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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DinoInDisguise" data-source="post: 9444766" data-attributes="member: 7045806">I think 4e is interesting from the perspective of what can be learned. Commercially it failed from WotC's point of view, and did so quite badly. This is evident in the 180 they did with 5e, and the shorter lifespan of 4e relative to both 3e and 5e.In a video on celebrating 50 years of D&D, hosted by the former owner of WotC. Link below, relevant part is around the 10 to 15 minute mark. They talk briefly about 4e when asked about the start of 5e development. Mike Mearls tells a short story about, what amounts to, release day activity. And players issues with the length of combat. Other designers contribute with thoughts as well.We can find similar discourse about this issue on social media from the time. It's all over the place. So WotC has run from some of the design principals used in 4e. I believe this to be an error, as you can always find good in things even in failure. But it's understandable from a commercial perspective.But to only analyze 4e design in a vacuum ignores the human element the designers lay out in the video. 4e had many design choices that may look good on paper, but were repulsive to many players at the time. We saw this, back then, as players en masse sticking with 3.5e or moving to Pathfinder. We know this through surveys of hobby stores on what was selling - link below.That human element is a real aspect when assessing the design. If design is good on paper, but fails to captivate an audience in the desired manner, the issue is the design. Blaming the humans is, well, not productive. The theoretical design is not relevant in that case, at least commercially. The design question should be, in relation to 4e, what parts of the system are usable while avoiding the obvious human issues the design as a whole had.This avoids whiteboard analysis convincing us that the design is "good," and the resulting disconnect with player reception of that design. I think this is important because whiteboard analysis can be misleading, and lead to repeat design mistakes.Just a thought.Video: [MEDIA=youtube]TLfLI8bMPHw:581[/MEDIA]Site showing 4e's lack of commercial success: <a href="https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/7580/is-pathfinder-selling-better-than-dd" target="_blank">Is Pathfinder selling better than D&D?</a></blockquote>

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