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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6005408" data-attributes="member: 996">It's very clear that there's a chunk of people who hate 4e, sure, and it's not clear they all hate it for the same reasons, nor that those reasons are anything WotC can do anything about in 5e.  Understanding the reasons would be a huge help.'Dissociative' mechanics, though, don't advance that understanding, because, ultimately, they're just a very convoluted way of rationalizing an objection, whether than a clear picture of where that objection comes from and what can be done to ameliorate it.There was a lot of scatter.  Initially, 4e was panned for being 'dumbed down' then for being 'too complex,' classes were panned for being 'pigeon holed' and, simultaneously, 'all the same.'  Over the course of the edition war, some group-think appeared and spurious criticisms were merged and rationalized, but, honestly, I don't think we ever got to the bottom of it.    I have no problem with the term.  It's just provides no insight into the problem, because it turns out it's selectively or subjectively applied.  It's a dead end.If you want a discussion that leads somewhere - somewhere other than the destruction of 4e, which has already been accomplished - like to a 5e we might actually all be able to stand, find something that can be discussed more objectively.I think some of the things we may be dancing around (that might actually be useful to shape the mechanics of the game, itself) could possibly include:  mechanical rewards for system mastery, class balance, encounter balance, meta-gaming, abstraction, or realism.Then there's the softer issue that are harder to design in, more a matter of fluff, presentation, and community attitude:  play styles, tone, verisimilitude and so forth. Then there's an 'elephant in the room' when it comes to avoiding the mistakes of 4e: timing (8 years after 3.0 was /too early/ to release 4e, IMHO, that makes 5e's announcement /insane/).There's also a brontosaurus in the room:  the OGL.</blockquote>

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