did in vocally working against it, the base is secure enough to start building the IP in other directions/formats/media.

How can we be vocally working against it? Any criticism made around here concerning 5e, warranted or otherwise, gets shouted down with such fervor that we don't have the chance to produce any meaningful work from our effort. Even if that work is constructive criticism.

Go ahead and walk away from Omelas, just don't try burn it to the ground before you go.

I'm afraid I don't get the reference.

After looking it up, I don't find it apt.

* and I have a weird perspective on this, as I'm pretty ambivalent. In some ways, I'm happily on the 5e-is-really-D&D bandwagon, in other's I'm in the 'left out' camp. I like to hope it can still be re-integrated into the big-tent of 5e.

I don't think anyone is saying 5e isn't D&D. I can be left out of the tent while acknowledging that 5e is still D&D. Every edition is D&D. Even The Most H4ted One.

I like to hope that you're right, but I'm not holding my breath. I have not seen any meaningful motion in that direction from WotC, but as I posted earlier, I have seen more of that sentiment in the community at large. Just enough that I can hope that Someday, Maybe.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't think anyone is saying 5e isn't D&D. I can be left out of the tent while acknowledging that 5e is still D&D. Every edition is D&D. Even The Most H4ted One.

I like to hope that you're right, but I'm not holding my breath. I have not seen any meaningful motion in that direction from WotC, but as I posted earlier, I have seen more of that sentiment in the community at large. Just enough that I can hope that Someday, Maybe.

Likewise, and while 5e isn't my favorite edition, I think its a perfectly decent and well-written, and in many respects well-thought-out game. I don't actually like the organization of the books one bit, or the whole vagueness of the rules on key points, but its a fine game in terms of say how the different classes cover the concept space, more efficiently than 4e's classes do in many respects.