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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 8633198" data-attributes="member: 59082">At the risk of getting into the murky waters of discussing 4E, that's kind of what they did already - and it didn't work, at least economically and in terms of reception by the public. But in terms of game design? I had my criticisms of 4E, but I do think in some ways it was the "best" designed version of D&D (My main criticism is that combat ended up grindy and rather formulaic, but I don't see how a further revision couldn't have shifted that a bit).4E still had all the trappings of D&D, but it really tried to take a different approach and create its own, distinct approach. It was bold, at least relative to the history of D&D; where 3E was a rather successful attempt to play catch-up and streamline D&D from the old, anachronistic TSR chassis, 4E was an attempt to bring it forward into the fold of innovative game design. I mean, we know that they were trying to appeal to video gamers, but it also tried to push the game forward into new waters. For many it was just too much, and the line was cancelled after four years.Now, a game doesn't have to be cutting edge in terms of game design to be a success, so I would say this idea of "hampered" seems too saddled with the idea of game design innovation, rather than game design as accomplishing its primary goal: which is to produce a fun game experience. In that regard, 5E is a wild success. For those with an eye for innovation, it feels rather staid. If I remember correctly, the initial reception back in 5E was that everyone felt like it was a "grade B" game - everyone (among long-time fans) liked it, but few absolutely loved it. That said, let's imagine an alternate history. Dial back to 2008 and 4E never came out - WotC squeezes out another half-decade of 3.5, and then declares a new edition in 2012-13. Then, in 2014, 4E comes out. Now let's assume that the same cultural forces were at work: you had minor celebrities on board, and the zeitgeist is just right for Zennials to fall in love with the game. Certainly, you'd have the same old-timers jumping ship, but would that have stopped the rising tide that we see now? Maybe, maybe not. But my point being, maybe 4E would have worked just fine for the current player base - and thus perhaps more so than it did back in 2008, when the player base was mostly folks who had started with 3E or before and for whom 4E felt too different from the D&D they knew and loved.</blockquote>

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