With 5e here, what will 4e be remembered for?

[Ruin Explorer]

I disagree that I "created my own problem." I don't like non-magical healing because I can't describe wounds (something that DM's are encouraged to do) and then retroactively undescribe them without my suspension of disbelief suffering. It's just a minor nitpick I have, because I really do love the warlord class and the teamwork it created. My workaround when running 4e was to infer that their abilities were indeed magical.

Where in 4E are DMs encouraged to describe HP solely in terms of physical wounds, though, that's my question? This is why I say "creating your own problems".

Anybody who wishes to deny that 4e was a divisive edition that spawned lots of vehement arguments about it’s legitimacy and purpose, merely needs to take the microcosm of this very thread as evidence. We’ve had five years of this - thank goodness it’s coming to an end!

The precise same could be said of 3E. Literally just replace the 4 with a 3.

 

[TrippyHippy]

The precise same could be said of 3E. Literally just replace the 4 with a 3.

I can’t see anybody else arguing about 3E here.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I can’t see anybody else arguing about 3E here.

Might want to think about that a bit, Trippy. There's a reason, and it isn't that it wasn't divisive.

 

[SkidAce]

I got halfway through the thread.../sigh.

Its my opinion that the OP wasn't asking for "It will be remembered for da suck" or rules etc.

They were asking about the adventure style etc (re: the examples of the other editions in the OP.)

So;

I have to agree with a few other posters who answered in the spirit of the OP, 4E will be remembered for Encounter Design. Set pieces, with terrain, and monsters etc.


That's a good thing to be remembered for I think.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Might want to think about that a bit, Trippy. There's a reason, and it isn't that it wasn't divisive.

The only people who claim 3E was divisive are advocates of 4E…who are now arguing the same thing about 5E and/or arguing about the legacy of 4E. The common factor in all three arguments is 4E.

It was a divisive edition, and on the evidence of this thread will always be.

 

[TerraDave]

Well, there is a way - say yes. (And perhaps tax them a healing surge on the way through - maybe they get an attack roll against the appropriate DC to see whether or not they lose one.)

A lot of social encounters get handled this way - a single Diplomacy check, or free-form (ie the GM says "yes" or "no" as appropriate). Why not combat?

I'll concede that there is a D&D tradition of not doing it this way. I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad tradition, but I am curious as to why D&D does it that way. What point do combat encounters that are not "big, explosive deals", but that are nevertheless resolved using more than a single hand-wave or die roll, serve? The question is not rhetorical - I'm not implying that there is no point. I'm just wondering what exactly the point is.

There is a few things. One is just pacing. In some ways an RPG is more like a story then a board game or a sporting event. In any movie or book, there are big moments and smaller ones, and one of the jobs of the smaller ones is to make the bigger ones more exciting. In practice, one big fight after another can start to feel pretty repetitive, especially in a long running campaign, even of the fights are awesome. Then there is play style. For example, there are situations where you may have lots of "medium sized" encounters, or at least that possibility. This includes a lot of traditional dungeons--and 4E is a so-so match for that. Sandbox play, where there is a wide variance in what could be faced again doesn't fit great. That fact that fights can really chew up time, also can have a big impact on play style, for example it may inhibit the use of allies or henchmen one level, and dictate the nature of the whole campaign on the other

In terms of mechanics, no, I don't want to say for 3 orcs we use one system, and for 8 another. And 4E does scale, just not quite enough. PCs have enough encounter based resources to sort of set a floor on what is interesting, higher then in other editions.

I did run a long running 4E game (last session sunday). By taking a more traditional approach to exploration (with traps and tricks outside of encounters), somewhat fewer fights, mixing in more straight forward fights, and placing limits on resting in certain situations to evoke a more traditional "dungeon-crawl" feel, I was pretty happy with it.

 

[Neonchameleon]

My evidence is that during 3e everyone was playing D&D.

Between 2004 and 2007 D&D was hemorrhaging popularity. (DDO/Dungeons and Dragons Online included to explain a couple of irregularities in the Dungeons and Dragons search that aren't in the D&D one). People weren't just playing 3e. They were walking away from it in droves. Then 4e launched, causing an upsurge in interest - but after a few months it settled down. And the rot stopped. Between January 2004 and December 2007 D&D lost just over 50% of its popularity, dropping from 100 to 48 on Google Trends in just 4 years. In the five years from January 2009 to December 2013, the drop was less than 25% - dropping from 47 to 37.

During 3e the people still playing D&D were playing 3e. But the retention rates were bad. People were walking away. During 4e the unhappy had somewhere to go and generally stayed.

When 4e arrived, half the playerbase left D&D because of playstyle issues. A war erupted because of these playstyle issues and here we are.

Not what the closest to objective data we have says in the absence of WotC releasing raw sales numbers. Before 4e arrived, half the playerbase left D&D in a four year period. After 4e arrived people stopped leaving anything like as fast. A war erupted because people who were used to D&D not catering to them and would otherwise have left the hobby stayed.

I realize that there were two reactions to 4e: "Finally", "OMG what where they thinking".

And the OMG crowd had Pathfinder. The Finally crowd would have given up on D&D otherwise. And did.

 

[Gargoyle]

Where in 4E are DMs encouraged to describe HP solely in terms of physical wounds, though, that's my question? This is why I say "creating your own problems".



The precise same could be said of 3E. Literally just replace the 4 with a 3.

It doesn't. However, where does it say never do it? Furthermore, I believe I've seen examples of such dialogue in earlier editions, but I'm at work and can't quote anything.

When a player character can heal someone up to full hit points with a few words of encouragement, the only way to avoid the situation of describing a gruesome wound and then having them heal it in a way that defies suspension of disbelief is to never describe such a wound. You must talk around it. I think it's fun to describe combat, and sometimes I like to describe a nasty wound. Sometimes losing hit points, especially a lot of hit points, is a wound, not fatigue, or narrowly dodging something, or luck running out, but a gushing wound. But non-magical healing makes that problematic. The mechanic works against the narrative that I sometimes choose, and I don't like that. I could choose another narrative, but I feel that I shouldn't have to in this case.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Between 2004 and 2007 D&D was hemorrhaging popularity. (DDO/Dungeons and Dragons Online included to explain a couple of irregularities in the Dungeons and Dragons search that aren't in the D&D one). People weren't just playing 3e. They were walking away from it in droves. Then 4e launched, causing an upsurge in interest - but after a few months it settled down. And the rot stopped. Between January 2004 and December 2007 D&D lost just over 50% of its popularity, dropping from 100 to 48 on Google Trends in just 4 years. In the five years from January 2009 to December 2013, the drop was less than 25% - dropping from 47 to 37.

During 3e the people still playing D&D were playing 3e. But the retention rates were bad. People were walking away. During 4e the unhappy had somewhere to go and generally stayed.



Not what the closest to objective data we have says in the absence of WotC releasing raw sales numbers. Before 4e arrived, half the playerbase left D&D in a four year period. After 4e arrived people stopped leaving anything like as fast. A war erupted because people who were used to D&D not catering to them and would otherwise have left the hobby stayed.



And the OMG crowd had Pathfinder. The Finally crowd would have given up on D&D otherwise. And did.

That chart in the link is referring to online trends - i.e. people searching for information about the game online and/or media reports, not sales numbers. Moreover, it’s trend relates to a highpoint in 2004-5. 3.5 edition came out in 2003, let alone 3E in 2000, and presumably had a ‘spike’ of interest at the point it was released too. The release of 4E hardly altered the declining trend - certainly in any long term way.

 

[Neonchameleon]

It doesn't. However, where does it say never do it? Furthermore, I believe I've seen examples of such dialogue in earlier editions, but I'm at work and can't quote anything.

It definitely says not to in 1e.

When a player character can heal someone up to full hit points with a few words of encouragement, the only way to avoid the situation of describing a gruesome wound and then having them heal it in a way that defies suspension of disbelief is to never describe such a wound.

If someone is on one single hit point they are still fully as physically capable as if they were on all their hit points. You should never have a PC on one hit point with a gruesome wound because a gruesome wound would impede them. If you want to shrug and go for action movie wounds, fine. But then you can have action movie healing.

The mechanics do not support gruesome wounds when you have hit points. So complaining they don't is something I see as not a problem.