Quote from: Chris24601 on June 21, 2021, 10:03:08 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on June 20, 2021, 10:41:11 PM
Please define what "operational" play is.

I'm not the OP, but I think they're referring to the strategic/logistic aspects (cumulative attrition-based combat, counting arrows/torches/rations, strict encumbrance, specific spells prepared pre-adventure as a strategic resource vs. the 3e Sorcerer/Bard approach of a fixed list of spells known that are cast without preparation, henchmen/hireling and domain management, etc.) that were a core part of TSR-era D&D, but fell further and further to the wayside as 3e matured, played little role in 4E and got enough lip service to pretend they were restored somewhat in 5e.

4E was definitely more focused on the tactical level with limited resources in a single battle, but the majority of which would be regained before the next battle. This last bit was also easy to exacerbate if the GM opted for fewer big battles over the attritional effect of multiple smaller battles (4E is actually THE most restrictive in terms of hit point attrition as even healing potions and magic consumed the finite daily resource of healing surges... a cache of a million healing potions won't help you if you have no surges left... but unless the GM was hitting the party with enough encounters between rests to burn through the majority of their surges, it would feel like "unlimited" healing).

The solution is the same one many 5e DMs have with short and long rests; change the timeframe for recovery so a long rest is a week or the 13th Age approach of regaining recoveries only after X number of encounters no matter how many days it's been...

Exactly.  I also agree with everything else Chris said.  Operational play doesn't really work very well in any WotC ruleset until you start tinkering with it heavily.  But 3E and 5E at least throw you a few bones.  They are well-gnawed, broken shards that don't have much of anything useful left on them or pieces you could just as easily crib from any fantasy game, but at least they do throw them to you. 

The one thing that 4E does supply that works well for operational play is the healing surges, as he said.  However, these are so divorced form the sensibilities of the type of person that enjoys operational play, that it's like giving a complete Bose sound system and a full collection of the world's greatest opera to an exclusively heavy metal fan.  Not entirely useless, but really missing the target in a major way.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on June 21, 2021, 12:10:23 AM
What do you mean by "impossible thing before breakfast"?

I'm going to rip out all of the Forge jargon and put what I think is the nugget of the truth in the idea into my own words.  (Maybe this will avoid bringing a lot of baggage and useless nonsense.)  I only reference it at all under the Forge jargon because of how hilarious it is in this context of what 4E tried to do.

I prefer to think of it more broadly as "design pretense"--which happens in a lot of games and isn't even necessarily bad if kept under control.  This is basically when a game's mechanics strongly encourage one type of play but the designers think, for whatever reason, that is strongly focused on some other type of play.  Usually, because if you bend it just right, and ignore whole sections of the mechanics, and substitute a few other GM things, and the players don't peek under the curtain--the game might be an OK platform for satisfying that pretense.  If you know what you are doing, you might even get a fun game out of it.  If the designers aren't drinking their own Kool-Aid, they might even give you some solid optional rules to square that circle.

Broadly, the "impossible thing before breakfast" is when a person--say a GM that just bought those rules and doesn't necessarily have an idea of this disconnect--naively accept the pretense and assumes that is they just follow the rules they will get that kind of play.  In a game that is so chock full of "design pretense" that even the designers have started to believe their own nonsense.  The new GM will likely get upset sooner or later because what they are trying to do is impossible.

Of course, it can get tricky in a lot of situations, because a large amount of pretense is necessary to that whole RPG activity.  Consider something like the idea that "undead are scary".  Assuming that is the goal, it would be best if the mechanics and pretense align--that even skeletons and zombie have their own kind of horror to both characters and players alike, backed up by descriptions, tactics, etc.  Wights draining your levels is a good example.  Whereas, if you for example decide that "wights are scary" but have nothing to back it up but some undead moaning, it might come across as pretty hollow.  A GM can skillfully use mood and description and circumstance to make anything a little scary.  And the player can choose to let it spook them a little, but that is something they bring to the game, not something the game automatically provides to our new GM.  It's not necessary that wights specifically drain levels for undead to be scary, but it is necessary that the pretense be backed up with a little more than "the game says they are" if you really want them to be scary.

4E drops the pretense almost entirely (which annoy the hell out of a lot of gamers) and doesn't replace it with mechanics in many cases and tries to make a virtue of this with a a marketing campaign and GM advice that basically consists of "the game does X just fine and you really don't need or want X anyway."  Which is a big (but not all) part of the "sameness" complaint of 4E. 

It's almost like 4E is a blank canvas--even more extreme than the Hero System "effects-based" design, where it is really bland until you put your stamp on it.  Which is one way deeper example in which 3E and 4E are more alike than most fans of either like to admit--a failure to make D&D work like Hero (albeit admittedly in radically different ways in 3E and 4E).  It might be more accurate to say that 3E wants to be "GURPS D&D" and 4E wants to be "Hero D&D"--as built by a group of designers that don't really understand why GURPS or Hero work the way they do, why they are similar in some ways, and why they are also different from each other.  You can run a very good game of 3E or 4E, but the GM has to start with the idea that the designer's own advice on how to do it should be looked at with a gimlet eye--and in some cases not only ignored but do the exact opposite of what they seem to be implying.  Or more often, ignore their waffling and do what you obviously need to do.

I believe you've mentioned elsewhere that you are a running an old-school type game using 5E.  What you've had to tweak and consider to make that happen probably parallels some of the above.

Well, now I can see why Pundit routinely makes fun of forge design.

It's not exactly a revelation to say 4th edition was announced during the tail of end 3rd edition, but I think it helps (me at least) to remember what that was like. Third edition can be pretty demanding, especially on the DM. There are lots of rules, lots of bits of pieces, and they interact in complex ways. It requires a high degree of sustained dedication and mastery, especially at higher levels. We'd had a lot of fun with it, but it had started to get... tiresome, maybe? Or exhausting.

Fourth edition sounded like a reaction to that. They were doing things like paring down the insane monster stat blocks, focusing more on gamist elements, and even bringing in some influences from things like video games (not an insult, and I'm not saying the game played like a video game; I'm just discussing how it was viewed before release). Those intrigued me. It's not always my favorite style of game, but I like many styles, as long as they're well done. And in contrast to Pathfinder, which doubled down on all the problems of 3.5, 4e was trying to address them. I was favorably inclined.

But I got turned off on the game before it was even published, and turned off hard. So hard, I never even cracked open the books, much less played the game. What happened started with skill challenges. I found the idea fascinating, so I dug a bit into the examples they published. And I realized the math didn't work. It wasn't just off, or suboptimal, it appeared to be completely broken.

I dug around the web a bit, trying to see if anyone else was coming to the same conclusions. I didn't know if I had made a mistake, so I wanted to find either a concrete confirmation, or a concrete refutation. I found a couple hints here and there that I was right, but I wanted something stronger. Eventually I stumbled across a discussion somewhere. I have no idea where it was, or the details. But it was Keith Baker showing off the new skill challenge system with an example.

Someone in the comments pointed out the same flaws I had noticed. The math didn't work. And the response? Keith Baker, and I believe Ari Marmell, got into a discussion about how to handle the issue. Their response wasn't to correct flaws in the person's reasoning, or to point out how it really did work as intended, or even just a polite comment saying they'd pass on the issue. No, they immediately starting talking about how to ban the person for wrongthink.

While it's a single example, it embodied the general impression I was getting of how Wizards of the Coast was handling the roll out. They were violently adverse to any criticism, even people pointing out real problems. This appeared in the fan base as well, because anyone who suggested anything might be wrong was hounded out of threads and forums as a hater. And I know I wasn't deluded or completely off-kilter, because the skill challenge thing became an issue later on, with WotC finally acknowledging and trying to address the problems. But by then, I was gone. They'd lost me.

I did occasionally dip my head into those threads later because, as I said, the game intrigued me. But every time I did, I'd notice someone being jumped for asking the kind of questions I wanted to ask. Not trolling, or drive-by sniping from, just innocent questions about how it worked from someone who was interested in the game, but found a few stumbling blocks. That happened every single time I poked my head into a thread. I never did find a place where I could ask any of those questions.

It's also probably why I never really looked at 5th edition.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on June 21, 2021, 06:45:23 AM
...

I will say that video gets off to an awful start. He's talking about older editions, and clearly has little idea what he's talking about. But once he gets into the parts he knows (4th edition), it seems pretty solid. His critiques match my impressions, and give them a lot more substance. He's also coming from the right place. He has fond memories of the edition, so it's not a hate rant. Fourth edition was his first experience with RPGs, so they played it by the book, and played it for years, so they really shook it down. And he recently re-read the books after years playing with other games, so he's talking from a vantage of both time and much greater experience.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on June 21, 2021, 11:34:52 AM
I believe you've mentioned elsewhere that you are a running an old-school type game using 5E.  What you've had to tweak and consider to make that happen probably parallels some of the above.

That was actually exactly what I was thinking of. And yeah, I did make a lot of changes -- this prompts a lot of complaining by a few players who don't really get the concept and think I'm just making the changes randomly instead of them being necessary to promote the kind of game it's supposed to be (for example, I got rid of limitless cantrips and gave them spell slots for them so they'd be resources to ration, brought back encumbrance, and gold for XP). Otherwise it's like having a horror movie where nothing is trying to be scary.

Frankly for 5e though, I like how easy it is to put your stamp on it and consider that a strength of it, much like how old school D&D is considered easily homebrewed.

Also I did run 4e for ten or so sessions to see what all the fuss was about.

From the DM screen, it didn't feel THAT different from running 5e, and I see a lot of the logical principles and paths laid down by 3e in 4e, simply brought to their conclusion. (The char-op mini-game first and foremost, the strict emphasis on math and balance, etc)

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 21, 2021, 10:03:08 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on June 20, 2021, 10:41:11 PM
Please define what "operational" play is.

4E was definitely more focused on the tactical level with limited resources in a single battle, but the majority of which would be regained before the next battle. This last bit was also easy to exacerbate if the GM opted for fewer big battles over the attritional effect of multiple smaller battles (4E is actually THE most restrictive in terms of hit point attrition as even healing potions and magic consumed the finite daily resource of healing surges... a cache of a million healing potions won't help you if you have no surges left... but unless the GM was hitting the party with enough encounters between rests to burn through the majority of their surges, it would feel like "unlimited" healing).

The solution is the same one many 5e DMs have with short and long rests; change the timeframe for recovery so a long rest is a week or the 13th Age approach of regaining recoveries only after X number of encounters no matter how many days it's been.

Regaining all your hit points is good for predictability.  If you're trying to balance encounters you basically need to do that.  Because otherwise it's no point calling an encounter 'balanced' if the party only have a third of their hit points.

One of the often unnaddressed issues was the predictability on the player side.  If you get all your encounter powers back for the next battle then you don't need to preserve them so it's in your best interest to basically "Nova" use your best abilities first to put out as much damage as you can and thin the enemy.

Both 5e and 13th Age recognised this problem and addressed it in different ways.  13th Age adds the escalation die so it incentivises you to save your best ability until you're more likely to hit.  5e used short rests.  Short rests mean that you don't know for sure you will have an Action Surge in the next combat, so it prompts you to wait a bit and scout out the combat.  If Action Surge was once every combat, your incentive would be to almost always use it in the first round. - which makes it  more predictable and boring.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on June 21, 2021, 11:34:52 AM

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on June 21, 2021, 12:10:23 AM
What do you mean by "impossible thing before breakfast"?

Of course, it can get tricky in a lot of situations, because a large amount of pretense is necessary to that whole RPG activity.  Consider something like the idea that "undead are scary".  Assuming that is the goal, it would be best if the mechanics and pretense align--that even skeletons and zombie have their own kind of horror to both characters and players alike, backed up by descriptions, tactics, etc.  Wights draining your levels is a good example.  Whereas, if you for example decide that "wights are scary" but have nothing to back it up but some undead moaning, it might come across as pretty hollow.  A GM can skillfully use mood and description and circumstance to make anything a little scary.  And the player can choose to let it spook them a little, but that is something they bring to the game, not something the game automatically provides to our new GM.  It's not necessary that wights specifically drain levels for undead to be scary, but it is necessary that the pretense be backed up with a little more than "the game says they are" if you really want them to be scary.

This is in a way the problem with 4e D&D Gamma World. The designers say its a slapstick comedy. The Rules say (overall) Its a bog standard Post Rifts-like setting. And the monster art says its a horror freak show. It is so disconnected from itself that you have to jettison something to get the remaining pieces together. Or several somethings because the text in the book barely backs up the comedy claims at all. The two novels for it by Kidd probably cleave to that ideal a little or alot. But the game itself. No.

Good rules set dragged down by poor decisions.

Gamma World: another game that recognised the 4e had a problem with predictability.  Solved it by letting you randomly changed mutations so you got to try out new powers regularly.

Failed, because it didn't give a shit about the fictional justification for doing that.

Quote from: Pat on June 21, 2021, 12:30:30 PMWhile it's a single example, it embodied the general impression I was getting of how Wizards of the Coast was handling the roll out. They were violently adverse to any criticism, even people pointing out real problems. This appeared in the fan base as well, because anyone who suggested anything might be wrong was hounded out of threads and forums as a hater. And I know I wasn't deluded or completely off-kilter, because the skill challenge thing became an issue later on, with WotC finally acknowledging and trying to address the problems. But by then, I was gone. They'd lost me.

I did occasionally dip my head into those threads later because, as I said, the game intrigued me. But every time I did, I'd notice someone being jumped for asking the kind of questions I wanted to ask. Not trolling, or drive-by sniping from, just innocent questions about how it worked from someone who was interested in the game, but found a few stumbling blocks. That happened every single time I poked my head into a thread. I never did find a place where I could ask any of those questions.

It's also probably why I never really looked at 5th edition.

1: 4vengers as some used to call them. Fanatics and Cultists would be another for the worst of the lot.

2: Hilariously. Karma hit the 4e fanbase like a freight train as eventually WOTC realized their fuckups late. Got advice and was show just how wretched the 4e fans were, and how wretched RPG.net was. And the WOTC forums stated to get "downsized". And 5e was initiated. And Jesus the 4e nuts tried their damnest to sabotage 5e!

3: 5e has some notable flaws. But it cleaves closer to pre 3e D&D in alot of ways and the problems it has can be fixed with the in game optional rules or just ignoring some of the idiot rules the designers seem obsessed with forcing into the game. The most vexing being the pretty much total inability to break a long rest short of killing the resters. No really. They have actually clarified that no, you cant interrupt a long rest, when asked. (Well yes technically you can. If you can keep the PCs continuously in combat for a whole hour.) That and they continue to deliberately fuck up falling damage just to make a little dig at Gygax. And other irks.

If you want to see 4e in a better light, try looking at 4e D&D Gamma Worlds approach. Just ignore the non-game parts. And even that has some issues. But mainly with not being clear how to do certain things.

Quote from: Omega on June 21, 2021, 08:09:27 PM

Quote from: Pat on June 21, 2021, 12:30:30 PMWhile it's a single example, it embodied the general impression I was getting of how Wizards of the Coast was handling the roll out. They were violently adverse to any criticism, even people pointing out real problems. This appeared in the fan base as well, because anyone who suggested anything might be wrong was hounded out of threads and forums as a hater. And I know I wasn't deluded or completely off-kilter, because the skill challenge thing became an issue later on, with WotC finally acknowledging and trying to address the problems. But by then, I was gone. They'd lost me.

I did occasionally dip my head into those threads later because, as I said, the game intrigued me. But every time I did, I'd notice someone being jumped for asking the kind of questions I wanted to ask. Not trolling, or drive-by sniping from, just innocent questions about how it worked from someone who was interested in the game, but found a few stumbling blocks. That happened every single time I poked my head into a thread. I never did find a place where I could ask any of those questions.

It's also probably why I never really looked at 5th edition.

1: 4vengers as some used to call them. Fanatics and Cultists would be another for the worst of the lot.

2: Hilariously. Karma hit the 4e fanbase like a freight train as eventually WOTC realized their fuckups late. Got advice and was show just how wretched the 4e fans were, and how wretched RPG.net was. And the WOTC forums stated to get "downsized". And 5e was initiated. And Jesus the 4e nuts tried their damnest to sabotage 5e!

3: 5e has some notable flaws. But it cleaves closer to pre 3e D&D in alot of ways and the problems it has can be fixed with the in game optional rules or just ignoring some of the idiot rules the designers seem obsessed with forcing into the game. The most vexing being the pretty much total inability to break a long rest short of killing the resters. No really. They have actually clarified that no, you cant interrupt a long rest, when asked. (Well yes technically you can. If you can keep the PCs continuously in combat for a whole hour.) That and they continue to deliberately fuck up falling damage just to make a little dig at Gygax. And other irks.

If you want to see 4e in a better light, try looking at 4e D&D Gamma Worlds approach. Just ignore the non-game parts. And even that has some issues. But mainly with not being clear how to do certain things.

What's weird is the 4e fanbase seemed like that from the start, even before the game was released. It wasn't a response to endless criticism, or some other natural reaction. They just appeared out of nowhere, claiming to be persecuted, and jumped on everyone else preemptively. In retrospect, it feels a lot like an early breakout of wokism, where any dissent simply isn't tolerated. And as I mentioned, WotC seemed to be on board. It was coming from them, too. It must have been something in the water.

I forgot to mention, but I'm a big fan of Gamma World, and picked up a copy of the 4e/7e version (depending on whether you count D&D editions or GW editions), and read through it. But this was very late, years afterwards, when the boxes started showing up on clearance. What's funny is a lot of 4e fans were saying that GW was the best intro version of 4e. But when I read it, with no experience with 4e, a lot of things didn't make sense. It seemed to assume the readers were already familiar with 4e, so key elements weren't explained, or weren't explained well. It may have appealed to 4e fans who want a simpler or cleaner version of the game they already know, but the people who were saying it would be great for newbies clearly weren't newbies. I was, and found it a poor intro.

Quote from: Pat on June 21, 2021, 09:30:36 PM

Quote from: Omega on June 21, 2021, 08:09:27 PM

Quote from: Pat on June 21, 2021, 12:30:30 PMWhile it's a single example, it embodied the general impression I was getting of how Wizards of the Coast was handling the roll out. They were violently adverse to any criticism, even people pointing out real problems. This appeared in the fan base as well, because anyone who suggested anything might be wrong was hounded out of threads and forums as a hater. And I know I wasn't deluded or completely off-kilter, because the skill challenge thing became an issue later on, with WotC finally acknowledging and trying to address the problems. But by then, I was gone. They'd lost me.

I did occasionally dip my head into those threads later because, as I said, the game intrigued me. But every time I did, I'd notice someone being jumped for asking the kind of questions I wanted to ask. Not trolling, or drive-by sniping from, just innocent questions about how it worked from someone who was interested in the game, but found a few stumbling blocks. That happened every single time I poked my head into a thread. I never did find a place where I could ask any of those questions.

It's also probably why I never really looked at 5th edition.

1: 4vengers as some used to call them. Fanatics and Cultists would be another for the worst of the lot.

2: Hilariously. Karma hit the 4e fanbase like a freight train as eventually WOTC realized their fuckups late. Got advice and was show just how wretched the 4e fans were, and how wretched RPG.net was. And the WOTC forums stated to get "downsized". And 5e was initiated. And Jesus the 4e nuts tried their damnest to sabotage 5e!

3: 5e has some notable flaws. But it cleaves closer to pre 3e D&D in alot of ways and the problems it has can be fixed with the in game optional rules or just ignoring some of the idiot rules the designers seem obsessed with forcing into the game. The most vexing being the pretty much total inability to break a long rest short of killing the resters. No really. They have actually clarified that no, you cant interrupt a long rest, when asked. (Well yes technically you can. If you can keep the PCs continuously in combat for a whole hour.) That and they continue to deliberately fuck up falling damage just to make a little dig at Gygax. And other irks.

If you want to see 4e in a better light, try looking at 4e D&D Gamma Worlds approach. Just ignore the non-game parts. And even that has some issues. But mainly with not being clear how to do certain things.

What's weird is the 4e fanbase seemed like that from the start, even before the game was released. It wasn't a response to endless criticism, or some other natural reaction. They just appeared out of nowhere, claiming to be persecuted, and jumped on everyone else preemptively. In retrospect, it feels a lot like an early breakout of wokism, where any dissent simply isn't tolerated. And as I mentioned, WotC seemed to be on board. It was coming from them, too. It must have been something in the water.

I forgot to mention, but I'm a big fan of Gamma World, and picked up a copy of the 4e/7e version (depending on whether you count D&D editions or GW editions), and read through it. But this was very late, years afterwards, when the boxes started showing up on clearance. What's funny is a lot of 4e fans were saying that GW was the best intro version of 4e. But when I read it, with no experience with 4e, a lot of things didn't make sense. It seemed to assume the readers were already familiar with 4e, so key elements weren't explained, or weren't explained well. It may have appealed to 4e fans who want a simpler or cleaner version of the game they already know, but the people who were saying it would be great for newbies clearly weren't newbies. I was, and found it a poor intro.

Well, it was getting shot down by 3.5 players right out of the gate, so that's the persecution probably. However, that's mostly WOTC's fault for how they marketed which set the tone as it promoted itself by crapping all over all the other D&D editions.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on June 21, 2021, 09:50:48 PM

Quote from: Pat on June 21, 2021, 09:30:36 PM

Quote from: Omega on June 21, 2021, 08:09:27 PM

Quote from: Pat on June 21, 2021, 12:30:30 PMWhile it's a single example, it embodied the general impression I was getting of how Wizards of the Coast was handling the roll out. They were violently adverse to any criticism, even people pointing out real problems. This appeared in the fan base as well, because anyone who suggested anything might be wrong was hounded out of threads and forums as a hater. And I know I wasn't deluded or completely off-kilter, because the skill challenge thing became an issue later on, with WotC finally acknowledging and trying to address the problems. But by then, I was gone. They'd lost me.

I did occasionally dip my head into those threads later because, as I said, the game intrigued me. But every time I did, I'd notice someone being jumped for asking the kind of questions I wanted to ask. Not trolling, or drive-by sniping from, just innocent questions about how it worked from someone who was interested in the game, but found a few stumbling blocks. That happened every single time I poked my head into a thread. I never did find a place where I could ask any of those questions.

It's also probably why I never really looked at 5th edition.

1: 4vengers as some used to call them. Fanatics and Cultists would be another for the worst of the lot.

2: Hilariously. Karma hit the 4e fanbase like a freight train as eventually WOTC realized their fuckups late. Got advice and was show just how wretched the 4e fans were, and how wretched RPG.net was. And the WOTC forums stated to get "downsized". And 5e was initiated. And Jesus the 4e nuts tried their damnest to sabotage 5e!

3: 5e has some notable flaws. But it cleaves closer to pre 3e D&D in alot of ways and the problems it has can be fixed with the in game optional rules or just ignoring some of the idiot rules the designers seem obsessed with forcing into the game. The most vexing being the pretty much total inability to break a long rest short of killing the resters. No really. They have actually clarified that no, you cant interrupt a long rest, when asked. (Well yes technically you can. If you can keep the PCs continuously in combat for a whole hour.) That and they continue to deliberately fuck up falling damage just to make a little dig at Gygax. And other irks.

If you want to see 4e in a better light, try looking at 4e D&D Gamma Worlds approach. Just ignore the non-game parts. And even that has some issues. But mainly with not being clear how to do certain things.

What's weird is the 4e fanbase seemed like that from the start, even before the game was released. It wasn't a response to endless criticism, or some other natural reaction. They just appeared out of nowhere, claiming to be persecuted, and jumped on everyone else preemptively. In retrospect, it feels a lot like an early breakout of wokism, where any dissent simply isn't tolerated. And as I mentioned, WotC seemed to be on board. It was coming from them, too. It must have been something in the water.

I forgot to mention, but I'm a big fan of Gamma World, and picked up a copy of the 4e/7e version (depending on whether you count D&D editions or GW editions), and read through it. But this was very late, years afterwards, when the boxes started showing up on clearance. What's funny is a lot of 4e fans were saying that GW was the best intro version of 4e. But when I read it, with no experience with 4e, a lot of things didn't make sense. It seemed to assume the readers were already familiar with 4e, so key elements weren't explained, or weren't explained well. It may have appealed to 4e fans who want a simpler or cleaner version of the game they already know, but the people who were saying it would be great for newbies clearly weren't newbies. I was, and found it a poor intro.

Well, it was getting shot down by 3.5 players right out of the gate, so that's the persecution probably. However, that's mostly WOTC's fault for how they marketed which set the tone as it promoted itself by crapping all over all the other D&D editions.

I followed 4e closely, as it came out. I watched a lot of those threads. There was endless talk about how they were being persecuted, but I don't think I ever saw a single example. There were no trolls jumping into their threads to just bash the game. Instead, what I did see, was someone new would come in, ask a few innocent questions, and then get dogpiled because they did something like compare 4e to a video game. A lot of them were exactly the questions I, as someone who was interested in the game but knew little about it, wanted to ask. None of comments I saw came from malice. At worst, they might be based on a mild misunderstanding. But the posters were savaged for even bringing it up.

That's why I compared it to wokism. It reminds me a lot of dissecting everything for hidden dogwhistles, and the crusade against non-existent Nazis. I think it was an early example of the kind of thinking that poisoned everything.

Quote from: Pat on June 21, 2021, 09:30:36 PM

What's weird is the 4e fanbase seemed like that from the start, even before the game was released. It wasn't a response to endless criticism, or some other natural reaction. They just appeared out of nowhere, claiming to be persecuted, and jumped on everyone else preemptively. In retrospect, it feels a lot like an early breakout of wokism, where any dissent simply isn't tolerated. And as I mentioned, WotC seemed to be on board. It was coming from them, too. It must have been something in the water.

I'm pretty convinced it was coordinated.  WotC knew they were slaying a bunch of sacred cows, so they preemptively encouraged the whole "persecution" narrative to immunize themselves from the backlash from traditionalists.  I'm not sure it was as much proto-woke as it was proto-outrage marketing...

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on June 21, 2021, 09:50:48 PM

Quote from: Pat on June 21, 2021, 09:30:36 PM

Quote from: Omega on June 21, 2021, 08:09:27 PM

Quote from: Pat on June 21, 2021, 12:30:30 PMWhile it's a single example, it embodied the general impression I was getting of how Wizards of the Coast was handling the roll out. They were violently adverse to any criticism, even people pointing out real problems. This appeared in the fan base as well, because anyone who suggested anything might be wrong was hounded out of threads and forums as a hater. And I know I wasn't deluded or completely off-kilter, because the skill challenge thing became an issue later on, with WotC finally acknowledging and trying to address the problems. But by then, I was gone. They'd lost me.

I did occasionally dip my head into those threads later because, as I said, the game intrigued me. But every time I did, I'd notice someone being jumped for asking the kind of questions I wanted to ask. Not trolling, or drive-by sniping from, just innocent questions about how it worked from someone who was interested in the game, but found a few stumbling blocks. That happened every single time I poked my head into a thread. I never did find a place where I could ask any of those questions.

It's also probably why I never really looked at 5th edition.

1: 4vengers as some used to call them. Fanatics and Cultists would be another for the worst of the lot.

2: Hilariously. Karma hit the 4e fanbase like a freight train as eventually WOTC realized their fuckups late. Got advice and was show just how wretched the 4e fans were, and how wretched RPG.net was. And the WOTC forums stated to get "downsized". And 5e was initiated. And Jesus the 4e nuts tried their damnest to sabotage 5e!

3: 5e has some notable flaws. But it cleaves closer to pre 3e D&D in alot of ways and the problems it has can be fixed with the in game optional rules or just ignoring some of the idiot rules the designers seem obsessed with forcing into the game. The most vexing being the pretty much total inability to break a long rest short of killing the resters. No really. They have actually clarified that no, you cant interrupt a long rest, when asked. (Well yes technically you can. If you can keep the PCs continuously in combat for a whole hour.) That and they continue to deliberately fuck up falling damage just to make a little dig at Gygax. And other irks.

If you want to see 4e in a better light, try looking at 4e D&D Gamma Worlds approach. Just ignore the non-game parts. And even that has some issues. But mainly with not being clear how to do certain things.

What's weird is the 4e fanbase seemed like that from the start, even before the game was released. It wasn't a response to endless criticism, or some other natural reaction. They just appeared out of nowhere, claiming to be persecuted, and jumped on everyone else preemptively. In retrospect, it feels a lot like an early breakout of wokism, where any dissent simply isn't tolerated. And as I mentioned, WotC seemed to be on board. It was coming from them, too. It must have been something in the water.

I forgot to mention, but I'm a big fan of Gamma World, and picked up a copy of the 4e/7e version (depending on whether you count D&D editions or GW editions), and read through it. But this was very late, years afterwards, when the boxes started showing up on clearance. What's funny is a lot of 4e fans were saying that GW was the best intro version of 4e. But when I read it, with no experience with 4e, a lot of things didn't make sense. It seemed to assume the readers were already familiar with 4e, so key elements weren't explained, or weren't explained well. It may have appealed to 4e fans who want a simpler or cleaner version of the game they already know, but the people who were saying it would be great for newbies clearly weren't newbies. I was, and found it a poor intro.

Well, it was getting shot down by 3.5 players right out of the gate, so that's the persecution probably. However, that's mostly WOTC's fault for how they marketed which set the tone as it promoted itself by crapping all over all the other D&D editions.

The biggest and most toxic ingredient in the edition war over 4e was the same as that over many storygames and the same as that over culture.

It's the idea that certain approaches are inherently 'progress' and that others are hidebound and ignorant.

Once this enters the discussion it's dead (and from what I've noticed on forums it's almost always the same identical people in each case).