The infamous D&D 4E, what was wrong with it?

RNGm · **Today** at 09:12:10 AM

Is this some sort of anniversary for 4e or something that news on it keeps popping up recently? No idea about the site as I've never heard of it but this link/article crossed my path this morning during the daily round up...

https://therpggazette.wordpress.com/2025/01/22/the-dd-4th-edition-rennaissaince-a-look-into-the-history-of-the-edition-its-flaws-and-its-merits/

Ruprecht · **Today** at 10:18:12 AM

Quote from: RNGm on Today at 09:12:10 AMIs this some sort of anniversary for 4e or something that news on it keeps popping up recently? No idea about the site as I've never heard of it but this link/article crossed my path this morning during the daily round up...

I suspect it's related to the release of 2024 edition. People thinking back at what was, what could have been, what won't be missed.

Ruprecht · **Today** at 10:33:11 AM

Quote from: Ruprecht on January 21, 2025, 02:32:08 PMIf I was Wizards of the Coast I'd rerelease 4E as a new version of Gamma World and release it as Creative Commons. Sounds like it'd work pretty well with a few changes to monsters and tech.

Oddly enough I just read on wikipedia, regarding Gamma World that "The seventh version uses a streamlined version of D&D 4th edition mechanics." So my ignorance wasn't too far off. To bad they didn't leave D&D alone and push the new mechanics there to test them and see how accepted they would be.

Armchair Gamer · **Today** at 10:35:02 AM

Quote from: Ruprecht on Today at 10:33:11 AM
Quote from: Ruprecht on January 21, 2025, 02:32:08 PMIf I was Wizards of the Coast I'd rerelease 4E as a new version of Gamma World and release it as Creative Commons. Sounds like it'd work pretty well with a few changes to monsters and tech.
Oddly enough I just read on wikipedia, regarding Gamma World that "The seventh version uses a streamlined version of D&D 4th edition mechanics." So my ignorance wasn't too far off. To bad they didn't leave D&D alone and push the new mechanics there to test them and see how accepted they would be.

An earlier version of the changes was tested in Star Wars Saga Edition, and was generally well-received. I think 4E went a bit farther afield and wound up losing some of the things that made SWSE successful.

RNGm · **Today** at 12:16:58 PM

Quote from: Ruprecht on Today at 10:18:12 AM
Quote from: RNGm on Today at 09:12:10 AMIs this some sort of anniversary for 4e or something that news on it keeps popping up recently? No idea about the site as I've never heard of it but this link/article crossed my path this morning during the daily round up...
I suspect it's related to the release of 2024 edition. People thinking back at what was, what could have been, what won't be missed.

I think that linked article I posted summed it up well in that it's attained cult-like status with alot of influential people in the RPG space (the "fart sniffing" crowd in classic South Park terminology). Last year, it felt like there was a definite resurgence of interest due to post-OGL debacle RPG projects by that same crowd.

RNGm · **Today** at 12:20:39 PM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on Today at 10:35:02 AM
Quote from: Ruprecht on Today at 10:33:11 AM
Quote from: Ruprecht on January 21, 2025, 02:32:08 PMIf I was Wizards of the Coast I'd rerelease 4E as a new version of Gamma World and release it as Creative Commons. Sounds like it'd work pretty well with a few changes to monsters and tech.
Oddly enough I just read on wikipedia, regarding Gamma World that "The seventh version uses a streamlined version of D&D 4th edition mechanics." So my ignorance wasn't too far off. To bad they didn't leave D&D alone and push the new mechanics there to test them and see how accepted they would be.

An earlier version of the changes was tested in Star Wars Saga Edition, and was generally well-received. I think 4E went a bit farther afield and wound up losing some of the things that made SWSE successful.

I can vouch for that as I was one of the folks in that camp. I was running a SWSE campaign and liked alot of the changes (other than the very easily abusable and front loaded skill system it had) and was excitedly looking forward to 4e at the time because of it. WOTC wasn't hiding the fact that they were using SWSE to test run mechanics and even flat out said so in various promotional materials (website articles and maybe even the preview "making of 4e" book they came out with prior to 4e's official release). Unfortunately, the end product felt like it went full tard though when the next group I was a part of (since I moved across the country in the interim) finally ended up trying it.

Darrin Kelley · **Today** at 01:02:18 PM

It was a wargame mixed with an MMO. It was a developmental step backward from D&D 3.5.

Armchair Gamer · **Today** at 05:09:19 PM

Quote from: RNGm on Today at 12:20:39 PMI can vouch for that as I was one of the folks in that camp. I was running a SWSE campaign and liked alot of the changes (other than the very easily abusable and front loaded skill system it had) and was excitedly looking forward to 4e at the time because of it. WOTC wasn't hiding the fact that they were using SWSE to test run mechanics and even flat out said so in various promotional materials (website articles and maybe even the preview "making of 4e" book they came out with prior to 4e's official release). Unfortunately, the end product felt like it went full tard though when the next group I was a part of (since I moved across the country in the interim) finally ended up trying it.

There's a whole blurb about it in Wizards Presents: Races and Classes, yes. And while SWSE had its flaws, I greatly enjoyed the two mini-campaigns I played of it over the years.

4E fixed some of the math goofs in SWSE, but it also left out a lot of noncombat widgets, which helped make PCs feel overly combat-focused. I think the demise of the condition track(s), combined with the inflated HP values, probably contributed to the 'combat as slog' feeling as well.

RNGm · **Today** at 05:16:37 PM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on Today at 05:09:19 PMThere's a whole blurb about it in Wizards Presents: Races and Classes, yes. And while SWSE had its flaws, I greatly enjoyed the two mini-campaigns I played of it over the years.

4E fixed some of the math goofs in SWSE, but it also left out a lot of noncombat widgets, which helped make PCs feel overly combat-focused. I think the demise of the condition track(s), combined with the inflated HP values, probably contributed to the 'combat as slog' feeling as well.

Agreed. It felt to me that SWSE just needed tweaking/fine tuning for a fantasy game (and addressing its own issues) instead of being less than a half way step to what would eventually become 4e. Thanks for confirming the blurb in that book as well as my memory was foggy. I couldn't remember if it was for sure in there or if I was just conflating WOTC webpage articles with it.

jhkim · **Today** at 06:06:41 PM

Quote from: Jaeger on January 21, 2025, 10:07:45 PM"GNS/The Forge" influencing 4e design is not a tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory.

From Ron Edwards himself:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/adept/index.php?topic=209.0
Quote"Any system thoughts? Sure! But you know them already. Mike Mearls was one of the original three guys including me who floated the idea of the Forge in 1999, and Rob Heinsoo was an active participant there. It's no surprise that I'm finding the game so appealing. ..."

Just because Ron Edwards claims something doesn't mean that it's true. I'd take it with a huge grain of salt, like most of his claims. He was big on self-promotion, and would sometimes talk grandiosely about his own importance. He did to be a fan of OD&D back when D&D was explicitly a miniatures game, and liked to say that games should focus on their core creative agenda. i.e. Gamist RPGs should focus on being more gamist.

So I'd agree that it was philosophically aligned - but it could easily have been simply a result of the dominant influences of MMORPGs and CCGs, and not from Edwards at all.

Chainsaw · **Today** at 08:05:32 PM

I played 4e a few times a month for a good 8-12 months maybe? When it first came out? I always thought it was a nice little fantasy skirmishes or fantasy "chess" type game, or maybe a great "advanced" HeroQuest, but a terrible version of D&D. My experience with the "organized play" via Living Forgotten Realms (or was it Greyhawk?) with more than like 20-30 people and a brief home campaign was that was that people almost never played creatively. It was mostly staring at a list of optimized power trees and going through the motions. If not, that battle with the orcs might take live five hours instead of only four!